Question: entry level editing of SS2 abilities and items

[67438fd415214xdiesp_]

So far the experiments have been unsatisfying: I haven't found a recipe for "this monster requires this weapon, this other requires that" that felt natural enough. See:

Hybrids: bullets from standard w.
Monkeys and Reavers: PSI attacks
Turrets and Mechs: energy
Midwifes and Assassins: heavy
Rumblers: exotic

There's no logic in hybrids not being vulnerable to heavy, and exotic are underrepresented.

[67438fd415391xdiesp_]

I was wondering: is there a shortcut to make every last weapon in the game, broken? Like, through gamesys or calling all entities in the level on a menu in Shocked.

[67438fd4154e2Zygo]

Set Object:state to broken on the weapons in the gamesys would do it for all items that do not have their state already set in level.

[67438fd4155f1xdiesp_]

Brilliant - I had previously tried lowering the durability to zero, to no effect.

But Shocked gives me a new headache every step of the way. Now it's refusing to change the displayed names of the FED (obj -> obj name, obj short name).

[67438fd415716Zygo]

You need to either change their entries in the strings.crf (objname.str, objshort.str) files as those override the gamesys in this instance, or in the gamesys by changing the descriptor to something that does not exist in those files. eg 'blah:"A novelty paperweight"' in its objname entry in the gamesys would display correctly because there is no 'blah' entry in objnames.str to override it.

[67438fd41584cxdiesp_]

Thanks for the latest batch of suggestions, Zygo!

This week I can work again on this beast. Last time I didn't really like the novelties I added, so I'll keep it more canon this time. But I was wondering: has anyone ever tried to confine saving the game to clicking on the QBR machine? Or disabling the reset button in the Hack procedure.

[67438fd41593fZygo]

Pretty sure neither can be done, at least without custom scripts- and for saving probably not even with them if you wanted to disable normal save procedure.

[67438fd415acaxdiesp_]

This is getting ridiculous, but I love to mod so it's all fun. I was still looking for a way to rationalize that each monster has very specific vulnerabilities (like this: mechs require energy, period). So I changed that "A maintenance droid" text that pops up on the HUD when you target one, to read "weakness to ENERGY detected". The next thing I knew, I had written some little logs for each one.

Neoplastic derma disperses energy projection (hybrid, don't use energy\psi)

Psycho-reflective activity close to burnout (monkey, it's got a psi shield and you should overload it with psi attacks)

Duranium casing seems conductive to emission (droids, use Energy guns)

Encased organism vulnerable to hull pressure (cyborgs, use explosions)

Apoptosis trigger detected in annelid tissue (rumbler, use anellid weapons)

[67438fd415bd8xdiesp_]

Away from the fumes of creativity, I reverted those lines as such:

"Psionic target."
"Standard target."
"Energy target."
"Heavy target."
"Exotic target."

[67438fd415cffxdiesp_]

Production of my minimod proceeds swiftly, but I have a question for a completely optional detail.

When I click New Game, can I trigger Movie 2 and Medsci1.mis, instead of Movie 1 and Earth.mis? So far I renamed Medsci1.mis to Earth.mis and modded it so that the player has interface and cybermodules; but I can't backtrack from Medsci2 to Medsci1, as the original map is a clone.

[67438fd415e38Zygo]

You'd have to rename the movie files.

There is an option to start on a different level than earth.mis with New Dark- see fm.cfg in the doc folder for details.

[67438fd4160adxdiesp_]

I see, thanks again. I'll bite the bullet and include Movie 2 in the mod, then. This evening I will complete the work on the enemy resistancies, and then I will take the mod for a full playthrough. Here's the updated changelist.

Entropic Field minimod
Impossible difficulty is about surviving with the essentials, having to buy as fewer skills as possible. This mod is about the opposite: making it possible, necessary to acquire as many skills in Impossible, as in Normal.

Background
- An emission of the same entropic force that causes weapons to degrade rapidly, has rendered a vast array of your gear inoperable. Even worse, this allowed the enemy to start adapting to UNN weapons.

Combat changes
- The HUD tells you what weapon type an enemy is weak to. In example, "Alert: EXOTIC III target detected"
- In the beginning, enemies are most vulnerable to one source but anything else works too.
- Later on, enemy resistancies advance and it will be tough to take then down with the wrong weapon.
- Up until you are actually required to use either a PSI, Standard, Energy, Heavy or Exotic weapon to win.

Item changes
- Weapons need to be repaired before use.
- FEDs, ICE-Picks, Autorepairs, Hazard Suit, AP ammo, Slug ammo, Recharging Stations are broken beyond repair.
- Med Hypos and Med Kits nerfed.
- Pistol restricted to Standard ammo, Shotgun and Rifle restricted to Anti-Personnel.

Level changes
- The first Med\Sci level hosts all of the new broken items, and two batteries, for tutorial purposes.

Enemy changes
- Cameras sound the alarm if you don't oneshot them.

Psi changes
- Stop Alarm power removes alerts in one shot.
- Recursive Psi and both Radar-type powers last longer.

Skill changes
- Skill costs on Impossible, lowered to those of Normal.
- Class customization: the recruitment center sends you directly to the Von Braun, with Standard Weapons 1 and 50 cybermodules (given by Dr. Polito).
- Lower tier weapons do not get stronger as Weapon Skill goes up.

[67438fd4161b6xdiesp_]

Ungh, the first thing I did was to reroll the nerfs to the med hypos and replicators. I mustn't go after players for trying the unintended way to do things. >_>

[67438fd416329xdiesp_]

Finally, this is ready for its maiden voyage. It took me some time, to make the vulnerabilities for each enemy, test them and fix the bugs. In the end I also wanted to remove manually the disabled items from the replicators in each level, which wasted me another day. Now I need a full walkthrough to see if the theory holds, that like this you need a jack of all trades character instead of a specialist.

[67438fd416426xdiesp_]

Ah! I have a FUN question. Can one split the components of frob, in a way that you can highlight an object from far away but still not use it (until you are close)?

[67438fd41652dxdiesp_]

I am still looking for a way to "see" the items in the hud, without being able to touch them until close. So far I have found the frob distance in the gamesys (rules both see and touch at the same time) and the max pick distance parameter (disabled?).

[67438fd416614xdiesp_]

I was wrong. You can set the "frob distance" in the gamesys to a long value, and individual max pick distances to a shorter value.

[67438fd416725xdiesp_]

...it turned out that Psi Pull uses max pick distance for its reach. This is really a problem, I've tried messing around with it to no effect. So far, my best call has been to replace the Pull script with Featherfall: but the featherfall effect would never stop, even with the power set to Shield (with a short lenght in shield description).

[67438fd416876xdiesp_]

Ok, screw pick distance and psi pull.

I got a serious bug which threatens to wipe out 3 days of work: the player has become immune to fall damage, and contact damage when you run into a wall with a speed booster. Apparently, such damage is bashstim; but the player is not invulnerable to it, as an explosion of that element would still harm him. I think I edited something about agility, but what...

[67438fd416961xdiesp_]

It's not triggering certain tripwires either, it might be they are pressure plates and I accidentally altered the player physics.

[67438fd416a81Zygo]

They aren't pressure plates, but do rely on collisions as does fall/ over speed damage. The latter two are effected by agility, but tripwires should not be, so it sounds like it is a problem directly on the player object. I'd have a look at the default player physics and related stuff on an unaltered shock2.gam and restore your gamesys to those values, hopefully that will fix it.

[67438fd416bddxdiesp_]

Hey Zygo, I discovered what screwed up the player physics (fall damage, boosting into a wall, some triggers don't activate) and it's actually a useful warning to all. If you change the frob distance in Gamesys Parameters -> Game Paramenters, you cause the bug and the thing actually breaks as you can't restore it.

I really needed the capability of targeting enemies from afar, so it's a bad blow. I will restart the mod from scratch, keeping the thing for last to see if I should actually have it as a feature (to check if it's game breaking or not). Really really bad.

[67438fd416d00Zygo]

Are you sure it's that causing the problem? I just tested and I can change the frob distance back and forth without any issues and without immediately noticeable problems- and I cannot think of any reason why the frob distance would effect or be effected by physics stuff like collisions. The symptoms really do look like a physics problem on the player object rather than anything else.

[67438fd416dfcxdiesp_]

I'm positive that it happens to me*, but I don't know about others (I don't even have newdark, maybe I should check about it).

*I just reinstalled the GOG version, added Shocked, edited really only the frob dist in gamesys parameters to 500, and falling damage is disabled.