SS2 Zygoptera Randomiser

[673f072bbeb96Zygo]

Tags: °mis °veteran °SS2 °obsolete (As discussed on TTLG.)

This modification is based on the original levels of SS2. The current unified version (univ103) randomises item and monster placement as well as other factors in the levels: Med/Sci, Engineering, Hydroponics.

It is very strongly recommended that you play this mod from a new game. Using old save games may cause corruption of the saves and cause the game itself to crash.

This mod is not made by, nor is it supported by Looking Glass Systems, Eidos Interactive, Irrational Games or Electronic Arts.
Supplied as is, use at your own risk.

Previous downloads:
* RandomME103.zip (6377.5 KB - downloaded 580 times.)
* Random_H_100.zip (3078.94 KB - downloaded 340 times.)

[673f072bbedaaGrifman]

I changed the extension to .ss2mod and used Zombie's fantastic mod manger.  It's now in the mod manager, but the MM says "This mod was not a ss2mod - therefore it could happen that it won't work exactly as the aouthor of the mod had in mind".  Any reason why?  It seems be in the right place.  Also the MM won't show the details from it's Readme file either, unlike the other mods.  Any idea what is going on?  Anyone else use this with the Mod Manager?  Thanks.

[673f072bbefcdKolya]

This happens when you use a mod with the modmanager that has no included INI-file. The mod will work anyway. But as Zygoptera said, you will have to manually backup the motiondb.bin in your SS2-install-dir and put the one from the archive in it's place.
That's a shortcoming of the Modmanager which has yet to be figured out.

Kolya

[673f072bbf0ffGrifman]

Thanks for the quick response.  But do I really need the motionbd.bin file?  It seemed like it was optional from the mod description.  And what does it do anyway, I couldn't tell that either.

And thanks for this great site and hosting everything.  It's much appreciated and I've let alot of my friends know of this place.  Thanks.

[673f072bbf242Kolya]

According to Zygoptera's description at TTLG the motiondb.bin file fixes some motion oddities.Probably on the hybrids.I can't tell you what the changes are exactly. It is optional anyway.
Thanks for spreading the word!

Kolya

[673f072bbf32fGrifman]

Thanks!

[673f072bbf433Zygo]

The one thing the motiondb.bin fixes which may be readily noticeable is that midwives can now hit a crouched target (it does other things too, but you'd have to know what they were to really notice). It didn't really seem sensible to distribute it separately since its changes are pretty minor.

[673f072bbf583Kolya]

If you never played this mod before, now's the time. This is one of my personal favourite mods. I unified it into one mod now, wrote a mod.ini for it and did some testing regarding motiondb.ini. It copies fine with the current version of the Modmanager.

Zygoptera continue this! 

[673f072bbf724johnnythewolf]

My god! Have you tried playing this mod on Impossible? It's really, really intense...

Chased by an arachnid in the decompressing cryogenics sector, ambushed by a shotgun hybrid in the upgrade terminal room, low on ammo and nanites (making the QBRM useless if you're not careful enough), unable to find any working gun in the Science sector, ambushed by six pipe hybrids near the entrance to ENG B... This mod is pure greatness.

However, some of the destroyed cameras are still acting like they were working (they can spot you and go on alert mode, but they don't set off the alarm). Also, I found a pistol (I think it was in a random sec crate on Med) that, once modified, can chamber 30+ bullets!!!

And you should NOT hide mandatory items (especially keycards) in security crates.

[673f072bbfa3aRainalkar]

I am playing with POP's difficulty and Zygo's random mods (among else). I can't find R&D card anywhere. I searched twice Med, Sci, and Crew, hacked every crate... Nothing. Can this happen, or am I missing something?

[673f072bbfb58johnnythewolf]

Search again. Unless it was in a security crate that you inadvertly triggered the explosion, it's there somewhere. Have you checked behind computers and on top of wall screens?

[673f072bbfc88Rainalkar]

I haven't checked on top of wall screens. Feed you soon, thx

edit: found it, on top of the comp

[673f072bbfd77wcarnation]

Does this work with Straylight?

[673f072bbfec2Kolya]

Straylight is a mod author. Does this mod work with him? Possibly.

As for the question whether this mod works with ADaoB: I remember that Zygo said it should be compatible. You should activate the Randomiser after ADaoB.
Note: This will only work /mostly/. Some of ADaoB's fixes will break. Also random stuff may happen. You asked for it.
 

[673f072bc00aaZygo]

To clarify, theoretically at least Random ought to be compatible with any gamesys mod, unless it does genuinely funky stuff to objects. I added most of the mis file fixes from ADAOB into Random as well so it ought to theoretically be compatible with it.

Practically though, I would expect some problems, though hopefully nothing game breaking.

I am still working on this BTW, though progress has been slow, not least because I hate all the testing it requires- I reckon I'd spend more than six times as long testing as actually adding stuff and it just gets worse the more I change. I'm trying to get rec and ops done in one go, and will hopefully have Spawn Control fully integrated too. No ETA though.

And you should NOT hide mandatory items (especially keycards) in security crates.

Er, agreed. I didn't think I'd done this anywhere. If anyone can tell me where this occurs I will fix it, as it is a mistake. I'll also have a look into the camera and the pistol issues, though I've never encountered them myself.

[673f072bc025fSilencer150]

OK major problem I've discovered.

One of the mods I'm using, which I believe to be this one, causes the decompression to actually start to damage you in Cryo Recovery A if you don't escape fast enough.  While this is a cool feature to add, and more realistic than in the original game, there's just one catch.  The power cell placement is randomized!  The first time I tried this mod, it must have randomized outside the airlock door, which meant there was no power cell to be found in the immediate area.  In other words I was trapped, and with the decompression on my tail, I was dead within seconds.

I think you should include power cells in the category of mandatory items that should not be randomized, or at least make sure that their locations are limited to places that are realistically reachable.  For example, there's also that power cell that grants access to the Medical sector.  It would not be fair to have it randomize inside the locked maintenance room that you aren't supposed to know the code to yet.

I hope you can address this soon, because I was really looking forward to playing through with this mod.

[673f072bc0369Kolya]

And this major issue keeps you from doing so? Sheeeesh.
Besides even though it's been a while since I played this mod, knowing Zygo and all, I'm pretty sure the battery is reachable wherever it happens to be. Maybe you should look harder.

[673f072bc0497Silencer150]

All right, I'll have to try it again.  Of course, I'm probably not going to be able to duplicate the same problem as before, not that I would want to.  For the record, I did look everywhere, or at least everywhere that I could before the decompression started to hurt me and I had to run.  Regardless, there's no way back into the vent shaft that drops you into the recharger room, so I did pretty much get stuck. 

I'll give Zygo's mod another go on my next play through.

[673f072bc0662Silencer150]

OK I was unable to get the same problem to happen, thankfully.  This time the battery appeared either in its normal place, or under the bench.

Anyway, I was able to play up to when I first entered Hydroponics, and then I ran into an unusual glitch.  In the area above Environmental Regulator ACR2 in Hydroponics B, there will normally be normally a pipe hybrid and a shotgun hybrid patrolling.  However when I reached that area (after playing through the rest of the level no less) the two hybrids appeared to have been spawned incorrectly.  They resembled clumps of limbs with a weapon sticking out, that could only rotate in place in midair.  I would have taken a screenshot, but the game crashed immediately afterwards, and every time I tried to re-enter Hydroponics B/C from a previous savegame on MedSci to see if it would happen again.  The culprit appears to be this mod, because the problem went away when I uninstalled it. 

Here's the best screenshot I could get.  I tried to brighten it up so you could see the problem, but this is as close as I could get to the hybrids before the game crashed.  That dark clump floating in midair is a malformed hybrid.

Image: http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/9946/spawnbugoe5.jpg

[673f072bc07d4miracle.flame]

Make sure you have the file hydro2.dif renamed to something else or put somewhere else so it doesn't interfere with the game.

[673f072bc09c8Silencer150]

Thanks.

Another bug to report.  Upon entering the Engineering level for the first time, the game completely locks up after a few seconds.  It appears that it's trying to spawn all the random items but doesn't have enough space, so after a huge drop in framerate, the game slows to one frame every few minutes.  In other words, it stops completely.  I toggled the mod off and the problem went away when I reentered Engineering.

I'm pretty sure it didn't happen during my last playthrough, but now it happens every single time I try to enter Engineering with the Randomizer mod active.  I checked the thread on TTLG and I suspect it's related to that bug someone discovered, where the spawn point at the beginning of Engineering continues to spit out items after you pick the first one up.  Would anyone know how to remedy this?

ETA: There's another bug that has to do with the Hydro2 map.  This time I know I had already renamed the HYDRO2.DIF file, so it's not interfering with the game anymore.  In the northeast section of Hydro B, after The Many threatens you not to touch their eggs, a cyborg midwife is supposed to spawn in the small passage halfway down the north hall and attack you.  This has happened a couple of times already: a completely indestructible midwife spawns and hangs in midair until you attack her.  It makes this section unplayable to have a midwife you can't kill constantly blasting you with laser bolts, and I know the problem went away when I deactivated the mod.

[673f072bc0eb1Chandlermaki]

One of the mods I'm using, which I believe to be this one, causes the decompression to actually start to damage you in Cryo Recovery A if you don't escape fast enough. 

Sounds cool. What mod is that? O.O

[673f072bc0fb8Kolya]

True, Zygoptera's Randomiser has a countdown for decompression. It's a tight race and you die pretty soon afterwards.

[673f072bc10a0Chandlermaki]

Thats awesome! I'm so getting this...