SS2 Community Patch (SCP) Beta 6

[673fdb02801fcsarge945]

I seem to remember the broken laser pistol being in cargo storage 4, meaning you can access it immediately upon entering engineering if you beeline towards it.

It might be an RSD change, though.

[673fdb02803c7ZylonBane]

In vanilla SS2 laser pistols are located in eng2, hydro2, ops3, ops4, rec2, rec3, command1, and rick1.

[673fdb02805d3voodoo47]

yes, and the player can grab the first one pretty much right before eng2 is done, even though it would be extremely useful if available before the cargo bays are entered.

as long as the player has the repair skill, that is - I think I'll move it to one of the corpses in the Command Control room, or one of the crates in the Shuttle Bay, and include the change in the Repairman mod.

[673fdb02807f6Sines]

Wrote a big long post, didn't answer the security question, and didn't notice it didn't go through!

Short version, I made it through Engineering. And even the broken laser pistol is too late. It's at the end of the Cargo Bays, at which point you've made it through the part of the early game where you most need something like the laser pistol. The only way to get a Laser Pistol when it's even kind of competitive with the Pistol is the Marine EW start. Without that, it's very firmly stuck in the 'nice to have' category, and wouldn't be worth it without the Rapier and EMP Rifle.

I honestly think a WORKING laser pistol at the start of Engineering (before you encounter the first turret in Engineering) would be fine. You could even place it in Med/Sci. It's too much of a niche weapon, and AP Pistol rounds exist, for me to think it needs to be progress gated in any meaningful way. It wouldn't even nerf the EW Marine start too much, since you charge all pistols at once, so having extra ones is pretty handy and emphasizes not needing ammo. I've got more to say to defend my argument, but don't feel like typing that all up again right now

[673fdb028091fZylonBane]

The laser pistol is not a niche weapon. It's very effective against mechanical and cyborg targets and has essentially infinite free ammo available.

[673fdb0280e00JDoran]

I also saw the Wormskin Armor and OS Station 4 got moved up so you could spend more time with them. Any changes like that to other weapons? Laser Pistol always struck me as coming WAY too late given what it's for.

I agree. If there was a mini mod to give a working laser pistol earlier on, then I'd probably have it permanently enabled in my SS2 mod menu. Probably the more hardcore fans of the game wouldn't like this as they might feel that it effects the flow of the earlier parts of the game, or at least they would want the laser pistol to be placed in a specific area with maybe a challenge/objective needing to be completed before you can access the pistol.

But if someone is looking for a new mod project, then please consider the addition of an early, working, laser pistol.

[673fdb028111asarge945]

yes, and the player can grab the first one pretty much right before eng2 is done, even though it would be extremely useful if available before the cargo bays are entered.

as long as the player has the repair skill, that is - I think I'll move it to one of the corpses in the Command Control room, or one of the crates in the Shuttle Bay, and include the change in the Repairman mod.

RSD adds it to Storage Room 4, which might be a good place for it since it's still somewhat out of the way if you're beelining through engineering.

[673fdb02812f8tiphares4]

^What Sines & the others said..

Please put laserpistol - broken - into very first engineering room  :/

It would be great atmospheric wise, putting the player into a new environment whilst also giving him/her a new interesting item..

The transition between med/sci & eng always felt a bit unrewarding.

[673fdb0281aedSines]

The laser pistol is not a niche weapon. It's very effective against mechanical and cyborg targets and has essentially infinite free ammo available.

So, that's part of what I left out when I rewrote the post. I'll go over it now.

The Laser Pistol is niche, because the regular Pistol exists. I just wrapped up an Impossible run where I killed SHODAN with Standard 4, Modify 2 Pistol (unmodded) in about 2-3 seconds (not counting the time spent throwing ICE Picks at her). It's arguably the best weapon in the game, if you factor in it's availability. All but OSA Agents get access to it for free. Ammo for it is plentiful. And there are so many pistols just lying around the game that you can easily just keep swapping out broken ones for working ones until you get to 3-4 Maintenance, in order to never have to buy Maintenance tools. What's more, it has access to Armor Piercing Rounds. These specialize in killing exactly the same targets as the Laser Pistol. While AP Rounds are limited in supply, the Pistol can fire in bursts, while the Laser Pistol is stuck on a long recharge cycle. The Pistol can tear through enemies MUCH faster. And early on in the game, you have a fairly generous supply of AP Ammo as long as you're conservative and save it for needed targets (Droids can take standard ammo, and midwives can take the wrench). If you get the Grenade Launcher (Marine Start or Repair 2), that's another weapon you've got for turrets and bots. While you don't get any early EMP Grenades (I think) the GL does enough damage that it fulfills the same niche of doing lots of damage to your toughest enemies.

So the Laser Pistol competes with the other two Tier 1 weapons you get against the hardest early game enemies, only really winning out in terms of 'free' ammo. However, the ammo isn't really free. Going through the Cargo Bays, a Bot took 80 energy out of my Laser Pistol. Turrets took 40. That's a bot and a turret, or three turrets for between 2 and 5 Maintenance. The ammo may be replaceable, but you're not running back and forth from the recharger that often. So if you want more frequent use, you need batteries or Electron Cascade. And at that point in the game, you probably aren't swimming in batteries, and Electron Cascade is out of reach for someone with poitns in Energy Weapons and Repair. Simply put, you still need to use melee, other weapons, or some rare 'ammo' to keep going. The Laser Pistol also has the worst DPS, and in an extended fight is much more reliant on cover than a Pistol with burst mode AP round, or a Grenade Launcher. Both of which are also pretty darn good at handling biological targets (though you're not realistically using grenades against hybrids and monkeys).

Now don't get me wrong. I really like the Laser Pistol. But it has some pretty serious competition in the 'killing early to mid-game robots' category. And so that's why I call it a niche weapon. It directly competes with the other Tier 1 weapons, and it's strongest claim to fame is it's ammo system. That's a niche. It's a good niche. It's a niche I like, but it's still a niche. Throw in the fact that Heavy and Standard Weapons will happily get you through the whole game on their own, while Energy Weapons has an entire level where it's utterly useless, and that doesn't help the case against being a niche weapon.

And so it just doesn't make sense that you get the Laser Pistol so late without the Marine Start, while the GL is available halfway through Med/Sci with Repair. For reference, once I got the Laser Pistol from Engineering working, I fought 3 turrets and 2 midwives before I got the working one. I could have skipped one turret and one midwife from the Engineering 'tunnel'. I could have skipped the two turrets guarding the recharger and OS station by running by them if I had to, and coming back later with the Laser Pistol. It's honestly not really worth getting Repair just for the Laser Pistol (though it IS worth getting repair for the EMP Rifle, given it's ridiculous Maintenance requirement, but oddly low Repair requirement), because there's so little you really get from it before you find the working one. If you want a lore appropriate place to stick a broken one, put it outside the armory (or behind the forcefield) in Med/Sci. And I'd leave a working one in the Cargo Bay areas outside the actual Cargo Bay, so you have it against the small army of droids, bots, and turrets.

But not against the three turrets guarding the entrance to the Cargo Bay, which are a nightmare for an OSA character that didn't dip into Pistols, or really anyone who ran out of AP ammo by then. I think that's a nice extra place to reward Repair users, in addition to it's various uses in Med/Sci.

[673fdb0281d5bsarge945]

The laser pistol isn't niche. It's a solid weapon for Energy players and is by far the most generally useful energy weapon. The Rapier is better overall but you're limited to melee, and the EMP is devastating against bots and turrets but not much else. Using the laser pistol you can have good damage output against most targets, quick kills on low tier enemies with the overcharge, and essentially unlimited ammo. It's a fantastic weapon.

Comparing Energy to Standard is kind of a bad comparison. STD weapons are designed to be jack-of-all trades and ubiquitous. The pistol, shotgun and assault rifle can all be used across a wide variety of situations, especially if you use all of the different ammo types.

Compared to the general utility of STD, everything is a niche weapon. Even within Standard the Shotgun is niche because it can't put out the pain like the AR can, and even feels weak compared to the pistol.

This is also, in my opinion, why STD is so overpowered, which is why I nerfed the special ammo types in one of my gameplay experiment mods.

The only true niche weapons are the Exotic weapons, and maybe the SFG.

[673fdb0281eecvoodoo47]

as far as SCP is concerned, I do not see anything beyond potentially moving the jammed eng2 laspistol to the beginning of the level happening.

also no, the laspistol is not a niche weapon, it can be your main gun for a good chunk of the game without much trouble.

[673fdb02823a4tiphares4]

as far as SCP is concerned, I do not see anything beyond potentially moving the jammed eng2 laspistol to the beginning of the level happening.

Wooohooowwwww. Wowwwwww yeahhhhh............ OMG Oh Yes yes yes!!!!!!! :V :Y Wheeeewwwwww :Q   Plz make it happening!!!! 🎉🎊💥🔥🌋

[673fdb028286fSines]

Compared to the general utility of STD, everything is a niche weapon.

That is kind of my point. Standard Weapons are absurdly OP, and instead of being Jack of All Trades, Master of None, they're just kinda... the Master of All Trades (well, the Pistol and AR are, anyway, the Shotgun is balanced by being a mediocre weapon that is easy to get and has tons of ammo available for it alone). Heavy Weapons ain't too bad either.

If I were rebalancing the game, I'd definitely weaken the Pistol. If I were to do that, then the Laser Pistol would stand out more. Though I would still make it available earlier in the game without a Marine start.

[673fdb0282a5cZylonBane]

"Niche" means something that's only useful for a narrow range of tasks.

The laser pistol can kill literally everything, and does it reasonably well. The existence of other superior weapons doesn't negate that. So how about we stop using wrong words to describe things.

And don't forget that you can carry around an entire bandolier of laser pistols, cycling through them in overcharge mode to rapidly take out strong enemies.

[673fdb0282de7sarge945]

That is kind of my point. Standard Weapons are absurdly OP, and instead of being Jack of All Trades, Master of None, they're just kinda... the Master of All Trades (well, the Pistol and AR are, anyway, the Shotgun is balanced by being a mediocre weapon that is easy to get and has tons of ammo available for it alone). Heavy Weapons ain't too bad either.

If I were rebalancing the game, I'd definitely weaken the Pistol. If I were to do that, then the Laser Pistol would stand out more. Though I would still make it available earlier in the game without a Marine start.

Have you played the RSD mod?

It literally does everything you're asking for, including making the broken laser pistol available earlier, and a whole lot more.

[673fdb0282f83Sines]

This current playthrough is my first modded one. I'll give that one a try next time.

[673fdb02832d8JDoran]

Have you played the RSD mod?

It literally does everything you're asking for, including making the broken laser pistol available earlier, and a whole lot more.

I thought we weren't to use the RSD mod with the new (beta 6) SCP mod, due to potential problems?

[673fdb028348fsarge945]

I was under the impression that RSD is updated for Beta 5, and should for the most part work with Beta 6.

On a related note, RSD includes icons for upgraded weapons. When a weapon is upgraded it shows a small arrow as part of the weapon icon. I feel like this should be included in SCP since it's an amazing QoL feature, and will especially help newer players who might not know to check if a weapon is modified. The modified pistol in medsci2 comes to mind, because it's very low quality initially, so most players who don't know it's modded will likely throw it away.

[673fdb0283616ZylonBane]

That's problematic, because what if someone installs a mod that changes a weapon's icon? Then when you upgrade the weapon, the icon would revert to the vanilla version.

[673fdb02837e8sarge945]

Mods for SCP are already incompatible with Vanilla in some ways. What if someone adds a weapon to an area of a map only available in SCP (like in Korenchkins added room on the Command deck)?

SCP already includes it's own versions of multiple strings files, any mods for vanilla that edit strings are incompatible with SCP.

I understand that not introducing unnecessary compatibility issues is important, but this seems like a minor issue in the grand scheme of the mod, and the potential benefits are huge for quality of life.

Given SCP is basically being used by everyone, I think it's fair to expect other mods to conform to SCP compatibility, not the other way around. That is the privilege of being a gamesys mod, I guess.

[673fdb0283c09CyrusVonNox2001]

ZylonBane
I guess that's ok. I kinda liked it there though. Remember on MedSci when you went down the ladder and approached the recharger so you could unlock the Med bulkhead, Xerxes opens those two doors with turrets behind them and plays the message about "Unauthorized use of firearms," I see it as a ironic bit of dark humor, kinda like how SHODAN would set little traps for you in the first game. I did have an idea though, what if you did the same thing you did in the navy training room where you used a soundalike to give a new tutorial about security systems. You could use a Stephen Russel soundalike, or in worst case scenario an AI replication, to give a PA system announcement about steam, broken pipes, or hazardous gasses when you climb down into that pit. Or just give us the option to reactivate the original trigger.

[673fdb0283f9bZylonBane]

what if you did the same thing you did in the navy training room where you used a soundalike to give a new tutorial about security systems.

Should somebody tell him?

[673fdb0284210CyrusVonNox2001]

ZylonBaneWhat? What am I not seeing?

I just thought it was a cool Idea to add more consistency to the game. If you don't want to, you don't have to.

[673fdb0284379voodoo47]

I will - it's no soundalike, it's the actual guy.