SS2 TF's Secmod 3

[66f9552361335voodoo47]

yep, probably conflict with SHTUP, caused by a Secmod unique resource not having a unique name, most likely (the painting texture with the altered number in this case). this is something TF probably should fix - a unique resources always should have an unique name.

[66f9552361528Nameless Voice]

That really shouldn't be a problem unless SHTUP was installed on top of SecMod.

Sadly, the SS2 Newbie Modding Guide tells people to install visual mods on top of gamesys mods.
Ugh, what a mess.  We need to fix that guide up a bit.

[66f95523616dcvoodoo47]

well yeah, because as far as I know, that's how things should be - take SCP for example, it includes a bunch of fixed orig lowres resources (textures, objects etc), so it needs to have the lowest priority so all the updated stuff from visual mods like Tacticool would override the lowres/orig stuff properly.

as mentioned, custom resources not having custom names is what is causing problems here - the only solution that wouldn't make everyone cry is to give the modified textures custom names, and edit the picture model to load the alternate textures. that will make sure they are displayed correctly no matter what visual mod is loaded.

so basically, any mod or fm author needs to construct their resources in a way that would allow compatibility with other mods. if they want compatibility with other mods, that is.

[66f9552361853Kolya]

The newbie guide tries to give some general advice and it generally works. But Secmod isn't just a gamesys mod. It should either get a note in the first post to load SHTUP below Secmod or rename the resources as voodoo suggested.

[66f9552361b2eThiefsieFool]

The code pic should already be unique, the model in secmod is called code112.bin and the texture is CODE_XX.gif. Those are pretty offbeat names.

Was there some other problem with the code picture maybe? I think I saw in someone's LP that it was moved almost out of bounds or something probably by a DML. I probably need to recreate the object so its id changes or something, or add that qvar flag I vaguely remember.

Wish I knew why the feedback puzzle broke down, I tried it now and it worked for me.

[66f9552361c2fvoodoo47]

I'll check what's up with the transmitter code later today.

also, you can set Secmod to reject vanilla dmls, that's not a problem.

[66f9552361d50Nameless Voice]

Yes, it's kind of a strange case.
SCP is the unofficial patch which other mods are supposed to be loaded on top of, whereas in a way SecMod is more like an FM, and FMs should be loaded last.
Renaming any new SecMod resources (if there ever are any conflicts) still sounds like the best way to fix it, I guess.

[66f9552361e6cThiefsieFool]

Yes the only thing that should override Secmod is actual Secmod addons like the Rebirth patch, the idea is to clean up all the assets in the mod's archive that could override graphical mods if Secmod has highest priority.
I'll add the note that Secmod should be last to the main post.

[66f9552361f68voodoo47]

ok, obj 79 on rec1 (the different code picture terminal) doesn't have any problems with SHTUP-ND, so it's either user mistake or something else going on.

[66f95523620f4SoldierG65434-2]

It's probably user error; a combination of me taking for granted what the code is and it begin so long since I've needed to look for it that I've forgotten which painting to even go to. I'm going to do a clean install and try reordering things to see if maybe that will help with the feedback loop, because currently I have it loaded  last. In the four or so times I've tried tired to play though SecMod, I've only gotten it to work once. Also, should/can I have SCP, just for the assets along with SecMod?

Thanks for the help, everyone.

[66f95523621e3voodoo47]

running SCP and Secmod together is probably not a good idea.

[66f9552362304Joe]

I tried messing with ShockEd last year, if you look back through the posts. Didn't work too well. 

Could I get a bit of a walkthrough on how to do it?

[66f955236240cvoodoo47]

install the editor via SS2tool, launch it, load a level and you are ready to work. reading through all the guides available around here is strongly advised.

[66f95523624efNameless Voice]

Also, note that the editor is almost the same as the one used for Thief and Thief 2, so most guides for editing those games also apply.

[66f9552362686hemebond]

ThiefsieFool, any chance of getting rid of the right-to-left melee swing? It's unpredictable and ineffective, missing where a regular left-to-right swing would have hit. Everyone I've seen play Secmod has struggled terribly with it.

[66f9552362765ThiefsieFool]

I was hoping to make it work properly but yeah it will be out in the next update.

[66f9552362a05hemebond]

  ThiefsieFool, have the chemical manifests been updated with the changes made to the chemical storerooms? Hydro now has pb (Lead) but it doesn't appear to be listed in the manifest.

  Was the Hydro health fix rolled into the download in the original post? Watching someone now who has been turning invulnerable and had their health increase while playing on impossible difficulty. Thankfully when he exited the new Hydro level everything was fine.

  Not sure if intentional but it appears each crystal shard has to be researched individually and the person playing couldn't see any difference between them.

Aside: I like the gibbing 

[66f9552362cedSines]

So, I've kinda been wanting to play SS2 again for a while, but the games balance was just all so out of whack it kinda took the fun out of things. Seeing this mod, I was rather tempted to give the game a go again. A couple of question first...

Which graphical / bugfix updates are known to run smoothly with this? It'd be nice to update the gameplay and the graphics, but I'd rather play a modified game with the old graphics if it would cause things to run crappy.

Second, how're the character creation options balanced? I kinda felt that they were out of whack a bit in terms of 'free cyber module count' (and some other implications I won't blather about). Was anything done there, or was it left as it was?

The readme mentions weapons moved around, which is cool. But when is the first Laser Pistol? It's probably my favorite weapon in the game, and I always felt it showed up a little late for such a basic weapon. I always felt it should have been someone in Engineering, rather than Hydroponics. Both in terms of general game progression, and how very much I hate the cargo bay and it's large number of droids and turrets. Seriously, the early appearance of an area I hate so much has actually discouraged me from a replay or two.

Since a lot of things have changed, I'll be experimenting a lot. And since I'll be experimenting, I'll probably be weaker than I am in a fully planned out game. So how hard is Hard mode? It looks like game difficulty on Hard and Impossible has been ratcheted up a bit. I've beaten the game on Impossible, but maybe I should play on Normal difficulty through this playthrough, so I have more room to try out new skills. But I also don't want to steam-roll the whole thing. What do you guys recommend?

Lastly, what skill changes do you feel are the most impactful? Some are fairly obvious, like Modify or the introduction of Electrokinesis making a pure OSA build more practical. But other options might be more subtle. Even on Normal difficulty, I can't try out everything, so getting some good ideas of what new features to look into and try out would be appreciated.

Thanks to anyone who reads my long-winded posts, and responds with equivalent amounts of carbon dioxide themselves.

[66f95523630a4Sines]

Giving the game a go on Normal, just to take a look at things. Made it up to the first set of cyber upgrade terminals, to see if any skills had new costs. Seems Modify and Repair are now slightly cheaper, but everything else is the same, at least at low levels. However, what I did note was a corpse that dropped 5 cyber modules. Well, this run was just to take a look at the terminals, and when I realized that Modify was a bit cheaper, and that I could get a free Energy Pistol to start off with on a different build, I restarted.

However, this time when I got there, there were only four modules. I knew I had at least 10 modules in that room on my previous save, so I'm not sure what I was missing. Just in case I missed something, I decided to reload my save from the beginning cryopod, and look around more carefully. I didn't find any more modules, but when I got to that body, I found 3 instead of 4 or 5... is that a glitch, or are Cyber Modules supposed to drop in random amounts in some locations?

Also, I could have sworn I had more than 10 modules the first time I was there... did I pick up some on my first run through that I forgot about? It's just the single module in the ducts, the 4 you get from Polito, and the 3-5 from the corpse next to the Hybrid playing dead (congratulations sir, you managed to scare the hell out of me with that one ). Was there anything else before you leave the safety of that 'training room'? Maybe I'm just thinking of the modules she gives you for leaving that room... ah well.

[66f955236334dThiefsieFool]

Normal difficulty is recommended if you're just getting into this mod, I didn't do anything to the character creation because IIRC it wasn't that bad and it might not be moddable at all, not sure.
Yeah there's some light item randomization throughout the levels, it should always average out to something fair and it's only on small stuff to throw you a curveball now and then.
I haven't moved around the first instance of most weapons, I did move the AR to Hydro4 however and made the Fusion Cannon appear in an unbroken state before the Rickenbacker (I mean, come on).

I'm looking at the remaining issues, there should be an update soon, at any rate it's a good sign that LPer had no trouble finishing the game with this mod.

[66f95523634d8ZylonBane]

Judging by his play style, I recommend he spec into a pure OCD build.

[66f9552363644Join2]

Excellent observational arm chair diagnosis as always, Psy. D. Bane.

[66f95523637f3Sines]

Lord, I was born a ramblin' man.

And if you wanted to adjust character creation, but can't touch the opening, what I suspect you could do is cut out the training portion of the game, and place a wad of Cyber Modules in the first cyber module training room, and allow a player to build his stats from zero that way.

While I don't think the current system is all that bad (and I love the flavor of it), it can be a bit restricting at times. I found it particularly annoying when I was trying to plan a build with no Psy or Standard in it. You can't skip either of those categories, and so have a certain amount of wasted modules. And honestly, the only reason to actively skip Standard weapons was because of how OP they were, which is less of an issue here.

[66f9552363927hemebond]

  I saw someone use a scramble grenade on  a replicator and cyber modules became available. However buying them didn't actually spawn the CMs for the player to pickup.