[Obsolete] SS2 Community Patch (SCP) Beta 1

[6740d18178ac0voodoo47]

well, they can do that now as well.

wormpiles are possibly the screwiest thing in SS2 - they are basically a health hazard, partial ammo, and an healing item. they cannot be destroyed, despite (almost) being an organic enemy, there is infinite amount of them if you make ammo from them by combining them with beakers, but they are one use only if used for healing. it's like two small wtfs in each regular wtf.

this can't be fixed easily, it's either a complete overhaul, or leaving it alone. if I remember correctly, my idea was to make them shrink and disappear after each use (one heal, one large beaker, and two small beakers - I can already see Shocked giving me a middle finger), and then regrow after a quite significant time period (few minutes). they could be destroyable, and again, regrow after some time. the problem is that such a setup, while working nicely and making a bit more sense, would basically introduce an extremely cheap way of getting healed - to mitigate this, the regrow time period would have to be quite significant to discourage wormpile camping.

[6740d18178e57RocketMan]

why do they have to come back at all?

[6740d18178f5bvoodoo47]

there are too few of them available in the game to have them be one use only.

[6740d18179609ZylonBane]

Irrational disagreed.

[6740d1817a1cavoodoo47]

the healing part yes, but imagine they would also be consumed by using the beakers on them. would make worm ammo super rare.


basically, making them consistent means either making them finite, or infinite. finite will not work here, unless we want to increase their total number significantly. making them infinite would make worm healing too cheap - unless we add some sort of other form of limitation. making them disappear and then regrow makes the greedy player pay with their time - the most precious of resources. so this could work.

also, not my idea exactly - think HL1 Opposing Force spore launcher spores.

[6740d1817aa45Olfred]

What about this.
Make them one use only for healing but increase the number of ammo you get out of them.
I remember that the healing thing was balanced quite well. But when you use it as ammo you totally waste your points on alien tech since you can only use it very rarely.

[6740d1817ab4cZylonBane]

They're already one use only for healing, and you already get infinite ammo from them.

[6740d1817ac58RocketMan]

I thought the capacity of beakers was increased to fix the ammo problem?

[6740d1817ad6avoodoo47]

yeah, but that's going to blow to nothing if the piles are made one use/one beaker only.

[6740d1817ae44ZylonBane]

This is all veering wildly into rebalance territory.

[6740d1817af57RocketMan]

I dunno.  With all the bullets and shells and everything else in the player's arsenal, I never found myself scrounging for worm piles.  In fact I never found a shortage of ANY ammo type and always felt the game could do with far less of it... but that's me.

[6740d1817b1e2voodoo47]

This is all veering wildly into rebalance territory.

indeed it is. and definitely not something to be seen in the next SCP release.

[6740d1817b2eeSystem Shocked]

Concerning worm piles, upon receiving damage, how about they freeze (no motions/sounds) during which they don't do any damage, and after a while they return to normal ?

[6740d1817b5faKolya]

I dunno.  With all the bullets and shells and everything else in the player's arsenal, I never found myself scrounging for worm piles.  In fact I never found a shortage of ANY ammo type and always felt the game could do with far less of it... but that's me.

It's not that there wasn't enough ammo in the game, but very little worm ammo. Which you need to collect in beakers first, which you have to find and carry around. And then that shit may even become more scarce when used for healing. All this for a weapon that isn't very appealing to begin with since it comes way too late and is too expensive.

It would be nice if slain hybrids had a random chance of dropping a worm pile. This could be one time use, either for healing or filling X beakers.

[6740d1817b729voodoo47]

proliferator is actually not half bad - low ammo consumption after modifying, not too expensive on cms, and slays spiders without breaking a sweat.

anyway, had a quick look, and I don't think modifying the piles will be easy, as most of that stuff is handled by (evil) scripts, so there is little reason to continue the discussion. at least for the moment.

[6740d1817b811ZylonBane]

It is, however, pretty easy to make them blow-up-able.

(has never, ever used the exotic weapons other than to verify how much they suck)

[6740d1817b8f9Kolya]

yeah, exotic weapons suck. So any change should aim at making them easier to use. Course I know you don't do that kind of thing: Rebalancing in general and making things easier specifically.

[6740d1817ba45System Shocked]

Concerning worm piles, upon receiving damage, how about they freeze (no motions/sounds) during which they don't do any damage, and after a while they return to normal ?

Here's a useful positive suggestion, if you want more persons to join into the SS2 improvement circle/team, please fully digest/muse posts and don't discourage new casual posters or kick dedicated members in the teeth, when they put forth a relative suggestion. 

[6740d1817bbc5voodoo47]

yeeah I don't see how freezing a pile of organic maggots upon dealing incendiary damage to them would fall into the "making more sense" directory.

the idea would work in a standalone minimod that would allow you to freeze them with cryokinesis to make them safe to walk upon (would need a new "frozen wormpile" texture), but that's about it.


I still think that changing them into something you can harvest (or destroy) and then it will regrow after some time (just like HL:OF launcher spores) is the only way to go. with NVscript, we could even make them regrow randomly at other places just to screw with the player.

other working way would be making them one use only, but add a chance of a slain hybrid spawning a pile upon decomposing, just like K suggested.

[6740d1817bcb9ZylonBane]

No really, it makes perfect sense to want to freeze the worm piles. Because they move around so much, you know.

[6740d1817bf7eFred]

yeeah I don't see how freezing a pile of organic maggots upon dealing incendiary damage to them would fall into the "making more sense" directory.

I'm pretty sure he was talking about freezing (as in pausing) the animation, in order to make them look less alive.

[6740d1817c0e2RocketMan]

The only way to use worms as ammo is via beakers and those are strictly finite (and should be) so that's not really a problem I suppose.  Having them respawn here or there wouldn't give the player an ammo benefit.  It would however enable endless healing, which should be avoided.  The respawning from corpses idea is a compromise because the probability of a spawn could be throttled and the ecology controls the number of enemies capable of spawning them.  Therefore it could be made prohibitive to farm worm piles for healing.  The main benefit would be slightly more opportunities to heal and an increased healing capacity in general as well as making it EASIER to get ammo when you already have beakers.

[6740d1817c1c6MilkeyWilkey]

What about leaving them as is but once used for healing it will disappear and reappear in a random place after some time?

[6740d1817c29evoodoo47]

that doesn't solve the discrepancy of them being infinite when harvested with beakers.