SCP Beta 4 Issue Reporting

[67423441d4e92RoSoDude]

Most of us probably know how strong carrying two Laser Pistols can be for negating the downsides of Overcharge mode, namely the charge drain and the shot cooldown.

What you may not be aware of (as indeed I wasn't) is that you can negate the shot cooldown of a single Laser Pistol merely by quickly swapping to another weapon and back. That's right, the Overcharge cooldown is functionally no longer than the time to pull up the Laser Pistol itself provided you have an iota of dexterity. The sound will even play over itself. I haven't seen this discussed on any other forums, so I thought it might not actually be common knowledge.

I took a crack at it in Squirrel and couldn't find a solution -- it seems the only script messages I have to even go off of are from NVGun in the first place. Is there any interest in fixing this exploit (outright bug)? Is it even possible? @Nameless Voice is probably the best poised to answer.

[67423441d50c2ZylonBane]

I certainly wouldn't mind fixing this exploit if it's possible. I've never looked into how the recharge delay is implemented. If it's at the engine level it probably can't be fixed.

[67423441d5286Nameless Voice]

I thought I fixed that already, to be honest.  Doesn't the current NVGun script prevent it?

Edit: You can enable that feature of NVGun by adding the param NVGunCooldownHack=1
Assuming the feature actually works reliably.  I have a vague memory that we may have disabled it due to it being unreliable and the gun getting stuck, maybe around save/load or level transitions?

[67423441d53f1RoSoDude]

Tried out the fix. Detected a little weirdness when I tested quicksaving/loading right after firing -- you can bypass the cooldown on the next shot, and then every odd shot after that if you keep it going and don't let it reset properly. Otherwise it seems pretty stable on map transition, swapping between multiple Laser Pistols etc. One might complain that it has inconsistent behavior (dry fire sound only when prevented from firing after a swap) but I'm just happy to have a fix. Thanks NV!

[67423441d54efZylonBane]

I wouldn't consider that an acceptable solution for SCP then. Better a consistent exploit than a glitchy fix.

[67423441d5740RoSoDude]

Are you guys aware that the reduced Fusion Cannon splash damage radius (10 -> 5) makes it unable to damage SHODAN's head (or her shields unless aimed dead center)? This is also true for e.g. frag grenades (radius 10) fired at the top of the head, but at least they can still do the job when fired a bit lower. I'd recommend a radius of 6.5 for the Energy stim at the absolute minimum. Or change something about Shodan Head (-3494)?

I noticed that EMP Shot (-235) still has its corpse link to EMP Explosion (-1424) set to "Propagate Source Scale?" = NULL, so weapon modification and Sharpshooter won't apply. Also, I'd strongly recommend reverting the EMP Rifle's Overcharge mode from ADaOB's two 10 EMP damage stims to vanilla's one 15 EMP damage stim, considering that the propagate source scale field on that corpse link was fixed (so the 2x stim mult on the Overcharge setting applies as was likely intended by Irrational). 40 EMP damage BEFORE vulnerability multipliers is overkill; 30 is more reasonable.

I hope that ADaOB's grenade rebalance has been fully reverted as well (except for Disruption grenades being useless). Notably, it creates a major balance problem with frag grenades unintentionally still receiving damage scaling (though if you do this, you should also look into fixing the Grenade Launcher's absurd modification damage bonuses... it's all a mess). It wasn't particularly hard for me to do since the ADaOB changelist exhaustively describes it all. I've attached a DML with it and all of the above.

[67423441d592cvoodoo47]

pretty sure the latter two are already done, will have to check the fusion cannon, but I think that has been tweaked too.

[67423441d5ae9ZylonBane]

Something I see a lot on the Many Brain battle is first-time players taking way too long to figure out that the stars are protecting the brain, or even sometimes that yes, they're supposed to directly attack the brain (they think they have to destroy the reaver brains instead or something like that). So we've added some visual feedback to hopefully help with both these issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaIYgpZtVas

[67423441d5c82Kolya]

Oh that's cool! The way the stars are feeding into the brain. Also I liked the brain blowing up.

[67423441d618bRocketMan]

In case somebody doesn't want my comment to have a negative affect on their usage of this mod:

It does look cool but also immediately reminds me of the final boss from Half-Life.  I know you've already done the work and everything so you might not want to change it but you could just make the stars brighten when the brain is hit and maybe a translucent field appears briefly around the brain itself, coinciding with the brightening.  Or something completely different than that... there are probably other ideas.  It's just that streak of lightning/plasma going back to the brain is very half-life'ish.

[67423441d6303Slavo]

Hi there, so, i reported an issue concerning email from Polito not triggering when you enter room with dead power cell and a recharger right at the beginning of the game. Is it really working as intended? This is clearly sort of tutorial message that is about teaching people what to do with it and how to open door to the next area. Why would its intended place be somewhere in Rickenbacker chapel? At that point int the game Polito/Shodan charade is over. Why would an email, not even a log for that matter from her trigger there? Sorry if that's how it's supposed to be.

[67423441d6451voodoo47]

those are 2 separate emails/logs - that medsci1 tutorial mail will only trigger on the easy difficulty (and normal? will have to check), the idea is that veterans don't need to be bothered by this. so yeah, working as intended.

the other one is a log, it's Polito talking (apologizing) about releasing Shodan, and people sometimes misremember and think it should be in the ops2 Big Reveal room, when its proper, vanilla location is in fact the rick2 chapel. SCP does not change this in any way.

[67423441d6567Slavo]

Damn, i had no idea about that email working only on easier difficulties, makes sense of course. Thanks for answering voodoo, I'll show myself out

[67423441d6797RoSoDude]

The recharger email is canceled only if the player skipped all the tutorial training booths, same as the infocomp computers getting deleted. It's not tied to difficulty (I just started an Impossible file, ran through one training booth, and got the recharger email again). From the SCPb4 readme:

earth.mis
Set training booth tripwires 313, 314, 320, 378 to set qvar "Newbie" to 1 (this is the detection phase of the new adaptive training feature).

medsci1.mis
Implemented adaptive training. Linked starting tripwire 311 to anti-qb filter 2198, which checks qvar "Newbie" (set in earth.mis). If NOT set, destroys all infocomps and adds all infocomp help text to PDA.
Polito's step-by-step instructions on how to pick up, charge, and install a battery should be confined to Newbie mode. //done

[67423441d689evoodoo47]

ah, that's right, was not sure. anyway, the idea is still the same - lets not bother veteran players with unnecessary tutorial messages.

[67423441d6a29Nameless Voice]

Why does that piece of exposition qualify as redundant when none of the others do?
Really, the only part of it which is newbie exposition is the line "just use it and it will re-charge all the power-driven devices in your position".

If anything, you could cut out that line for advanced players and leave the rest.

Especially, the "be quick about it, the vacuum seals won't hold up much longer" part adds to the urgency of the decompression, and that's lost if you remove the email.

[67423441d6f40ZylonBane]

Why does that piece of exposition qualify as redundant when none of the others do?

Because if you try to open the door, Xerxes also tells you to replace the power cell.

If anything, you could cut out that line for advanced players and leave the rest.

Any modification to original voice files would mess up subtitle and translation mods.

Especially, the "be quick about it, the vacuum seals won't hold up much longer" part adds to the urgency of the decompression, and that's lost if you remove the email.

This is the very last room of the escape sequence. If the player isn't already feeling urgency at this point, it's a lost cause. Also, experienced players aren't going to be feeling urgency regardless, and this line is only cut for experienced players.

[67423441d739bsarge945]

I have a strange request:

Currently there's no way to change the shotgun TRIPLE firing sound independently of the normal sound without changing the gamesys.

This limits what sound mods can do if they want to be compatible.

Would it be possible to change this for the next version?

I think the same might be true for the emp rifle and other weapons too?

[67423441d7509voodoo47]

both psi shields produce shield hit sounds when the player is struck - should the powered armor do that as well? the description states "1-inch repulsion field" so there definitely is some sort of force field.

pros - the player would know when the armor runs out of juice as the shield hit sounds would turn to regular hit sounds when receiving damage. cons - the shield hit sounds are a bit annoying.

[67423441d760asarge945]

On that note, the psi shield makes lots of noise when using pyro field

[67423441d76ffvoodoo47]

should be fixed in beta5.

[67423441d77f0sarge945]

Awesome. Can't wait to play beta 5 in 2050 😂

[67423441d7971voodoo47]

yeah yeah, we know. but you cannot rush art.

[67423441d7a64sarge945]

Fair enough