GMDX: Deus Ex Mod.

[662b3b1c07192Join2]

-dogs are killed, rather than pacified, by trq darts (probably electrostun as well), blood and all

Another vanilla inconsistency, will fix.

-npcs freak out a bit too much if I just go around armed or carrying explosives.
-the shaking generator under castle Clinton looks a bit ridiculous.

Both already fixed in latest unreleased build.

-fluorescent lights in the MJ12 water treatment base (the room with tknives and other goodies) selectable, but do nothing?

Most likely vanilla. The hanging lights right? I'll disable their highlight.

-faucet near Ford Schick interactive, but lacking the water effect.

I do partake in a bit of plumbing every now and then for the sake of consistency, but usually only what is absolutely necessary, and this qualifies.
 

-7 shotgun sabot rounds point blank to destroy a camera? something is off there.

Yeah, your damage values. Fully modded/skilled and they break in 3 or so shots.

Thanks for the feedback.

[662b3b1c0740avoodoo47]

-carried objects tend to disappear/fall out of the level when trying to attach to ladder tops. mantle might be involved.
-some doors destroyable by weapons that shouldn't be capable of such a thing, while it's understandable that a (locked) wooden door can be opened with a crowbar (taking a while and making a lot of noise, of course), a baton or knife should be quite useless.
-npcs seem to be much less distracted by darts or knives landing near them, rendering my favorite tactic of throwing a knife into a wall and then baton the npc while they stare at the knife almost useless.

[662b3b1c078cfJoin2]

-some doors destroyable by weapons that shouldn't be capable of such a thing, while it's understandable that a (locked) wooden door can be opened with a crowbar (taking a while and making a lot of noise, of course), a baton or knife should be quite useless.

I guess I could make doors ignore some weapon types, but the general rule is if your weapon passes the damage threshold, can break just by smacking it. Deus Ex did always have notably more "gamey" systems than Shock 2 here and there, and that's fine imo, in moderation.

-npcs seem to be much less distracted by darts or knives landing near them, rendering my favorite tactic of throwing a knife into a wall and then baton the npc while they stare at the knife almost useless.

Still works, it's just less effective very intentionally. You could beat the whole game just doing this same tactic over and over, for the most part, and that's not good.  Not to mention this used to make NPCs go temporarily deaf: NPCs would not react to subsequent sound events for about 5 seconds after the previous, so you could throw the knife then literally run up behind them, jump up and down just to exaggerate, and then knock them out without them ever turning around. DX's AI was borderline broken in many respects.

[662b3b1c080f3voodoo47]

I guess I could make doors ignore some weapon types

if it's doable, then I would suggest going for it - steel doors only breakable by explosives, wooden/tin by large melee weapons, rotten by anything sharp etc. if I remember correctly, it's really weird and inconsistent in vanilla, some doors that should be easy to break are nearly indestructible, some that look tough can be broken with knife (vanilla free clinic medbot door, if memory serves). would also give the crowbar some additional value.

Still works, it's just less effective very intentionally. You could beat the whole game just doing this same tactic over and over, for the most part, and that's not good.  Not to mention this used to make NPCs go temporarily deaf: NPCs would not react to subsequent sound events for about 5 seconds after the previous, so you could fire the dart then literally run up behind them, jump up and down just to exaggerate, and then knock them out without them ever turning around. DX's AI was borderline broken in many respects.

interesting. will test some more, but I think you may have overdone it - I don't mind the deafness removed, or faster reactions, but no npc reaction unless the projectile lands right under their feet is not that great.

[662b3b1c08492Join2]

if it's doable, then I would suggest going for it - steel doors only breakable by explosives, wooden/tin by large melee weapons, rotten by anything sharp etc.

Nah, it's fine as-is. The system has realism in mind to some degree of course; the above rules do generally apply, but not always. Indeed it always was inconsistent, but it's not really a major issue. In Ultima Underworld you could even punch doors down barehanded More simulation, realism and consistency is of course always desirable, but the system works just fine as-is and is for the most part is balanced, it works great from my point of view. Could be better there's no denying, but I'm not interested in investing in making it so just for minor results when it already does its job to the extent myself and the original developers were satisfied with.

interesting. will test some more, but I think you may have overdone it - I don't mind the deafness removed, or faster reactions, but no npc reaction unless the projectile lands right under their feet is not that great.

Ah, you just want the sound event radius increased. Yeah I will do that,  I probably did overdo it.

[662b3b1c08678voodoo47]

yep - right now, it's very difficult to distract them with such projectiles. and some pure technical stuff - this grate opens into wall (NSF generator headquarters NYC basement waterway).
[badgrate.jpg expired]

[662b3b1c08866voodoo47]

-Jock still has that weird thing going on with the first beer you buy for him being rejected, despite it being bough from the bartender as requested.
-if you don't talk to him, and complete this mission's main objective, he'll come to pick you up in the chopper, but if you tell him to wait, and go to the bar, he'll be there as well.
-also one hell of a mirror secret door Smuggler has going on, even a gep rocket won't budge it.
-the red explosive barrels in the base basement are explosive enough to knock down doors, but not explosive enough to destroy the triplaser emitters (or safe doors). their yellow brethren have no such problems.
-same goes for Paul, after blowing up the generator, he is supposed to be going in with his team at the other base, so he shouldn't be hanging around the subway station anymore.

[662b3b1c08d61Join2]

Some cool new things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX0yienuEfI

-Jock still has that weird thing going on with the first beer you buy for him being rejected, despite it being bough from the bartender as requested.
-if you don't talk to him, and complete this mission's main objective, he'll come to pick you up in the chopper, but if you tell him to wait, and go to the bar, he'll be there as well.
-also one hell of a mirror secret door Smuggler has going on, even a gep rocket won't budge it.
-same goes for Paul, after blowing up the generator, he is supposed to be going in with his team at the other base, so he shouldn't be hanging around the subway station anymore.

Will fix. Again all vanilla.

-the red explosive barrels in the base basement are explosive enough to knock down doors, but not explosive enough to destroy the triplaser emitters (or safe doors). their yellow brethren have no such problems.

Different explosive materials. Red = Weak explosion, Yellow = Strong Explosion. There's no further reasoning or documentation beyond that I'm afraid.

[662b3b1c08ec5voodoo47]

red is actually marked as flammable liquid, so it would probably produce more of a flameball than an explosion. the point - it should either blow things up, or not. being able to blow up some things but not other ones is just odd.

[662b3b1c090d0Join2]

red is actually marked as flammable liquid, so it would probably produce more of a flameball than an explosion.

Yeah, as per HDTP adding high definition to the skin. If I recall, vanilla you couldn't see shit. Anyway, I agree regarding a fireball explosion, and I'll see what I can do.

being able to blow up some things but not other ones is just odd.

Eh, no it isn't. Especially not with low yield explosions. It depends on the force of the explosion, and the material properties and reinforcement of the object being blown up. 

[662b3b1c0920cvoodoo47]

still, something that blows up doors should be more than capable of disrupting laser emitters.

[662b3b1c0936eJoin2]

If I recall, it's capable of blowing things up with a damage threshold <= 40 or so. It won't blow the majority of doors.

[662b3b1c09902Djant]

Some cool new things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX0yienuEfI

Does the nightvision goggles now actually help with seeing in the dark? I remember reading many complaints about the tech goggles not helping with seeing in the dark and the problem with that was something related to how the Unreal Engine handled lighting, so all the nightvision could do was slap a green filter onto everything.

[662b3b1c09a69Join2]

Not currently, but I think I have the solution and I'll get back to you on that next time I do some coding.

[662b3b1c0a0c1Join2]

Migrated discussion from engineering:

And I thought you had a modeller now.

Nah, not anymore. I was busy as hell at the time, we had a minor disagreement over the level of faithfulness of his latest models that were in the works, and then we just didn't talk after that. I'm not sure why I didn't try to reestablish contact since though, now that I think of it. I may send him a message.
 

I wouldn't mind modeling something, but getting it out and into the game is just a big hassle which holds me back (time constraints). Or actually, getting to the point of knowledge where and how to do it.

Yeah no worries, you're best served here. Shock has no other active modelers (not sure about Rocketman) and you're used to this import pipeline.

[662b3b1c0a379voodoo47]

the armor equip sound feels a bit off - would be better sounding more clothy, rather than electronicky. same with the enviro suit, probably.

also (if technically possible), maybe consider placing holstered large weapons on the AIs backs - an AI pulling a sniper rifle or flamethrover out of their assess when disturbed looks rather silly.

strength being a passive aug allows me to screw around with explosive barrels (and other heavy stuff) WAY too much with no (energy) repercussions. feels a bit cheap - completely removes the decision I had to make in vanilla: will I drag this barrel across the level to blow up a locked door, saving 2 picks but sacrificing most bio energy? now I'm like lol just let me throw a barrel at them. stack stuff to get to places? only sky is the limit now.


//remembered one annoyance of the first mission - if you give a gun to Gunther, he will run out and trip the laser alarm like an idiot if you didn't disable it beforehand. making him not do that in some smart way would be nice (even making the laser not react to him would be ok, as he can have an aug that makes him not detectable by laser).

[662b3b1c0ab92Join2]

also (if technically possible), maybe consider placing holstered large weapons on the AIs backs - an AI pulling a sniper rifle or flamethrover out of their assess when disturbed looks rather silly.

The simple fix to that is making NPCs with large weapons never holster their weapon, but I need to know which specific NPCs are holstering their weapons as generally most with big weapons don't already.

only sky is the limit now.

Indeed it is. As in Invisible War, any object is available to be power-thrown at all times, most notable in enhancing combat as if you see a nearby deco and need to reload or whatever, you can just grab it and throw it at an NPC, it's always an option. There's still drawbacks like JC dropping the held object when shot, and movement speed being reduced with heavy objects, and of course AI being tougher and smarter in general (just wait 'till you get late-game). C'mon, vanilla the aug was rarely used, now it gets used all the time providing you chose the aug and desire to use it often.

//remembered one annoyance of the first mission - if you give a gun to Gunther, he will run out and trip the laser alarm like an idiot if you didn't disable it beforehand. making him not do that in some smart way would be nice (even making the laser not react to him would be ok, as he can have an aug that makes him not detectable by laser).

Yeah, I'll probably just make the lasers ignore him as you suggest.

[662b3b1c0ad73voodoo47]

discreetly disabling the lasers once Gunther is free would also work.

I was actually always using strenght a lot, especially in the first NY mission, where using explosives can save you a lot of tools and picks. will cost you quite a bit of energy though if you aren't smart with your pathing.

well, now you don't have to (be), I suppose.

[662b3b1c0af57Join2]

Yep, for better or worse. Like I said, I want it to drain energy. I'd make it drain a bit energy whenever you power-throw something, but currently that is not an option as it'd throw the balance between it and the rival aug off. The rival aug itself not being suited to drain energy in use because of the nature of its function (faster weapon swap speed etc).
But maybe I could take another look at those choices and try to figure something out.

Just let me throw a barrel at it!

[662b3b1c0b0b0voodoo47]

cleaner bots still producing odd (bullet hit?) sounds when stepped on.

also lighting freaking out on some of the hires objects (barrels), but I'm guessing that's nothing you could fix.

[662b3b1c0b3faJoin2]

The pulsating lighting bug on certain objects can be fixed, often by tweaking lighting or moving the object, providing it isn't happening during conversation as conversation events spawn in a light  between the convo participants which has the potential to freak out any object anywhere, since convos can happen anywhere (e.g Paul running toward JC to talk on Lib Island).

Edit: given that you noticed the problem on the hi-res barrels, this could be LOD issues and not the pulsating light bug. HDTP's barrels do have LOD issues and yeah I can't do anything about it unless I get a modeller, or I can just revert to the vanilla models as a last resort.

cleaner bots still producing odd (bullet hit?) sounds when stepped on.

Yeah it uses the bullethit sound. There was a hell of a lot of duplicated/recycled sounds vanilla. I'll see if there is an appropriate replacement.

[662b3b1c0b67aJoin2]

I'm considering getting rid of that conversation light now, it is a bit odd and problematic for the reason described above, but I don't know the developer's reasoning as to why they did it in the first place. Obviously if we're in complete darkness the conversation should probably be lit up, but maybe there's other reasons for it since there never actually is conversations taking place in complete darkness in Deus Ex.
What I could do is only spawn the light if it actually is dark, by checking the player's light levels. Notable testing will be required either way.

[662b3b1c0b7ffvoodoo47]

not sure what do you mean.

anyway, saving while crouched and reloading will make you stand up, can be slightly annoying sometimes.


//snapping to the future for a bit - the last dialogue you have with the smuggler determines whether he's caught or not (with "relax, no one followed me" getting him locked up). would be much better if that would have been determined by whether the player actually has been followed.

one oddity - you actually can't use other terminals at UNATCO hq to log into your account. any kind of organisation would normally have the network set up so that everyone would be able to use their account from anywhere.

//and confirming, some unification between door destroyability would be in order. seeing a wooden door being destroyable, jump into the next room and another door of the same kind is indestructible because it's quest related. making sure such quest doors are always visibly reinforced would be nice.

[662b3b1c0b9f6Join2]

not sure what do you mean.

Whenever you enter a conversation a light is spawned between yourself and the NPC. I was considering getting rid of it, but whatever, it's fine as it is.

anyway, saving while crouched and reloading will make you stand up, can be slightly annoying sometimes.

May look into fixing.

//snapping to the future for a bit - the last dialogue you have with the smuggler determines whether he's caught or not (with "relax, no one followed me" getting him locked up). would be much better if that would have been determined by whether the player actually has been followed.

It's a dialogue option so I cannot do anything for it short of removing that option.

//and confirming, some unification between door destroyability would be in order. seeing a wooden door being destroyable, jump into the next room and another door of the same kind is indestructible because it's quest related. making sure such quest doors are always visibly reinforced would be nice.

Lots of inconsistencies. It's not often a wooden door is unbreakable though. Which one in particular?