SS2 TF's Secmod 3

[6666b02288b5esarge945]

if we are talking about hexedit changing texture names in a model bin file, then no, the name just has to start at the same spot, a character or two longer filename for the texture is ok (don't overdo it though).

Really? I found that when hex editing models for my rapiers mod, even a single character more or less would corrupt the model and crash shocked.

Since it's a binary format, it needs to know where the name ends and the vertices begin, so I assume there's a hex value somewhere determining the length, I just can't find it.

[6666b02288d87voodoo47]

00 00 00 origtexture.gif 00 00 00
00 00 00 mynewtexture.gif 00 00

should be ok. as long as there is enough zero values, and you are overwriting them.

[6666b022890bdsarge945]

00 00 00 origtexture.gif 00 00 00
00 00 00 mynewtexture.gif 00 00

should be ok. as long as there is enough zero values, and you are overwriting them.

You are correct, that's what I get for using Notepad rather than a hex editor (since I couldn't find a good one).

I have updated the zip, it now purely references the original textures. I will update the rapiers mod too.

[6666b022891cdvoodoo47]

xvi32 working just fine here.

[6666b02289603ZylonBane]

...a gif texture, with a small number of colours in it's pallette. Because of this, the texture for the rapier is much brighter than the normal one for all other rapiers.

That's not how textures or palettes work.

[6666b022898f1sarge945]

That's not how textures or palettes work.

According to GIMP the gif is limited to 87 colours because of it's color space settings. It's current shade is literally the darkest blue possible when I paint on it.

I don't know or care if that's to do with colour space, palettes, Dark engine format limitations, or literal sorcery. Frankly it's not important. It should have used the original texture from the start anyway. My assumption was that the creator of Secmod converted the original PCX to a gif, that was the closest colour available, and they stuck with it.

[6666b02289a32voodoo47]

this may be useful; https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=10574

[6666b02289d48ZylonBane]

According to GIMP the gif is limited to 87 colours because of it's color space settings. It's current shade is literally the darkest blue possible when I paint on it.

Hold up. First, there's no such thing as an 87-color GIF. If there are 87 unique colors available, that's an 8-bit GIF, so it has a 256-color palette.

Second, are you saying you're modifying the GIF? If you're modifying it, then just add the colors you want to the palette. Replace it with a true-color PNG even. PNGs have higher load priority than GIFs, so you presumably wouldn't even need to faff around with hex editing models.

[6666b0228a02fThiefsieFool]

[6666b0228a126ty]

Is this compatible with SCP beta 4?

[6666b0228a234ZylonBane]

You're asking if the mod that makes extensive changes to SS2's maps and game systems is somehow compatible with another mod that makes extensive changes to SS2's maps and game systems?

No, no it is not. Not even theoretically would such a thing be possible.

[6666b0228a331voodoo47]

I'll just add that the tool and both mods are constructed in a way that makes sure nothing bad will happen even if you enable both at the same time. whichever is on the top will be active and work properly.

[6666b0228a6f0Mirrorman95]

You're asking if the mod that makes extensive changes to SS2's maps and game systems is somehow compatible with another mod that makes extensive changes to SS2's maps and game systems?

No, no it is not. Not even theoretically would such a thing be possible.

So just to clarify that, SCPatch is a more purist approach to updating SS2's gameplay, while Secmod is about updating it and adding more features? Kind of like The True Patch Gold Edition vs the Unofficial Patch for VTMB?

[6666b0228a7f6voodoo47]

yes, SCP is basically SS2 Gold, while Secmod changes quite a lot, so it's not exactly vanilla.

Shock Community PATCH
Sec MOD

get it?

[6666b0228a912ZylonBane]

And all of that has nothing to do with why they're not "compatible". It's like asking if Counterstrike and Team Fortress are compatible, which would be an obviously absurd question. SecMod and SCP may look somewhat similar on the surface, but under the hood they both make their own specific customizations to almost everything in the game.

[6666b0228aa56Pacmikey]

.

[6666b0228ab6aJoe]

Nice job! Where do we drop those files?

[6666b0228ac41Pacmikey]

.

[6666b0228b48fThiefsieFool]

In reply to: https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=11194.msg146226#msg146226

There's no hard feelings, just trying to figure out what you mean by unbalanced.
The problem with balancing by undermining dominant strategies is that it's notoriously unpopular with any established fanbase, avoiding that is quite sensible and takes more thought than just nerfing the dominant strategy.
It doesn't mean you can't nerf things at all, just that nerfing as a modus operandi will both make your work more unpopular and reduce the amount of fun creative work you have to do, just my perspective.

Quick examples on balancing weapons or psi:
Standard and Annelid weapons could be balanced by just bringing them to comparable offensive power.
I chose to deal with it by making it so Annelid weapons do not degrade and can be easily reloaded through crafting, while the researchable Worm Skin armor will make you highly resistant to the splash damage they cause in anti-human mode.
It's a lateral approach instead of just big and obvious nerfs or buffs.
Another example is with localized pyrokinesis, in vanilla it makes you immune to incendiary explosions, and lately I've seen it getting "fixed" by making it grant resistance instead. Obviously no one will use it the way they did in vanilla.
I made it so it just costs more psi points and expires more quickly if your psi stat is low. Because there's no reason to take a sledgehammer to something people have been using for many years, when you can just leave it alone but make it more costly.

On each issue you mentioned:
- Repair has more uses the further you go into the game, so it seems you didn't explore enough, just off the top of my head there are multiple recharging stations that will shut down after one use and need repairs, and you can use repair to fix more objects after hack critical failure like security crates, or reverse the negative effect of a scrambler grenade, fix broken lockers, detach surgical keys, and probably more
I believe that having an abundance of broken weapons was never that popular with players. That includes the hybrid broken shotguns. It is too obvious and unimmersive, and kind of a sledgehammer approach when condition 1 weapons are awkward to use and maintenance skill requirements exist. I think it's a good idea to stay away from too many broken weapons and instead expand what repair can do.
- the original O/S upgrade situation is more unbalanced than the tweaked one, nearly all upgrade choices are bad, adding more good choices does not make balance worse, even if there's more work to do
About healing insane amounts, I'm afraid that's what healing glands and psi glands could always do, over time, your trait investment just makes the healing instant when in hypo form, if the regeneration was greater in some older version then that was surely fixed
- the issue with shooting security cameras being too easy and optimal was solved back in the 2000s and is mentioned in the docs as well as noticeable in-game, when you destroy a camera there won't be an alarm but there is a very high chance it will spawn a single enemy that will come to investigate, a micro-alarm in essence, the cleanest solution is to hack the camera itself which has no negative effects
- random loot is localized and implemented through a table on each specific container, so there's no runaway potential of you finding more CMs or powerful items than intended, and if you do miss something it's non-essential, especially by the end of the game, there's no issues with lacking Ice Picks either as essential equipment is pre-placed
- more guaranteed organ loot was considered a strict improvement when it was added, especially with the original monster counts where some monsters are not too numerous and the low organ drop chance could make the research a lot less useful if the organ arrived late
It's strange you would criticize very limited random loot in the previous point, but want more random loot here where it can have runaway potential and can define your damage output (+25% vs. the monster) through a large chunk of the game.
I believe the general usability of Research itself was also improved, some requirements were raised, annelid equipment that requires research was made more useful, and organs must be researched before you can use them in inventory combinations, including the previously completely useless organs like "grub organ" or "swarm organ".

In general there is a focus on balance, often by expanding options, beyond just adding features for features' sake.
Definitely appreciate the in-depth criticism and discussion, thanks. I get where you are coming from, and hopefully my answers are useful too.

[6666b0228f821sarge945]

Interesting discussion.

There's no hard feelings, just trying to figure out what you mean by unbalanced.
The problem with balancing by undermining dominant strategies is that it's notoriously unpopular with any established fanbase, avoiding that is quite sensible and takes more thought than just nerfing the dominant strategy.
It doesn't mean you can't nerf things at all, just that nerfing as a modus operandi will both make your work more unpopular and reduce the amount of fun creative work you have to do, just my perspective.

I'm glad there's no hard feelings.

I think we have very different approaches to balance. That's okay.

For me at least, I like to ask myself "as a player, why should I bother <doing whatever>? What advantage do I get?" such as "Why should I bother upgrading Research past 1, what advantage do I get?" to which the answer is "Not much, unless you're specifically an Exotic player and even then it's marginal outside of that". I see that answer as a problem.

I can understand why you might be hesitant to punish dominant strategies. SecMod has become one of the most popular mods (if not the most popular) for returning SS2 players, so you're obviously doing something right. At the same time, dominant strategies completely undermine that initial question, which is what makes them so awful in my opinion.

The way I see it, the fun comes from having to make tough choices and strategise around tradeoffs. Every benefit you get in one area will be a detriment in another area, and vice versa. When every skill is useful, you have to spend your CMs wisely. When there's one dominant strategy for skill choices, your CM investments are largely mindless - you already know ahead of time what the correct choice is.

Interestingly, you seem to have taken this approach to Repair already. The skill wasn't very useful, so the dominant strategy was to avoid Repair at all costs. As a result, you buffed it. While I may not like your overall approach for the reasons I specified, I can at least understand the reasoning behind it.

I just wish we could get the same treatment for other skills, such as Hack and Research. They fall off hard with more investment.

I don't know where the idea that balancing has to be done by nerfing/buffing came from. I totally can understand not wanting to balance things by adjusting damage values. I'm all for that approach to balancing. While reducing damage can remove a dominant strategy, I largely agree with you that it's a boring approach to balance, and I much prefer seeing things made more appealing in more roundabout ways, as I feel it makes the choices more interesting than just "these 2 weapons are largely the same now, and therefore balanced". My issue is not really with the fact that you're not strictly nerfing things. My issue is that I believe your balance mechanisms themselves are not condusive to balance or create other balance issues (like my Repair complaint about Marines Energy and Heavy paths being underwhelming).

I suppose this will forever be one of those cases where we fundamentally disagree on implementations and that's okay.

Quick examples on balancing weapons or psi:
Standard and Annelid weapons could be balanced by just bringing them to comparable offensive power.
I chose to deal with it by making it so Annelid weapons do not degrade and can be easily reloaded through crafting, while the researchable Worm Skin armor will make you highly resistant to the splash damage they cause in anti-human mode.
It's a lateral approach instead of just big and obvious nerfs or buffs.

This is actually a balance change I agree with. I actually suggested a similar change in RSD and something similar to it was implemented (although that was to do with one of the Worm implants inverting your damage resistance to annelid damage, rather than the wormskin doing it).

I have always felt that the biggest problem with Exotic is that they are available far too late to be useful, and when you do finally get your hands on them, they require so much upfront work (in the form of Research) to be usable, only to then end up completely useless against bots, very easy to kill yourself with, and largely underwhelming.

I'm glad you approached the issue of them being underwhelming and able to kill you easily. It might be worth considering going further with this. RSD adds a viral proliferator to Hydro, which I feel is a good idea for making Exotic actually somewhat viable as a weapon class, and I would suggest doing something similar in Secmod.

On each response:

"Repair has more uses the further you go into the game, so it seems you didn't explore enough, just off the top of my head there are multiple recharging stations that will shut down after one use and need repairs, and you can use repair to fix more objects after hack critical failure like security crates, or reverse the negative effect of a scrambler grenade, fix broken lockers, detach surgical keys, and probably more"

That's fair. I still feel that reducing the number of broken weapons is a bad idea, because of it's balance implications elsewhere. Also, I feel like breaking surgical beds and repair units will discourage people from using them (I understand it's likely to prevent abuse, but breaking after a single use feels somehow wrong). I feel like tying these to repair won't actually serve to make repair more useful, instead people just won't use them. For medbeds specifically, a better approach might be to remove the medbed keys from most if not all of the medbeds in the game, forcing players to choose carefully when they want to have a healing station available. Then, you would be able to increase the amount of times they can be used before breaking (maybe to 3 uses) without issue, since there would be a lot less usable medbeds overall. I feel that encourages a lot more strategy and decision making compared to having single-use medbeds available everywhere.

I believe that having an abundance of broken weapons was never that popular with players. That includes the hybrid broken shotguns. It is too obvious and unimmersive, and kind of a sledgehammer approach when condition 1 weapons are awkward to use and maintenance skill requirements exist. I think it's a good idea to stay away from too many broken weapons and instead expand what repair can do.

I get your point, although I think it's unpopular for very different reasons. I know FOMO is a big thing, and I think the way repair worked in the original game led to 2 negative outcomes. The first, the player doesn't get repair and as a result finds a weapon they can't use, which makes them feel bad. In the second case, they do get repair and use it to get a weapon, but then either find a working one shortly after, which is disappointing, or don't find anything else broken, making their skill investment feel wasted. This was a huge problem in Vanilla. I feel like the solution to that is to space out the weapon availability more (ie make it take longer to find fixed/high quality versions), make the broken versions better (like breaking the modified pistol in medsci2), and to increase the overall condition of broken weapons so you don't need repair AND maintenance just to make a weapon usable. Your approach seems to have been to remove the mechanic almost entirely, and replace it with "world repairs" instead. I guess that can work as a solution. The only issue is the overabundance of working early game weapons.

I feel that approach also creates an overreliance on Maintenance. Maintenance is generally a very good skill for everyone already - even if you never maintain a single item in the entire game, the bonus energy alone is great for every player, as it will massively benefit their implants and their power armour, and it's doubly useful for energy users for the same reason. If you DO decide to maintain your weapons, as long as you meet the skill requirements, there are so many maintenance tools available that it's usually very easy to keep at least a few guns in good condition always. I feel that this makes Maintenance a more generally useful skill than repair.

The issue with having a lot of early weapons available (especially condition 1 weapons) is that it further pushes Maintenance dominance. If I want good weapons as early as possible, I'm very well off taking maintenance since I can utilise the hybrid shotguns.

This is more of a personal preference thing, but I also feel that having a lot of available early weapons at decent quality undermines the survival horror aspect of SS2. One of the games best features is the resource scarcity, to the point where you feel like you're just struggling to find enough resources and barely scraping by. I feel that the weapon abundance early game sort of ruins this, as players can generally get equipped reasonably quickly.

Another example is with localized pyrokinesis, in vanilla it makes you immune to incendiary explosions, and lately I've seen it getting "fixed" by making it grant resistance instead. Obviously no one will use it the way they did in vanilla.
I made it so it just costs more psi points and expires more quickly if your psi stat is low. Because there's no reason to take a sledgehammer to something people have been using for many years, when you can just leave it alone but make it more costly.

I have always hated that power, in it's fundamental design. It granting resistance is a bug, and it became so ubiquitous that everyone wanted it to stick around. It always sucks when that happens because it again enforces a dominant strategy. If you're a psi user, the correct power to use for the cargo bays it this one. No other choice comes close. That's boring and stupid.

This is one of those hills I will always die on and I am very passionate about this particular Psi skill. Rant incoming.

By not fixing the initial design issue, the power is now actually two powers, a fire attack and a fire shield. The problem is that it basically cancels out large sections of the Cargo bays, and nullifies protocol droids. Getting rid of the resistance is absolutely the right thing to do, since there are already enough shield powers in the game, and it's such a lazy ability (fire and forget) to then cancel out a significant portion of the early game difficulty.

If it was up to me, I would redesign the power entirely, to something a bit more skill based. Something less lazy. Something like a once-off fire nova - you still get area damage, but in a much less "instant win" manner.

Overall this power is so good in it's current form that it's vastly superior to most third level powers. Tweaking it's cost and duration aren't going to help it, it's power is in it's utility, and short of a full redesign it will always be too good.

RSD reimplements partial resistance and it sucks there too.

- the original O/S upgrade situation is more unbalanced than the tweaked one, nearly all upgrade choices are bad, adding more good choices does not make balance worse, even if there's more work to do

Eh, I would argue that in the vanilla game, the really good O/S upgrades are obvious choices, but they aren't so fundamentally significantly better than everything else to make the others completely laughable (maybe with the exception of Security Expert and Spatially Aware). My point was that Tinker is now so amazingly good that I don't see much reason to pick ANY of the lesser powers. The good news is this doesn't matter much because it's an easy fix, it just means the other O/S upgrades need more work to be more appealing (the example I gave was Pack Rat, which is pretty useless. I would argue the reworked Security Expert is also pretty useless).

- the issue with shooting security cameras being too easy and optimal was solved back in the 2000s and is mentioned in the docs as well as noticeable in-game, when you destroy a camera there won't be an alarm but there is a very high chance it will spawn a single enemy that will come to investigate, a micro-alarm in essence, the cleanest solution is to hack the camera itself which has no negative effects

I know. I still don't think this solves the underlying problem. On most decks dealing with a single extra enemy is not a big deal (especially compared to constant alarm spawns), and then the camera is permanently dealt with.

It's a total shame what they did with Cameras in this game. I really wish taking a stealthy approach to them was a viable strategy. That's one of the aspects of Alarming Cameras that I like, but shooting cameras is still exploitable in that mod as well.

I once threw together an "indestructible cameras" mod as a proof of concept. It played surprisingly well. Needing to actually sneak past cameras (or hack them) and have them as a persistant threat when you return is something very special.

Obviously you're free to implement whatever solutions you feel are best, but personally I don't think cameras are ever going to be fun opponents with their current design, no matter how many extra elements or punishments or incentives are added. Their current gameplay just sucks too much at it's core.

random loot is localized and implemented through a table on each specific container, so there's no runaway potential of you finding more CMs or powerful items than intended, and if you do miss something it's non-essential, especially by the end of the game, there's no issues with lacking Ice Picks either as essential equipment is pre-placed

Fair enough. I had an inkling there was more to it than pure random, but couldn't put my finger on it.

- more guaranteed organ loot was considered a strict improvement when it was added, especially with the original monster counts where some monsters are not too numerous and the low organ drop chance could make the research a lot less useful if the organ arrived late
It's strange you would criticize very limited random loot in the previous point, but want more random loot here where it can have runaway potential and can define your damage output (+25% vs. the monster) through a large chunk of the game.
I believe the general usability of Research itself was also improved, some requirements were raised, annelid equipment that requires research was made more useful, and organs must be researched before you can use them in inventory combinations, including the previously completely useless organs like "grub organ" or "swarm organ".

I guess the difference with organs vs general random items is that the vanilla game had various guaranteed organ drops already. It was clear that you're supposed to find them eventually. In multiple instances, the first enemy of a type in the game is the one with the guaranteed organ. The problem is that they forgot a few instances, particularly the midwife, so it's easy to go most of the game without finding one.

I guess my main issue was with CMs, which I thought were truly random. That really does affect you throughout the whole game - a variance of even 10% in CM counts is massive. Finding an organ 10 minutes later is not a big deal.

I actually like that the previously useless organs have some value. Keeping those highly-reliable to find is probably a positive step, since you're adding something new to the game and expanding the possibilities, and eggs and worms are a limited resource. But what's the point of having extra Hybrid organs everywhere when the first one in the game already drops one?

Also one important thing to consider: The number of eggs in the game is preset and inherently limited. On the other hand, creatures respawn, and it's not infrequent to find entire decks repopulated (especially since I think Secmod has upped the respawn time or something, they seem a lot more numerous here). Having creature organs be farmable is more significant than making otherwise unfarmable eggs have usable organs, especially if those effects are extremely powerful.

Definitely appreciate the in-depth criticism and discussion, thanks. I get where you are coming from, and hopefully my answers are useful too.

I am a member of a large number of modding communities, and in a significant number of cases, people shitfight over the dumbest things. I'm kind of glad the SS2 modding community is a bit more mature than that. Thanks for the in-depth discussion.

To hopefully provide some more positive, useful information and get something of value out of this discussion, I have a few change suggestions (with reasons) below. I don't expect you to actually implement any of them, since it's clear we have very different understandings and interpretations of balance, but I do believe they would make the mod better. These are obviously just my opinions, feel free to completely ignore them.

Repair changes

The problems:
- Marine career choices are underwhelming because you get similar weapons very quickly, and in better condition
- Weapon overabundance early reduces the "survival horror" and resource management aspects, especially for energy since your available ammo pool is effectively doubled by finding 2 laser pistols in quick succession.
- Usable hybrid shotguns benefits Maintenance over Repair, further promoting an already very good skill.

Some possible solutions:
- Give the Marines starting weapons a modification/upgrade to differentiate them from the ones in the world
- Remove the Grenade Launcher hybrid from the chem room in medsci1 (or break his grenade launcher). At the bare minimum lower it's condition. It's kind of ironic that we can find a good 5-condition grenade launcher in the first map but find a broken busted one in the second map. That's not good weapon progression.

Security

The problems:
- Shooting cameras is as busted as it is in the vanilla game, with or without an extra enemy spawn.
- Once cameras are dealt with, they are no longer a threat
- Hack 1 on security consoles makes them far too easy to bypass in general.

Some possible solutions:
- Increase the health of cameras to discourage shooting them, as they are more likely to spot you if they survive longer, and will waste more ammo to deal with
- Make shooting them set off the alarm proper, rather than a "mini alarm"
- RSD increases the Hack requirement for security stations to 3 (and moves replicators to 1). This makes bypassing cameras require significantly more investment. The Security Expert O/S upgrade was also changed to provide +2 bonus that CAN cound towards requirements, essentially lowering the hack requirement to 1 again. This fixes both issues - cameras are harder to bypass, and the Security Expert upgrade is less useless. I would recommend something similar here.
- Modify Remote Electron Tampering to disable all active alarms completely. This gives PSI users an alternative to using Hacking on security terminals, and makes an otherwise useless psi discipline vastly more useful. It might seem odd that a potential solution to cameras being useless is to make an ability even better against them, but since it requires CM and Psi point investment to use, it should become a worthy tradeoff and thus make the game more interesting, rather than further running cameras into the ground. It can actually already do this, it just takes ~7 casts to completely remove the alarm at max PSI.

Organs

The Problems:
- Overabundance of organs and no real investment required to get that 25% damage bonus. In Vanilla it's a crapshoot - organs are easy to research, but you might get unlucky and not find a Midwife organ until halfway through ops or recreation. In Secmod it's almost guaranteed that you'll get an organ nearly straight away, and get the damage bonus very quickly. In my opinion this is really boring and introduces power creep because almost all players will have the 25% damage boost from organs as they are easy to research and easy to find.

Some possible solutions:
- Replace the overabundance of organ loot with a few guaranteed organ drops, similar to vanilla. This should keep the bonus available ASAP without bloat. Add in the few missing cases where there was no guaranteed loot (midwife etc).
- Stagger organ research requirements over research skill levels, ala RSD. Hybrid requires research 1, Monkey Brain requires 2, Midwife Organ requires 3, etc etc. This is a middle ground between the current system and vanilla. Organs are still easy to find and there's a low degree of randomness, but there's also interesting gameplay around research skill investment, and not all players will have the 25% bonus against all enemies, allowing them to make tradeoffs between CM investment and difficulty.

Keep the current egg organ system as is. Making useless organs more usable and tying them to an inherently limited resource (eggs) is good.

[6666b0228ff2eThiefsieFool]

As far as things that are likely to change in the next update, probably the early grenade launcher hybrid in Medsci will have a broken launcher, while some weak O/S upgrades like Pack Rat and Power Psi will get some kind of buff, whenever I hear back from NV.  Probably about it since I have my arguments for not changing things.

Exotic Weapons
I'm pretty sure that the Exotic skill is always viable, which is why I didn't move the worm guns to appear significantly earlier in the game.
The reason for this is the Crystal Shard is always a popular melee option, and every single point in Exotic makes it stronger. The worm guns are most useful when heavy organic enemies appear, and that's roughly when the worm guns appear too. I'm not opposed to moving worm guns earlier, but it's not a pressing problem.

Stations and Med Beds
When the handful of damaged recharging stations break on you it might feel like the end of the world, but you have ways to deal with it, and it actually feels really impactful to save and deploy an Auto-Repair Unit now, where before there weren't really any exceptional cases where an Auto-Repair Unit was a life saver, the way an Ice Pick can be at the end of the game for example.
Med Beds will not break actually. Repair is only used to allow you to remove the keys and use them again later on an incomplete med bed, with a reduced number of keys on higher difficulty this can be very useful.

Careers
I don't believe the Careers were ever in the scope of the mod. They were not changed at all. It's well known the majority of players either don't care about the branches or just select Navy out of habit. It's something that would take serious focus to really fix, and create the additional problem of making the army branches actually different and impactful choices.
That creates the additional problem that most players don't really care for anything besides hybrid builds in SS2 anyway, which is why Navy, the most flexible career, is so popular in the first place. Careers were never that important to the game.
It is kind of an issue that the grenade launcher hybrid in Medsci impacts the Marine weapon drop though. That is a good example of something that should probably be fixed even if it's not a big deal.

Repair
While Repair did get buffed, it was still in a lateral fashion, the direct buff would have been to make it rival Maintenance when it comes to keeping weapons functional, i.e you repair a weapon and it rockets up to 5/10 condition or so. I didn't go for that, and since Irrational already experimented with world repairs here and there, it seemed good to expand that.

Localized Pyro
I'm afraid there is nothing to indicate that immunity is a bug, the ability is configured to grant incendiary immunity in the only way it could be configured to do so, it is not possible to distinguish any mistake.
Incendiary immunity's usefulness is limited, enemy-wise it will protect you from protocol droid explosions and red monkey attacks, and only if you have it up at the right time. Red monkeys also do not spawn in the Cargo Bays. This is only overpowered on paper, not while immersed in the action. And then the other tweaks come in as well.

If I were to really try and nerf it, I would probably make it so it cannot be combined with other defensive shield powers. I already made it so you cannot combine Minor Shield, Major Shield and Energy Shield, and have to choose the best one for the job instead of having a boring routine of stacking all of them. Localized Pyro could be added to that list of powers that exclude each other from being used simultaneously, but it's really just not necessary. "100% fire resistance for a short time" is something that only sounds scary on paper and in Excel spreadsheets, which is the polar opposite of how I do balance.

This reminds me that Localized Pyro even inspired a very similar ability in a game that takes inspiration from SS2, it functions roughly the same way and it's not overpowered there either: https://stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Exothermic_Aura

Research
I believe Research requirements were tweaked a long time ago in this mod, at the very least 2 and 3 for some organs, higher for the researchable implants and weapons which are more useful now. Research projects with higher requirements were also added, like researching the egg goo organ which improves the efficiency of toxin hypos, something that can be very useful.

Security
My thought is there is no reason to alter the start of the game so aggressively. It might fit a modding mindset of transforming the game and noticing changes as soon as a run starts. But it's not necessary.
As soon as you start progressing through the game, hacking security will become more and more difficult, even if the base requirement is 1, it will become nearly impossible to brute force hack a security panel with a low skill investment, and nanites will be wasted if you get through. This is kinda how you would expect the game to work, not everything is supposed to start at the maximum difficulty level and present insurmountable barriers as soon as the game begins, both the enemy selection and the skill checks throw you a few "softballs" to begin with, before the real action starts.

Additionally, spawning enemies by destroying cameras can spawn anything from the alarm table's enemies, it's not a light decision to shoot every camera in a level because it could result in you spawning the strongest enemy from the alarm table (cyborg assassin? rumbler?) with each kill. The pressure to consider hacking security or hacking the camera is felt.

[6666b02290167ThiefsieFool]

It is patch time.
Feel free to integrate these when it's time for an update, Voodoo.

Changes:
- Pack Rat trait now also grants you +1 Strength (as an active buff rather than as a direct stat increase)
- Power Psi trait now also grants you the ability to deal light damage to objects you enter in contact with
- Hazard Suit and Osmium-Enhanced Hazard Suit grant 10% and 20% resistance against common damage types, down from 15% and 30%, they still grant very high resistance against hazards and cold/incendiary/shock damage
- the grenade launcher hybrid in Medsci now drops a broken grenade launcher
- ambient music added to Body of the Many and Where am I




[SECMOD UPDATE X.zip expired]

[6666b022902b5voodoo47]

sure, will be up in the next 24hrs (I'll probably run to the first OS upgrade station and check quickly or something).

[6666b0229062cThiefsieFool]

voodoo47nice, and if you want to test traits, you can just go "summon_obj trait machine"