GMDXv9.0 Release

[Shadowdancerxxl]

Also about the soda machine. I don't know why, but I'd also like to see a can of lemon lime (or maybe more) either on the table next to the machine or being left on the floor : DD Like Gunther is like "Fuck this, I'm not going to drink this shit! I wanted ORANGE!"

[Made in China]

Incredibly tired, but more random thoughts:
Ammo balancing - I remember not seeing a lot of pistol AP ammo, flare darts and taser darts and it seems like a wasted opportunity. Also making NPCs using that ammo with greater skill is probably a good idea.
Want more diverse NPCs? Instead of giving them all rifles, give some of them pistols with AP rounds.
Want to have a saner police in Paris, with guards in the subway that aren't armed to the teeth? Give them taser darts! As a bonus (and being a pretty late level) the taser darts can not only be treated as environmental damage and slow you down, but also drain your energy.
Want NPCs who can torch you but aren't an immediate death sentence? Give them flare darts and the "skill" to torch you. Seeing as it's more improvised, I can see it being in the hands of "terrorist" groups like Silhouette.

Speaking of torching you, make the flamethrower leave a lingering flame. The inherent risk of setting yourself on fire is a must-have in every flamethrower.

Just a reminder - very, very tired. I'm not sure I'm making any sense right now.

[RoSoDude]

I don't see why ADS should be changed to an EMP forcefield, which is inconsistent with the datacube describing the ADS... to be consistent with the datacube describing Walton Simon's ADS. That's pretty nonsensical. Also, I think the ADS is quite balanced as an aug, if a little clunky to use, compared with the Spy Drone.

However, I do agree that Walton should have an active ADS, but it needn't operate at as far a range as the maxed out version the player can attain. In fact, it could allow WS to be splash damaged by larger explosions, but not fully killed as easily as he is with LAMs in vanilla if you just bait his conversation trigger into them like I did. God, that was cheap.

Other suggestions: grumble grumble something about the laser mod. Still think it's woefully OP, but still don't like Shifter's implementation, IDK what to do.

Dumb idea in the past was to have a multiplier on crowbar's damage to crates, doors, etc. to make up for its large size in inventory, but that's also pretty gamey. Since the health of inanimate objects comes in discrete quantities, the multiplier could be useless (still the same number of swings required) or OP (surpasses certain damage threshholds too readily).

Still like the idea of medkits/biocells in the secondary slot and see no reason to nerf them.

Any thoughts on the balance of Hazmat suits/Environmental Protection aug? I've heard complaints about their value ever since Swimming got buffed and Rebreathers made rare, and can sorta understand the criticism. One could make the argument that energy drain should start out higher and scale with upgrades, but have the aug yield a higher % protection that scales a little less heavily on the upgrade level. I like the idea that energy management become the key factor in exploring hazardous areas rather than spamming medkits.

If you don't revert the riot prod (and baton, which i've added to the list of HDTP weapons I don't like), I'll figure out how to do it myself. Not a threat, just a fact lol. Probably a good thing if I ever try to figure out how to get some animation stuff I've been toying around with in Blender imported (oh yeah, I've been doing that, but progress is slow and I'm not excited to even think about the import process so whatever).

[Shadowdancerxxl]

Incredibly tired, but more random thoughts:
Ammo balancing - I remember not seeing a lot of pistol AP ammo, flare darts and taser darts and it seems like a wasted opportunity. Also making NPCs using that ammo with greater skill is probably a good idea.
Want more diverse NPCs? Instead of giving them all rifles, give some of them pistols with AP rounds.
Want to have a saner police in Paris, with guards in the subway that aren't armed to the teeth? Give them taser darts! As a bonus (and being a pretty late level) the taser darts can not only be treated as environmental damage and slow you down, but also drain your energy.
Want NPCs who can torch you but aren't an immediate death sentence? Give them flare darts and the "skill" to torch you. Seeing as it's more improvised, I can see it being in the hands of "terrorist" groups like Silhouette.

Speaking of torching you, make the flamethrower leave a lingering flame. The inherent risk of setting yourself on fire is a must-have in every flamethrower.

Just a reminder - very, very tired. I'm not sure I'm making any sense right now.

I'd dig that. Except for the AP ammo, because doesn't that deal less damage to organic targets than the regular 10mm? Although having npcs that carry some AP bullets around for extra pick up would be cool.

[Made in China]

The more I think about it, giving NPCs more ammo and weapon diversity is a must. Deus Ex already had PC-only weapons (such as the LAW, PS20, 20mm HE grenades, and all non-lethal weapons), and by increasing the diversity and limiting to be player-only it just makes the game world seem more drab.

Why not arm guards with batons and have them clobber you? Why is everyone using swords in China? Are we back to the middle ages?

Why does a military unit not have specific roles for its soldiers? Most should carry assault rifles, that's a given - but having a demolitions expert, a marksman, and/or a medic (an NPC that can apply a slow heal to other NPCs) is probably a good idea.

Also, I think I've posted my ammo count somewhere in this thread near the end-game - having ~10 taser rounds and ~15 flare rounds for the entire game isn't good, and they have to be either peppered in by replacing other ammo lying in the world or NPCs carrying them instead of other weapons - they cannot be bought or given, due to lack of voice lines.

[Shadowdancerxxl]

I don't see why ADS should be changed to an EMP forcefield, which is inconsistent with the datacube describing the ADS... to be consistent with the datacube describing Walton Simon's ADS. That's pretty nonsensical. Also, I think the ADS is quite balanced as an aug, if a little clunky to use, compared with the Spy Drone.

However, I do agree that Walton should have an active ADS, but it needn't operate at as far a range as the maxed out version the player can attain. In fact, it could allow WS to be splash damaged by larger explosions, but not fully killed as easily as he is with LAMs in vanilla if you just bait his conversation trigger into them like I did. God, that was cheap.

Yeah well, I wouldn't mind Simons having a regular ADS aug even if it detonates rockets in the player's face. I simply tried to come up with something different since CyberP thought this way the ADS would be kinda cheap. I also think a shorter range would do the job just fine.

Other suggestions: grumble grumble something about the laser mod. Still think it's woefully OP, but still don't like Shifter's implementation, IDK what to do.

Personally, aside from giving you a laser dot I would give the gun some extra % accuracy in the stats. So it would work like a 6. accuracy mod. Means no perfect accuracy from the start like it's now.

Dumb idea in the past was to have a multiplier on crowbar's damage to crates, doors, etc. to make up for its large size in inventory, but that's also pretty gamey. Since the health of inanimate objects comes in discrete quantities, the multiplier could be useless (still the same number of swings required) or OP (surpasses certain damage threshholds too readily).

Yeah well it's a game after all. There are a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense. Don't know about doors, but crates could really only be one hit. I mean it's just a power-up.

Any thoughts on the balance of Hazmat suits/Environmental Protection aug? I've heard complaints about their value ever since Swimming got buffed and Rebreathers made rare, and can sorta understand the criticism. One could make the argument that energy drain should start out higher and scale with upgrades, but have the aug yield a higher % protection that scales a little less heavily on the upgrade level. I like the idea that energy management become the key factor in exploring hazardous areas rather than spamming medkits.

Personally I'd turn the environmental protection aug into a passive one and only drain energy if protecting the user from something. About the energy management: Yeah it could be like the cloak where with upgrades only the power drain gets reduced. About the Hazmat suit: I don't know, I think it's okay. Maybe it could offer better protection.

[Shadowdancerxxl]

The more I think about it, giving NPCs more ammo and weapon diversity is a must. Deus Ex already had PC-only weapons (such as the LAW, PS20, 20mm HE grenades, and all non-lethal weapons), and by increasing the diversity and limiting to be player-only it just makes the game world seem more drab.

Why not arm guards with batons and have them clobber you? Why is everyone using swords in China? Are we back to the middle ages?

Why does a military unit not have specific roles for its soldiers? Most should carry assault rifles, that's a given - but having a demolitions expert, a marksman, and/or a medic (an NPC that can apply a slow heal to other NPCs) is probably a good idea.

Also, I think I've posted my ammo count somewhere in this thread near the end-game - having ~10 taser rounds and ~15 flare rounds for the entire game isn't good, and they have to be either peppered in by replacing other ammo lying in the world or NPCs carrying them instead of other weapons - they cannot be bought or given, due to lack of voice lines.

Well GMDX does diversify the npcs inventory, but yeah it could be taken to a new level. Like when you get ambushed by mj12 in new york third visit. Why everyone has an assault rifle? Why not a few with shotguns, stealth pistols, crossbows loaded with taser darts and so on?

And yeah taser and flare darts available to the player is rather scarce. 10mm AP as well, or at least they could maybe do more damage vs inorganic targets. I mean I've wasted my entire playthrough's 10mm AP ammo on like 2 cameras xd

[Shadowdancerxxl]

Also since it's random idea time:

I still the new limited repairbot and medicalbot usage is a bit clunky. I mean I like the idea not giving the player unlimited energy and health, but this 2 shots and it's gone system seems kinda odd, because if I'm at 80% energy and I'd like to max it out, bam 1 shot is already gone. A more elegant way was in Smoke's mod (I think, don't quote me on that I could be wrong) is that instead of offering 2 shots both the medical bot and repair bot offered a certain amount of healthpoints. Let's say 300 HP for the medical bot. That means if the player would require let's say 60, then it would only drain 60 points from the medical bot still leaving 240 on it. Same goes for the repair bot. The advanced hacking perk could then modify the bots to give you 500 points. Of course the 300 and 500 points are just an example. It would be up to CyberP to figure out the exact numbers.

A little invisible war idea: human npcs could react to disabled bots as well. So if an npc spots a robot that has been deactivated then he might think of raising the alarm or at least get suspicious and look around the place.

On that note robots could also go into suspicious mode if they spot a corpse/unconscious body.

Also about unconscious bodies. Would it be possible if a human npc spots and unconscious body he then runs to it and crouches down near it like as if he would check for a pulse, then get back up and either raise the alarm or go into suspicious mode as normal? By dead bodies of course they would act like now, because in Deus Ex if you kill an npc they will have a big pool of blood around them so checking for a pulse might seem a bit unnecessary. Although, I might be wrong there.
I know this feature wouldn't serve much purpose, but it would be kinda cool : DD

[Cybernetic pig]

Sigh. I just wrote a massive post responding to everyone and when I hit submit I was logged out and lost everything. Usually returning to the previous page restores it, but it didn't happen this time.

The gist of things was no, yes, maybe, cool idea, that's already addressed in v9.0.

[Made in China]

Consider installing Lazarus for Firefox. Saved my ass many times over, especially with government sites that crash whenever you need them most.

[Made in China]

Stupid question, but will probably help people improve on the random ideas suggested here - what ideas did you decide to adopt, then?

Another random idea, but this one very much outside the scope of GMDX - but not outside the scope of mods built on top of GMDX: Proper hacking.
Proper hacking that once you're in, won't restrict you to a timer.
Proper hacking that doesn't involve the stupid DXHR nodes.
Proper hacking that's, well, more in line with with TNM's DXI hacking puzzle. Maybe with higher skill levels or less secure computers you could bypass that puzzle and retain the original "press to win", but hacking using a time consuming puzzle that involves you going through data structures is probably a better way to handle that skill progression, rather than restricting the time you have on a certain computer.

[Cybernetic pig]

Fine, I'll give it another go.

Bots reacting to carcasses: possibly. There's no audio reaction though.

Taser darts for enemies late game: possibly.

10mm AP ammo for enemies: no point. It'd function the same as normal 10mm vs the player.

NPCs checking allies' pulse: good idea, but no anim.

Laser mod: as has been stated before, when using the laser mod the dynamic xhairs no longer draw when aiming at a target (which acted as target confirmation) in v9.0, making medium-long range shooting with the laser difficult.

Environmental aug/aualung aug: these are both potentially better in v9.0 if you use the "augmentation override canister" on them. No spoilers.

Limited medbot/rep bots usage on higher difficulties: I prefer it as it is from a gameplay POV.

Taser dart quantity: they are rare because they are very powerful. Even late game MiBs don't stand a chance. 1 taser dart, follow up with almost any kind of attack and he's done for.

ADS: note that Simons is only tough on hardcore mode. On all other difficulties he is comparable to a MiB. Anyhow, I prefer him having energy shield vs explosives as opposed to ADS. A player that has never used ADS before or didn't pay close attention to the Simons image probably would not have a clue why their rockets are exploding in mid-air or their wall mines are blowing up for seemingly no reason and will scream bug. Additionally, if the ADS is set to detonate a few feet away from simons so that it still damages him somewhat and doesn't explode in the player's face, it will ensure any explosive you blindly toss/fire in his direction will hurt him, rather than having the potential to miss. Energy Shield is more skill-based.
Also even if you were to toss a grenade or something close range to simons (bounce it off a wall while running away or aim the grenade straight down) it'd instantly explode and again, a sizable chunk of players will not have a damn clue why.

NY MJ12 ambush: yes, I'll give them a little diversity in weapons.

10mm AP ammo amounts: there's an extra box or two in v9.0 and cameras have slightly less HP and therefore take less AP to destroy. Damage threshold remains the same for obvious reasons.

Lingering fire from flamethrower: don't have the art assets for it.

Gunther Lemon Lime: there's no lemon lime skin.

Kim Wincen brought up a good point about the soda vending machine - in HDTP, the lemon lime is really far away from orange.
I don't suggest scrapping it - it still looks good. I'm suggesting swapping the labels through the magic of the Photoshop lasso tool - it should be a pretty easy texture fix.

Reluctantly, I'll do it. I hate fiddling around with texture editing programs.

"Why is everyone using swords in China? Are we back to the middle ages?"

Triads use swords in China because of the gunfire sensors. I rather they didn't but it's a somewhat well defined vanilla thing.

Why not arm guards with batons and have them clobber you?

There is the occasional NPC with a baton (police) but they rarely pull them out.

Also, my thoughts on DX NPC melee in general:

Enemies don't have limitless ammo, just a lot more. It takes away from the realism aspect but does a lot for gameplay, and even counter-intuitively, improves realism as enemies don't get their knife out and start running in circles, waving it in the air when they can't reach you (e.g hiding in vents), and generally being unable to hit you if you simply keep moving because of the way DX NPC melee works. I am in the process of addressing all those individual things but I won't set enemy ammo counts back to vanilla because it just makes for far better gameplay.

Vanilla human NPC melee behavior should be avoided at nearly all costs. It's essentially:

Find path toward player. -> Attack (and guaranteed to miss if the player is moving).

If player cannot be reached, stand still waving knife in air and occasionally run in circles.

And that's about it.

In this state they're not agile, intelligent, diverse, competent, they're not even the slightest bit of a threat. Their slow movement speed becomes apparent too.
There's very little animations associated with melee behavior. Melee attack 1, melee attack 2. That's it. Same two anims for all weapons. I personally can do nothing about that.
To melee attack, NPCs have to first stop moving. I can't do anything about that because of the two anims.
NPCs finding a path to you = more chances of pileups in doors. More chance of NPC friendly fire due to the inaccuracy system.

It was the absolute most unpolished aspect of vanilla AI.

I've neglected addressing much of this stuff directly because it's far simpler, and more importantly far better for gameplay and Immersion to simply get rid of it, and there's not a whole lot of point in even trying. I wouldn't be able to address it to a satisfactory extent because many things just don't gel well with it, I've no animator, and aspects of navigation code inherent to the engine is out of my reach.
There's still the occasional enemy that will run out of ammo real fast for realism and diversity in the vanilla's spirit, but all the dumbfuckery after the fact becomes apparent if you don't happen to immediately put them out of their misery.

So aside from The Triads with their swords, the player shooting a weapon out of the NPCs hand, and the rare NPC that does run out of ammo fast, the only meleeing happening should be the new GMDX individual melee attack systems for the dog, humans, commandoes, greasels etc. Much better stuff.

[Made in China]

Well, the thing with China is...
There's a ton of weapons which aren't firearms in Deus Ex. Limiting yourself to swords isn't an excuse (not referring to you, CP - I'm referring to Warren Spector).

Crossbow and its variants (which should be far more common there), throwing knives, crowbars, batons, riot prods (which aren't used at all by NPCs, IIRC), pepper sprays, combat knives (which shouldn't be used), and the creme de la creme - flamethrowers. I'll do anything to see a Red Arrow member fire one up when engaging the MJ12 commandos.

Maybe someone should have a silenced rifle or a stealth pistol, as those are made to circumvent restrictions. Probably a high-ranking leader, like someone from the conference room before Max Chen.

EDIT: Also, 10mm AP ammo having no effect on the player - well, not having it in there makes it have no effect on the player. The passive armor aug and the ballistic armor could take more energy when dealing with those things - but that isn't the point. The point is that it's there so if the player loots the NPC's body, they can get AP rounds. This is half the point of making enemies use diverse weapons.

[Cybernetic pig]

I've not touched the civilian's weaponry in Hong Kong. Before I gave some throwing knives, but it was pointed out that Triad code states they don't use throwing knives. Although in hindsight exceptions could probably be made for DX triads because of the gunfire sensors severely limiting their options.

In HK you see almost exclusively swords on the Triads, the drug dealers in the canal use crowbar and prod, mostly everyone else except police is unarmed.

Flamethrowers are near ineffective vs commandos.

Triads pretty much all have swords presumably not only because of real life Triad code, but also because in DX lore said code is taken to the extreme: a big deal is made over swords, and getting their hands on the superior sword (Dragon's Tooth).

[Cybernetic pig]

Nonetheless I'm open to handing out one or two stealth pistols or mini-xbows. It makes a ton of sense for the Triads to be able to actually protect their club/leader from assassins or what have you adequately and vanilla there were exceptions, such as Max Chen and his Sawed-off.