//=================================// Shifter for Deus Ex Version 1.8.2 //=================================// INTRODUCTION: Shifter is my little attempt at "removing the suck" from Deux Ex. Not to say that Deux Ex sucks by any means, but that there were certain aspects of the game which could have been changed for the better, mostly in the areas of weapons/items. One of the things that drives me batty with any game is when you are given weapons or items that are useless for one reason or another. In Deus Ex there were several instances of items that were never useful or were useful only for short periods of time. (As well as a few which were very nice but you rarely came across, e.g. throwing knives) Therefore, being the (relatively) competent coder that I am I took it upon myself to remedy these problems. I have been told that my mod is part of a so-called "Holy Trinity of Deus Ex upgrade goodness," namely the part that improves the gameplay. I feel I should mention the other two parts of the trinity, namely Project HDTP (found at http://offtopicproductions.com/hdtp/) and Chris Dohnal's enhanced OpenGL and Direct3D8 rendering engines for Deus Ex. (found at http://cwdohnal.home.mindspring.com/utglr/) HDTP will make the game look absolutely stunning, while the new rendering engines will keep the game's visuals free of the kind of aliasing and intersection artifacts that usually plague older games when run on newer hardware. INSTALLATION: The most basic installation procedure -- the only one I'll cover -- is to go to your DeusEx\System directory and replace your existing DeusEx.u and DeusEx.int files with the ones in the Zip file. I highly recommend you make backup copies of each file just in case you want to switch back for some reason. (e.g. multiplayer) Doing this will ensure that Shifter runs *with* other mods, meaning that any other new singleplayer maps/levels/plots you play will use Shifter rules, with some few exceptions. (Hotel Carone will not use the new skill system, for example) If you want to install Shifter so that you are still able to play unmodified Deus Ex without having to swap files, please read the file "Advanced.txt" for detailed instructions. **PLEASE NOTE** You MUST have the v1112fm patch installed to run Shifter (The Game of the Year edition comes prepatched, usually) PLEASE NOTE THE "M" AT THE END OF THE PATCH TITLE. You MUST install the MULTIPLAYER patch. If, after installation, you get an error mentioning "FloatProperty Streak" when you try to run Deus Ex then you do *not* have v1112fm installed. **PLEASE ALSO NOTE** The second file you need to replace is DeusEx.inT. The "T" at the end is not a typo. If you replace DeusEx.inI the game will not run! **HDTP RELEASE #1 USERS** You need to move or copy the HDTPanim.utx file into your C:\DeusEx\Textures folder for Shifter to work properly with HDTP. This file is installed to C:\DeusEx\HDTP\Textures by default. A BRIEF FAQ-TYPE THING: No readme would be complete without a FAQ, and believe me, I do hear a lot of the same questions over and over and over again. So, in no particular order whatsoever: - I CAN'T FIND THE ALT-FIRE BUTTON: Look up two paragraphs. You need to make sure you've replaced the DeusEx.inT file in your C:\DeusEx\System folder with the one I've included in the zip file. Alt-Fire is the third button down in the button list, but if you're using the default DeusEx.inT file it will list it as "Drop Weapon". The real "Drop Weapon" key is located just below it, in what used to be "Put Away Item". "Put Away Item" is now at the very bottom of the list. - CAN I USE YOUR MOD AS PART OF MY MOD, OR USE PARTS OF YOUR CODE: Yes, as a matter of fact you can. I'm very much an open-source kind of guy. The only requirement I have is that you 1) have a readme, and 2) note in it that you used my code as part of your mod. You don't have to go into incredible detail about what specific sections you used or anything, but do at least try to mention how much of my code you used. - WHY DON'T YOU HAVE AN INSTALLER: Because I don't know where to find a free one and I'm too lazy to write my own. I can't just use a self- extracting installer either; I need something that will copy existing files, move them, and modify them in addition to extracting my stuff. (Basically, something to do the Advanced Install automatically) - OMG MY GAME CRASHED WHY: Umm... "crashed" how? Did it just close? What was the error message? What were you doing in the game at the time? If you can't answer two out of three of these I probably won't be able to help you. If you can then I should be able to figure it out. - MY GAME CRASHED, SOMETHING ABOUT FLOATING STREAKERS OR SOMETHING: You mean "FloatProperty Streak"? That invariably means that you don't have v1112fm installed properly. No, this doesn't mean you did it wrong, just that sometimes the patch doesn't, well, patch all the way. This is surprisingly common with the Game of the Year edition, which supposedly comes pre-patched. Just go get the v1112fm patch -- NOT v1112f -- off of FilePlanet and install it, then reinstall Shifter. - I SAVED MY GAME IN SHIFTER AND NOW IT WON'T OPEN IN NORMAL DEUS EX: This is unavoidable, unfortunately. Shifter has a number of items in it that normal Deus Ex does not. Regardless of whether or not you pick up any of these items one or two will get saved into your savegame. Deus EX will try to load the items, find it can't and stop trying to load the savegame. - HOW CAN I MAKE YOUR MOD WORK WITH "X" MOD: This really depends on the mod in question. As I mentioned, Shifter works "out of the box" with most "mission" mods, e.g. those which add new missions, such as Zodiac. However, I do get occasional requests for instructions on making my mod work with mods like Smoke's Mod, i.e. those which don't add new missions but simply change the rules of the game. The problem is that my mod and mods like Smoke's modify the *same* file (DeusEx.u) in order to work. The only way to run the two together would be for someone (e.g. myself or Smoke) to "merge" the two mods, which would take time. - DOES YOUR MOD WORK WITH HDTP: Yes, it does! HDTP is the exception to the above answer, because I have gone out of my way to make Shifter compatible with HDTP. I have spent a good amount of time adding code to Shifter so that it will automatically load up the HDTP textures and models if it finds them, but will default to the normal Deus Ex ones if it can't. This only happens the FIRST time you load each map, so if you install HDTP in the middle of a play-through the current level won't get the HDTP facelift. - DOES YOUR MOD WORK WITH THE STEAM VERSION OF DEUS EX: From what I've been told by various folks, apparently Shifter is 100% compatible with the version of Deus Ex you can purchase via Valve's Steam program. I'm still in the process of testing it fully myself, but all indicators are that the functional enhancements of Shifter cause no problems with Steam and are not impeded by the program at all. However, certain other mods (like HDTP) may require some extra configuration to get working. - WHERE IS THE SHIFTER HOMEPAGE: You can find the Shifter homepage at http://yukichigai.googlepages.com/shifter. I also have an account over at ModDB (http://mods.moddb.com/8002/shifter/) which is where I usually post news items, ramblings, and other such things. There's always the SaveFile project page for it, where you can get the latest version. (http://tinyurl.com/2b5k82) I upload to FilePlanet semi-regularly, though not as often as to SaveFile. I also update a thread in the Eidos Forums about Shifter. (http://tinyurl.com/zxehg) Finally, if you want the bleeding-edge latest version you can get my most current source files from Google Code, under the account "shifterdx". SPECIFICS: Weapon Modifications: - Assault Rifle: Increased the amount of 7.62 ammo you pick up from corpses. (8-12 rounds, up from 1-4) - Baton: Does a tiny bit more damage. (one point) - Combat Knife: You can now carry 6 Combat Knives at once. This is important since you can throw them using Alt-Fire. - Crowbar: Increased the damage to make it worth two item slots. - Explosive Rounds: I have placed a few boxes of explosive 10mm ammo in a few places throughout the game. This ammo is somewhat scarce, as the amount of damage it allows a basic pistol to do is quite remarkable. - Grenades: You can now switch between the various grenade types by pressing "Change Ammo" when holding a grenade. - Hand to Hand Weapons: You can also cycle between hand to hand weapons (e.g. Knives, Swords) similar to how you can with grenades. In addition, most Hand to Hand weapons have an Alt-Fire mode, which simply throws the weapon. - Laser Sight Mod: A weapon equipped with a Laser Sight will come up with the laser automatically activated. The laser "dot" will now wander about within the range of your accuracy. When you fire the weapon, the bullet will go EXACTLY where the laser is pointing. You can still turn the laser on/off if you have a key bound to it, though why you would want to is beyond me. - Mini-Crossbow: Flare Darts will now set NPCs on fire. The length of this burn is half of what you would get from the Flamethrower. - Pepper Spray: Increased the live time of the pepper spray cloud. (Up to about 3 seconds from < 0.1 seconds) This means you can actually stun people without having to practically stand on them. As an interesting and as yet unexplained side-effect, Greasels now shoot Tear Gas in addition to their poisonous spit. - PS20: Increased the damage and the explosion radius of the projectile it fires. Worth using even late in the game now. You can also carry multiple PS20s in your inventory, should you feel the need. - Scope: You no longer have to wait between shots to zoom in/out. Much less annoying, much more realistic. - Stealth Pistol: Increased the rate of fire and damage by a slight amount. - Throwing Knives: Reduced the spread and increased the damage. - Unique Weapons: Taking a page from Invisible War, I have added in a number of Unique weapons. Some have been added as separate pickups, some were added in via other means. You'll have to keep your eyes peeled and your curiosity high to find them. - Weapon Accuracy: Originally, Deus Ex was somewhat inconsistent in how it displayed and calculated the accuracy of a weapon. Firstly, the crosshair's range in no way reflected the spread of the weapon. Secondly, the spread of two bullet-based weapons with the same accuracy could be wildly different depending on their maximum range. Shifter addresses both of these issues. While it may appear, based on the crosshair, that all weapons are now more accurate, weapon accuracy is in fact (mostly) the same. (Slightly better for some weapons, slightly worse for others, depending on the range of the weapon) Augmentation Modifications: - "AugAdd" cheat: Using the "AugAdd" cheat for an augmentation you already have will upgrade that augmentation, rather than simply failing as was the case in normal Deus Ex. - Augmentation Cannisters: Cannisters for augmentations you have already installed will now allow you to upgrade that augmentation once. You must use a Medical Bot to do it though. You may also choose to "overwrite" an existing augmentation with a new one if no slots are available, though the new augmentation will be installed at level 1, with no upgrades. Cannisters with no augmentations specified for them will contain a pair of randomly determined augs. (Meaning that if you use the cheat "summon AugmentationCannister" you'll actually get something useful) - Environmental Resistance: Enviro Resist will now decrease the length of time you will experience "drunk" effects when it is active by an amount based on the level of the augmentation. - Light: The light augmentation is also upgradeable, similar to how it is in Hardcore. However, unlike Hardcore the distance the flashlight effect can travel also increases with each level, and the boost of "radiant" light around you increases at higher levels, but is actually LOWER than normal at the aug's lowest level. - Power Recirculator: Power Recirculator will now automatically activate whenever using it would decrease overall power use, and similarly will automatically deactivate whenever it is using up more power than it is conserving. - Combat Strength: The Combat Strength and Muscle augmentations have been consolidated into the Muscle augmentation, a la Invisible War. The Combat Strength augmentation has been replaced with the Electrostatic Discharge augmentation, also a la Invisible War. - Regeneration: The Regeneration augmentation can be activated at any time, and will stay active until you turn it off, instead of when you are fully healed. It will drain a low amount of power when you are healed -- i.e. when it is in the "idle" state -- and will use the normal, high amount of power only when it is actively healing you. - Synthetic Heart: Using the Synthetic Heart augmentation will now allow you to boost most augmentations past their maximum level. - Skull Gun: Perhaps the most amusing running joke in the Deus Ex series is now an actual augmentation. Augmentation Cannisters containing the Skull Gun aug have been placed in two locations within the game; one relatively early in the game and one which is somewhat late in the game. - Targeting: The Targeting augmentation will now allow you to zoom in with any weapon, regardless of whether or not it has a scope. The magnification of the zoom will depend on the level of the augmentation. It also has two "modes" of use: one with the zoomed sub-window, and one without. To disable the window simply hit the activation key assigned to it a second time. General Modifications: - Alt-Fire: There is now a separate keybind for Alternate Fire. Several weapons have Alt-Fire modes, including the Plasma Rifle and Combat Knife. Pressing Alt-Fire while using weapons without an Alt-Fire mode will simply turn on/off the scope on that weapon, if it has one. (Or if the targeting aug is currently active) - Charged Items: Items like Ballistic Armor, Hazmat Suits, etc. no longer are one-use items. You can turn them on and off as need be. To go with this some item functionality has been changed. For example, the Rebreather now slowly refills your oxygen meter, rather than keeping it at maximum level constantly. - Kills: You will now be given skill points for each kill/KO you make. The amount of points is calculated based on the max health of the victim, along with their affiliation and the method used to kill/KO them. - Kills (again): Dying NPCs can now be affected by bullets and the like, which means that if you shoot them with something powerful enough -- say a Boomstick at point-blank range -- they just might be propelled a rather considerable distance by the force of the bullets. - NPC Inventory: NPCs will randomly carry extra items, chosen from a set list. These items will include some items not commonly found in the game, (Throwing Knives, Pepper Spray) as well as some generic items and certain "special" items. - Office Storage: Someone pointed out how it's odd that any items you leave in JC's office at UNATCO will disappear between missions. While this does make sense from a technical standpoint, from a plot standpoint it's as though Walton Simons keeps swinging by during off-hours and stealing your stuff. You can now leave items in your office and find them there upon your return, complete with any Weapon Mods and so forth that have been installed on them. - Stealth: Due to complaints about the skill points for kills/KO system slanted gameplay towards killing everyone (a valid point) there is also a system for granting skill points based on how stealthy you are. The determination is based on how close you get to an NPC without being detected. "Minor" detections, where the NPC saw you but "wasn't sure," reduce the potential bonus by a fraction. Being fully detected removes the stealth bonus for that NPC. Yes, killing them counts as being detected for the purposes of the system. - Vases, Plants, etc.: Throwing an item at an NPC will do "knock out" damage to them, provided the speed the object is thrown at is high enough and that you have the Muscle nhancement augmentation on. (Though if the speed is REALLY high the Muscle aug is not checked for) This will also damage the item thrown; in general one or two throws will shatter the item if it is breakable. - Zyme: Since Zyme was pretty much useless in the original game, I have modified it so it provides a temporary speed and skill boost. It also initiates "bullet time" effects while it is active. Be wary though; once the effects wear off there is a long period of "drunk-vision". Unrealistic Mode: Unrealistic Mode is a new difficulty level I've added to Shifter for the benefit of players looking for either more of a challenge, or more of a departure from traditional Deus Ex (and Shifter) gameplay. Though it isn't finished yet, Unrealistic contains a number of modifications which make it a unique experience, somewhat akin to the Hardcore mod. These are, in no particular order: - Player Model: Rather than being stuck with the single choice of JC Denton, Unrealistic will use whatever model you have selected for use in Multiplayer. I hear using the Child model is particularly amusing. - NPC Weapons: All bullet-based NPC weapons fire explosive rounds now. The damage is not as extreme as a weapon loaded with 10mm EX ammo, but it isn't anything you can easily shrug off either. - NPC Random Inventory: Gives weapons out more often and applies to everyone, including non-armed NPCs, Robots, and Animals. I hear that the Greasels in the Paris Catacombs often carry GEP Guns. - Corpse looting: You can now check the bodies of Animals and Robots for loot in Unrealistic, which works well with the expanded capability of NPC Random Inventory. - Smarter everything: Every NPC, be it Animal, Human, or Robot, uses the highest Intelligence preset available in the game. This means that Karkians can open doors and Spider Bots know how to call an elevator. Both can also pick up new weapons in the middle of combat. Multiplayer Modifications: Shifter also includes a modified version of the Deux Ex MP code. The key change in Shifter MP is the way weapons are carried. In normal Deux Ex MP you are given three belt slots for weapons, the others being reserved for Medkits, BioE Cells, various Grenades, Multitools, and Lockpicks. Unfortunately this made MP gameplay somewhat stifled and unvaried. Shifter MP instead allocates 6 belt slots for weapons, but with a catch: the bigger the weapon is, the more belt slots it will take up. For example, say you're carrying with you a Combat Knife, a Pistol, a Mini-Crossbow and a Gep Gun. The Knife, Pistol and Mini-C would take up your first 3 slots, and the Gep Gun would take up your last 3. You could drop the Gep Gun and pick up a two-slot item -- say an Assault Rifle or the Dragon's Tooth Sword -- and another 1 slot weapon. And so on and so forth. The next 2 slots are devoted to categories of items: Grenade, Recovery. (Grenades, Health Kits and BioE Cells) The contents of each of these 3 slots can be changed by pressing the Change Ammo button, allowing you to cycle through the available category items. The last two slots, as in normal Deus Ex MP, are devoted to Lockpicks and Multitools. I have also added in numerous new player models to choose from when playing MP. In general any NPC model seen in the game is a selectable player model. This does make cycling through them all a somewhat long process (93 models in all) but remember that you can go backwards through the list by clicking with the right mouse button. Unique Weapons and other new items: The following is a complete listing of all Unique Weapons in Shifter, complete with a brief weapon description and the actual object name, should you decide to cheat and use the Summon command to bring one or two into play. - Blackjack (WeaponBlackjack): A standard Baton, modified by Paul to be a formidable weapon while still meeting his non-lethal weapon needs. The interior has been filled with a heavy material, possibly lead shot or even iron rebar for authenticity. - Boomstick (WeaponBoomstick): Jock's Sawed-Off Shotgun, with improved damage, less recoil and a quicker reload time. - ILAW (WeaponMiniRocket): The Internal Light Anti-Personnel Weapon is the official name of the cybernetic rocket-based weapon that Majestic-12 Commandos are outfitted with. Several prototypes were fitted for external use, for demonstration purposes. - JackHammer (WeaponJackHammer): An Assault Shotgun modified by Smuggler, who just didn't quite know the meaning of the word "overkill". It has dramatically reduced recoil, which is vital in a gun capable of firing 12 shells in under a second. - Lo Bruto (WeaponLoBruto): JoJo Fine's specially modified Stealth Pistol. It has improved damage, but JoJo wasn't the best gunsmith in the world. - Magnum (WeaponMagnum): A modified pistol with improved accuracy and damage. It's a bit louder than the standard pistol, however. - Precision Rifle (WeaponPrecisionRifle): A rifle developed with two goals in mind: long-range sniping and mid-range assault. The so-called "Precision" Rifle mixes high accuracy with quick-chambering technology, allowing the user to fire multiple rounds in quick succession, while still retaining the high stopping power of the 30.06 round. Comes equipped with a vision-enhancing scope. - Prototype NanoSword (Mk I) (WeaponPrototypeSwordA): The first attempt at creating what would become the Dragon's Tooth Sword used a dramatically different approach, generating a ultrathin stasis field around the blade to effectively amplify momentum and force. However, the inherent instabilities of the stasis technology caused the approach to be abandoned. - Prototype NanoSword (Mk II) (WeaponPrototypeSwordB): The second prototype of the NanoSword technology combined early-gen nanoscale whetting devices with a significantly weaker stasis field, the hope being that the instabilities in the stasis technology could be eliminated by reducing the power of the field. This proved untrue, and the stasis technology was abandoned completely. - Prototype NanoSword (Mk III) (WeaponPrototypeSwordC): The third prototype of what would eventually become the Dragon's Tooth Sword relied on a traditional blade to do the cutting, kept incredibly sharp by nanoscale whetting devices. Later revisions of these same whetting devices can be found in the current Dragon's Tooth Sword. - Railgun (WeaponRailgun): Created by an as yet unknown manufacturer, the Railgun is technically a heavy modification of the Plasma Rifle, but far more deadly. A heavily compacted set of four plasma charges is magnetically accelerated to near-light speeds, making the resulting projectile easily capable of penetrating multiple solid objects in succession. It has also been equipped with a thermal scope. - Toxin Blade (WeaponToxinBlade): On the surface it appears to be no more than a standard Combat Knife, but the Toxin Blade is coated with a brutally effective paralytic toxin. Deceptively high-tech, the coating is maintained by a swarm of nanobots which replenish it and ensure that the blade is always at its sharpest. - Rate of Fire Weapon Mod (WeaponModAuto): Not a weapon in itself, but a way to decrease the time between shots on most weapons you can carry. Apply it just like any other weapon mod. There also exists another, super-secret unique weapon that is by no means intended for serious play. It is not placed anywhere in the game. Yet, anyway. KNOWN GLITCHES: Even though this mod is no loger in beta stages there are still some lingering glitches. With some of these I am unsure if these are due to my modifications or if they are simply pre-existing glitches that I have only noticed recently, but regardless they are still present. Single Player: - If you have your resolution higher than about 1280x1024 then your savegames may not have screenshots to go with them. This usually only happens with the OpenGL rendering settings, and is a limitation in the Deus Ex engine. There's nothing I can really do about it, other than to warn you. The enhanced Direct3D8 renderer (available from the same site as the enhanced OpenGL renderere) does not suffer from this limitation, however. - An odd side-effect of the "Office Storage" feature may rarely cause random weapons to appear in JC's UNATCO office upon returning from a mission. Sometimes these weapons come with a mod or mods installed; apparently silenced Sniper Rifles are the most common. - The new Zyme effects do not completely work in at least one map in the game: the Hong Kong Canal area. While you will receive the skill and speed boost, for unknown reasons the game's speed will not drop. As soon as you move to another map in the area, however, all normal Zyme effects will return. - If you carry a datacube from one area to another such that you encounter a load screen the datacube will be "wiped". Fixing this will require some fancy code that I haven't quite implemented yet, but it will be done eventually. Multiplayer: - Clients connecting to a server running ShifterMP may witness some bizarre behavior from the item belt, specifically an odd "scrolling" effect when using multi-slot weapons. Theoretically this is now fixed, but if you notice this odd behavior showing up again please let me know. - Some of the new player models may "freeze" when attempting to perform a certain animation, since that player model doesn't have it. If this occurs please let me know which models are doing it. If you notice any other glitches or errors please e-mail me. THINGS TO EXPECT IN THE FUTURE: - Okay, scratch that whole "run bar" idea mentioned in earlier ReadMe versions. I am, however, fully committed to converting the Swimming skill to a larger, more encompassing Athletics skill. - The Skull Gun aug will be changed to a lower-damage, lower-drain aug that automatically fires at enemy targets when active. - You will be able to pet cats. Yes, I'm serious, I'm going to make a system for petting cats. - If I get bored enough I may make dead animals cookable, wherin they will subsequently become edible. I warn you, I'm bored a lot. - I fully intend for there to be a Unique Weapon to compliment every existing non-one-use weapon in the game. (By "compliment" I mean like how the Magnum compliments the Pistol) OTHER NOTES OF DEADLY DOOM: The name "Shifter" is a tribute to a popular mod for Starsiege: Tribes. Shifter was created by emo1313. Check out his current version of Shifter for Tribes 2 at www.shiftermod.com. Or check out mine, Shifter Classic, which can be found... actually, nobody hosts it anymore, but if you really care you can email me and I'll be happy to send you the mod. (Once I find it) As always, if you notice anything amiss or something I haven't covered don't hesitate to fill my inbox with your witty and thought-out e-mails. For those of you who don't know, "NPC" means "Non-Player Character", i.e. any person who you aren't playing as. CONTACTING ME: Send gripes, suggestions, enthusiasms, Swiss Bank account numbers, free garden gnomes and anything that can be classified as a symptom of progressed insanity to yukichigai@hotmail.com. You can also MSN me using this e-mail address. WHO THE HELL ARE YOU AGAIN? Y|yukichigai. That's "you-key-chee-guy" for those of you who don't habla Japaņol. Or whatever. TESTIMONIALS: Here's what some satisfied (I think) players have had to say about my mod and how it has affected their everyday lives (in Deus Ex, anyway): "A UNATCO agent trained in melee weapons can hurl a crowbar with sufficient force and precision to crack the skull of a ten-year-old homeless boy in a single shot while rendering the candy bar he carries still edible." - Sb27441X UPDATES: v1.8.2: - Fixed a problem that could cause Multitools or Lockpicks to appear in multiple belt slots if you run out of one while both are occupying belt slots. In certain instances this could cause whichever was "doubled up" to disappear completely from your inventory. - Added a little code so that mods or maps which rely on the WiB, MiB, GuntherHermann, or AnnaNavarre classes SPECIFICALLY having an "Explode" function will still work with Shifter. I'd forgotten that UnrealScript doesn't always pass function calls from one class to the parent class. - Stopped bots from playing the "passed out" sound when they've been felled by some sort of stun weapon. (e.g. Baton, Prod, etc.) - Added code which will ensure you see the actual amount of ammo you receive from conversations if you're given more than you can hold. (e.g. if you receive 3 LAMs but can only hold 1 more it'll say you only received 1) Most of the time, anyway. - In a slightly embarassing twist I discovered that I had not adjusted the description on the IFF Aug to reflect the new "Blue = neutral" part of it. The description (and the DeusEx.int file) have been updated. - Added another layer to the "Paul disappears in the 'Ton" fix. If Paul has somehow been removed from the map (typically if he is marked as dead due to that damn trigger placed outside the window) the game will now spawn another copy of him and un-mark him as dead, at least before the subsequent raid has been initiated. - Adjusted the scripts for a few of the new item placements so that they are done in a different, non-recurring part of the mission script. As it was Paul's answering machine, for example, was placed only once, but the script checked to make sure it was placed every second. The only possible side-effect this will have is that players who start a game in normal Deus Ex and then add Shifter partway through their play through may not see certain new additions in levels they've already visited. At the very least they'll have to leave the area and return. - Fixed an existing Deus Ex bug which could cause two JoJo Fines to appear in the lobby of the 'Ton. This only happened when the JoJo descending the stairs was unhidden, then one of the Rentons died, and finally the player left and returned to the 'Ton WITHOUT killing JoJo. - Updated the DeusEx.int file to include some text that CAN be added to a datacube in Mission 2. - Changed skill point awards for Kills/KOs so that you aren't given a sound/text cue if the NPC hasn't been rendered within a second (i.e. you can't see them) unless they're a significant character. - Redid the way the super-secret access to Unrealistic is done so that it works for people using a localization (int) file. Before it was examining the button names without considering the different ways that "Realistic" is said in other languages. - Re-enabled some functions I took out of various NPC states so that TNM can work with Shifter. More accurately, I renamed the functions and made sure that in every state they returned the same type. Had, anyway. Apparently NPCs in TNM rely on some of those functions, so it's back to the ever-so-dicey practice of having states containing functions with the same name but different return types. - Changed the way the "Facelift" function is defined so that it won't (I think) be overridden for the parent class by the first child function, which (I think) is what was causing some odd issues with HDTP models randomly appearing in other mods like Zodiac and TNM. - Burning corpses will no longer continue burning if for some reason they have no visible fire effects associated with them. Apparently random gibbing is no fun. - Moved where one of the log messages is placed in relation to the "no music in the last NYC mission" fix, as it was causing problems in mods where certain maps are supposed to have no music. (Giant log files of doom.) The lack of music will only be noted if it's being fixed now. - Added some COA (cover our asses) code to ATMs, Repair Bots, Medical Bots, and a few other classes which will make sure that one of the classes some of my new code accesses is actually there. This was causing a few mods to spam the log file with "accessed None" messages. You shouldn't notice any change in gameplay, though the fact that I needed to add this code tells me that my "pause-then-hack" exploit fix may not work in ALL situations, just most. - Reworked the way the "skills-for-kills" system is done. It is now handled by a separate function which is initiated elsewhere in the game code, which will allow it to work with mods like TNM, Hotel Carone, and so forth. - Made sure the HDTP facelift is only applied to the actual objects they are meant to and NOT child classes in other mods, e.g. the subway ticket machine in TNM. - Discovered that two items weren't having their HDTP facelift applied until save/load: Beam Triggers and thrown Crowbars. Now fixed. - Added every TNM melee weapon to the weapon cycling function, which includes their version of the Combat Knife/etc. - Modified the Augmentation Replacement method in the Medbot menu so that it SPECIFICALLY reminds you that you need to select an aug that is installed in the proper slot. - Adjusted the item received display so that it will try to display the amount of ammo you were given whenever possible. This MAY fix some of the issues in TNM and other mods where it lists you as having received only one unit of ammo, rather than X bullets/etc. - Changed the Dead Body search functions so that they will ALWAYS set the amount of ammo in the ammo pickup you find equal to whatever you are given. This has no real effect other than working better with the change I made above. - Moved part of NPC Random Inventory so that it is only done in the Timer event for each NPC, not for the entire missionscript. This will use less system resources since the missionscript version was checking every second and was checking EVERY NPC. - Adjusted NPC Random Inventory to give out appropriate TNM items when the game is being run with TNM. Generally this just means that the TNM -specific version of the Assault Rifle/etc. will be given out, but there are a few substitutions that have been made, e.g. instead of Soy Food NPCs will be given Beans. v1.8.1: - Ensured that the transfer counts for ammunition displayed in convos is accurate. Previously it was displaying a transfer count of one for all types of ammo, no matter how much was actually being transferred. - Added some COA (cover our asses) code to the Plasma Rifle's "bouncy" plasma bolts. - Per user comments tweaked the way explosive bullet damage is done in Unrealistic so the Ballistic Protection aug isn't useless. Direct hits from instant-hit (bullet) weapons will be reduced by the Ballistic Protection aug now, though any "radius" hits will only be reduced by the Energy Shield aug. The damage will still count as Explosive type. - Fixed an issue with the new Robot frob code which could cause some of the "you aren't supposed to see this" weapons to be dropped out of the bottom of the Robot if your inventory was full. - Prevented players from "cycling" hand-to-hand weapons in MP. - When you throw a hand-to-hand weapon the freshly-emptied belt slot will be filled with another hand-to-hand weapon if possible. - Made the Prototype Nanoswords "cycleable", as for some reason I'd accidentally set them to be uncycleable. You could still switch to any of them with the Weapon Cycling option, but you couldn't switch from them to anything. - Fixed a glitch with PS20s, LAWs and the like which would make it appear that you could pick up two, but in reality would just get rid of the second one. - Since I was already elbow-deep in the code for the PS20 fix I opted to make it so you can hold two (or more) of them at once now. The same is true for LAWs as well, but not melee weapons. - Moved the Lebedev VoIP convo (again) to somewhere a bit more logical and accessable. (e.g. it'll be way quicker to check what "socket" the convo is happening on and then use that information) - Removed point bonuses for killing any variety of inactive bot, both those that are disabled via EMP/etc. and those which are simply not currently active, like the bots in the MJ12 repair bay. - Fixed a minor issue with the bot in the UNATCO MJ12 lab which could cause it to hate you even after you'd hacked it to be friendly were you or someone else to accidentally break a window, of all things. v1.8: - Mostly fixed the exploits that allowed you to open any lock with one lockpick/multitool by pausing the game while you were picking. I was unable to prevent lockpicks and multitools from working while paused, but the fix stops them from working past their determined efficiency, e.g. no matter how long you pause the game, if a door says it takes 4 lockpicks then you will have to use 4 lockpicks. - Prevented the friendly bots in Vandenberg from deciding to kill the X51 scientists should some friendly fire occur. This is rare, but given that a few of them carry shotguns it's a lot more common than I'd like. - Added some code to the skillpoint award trigger class which should fix most of the "infinite skillpoint loop" glitches found in the game. The new code will make sure that the "bTriggerOnceOnly" variable is actually paid attention to for all methods of activation; in the past it would disable the trigger if it was activated by touch, but not if it was activated by an action like entering the correct code on a keypad. - Along the same lines, added in code to deactivate the UC self-destruct keypad in Hong Kong after you use it. Before you could stop most of the navigation hazards (e.g. the electricity arcs) from showing up if you quickly re-entered the code before the core could fully extend. Now the keypad will be set with an un-enterable code and will become unhackable, and should someone find a way around that triggering it won't do anything anyway. - Related to the above, any keypads with zero-length codes will automatically give you an "ACCESS DENIED" message when you attempt to access them. This should only affect the keypad mentioned above. - Fixed the "Pistol Downgrade" trick, which allowed you to downgrade your pistol skill on the new game screen, yet still have it be at Trained when you finally started the game. I'm not sure if the method I've used is going to cause problems with other mods like Zodiac or Hotel Carone, so let me know if your pistol skill behaves oddly or doesn't come up set to Trained by default on the new game screen in other mods. - Fixed the issue that could cause two augmentations to be bound to the same hotkey after overwriting an existing augmentation. This only came up when you overwrote augs in the Torso or Subdermal slots. - A Russian fan of Shifter offered to create a Russian translation file for Shifter. The easiest way to do that, unfortunately, was to create a new DeusEx.int file for Russian players to use. So that all my textual changes carry over, I have gone through and redone how much of the new text is stored, specifically so it is stored in variables that a new DeusEx.int file can modify if need be. This will in no way affect gameplay, other than the way things are done behind the scenes. - Recoded the way the Precision Rifle's vision-enhancing scope works. Now it will actually enhance the visibility of NPCs like it was intended to in the first place. - Added a new method to add items to corpses, or fake it anyway. This means that instead of having to drop items near corpses, they can now be added to their inventory via script. Or to rephrase, a few unique weapons you find near corpses will instead show up on them when you frob them. - Noticed that I'd accidentally placed one of the unique weapons (one of the nanoswords) in two places. To be more specific, I placed it in the new location without getting rid of the old placement. The weapon will now only appear in the new location. - Made the method of bullet spread calculation consistent between when a weapon is using a laser sight and when it is not. With this last little change there is no functional difference between a weapon using a laser sight and not using a laser sight, other than being able to tell in advance where the shots are going to go. This will make most weapons more inaccurate at long distances, but to be fair, the old method was horrid and unrealistic; the liklihood of you hitting a target was the same at 10 feet as it was at 200. - Found a problem relating to NPC Random Inventory. I accidentally screwed up and effectively disabled most of it, at least the part of it that randomly doled out anything but food and other consumables. Now fixed. - Slightly reworked NPC Random Inventory in a few places. One change will make all kinds of non-alcoholic food (soda, candy, and soy food) items that can show up randomly. Another change stops some of my code from checking an NPC for weapons once it has definitively determined what they are carrying in terms of weaponry, regardless of whether or not the loop has made it through all of their items. This will save a tiny bit of time under certain circumstances. - Reworked the check I put in place that excludes the Triad members in the Wanchai Tunnels from receiving NPC Random Inventory items. The check will now only remove any additional weapons they are given, but will still let them carry any non-weapon items such as food, Zyme, some kinds of exotic ammo, and even weapon mods. - Because I'm nice, and more to the point to prove that I can actually do it, I have modified the general conversation code so that it will not completely fail whenever a conversation is initiated but the corresponding sound file does not get loaded properly. Or to paraphrase, "OMG I CAN GAT ON TEH BOTE NOW!!1!!1! LOL" - Per a suggestion on the GameFAQs message board I have added a minor perk to maxing out your Computer skill. At Master level JC will be able to hack vending machines automatically, setting the cost of items from said vending machine to 0. This does not apply to one specific vending machine early in the game however, though it is highly unlikely that you will have maxed out your computer skill by that time anyway. Not impossible as such, but unlikely all the same. - Finally made Ray (and a number of other NPCs) neutral. This will stop those annoying deductions for killing said NPCs. If you find any more NPCs that should be neutral, for point deduction reasons or just for thematic reasons, let me know. - Buttons now light up a bit more obviously. Trivial, I know, but I was really rather annoyed with how some buttons in dark corners would remain all but invisible even when they were activated. - Added an upper limit to the amount of skillpoints you can have, based on a crash issue that supposedly exists according to it-he.org. The site claims that once you have enough skillpoints to max out 7 of your skills the game will crash the next time you save or change areas. I have never encountered this personally, even with all mastered skills, but I've included a limit just to be safe anyway. The upper limit is, coincidentally, the exact amount of skillpoints you get from the "allskillpoints" cheat, more than enough to max out all your skills. - Reworked the way accuracy is displayed and calculated. The spread is now closer to what it was, just without the weird "the longer the range the tighter the spread is" thing. I've also changed the crosshair and surrounding reticle to accurately reflect the true accuracy of any weapon, as in the past the spread only went to (roughly) the inside two-thirds of what the crosshair showed. - Added reload sounds to the ILAW, and gave it scope capability. I'm not sure if there's much point to adding a scope to the thing, but I figured that since the GEP Gun could have it the ILAW should be able to as well. - Spruced up the Shotgun alt-fire. When you load an extra round into the chamber it will now tell you what it's doing, and when you fire a shotgun with extra rounds in it there will be a small, slight delay between each burst; it's faster than you can fire the weapon, but still a wee bit slower than the Jackhammer's normal rate of fire. At the very least it looks pretty darn cool, if you ask me anyway. - Fixed an idiotic screwup in my code that would turn flagpoles invisible if you ran the game without HDTP installed. Well, only the Chinese and USA flagpoles. - Re-jiggered the new code that checks whether or not Paul Denton is dead after the 'Ton raid. Before it was possible for Paul to be counted as dead even after he tells you he'll be fine and to meet up with him later, after which point he disappears. In order to trigger this odd effect you had to leave via the window with at least one hostile still active within the 'Ton. Rare, but it happens. Now if Paul is no longer in the building he will be immediately counted as safe. - Fixed a glitch with the new Office Storage system that would cause Augmentation Cannisters left in the room to wind up containing two randomly determined augs, rather than whatever they contained when you left them there. - Made Fish, Birds, Rats, and Flies neutral by default. This won't really have an effect on gameplay, other than all the aforementioned pest-type things showing up neutral in your crosshair. However, it will provide "double protection" against getting dinged for skillpoints if you wind up killing some on accident. - Remember that thing I supposedly added to v1.4 where Cigarette Smoke could randomly wind up doing a tear gas type effect? No? Well, I said I did, and apparently I lied about it. Now smoke from Cigarettes will randomly (50-50 chance) inflict a tear gas effect on anybody it hits. - Spruced up the Railgun a bit. It will now hit whatever you point it at, though the method it uses to do this can be a bit, how shall we say, hacky. The calculation is actually slightly faster than the old method, but those of you using older equipment (like stuff just barely meeting the recommended specs listed on the Deus Ex box) may want to brace for some slight lag when firing the Railgun. Headshots aren't guaranteed yet either, so in the meantime it's an effective one-hit kill for most types of fleshy targets. Oh yeah, while I was in there I restored the firing noise, which had been accidentally eliminated while I was fixing the "missing silenced Assault Rifle effects" issue. - Coded in a manual override of the default scrambled bot behavior. The new code directly links the bot's alliances to those of whomever scrambled the bot. (The alliance checks are literally run through the scrambler now, rather than the bot) This should at least get the AI to target and fire on potential enemies properly. - Also cleaned up some code related to the above scrambled bot issue. The new code takes out some additional safeguards and checks rendered unnecessary by the new "alliance proxy" method described above. (Especially because they were causing problems with the way scramble grenades behave, or are supposed to anyway.) - Did some minor work on Unrealistic, upgrading all NPCs to use the pre-specified "BRAINS_Human" intelligence template. This does include animals. The brief tests I have run show that NPCs are damn quick to react now, though you still have to get within normal range/etc. I've also unlocked the template's ability to cause NPCs to trigger certain types of environmental effects if the AI is aware of them, though I have no idea yet what, if anything, this will cause them to do. - Quickly coded in a temporary fix to stop Nicolette (and others) from running through path blocking obstacles like tanks. The fix only applies to NPCs not actively carrying a weapon at the moment, so the MJ12 Commandos in the Lucky Money will still bust through the windows, for example. This should, however, stop the Triad members from absently wandering back through unbroken windows after the carnage stops in the same level. - Gave fishes corpses. Previously you'd shoot them and they would just sort of freeze and then disappear. This looked crappy, in my opinion. Now they'll turn upside-down and float to the surface. - Brought back an oldie but goodie in a new form: killing Pigeons, commonly known as the Winged Rat, will occasionally produce an Un- Winged Rat rather than a Pigeon corpse. - Started switching over the HDTP texture loading code to its own separate function in each of the relevant classes. Once this is done I will be able to add code that will both allow the HDTP "facelift" to be applied at any time, as well as code that will temporarily switch all object skins and meshes back to the "base" DX versions when saving. This will allow for greater compatibility with saved games. - Prevented carried decorations (trophies, boxes, etc.) from being forcibly thrown automatically when entering a conversation. This could cause very odd results, such as key NPCs getting pissed at you because you just "attacked" them, to getting in an early, extra shot with a TNT crate when confonting Anna, Gunther, etc. - Added optional support for new textures for the magnum, light rocket ammo and 10mm explosive ammo, created by Sergeant Kelly. The textures will be included in an optional download, ShifterTextures.utx. If you don't have the file the mod will work fine, it just won't load up the new textures. (Akin to how HDTP support works) - Fixed a slight functional "oversight" with giving Gilbert Renton a weapon, one that's always driven me nuts. While I couldn't expand the conversation menu so that it gives you multiple options of what to give him, rather giving you a choice between your best weapon and nothing, I was able to make it so that if you decide NOT to arm him you can change your mind later and give him a weapon by using the new "give weapon" feature used for Miguel. The appropriate flags will be set just as if you'd given him a weapon in the conversation proper. As a limitation of the method I used and an optional bonus, you gave give Mr. Renton just about any weapon you want, not just a pre-selected set of weapons like the conversation limits you to. I recommend you give him a flamethrower so he can barbecue that f%$#head JoJo good. - Related to the above, I did some advanced and careful tweaking of the conversation play code so that I can now start conversations at any point within the conversation, not just at the beginning. I've used this to have Gilbert Renton thank you for giving him a weapon if you use the above optional weapon give method. - Also related to the above, specifically my suggestion to give Mr. Renton a flamethrower, I added a function to his NPC class that will make sure he doesn't display a null animation when he holds any two- handed weapons, since the model used for Gilbert doesn't have an animation specifically for holding a two-handed weapon. - Added a tiny bit of code to cats so they will attack rats, which coupled with the code I added to make them eat rat carcasses turns them into very effective rat-eliminating machines. - It always bugged me that there was no real visual or auditory clue when the UNATCO troops at NSFHQ started to consider you an enemy. Thus I've added in a bit of code so that when the alliance switch happens all the troops will reload their weapons quite audibly. I'm working on having them stop for a moment as well, but I don't want to screw up any patrol routes they're on. - Moved the body of the mechanic Ray (the Odd Mechanic) kills so that you don't damn near trip over it. If you're observant it's still not very well hidden, but at least this way it looks like Ray put in SOME amount of effort. - Added spark effects to melee hits that occur when the Electrostatic Discharge aug is on. I have also used said spark to calculate whether or not a player has effectively hit a laser emitter with a melee hit, meaning that you can now actually use melee weapons to disable laser triggers a la Invisible War, albeit temporarily. - Per a suggestion on the GameFAQs message board, (sorry, forgot who suggested it) I have adjusted the countdown sequence on wall-mounted grenades so that the higher the game's difficulty level, the less time you have to disarm the grenade. On easy the time is the same, but on Realistic... well, the times range from just under eight seconds at Master Demolitions skill (a two second drop) to a quarter of a second at Untrained. (a three-quarter second drop) Investing a few skill points in your Demolition skill is now advisable, to say the least. - Did a little work on how the AI interacts with the various types of cloaking in the game. Due to the somewhat rudimentary nature of the AI routines I am unable to get a realistic-feeling system in at this time, but I've included a fix so that NPCs won't follow you around with precise knowledge of your exact location while you're cloaked, though they will shoot at you just fine until the usual period of time has elapsed. After that point they will have officially "lost" you. - Adjusted the variables used in MissionScripts to add in custom email so that localization files (inTs) can override the contents. This way the translation that Russian fan is working on will be able to affect said emails. - Added in a new means to add custom text to any variety of so-called "Information Devices", including Data Cubes, Newspapers, and Books. This doesn't cover Public Info terminals, which I'll have to handle separately. I have no idea what I'll do with this new power, but it's nice to know I can do something all the same. - Added a location restriction on my "Paul won't converse with you in the 'Ton" fix. The fix now limits it so that the conversation won't be started until you're actually inside the main room where you can see him, eliminiating the possibility of the conversation not starting because it was triggered while you were in his bedroom. - Added an additional perk to having a higher Medicine skill level, along the lines of the existing bonus for Water Coolers and Water Fountains. For each additional level of the Medicine skill, all food items will heal one addtional point of health. You're welcome. - While I was screwing around with food I thought I'd add a little code to Soda so that the new names don't show up in your inventory, since the four types of Soda are counted as one single type. When you try to pick up any type of Soda it will simply be renamed "Soda" if you're successful, though you will still receive the brand-specific "you found some whatever" message. - Placed some new code in the first mission so that you can now give Gunther a weapon later if you opt not to when you initially rescue him. Doing so will initiate the last part of the conversation in the same way that giving a weapon to Mr. Renton will. Unlike the Renton situation though Gunther will ALWAYS be able to accept a weapon once you rescue him, should you decide to spoil him with a Sniper Rifle or PS20 or something. (I'll work on making that worthwhile) - Created a new method for adding custom bulletins to news terminals. Again, I have no idea what I'm going to do with this, but I figure there's no harm in futureproofing. - Added in some beam visuals for the Railgun, specifically a green laser "trail" when you fire the weapon. The effect doesn't behave precisely like I want it to, particularly in that it REFUSES to travel through walls and such. I suspect this may be another annoying limitation of the Unreal 1 engine. If it isn't though I will add the through-walls functionality for the visuals in the future. - Added a check to the NPC weapon pick-up feature so that NPCs won't go after a weapon WHILE someone is holding it. It typically only showed up when an NPC was equipped only with a low-damage hand-to-hand weapon, but the possibility existed for other situations. - Finished moving all of the individual HDTP model/skin swap stuff in to separate functions, and created a "master" function which invokes them all. This means that Shifter can now switch between normal and HDTP resources mid-game. The function which does this is called GlobalFacelift, and can be run from the console. (e.g. "GlobalFacelift True" will load all HDTP resources, "GlobalFacelift False" will go back to the basic DeusEx stuff) - Related to the above, I have included code so that whenever you save your game all HDTP resources will be temporarily unloaded while the game is saved, which (in theory) means that you can save a game on a computer with HDTP installed and load it on another one without HDTP. - Also related, whenever you load a game the HDTP "Facelift" will be applied as soon as the map loads, meaning that if you have a game which was saved pre-Shifter or pre-HDTP you can now load it up and enjoy the HDTP goodness without having to wait until the next level change. - Added code to the various Prototype Nanoswords which ensures that the "stasis field instability" effect doesn't occur when the weapon has been dropped. - Prevented the "JC Office Storage" feature from tracking items you (or anybody else) currently have in inventory. This should cut down on seemingly random items showing up as part of the office storage feature. - Increased the probability of an NPC being given a better melee weapon in Unrealistic, and also added some ultra-powerful items to the Random Inventory list in Unrealistic. - Per an observation by Kyle, I have made Juan Lebedev neutral. While he can provide useful information, he is nonetheless technically a non- ally, non-enemy at that point. - Fixed an issue where using Cigarettes while Zyming could make bullet time last forever. - Ensured that Grays will actually gain health from being around sources of radiation. (I was assuming they used a health system based on specific body parts, but they use an overall health total) Note that this fix does NOT apply to "Greys" from Zodiac, as they are actually a separate and new NPC class due to the necessary interaction from the E-Rifle. - Okay, nevermind about that above bit that the Zodiac "Greys" won't heal from radiation, as I've added a custom function to the larger base class (Animal) which does specific checks for "Greys". (And Blues) I'll admit it's technically bad coding practice to do something like that, but given that I can't really mod Zodiac itself I had little choice. - Changed Air Bubbles so that they can be assigned to spawn a specific something-or-other when they break the surface. I promptly used said ability to make Air Bubbles created by Flares spawn smoke once they break the surface of water. - Finalized code which will allow NPCs searching for weapons to frob corpses to get said weapons. There's a limit in place to prevent them from picking up Unique weapons, just in case. - Added some simple code to make Grays (non-Zodiac) try to search out Radiation areas when they are fleeing. There's a lot missing from the AI flee routines as it is so it's not perfect right now, but in theory you may see a Gray or two run towards an area of Radiation once you've shot them enough to make 'em flee. - Started breaking up what I call the "HK Unique Weapon Clusterfuck". In v1.7.2 there were 5 Uniques in the HK area, nearly half of the total Unique Weapons available in the game. I'll admit that HK is a large and lengthy section of the game, but it's not THAT long and lengthy. For reference, I'm moving the Toxin Blade and one of the Prototype Nanoswords. I'd considered moving the ILAW, but since that location is so difficult to reach (and the ILAW is available later) I saw no harm in leaving it there. - Reworked the way the Railgun and Precision Rifle's custom scope effects are implemented. Rather than piggybacking on the existing Vision augmentation system, the new method performs a few fancy moves inside the existing scope code. This new method is far simpler than the old method, and as such I've removed the unnecessary extra windows which the old method would draw. (e.g. the outer IR amp window) As a side effect this does somewhat limit the visible FOV of the through- walls view on the Railgun's scope, but to be fair the old method didn't really simulate a thermal scope very well. - Redid how the scope function checks whether or not the Targeting aug is responsible for zooming the weapon. If the zoom level available from the Targeting aug is equal to that of the weapon in use the scope function will assume that the Targeting aug is responsible, and thus will not draw the "blinders" around the screen. - Changed the Targeting aug a tiny bit so that when you press the F8 key to disable the target window it won't play the "aug off" sound. That was a bit confusing. - Also updated the Targeting aug to use the Familiar Names of people it targets, rather than the "BindName", a lovely run-on name used mostly for internal conversation purposes and little else. - Fixed the issue where picking up unconscious folks and then dropping them elsewhere would cause their display name to revert to the basic "Unconscious", rather than the more specific names I've set them up to display. - Added in some code for any NPCs that are part of the Animal class which will check that the model used by the NPC has an animation before it attempts to play it in a conversation. This will dramatically cut down on the number of script errors which show up in the log for mods that use Animals as conversing NPCs. (Which, as I've discovered, also improves overall stability) - Rejiggered my "OMG I CAN GAT ON TEH BOTE NOW!!1! LOL" fix so that it only works on non-interactive conversations, e.g those you cannot use the mouse to click through quickly. Combined with the above fix, which as I mentioned greatly improves stability, this means you can actually listen to the entire "Manderley raps" section of the Malkavian mod without the game crashing on you. Well... sometimes, anyway. - Included a fix to prevent NPCs marked as Invincible from dropping their weapons or taking any sort of damage. The old code merely would prevent their main health from dropping, but would allow damage to be done to specific areas such as the arms and legs, which in turn could cause the NPC to drop their weapon and start running. - Created a new "Cycling" option for consumables; just like for Lockpicks, Multitools, etc. it's activated by pressing the Change Ammo key. This new cycling ability will go through the following items: Candy Bars, Forties, Liquor, Soda, Soy Food, Wine, and Zyme. - While I was messing with cycling I adjusted the existing routine for Lockpicks/etc. so that it won't cycle to items already in a belt slot. Previously you could, say, cycle between lockpicks and multitools while both were in your item belt and wind up with one of the items taking up two full slots. - Also in there, I've moved the text notifications of the switches from hardcoded strings to localized variables stored in the DeusExPickup class. This means that the Russian fan who is translating Shifter via the DeusEx.inT file will have one more thing to translate. - Started making the various different-skinned consumables such that when you pick them up it keeps track of the type and order of them. This means that when you use or drop them the one left in your hand or inventory will change to whatever color/skin/etc. the NEXT one is. So far this applies to Soda and Forties. I may do it to Candy Bars as well, though I'm not sure. - As part of the aforementioned upgrade to consumables Forties will not always display the HDTP skin, since there's only one HDTP skin vs. four standard Deus Ex skins for Forties. People using HDTP will still see the HDTP model/skin for the most common type of Forty, but may come across a few others using the old-school alternate textures from time to time. (Depends on the map, actually) - And since I was spending so much pointless effort screwing around with Soda I figured I might as well spruce it up EVEN MORE. Therefore, the name displayed in the item belt will changed based on which soda you have. This is useful, because each different soda type will heal a different amount. Nuke heals at 2, Zap (as per Zodiac) heals at 3, and so on. - And while we're on the subject of Zap, it occured to me that just because I started screwing around with DynamicLoadObject just so I could make Shifter HDTP compatible doesn't mean I have to limit myself to that end. Therefore if you have Zodiac installed Zap! soda will use the special Zap! icons. Thanks to the recent HDTP-related upgrades I've made this won't even pose a problem with savegames/etc. - And also related to Zap! soda, all instances of Zap! soda within Zodiac will be automagically replaced with the Shifter version of Zap, which is only different in that it stacks with your normal soda, plus the fact that it will heal more based on your medicine skill. - Since I'm on a Zodiac/Shifter crossover kick I thought I'd make sure the E-Rifle has the same 1-in-10 chance of setting normal Grays on fire that it does when used on Zodiac "Greys". Sure, you can't get the E-Rifle into a Shifter game without cheating, but I figure eh, what the hell, why not? - Made sure that the Alien Spy in Zodiac gets counted in that whole "Radiation heals aliens" bit I described before. I think that's the last of the Zodiac compatibility crap left to do. - Nope, not the last bit of Zodiac compatibility. I've added code so that C4 is now included in the cycling feature of grenades. Enjoy. - Added a little code so that when you use up one type of grenade it will automatically switch to the next grenade type and fill the old grenade's belt slot if any other grenades are available. - Changed the Article variable on the Blackjack so that when you pick it up it says you found "Paul's Blackjack", not "a Blackjack". - Did a little bit of behind-the-scenes work with the various items that I've made to benefit from having a higher Medicine skill level. The code should work exactly the same, but is far more efficient. - Enabled Dodging (double-tap a direction key) in Unrealistic. It might not be particularly useful yet, but it probably will be once I start making NPCs able to dodge as well. - If an NPC who is afraid of bodies gets hit by some chunks o' flesh they will now get very afraid. Not that gibbing someone just a few feet from 'em shouldn't already make them afraid, but y'know. - NPCs who are fleeing merely due to not having a weapon but otherwise are capable and willing to fight will now seek out weapons, even from corpses so long as they aren't afraid of 'em. You probably won't see this in action very much since it takes something special to disarm an NPC without getting them to the point where they should flee. - Fixed a glitch with the new "grenade replacement" stuff which would cause them to switch every time you used one, not just if it was out of ammo like I intended. - Added Cigarettes to the "Consumables" cycling ability. Not including them the first time around was an oversight. - Added a check into the multiplayer component to prevent people from modifying their ini files to spawn with an invalid player class. It's not really a big problem since the most you would wind up with is an unusable player model, but there should still be a check there. - Finally managed to get the new HDTP model and skin for Valves working. Turns out there was a new mesh, something that was not noted in the installer or even present in HDTP code. - Due do a bout of coding overload mixed with boredom mixed with being re-acquainted with a particularly funny image on FARK, I've added a new skin for the "Caution Wet Floor" signs that will show up randomly, so long as you have the optional ShifterTextures package. To give you an idea of what kind of image it is, the variable which tracks whether or not it's enabled is called "bSmartass". - Prevented firing animations from being played when activating a weapon's scope via the Alt-Fire button. - Restored an unused (well, mostly unused) sound for Rats. Turns out that three separate squeak sounds are included in the game, but two of them are supposedly only for when they're hurt. One does indeed sound like a cry of pain, but the other one is just another generic-sounding rat noise. (Bruxing, I think) - Set the "bHasAltFire" variable for a few weapons like the Crowbar, Baton, and various shotguns. I didn't have to set these in the past because the "throw" method for hand-to-hand weapons and alt-fire for shotguns involved overriding the AltFire function directly. Due to the new code I've put in place to stop fire animations from being played on weapons without alt-fire, however, those overridden functions never get called unless the variable is set. - Incorporated the "custom transfers" fix for mod conversations into the Shifter conversation class. This means that any mods that use Shifter as a "base" will not need to create a package with their own special player class and conversation class in order to have convos where the player is given items that are part of the mod. - Removed some old code which could theoretically prevent any weapon with an alt-fire AND alternate ammo from using the "Change Ammo" key. I say theoretically because a number of shotguns fall into that very category and work just fine. Still, there's no reason for the code to be there anymore. - Added in support for Sgt. Kelly's new skins and icons for the Magnum and Rate of Fire mod, which truth be told are pretty damn neat looking. The new textures are switched out in the same way that HDTP stuff is handled, so saving won't be an issue. - ACTUALLY fixed the "invisible alarm panel" glitch. It looks like it was due to a problem with my implementation of the new HDTP stuff, mostly owing to the fact that the new HDTP mesh for the alarm panel did not specify any skins. - Changed the DrugEffectTimer in the player class to be a "travel" variable. This means that when you change maps while drunk you won't suddenly lose or gain your zyme abilities or drunk status. - Related to the above, added in some code to maintain game speed from map to map. There's a tiny bit of lag after level load before the new speed is set, but it's still better than nothing. - Fixed an issue with the code I added to allow me to add new email to computer terminals, which was preventing me from adding in another bit of additional flavor to the game. - Reworked Office Storage a little to ensure that heavy weapons are placed on the ground properly. - Moved support for searching sounds/etc. from the Robot class to the more generic ScriptedPawn class. This means that for NPCs I can have them emit certain sounds rather than specified barks when certain things happen, e.g. when they spot someone. - Fixed some issues I didn't even know I had with giving NPCs weapons and the ammo for said weapons in various functions. While I was giving them ammo, I wasn't setting the variable in their weapons which tracked what ammo went to the gun. - Changed the article on a number of Unique weapons to "the", so when you pick them up it will say (for example) "the Boomstick", rather than "a Boomstick". - Slightly reworked how the script-given email is processed by my new method. Before it would simply stop once it got to an entry that was blank; now it'll actually check the entire list of new email, just in case there's email, say, at the end of the list or something. - Reworked JC Office Storage a little so it positions the items right and also works from mission 4 to mission 5. Well, sort of on the last bit. It works, but differently. See below. - Added in a new grouping of content I call "The Downward Spiral of Daniel Matsuma: an Interactive Drama in Three Acts." It's related to the Office Storage feature, and will be most obvious during the escape from UNATCO in mission 5. - Fixed the music in Hell's Kitchen the last time you make it back, or rather fixed the lack of music. The new method allows me to specify a "backup" music name in missionscript, which so far is only used for the final Hell's Kitchen map. Game of the Year users seem to be the only people who are affected by this, oddly enough. - Related to the music fix, changed the Play Music cheat window so that it won't stop the music if there's no music to go back to. This will only be relevant on the aforementioned NYC Streets map (only for Game Of The Year users) plus any mod maps which have no music set. - Fixed a problem in my code which could show up when a hand-to-hand weapon with ammo ran out of ammo. (An infinite loop actually) All a-ok now. - Added in code for Stealth Skillpoint Bonuses which handles a type of situation I hadn't allowed for previously: if the NPC is removed from the game in a manner other than being killed by you. This will probably result in far larger bonuses for players opting to go the stealth route. - Moved the Blackjack to a new location, at least if you behave a certain way during the first few missions. If you behave in a different manner you will instead find two boxes of 10mmEX ammo in a later game location. - Renamed Juan Lebedev in the restored conversation so his name is similar to the bounced email you find in Paul's inbox. (It looks like Paul forgot to add a period to the address in that bounced email) - Made sure that the WeaponDamageType function would report the right damage type (Exploded) for 10mm EX ammo. This should change things for both AI routines as well as what shows up on the item info screen. - Reworked the weapon info display window so that it properly shows the increased damage of weapons using explosive rounds. The code is also a lot more efficient than the old code. - Implemented some unused code for Phones which allowed the sound you hear when frobbing a phone to be set via a variable. Only a few phones in the game used anything but the default variable, so you won't notice much difference. Those that do use the default variable will use the normal "random sound" behavior. That is, save for the ones I decide to alter via script now that I've got this new code to play with. - Okay, I couldn't stop there. I've now added code to allow for WORKING phones, as in when you frob them you get a dialtone and you can dial numbers via a keypad. So far this is only going to be used in one area: a certain private airport. Guess why. - Added code to the random inventory functions so that when NPCs are given certain non-standard ammo types they will load them into any of their weapons that can take it. (Medium and above, anyway) This will not allow you to pick up any of their ammo early due to some other code I've added, with the possible exception of Flare Darts since if they miss you can pull the damm things out of the nearby terrain. Since Flare Darts are so relatively early in the game though I figured the risk of screwing up normal game progress was minimal. - Upped the damage on thrown Crowbars a little. Somehow the damage didn't seem high enough. - Added in Dragon's Breath Shells for the various shotguns. The visuals aren't exactly like I wanted them, but I'm somewhat limited by what the Unreal 1 engine has to offer. - Placed Dragon's Breath Shells in a few places in the game, and added them to NPC Random Inventory. (Actually, replaced Sabot ammo with the new Dragon ammo in the randomizer routines) - Fixed the other half of the "lockpick/multitool + pause" exploit. Pausing the game in the middle of hacking/picking/etc. will not make any difference now. - Also fixed some related but lesser known exploits using similar updates to code. The classes affected were, in no particular order: Repair Bots, the Spy Drone aug, Computers, ATMs, Medical Bots, and Laser Tripwires. Computers and ATMs in particular took a good deal of code to sort out. - Under the "pointless but thematically accurate" heading, made it so if you are on fire you can be seen, regardless of any cloaking/etc. - FINALLY added in that whole "weapon mods dragged over weapons in the item belt will upgrade the item". This is mostly only useful for those of you who have cheats enabled so you can "stack" weapons on top of each other in the inventory. Also, this only applies to weapon mods dragged FROM THE INVENTORY SCREEN PROPER to the item belt. - Added in my own version of the upgradeable Light augmentation. It works similar to how the Light aug in Hardcore works, except that the distance the beam travels is also increased with each level, and at the lowest level the usual radius light effect around the player is DECREASED compared to normal DX. - Fixed a minorly annoying issue with Scope zoom that would force you back into a zoomed state after reload even if you used the scope to zoom in/out while reloading. - Stopped "charged" items from being automatically deactivated when you switch to another item. - You can now pick up the various "Information Devices" (Datacubes, Books, etc.) found within the game. In order to do so you need to have activated the item so the text screen is visible, then frob it again with the text screen still visible. For those items which have nothing written or shown inside, they will simply become immediately grab-able once you have looked at them and seen that they are blank. - Added code to Keypads so that on first level load (and any other time I feel like) the validCode variable will be checked to make sure that it's actually enterable, barring some specific exceptions. (An all "X" keypad code or zero-length code is considered unenterable on purpose) Any invalid characters will be replaced by stars. (*) Also added support for random numbers as part of the code; any quesiton marks (?) in the code will be replaced by a random digit. (0-9) This new feature also applies to "active" phones. - Fixed an oversight in my new code which effectively disabled grenade cycling in multiplayer. - Attached the proper jump/etc. sounds to several of the female multi- player models, which previously had been using male noises. - Found an odd glitch in the game: if a non-explosive projectile hits glass it won't break it. The only projectiles that qualify are the "thrown" versions of various hand-to-hand weapons. Now fixed. - Improved the weapon switch code so that it will be easier for me to add weapons to the list in the future. Also reorganized it so it progresses through the list alphabetically. - Made all the grenade types (LAM, EMP, etc.) part of an abstract parent class, WeaponGrenade. It's unspawnable (that's what abstract means in UnrealScript terms) and there's no actual change to gameplay by doing this, but behind-the-scenes I've saved a lot of code by doing this one little thing. - Made a similar parent class for the various "consumables" (Soda, Zyme, etc.) in the game. - Cleaned up code in various other classes relating to the four basic grenade types, mostly by switching the code over to check for the new "WeaponGrenade" class, rather than each of the four individually. - Fixed a tiny issue with the new phone code that could stop the dial tone while you were dialing if the phone was used multiple times in quick succession. - Disabled the cats attacking rats thing for now. The AI routines require some serious editing before it will work right. - Stopped Robots and Animals from taking weapons from corpses and using them. I'll admit, the description I got of a security bot using pepper spray on someone was pretty funny, but not what I had in mind. Except maybe in Unrealistic. - Forget "maybe in Unrealistic", definitely in Unrealistic. Robots and Animals can now pick up nearby weapons and use them. Watch out for Karkians with Gep Guns. - Added support for Hejhujka's Alt-Fire addon/mutator for Deus Ex. My code effectively disabled the ability of his new weapons to use alt-fire, so I added a special case to look specifically for those new weapons. - In Unrealistic your player model will be whatever you selected for your non-team multiplayer model. The sounds are still updated but the conversation files aren't, meaning that you could, say, hear JC's voice coming out of Tiffany Savage's mouth. Or a child's. Or a gray's. - Disabled Robots are now frobbable in Unrealistic, just like corpses are. Considering the ludicrous amount of ammo they carry it's really worth it to disable them and loot 'em if you can. (I did put a cap on how much ammo you can get from them though) - Robots and Animals are now givent NPC Random Inventory, at least in Unrealistic. Karkians with Gep Guns; that is all you need to know. - Reworked my fix of the "time while paused" exploits so that the fix isn't screwed up by objects which aren't being "ticked" (updated) due to the player being a certain distance away. The new code isn't perfect; if you pause twice while something isn't being updated and then get close enough to where it is it'll only adjust the time limit as though you have paused just once. - Added support for custom ammo icons to the "item received" window you see when frobbing bodies. Also did some checking to make sure it shows a name if, say, the ammo has been overwritten to use a blank name, as in the case of robots. - Reworked the way ammo amounts are calculated when frobbing a body. The old amount used a fixed scale of 1 to 4 that I had to override with specific code. The number of overrides I was doing got to the point of being excessive, so I just redid the method to use a scale of 1 to whatever pickup amount is the default for the corresponding weapon. Some specific ranges are 1 to 4 on the crossbow, 1 to 6 on the pistol, and 1 to 30 on the Assault Rifle. - Adjusted the new firing effect on the Railgun so the duration is shorter and so the beam will fade out. Still doesn't go through walls though. (The effect, that is. The gun still shoots though walls) - In Unrealistic you will now be given any ammo type found on a body if you don't already have it. This means that it is possible to get a few rounds of 10mm explosive ammo in the first mission via NPC Random Inventory. - Re-activated some unused code that allows the received items window to show you how many of a particular item you've picked up. The normal behavior is to only show the count when above 1, but I've adjusted it to always show the count for ammo. - Added a little code to the window that shows you what items you've picked up from a body which will check for duplicate entries. Rather than displaying the item twice (or more) the code will make sure that the item count for an existing displayed item is simply updated. - Reworked the received items display to also show you the ammo you've picked up (and the amount) when you pick up a new weapon. - Removed a bit of code which prevented weapons loaded with 10mmEX ammo from doing the full, ludicrous amount of damage to the player. - Readjusted the new upgradeable light aug so that it isn't like (and I quote) "The JC DENTON FIRING RANGE!" on the higher levels. - Fixed the NPC Weapon Pickup functionality so that it won't cause a crash if an unarmed and fleeing NPC finds a weapon. - Ensured that the datacubes used for information display on the clone tanks in Area 51 can't be moved. - Adjusted the targeting aug so that it only provides an accuracy boost in singleplayer, rather than boosts to all weapon skills. In MP that's what the aug is supposed to do, so I've left that code in place for the Shifter MPers. - Readjusted a check in the "Dan Matsuma" bit which was inaccurately reporting that certain items were on the ground when they were in fact on boxes, tables, etc. - Ensured that in the new "second chance" weapon give situation with Gilbert Renton the appropriate flag is set indicating that you've given him a weapon, and also ensured that the conversation fragment you hear when giving him the weapon will be played. - Made sure that Juan Lebedev is actually neutral. - Made all varieties of Birds actually afraid of Cats. - Increased the default damage done by instant-hit (and now explosive) weapons in Unrealistic. The damage is now double what it was in earlier verisons of Unrealistic. - Made the Buddha display case in Maggie Chow's apartment moveable. This was a Game of the Year glitch, so people not running GOTY should not see any difference in gameplay. - Adjusted a small bit of the Kills/KOs skillpoint system and removed the hard-coded bonus for KOing Terrorists (and a few other classes) rather than outright killing them. It occured to me that the system should reward skill, not morality. As such I've replaced the old bonus with one for KOing MiBs, WiBs, and MJ12 Commandos. - Fixed the whole "Cats attack Rats" thing. They'll now attack Rats (and Birds) and eat the bodies, all very efficiently. It's sorta... soothing to watch. - Added a check to prevent players from picking up "native" ammo from NPC weapons (like the ammo for the Cat Scratch weapon) in Unrealistic. - Ensured that if a runaway loop WAS detected in some inventory- related functions that the loop would be stopped before it went too far and the inventory would attempt to be fixed if possible. - Fixed a DX code oversight that could cause numerous log errors when an NPC weilding a GEP Gun (or any other locking weapon) attempted to lock on to the player. - Found some badly-written code which indicates that GEP Guns aren't supposed to be able to "lock on" when weilded by an NPC. I've fixed the code for now, but if you ask me making NPCs capable of shooting homing rockets at the player sounds like an excellent way of making the game more difficult. Perhaps I'll enable it later. - Added a workaround for an odd "infinite loop" crash that can happen when Animals (or Robots, I think) use non-"native" weapons. I'm not entirely sure what causes the problem, all I know is what happens and where. I've added a few 50-millisecond delays to a few of the Attack- related functions that are only triggered when Animals and Robots use non-"native" weapons. (e.g. GEP Guns) That seems to have fixed the problem for now. - Made sure that Gunther Hermann's body is given the HDTP facelift if you somehow manage to kill or K.O. him, or if you're using him for your Unrealistic player model. - And also made sure that if you're using Gunther as your Unrealistic player model he gets the HDTP Facelift. - Made sure Jordan Shea uses the female sounds when using her as your multiplayer or Unrealistic model, as I'd overlooked her. - Ensured that NPC Random Inventory and related checks are always available in Unrealistic, as spawned NPCs like Fish, Pigeons, Rats, and even Cats can be given weapons in Unrealistic. - Moved the Explode() function (used by MiBs, WiBs, etc.) to the more general ScriptedPawn class. This means that I can now make ANY NPC up and explode whenever I want. MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!!!! - Seagulls and Flies will now drop any items they had on them when they die, and Pigeons will transfer their inventory to the Rats they turn into, should they do so. This only matters for Unrealistic. - Limited the Exploding Seagulls and Rats-with-Wings Pigeons things to Unrealistic only, since, well, they are. - Made blue laser triggers affectable by the Electrostatic Discharge augmentation. Turns out they're actually an entirely separate class from the red variety, hence why my original code didn't work on 'em. - Tweaked the skills for kills system to use the maximum of either the default health or head health of the off'd NPC. This was mostly an issue for robots, since their default head health (100) was usually less than their default health (anywhere from 150 to 600) - Tweaked Cat AI so they won't go after flying things that aren't near enough to them that they can actually attack them. - Corrected some dodgy coding on the part of the Deus Ex devs: there's a function called PickDestination(), but depending on the state the NPC is in this function can have different parameters or even a different return type. That's just... dangerous. (As demonstrated by a few "function not found" crashes in Beta 10 that were reported to me) I've renamed some of the functions to something else (since they were only valid within the specific states) and ensured that at the base class level there's a version of each function, so the worst you'll get is some odd NPC behavior, rather than an out-and-out game crash. - If you use the killall cheat in Unrealistic you now get some rather interesting results. - Switched the ammo used by the Robot Rocket weapon to use the basic GEP Gun ammo, so people in Unrealistic will get something useful from frobbing disabled, rocket-weilding robots. v1.7.2: (BUGFIX RELEASE, PART DEUX) - Cleaned up some issues relating to NPCs picking up weapons, in particular a few odd issues with "ghost" weapons floating around connected to them. - Fixed a minor visual issue with the new water splash effects, pointed out to me by a German fan of Shifter. (Yup, we've gone international) X Mulder/Lucius DeBeers pointed out that hand-to-hand weapons were creating water rings when the weapon didn't appear to break the surface of the water. Hand-to-hand weapons will no longer produce water rings, unless they are thrown via alt-fire. - Did a little more fixing on the "give weapons to NPCs" functionality. There was a minor issue with giving the NPC an ammo object it already had, which could cause a serious headache and some potential screw ups. Also, I added something that makes absolutely sure that when the NPC is given ammo they are given a generous amount, lest they be unable to fire the weapon. - May have fixed the "locking weapons"/"locking baton" issue, or at least one version of it. It appears to occur when, by some fluke, some of the items that a corpse supposedly holds are actually the items in the player's inventory. The Frob function now will skip over any items that are "owned" by the player; depending on which item the corpse and the player "share" you may or may not get all (or any) of the items that the corpse should have. Thanks to Radical R for providing me with a gamesave that allowed me to test this repeatedly. v1.7.1: (BUGFIX RELEASE) - Fixed a scripting issue inside the NYC helibase area which could cause a ghost Tracer Tong and Juan Lebedev to show up unexpectedly above the helicopter. This occasionally would lead to one or both of them winding up dead. Also cleaned up the code so it does a few maintenance-type things when the conversation is finally done. - Fixed some problems with the new "give weapons to NPCs" feature, specifically the problems with inventory carrying over and ammo sometimes disappearing when you give NPCs a weapon. - Disabled the new HDTP textures for valves, as they don't seem to show up properly. I assume this is because they are just unfinished, so this is only temporary until HDTP is fully released. - Fixed a problem where zooming an unscoped weapon with the Targeting aug and then turning the aug off could leave you stuck in the zoomed view. Disabling the aug while zoomed with an unscoped weapon will first drop you out of zoomed mode. Just in case that doesn't cut it I have made absolutely sure that you can hit the Scope Toggle or Alt Fire buttons to unzoom, no matter what the circumstances. - While I was at it I put in a quick fix to stop the MJ12 Troops hiding in Maggie Chow's apartment from randomly saying things that prematurely alert you to their presence. Not that anybody playing Shifter is likely to NOT know they're there anyway, but still.... - Cleaned up a few script warning spam issues about "so and so accessed none" and blabbity blah blah blah. v1.7: - Made it so Grays are healed by Radiation damage. In the past they just ignored it, but it made me ask the question, "then why do they all hang out near radioactive waste?" Made more sense this way. I doubt it'll have a huge impact on the game, but flavor-wise it's dead on. - Fixed a problem which has driven me nuts, NUTS I say since I got my 21" monitor o' doom: the game only recognizes 16 resolutions, starting with 640x480. That's great and all for 7 years ago, but my monitor can do up to 1920x1440, and I LIKE it at 1920x1440. I don't like having to hack my DeusEx.ini file to get it there. On the Deus Ex side it won't be an issue, as the game can now register up to 48 resolutions. However, there are some limitations with the Direct3D implementation used by the game, so if you use Direct3D render mode you will still only be able to select 1280x1024 in-game. I highly suggest you use the "updated" OpenGL library instead, as it works better, looks better and does not have any of these limitations. - Added simple splash effects for projectiles when then enter and leave water. You will see a ring where the projectile entered as well as a water spout, though the latter will only be created if you have your world detail level set to "high". I doubt any of you are still running Deus Ex on legacy equipment, but if you are you won't have to suffer through slowdown from all the neat effects I put in. - Started creating an "Unrealistic" difficulty level, because some of us need a better challenge. How challenging? The first step I've done is to make all NPC bullet weapons shoot explosive rounds. - Changed the way NPCs burn a bit more so that the "transition" between dying NPC on fire and dead NPC on fire is seamless. Instead of creating new Fire objects it will simply move the existing ones smoothly. Also resolved the occasional issue where corpses would spawn on TOP of the fire and float in mid-air. Well, mostly. There are some inadequacies in the Unreal engine that I can't fix. - Related to splash effects, I discovered that air bubbles don't "pop" when they hit the surface, they just disappear. I've changed it so they make a little ripple in the surface when they hit and disappear. They will also now fade out if they're around for too long, rather than just vanishing underwater. - Related to Unrealistic, did some diddling with explosive rounds. It turns out that the built-in function that handles explosion damage/etc., well, sucks. I've modified it so at the very least if you shoot an NPC with an explosive round they will take the full 5x damage. (3x for bots) Whether anything in the area will take damage is not guaranteed. - Started fixing up Flares. Yeah, you heard me, Flares. You thought I was joking when I said I would, didn't you? Anyway, I've lengthened the burn time, up to 6 minutes from the usual 30 seconds. It's still a lot less than a real Flare would burn for, but it's a lot more believable than 30 seconds. I also made it so they continue to burn under water (also like real Flares) and will let off bubbles as they do so, rather than big puffs of smoke. (which just looks silly under water) - Fixed up some stuff on animals, particularly certain animals (like cats) and why they don't eat certain other dead animals (like rats). Also tweaked the scripts so you can now knock out animals. I mean, y'know, 'cause I'm SURE those rats you killed kept you up at night. - Redid the way dead bodies are named, or at least the way the names show up. The itemName field is still the same, as I discovered while I was rooting around in some missionscripts that other mods rely on the name being "Unconscious" *exactly* to count someone as unconscious. I've used another variable to store the new display name, with the previous variable still using the old display name and being kept for both the purposes of missionscripts in other mods, as well as a fallback in case the new-format display name is somehow not set. - And while I was in Mission 2's missionscript I completely recoded the Castle Clinton slaughter check. As it was if any of the corpses or unconscious folks were somehow destroyed it would count you as having slaughtered them. On top of that the check would keep going even after all the terrorists were unconscious or dead. Bad bad coding. Fixed now, much more logical. - Fixed something with my customizeable vending machines which could overwrite the name of the product if you set it prior to the start of the mission. (e.g. built a map with it in there) - After a rather serious flaw with the new laser mod system was pointed out to me by jetsetlemming I've "tooled up" the laser sight a bit more. Now it will "jump" with each shot, as realistically your aim would be jarred a bit. The "jump" will only be within your current accuracy. - Fixed the Aggresive Defense System, as it was able to "detonate" things like fire from the Flamethrower, Throwing Knives, and Darts. Obviously this was, well, unrealistic. It is now limited to detonating all variety of Rockets and Plasma Bolts. - Added a pretty fire effect to flare darts, and made them generate air bubbles when under water. This is purely aesthetic and has no effect on gameplay. - Removed an erroneous description on the Assault Rifle which said it could take 10mm ammo, left over from the days when I was having problems with the ammo amounts for the weapon. - Fixed up the Shotguns slightly and stopped the alt-fire from allowing you to load up more than one clip into the shotgun for simul-fire. Once you reload you will clear any packed shells in the weapon. - I was going to add in a new shotgun ammo type, as suggested by Gdog4ever, but I got distracted by HDTP. (And the fact that I couldn't make the visual effect not look like crap) The ammo type is there, but it doesn't really work yet. I'll finish it in v1.8. - Restored a conversation you can overhear between Lebedev and someone else which was left out of the original game for some unknown reason. It isn't impossible to miss like it was in the v1.7 WIP build, but it's pretty convenient all the same. - Added in full HDTP compatibility for the new HDTP Release #1. Shifter will use the HDTP models and textures when available, and default to the original Deus Ex ones when not. This may cause some issues for multiplayer between clients using/not using HDTP, so I may later disable HDTP textures for multiplayer matches. - Added in another case that ensures mission scripts are spawned for every mission, even in mods. The existing code defaulted to base DX missions, which caused a problem when running mods like Zodiac/etc., which in turn caused a number of complaints about weapons and items not working in certain levels. Now fixed. Hooray! - Fixed an infrequent problem you can run into in Hong Kong if you don't leave the Luminous Path compound via the door. Once you get inside the compound properly (i.e. Gordon Quick lets you in) the Triad members won't turn against you if you then jump over the wall/etc. - Restored another unused conversation, or more of an overheard bit of speech really. Actually, it's a voice mail. That should be a fairly good clue as to what you might have to do to find it. - Be on the lookout for a new skillpoint opportunity: the Public Hygene Awareness Bonus. You'll laugh when you find it. Really. - In traipsing (did I spell that right?) through the various Deus Ex texture packages in the course of my HDTP compatibility updates I came across some oddly unused textures. If any of you have played Zodiac you may remember the soda "Zap!" I thought it was a new texture in the Zodiac mod, but apparently it's an unused texture in normal Deus Ex. I've now added functionality to Soda cans so they will somewhat randomly use the new textures, excepting those that are "clustered". (e.g. the shelves full of "Nuke!" in the HK underground market.) - Also while I was poking around in there I found an unused texture for candy bars, which I've added in much the same manner as above. - Did some work on the AI combat routines. If an NPC is attacking and either a) is only using melee weapons, or b) randomly decides to find a better weapon, they will go to the nearest better weapon and pick it up, at least within a certain range. - While I was modifying NPCs I made sure that any flesh chunks you get from an exploded NPC will have the appropriate velocity, rather than just dropping straight down. I think this looks better, or at least more realistic, than the old method. - I decided to go for something a bit more direct with Miguel, and have now added in a new method to allow you to give items to certain NPCs. All you have to do is press "Drop Item" when you get close enough to certain NPCs. (So far only Miguel) You'll get some text on the screen telling you what to do when you're close enough. This only works for weapons. - The questionable physics engine in Deus Ex has always driven me a bit batty at times, particularly the way certain items behave when they are falling. Carts were one such item, especially how you could roll them when they were on the ground, but throwing them in one direction would only result in them stopping abruptly when they landed. Carts will now roll after they land, in a way that at least vaguely approximates actual physics. - Did a little bit of code cleanup to prevent some of those random "so and so tried to access None" messages in the log from showing up. Some of it was due to my additions, but a surprising amount was from what was already present in Deus Ex to begin with. - Finally made it so you get points for disabling a robot with EMP. Also, you will no longer get points for hacking a disabled robot to pieces. It only seemed fair. - Long ago someone joked about how Walton Simons must swing by JC's office every time he leaves to steal all the things he leaves behind. "I mean, what does he think it is, a storage locker?" Yeah, well I was a little bored and decide to make it so you can store things in your office between missions. It'll even keep track of what mods you've added to weapons and so forth. Go hog wild. - Discovered that there's a datacube in the MJ12 HQ in UNATCO that invariably falls through the walls of the level and is thusly destroyed before you can read it. I've now placed a copy of it in roughly the same place as it starts out, only on top of the table, rather than inside it. Worst case scenario: you'll find two of the same datacube stacked on top of one another. - Another purely aesthetic change, I've now made it so that your item belt is cleared out BEFORE you are sent to the MJ12 HQ, rather than as the game is removing all your items. The items will still be in your inventory for that split second, so all of you folks who like to cheat and drop your items real quick can still do it. - Added a limit to how many shells you can "pack" into the shotguns, based on your associated skill level. At Untrained you can pack in one shell, but at Master you can pack in four. This will both prevent some serious possible abuse of the weapon as well as keeping the Jackhammer worth picking up. - One of the other illogical things about the game that has always bugged me is why, when the MJ12 folks disarm you, do they not take your Credits and your NanoKey Ring as well? The NanoKey Ring isn't something I can exactly address easily, particularly because you kind of need it to get through some parts of the level, but the credits were easy enough to handle. You'll now wake up in the cell with no credits, as they will have been confiscated and taken to the Armory along with the rest of your goodies. - Changed the way the Combat Knife code is written so that any items which are based off of it (child classes) will not have the Alt-Fire functionality by default. This used to be a specific exclusion for the Toxin Blade, but I thought I'd make it generic, lest some other mod have a really cool knife that winds up getting borked due to my alt-fire throwing code. v1.6: - Modified NPC Random Inventory a little more. The recursive check which tracks NPCs that might get a weapon now will stop if all NPCs have been given random inventory. This means slightly less CPU usage, which is a good thing. - I was reading some posts on DXEditing.com's forums and came across a post which pointed out that the "random" option for the spawn and patrol point functions in the MissionScript.uc file does nothing due to badly written code. I've changed it so it now works. I'm not sure what effect this will have on the game, but if you notice any NPCs that seem to change locations or patrol areas every time you go into a map (except for the Goth in the Hong Kong market) do let me know. - Also in the same post it was mentioned that you can shoot at the Bob Page hologram in the Vandenberg base and he'll jump off of the holo projector and start running around. While I find this terribly amusing I thought I should fix it. No more fleeing ghost-Page. - In yet another post there was mention of how you could get Paul to follow you around in the first mission and kill everyone, yet still have him compliment you on your restraint. This too has been fixed. Paul will now only use non-lethal weapons in the first mission. You can still get him to follow you around, but he'll only knock out Terrorists. - Slowed down all sounds when using Zyme. I hope you'll find that the "bullet time" atmosphere is improved by this change. - Changed the way the DeusEx.u file is compiled so that it doesn't include the UBrowser and UWindow classes in it. This means the average filesize should be around 5.4 MB, versus 6.1 MB. - Added in an actual Alt-Fire button and fire method, heavily borrowed from the Hardcore mod. For weapons without Alt-Fire modes this will simply toggle the scope if the weapon has one. The only weapon this will prove problematic for is the Plasma Rifle, which has both an Alt-Fire mode and Scope capability. - Related to Alt-Fire, the Combat Knife now has an "Alt-Fire Mode": throwing the knife at whatever. To compliment this you can now carry six (6) combat knives at once, a la Solider of Fortune. The damage from a thrown Combat Knife is fairly impressive, but not much higher than a Throwing Knife. - Still yet even MORE related to Alt-Fire, most Hand-to-Hand weapons are now throwable like the Combat Knife, though you can only carry one of each on all but the Combat Knife. - Also inspired by Hardcore, the crosshair will now turn blue when you look at neutral NPCs, rather than green. Friendly NPCs will still show up green. - Added a "lethality" check, at the moment only used for the Toxin Blade. The means if you stab someone with the Toxin Blade and they pass out from the poison later they'll be unconscious, but if you stab 'em to death they will be, in fact, dead. - Modified the new skillpoint system so it tracks whether or not you killed someone with a hand to hand weapon. This means the skillpoint bonuses for bonking NPCs on the head with the Baton, etc., have gone away. I still recommend you bonk 'em on the head though, since it does 8x damage when you do. (That's from Deus Ex, not Shifter) - In a surprising show of aesthetics I have modified the Vision aug so that when you look at a hologram with the Vision aug on (level 3+) it will be rendered a la The Matrix. The same is true for the Railgun's scope. You'll probably only get a chance to see this in the Vandenberg lab, when Bob Page shows up to heckle you. - FINALLY included a working "stealth bonus" skillpoint system. At the moment you need to get within a certain range of the NPC for the bonus to accumulate, and it will be reduced by doing things like making a noise, being spotted briefly/completely, etc. If you kill/KO the NPC you won't get any stealth points. Points accumulate during the course of a mission and are awarded during mission changes. This does mean that the final mission's stealth bonuses will not be awarded. The new system should work with any other mod, as per usual. - Changed the number of slugs the Boomstick and Jackhammer put out, up to 15 from 12. The Boomstick's damage per shot is back down to 30, but the Jackhammer's damage per shot is up to 15. - "Fixed" the interaction between the Laser Sight and Scope mods. If you have a Laser Sight on a weapon with a Scope you will no longer take an accuracy penalty if you don't zoom in using the Scope. - Added in the other half of my modifications to the Augmentation installation/upgrade system. Now if you want to replace an existing aug with a new one you just picked up you can. You will also get all the upgrades the previous augmentation had. As with the upgrades, this can only be done at a medbot. In the process of doing this I also fixed an error in the new system which allowed you to use Aug Canisters to upgrade an aug past its maximum level. - Related to this, fixed a glitch -- pointed out to me by des223 on the GameFAQs message boards -- which made it impossible to upgrade an augmentation using an aug canister when you had more than one of them in your inventory. - Reworked the "Assault Rifle Sound Fix" a little so that the sounds from the Flamethrower and Pepper Spray sound normal again, as the fix had made them a bit stuttered. - Also on the Flamethrower, gave it an Alt-Fire which jettisons a half tank of napalm, then ignites it. The resulting incendiary death bomb will set anything on fire it doesn't outright kill. - Modified NPC Random Inventory again, this time removing the exemption on Triad members. In the past allowing the Triads to carry random items had made the fight in the HK tunnel a little surreal. I've since added a check into the mission script which removes any random items from those Triad members and those only. All other Triad members are fair game. - Rebreather no longer instantly refills your oxygen meter. It now provides a gradual refill. This should remove the exploit provided by making "charged" items toggleable. - Added in a new method to create email in the game. This means I can add in textual clues for the extra stuff I make. Whoopee! Oh yes, so that the implication is completely obvious: hint hint, I already have. - Tech Goggles will now work like a less-powerful Level 4 Vision aug. The range of the through-walls vision is limited, so as not to make the Vision aug useless. Hopefully this will make Tech Goggles worth picking up early in the game. - Fixed the longstanding Deus Ex problem where starting a new game while playing an existing game would cause many items to carry over to the new game. You should now start with a clean, default inventory whenever you decide to start a new game. - Created the Blackjack, another Unique Weapon, on a whim. The Blackjack is a suped-up Baton, carrying some extra weight and thusly some extra punch. Paul carries this weapon in the first mission. No, you cannot kill him to get it. - Removed skillpoint deductions for fish. Yeah, fish. I forgot that they're able to be killed. On the plus side, if you happen to find a particularly hostile trout you'll get points for killing it. - Changed the placement of the Magnum to somewhere a bit more logical. It's still in the same area, just not quite the same place. - Fixed the exclusion in the MJ12 capture sequence where your grenade counts are reset after your items are "confiscated". The LAMs, Gas Grenades, EMP Grenades, and Scramble Grenades you pick up in the armory should now reflect your actual ammo amounts. - Also in the MJ12 capture sequence, removed the exploit that allowed you to open the inventory screen really quick and drop all your stuff before it was confiscated from you. The fix is only present if cheats are disabled, similar to the Inventory Overlap fix. - Fixed a glitch pointed out by Zak X on the GameFAQs message board which would put the player into infinite bullet time whenever they were shot with a Poison Dart, or (highly uncommon) if they were able to drink enough alcohol to make them drunk while Zyme-ing. - Taking another suggestion from ASG on the GameFAQs Message Boards, I have added in the Prototype NanoSword, a Unique Weapon. This is an early version of the Dragon's Tooth, taking less inventory space but also packing less of a punch. Due to widely ranging opinions on which of three colors the weapon should be there are three separate versions of the sword, each with its own unique stats. - For convenience, Vending Machines will now display the credit cost in their display name. The credit cost will be replaced by "empty" if the machine is empty. They will also display the product they sell. - Finally added in the range reading for the Laser Sight mod. The reading is color-coded: green means you're within the gun's accurate range, yellow means you're outside the accurate range, and red means the distance is greater than the gun's maximum range. - Changed the Alt-Fire for the Plasma Rifle. It will now shoot several low damage Plasma bolts which will bounce a number of times before they expire. At each bounce they will do damage. - Placed Explosive 10mm ammo in a few places in the game. The ammo is also a part of NPC Random Inventory; once you pick up an actual box of the ammo you should be able to get it from any NPCs who are given it via NPC Random Inventory. - Actually fixed the "ghost laser sight" problem in the MJ12 "capture" sequence. - Modified the check in the Castle Clinton area so that it won't give you a bloodthirsty reputation if Anna or the UNATCO troops kill some of the NSF. - Fixed a problem with the ILAW which wouldn't leave ammo on the MJ12 Commandos when they died. - Removed skillpoint bonuses for killing neutral NPCs, because there's really no skill in doing that. - Modified the Recoil and Reload display in the inventory screen to calculate the changes due to weapon skill in addition to those from weapon mods. Gracias to des223 for pointing out that the display lacked that information. - Fixed a last-minute glitch pointed out to me by jellyfish007 which prevented the JackHammer from doing damage when using Sabot shells. - Fixed another last-minute glitch pointed out by ASG where you could use the Skull Gun augmentation by pressing the Activate All Augs key, even if you didn't have the aug installed. - Changed the version info at the bottom of the Main Menu so that it displays Shifter's version info instead of Deus Ex's. - Changed the door display so that it will let you know the minimum amount of damage required to damage a breakable door. - Related to this, changed the damage readout on multi-projectile weapons so that it displays the base damage and how many projectiles it shoots as a multiplier before displaying the total damage. This should clear up any confusion over what weapons can or cannot damage what doors. - Removed a velocity reducing function from the Dying state of NPCs. This means when you boomstick someone in the face they'll REALLY fly. - Added an Alt-Fire mode to the Shotguns which allows you to pack extra shells into the chamber before firing. Think of it as being able to fire the entire clip at once, provided you have the time to prime it. - In response to an error pointed out by des223 I coded a default case which will ensure that MissionScripts are at least attempted to be spawned for each level. The Vandenberg Tunnels level has no script specified, and therefore doesn't clear a number of flags/settings which indicate that the player is between levels. Or did before the fix anyway. - Changed the way explosive projectiles may explode, currently only used by the projectile fired by the ILAW. This allows it to bust open safes and other goodies without having the damage usually required to open safes: 250. (explosives explode in a strange manner) - Also related to the ILAW, while it can now bust open safes, it can only do so if your Heavy Weapon skill is at Advanced or above. It can still bust open most doors and the like. - Modified the way firing animations are played so that the Shot Time Weapon Mod can always speed up a weapon. The speed of the animation will now increase to match the shot time when needed. - Modified the Targeting Augmentation so it will allow you to zoom in with weapons that don't have scopes. - Added in the Precision Rifle, a Unique Weapon. Fans of Red Faction should have a general idea of what this weapon is and what it does. - Tucked away somewhere in the wide expanse of Deus Ex is a vending machine which sells Beer. I'm not going to say where it is, but it's there. Alas, you don't realy get any prize for finding it, except the opportunity to buy Beer. Then again, Beer is its own reward. Beer. - Fixed a glitch posted on the Gamespot message boards where you can kill Bob Page just after his conversation with Maggie Chow by shooting through a near-imperceptable break in the bulletproof windowing in the VersaLife labs. You can still kill him if you really want to, but it won't remove him from the later levels and force you to spawn him to continue during the Vandenberg mission, for example. In short, Bob Page is undead. THE DEAD WALK AMONG US!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! - Changed the weapon ammo display in the Inventory screen to only show ammo that you've already picked up before when viewing a weapon's details. This means that weapons could theoretically be capable of using a certain kind of ammo, but won't tell you that until after you have picked up some of it somewhere. Hrrm, now what possible reason could I have to do something like that? - Sped up bullet tracers so they move somewhere remotely near the speed the actual damage moves. (Instantly, that is) - Added another check to ensure Ford Schick isn't considered un-rescued even after you rescue him. - Traditionally, leaving Paul's apartment through the window during the raid on the 'Ton would automatically kill Paul. I found this remarkably stupid if you, say, saved Paul and cleared out the 'Ton completely, watched him walk off, then left through the window only to find out he mysteriously died in the raid you just stopped. Well, no more. If you clear out the 'Ton and Paul is still alive he STAYS alive. Period. - Attempted to fix an old Deus Ex glitch where Paul sometimes will not show up in his apartment after you've sent the signal to the NSF. I'm not sure if this will fix the problem or not, but in my tests I've yet to see it happen. As it is, if the raid on the 'Ton hasn't happened yet, then Paul will be in his apartment during that mission. - Remember that "wandering laser sight" thing I said I was only going to be able to do in time for v1.7. Yeah... turns out it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. The laser sight will now wander around within your current accuracy, but the bullet will always wind up EXACTLY where the laser is pointing. - Related to this, you may notice that "scoped" weapons seem to suddenly be less accurate when not zoomed than they were in the past. This is not true; the HUD now merely reflects the true accuracy of the weapon, as it did not in the past. Scoped weapons will still be as accurate as ever, more so in fact since I slightly changed the accuracy penalty calculation to give smaller penalties. (This is, of course, not including the old laser sight behavior, which gave 100% accuracy) - Fixed a fix I made to the ever-so-glitchy 'Ton map during the UNATCO Raid. I'd inadvertantly set it so it attempted to start the conversation with Paul a little early if you accidentally got to close to him. That is no longer the case. - FINALLY resolved all Save/Load issues. Music no longer restarts when you load a game or save a game, and the info that appears next to each save game should be correct. This appears to be because of the, how shall we say, pickiness of the Deus Ex engine, which expects only a certain number of variables attributed to the DeusExPlayer class. As I had added one to create a new "too much ammo" message this had thrown off the engine's calculations, which made game saves skip a bunch of important info. (like what music was playing, how long you'd played...) - To combat how many of my mod's additions make the game significantly easier, I have modified NPC aim stats. In the past NPCs were not given the "standing bonus" received by the player, whereby aim gets better the longer they stand still. This has been changed so that NPCs will have better aim the longer they stand still, though how fast their aim improves depends on the game difficulty. On Easy their aim improves at roughly 1/4th the speed the player's does, whereas on Realistic NPC aim improves just as fast as the player's. - As per a suggestion from someone on the Gamespot/FAQs message board (I've forgotten who) NPC AI can now use the Railgun properly, e.g. an NPC will shoot through walls with the Railgun. Unfortunately this is done based on the assumption that the Railgun actually fires through walls properly, which at the moment it does not. They also cannot use the thermal scope on the Railgun, though that may be a good thing. I have given the Railgun to one in-game NPC at the moment as a sort of test, though whether or not they will use it remains to be seen. v1.5.1: (BUGFIX VERSION. I F%$#ED UP BAD) - Changed the array size of the Augmentation list back to the original value. This seemed to cause a number of General Protection Fault Crashes during missions loads, which is bad. Definitely bad. Very... very bad. Unfortunately this means that there is a cap on how many new augmentations I can add to the game. As it is there are 22 augs in the game; the array has room for 25. - Compressed the mod using a standard format compatible with Windows XP's built-in Zip viewing capabilities. I promise I'll never use the proprietary Winzip format again. Ever. Ever ever ever. v1.5: - Finally added in a working skillpoint bonus for headshots. - Fixed the firing sound problem with silenced Assault Rifles. You would only hear one silenced firing sound for every three or four bullets fired. The firing noise is now tied to projectile generation on every weapon, with the exception of the UN-silenced Assault Rifle, as the firing noise is actually four-in-one. - Added in the much-reffered-to Skull Gun augmentation. It installs to the Cranial aug slot and can be found in two places in the regular game. I would have liked to provide textual clues within the game as to the locations, but that has proven to be massively difficult. Just remember: it's all about Gunther. This was suggested to me by ASG on the GameFAQs Deus Ex Message Board. - As a side effect of my placement of the Skull Gun aug, Augmentation Cannisters will now contain random augmentations if none are specified for them. This will only matter for the aforementioned Skull Gun pickup and for Augmentation Cannisters you bring into the game using Summon. I may use this for NPC Random Inventory later, however. - Added in the Internal Light Anti-Personel Weapon (ILAW), a Unique Weapon. This fires the same missiles the MJ12 Commandos fire at you, and therefore runs on the same ammo. Because ammo for this weapon will be quite abundant, the placement of the weapon is somewhat obscure and difficult to find. Suggested by ASG. - Added in the JackHammer, another Unique Weapon. This is based heavily on the same-named weapon found in Max Payne. For those of you who have never played the game before, the JackHammer is a late-game weapon which is, in essence, a fully-auto rapid Shotgun, capable of expending a 12-round clip in under a second. It also puts out 12 slugs instead of the normal 5, but with only 1 damage per slug. And you will *definitely* have to work to get this one. As a hint: the weapon was made by Smuggler. - And yet *another* Unique Weapon: Lo Bruto. This is JoJo Fine's specially modified Stealth Pistol. I don't think I need to tell you where to find it. Also thanks to a suggestion by ASG. - Placed the Rate of Fire Weapon Mod in a few places in the game. They may or may not be in the some of the same places that ASG suggested on the GameFAQs Deus Ex Message Board. - Found an interesting code screwup centering around Ford Schick. (The guy you optionally rescue from the underground lab in NYC) Sometimes he won't show up in the last Smuggler map due to the way the code is structured. (If you rescue him) I've added a failsafe or two. - Also related to Ford Schick in the last map, after your conversation with him he's supposed to give you something, but you never get it. It turns out there's a typo in the convo code; I've fixed it so you get the item. - When possible, I've gone back and changed Unique Weapon and other item placement to be absolute -- as in XYZ coordinates -- in the script which places them. Since the placement is absolute, I've been able to move the code which places it to the initial mission load script. To summarize: GRR, CODE MORE EFFICIENT! - The Boomstick now pumps out 12 slugs instead of 5. The damage is roughly the same, total. - Added in the Majestic-12 Commando as a playable character in DXMP. It wasn't in previously because I was having trouble with the model trying to execute animations it didn't have, thereby freezing it. From what I can tell now this should no longer be a problem. - Changed Cigarettes a little so they give out a puff of smoke which does some minor damage. There's a random chance that it will also cause the damaged NPC to be "Tear Gassed" for a short period. - I may have fixed a glitch where you would generate a "ghost" laser dot if you had a weapon with the laser mod out prior to being captured at the end of mission 4. - Gave all Shotgun-based weapons extra kick, and allowed NPCs that are dying to be affected by momentum. This means you can theoretically Boomstick someone in the face and watch 'em fly. - Set up a method to differentiate between Flamethrower fire damage and Flare Dart fire damage. The only noticable difference is that NPCs will burn for half as long when hit with a Flare Dart, compared to the Flamethrower. - Alarm Panels deactivated via EMP will now be deactivated for a period of time relative to the EMP damage dealt to them. This is also true for Laser Tripwires, but I somehow neglected to document this previously. This seems to work for all sources of EMP, including the Electrostatic Discharge mod, though it has proven very difficult to hit the Laser Emitters with hand to hand weapons. - Coded a workaround to a limitation in the Unreal engine where one of the functions that is called when an NPC dies -- WaitForLanding() -- doesn't count water as a landing surface. The function will therefore wait indefinitely. It's very rare that this will ever be seen, as the problem only happens when an NPC is killed *above* water, *not* in it. - Reintroduced Explosive 10mm ammo. This turns your basic pistol into a true hand cannon. It hasn't been placed in the game yet, but you can spawn a few ammo boxes if you'd like. The name is Ammo10mmEX. - Instead of the typical "NPCs magically stop burning when they die" crap, NPCs will now continue to burn after they die. The length of the burn will be no longer than they would have burned had they not died. v1.4: - Regeneration mod will no longer turn off when you are fully healed. Instead it will go to an "idle" state, where it uses a minimal amount of energy, and will re-activate and heal once you are no longer at full health. - Added a direct modifier to the damage done by throwing plants/etc. into an NPC, based on the level of the Muscle augmentation. - Fixed the problem with improper sounds for certain player models in MP, for the most part. I was unable to replace sounds that had no female compliments obviously. - Changed the Combat Strength aug into the Electrostatic Discharge aug, taken pretty much identically from Invisible War. As such, the Microfibral Muscle augmentation now has the Combat Strength ability in addition to its normal ability, also like Invisible War. - Fixed a minor coding problem that spammed the DeusEx.log file every time a player switched weapons. - Changed where the Toxin Blade is found to a location that is much more appropriate for the weapon. - Added in a temporary "fix" for the new skillpoint system, allowing players to disable it if they choose. - Added in the Railgun. As with various incarnations of Railguns, this particular one WILL shoot through walls. And boxes. And people. At the moment it may not hit something even if you think it should, but headshots are guaranteed to be lethal. However, it will suck down ammo like none other. And no, I won't tell you where it is. :P v1.3: - Upgraded the mod from Beta stage to final, as there are no major glitches left in the mod. - Changed the Power Recirculator Aug so it activates and deactivates automatically. - Modified pickups like crates, vases, and so on such that when you throw them into an NPC at high speed it does stun/"knock-out" damage to them, as well as to the object if it is not indestructable. - Added in another unique weapon: the Toxin Blade. The only clue I'll offer is that it can be found similar to how the Toxin Blade was found in Invisible War. - Modified some generic weapon code so that weapons can stun NPCs without doing the special "Stun" damage type. At the moment this is only used for the Toxin Blade. - Added in slow-motion "bullet time" effects while using Zyme. Don't get thrown when it appears as though you're going slower; so is everyone and everything else. Because of this I've reduced the time for which the Zyme effect lasts, down to 30 seconds from 60. - Fixed a problem with the Enviromental Resistance augmentation and one of my additions which made lower levels of the aug reduce "drunk" time more quickly than high levels of the aug. - Changed the Scope feature so that it won't force you to wait until the gun is in the "idle" state before allowing you to zoom in/out. - Added in several new player models for Multiplayer. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a way to get the sounds to come out right yet, but at least you don't have a whopping 4 choices of who to play as. - Fixed the "highlight" issue in MP, where the highlight border would appear around the right-most slot of a multi-slot weapon, yet the game would switch based on the left-most slot of the item. The highlight will now appear on the left-most slot of the item. - Removed one of the "section separators" from the Toolbelt in MP, since the section it was marking has been expanded. - Moved the UPDATES section to the bottom of the Readme file. - Fixed the "overlap" trick, but only when cheats are disabled. If you still want to stack all three heavy weapons atop each other in your inventory screen you'll have to enable cheats to do it. - Split the difference between the chance of NPCs getting random inventory in v1.1b and v1.2b. It's now higher than v1.2b, but still lower than in v1.1b - Added in another Unique weapon: the Boomstick. You probably won't miss this one, but do keep an eye out. v1.2b: - Lowered the chance of NPCs getting random inventory slightly. - Modified the way NPC random inventory is given. It now determines whether or not an NPC can have random inventory when they are intially spawned, but only initially gives non-weapon items. It also sets up a recursive check which monitors whether or not the NPC is later given a weapon, in which case NPC random inventory will give that NPC a randomly determined upper-tier item, should they have not already been given a lower-tier item. This makes it so you can't keep reloading and re-killing NPCs in order to get the items of your choice. - Borrowed a little from the new Deus Ex game (Invisible War) and started adding in unique weapons. Thus far I have only added in a Magnum; I'm not going to tell you where it is though, except that it's not a separate item pickup. v1.1b: - Fixed something in NPC random inventory which was not tracking the weapons the NPC possessed properly, something which is factored in when granting random inventory. - Fixed a problem where you would be unable to remove Lockpicks or Multitools from your belt without the other replacing it, unless you dropped the items completely. - When you examine a corpse now any items you cannot pick up (or that you discard, i.e. Combat Knife) will be removed from the corpse and dropped on the ground as actual pickups. - Did some more tweaking to skill points for kills/KOs. Bonuses for stunning vs. killing are now only given for certain NPCs. (NSF, some others) Added in small bonuses for one-hit kills and hands-on kills. - Finally added in the strength/accuracy/speed bonus for Zyme use. You will experience roughly 30 seconds of enhanced abilities followed by an equal or greater period of drunkeness. Zyme use will also remove any existing drunk effects when first activated. - Modified some minor "consumeables" stuff. 40s will heal more and don't make you quite as drunk as before. Liquor heals a tiny bit more but makes you drunk twice as long. Candy Bars heal one more point as well, and Soda will actually reduce the time you are drunk. (Must be all that Caffiene) Cigarettes will now make you immediately sober. (They still hurt you though) - Added in Weapon Mod (Rate of Fire). This will increase the Rate of Fire on a variety of weapons, though unfortunately I have found the rounds per second listing exhibits gross innacuracies as far as rate calculations go. This mod will be found randomly on people you kill/KO. - If you come across an Augmentation Cannister for an Aug you already have you will be able to upgrade the existing Aug through the use of a Medical Bot. - Increased the base accuracy of Throwing Knives, as the current level was roughly the same spread as the shotgun. - Kills made by bots affected by a Scramble Grenade will grant you skill points as though you had made the kills, excepting any bonuses for distance, etc. (Unfortunately they tend to kill EVERYTHING, as I have pointed out above, so be wary) - Extended the time a Fire Extinguisher will spray for to 5 seconds. - The Environmental Resistance Augmentation will now decrease the length of time you will experience "drunk" effects, when active. v1.0b: - Added in code so that you don't pick up the f%$#ing Combat Knife from corpses if you have a better Hand to Hand weapon in your invo. - NPCs that would normally carry the combat knife may randomly be given a better melee weapon instead. (Fairly rare chance though) - Fixed the problem with Throwing Knives not showing up on the Inventory Added screen. - Changed some minor nuances in skill points for kills/KOs. - Fixed a problem with Dart Ammo on corpses where you could get between 9 and 14 clips (36 - 56 rounds) of regular darts from one corpse. - Took out a special case which had effectively nullified the change I made to the Pepper Spray cloud's live time. - Added in weapon switching for Hand to Hand weapons. If you press Change Ammo with a hand to hand weapon out -- e.g. Dragon's Tooth -- it will switch to the next available hand-to-hand weapon you have. If you have a second hand to hand weapon in another belt slot it will skip over it. v0.9b: - Fixed a problem where you could get docked skill points for killing flies. (Yeah, like the things that buzz around bodies. Those flies) - Fixed the problem in Shifter MP where the item labels didn't reflect what was in the belt slot. - Began implimentation of item cycling in the three right-most belt slots in MP. As an added bonus you can now cycle through all available grenade types in Single Player by pressing the "Change Ammo" button, as well as between Lockpicks and Multitools, Medkits and BioE Cells. - Finally played normal Deus Ex MP in god knows how long and realized that you don't actually have a Keyring in MP, meaning the last slot was available. As of now Lockpicks and Multitools each have their own slots. The cycling option from Multitool <=> Lockpick will only work in Single Player mode. - Took out Weapon Mod Auto, because it was a stupid idea. :P In order to prevent load errors from occuring with saves made with the weapon mod in inventory/in level/etc. you can still pick it up, but it does nothing (Don't worry though, I have a much better idea on what to replace it with) To get the mod out of your inventory simply drag it over any weapon and it will disappear. - Modified skill points on kill/KO. Lowered the bonus you get for stuns or KOs, and added in a bonus for distance. - Halved the live time on Pepper Spray clouds. The weapon was more like a micro-Gas Grenade and less like a hand weapon. - Increased the amount of damage the PS20 does. (again) Now it should be capable of taking out most enemies in one hit, short of MIBs/WIBs. (Hell, if it's a straight head shot it can take out an MiB as well) - Upgraded the mod's status to Beta stage, since as far as I can tell I have fixed most problems in Multiplayer. v0.8a: - Added Riot Prod to both the initial random list as well as the "KO or killed" list. Also modified the initial random list so that the liklihood of getting an item is the same as the other random list, and decreased the liklihood of a low-level NPC "jumping" levels to the next inventory list. - Fixed a problem in Random NPC Inventory which prevented any NPC from receiving credits as a result of random inventory. - Modified some skill point for kill/KO stuff. v0.7a: - Added in skill points for kills/knock-outs. The general amount may be changed in the future as evidence presents itself. At the moment you will receive about 1/10th of the victim's health in skill points. (NSF Terrorists have 75 so 7 pts, MIBs 350 so 35 pts, etc.) This amount can be modified based on how you killed them (e.g. Riot Prod vs LAW) or their alliance. (Hint: killing friendlies = bad) - Modified NPC random inventory so that only certain items go to NPCs in a certain health range. (e.g. no more 20mm ammo showing up on NSF Terrorists... mostly) There will still be a random chance that a NPC will "jump" a rank and receive an item from a higher list. - Fixed a glitch with the Mini Crossbow where you could pick up both ammo from the crossbow and the Tranq Darts carried by an NPC, in effect doubling the amount of ammo you could receive from a downed NPC. - Also related to Ammo and Random NPC Inventory, there was a glitch where you could see a screen showing you as having received some kind of ammo, but it would not actually be added to your ammo count unless you already possessed ammo of that type. I initally attempted to fix this problem so that you would always receive the ammo, but upon further consideration it occured to me this would serve as an excellent means to prevent Shifter from advancing the progress of your game prematurely. Therefore as of now you cannot receive ammo from random NPC Inventory unless you have picked up an actual ammo pickup for it previously. v0.6a: - Changed NPC random inventory to be initiated when the NPC dies for certain items. (mostly weapons) This will allow for more NPCs to qualify for the "weapon list" of items where applicable. (e.g. the hostile sailors, as sailors do not normally carry weapons and are in fact classified as civilians in the game) - Fixed a glitch related to random inventory which prevented you from getting ammo from corpses which was not loaded into a weapon. You are now able to pick up ammo from corpses provided it is non-standard ammo. (e.g. 20mm Ammo, Flare Darts, Standard Darts, Sabot Shells...) v0.5a: - Removed a glitch in NPC random inventory code where an NPC could be given a credit chit with no credits on it. Also prevented a randomly given credit chit from overwriting a credit chit already held by the NPC. - Modified the effect of Skill: Medicine on Water Coolers and Water Fountains. The range is now from 1 to 4 points of damage healed. - Changed the description of the "Change Ammo" key to reflect the fact that it also can change weapon modes. - Added in Weapon Mod (Automatic). v0.4a: - Changed some items in the NPC random inventory list. Removed Gas Grenades and Stealth Pistol in favor of 20mm Ammo and Riot Prod. Also removed Multitools and Lockpicks from the list, since you get enough of those in-game, and added in Zyme. (It's not just for junkies anymore!) - Increased the liklihood of an NPC getting random inventory ever so slightly. (4 in 11 chance instead of 3 in 10... sort of) - Fixed a glitch in the random inventory code that could lead to an NPC having no ammo for a weapon they were given. - Changed the minimum spread on Plasma Rifle in Spread Fire mode. - Added a whopping one point of damage to the Baton. - Water Coolers and Water Fountains will heal points of damage based on your Medicine skill. (from 1 to 3 points of damage) v0.3a: - Removed 10mm ammo from Assault Rifle. (Originally there to offset a now-fixed problem with getting 7.62 ammo) - NPCs will carry certain items based on random chance. MiBs and WiBs get a special set of random items. (Really good ones) - Changed the Alt-Fire on Plasma Rifle from Roswell Burst (Grey Spit) to Spread Fire. (Shotgun-style fire w/lower damage per hit but more projectiles) - Added more uses (drinks) to the water fountains found in levels. Also decreased the wait time between uses. (1 second down from 2) - Moved some things around in the Readme. v0.2a: - Initial public release.