Deus Ex GMDX: Deus Ex Advancement Mod v9 Released!

[Lithium Flower]

AFAIK the tightness of the choke plays a more significant part in narrowing the shotgun's spread than the barrel does. Again, someone (at the very worst case scenario, me) just has to change the sawed-off's description to something like "The sawed-off, pump-action shotgun features a tight choke, making it relatively accurate despite short barrel length," and the assault's to "particularly effective in urban combat, the assault shotgun has an open cylinder choke resulting in wide blasts at close range" or something similar.

That's insane, if you've sawed off the end.. you have no threads to place a choke. That's what MAKES IT A SAWED OFF! No restriction on the spread, just the barrel ID.

You can weld a choke on. I know because I googled "tight choke sawed-off possible?" and searched the internet for like 15 minutes, so I must be right.

 

[RoSoDude]

How many times must this be explained? The Assault shotgun's rapid firing makes it superior to the Sawed-off at close range. It's not enough that might take another shot to take down the enemy, the reliability of wasting people with rapid-fire burst damage is too much. If we give it better range and accuracy, then it completely outclasses the sawed-off at longer ranges as well. Try to offset this by bumping up the damage even further on the Sawed-off and now you've obviated both pistols.

If we're really going down the rabbit hole of realism, a shotgun's spread is not actually hugely affected by barrel length, but rather by the presence of a choke at the very end of the barrel which constricts the pellets into a tighter grouping. Cutting off the end of the barrel of a conventional shotgun removes the choke, which leads to a higher spread. If our Sawed-off does have a choke, though (and why not, Sawed-off just means it has a shorter barrel, not that it was literally sawn off), and the Assault shotgun has a different one, it is highly reasonable that they would have unconventional relative accuracies and thus effective ranges, particularly so as to tune them for their intended uses (guess what the purpose of a "street sweeper" is).

But I really shouldn't have to go there, the point is gameplay balance. GMDX already increased the number of pellets from 5 to 8, you don't want to bump up either shotgun's damage further. They're already well balanced so that they each have a base usefulness (no skills/mods) and a certain potential (maxed skills/fully modded) so that both can be useful to the player. I don't know why it's so hard to accept minor discrepancies like this when you already have to make sense of the abstract accuracy/range systems (why does weapon skill have the same affect as a weapon mod on a shotgun, which is tighter grouping on pellets? And so on).

 

[Lithium Flower]

Preach on, brotha RoSoDude. Let us spread the word of CHOKES to the unwashed masses.

Chokes...

Chokes are the future!

 

[Ash]

Since in vanilla the sawed off does more damage

It does not. Damage is the same. The assault shotgun was better than the sawed-off in pretty much every way except accuracy and range. Oh and reload speed.

Aside from what has already been said, here's some more points to justify the original dev's design and my reluctance to change it:

Yes, one could do something like increase the sawed-off's damage and reduce its accuracy/range considerably to compensate, but given the numbers we are working with here, that's not really possible to do in a sensible manner, at least not without changing how the whole damage system is calculated (int to float). The shotguns both do 3 damage per pellet. The only increase even slightly viable is +1 (when ideally you'd want the damage difference to be minor, not +33%), which then scales even more the more you invest in skills.
Additionally, this fundamentally changes how the shotgun works. Turning the sawed-off into an inherently close range weapon negatively impacts its relation to the accuracy system (at very close range the accuracy system doesn't matter too much with any weapon, so making a weapon inherently close-ranged as its drawback isn't such a good idea).

Lastly, personally I have always liked the specific roles filled by the two shotguns (fast, drum-mag but slightly less accurate role of the assault shotgun VS slow, low-capacity precision boomstick that is the sawed-off).

the best bet is to simply change the name from sawed-off to whatever if it's really that important, but even then you gotta be wary of any possible dialogue/lore mentions of it being sawed-off, rewrite its inventory description from scratch, and impure things like that. Also potentially deal with squealing fans saying changing sawed-off to something else was completely unnecessary. I don't like outright replacing vanilla design unless it was truly bad (which is truly rare), but rather refining and extending it.

 

[agris]

Ash Thanks for a reasonable, invective-free answer.

edit: the DX wiki shows that the sawed-off's pellets do 5 damage per, while the assault's 4. that's where I got the numbers from fyi.

 

[The_Markie]

Since in vanilla the sawed off does more damage

It does not. Damage is the same. The assault shotgun was better than the sawed-off in pretty much every way except accuracy and range.

...The shotguns both do 3 damage per pellet...

Hey there, it's me again, Markie the developer of Vanilla Matters. I'm just dropping by to correct a few misinformation here:
1. The sawed-off shotgun does 5 damage per pellet, firing 5 pellets. The assault shotgun does 4 damage per pellet, firing the same 5 pellets. So both guns do not do the same amount of damage.
2. Due to float to int conversion, any number below 5 is a generally bad damage number because they do not scale properly with the skill bonuses:

• A base damage of 3, after receiving a 20%/50%/100% bonus from skill, would result in a progression of 3/3/4/6 (numbers are always rounded down).
• A base damage of 4, after receiving the bonuses, results in a progression of 4/4/6/8.
• These numbers are pretty terrible in the sense that the advertised damage bonus is a lie, which makes the skill investment's real value much lower than it seems.

But hey, it's ok if you don't know basic facts about what you're modding.

edit: the DX wiki shows that the sawed-off's pellets do 5 damage per, while the assault's 4. that's where I got the numbers from fyi.

Yes, previously a misconception that the assault shotgun dealt 5 damage, fired 4 pellets. But I corrected it after checking out the code.

 

[Ash]

But hey, it's ok if you don't know basic facts about what you're modding.

Except I am not modding and haven't for half a year now. It's certainly possible I've forgotten some details.

Also, don't come in here interacting with me. You're a complete low life that went around slandering my work for months despite not having played it all because I schooled you repeatedly on discord, because you were that dumb. Stick to your own mod and stop leeching exposure off mine while simultaneously satiating your deranged obsession.

 

[The_Markie]

Adorable google attempt.

"The sawed-off, pump-actionHEYshotgun features a truncatedMANbarrel resulting in a wide spreadAREat close range and willYOUaccept either buckshot or sabotOKshells."

 

[Lithium Flower]

"The sawed-off, pump-actionHEYshotgun features a truncatedMANbarrel resulting in a wide spreadAREat close range and willYOUaccept either buckshot or sabotOKshells."

Wait, where did you get this description? I call bullshit. Mine just says "The sawed-off, pump-action shotgun features a truncated barrel resulting in a wide spread at close range and will accept either buckshot or sabot shells." without all the bolded capital letters. I don't even know what you are trying to prove with this obvious fabrication.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Is a save from v8 compatible with v9?

 

[Ash]

No.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

AFAIK the tightness of the choke plays a more significant part in narrowing the shotgun's spread than the barrel does. Again, someone (at the very worst case scenario, me) just has to change the sawed-off's description to something like "The sawed-off, pump-action shotgun features a tight choke, making it relatively accurate despite short barrel length," and the assault's to "particularly effective in urban combat, the assault shotgun has an open cylinder choke resulting in wide blasts at close range" or something similar.

Someone could always make a choke mod specifically for shotguns to drastically reduce spread.

 

[Fenix]

Hey, it's me, your fellow russki codexer!
From my bell tower - figuratively saying - because I have never used shotgun in Deus Ex and GMDX (except shooting some crates because of pure greed that I could left some unused ammo) - I quickly dismiss this entire Shotgun War, while admit there were funny parts...

 

[Black]

I have never used shotgun in Deus Ex and GMDX

You missed out.

 

[Fenix]

I'm not - I did tested it, I found out it's not worth it.

 

[RoSoDude]

Latest news from my addon -- some changes to the MJ12 Prison level:

• The player's ammo is now taken away at the start of the mission, and placed inside a new (vanilla but unused in singleplayer) ammo crate in the armory which can be frobbed to retrieve it. This will probably be restricted to the Hardcore difficulty mode.
• To offset the removal of the player's ammo, more ammo has been scattered through the level (weapons no longer come preloaded in the armory either, so this is not really a net gain in general)
  • Added a box of 10mm ammo and a prod battery to the drawers in the starting room
  • Added a crate containing a 7.62x51mm clip to the upper portion of Robot Maintenance on the right side
  • Added a box of buckshot shells on a desk on the right side of the Command Center
  • Added a crate containing a box of tranquilizer darts to the hallway opposite the Nanotech lab
  • Added a box of tranquilizer darts, a box of sabot shells, and a crate containing a box of 10mm ammo to the corridor on the right side of the Karkian pit on the way to Surgery Ward
• Throwing Knives, weapon mods, and the PS20 should no longer have their stack counts screwed up by the armory transfer
• The crate containing an Assault Gun in the armory has been moved onto a stack of three other crates
• The MJ12 Trooper in the corridor on the left side of the Karkian pit on the way to the Surgery Ward no longer carries a Plasma Rifle, but an Assault Gun as vanilla

 

[Average Manatee]

MJ12 escape w/ limited equipment is one of the best parts of the game IMO.

 

[RoSoDude]

MJ12 escape w/ limited equipment is one of the best parts of the game IMO.

Definitely agree. It happens early enough in the game that it's not a bummer (part of this is that your arsenal is still changing at this point -- later on you pretty much have a set of likely highly modified equipment you're relying on and it'd be more lopsided to lose it), and it presents a unique challenge. Given such scant resources, there's a real mechanical benefit to playing stealthily and you're also encouraged to make creative use of your gradually growing suite of augmentations. In GMDX you're almost guaranteed to have Microfibral Muscle or Combat Speed, both of which can be very valuable without much armament. Taking away the player's ammo at the start heightens the challenge and further incentivizes smart play.

I worried a little about overly punishing players who go for the Surgery Ward before the Armory, which is why I placed more of the extra ammo along that branch of the level. That's also why you'll find Sabot rounds near the very end of that branch, right next to a datacube that gives you the security password. The latter rewards you with an easier path through Robot Maintenance, while the former grants you some additional firepower vs the security bot patrolling around the Armory. I'll be curious to get people's opinions about it in testing.

 

[Average Manatee]

Aside from the gameplay, it's additionally the point in the narrative where you've explicitly turned on UNATCO but haven't really gotten any hard evidence. This makes your actions a lot more grey. Do the soldiers there deserve to die? Is Paul mistaken? Even if he isn't, do the soldiers deserve to die because of a conspiracy they have no idea of? Throughout most of the game the only reason to try for non-lethal is in situations where JC is so amazingly powerful compared to his adversaries that he can do what he needs with a minimum of casualties. But in MJ12 JC is simultaneously at his weakest while also facing the people he has the least incentive to kill.

I do sort of wish there was some kind of 2nd equipment lost area near the end of the game. Having an area specifically constructed for a JC to get through with few weapons but fully auged to the max would be interesting.

 

[RoSoDude]

Okay, I promised a full up-to-date changelist, and here we are. Last time I only gave highlights, but this time I'm going to give highlights and post the full changelist. Here we go.

Confirmed Changes for 9.0.4 (highlights):

• No more hidden influence of weapon max range on accuracy -- your reticule will communicate a consistent level of accuracy for all weapons
• Rework to the wearables system for convenience and to fix an exploit. Using, recharging, and discarding a wearable will always operate on the top one in the stack. When you pick up a new Ballistic Armor/Hazmat Suit/Thermoptic Camo/Tech Goggles/Rebreather, its charge is added to the top item, and any overflow over 100% is given to a new wearable on top, up to the 1/2/3/4 wearables as governed by the Evironmental Training skill. Activating a body armor will automatically deactivate any currently active armors, with no more annoying messages telling you to do it yourself. Also, biocell recharge rates for wearables have been updated (rebreather recharge nerfed to 10% per biocell) and now properly display on the inventory screen
• Made the "Perks" button on the Skills/Perks screen dynamically swap between "Perks" and "Info" so you can toggle between the two while viewing multiple skills
• Rangefinder added to the binoculars
• Rework of secondary items to feature Tech Goggles, Binoculars, and (if you have the Combat Medic's Bag perk) medkits and biocells
• Miscellaneous fixes to weapon and AI behavior
• "Halve Ammo Capacity" menu option (unlocked after beating the game once) fixed
• Damage taken by the player now rounds properly, rather than just truncating during conversion to an int
  • e.g. 9 damage from an assault rifle would always round down to 6/4/4/3 with active Ballistic Protection, but now rounds properly to 6/5/4/3
• Box of WP rockets in Sam Carter's cabinet in the second UNATCO visit moved back so the cabinet can be opened
  
• Fixed a bug where laser dots would remain on map transition
  
• Inventory overlap exploit fixed
  
• Stealth Pistol ROF no longer messes up if you have it modded for full auto and switch ammo types
  
• Damage done to the four "corner" wedges on the head will no longer count as torso damage for some unfathomable reason (GMDX fixed the multiplier, but still counted as torso damage like vanilla)
  
• Made the door to Flight Control #2 in the Hong Kong MJ12 Helibase frobbable in case the player gets locked outside it (sometimes the AI close the door and just stare at you through it?)
• Reduced two sources of randomization (position + velocity) from crate item spawning to hopefully cut down on the issue of items spawning outside of walls?
• Fixed the reload time on the minicrossbow doubling if you switched ammo types

RoSoDude's GMDX Addon Changes (highlights):

• Full overhaul of hitscan range mechanics to make range modification more meaningful
• New laser mod behavior with simulated aim waver and recoil to make continued skill/mod investment worthwhile while still offering a clear and logical benefit to its use
• The Athletics skill now improves the player's reach when mantling
• The Stealth skill now makes the player hide 0/15/30/45% better in darkness when sneaking, in addition to sneaking and slow-walking faster (its perk-like benefits to actual perks later, see below)
• The Demolitions skill now allows you to carry 5/7/10/15 grenades of any particular type
• Minor skill rebalancing, including cost adjustments, changing Medicine scaling from 30/60/75/90 to 30/45/65/90, and adjusting the Lockpicking and Electronics skills' scaling on different difficulties (vanilla 10/25/40/75% on Easy; 10/15/25/50% on Realistic, Medium, and Hard; 5/10/20/45% on Hardcore)
• Run Silent now offers half of Speed Enhancement's groundspeed bonus (5/10/15/20%), not while jumping. Should be more competitive with its complementary aug as well as with crouchwalking with the Stealth skill
  
• The Passive Ballistic Protection augmentation no longer drains energy when taking damage, but instead offers up to 20/25/30/35% protection proportional to the user's current bioenergy level
• New Ammo Capacity augmentation to replace Energy Transference. Buffs all maximum ammo capacities by 20/30/40/50%. Weapon skills now also buff ammo capacities by 0/10/25/50%. To compensate, all base ammo capacities have been roughly halved.
• Tranquilizer darts now break on contact on Hardcore mode to prevent farming via AI abuse
• The crossbow now loads one dart at a time, while the Assault Shotgun loads a clip at a time
• Can now press the frob key (default RMB) to set the Spy Drone in place and resume control of JC. Press the Drone aug key again to resume control of the drone.
• Throwing Knives now require the Inventive perk to be assigned as a secondary weapon (discussions are already underway about reverting this, ha)
  
• Stamina no longer regenerates while crouched and standing still to make stamina management matter more to stealth players
  
• Perk overhauls:
  • Sleight of Hand, new Trained Lockpicking perk, allows an agent to pick locks and commit acts of theft without arousing suspicion from onlookers
    
  • Trained and Advanced Athletics perk merged into Trained perk "Perserverance", costs 100 SP (no blurring when drowning, damage to legs does not hinder movement speed)
    
  • Adrenaline, Advanced Athletics perk, now gives 30% stamina return on melee eliminations
    
  • Master Stealth perk merged into Master Athletics perk (still called Endurance, still costs 300 SP).
    
  • Security Loophole, new Advanced Stealth perk, now grants +50% camera detection time and laser grids no longer activate on contact with the legs (camera detection time was misreported as +45% for Advanced Stealth, was actually +52.73%)
    
  • Diversionary Tactic, new Master Stealth perk, allows the player to distract transgenics with corpses (will include improved sound distraction against humans later)
    
  • Repairman, new Trained Environmental Training perk, now makes biocells 1.5x as effective when repairing/recharging equipment (replaces Steady-Footed perk)
    
  • Turret Domination, new Master Hacking perk, replaces Neat Hack. You'll need this perk to alter turret targeting parameters, whether you're hacking or used the login (but you can now always disable turrets if whether hacked in or logged in)
    
  • Doorsman, Trained Lockpicking perk, is now required to see door damage thresholds in addition to reducing them by 5
  • Modder, Trained Hacking perk, makes the STOP worm effect permanent rather than just lasting 50% longer
• SecurityBot4 (the MJ12 one that cloaks) now rapid-fires plasma bolts instead of bullets and rockets
  
• Can now repair/recharge equipment with the repairbot. Repairbots and medbots are now limited to 3 uses on Medium/Hard, and 2 uses on Realistic/Hardcore.
• Sabot rounds are now truly slug rounds, and do 18 damage at base. They, along with AP ammo, now do 0.5x damage to soft targets (was 0.7x), 2.0x damage to robots, 1.5 damage to MJ12 Commandos, and 1.0x damage to helmets
  
• Helmet behavior refined, with more protection from the sides/back as well as improved sound feedback, including 6 new ricochet sounds. Headshot behavior refined in general
• Auto turrets can now have a maximum of 100 rounds, with improved targeting behavior (no longer shoot at inanimate objects)
• The player's ammo is now taken away at the start of the MJ12 prison escape on the Hardcore difficulty, and placed inside a new (vanilla but unused in singleplayer) ammo crate in the armory which can be frobbed to retrieve it. More ammo has been scattered throughout the level to compensate
• Taser dart pickup count changed from 2->3 in line with all other dart types (it's already rare enough in the world), and now deal 0 damage so they can only stun, not KO
• Reloading resets the player's standing accuracy bonus on Hardcore mode
  
• Death sound radius increased from 14ft to 21ft (was roughly 31ft vanilla) to punish overly dominant lethal stealth tactics
  
• Liberty Island laser mod reinstated on Hardcore
  
• Added an Assault Shotgun to the locked armory in the MJ12 Sewers to allow perceptive players to choose between shotguns earlier (not "wasting" mods on a Sawed-Off by accident)
  
• Pistol and Stealth Pistol range/accuracy stats swapped and stealth pistol ROF buffed to emphasize the Pistol as a pocket sniper and the Stealth Pistol as a CQC tool
• Added granularity to the Heavy weapon movement speed penalty, can be partially or fully reduced by the Heavy weapons skill, the Micofibral Muscle aug, or a combination thereof (only need Advanced skill + Tech Two for full removal, or maxed either)

GMDX 9.0.4 Confirmed Changelist:
https://pastebin.com/ZqavehDm
Full RSD Addon Changelist:
https://pastebin.com/a6DibysJ

And for a reminder, here's the new repairbot interface, since that's still the most incline new thing in the changelist:

 

[Fenix]

Hm...
Is this mod a must?
What exactly new damage of pistol andstealth pistol?
Before I remember there was no sense to use stealth pistot because of its low base damage.

• The Passive Ballistic Protection augmentation no longer drains energy when taking damage, but instead offers up to 20/25/30/35% protection proportional to the user's current bioenergy level

Not drained at all? Maybe at least 1/10 or 1/50 or something like that.

 

[RoSoDude]

Hm...
Is this mod a must?
What exactly new damage of pistol andstealth pistol?
Before I remember there was no sense to use stealth pistot because of its low base damage.

Hmm? I'm not sure what your initial question is. My mod is a GMDX addon, intended as an alternative vision with my own rebalancing and extended mechanics/systems. If you don't want those design changes, you can just stick with the 9.0.4 version, which will only feature the bugfix/quality of life stuff.

In GMDX v9.0.3 with my patch, the Stealth Pistol is 9 damage while the Pistol is 11 damage. In my addon, that's reverted to 8 and 11 damage, respectively. The Stealth Pistol is extremely effective either way, owing to its silenced status initially and extremely high DPS when modded to fire in full-auto.

Not drained at all? Maybe at least 1/10 or 1/50 or something like that.

Nah, it's free protection, but you have to keep your bionenergy up to maintain its potency. This isn't just an issue of management -- to keep your bioenergy high, you're incentivized to use augmentations less during combat (or rely more on other passive augs, introducing a natural synergy) and also eschew the common playstyle I refer to as the "repairbot hobo", in which the player leaves their bioenergy at 40% or below at all times so as to maximize repairbot efficiency.

I personally don't like any bioenergy use that isn't directly enacted by the player (excluding EMP damage, of course). The old passive ballistic protection aug taking energy automatically can put you in situations where your energy is drained without you actually making a conscious choice about its usage, and something about that doesn't sit right with me. I'm not saying it's bad design or anything, but I thought I'd try something else.

 

[Ash]

https://www.moddb.com/news/mod-appreciation-week-2018

Moddb's Mod Appreciation Week. Spread the love!

For the 4th year running the time has come to kick off Mod Appreciation Week 2018 and talk about our favorite mods. Nothing is more motivating than knowing something you've built is being enjoyed by others. So this week if there is a mod you love on Mod DB (or anywhere else), make the effort to shout out to them, mention and link their mod in a...

Mention GMDX or another mod. Show moddb what you did. Have chance to win games like STALKER or Chivalry.
Silly raffle prize draw thingie. I know many of you do this already, or at least I see people recommending GMDX around the net plenty. But if you like raffles and want to perhaps win some free games while promoting incline, help yourself.

 

[RoSoDude]

Happily, I'm not the only person bringing continued to GMDX! A talented software developer just came out with a new addon; a radial menu to streamline augmentation use!

https://www.moddb.com/mods/gmdx/addons/radial-augmentation-menu

This makes gameplay more fluent: tired of always searching the right F-key to toggle augs in your dark and moody (and untidy) gaming cave? Simply toggle augs on the run with a radial aug menu! Click middle mouse button (configurable), highlight one, click, done! I forgot F-keys exist using this thing. It's awesome!

Installation Instruction
Drag&Drop the DeusEx.u from the zip-file into your DeusEx\GMDXv9\System folder, replace the old one (make a backup first!).

No new start required, works with your savefiles!

>> In the in-game menu, don't forget to bind a key to toggle the menu! <<

Enjoy!


Comes with DeusEx.u fixes from the patched GMDX version 9.0.3 (excluding map fix)

I tested it myself and helped iron out some last-minute bugs, so I can offer a hearty recommendation of its quality. Really clean interface, smooth operation, real-time with no in-game pause (I detest that about modern wheel selection menus) and as you can see there's a button on the bottom to deactivate all augs at once. Really slick stuff.

For anyone who prefers to play on a gamepad, this will be a huge boon as well. Give it a download and show the developer some love!

 

[Ash]

Vice suggests you should play GMDX while you wait for Cyberpunk 2077, among other Cyberpunk media: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...hile-you-wait-for-cyberpunk-2077-release-date