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[MOD] DifficultyHack

Posted: Tue, 1. Mar 16, 07:46
by w.evans
Allows you to play with Very Hard difficulty spawns while dishing out and taking Normal damage.

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I really like the added activity in Very Hard difficulty, but don't like how it turns bad guys into bullet sponges and your shields into paper. Since we can't modify the penalties directly, I opted to approach the problem from a different direction.

What this actually does is increases the amount of damage the Skunk's weapons do and the amount of damage that the Skunk's shields can take. Will probably make any difficulty levels less than Very Hard less than fun, but if you like playing at Easy with what amounts to god mode, that's your call.

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What's New:

1.March 2016

Added two new files to Optional Files.

diffhack_shld_0.01 - Increases just shield strength. When at Very Hard, you'll be taking the same damage as at Normal difficulty.
diffhack_weap_0.01 - Increases just weapon strength. When at Very Hard, you'll be doing the same damage as at Normal difficulty.

You could install just one or just the other. If you want both, might as well get the main file.

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The shield modification will likely conflict with mods that modify the Skunk's shields or those that alter the Skunk's boost. Which mod changes those files will depend on load order. Shouldn't result in anything untoward.

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You can get the mod here:

http://www.nexusmods.com/xrebirth/mods/467?

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Check out my other mods for X Rebirth:
MarineRebalance,
BetterAutoAim,
SmalltalkHack,
Epic Capital Ship Shields,
Station Engineers,
Engineer Drone Fix,
Slightly More Useful Plot Station,
DockAllDrones,
Miscellaneous OOZ Combat Tweaks,
Miscellaneous IZ Combat Tweaks

Posted: Tue, 1. Mar 16, 08:14
by w.evans
To the one person who got the file in the 10 minutes since it went up, I bungled the content.xml on that one. Should still work fine, but you might have trouble finding it in the extensions menu in-game. Sorry about that. Fixed.

Posted: Tue, 1. Mar 16, 14:44
by swatti
Does this work in 4.0? Steam workshop?

I like the idea and hated the bullet-sponges too. Can the spawns be modified further? As in MOAR ENEMIES!

Posted: Tue, 1. Mar 16, 14:59
by pref
Good idea!
I think the amount of punishing enemies take is just boring. For ex. killing a P on very hard... :D

But not sure about Skunk shield - that seems to be fine on very hard, and anything less is just like godmode a bit.

Sure Skunk needs to be more OP?

Another idea that might be related - to increase Skunk weapon output you could reduce cooldown time on the weapons.

Having to switch every 1.5 secs or so with mods (or 3 without :) ) is almost as annoying as the bullet sponge effect.

Posted: Tue, 1. Mar 16, 18:55
by w.evans
@swatti, works in 4.0. This is not going to the Steam Workshop at the moment, especially now that we have comrades playing who aren't connected to Steam and are getting it from GoG.

Would certainly be easy to add more ships, but that's beyond scope in this mod. I'll play around with it and see if it would be a good idea that isn't already served by BlackRain et al's mod(s).

@pref, was actually thinking about splitting the mod up into two packages: one for just added damage and another for added shields. Thought wouldn't be worth the hassle since the idea is to reverse the penalties added in Very Hard. Will see if I could put that together now, though.

Would like some more opinions on that, however, because maintaining a combined version AS WELL AS a split up mod will be a hassle if it would ever need updating. (Not that I expect it to, unless the penalties for difficulty levels change, which I don't expect to.)

Posted: Tue, 1. Mar 16, 19:36
by w.evans
1.March 2016

Added two new files to Optional Files.

diffhack_shld_0.01 - Increases just shield strength. When at Very Hard, you'll be taking the same damage as at Normal difficulty.
diffhack_weap_0.01 - Increases just weapon strength. When at Very Hard, you'll be doing the same damage as at Normal difficulty.

You could install just one or just the other. If you want both, might as well get the main file.

edit: goofed. flipped "doing" and "taking". fortunately, the descriptions on the downloads themselves were correct. apologies for any confusion that might have caused.

Posted: Tue, 1. Mar 16, 21:10
by pref
What i was thinking was overcompensating with weapon damage a bit (return it to normal or near to that, and reduce need for switching because that is also annoying). The cooldown stat doesn't really limit dps anyway (as originally intended), just forces a switch.

Skunk shields seem really strong at least with mk5.

I can make the scripts needed for that (either via weapon or weapon mod edit), its too small a change anyway to make a separate mod out of it.

Posted: Tue, 1. Mar 16, 21:15
by w.evans
You mean weapons overheating really quickly with some weapon mods? I kind of like it that way, actually. Was thinking of making a weapon mod mod, but I don't really want to anymore. You want my prototype?

Posted: Tue, 1. Mar 16, 22:47
by pref
I was thinking of a general heat reduction for all weapons except maser (that could use damage increase rather) - as a partial substitute for damage increase.

It would only be effective in balance if there was a global energy pool used by all weapons. This way it just forces a weapon switch without having much balancing effect on dps. And since you are working for a damage increase it could partly be achieved by freeing up some weapon switch time and letting damage happen instead.

Also i have tho code, i can upload it somewhere if you change your mind :D

Posted: Wed, 2. Mar 16, 18:36
by w.evans
That does sound interesting. Would love to have a look!

Posted: Wed, 2. Mar 16, 20:13
by pref
This reduces heat for all bullets by a factor of 1.4, and increases damage by 10% for masers. For special weapons (charge or insta heatbuild ones) the over time heat reduction is almost as in vanilla, initial is divided by 1.4

I kept the original values in there as comments for easier editability.

dropbox

Posted: Thu, 3. Mar 16, 09:47
by GCCRacer
Hi and thanks for this mod!

I've just started a Vanilla 4.0 + HOL from GOG on Sunday, but want larger enemies encounters without modding the hell out of the game. This seems to be the ticket.

So basically with the combined files, my Damage and Shield stats in relation to enemies will be the same as on normal?

I'd also expect the hull itself to break much more quickly once the shields are gone (since the enemy weapons do more damage than normal)?

Looking forward to giving this a try,

regards

Posted: Thu, 3. Mar 16, 13:11
by w.evans
GCCRacer wrote:So basically with the combined files, my Damage and Shield stats in relation to enemies will be the same as on normal?
Yup, but if you want them combined, you'll only need the main file, no need to get the optional files.
GCCRacer wrote:I'd also expect the hull itself to break much more quickly once the shields are gone (since the enemy weapons do more damage than normal)?
Yes. I did not increase hull values, so when your shields are down, you will be a lot more vulnerable in Very Hard. Careful boosting.

Posted: Thu, 3. Mar 16, 13:47
by GCCRacer
Sounds good, I like the idea that defense is shield-based and the hull is just a last resort...

Posted: Fri, 4. Mar 16, 01:02
by GCCRacer
Works beautifully, it's even visible in the ship statistics that the mod is active.

May I ask another two questions...

1) How is it with missiles, do they also require balancing?

2) Using the mod I get hull damage even trough I have shields left. I assume this is because of Very Hard setting and enemies using some special weapons - not because of a problem with the mod?

cheers,

Helmut

Posted: Fri, 4. Mar 16, 06:53
by w.evans
Hi Helmut,
GCCRacer wrote:1) How is it with missiles, do they also require balancing?
I'm actually not sure if missile damage is also decreased in higher difficulty levels. Would make sense to. No plans to increase their damage however.
GCCRacer wrote:2) Using the mod I get hull damage even trough I have shields left. I assume this is because of Very Hard setting and enemies using some special weapons - not because of a problem with the mod?
You were maybe fighting a Xenon P? They have weapons that penetrate shields, like the heavy laser does. Not sure if other NPC weapons do as well.

Posted: Fri, 4. Mar 16, 10:47
by GCCRacer
Thanks, got it. Yes, likely Xenon P - sorry, I'm so new at this.

Seems the missiles still take a good chunk out of shields and hull, so that will be fine either way. Worst case it costs double the ammo, and it focuses the fight more on the targeted weapons...

Had some nice battles yesterday with the larger spawned groups, love it.

Posted: Fri, 4. Mar 16, 19:17
by w.evans
Cheers!

Posted: Wed, 9. Mar 16, 16:37
by w.evans
@pref, thanks for letting me take a look at your code, and sorry it took me so long to reply.

It's interesting, but I decided not to include it in this mod. Reason is that it doesn't really fit with the deliberately modest goal of the mod. (If there were a way to override the effects of the difficulty setting by changing a single number, it would literally do just that.)

You should release it though for people who do want to play with it. I disagree that it's too small to be a mod in its own right. In fact, I think that very small mods that change very particular things are a good thing that allow players to customize the game juuuust right to how we want to play.

I would request that you use single <replace /> nodes rather than <remove/> -> <add />. At least, I don't think remove -> add is necessary unless I missed a spot where it is. Only times I found remove -> add useful is if I wanted to wrap something around a node like:

Code: Select all

<set_value name="$somevar" exact="1"/>
to

Code: Select all

<do_if value="$somevar.sucks">
  <set_value name="$somevar" exact="1"/>
  <set_value name="$somevar.sucks" exact="0"/>
</do_if>
And then only because I haven't figured out a better solution for that problem.

Posted: Wed, 9. Mar 16, 16:52
by UniTrader
w.evans wrote:I would request that you use single <replace /> nodes rather than <remove/> -> <add />. At least, I don't think remove -> add is necessary unless I missed a spot where it is. Only times I found remove -> add useful is if I wanted to wrap something around a node like:

Code: Select all

<set_value name="$somevar" exact="1"/>
to

Code: Select all

<do_if value="$somevar.sucks">
  <set_value name="$somevar" exact="1"/>
  <set_value name="$somevar.sucks" exact="0"/>
</do_if>
And then only because I haven't figured out a better solution for that problem.

Code: Select all

<replace sel="//set_value[@name="$somevar]">
<do_if value="$somevar.sucks">
  <set_value name="$somevar" exact="1"/>
  <set_value name="$somevar.sucks" exact="0"/>
</do_if>
</replace>
if you want to replace 1 node with 2 or more nodes it would be a bit more tricky... i think the order was inverted in the result file, or it didnt work at all - not sure..[/code]