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Author Topic: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the Deus Ex) (currently v1.23)  (Read 34670 times)

G-Flex

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So, I made a Deus Ex mod. I've been working on it on-and-off for a couple weeks now, and I just made the first public release available. It's something of a fan-patch and balance mod, rather than a total conversion or map set or anything else that drastically changes content, like Shifter.

I'll just copy over the project description from the Google Code project site:

Quote
What is this?

This mod seeks to improve the gameplay of the original Deus Ex by fixing bugs, improving upon some aspects of game balance, making other minor changes for the better, and integrating/improving upon fixes introduced by the developers of the Deus Ex 2.0, Shifter, and Deus Ex Enhanced mods for the same game.

Key Features

  • Implemented a vast number of bugfixes and other tweaks from Deus Ex 2.0 and Shifter, such as allowing unconscious NPCs to be killed, broken mission scripts, and a whole lot of other things.
  • Many more old and new bugs have been fixed: Firing spread is now circular instead of square, aspect ratio problems (e.g. widescreen displays) are a thing of the past, problems with some augmentations have been fixed, some more mission script bugs are fixed as well, and a host of other bugs, large and small, have been effectively taken care of.
  • Field of View angle is adjusted automatically for your aspect ratio, even for weapon scopes and binoculars (another previously unsolved problem). This should finally make the game fully widescreen-compatible.
  • Enemies now scale in difficulty and alertness as you increase the difficulty level, and NPCs are a bit more difficult in general, especially unique ones like the various augmented ones.
  • Some weapon balance and features have been improved (e.g. less powerful nanosword, better plasma weaponry, sabot slugs without pellet spread, and many other small changes).
  • "Swimming" skill is now "Athletics" and affects your speed, jumping, and falling damage as well as swimming speed and oxygen capacity.
  • A few augmentations have been rebalanced a bit, including a less-overpowered regeneration augmentation, speed aug that doesn't work as well when crouched, improved spy drone costs, an always-active EMP Shield, and slightly better Microfibral Muscle.
  • Better and more realistic bullet/projectile spread from weapons like the shotguns and plasma rifle.
  • New and better laser sight mechanic, improving upon Shifter's model.
  • HDTP compatibility.
  • Many other fixes and tweaks; see the readme file for more information, available as a standalone download, in the downloadable mod package, and in the source.

The mod and project source can be found here on Google Code.

And yes, the name is a pun on the recent prequel, as I found it kind of amusing and ironic that the newer game was released just as I was finishing up a mod for its ten-year-old predecessor.

So give it a shot if you haven't played the game in a while, or at least give the documentation a look and see if you might enjoy it. Not many of the changes are very drastic, but hopefully they all improve upon the experience. I'm glad to accept any feedback, especially for features that might need some adjustments, like the weapon balance changes, augmentation changes, Athletics skill, and falling damage change.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2012, 06:18:25 pm by G-Flex »
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== Human Renovation: My Deus Ex mod/fan patch (v1.30, updated 5/31/2012) ==

thezeus18

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2011, 12:46:50 am »

I'm definitely going to try this out. I do recommend you add lasers, or nukes, or sharks or something so that people will be more interested in it. They'll come for the shrink-guns, they'll stay for the bug-fixes, that's what I always say.
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G-Flex

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2011, 12:53:23 am »

I added a ridiculous cheat code inspired by that "Doom" comic that involves meat chunks and blowing things up, and its working name was the "meat ray". Does that count?

I could always incorporate that completely-batshit-ridiculous gravity gun mod I found a long time ago and modded to be able to pick up things like trees and elevator buttons and doors. It was, well, pretty hilarious. I sure as hell wouldn't incorporate it into the game proper, though.
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== Human Renovation: My Deus Ex mod/fan patch (v1.30, updated 5/31/2012) ==

thezeus18

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2011, 04:20:16 pm »

Yes that counts.

If that doesn't work, add some existential angst.
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G-Flex

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #4 on: August 09, 2011, 11:30:53 pm »

I'm bored, so I'm implementing cheat codes invoked using some of the more popular memes from the game's dialogue. "whatarottenwaytodie" is just about finished, and "ispillmydrink" is next.


[EDIT]
Version 1.1 is up with stupid-ass cheat codes. Enjoy exorcising Paul from his own body and inciting dance parties.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2011, 04:22:28 am by G-Flex »
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== Human Renovation: My Deus Ex mod/fan patch (v1.30, updated 5/31/2012) ==

The Merchant Of Menace

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2011, 07:18:58 am »

Huh, looking at the readme, this looks like a pretty awesome set of bugfixes and tweaks.

* The Merchant Of Menace goes off to reinstall DX
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #6 on: September 30, 2011, 08:15:20 am »

Having played through DX with this a month or so ago, my only concern is the absurd speed you can pick up with athletics. The potential speed enchancement abuse in vanilla was bad enough already... not that it really detracts from the gameplay if you don't want it to, nor do I have a better suggestion as to what to do with swimming.

I also had a couple of crashes on autosave but the game loaded said saves without any problems.
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G-Flex

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #7 on: September 30, 2011, 09:06:23 am »

Responses? Weird!

Right now I'm working on some more changes. I probably would have uploaded a new version by now, but I won't be able to get my laptop online for another 10 days or so.

Upcoming features already complete or near-complete in my working version:
  • High Definition Texture Pack compatibility. I hope. I copied and pasted the stuff in the Shifter mod that allows for compatibility; I have no idea how well it works. The guys who do HDTP didn't implement it as a drop-and-replace sort of thing, for reasons I don't really like, meaning that it isn't mod-compatible unless you go through painstaking lengths in your mod to force items to load the new textures/meshes if they're present. Anyway, it should work.
  • Some more little things from Shifter: The inventory-overlap glitch/exploit is disabled unless you have cheats turned on, the Enviro Resist aug affects the drug/poison swervy-vision timer, alarm panels and laser tripwires deactivated with EMP are deactivated for longer if they take more EMP damage, and Master skill in computers lets you get free goodies from vending machines (so there's incentive to have it).
  • Athletics has less effect on jumping and default jump height is now the same as in regular DX (to fix some nagging issues where being untrained would result in inability to jump over some map bits you need to be able to).
  • EMP Shield is now passive, not requiring any activation or power drain to use. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I'm trying to balance it to be less, er, utterly useless, and that's the first good idea that came up. Maybe I'll also have it provide a little bit of electricity-damage protection at higher levels, or change which canister it's in. Not sure yet, but ideas are appreciated.
  • Spy drone is also altered to allow for better use as, well, a spy drone. Now the running cost is very low, so you can send it for long distances as a scout. This way, people might actually use it for that! However, to ensure that players don't just use it as a free reusable EMP grenade, it costs a significant amount of energy to generate the drone itself. Again, I'm not 100% sure on this one either, so feedback is appreciated.
  • Field of View angle is adjusted based on the game resolution's aspect ratio, and should provide even better FoV matches than kentie's launcher (which you still want to use for its other fixes, mind you), and is automatically adjusted every time you load the game. Hassle-free! This also applies to things like scopes and binoculars, which kentie's launcher doesn't fix. So, no more widescreen woes, and theoretically this should work no matter what kind of crazy-ass aspect ratio you're using. This is probably the last "widescreen fix" that needed doing in Deus Ex... I hope. I didn't do whatever would be needed to adjust the FoV adjustment that being drunk/drugged/poisoned makes, but that's a small enough change in angle that I don't really care.
  • Since Athletics is more useful now, it costs more (same as Demolitions and Medicine).
  • I was bored, so I made a gun that shoots bullets in a spread pattern that looks like the outline of a heart shape. It's the Assault Heartgun. I might make it create glowing red/pink bulletholes and/or cause shooting an NPC to make that NPC friendly and follow you. This is just me being bored, so there's a chance I won't even compile it into the version I release. Either way, it wouldn't be available unless you cheat it in.

I feel like I should do something about Aqualung, since damn near nobody uses it, and "Swimming" now being a hopefully-useful skill probably won't help its case. I can't think of anything to add to its functionality. The best I can come up with is dramatically increasing its bonus at/near max level, so at max level you can basically stay underwater forever, but I doubt even that would be very useful.

Having played through DX with this a month or so ago, my only concern is the absurd speed you can pick up with athletics. The potential speed enchancement abuse in vanilla was bad enough already... not that it really detracts from the gameplay if you don't want it to, nor do I have a better suggestion as to what to do with swimming.

I think the enhancement you get from Master Athletics is similar to a level 2 speed aug, but I forget. Also, the default player run speed is lower in my mod to slightly adjust for it. I could decrease the boost you get from Athletics, but I want it to at least be noticeable/useful. I could also decrease the bonus from the speed aug by some amount. Overall, running speed is less problematic than jump height, because running speed being slightly too low is far, far less likely to screw up the character due to map design.

How did Athletics feel to you in general? Would it still feel useful with less of a speed bonus? I'm afraid of nerfing it too much, especially since I had to mess with jump height. I think the best approach at the moment would be a slight nerf to both the speed aug and athletics skill in terms of jump height(so neither alone is much less useful, but the combination at maximum provides you less of an advantage over the vanilla DX speed aug alone). The way that the two effects add up, both for running speed and jumping height, in my mod, is additive instead of multiplicative. That is to say, if your skill is giving you 140% normal jumping velocity, and the aug is giving you 180% normal jumping velocity, you get 220%, not the multiplied total of 252%. So they aren't ridiculously overpowered if you have both.

Athletics itself doesn't really increase run speed that much since your default run speed is lower than in regular DX. For instance, at max Athletics skill alone, your run speed is roughly equivalent to just the first-level speed aug in vanilla DX. However, I agree that the combination of skill and aug can get a little high, so I'll probably nerf the aug slightly in that regard too.

If any of that sounds bad, tell me! The effects should mostly be subtle.

Of course, faster running speed compounds with higher jump height when it comes to jump distance, since both affect how far you can long-jump, so that's affected more than just plain running or jumping.


I did some drastic changes to how falling damage is calculated, so if any of that feels bad or weird to you with regard to Athletics or the Speed Aug, let me know about that too. The speed aug mostly provides a percentage reduction to damage now instead of a flat one, so it should be much more useful for really long falls but probably less useful for short ones. The skill now takes the role of flat damage reduction. I figure this makes sense; having super parkour skills can definitely increase your safe landing distance, but after that, it seems reasonable for damage to scale as normal, like how the speed aug used to work but with a subtler effect.

Quote
I also had a couple of crashes on autosave but the game loaded said saves without any problems.

Interesting. The autosave feature isn't my implementation, so I'm not sure what problems exist there. Do you remember that map it occurred on, or any other info, like an error message? The game also saves a log file where it saves your config information (in My Documents\Deus Ex\System if using kentie's launcher), so if your game crashes again, you could peek in there and see if it says anything that would help.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2011, 09:16:29 am by G-Flex »
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== Human Renovation: My Deus Ex mod/fan patch (v1.30, updated 5/31/2012) ==

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2011, 09:37:21 am »

Overall, running speed is less problematic than jump height, because running speed being slightly too low is far, far less likely to screw up the character due to map design.

I'll agree that jump height is probably more of an issue than move speed; the current bonus seems excessive. I guess a problem is that bunnyhop exploits and such are always going to exist so long as the speed aug itself does - there might not be a practical way around that without revising the game's entire approach to such things.

I think the best approach at the moment would be a slight nerf to both the speed aug and athletics skill in terms of jump height(so neither alone is much less useful, but the combination at maximum provides you less of an advantage over the vanilla DX speed aug alone).

Sounds like it should help.

Do you remember that map it occurred on, or any other info, like an error message?

No messages, just a typical Windows app crash. It first happened on exiting UNATCO HQ after Liberty Island, and again some time later but I don't remember exactly where; it could've been in Paris. I haven't had any issues since...
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G-Flex

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2011, 09:52:31 am »

That's pretty weird! Well, if it happens again, just check out the game log (something like DeusEx.log) in the folder I mentioned and pastebin it or something so I can check it out. I haven't heard of anyone else having issues with it, though.

There is an issue where the autosave doesn't work in places where you get an infolink message immediately upon entering the map, though, because saving doesn't work when those are playing. The only example I can think of is when you enter the Paris city map, though. No big deal either way.

Someone actually wrote up some script to add an autosave enable/disable button in one of the options screens, so I might implement that at some point.
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== Human Renovation: My Deus Ex mod/fan patch (v1.30, updated 5/31/2012) ==

Shadowlord

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2011, 10:40:53 am »

There's also an issue in regular Deus Ex where if you create a sufficiently long note, or edit an existing one to be sufficiently long, you can cause the game to become unstable due to -- MOVE!

It will then crash in level transitions. (I had a saved game in the VersaLife HQ which reliably crashed whenever I entered the elevator to their underground labs as a result of this bug, years ago)
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G-Flex

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #11 on: September 30, 2011, 12:12:34 pm »

There's also an issue in regular Deus Ex where if you create a sufficiently long note, or edit an existing one to be sufficiently long, you can cause the game to become unstable due to -- MOVE!

Do you know the actual cause of the bug? I'm assuming it must be trying to cram more than it can into a string (or some other variable type) and causing the data to overflow, or something. I tried googling it, but no dice.
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== Human Renovation: My Deus Ex mod/fan patch (v1.30, updated 5/31/2012) ==

Shadowlord

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #12 on: September 30, 2011, 12:37:30 pm »

No, I could only guess that it exceeded the size of the buffer allocated for the note (or for all notes, however it is done - I do not know).
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G-Flex

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #13 on: October 15, 2011, 07:18:33 pm »

New version is up!

Quote
+ HDTP compatibility added (from Shifter)
+ Enviro aug lowers drug timer duration (from Shifter)
+ Overlap bug doesn't work when cheats are off (from shifter)
+ Alarm panels/laser tripwires deactivated via EMP are deactivated for a time relative to damage (from Shifter)
+ Laser-type effects fade out near death when applicable (from Shifter)
+ Master computers skill lets you get free vending machine goods (from Shifter)
+ Compared to vanilla DX, Advanced computers skill lets you hack a little longer, and Master computers skill lets you hack for significantly longer
+ Athletics has lesser effect on jumping (default jump height is now same as vanilla DX)
+ Increase skill cost of Athletics to that of medicine/demolitions
+ Slightly nerf running/jumping bonuses from speed aug
+ Spy drone has much lower energy drain and moves 50% faster, but has significant (30 unit) energy drain on activation
+ Field of View angle is now automatically corrected based on aspect ratio, both for the normal view and for scope/binocular views
+ Standing bonus goes up a bit faster, and no longer goes down when reloading
+ EMP Shield passive and protects against electricity a bit (25% at level 3 then 50% at 4)
+ Fixed up angle calculations a bit for the laser and firing offsets so they're more accurate now
+ Modified the laser sight wander mechanism a bit (might still require tweaking)

Feedback is especially appreciated for the things in bold, as those are the things that are newest or that I'm least sure of.
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== Human Renovation: My Deus Ex mod/fan patch (v1.30, updated 5/31/2012) ==

G-Flex

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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (a mod/fan patch for the original Deus Ex)
« Reply #14 on: October 16, 2011, 08:06:07 pm »

Oh, and a minor undocumented thing, for laughs: Enable cheats in the game, then open the console and type "summon weaponassaultheartgun". Then go fire it at a wall a few times. It was something I did when I was bored, and I probably didn't even finish it, but you might be amused.


EDIT: Minor update to v1.21. The spy drone now works properly while you're underwater/swimming, my spy drone speed bonus was reverted (it's unnecessary with the lower energy drain), hazmat suits now properly protect against all burning/heat damage instead of just some, and some minor interface improvements to how charged pickups (hazmat, etc.) work.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2011, 11:58:41 am by G-Flex »
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== Human Renovation: My Deus Ex mod/fan patch (v1.30, updated 5/31/2012) ==
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