[WIP] Untitled extra content mod

[Hurrrdulon]

New Version
Download link for 0.0.2 (Reuploaded 1st august 2011) (.7z, ~4.06mb)

I couldn't find any easily downloadable 8-player/Freezethrower mods, so I made my own, and thought I may as well share it.
Haven't really got a name for it, and it's mostly going to be a huge mess of ideas thrown together into one project, which may or may not spawn a more streamlined/professional-looking mod in the future.

So why would you want to try it? Maybe this picture will interest you. If not, then you may as well stop reading as that's about as good as it gets.

Will add mirrors if necessary.

Quick Feature Overview:

• Mining Laser, Assault Jets and Blink Pack unlockable
• More class-exclusive gear
• Flashlight gives autoaim to wielder
• Power Fist works on Chainsaw
• Rebalanced skills for custom skillpoint campaigns (Melee Bonus --> Strength Bonus, all skills are now out of 5)
• Basic 8 player functionality
• Cigar

Slightly less quick feature and planned changes overview:

---Weapon Changes---
Mining Laser
	-Now Unlockable
	-Faster charge time
	-Now chargable with secondary fire ala minigun
	-Fire!

Tesla Cannon
	-Damage once again respectable
	-Ammo usage returned to pre-nerf state (no consumption when no target)

PDWs
	-Secondary Fire added
		-Ammo Conservation Mode
		-Rate of Fire halved
	-Ammo clips on HUD are no longer doubled up

Shotgun
	-More ammo

Grenade Launcher
	-Changed ammo resupply from 20% for 3 clips to 10% for 2. (This allows a full reload for 20% and prevents waste)
	-Secondary fire shoots timed grenades

Railgun
	-Increased damage to allow one-shot kills on drones in brutal
	-Shoots through doors ala Marksman Rifle (Tracers do not, may fix later)

----Item Changes----
Blink Pack and Assault Jets unlockable.

Night Vision Goggles
	-No longer rechargeable, can be used indefinitely.
	
Flashlight
	-Autoaim Bonus
	
Ammo Satchels
	-Secondary Fire drops a stack of AR/PR/Vindi Grenades (reload required after pickup)
	-Reload drops autogun ammo to prevent griefing the SWguy

Planned additions:

----New Weapons-----
HTC - Heavy Tesla Cannon
	-Special Weapons class only
	-Spins up ala minigun (induction coil!)
	-Large clips ala autogun (ammo efficient)
	-Longer range than standard tesla cannon

Freezer Unit (Already in)
	-Twin Fire modes
		-Primary: Long thin stream, ammo efficient
		-Secondary: Wide cone, increased ammo consumption
		-Both can be used simultaneously.
	-Freezes Swarm in their tracks
	
Firestorm Unit
	-Officer class only
	-Fires Incendiary Grenades that leave area burning for several seconds
	- + damage, duration from explosives bonus
	
Super Med Beacon
	-Medic class only
	-Deployed/Undeployed like sentry, remains after exhausted (faster set up/pack up from healing bonus!)
	-Functions like Healing Beacons, but with larger radius
	-Similar total healing capacity to ~10 beacons.
	-Refillable using certain other equipment.

Specialist Supply Satchels
	-Refills wielded Medigun, Super Med Beacon, All Sentries
	-Alt-fire refills deployed Super Med Beacons, Sentries
	-Pack of two
	-Pressing 'reload' uses one as a Medkit
	
Ammo Backback
	-Carries 250% of ammunition crate supplies
	-When wielded is held in front
	-Primary Fire opens backpack, allowing squadmates to grab ammo
	-Reload/Switching weapons closes it to stop greedy marines hogging it
	-Secondary Fire takes ammo out of it for your other weapon (without opening it)
	-Using an ammo crate while this is out will transfer as much of the crate as possible to the backback. (No it's not overpowered)

Ammo Vault
	-Single charge
	-Deploys an ammo stash, which is a 400% ammo crate with a box of autogun ammo on the side
		-Alternatively could just drop 4 ammo crates and 1 autogun ammo. We'll see when it comes to testing.

IAF Personal Defense Sentry
	-Sets up in half the time of regular sentries
	-Sets up automatically
	-Reduced Ammo capacity
	-Increased fire rate
	-Reduced damage per bullet

Syntek Laser Sentry
	-Infinite Ammo
	-Must recharge after firing
	-Mining Laser range

-----New Items------
X11 Personal Damage Amp (Added!)
	-Sp. Weapons only
	-Up to 8s duration
	-Rechargeable (27s for a full charge)

Timed Charge (t75?)
	-Destroys doors
	-3 second timer
	-Small Radius
	-Limited use

Prototype Tesla Armour
	-Shorter duration than v45 Tesla Armour (Like 2s)
	-Tech class only
	-Recharges
	-Passively shocks swarm that melee attack the wielder regardless of charge status (still take damage)
	
Heavy Armour
	-Reduces damage by 40%, no knockback when hit
	-Slows user when wielded (ala heavy weapons)
	
Nanomites
	-Passively regenerates health slowly (~4 ticks a min)

Medibooster
	-Medic Class only
	-Passively increases healing potency by 50%

Autowelder
	-Welds/Unwelds 4x as fast
	-2 charges
	
A2 Stimpack
	-Super slo-mo
	-Same real-time duration as Adrenaline, roughly half game-time duration
	-3 uses
	
Cigar (Currently in, doesn't show up in-game yet)
	-"A limited release, ISAF officers only premium cigar made from rare, offworld tobacco. Turns the smoker into a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sexual tyrannosaurus."
	-Purely cosmetic
	-Officer class only

Please give feedback and report any problems you encounter, feel free to give me suggestions/compliments/flames in this thread and watch this space for updates.

Oh yeah, many thanks to player2k for inspiration and 8-player code.

Installation:

For installing, you basically extract the aswmod folder into your sourcemods folder, so you end up with something like

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\sourcemods\aswmod

(Change Steam directory if necessary, create sourcemods if you don't have it)

Then after restarting steam, it should show up in your games list under "aswmod".

Basically, all players who join your server have to be running the same version of the mod, and playing aswmod rather than Alien Swarm. (They technically count as different games, although experience and most stats carry over seamlessly between them)

dude seriously. its not helping when tenthousands of people create their own mod. Go to one of the bigger mod groups and not start your own business.

Well i cant forbid anything, but i think you'll agree, that its just not player friendly if there are >10 different mods doing all the same.
write a PM to korias to apply as coder for the Second Wave, or help the Zombie Mod team, but starting your own business there is pointless.

and btw: i've made the first freezer dude. Let it be my baby :P

[Hurrrdulon]

Originally Posted by pnx

dude seriously. its not helping when tenthousands of people create their own mod. Go to one of the bigger mod groups and not start your own business. Well i cant forbid anything, but i think you'll agree, that its just not player friendly if there are >10 different mods doing all the same.

That's quite true. I'd only be fooling myself if I said that my mod was going to be different to anyone else's, as it's essentially a bunch of stuff that seemed cool to me at the time with balance and polish left for the birds. As for tenthousands of people creating their own mods, I just don't see all that many being released to the public, and while the lack of available content may have it's uses, (mainly encouraging people to check out the SDK and make their own fun) I really feel that some stuff should be put forward to keep people interested in the game until the bigger groups start releasing.

Originally Posted by pnx

write a PM to korias to apply as coder for the Second Wave, or help the Zombie Mod team, but starting your own business there is pointless.

Thanks for the suggestions, I might look into applying for the Second Wave team later on.

Originally Posted by pnx

and btw: i've made the first freezer dude. Let it be my baby :P

I'll try not to make a big deal of it, but it's just too cool to leave out. Plus yours is probably several hundred times better than mine.

[theironpaw]

Originally Posted by pnx

dude seriously. its not helping when tenthousands of people create their own mod. Go to one of the bigger mod groups and not start your own business.

Well i cant forbid anything, but i think you'll agree, that its just not player friendly if there are >10 different mods doing all the same.
write a PM to korias to apply as coder for the Second Wave, or help the Zombie Mod team, but starting your own business there is pointless.

and btw: i've made the first freezer dude. Let it be my baby :P

shooting dreams don't help, creating ones that one shall follow is better. if the guy/or girl wants to make a mod who cares. try not to tell people what to do. the fact there is 10 different mods is showing that some people have talent and there expressing it how they feel and doing a pretty cool hobbie.

let them do what they want. unless you see that they are challenging you and you feel threatened?. the more people trying to make the "first" or the "Best" mod, is good for the community

I'm not trying to kill other people ideas. Infact i try to do the opposide thing. If a talented coder got a cool idea, why make a single mod out of it, so you can _only_ do that stuff in there.
Wouldn't it be better, if you'd only have to install one single mod and experience all of the new features many talented modders put together.
and the thing is in this case especially:

player2k already made a 8 player mod and he only copied the code and made a mod out of it. I think it would be more viable if he gets in touch with some mode teams, to work for them, share the ideas with them, and create a mod, that is not only this and that change, but a mod which is actually played and was made by many people and stuff

[Hurrrdulon]

This mod is really just a personal project that I felt some people might get a kick out of. I agree that it would be great to gather all the best ideas into one universal mod, but you have to come up with the ideas first. What I'm doing with this is putting as much stuff as I or others can think of and try to make it work, learning more about the SDK as I go. I accept that under most circumstances it wouldn't be worth making public, but there's hardly any readily accessible mods out there at this point in time, and there's always people that want to unlock the mining laser or assault jets, maybe play around with a freezer or try out a campaign with 8 players and hardcore FF for laughs.

tl;dr: This mod is first and foremost for myself, it's just a bonus if anyone else likes it.

[Katsukaze]

Hey, this is very nice. I currently run Xehonk's Beyond Insane mod on my server and created a scenario where the current weapons and tactical readout are begining to fail.

Your mod has given me another option to implement apart from modifying weapon dmg / weapon ammo type in the scripts.

If you are able to get the code for aliens to drop powerups to work that might be interesting.

I look forward to your work in progress.

[xehonk]

Originally Posted by Katsukaze

Hey, this is very nice. I currently run Xehonk's Beyond Insane mod on my server and created a scenario where the current weapons and tactical readout are begining to fail.

Your mod has given me another option to implement apart from modifying weapon dmg / weapon ammo type in the scripts.

If you are able to get the code for aliens to drop powerups to work that might be interesting.

I look forward to your work in progress.

The problem with that idea is this mod makes changes to the client. So you'll lose pretty much all of the players immediately. ^^

[Hurrrdulon]

New version, check OP for download and details.

Originally Posted by Katsukaze

Hey, this is very nice. I currently run Xehonk's Beyond Insane mod on my server and created a scenario where the current weapons and tactical readout are begining to fail.

Your mod has given me another option to implement apart from modifying weapon dmg / weapon ammo type in the scripts.

If you are able to get the code for aliens to drop powerups to work that might be interesting.

I look forward to your work in progress.

Thanks, what kind of powerups did you have in mind?
I'm considering creating a bunch of cvars to control behaviour like the Railgun's penetration and the amount of ammo carried in ammo satchel crates, they might be in by the next release.

[xehonk]

Originally Posted by Hurrrdulon

Thanks, what kind of powerups did you have in mind?

he's talking about asw_drop_powerups

To make them drop in normal games, set asw_drop_powerups 1 and edit line 6271 in asw_gamerules.cpp (you could e.g. add a second cvar to make the powerups drop in modes other than holdout)

if ( !ASWHoldoutMode() && !asw_drop_powerups_override.GetBool() )

btw.. the freeze powerup is _way_ overpowered (a whole magazine of instant+permanent freezes are a bit too strong ) - you may want to change that if you're gonna build it into your mod.

[Katsukaze]

Originally Posted by xehonk

The problem with that idea is this mod makes changes to the client. So you'll lose pretty much all of the players immediately. ^^

Very True, I decided not to implement this mod after looking at the contents...got a bit excited.

Also Hurrrdulon, is it possible to include a Readme.txt? just took a while to understand what's what.

Until something better comes out, I've added
a Tech-limited Railgun [which can 1 shot a shieldbug on Brutal]
a Medic-limited [10 dmg .5 fire rate] Tesla to counter Parasites & Buzzers.

This is because with the BeyondInsane mod and other sourcemod overriden commands, there are approximately small 3-5 second windows of opportunity to move ahead before the next swarm/drone arrives from any direction on my server

Originally Posted by Hurrrdulon

Rebalanced skills for custom skillpoint campaigns (Melee Bonus --> Strength Bonus, all skills are now out of 5)

Wut? I don't understand this. Can you explain?

Tesla Cannon
-Damage once again respectable
-Ammo usage returned to pre-nerf state (no consumption when no target)

TESLA IZ OP!!!1!!1! NERF NAO!!1!!!!1
As long as I cannot use it to solo the campaign on hard nor "cut through doors like buttah", I'm fine with it.

Although personally I would just have made it the perfect stunner. Damage unaltered but ammo consumption either reduced a lot and made only one clip with a big size (to avoid reloading downtime). Maybe not reloadable from crates like Medgun.

PDWs
-Secondary Fire added
-Ammo Conservation Mode
-Rate of Fire halved
-Ammo clips on HUD are no longer doubled up

Worth a try, although were pretty good even before.

Railgun

Awesome.

Ammo Satchels
-Secondary Fire drops a stack of AR/PR/Vindi Grenades (reload required after pickup)
-Reload drops autogun ammo to prevent griefing the SWguy

Sheer win. Make. It. Happen.

HTC - Heavy Tesla Cannon

Hahahaha Awesome. You can make the Heavy Mining Lazor too, along these lines (more range and can be "spun up"). For Spec Ops only, of course.

Freezer Unit (Already in)

I waited for so long for stuff like this.

Super Med Beacon

Cool.

Specialist Supply Satchels

Ammo Backback

Ammo Vault

I'd vote to make this bunch Tech-only. They are pretty special stuff, and other guys can always take standard ammo crate.

IAF Personal Defense Sentry

I hope you can make its in-game model smaller than a normal sentry too.

Syntek Laser Sentry

Awesome. Although mining laser range is somewhat too close for a turret. Somewhat less than double mining laser should be Ok.

-----New Items------

X11 Personal Damage Amp (Added!)

You can make a backpack damage amp too. (one that when activatedcreates the aura centered on the marine and moves with him)

Prototype Tesla Armour

Awesome. Pretty balanced too.

Heavy Armour

Pretty.

Nanomites

Kind of useless because either has too low regen rate or becomes OP.

Medibooster

Me like this Mah Potency Increazes! Muahahaha.

Autowelder

I'd remove the charges and make this tech only.

Cigar (Currently in, doesn't show up in-game yet)
-"A limited release, ISAF officers only premium cigar made from rare, offworld tobacco. Turns the smoker into a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sexual tyrannosaurus."
-Purely cosmetic
-Officer class only

I'd make it give bonus to leadership skill. If a marine wit leadership 5 gets such bonus, is that added to the calculations for the skill effect or 5 is the max number that the game takes?

And a few ideas for new stuff.

-A "powerfist" that makes your melee attacks faster. Damage unchanged, just faster animation. Being an offhand object is not compatible with standard power fist.

-Power fist is supposed to enhance the strenght of the wearer, so it can also: help the marine kick down doors with bare hands, make him run faster, mahe him roll more far (that's the closes thing to a jump this game has). If you add also faster animations, you get the Bruce Lee Fist.

-the alien baits left dead in the game files. You know, those things that you throw and the alien go to eat. Maybe with a limited duration (the alien eat them up), and the caveat that until aliens see you they will follow you. When you go out of sight they turn and go eat the bait (instead of following you anyway).
Prefect combo with high explosives pack.

-A med beacon with frikkin autoaim. That would increase a lot my healing speed.


And then a few stupid questions about mods.
If I'm the host in match-making, the players will use my files right?
If I join a server without this mod I cannot join, right?

And last but not least: can you add a README that tells me where to place the stuff to "install" this mod?

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

I'd make it give bonus to leadership skill. If a marine wit leadership 5 gets such bonus, is that added to the calculations for the skill effect or 5 is the max number that the game takes?

this should work since i made a char with 20+ stats per slot and it worked.
the limitation is as far as i remember where you spend the points (custom skillpoint "mode")

[Hurrrdulon]

Originally Posted by Katsukaze

Also Hurrrdulon, is it possible to include a Readme.txt? just took a while to understand what's what.

I'll include the full changes list in the next release (pretty much the same as the code blocks in the OP, but updated accordingly).
[QUOTE=bobafetthotmail;16896982]Wut? I don't understand this. Can you explain?

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

personally I would just have made it the perfect stunner. Damage unaltered but ammo consumption either reduced a lot and made only one clip with a big size (to avoid reloading downtime).

Sounds a bit like the HTC, although the HTC should have more killing power.
Anyway, stunning capability was boosted, with the maximum number of arcs bumped up by one.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

Worth a try, although were pretty good even before.

I got the idea from someone mentioning an auto-PDW script that slowed them down to conserve ammo.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

Sheer win. Make. It. Happen.

Already have

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

Hahahaha Awesome. You can make the Heavy Mining Lazor too, along these lines (more range and can be "spun up"). For Spec Ops only, of course.

You can never have enough heavy weapons.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

I waited for so long for stuff like this.

Same, which was my motivation for doing this.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

I'd vote to make this bunch Tech-only. They are pretty special stuff, and other guys can always take standard ammo crate.

I'll consider class restrictions on them.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

I hope you can make its in-game model smaller than a normal sentry too.

I'll have to sort out my modelling first, but it's a logical idea.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

Awesome. Although mining laser range is somewhat too close for a turret.

It's to compensate for the infinite ammo. It can hold down a passage indefinitely, but it has nothing on normal sentries in open areas or swarm situations.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

You can make a backpack damage amp too. (one that when activatedcreates the aura centered on the marine and moves with him)

Considered that initially, felt it would boil down to one of the Amps always being chosen over the other.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

Kind of useless because either has too low regen rate or becomes OP.

Sort of going for an item that discourages speedrunning, probably not the best execution.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

I'd remove the charges and make this tech only.

Original idea was a welder that (un)seals doors fast without the engineering bonus (non-techs) but has limited use to make it more strategic (e.g. On Deima, do I want to unseal the shortcut door then seal it again, or go on to seal the door in the hacking room etc.)

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

I'd make it give bonus to leadership skill.

I was considering giving it a slight chance to ignite aliens with melee attacks, more lulzy than anything else as it really is a joke item imo.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

-A "powerfist" that makes your melee attacks faster.

Interesting, sounds like it would be great on Vegas/Wolfe

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

-Power fist is supposed to enhance the strenght of the wearer, so it can also: help the marine kick down doors with bare hands

I'll look into kicking down doors

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

-the alien baits left dead in the game files.

I liked Pipe Bombs in L4D.

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

-A med beacon with frikkin autoaim. That would increase a lot my healing speed.

Come again?

Originally Posted by bobafetthotmail

And then a few stupid questions about mods.
If I'm the host in match-making, the players will use my files right?
If I join a server without this mod I cannot join, right?

And last but not least: can you add a README that tells me where to place the stuff to "install" this mod?

For installing, you basically extract the aswmod folder into your sourcemods folder, so you end up with something like

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\sourcemods\aswmod

(Change Steam directory if necessary, create sourcemods if you don't have it)

Then after restarting steam, it should show up in your games list under "aswmod".

Basically, all players who join your server have to be running the same version of the mod, and playing aswmod rather than Alien Swarm. (They technically count as different games, although experience and most stats carry over seamlessly between them)

You forgot to explain this:

Rebalanced skills for custom skillpoint campaigns (Melee Bonus --> Strength Bonus, all skills are now out of 5)

What do you mean?

I'll have to sort out my modelling first, but it's a logical idea.

In other games I modded you just had to open the (extracted) mesh with notepad and change a number clearly labeled as "size". No guarantee that this may work the same, but I hope so.

It's to compensate for the infinite ammo. It can hold down a passage indefinitely, but it has nothing on normal sentries in open areas or swarm situations.

Dunno, a mining laser "sweep" (hold down trigger and aim around) clears bugs pretty nicely (ff nightmare btw). I'd give it decent range but after each 10 seconds or so of firing time (or after 20 or so kills or X damage dealt) I'd give it a downtime of 10 seconds. Like "Pawn0rz!!!!!!! Recharge time long enough to give bugs a chance to chew the marine ♥♥♥. Pawn0rz!!!!!!!". This may not be a build-and-forget turret.

Original idea was a welder that (un)seals doors fast without the engineering bonus (non-techs) but has limited use to make it more strategic (e.g. On Deima, do I want to unseal the shortcut door then seal it again, or go on to seal the door in the hacking room etc.)

Pretty strategic. Maybe too much for its own good. What about adding the ability of autosealing-autounsealing doors? (you activate it and then you are free to shoot and run around while it does its work, then falls on the ground where you can pick it up again)

Come again?

I assume you didn't understand what I meant. As of now, to cure a hurt guy with medgun I need to hover the mouse close to him and then click (holding down the button i keep curing him unless he gets out of range and that's cool). This is a pain if the guy is fighting and trying to evade the bugs or if we are all together, because I frequently end up curing myself or other people.

With an autoaim, I just aim at him with the medgun's red laser pointer (without moving the mouse over him) and the red crosshair tells me that I'm going to cure this guy. Click and I start curing him.

Basically, all players who join your server have to be running the same version of the mod, and playing aswmod rather than Alien Swarm. (They technically count as different games, although experience and most stats carry over seamlessly between them)

So the number of players will be rather limited. At least for now.