Slaughter asked me a few days ago in another thread for some description of an S^3 mod I've been working on. Basically, this project was something I started to amuse myself, learn the editor a bit better, and because I thought S^3 was a little lacking...

Suppose I should start with some of the features before I scare you away with the 'plot'

- There will not be any panzerkleins or the other sci-fi elements...
- Weapon damages and ranges will be closer to how they were in S2, but many are slightly more powerful...
- Melee weapons AP costs and damages have been overhauled, should be a more useful alternative for any character now...
- Item costs, hiring costs, and healing costs have been greatly reduced and hopefully better balanced...
- There is no longer a global map or chapters maps, zones are connected by clickable 'passage objects' (only the hero is required to activate and be in proximity). Inventory management should now be more crucial and plus an added challenge of having to carry any unconscious characters through a few zones to get to a nurse/doctor.
- Most zones are potentially random encounters. Enemies will be placed via script through 'timers' and 'random probabilities'. So RE's will be random and not units already placed in a specific spot in any given zone (unless it's a zone staged for plot advancement )
- Many NPC's will offer quests and rewards that will just be optional for the player. However, any 'accidental' killing of a useful NPC means they will remain dead forever...
- A transit system will be availible later in the game to reduce traveling time and unnecessary zoning - availible for a cost that is

I'm probably forgetting something, but that's about the jist of it. Everything in this mod is already preexisting in the game - no new textures or models. So with that in mind, the plot began as just a silly idea to start working with...

After the events of S3, the sentinels began to break apart with no longer having a common enemy. Many remained as mercenaries, and a few began working for crimelords, corrupt politicians, etc... After a period of time, a conflict of interest arose between these remaining sentinels and in-fighting insued. And thus, the mod begins as a simple revenge story

So that's my project more or less, probably not for everyone

Sounds good! Let us know when there are more details and material available. When do you expect to have something playable ready?

Sounds really good, hope to see something soon

Thanks Slaughter & Sorbical

@Slaughter - It's looking like a demo may be ready within a few days. Found a couple bugs that have set me back a bit, if I can't resolve one, it will have a minor effect on gameplay and I'll post about it later

Some other 'features' I neglected to mention:

1.) The first two characters available to the player (after the hero) are just civilians with poor stats and no perk tree. They're not really important to the story, but if the player keeps them alive and successfully completes the first major 'mission', the reward is an option to 'train' them into being one of two professional classes Otherwise it's the normal hiring method for obtaining more mercs.

2.) Movement AP costs have been reduced to how they were in S2

3.) For the way I'm contructing this mod, the 'Leave/Exit' button in the top menu bar is a problem. Well, not really There will be no 'Leave' button and most likely it will become a duplicate 'Journal' button. A fun side effect will be, no more color coded button that magically tells you there are enemies in the zone

If I remember anything else, I'll be sure to post about it

Quick update...

I've spent quite a bit of time hunting possible bugs and resolving them A few minor issues remain, but should have little impact on a demo.

Known issues are:

- If a party member dies while in a zone with a nurse/doctor and the player wants to use their services, then the negative VP count of the deceased character is factored into the total cost. This can be nasty if the character dies from 'decapitation'. Leaving the zone and reentering should resolve the problem. (I'll look into this one a bit more...)

- If a party member is carrying a corpse or unconscious teammate when the player initiates medical treatment with a nurse/doctor, then the character that was carrying will most likely be stuck in that state. Basically, that person will be stuck carrying an imaginary corpse until the player leaves the zone. Drop bodies before you talk to the nurse/doctor.

- Constantly zoning between the same two zones can cause the script to fail to reload. On the rare occasion that this occurs, the player will be stuck in that zone indefinitely (will need to reload saved game). Complex problem, but it should take a 'lil effort to make this happen

- Due to an issue with the state of 'unconciousness' not being considered a critical condition that can be treated, the only way to recover is by utilising a nurse/doctor. If or when a party member needs to be treated for unconsciousness, they will be temporarily removed from the party after speaking with the nurse/doctor and then rejoin the group when you exit the zone.

Still have a few minor things to finish up, but it's looking like a playable demo should be ready tomorrow or maybe Friday at the latest (U.S. time).

Neat! I'll add it to the files section and post it in the news when it's done

So, I didn't quite make it by Friday

All the scripts should work properly, but this is to be considered a beta demo. Though I've spent some time working on the scripts, I have yet to actually test the demo for balancing Pretty sad that I haven't had the time to actually play my own mod...

"However, any 'accidental' killing of a useful NPC means they will remain dead forever..." - I decided not to implement this yet. The demo is pretty linear with only a few 'missions'...

There's a readme in the zip, should give the basic info (i.e. how to install...).

Any and all feedback is welcome If you experience any problems, please post here and I'll look into as soon as possible. Oh, the known issues in my previous post still stand for now...

I think that's it. Hope you enjoy!

EDIT: The demo has been temporarily removed. I Found a few things that I wanted to tweak and fix before Slaughter made it official and added it to the files section. An updated version will be up soon with the list of changes/enhancements...

This will be the last update for the demo... unless someone gets around to playing it and wants to offer some feedback

No map was designed for any particular strategy, so I had some fun actually playing through. Oh, and I did my play testing on impossible difficulty with a rating of 2.48ish.

The original demo was perfectly 'playable', but there were a few things that I felt needed to be corrected:

- Adjusted the probabilities for random encounters. They seemed to occur more frequently than what was intended.
- Fixed an issue where enemies weapons were not scaling appropriately with the AI level. Wasn't something that was noticable until the final few missions.
- Increased shop resale values from 30% to 35%.
- Added a few more items to the shop.
- Tweaked the first encounter to make it a little easier.
- Fixed an issue with the engineer perk tree where the 'cheap reload' perk and subsequent branch were unselectable.
- Added a new uniform option for the male hero during creation. A new skin was available for the female hero, just forgot to implement the other one...
- Some minor text changes.

Minor points worth mentioning:
- When hiring a new merc, the hiring interface that lists the mercs with small photos is not accurate. You have to select the 'info' tab to see who's who. I plan on reworking the interface for the full version, but it wasn't a priority for the demo...
- I highly recommend that you do NOT select the save 'only on chapter map' feature in the custom difficulty options (or you will not be able to save the game ). Oh, and save often
- Of course, some bugs may still exist.

That's about the majority of it, I think. For anyone that enjoys playing this demo, a full version might be done in 6-8 weeks or so...

nice job kaije.
I will try your new mod and I'll give you some feedback but not before 3 weeks, because I am out of my living place ! you are really fast to do the mod ! with people like you Silent Storm are not dead & the community keep on tracking
Welcome

Thanks for the welcome, brandeburg

Yeah, looks like I missed out when the community seemed to be a bit more active. But hopefully there are still a few left out there that still have fun with S2 & S3... or enjoy playing with the game editor

Once you get yourself settled and comfortable in your living place, I look forward to hearing any feedback you may have about the mod But mostly, I hope you enjoy!

Thank you Thank you! I downloaded and played the first map last night. It was a lot of fun. I forgot how much I loved Silent Storm. I was great, and I can encourage you enough to keep at it. I am too busy to mod my self but have a lot of fun playing other peoples. I was always sad that this great game never had much support. As far as feedback goes, It seems like the AI is not very aggressive. I was shooting an enemy in the back and he didn't even turn around to shoot back. Maybe you wanted them docile for the First map as you don't have many weapons? I am playing on the normal difficulty. Thanks and Keep it up. I can guarantee I will play any SS mod that is uploaded

Alas, I have yet to even play S3! (Still working on finishing S2). Of course I might have to just D/L this beta and give it a whirl anyways, as I got into this community well after it ceased to be "thriving". I'm hoping this mod might inspire a "Golden Age of S2 and S3".

@SCAM - Glad to hear that you're enjoying the mod so far! Yeah, there's a few tweaks that I need to make to the AI on a few maps (and a few other things could use a bit more work too). I did intentionally tone down the first encounter some though, the first time around it took a bit of luck to get through it So I thought it would be better for the first mission to be a lil easier than frustrating I've also never played it on less than impossible so that might be part of it as well... If the next couple of maps seem too easy, may I suggest taking the enemy settings up to 100%? Or even if the AI just doesn't ever seem to get more aggressive, please post back - I can do more through scripting if needed...

@daredevil - Unfortunately, I'm the skeptical type so I'm not so sure about any "Golden Age" coming soon... but the more the merrier, and it would only be a positive thing for the community. And this may not be very 'modder' like of me, but I definitely suggest playing around some with S3 before giving any time to my mod

If anyone has any ideas for some quirky side missions (urban setting), post them here and if they're workable, I'll try to get them into the full version I have a few ideas, but a few more could never hurt

Thank you so much for the mod. I am enjoying playing S3 once again. I am at the point where Yosh has given me the task to rescue his daughter. I still have the two civilians with me, Vlad and Mira. Will I be able to train them into something other than civilian after the rescue mission?? I don't have enough money to hire anyone else, so I would like to continue to use them, with the hope that I can "convert" them "soon.

Hello fgbrooks It's good to hear that you're enjoying the mod so far! And to answer your question - yes, if you successfully complete the rescue mission, then you can "convert" both Mira and Vlad

Hey, Kaije.

I will play this demoMod soon and try to write some "rusty-dusty English" comments about it.

Great, we have a new campaing mod maker out here. Keep up!

Hello KoMik

I hope you enjoy the mod, but I'll admit there's nothing "new" in it. No worries about the "rusty-dusty English", I've read through the majority of the posts here and your English is fine

All right, my "wrap in a quote" doesn't work
This will be the last update for the demo... unless someone gets around to playing it and wants to offer some feedback
I've just finished playing your demo and wanted to thank you for delivering such an outstanding piece of work! I really enjoyed it.
Finally the mafia/mobster theme!

Here is some feedback (positive and other):

1.) Painless transfer zones!
A great solution to "not all party members..." type of messages. I am not even sure if the fast travel is actually needed.
And with randoms not always being populated by bad guys it is sort of a interesting challenge/gamble, if you will...

2.) For some reason (whether intentional or not I don't know) Mira and Vlad lose all the accumulated experience (lev.7 in my case) and items after one chooses their professions .
Although frustrating it is somewhat "compensated" during the battle for the compound where both of them gain most of that experience back.

3.) Some enemies don't engage in combat at all. They just sit "smoking" even though their comrades' heads are getting shot off just a few feet away. I understand it is most likely SS engine or AI behavior limitations, nevertheless I thought it was worth mentioning.

4.) The prerequisite 6 (at least) battles are a little too long of a wait to specialize Mira & Vlad, in my opinion. I was ready to do it when we got to town (after 2 fights). But it might just be me being impatient. It probably depends on how large the rest of the main plot is. If there 20+ more hostile encounters then I guess 6 battles is not that much after all.

5.) Innovative use of the available clothes. The Italian uniforms combined with British commando berets create very believable militant outfits. Nice touch! They were very underutilized in the previous titles (aside from the manor RE with the Sea Devil rifle, afaik)

6.) A little more background information on what's going on could be helpful. Journal is good, but different documents (clues) like: militant correspondence, Yoshimoto's ransom note, mobster's love letters or something like that could add quite a bit to the intrigue or humor, imo.

7.) When and where is all this happening? I felt in some sort of historical "vacuum". I might have missed it though.

8.) Mira, for some strange reason, is considered a male (base on the available clothes selection in the store).
Not that there is anything wrong with that, especially if further in the story we'll have a sufficient explanation for that, without digging too much in her/his closet...

9.) Does the striped road barrier at the edge of the "Yoshimoto's compound" map lead anywhere? It looked suspicious... (or is it "to be continued" type of thing?)

10.) And also, while I don't have a problem with cussing, in the journal it seemed a bit out of place, unless the main character is that kind of guy/gal, of course (which was not clear). Well, it was just a thought...

11.) "Easter eggs" like the 33-40 scoped rifle on the 2nd map "strategically" placed on the dresser was greatly appreciated, thank you. My sniper sorely needed it. More eggs are always welcome:)!
Are there going to be any more?

12.) Fighting battles while being outnumbered is very exciting. Hope there'll be more of that. Our quality vs. their quantity is something I really appreciate.

13.) A gradual introduction (scaling) of newer/better weapon types was just right, imo.

14.) A limited assortment of merchandise at the arms dealer is also nice.
Hope it'll remain that way.

15.) Is it at all feasible to introduce the Hammer & Sickle familiarity system?
There it was possible to develop familiarity to one weapon from each weapon category.
One could be proficient with, say, 1 knife, 1 pistol, 1 rifle, 1 SMG, 1 MG and 1 rocket launcher type all at the same time.

16.) Does Yoshimoto have anything to do with Yoshimo from BG?
Probably not, I'm just curious.

17.) Thank you for not using panzerkleins!

No map was designed for any particular strategy, so I had some fun actually playing through. Oh, and I did my play testing on impossible difficulty with a rating of 2.48ish.

18.) Nice use of the original templates.



The original demo was perfectly 'playable', but there were a few things that I felt needed to be corrected:

- Adjusted the probabilities for random encounters. They seemed to occur more frequently than what was intended.

19.) RE: I realize it was intentional to provide the player with ammo and such...but is there any chance of throwing in different in strength assortments of enemies instead of just: club, pistol, rifle A, rifle B, smg? After a while it becomes a little bit tiresome to face the same combinations of mobsters...

Tweaked the first encounter to make it a little easier.

Well, I played on ~ 2.00 and found that encounter quite challenging. The mobsters went for barman and the crew and paid little attention to me. It was fun shooting them in the back though .

- Fixed an issue with the engineer perk tree where the 'cheap reload' perk and subsequent branch were unselectable.

20.) Very good redesign of the skill trees (at least the ones I got a chance to check out).
And I really appreciate inclusion of "Look for free" into engineer skill tree. I always felt that this particular perk was a must for every profession. Do medics and others enjoy it too? (I didn't check it yet myself... )

- Added a new uniform option for the male hero during creation. A new skin was available for the female hero, just forgot to implement the other one...

Right, and Mira being a guy too (see above)... (or maybe I shouldn't laugh )

- Some minor text changes.

21.) I am not sure if you need any more textual corrections but I'll mention them anyway if you are planning on "polishing" your mod any further. (the underlined words have orthographical errors in the game)

NPCs pop up:
- 2nd sentence "...some of them..."
- "...of the player has reason to "remove" them."
Zone pop up:
- "...and the remaining party members..."
- "...a transit system will become available..."

Minor points worth mentioning:
- When hiring a new merc, the hiring interface that lists the mercs with small photos is not accurate. You have to select the 'info' tab to see who's who. I plan on reworking the interface for the full version, but it wasn't a priority for the demo ...

22.) Yes I noticed that. I haven't hired anyone this time through though. Will do next time with a different character class.
Did they all retain their voices and unique remarks?

Oh, yeah, and what was the problem with Yves? After being executed he was still on the "Hire" screen (without a price though). Is it supposed to be that way?

- I highly recommend that you do NOT select the save 'only on chapter map' feature in the custom difficulty options (or you will not be able to save the game ). Oh, and save often

Yes, thank you. I try to create at least 2 seperate saves for each encounter...

- Of course, some bugs may still exist.
Haven't experienced any... yet...

That's about the majority of it, I think. For anyone that enjoys playing this demo, a full version might be done in 6-8 weeks or so...

Thanks again for the excellent mod!

Can't wait to try the complete version!

- Blunter -

[Edit by Zombie: Sorry Blunter, but the forums are only set up to handle 5 imbedded quotes in a post. Any more than that and the software ignores them. You did a good job working around it though.]

Wow, thanks for the great feedback BlunterII I'll try to follow your numbering system to answer your questions or just comment...

1.) "And with randoms not always being populated by bad guys it is sort of a interesting challenge/gamble, if you will..."
The main idea behind this is : after every mission in S3 you pretty much had to go back to base to get a new mission, which allowed you to reequip your team and heal. The 'hidden randoms' feature never seemed to work, which was a disappointment for me. So I wanted to incorporate this through the "fast travel" element so long as the REs didn't become repetitive and annoying

2.) "For some reason (whether intentional or not I don't know) Mira and Vlad lose all the accumulated experience (lev.7 in my case) and items after one chooses their professions."
At first I was going to allow them to keep their levels, but it didn't seem 'realistic' in the sense that the real mercs you could hire would only be level 1. Their invertory should have been moved into the 'store' (your personal vault if you had purchased it).

3.) "Some enemies don't engage in combat at all."
There are some limitations to the AI logic, but I think most of the problem is that I just started this project and learning how to script about two months ago.

4.) "If there 20+ more hostile encounters then I guess 6 battles is not that much after all."
Yep, I'm estimating the full mod to be about 30+ zones.

5.) "Innovative use of the available clothes."
Thanks!

6.) "A little more background information on what's going on could be helpful."
Still working on this.

7.) "When and where is all this happening?"
I've been wondering if this was going to be asked. I have some ideas, but need to do some more research before I will answer.

8.) "Mira, for some strange reason, is considered a male (base on the available clothes selection in the store)."
Oops, Mira should be female

9.) "Does the striped road barrier at the edge of the "Yoshimoto's compound" map lead anywhere?"
Nope. The barrier is a 'dead end' flag for me when I'm setting up maps.

10.) "And also, while I don't have a problem with cussing, in the journal it seemed a bit out of place..."
The intent was to develop a personality so that the journal would be somewhat entertaining to read.

11.) "Easter eggs"
Yep, there will be more

14.) "A limited assortment of merchandise at the arms dealer is also nice."
Ultimately that's what I'm going for

15.) "Is it at all feasible to introduce the Hammer & Sickle familiarity system?"
I don't know. For now, I'll just say that it's doubtful.

16.) "Does Yoshimoto have anything to do with Yoshimo from BG?"
Nope.

19.) "RE: I realize it was intentional to provide the player with ammo and such..."
The RE mobs' equipment is supposed to scale with your level, but it doesn't work as well as I would like either. Early testing showed that the AI level was the cumulative level of the players party / 6. So the enemy AI is handicapped if you don't have a full group. I'm not postive that this is the actual formula for AI level, just what my early testing revealed.

20.) "Do medics and others enjoy it too?"
Not medics, but it's easy to implement. I'm rather partial to that perk too, so it'll be in the full release.

21.) "I am not sure if you need any more textual corrections..."
Thanks for pointing those out! I have no problems with making the minor fixes A lot of the text in the demo is not set in stone though and I'm sure there be some more oversights when it's finished

22.) "Did they all retain their voices and unique remarks? Oh, yeah, and what was the problem with Yves? After being executed he was still on the "Hire" screen (without a price though). Is it supposed to be that way?"
Yep, all characters should still have their unique remarks. That particular interface has little to do with the actual characters other than representing prices, so the small photo of Yves (and the other two from the intro sequence) will be there, but will not be available for hire

I'm glad you enjoyed the demo! And thanks again for offering all this feedback, I appreciate it!

Kaije,

Thank for creating this mod it was a lot of fun to play. Here is some additional feedback.

I was confused on the conversion process of Vlad and Mira they just seem to take off. I eventually figured it out. Maybe some better instruction from Yoshminto would have helped.

Also, in Silent Storm Sentinels there was an equipment loot screen after you hit the leave button. It showed all the loot available in the zone so that you could easily take what you wanted. It is difficult to see all the dropped equipment and a pain to run around a collect it with out it. I know that you don't have a leave button but perhaps when you use the street sign this screen could come up.

One other thought. I like the navigation system but it seems like it could be kind of a pain to constantly go back thru multiple maps to a certain map to sell looted equipment and heal. Especially as the world get larger as you are planning. I am not sure what the answer is besides putting arms dealers/nurse every few maps or so.

The final battle was lot of fun. The AI both friendly and Hostile seem kind of brain dead but in this case I think it balanced out because if they were any smarter I would have been overwhelmed by their numbers.

All in all I really enjoyed it and can't wait to play the final version!


Just out of curiosity where are you from? I am from Minneapolis, MN , USA