Minor Quibbles Adjustment Mod concept

[nyleken]

After playing SWAT 3 recently I've noticed that my most used mod for it is Finn McCool's Enhancements 1.5, a lightweight (only 700kb at induktio!) mod that mainly corrects errors found in the game's texts, enhances the sound, adds AI improvements from other mods, improves on the effects, and rebalances the enemy AI to be less superhuman.

 

So I thought about doing the same thing! The features I plan on implementing are:

• Renaming weapons/items to their actual real-life name. This includes the grenade, whose in-game model is that of an M26 yet its HUD icon is that of an M67.
• Fixing typos and/or inconsistencies with the mission briefings and audio if there are any.
• Adjusting enemy AI accuracy to be less "aimbotty". Biggest problem with this is that it might make the game too easy, especially since I don't plan on removing the fog.
• Changing the weapon sounds. Easy enough to do but whether the new sounds are better or not is largely subjective.

Things that I may consider:

• Adjusting weapon balance. May have to be implemented due to point #3 in the above.
• Adding new weapon kits. I have my eyes set on Burner's flashbangs if I go ahead with this.

If anyone else has other minor quibbles that they'd like to see changed I'm all ears.

[Jack Wachter]

Sounds mostly like Droopy's mod plus flashbangs. Making the enemies shoot full-auto only (when available) seems to make a big difference in their accuracy at longer range. It's what Droopy did, what HU does, and something I made sure Cloak-and-Dagger retains. It's also what I plan on doing for Blood Oil Remastered when I finally decide to go work on it.

As for the fixing the kit icons and names, shouldn't be hard to do. HU should have all you need when it comes to the kit textures and then you just need to edit the strings.txt file to make sure the right names are used.

Sounds can be sourced from a variety of mods. See the "Sharing is Caring" list for lots of stuff to work with.

As for any weapon balancing, not sure what exactly to do. Just try to make sure that tactics are emphasized and that you can't point-and-click your way out of mistakes too easily. Could do what HU does and have NPC versions of each weapon then make sure the enemy uses them. Since it doesn't sound like you want to add new weapons, this avoids the problem of having too many weapons with scopes that messes up the balance with how this game plays (one of my critiques of HU in the weapons department).

[nyleken]

Changing the accuracy might be enough. I think changing all the enemy weapons to full auto only might be overdoing it a bit, I'd probably only restrict it to NPCs like the Ossetian rebels. IMO it's important for there to be a clear difference between an untrained separatist militia versus a professional military with some unfortunate conscripts sprinkled about. Making NPC only kits will help with this immensely.

[shakealeg1212]

not to sound discouraging but Droopys realism mod already is the best AI-lite mod. I used to use a personal mod that used droopys realism, kafees soundpack, earls standard upgrade, and the not a game (NAG) mod. you could certainly build up from that until you realize youre just reinventing the wheel by creating another HU.

HU not only removed the fog but completely redid enemy spotting distance to compensate, vastly improved what droopy built, re scripted missions with varying enemies,  and added all new equipment to tie it up nicely. 

if youre like me and sometimes you feel HU changed too much from the beloved original, apex included a Legacy mod which is basically my custom mod on steroids. 

 

  

Edited February 19, 2018 by shakealeg1212

[nyleken]

This is mainly a mod to suit my own tastes and to provide a lightweight alternative for my friends. I feel Droopy's mod changed a little too much for my tastes.

But you're right, it's quite difficult to make something that's different from what Droopy, Riley or Apex made.

[shakealeg1212]

1 hour ago, nyleken said:

I feel Droopy's mod changed a little too much for my tastes.

IIRC you could just copy the enemy weapons files from Droopys mod into your own mod. this would eliminate the aimbot enemies while keeping the rest of the game virtually unchanged. 

Edited February 20, 2018 by shakealeg1212

[nyleken]

1 minute ago, shakealeg1212 said:

IIRC you could just copy the enemy weapons files from Droopys mod into your own mod. this would eliminate the aimbot enemies while keeping the rest of the game virtually unchanged. 

I could but I'd probably tweak each file individually afterwards anyways.