Final level balance request-

[Jetsetlemming]

Please add some height to at least some of the vent shafts, and
Please either cut the movement speed of those mini-aliens or make them less likely to run around and more likely to stand their ground attacking.
Also is there a way to make their hitbox a bit bigger? Most of their heads don't register as a hit, an upper chest shot counts as a headshot.

[JC_Helios]

They already slowed the mini aliens in 1.01 .

[35Kas]

I hated those minis... I spent all my explosives on them and then ran when i was out of explosives or shot at em from corners with the buckshot... geez.

[kyrieee]

I was a bit disappointed by the space station. The puzzle parts were well done (the room with no air was clever, even though the doors are way too fast), but fighting the aliens felt kind of pointless because they were really easy and uninteresting. It was like generic FPS #5213. No Deus Ex style gameplay. And mini-aliens = terribad

That said, I pretty much loved every thing else about the mod, so I hope I don't come off as harsh. I think videogames in general though seem to be pretty bad at finales. There are only a few games that I can think of that manage to ramp up the intensity without making things frustraing or anti-climactic, so I guess I shouldn't hold that against you. I realize you want to do something special for the end but mini-aliens are something that someone should suggest and then have everyone else tell him/her what a bad idea it is

The thing is also, that I think ABI was a really good ramp up. It played like the rest of the game, but with more of everything. Tighter security, big battles, lots of options etc., and the space station was like a completely different thing. Kind of like Xen in HL

[AgentSmithereens]

I was a bit disappointed by the space station. The puzzle parts were well done (the room with no air was clever, even though the doors are way too fast), but fighting the aliens felt kind of pointless because they were really easy and uninteresting. It was like generic FPS #5213. No Deus Ex style gameplay. And mini-aliens = terribad

Unfortunately I've got to agree with that - the space station was my least favourite level, straight after my favourite (ABI). It really did feel way too much like some generic futuristic shooter, and I'm not sure if it was intentional but it felt like a wannabe Zodiac with all the aliens. Thus the stealth approach went pretty much out the window and so I just decided to take out my DTS and level 4 Speed Enhancement, and slaughter everything in sight (which turned out to be an extremely effective tactic).
Maybe it was because I sided with PDX and killed Ryan (and so different alliences), but I thought the start of it was particularly weak. You begin right in plain sight of a dozen enemies, with no idea what to do (no goals / PMs), and are pretty much forced to destroy everything in that docking bay.
Having said that the enemies were certainly memorable - those phaser and stalker aliens were mental, but the mini-aliens and normal aliens were a bit annoying. I remember in some early videos you had some normal NPCs there - what happened to those?

[Jonas]

Functionally, the aliens work just like any other enemy in the game - the only difference is that they have no AI barks, and that they attack differently because they have different (natural) weapons.

You can sneak past aliens just fine - it's only that a lot of people assume they can't (because of ZODIAC?) so they don't. Trust me on this, the aliens have exactly the same perception as the humans in the game. If anything, the space station supports stealth better than most of ABI because ABI is generally very well lit, whereas the space station has lots of dark corners and narrow corridors.

The minialiens are the exception, but they only appear in two limited locations, and one of them can be entirely bypassed if you have the Speed Enhancement aug on a suitable level. Not to mention if you don't side with PDX, you won't have to deal with them at all.

Also note that ZODIAC opted to throw hordes of aliens at you or just fill a room with wandering aliens. Ours are patrolling or guarding particular locations, and they never respawn. For all gameplay purposes, they are just like regular enemies.

As for starting in plain sight of a room full of aliens: Have you tried staying there? The room you start in is so dark and so far away from them that none of them see you. Far from being forced to slaughter them all, you can just crouch and crawl over to the panel that opens a hatch in the floor - then you can bypass the two first areas full of enemies in their entirety.

So there

[AgentSmithereens]

I think the fact that I went a bit more gung-ho than I usually do in the space station was probably actually more to do with my eagerness to finish the game, than to slowly crawl around everywhere without being seen. I don't doubt that you can ghost the level, it's just that at first it seems a bit overwhelming, and that put me off.

As for starting in plain sight of a room full of aliens: Have you tried staying there? The room you start in is so dark and so far away from them that none of them see you. Far from being forced to slaughter them all, you can just crouch and crawl over to the panel that opens a hatch in the floor - then you can bypass the two first areas full of enemies in their entirety.

I think the main point here is to do with the fact that the player has no goals, instructions or maps (yes I know you can find one) to start with, only the vague aim of finding DD and saving the world. So when I began that map and immediately faced a room full of enemies with no instructions, again I felt a bit overwhelmed. I guess though that it was my mistake to assume the panel would merely open to show some ammo or something.

Anyway it's probably just me that thinks this, so whatever...

[chris the cynic]

Unfortunately I've got to agree with that - the space station was my least favourite level, straight after my favourite (ABI). It really did feel way too much like some generic futuristic shooter, and I'm not sure if it was intentional but it felt like a wannabe Zodiac with all the aliens. Thus the stealth approach went pretty much out the window and so I just decided to take out my DTS and level 4 Speed Enhancement, and slaughter everything in sight (which turned out to be an extremely effective tactic).

So, just to clarify, the stealth approach went pretty much out the window because you pretty much threw it out the window? Isn't that what Deus Ex was all about? When you throw something out the window it actually goes out the window instead of the game saying, "No, you can't throw that out the window. I don't care how you want to play, you must do it this way."

You begin right in plain sight of a dozen enemies, with no idea what to do (no goals / PMs), and are pretty much forced to destroy everything in that docking bay.

Um, no you aren't.

I mean I could say, "There are a dozen enemies in the room in front of you and you have no idea what to do (no goals/PMs) so you're forced to go through the hatch in the floor without them ever noticing you," but that would be no more true than what you said because when the game gives you more than one option it is false to say you were forced into a particular path.

The fact that you chose to destroy everything in the docking bay is a reflection on you, not the game.

[Added:]

I think the fact that I went a bit more gung-ho than I usually do in the space station was probably actually more to do with my eagerness to finish the game, than to slowly crawl around everywhere without being seen.

So you are indeed complaining that stealth went out the window when you consciously chose to throw it out the window.

So when I began that map and immediately faced a room full of enemies with no instructions, again I felt a bit overwhelmed.

But here's the thing that I don't get, it isn't as if you've been getting messages throughout The Nameless Mod saying, "Oh look, a room full of enemies, this is how you should deal with it." Every time you have faced this situation before you've had to figure out how to deal with it all on your own. Why did you immediately say to yourself, "This is a situation I have dealt with before, it must be completely different this time"?

[AgentSmithereens]

I'm not sure if you read my post Chris due to the differences between them only being 2 minutes, but in it I admitted my desire to slaughter everything instead of ghosting through them, was partially produced due to my desire of finishing the game quicker (cos I really need to do some work during this holiday, something that so far TNM has prevented ).

On the second front I also admitted that I mistook the locked panel to hide some items, not a ventilation shaft, so my fault there.

[Jetsetlemming]

Functionally, the aliens work just like any other enemy in the game - the only difference is that they have no AI barks, and that they attack differently because they have different (natural) weapons.

You can sneak past aliens just fine - it's only that a lot of people assume they can't (because of ZODIAC?) so they don't. Trust me on this, the aliens have exactly the same perception as the humans in the game. If anything, the space station supports stealth better than most of ABI because ABI is generally very well lit, whereas the space station has lots of dark corners and narrow corridors.

The minialiens are the exception, but they only appear in two limited locations, and one of them can be entirely bypassed if you have the Speed Enhancement aug on a suitable level. Not to mention if you don't side with PDX, you won't have to deal with them at all.

Also note that ZODIAC opted to throw hordes of aliens at you or just fill a room with wandering aliens. Ours are patrolling or guarding particular locations, and they never respawn. For all gameplay purposes, they are just like regular enemies.

As for starting in plain sight of a room full of aliens: Have you tried staying there? The room you start in is so dark and so far away from them that none of them see you. Far from being forced to slaughter them all, you can just crouch and crawl over to the panel that opens a hatch in the floor - then you can bypass the two first areas full of enemies in their entirety.

So there

My only problem with the normal aliens are that the short blue ones, with the special effect of their teleportation plus my DTS swinging at them causes a bad performance hitch for about half a second sometimes. I'm bitching about the mini-ones that you have to fight in vent shafts when you can barely move, they all move so fast that shooting them when they're not standing still shooting at you with radiation blasts just as strong as they 100x bigger counterparts is basically impossible barring a lucky shot, they're more likely to just run around you for 30 seconds before stopping to shoot than anything which makes drawing a bead on them for that one moment nearly impossible, especially with crowds (and they pretty much all come in groups of 2-4), and their hitboxes don't fully match their models. They also have the same amount of health as their bigger counterparts too, which leads to situations like me putting a sniper round that's probably a full half the thing's height in width through it dead center and having it survive.
There's no way you can sneak past those mini-aliens unless you're talking about cloak, because at least one of them is facing the entrance in every area with them. I could maybe kill one with quick work pistol sniping during that second of "Oh hey the player gonna look at him a moment before attacking" thing Deus Ex enemies tend to do.

Seriously if I could find a normal assault gun in this space station I'd start spending my 20mms on them.

[DDL]

I think I ended up just using all my molotovs turning the tunnels into deathzones. The little guys move really fast for their size, so they almost always ended up running through the flames at least once.

And once is all it takes.

RE: Hitboxes, it's entirely possible that this is a DX thing, not a TNM thing. The game does (I assume for a good reason) inexplicable slight readjustments of pawn collisionproperties when they're initialised, which while essentially irrelevant for fullsize pawns*, might be bad for tiny ones.

*even then, noticable. Aim at the top of a UNATCO troop's head and see where the crosshairs stop appearing: it's an inch or so (of gamescale) below the top of the helmet.

[Jetsetlemming]

My main weapon for them has been the firestaff, and it turns out that fire has a limitation that isn't apparent at all with fullsize enemies- fire's "collision range" around it is directly in front of your reticule. You have to point directly at a mini-alien and shoot to get it on fire- it running through already shot fire or being on the side, still in the fireball, doesn't count for shit.

[AgentSmithereens]

I found that if you just crawled over them, they got squished fairly easily, although whilst doing so you are extremely vulnerable.

[kyrieee]

@ chris

Everyone's experience of a game is valid you know. If he felt that the level design communicated something to him, then it did. It's not an objective thing. You can't point to something and say that it communicates this and that. That's what's interesting about games, that everyone experiences them differently, and I suppose that's what's challenging about making them

Maybe stealth was an option but personally I never perceived the aliens as a threat, so I just DTSed everyone (without any problem). There wasn't a point to sneaking around, which is contratry to every other level in the game. Maybe that's just a testament to how good the level design was overall, and not the quality of the space station though

[Jonas]

DTS-ing everybody to death is certainly a valid solution.

I'm just saying, so is stealth. For the minialiens, not so much, I suppose that's true. But there are other ways to deal with them, and it's no coincidence we put a flamethrower and a whole shelf full of chemicals in the first room of the mission


Jetset: I just looked at the aliens's collisions in the editor, and it appears they're not centered correctly. That's a Deus Ex thing, as collision boxes are aligned when the model is imported, and we're just using the original alien model. The problem is we can't fix this super-easily by just making the collision hull higher, as that would also make them float above the floor. This goes for all the aliens, not just the small ones.

I've asked Shane to take a look at it, he can probably offset the model when the game starts. This may also be fixed far more elegantly if HDTP ever releases a new Gray model.