Scavver's Paradise V2.3.1 - A Survival Horror Mod

[CaptainNurbles]

After a fairly extensive break from mod work (made longer by the fact that I'm back to regular employment rather than occasional gigs), I'm looking at slowly getting back into the groove of things. With all the weapon, armor, and upgrade changes I've made so far, I may drop this update some time soonish and work on monster improvements as my next update. I've already added two new armor types (may add more if ideas and sprites can come my way), completely rebalanced many of the mod's armors (Soft body armor such as the police vest, security armor, shielded vest, stealth suit, etc. handle poorly against armor-piercing munitions, and the thermal damage types have been rebalanced among one another more thoughtfully), added a few new upgrades that can be swapped around depending on one's preference, added a firing range which can be used for testing gear and building custom loadouts, edited the HUD to take up less screen real estate (still locked at a specific scale, however. Necessary to make it work with all resolutions) AND work at all aspect ratios, and am gonna be further reducing the number of unique ammo calibers in the mod (We're back to only one ammo type for energy weapons, and I'm likely gonna drop 5.56mm ammo entirely and rechamber the assault/semi-auto/DMR/sniper rifles into either 6.2mm combat rifle ammo, 7.8mm hunting rifle ammo (functionally the same as current 6.5mm ammo), and 9.5mm battle rifle ammo (functionally the same as current 7.62mm NATO ammo)). With that rechambering to remove 5.56mm ammo, I'll likely be adding another rifle or two to fit into rechambering 7.62mm NATO into a larger space-age rifle cartridge, and might add another SMG or two if I can find good sprites and find a way to balance it among the other SMGs.

I'll also probably drop the survival horror moniker with this upcoming update. Not that the mod can't be survival horror, but with the amount of feature creep that's made its way into the mod, it's become less "harsh, unforgiving scrounging for the bare necessities, with resources being insanely hard to find" and more "high-difficulty loadout builder/wannabe looter shooter." I'll still definitely be embracing the high-difficulty reputation this mod has, but will still work on keeping it as well balanced as something like this can be, while still retaining the supply despawners since ey, it's nice to have that as an option for the extra challenge!

No ETA on when an update will drop. All depends on how quickly I can get things worked out here and when I can hear back about some requests for using certain sprites from folks. As always, your feedback helps out IMMENSELY with making this mod as great as I can possibly make it.

[CaptainNurbles]

SO

Having a crack at making ammo have weight! Was just something that came to mind after I deleted 5.56mm ammo from the mod. Now that there's a pretty decent decrease in unique ammo types, I'm wondering how viable it would be to make that ammo weigh you down in regards to making the mod fun. If I give ammo weight, I'd redesign the ammo harness to make that ammo weigh less and possibly speed up reloading. It'd take up the same slot that medical harnesses would be in for the upgrades system. If I decide against weighing ammo down, I'd be a bit unsure as to what I'd wanna do with the ammo harness.

I'll make it a vote! Keep ammo's hard caps but not having weight, uncap ammo carry capacity and give it weight, or have both and make it an option you can toggle. No idea if I'd be able to accomplish the last one, but it's worth a try. Push comes to shove I'll probably keep it as it currently is, but I do feel like things would be a bit more interesting if ammo had weight.

Edit so as to not clutter the forums up: Ammo weight is in effect. There is still technically a cap on how much ammo you can carry, but it's high enough that you shouldn't naturally reach those limits in standard gameplay. Rather than increasing ammo reserves by 50%, the ammo harness increases reload speeds on all firearms. The speed boost is not a percentage boost, but rather just depends on the type of weapon it is. Pistols don't see a huge difference in speed since they're already pretty quick, rifles see a pretty sizeable boost, and shotguns become real damn handy in crowds of bigger demons since you can more reliably feed ammo into your shotgun of choice.

The harness takes the Torso upgrade spot, alongside the Medical Harness and the new BioMonitor chest rig.

I've also went through the effort to do a sorta soft redo of the damage system. Not a TON changed, but things are more consistent, and heavier, higher tier armor is more important now than before. Now you REALLY have to think hard on if you want speed or defense. All the armor PDA logs have been edited to simplify the protection value descriptions. Now instead of saying X% pellet, Y% SmallCaliber, and Z% HighCaliber, it'll just say an NIJ armor rating to show ballistic protection. Similar things had been done for melee, all the thermal damages, etc. to keep it simpler and easier to remember, keep track of.

Weapon PDA logs now tell you damage, penetration values, accuracy, and range.

All in all, this update is shaping up to be massively different from the previous just in terms of feel. I'm honestly really tempted to push through, work out the improvements to the monsters and the roster, replace the survival horror moniker with high difficulty, and call it a 3.0 release. The mod is currently so VASTLY different from the initial 2.0 release that it's almost like a different game entirely. Still no ETA on when this update drops, I've too much work, playtesting, and bug hunting to do before I call it done.

[CaptainNurbles]

Just an update to keep you out of the dark!

Progress is slow, but happening. Ammo weight has been honed in on and balanced as best as I can. Still adjusting to the new play style of having to manage how much ammo you carry and all that. I also went in and decreased the weight for all the medical goods, except for the blood pack, that weighs 0.6 kilos now instead. A lot heavier than the other medical goods (4 stimpaks weigh 1 kilo, healing 120 damage. A blood pack heals 100 for 0.6 kilos. Gonna have to figure a way to make blood packs more useful now.) Saline packs are gone, since they're honestly just needlessly redundant.

Outside of that it's mostly just been balancing and bug hunting. I should be getting to work on the monster roster some time soon, just whenever I can get the energy for it. With that I'll be focusing on combing through the current roster to improve the modded monsters, keeping in mind how most mappers utilize the vanilla monsters with how the custom monsters will slot in with the roster. Once I've made improvements/removals/replacements to monsters that're already there I'll be adding new monsters to further challenge and surprise players, with a bit of focus on adding further emphasis on the afflictions outside of bleeding and burns. As with previous updates, no ETA since I'm trying to pack heaps of improvements with this update.

[Someonewhoplaysdoom]

Thanks, it actually sounds as a nice updates, also, it would be interesting to deal with more afflictions if that means you can be prepared with the corresponding treatment.

[Viscra Maelstrom]

i've been playing this mod again and compiled a number of bugs and other things i've noticed during my playthroughs.

the shield sphere interacts with the aegis armor, giving you absolutely insane damage resistance. this combo is kind of gamebreaking, as you're very unlikely to run your shield down in most firefights, with the shield sphere's effect only decreasing when you actually take damage.

this was kind of a problem previously, but with weight affecting your movement speed, it can break certain areas that requires you to go fast to either jump over a gap or catch a elevator.

if you reload the frezno shotgun with slugs and hold fire, you fire a shot instead of cancelling the reload animation.
on that note, the same shotgun doesn't do the pump if you switch ammo type after having emptied the magazine beforehand.
if you hold down fire when unloading shells, you can end up losing a shell before it gets added to your total ammo.

firing a shot when zoomed all the way in with the anti-materiel rifle causes the zoom to become the less zoomed in mode, but changing the zoom mode makes you exit zooming in, instead of zooming further in.

the fire arc for the anti-materiel weapons seems a bit broken when you aim them high up. i've found the shots going a bit lower than they're supposed to. and similarly when aiming them low.

assault backpack disappears when you pick one up when already carrying one.

when scoped, the charge rifle lets you hold your charge shot before you let it go, but unscoped, it fires automatically when fully charged.

the blue skull key doesn't have any animations like the other ones do.

when using slugs in the coach gun, if you fire one barrel, then try to fire both barrels, it'll launch a super powered barrage.

edit: the dark matter gun doesn't scrap two cells if you're maxed out on cells.

edit: the 4mm auto pistol is noticeably weaker than the assault pistol is.

edit: using slugs with the stallman auto shotgun seems to be noticeably weaker than with other shotguns

not really a bug, but the pickup message for the marine armor calls it the elite battle armor instead of marine armor

edit: one thing i thought about that could be beneficial is to have armor repair batteries have a chance of spawning alongside armor. the total dependency of them only spawning from armor bonuses can make or break certain mapsets that would've otherwise be playable if you had more repair batteries.

[AliciaPendragon]

Is this mod compatible with monster mods like Project Malice or nah

because Im looking for mods that give a nice survival horror experience.

[CaptainNurbles]

Is this mod compatible with monster mods like Project Malice or nah

because Im looking for mods that give a nice survival horror experience.

Probably not. It would probably "work" in the sense that it doesn't crash and you get to shoot the baddies just fine enough, but the majority of monster mods would need conversion work to make it work with Scavver's Paradise's mechanics. You wouldn't benefit from the complex damage system, the monsters wouldn't drop proper armaments and supplies, upgrades would likely not spawn depending on the mod load order, there'd be no afflictions system, etc. You'd need to make a compatibility patch, and I am largely not interested in making compatibility patches for other mods, sorry to say D:

[AliciaPendragon]

Damn was planning on trying to run this with Project Malice and I know NOTHING about zscript

[-Ghost-]

Yeah, they do for the most part play together okay, weapon drops and everything seem to work, it's just kind of hit or miss.

[HyperExia]

I just created a mod where the slot2 and slot4 weapons can reload efficiently with a modified reload system that is partially inspired by LiTDoom. However, I'm not exactly sure how to adjust the player starting classes for this new system...

[CaptainNurbles]

What do you mean by efficiently? You've piqued my curiosity for certain.

[HyperExia]

well, you can still lose an entire mag but each bullet is reloaded individually. I'd say it's the same system as LitDoom except that you can't drop the ammo for you to pick up later when you reload quickly. You completely lose it. It's a slower reload to do so efficiently because you gotta hold the reload button for a bit before it starts the animation

[HyperExia]

Sorry, it just uses like....I'm pretty sure I heard something about Insurgency Sandstorm having a similar system to this.

[CaptainNurbles]

Aight, one additional quick update.

Slowly working back into mod work again after a hiatus. Mostly just down to improvements to weapon balancing (plenty of weapons are gonna be dealing less damage than you remember) and improving and adding to the monster roster. I'm hoping I can drop a 3.0 release on or around the 3 year anniversary for the 1.0 release of this mod, but I won't rush myself into releasing a bad version of the mod. While the mod isn't gonna be MASSIVELY different compared to the past release, it is so much more than it was with the 2.0 release that I feel confident that me leaning hard on a proper weight system for all usable items, adding to and improving the upgrades system, and enhancing the monster roster with more critters that make ya think more when fighting them is enough to call it Scavver's Paradise 3.0.

Thank you all in being patient with this update! I'm hoping I can avoid overpromising and underselling with this one. I think the mod as I have it now is plenty fun, while being enough of its own unique thing that it can stand out on its own, but I'm hoping that the accessibility options do help with making it fun for as many people as possible.

More will come later.

[HyperExia]

I've created a couple addons for the 2.3.1 at the moment, now. it's really more of a personal preference and changes modification for my own version of Scavver's Paradise
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... SOYcEfcyWS
Scavver's Paradise V2.3.1 WeaponTweaks.pk3:
Changes:
- Organized all weapons into separate files
- Crouching will reduce the recoil of each gun and make each one more viable or usable just at the cost of a slower pace. Recoil reduction is adjustable.
- all bullet, shell, or slug weapons can use projectiles with more realistic ballistics, though they are kinda hard to notice. Doesn't matter since it does allow for more distance-based traits to be imparted with each bullet. Fair warning though, this may be a bit more laggy on the computer. That's why this can be toggled. Currently working on hitscan variations of these distance based damage calculations, planning for all three options to be toggleable
- headshots enabled with this toggled on
- consolidated functions into singular base weapon class to save space
- Kick
- Grenade
- Weapons with two Zoom modes now have a keybind to swap between those two Zoom modes, though this will only work if you're zoomed out.
- Slots 2-5
- Added more conventional reloading but with the twist that you have to hold reload button till the animation starts, otherwise you discard the whole mag.
- you do not drop a mag when you reload efficiently
- When you drop a mag, you can pick it up later.
- Added universal unload for all viable weapons with non-unique ammo (so crossbow is not included). (Slots 3 & 5 currently being tested)
- Reloading after unloading will not drop an empty mag on the floor
- Reloading efficiently for some weapons has their own unique animation arrangements that take a bit more time. (or they just take more time in general) (Slot 2 & 4 only)
- Slots 6-7, Chainsaw, Power fist, plasma pistol, flamethrower (all weapons using both types of energy cells)
- If you're fully loaded in one of these energy cell-using weapons, you can unload it for an extra energy/compressed energy cell.
- Bullet magazines are all separated into individual ammo units, and capacity is kept accurately to the number of bullets per max number of mags one can keep for that ammo
Individual Weapon Changes
- Slot 2
- 4mm pistol trigger pull is 1 tick faster
- 9mm Combat Pistol semi-auto can fire as fast as the Mouretta, and burst fire is more controllable
- Slot 3
- Police and compact shotgun has a rearranged reload animation
- Made the Combat Shotgun a bit more accurate with primary fire but with a semi-auto alt fire that is more inaccurate but good for close up ranges. works with both shells and slugs. Can jam occasionally, hit reload to pump out the shell smoothly
- Has new reload animations (though only with red shells so far)
- Slot 4
- the 9mm SMG is now integrally suppressed, but firing it in close proximity (256 map units) to other monsters will still alert them nonetheless. This is offset by the reload time being extended with some extra mag smacking
- 4mm Slot 4 SMG
- holds 49 rounds
- has a control system where alt fire directly fires the shotgun, and you have to altfire when empty to reload
- 7mm Battle Rifle
- reload animation now uses brown gloved versions of the rifle reload frames from Brutal Doom Black Edition
- when not in Grenade mode, Alt Reload can now switch the battle rifle to marksman mode, which slows down the fire rate while reducing recoil and spread
- 6.2mm assault rifle uses the tertiary button to switch fire modes, while alt fire aims down sights with sprites from Project Brutality (tightening spread and reducing recoil a bit)
- 6.5mm Rifle is a full auto battle rifle
- 6.5mm DMR can be tap-fired faster without scoping (though this is because scoping actually fired faster than without ADS)
- 5.6mm Scoped Carbine is fully auto in scoped mode.
- burst fire for slot 4 weapons need to be held for the full burst to happen
- Slot 5
- 84mm Heavy Rocket Launcher has a changed animation of rockets being loaded, though it is the merely the reversed latter part of the firing animation
- Slot 6
- Plasma Rifle and Plasma Cannon do not need to use alt fire to swap modes; instead that just uses the other mode as a secondary fire
Scavver's Paradise V2.3.1 AeniPuffs.pk3 - just a minor aesthetic tweak that allows for better ricochet or better looking bullet puffs, as well as blood effects. (BUGGY AND LAGGY, NEVERMIND THIS)
Scavver's Paradise V2.3.1 Extra Items.pk3
Changes:
- Mark 1 Item Upgrades
- Boot Upgrade Mark 1
- Immunity to damaging floors and eliminates need for HEV suit
- Nanosuit Mark 1
- Greater damage resistance
- Powered Greaves Mark 1
- Greater speed and jump boost allowing more items to be carried or just be fast, if not faster than the doom guy
- Large Ammo Harness
- Allows for even more ammo to be carried
- Compatible with Weapon Tweaks' Ammo rework
- Dynamic Progression System (WIP)
- works only with blur sphere, infrared, and backpack replacements as of now
- scans for whatever the player is not carrying and spawns that in a predetermined order, specifically the permanent upgrades
Scavver's Paradise V2.3.1 ACSTweaks
- ALL items that have weight are adjustable. It's also easily resettable to the default values.
- has a toggleable system that allows you to swap between the original dodge mechanic and a dodge mechanic that uses the Run button