[MOD] Flavorful Agents [wip]

[puppetsquid]

I had a few ideas for some of the agents whose loadouts don't seem to match their descriptions. 

So far I've only finished my vision of Prism, but I wanted to upload something just to see how it works.

Steam Page

 

Features:

Spoiler

On-File Decker

• Augment: Server Kick (breaks 4 firewalls on databases)
• Weapon: Neural Disruptor (as was)
• Gadget: Modded Cloaking Rig (as was)

On-File Shalem

• Augment: High-speed Optics (+1 pierce on ranged overwatch, +heartbreaker)
  > Heartbreaker: tag a single Guard for 3/6 PWR. Disables heart monitor when shot via ranged overwatch
• Augment: Skeletal Gearing (hide corpses in safes, halves their cleanup cost)
• Weapon: Desert Wind (unchanged)

On-File Prism

• Augment: Subcutaneous Holographic Mesh (disguise, uses 3 charges, gains 1 charge each alarm increase)
• Weapon: L.A.R. Pistol (1 ko, overwatch only. 5 ko on ally units. Includes remote wake-up call)
• Gadget: Comlink Chip (reduce alarm equal to PWR in a console)

Archive Prism

• Augment: Digital Handshake (scan guards to find potentially useful items on them)
• Gadget: Holo-Projection Mesh (as was)

Known bugs:

Spoiler

- No tooltip on Disguise button (can't figure out how to fix it)

- Current images for Shalem/Decker's augs are unused game assets, I'd like to make custom ones eventually

Possible future changes:

Spoiler

- Hopefully figure out a way to have dragged allies be seen as 'investigated' by guards

- Possibly have Prism unable to use cloaking tech (to balance out the cheaper holorig)

- May entirely rework both Prisms. Dunno.

 

Hopefully you guys like it.
I've tried my best to balance it, but obviously this will come with more testing and opinions. Let me know your thoughts!

 

 

Change Notes

Spoiler

v003: Added Shalem, Decker and Archive Prism reworks.

v002: Increased Charge costs of Holo Augment
          Increased Cooldown of LAR Pistol, removed its ability to directly attack
          Fixed missing Archive Prism

 

FlavorfulAgents v003.zip

[HumanKirby]

Awesome, two new mods in a day. Just something since it seems it is your first mod.

We generally upload the modfile to this forum to allow persons with the drm free version to easily download the mod.

I also added the mod to the master modlist under agents.

Last but not least: Cool idea to let Prism KO her own teammates and transport them. It sounds quite powerful, but lets see. I also had a similar idea where I made Sharp capable of killing his own teammates but getting the unique augment from them. I have writen it to a certain part, but then I just stoped because Im lazy and have no time for it. It is also super messy, but you might wanna use it, so I commented some of the stuff. It currently just gives you m0nst3rs final mission augment.

NewSharp.zip

[puppetsquid]

Ah, sorry, dunno how I missed that. Added the most recent .zip

The tagger's pretty powerful, but situational. It's like carrying a cloak around for another agent. You really need to focus on strength and drag augments if you want to use it to its full potential, though. I hope it's not too OP, 'cause I really enjoy using it, especially alongside the disguise.

Thanks for the Sharp thing! That's actually kinda similar to my plan for Shalem, but I do really like the idea of Sharp being able to rip augments out of people - gives you a whole different reason to hit up Detention Centres... Maybe a his disruptor could be replaced with a handheld Augment Drill / Guard-Only EMP. 

[Cyberboy2000]

Interesting concept, but it makes me feel like there's no reason to play archive Prism ever again (not that I can right now, but I proposed a fix on the Steam Workshop page). The disguise augment feels much better than the old holodisguise because there's no drawback to using it. Also, a ranged weapon that does not require ammo is pretty strong for a starting loadout, especially since archive Prism doesn't have a weapon at all, and it has a pretty short cooldown as well.

[puppetsquid]

Hmm, I figured the lack of being able to add charge from outside sources (without disturbing guards) would help nerf the disguise a bit... With the pistol that's mostly because I couldn't find a way to make it do /less/ damage.

Thankyou for the feedback, though! Made some quick changes based on it:

• +1 charge cost to using and maintaining cloak
• +1 cooldown to LARP
• Removed 'shoot single' from LARP (can only be used defensively via overwatch which actually really fits the playstyle)
• Fixed missing Archive Prism (thankyou for the help with that, I really had no clue!)

Hopefully this is a step in the right direction?

[Bart Ender]

To be honest I always thought of on-file prism as someone to help with power-heavy load outs, ones that consume lots of power. Moving it to archive prism would make more sense, although it's just my opinion. As for the Comlink Chip, it seems a bit under powered. The alarm acts more as an indirect obstacle than a direct one, making the mission harder in the long-run but not in the short run. Or maybe I'm using it wrong. I dunno. Either way when you finish Prism, I have an idea for Archive Shalem 11. Since he learned to preform surgery, maybe give him a scalpel that allows him to revive downed agents in 2 turns with infinite uses. Or not. Your mod, not mine.

[puppetsquid]

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the input, but I kinda don't mind changing how the character plays, since you'll always be able to toggle them on/off individually if you'd prefer to use 'vanilla' agents. I also find that the more I write, the more I question older ideas, so I'm kinda locking off agents once they're published (at least for a while, and not including balance tweaks).

Don't worry, I've got a load of stuff planned; both Shalems are in the pipeline (in fact Shalem's one of the big reasons I wanted to do this in the first place), and *hopefully* I'll be able to upload one of them this weekend.

[SteelCrow]

Sounds cool, I haven't created any new ways to play as the agents, only tweaks to the existing on-file/archive versions to suit my tastes.  Do you want to know what I've made?  I've been debating whether I should or shouldn't publish a small agents mod of my own.  If, for example, you implement the kinds of things I like, then I might not publish one.

[puppetsquid]

If you want to publish something, by all means do so!

I just now released my first big update for this mod (Decker, Shalem and Archive Prism), so maybe that will help give you an idea of the direction I'm headed? I kinda don't want to go into details due to things probably changing before release, I'm looking at Banks and Archive Shalem (including revives of course) next, with Olivia and Sharp being possible future additions.

[SteelCrow]

5 hours ago, puppetsquid said:

If you want to publish something, by all means do so!

Yeah, I suppose I should.  I made tweaks to some other agents than what you have planned: Archive Decker, Archive Internationale, On-File Banks, Archive Banks, Archive Nika, and Draco, and Archive Shalem indirectly by changing Ventricular Lance.  When I play for myself, I shamelessly borrow from several different mods, mixing various changes into my private mod files.  That's stuff I don't publish.  I'll probably meld parts of your mod into that mix. ;]

Your agent choices interest me; if they're going to be as big of changes as you did with Prism, then I can't wait to see what you come up with!  Olivia seems like particularly juicy material, and Sharp's augments don't seem quite modular enough for me as is...