Implementing some interesting stuff without hardcoded changes.
*Edit: Turns out a battery can’t be recharged in a vehicle with a recharging station etc after being loaded inside a gun, so NO_UNLOAD was removed from the XNU laser to make the possible conversion of it to use conventional batteries have a point. Plus added BLIND_EASY to the recharging process of its default cells using hydrogen canisters so it can be done in the dark.
tl;dr This was updated with a hotfix for the new XNU laser and its default magazines.
Link:
ETC Handguns etc Version 3 Feb/2021 Hotfix 1
After updating to a new Bright Nights version the multiple “//” comment lines per item in this mod’s JSON files started causing errors, so they were merged into a single line or, when mostly redundant, removed. Not sure if this would happen in DDA as well, so in any case, here’s a new update. There were also some fixes that were missed before and after that more content so this isn’t a meme update. Some of the vanilla professions updated to feature “sidearms” and the Bionic Police Officer got buffed with the “replacement” for the Leadworks “Robocop pistol”.
Some Highlights:
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All of the conventional rifle caliber “pistols” are featured in at least one of the vanilla professions as a sidearm in a XL holster where it would be somewhat plausible for them to be carried. Most overkill example is that all bionic sniper guns use the same .300 WinMag rounds, so that one is a real powerhouse until this rare ammo runs out. Profession points weren’t changed though. The only drawback is that such bigger “pistols” are slower to aim than normal pistols and, because they all have folding wire stocks, slower to draw too.
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The really big modern stepbrother of the LeMat revolver: Combo X912 and its 912 semi-auto model. A combination gun between a 9mm machine pistol fed by Glock magazines and a 12 gauge tube fed double barrel shotgun with 4 shells capacity that can fire two shots at once. With a gunsmithing tool (firearm kit or gunsmith repair kit) and only level 1 mechanics skill it’s possible to make an “illegal” conversion of the 912 into the X912. It can be fitted with a shoulder strap. Now the X912 is the main gun of the Leadworks Executive profession.
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XNU laser rifle. A powerful near-ultraviolet laser powered by an unique hydrogen fuel cell that feeds from solid hydrogen canisters instead of an UPS. It’s possible to mod it with the same battery mods that can be installed on tools(edited to be switchable as tool mods or gun mods as a new option whenever you activate them), but that change is irreversible and this gun can’t be unloaded manually, so if you install that, the battery that replaces its default hydrogen cells(which auto-eject when empty like M1 Garand mags) will stay in it for good then only way to reload it will be putting the gun in a recharging station or battery charger. On its fuel cell, its recharging process is a piece of JSON workarounds with disassembly recipes that should be done by activating the cell if you don’t want to use exploits ( with “disassemble” an empty cell can be “disassembled” into a recharged one without being loaded with a hydrogen canister first resulting in infinite ammo, while “activate” will correctly check for the cell being loaded first and consume the canister during the process) , but it works.
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X12P plasma shotgun. A BFG9k-style gun in how it works, maybe the ultimate anti-horde gun. Its maximum range is inferior to a conventional shotgun, it doesn’t cause explosions and drains 200 UPS charges per shot in addition to hydrogen canisters like the other plasma weapons. However, it has the shot, incendiary, flare, plasma and bounce ammo effects combined, which means that a horde of zombies tightly packed together can be wiped out by a single shot and it won’t deafen a character without hearing protection due to explosions. However, the bounce effect can bounce back against the shooter and this almost always leaves fires on the terrain where it hits like a flamethrower. The “bounce” effect being a chain reaction of spontaneous combustions through convection because of the plasma “pellets” being as hot as the core of a star when they hit a target is a flaky explanation, but without that capability this would be kind of useless.
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New crazy professions: Doomed Marine / Alice McGee. The former features a walking ranged-centric arsenal that makes the Corporate Spymaster in this mod underequipped in comparison and almost perfectly matches the weapons from classic Doom 1 as seen in D**mRL. The latter features a walking melee-centric arsenal that unfortunately isn’t as much of a close match to either the weapons in the first Alice game or its Madness Returns sequel. Both share some common guns and come with a pet rabbit(if you played Doom 1 you know why) and most importantly, both feature the psychosis and killer drive traits as expected. Trying to keep that pet rabbit alive is probably the most challenging thing in this one.
When it comes to guns there isn’t really much else to implement in this mod besides a 120mm ETC cannon which is pointless, being absolutely overkill because neither UGVs with the size and armor of a main battle tank, multi-tile “tank”-like monsters and vehicles controlled by hostile AIs exist in Cataclysm.
More man-portable ETC calibers won’t be added because the whole point of them is the interchangeable hand loading with relatively common conventional calibers and 12 gauge ETC combines too much recoil, OP and overkill. Maybe it will be added in a future update for this mod, but a shotgun that hits like a .50 BMG minus armor penetration with 00 shot ETC (not considering slugs and flechettes) and can have its ammo hand loaded using aluminum powder, empty cans for the primer and a hand press on regular shotgun shells is probably too much. Possibly a setting that increases the spawn rate of Kevlar Hulks and alike, or maybe some new heavily armored zombie types to balance the !FUN!, will be included with a future mod release together with such shotguns.
Technical PS: Making a near-UV laser invisible by creating a new ammo_effect would cause lasers using something like LASER_INVISIBLE to either be blocked by or destroy glasses like a bullet instead of passing through them. Doing that properly would require a likely tiny but still hardcoded change to make for example LASER_INVISIBLE include the same glass bypassing effect of LASER and DRAW_LASER_BEAM.
Even started a new world to test, got Couldn’t find location error. Necropolis is weird, yo.