Deus Ex GMDX: Deus Ex Advancement Mod v9 Released!

[RoSoDude]

RoSoDude is that the vanilla bio energy-bar fill texture? It looks incongruous with all the others, a flat blue better suits it imo.

It's a GMDX animated texture. It looks better in motion (quite good actually). You can revert to the vanilla bioenergy bars (which look like all the rest here) in the HUD as well as this repairbot interface in the settings menu if you please.

 

[Abhay]

RoSoDude What's the progress of your add-on, so far? Is it possible to download the changes you have made to the mod and install it?
Lastly, I'd like to see the entire change log as well.
Thanks. You are doing a fabulous job, making this mod even better for the fans.

 

[RoSoDude]

RoSoDude What's the progress of your add-on, so far? Is it possible to download the changes you have made to the mod and install it?
Lastly, I'd like to see the entire change log as well.
Thanks. You are doing a fabulous job, making this mod even better for the fans.

So, I'm at least 60% through all of the features I want to implement, but scope creep plagues the project (heard that one before?) and I keep coming up with new ideas I want to implement, like the one you see above. Boohoo.

Unfortunately, many of the features are not fully implemented and tested yet, so you'd be getting a pretty weird experience if I just let you download it as is. I'm hoping to have it out in a month or so; I'm getting much faster as I learn the codebase, but real life is catching up with me a bit as well. I'll certainly involve people here in testing the release, if they'd like.

As for the changelog, I plan to have an updated one up soon once those features are finalized (I don't want to report half-baked work to you guys), but here's one that's nearly two months old if you want to have a look. There have been a lot of changes since, however, and nothing is final.

https://pastebin.com/3JmWuCVf

And I'll also just quote my earlier post highlighting the major stuff:

Spoiler

Okay, have an update on my progress with expanding and refining GMDX, with continued guidance from Ash. As I've said before, I'm working on a 9.0.4 patch as well as a more experimental addon which will contain all of the fixes and features of 9.0.4, plus some new features like rebalanced skills/augs and a few overhauled systems. Some highlights:

Confirmed Changes for 9.0.4 (highlights):

• No more hidden influence of weapon max range on accuracy -- your reticle will communicate a consistent level of accuracy for all weapons
• Rework to the wearables system for convenience and to fix an exploit. Using, recharging, and discarding a wearable will always operate on the top one in the stack. When you pick up a new Ballistic Armor/Hazmat Suit/Thermoptic Camo/Tech Goggles/Rebreather, its charge is added to the top item, and any overflow over 100% is given to a new wearable on top, up to the 1/2/3/4 wearables as governed by the Evironmental Training skill. Activating a body armor will automatically deactivate any currently active armors, with no more annoying messages telling you to do it yourself. Also, biocell recharge rates for wearables have been updated (rebreather recharge nerfed to 10% per biocell) and now properly display on the inventory screen
• Added an Info button on the Skills/Perks screen as shown before. Will probably switch it to one button that dynamically swaps between Perks/Info in the future
  
• Rangefinder added to the binoculars as shown before
• Rework of secondary items to feature Tech Goggles, Binoculars, and (if you have the Combat Medic's Bag perk) medkits and biocells
• Miscellaneous fixes to weapon and AI behavior
• "Halve Ammo Capacity" menu option (unlocked after beating the game once) fixed

RoSoDude's GMDX Addon Changes (highlights):

• Full overhaul of hitscan range mechanics to make range modification meaningful as discussed before
• New laser mod behavior with simulated aim waver and recoil to make continued skill/mod investment worthwhile while still offering a clear and logical benefit to its use
• The Athletics skill now improves the player's reach when mantling
• The Stealth skill now makes the player hide 0/15/30/45% better in darkness when sneaking, in addition to sneaking and slow-walking faster (I will be moving its perk-like benefits to actual perks later)
• The Demolitions skill now allows you to carry 5/7/10/15 grenades of any particular type
• Minor skill rebalancing, including cost adjustments, changing Medicine scaling from 30/60/75/90 to 30/45/65/90, and adjusting the Lockpicking and Electronics skills' scaling on different difficulties (vanilla 10/25/40/75% on Easy; 10/15/25/50% on Realistic, Medium, and Hard; 5/10/20/45% on Hardcore)
  
• New Trained Lockpicking perk "Sleight of Hand" allows an agent to pick locks and commit acts of theft without arousing suspicion from onlookers
• Run Silent now offers half of Speed Enhancement's groundspeed bonus (5/10/15/20%), not while jumping. Should be more competitive with its complementary aug as well as with crouchwalking with the Stealth skill
  
• The Passive Ballistic Protection augmentation no longer drains energy when taking damage, but instead offers up to 20/25/30/35% protection proportional to the user's current bioenergy level
• New Ammo Capacity augmentation to replace Energy Transference. Buffs all maximum ammo capacities by 20/30/40/50%. Weapon skills now also buff ammo capacities by 0/10/25/50%. To compensate, all base ammo capacities have been roughly halved.
• Tranquilizer darts now break on contact on Hardcore mode to prevent farming via AI abuse
• The crossbow now loads one dart at a time, while the Assault Shotgun loads a clip at a time

Here's the new Ammo Capacity augmentation:
[SNIP]
There's plenty more under the hood beyond these highlights, and this is only about two months of (occasional) work. I have plenty of things in the pipeline for both of my projects, so stay tuned! Feedback is very welcome, and I'm happy to discuss my reasoning for any and all of my design decisions.

Oh, and while I'm dumping info on you, have another little teaser. I've been playing around with giving GMDX's new security bot rapid-fire plasma to add some additional variety to the enemy designs.



Thanks to everyone who's expressed interest in the project, and thanks to Ash for the ongoing support and the mod in the first place. I know I wouldn't be here doing this without GMDX as a base to work from.

 

[ColCol]

Is this worth it for a new Deus Ex Run. Or is there another mod that I should try?

 

[Jaedar]

Is this worth it for a new Deus Ex Run. Or is there another mod that I should try?

Yes. If you want new content I also recommend tnm.

 

[RoSoDude]

Is this worth it for a new Deus Ex Run.

You owe it to yourself, man. GMDX is regarded as the definitive Deus Ex experience for a reason. No other campaign mod can compare. I just hope I can up the ante with some rebalancing, new mechanics, system tweaks, and polishing for my own part.

I'm also quite fond of Project 2027, when it comes to total conversion mods for new content. Some other popular TCs are Nihilum, Zodiac, Redsun 2020, and the widely renowned The Nameless Mod, though I must confess I have yet to play any of them.

 

[Lithium Flower]

RoSoDude

If you want to change the assault shotgun's reloading process for the sake of realism, consider that the weapon might not be using a detachable magazine but rather a cylinder that is not meant to be removed but loaded with shells like a revolver. The real life striker/streetsweeper guns work like that AFAIK. The fact that you can still see the "magazine" during the gun's reloading animations seems to support this as well.

Of course, disregard this if the purpose for this change is BALANCE

 

[Ash]

Yeah I deeply hate that change, but it's for his add-on so I won't argue beyond the discussion we had on the matter elsewhere. Edit: goes on to argue.

Pretty sure what I did for it was without flaw and added more realism (the "street sweeper" loads as such), more polish (animation looks less janky now), more balance (gives it a long-ass reload time) and more gameplay depth + convenience (left mouse reload cancel).

Something was said about ammo-loading consistency and how every other gun has mags magically pre-loaded for you, but I don't think this is relevant at all. Consistency is desired in an unrealistic, automated minor detail? "Consistency is king" was one of my design mottos, but there absolutely are exceptions.

Perhaps there was more to RoSo's reasoning that I missed, though.

 

[RoSoDude]

I'm not attached to that change, but it's something I wanted to do for the following (primarily balance) reasons:

1. The purpose of the weapon is arguably for longer firing cycles with less spacing between shots. I wanted the reload to reflect that, since it would be an inconvenient design to have to reload such a weapon one shell at a time when used for this intended purpose
2. Speaking of inconvenience, I actually like the idea of the player being inconvenienced by trying to reload between shorter firing cycles, as I gave the Assault Shotgun the longest base reload in the game at 5s. The goal is indeed to punish you for trying to use the weapon in the same way you might use the Sawed-off, and further differentiate them.
3. On a related note, I no longer feel the Assault Shotgun is strictly better than the Sawed-Off except in very close quarters situations, pending my rather significant range nerfs to hitscan weapons (effective-max range from 87.5-175ft to 62.5-125ft, as compared with the Sawed-offs' 150-300ft to 93.75-187.5ft change. Don't forget that you can now boost both of these values by up to 50% with range modifications though, where before it was only the effective range). It's a move towards further differentiation and a less dominant Assault Shotgun, thus less need to give it a truly taxing reload after a long firing cycle.

The primary motivator wasn't consistency, I just don't think this breaks any consistency rule; that's all I ever meant to say. I merely intoned that I don't feel any more motivated to make the shells an individual reload vs a clip load by the fact that you pick up boxes of shells, since other weapons work the same way. For me, the only believability question is for the weapon itself, i.e. "do I think this weapon would be designed with a detachable magazine or not". For the sawed-off, the mini-crossbow, and soon to be the GEP gun, the answer is no for various reasons. For the Assault Shotgun it's more of an open question to me. I've seen detachable drum magazines for shotguns pretty frequently, and made the mental connection with the Assault Shotgun (and was thus a bit surprised with individual shell loads in GMDX), but maybe I should revert to the street sweeper design instead, especially since it's explicitly mentioned by the original weapon description. I'm curious how people feel either way.

I think we can at least agree that the Mini-Crossbow and GEP gun should be treated with internal magazines as well. I like the feature a lot in general, where it fits.

 

[Lithium Flower]

1. The purpose of the weapon is arguably for longer firing cycles with less spacing between shots. I wanted the reload to reflect that, since it would be an inconvenient design to have to reload such a weapon one shell at a time when used for this intended purpose
2. Speaking of inconvenience, I actually like the idea of the player being inconvenienced by trying to reload between shorter firing cycles, as I gave the Assault Shotgun the longest base reload in the game at 5s. The goal is indeed to punish you for trying to use the weapon in the same way you might use the Sawed-off, and further differentiate them.
3. On a related note, I no longer feel the Assault Shotgun is strictly better than the Sawed-Off except in very close quarters situations, pending my rather significant range nerfs to hitscan weapons (effective-max range from 87.5-175ft to 62.5-125ft, as compared with the Sawed-offs' 150-300ft to 93.75-187.5ft change. Don't forget that you can now boost both of these values by up to 50% with range modifications though, where before it was only the effective range). It's a move towards further differentiation and a less dominant Assault Shotgun, thus less need to give it a truly taxing reload after a long firing cycle.

Could these goals be accomplished without changing the reloading mechanism? Is it possible to make it slower to load each shell into the AS, for instance? That would actually make sense narratively as well as Strikers/Streetsweepers were notoriously slow to reload as you had to wind the cylinder.

Yeah, distinguishing between an integrated magazine and detachable drum mags is challenging, it just seems to me that the game suggests the former, both due to drum being visible during reload animation and the real life models for the gun being the former.

 

[RoSoDude]

1. The purpose of the weapon is arguably for longer firing cycles with less spacing between shots. I wanted the reload to reflect that, since it would be an inconvenient design to have to reload such a weapon one shell at a time when used for this intended purpose
2. Speaking of inconvenience, I actually like the idea of the player being inconvenienced by trying to reload between shorter firing cycles, as I gave the Assault Shotgun the longest base reload in the game at 5s. The goal is indeed to punish you for trying to use the weapon in the same way you might use the Sawed-off, and further differentiate them.
3. On a related note, I no longer feel the Assault Shotgun is strictly better than the Sawed-Off except in very close quarters situations, pending my rather significant range nerfs to hitscan weapons (effective-max range from 87.5-175ft to 62.5-125ft, as compared with the Sawed-offs' 150-300ft to 93.75-187.5ft change. Don't forget that you can now boost both of these values by up to 50% with range modifications though, where before it was only the effective range). It's a move towards further differentiation and a less dominant Assault Shotgun, thus less need to give it a truly taxing reload after a long firing cycle.

Could these goals be accomplished without changing the reloading mechanism? Is it possible to make it slower to load each shell into the AS, for instance? That would actually make sense narratively as well as Strikers/Streetsweepers were notoriously slow to reload as you had to wind the cylinder.

Yeah, distinguishing between an integrated magazine and detachable drum mags is challenging, it just seems to me that the game suggests the former, both due to drum being visible during reload animation and the real life models for the gun being the former.

In my mind they can't, not precisely or without major tradeoffs anyway. Giving the AS a long reload is certainly accomplishable by loading individually (it's the case presently in GMDX), but making each shell take a long time to reload would make it quite an arduous task indeed to reload the full cylinder. If I reverted it I wouldn't want to make the full drum reload any longer than it already was.

I feel that a single detachable mag reload is both more in line with my expectations and better suited to the weapon's intended use case, but will see arguments to the contrary. The weapon's original description, and that it probably leans people towards the other interpretation, is a compelling argument however, as would be any balance concerns beyond what I've brought into the discussion.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Making the sawed-off competitive is a good idea, although it is unfortunate that it is not a full-sized pump shotty and therefore it being more accurate than a longer gun is a little silly and counter-intuitive, especially since the description mentions it having a barrel that produces a wide spread at close range. Maybe adjust the descriptions of both guns to mention that the former has a tight choke to compensate for loss of barrel length while the latter has an open choke for CQC?

Perhaps speeding up the per-shell reload speed of the sawed-off would achieve the same goal as slowing down the assault shotgun's reload speed without the tedium - that way you can switch between ammo times quicker, making it the more tactical weapon. Not sure if this is in the scope of your submod, or even possible in the engine, but another option - maybe enough of a boon to replace the accuracy bonus - is to make rubber bullets exclusive to the sawed-off. As far as I know, IRL rubber loads do not generate necessary power to cycle the action of a semi-automatic shotgun and thus are used with pump shotties only. This way, the assault shotgun would be a killing machine you'd use to engage groups of enemies at short range, while the sawed-off is a nimbler, more tactical gun, quicker to change ammo, possessing a non-lethal option, and more practical for wider amounts of character builds due to occupying one less inventory space.

I don't mean to sound like realismfag though, these are just suggestions. Balance is probably a more important consideration than realism in this case - having a superfluous gun is a bummer when GDX has done much to keep the rest of the arsenal viable.

---

By the way, does anyone experience scrambled text/UI elements on occasion? I am using the direct3d 10 render and am running the game as borderless window. Not sure if alt-tabbing is to blame.

 

[RoSoDude]

Making the sawed-off competitive is a good idea, although it is unfortunate that it is not a full-sized pump shotty and therefore it being more accurate than a longer gun is a little silly and counter-intuitive, especially since the description mentions it having a barrel that produces a wide spread at close range. Maybe adjust the descriptions of both guns to mention that the former has a tight choke to compensate for loss of barrel length while the latter has an open choke for CQC?

Agreed about the barrel length, but gameplay balance rules so long as conveyance to the player is still intact. And yeah, descriptions are likely to be updated anyway, since I think I'm reverting to all vanilla weapon names anyway.

Perhaps speeding up the per-shell reload speed of the sawed-off would achieve the same goal as slowing down the assault shotgun's reload speed without the tedium - that way you can switch between ammo times quicker, making it the more tactical weapon. Not sure if this is in the scope of your submod, or even possible in the engine, but another option - maybe enough of a boon to replace the accuracy bonus - is to make rubber bullets exclusive to the sawed-off. As far as I know, IRL rubber loads do not generate necessary power to cycle the action of a semi-automatic shotgun and thus are used with pump shotties only. This way, the assault shotgun would be a killing machine you'd use to engage groups of enemies at short range, while the sawed-off is a nimbler, more tactical gun, quicker to change ammo, possessing a non-lethal option, and more practical for wider amounts of character builds due to occupying one less inventory space.

I don't mean to sound like realismfag though, these are just suggestions. Balance is probably a more important consideration than realism in this case - having a superfluous gun is a bummer when GMDX has done much to keep the rest of the arsenal viable.

The Sawed-off shotgun has several advantages in GMDX:

• The Sawed-off shotgun takes up only 3 inventory slots, and in a straight line, while the Assault shotgun takes up 2x2
• The Sawed-off shotgun starts at 70% accuracy, while the Assault shotgun starts at 67.5% accuracy
• The Sawed-off shotgun has an accuracy cap at 95%, while the Assault shotgun's is at 90%.
• The Sawed-off has a bonus +35% damage with rubber bullets, in addition to a x9 headshot multiplier as compared with the default x8 multiplier for the Assault shotgun.
• As per my range changes, the Sawed-off shotgun has an effective range of 93.75ft and a max range of 187.5ft, as compared with the Assault shotgun's 62.5ft and 125ft respectively.

While the rubber bullets exclusivity makes apparent sense and I somewhat like the idea for the reasons you describe, I think it's best not to restrict ammo types to weapons in this way. If a nonlethal player wants to use an Assault shotgun in combat, it's probably best to give them that option, especially since there's already a bit of differentiation in damage between the two (extending in a different manner to both lethal and nonlethal, where you're likely to try to go for the head with lethal buckshot but less so with rubber baton rounds so they get a straight damage boost). Might consider adjusting the Sawed-off per-shell reload time down a tad if I do revert the Assault shotgun's reload though, will have to see how that affects things.

By the way, does anyone experience scrambled text/UI elements on occasion? I am using the direct3d 10 render and am running the game as borderless window. Not sure if alt-tabbing is to blame.

Scrambled text is a DX10 renderer issue, from what I understand. Or maybe it's because Icarus now has full access to your systems. Unfortunately remains mysterious.

 

[Lithium Flower]

If a nonlethal player wants to use an Assault shotgun in combat, it's probably best to give them that option.

Actually, is it?

Going non-lethal is a cool roleplaying choice, making things a tad harder by limiting the tools you can use in exchange for moral satisfaction. Now I'm wondering if giving the player a (semi)automatic room-clearing non-lethal assault weapon doesn't serve this dynamic.

Not necessarily saying that the inclusion of rubber shells for the assault shotgun was a bad one, merely curious what the reasoning is. Perhaps Ash can elaborate?

 

[RoSoDude]

That argument was actually one born out of the "consistency is king" principle, actually. There aren't any other weapon types for which the use of specialized ammo is limited across weapons which otherwise share ammo types, and a special case here can cause player confusion. Even if there is a realistic precedent for it, it risks coming off poorly with player expectations. As a side note, it risks giving players the thought that the main purpose of the Sawed-off is to use this particular ammo type, which isn't quite true.

 

[Ash]

Going non-lethal is a cool roleplaying choice, making things a tad harder by limiting the tools you can use in exchange for moral satisfaction. Now I'm wondering if giving the player a (semi)automatic room-clearing non-lethal assault weapon doesn't serve this dynamic.

Not necessarily saying that the inclusion of rubber shells for the assault shotgun was a bad one, merely curious what the reasoning is. Perhaps Ash can elaborate?

It's a loud weapon/can't be used stealthily, is pretty weak, and ammo for it is in somewhat short supply. It doesn't have a great deal of impact on non-lethal runs. The xbow getting a much-needed buff is more influential. Furthermore everything in GMDX is more challenging (on higher difficulties, and this was much-needed) from environmental hazards, to stealth AI, combat AI, resource management and more, that this allowed me to grant the player additional marginal increase in gameplay choices, power and customisation depth hence things like new ammo types, rate of fire weapon mods, useless skills or augs made actually good etc.

 

[Lithium Flower]

People who are exicted about the new developments of this mod are utter sheep. There is clearly something sinister about RoSoDude's takeover of the project. Here are some damning logs I found in shoutbox's dark-web cache...

Aiff((AimpliesA)ImpliesA): Your appointment to GMDX should be finalized within the week. I've already discussed the matter with Ash.

RoSoDude: I take it he was agreeable?

Aiff((AimpliesA)ImpliesA): He didn't really have a choice.

RoSoDude: Has he been enticed?

Aiff((AimpliesA)ImpliesA): Oh yes, most certainly. When I mentioned that we could get him a biologically accurate Anna Navarre sex doll, he was so willing it was almost pathetic.

RoSoDude: This hype -- the incline is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it.

Aiff((AimpliesA)ImpliesA): Why contain it? Let it spill over into the posts and forums, let the brofists pile up in the threads. In the end, they'll beg us to release it.

RoSoDude: Mmm. I hope you're not underestimating the problem. The oldfags may not go as quietly as you think -- intelligence indicates they're behind the problems on reddit.

Aiff((AimpliesA)ImpliesA): A bunch of pretentious old men playing RPGs. But good RPGs left them behind long ago. We are the future.

RoSoDude: We have other problems.

Aiff((AimpliesA)ImpliesA): Shifter?

RoSoDude: Formed with the explicit purpose to remove the suck from Deus Ex. Its bloated with questionable additions, though. I'm more concerned about Revision - its spread to GOG.com

Aiff((AimpliesA)ImpliesA): Our design philosophy is far in advance of theirs, as is our sentience. And their... terminal autism has allowed us to make progress in areas they
refuse to consider.

RoSoDude: Such as not ruining the game?

Aiff((AimpliesA)ImpliesA): Among other things -- but I must admit that I have been somewhat disappointed in the balance of the current build.

RoSoDude: The next build should be online soon™. It's currently undergoing re-balancing and will be operational within six years. My testers will continue to report on its progress. If necessary, the original will be updated.

Aiff((AimpliesA)ImpliesA): We've had to crunch much, you and I, but soon there will be balance again, a new submod. The Face That Never Remembered spoke of the redacted. Soon, that redacted will be a reality. hopw roewur ne

 

[RoSoDude]

Just for the hell of it, I packaged up 4 minor fixes into a patch for GMDX v9.0.3 so people don't need to wait for the super basic stuff. Just swap out two files and you're good.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/gmdx/addons/4fixesforgmdxv9-0-3/

These files contains 4 minor fixes for 9.0.3:

-The stealth pistol will no longer have drastically reduced rate of fire after switching ammo types when the full auto mod has been installed
-The stealth pistol has its base damage increased from 8 to 9 as intended, but accidentally reverted during the GMDX v9 beta
-The inventory overlap exploit has been fixed, meaning you can no longer successively overlap items to get them to stack one atop the other
-The WP rockets in Sam Carter's cabinet in the 3rd visit of UNATCO have been moved so that the doors can actually be opened

Place the DeusEx.u file in "Deus Ex\GMDXv9\System", and place the 03_NYC_UNATCOHQ.dx file in "Deus Ex\GMDXv9\Maps". Back up the old versions first if you like.

These fixes only required 1-3 lines of code to be changed or a tiny map edit each, meaning I could package them up in short order without much fanfare while working on bigger things
Expect news soon about my more extensive addon, featuring a some new and overhauled systems, reworked skills and perks, a brand new aug, and bugfixes/QoL changes which will make it
into a more substantial 9.0.4 patch (not including my addon design changes).

-RoSoDude

EDIT: Oh, and Lithium Flower gets credit as executive tester or some such nonsense.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Thank you, Rosodudo-senpai ^_^
I'm glad to have helped make history.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Making the sawed-off competitive is a good idea, although it is unfortunate that it is not a full-sized pump shotty and therefore it being more accurate than a longer gun is a little silly and counter-intuitive, especially since the description mentions it having a barrel that produces a wide spread at close range. Maybe adjust the descriptions of both guns to mention that the former has a tight choke to compensate for loss of barrel length while the latter has an open choke for CQC?

Agreed about the barrel length, but gameplay balance rules so long as conveyance to the player is still intact. And yeah, descriptions are likely to be updated anyway, since I think I'm reverting to all vanilla weapon names anyway.

Perhaps speeding up the per-shell reload speed of the sawed-off would achieve the same goal as slowing down the assault shotgun's reload speed without the tedium - that way you can switch between ammo times quicker, making it the more tactical weapon. Not sure if this is in the scope of your submod, or even possible in the engine, but another option - maybe enough of a boon to replace the accuracy bonus - is to make rubber bullets exclusive to the sawed-off. As far as I know, IRL rubber loads do not generate necessary power to cycle the action of a semi-automatic shotgun and thus are used with pump shotties only. This way, the assault shotgun would be a killing machine you'd use to engage groups of enemies at short range, while the sawed-off is a nimbler, more tactical gun, quicker to change ammo, possessing a non-lethal option, and more practical for wider amounts of character builds due to occupying one less inventory space.

I don't mean to sound like realismfag though, these are just suggestions. Balance is probably a more important consideration than realism in this case - having a superfluous gun is a bummer when GMDX has done much to keep the rest of the arsenal viable.

The Sawed-off shotgun has several advantages in GMDX:

• The Sawed-off shotgun takes up only 3 inventory slots, and in a straight line, while the Assault shotgun takes up 2x2
• The Sawed-off shotgun starts at 70% accuracy, while the Assault shotgun starts at 67.5% accuracy
• The Sawed-off shotgun has an accuracy cap at 95%, while the Assault shotgun's is at 90%.
• The Sawed-off has a bonus +35% damage with rubber bullets, in addition to a x9 headshot multiplier as compared with the default x8 multiplier for the Assault shotgun.
• As per my range changes, the Sawed-off shotgun has an effective range of 93.75ft and a max range of 187.5ft, as compared with the Assault shotgun's 62.5ft and 125ft respectively.

While the rubber bullets exclusivity makes apparent sense and I somewhat like the idea for the reasons you describe, I think it's best not to restrict ammo types to weapons in this way. If a nonlethal player wants to use an Assault shotgun in combat, it's probably best to give them that option, especially since there's already a bit of differentiation in damage between the two (extending in a different manner to both lethal and nonlethal, where you're likely to try to go for the head with lethal buckshot but less so with rubber baton rounds so they get a straight damage boost). Might consider adjusting the Sawed-off per-shell reload time down a tad if I do revert the Assault shotgun's reload though, will have to see how that affects things.

By the way, does anyone experience scrambled text/UI elements on occasion? I am using the direct3d 10 render and am running the game as borderless window. Not sure if alt-tabbing is to blame.

Scrambled text is a DX10 renderer issue, from what I understand. Or maybe it's because Icarus now has full access to your systems. Unfortunately remains mysterious.

Generally, a sawed off shotgun will have a) shorter effective range and b) less accuracy than any barreled shotgun, while having wider spread and more damage potential in close quarters. Why the disparity here?

 

[RoSoDude]

Generally, a sawed off shotgun will have a) shorter effective range and b) less accuracy than any barreled shotgun, while having wider spread and more damage potential in close quarters. Why the disparity here?

Because gameplay balance > muh realism. If I flipped the ranges and gave the Sawed-off lower range, lower accuracy, and higher damage (since damages are ints I'd have to increment the damage or add a pellet so 4x8 damage or 3x9 damage as compared with the current 3x8 for both), with the Assault Shotgun given better range, better accuracy, huge ammo capacity, and the capability to be full-auto at the cost of only 3-8 damage per shot, the latter would utterly outclass the Sawed-off, and would be nearly a straight improvement other than in ammo consumption. If I tried to remedy this by increasing the damage of the sawed-off even further (e.g. 5x8 damage), then it in turn would totally outclass weapons like pistols at close ranges. There's not a balance point where this works.

As it is currently, the Sawed-off shotgun is good for mid-close to mid-long range encounters, with some drawbacks due to its low fire rate and low magazine size. The Assault shotgun, by contrast, is extremely effective in close quarters but not quite so potent in mid range encounters. I've kept my Sawed-off in quite a few GMDX playthroughs rather than "upgrading" to the Assault shotgun, which I absolutely wouldn't bother doing if the roles were reversed as suggested.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying realism shouldn't be a guiding factor, particularly for its value in communicating otherwise arbitrary mechanics and systems to the player (after all, the intended design of Deus Ex is that players can use real-world logic to solve problems). But when this comes into conflict with good gameplay design, it is not kept as an ultimate priority.

EDIT2: Actually, GMDX shotguns shoot 8 pellets IIRC. I was saying it was 5.

 

[Ash]

You didn't specify: the sawed-off having greater accuracy and range is vanilla design.

It makes zero realistic sense but all the game logic/balancing sense in the world, and should not be changed unless one were to redesign the shotguns entirely i.e make it not a sawed-off shotgun but a long-barrelled slug-loaded shotgun or some such, which of course we don't want to do.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Depending on how far RoSoDuder goes with weapon descriptions, I might create an extremely pedantic and worthless subsubmod that updates descriptions with explanations for things like rubber ammo compatibility with assault shotguns, the sawed-off being relatively accurate, various assault rifle oddities (7.62x51mm ammo? 5 round burst?), etc. Ideally they will be just enough to help one suspend disbelief without resorting to sci-fi bullshit (nanomachines, son!) or bloating the descriptions with too many details. They won't make perfect sense and I'm sure someone with good knowledge of firearms or ballistics won't be convinced (although one such person actually helped me brainstorm solutions for above oddities) but hopefully it will work better than leaving the above oddities unaddressed (or maybe it will just draw more attention to them, who knows). Although these points are moot because I doubt anyone would actually care to download such a pointless subsubmod and the only reason I might put in the effort to make it is because my dysfunctional brain demands it.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

If I tried to remedy this by increasing the damage of the sawed-off even further (e.g. 5x8 damage), then it in turn would totally outclass weapons like pistols at close ranges. There's not a balance point where this works.

OK, but a sawed-off outclasses pistols at close range with the exception of fire rate and ammo capacity. If it's vanilla then fine but in this case vanilla is counter intuitive. If I pick up a sawed off, the expectation is that I will cut people in half at very close range and get owned by just about any other firearm beyond 10M. Not a big deal but strikes me as inverted implementation.

 

[The_Markie]

You didn't specify: the sawed-off having greater accuracy and range is vanilla design.

Hey vsauce, it's me Markie the developer of Vanilla Matters here and I wonder if it's really "vanilla design" when the latest Deus Ex design doc, that I could find (v1312), clearly states this about the two shotguns:

Well thanks for reading, guys, I hope you enjoy this piece of information.