My class, loadout and squad Thread - Hybrid Combat mod for Mass Effect 2

Personally I like to play two classes, Soldier and Sentinel.

Soldier will get a lot more benefits from the modification and Andrenaline Rush power, using a Mattock with fully evolved Andrenaline is devastating.
Since Mattock is more of a heavy hitter weapon, I like to carry Shuriken as backup piece. Adding a sniper rifle to the mix makes the soldier unparraleled punisher.

My Sentinel usually carries Avenger/Vindicator (depends on the day :p ), Incisor and a heavy pistol (which one depends on how I feel like).
ARs are generally all-around weapons, while Incisor is brutally efficient at stripping YMIR Mech shields and quickly scoping out mercs in covers, while heavy pistol will take care of any armor defenses. Biotic powers help will help greatly in crowd control of husks.

Squad going with me depends on a mission. Since squadmates are actually useful now, my Monday team (for a really bad day) is Garrus and Thane, both with Incisors. They will provide incredible long range fire support while I take care of any melee or dug in enemies.

On other occasions, Grunt provides close quarters devastation with Claymore (several times more damage output than before) and tanks a lot of damage, while Mordin will provide tech powers and rapidfire SMG support from cover for taking down various defenses or multiple weaker opponents.

Miranda and Samara combination is pure biotic awesomeness. Samara's and mine weapon damage are increased with Miranda's passive talent, and they can shell out unstoppable biotic power. Miranda will also take care of any shields on non-melee opponents while Samara provides excellent crowd control.

Let me know what do you like to take with you!

Hi there.
Very nice mod, good work.
Didn't play too much with it though, because weapons cooling down to fast for me. I almost have no reason to switch from assault rifle to sidegun and so on.
So, maybe you could tell me, where can I change ammo refiling speed? I tried to find it in Coalesced.ini but got nothing.
Thanks.

You can find it in Coalesced.bin, search for "HeatDissipationRate" or something. Currently it's at 18.0F
Reducing this makes weapons cool slower.

Though, I tried to make it as belivable as possible - it's a fine balance between well balanced gameplay mechanics, and making sense in-universe lore.

Who would make an assault rifle that takes ages to cool down, forcing you to use the pistol?

My primary goal was exactly the opposite - to get rid of the limitations and forced multiple-gun usage. You can use whatever you like - if you like an assault rifle, you can use it through entire game more or less. If you like handguns, you can finish entire game with those alone.

You can switch weapons at will. Nobody is forcing you to do it, but you can choose to. I believe that's a better option than actually forcing player to abandon a primary assault weapon for a pistol simply because he ran out of heatsinks for a gun which has unlimited ammunition.

I wont argue with that. I'm just trying to make my game more diverse, that's all.)
I like the idea being forced to switch, or to use ammo with care.
Besides, with this rate of cooling, Katana, or Scimtar, for example, is able to shot for about 30 seconds nonstop. Kinda too much from the lore point of view in my opinion.
Upd. But yeah, there is a little problem with slower cooling. It looks like only one weapon in use, is being cooled at a time. So you have to switch to empty gun and wait until it refills. That's stupid...

Edited by: soimimozo

Well, since it's hardcoded I don't have any control over it, but when you think about it it makes a certain amount of sense - the gun is completely collapsed and shut off.

I believe you'd need to expand it and run some basic cooling systems to vent off the excess heat.

Anyway, being able to fire 30 seconds with Katana and Scimitar is not a bad thing in my eyes - for example, once you're really into the "universe" lore, if you've read all the novels and comics and everything - I dunno, you're really left with an impression that any sort of "ammo" or "cooling" limitation is being shoved down your throat by game developers, actual in game lore "feels" much differently. Like, when somebody draws out a pistol, you know shit's gonna go down, and NOBODY in that instant is thinking about exact count of shots you need to take the enemy down, and the fact that you need to have same amount of thermal clips as number of enemies, or any other of actual in-game mechanics you are forced to think about when playing the game.

It just kinda beats the immersivness of the game when you enter a room, and if you see more than 4 guys, you instantly start looking for an unbelivably conviniently placed ammo cache because you know 400 shots from Avenger isn't enough for handful of enemies. It's why I upped the damage by good 40% on it.

How the hell do you use weaponry in environment which doesn't have thermal clips growing on trees and out of tables? How are wars even fought if you need to spend 50% of your entire ammo supply on one guy?

I dunno, entire thermal clip system has been bugging me to no end from day one. If I already cannot completely reverse it... (yet)... at least I can make it tolerable. I have spend incredible amount of time finely tweaking damages, ammo counts and heat dissipation rate to achieve maximum balance between gameplay and lore.

If you don't like it, let me know, perhaps write a list of changes you'd like made, I'll prepare a Coalesced file and upload it for you somewhere. But if you're asking for slower heat dissipation rates... you may be dissapointed by the gameplay.

Don't worry, I did it myself already.)
Just didn't know how to set dissipation rate, thanks for the tip.
Actually I've spent about 2 days so far, tweaking your Coalesced.ini to my liking.) Your one is very good, but I just prefer a bit different style of play.
I've set all enemy barriers to rechargeable, dissipation rate to 50f. Reduced numbers of spare clips, and magazine size for 30-50%, and upped damage for the same extent. Now it's forcing me to use powers more often, and to go for headshots as much as it is possible.
I'm "one shot style" fun, so I just can't stand regular enemies taking 70+ machine gun shots and running around as if it were paintballs. Armored Krogan taking 30-40 continuous shots from Revenant - it is limit for me.)

BTW did you tweak Incisor sniper rifle? It behaves strange for me. There is no regen mod enabled for it, and ini file itself looks strange. Trying to touch it leads my game to a very long save loads, if it loads at all. Eviscerator Cereberus Shotgun won't let me change it's ini too. It just refuses to be activated with "give entitles" after.

Edited by: soimimozo

The Eviscerator shotgun is the only weapon I do not have in Mass Effect 2.

I have tweaked Incisor and it's supposed to work perfectly fine - having regenerating 30/30 ammo, and it's three round bursts are fired with speed of 3000RPM - so basically all three rounds are nearly instantanious.

Where did you manage to dig up the enemy shields recharge?! I was searching for it, couldn't find it.

I'm pleased we stand on the same ground regarding the number of shots needed to drop a guy.

By the way, you're more than welcome to upload your own modified Coalesced as your own mod, even if it's based on mine - there's far too few mods for ME2 regarding gameplay mechanics these days. Too many TexMods which make the game load 30 minutes, and still the same fighting mechanics.

Well, I just took Flash's (or Wildfire, don't remember) mod ini file, and copied strings from there.
In short, look for [SFXGame.SFXShield_Base] , and change it to following:
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Base]
bRechargeable=true
ShieldRegenDelay=(X=5.0f,Y=5.0f)
ShieldRechargeTime=(X=2.0f,Y=2.0f)
PartialBreakPct=0.55
ShieldPointsPerBar=40.f
bFastCoverRegen=true
bAbsorbDamageOnBreak=false
ShieldDisplayName=341713
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Energy]
ShieldDisplayName=341713
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Armour]
ShieldDisplayName=341714
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Biotic]
ShieldDisplayName=341715
[SFXGame.SFXShield_GethEnergy]
ShieldDisplayName=341716
DamageGateInterval=1.0f
[SFXGame.SFXShield_GethEnergy_Player]
ShieldDisplayName=341716
DamageGateInterval=1.0f
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Energy_Player]
bRechargeable=true
bFastCoverRegen=true
bAbsorbDamageOnBreak=false
DamageGateInterval=1.0f
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Armour_Player]
bRechargeable=true
bFastCoverRegen=true
bAbsorbDamageOnBreak=false
DamageGateInterval=1.0f
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Biotic_Player]
bRechargeable=true
bFastCoverRegen=true
bAbsorbDamageOnBreak=false
DamageGateInterval=1.0f
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Player]
bRechargeable=true
MaxShields=(X=200.f,Y=200.f)
ShieldRegenDelay=(X=5.f,Y=5.f)
ShieldRechargeTime=(X=2.f,Y=2.f)
ShieldPointsPerBar=40.0f
DamageGateInterval=1.0f

It will set any barrier type, including armor layers, to rechargeable state, and remove ability to absorb all damage on breaking.
Tweaking armor or biotics sections only, will lead to changes for according type, I presume. Didn't try it though.

Well, I'll consider uploading my Coalesced.ini, why not. Of course I'll give you credits, since this whole thing is your idea from the begining.) But first I want to complete game with it, because It will get some changes in process I believe.

Edited by: soimimozo

Yep, smart to give it some beta testing first.

Let me know how it goes. I'll maybe use that to do additional modifications.

Armor regeneration sounds good too, I'd assume armor repairs itself during combat etc.

Well, it took long, but I guess, I'm satisfied with damage, and shield recharging mechanisms.) Playing with AI settings for weapon now...)

Hey that's cool, no rush.

Can you do me a favor?

Make one version with all mine weapon statistics, and with your shield and barrier modifications.

Best of two worlds if you ask me.

I can post my shield part of the coalesced.ini here if you want. It isn't that large.

[SFXGame.SFXShield_Base]
bRechargeable=true
PartialBreakPct=0.55
ShieldPointsPerBar=40.f
bFastCoverRegen=true
bAbsorbDamageOnBreak=false
ShieldDisplayName=341713
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Energy]
ShieldDisplayName=341713
ShieldRegenDelay=(X=6.0f,Y=6.0f)
ShieldRechargeTime=(X=0.1f,Y=0.1f)
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Armour]
ShieldDisplayName=341714
bFastCoverRegen=false
ShieldRegenDelay=(X=0.1f,Y=0.1f)
ShieldRechargeTime=(X=50.0f,Y=50.0f)
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Biotic]
ShieldDisplayName=341715
ShieldRegenDelay=(X=1.0f,Y=1.0f)
ShieldRechargeTime=(X=10.0f,Y=10.0f)
[SFXGame.SFXShield_GethEnergy]
ShieldDisplayName=341716
[SFXGame.SFXShield_GethEnergy_Player]
ShieldDisplayName=341716
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Energy_Player]
DamageGateInterval=0.0f
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Armour_Player]
DamageGateInterval=0.0f
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Biotic_Player]
DamageGateInterval=0.0f
[SFXGame.SFXShield_Player]
MaxShields=(X=200.f,Y=200.f)

Just look for this part and replace it.
All shield mechanisms will work for player and for enemies.
Energy shields will recharge instantly after 6 seconds.
Armor will repair itself to 100% in 50 seconds when isn't taking fire.
And Biotic barriers will restore in 10 seconds, with 1 sec delay after damage.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to add an armor layer for Shepard or his Henchmen tough.

Hi there.Congratulations for your very interesting piece of work.I discovered the ME series rather recently, about 6 months ago, and I must admit that along with the Baldur's Gate series have become my favorites rpg's of all time. I personally find your mod and Flashe's Moddb.com essential in order to maximize gaming pleasure from ME2 and here comes the crucial question.
After playing ME2 with both of them I must admit that I prefer standard ME2's weapons mechanics than ammo regeneration resembling ME1 mechanics.
Since Flash describes in his tutorial Moddb.com the way to modify coalesced.ini and soimimozo already solved the enemy's shield, armour and barrier regeneration I would like to ask if it is possible to revert back to standard ME2 weapon mechanics in your mod essentially canceling 1.1 Enabled the code for ammo regeneration, simulating the weapons cooling down.
All the other changes that your mod brings to ME2 are highly appreciated and greatly enhance ME2 playability!

Edited by: ioannisman

Well... Can't say ME got even close to BG... It isn't that bad, but no more.
As for ammo regeneration, you just have to fine "WeaponsUseHeat" parameter in your .ini and set it to false. If I'm not mistaken Flash's mod has it by default.