The ISMC Mod

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peglegswansoon
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The ISMC Mod

Post by peglegswansoon »

So a few of us have played this mod before. For those that don't know, it's a massive chunk of extra content for Sandstorm featuring copious gameplay tweaks and new weapons. Mod.IO page here, which includes a link to their Discord if you're interested!

The highlights:
  • A large number of new weapons have been added. This includes new ARs like the M416, new AK variants like the AK103, even a Saiga-12! There are also a bunch of new pistols, including the Five-seven and Glock-18. Existing weapons stats seem to have been tweaked also.
  • New attachments have been added for all weapons. There are new grip styles, new optics (including variable ones), flashlight/laser combos and new magazine sizes. Some weapons have more options like different stocks, but these are cosmetic-only for now. All guns also have an "Operator training" attachment which buffs all areas including recoil, reload time and draw speed
  • Armor-piecing and hollow-point ammo return from the old game
  • New mechanics. You can now carry 2 primary weapons in addition to a pistol with the heaviest carrier option. Laser point-shooting is an option for all guns. General magazine counts are increased by about 1.5x
  • All player kits have access to all equipment. The team has one "Team Leader" who serves as the Commander, and everyone else takes the "Operator" kit (who also has the radio)
  • New models for vests and carriers which are more authentic and less bulky. These don't support custom camos though
  • Default health is now 300 instead of 100 and the headshot damage multiplier is reduced for the Security team. Movement speed is also increased
It's not all sunshine and rainbows, as there are a few caveats.
  • The new classes and equipment are only available for the Security team. The health and movement speed buffs are also given to Security only. This means playing Checkpoint Insurgents is very unbalanced, your health and movement are the default values (while the bots are buffed!) and you only have access to the pre-1.9 Insurgent equipment. As a result most servers just remove Insurgent maps from the rotation
  • Increased health and movement speed greatly changes up the playstyle. You can tank 2 frags at point blank range with heavy armor, and survive multiple headshots from most guns. Weapon recoil is easier to control. Rushing is far more viable and the game is generally more forgiving. This goes against how EBS usually plays. The mod creators say that they're planning to make health and movement speed configurable, but this is not possible yet.
  • The mod is about 4GB to download, easily 3x the size of our biggest maps. Downloading that will take a while for slow connections!
  • Naturally there are a few bugs. For example, some weapons turn invisible when paired with certain optics
Obviously the new content is enticing but the various downsides mean it's not a no-brainer straight upgrade to our experience. As a result I've decided to run a trial! Over this weekend I'll be running ISMC on my test server. I've copied everything else over from the main server, including mod maps, so the only difference should be the ISMC mod. I think this is a good way for people to try out the mod and we can decide as a community if it's something we want to put on the main server, something that's not quite ready for us yet, or if it doesn't fit our server at all.

The server is up as I post this, the IP is 86.10.34.243:27102. I'll try to keep it running as much as possible this weekend.
Any thoughts please leave a reply! :lol:
peglegswansoon
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Re: The ISMC Mod

Post by peglegswansoon »

Quick update for anyone interested: I came across another server yesterday which was doing something clever - they combined the Hardcore mutator and gamemode with ISMC and basically fixed some of the caveats I mentioned before!

You get all the new guns and gear, but slower movement and default health. :mrgreen: I'm updating the test server to include this. I haven't figured out how to force the game to use "CheckpointHardcore" on the first map after a restart, to get around this an Admin can use the in-game menu to end the round by doing "DEBUG" -> "Server" -> "End Round (Victory)" and you'll go to the map vote, which should all be Hardcore. DON'T use "FORCE GAME OVER" because that breaks it! Unfortunately hardcore mode doesn't work with some of the custom maps we have so I've taken them out for now.

You also get the close-range-only friendly indicators and limited resupplies, but you should keep your gear when respawning. It gives you the traditional class roles but the weapon assignments are slightly odd - some weapons are missing from some kits although most are present for all of them. Notable differences: Only the Observer carries a radio. Only Demolitions gets access to the launchers/big explosives.

On a sidenote, that particular server also had an AI mod which re-instated mandator sniper training for all Insurgents. It was kind-of refreshing to actually be shot at from a distance again instead of doing target practice on every counter-attack. But I think they went a bit far, as we all kept getting one-tapped from 180m+ away. Swings and roundabouts...
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heliman96
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Re: The ISMC Mod

Post by heliman96 »

For anyone interested in the ISMC mod: https://www.reddit.com/r/insurgency/com ... urce=share
peglegswansoon
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Re: The ISMC Mod

Post by peglegswansoon »

More exciting than the dev streams lol. Their Discord is linked on the mod.io page, it has quite a few interesting "sneak peeks" on display - new weapons like the Deagle and another semi-auto shotgun, new gear for the Insurgents and even new weaponised vehicles!
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