Super Campaign Refined (SCR) is my one man project to improve and refine gameplay elements in Halo 1 campaign. It looks like Halo, feels like Halo, but the gameplay has new exciting stuff with the old familiar stuff.

I actually try to make this mod original and well balanced within the new sandbox I have created. Pretty much nothing is reskinned and borrowed tags are minimal.

So the mod itself is based on alternative storyline where humans figured out a way to cheaply mass-product MJOLNIR armors and then added soldier AI into each one of them. The result: army of tough robot warriors to actually fair well against The Covenant on ground battles. They were named Super Spartans (SS). Spartans because of the same armor and Super because they can take loads of damage before perishing. A lot of Super Spartans were aboard Pillar of Autumn when it fled Reach.

So your allies in addition to marines and crewmen and Super Spartans and also ODSTs. Like mentioned above, SS can actually take damage and survive in battle unlike normal fodder marines who get annihilated on Legendary. They also have custom combat dialog made by using voice synthesizer, a fitting voice for a robot.

The Covenant now has additional ranks besides the normal minor-major system. There is those introduced in later Halo games like Elite Ultra, Grunt Ultra and Grunt Heavy. There is also completely new ranks like Jackal Ultra, Jackal SpecOps, Grunt Commander and new Hunter variants. Also, I think I am the first one to make use of Skirmishers in a mod, first in Lacadaemon and now improved versions here.

The Flood was quite boring in Halo 1, only infection, carrier and two types of combat form. With my mod I add Flood Champions, mutated combat forms whose skin get covered in blue substance, Flood Transports, mutated carrier forms that might have something else than infection forms inside, Shielded Elite Combat Forms and Flood Protoforms. Protoforms are made out of pure flood biomass like Pure Forms, but they are still incomplete and need an exoskeleton, like the armor of dead hunter or super spartan...

But of course all default AI is still in the mod, some with slight graphical changes though. Jackal Majors now have red shields to help distinguish them from Minors. Sentinel Majors are colored gold and their beams blue/white. Stealth Flood have parts of Stealth Elite armor still on.

Here is some pictures of new AI:







Maps pretty much look the same as normal, they are not reskinned. This mod is supposed to look like original Halo 1. Some ambient changes are there like HEV pods and most notably the atmosphere of Library being infested with flood spores.

Next is the weapons. All default weapons are persent and unchanged. However, new weapons are also in. Assault SMG is tactical, silenced automatic weapon with a scope. Killer is high-power pistol. White Death is alternative sniper rifle. Mini-MAC is small portable MAC with huge recoil. Beam Pistol is sniper-ish Covenant handgun. Plasma SMG (name probably changes) is yellow plasma rifle that obliterates shields but does poor against armor. Antimatter Gun (AM-gun for short) utilizes the same homing needles as needler, but they contain small amounts of antimatter to cause devastating damage. Silenced SMG, the ODST favorite, is also included.

Videos and more in-depth stuff of the weaponry is to come.

Borrowed tags are:
Jackal sniper model that was reskinned and -shadered for my Skirmisher biped by DMT.
Assault SMG model, animations and bitmaps by doompig444.
Elite Expert model by sphinxbio.
Armored Elite model by Koo and Lone Warrior
ODST biped by Spartan-094


So, any opinions or questions?
Edited by porottaja on Nov 21, 2012 at 10:59 AM

flood hunter and flood chief look dumb, just retexture them instead of borrowing the preexisting flood materials.

The textures are placeholders for now.
Edited by porottaja on Nov 17, 2012 at 02:17 PM

you should also dim down the flood elites' armor, maybe add some detail to them. green flood would be more fitting than blue flood, and the dark jackals could do with some arm fixing :P

The "Skirmishers" look pretty good, I think, and the idea of a Flood-infected Spartan is an interesting concept, but Hunters can't be assimilated due to their lack of a central nervous system.

If you want a "heavy" Flood, though, you could perhaps reskin a Brute.
Edited by Echo77 on Nov 17, 2012 at 02:46 PM

I mimiced normal elite shaders to create ones that look like them on the flood models. And Champions are blue because flood=water, which is assosiated with the color blue.

And do you mean Skirmishers with "dark jackals"?



Those "Flood Spartans" and "Flood Hunters" are the Protoforms. They are not infected, the flood is just using their empty armor as exoskeleton.

I like the skirmishers, reminds me of a reskin I did for my campaign mod awhile back before I lost everything

stupid faulty backup flash drive

this has some potential, an enhanced gameplay mod is always a mod I'd be willing to support and look forward to
Edited by Delicon20 on Nov 17, 2012 at 02:53 PM

Then too bad that this is complete opposite of a re-skin. :P

I'm backing this mod 100%, let me know if I can help in any way.
steam: ptowery

Here is videos of all the custom weapons:

Assault SMG

Killer

White Death

Mini-MAC

Beam Pistol

Plasma SMG

AM-gun

these weapon ideas are, no offense, kinda bad.

assault SMG is just a silenced assault rifle with scope
killer is stupidly overpowered and no one will use any other weapon
white death is essentially the same as the sniper rifle, only with 1 extra bullet
mini-MAC is an underpowered white death with self-damage, less ammo, and AoE damage. white death is a better version of this weapon.
beam pistol is very underpowered compared to the killer with a smaller rate of fire and a weak bomb that has a long cooldown due to the overheat.
Plasma SMG is a sped up plasma rifle
AM-gun is a needler with faster projectiles and an extra damage effect.

you should make weapons that have different attributes than their predecessors, such as an assault rifle with a 6 barrel grenade launcher (grenades bounce and explode) or a plasma weapon that shoots a constant stream of homing plasma with little damage but more time before the weapon overheats. stuff like that. basically, all I'm saying is that these weapons of yours aren't so much custom as they are modified.

Not reskin for the Flood Hunter one? Why? Do you like the crappy placeholder I am using right now?



Yeah well, they are supposed to be replacements for different playstyles rather than complete new weapons.

Assault SMG is more accurate and thus better at medium range, but up close Assault rifle is better.

Killer is compromise between Pistol and Sniper rifle, but I too feel it still is quite overpowered at the moment.

White Death has lower Rof and recoil but it does a bit more damage than sniper rifle to reward efficent players.

Mini-MAC is nothing like White Death by the way. It is more like Spartan Laser with no charge time. It pretty much one-shots or two-shots all enemies even on Legendary, including Wraiths, Hunters and Elite Zealots.

Beam pistol is actually as poweful as Killer is and the overcharge is primarily meant for anti-vehicular battle. Homing in and explosive power really do well against Ghosts and Warthogs.

Plasma SMG drains shields way faster than Plasma Rifle, but kill unshielded enemies painfully slow compared to it. Again, different playstyle choices. Maybe use this instead of Noob-combo to deal with Elites?

AM-gun is really close to Needler, I can agree on that. The weapon fills a role in the story and also to actually make you fear against Covenent. It can turn a fodder Grunt into killing machine if you are not careful.
Edited by porottaja on Nov 22, 2012 at 05:12 PM

I swear i've played a map before that had those weapons in it and the killer was extremely overpowered

Not to mention that the killer you start off with had like 100 maximum ammo stock and I remember that I could use killer throughout the entire map without even picking up ammo
Edited by nihao123456ftw on Nov 22, 2012 at 05:52 PM

assault SMG really has no place, since a silenced AR is just about as useful as a normal AR. even though it's silenced, the fact that you have to be mid-to-short range from an enemy means that the instant you hit said enemy is the moment you lose the element of suprise. a silenced sniper rifle or headshot-capable weapon would be more suited to the job, because if you can kill an enemy instantly with a silenced weapon, they won't alert their allies with "hey! I'm being shot at!"

the mini MAC is still considerably underpowered, given that it is a high damage weapon with little ammo and almost no AoE/splash damage. yes, it would be effective against vehicles, but that's just about all it can do; unless the campaign features a ton of vehicles, such a weapon would fall off really quickly as other methods(grenades, shooting, plasma) are much more effective than firing 2 shots and retreating with low shields.

same with the beam pistol; yes, it is powerful. yes, it has explosives. but why use it in place of a different weapon? the killer has about the same damage, but it fires faster; a simple toss of a plasma grenade can kill an enemy in one shot as opposed to 3, and destroys vehicles easier due to it's sticky nature.

if the plasma SMG is meant to drain shields so fast, would it not be much quicker and efficient to use the plasma pistol's 1-second charge up time (charging before the battle, even) and homing blast to quickly, accurately and effectively take out someone's shield? the inaccuracy of the plasma SMG, paired with the overheat and the sheer amount of bullets and time it takes to reduce the shield of one elite make the plasma pistol a much better choice, especially since the plasma pistol is good at taking out shields AND health.

as for the AM gun, the whole idea of grunts is to be fodder and distractions (often turret pilots) so other units can last longer. considering the amount of grunts that group up and the sped-up needles that deal twice as much damage, the campaign is going to be practically impossible should grunts ever use such a weapon. it's like firefight; descent's grunt fun level, where all grunts had insta-kill FRGs and plenty of them around, requiring the player to hide behind cover and snipe them individually or dodging a ton of fire(which is not fun, mind you).

while making weapons, you should ask yourself "why would I want this weapon over a different weapon?" for example, why would I want a plasma rifle over an assault rifle? it is situation-based question; if there are unshielded foes, the assault rifle is preferable as it chews through enemies easily. but if there are shielded enemies, the plasma rifle is the better choice to make easy work of their shields faster than an assault rifle while still doing enough damage for the kill.

why would I want a mini-MAC over a rocket launcher? they both shoot 2 rockets, they both are anti vehicular weapons, but the rocket launcher, even though it has slower rockets, has large damage and splash area, making it an ideal anti-vehicle and anti-infantry, as opposed to the mini-MAC's vehicle-specific purpose. the mini-MAC also does self damage, making you vulnerable against said vehicles should both rockets not make their mark. if I needed to take out a vehicle while at full health/shield, then yes, I would switch out for a mini-MAC, but after the battle it is a very poor choice for any other type of encounter, so switching back would require no hesitation.

I think you should have custom models for your weapons, so
1) you can tell them a part
2) make it obvious that you put a lot of effort into this map (as opposed to just re-skinning existing assets and recycling encounters)

big booty bitches

when will it comeout

I really appreciate your versatile critique master noob. Unfortunately you can't obviously get the full picture of how these weapons work in my sandbox because you haven't played with them. (<- isn't meant to be offensive at all )



Actually enemy AI can't hear each other's screams and if you keep firing at the enemy they keep pinging and ultimate die silently. Silencer is more like extra to the main idea I have with this weapon anyways. Normal AR has effective range of a shotgun. This weapon has higher RoF and accuracy at the cost of some damage per bullet. Which actually does make it effective weapon even at medium to medium-long ranges.




You still underestimate the power of Mini-MAC. I was afraid this weapon would be overpowered! It isn't meant to kill large groups of enemies. It is meant to eliminate big targets with one shot. On Heroic, everything dies from one shot. On Legendary everything dies from one direct impact, only Wraiths sometimes take 2 shots. Isn't it like 3 rockets to kill Elite Zealot on Legendary? Also, hitting fast moving targets like Ghosts or Banshees from a distance with rockets is really difficult. With Mini-MAC and sniper-speed slugs the problem is removed.



Beam Pistol is more like sniper than Killer is. It has 8x zoom so you can shoot targets from far greater ranges than Killer or Plasma Grenades. And obviously Plasma Grenades don't home in on vehicles.



Plasma SMG is actually really accurate unless you keep the trigger down for long periods fo time and it has fast bolts. It is meant to be a viable alternative to PP overcharge, as the bolts really tear through shilelds.



I know how to balance SP. It is not like half of the grunts use this weapon. There is some Grunts that sometimes use it and the glow AM-gun emits gives them away so you can prepare.



And this exactly is my goal as I said before. Not to make complete new weapons but alternatives for different scenarios. You also have to consider how enemy and ally AI use these weapons agaisnt you and what role they fill in for them to use too.



My Lacadaemon Chapter 1 I guess. But that is old work and lackluster of me creating my first custom SP map.



Sorry, but the point of this mod is to look like Halo, I try to use as few custom models as possible and try to choose ones that fall within this with those that I use. And I much rather put my effort in the gameplay side. Like testing and editing the sandbox with all the new AI and weapons and encounters. That really takes time to perfect and in my opinion is the most important aspect in a game or in a mod.



When I get is finished. There are things you don't want to rush. Releasing incomplete mods that aren't refined and tested enough for the sake of releasing them quickly is not a good thing.
Edited by porottaja on Nov 23, 2012 at 04:09 AM

I know, those bitmaps that you currently see on that Flood Hunter are PLACEHOLDERS. I am going to actually make a good bitmap for it.

And where did you pull "mach" and Flood using vehicles form?

Yes, still working on this.

Here is my first attempts of Flood Giant and Juggernaut bitmaps, with the vanilla version next to them for comparison:

Keep the visor gold.

And edit the "rubber" parts to look more Flood-like.

You should make the fingers more Flood-like as well.


Edited by Dumb AI on Mar 3, 2013 at 12:21 PM

The armour should stay the same. You should only modify the skin/rubber areas of the bipeds to be flood-like (as in, pushing the skin or rubber out with flood :P)

Yeah dude the blue flood look really bad. I like the hunter retexture though.

The Blue flood doesn't even have cudemap like normal flood.

I have edited Juggernaut's rubber parts to be more flood-y.

Plasma SMG has been renamed Plasma Storm.

Edit the 2nd of April:

White Death and Am-gun are edited quite much to better distinguish them from Sniper rifle and Needler.

White Death now has only 6x zoom and no reticle when unzoomed.

Am-gun needs only 4 needles to supercombine, supercombine instantly kills most weaker enemies, not as good against Elite shields as normal needler. Has lower rate of fire.

Also, map are in progress of final beta testings. Release is to be expected rather soon.
Edited by porottaja on Apr 2, 2013 at 09:31 AM