Heruvim's Silent Storm Sentinels Redesigned guide (English translation)

An English translation of Heruvim's guide to Silent Storm Sentinels Redesigned mod. Translation is done by Google translate, so although it is mostly accurate there are some things which haven't translated well. I'm going through it when I have spare time, but I will set it as publicly viewable while I work on it.

Important - This guide covers the 2.26 version, which I believe is currently only available in Russian. The English version is 1.03, so some of the information in this guide will not apply to the English version.


Heruvim's description - "This guide provides a complete description of the Silent Storm Sentinels Redesigned modification, as well as installation instructions and walkthrough tips."

Short Description (Краткое описание)

This modification is a complete rebalance of the game with the addition of new content and mechanics, as well as fixing some of the errors of the original. Serious work has been done on all components of the game, including improvements to the plot of the original Sentry game.
The modification is recommended to all fans of the Sentinels, however, it should be noted that the difficulty levels (as well as the campaign itself) are noticeably different from what was in the original.

There are 3 difficulty levels in the modification, the description of which says who they are intended for.

Current modification version: 2.26e.

Modification is available only in Russian.

A new version is under development, but it will not be released soon.

P.S.: the mod has been available online for some time, but not everyone knows about it. I decided to fill in the description with links here in order to slightly broaden the horizons of the players.

General changes (Общие изменения)

Upon contact with the enemy on some maps, turn-based combat may turn on. It will turn off only when it is completely destroyed.
Increased the minimum chance to knock back an enemy during an attack.
Increased the radius of the AI ​​to find the killer when finding the body of a comrade.
Completing a mission block will now require completing the entire block, i.e. all four missions.
Introduced a system of auto-balancing missions. In the event that the player's party will be ahead of the MT group in terms of level (for example, it will be pumped in advance in skirmishes), the enemies will be better prepared. The higher the difference in levels, the stronger the rebuff. Only works in story missions.
Added new sounds, voice acting and music.
Corrected the description of the PC repair tool.
Significantly increased the reward for surrender. If the enemy surrenders, the player will receive much more money for each living prisoner.
The cost of treatment at the base has been increased.
Increased the cost of recruiting fighters.
Repairing a base PC now costs money.
Increased the cost of repairing weapons at the base.
Interesting items can now be found in most skirmishes and missions.
Some quests are now rewarded with slightly more money.
Changed difficulty levels. Their descriptions have also been updated.
Disabled the ability to render enemies unconscious with bare hands. Clubs for help.
Various documents have been added to the game that can be taken to a merchant to sell.
Most of these documents can be found in story missions.

Game mechanics (Игровая механика)

Enemies have learned to surrender. AI evaluates the situation every turn, and when everything is bad, it can capitulate. They give money for living captives. It acts only where it makes sense and does not contradict logic;
During the day, the enemy's stealth drops and attentiveness increases. Now it will be more difficult to hide during the day;
The maximum size of a player's squad is 6 people. Affects all characters, except for the plot ones (for example, Boris);
Changed the balance of mercenaries: weapons, equipment, recruitment cost;
Changed the consumption of action points for some cases;
Removed Seeking Cover and Improved Evasion perks. The reason is their wrong work. Replaced by others;
The game no longer crashes when the oil can is thrown away;
Changed how weapon repair tools work.
Improved and optimized Sentry base;
Other minor changes.

Character Creation (Создание персонажа)

Improved hair and hairstyles for female characters;
Improved/added new faces;
Improved/fixed some uniforms and character models;
Fixed skins for female characters;
New models and uniforms have been added to the game;
Improved the textures of all old female hairstyles.
Added experimental faces and hairstyles.

Improved cutscenes (Улучшенные катсцены)

Changed the main menu;
Changes have been made to most of the dialogues. Added new animations and camera angles;
Now the characters look less like wooden dummy during cutscenes and dialogues;
Previously unused animations, dialogues, voice acting and more have been restored;
Added new scenes.

Animation (Анимация)

Changed some animations for improvement;
Added new animations;
Improved combat animations without weapons;
Fixed the work of animation of a shot from a laser installation in a sitting position;
Improved animations for pistols.

Sound and music (Звук и музыка)

Added music from the game: Silent Storm, Sim, ND;
Fixed some sounds;
Added new sounds;
Added voice acting for some characters.
Restored unused voice acting.

Plot (Сюжет)

A serious attempt was made to rehabilitate him.
The magazine is much more important than before. New entries have been added, some old ones have been added or changed.
Added a story location - the main character's safe house. You can get into it after the second mission.
Added new tasks (see point above)
Added the ability to read the press (after some missions, a new short article may appear in the player's apartment).
The names of the first two missions are now displayed in the list of completed tasks in the base.
Corrected some vanilla entries in the journal, where the GG-woman wrote about herself in the masculine gender (it seems like she found everything).
Added new documents that contain a lot of interesting and useful information. They can also be sold to a merchant at the base (sometimes for a good price).

Interface (Интерфейс)

The "Load game" button is disabled in the ESC menu. Reason: fighting a bug in the game that turned off criticals after reloading a save from this menu.
On the mission failure screen, the "Load" button is disabled. The reason is the same.
Disabled the ability to select a ready-made character. It is better to create a hero yourself.
Disabled the ability to create a "unique" face. There are a lot of reasons, one of them is the ability to create a man with a female hairstyle, for example. Does not match the style of the game. Many new faces have been added as compensation, almost all of the old ones have been removed from the menu.
Removed obsolete difficulty settings in the OPTIONAL menu

Role elements (Ролевые элементы )

Changed some attribute bonuses.
Starting base HP and AP have been reduced. Strength, Agility and Intelligence have become slightly more important than before, so plan your character accordingly.
Some classes have been changed. Some recruits now have the correct classes (for example, Fritz and other Axis fighters were originally set to the German soldier class, which caused him to have 30% more health points than the Allied soldiers).
Engineers. Increased basic skills of stealth and sniper fire, lowered health.
"Removed" perk "Qualified Engineer". Replaced with "Born Mechanic". Doesn't do anything fundamentally new, except that it "opens up access to perks for the PC".
Requirement perk qual. Engineer has also been removed from the game. Those. using the best lockpick now only requires the engineering skill.
Scouts and Shadow. Increased engineering skills, slightly reduced health.
Snipers. Significantly reduced shooting and slightly lowered the skill of sniper fire.

Weapons and Items (Оружие и предметы )

Weapon characteristics have been changed.
Now the Samopal submachine gun uses magazines from Sten.
Many new uniforms and items have been added to the game.
Medium body armor now uses the green MT body armor texture (for gameplay transparency).
The set of available shooting modes for all types of weapons has been revised.
Added new textures.
Added the following weapons:

Rifle Mauser Car98K (without optics)
Rifle G-43
Shotgun Ithaca 37
Sawed-off hunting rifle
PP MAT-49
Pistol APS
trench shotgun
PP Reising M50
PP Owen
Sawed-off Mosin rifle
PTR PZB 38
PTRS
PTR Boys
Machine gun DT-27
Fedorov assault rifle
Assault rifle Stg. 44 (with optics)
Rifle Winchester 1894
Pistol Walther with a silencer
HDM pistol with silencer
Mauser pistol (Chinese)
Type 11 machine gun
PC machine gun BESA
PC grenade launcher Panzerschreck
PC shotgun (experimental)

Random encounters (Случайные встречи)

Changed original meetings, added new ones;
Each meeting is code-driven. Opponents received classes, perks, their skills were adjusted.
Opponents may have goals and missions (other than patrolling or guarding);
Not only weapons and enemy placement can be random, but also enemy types, combat situations, rewards and allies. Each meeting has at least 3 options;
Levels, perks and skill strength of opponents are determined randomly. leveling is disabled, so it's better not to meddle in some areas too early;
Neutral encounters have appeared (no opponents, may contain items or anything useful);
The special meeting with the bank has been moved to Poland. In its place appeared a meeting mausoleum;
All of the usual old and new skirmishes have been revisited and given cosmetic changes.
Some bandits from skirmishes in the USSR can now surrender during combat.
Minor changes to skirmishes in Switzerland, Germany and England.


Satellite in Egypt

Increased spawn chance to 15% (up from 5%).
The MT satellite has been replaced with a downed German aircraft from the last mission.

Shadow

Added new enemies, changed some old ones.
Shadow will now be level 7 when hired.

Mausoleum

Fixed a bug with the boss not appearing.
The balance of the map has been seriously changed.
Now you can leave the map only after the destruction of the boss.
Any weapon now affects enemies.
The boss is seriously buffed.
Enemies begin regenerating health when they sense the player's group.
Now, after the scene, the entire player group appears inside the "arena" (next to the gate).
Removed the ability to climb into unreachable territory for enemies.

Radio tower in the USSR

Fixed a bug that allowed bypassing the launch of the ambush script.
Changed the shape and composition of the enemies.
Leaving the map has become a little more difficult (if an attempt is made to escape, bypassing enemies).

Bank

Changed the camera in the scene with the departing truck.
Added a new serious enemy.
Replaced the safe with fake gold (from the first mission of the German campaign of the original) with an empty one.

Missions (part 1) Миссии (часть 1)

Kaldari's notes on English version 1.03

Shade's cell door cannot be picked (lock strength is 9999), you'll need to blow open the door. After completing 'Snitch' as my first choice in the mission selection the base shop had a single dynamite in stock. Don't forget to save before you throw the dynamite, it's easy to catch Shade in the blast.

I was grinding encounters after gaining access to the base store and shop, and no one ever surrendered, but once I had accepted 'Snitch' and unlocked Germany then quite a few enemies would surrender in the first turn (I had five members in my squad, most over level ten)

[Heruvim]

You don't have to blow the door though. There is a switch upstairs, it gives access to all cells there.
Surrendering system is both simple and tricky. With some advantage over enemies there is a good chance some will surrender (where it is allowed of course). Level difference, party size, quality weapons, enemy health etc. - all these are taken into account.