Awh I love all hivers so much <3 esp soldier drones, they're brave little bugs. Deffo gonna be happy with this mod

In my very first vanilla playthrough, Ray died to friendly fire from a harpoon turret. RIP Ray :(

I love Hivers, and I really love Soldier Drones as odd as that sounds. Ray made that soft spot in my heart, bless his little heart. Its all the things stacked against them even game stats wise that makes me like them a lot, which is WHY the fact they can't even equip any form of gas cloud protection bothered me a lot. Cheers!

great mod I love it :3

I love this mod and with me playing with hive soldier drones the most this will be usefull

Yeah, I bet it could be quite confusing managing a bunch of mods, no worries. It was just a shout to anyone looking to organize their mods so they actually work as intended. Thank you for your hard work!

My mod load order is super disorganized because I use a separate spreadsheet to organize them as far as content is concerned. However, my mod load order works (and it's 300+ mods too!) with no issues because you don't need your load order to be organized, it just needs to work xD

@admos Sorry about the strange naming convention! It may be a bit annoying for users, but as the creator, it really helps me keep all my mods in the same place since they all start with "2PN8" in front.

As for Atlas's guide, it's a really really great guide! But don't forget, there are always exceptions. If you find a mod doesn't quite fit with his guide, the general rule of thumb is to install one mod at a time and try it at the top, middle, and bottom of the load order and see where it works and go from there! You'd be surprised how many mods work no matter where they are in the load order :D

To add to my last post, I'm following this guide https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1850250979 by Atlas, so keep it above Overhauls and around Weapons/Armor.

For anyone trying to organize their mod list properly, since this mod has a hard name to find, it's called "2PN8HiveSoldiers" on the list. Might be wise to change the title to include it, maybe.
Also, it's semi-considered as an overhaul mod since it changes quite a few things, so keep it near the bottom of your mod list.

Pretty much exactly what danshaku said. Since this theoretical Hiver eye-sight is based off of hammerhead sharks, we know that hammerhead sharks have no issues with depth perception, but we don't know if they have better depth perception (at least this was the case last time I researched this, but I'm not a marine biologist). Anyway, I appreciate all the input! Thanks for the comments <3

@Benjideaula I think the fact the eyes are on the side of their head messes with the depth of field, of their vision, which is important for aiming crossbows. Being able to see 360 increases awareness but probably hurts aim.

ah, just read that bit about how you considered buffing perception but wanted to keep it unique. Still, it would still make sense.

I'm thinking since Hive Soldiers should have 360 degree vision, that they should have a 20% bonus to perception rather than just their 20% penalty nullified, yes?

@SiR_SortedBook4 I know this took WAY longer than I originally said, but I made a solo gas mask mod for all races located here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2875634483

@Sir_SortedBook4 I get asked to make compatibility patches all the time for all sorts of different mods. What I really need to do (instead of making a million patches) is to just make a single gas mask mod that doesn't have any race requirement. Or maybe there is a way to just exclude races? I will look into this when I get home from work tonight!

Very cool mod i love the gas mask idea and the use of the belt slot i have one thing to ask though... Compatibility with recruited Praetorians and recruited fogmen/ General improvement mods banished hive (purple boys)?

@Novato_Eber creo que puedes. Tienes que poner el mod que te gusta mas debajo de el otro mod.

yo tengo el mod: Viable Hive Soldiers
que modifica ligeramente los stats de los soldados hiver, para darles un ligero balance, si le agrego este mod, crees que surjan problemas??

dawww thank you!

@Ookubo Ito @CPTBunny @Doc Fixit The Gas Mask standalone is available now! Sorry for the wait, hope you all enjoy!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2469033537

Here to add another ask for the stand-alone gas mask! just have another hive soldier buff package i prefer, but the gas mask you've made has got to be the best lore friendly way for me to fix the gas issue with these thicc bois

I agree with Ookubo, i would also enjoy the standalone mask without race changes.

@Binah I've been on break from Kenshi modding, but I'll make the standalone version if it's in high demand! Thanks for the input

Is there a posibility for a standalone version of the mask for soldiers? I want the gas mask but I don't want all the rebalancing

@Nemesis Tigrex Even with the changes, this mod is 100% standalone and does NOT need No Cut Efficiency. Honestly, it will make very little difference whether I use the old stats or the new stats or make two versions. The gas mask armor piece only has 5% coverage, so it's resistances hardly ever effect gameplay. I'm sure the people using the old version won't even notice that I changed it

P.S. I'll add two versions if someone REALLY adamant comes by and requests the old version back.

thank you so much for making it.
but i think you should split out as NCE patch just in case for people don't play with NCE mod

@Nemesis Tigrex It has been much requested I remove the cut efficiency, so I have updated the stats to match those seen in the No Cut Efficiency mod. See screenshot for new stats.

can you make gas mask of this mod compatible with No Cut Efficiency mod?

@NotFox They should be compatible. My mod doesn't touch any dialogue trees, just the base stats of Hive Soldiers.

Is this compatible with the recruitable prisoners mod?

@Salting Me No Good, Man I don't think we can account for Kenshi models considering how crazy the sliders can get and the vanilla Southern Hive Soldiers already have 0% to Perception so I fail to see how this is not lore friendly. Per your argument, I should have decreased the Southern Hive Soldiers perception to -20% as well, which may be somewhat valid, but I believe it makes perfect sense to just increase Hive Soldiers Perception to match the vanilla Southern Hive Soldiers.

I enjoy this idea, but I must say, while I agree "Suddenly becoming immune to gas" is a bit nonsense, I'd propose it is equally nonsense to believe that a Wide Head Goat, or Hammer Head Shark, is going to gain perception skill as fast as a Human, Shrek the Third, ROBO MAN or Hive Prince/Worker. Especially considering this stat is exclusively for crossbows

If you look at a "Base Soldier Drone Model" you will see that their eyes are actually slightly inside the socket. Even if you made the eye bigger, it is still seeing 80% of everywhere but the front of it's body, where the crossbow and target actually are.

Could you imagine trying to line up a crossbow after straining your pencil hiver neck 90 degrees just to get a centered view? If they aren't breaking their neck, they actually can barely see anything at all. I love what you're doing here for my Wide Screen Insect Goat bois, but I have to say this is MORE lore unfriendly than just giving them straight up gas immunity.

Also great mod it helps a lot.

I too, am a DnD nerd.

I understand I just had my concerns since I planned to use Hivers Expanded which gives the Soldier Drone proper armor to protect their head alongside this and the efficiency may lower the protection of the head depending on what the game decides will be hit first since it goes through each protective layer. Though this is an issue on my end not yours, nevertheless thank you for taking the time to respond to my statement. I too, am a D&D nerd.

@Commander Fireborn It cannot be equipped on other characters besides Soldier Drones and since the coverage is only 5%, you'll rarely ever block damage with the gas mask in the first place. It's not really supposed to function as armor and I thought about leaving it as clothing, but I also thought "Hey it's made of metal, I guess it could block some damage." It felt like 5% made sense because it covers about that much (considering the size of Hive Soldier's heads) and also 5% is a critical success on a d20. What can I say? I'm a D&D nerd

I love the changes that this mod makes to Soldier Drones however I suggest that you remove the cut resistance efficiency (set it to 100%) or increase the value to something reasonable. Kenshi's combat system makes it so that the efficiency dictates a level of blunt damage received. So at 55% efficiency 45% of the damage to that layer would be received as blunt damage. I'm paraphrasing as total coverage and base resistance are also a factor in this but keep in mind that the efficiency will effect other head armor as well if it can be equipped on other characters beside the Soldier Drone. Other than that pet peeve I have, fantastic mod.

Love these changes. Lore friendly. Favorite Soldier buff mod. All makes sense, nothing too drastic. The mask is a better solution than outright immunity.

This mod is fine as is, but another fun interpretation of that vision radius could, mechanically, translate into a melee defense bonus. Especially when surrounded, these guys would see the incoming blows coming better than other races. Between that and the lack of dex penalty the soldier would fill a different warrior race niche than a Shek. Higher defense growth would hedge your bets vs. headshot rng and help make up for weaker limbs. Granted, piling that ontop of everything else might be a step too far. Probably either do a 10% split with polearms, replace the polearm bonus with a full 20%, or just keep things as is because the polearm bonus makes sense too. And while a perception debuff doesn't make sense, a small crossbow penalty might due to complications with sighting.

@vagrant I appreciate the criticism! I actually originally had the sight range at 1.2, but then I noticed in FCS that Scorchlanders also have 1.2 sight and I wanted the Hive Soldiers to stand out. For me personally, 1.4 felt like a good range while I was play testing it as well, so I kept it.

And I didn't give them a perception bonus, just a flat 0%, which is the actually the same as vanilla Southern Hive Soldiers. It seemed silly to me that they had NEGATIVE perception is all.

The Duststorm immunity isn't particularly lore-friendly, that I agree with, but I needed to give them some love as they are supposed to be "warriors" but are completely underwhelming compared to Sheks. Yeah they eat less, but food is a non-issue in most playthroughs.

But the hammerheads have a blindspot above and below their heads (depending on breed for the amount of perception), from what I understand the breed with the 360° vision also has the biggest blindspots? It's like 180º on either side, but there is a gap through the centre.

Considering the Melee nature of the game, it would be easily exploited? And seeing in 360° doesn't necessarily give you a greater range (distance) of sight?

Only mention as you've said you're basing your mod on lore and it seems a little illogical.

Seems logical to remove the perception bonus, keep Polearm, and dust storm if focusing on lore friendly? And give a slight boost to sight range like 1.1 or 1.2 (makes up for lack of proper stealth detection system)? Remember they eat less food too! Should be more to hire though.

Please note that my comments aren't negative or having a go at your work at all!

TBH the problems with Hive are due to devs not being bothered to finish them (lack of content).

eww why that cut efficiency??

@2PercentNate Hm, i'll certainly have to look that up. Sounds interesting :) I'm guessing though, that they still may have trouble seeing up close and the reason for rarely missing the bite is a combination of their speed with good sight farther down the line. In any case, you learn something every day :P

@CptVodka Certainly! Which is why horses and goats don't see in front very well, but hammerhead sharks have eyes on the side AND the unique shape of their faces, which actually gives them an insane accuracy both in front, sides, AND behind them. Watch a video of how they catch prey, they basically never miss a bite!

As for the perception thing, I guess it depends on how you define perception. Normally in games it has to do more with accuracy than noticing things.
Having the eyes on the sides, would certainly help in noticing things.
Having front facing eyes, helps with accuracy.
This is due to two front facing eyes creating one "overlapped picture", which gives a higher sense of depth perception. I.e, you can figure out how far away a target is much easier.

Thank you for this mod dude, i thought that soldier hives were so weak man that i had some buffs in the game editor(in dex and strength) but with this mod i can take that buffs out of the editor. Good Job man!

@Zamikz It is compatible, both mods solely add new content. However, because the Dark Hivers are a new race, they can't use the gas mask. The author of Dark Hivers made an add-on patch to fix this listed here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2076930901

is this compatible with the Dark Hive mod?

Cool mod, learned something new about sharks.

Hi! Please create patch for dark hive soldiers