quite glad this is fiction - the things Aztechnology gets up to would shock the cartels

Not bugs, no... but I do I delete comments from trolls.

I don't have a problem with comments about bugs. There's even a bugs reporting thread that exists specifically for cataloging them.

That would be the bad one, yup.
Two other endings are available.

what are the different endings? i think i just got the worst one where maria just uses drugs, influencing everyone to do btls. and that was pretty much it.

If you're on PC, you can use the debugger utilities to remove FOW. Console... I don't think you can.

I'm running the actual tabletop module for some players so I'm using the SRD Mercurial mod as extra flavor, so I keep going back and making tabletop map notes and designs from your game maps. I wish someone would make a mod to keep the whole map lighted up after you walk through an area, so to remove the mobile fog of war effect. the dialogues you all wrote are great. And the character Profile images are good to.

That's quite a time investment... Hopefully that means you've been enjoying this and not stuck for 17 hours?

I'm not aware of a posted list of codes... I'll see if I've got it jotted down someplace in my notes though.

Hi, is there a list of the Admin Unlock codes for Interfaces and Matrix locations? I've played the mod for like 17 hours and can't find the Low Ball Records in matrix admin code, thanks.

👍

Yeaaah, just found the literal "Bit Store".
Should've looked around some more, thanks. :D

You can buy one, as I recall.

Recently went back from HK to DF to look for some good stories and came upon this one.
Thus far quite fun, but I do have a question for the Matrix sections, more specifically the "little bit" aka Quantum thingy one can find in Max's matrix area - is this the only one or is there a way to get more and I'm just not finding it?
I'm mostly asking because Nebula and Silver Arrow are just crap as deckers (despite their big talks) and fighting the way through has proven rather unpleasant and annoying (so many progs to fight through and they seem to havy a much highter hit chance than my two deckers).
It's just a pain and if there's a second quantum piece so I could avoid that mess, I'd be happy.
If not... Welp.

Okay it isn't exactly stunlock but basically every round someone in my party goes down because one burst and AoE could bring them down really fast.

They can be all taken out of sequence. Those missions have pre (major event) and post (major event) versions. Depending on your sequence, the levels will play out differently. That may be part of your out of sequence feeling. The original module was written by two separate authors at the same time, so it shares a lot of those inconsistencies as well. They were mirrored as chosen design elements.

Not sure what causes the boss stunlock, as there is no script to skip a turn in that sequence. I have not been able to duplicate it personally, so there is little that can be done about it from my end.

I'm not sure how to feel about this mod. On one hand, the writing is pretty good but it gets confusing after the first two missions. I feel that I might have accidentally sequence broke to the final scene as my party still only has 2 AP each and gets stunlocked by the final boss.

Did I accidentally take the "main" missions too early? It is not clear which missions progress the story and which serve as karma/gear progression.

Hey, I've found a bug with Deadeye Shot ("Berlin" version) on Pistol and left a comment in the "buglist" thread with a proposed working fix to the issue if you're interested.

By the way, great UGC, still enjoying it!

There's one combination of the garage battle that I had trouble with, and it's a group heavy on. Mages and shamans. Reload that scene, eventually you'll end up with an impossible battle. I was okay with it being terribly difficult, because I'm a pragmatic way it doesn't make sense. Sam waves you off, tells you not to come for him.

Doing the right thing shouldn't be easy. If it was easy everyone would do it.

I guess I should try that on for size. I was savvy enough enough to always distrust Max, but playing as someone who isn't could be a fun change

My permutations of parking garage have been hard but not too bad. I have been running Padre Gunner and Nebel so I have targeting support but less upfront damage. My MC can usually land autofire on the first 3 turns, which kills or wounds someone.

Foley's office pre or post "dog house assault" has very different playthroughs too. Dragon knight parking garage assault is universally called the hardest fight of the game.

It's a failed experiment with randomized team makeups. Sometime you get a garage full of lowely soldiers... Other times, it's packed full of super death knights. Hindsight not a great design element... Missed because we blew through the game with a engine character known as "beta tester"... Who I believe was a 774 karma build character.

Not a great balancing tool.

I more or less lucked out and found my optimal order early on. First the online bank robbery, to get and sell paydata, then a visit to max's office, before finally meeting with Armando.

The matrix record company run is hard as hell, and basically impossible in midgame for me. This last run I did have scene change where I called Armando first, instead of dropping in unannounced, so it was nice to see that reflected.

nice!

We designed the missions in the middle section to have multiple outcomes based on when you do them--so it's impossible to see all the variations on a scene in one playthrough.

Let us know what you think!

I finished the adventure, and was overall impressed with the level of polish and design. This is a good piece of UGC, and I'll probably retry it in a few days.

You can sell them in a later scene. They're "cameo" items... The rifle for example is named after one of the people who worked on this project...

I do believe it costs you the low/mid level weapons dealer to loot them though.

Is there any reason to loot the weapon/auto stores by the base? The items on display seem non interactable- eg you don't actually get a new rifle or C4.

Is it just an immersion option?

Hope you enjoy it.

Thank you very much !

I extracted the archive in the proper folder and everything works perfectly now ! :)

I can already feel the excitement... I played Mercurial both as a player and a gamemaster and this campaign has a special place in my heart.

I'm eager to live it again and discover emblematic places like the Underworld. Meeting characters like Maria, Kyle Morgan and even Max Foley will be... delicious !

Many thanks for your quick answer.

May other classic adventures be adapted in the future with such skill and talent !

Mercurial is a Dragonfall Directors cut only UGC. It won't work in your "Returns" era engine. It also won't work in HK.

The UGCs are created for a specific workshop only.

Hello !

I haven't managed to launch the game so far. I downloaded the mod at the Nexus site (8.05 version) and extracted it in the ContentsPack folder of Shadowrun Returns.
When I want to start the campaign, I only have access to the difficulty level screen and then go back to the main menu. The mod is in "installed" status though.

However, contrary to the other campaigns, Mercurial hasn't the "star" on the left.

Could you give me some help ?

Many thanks in advance.

Certainly sounds that way.

The shady merchant's bugged. I don't know if the location matters; I'm in the Sunnyside area. I shattered the bauble on a charisma check at Pentacle's, and when I try to sell Big Jim's data, it lets me collect $100 over and over indefinitely. Like he offers $500 for the data, but when I accept it, it gives me the completion for the bauble instead and I can just select the Big Jim's data option on a loop.

LOL. That's accurate.

It's also based on the original player scenario example from Shadowrun 1st edition, and has eight scenarios built on top of each other with a script that auto-sets the difficulty based on your character progression. Which is impressive, because SRR didn't have a way to track how much karma the player character has.

It also has a script to allow a character tu use docwagon on themselves after they had died, something that was later incorporated into the full game.

The majority of scripting is broken by quality of life improvements for the game engine, but 'sucks' is harsh.

If you want to dig *even* deeper in to the archives... "Food Fight" is the original returns workshop is the first UGC that was released.

It sucks... So don't be expecting gold.

the book is so very very 80's. I'd like to know who they based Maria Mercurial on - my guess is a blender full of Debbie Harry, Nina Hagan, Wendy O Williams, Siouxsie Sioux. and possibly Jem the truly truly outrageous. Nova Hot!

She was based on Melissa George for artwork that Thomas Smart did for the game. Glad you enjoyed it!

Greetings!

After playing through the Vox Populi UGC, I went looking for other works by the same people, and found Mercurial quickly. I finished it last night. Working backwards through material made by the same people allows me to really compare how their work evolves. I find it fascinating to compare how people's approach to modding changes as they hone their skillset. I enjoyed that same journey with Cirion's works, and I enjoyed it with this as well.

Ya'll also inspired me to go buy the original Mercurial book (drivethrurpg is wonderful), so it was fun paging through that and seeing the bits that were direct quotes.

I do have one question: Maria's portrait looks a lot like Jeri Ryan. Is it, or is it just a strong resemblance?

Hopefully that fixes things for you... Enjoy!

I think I found the issue: maybe my old laptop didn't have enough juice to run the scenario... that's my guess given that when I tried with my newer laptop, it all went fine. That said, on my old laptop, I was able to play the whole core game of the entire trilogy without a glitch...

That's a weird one. There isnt anything in Mercurial that's a full crash to desktop worthy. I saw this reported on Nexus once, turned out to be a outdated version of the game engine...

If you're a steam user, verifying the cache? (I'm pretty sure that's HBS' default answer) should clear it up. If you're epic or gog, you may need to reinstall the core game.

Outside of that... It'd just be a guess.

Yeah I know, but CTRL + F1 doesn't work in this instance. I get a hard crash and the following message in a white box "The game crashed. The crash report folder named "2021-12-07_184348 next to game executable. It would be great if you'd send it to the developer of the game."

CTRL + F1 opens the debugger. It's a game engine function... The hard crash should be show up in the upper left corner as red text.

Replying to the Crash - I should have added, the normal game works fine, and so do other mods similar as yours. For some reason, your mod gets stuck in "Loading" screen, and if I do ALT-TAB, I see a little white window saying the program crashed, and created a crash report. I am playing on Steam, and can't launch debugger, it won't work.

This UGC has no external dependencies (uses only the native soundtrack, models, outfits .. all additional graphics, abilities, modifications are internally included in the UGC pack), so a crash after configuring your character is more than likely based on your game engine being out of date, or core game modifications you've done for another UGC... Neither of which I can help you with troubleshooting.

You can try updating your copy of the base game, verifying game integrity (if you're playing on steam), or open the debugger and trying to determine what's causing your crash.

If you're attempting a speed-run, the first dialogue option is the quickest way through the conversations.

Okay thanks

No idea. 5-6 for most people... Upwards of 10-12 for the ultra completionist types... QA guy did a speed run in about 35 minutes I think?

how many hours of content please?

The only other randomly generated "team of baddies" is in the Taetzel building. It's the same script, just in groups of 4 rather than 8 who are started in close quarters where they have advantage of position before the fight starts. At the time, I liked the idea that the fight would feel very different if position #3 wasn't always the mage... Testing the scene and script with an internal character appropriately called "superhero" who has 774 spent karma. In hindsight, Probably not a great benchmark and easily my most questionable call during the design phase.

Basically, with that script each position is randomly selected from a "leveled appropriately" pool of 12 potential opponents. It's possible to get 8 Max level grenadiers, who'd pound you into mush before you even get to go... Even if they miss, the splash damage would get you.

The parking garage fight to get back to the penthouse is randomly generated, and can be easy or rage-quit difficulty.

Glad you enjoyed our transcription of it, the campaign was specifically designed so that you can't see all the scenes in one playthrough. There are different versions of scenes if you visit them in a different order, before or after "Knock Knock" which was named for the scene in the PNP version to throw at players who were taking too long to get on with it. ;)