I like your ideas! It's unlikely I'll have much time to do them. But I'll probably at the very least take a crack at making the Fuel Rod Gun player usable.

Originally posted by bryantmh:

I like your ideas! It's unlikely I'll have much time to do them. But I'll probably at the very least take a crack at making the Fuel Rod Gun player usable.

Thank you! No rush, though I hope you'll be able to refine this as much as you're able over time. Ruby may not be up for rebalancing others' mods, but I'd love to see you succeed with doing so with this one!
Oh, one more thing: You may want to fix up some of the MCC UI-related elements with this. The campaign description is so long that it gets cut off, and all four episodes have the same mission description. Also, the thumbnails for the last two would look nicer without the HUD and view model… perhaps you could take some new screenshots better showcasing their unique environments in Sapien?

Yeah, I kinda got tired of doing screenshots by the end, haha. I'll probably update those soon. If you have any suggestions for mission descriptions I'm all ears as well.

Just an FYI, I've made the Fuel Rod Gun pickup-able, fixed the overcharging grunts, and replaced the drones with the version you suggested on my local build. An update will be coming soon :)

Originally posted by bryantmh:

Just an FYI, I've made the Fuel Rod Gun pickup-able, fixed the overcharging grunts, and replaced the drones with the version you suggested on my local build. An update will be coming soon :)

Awesome! Which Drone tags specifically, though? The ones from Canyon, or the ones from Halo maps? And are they actually any better than Lumoria's original ones, from your testing?

Update is live! I used the tags from Canyon. They are significantly better than the default Lumoria ones. Though a lot of that is probably because the Lumoria animations were actually corrupted turns out.

Originally posted by bryantmh:

Update is live! I used the tags from Canyon. They are significantly better than the default Lumoria ones. Though a lot of that is probably because the Lumoria animations were actually corrupted turns out.

Oh, yeah, those Drone animations are much better! I still feel like they have a little too much health, though, and their aerial firing positions could be adjusted in some encounters (particularly their first one) to bring them closer to the ground and in-between structures the player could use as cover.
Also, the Fuel Rode Spectre is cool, but it could use a new shader, probably based off of Ruby's (though with a different color to visually distinguish it from the original) and a VERY nerfed turret. It melted Wraiths too easily when I used it in Episode III.
Additionally, would you be opposed of correcting the red Zealots' armor to gold to make them consistent with CE, or otherwise make them Ultras if you want the final boss to be the only Zealot in the campaign?
One last thing: It sounds as though Drones don't have dialogue in this still, so what would you think of using this Halo2 Dron Dialog[hce.halomaps.org] I suggested previously?

Not gonna lie, I didn't realize there was a fuel rod spectre in III. I only just found out it existed yesterday. You can spawn one in II by leaving the EMP generator area with a ghost. Yeah, it could probably do for some rebalancing. I'll add it to my list. I also am generally a big fan of Ruby's tags, but the wraith seems a bit to easy to take down, especially if the player is the one driving it. I may up the health just a little bit.

For the drones, they only have 30 hp, which is actually lower than grunts. Though it does seem like they take longer to die than they should. Maybe I'll take another 5 hp off. To rebalance them, I actually just swapped a lot of the firing values to those used by grunts. So basically a grunt that also flies.

It would make sense to swap the red elites out with ultras, and I've actually thought about doing just that. My reservation was that would affect the difficulty. The red sword and shield elites are a lot easier to take down than an ultra would/should be. Do you think that would be an issue?

I just checked the tags and buggers do have dialog set up. I could try swapping it, but I don't know much about dialogue. What should I be listening for?

Originally posted by bryantmh:

I just checked the tags and buggers do have dialog set up. I could try swapping it, but I don't know much about dialogue. What should I be listening for?

Mainly pain and death sounds, really. If they already have some, then you shouldn't need that tag, unless you think Halo 2's sounds for them would be better.

Originally posted by bryantmh:

It would make sense to swap the red elites out with ultras, and I've actually thought about doing just that. My reservation was that would affect the difficulty. The red sword and shield elites are a lot easier to take down than an ultra would/should be. Do you think that would be an issue?

Oh, no, I meant just swapping out Lumoria's original red Zealots with Ultras. The ones that have shields, I think you should keep as Vanguards.

Lumoria has red zealots without shields? I don't think any are labeled as such in the files. Could you point out an encounter or two with the elites you are referring to?

Originally posted by bryantmh:

Lumoria has red zealots without shields? I don't think any are labeled as such in the files. Could you point out an encounter or two with the elites you are referring to?

I meant that they lack arm-shields! They're the ones that had Plasma Rifles that they wouldn't fire in the first version of this mod.

Ah, got it, yeah. Seems like a good idea. Replace the sword wielding red elites with Ultras. Keep the red vangards. I'll add that to my list. Boy has this project gotten out of hand from my original scope, haha.

Originally posted by bryantmh:

lBoy has this project gotten out of hand from my original scope, haha.

Sorry if I'm overloadin' ya, in that case. ^^; I just see a lot of potential in this beyond just a tag swap, and I think you're realizing it so far!
Had yet another idea after playing through this whole thing with a friend, you… though what if you changed the time of day for the later missions? The entirety of the campaign is alpine forests and Forerunner structures, so I think a change in lighting could freshen up a style that otherwise may be a little stale by the end. Plus, it'd depict the passage of time in a neat way, Half-Life-style. Maybe you could leave the first mission as it is, but have the time reach sunset by the final one?

Seems like a good idea actually! I'll have to look into lightmapping. I don't know if you've played cartographer evolved, but the lighting is just beautiful. I wonder how hard it would be to replicate that lightmapping.... No promises on that though, haha

I just released another update, and I changed those red sword Elites to Ultras, as well as fixing the bugger dialogue to the one you suggested, among other things.

Oh, I know it's bad. I'm not looking to revoice the dialog as it would be a lot of work. Annoyingly, most cutscenes are single long audio files too. So I couldn't even just insert one new voice actor without redoing everything.