Interesting Deus Ex bug

[WarLocke]

When my computer crapped out on me nearly three weeks ago, I was crawling around in the ductwork of a superfreighter. Not literally; I was just being my sneaky ninja DX alter-ego.

Sometime during the 11 days or so it took me to get off my arse and replace the dead part, I realized that DX has (had?) a patch (and a rather large 36mb one at that), and I loathe playing unpatched games -- I'm always wondering if I'm missing out on something.

Also, I had been playing on the Easy difficulty setting, and the game was seeming a bit too easy. UNATCO troops? Cannonfodder. MJ12 Commandos? Ooh, I'm scared. P Series M(/W)IBs? Just don't be near when they go boom. La dee freakin' da.

So, after getting my hardware fixed and DX patched, I figured since my old saved games probably aren't compatible with the new patch I might as well start all over, and I might as well crank up the difficulty while I'm at it.

At the time of this writing, I'm just about to leave Hong Kong, playing through on Realistic. Let me tell you, I use Regeneration, Ballistic Protection, Cloaking, and the Spy Drone a heck of alot more now. MJ12 Commandos are extremely dangerous (due to above-average aiming abilities and the LAWs they carry) unless I can catch them unawares (sniper 4 life B) ) and MIBs are strictly long-range opponents (although I did find myself in a position to DTS one; I reached down out of a ventilation shaft and poked her in the ear, and the wall/shaft stopped the blast wave).

The Spy Drone augmentation is worth its weight in gold. At level 1 the thing is slow and sluggish, but a level 2 drone is pretty darn fast and maneuverable, and can disable a security bot (the walker types like the one on the docks on mission 1) if relatively close when it EMPs.

But anyway, to the bug. When starting the game, you're allowed to "downgrade" your Pistols skill to Untrained and put the points you receive towards something else. It worked out great for me because then I could have Rifle, Computer, Lockpicking, and Electronics all at Trained from the start. But, once you start the game, you'll have Pistols at Trained anyway. I didn't notice this until I was too far in to want to restart, but it's not as if I ever use a pistol in this new game, anyway.

Honestly, besides possible ammo problems (60 30.06 shells maximum, 300 7.62mm bullets max -- but fired in 5-round bursts), the Rifles skill pretty much has every base covered. The sniper rifle is the ideal surgical strike tool, but can still be used close-up. The assault rifle is great for heated combat situations, and can fire 20mm HE rounds (glorified grenades) once you start finding the ammo. I don't keep a shotgun (automatic or otherwise) around, but from prior experience I know they have great stopping power and SABOT shells at a high skill level would probably be extremely deadly.

At Master Rifles with a tricked-out sniper rifle (100% accuracy, 11-round clip, .20 recoil, 1.2 second reload time, 2520ft effective range, silencer, laser sight) and assault rifle (100% accuracy, 39-round clip, .35 recoil, laser sight), firing is pretty much point-and-click. Unless the target is running around madly, I can put a full burst of 7.62 in his face, which is pretty much death for any biological short of a Commando, MIB, or Greasel/Karkian. The sniper rifle is even worse -- snapshots the the temple from across the map are fun. :ph34r:

Also, now that I have more experience with the game, it's been alot easier to ration expendables. It's amazing how many TNT crates and explosive barrels you can find to save you having to use lockpicks if you look around. Heck, when I got to the portion of the game where you lose your inventory, I had something like 7 LAMs and gas grenades (only because I had made it a point to use some beforehand), 10 EMP grenades, and 3 or 4 Scramble grenades. It still ticks me off that you can get all your guns and lockpicks and multitools back, but not grenades. <_<

I also carry a LAW around for giggles; they come in useful when you need to blow something away but getting close enough to toss a LAM would be dangerous.

I am kind of worried that I may be missing out on some aug upgrade cans, though. I think that I've only found 6 or 7 so far, but I already have a full load of augs. So I have a bunch of level 1 and 2 augs, but it seems like I should maybe have more/better?