[Booster]

Hi,

I just recently discovered that HL2 has co-op and I am dying to play the campaign with my brother. I came across this mod and OC and both look fantastic. I hear a lot of talk that Synergy is better for the campaign, which is what I am more interested in - basically I am looking to stay as true to the story as possible (no new custom weapons, limited respawns, limited vehicles, etc.)

1) Can I set the difficulty so it will be like playing on "Hard"?
2) When loading between maps, will our ammunition stay the same or will we "spawn" with full ammo?
3) I have the orange box and my brother has HL2 only. We plan to play on LAN only; is there anyway we canplay ep1 and ep2 together? He can log into my account and install and mount them for example - is this possible? I don't mind shelling out for another orange box, I'm just wondering.
4) How does autosaving work - can we save whenever we want? This feature sounds fantastic - will make it easier to convince him to play with 0 lives
5) I found the document with a list of variables for a server - are there any other commands/variables I can change that aren't listed there, such as amount of ammo on respawn - document is http://synergymod.net/docs_v11/?p=servers

Thanks for reading - I'm so friggin excited to play this - when I get off work I'm heading over to play - I hope I'll have some answers by then!

KUDOS to the excellent mod!

[CMaster]

Yeah, OC is in many ways the more well developed mod. However in doing so it rather moves away from what HL2 is actually like.

1. In the console, "Skill 3". Perhaps worth pointing out that for reasons I don't really know, Synergy is already a lot harder than basic HL2 (eg 2 Overwatch are easy for a player to beat in HL2, quite a challenge in Syn.)
2. Map transition in Synergy is just like in singleplayer.
3. Not possible - Synergy checks for ownership of mounted games, not just installation. You could try offline mode maybe?
4. Autosaving saves the state of the map at the existing HL2 autosave points. You can't, as far as I know, save a game and then load it up again i a separate session. Best way to get back to where you were is to note your weapons ad ammo, the when you load up the map again, cheat them back.
5. Those are the documents for the old, pre-steam Synergy. Synergy Orange Box documents here

Oh - Read this thread too

[Booster]

1. In the console, "Skill 3". Perhaps worth pointing out that for reasons I don't really know, Synergy is already a lot harder than basic HL2 (eg 2 Overwatch are easy for a player to beat in HL2, quite a challenge in Syn.)
2. Autosaving saves the state of the map at the existing HL2 autosave points. You can't, as far as I know, save a game and then load it up again i a separate session. Best way to get back to where you were is to note your weapons ad ammo, the when you load up the map again, cheat them back.

Cool - thanks for you response. I'm definitely more interested in the classic HL2 gameplay - we'll probably try out OC after that to see what it offers.

1) What is the default skill set at? Maybe we'll play at that for awhile and if I feel its too easy I'll change it up one, since you say it is more difficult than vanilla HL2.
2) How does autosaving work exactly? I assume I can' choose when to save - is it done at set spots in the map?
3) How does dying work? Can I set it to be 1 life each player? If one person dies and the other completes that area of the map will the other person revive? As I understood the above if we both die then we respawn at the autosave with the weapon loadout we had at the point of the save - is that correct?

Too many questions - sorry about that. I just want to have as much knowledge before I start

[isamu]

These are indeed good questions, and thanks for the reply. Also is it true you can spectate other people playing the campaign? That is awesome!

[CMaster]

Cool - thanks for you response. I'm definitely more interested in the classic HL2 gameplay - we'll probably try out OC after that to see what it offers.

1) What is the default skill set at? Maybe we'll play at that for awhile and if I feel its too easy I'll change it up one, since you say it is more difficult than vanilla HL2.
2) How does autosaving work exactly? I assume I can' choose when to save - is it done at set spots in the map?
3) How does dying work? Can I set it to be 1 life each player? If one person dies and the other completes that area of the map will the other person revive? As I understood the above if we both die then we respawn at the autosave with the weapon loadout we had at the point of the save - is that correct?

Too many questions - sorry about that. I just want to have as much knowledge before I start

1. The skill variable is 1= easy, 2 = normal, 3= hard
2. Autosaves work just like in single player. Something happening on the map triggers them. If everybody dies the game loads the last autosave.
3. No lives in SynergyOB. There is a server variable to stop respawn except on map change or everybody dieing I think.

[Booster]

Ok we played up until ravenholm and aside form a few graphical glitches and minor bugs we had a BLAST. We set it on hard and got our ass kicked so I think when we continue I'll set it on Normal... On hard everyone is so damn accurate that we died waay more times than I ever did on SP. Also it seems impossible to hit manhacks with the crowbar without getting hit - I wasn't able to time it like in SP. No big deal.

I thought that the vehicles were 2 seaters? Maybe the buggy is, but we each had our own airboat which was a lot of fun I must say. A few minor questions:

1) Is there a way to set it so that if anyone dies it autoloads the point of the last autosave (or restarts the level if we haven't yet got to an autosave point, something I can put in the console like mp_respawn 0 or something to that effect)? I like it how when we both die it fades to black and I would prefer it to be like we were both essential and not have any respawning - it seems that no mater how much I try, I get careless when I know I can respawn in 10 seconds, although I seem to be missing weapons sometimes which is a bummer - this would also solve that issue. Although I will admit it is fun cutting each other in half with those sawblades

2) Is it me or is jumping/ jumping and ducking a little off? In Ravenholm I must have fallen off the elevated cars literally 4 times before I succeeded. It seems to be a little harder or unresponsive - we both noticed it.

Loving the game. One of the best moments we had was when we were both in our respective aitboats - my brother was leading and got stuck by one of bridges where two patrol units dropped down and I was still pretty far behind them. They took their sweet ass time aiming at him and ignored me when I swerved like a madman and hit them both before they could get off a shot. My bro has like 15 health at the time and we were both sure he was a goner - it was such an amazing moment and I'm looking forward to more of these to come

GREAT JOB!