For those who have played IW: what biomods have you tried out?

[DarkForge]

Hey guys. I was just wondering, for those of you who have had a reasonable amount of playing time with IW now, which biomods you have tried and tested?

More specifically, I'm looking for any info on any biomods that www.dxinvisiblewar.com doesn't cover. Has anyone come across the Skull-Gun biomod yet? And what's the one that's meant to let you see thermal images of your enemies' footprints?

Thanks to anyone for any insights you can give me.

[Quillan]

The Skull Gun isnt a biomod. It's a reference to some background info from the original game. Back in Deus Ex, if you went hacking into computers in the UNATCO headquarters, you would find a few requests and answers from the leadership. Gunther Hermann, a mechanically augmented UNATCO agent, wanted a "skul gun" as he put it, so he could kill with a thought (Gunther didn't spell very well ). As far as the second goes, where did you hear about that?

So far as I know, all available biomods are listed in the manual. In the original game, you found a canister and each canister could only install one of two augmentations. In IW, a biomod canister can install or upgrade one level of ANY biomod that matches it's type, and the game lists all available types.

[Blacktastic]

bot domination definitely kicks ass. it actually saved me on several occasions

*SPOILER*






There was a part of the game where I was in Antartica and had to deal the armored templars but I was heavily outnumbered and low on ammo and health. I remembered earlier I had used a computer terminal to shutdown the military bot so I distracted the templars long enough for me to sneak by and use bot domination and blow them sky high with its mounted rocket launcher ^_^

[mr chang]

At first I got the thermal biomod but after fighting the first armoured templars I switched it for health one. There are alot more repair bots then medi ones and health doesnt heal enough when fighting them guys with rocket launchers. Thats only one I've gone back on. Other ones I got and am happy with are the Bot domination, bot camo just to get close enough to turrets to control, Hacking, and speed.

[DarkForge]

I've heard people mention both Skull-gun and thermal footprint biomods around here before, and possibly mentioned in one of the previews. I know Gunther mentioned the skull-gun in DX1, but I remember seeing it mentioned for inclusion in IW, and I thought that was a nice continuity point.

If I can track down any mention of these things, I'll let you know.

[El Padrino]

The speed and strength biomods own. Nothing like rushing into someone and giving them a face full of riot baton before they can get a shot off. Dropping from an air vent works well, too.

[Chiba]

I'm just starting Trier and here's what's gotten me through Seattle & Cairo so far.

**MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS** (Probably not, but I don't want anybody whining about me "ruining" the game for them...again.)

ARM: Strength Enhancement (maxed). The extra carrying capacity is cool, but the best part is being able to chuck explosive boxes *really* far and using the Energy Blade kills most folks with 1 swipe. Coupled with Move Silent, this is a hellacious stealth attack.

CRANIAL: Neural Interface (Black Market, maxed). Fast hacking lets you get through Security Computers and ATMs before the guards can turn around, enabling you take over Turrets and boost your bottom line.

EYE: Spy Drone (Black Market, maxed). Even at level 1 this is really handy - you can knock out cameras, which protects you from Turrets (especially those angry flame or missile ones). By the time you max it, you can knock out Military Bots with 1 EMP pulse as well as stun people - you can then sneak up and slice them to bits...quietly.

LEG: Move Silent (maxed). If you're going for stealth instead of trying to shoot your way out of everything, this is *the* mod to have. At level 3 you can run as fast as you like and make no noise at all. I'm expecting to swap this for Health Leech in the last couple missions when the fights get tougher.

SKELETAL: Aggressive Defense Drone (Level 2). I haven't had a need for it yet, but my brother (finished the game already) has told me it'll come in handy pretty soon.

--chiba

[Labrie]

I finished the game last night using vision enhancement, neural interface, aggressive defense, bot dominaion and health leech drone...I'd have to say that if you choose to go against the templars then aggressive defense is soooo helpful...i usually don't even have to fire a shot when facing three of them at once. and because theres so many bio cells i just leave it on all the time. I used cloak, speed enhancement and regeneration when i first started the game but afterwards i just found them useless. For anyone who hasn't played or isn't too far into the game, imo biomod choices aren't critical yet. It all depends on who your going against in the end and believe me theres more than enough upgrade canisters if you change to mind two or three times later on.

[Venni]

I finished the game with Vision Enhancement 3, Neural Interface 3, Bot Domination 3, Electrostatic Discharge 3, and Speed Enhancement 3.

Neural Interface and Vision Enhancement are a must have. With speed 3 and ED3, I can pull out a sword and leap high into the air, coming down with a strike ontop of any bot, and it's scrambled to my side. Start a domination, and back off into cover. When it's done, complete control of the bot for a minute;enough to take out anything.

ED3 also scrambles turrets to your side, and will take out a camera in one hit.

[antimike]

**Spoiler**

The Skull Gun, Gunther Hermann wishes to install in DE is refrenced in IW in the burned out hulk of Unatco HQ. There's a datacube stating that Sam Carter recieved the modification, but Hermann was dead and the mod was supposed to be returned to sender.

The skull gun seems more like a cybernetic modification than a nanoaugmentation.

I totally dig the noise dampening mod for feet. It is a lot more difficult to sneak around enemies in IW and noise dampening saved me many times.

Aggressive defense drone is awesome against mil bots and Templar PA. I love the way it says "Drone Constructed" whenever activated.

[Sparta 3]

"Bot Domination" is probably the most fun (imaginatively) you can have in Deus Ex.

As a challenge I have been trying to use only non-lethal attacks on my opponents and for once this is quite effective in a game although you must duck after you fire since it takes 30 seconds or so for the NPC to pass out. Anyway that means no area-suppression fire on NPC's with the dominated bots and turrets. However, my Boltcaster is not effective against the Armored Templars and, like Blacktastic, I was low on ammo and health in Antarctica, but the War-Bot was already taken out...... so this is what I did...

::SPOILER::

However, I did have 10 Spider-Bombs which, by themselves, are not very effective against armored templars, but once dominated they do circle-strafe fairly well!! Plus this almost always gets the Armored Templar to shoot itself in the foot!! (ROFLMAO!!) Nice area-affect damage if the Armored Templar is armed with the rocket gun.

Anyway, that is only one of many very imaginative ways to use Bot Domination. So thats my "Must Have" BioMod for DX2.

Hacking is handy, but you still need lots of multitools and where is an ATM when you need one!!

Speed is good, but jump ability remains quite low with this one, IMHO. Stealth may be better.

Thermal Masking is good and outstanding coupled with Bot Domination.

Ultra-Vision is a great tool for stealth attacks. But too much green spoils the viewing.

Anyway, great game. One of the best ever made without a doubt. Hopefully a taste of things to come.


Sparta 3

[nkmutant]

***SPOLIERS***
My augs at the end of the game:
Level 3 Vision Aug
Level 3 Health Leech Drone (I used boltcaster a lot)
Level 1 Cloak (The story behind this one is, after uploading the aquinas thingie to Helios, I was low on health and ammo. I did have an extra aug, however, so I replaced level 3 neural interface with Cloak so that I could rush past all the guys without being seen/killed)
Level 3 Strength
and Level 3 Thermal Masking

I think these worked pretty well for me.

[DarkAvenger7]

Here's a review of the mods for anyone unsure what to use. Make your own decisions though, as these are just my opinions. the two stars around a mod like **this** mean it's my "must have" for a particular slot.

ARM MODS

Biotox Attack Drone - Who uses this!? I mean, honestly. That's why they give you the boltcaster. Well, maybe if you're completely incapable of aiming or something...

Strength - Sometimes I wish I had this because my Energy Sword and even the Dragontooth once I got it wasn't as effective as I'd have liked since head-slices from behind are no longer insta-kills like in DX1. You can pass on it if you're accurate with your weaps and don't waste ammo. The two extra inventory slots might make it worthwhile tho.

(Try this instead: Hit an enemy with 1 tranq bolt, then run behind a box or door, so he follows you there as the dart is taking its toll, when he turns the corner, stab him in the face with your sword and watch him drop.)

**Bot Domination** - This mod will make you unstoppable in any situation where a bot is present, be it friendly or enemy. When you're good, you learn to sneak in to gain control of anything bigger than a spiderbot, and use its resistance to bullets, fire, and poison to allow you to clear out any badguy you can reach within your minute of dom. time. And it leaves the bot disabled when you're done with it. It saves you ammo like nobody's business. Works on cameras and turrets too for quick disabling of these obstacles even when no control computer is present.

CRANIAL MODS

Cloak - This is definitely a viable option for the stealth player, or someone who makes good use of hand-to-hand combat to conserve ammo. It lets you remain undetected without having to find alternate routes or keep distance from enemies. You can do without it though because if you hang on to a weapon like the sniper rifle or even the boltcaster with its scope, you'll be able to clear out most areas without being seen, so that up-close stealth won't be needed.

Hazard Drone - There simply aren't enough hazards in the entire game to make devoting a slot to this mod. Period. If you use it, you might just want to sit in radiated areas for a few minutes at a time and remain unscathed just to make yourself feel better about making such a poor mod choice.

**Neural Interface** - With the money I made from hacking ATMs at level 3, in addition to reward money, I finished the game with over 10,000 credits. I never ended up bribing anyone with it but that's just not my style of play anyway. The main benefit to this mod is that anywhere that you find a control terminal, you can render all defenses in the area useless. Although this can be done with Bot Dom as well, you'd have to be in the room with the turret, and directly under it on top of that, which is tough to do unless sacrificing half your healthbar seems like a good idea to you. Even better, computers that are meant to be used usually require you to find logins anyway, which is just a pain. You'll usually get to skip on parts of missions where you search for logins, and instead just complete your hacking objective right away.

EYE MODS

**Regeneration** - Contrary to popular belief, the ability to heal mid-battle to enhance your survivability is not the main benefit to this mod. When you get hit, the healing process is restarted at a slower pace, so it won't make you invincible at all. The best part of this mod is it frees up a precious inventory slot for you, because you need to carry neither medkits, nor food items. Someone who has regen can afford to forfeit the inv slots gained by a strength mod because of this. Also, this mod effectively transforms repairbots into medbots, because you can heal, then refill bioenergy. Excellent mod.

Vision Enhancement - This mod enables nightvision at level one, and lets you see thru walls at level two and three. With it you can find secret items, find out what's inside vaults, and it lets you use the MagRail 10 times more effectively. You can kill everything in a room through the wall without taking any damage at all. However, you can easily save before opening a vault, and reload if you think your multitools were more valuable than what you found, and exploring thoroughly is often more benficial for finding secret items. The MagRail was built for those with Vision Enhancement, but if you're good with your sniper rifle you can achieve the same effect without it.

Spy Drone - A good mod for people who don't enjoy finding alternate routes. This mod lets you scout areas ahead of you with a flying camerabot. The main benefit lies in the fact that it's also a flying EMP grenade. When you detonate it, you can take out bots and cameras from long distance very accurately. However, I find that with my Bot Dom. or a MagRail, or my hacking skill, I can easily accomplish the same thing.

LEG MODS

**Move Silent** - This mod absolutly ownz when maxed out. It was designed for Xbox users with their analog joysticks, because they could vary their run speed more than PC users can, so on the PC level 1 does the same thing as level 2, but when maxed out you are completely silent all the time. It drains no bioenergy, which makes it a smart choice right off the bat, but also you'll notice that all enemies pose significantly less threat when you have this mod, as you can run even directly behind them without them noticing, and if you have Bot Dom you can trigger domination without the bot ever knowing you were there. Players who use hand-to-hand combat will also enjoy quick, silent kills and find that even multiple human opponents in close proximity become easy prey for their energy sword once this is maxed out.

Speed Enhancement - A good mod for the later levels, when dealing with Power Armor Templars. For maps like Antarctica, Move Silent won't help you defeat any of the PowerSuits, since your blades, batons, and darts are useless on them, and there's only one bot on this map, so Move Silent won't help in that respect either. The best thing to do is either outrun the PowerSuits to get where you want to go, or use it to "powerstrafe" and leave their rockets wondering where you went, while pounding the Templars with your MagRail.

Health Leech Drone - It comes down to a decision between Health Leech and Regeneration... If you liked another eye mod better than Regen, take Health Leech. If not, take Regen. Regeneration is more helpful by far in the later levels, when you'll come to notice quite quickly that almost everyone explodes. If there's no body left afterwards, then there's no Health Leech.

SKELETAL MODS

Aggressive Defense Drone - This mod doesn't see any action for almost the entire first half of the game. You'll find that nobody launched rockets for this half, and you usually kill people before they throw their grenades. The latter half of the game is an entirely different story however. More military bots and more PowerArmor Templars mean more rockets. LOTS more rockets. This mod at level 3 lets you take out hordes of PowerSuits without even firing a shot, which comes in VERY handy. I'd say a swap for AGD may be in order once you hit Antarctica. Choose something else in the meantime...

**Thermal Masking** - This mod goes hand-in-hand with Bod Domination in every respect. Bot Dom lets you take out mechanical obstacles at close range, but it's Thermal Masking that lets you *get* there. It will save you ammo in many ventilation shafts when you can take out the pesky spiderbots with a few strikes of your EnergyBlade, plus it often lets you break alarm-rigged glass by force if you're short on ammo for your glass-destabilized weapon, then raid the goodies without being fired at or spotted on camera.

Electrostatic Discharge - People use Electrostatic Discharge as an alternative to expending tons of ammo against bots. They take their EnergyBlade, or Baton since it prevents the bots from exploding when they die, and they just beat on the thing till it stops working. In order to do this you need StrengthMod to make the damage reasonable enough to have an effect, and you need Cloak as well because you can expect to get shot at a lot by all the Templars who will probly wonder what you're doing as you're running in little circles behind a giant military bot whacking it with your stick. For all that trouble, you'd be better off just taking Bot Dom, running up and hitting "use", then wreaking havoc on the Templar shmucks from behind a crate somewhere.

Hope somebody gets some use out of this cuz it's all written from personal experience in the game. I had the luxury of finding what I assume to be every biocanister in the game, so I swapped around quite a bit to get a feel for everything. Enjoy...

[crfalzone]

Regards installing Neural Interface a Black Market Bio-med...I have not seen ONE opportunity to get an upgrade for a Black Market Bio-med....where the hell are they all???

[crfalzone]

so, sisnce I got the original black market cannisters from Omars..does that mean they are the only source? Without the black market cannsiters you cannot advance the level of the enhancement.....some hints on procurement...anyone?