Will Stainless Steel work for me?

**Glory** · February 06, 2009, 08:41 AM

First of all, does SS raise the requirements for your computer? Mine works fine in ME2TW generally, but it begins to lag a bit with multiple stack battles. Do the enhanced graphics make this worse? If so, by how much? Information here would be greatly appreciated.

Secondly, does SS work on ME2TW Vanilla (mine) or Kingdoms? (which I'd have to buy)

How big is the total size of SS? My internet is charged by the MB (on residence at university) so I want to estimate how much it will cost me.
In relation to this, I've heard many declare SS the best mod, is this true?

If all these are true, is there an installation guide? I'm awful at searches...knowing my luck it'll be a sticky.

**delra** · February 06, 2009, 09:28 AM

Yes. It does. Map is much bigger, there's also more factions, graphics was worked on so battles may seem slow as well.

How much? 10-15% or so.

Stainless Steels 2x700 MB I believe, plus patches amount to another 500 or so. I think you should rather download it somewhere you don't pay per MB.

Installation guide is in the sticky thread, it's as easy as launching an .exe and pointing it at M2TW directory, it will install itself to separate dir inside M2TW dir afterwards.

**Glory** · February 06, 2009, 07:08 PM

So...is it a Vanilla mod, or will I need Kingdoms?

NVM. I need it.

**delra** · February 06, 2009, 07:11 PM

6.1 is for Kingdoms. For vanilla you can use SS4 but it's ancient thing nowadays.

My recommendation (what I did): Buy Kingdoms to play SS6.

**Glory** · February 06, 2009, 07:12 PM

Originally Posted by delra

6.1 is for Kingdoms. For vanilla you can use SS4 but it's ancient thing nowadays.

My recommendation (what I did): Buy Kingdoms to play SS6.

Sounds awesome, it'll cost a bit but I get the impression it'll be worth it.

**delra** · February 06, 2009, 07:15 PM

It certainly was worth it for me.

**andriejj** · February 07, 2009, 07:24 AM

From my own expierience, the mod doesn't affect the performance in battles. If it does, it's so marginal I couldn't see a difference.

The campaign is a whole different cup of tea, thou. I wish there was a submod throwing out those new eastern terrains (which I'd never visit), or at least a part of them. With my not so strong CPU, hovering over the map stutters, especially in very forested areas. The deserts and the sea are ok, lol. You might be forced to turn off the shadows on the minimap. Too bad it's not only the map. The turns take at least twice longer. Partly, due to the amount of factions. The rest is up to tweaked AI and some custom scripts, I suppose.

For me, it ended up with using SS only for custom battles :/

**MoToM** · February 07, 2009, 08:57 AM

I've found map lag increases when you try to scroll across the map whilst still having an agent/army selected. Clicking away from anything to deselect your units greatly improves scroll lag.

**Ron Burgundy?** · February 07, 2009, 05:09 PM

I got Kingdoms off Amazon a couple weeks ago for 8 bucks so it is cheap. I haven't played many mods but I think SS is awesome and I highly recommend it. I also recommend the Crimson Tide submod for added blood on the battle map.

**strife1013** · February 07, 2009, 08:53 PM

Try this site, it runs your system specs

http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/4...run_that_game_

**Glory** · February 07, 2009, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by strife1013

Try this site, it runs your system specs

http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/4...run_that_game_

Thank you, this is most useful.

**delra** · February 07, 2009, 11:07 PM

ActiveX **** working only in Internet Explorer. I wouldn't be so enthusiastic about it...

I especially love how it lowers my rating because I'm running WinXP instead of Vista.