Silver's Bioshock mod Version 7.2 Alpha

[67414729765b4amanwithaspoon]

Ah well, fortunately I managed to hack the security bot without setting off the alarm and passed that stage. I am now in Neptune's bounty and haven't encountered such a bug again. Not so serious I guess.

[674147297675dpsikoticsilver]

Still, I should address it.  I need to release the fix to the Fort Frolic hacking crashes as well.

Semi related note:  I'm having problems with "buy out" costs for hacking and I can't pin down the source of the bugs, which means I will have to start from scratch and re-do the entire mod.  Since that will take forever and a day, I think I should leave them as is for now and just continue working on what I have now.  Meanwhile, I advise people not to pay exorbitant fees to "buy out" a machine instead of hacking it.  Unless that's what you really want to do, of course.  I really wish they had released an SDK. 

BTW I really appreciate you reporting this, as you can see I miss some things.

[67414729768e0psikoticsilver]

I THINK I've fixed the crash because I was able to replicate the bug, I made a change to my files, and now it's not happening.  Would you be willing to test it?

If so, download the hacking.ini file I attached to the main post. Put it in the ***\BioShock\Content\System\  folder.

This file should also contain the fixes to a few other crashes in Fort Frolic and beyond, however I can't assure they are all fixed as I haven't encountered/tested them all :p

[67414729769f2amanwithaspoon]

just tried it. replaced the ini with the one you uploaded, got to the part with the security bot, tried to hack it, got the alarm, got an error and crashed.
Could this be because i was using a previous save game?
Should i use a new game?

[6741472976b46psikoticsilver]

I tried loading my save from the previous level as well as the auto save from medical, and in both situations I experienced the both and fixed It... hacking.ini is processed when you load a saved game so no it should not be an issye
I'll look into it again when I get home tonight (and upload another fix), I made some other changes and maybe that messed it up.
Just to make sure, it's the exact same situation, or is it only crashing with Alarm tiles now?

Thanks for your time

[6741472976d9cpsikoticsilver]

So it seems as if the bug I fixed was for something completely different, not the alarm tiles... I can't quite figure out the alarm tile bug, but I'm working on it.

*Edit*
After comparing the modded file very closely with the default files and trying multiple scenarios, including reverting back to these default settings for the first bot and replacing only one tile with an Alarm, I had an epiphany--this game is extremely scripted.  It must not have an allowance for alarm bots at this point in the level (where could they come from, all the doors are jammed or locked?) and thus I have decided to remove all alarms from the first bot hack.

It's one of those things I hate to do but am forced to live with.  It's not my fault--I've tested the original config.lbf with only one change, the single alarm tile addition, and it still crashed.  I also don't recall a single crash on any other alarm) so it must be an innate issue with the game.  So with a heavy heart, I'll concede this small change and instead add a few more overload tiles to make the puzzle similarly hard. I'll upload the new file soon.

*edit*
I guess you can't really test it for alarm related crashes but for whatever's sake I have uploaded the fix :p
Since you had hard times with the first machine, I decided to try and make it a little bit easier.  The starting flow speed (before it hits the tiles) is increased by like 0.5 seconds, and there are 7 overload tiles now as opposed to 4 alarm tiles AND 4 overload tiles.
Vending machines/Crafting stations/Health Stations also received a slight speed decrease on their normal tiles of 0.25/second.

I also decided to reduce the amount of security bots that spawn when you trigger an alarm.  Good players will simply turn off the alarm and hack the bots (the game is much easier as a result of this), and less skilled players would probably be really annoyed by four bots shooting them in the face.[

[6741472976ebbamanwithaspoon]

Thanks for your work. I do believe that the hacking isn't that hard later on though, it seems that i just needed to remember the Bioshock 1 system of hacking.

[6741472976fd6psikoticsilver]

Believe it or not, the hacking times are rather similar later on.  It IS rather easy when you have both Security Experts or Safe Crackers on at the same time though.
I plan on putting some time into finishing my play-through this weekend.  Then I can start my revisions and release 7.3 sometime in February.

[67414729770d7psikoticsilver]

I'm taking a short break because I just got sick back to back while uni is kicking into high gear.  Will need a little time to recover, however I will most definitely fix any bugs!

[674147297723eThwartAbyss54]

Oh Hell Yes! I <3 this mod been using it since you released 7 test and i cannot play Bioshock without it ^^ It makes me very happy that your still working on it and just when im about to do a reinstall to play again too SWEET! Do you think i should go ahead and play now or wait till 7.3? What do you think the ETA will be?

[6741472977332psikoticsilver]

I have spring break next week, so I'll start working on it again.  I won't have an eta but I will of course have some more recent files that I'll hapilly distribute.

[674147297744aThwartAbyss54]

A week? I dont know if i can last a week i need my Bioshock fix okay ill look on here every couple of days (read every few hours ) and read new posts etc see if i can find any of these crashes everyones talking about cause my games never crashed on me before crap i jinx it

[6741472977533ThwartAbyss54]

Well..... Its been a month but I havent given up hope

[6741472977657amanwithaspoon]

So, I finally got some time to play Bioshock again, and yet again I experience crashes when i hack some machines. This time, Vending machines in Hephaestus.

[6741472977773amanwithaspoon]

Ok, I feel kinda stupid now. After crashing again before killing Ryan, I got angry and started to search for fixes. I downloaded your hacking.ini and applied it again, thinking that maybe something has changed in my bioshock files because of the crashes and PRESTO... No vending machine crashes ever again. I have no idea why it didn't work last time. That fix is working, as it seems.

[674147297788damanwithaspoon]

i am really enjoying your mod, but I finished BS1 already. Have you considered making a BS2 difficulty mod or is there someone else who has made one?
I googled a bit and found out that some guy made a mod, but he promised to update it and hasn't responded in 2 years. Z008MJ was his name and he credited you for some stuff in his mod.

[6741472977995Andrei]

Really nice mod, but why every Big Daddy has a huge sum of money? To survive we always have a heavy wrench. System Shock 2 lives in each of us. =)

[6741472977d3fZylonBane]

Really nice mod, but why every Big Daddy has a huge sum of money?

Same reason you can hack a machine by stuffing it full of money.

[6741472977ec3Andrei]

Hi there! =) Hacking is a pain in the ass at first two areas (till Neptune's bounty), but then you just get used to it. Spending three or even four grands for hacking something is really not an option. I don't remember the case when I had so huge problems with hacking that I needed to spend money on it. If you really have to hack something right now you have autohacking devices. Besides in this mod there is a shift from killing everybody to researching'em. In the middle of Arcadia I had all species researched, (all money were spent on films), so there were perks like autohacking turrets & bots and flow slow for cameras.
As I said before, System Shock spirit is a driving force to survive in this mod. =)

[6741472978016psikoticsilver]

Sorry I've been away from this, a couple months ago I started a job as a research volunteer. It's a lot of work since I have to set up the system processing fMRI's and I don't know a lot about it yet.

I want to start working on this mod again, in fact I have a whole slew of bug fixes and tweaks ready (since I have played a bit in my absence).  I'm in Hephaestus right now, so when I get to the science deck I'll throw the files your way. 

[67414729782d8psikoticsilver]

Same reason you can hack a machine by stuffing it full of money.

Ahh Zylonbane, same as always.  Proves you haven't actually played the mod and are just here to flame.

The reason they drop so much cash as loot is because they are harder to kill (require more ammo) and there is less ammo to be found since I removed most of the ammo found on splicers.  Compounding all this is the increased cost of everything in the game, including ammo, health, and eve.

[6741472978594ZylonBane]

Ahh Zylonbane, same as always.  Proves you haven't actually played the mod and are just here to flame.

Did I say I was talking about your mod? No, no I did not.

Did I imply that Bioshock is full of ridiculously unrealistic elements that only make sense from a gameplay perspective? Yes, yes I did.

[67414729787acpsikoticsilver]

If you weren't referring to my mod, you certainly came to an interesting place to show your disapproval.  You certainly picked a though provoking moment to butt in and voice your opinion on a matter that had nothing to do with vanilla Bioshock.  The conversation concerned why a particular type of foe, in my mod, dropped an exorbitant amount of cash.  Next time you might want to consider the context of the conversation into which you insert yourself.

Unrealistic gameplay elements that only make sense from a gameplay perspective?  That describes just about EVERY GAME.  There's this one game I played before, which is very much like Bioshock.  It has psionic powers, a maniacal AI in space (maniacal tyrant under the sea), and simplistic hacking that a five year old would find too easy.  In this other game they get to Tau Ceti in a fraction of the necessary time (wtf?) and conveniently have super-nanites that also double as a currency form (?), which you can obtain from recycling monkey brains and plants.  Did I forget the plot twists that served only to advance the storyline and were otherwise obvious and silly?  Of course, those totally made sense outside the perspective of gameplay and simply advancing the storyline...

Can you grow up and and leave this thread?  You obviously have nothing useful or constructive to contribute.

[6741472978a91psikoticsilver]

Hi there! =) Hacking is a pain in the ass at first two areas (till Neptune's bounty), but then you just get used to it.

You can also use the Winter Blast plasmid on the machine and slow it down. 

My next release will have slightly slower hacking flow (like 0.25/sec or something) to make it remotely possible to succeed.  I planned the hacking speeds according to how fast I can finish, so I don't expect everyone to accomplish the same feats.