System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition Update & Community Participation

[673ffaf75fe94voodoo47]

laser beams included.

[673ffaf7600aaeldrone]

Yeah, way too many things speaking against baking the turret shadows.

were there any reason on why decorative boxes were left out of this too?

[673ffaf76025fZylonBane]

Almost none of the props under the Decorative branch of the hierarchy are marked as immobile. They probably considered it too much of a pain in the ass at the time to sort through all the hundreds of props to individually determine which ones would and would not be movable in-game.

But regarding the crates specifically, in the vanilla maps some of those crates are actually movable, like the ones on rick3. So setting all of them to cast shadows would be bad.

Why are you asking about this anyway? I thought EE was going to use the vanilla maps, with SCP thrown in as the "improved" option.

[673ffaf76074aeldrone]

Almost none of the props under the Decorative branch of the hierarchy are marked as immobile. They probably considered it too much of a pain in the ass at the time to sort through all the hundreds of props to individually determine which ones would and would not be movable in-game.

But regarding the crates specifically, in the vanilla maps some of those crates are actually movable, like the ones on rick3. So setting all of them to cast shadows would be bad.

Why are you asking about this anyway? I thought EE was going to use the vanilla maps, with SCP thrown in as the "improved" option.

Just due diligence surrounding any potential rendering improvements or rebakes, mainly because I want to avoid any conflicts or issues, such as most things mentioned already.

Testing the waters!

[673ffaf760a8aXkilljoy98]

Are these pictures from SS2 EE?

[673ffaf760c13voodoo47]

no, it's SCPb4 maps relit in the editor. and yes, I know this because I can see the SCP texture offsets on the screenshots.

[673ffaf760ed7eldrone]

no, it's SCPb4 maps relit in the editor. and yes, I know this because I can see the SCP texture offsets on the screenshots.

Yep, tests in newdark and shocked.

[673ffaf761009eldrone]

Just to gather some information regarding modding:



What's the biggest wishes related to the deeper workings around limitations and features when it comes to modding, dmls, and squirrel functionality?

[673ffaf761120ZylonBane]

Hmm...

It would be super useful if there was some way to override only specific strings in a string file, instead of having to all-or-nothing replace the entire thing.

[673ffaf761214voodoo47]

the original AI mesh tools are pita to work with, or so I have heard.

[673ffaf761542eldrone]

the original AI mesh tools are pita to work with, or so I have heard.

This one was essentially the first thing to be solved, before any newdark parity was fully implemented.

New rigs or animations is still an entirely different beast however, or the same old beast.

[673ffaf761884eldrone]

Hmm...

It would be super useful if there was some way to override only specific strings in a string file, instead of having to all-or-nothing replace the entire thing.

Noting this one down, there's a ton of things like this limiting mixing mods

[673ffaf761da6RoSoDude]

eldrone
@sarge945 had a really good suggestion on how this could be implemented in a mod manager -- basically, string files would get rebuilt on game startup and included .str files would be treated like diff files. If supplied in full, the modified .str file will replace all of the associated strings. If supplied in part, the modified .str file would only replace the strings included, and otherwise use the base strings from the game/lower mods.

[673ffaf761f14voodoo47]

https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=12488

so yeah, support for more audio file formats wouldn't be bad.

[673ffaf76202ajimbo]

increased playercap for coop, let us bring 16-32 people with us to the von braun and whack everything out of existence

[673ffaf762265eldrone]

voodoo47
This one is happening for sure!

[673ffaf762469ZylonBane]

eldroneI noticed on the screenshot you posted on Discord that you seem to be using an old version of 400.

[673ffaf76271deldrone]

ZylonBane
Last official one, but there was the community update right?

[673ffaf7628a5ZylonBane]

ACC's last release has been supplanted by the "unofficial" versions, which are unofficial only in the sense that there was never a formal handover, since ACC disappeared from the forums about seven years ago. The current version, 21U, is required for full SCP Beta 5 compatibility (and makes a ton of general non-SCP improvements).

[673ffaf762a25eldrone]

Have to mention I've wrangled the game to finally have the post action animation working on weapons, so shotgun pumps post shooting are in.

Essentially hijacking the viewport weapon display, full control of visuals. Engine just handles the gameplay stuff, and even that part can be custom.

Looking into opening up for more custom weapons, or really anything: weapons, tools, new psi-amp style tools. Things that would end up with the player holding something in the hands visibly.

For EE it basically just means animation improvements and weapon position options:(left/right/middle, one hand/two hands)

[673ffaf762b19ZylonBane]

Sounds good, as long as weapons don't end up forced to do the "wall heil" like in the System Shock remake.

[673ffaf762d1cLivo]

I suggested this earlier, but having "sights glow slightly when in darker areas" would be a nice little improvement. A simple idle animation for some weapons would be fantastic as well: nothing fancy, even a HL1 level of quality idle would be a big step up. I assume the sliding bolt for the AR also properly works in Enhanced Edition now?

Out of curiosity, are Goggles' sleeves part of the weapon itself like older games, or could a modder change only the sleeves without also needing to muck around with the weapon model? Maybe someone utterly dedicated and/or crazy could make a mod where career choices actually change the players' sleeves, based on Gareth Hinds concept art for SS2?  Unless Nightdive are doing this already...

The only major problem would be the cryotube beginning & ending would also need to be real-time to properly match up, but if that could be done whilst leaving all the other major cutscenes (like the Von Braun promo) as videos, I think that'd be a good compromise. Seeing your choices in a first person RPG physically alter your character, even if it's just a minor cosmetic touch, would be amazing and a very noticeable graphical upgrade.

[673ffaf762e76eldrone]

Post action in action. I've been trying to parse archetypes for the relevant information so it's completely compatible with anything, but it might have to go into args along with a new script, so far this part of the shotgun is a predefine/exception in the script itself.


edit: and yeah I know, muzzleflash got janked at some point.

[673ffaf762fbbvoodoo47]

something feels off, I will have to check how real world shotguns do this. like way too many pump actions being performed.