SS2 FM The Minstrel (by The Pixie)

[674342a877190krist2]

Great work voodoo47

[674342a877423voodoo47]

beta4 attached. this should be the final 1.03 release, minus three models and three logs which are not available yet (all currently available voice overs are now included, some were slightly tweaked).

-made sure the custom door texture is not getting overriden when using SHTUP
-tweaked the vent fan debris a bit more (should hopefully look less stupid when falling down and settling on the ground)
-added an alternate, thiefy way into the secure area, so one doesn't have to wait for the hybrids to open the secdoors (also useful should they bug out for whatever reason)
-navigation console made not hud selectable (was apparently part of a quest that didn't make it into the release version)

//looking at Vegoraptor's LP, yeah, the ending will need a little cleanup. ah well..

[674342a87758bvoodoo47]

beta5 is up - really, and positively the final beta before full 1.03. maybe.

-fixed a problem with the Release Clamp quest (struggling to keep aligned with Mintrel email firing too soon if the clamp was not approached from the cargo bay. see earth.mis.dml)
-changed the last email to make more sense (now asks the player to enter the cryotube instead of hitting a non-existing switch)
-once the player enters the tube, the door will close and the FM will end

I'm really felling like I've had enough Minstrel for the moment.

[674342a8776d5Vegoraptor]

Yeah, as I said, you really earned yourself some time off. Thank you for all the hard work you put into this half-baked FM.

[674342a8777d1voodoo47]

yeah, somehow I always end up investing 20x more effort into these kinds of things than originally intended. was exactly the case with RttUNN, and SCP as well.

[674342a877b7dunn_atropos]

Ran through the mission to test my translation, and found some stuff:

stuck: enemies will freeze here (attacking will unfreeze)
enemies_in_security: they can come in through the broken door
no-damage-after-third-push: screen will flash red, but no hp are removed
no_sound_spot: getting close to this glass and smacking it makes no sound (depends on where you stand)
handle_in_device: maybe move the machinery a bit up or to the side?

In security you can hack the console to turn the bots and turrets over to your side. But it seems to be timed, because after a while the turrets in the engine core will fire at you again. The console could need a hint at what it does as well (there is no indication).
 - no Mo to research rumbler organ

I assume that it is a humorous note not to be able to get useful ammo from replicators (only sells pistol ammo)??
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[674342a877f9cvoodoo47]

stuck: enemies will freeze here (attacking will unfreeze)
no-damage-after-third-push: screen will flash red, but no hp are removed

a save would be nice for the first one, and not quite sure what do you mean by the second one.

[674342a87834dvoodoo47]

finally finished all the audio editing, so the FM is now fully voiced - the 1.03 beta6 patch is up. this should be 1.03 final, but as a little bit too much time has passed since I have been working on this, I'll wait with the final merging of the files, hoping someone will give it a good run first.

the breakable fans are wonky, I know. still better than the original setup where they would always just vanish to nothingness. also, RealSG is now Minstrel compatible (or rather, Minstrel is RealSG compatible).

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-slowed all ecologies down 8 times (see earth.mis.dml)
-added proper physdims on useless tools
-fixed physdims on the teddy bear archetype
-the nacelle console will stop displaying the pressure once the flux quest is over (see earth.mis.dml)
-player now starts inside the cryotube, facing out properly (see earth.mis.dml)
-half broken doors to the armory now impassable to AIs
-added some chemicals so that organs would be researchable
-added a pistol to the armory so normal bullets would be of some use
-fixed ladder 2017 to be less annoying
-added DML stubs to allow further modding


special thanks to the voiceactors:

dlw6 (Jameson, Clifton Marsh)
Shadow Creepr (Fen Drayton, Annesley Woodhouse)
Yandros (Barton Seagrave, Fitzwarren)
also, this is pretty much this project's finale (no way of fixing more stuff unless Pixie raises from dead and passes down his resources and plans), so lets see what have we learned and/or found out;

-the logs still kind of suck, they are too long, and I doubt many people will actually listen to them fully. there is a good reason why the orig logs are much shorter.
-oh the amount of weird nonstandard stuff in this mission. as someone who is not creative, I have problems trying to figure out those who are, and Pixie definitely was in more than one way. bloody secdoors.
-fixing up the ecologies was heckton of fun.. no it wasn't. I found it surprising, on one side you have complicated setups there that I don't even dare to try to comprehend, and then you check the ecologies and see that the author didn't have even the slightest idea how they work. kind of like the SS2 eng2 Many sequence, once I had a grip on the situation, making it work took literally a couple of minutes. no idea why IG didn't do it themselves in the first place.
-fixing the quests up so they would work properly would make a mass murderer cry.
-generating the audio clips for Ariadne was surprisingly interesting. turning them into SS2 compatible audio clips, not so much. was using GoldWave (the only audio tool that I have experience with) and for some reason, Dark would not play the finished clips (even though I did save them in the proper ima adpcm format), and it took quite a bit of random bashing into things until I've found out that for whatever reason, I need to load the finished clip into winXP sndrec32 and save to make it work. I'm all in for "if it's stupid, but works, then it ain't really stupid", but anyway, if someone knows a less dumb way, let me know.
-Ariadne being voiced really, really improves the FM as a whole. it really gives things momentum that just wasn't there when you had to check texts in your pda manually to understand what is going on. no (future) SS2 FM should go without a voiced AI.
-same goes for the audio logs, anyone (potentially) doing a SS2 FM should head over to TTLG, the voiceactors available there are almost on professional level (getting very close to SS2 log quality, and leaving SS1 logs far behind). the current Minstrel logs are more limited by my almost nonexistent audio editing skills than the quality of the resource audio material.

all things considered, this has probably been more work than entire RttUNN combined. but hey, we are not here because we like things easy, right?

[674342a8789ecunn_atropos]

a save would be nice for the first one, and not quite sure what do you mean by the second one.

Savegame: had some trouble reproducing but found a save at the right situation. I think the turret is turned to my side by the security office computer here but I'm not sure.
Second one: When you try to release the docking clamps before you are supposed to, you get some "stop that!" messages and 5 hp are taken away. But after the third time this no longer happens. The screen flashes, but you don't loose any more hitpoints.
Both is still on 1.02 as I just realized. Will update and check again...

------------------
Also, audiolog pages:
https://www.systemshock.org/shocklogs/fm/minstrel/index.html
https://www.systemshock.org/shocklogs/fm/minstrel/indexGER.html


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[674342a878b59voodoo47]

very sure I did not change anything on that button, so the chances of it working better in 1.03 are pretty much zero. anyway, unless it's breaking the game or the quests I'll leave it alone, I have almost no idea how these things work so I'm not planning to (monkey) wrench it risking that I make it even worse.

confirming the thing with the stuck hybrid. no idea how or why, but I'm very sure that that troublesome hanging turret is involved somehow. nuking it would probably solve the problem, but not sure whether I want to do that - maybe I'll just put an invisible path blocker right under it so the hybrids would not be able to go right under it.

also almost sure I'll be putting "placing AI under another AI" on the Shocked no-no list soon.

[674342a878cf2ZylonBane]

Have you tried running with phys models displayed to make sure there's not a collision happening?

Also, this is NewDark-only now, correct?

[674342a878e85voodoo47]

well I did now, and as expected (the turret is like 10 feet above the hybrid), there is no physical collision. yet, the hybrid getting stuck at the same X/Y coordinates as the turret location cannot be a coincidence.

//if I had to guess, I'd say this is probably not NewDark related, my bet would be "don't place AIs above other AIs", just like "don't spawn AIs in rotated positions". setting up an oldDark install and trying to reproduce the problem with oldDark Minstrel would be quite a bit of work, one I'd like to avoid unless absolutely necessary (it's not a critical problem, probably only manifests when the turret is not destroyed, and 95% of players will destroy that turret as soon as they see it).

//ah, you are probably asking whether the current map/patch is ND only, the answer to that would be yes, ND 2.43 (but needs 2.44 to run the game exe as the latest NVscript requires that).

[674342a87906avoodoo47]

ok, I think I know what's going on - the turret is actually hacked, and melee AIs can't get to it, so they will get right under it and do nothing, as that's the only thing they can do - and at the same time, the turret can't do anything because it (unlike the Rick turret) can't shoot at anything that is right under it. the only thing I could do here is to give up and place the turret on the floor. or replace it with the Rick turret.

so the moral of the story would be "don't slap floor turrets on the ceiling".


anyway, checked the older reports and I think that psi hypo is something I should have a look at, but again, will need a save.

//nope, no need, psi hypos simply don't work. no idea why, yet. //got it. will be fixed for the full 1.03 release.

[674342a8791a0unn_atropos]

One psi-hypo in the inventory. It can also be bought in the replicator on the same floor.
Throwing it into the world or the "?" function give you the normal looking hypo. In the inventory it is yellow.

I should really upgrade: I'm able to climb through almost all of the windows on the bridge, did you fix that?
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[674342a879282voodoo47]

nope. probably bad physdims, will fix.

[674342a879406ZylonBane]

I finally downloaded this and the patch and did a quick run through the starting areas. Few things I noticed--

- The Dark engine really hates sloped climbable surfaces. If you try to drop off the ladder down into the shuttle engine room, you get all kinds of stuck. That entire area down there should be shifted a bit so the ladder can go straight down.
- The low gravity in the shuttle engine room makes no sense and just makes getting around in there even harder than it already is.
- Also in the shuttle, one of the steps up to the observation window has a wrong texture scale.
- The pod doors in the shuttle have transparency set on them at the object level.
- One of the up grav shafts near the starting area has a piece of debris floating in it that there's basically no way to get rid of, and that damages the player.
- The very short looping song in the dining area should probably be replaced with the full elevator music song.

I've started working on some improved graphics for the more pixely textures.

[674342a879514voodoo47]

-I know, but I hate working on those things.
-ditto. also never did anything gravity related, no idea how it works.
-will fix for 1.03 full.
-should not cause problems, but removing them is not a problem, I suppose.
-yeah, you really need to time things right to not get damaged. I assume it's intentional.
-probably. maybe. messing with sounds is not my favorite thing.

[674342a879666ZylonBane]

Gravity's easy, it's set on the room brush archetype properties. Changing the song should just be a matter of dropping in a new sound file that overrides the original.

I also noticed some cyberspace textures in the shower stalls in the bathroom to the left of the starting area.

Here's a preview of the replacement map. This okay?

[674342a879757voodoo47]

pretty sure it will do fine.

the cybspace textures in the bathroom look intentional..ish. hmm, maybe not, ok, will change them.

[674342a879923ZylonBane]

Minor error in LEVEL01.STR. LogName1:"Cmr Jameson" should be "Cmdr" (or "Cdr", depending on which system you go by).

Noticed some spelling/grammar errors in INFOCOMP.STR. Fixed version attached. Though there was one very strange string-- "In sports, the TriOptimum zero-G volleyball cup was won for the second year running by X and Y, for Titan Northern." That "X and Y" looks like a placeholder for something Pixie was going to make up later. I just changed it to "by Titan Northern."

There are a number of pre-placed duct debris objects that disappear before the player can see them because they're set to delete themselves.

To upgrade the dining hall music, rename SCP's elevator-ss1.ogg to elevator.ogg and drop it in snd/pixie. Though it still sounds pretty bad the way the song abruptly cuts in and out as you enter the area. It should really be set as an environmental sound instead of an ambient. But I looked in there in DromEd and I can't find a sound marker anywhere, WTF.

EDIT: Aha, that oldschool bastard put it on patrol path markers. Try deleting AmbientHacked from 2282, and on 2295, remove the Environmental flag and change the radius to 100.

Menu screen 630 needs render type Unlit.

Sign 1008 is a Von Braun "Dining" sign. Looking at the map, it appears this should be "Lounge". There is no sign for this. I'll make one. There should probably also be a copy of this sign for the lower entrance doors too.

[674342a879a6cZylonBane]

Regarding how this mission has been saved after running, which apparently tends to screw lots of things up, have you attempted multibrushing every object into a fresh copy of the map? I tried improving the awful lighting in the start area of the Minstrel, but kept getting flashing lights in strange areas, which I'm assuming is due to something going wrong with the objects.

Attached are my updated textures. Anything that's a PNG or TGA is replacing an existing PCX texture, which should be deleted. uplounge.bin is the object for the new lounge sign texture. It's based on the other custom sign objects, so it will have to be scaled and positioned in the same bizarre way as the rest of them.

[674342a879be1voodoo47]

nice, will check when I get back from work.

I have not yet attempted to multibrush-fix the level, as I have learned how to do that only a couple of hours ago, but will probably try once I get back to Minstrel (end of the week? still need to finish that SCP MP hotfix and some RttUNN stuff). anyway, having the level saved in a simmed state is not catastrophic, as far as I understand (though I need to be careful when making dml mods and make sure to not hook things up on sim, for example).

the spasm inducing lights are actually orig, the (included) dml makes them less epileptic - if you don't load that when checking things out in Shocked, you will get a lot of orig bugs (I have kept most obj fixes in the dml, as I'm lazy and it's really comfortable to have everything there, perfectly readable and ready to tweak, should that be necessary).

[674342a879d0aZylonBane]

Hmm. Keeping every single object fix in a separate DML seems like a truly painful way to make changes. How is it even possible to avoid saving the DML changes into the MIS if you're using them to alter the lighting?

I'm curious about this because I was thinking the docking area of the Minstrel could really use some tweaking. It's by far the ugliest area of the ship, and it's the first area players see. Doesn't make a good first impression.

[674342a879ed9voodoo47]

it takes a bit more time to construct the dml than hard map edits would take, but as mentioned, now I have an exact changelog (you just need to open the dml and read), and tweaking what has been changed is a piece of cake - want a different respawn rate on all ecologies? you don't even need to open Shocked, just edit the dml and punch in whatever values you want. also no problem removing some dodgy things I did to make stuff less broken and replace them with something else/better. there is also that nonstandard secdoor setup, dml set their state and you don't have to touch them each time you need to reprocess the level.

basically, I only hard edit the map when there is no other way, or when I'm VERY sure that the fix is 100% safe - and that doesn't happen too often, you know how easy it is to break stuff by accident.

you can't affect the lighting with dmls, but you can tweak certain animlight settings, like flickering, fading, on/off state etc. but yeah, the lighting is ugly at quite a few places, and I have no idea why.

and yeah, I'm pretty sure there is a ton of stuff that could be improved, but my (initial) intention was just to get the mission into an unbroken state, and even just that turned out to be much more work than I originally wanted to put in.