SS2 Christine FM3: UNN Polaris v3

[67438feb51dbdGolan2072]

Christine, I've finished all of your three FMs and I must say that they are excellent; in particular, the UNN Nightwalker is, IMHO, even better than the original SS2 and almost as good as SS1; Polaris is as good as SS2 and Ponterbee is almost as good as SS2! Well done!

[67438feb52337Enchantermon]

Christine actually made a fourth installment in this series as well, don't forget that one!

Urlaub

[67438feb52478Golan2072]

Thanks

[67438feb52589Enchantermon]

You're welcome!

[67438feb527a0Fironkkuify]

This FM was pretty unique in that it took place exclusively on a planet's surface and therefore had a different feel to it than Ponterbee or Nightwalker did.  But it actually fit with System Shock 2 quite nicely (proving that its strength is not only found in space on starships or space stations -w- ).  It was enjoyable to explore and the designs were, again, incredible. 

The only thing I'd have to say I have trouble with (but it's not necessarily a bad thing at all, it's just I don't like fetch quests -w-; ) is finding all the codes and cards.  But down the road, it was a bit of fun finding them.  And the satisfaction of finally finding them?  Extreme.  A very memorable gaming experience.  Excellent work X3

[67438feb529cbLarkSS]

SS2_LarkSS_UNN-Polaris_NewDark-Addons.7z
New lightmaps, updated NVScript, glass door materials* and an fm.cfg for better NewDark stability.

*Does not include the doors in earth.mis since for the life of me I cannot find the texture files for them and greydoor.gif amazingly isn't it.

[67438feb52be8voodoo47]

have you tried checking the model file with hexeditor? you should be able to find the corresponding textures that way.

[67438feb52d65LarkSS]

Is that the way it's done? I spent awhile wondering why ShockEd wouldn't tell me. Oddly enough, as soon as I tried the map in multiplayer the doors had reflective materials applied, though I'm still unsure why... I check on it again later whenever I make time.

[67438feb52e82voodoo47]

it's certainly a way, but I'm not exactly a Shocked expert.

[67438feb53021Kolya]

Added your addons to the first post. Thank you for your work.

[67438feb5318bLarkSS]

Hah silly me. I'm used to searching for "*glass" and adding materials to the textures that come up (Christine keeps a common naming convention in this fashion for the glass doors) and didn't realize unnglass.pcx actually is the plain gray glass used in earth.mis. I suppose I didn't see the reflections when testing because I forgot the env_map, which I must have caught on to before I actually ran multiplayer. In any case, the archive is set up properly so no changes are necessary.

[67438feb5342drccc]

I just finished playing through all three FMs by Christine. I just need to express how great they all were. Thank you for creating these. Thanks also to all who contributed, you know who you are. I can't imagine how much effort it took to finish these. I haven't discovered a single bug or glitch. It all seemed very consistent.

When I started I expected something like a "fanmade level", what I experienced was more like a complete new game. So much content! New objects, complete story, voice acting, cutscenes, ... it's all there. Fantastic!

Now before I start with my second run of SS2 I guess I need some Urlaub 

[67438feb53583D.B.]

Where is the Main Gate keycard? I've searched everywhere and i cant find it. No need for that "Try looking harder" - just tell me where it is.

[67438feb536d6voodoo47]

two questions, on what level is it supposed to be, and are you using the Rebirth mod?

[67438feb53867D.B.]

Level - Polaris Outside II
Yes, i am using Rebirth.

[67438feb53983voodoo47]

ok, the map name is unique, so this is not caused by a dml conflict. nothing to see here then.

[67438feb53a93D.B.]

My question still stands.

[67438feb53caaHikari]

OK I've been through the crew area, garden, pool, etc... I have an override card now where do I use it at? It feels like i"m missing something basic but I dunno how to get into the science section.

Edit: After looking through the TTLG archives found what I missed and... yea super depressing ending to the mission, but on the whole very well crafted.

[67438feb54319voodoo47]

so yeah, completed this for the first time (few seconds shy of three and half hours total), so lets have another good, bad and ugly standoff;

the good:
-not being on a spaceship for a change
-nicely crafted levels, lot of attention to detail
-no Shodan (because you can't do Shodan properly without Terri, and if something can't be done properly, it's better off not being done at all)
-good voiceovers
-all the custom objects

the bad:
-almost no music. not sure why - maybe to amplify the big abandoned base setting?
-feels a bit dull after a while. not sure whether it's the absence of an overwatching AI, or not really having anything else to do than to basically just rummage through everything to get all the keys and codes to the final area. things felt much less dynamic than Minstrel or RttUNN (even though I went through those two like a million times because of all the fixup efforts).
-some areas looked like they were constructed for humans ten feet tall, usable objects like card readers and shelves with stuff being placed way, way too high. the fact that Goggles is always in his permanent tactical crouch (or rather, has eyes/the player camera on his chest) isn't helping things. felt like a dwarf sometimes. strangely enough, only some of the levels seem to have this - maybe different mapper?
-a few visual and audio choices felt a bit off (rumbler audio on the ice beasts, which I disabled after five seconds of gameplay, and some of the mutated plants).
-some important items placed quite randomly, making them easy to miss unless you loot everything very thoroughly. such items should usually be locked at places of high importance to prevent this, or some quest notes that mention a person with an item of interest has gone to area x because of reason y should be added after picking up a log with the relevant info. the last quest note is also very vague, had to go through logs to find out what was supposed to be done, and usually, you don't want to force people to do that, anything really important should be logged in the pda notes automatically.

and the ugly:
-a (very) few reversed and floaty objects here and there.
-some of the new objects not set up properly in the gamesys, resulting in bad physics and even worse rest positions when thrown onto ground.
-that old problem with giving the player annelid weapons, but forgetting to activate alien weapons in the upgrade station.
-consumables do nothing when health is full, just play the nope sound, no message is displayed. should be "health full", but realistically you should just be able to eat a donut even if you are not bleeding.


which brings us to the quickfix attachment (see the first post), because you can't really expect me to play a fm without fixing it at least somewhat, now can you;
-fixed positioning on a few objects
-fixed physics stuff on a few custom objects (donuts, chocolate bar, sdcard, cigs)
-alien weapons get discreetly enabled once the player finds the annelid shard (found a broken sound trap while doing this so fixed that as well)
-can eat and drink as much as one wants
-ice beasts no longer use rumbler sounds
-cigarette butts size now matches those in the ashtrays (custom object)
-cigarette packs now sized so they would fit into the cigarette cartons (custom object) properly, also will give one psi point when smoked, SCP style
-tall plants removed physics to hopefully prevent them falling into floor
-integrated appropriately modified versions of RealSG and Shotgun Muzzle Flash minimods (remember, Fixed Objects and an appropriate version of RealSG need to be loaded in the mod manager. SHTUP-ND and Object Shrink are also highly recommended)

unpack to the Polaris folder, if interested. there will be no conflicts with the regular versions of RealSG and Shotgun Muzzle Flash if you have them loaded.

[67438feb544ebValet2]

Thanks for fixing that fm!

It was ages ago when I completed it by my own. Since then I've been played through 3 times with different people in co-op mode. I must say every time I had strong pleasure, lots of emotions, it was an awesome experience. I loved the design, atmosphere, various style of places, the final level and the need to going back, remembering the places you've been through hours ago.

And of course ducks! More cute ducks! I even made this t-shirt for a friend.
[utec-tshirt.jpg expired]

[67438feb5464avoodoo47]

it doesn't really qualify as fixing the fm, it's just stuff I kept throwing into the dml as I was playing, tweaking those few things that I found annoying - an easy venture as all the code snippets already existed in other dmls.

[67438feb547ecvoodoo47]

anyway, two more fixes (all cig related objects resized properly, smoking will restore one psi point, and tall plants removed physics to hopefully prevent them from falling into floors) and off the package into the first post goes - it's definitely good enough for anyone who wants what it offers.

anyone remembers what the LarkSS addons are all about, btw?

[67438feb54e8eKolya]

anyone remembers what the LarkSS addons are all about, btw?

SS2_LarkSS_UNN-Polaris_NewDark-Addons.7z
New lightmaps, updated NVScript, glass door materials* and an fm.cfg for better NewDark stability.

*Does not include the doors in earth.mis since for the life of me I cannot find the texture files for them and greydoor.gif amazingly isn't it.

[67438feb54ffevoodoo47]

shot myself in the leg a bit with the quickfix by including the extra hybrid model - updating is highly recommended.

at this point, making mods is not the difficult part - making them so they would play well with all the other mods is.