SS2 System Shock Infinite 2.4

[67400b65b7ccaOneofTheMany]

So much soul and care put into this that I almost wonder why is it's free.

[67400b65b7f0dManyofMany]

A large part of me wonders what would have happened if this had been what system shock 2 would have been like when it first came out.

Or at the very least have your normal playthrough... and then it shifts into this when it gets to the Shodan fight. Then again if this was added at the Shodan fight I'm pretty sure there would be much bawwing at 'forcing you to go through the ship again' even with all the differences to the overall layout.

The /ONLY/ thing that's missing here is speculation that Shodan had gotten beta grove here through use of the proto-reality buble to get around the whole 'ejected from citadel at light speed' problem of 'how did it get here?'

I mean sure there's some polish issues but this is a bunch of fans doing this for love rather than money and holy crap. Just... holy crap.

Am I the only one that got the impression Goggles and Marie were an item? Or is it just Marie latching onto the one other person that remembers things through the loops? I personally love the idea the tying together of Goggles and the Hacker. Makes his ability to make a will save vs the many and Shodan plausible feeling.

[67400b65b8155xdiesp]

OneofTheMany: if you find yourself a hobby, get one which generates income.

ManyofMany: that is very interesting! What do you believe, did Shodan use the protoreality generator to create a predestination paradox that would bring the Von Braun to the Beta Grove?

The later messages by Marie tell that the time loop existed even before the fight began. In example, a log in Command talks about "shuttles returning from Tau Ceti V with unexplained signs of accelerated decay"; another in the BOTM says that "the Many exhibiting the same (technobabble) as the protoreality generator". The intended explanation is that no one knows anymore when the time loop started, and both Shodan and the Many have their agenda with it. Which might include the Grove (suggest me!):

A) Goggles enters the tear in the BOTM, briefly wanders through the Beta Grove. Datapads on the ground at Polito's state "she sent us", "she already reached Earth".

B) Goggles enters the tear in the BOTM, briefly spectates on the bridge as the Von Braun meets the Beta Grove. A crash shocks the ship. The log he found in Command about the shuttles, was titled "Entropic Tides". Datapads on the ground at Polito's, state "Tau Ceti V was never our mission", "I am already forgetting".

[67400b65b8524OneofTheMany]

OneofTheMany: if you find yourself a hobby, get one which generates income.

That would be a dream coming true

[67400b65b86ccxdiesp]

I was requested a stealth mutator, so I made an experiment. But first I have to complete the movies of the difficulty\aiming mutator, which has been updated after a couple playthroughs.

Updated mutator: http://www.moddb.com/mods/system-shock-infinite/downloads/singularity-collapse-in-6-hours-beta

Possible stealth mutator: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/77839388/PossibleMutator.jpg

[67400b65b8863ManyofMany]

Re: predestination paradox

Its possible Shodan thought to reach back and pluck beta grove out before the Many got out of control and use her still tame annalids as shock troops or at least have a backup plan to give her past self in case things failed... but attempting at reaching back in time merely caused the tear beta grove fell through... and as it turned out it had barely left the solar system til shodan pulled it through.

The question is how would that work? That involves time travel outside of the groundhog day loop. So how does that event get folded into the loop?

Try making another ending where Goggles tries fleeing in an escape pod and thanks to shodan's reality bubble she finds him anyway? Could have that as random survivor shuttle making a run for earth folded in as part of the bad end.

[67400b65b8aa1xdiesp]

ManyofMany: With a predestination paradox, Shodan would enter the Von Braun... by using the Von Braun's generator. That's the paradox: it's unknown how it really started, other than the generator is all powerful. That brief cinematic about visiting the Grove, might at least tell you it can do that. Alternatively, a Planet of the Apes \ Lost in Space approach. The Beta Grove hasn't yet crash landed on Tau Ceti V: it will in a couple of centuries, however. And either an anomaly, the generator or the Many reached through time to the Von Braun. About your ending: maybe Rebecca-Shodan and her boy toy travel to the Beta Grove (on the outskirts of the solar system) and warn Shodan of what happened\is going to happen.

I present you the video version of Kolya's Ending. I wish to thank Kolya and UNN Atropos for providing me with the necessary materials to make it.

Watch: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1sm7e9_kolya-s-ending_videogames
Download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/77839388/Kolya's%20Ending.avi

And now that the assets are ready, I could remake the Good and Bad Endings to feature (or not feature) Marie in them.

[67400b65b8d6exdiesp]

Patch updated to 1.3: features include a revamped Time Paradox ending (by killing your past self on Deck 4, it's a variation on Kolya's ending) and an update to the "evil dead" memory (now with less music and more rumbler). I'm also releasing the mutator without the Time Over video: that one, will become the True Ending, meanwhile this one's "time over" notice is just a message.

Download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/system-shock-infinite/downloads/system-shock-infinite-patch-13

System Shock Infinite: 6 Hours is a difficulty addon for System Shock Infinite.

- The protoreality pocket is about to collapse! Return to Cyberspace in 6 hours.
- Save your game to keep yourself updated on the remaining mission time.
- During videos and memories, the countdown stops.
- The classic crosshair is back.
- Fewer resources!

"Time is of the essence, mon petit."

Download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/system-shock-infinite/downloads/addon-6-hours

[67400b65b8e5dOneofTheMany]

Can't wait to play this! I'm almost done with the official campaign..

[67400b65b9065xdiesp]

I remade the Good and Bad endings, using the new assets from Kolya's Ending. By next week, the True one will be ready as well and will be packed in the next patch.

"What you leave behind" (Good Ending)
http://www.moddb.com/mods/system-shock-infinite/videos/what-you-leave-behind-update

"Submission" (Bad Ending)
http://www.moddb.com/mods/system-shock-infinite/videos/bad-end-submission#imagebox

It wasn't strictly necessary to remake them, but imho they have more personality now. I've been after the video that will become the True one for a while, let's hope for the best. By the way MoreOfTheMany (is this an alias of OneOfTheMany? ), I got an idea to pull the beta grove and pretty much everything else (!) into the story.

[67400b65b9204ManyofMany]

Actually I'm user Hikari... I've just been excessively lazy in getting the whole password thing sorted out. Apologies for confusion.

Anyway you're being exceedingly awesome. However... is there any way to play with the updated assets without the time limit? Or preferably at start of game toggle it? Possibly it tied to the higher difficulties (IE impossible is basically just 'hard' but with a time limit now?)

Dude just plain looking forward to how this shapes up. I'd been waiting on the community patch since.. well.. it was announced but this came out of freaking left field for me. Seriously. Hats off to you.

[67400b65b958bOneofTheMany]

By the way MoreOfTheMany (is this an alias of OneOfTheMany?

Nope, but once at work I used an guest account named Enlitenmyra. I just posted one thread in the Helpdesk section.

Anyway, is ADaoB included in SSI? Because on the main menu it says FOR ADaoB 0.3

[67400b65b9980xdiesp]

OneoftheMany: yes, they've been very kind and let me build the mod on top of the bugfixed levels from adaob 0.3. Hopefully when the SCP comes out, putting Infinite on top of it will retain some of the graphical enhancements while the levels will forcibly stay at 0.3.

MoreoftheMany: I've been cooking this idea for a final speech by Marie, which might solve the riddle of the beta grove, and fit in with the other "Shock" games theme of utopias. What do you think? (About playing with mixed assets: if you tell me which ones exactly you want to mix, I can make you a mutator)

This would be the true ending, which happens after you enter all tears and restore the timeline to a state where at least some of the crew didn't die. After Shodan explodes in that flash of light, you blackout and Marie wakes you up. She is glad that Shodan's nefarious plans for Cantor's heritage were averted (which makes shodan's the creation of cantor, and goggles the son of cantor... but that I won't touch) but hurries you, because you still have to go and fix the protoreality generator. As you backtrack on foot to get to Engineering, she remarks that as you hacked into Shodan's primary data loop (the Earth-like surprise scene at the end of the mod), she used your footprinting to probe her historical records. They looked scrambled and didn't make any sense: the records actually stated that there never no transmission from Tau Ceti V. What the Von Braun received, was a deep space transmission, a satellite data burst originating from the sol system about 40 years before. That was the moment Shodan entered the Von Braun and the battle started. And no record whatsoever had mentioned the Beta Grove or the Many.

(Now things get a bit fuzzy, because I haven't completed the dialogue yet.)

In the end Shodan had created her Cyberspace, which collapsed and caused the protoreality generator's failsafe protocols to start the time loop. Only at this point, the protocols were responding to the higher programming of Shodan: they didn't just reset the bubble to safety, but started altering the stored "data" to improve its survival chances. Marie thought that the bubble's data were decaying into entropy, but the opposite was true: the battle on the Von Braun was being remodeled by negative entropy to best Shodan. And they merged the weak and isolated crew, in a stronger character thinking as one: the Many. Marie continues telling you that "like an overbearing mother, Sarah, my creation, protected her children to the point of smothering them. She gave them a perfect life, but utopia is a mathematical concept: in our flawed reality, an island of perfect order would only thrive in the middle of chaos". So the real way to stop the time loop, is to flush the buffer of the FTL drive and make Sarah forget about them. But it isn't over, yet: the Von Braun had never been the main target of Shodan. As soon as chaos ensued, the crew built their antenna to warn Earth about these events, and Shodan sent itself over the transmission once again. "By my calculations, the transmission will reach Earth in about... 14 years. Humm... do you believe in coincidences, mon petit?".

[67400b65b9a79ManyofMany]

Oh my god dude that's brilliant.

[67400b65b9c51xdiesp]

MoreoftheMany: chance is, the reveal from above will be actually Goggles "remembering everything".

I was reminded that the Body of the Many isn't much different from vanilla. Indeed, the different take was scrapped and the tear event is the only thing that's left of it (when the chemroom fills with Toxin A). I will see to reimplement those additions for the next patch (like with the human ghosts on Deck 5). Essentially, the BOTM would now play like this:

- Shorter, with no jumping puzzle rooms, and a trip to the vagoos room
- More visual markers not to get lost
- The trick is that the BOTM has just eaten Hydroponics: there's several air regulators in the level, which can be used to either kill all enemies in the room, or open doors (but you have a limited amount of Toxin A).

Edit
New! The videos you get in the updated BOTM: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1th9ym_the-infinite-many_videogames

[67400b65b9d61OneofTheMany]

Now those holes really looks like vaginas. D:

[67400b65b9ef1xdiesp]

OneofTheMany: if you would like to test the updated BOTM, here's the link:
https://www.mediafire.com/?hatmaejf7qnpxnw It should already work, but you never know...

I updated the Chase memory, one of the earliest and most simple ones. It will be packed in the next patch:
Original: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1tlwfa_tee-chase_videogames
Remake: http://www.moddb.com/mods/system-shock-infinite/videos/ops-memory#imagebox

The two new endings are still work in progress.

[67400b65b9fcfOneofTheMany]

I'll propably be hated for this but could you lower the hitpoints for the enemies?

[67400b65ba0e3xdiesp]

Are you having problems damaging enemies fast enough? Use weapons that are about the same level as them, possibly modified and using ammo +1. What's happening is that the hitpoints are the same, but lower level weapons get diminishing returns (the "entropy effect"). And you can power yourself up with the old rigs.

But if you still require a mutator, how much % would that be? How about -50% for all enemies?

[67400b65ba1c6OneofTheMany]

-50% sounds just fine by me.

[67400b65ba428This_is_Xerxes]

I have played through each version uploaded so far and it has been very rewarding to see this mod come together so well. My deepest thanks go to everyone who has contributed.

I finished the game and got to the True Ending on Infinite (Impossible) difficulty within the 6-hour constraint, specifically 5:42 game time. I know that I took my time - I tried to be ever-so-meticulous, hoarding all weapons and ammo, rearranging them on the floor on each deck and scrounging for every last nanite pack. I even avoided to enter the tears on some decks until I was sure I had gone through all the dead bodies first. The Rickenbacker run was a bitch.

In my opinion, the difficulty is precisely calculated: You conserve ammo when you can, wrenching your way through, employing hit-and-run tactics to survive, but you never reach a dead end: there are a lot of nanites for buying ammo and the mod gives you enough cyber modules so you can be up to the challenge at all times. Character development is somewhat linear because of enemy/weapon requirements, but xdiesp does a very nice job in making us use all stats, weapons, skills and psi powers throughout the course of the game.

System Shock Infinite is a well-made mod that seasoned players must go through to they very end. It brings many changes in game play and addresses a serious issue in System Shock 2: We have all made the perfect character build to beat the game, but now we're forced to think again. Perhaps some people can't manage a jack-of-all-trades, but in the end you'll be master of all of them, and I find that rewarding in a game.

xdiesp: The only thing that I'd want now is to see the auto-aim return. I know people hate it, but I think you really struck a nerve with that idea.

[67400b65ba829Many Are StrOnG.]

Perhaps some people can't manage a jack-of-all-trades, but in the end you'll be master of all of them, and I find that rewarding in a game.

xdiesp: The only thing that I'd want now is to see the auto-aim return. I know people hate it, but I think you really struck a nerve with that idea.

Your impure thoughts are rejected for mental assimilation, opting to neutralize you and assimilate your flesh only.
We can do so because our creator gave us that choice, which may have unforeseen consequences. Choice and consequence is a wonderful thing, you see.

[67400b65baaa2xdiesp]

I have updated the patch to 1.4. It reintroduces the Body of the Many subquest that was cut from the beta and updates several of the old videos: http://www.moddb.com/mods/system-shock-infinite/downloads/system-shock-infinite-patch-14

OneofTheMany: now that the patch is out, I'll have your "Easy Mode" mutator ready.

This_is_Xerxes: well done, you are the first one to beat the timed run! To do so on impossible, with all chips, is the hardest challenge the mod can offer yet. The intended difficulty level is way more forgiving, as the hard base difficulty goes down a notch whenever the player admits the pressure is too much and decides harvesting the old rigs. That detail about tears is something that was never pointed out in the documentation: whenever you "bring back a favorable timeline", all bodies from that deck disappear. Because they never died, and their number is shown on Marie's log of the event. About the new aiming system: it was born out of compromise, to compensate the lag from target identification and weapon switching. Players who turn it off with the mutator, are probably better off if they already know a thing or two about the way the mod works.


Now that the new patch is out, I'll be working on 2 all-new videos:
- A remade True Ending, featuring the "revelations" we talked about with Hikari aka MoreoftheMany.
- The Prequel Ending, unlocked by destroying SHODAN before actually returning to Cyberspace (attacking her with the EMP Rifle during her reveal at the beginning of Ops, which is very early to equip that)

[67400b65baddcOneofTheMany]

OneofTheMany: now that the patch is out, I'll have your "Easy Mode" mutator ready.

Thank you