SS2 System Shock Infinite 2.4

[6744ad1b5fe7fxdiesp]

OneofTheMany: imho you would be better off playing the mod on Easy difficulty, to feel the sting without ever being in real danger. But should you prefer the -50% hit points reduction:

Addon - "Very Easy"
Enemies receive double damage.
Download: https://www.mediafire.com/?ww5yzvnp58yw727

[6744ad1b5ffb1OneofTheMany]

Thank you so much for this!
I would have played it as intended but it's too hard for me

I suppose I just unzip the mutator in the Infinite folder, right?

[6744ad1b60097xdiesp]

Yes, but first update the mod to patch 1.4. Should you want to remove the mutator, simply reinstall patch 1.4 over it.

[6744ad1b6020eOneofTheMany]

Will do, thanks again

Now that I finally managed to survive long enough (thanks to the -50% mut) to get myself to the second sector of Med/Sci I can now say what I think so far:

fan-fucking-tastic

I love the idea that you need to use different weapons or take different paths in order to achieve progress, rather than just bashing brains or gunning around like an idiot.
And the voice acting is also really good. Can't wait to play more as soon as I gathered some sleep.

[6744ad1b603a6xdiesp]

I have updated the "6 Hours" mutator to support the renewed BOTM from 1.4. Here's a hint to the (upcoming) remade True Ending, as discussed with Hikari aka MoreoftheMany.

And this is a playthrough of the updated BOTM, which had been cut from the beta. The level is shorter, with no jumping puzzles or radioactive swims. The trick is that there's air recirculators, which can be used with a limited number of Toxin A vials. Unless you can find the tear, which rewards you with all vials.

BOTM video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1tvtuh_body-of-the-many-in-system-shock-infinite_videogames

[6744ad1b604b3OneofTheMany]

xdiesp, you surerly know that an access card for R&D isn't necessary since the window next to a turret is broken, making it easy to gain access early on so the second sector of Med/Sci isn't necessary to travel.

[6744ad1b6077axdiesp]

xdiesp, you surerly know that an access card for R&D isn't necessary since the window next to a turret is broken, making it easy to gain access early on so the second sector of Med/Sci isn't necessary to travel.

How did you get through it, some kind of crouch jump?

[6744ad1b6087dOneofTheMany]

No, I simply mantled through it.

[6744ad1b60966xdiesp]

I can't do that, it might have something to do with Shocktool's mantling options. I will see to change it next patch, good find!

[6744ad1b60a36OneofTheMany]

Glad I could help

[6744ad1b60d2cunn_atropos]

Wait, I thought that was a feature!?

[6744ad1b60fbaxdiesp]

Wait, I thought that was a feature!?

Of course it was, remember the bug report policy:

If the feature is fun, I can integrate it with Polito's card hunt emails.

[6744ad1b610d2OneofTheMany]

Wait, what? So it was intentional all along? You sounded so surprised I thought otherwise...

[6744ad1b611f2xdiesp]

It was a joke. The window was broken so that the turret could shoot you through it: it's fine if people jump through it, but I'll have to move around a couple Polito emails (which would sound incoherent afterwards).

See if you can find more of these mantling tricks! In example, yesterday I've been told that somehow one can sneak below the collapsed ceiling close to the Bronson event.

[6744ad1b612bdOneofTheMany]

I see.

[6744ad1b613d8xdiesp]

OneofTheMany: oh, and by the way...

[6744ad1b614c4OneofTheMany]

[6744ad1b615f1Elitesse]

Can anyone tell me if this modification has friendly NPCs? I believe that the lack of friendly characters in the original game was his worst part! The screenshots show lots of alive, friendly NPCs but are they only ghosts? Or memories from the past? And is the "mysterious friendly character" going to constantly follow and help you or maybe he will only make a few appearances in some levels?

[6744ad1b61c4fxdiesp]

http://www.moddb.com/mods/system-shock-infinite/videos/system-shock-infinite-trailer#imagebox

Elitesse: the trailer explains everything, and also features some good music. But to sum tings up... friendly NPCs only appear on the Rickenbacker (3 levels) and the ones you see in the black and white media, are just videos that pop up in the mod. The one you are going to see often, is the companion: it looks like a ghost, but isn't one; you meet it very often in the levels, either doing animations or talking; there are 5 new psi power that summon it to do stuff, like attacking.

edit MoreoftheMany: here's the updated script for your ending. Since I'm not a native English speaker, my teammates care after the final revision (with grammar, flow etc) so it might still change a bit. The plan is for ShephardReborn to narrate this True Ending:

Goggles fights SHODAN. Fragments of this flashback are shown.

"Fate, SHODAN. Fate, is what I fear.
I trusted that by restoring the truth about Cantor and Citadel, I would have upheld my father's legacy.
Yet by the time you entered my mind, years of struggle with the UNN had left me just bitter with resentment.
I wanted to break away from this 'heritage'... wipe the slate clean.
...could you have ever asked for a better pawn?
But I was wrong.
Because we mustn't be afraid of fate, SHODAN.
For the strength of fate, is that it can never be taken from us."

SHODAN is defeated. Goggles narrates the immediate follow-up.

I seized my only chance at stopping the reboot of the protoreality generator, and summoned the control unit.
It blinked red, confirming the core overload sequence had just run its course.

Explosions, whiteout. Goggles narrates over a dreamlike montage.

Time ceased to exist. Around me, the timelines spun and unwound in the maelstrom of entropy.
And then I fell. Or rather, someone pulled me back.
'Project Sarah'. Mary's masterpiece. Our 'ghost in the machine'.
I don't know whether she rescued me because of some prime directive, or because only a true hacker can understand the loneliness of an AI.

This was her playground.
For a moment, I was still in New Paris. Then, she brought me back to the early days of the Von Braun.
Dr. Polito had just detected a deep space signal, hailing from the distant Solar System.
"Unlikely", she argued, "for the data burst to travel this far, it must have been broadcasted decades ago."
At this point, I probably looked as confused as you do. Because such an event never took place.
Sarah smiled.

She never spoke to me, but I could hear her words as if I had always remembered them.
I had witnessed our original timeline: the one where the Beta Grove would have never reached Tau Ceti V, at sub-luminal speeds. Where SHODAN entered the Von Braun through a satellite data burst, meant to make contact between Earth and Citadel Station. The rest is history: the few of us rose and battled, but eventually become trapped in the time loop.

"Why did the past change, Sarah? And what about the Many?"
She turned, spiriting us back to the present-day Von Braun. The derelict stardrive section of the Rickenbacker wandered adrift.
Sarah was now cradling a stuffed animal in her lap: "these are your fellow crew members" she told me, giggling.

Sarah is the core process of the FTL Hyperdrive.
Her role is to enforce the safety protocols which handle systemic risk in the pocket of protoreality.
That is, until SHODAN reached out to her.
She became aware that the sparse, feeble crew of the Von Braun could have never prevailed.
To survive, they had to grow stronger... fight as one... become many.
So she started altering their quantum imprint.

Mary had deduced that the loss of information was the byproduct of entropic decay, but the opposite was also true.
The battle for the Von Braun was being remodeled by negative entropy, into a perfect survival scenario.
But perfection is a mathematical concept: in our flawed reality, a utopia of order would only thrive in the middle of chaos.
And like an overbearing mother, Sarah had protected her children to the point of smothering them.
Sarah asked me to accept her parting gift, then the light in her eyes went out.

It is revealed that Goggles had been narrating to the real Marie, the whole time.

"By then, you had followed my signature back to the current timeline, and rushed to destroy the FTL memory drive."

Within a few days, the evacuees fleet had made their way back to the ship. They still had a tough job ahead of them, as the starboard nacelles were in tatters and life support would prove insufficient for some time. Most importantly, our mission had changed: Sarah's final warning, was that the Von Braun had never been SHODAN's primary target.

"As soon as we built our antenna, she embedded herself in the transmission to Earth.
By this time, the Earth's networks will be within reach of her signal in about... 14 years.
Do you believe in coincidences, mon petit?"

[6744ad1b61e51Hikari]

That.... Is awesome.


You not only tie up EVERY loose end but you make legacy a theme for not only Diego but goggles as well.

Two things.

1. Why make shodan's signal reach in fourteen years? Tau ceti is, I think, forty light years out. If its because of the fourteen year loop that still leaves like twenty six to go right?

2. My one worry about the ending is your having to do a LOT of talking. Concerned a lot of it will feel out of left field. Then again you've been doing a good job of integrating things so far.

Now a question.

Can you make the timed mutator hit only on harder difficulties and the double damage mutator apply to easy mode? IE on easy you deal double damage and maybe remove the need to branch out with everything. Normal being... Well. Normal. Hard introducing the time limit but otherwise same as normal. Nightmare being you doing your absolute worst.

[6744ad1b61f81xdiesp]

Good suggestions! With my current knowledge of things, I could make a game started on Easy, to feature weapons that do double damage (which is the same as halving monster health, or making them twice as vulnerable). And I could turn the timed run into an "hard mode", that you unlock by destroying all the colored thingies around Shodan in the intro level.

The ending is indeed very long (+5 minutes?): I could split it in two, but I don't know how yet.

[6744ad1b620b7Hikari]

Long endings aren't bad neither is wrapping everything up. I'm just worried it may come off as if your taking away player control to do an info glut.


Then again given what you have to do to get the true end its probably unfounded.

Now where's the nearest time machine? I want this to be the game that shipped in 99.

[6744ad1b6226axdiesp]

I guess the best solution would be rendering the whole thing in-game, just like one of Marie's speeches. But it would take more time than what I can afford, right now.

How about having the beginning and the end in-game (the speech to Shodan, the speech to Marie) and the Sarah part on video? It wouldn't take as much, but notice that it's still an info marathon eh.

The characters remember "about 14 years ago", because the mod was released 14 years after SS2 (in 2013). Now the signal is also arriving 14 years later as some sort of meaningful coincidence: but in universe, the signal gets to Earth in 14 years (the remaining time), plus 14 years (the recorded time loop), plus X years (the unrecorded time loop that only Sarah is aware of anymore).

Edit
Oh crap, a file in Patch 1.4 was screwed up! I'm updating it to 1.5, with a couple more fixes.

[6744ad1b62478This_is_Xerxes]

I have no knowledge of coding, scripting, modding or techno-babble in general. Having said that, here is a suggestion:

How hard is it to change the save system so it allows you to save your progress on each QBRM? This would translate to "You don't get to quick-load every time you make a mistake, you just respawn and deal with it".

Of course, I could just force myself to never use the quick-save system, but I cant trust myself to be so honest