SS2 System Shock Infinite 2.4

[674441d335ba4Kolya]

I don't know...if the ship computer on my faster than light cruise ship was acting up, then providing some fembot with a new body would be the least of my concerns. I'd fix the computer, fly home and buy the latest hottest model. Besides, if it's her programming starting to fail, why give her a new body?

What I meant was to have some background for the sim love AIs and open up design space for some small quest. Those high flying AI-bait-trap ideas are understandably hard to realise (although they could be done solely in logs). So I wrote you a short version + expansion that's relatively easy to realise.

But you keep bringing up that creep Rosenberg and dance and shower scenes which all leads down that slippery path I warned about first thing. Try to forget Rosenberg. And forget using these AIs as ogling material or as drones who fight for you.
I'm talking about a story-piece here. Think of the Titanic film. Because SS2 is nothing but a catastrophe film. Do you remember that old couple who would lay fully clothed together in bed while the icy pacific ocean pours into their cabin?
I don't want showering gynoids. I want to move the player's fucking heart! I want them to care and to remember and feel the PAIN from that and then go out and shoot the next droid or hybrid in their face and scream "THIS IS FOR NIKKI FUCKFACE!" and then realise that they've just done the same thing, that they're no better than SHODAN or the Many. And if you can't give me that, then you give me nothing.

[674441d335dcexdiesp]

I'm working with what you're giving me! Initially, cybermistresses were luring crewmen to get infected, and I pictured them hostiles. Now they're more of a victim, and the resurrection-sacrifice sequence seems touching enough. The fetch quest can be made longer... for more attachment... but what would the "ingredients" be? A couple cards from Engineering, a wrench and a midwife organ?

Rosenberg is just someone to tell the story of the cybermistresses, he can be replaced. Maybe Xerxes himself? If you think logs and movies are too much, I can leave a couple datapads around that briefly mention the AIs suffering from Xerxes malaise.

The dancing\shower animations aren't intended to be morbid, just a curiosity. My idea was that the player searched the 4 holodecks, in each finding a different mistress:  #1 dances and explodes, #2 showers and explodes, #3 talks and attacks you, and #4 is poor Nikki waiting to be repaired. Would you prefer there were no extra mistresses at all, or that they just talked? (and exploded if attacked)

[674441d335f94Kolya]

Okay, I think I'll need a smiley in a director's chair that's flailing its little arms before falling over, to explain the funky humour of last night's post. My apologies for that.
Okay, let's see. Yes, initially the AIs were acting in an evil way. But that was just a first idea to give those AIs some backstory. I scrapped that because you said it was too much work, which I fully understand.

Then I wrote the small Nikki quest where she would indeed be a victim, first of Xerxes failing and then being shot by a security bot. That story of Nikki is completely unrelated to the first idea. The other AIs wouldn't appear at all, because they're not part of the story and have no role in it. Having them around, dancing, exploding or otherwise would only distract.

The fetch quest for Nikki should lead to the next deck and then you'd backtrack to her. It shouldn't be too long or difficult because you gain nothing for trying to "free" her, except perhaps motivation. Just one item or hack to disable her activity radius limiter is perfectly fine. It's a simple quest and involves only one AI from the sim units. I'll gladly think up something for several AIs, but that would be more work again.

[674441d3360c9xdiesp]

I can make the HUD around Nikki mention that her sympathetic resonator is damaged, so players will remember about her after completing the shuttles quest in the following deck. There's still room to implement part of your storyline though, either from a nearby log or a movie when she wakes up: would you like to play Xerxes and address a specific episode, or have Nikki herself mention it? (through some text to speech robotic voice)

[674441d33625fKolya]

First she sits there motionless on the bed and is indeed damaged. But you only need to hack her to fix her.
Then she follows you to the exit of the sim love units where she cannot go any further. It's a security measure built into the AIs.
A sympathetic resonator might be fetched with plans to disable her activity radius limiter. It's just techno babble and it never happens anyway, so it doesn't matter what the item is that you fetch. In any case, she's dying when you return and no tool or trick will bring her back to life. The Watts death animation plays as she utters her final words.
Two female logs are necessary for this:
1. "I'm sorry I cannot follow you any further. If you can find a sympathetic resonator we might be able to destroy my activity radius limiter and get me out of here. Please, come back soon!"
2. "You did come back! But it is too late, I have been damaged beyond repaaaair. Thank you for believing in me. No one has ever done that for me. I am free... go now. Iiiiiiiiiiiieeeeecccccchhhhbrrrrrzzzz"

I'm not sure what Xerxes would address?

[674441d3365adunn_atropos]

It's very late and I'm sitting at the computer, writing some uni paper that should have been finished hours ago. So, for a little procrastination, I will schmalz up your text:
1. "I'm sorry, I cannot follow you any further. I can feel a invisible barrier blocking my motion tense. If you can find a sympathetic resonator we might be able to destroy my activity radius limiter and get me out of this purple cage. Go! And...please, come back to me!"
2. "You...*brrrrrzzzz* came back for me?  Thank you for caring. But but I feel *Iiiiiiiiiiiiee* this shell of mine will will will break apart beyond repaaaair. *mechanical sigh* Thank you...uh. For a moment.. I felt to be a..alive somehow. Please go now. I am fre________" (fails in the middle of the word)

[674441d336703Kolya]

Hehe, yeah the texts are certainly not carved in stone, although I didn't want to get too emotional, but I like the purple cage. It depends on the delivery and I think it should be a real voice with some overlaid effects, as SHODAN's voice was created.

[674441d3368caxdiesp]

There's something I'm not able to do in there! If the player meets Nikki, fetches the quest item and goes back, then it's all right with the triggers: they would check that he went back to Deck 6 and returned, that's it. But suppose that there's a savvy player who knows what's going to happen, however: doesn't meet Nikki, buys 2 resonators and goes back.. Nikki's death scene would play immediately after she's done with the questgiver scene.

Would you keep it like that, or embed some countermeasure such as putting a delay on the death scene (after a minute, or after an escort quest somewhere)? How about completely removing Nikki and her quest if you don't visit her before getting to the resonators?

The dialogue is good, thank you! I would probably just add a passing reference to Sarah (quoting Spielberg's AI), to fit in with the rest of Infinite. I mentioned Xerxes, because you're available with voice recording... I don't know, the log could have been a warning that the subroutines were out of control (with a passing reference to HAL 9000). Also remember we have the tears available: enter one, and you could end up right in the middle of that storyline (or one when Nikki is alive and well).

[674441d336cf7Kolya]

There's something I'm not able to do in there! If the player meets Nikki, fetches the quest item and goes back, then it's all right with the triggers: they would check that he went back to Deck 6 and returned, that's it. But suppose that there's a savvy player who knows what's going to happen, however: doesn't meet Nikki, buys 2 resonators and goes back.. Nikki's death scene would play immediately after she's done with the questgiver scene.

Actually it should not play, because Nikki has never been activated (ie hacked to fix her). That's something that could be checked, no?
It could get a little weird, if the player first fetches the resonator then comes back, hacks Nikki and she's waving him goodbye, asking to bring back a resonator which the player already has in his possession. Maybe it shouldn't be a resonator, but a quantum of unobtainium.

[674441d337090xdiesp]

Actually it should not play, because Nikki has never been activated (ie hacked to fix her). That's something that could be checked, no?
It could get a little weird, if the player first fetches the resonator then comes back, hacks Nikki and she's waving him goodbye, asking to bring back a resonator which the player already has in his possession. Maybe it shouldn't be a resonator, but a quantum of unobtainium.

The first event triggers off the hack of damaged Nikki. The second is a chain: complete the first event, hit Deck 6, go back. But since the stated objective is to possess an item, not backtrack, people might have the item in inventory already.

It would be simple to just use the resonator on the repaired Nikki, but that would prevent the scene where you find her dying. Other solutions I mentioned above. Another: after (or before?) you use the resonator, you get a memory of her death scene... how do you change the future now? :?

[674441d337387ZylonBane]

I can make the HUD around Nikki mention that her sympathetic resonator is damaged

WTF, a sympathetic resonator is a device specifically for destroying things by inducing catastrophic sympathetic resonance. If I had a sympathetic resonator in my body, I'd consider it being broken to be the best thing ever.

[674441d33770cKolya]

That's a misunderstanding which has already been cleared up. The resonator was never meant to be part of her body.

The first event triggers off the hack of damaged Nikki. The second is a chain: complete the first event, hit Deck 6, go back. But since the stated objective is to possess an item, not backtrack, people might have the item in inventory already.

Yes they could have the item when they hack/fix Nikki. One idea to solve this is making the item unobtainium. Since it can never be used anyway, that's technically fine. But it could be a bit confusing for the player. I'll think about it some more.

[674441d3378a4xdiesp]

It would be hilarious, if you used the resonator on Nikki and the sound effect for the rupturing shuttle shield started to play: serves you right for believing everything you read in HUDs. About the unobtanium: the quest item could be a "positronic tool" found in a cabin of Command 2, and that's it. Or, Nikki could ask you to come back to escort her to the Rickenbacker once the road is clear.

Let me explain the "change the future" scenario:
- Nikki walks to the entrance and asks you to use the positronic tool so she can get out.
- If you have the tool, when you get close to her you see a B&W memory of yourself using it, looking at her walk out, overload and die.
- You either leave the quest unfinished and Nikki alive, or complete it and she dies as in the memory.

[674441d3379cdKolya]

Or the quest item could only be made available on Command if Nikki was activated before on RecDeck.
That way the player cannot have it when he first meets and activates her.

If you want to use a memory, I'd suggest using it when the player is on Command deck, eg when he picks up the quest item, showing a security bot that advances into the love sim units and Nikki running from it. The bot shoots two times, end.

[674441d337ac7xdiesp]

All right, the tragic part is perfect as it is. No memories required: you come back with your fat positron tool, and she's dieing. Can I still leave inside an undocumented feature, than Marie can heal her?

[674441d337c01Kolya]

As soon as we know that there is a way to save her, it becomes a search for that hidden feature, thereby completely subverting the original story. There is no loss anymore, just a magic key that you have to find. Then you can have your cake and eat it too.

I can't keep you from doing that, I probably wouldn't even notice. But I'm telling you for your own sake and that of other players that it's not a good idea. Sometimes you have to let go in order to gain something.

[674441d337e6cxdiesp]

As soon as we know that there is a way to save her, it becomes a search for that hidden feature,

Walkthrough: "to save Nikki, chase her to the airport before she flies back to Scotland."

[674441d337f86Kolya]

The background story discussion about the stim units (Nikki et al) has been moved here.

[674441d33817cxerxes]

Image: http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140621205410/shodan/images/8/89/Shodan_system_shock_1.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpK8vbhy8DA

i was thinking about this

this is the main cause of shodan survival

maybe adding some kind of biologic grove sub level
something like a shodan lair mixed with the grove
i know u face shodan at the end but could be like a mini boss at the half of the game/history
Image: http://www.zerker.ca/zzone/screenshots/ubetagrove1.jpg

plus is there any chance to recreate the cortex reaver?
maybe using the rumbler size but it will require hard modification

i have more ideas but im still busy looking for a job, i need to settle  so i can focus 100% on this

[674441d33828fxerxes]

Crew !  prepare for modifications!!!   ehehehehehe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qthCV8Y8Y0

[674441d3383d3K-Bone]

I wonder will SCP Beta 1 mess with this or no?

[674441d3384cbKolya]

You're not new here and should know by now that gamesys mods are incompatible. Watch the tags in the first post.

[674441d33883eEldritch]

I tried your mod a while back, and it's quite nice, with pretty good voice acting, a story with some depth, and a new spin on old gameplay; I have a few gripes though (note I tried this over the summer and I had my hard drive wiped recently so if there were changes please let me know (: )

 The system of certain enemies being resistant to certain weapons is really my only problem, a nice concept but I think it could do with some tweaks. I do think that it's quite a good system as really would shooting a military robot with a pistol really do much, but some things are just absurd, like a grenade launcher not harming a hybrid. I think that enemies having multiple weaknesses would be a good idea; for example hybrids are based off of humans they would be vulnerable to things that humans would die to, such as bullets and explosions, but not emps, and since a hybrid is well, a hybrid of human and annelid it would make sense that annelid weapons should be able to kill them as they are the only things tough enough to crack a rumbler's hide. A cyborg midwife should be able to be fried with energy, or destroyed with explosives; a MP bot with explosives or energy, etc.

Another gripe with resistances is that if I recall correctly you didn't change skills, so one needs to invest in all skill trees to get anywhere. I think this frustration could be alleviated if instead of using a standard, energy, heavy, psi, exotic system of skills, a better idea would be to say allow you to train melee, pistol, rifle, other and make allow the player to upgrade weapons stats along the way. This would allow more diversity in builds, so an O.S.A agent could have a back up pistol in case of emergency and continue to be effective on higher levels. On a semi related note I really think that psi was messed up a fair bit here, as I just think that if psi ops was a thing back on Earth (and it was judging from the O.S.A.) then psi would affect normal humans in some way. I would like to see psi powers that could bypass different resistances, because as we saw in the vanilla game you could do quite a few different things with psi, ranging from making a target explode to creating a sword of pure psionic energy. My suggestion is to use the already existing combat powers to build powers that target different enemy types, such as cryokenisis could do standard damage, pyro for explosive, you could rewrite soma transference into a psi damage power. This applies to most of the weapons in the game too, I would like armor-piercing bullets to, you know, pierce heavy armor, obviously this wouldn't be as useful if you were to add my suggestion about weapon skills, but it would be a nice after though.

Now I these are just suggestions to improve a solid game with some annoyances, so don't think that I'm saying implement these or it sucks; I'm just saying that it's a bit rough around the edges and could use a bit of polish on the new gameplay systems, one last thing though is that the auto target could use tweaking, or an option to take turn it off. Maybe use a lock on system rather than free aim so you can precisely switch targets. Just my thoughts and suggestions, keep up the good work

[674441d33896bxerxes]

The system of certain enemies being resistant to certain weapons is really my only problem

so then play the original game

i think that is one of the most cool feature of infinite