Citadel - System Shock Fan Remake

[674304a96670aJosiahJack]

Heh, ya dertseha is right.  I forgot there is only 1 audio log that doesn't have audio and it isn't on paper, the one I mention having already.

In which case, I merely need the content and location of the papers you can't pick up.

[674304a966a10JosiahJack]

There's certainly more than 1. I remember finding 1 near the radioactive trenches in the medical level. Right near the secret door.

What secret door??

[674304a966c2fJosiahJack]

Just a quick recap of the last few weeks:
Added reloading...you hit R and it reloads  . Still need to add HUD button for unload and picking ammo type, though I've already coded the functions.  Should I add a hotkey for changing ammo type or leave it as a button you need to do in inventory mode?

Ereader basic functionality is done: you can pick up, play logs from particular levels, read the text, and see the sender, date, and subject in the data tab in the corner.  It even has basic file/folder structure in the HUD.

MFD manager for the two corner HUD panels is about 95% done now.  Still have a few more cases where I need to make sure it remembers the last used tab and last side that the player used it on.  This lets you pick and keep, e.g. weapons in one corner and another tab open on the other side of the screen such as the automap (automap on hold until level geometry enhancement pass is complete more on that in the news post coming soon).

Added some basic logic functions, such has having buttons or keypads open doors, and added a Security level manager that doors and panels can refer to for when security needs to be below a certain threshhold to let you use them.

NPC AI is working well for the hopper.  A few more things to tweak on the hopper (purely ranged npc), back add them to the humanoid mutant (purely melee npc), then spread my AI code like a beautiful virus to the rest of the enemies.


Getting there! 

[674304a96724fdertseha]

What secret door??

First of all, which one are you asking for? There is more than one secret door in the "blue" area between the "resist" door and the wire-puzzle forcebridge.

In which case, I merely need the content and location of the papers you can't pick up.

There are 11 paper texts in the resources, of which one is a dummy, and another (with ID 8 ) is an unused copy of SHODAN's email taunt when setting the reactor.
The 9 used paper texts are used as follows: (first three digits are the classification, then the level number, object index in the respective master table, tile X/Y, and the lone byte in the dump shows the text ID).

Code: [Select]

08/0/02 L00 o332 44-29: [ .. .. 02 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ]
08/0/02 L01 o480 42-39: [ .. .. 03 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ]
08/0/02 L01 o717 12-37: [ .. .. 09 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ]
08/0/02 L02 o106 18-20: [ .. .. 05 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ]
08/0/02 L02 o372 42-13: [ .. .. 06 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ]
08/0/02 L02 o514 22-40: [ .. .. 0A .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ]
08/0/02 L06 o530 39-41: [ .. .. 01 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ]
08/0/02 L06 o531 55-49: [ .. .. 04 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ]
08/0/02 L06 o551 12-20: [ .. .. 07 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ]
As for the content, I recommend downloading and using one of the modding tools - say, from InkyBlackness - for extracting the text

[674304a9673ecJosiahJack]

Awesome thanks!

Level 1 secrets in radioactive area
I only know of the platform that drops down at the end of the maintenance hallway, just before the room with the perched assassin cyborg.  It's one of those supersecret platforms that only move when you step on them in the middle.

Blue area...blue area....do you mean the area with the door to the magnum closet?  Ya there's a secret closet down the hall from the magnum closet in the southeast corner.

I don't know of any in the actual trenches.

[674304a967565icemann]

The door is nearby quite a fair bit of dead bodies. I'll have to load the game up and double check. It's been a bit since my last play through.

Mind that I could be wrong on there being a paper log. I challenge you to find the area though :p.

[674304a967699johnretroreload]

I wanted to ask about playtesting this and to ask if Unity is the way forward for the project especially after the Nightdive Studios' remake of System Shock Hiatus Unity direction?

[674304a9677c9JosiahJack]

1. Playtesting...soonday.  While you can of course download the source and test it in the Unity editor (version 2017.2), I recommend waiting a bit more so you can mess with the latest updates.  I haven't committed to github in a while, not for a few hundred lines of code at least.

2. Unity is the way forward, no showstoppers, plus the UI/HUD is mostly done (excluding minigames and MFD color customization) and the UI is one thing that simply doesn't port well between engines.

[674304a9678c1icemann]

If game dev history has taught us anything, it's that engine changes mid development always = bad.

Just look at Duke Nukem Forever.

[674304a967cc1Olfred]

If game dev history has taught us anything, it's that engine changes mid development always = bad.

Just look at Duke Nukem Forever.

Duke Nukem Forever had other problems which eventually made an engine change unavoidable.

Changing engines isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[674304a967dcaJosiahJack]

I changed engines 2yrs ago and all is good.  NDS changed engines and ate up all their funding.

So...depends. 

[674304a968209JDoran]

Timesplitters: Rewind is another game that's been through a change of engine (and more than once), and has been somewhat delayed. Here's a preview video, released at the end of last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ex2mJY5e0s


Not much to show for six years, is it? They don't even show you moving through a level, let alone actual game-play. Originally, they said they'd release a demo for the game by the end of 2013. A demo has still not been released.

Here's a video showing some earlier builds, which seem to have been much farther along:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbc1tPeuWm0


For anyone who doesn't know, the Timesplitters games are a trio of science-fiction first person shooters, with the second and third games being extremely good, and the second one in particular is very popular, with more than a few people calling it the best first person shooter of the PS2/original XBox/Gamecube generation, though I personally prefer the third Timesplitters game. And since we were never given a Timesplitters 4, a group of fans managed to obtain official permission to make a new game, which they said would concentrate on multiplayer, and would be called Timesplitters: Rewind, and would be PC only (and the first Timesplitters game ever to be made for the PC).

In the Timesplitters games, a race of hostile aliens, called the Timesplitters, have invaded Earth, aiming to wipe out humanity, and you have to go to various time periods and places in your quest to stop them. The games aren't too serious, they have humour, lots (and I mean lots) of good characters both (mostly) serious and comical, lots of varied levels to playthrough, lots of fun, varied weapons, and lots of shooting action.

Timesplitters 2, and Timesplitters Future Perfect (which is the name of the third Timesplitters game) are availabe on the PS2, and the original XBox, and the Gamecube, and have really good single player campaigns, which you and a friend can play in co-op. They also have superb multiplayer, with bots (computer controlled enemies), around a dozen multiplayer game mods, lots of options, and even a mapmaker (an enjoyable, easy to use feature where you can create single player or multiplayer levels to playthrough, although the levels you make do tend to look pretty similar, and the memory pool you use up when making the map is pretty small). They also have a lot of challenged for you to play through, and *lots* of unlockables.

The original Timesplitters game was OK, but very inferior to the later two game. It's only on the PS2, and it's single player game is played through the multiplayer levels, rather than a real, story-led single player campaign. It has nowhere near the content of the later two games, and while it's playable enough, it's far from being a must-play.

If you want to see a review of Timesplitters 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRCV4sZWZAs



And Timesplitters: Future Perfect

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

[674304a9683d8voodoo47]

so was War for the Overworld - the game had two engine switches and lived, so yeah, doing that isn't necessarily a death sentence, but additional delays and/or problems are pretty much inevitable.

[674304a968773Myagi]

NDS changed engines and ate up all their funding.

The engine switch wasn't the cause for that. It was that they at the same time also decided to entirely ditch their plans and level work and start from basically scratch and do something different. A switch certainly costs some dev time, but had they migrated over their level content 1:1 from Unity and continued the direction they had already taken, things would've been looking very different*. Pissing away all the time after the engine switch on figuring out what their "new" game should look and play like, instead of continuing churning out levels full steam with the style established in the prototype, that is what ate up their funding.


(* still no guarantee for success, but they would've been a lot further along)

[674304a9688a7johnretroreload]

Duke Nukem Forever was horrendous.
JosiahJack - Looking forward to the new version and I agree Unity is the way forward..

[674304a9689ecicemann]

What became later known as "The Bureau" followed a similar pattern. Engine and gameplay changes. Final game was a bit of a mixed bag. I liked it, but I can completely see why most others don't.

I'd have preferred it's original FPS incarnation which went for a more darker direction. In that form it looked awesome. What we got instead was good but not great.

When you have something faithful to go alongside it (Firaxis's XCOM reboot), going off in a completely different direction is perfectly fine as your getting the best of both worlds that way.

[674304a968ad4JosiahJack]

Quick blurb: Getting the hopper to melt when it dies is making me pull my hair out

[674304a968c77Synaesthesia]

Why not just have it blow up instead? Some of the death animations in SS1 made very little sense, after all.

[674304a968f31Olfred]

Quick blurb: Getting the hopper to melt when it dies is making me pull my hair out

You could create a model that uses blendshapes for the melting effect, and when you want to start the death animation you just swap it out.
Why the swap? Well, so all the extra blendshape stuff doesn't get in the way of the usual model, but it could be done in one.

[674304a969362Marvin]

Why not just have it blow up instead? Some of the death animations in SS1 made very little sense, after all.

'cause the hopper's death animation is one of if not the coolest one in SS1. It has to be in there. Too iconic.

[674304a9694e8JosiahJack]

X Force Door:

A door Josiah?  Really?  That's all you're showing us.

Today yep.

[674304a9695ebvoodoo47]

doorporn

[674304a9696e7JDoran]

Josiah, if the SS source code does get released soon, is there anything you're hoping to learn from it, or do you know everything already from your own tests and observations?

[674304a969803JosiahJack]

Source code plans:
Replicate minigame source code (as applicable)
Double check patch effect timers
Check out the code for cyberspace wall pattern (conway's game of life).