Citadel - System Shock Fan Remake

[6741ef084c7c7JDoran]

This thread has gone somewhat surreal lately! 

[6741ef084c952JosiahJack]

Ya bit off-topic.  Sorry folks.  I get a bit excited about injection molding.  Anyhow...

[6741ef084cc94RocketMan]

I do too, when the mold is a woman.

Har har har 

[6741ef084ce01Kolya]

I frequently need a moment to decide whether to face palm or laugh out loud at the blithe indelicacy of your remarks and then end up doing both at the same time.

[6741ef084cf44RocketMan]

I face a similar dilemma when re-reading my posts a day after I publish them 

[6741ef084d072JosiahJack]

Ahh injection humor on a System Shock thread, my life is complete.

On an on-topic note, you might find it interesting to know that injection molding lets me record the sounds of large servo motors, hydraulics, and all other manner of industrial sounds for making any sound effects for the background ambience of a space station.

[6741ef084d1b6Kolya]

I have found that some air cons make an excellent spaceship hum. Apparently I'm not the only fan. There's hours of it on youtube.

EDIT: Oh oh, check this one: Cessna Caravan Airplane Interior

[6741ef084d325JosiahJack]

Great an ASMR video har har.  One of the great things about working in a factory is that it gives one a great imagination for all the workings of a space station.  So many pipes and wires and hoses, relays and switches and circuits...a schematic of each type of resource available on the station would be cool as.  Just think, a drawing for the life support air supply, drawing of the reactor coolant flow circuit diagram with all of its high heat resistant hoses...

Sigh, sadly most all the work for adding nifty details to Citadel comes secondary to the gameplay, and that comes secondary to my thesis.

[6741ef084d417RocketMan]

Well then I'll help you finish the damn thing... Citadel beckons!

[6741ef084d52fJustAWrench]

Is this project still alive?

I just said "Nah." to SHODAN for the first time in my life, and I'm aching to play SS1, but goddamn is the UI so clunky, and this is coming from a guy who played stuff on Atari...

[6741ef084d70evoodoo47]

the GOG EE version makes it much more bearable, if that's not enough you will either have to wait for Citadel (yes, alive), or the full source port that will hopefully come one day after NDS release SS1 source code.

[6741ef084d864JustAWrench]

Glad to hear that, thumbs up for the work you put in.

GOG EE is still all over the place, I constantly have to fight mfd/inventory popping up, switching, or doing whatever it pleases. And I don't really like playing in non-fullscreen mode, so yeah, call me spoiled. 

[6741ef084d968JosiahJack]

Yup.  Always alive, unless I'm not.  Real life getting in the way at the moment though.  You know how it goes, typical of any such project as this.

[6741ef084daaaJosiahJack]

You might be interested to know that I've successfully created a comma delimited text file containing all the log texts, subjects, sender, and other metadata.  And that Citadel can import it into its master Constants tables so that any audiologs in the game world need only have a simple index integer to refer to the lists for all data for that log.

I might just be array crazy, but I find this stuff rather fun.  It minimizes time to put the items in the levels later, whenever I'll get to that. 

[6741ef084dc05RocketMan]

The CSV format is the greatest invention since wireless toilet paper!  Props dude!

[6741ef084dd5fJosiahJack]

Interesting...so in the US we use the word "antennae" as the plural form of an insect or animal's sensors, while "antennas" refers to the mechanical sensors.  In SHODAN's email, SHODAN-87, the subject is "antennae" (without the quotes), yet the antenna type referred to is the ones you just destroyed, clearly metal.  I find it ironic since SHODAN is always calling you an insect and calls the antennas on its station the type that insects have.  Also, wierdly SHODAN pronounces the word with a somewhat British accent so maybe that is why "antennae" is used.

Anyhow, the things you think of while typing up a long CSV list of all logs and emails.

[6741ef084df3cJosiahJack]

More updates...finally did a commit of all the little improvements and additiona from the past couple months.  Over 1000 added lines of code and 69 files.  The audiolog system is now close to feature complete.  Email and cyber Data needs work still.

Hardware pickups now support different versions.

Added a few hotkeys for hardwarw activation and playing the last log.  Still need to add the cancel log play back hotkey.

Searching and frobbing is working well, so far no bugs in all my numerous testing.  Sadly, no grid inventory at the moment, purely the original text based inventory.  I don't see this changing anytime soon since it is difficult to impose the seven slot limit effectively for weapons.

Crap this game has so many systems its shocking.

Details of update here:
commit49

[6741ef084e305RocketMan]

Sadly, no grid inventory at the moment, purely the original text based inventory.  I don't see this changing anytime soon since it is difficult to impose the seven slot limit effectively for weapons.

Damn... and I was really looking forward to that.  Oh well, guess I'll have to make do with the original format

[6741ef084e482Join2]

No matter. People can mod the mod. Finally we'll have a fully moddable System Shock.

[6741ef084e6f2JDoran]

No matter. People can mod the mod. Finally we'll have a fully moddable System Shock.

This isn't a mod, though, it's a port (though of course your point still stands). Or else it would definitely be in my list of most wanted mods instead of most wanted ports!

Or is it a remake? Or a conversion? A migration? I can't keep up with the way slang changes, I'm still trying to work out how 'sick' can be used as a synonym for good 

[6741ef084e926voodoo47]

I would call it an engine clone.


//let me copy paste a list of terms I use from one other forum;

-source port: the good stuff, you have the source, you make it run on new pcs, ZDoom for example.
-engine clone: you take all the resources, load them with a new engine, and recreate all the functionality so it would be as close to the original as possible (painstakingly, one might add). Citadel would go here, BloodCM as well, and HL: Source too (though they had the luxury of having the all the source code so nothing painstaking happened there, probably).
-remaster: functionally the same as the original (plus stuff like updated controls and  UI), but with new resources (and/or engine), like Homeworld remastered.
-remake: a new author's vision of the original. most stuff is preserved (game type, setting), but a lot of things are done in a way the new dev sees fit. Black Mesa, and System Shock 2017 (2018, most likely).
-reboot: we move even further, only very basic stuff is preserved, like a one man army marine vs demons. Doom4.

[6741ef084eabfJosiahJack]

I don't really get too bogged down in terms.  What we have here under voodoo's definitions is a hybrid clone remaster.  However, that is purely looking at current state.  If you could see the vision that I have for Citadel (phew, eventually mind you) then it would fall more in the remaster category.  Currently Citadel uses the audio, text, and the wall and floor textures from the original game.  That's it.  All else is made by me or others such as the 3d models, all of the code.  Then you finally gave a gray area of textures that I've modified such as the menus and item model texture skins.  And lastly you have the lack of pallete cycling so you have my handmade animated textures, granted, made with the source as a base.

So sure, reclonster.

[6741ef084ebc9voodoo47]

when you sum it up like that, yeah, it does sound more like a remaster now. no need to invent more terms, you just moved one tier up, that's all.

[6741ef084f11bJDoran]

I don't really get too bogged down in terms.  What we have here under voodoo's definitions is a hybrid clone remaster.  However, that is purely looking at current state.  If you could see the vision that I have for Citadel (phew, eventually mind you) then it would fall more in the remaster category.  Currently Citadel uses the audio, text, and the wall and floor textures from the original game.  That's it.  All else is made by me or others such as the 3d models, all of the code.  Then you finally gave a gray area of textures that I've modified such as the menus and item model texture skins.  And lastly you have the lack of pallete cycling so you have my handmade animated textures, granted, made with the source as a base.

So sure, reclonster.

Oh, I agree, labels aren't too important, especially in this context, where we all know what the product is. I do like Voodoo's explanation of various terms, though.

And I don't doubt that when you've finished Citadel, it wil be amazing, not just System Shock, but System Shock if the original's designers had made it with mid-2010 technology and experience.

- remonster:  new version of a film/game that was already crap the first time around, see: Independence Day: Regurgitated, Alien vs. Predator: Respiratory Problems

They're not remaking Alien vs. Predator, are they? The original was rubbish, but it was only a relatively recent movie (ten years back?). Mind you, I don't see the need for remaking a movie even if it's sixty years old. It'd be like rewriting Wuthering Heights, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Hamlet.