Citadel - System Shock Fan Remake

[6741002aabbb2icemann]

I'd love to have your motivation. I have so many unfinished projects. If I had the drive, be good to finish them. Just so busy with work, that when I do get free time I just want to play games to unwind.

[6741002aabd3bJosiahJack]

Nobody said it was easy lol.

Uploading next build, all 3 of windoze, linux, and mac coming soon.

[6741002aabec2PKD-NeXuS]

Hi @JosiahJack !
This looks absolutely awesome, fantastic stuff. Can't wait to get my hands on this.

[6741002aac05bJosiahJack]

Welp...if I can keep from breaking the most basic things...I'll have a new build soon.   

In other news, I have saving and loading at under half a second in Windows builds.  Not sure how it will be in Linux and Mac however since those still use an older slower compiler.  Also memory usage is reduced from 2.4gig RAM down to 1.4gig.  Recommended minimum system spec is 2gig.  Total game size is just under 300MB, and compresses to a download of 203MB zipped, 138MB as a .7z.  Hope no one minds me switching builds to distribute as .7z files.

I should alao caveat my 60fps achievement by specifying that it was in 1366x768 resolution and that now I've optimized a little further.  Granted this is on my 7yr old rig:
1366x768 - 75fps
1920x1080 - 48fps
2560x1440 - 38fps

At high res, mouse movement feels sluggish, I'll add a mouse sensitivity option since most people don't have a gaming mouse like I do where I can just crank it up on the mouse.

[6741002aac165JosiahJack]

Getting cyberspace made.  No incomplete floppy releases allowed here...I try to learn from history.

[6741002aac245JosiahJack]

Got the care package, thank you so much! 

[6741002aac61cRocketMan]

I have a dumb question.  How do I get the latest playtest version?  Because the version I was explicitly given a link to functioned well enough but with a kind of fubar'd save system it made it hard for me to give more than a superficial feedback.  I'd be able to do more if the save system now works AND if I could be provided a couple of save files from the later levels, where there's more to judge.

[6741002aac768JosiahJack]

I should send out another build now that saving is 99% working.  At the moment I'm manually sending people a link. I did add load# and loadarsenal# cheats where you enter the number for each level to load and inventory arsenal that you'd "normally" have by that point...."normally" meaning what I myself would have kept up till then.

Hmm...drat I was supposed to send out Linux and Mac builds too.  Had a lot of family stuff going on the past couple months.  Haven't had much Citadel time now that work is back fulltime.

[6741002aac859icemann]

Once you get it to the point where it's at 1.0 or greater should get more people involved to handle any post release stuff. Just my thinking.

[6741002aac940JosiahJack]

I have a vision for this that includes certain details.  I figure that the extra effort is worth it.  Thank you all for your patience and support.

[6741002aaca0ehekk]

Wow, still alive and kicking!

[6741002aacaf8JosiahJack]

Yep.

You can save in cyberspace now.

Added shield generator panels out the windows.

Added a bunch of ambient sound effects.  Make it live!

[6741002aacf24JosiahJack]

Project total status:
Estimated time required: 42hrs minimum, possibly 55hrs or more depending on bugfixing.
Typical hours available per week (accounting for life, work, etc.): only 12

Item break down:
3D Modeling: 5hrs, 99.5% complete 18 tasks remaining
Prefabs: 8hrs 99% 8 items
UI: 2hrs 104% 4items
Code: 4hrs 96% 18 items
Details: 2hrs 112% 11items
Testing and Bugfixing: 21hrs 55% 21items

Time estimates are averages based on how long it has usually taken me to complete certain tasks.  3D models typically take me 17min on average, for instance, with some taking 5min and others 2hrs.

Note: Items with higher than 100% indicate where I went beyond oroginal scope and added additional features, well they looked cool...this is for fun after all.

Attempting to enter full test stage with all other tasks complete excepting bugfixing by 9/12, I hope. Maybe.  There will be some life disruptions, vacation afk over 9/5 weekend which will lose me about 10hrs.  A few family get togethers also for some birthdays including my wife's birthday will also make me lose about 6hrs. This off the normal 12 per week.

Notice I have not included any time for PR, screenshots, etc.  I'm really pushing to get everything wrapped up as a complete vision for this...only thing not going to make it in is the HUD minigames...unless you all make a fuss for them then I'll enter testing stage sometime around Halloween instead of 9/12 

Once I get to purely test stage, I'll do another round of closed alpha releases so that I'm not the only one testing everything, esp cyberspace.   

Main features remaining to complete are: fog of war for the automap (bit borked atm), cyberspace (quite a bit left), UI tweaks for genius patch, the last few walls/floors to turn into 3D models - only 10 left out of 226 woop woop!  I remember all those years ago modeling reac1_2 in Blender before I had even started anything else for Citadel.  Finishing it was the original spark that lit the flames of motiviation.  Here's reac1_2, the red pipe wall:\

What details you ask?  Stuff like this:

[6741002aad0a7JosiahJack]

Don't hate me for wasting time on details like this...it's too much fun!

Lights means science

[6741002aad1a1JosiahJack]

And by popular request...

[6741002aad47bMarvin]

Beautiful. Can't wait!

[6741002aad5faJosiahJack]

Random source code musing
Wierd ramping to the cybershield's effect.  It's almost useless on the lower versions.  The formula is "(MAX_CSHIELD_ABSORB / (NUM_CSHIELD_LEVELS - (lev)))" where lev is the version and max absorb is 120 and num levels is 10.  Maximum version is only 9 though.  I make graphs like this from time to time to confirm my formula is correct.  The energy drain and energy damage formula is a similar subtle S-curve with logarithmic increase at the highest setting.  Also practically useless on lowest levels.  This sort of thing should really get added to the wiki someday.

[6741002aad761Kolya]

Someone fudged this badly. From version 8 to 9 there's a 50% increase. From 1 to 2 it's 0.65%.

[6741002aad899JosiahJack]

Yeah, I'm linearizing it to 10% on v1 up to 50% on v9 with 5% increment for each version.

The final cyberspace battle will not be so anticlimactic, boring, or lame.

We'll see how well my fast paced shooting action interprets to the 6axis space.  I'm already planning on having the lean keys do rolling in cspace, I'll also do c/v for up down.  There is strafing too.  I'm hoping it will feel more like piloting a highly maneuverable spaceship rather than a clunky sluggish airplane.

[6741002aad9dfZylonBane]

Linear warriors, quadratic wizards.

[6741002aadb66JosiahJack]

Sounds almost like a band.  I can see their first album title...Overcoming Asymptotes, by the Quadratic Wizards.



So....good news.  I'm going to be at home all this next week.  Work sent me home as part of contact tracing spread preventation.  Good to be careful.  I feel fine too.

This is especially good for Citadel's progress.

Speaking of progress, today I finished:
Cyberspace inventory and softs versioning
Cyberspace HUD
All cyberspace pickups
Cyberspace Ice
Cyberspace health system
Cybershield
Cyberspace bullets and bullet pool
Pooled bulletholes.
Fixed health tick update bug.
Added cyberspace data messages...these were stored in a different .RES file so I hadn't even had these in the list.

[6741002aae126JosiahJack]

 

 

[6741002aae2bcnil imagination]

These are great. Videos would be nice as well

[6741002aae419JosiahJack]

So I was perusing the source code to see how music events were handled and in the check function for objects in proximity that sets whether to play the nearby enemy peril riffs, I noticed that there is a "shodanizing" check.  So basically, when the player is near screens that play static, there is a random chance that SHODAN's face animation will play.  That's cool.  She's watching you.