Citadel - System Shock Fan Remake

[674118ff43e09Xkilljoy98]

So what is the progress/status on this?

Last I checked it wasn't finished and IDK if anything has changed since then.

[674118ff43fa3JDoran]

JosiahJack, like many others, I'm  eagerly awaiting a release of Citadel (all the more so since SSR is seemingly as far away as ever...). Please let us know if you find time to work on it.

[674118ff440b4Xkilljoy98]

Yeah, with SSR being I assume far away since that is all it ever has been and given the changes it makes this fan remake does intrigue me. IK it isn't as HD but still, low poly 3D have charm too.

[674118ff44410JosiahJack]

Still at it.  Just about have the save system fixed.  It's been the hardest most grueling part to get right.  Large number of edge cases that all have to be handled for all the 165000 some odd saveable objects and all has to be done very quickly.  Lots of off-by-one errors, mistaking data types, setting things to negative for null when they need to be 0 or verse visa.

Sorry for not providing updates in a while.  Been hard at it though.  Not much to show other than a bunch of commits on github and thousands of lines of code changed/written (https://github.com/JosiahJack/Citadel/commits/master).  Not neglected, just trying my darndest to get this to a reliably playable state for a next beta test build.

Wouldn't want people to get halfway through only to load a save and have the bots rolling around on the floor, the items frozen and the doors missing and dozens of other wacky bugs that I've been fixing.

Should have stuff fixed to play nice with German keyboards and European decimal notation (, vs .) too so that all the data tables are loaded properly for those, though that will need those who have that to confirm once next release is out.

Should also now have ability to reset to defaults or to set config to classic keybinds.

And I improved performance in quite a few areas, notably the huge slowdown from the view distances and large number of lights + poly's in level 8 so it will be at least playable on potatoes.  Oh and I exposed an option to turn on shadows, SSR, and a few other snazzy things if you have the beefy rig to handle it (aka, something newer than ~2015 or so).

[674118ff44575JosiahJack]

I also wrote a bunch of testing scripts to parse through all the objects automatically and check for errors in how I set them up, missing I/O target links between, e.g. switches and doors, missing components, etc. etc.  Found and fixed dozens of otherwise difficult to detect bugs.  Many would go unnoticed by most players but this did find at least 3 game breaking bugs that wouldn't have affected a playthrough until very late into the game which would of course suck.  Definitely worth the effort I 'd say for the couple weeks it took to set that up for all the different types of objects.

[674118ff446abJosiahJack]

I'm curious if this page is accessible by others.  Looks like my CI is working... 

https://github.com/JosiahJack/Citadel/actions/runs/3391326025

[674118ff44802Berathraben]

I can view the page with out any problems.

[674118ff449c9voodoo47]

you have to be logged in to actually download though.

[674118ff44ad4Berathraben]

I logged in after and the downloads all seem to be active. I just tried out the Windows stand alone build and it is pitch black.




[SS-citadel.jpg expired]

[674118ff44c16JosiahJack]

Ha!  Cool.  This means I can have it do builds automatically now whenever I make changes.

I'm curious if you do tilde then type in 'summon_obj 28' for lantern and 53 for battery and let me know if that light works.  It'll spawn straight below you.  I recently separated out the main level lights for performance and memory reasons where they load separately and they might not be populating properly.  Might try 'load 2' then 'load 1' to see if the lights are there. 

[674118ff44dceBerathraben]

I tried spawning the lantern and I cant find it anywhere. I looked around with out moving. I don't see it show up.

I also tried load slot 2 and then load slot 1 and it is still dark.  I also notice that the fatigue notification pops up after one or two jumps.

I found some steam effects and a light source. I am not sure where they are coming from though.

At one point I was wandering around in the cryo suite and was attacked by a serve bot. I think that I am clipping through the walls because I found a neon sign that said healing suite and that is when i was attacked.

another post edit: I just clipped through the station floor and was attacked by what sounded like an avian mutant.


[ss citadel 2.jpg expired]
[ss citadel 3.jpg expired]
[ss citadel 4.jpg expired]

[674118ff44eeaJosiahJack]

Hmm weird.  I have the same issue running the auto build, but all is fine on what I built on my own computer (other than jumping).  Must be an issue in the build process.

[674118ff44fe3JosiahJack]

Ohhhh, ha!  Blender isn't installed on the remote so no models are in the autobuild.  I'll add the cached fbx's from my local.

[674118ff450e3Berathraben]

  hah. that being the problem would never have occurred to me

[674118ff45222JosiahJack]

It explains not being to pick up the lantern since it would be nonsolid as that one uses its model for the collider given its wonky shape.

Try this one in the interim to help me prove that that is the culprit: Citadel_DevBuild_Win64 (199.1MB .zip)

[674118ff45418Berathraben]

That one is working out of the box. In the Windows stand alone build the game also asked me to navigate to a folder from the original game for the music. This build does not.

I have, however, found one small bug so far. When you select the hackers notes that text does not go away when you select the audio log from rebecca. The two texts over lap each other on the hud and you cant select the audio log to listen to it. If you don't select the note first you can play the audio log. Edit: In subsequent attempts to access audio logs the hud seems to open the notes by default and any new logs or emails cannot be played.

Edit: I also noticed that the hud mini map overlaps with the item inventory hud when it is enabled. Some of the hud displays don't seem to scale properly with each other. Maybe something to do with the available resolutions? 1280 x 1024 is the highest.

Alt tabbing out of the game also crashes it when in full screen.

Edit: The door does not open when you grab group access 1. It still notifies the player that they need it.
[ss citadel text overlap.jpg expired]
[ss citadel mini map overlap.jpg expired]
[ss citadel log email overlap default when selecting new emails notification.jpg expired]
[ss citadel group one access.jpg expired]
[ss citadel more text overlap.jpg expired]

[674118ff4557dBerathraben]

I encountered a cyberspace glitch and clipped through the level. Them lay out is looking good. There is no transparency though and all the walls are these pinkish and white tiles .

Edit: In my second try of cyber space I took a shot of the area where I clipped through. The player clips through both the ceiling and the floor of this room in the pic. None of the items in the room can be taken and the one enemy tracks you but does not attack and cannot be hurt.
[ss citadel cyberspace glitch. .jpg expired]
[ss citadel hello SHODAN.jpg expired]
[ss citadel clip in this room. .jpg expired]

[674118ff456afJosiahJack]

Yeah, a couple more import errors due to the build process.  I see what to do to get it sorted but there are some aspects about how things are imported and transferred between PC's that can screw things up too easily.  I might just build it all on my local for now so this kind of thing doesn't keep happening.

[674118ff45979Berathraben]

JosiahJack
Yeah. If there are false bugs that are popping up that are not in the builds on your end it might be worth it to delay public builds (or at least tell people that bugs encountered might not be accurate). it would save having to wade through false bug reports unnecessarily.Especially if they are not useful. If that is what is happening?

But at least this helped track down an important issue with the build process it self!

[674118ff45b20JosiahJack]

Yeah, thanks for looking though.  It's still useful.  At least 3 of what you reported was unrelated to the build process.  I might do a local one next after a bit as more eyes on are helpful.  I set it up so that you could cheat yourself to various levels (load #) and then cheat yourself the items you might reasonably have acquired by that point (loadarsenal #) so that playtesting wouldn't always have to start on the now quite trite level 1.

I'm curious how well the various graphics settings behave for you.  Do you notice random white squares artifacts if Bloom and Reflections are both enabled at once?  Might just be a driver issue on my end.

[674118ff45d2bBerathraben]

I will investigate that for you. So far I have mostly played with out bloom and reflections enabled. Last time I did it caused major lag and slow downs. My computer is running a amd 5800 X,  RX 5700 XT, and 32 gb of ram so that should not be that much of an issue.

I did not notice any white squares last time I tried.

I did just encounter some save corruption though. I made 2 or 3 save overwrites in one slot and it seems they did not take as when I loaded the save it took me back to the starting point with no progression. I then tried to reload the save and it hangs on a loading screen.

I can keep reporting what ever bugs or issues I encounter if you still want. As long as you find some of them are useful to you.

As for Graphic settings overall they are not persistent and have to be adjusted every time I start the game.

Edit: I just tried starting a new game and the same load error happens regardless of it being a saved game or not.

[ss citadel save coruption .jpg expired]

[674118ff45ebePacmikey]

.

[674118ff46059ZylonBane]

Not loving the skinny health arrows.

[674118ff462a4JosiahJack]

Ok, looks like I finally have the CI build system working properly, which was involved.... 62 tries later and finally have it working.  Should be able to get latest dev builds from Citadel Build Actions for your platform by selecting the latest successful build and downloading the zip at the bottom of the page in the rather poorly named Artifacts section, latest one here for convenience.  I tried it on my end (except the Mac one) and seems to be working.  Looks like I have the default config set to the max settings so you may want to change that before starting a new game.  I should really look into the prebuild scripts to reset some of the stuff that fiddling about in the editor likes to change on disk such as blanking out saves and such.

I've fixed a few bugs for resetting a new game or getting in weird states after death, and cyberspace walls, but there are some systemic issues that appear to be related to the way Unity handles its scenes that break save loading, so savegames are still sadly broken.

I have a half-solution working already for the lights which I may end up extending for all dynamic saveable objects to avoid Unity's shenanigans that are out of my control.  I'll toss that one into my now quite large pile of 'reasons I should have made my own engine'.  Ah well, ever onward to make what I have work.