SSR System Shock Remake Feedback Request - Night Dive Studios

[67415c584dffdKolya]

So a part of the colour data is used to identiy the material. Tricky. Does it still go into rendering or is that completely separate?

[67415c584e309ZylonBane]

So a part of the colour data is used to identiy the material.

No, I believe what he's saying is that each texture is rendered as a solid color, where the palette index is equivalent to the texture index (+/- offset). Texture 1 rendered as color 1, texture 2 rendered as color 2, etc.

[67415c584e68aJosiahJack]

It's been done before in Unity: CustomOcclusionCulling

[67415c584e8e1Join2]

Game graphics rendering I stand in awe of. Carmack is said to have stated it is a more complicated than rocket science/aerospace engineering, being one of few people to have done both.

Hmm, stumbled upon this interesting Carmack trivia:

Here's He admits the id Software developers got into bitter arguments about whether to include "crouch" and "use" keys in the upcoming game [Doom 3]. (He lost the debate over "crouch"  which now appears, but convinced the team there was no need for a "use" key.)

Sounds familiar...

How did doors work in Doom 3 again if there was no use key? Most of them were automated if I recall correctly, and a few had those monitor displays you press  "shoot" on.

Anyhow, not intending to derail here, carry on.

[67415c584ea21Hikari]

Curious. Thanks for sharing dudebro.

[67415c584ebacDrone-Dragon]

Some feedback for Night Dive/Otherside.

The game configuration shouldn't be like it was in the original, that is, mission, cyber, combat, puzzle. It should all be factored into overall difficulty. Also game difficulty shouldn't be based around a time limit but by the 'real' challenge of a game, especially with respawning enemies if you do the remake like SS2 in that regard. An overall game time limit would just make the game feel like a mad dash to the end, missing stuff along the way. The imperative should come from limited supplies versus respawning enemies, like in SS2. Not saying that timed parts of the game wouldn't be fun, just that the overall game shouldn't have a time limit to beat it for the max challenge. I only mention this because a timed game was an option for the game in the original.

Also, depending on how you guys rework the weapons the RF-07 Skorpion shouldn't be as overpowered as it was in the original.

 

[67415c584eea6Gawain]

It's been done before in Unity: CustomOcclusionCulling

Yes! Thanks for the example. The color per object thing is at the bottom. Just ignore the PVS stuff at the beginning.

[67415c584f131Gawain]

So a part of the colour data is used to identiy the material. Tricky. Does it still go into rendering or is that completely separate?

Like ZB said. There is additional data added to material that is rendered to separate buffer (not visible to user, just in memory).
Nowadays you already render multiple buffers at the same time. Some for color, one for depth and one for motion blur etc. You could add this id data to be rendered at same time.
There is actually many more buffers rendered. This is called deferred rendering.

Edit: Just to make things more interesting. Buffers don't need to be colors (RGB or ARGB) but can be just integer values. 16bit would propably be enought for SS1. There would be room for 1023 object types after the level textures.

[67415c584f297Matty]

There's no need to render the impact surface information to the gbuffer. Adding extra textures to it is certainly not cheap.

Fetching the texture or material from the raycast hit is one way to do it. We currently use colliders on the prefabs that tell the effects system what type of surface it is.

[67415c584f4e0Gawain]

Fetching the texture or material from the raycast hit is one way to do it. We currently use colliders on the prefabs that tell the effects system what type of surface it is.

Doesn't work with submeshes/multiple materials. Which was the whole point of this thread derailing.

[67415c584f60eMatty]

It would be fairly simple in code to derive the material or texture from the uvs on the triangle hit, even if multiple materials are involved. I considered implementing it this way for SS Remastered, but ended up going with a box collider trigger approach instead. It's important not to put too many restrictions on the art pipeline.

[67415c584f99eMatty]

Some feedback for Night Dive/Otherside.

The game configuration shouldn't be like it was in the original, that is, mission, cyber, combat, puzzle. It should all be factored into overall difficulty. Also game difficulty shouldn't be based around a time limit but by the 'real' challenge of a game, especially with respawning enemies if you do the remake like SS2 in that regard. An overall game time limit would just make the game feel like a mad dash to the end, missing stuff along the way. The imperative should come from limited supplies versus respawning enemies, like in SS2. Not saying that timed parts of the game wouldn't be fun, just that the overall game shouldn't have a time limit to beat it for the max challenge. I only mention this because a timed game was an option for the game in the original.

Also, depending on how you guys rework the weapons the RF-07 Skorpion shouldn't be as overpowered as it was in the original.

 

I'm not at liberty to get into specifics, but the overall goal is to create a nuanced game experience that isn't streamlined and modern. To do that, we're staying faithful to the original game as much as possible. Only after we have tested it in this form will changes be made based on internal feedback.

Contrary to popular belief, we read these forums regularly and consider issues brought up by the community.

[67415c584faa6Hikari]

Hey guy its nothing personal. It's I simply make the assumption nobody listens. Leaves me pleasantly surprised when they do.

[67415c584fdacZylonBane]

Contrary to popular belief, we read these forums regularly ...

You have my sympathies.

[67415c5851632Learonys]

Also game difficulty shouldn't be based around a time limit but by the 'real' challenge of a game, especially with respawning enemies if you do the remake like SS2 in that regard. An overall game time limit would just make the game feel like a mad dash to the end, missing stuff along the way. The imperative should come from limited supplies versus respawning enemies, like in SS2. Not saying that timed parts of the game wouldn't be fun, just that the overall game shouldn't have a time limit to beat it for the max challenge. I only mention this because a timed game was an option for the game in the original.

If this would be the case, then why does the game try to give the player a feeling as if he/she is short on time? "The laser is almost calibrated", "The mutagen is almost fully developed", "soon I will download myself into Earth's commnet".  This (imo) did not work well in game as System Shock, which levels are so complex you can spend hours in them and still find hidden rooms. As the completionist that i am, I took all the time I fully needed to fully explore the level, to only realise that this sense of urgency is just fake. This (once again, imo), just took away from the total immersion of the game, albeit only slightly.

Remember how the 3 stages of bridge seperation were announced on the Bridge level, the game would stay on stage 1 until you climbed a huge ladder, and suddendly it entered stage 3 in a matter of 30 seconds. It made no sense to me the first time I played the game.

As much i would love to see segmented time limits to make this sense of urgency work though, I'm not sure how this would work in games that (also) relies on manual saving. If you screw up once with manual saves, you would have to pretty much restart the game, once again turning the game into a Mad Dash like you mentioned.


Maybe... Just maybe you could go in the direction of Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri. Most missions in that game had minimum, expected and complete objectives. (Not) completing minimum, expected or complete objectives would change the dialogue the game had to offer, effectively changing the storyline. This, once again, gives the game a potential of having multiple endings, or having to complete different objectives to archieve the main ending. This makes me think of another game called Chrono Trigger, which had 14 different endings depending on how, and when you completed a certain objective, which then changed the timeline of the game.
Did you not kill the final boss, but another boss you were not supposed to completely kill earlier in the game which prevented the final boss from appearing at all? You have now reached a different ending, with different cutscenes and dialogue in a different timeline!


To put this idea in System Shock... The mining laser was capable of destroying cities, but not destroying the entire planet at once. So, If you did not destroy it before the time limit, another time limit will appear granting the player more time, at the cost of compromising your expected mission, different dialogue and off course a worse ending.

Did the Grove containing the virus actually get launched towards Earth? You can alert them by destroying Shodan and gaining access to the bridge controls, alarming Earth of this threat and having them destroy it before it reaches Earth! Could be a worse ending, I dunno, but it does allow for a much bigger time limit.


What do you guys think? Do you think a time limit could work in System Shock?

[67415c58517d4fox]

I hate time limits in games! Why? Because I want to explore and have completionist-tendencies.

[67415c5851d55Marvin]

Time limits are one of the worst things to put into an exploration based game but if the plot necessitates one, at least make it more lenient or let the duration depend on the difficulty as in the original. A good example is Fallout 1 - there are several interlocking time limits but you can still win the game even if you fail most of the deadlines, albeit with a drastically different world state.

[67415c585345cLearonys]

Time limits are one of the worst things to put into an exploration based game but if the plot necessitates one, at least make it more lenient or let the duration depend on the difficulty as in the original. A good example is Fallout 1 - there are several interlocking time limits but you can still win the game even if you fail most of the deadlines, albeit with a drastically different world state.

Yeah, that's exactly what i thought of. Make most time limits non-mandatory but still relevant to the storyline or maybe even gameplay.

[67415c585360dJoin2]

Agreed with the three posts above, but I think there would be some that enjoy the added realistic tension enforced by a time limit ultimatum. Standing around playing Tri-op minigames or searching every nook and cranny despite already being armed to the teeth is not something anybody really in such a dire situation would do, and there's a nice risk vs reward element to it: should I search this room in exchange for some much-needed time or am I well equipped for now, and furthermore do I even have the time to spare? Personally I wouldn't enjoy that as I like to take my time and explore every nook and cranny even on repeat playthroughs to some extent, but a niche of hardcorers would love it. A very small niche.

[67415c5853927ThiefsieFool]

I think time limits would be nice as long as they go away when circumvented and that's before the end of the game, if the game has proper backtracking you can explore everything even if the plot throws some urgency at you.

[67415c5853a38fox]

Yeah, it's ok for a limited portion of the game, as long as you are able to get back to unlimited exploring afterwards.

[67415c5853d78Gawain]

It would be fairly simple in code to derive the material or texture from the uvs on the triangle hit, even if multiple materials are involved. I considered implementing it this way for SS Remastered, but ended up going with a box collider trigger approach instead. It's important not to put too many restrictions on the art pipeline.

Yes, UV coordinate rules would work great when assets are done by hand.

We were specifically talking about JosiahJack's (and mine) implementation of SS1 level geometry and problems we have had with it. I have automated the generation from tiledata and he has made it by hand. I have one mesh per tile and each used texture is its submesh.

I'm not going to continue about this subject. This is starting to get really offtopic.

[67415c585408dGawain]

internal feedback.

Is there a possibility to be part of it?

[67415c585417bKolya]

Become an employee at Otherside!