SSR: System Shock Kickstarter

[6741988b13a7eThiefsieFool]

that is a hell of a lot of words about what is essentially graphics, when the game was literally just turned into Bioshock as far as reviving goes, and right before launch.

there is no attempt to even mitigate it. no, enemies do not respawn more if you die. they respawn in limited amounts during the times when they usually do, which is around the time when you first enter a level. even on Combat Difficulty 3.

in fact, if you really get down to the brass tacks, Bioshock 2 and Infinite did add some caveats by making enemies heal when you revived, and a resource penalty. here there is nothing. if anything you are helped by getting a chance to resupply and attack once again, probably from a better vantage point this time.

[6741988b13d0cJosiahJack]

Most of my issues that I take with SSR is with needless retcons of the original's story by taking SS2 elements that were invented later according to the lore and stuffing them into SS1...I guess to try to appeal to the larger amount of people who have played SS2?  It comes across as a continuity incompetence.  I'm against when history is rewritten by some artistic pizzazz especially when such changes tend to detract from the gameplay.

There are quite a number of times this happened.  Any one item is not such a big deal...but the sum total gives us the overall sense that either the creators are ignorant, disrespectful, or maybe even making fun of the original.

I'm sad and frustrated that this is less of a game than it could have been, though for anyone to remake it is a difficult undertaking and likely to have issues that they were blind too for being too close or too focussed on the shine-your-shoe things that are difficult to do, and that most people will never pay attention to unless it didn't work.  Still, they seem to have neglected the feedback they were given lending them much less respect than I might otherwise have for them.

[6741988b142a6Pacmikey]

station a Rumbler there to kill you over and over when you respawn - a fate worse than death I'd imagine

Yes, but what about respawning with someone else inside the chamber?

[6741988b1444fvoodoo47]

telefrag.

[6741988b148aaXkilljoy98]

JosiahJackWhich retcons?, I noticed a few things, but not too much major stuff.

[6741988b14a77icemann]

A very small 9mb update to the game just dropped. Who knows if this is the 1st patch or not. At that size though I doubt it.

[edit]
Turns out that was the 1st big update patch. Interesting.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/482400/view/3680050666250671871

[6741988b14cb1Bob]

telefrag.

Take 2 people, assign them both to the same chamber. Have one stand inside, and kill the other. Person 1 telefrags person 2, person 2 respawns into person 1, infinite deathloop.

[6741988b15025Autz]

JosiahJack
IMO, all this shows Nightdive are really noobs, biting more than they can chew, as opposed to malicious intent.

[6741988b15348sarge945]

Is this NightDive's first Unreal Engine game?

While that would explain a lot, they are also quite good at optimising and making things run well, which is traditionally VERY hard for newbies on UE5, since the engine is full of pitfalls and traps that can dog performance if you don't know what you're doing.

[6741988b15706Creamy]

Is this NightDive's first Unreal Engine game?

Yes. It's the first game the studio has released on Unreal Engine. Optimization was a big priority, and on that front, it seems to have paid off. The game appears to fly on the vast majority of machines and scales very well, performance wise. And as divisive and controversial as the art direction may be - the textures being created in this way does come with the benefit of the game having a very small storage footprint on your machine, clocking in at just over 8GB in size.

[6741988b159f6icemann]

Played some more last night after the release of the 1.0 patch:

Improved AI? Yeah no. The AI in place currently is not good. On loading my saved game and heading to the Executive level I was soon attacked by 2 security bots. Killed 1, ran off from the other. I returned to that spot from the opposite direction 2 hours later, and that lone security bot was still standing there where I'd left it. Waiting for me to open the door from that original direction. Not patrolling or anything.

I spent several hours searching through Executive on the search for credit chips since the patch notes mentioned being able to use them on credit ATMs. That part worked fine. However along the way I realised a MAJOR issue. This remake isn't really an immersive sim and more the illusion of one.

In the original and it's sequel, all levels had spawn ecologies that kept certain amounts of enemies active and would spawn in random amounts (after a certain amount of time) so that no area would ever be truly clear. Either the remake doesn't have this or there is a bug preventing it from working. Enemy corpses stay in the level and aren't removed after time has passed (unlike the original or SS2).

You likely won't notice it unless you spend a good chunk of time in a level, but what it looks like their doing isn't a spawn ecology (to keep levels always populated) but rather just spawning in more enemies at key points as you explore and activate triggers. So, sure if you travel through an area that first time, you'll activate stuff and things will seem very alive, but return there later and it's an empty wasteland.

It is very possible that there is a bug with switching off robot production on the Research level, that it may be switching off respawning game wide as there did appear to be respawns going on until then, though I can't be certain.

[6741988b15b55sarge945]

It does have spawn ecologies but they disable at ~15% security level, depending on the level. Obviously bots keep spawning if you haven't turned off robot maintenance in research etc.

I'm not a big fan of the disabling of spawns personally, but I like the overall idea that spawn rate is tied to security. In the original security was only important if you wanted to get to certain areas and didn't affect spawners at all. I feel like a good solution is somewhere in the middle.

[6741988b15d55Pacmikey]

I think most players prefer no spawns, but it does take away from the tension. One reason SS2 is a properly scary game is the constant battle of "Finite Resources VS Infinite Enemies" Lollygag for too long and pay the price.

But then again, is the remake supposed to be scary? SS1 wasn't, and this game kinda tries to be? But not really? IDK. Honestly would prefer if they went full out with SS1's less serious attitude.

Also random rambling: So Diego is British now? Hmm, will that factor into the hypothetical SS2 remake? What if Diego Jr is so repulsed by his father he fakes an American accent? Private audio logs would have him British, but ones addressed to people are American.

[6741988b15e55icemann]

Finite resources to a degree, though infinite enemies does = infinite resources of certain types if your willing to farm a little.

[6741988b16450sarge945]

I think most players prefer no spawns, but it does take away from the tension. One reason SS2 is a properly scary game is the constant battle of "Finite Resources VS Infinite Enemies" Lollygag for too long and pay the price.

Yeah I've never liked farmable resources as a mechanic, but not respawning enemies makes returning to decks mostly tedious.

Especially in SS1, the mutants are very easy to kill and reliably drop medi patches, so it's very easy to farm extreme amounts of them.

I really wish there was a way to make spawned enemies never contain resources. Maybe an idea for a possible SS2 mod.

Also random rambling: So Diego is British now? Hmm, will that factor into the hypothetical SS2 remake? What if Diego Jr is so repulsed by his father he fakes an American accent? Private audio logs would have him British, but ones addressed to people are American.

South African actually. It's feasible in the globally connected world for people to have different accents than their parents.

[6741988b16762Autz]

Yes. It's the first game the studio has released on Unreal Engine. Optimization was a big priority, and on that front, it seems to have paid off. The game appears to fly on the vast majority of machines and scales very well, performance wise. And as divisive and controversial as the art direction may be - the textures being created in this way does come with the benefit of the game having a very small storage footprint on your machine, clocking in at just over 8GB in size.

Yeah, has a very optimized culling and exterior rendering that I saw with the debug camera, and LOD enemies and stuff.

Also, its kinda funny one of the errors that were present since 2022 got fixed with the 1.0 patch because I casually mentioned that glitch to one of the programmers on their discord. He even explained how it happened.

[6741988b16aa2Creamy]

I casually mentioned that glitch to one of the programmers on their discord. He even explained how it happened.

Yeah, Matthew's awesome. I appreciate he takes the time to explain the issue too, even if much of it does go over my head!

And slight correction, he's not "one of the programmers", he was THE programmer. I'm pretty certain he wrote all the games code. What they achieved on this front, I don't think anyone can dispute.

[6741988b16dfaLordTrashcan]

Yeah, Matthew's awesome. I appreciate he takes the time to explain the issue too, even if much of it does go over my head!

And slight correction, he's not "one of the programmers", he was THE programmer. I'm pretty certain he wrote all the games code. What they achieved on this front, I don't think anyone can dispute.

The game has been in development for a long time, this isn't really that crazy.

[6741988b16f99fox]

Firearms Expert Reacts To System Shock (2023)’s Guns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E23aCuH1Ps

[6741988b17278sarge945]

Also, its kinda funny one of the errors that were present since 2022 got fixed with the 1.0 patch because I casually mentioned that glitch to one of the programmers on their discord. He even explained how it happened.

What was the error and what caused it?

My programmer brain is intrigued

[6741988b1754aAutz]

What was the error and what caused it?

My programmer brain is intrigued

An audio log dissapearing the character's portrait if you played it on top of another audio log currently playing. The explanation it gave me was some race condition between the 2 logs that determined when to show or hide the portrait.

But now there's another error, and that I can't play the audio logs from the menu using the keyboard (with default key F).

[6741988b176b4ZylonBane]

Oh, does F still only work for a few seconds to play the last picked up log, or did the release version change it to work permanently?

[6741988b17861Nameless Voice]

Pretty sure it's still only available for a few seconds.

[6741988b1794dZylonBane]

I literally cannot think of any reason to do that other than hatred for the player.