[Obsolete] SS2 Community Patch (SCP) Beta 4

[67418de5d8688Team SCP]

Tags: °gamesys °mis °string °texture °sound °object °SS2

This version of SCP is obsolete, retained only for historical reference.
Click here for the current version.

System Shock 2 Community Patch (SCP) — Beta 4

"Is There No Escape From This Madhouse?" Release

About
SCP is intended to serve as an unofficial patch for System Shock 2 that delivers an authentic but also highly polished SS2 gameplay experience—hopefully approximating the form SS2 would have taken if Irrational had had a few more months to work on it before release. All changes have been made with the intent of respecting Irrational’s original vision. The other goal of SCP is to upgrade SS2 to take advantage of the enhanced graphical features of the NewDark engine in those ways that are beyond the means of standalone mods.

The guiding principle for SCP has been that SS2’s gameplay is fine as-is, and that its greatest strength is immersion—its ability to make players feel like they’re really trapped on board the Von Braun with all its horrors. So while we’ve tweaked game systems and made adjustments to the level geometry, the goal hasn’t been balancing gameplay, but rather eliminating those things that don’t make sense to the point that they take you out of the game. Anything illogical, gamey, or otherwise immersion-breaking, we’ve tried to correct.

SCP requires System Shock 2 patched to version 2.46+ (SS2Tool) and you need to start a new game.

SHTUP-ND and 400 are highly recommended for use with SCP.

The RealSG addon will make the shotgun hybrids wield an actual shotgun, making things look nicer (also display the proper model if a shotgun object mod is installed). Load with a higher priority than SCP (also see the readme). If using Rebirth, get the Rebirth version. Also, while built primarily with SCP in mind, it actually does work with (SS2tool patched) vanilla game as well. RttUNN and Minstrel fan missions are supported too.

Report any issues (other than installation issues) in this thread.

Download Here (please try these links first)
SCP_beta4.7z
SCP_beta4_readme.pdf

[67418de5d8976ZylonBane]

Here we go again! So this release we made heavy use of the new Squirrel scripting support to implement a lot of really cool stuff. One might even say we went a little nuts with it.

[67418de5d8b13voodoo47]

and it can be considered a milestone - with the wormheart implant and wormskin armor finally fixed, from this moment on, SS2 has no more outright bugs as far as I'm aware (so if it still were ADaoB, it would be just AD now). I mean sure, we can tweak stuff 'till kingdom come, but broken things that simply don't work are now all gone.

yaay?

[67418de5d8c04System Shocked]

Congratulations to all the Devs on the release of SCP Beta 4.

ZylonBane, the date attached to the first post is November 01, 2014 ?

[67418de5d8cdfvoodoo47]

yeah, we can time travel now.

[67418de5d8dd1ETPC]

Outstanding job. Now go and rest, our heroes.

[67418de5d90e2KillerBudgie]

Here we go again! So this release we made heavy use of the new Squirrel scripting support to implement a lot of really cool stuff. One might even say we went a little nuts with it.

Next you'll be saying that you're going to 'Squirrel' us away!

[67418de5d92c2JDoran]

Thanks for this!

One thing though - at the end of the PDF manual, where it says:

"Are​​ ​​We​​ ​​Insane?"

The answer you gave ("Yes.") isn't very insane. It would be much more appropriate if it said:

"Are​​ ​​We​​ ​​Insane?

What penguin?"

 

[67418de5d95f0voodoo47]

or even better;

NVGuaranteedLoot0="OneRifledSlug"; NVRelayTrap2On="BeginScript"; NVRelayTrap2Off="Null"; NVRelayTrap2TDest="[Me]"; NVRelayTrap2TOn="Init"; NVRelayTrap2OnDelay=500; NVRelayTrap2TCount=1; NVCreateAndLinkOn="Init"; NVCreateAndLinkCount=1; NVCreateAndLinkCreate="og-shot flash"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkType="~DetailAttachement"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkData1Field="Type"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkData1Value="2"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkData2Field="vhot/sub #"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkData2Value="0"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkData3Field="joint"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkData3Value="12"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkData4Field="rel pos"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkData4Value="0.12, -1.6, 0"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkData5Field="rel rot"; NVCreateAndLinkLinkData5Value="274"; NVCreateAndLink2On="Init"; NVCreateAndLink2Count=1; NVCreateAndLink2Create="og-shot eject"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkType="~DetailAttachement"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkData1Field="Type"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkData1Value="2"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkData2Field="vhot/sub #"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkData2Value="0"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkData3Field="joint"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkData3Value="10"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkData4Field="rel pos"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkData4Value="0, -1, 0"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkData5Field="rel rot"; NVCreateAndLink2LinkData5Value="180"; NVRelayTrapTDest="&~DetailAttachement"; NVRelayTrapOn="EffectFire"; NVRelayTrapTOn="TurnOn"; NVRelayTrap3On="Slain"; NVRelayTrap3Off="null"; NVRelayTrap3TDest="&Contains"; NVRelayTrap3TOn="shotlink"; NVRelayTrap3OnDelay=10; NVRelayTrap4On="shotfrob"; NVRelayTrap4Off="null"; NVRelayTrap4TDest="&~DetailAttachement"; NVRelayTrap4TOn="shotkill";

[67418de5d9958ZylonBane]

The answer you gave ("Yes.") isn't very insane. It would be much more appropriate if it said:

"Are​​ ​​We​​ ​​Insane?

What penguin?"

No, that would have been "lol so random". AKA excruciatingly lame.


True insanity knows itself.

[67418de5d9a98Mr. Death]

Quick question.

Is there any downside to not using SHTUP w/ SCP?

Like is there anything that won't work/appear correctly in SCP without SHTUP?

I like to keep the visuals as close to vanilla as possible. Plus I'm currently playing on a dinosaur PC, & it seems like when I have SHTUP installed my game stutters/hitches a lot.

Thanks for the amazing work you guys have done on SCP

[67418de5d9bd6voodoo47]

things will not break, but some visuals may be/won't be correct, so this is not recommended. must be something really ancient as SHTUP has pretty much zero impact on performance - maybe consider some upgrade, those old rustpiles can be spruced up easily with trashbin parts.

[67418de5d9ca6ZylonBane]

What visuals won't be correct?

[67418de5d9e0evoodoo47]

a few vanilla tech textures have a bunch of flaws, like not being completely black where they should be, or have/don't have outlines where they shouldn't/should, pretty sure there are some palette/transparency issues going on and stuff like that. as mentioned, nothing too terrible, but still, I literally can't imagine playing the game without SHTUP, the one mod that everyone should use at all times.

it's like cookies and milk, you certainly can eat cookies just like that and you won't die, but seriously no milk wtf man?

[67418de5d9f1fZylonBane]

I think SCP fixes at least the worst of those. I'll admit we haven't been very consistent about it. The lines get pretty blurry (both metaphorically and literally).

Also I'm surprised nobody has commented on the header image. Anyone notice anything... different?

[67418de5d9ff0voodoo47]

a mutated space squirrel?

[67418de5da0beZylonBane]

That's a cyborg squirrel!

[67418de5da50fMarvin]

Also I'm surprised nobody has commented on the header image. Anyone notice anything... different?

There's a low-res squirrel badly photoshopped into a screenshot of what is possibly the new VB bridge area?

[67418de5da618ZylonBane]

Charming as ever Marvin.

[67418de5daa90System Shocked]

SHTUP-ND is highly recommended for use with SCP. The newest beta isn't quite ready yet . . .

You Devs certainly fully deserve a respite from your travails, but is there an approximate release timeframe for the next version of the SHTUP-ND mod?

[67418de5dabbaMarvin]

Takes one to know one!

It does seem to be a very determined-looking low-res squirrel, I'll give you that. Would serve as a great idea for one of voodoo's bizarre holiday mini-mods, replacing the cyborg assassins.

[67418de5dad14System Shocked]

From the SCP Beta 4 readme PDF file regarding visual improvements implemented into SCP Beta 4 :

"We’ve also tweaked the level lighting parameters to reduce the somewhat washed-out look of maps compared to the originals.
Getting a 24-bit lighting engine to match the look of the old 16-bit lighting engine is an ongoing challenge."

Can a couple of before-and-after screenshots be posted showing the differences in the level lighting ?

Thanks in advance.

[67418de5daf62System Shocked]

Takes one to know one!

It does seem to be a very determined-looking low-res squirrel, I'll give you that. Would serve as a great idea for one of voodoo's bizarre holiday mini-mods, replacing the cyborg assassins.

It should be on a shoulder of a cyborg assassin and it should have rabies.

[67418de5db05avoodoo47]

why don't you just fire up beta3 medsci and the beta4 medsci and see for yourself?