SCP Beta 4 Issue Reporting

[67427bab3063cZylonBane]

Most importantly, it doesn't fecking matter. SS2 is a survival horror game, not a certified military combat simulator.

[67427bab30b23JDoran]

This guy's video reminded me that SHODAN is invulnerable to melee damage. I've no idea why Irrational did this, since she's vulnerable to plain old bullets and explosives, and it's not like being able to use melee would give the player any sort of unfair advantage. In fact you take continuous damage from SHODAN when in melee range.

I'm thinking there would be no harm in letting players beat SHODAN to death with a wrench if they really want to.

I agree. Bullets and explosions cause physical damage, the same as a melee weapon does, so it would seem consistent to allow a melee weapon to physically damage SHODAN. Unless there is an in-universe comment or story aspect that I've forgotten that gives a reason for SHODAN to be immune to melee damage, of course. But if that were the case, then no doubt someone would have posted about it by now.

BTW, have any of SS2's original developers ever posted on this forum? It would be fascinating to read about their ideas, ambitions, and reluctant compromises in the game's design. I've read quite a few interviews with developers of various games over the years, but I am usually disappointed by the interviews so rarely giving specifics about, say, what in-game features were planned (or at least considered) but had to be later dropped (and why), why specific game mechanics were added and how difficult they were to implement, what did the game developer wish that they had done differently, what (after looking back after all these years) does the developer wish that he/she/they had done differently when making the game, etc.

Interviews so rarely go into technical or game-play details that the hardcore fans would probably really like to know.

[67427bab30cd9ZylonBane]

Proof of concept for destructible worm piles. While it's impossible to make worm piles make sense (infinite when used as ammo, finite when used as health, yadda yadda), at the very least we can fix them being inexplicably indestructible. This allows them to be destroyed, but respawns them later so players don't screw themselves out of the resources. In this video it's set to just three seconds, but it can be anything. I'm thinking something like five minutes, or even more. The script tracks the global sim time, so if you destroy a worm pile on a level, leave, then come back an hour later, it'll know you were gone for an hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAhtAQfvuxI

[67427bab30e73voodoo47]

anything that makes the piles less insane is good to go as far as I'm concerned. would recommend same handling after consumption - whoever is willing to wait 5+ minutes for an almost free (costs implant energy which either means batteries which cost nanites, or having to run to a recharger which costs even more time) 10 hp pop, deserves it.

also global sim time tracking, that is really nice.

[67427bab30f4dZylonBane]

You recommend respawning after consumption???

[67427bab31056voodoo47]

yes. basically, doesn't matter whether the pile was destroyed by doing damage to it, or consumed, it will respawn after a few (long) minutes. I know, infinite health bad, but if someone is mad enough to stand somewhere for half a hour give or take to fully heal cheaply, then he deserves it, I think.

more GamePig use good.

[67427bab311c6ZylonBane]

For the love of god, no, we're not adding an infinitely regenerating resource. The "anyone who waits deserves it" argument falls flat, because most people have the self-control of an amoeba, and the moment they see anything that's "FREE", they will not hesitate to ruin their own fun by obsessively camping it, especially in a resource-starved game like SS2.

This sort of thing has been documented extensively. When given the choice between risky fun and safe/optimal, many gamers will choose the latter. That's why good game designers work really hard to make the best path be the fun path.

In short: Destructible but can respawn solves a problem. Respawn after consumption CREATES a problem.

[67427bab312e6voodoo47]

they still can farm hybrids for nanites and then use a medbed to get fullheals for five bucks. this is more cheaty than standing somewhere like a moron to munch on breadcrumbs, if you ask me.

anyway, if you think respawn after destruct is the way to go, then I'll take it - I have to admit I have no idea what the proper solution would be here. so if vanilla = piles weird, and SCP = piles weird but can blow them up and they'll return, sure, why not.

[67427bab31438ZylonBane]

Farming hybrids has an element of risk, and requires actually playing the game, somewhat. Standing in one spot and clicking on the ground has neither of those things. Therefore, hybrid farming is obviously less of a cheat.

Vanilla piles = weird. SCP (proposed) piles = still weird, but less weird. It's not a "sure why not" change, it's a change that brings them in line with the common-sense expectation that you should be able to destroy a small defenseless pile of worms. Being able to interact with game entities in a logical, internally consistent manner is one of the core principles of immersive sims.

[67427bab317a6RoSoDude]

I'd rather they respawn fairly quickly so they can still serve as navigation hazards to toxify the player if they're not paying attention. If it's too easy to wrench and forget about, that's just gameplay nuance removed. Honestly, I'm not sure how much I like them being destructible for this reason, but they'll still work okay to make you pay attention where you're walking which is the main thing.

Agree 100% that worm piles should never ever regenerate if consumed via WormBlood. As for making them "make sense" with regards to filling beakers (which I honestly don't think is a big deal), can't you just make filling up the beakers reduce the health of the pile until it zaps it out of existence? I implemented a replacement worm beaker script in SS2-RSD for stackable beakers if you need to steal it.

[67427bab31b85ZylonBane]

If it's too easy to wrench and forget about, that's just gameplay nuance removed.

More nuisance than nuance.

What makes worm piles dangerous is that they're easy to overlook. They're pretty easy to avoid once you're aware of them. Making them destructible just rounds out the simulation, even if it ends up rarely used. Kind of like how most people who play Thief never kill guards with arrows, but if you couldn't kill guards with arrows, it would be damn weird.

As for beakers consuming worm piles... well, "I wish exotic weapons were even more of a pain in the ass to deal with", said nobody ever.

[67427bab31c70voodoo47]

can't argue with that.

[67427bab31f65RoSoDude]

As for beakers consuming worm piles... well, "I wish exotic weapons were even more of a pain in the ass to deal with", said nobody ever.

I mean, there are plenty of worm piles to use, I generally just find one in the map I'm in whenever I pick up a beaker rather than hauling them back to the one in the Hydroponics lobby or whatever. Maybe it is a problem for the handful of beakers in Med/Sci and Engineering (I only recall the worm piles in medsci2 in the crew quarters bathroom and eng1 in the reactor core upper level). Still, 3 fills per pile would be more than adequate. Up to you I guess, I can always change it myself in SS2-RSD.

[67427bab32227sarge945]

I'm also not a fan of respawning on eating, but I like the idea of blowing them up. I also get RoSoDudes reasoning though. Yes it's tedious to avoid them, but it's better than not having them ever be a threat.

Maybe if they were only destroyable with fire or explosives (grenade launcher, pyrokenesis etc) then you can have the trade off of wasting psi or uncommon ammo to get rid of them permanently.

I know grenades aren't really uncommon, but I consisder them more rare than bullets

[67427bab32531ZylonBane]

get rid of them permanently.

Absolutely not. The other systems that use worm piles as a resource were designed around the assumption that they can't be destroyed. That's why they respawn.

Nobody in their right mind would waste high-cost ammo anyway on an "enemy" that you can trivially avoid or just hop over. As I already explained, they're only dangerous when you don't notice them.

Now, if Irrational had used worm piles anywhere as an unavoidable hazard, like placed a dozen of them around some valuable goodies so you were forced to expend anti-toxin hypos to get them, then yeah, this would mess that up. But they didn't do that. It's a shame they didn't, that would have been pretty cool.

But now that I think about it... hmmm... it would be pretty easy to add a short-range toxin stim to the worm pile explosion, so if you destroy a worm pile with a melee weapon, you'd receive the same effect as stepping on it. That would force players to use consumables if they wanted to get rid of a worm pile.

[67427bab326b0voodoo47]

yes on the small toxin explosion. the player shouldn't be allowed to smash the piles for free.

[67427bab32858ZylonBane]

Thinking about the SHODAN boss fight again, I think it's kind of bullshit that taking the shields down by hacking the terminals is an all-or-nothing proposition. Hacking one terminal, or two terminals, does absolutely nothing. It seems like each terminal hack should grant you some kind of advantage. That way you could mix up your tactics instead of being forced into either an all-hack or all-weapons strategy.

Hacking the terminals could have various effects, like:
- Destroy one or more shield segments
- Reduce and cap the health of all shield segments
- Slow down the rotation of the shield segments

Basically anything in the boss arena could be affected.

Also, the SHODAN avatar ecology is set to respawn them after a delay of between 0 and 15 seconds. Figure an average respawn time of 7.5 seconds. That's so little time it's hardly worth the effort to kill them.

[67427bab3293fvoodoo47]

there are 3 terminals, so you could have it all.

would perhaps consider setting the minimal delay to 5 seconds.

[67427bab32d15RocketMan]

Re: worm piles.  I'm sure I've said this before but worm ammo is plentiful.  I've always had gobs of it at the end of the game, despite the horrible consumption rate and despite using it as much as it made sense to do so.  Having either infinite beakers or infinite worms is bad in my opinion.  The worm guns are generally not appealing but the problem lies there rather than trying to make them appealing with more ammo.  If the piles can be consumed for health (good) then I don't see why it would be illogical to be consistent with ammo consumption removing them too.  You could do the opposite and allow infinite ammo and health, which would also be logically consistent but that would be much worse as they become farming stations.  Better to have a pile represent a 1-time (3-time, w/e) health/ammo station and that's it.  If it were possible to re-spawn them as hazards only with no yield, that'd be fine too.

Agree with the final boss hacking terminals.  Effects should be incremental but I prefer effects that don't allow the player to easily kill the boss.  Removing panels just gives the player a clear shot at shodan.  Weakening all of them or changing the revolution speed would be better.

[67427bab32e08ZylonBane]

Fundamental changes to any resource economies are beyond the scope of SCP.

Copy paste and repeat as needed.

[67427bab32f1cRocketMan]

So vanilla has worm piles that yield infinite worms but finite health?  TBH I cannot remember but I thought it was different.  I'm pretty sure at least the beaker capacity was changed.

[67427bab33049voodoo47]

yes, infinite worms from one pile, so technically, you can take all the beakers from the entire game and fill them up in one go, however the beakers themselves are finite, meaning no AI drops them as loot and they cannot be purchased anywhere. so worm ammo has a hard cap, unless you involve psi duplication (any other ammo is infinite, either dropped by AIs or can be purchased, and nanites are infinite).

wormpile health is finite, meaning you can only eat each pile once. if you eat all the piles, you will lose the ability to collect worms.

[67427bab3312bRocketMan]

Oh.  Well then I guess I was mistaken.  Sorry.

[67427bab333feZylonBane]

wormpile health is finite, meaning you can only eat each pile once. if you eat all the piles, you will lose the ability to collect worms.

One of the very few points where the worm piles being an infinite ammo resource works in the player's favor. As long as there's a single worm pile somewhere, they can still fill their beakers.

Although now that I think about it, it's possible to give worm piles a different respawn interval depending on what killed them. Like, a few minutes for destroyed worm piles, vs an hour for consumed worm piles. Though I'm still not sure that would be a good idea.