|
I'd rather have commentary included and wait a bit longer. You've been doing great job so far so don't be too perfectionist. 
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 05:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 16:01 |
|
|
Very well. enjoy this video icon Also, the cuts are there because the bit at the end was something that I wanted to have in the video proper, but at the end. I didn't realize that we would get that e-mail as soon as we entered the level, so I had to do some simple editing to get it in there. And after you've watched the video, I have a question for you: Do we help try to help out the resistance, or should we keep trying to fix the problem with the laser? e: Video has been changed out for a better one. CARRIERHASARRIVED fucked around with this message at 20:24 on May 30, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 05:24
|
|
|
Taking it back. That works well without commentary, too.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 09:45
|
|
|
Yeah, but it'd still be nice to have a lil' post explainin' a few things that happened there, because some of it is kinda important. As far as helping the crew goes, Ahahahaa no, they're hosed... But you're going anyway because you know you want some Cortex Reaver lovin'.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 11:37
|
|
|
The new video is now up. I think I'll actually forgo the spoken commentary, but I will write up some stuff to explain what happened, as well as posting the audio logs so they can be heard again without the video. I'll have that up soon.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 20:25
|
|
|
Chapter 8 Written Addendum: Geek Down (preferably the one with Busta Rhymes but the joke works either way) I’m going to apologize now for the decrease in screenshot quality, and the imperfect video quality, I had to improvise a method of encoding the video because DebugMode’s FrameServer didn’t work for me on Adobe Premiere, and I took the screenshots directly from the video for the sake of familiarity and consistency in what we were seeing. The Maintenance level is one with a low mean lumen value. So I opted to instead do it as a commentariless video. The initial plan was to have commentary, but after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that I need to be very lucky with my thought process or spend a while practicing exactly what I would say to ensure that I hit everything I wanted to succinctly and without being so brief as to inadvertently obfuscate what I was trying to say. Basically the animadversion that was raised in my own mind was that, though I can speak, I don’t always do it very well. Thus I figured that making a text post to explain would work better. First let’s go over the goodies we got in the video.  First the laser rapier. This thing is unapologetically a loving lightsaber. It’s also the best melee weapon in the game. Did you notice how it previously took us pretty much a full magazine of pistol ammo to kill one of those invisible mutants? And with the rapier it takes us two swings? This thing is fantastic. Not only does it do shitloads of damage it takes no power to use. I bet if you had enough berserk patches and a good enough route planned out you could use only this thing for the rest of the game. But there’s a lot of other really fun weapons we’ll be seeing soon so I don’t want to deprive you guys of those. But wait, we swing this thing, isn’t a rapier something you use for fencing? So it’s best suited to thrusting (hehejheheh) rather than slashing? Oh whatever, it’s made of laser so it must work well enough for slashing poo poo.  The headlamp is one of my favorite pieces of hardware from this level, for obvious reasons: It’s never dark anywhere any more with this thing. Plus, it’s power consumption is miniscule so you can have it on pretty much all the time. And the game keeps throwing batteries at you (remember that room with like fifteen batteries? It’s like Warren is just saying PLEASE USE THE SPARQ FOR THE LOVE OF GOD USE IT WE DID ALL THIS WORK CODING IT IN AND WE PUT IT EVERYWHERE CAN YOU PLEASE JUST HAVE AN INVENTORY OF SPARQS SO YOU CAN OVERLOAD SHOOT EIGHT OF THEM IN A ROW I LIKE LASERS) so power is rarely a concern unless you want to keep using energy weapons.  The second version of the Navigation Unit that we got in the storage area (here’s a question: why do you need hollow point rounds and dartgun darts in the storage of the Maintenance level?) enables us to now see robots on the map. You may have noticed a few weird gray squares on the map near the maintenance doors; that indicates that robots are standing there. We can’t reach any of them yet due to door locks and such but we might be able to eventually explore the level in full. I mean, I kind of hope not because that would mean the station needs serious maintenance. Now let’s listen to a few logs.  LOG I got together that inventory you asked for. It’s all in the storage compartment near the Beta maintenance closet. There’s one navigation and mapping unit, an EMP grenade, six interface demodulators, four hollow-tip twenty-one-hundreds, and three needle darts. Most of the stuff is emergency supplies. I’m keeping the demodulators there until I find a better place for them. Say, did you notice that on the logs with no picture, the logo in the background changes to reflect the floor you found it on? Pretty spiffy! I already asked why you would need hollow point rounds on the maintenance level, so while I won’t ask again I will bring it up once again so you wonder why on And those interface demodulators? No idea what to do with them, or even what they are. Wait. Wikipedia posted:In computer science, an interface is a shared boundary across which two separate components of a computer system exchange information. The exchange can be between software, computer hardware, peripheral devices, humans and combinations of these. Some computer hardware devices such as a touchscreen can send and receive data through the interface, while others such as a mouse, microphone or joystick are one way only. Wikipedia posted:Demodulation is the act of extracting the original information-bearing signal from a modulated carrier wave. A demodulator is an electronic circuit (or computer program in a software-defined radio) that is used to recover the information content from the modulated carrier wave. The demodulator takes the digital data and, using the staircase maker and the delay unit, creates the analog signal. The created analog signal, however, needs to pass through a low-pass filter for smoothing Uh...I guess it’s supposed to change a method that two systems use to communicate and change it from digital to analog, or change the method that the systems use into some other method? Or it takes how the interface is supposed to work out of the interface? Well I think it’s technobabble, but I’m not sure? Or would that cement the fact that it’s technobabble? reverse the polarity of neutron flow. use an inverse tachyon pulse. beware dihydrogen monoxide. he can manipulate vectors. subnet. oh goody my illudium q-thirty-six explosive space modulator. chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken. Onto poor Harvey. LOG It will be over soon. Soon I’ll die. This pain will end. I can’t even recognize my own drat arm. SHODAN’s virus...I can see…Oh God, I can see through my own body! [sharp exhale] There’s another virus in the grove. God, let me die...please… Drama queen. Your voice-box and lungs clearly still worked fine you baby. Alternatively: Itchy. Tasty. As is implied by this log, and I tried to hammer home in the video, the invisible mutant you kill in that room is Harvey after his transformation is complete. However this also kind of means weird things for the other mutants. Mainly, those Zero-G ones, and the pterodactyl-like mutant we saw briefly on level four. It seems that all the mutants on the station were once human. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. A note: I think Faust IX said earlier in the thread that the Zero-G mutants were the result of experimentation by the scientists on the research level, but I think this log indicates instead that humans were mutated into them in the experimental gravity areas of that level, as well as possibly on other levels of the station. Now let’s a clarify few things from the video  Because I found this power station simply irresistible, I had to use it. However, the damaged power cords above cause this station to actually be harmful. Whenever you use it you take a little bit of damage. This is kind of obvious, but I feel like it’s one of those instances where you need to think about the game not as a game but as a physical world. Like, my sense as someone who plays games tells me this shouldn’t be so painful, but if you look at it like this is actually a real world you inhabit, it makes sense that some shorting power cords over an electrical station would make said station unsafe.  I also have no idea what this does. I just want to confirm to you guys that we are, indeed, not supposed to have any real use for this thing. Yet?  These bots are disabled, but don’t make fun of them for it, that’s very hateful and ill be hosed if i have to stand for that kind of discrimination in this fuckign thread. I’m not sure what enables them, or if we did something somewhere else that would disable them.  No, I didn’t drop Ghiran’s head. The reason for this will become clear in time.  These doors are locked to us for now, and unless there’s some kind of horrible catastrophe on the station they’re probably going to stay closed.  Hey, why did I make a point of going back to look at this screen? Why did I take a screenshot of it to clarify it? I think I’ve seen screens like this before on the other levels… Look, just don’t go looking for -- oh gently caress it. Now let’s examine Ghiran’s logs. LOG I’m the only one left of our original group. SHODAN holds the bridge now. I have to get there somehow and plug in to the main terminal. So far I’ve been up as high as Engineering, which looks like a big maze. From the central hub you can get anywhere you need to. I guess it’s up to me. These logs give me a lot more respect for Ghiran. He kind of looks like a pudgier, sciencey type but he’s practically a regular Gordon Freeman. Except for the whole dying part, that does kind of ruin the comparison somewhat. LOG Just back from the Security level. It’s been remade. If anyone gets there, take repulsor lifts to the ledges; move counter-clockwise around the level. The elevator to the bridge is missing, but there’s a maintenance elevator inside a shaft in the center of the level. There’s a force bridge leading to it, but I couldn’t find it. Good luck. Well that’s going into the mental file on the Security level. Hopefully Ghiran’s advice won’t be out of date by the time we get there. LOG I made another attempt on the bridge, but I got hit on the Security levels. Cyborgs hunted me down and I escaped by crawling through the security shafts, cutting myself badly. Going to have to wait, and then make another try. Apparently Ghiran cut himself so badly that he decapitated himself. There might be a log missing here that would explain his death in more detail, though. He didn’t sound like he was in that bad of shape in the log. Well that’s all for this explanation -- Wait what? Something about level five? well they make some pretty okay games but i oh alright IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE VIDEO DON’T SCROLL DOWN ANY FURTHER UNTIL YOU DO OR HAVE REASSURED YOURSELF THAT YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT SHOCKING TWISTS So when we arrived on the Flight Deck, level five, we were sent an e-mail by one Anna Parovski: LOG Hello? Is someone out there? We have you on the security monitors, but no one knows who you are. We’re on the Flight Deck. We’re almost out of ammunition and they’re bringing something new: a Cortex Reaver. Look for the code ‘Gray’ on the walls. We’re in the south, past two convection(?) shafts. What? Everybody down! Well poo poo. There are actually some other people left on the station. So we’ve got something important to do on Level R, but I think we might be able to rescue these guys quickly, and then we’ll have some extra help dealing with SHODAN. On the other hand, they’re probably boned if SHODAN is sending a Cortex Reaver after them, and helping them will just be a waste of our very valuable time. So what do we do? Do we assist Anna and her group or say gently caress it and go to Level R? CHOOSE. e: Voting closes at 12:00AM on June 2nd. CARRIERHASARRIVED fucked around with this message at 03:02 on May 31, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 02:49
|
|
|
I say go to Level R if only because I like the music on that level so drat much.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 02:58
|
|
|
I say try to assist Anna and her group. Even though we all know that SS rules demand that you have no interactions with the living.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 03:24
|
|
|
Let's assist Anna and her group. We'll probably get delicious treats.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 04:01
|
|
|
CARRIERHASARRIVED posted:Very well. This level pretty much rules, and that's why this video works so well even without commentary. I've always thought the cyborg drone noise at 7:35 was supposed to be it saying "You're better than Aerosmith" (why, thank you!). I'm kind of curious of what everyone else thought when they first played this. They really need to bring unintelligible enemy barks in first-person games back somehow.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 14:04
|
|
|
Go to level R, they are already dead. They just don't know it yet.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 17:33
|
|
|
You definitely need to assist Anna and her group BECAUSE they are almost certainly doomed.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 17:42
|
|
|
They may have very little chance, but any hope is better than none, and if we can get to them our odds of survival improve significantly. Go find them.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 03:28
|
|
|
Voting closes in 24 hours.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 05:05
|
|
|
Assist them peeps! It's probably futile, but I can never resist trying.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 05:21
|
|
|
Voting is closed. Looks like we're helping out the people on the flight deck. Also I just realized the propaganda poster contest closed two days ago and nobody submitted anything, im sad CARRIERHASARRIVED fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Jun 3, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2014 05:25
|
|
|
And I was all ready to vote when you closed it! Ah well, I was going to vote to save them anyway. From Faust IX's description of the Cortex Reaver, I hope you will have some video prepared of you battling it. Every time you strafe-dodged those shots from the stealth-mutants I was cheering "PRO-STRAFE, NOW RETALIATE YYEEEAAHHH" or something to that extent. Great LP so far! I am having a blast and this LP got me to finally play my copy of System Shock 2 that I bought all so long ago but could never try it because I was absolutely terrified from playing the game from my earlier experience 10 years ago being scared shitless by those hybrids.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2014 08:53
|
|
|
Chapter 9: It’s Up To You (Television Mix) Time to go rescue Anna and her people.  It says Reactor Mix but this music also plays on here the Flight Deck. (Level Five)  When we arrive on the Flight Deck we receive the same message we got from Anna before.  Immediately when we open the freight elevator doors we get bombarded by a loving cyborg assassin. Luckily I knew this would happen and blast him with some hollow point rounds. Last time I didn’t realize he was going to be there and took a massive chunk of damage given that he shoots as soon as the door opens.  So the Flight Deck. We start with a simple (not simple) wiring puzzle.  It’s not like they’re super complex or anything, they’re just always trial and error. I have yet to figure out a formula for the drat things.  Solving the puzzle extends this force bridge, but we haven’t tried to explore this room so let’s do that first.    Who would’ve thought that exploration would be rewarded in a video game. LOG Al? We need to replace the First Aid Kits in the lifepods, for Flight Bays two and three. Oh, and run a diagnostic on the jettison controls. Oh poo poo, lifepods? Not only can we rescue Anna’s group we can also get them all out of here! Assuming they’re not all gone, of course. It’s been a while but when we say that station diagnostic all way back on Medical, it said that something 98% of all the life pods had been jettisoned.  There’s not much else in here so let’s head across the force bridge. oh son of a bitch i tripped  I fell down off the force bridge. However this pointed out to me that actually there is still something in this room here, a giant bulkhead door.  So this is a flight deck, presumably we should see some kind of...deck for  And something tells me we’re reaching one now.  Oh boy, mutants. These are avian mutants. As is suggested by the name, they fly around. Of course ‘avian’ may be inaccurate because they more closely resemble Pterosaurs. Then again, birds are technically evolved dinosaurs given that the bone structures between the two groups are near identical. (Saurischia and Ornithiscia are still applicable to birds, although actually most birds are Saurischian rather than Ornithiscian which is funny because Ornithiscia means ‘bird-hipped’ and Saurischia means ‘lizard hipped’) Wait, but Pterosaurs aren’t dinosaurs, they’re just lizards. Dinosaurs were most likely warm blooded animals with scaly skin and Pterosaurs were what am i talking about again? oh who gives a gently caress Avian mutants are not much of a problem; they’re only attack is melee swipe so they have to close a (usually) massive gap to do any damage to you. And thanks to the fact that you have projectile weapons this is a severe disadvantage for them.  nice forced evolution idiot The Master would have a loving fit if he saw just how badly SHODAN’s failed here. Then again maybe he’d be impressed by the amount of work she got done in like three months.  Down in this flight bay is one of the more fun puzzles in the game, which is funny for me to say given that I hate the wire switching puzzles and this is comparable to one of those.  Hitting a switch extends a specific portion of a force bridge.  So, you need to create a path between those two areas up there with these buttons.  Trouble is, you sometimes can cause a portion of the force bridge to turn off if you have certain buttons on at the same time.  I really don’t want to think about how this would have to be wired for that to happen. Now the puzzle is as complete as I’m willing to get it. You might be tempted to finish building the bridge all the way but then you remember that you can loving sprint and jump so a three foot gap is not a massive hindrance here.  Going to the left brings us to this iris door. By the way, I didn’t notice it somehow when I was taking these screenshots, but apparently the compass is up. This will be useful if you want to determine how we’re oriented in the station, but there’s an oriented map right there so the compass is kind of redundant.  Through the iris door is a gravity lift current set to pull and a switch to control it.  upsy daisy  Oh gently caress, you’re not supposed to be here.  no sir i dont like it  Say goodbye to the Auto Bomb. Resembling those floor droids from the Death Star in Star Wars, (LOOK AT THAT loving PAGE NOTABLE UNITS WHAT THE gently caress) the Auto Bomb senses whenever you come within a certain range of it and quickly closes the distance, exploding when it is right next to you. It does a good chunk of damage and is rather fast, but it’s also incredibly volatile so it dies almost always in one hit.  Out on the right is another bulkhead door and a LOG All Flight Bay maintenance personnel: we have a serious emergency. Yesterday, the defense system fired -- without executive control -- and blew a Tri-Op shuttle right out of the hangar. I want a complete diagnostic on the computer node in the south repair center. If you find anything funny, take it offline. Okay, so that’s October. People were still just thinking it was bugs in the system at this point. Wow, how much more proof do you need?  This is that weird triangular prism shaped hole in the wall to the left of the log.   It takes us to this strange shaft. I can’t think of what the motivation behind these shafts are. Are they used for transporting things? Why then would you not have some kind of bridge across to the other exits?  So there’s three exits here. We came from the one behind us. Let’s go to the right one first.  Seeming like this was a good idea.  One easily broken security droid later, we’re a First Aid Kit richer. We also pick up a Reflex Reaction Aid patch, a Universal Detox Patch, and a couple EMP grenades and a landmine. I don’t remember if I explained the Reflex patches so I’ll do it now: Reflex patches make it easier to react by slowing down the speed of the game to about half its usual run speed. This does, effectively, make you react faster to things as your mouse movement speed is not hindered by this. You turn and move slower, but your aiming ability isn’t any worse. Plus you can make quick changes to trajectory and the like with nicer penalties. However, it does kind of make you pay by making you move slower for a little while after the patch effect wears off.  Over to the other side we go.   Doo hoo hoo hoo hoooo Here are three great things that we are very happy we found. The thing on the right is a magazine of Mag-Pulse ammo, so we can finally use that thing. The thing in the middle is a level two energy shield, and the thing on the left is a Blaster. The Blaster is just a beefed up Sparq, but a beefed up Sparq is obviously better than a Sparq. We leave behind our old Sparq for the new Blaster. Sparq Sparq Sparq Sparq Sparq Sparq. that word looks really weird doesnt it  On the return trip we find a Medipatch on the ground we missed before. Great.  Outside the bulkhead door to the left is that door we saw before from the freight elevator. Well at least we didn’t miss anything.    I get the feeling we’re going to be seeing this hallway a bit more.  what the gently caress is this screenshot doing oh right As an aside, I tested the Medipatches. They heal about 40% of your health. They start by healing about 10% of your health very quickly, maybe in about two seconds, then they basically follow a logarithmic function map and get slower and slower over time. back to the hallway  Next to that door leading out from the freight elevator area is this  I may have said it before but even if I did I want to state: I love climbing in this game. It can be a bit janky at times but you just climb things by walking into them while holding jump. It’s great because you can thus climb just about anything that has a ledge, which is a lot more sensical than a lot of games today. Plus there are clearly delineated areas where you can climb up, things like ladders or exposed thick cables in walls, so you always know what you can actually climb up and what you can vault.  ooh scary dark hallway  Along this hallway are several cyborg assassins that often get the drop on you, due to their dark coloring scheme and the darkness of the hallway  yes i am terrified please get me out of this stupid hallway now  Another ladder up to this place. But we’re not going down there quite yet. ill get it later. we have important work to do  Fun fact: I had the flashlight on for most of this level because a lot of it is also dark (Nowhere near as dark as Maintenance or this) but for some reason I turned it off before I went into here. Maybe for dramatic effect?  Nice effect of the Target Identifier v2 which I believe I denigrated earlier: it let’s you know when you actually hit stuff which is great in situations like this where you can’t see poo poo.    agh not more stupid choices  Hey, there’s that force bridge we made earlier! But we’re also not going through there.  oh poo poo  :You are not welcome here. Remove yourselfAnd then that hole on the right opens up; initially it’s actually a wall. It only has one security bot in it, hardly anything that can stop us.  However there’s a lot of robot noises coming from down there so…  Bombs away.  Oh cool, there was at least one core down there. And I definitely heard a few things break.  But I still don’t feel so good about going down there. The lights keep gently pulsing on and off its scaaaaaaary  daintily  gently  Ah ha. Let’s cross over to the left before we head down there.  Oh goody, an obsolete ware and biological contamination. I am enjoying my time here.  gently caress standard rounds  Dash back to the ramp while loading in Teflon and you realize just how lovely those droids are.  A little ways down the hall that we decided not to go down earlier is this power station. That is seriously one of the shittiest versions of Get It On, I expect better of Tony Thompson. Robert your voice does not work for that song, Marc Bolan or bust. I have no expectations of the Duran Duran guys.  And in a corner down that hall is another log. LOG Son of a…Service bridge in Flight Bay four has blown a couple of fuses. We’re getting up something temporary, but, it’s gonna be a little fidgety. So there’s your explanation as to why those force bridge controls earlier suck. Also what is it with this station and blowing fuses? First the Science level and now this crap?    This just takes you out into that hallway again. Not going out here yet.   Second hall on the right leads to this.  The surgery unit.  Which is thankfully uncomplicated to fix. Why did Science have it’s magical un-cyborgification switch hidden under the resurrection station? Back in the main hallway, if we take that first right we find…  They’re here. We can finally get them out.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 03:37
|
|
|
Maybe it was something like in Dune where if lasers hit force shields nuclear-scale explosions occur? It is also possible that was a powered down or otherwise unique cortex reaver. I can't imagine no one in the thread tried berserk-rapier charging one of them before.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 05:04
|
|
|
Laser rapier+berserk kills everything in the game in one or two hits (Also laser rapier without berserk). And apart from the cortex reaver, there's only one enemy that can take one hit from berserked laser rapier, but we haven't seen that one yet.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 05:18
|
|
|
Armadillo Tank posted:Maybe it was something like in Dune where if lasers hit force shields nuclear-scale explosions occur? It is also possible that was a powered down or otherwise unique cortex reaver. I can't imagine no one in the thread tried berserk-rapier charging one of them before. Well, I know I didn't, because I hate the deliberate colour glitching, so I preferred to do things with explosives, much like The Hacker's Guide To System Shock suggests (don't go finding that thing unless you like spoilers, but that poo poo is just as hilarious as what just happened) Beautiful ending to the update, by the way, I almost thought you were laughing because you were narrating and your dude had gone slightly crazy, then I remembered it wasn't that sort of LP, and I laughed with you... Because that was great. Just... 
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 06:27
|
|
|
JamieTheD posted:The Hacker's Guide To System Shock Hands down, this thing is the best way to take anotherlook at the game. Don't google it until this is all said and done, because holy gently caress are there so many spoilers there. The Hacker's Guide explains how much fun explosives and patches can be in ways that might not be apparent to the casual observer. Also how to make the game sound an awful lot like... CARRIERHASARRIVED posted:*psychotic laughter* I have been looking forward to you bashing that fuckers circuits in since the beginning of the thread, and your reaction was perfect. And yes, you did vaporize it, the ammunition it carried flew off somewhere in there. Isn't Berserk satisfying? Oh, the Zero-G Mutant thing I mentioned, yeah, Ghiran was (way in the backstory) in charge of an experiment in Research to apply a mutagen to a single-celled organism to see how it would react. It reacted by telling the laws of physics to kindly gently caress off by somehow growing/evolving a miniature psychokinetic field or something to control gravity when they're in a good mood and just spit out protoplasmic acid at you and everything around you for making an abomination that might as well have come from a Lovecraftian short story. There's a REASON for having the Research Labs literally above the Medical Bay: poo poo can and will get hosed up in ways that TriOptimum would love to not have to deal with. Just imagine the court summons for that ridiculous picture there; you'd probably rather be dead than suing the mega-corporation that runs everything, including you.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 09:58
|
|
|
The cortex reaver just melted after two hits...drat. For some reason I have a feeling that System Shock really should be played on Level 3 difficulty since you can actually I find that that is a problem in most games. A lot of us gamers have a pack-rat mentality and tend to save weapons and ammo for an indeterminate amount of time and then end up beating the game with using just the pistol because of either unlimited/plentiful ammo, in fear of using our weapons. I propose you try to beat the game without the laser rapier as it makes it a little boring when you simply two-shot every thing in the game.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2014 20:23
|
|
|
TicTacOops posted:The cortex reaver just melted after two hits...drat. That would certainly be an interesting challenge, because the Lead Pipe and the Laser Rapier are different types of damage: physical versus energy. Oh, you can still use that Lead Pipe with BERSERK RAGE on all of the time (as well you should!) but it won't damage certain things, like those Invisible Mutants crawling along the floor of Maintenance. Also, the Lead Pipe deals 15 damage per hit, while the Laser Rapier deals 200 damage per hit with twice the armor penetration and critical hit chance. Yeah, I didn't know about that either until I looked it up, but just watch that video again. That Cortex Reaver had just below 600 HP. Berserk + Laser Rapier = Overkill and Vaporization within two shots, especially if that second one was a critical hit. Interestingly enough, both melee weapons have the same range: 2 meters. So for a visual comparison of how loving massive our Hacker actually is, take that into account.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2014 21:35
|
|
|
Faust IX posted:Also, the Lead Pipe deals 15 damage per hit, while the Laser Rapier deals 200 damage per hit with twice the armor penetration and critical hit chance. Yeah, I didn't know about that either until I looked it up, but just watch that video again. That Cortex Reaver had just below 600 HP. Berserk + Laser Rapier = Overkill and Vaporization within two shots, especially if that second one was a critical hit. Seriously. If you watch it closely you can even see the poor bastard literally melt at the second hit. It was just glorious to see. Faust IX posted:Interestingly enough, both melee weapons have the same range: 2 meters. So for a visual comparison of how loving massive our Hacker actually is, take that into account. Clearly our hacker is Vin Diesel. Incredibly nerdy but hard as gently caress.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2014 01:18
|
|
|
TicTacOops posted:Clearly our hacker is Vin Diesel. Incredibly nerdy but hard as gently caress. ive already been over this hes doomguys grandpa Faust IX posted:That would certainly be an interesting challenge, because the Lead Pipe and the Laser Rapier are different types of damage: physical versus energy. Oh, you can still use that Lead Pipe with BERSERK RAGE on all of the time (as well you should!) but it won't damage certain things, like those Invisible Mutants crawling along the floor of Maintenance. I think if you went a melee only build, even on Combat 3, it becomes loving trivial when you get the Laser Rapier because the only real challenge now is charging into things, and with stuff like the Turbo Navigation Booster you can rocket toward just about anything and destroy it almost instantly. There are maybe like five enemies in the game that take more than one hit to kill with laser rapier, and even then most of them probably can't take any more than two. The Cortex Reaver is the biggest and baddest thing we've seen so far and it would still go down in three hits without a berserk patch.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2014 01:32
|
|
|
There are security bots with a green color scheme that takes ZERO damage from the rapier. Also I have finally caught up to you (somewhat). I also need to remember that once the resurrection thing is active I need to stop using medical supplies.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2014 12:34
|
|
|
Chapter 10: Rock That poo poo (I looked up the lyrics on google translate because I don’t speak French and it kind of seemed like it worked better than most of the other stuff I thought of) Previously, we learned that everybody is loving dead.  Including the Cortex Reaver, which I will give you a guys a screenshot of dead because this thing is really interesting. Faust IX has already said a little bit about what these things are so I’ll lift a bit of that information now: Faust IX posted:That event there is showing off an enemy much later in the game called the Cortex Reaver. They are quite possibly the most dangerous enemy on Citadel Station, not just because they have multiple attacks (which are the strongest attacks in the game), but because they are in real-space and Cyberspace. How does that work? Well, you already saw how it works if you clicked that link above. A Cortex Reaver literally shocks your In short: Cortex Reavers are pretty terrifying. This is why I found it so hilarious when I killed thing pretty much instantly because these things don’t respawn; there’s a finite amount of them in the game. oh poo poo we need the music dont we  there is ostensibly a joke in there dont worry  And this was where we left off in the video. Here we get our second higher tier weapon, the Mark3 Assault Rifle. Around the corpse are some land mines and magnum ammo. The module that’s there is another target module and is obsolete so we only pick it up for the sake of video game kleptomania.  There is a log on the ground too. LOG I wonder if you’ll hear this, Hacker. Albert Weiss(?) and I were the only ones to survive the last attack, we um...We hid. SHODAN has another plan, it's gonna load itself into Earth's computer Net. We will be dead in another minute, we can't let them take us! Al, are you ready? It's cutting through the door now! Almost done! It's opening--! Sorry Anna. Wait, if SHODAN's secondary plan is to load herself into Earth's computer Network why isn't she doing right now? Oh, no she probably has to account for the speed of light for the upload rate which means to even start the upload it would take...  Oh, like an hour. Still, we've been dicking around on the station for at least an hour now, why hasn't the upload started?  Hitting this button here reveals a gravity lift. I wonder why the resistance members didn't try to flee through here when they knew the Reaver was coming. Or at least when they started losing in the last attack.   The lift takes us back to the bridge on the fritz. Let's cross the thing and find out what   well, howdy there  Here we find the Head Mounted Latern v2, along with a First Aid Kit and some hollow point rounds. The second version of the head mounted latern is brighter, but not more efficient, so it's still 10J a minute usage like v1. Still not half bad because the latern is a great part of being able to actually see what you're doing a lot of the time.  The crown jewel of this excursion, though, is this. The Jump-Jet Motion Hardware v1.  The Jump-Jet enables you to replace your jump with a steady altitude gaining flight ability that drains your battery.  Enabling you do poo poo like this. And hey, did you see the log down there in the bay? Because I did. LOG Don Travers had me examing defense relays all morning. Seems there was a signal from SHODAN, seventy-eight milliseconds before they fired. So I went down to disconnect the CPU node, and a malfunctioning maintenance bot almost killed me! This whole thing is getting stranger by the minute! hgggggggggggggggggggsjjnmmmmmmmmndanjksjksdlkfldkhgfdhsujaiguriiiiiiiiiiiii  The Jets are slightly inconsistent in their power usage, however. I think it usually holds steady around a lot of J/M on average, because it usually spikes up really high constantly. I think it uses about 100J or whatever each pulse or something and there's about three pulses a second so it basically instantly drains your power, as you saw in the video.  Going to the end of the hallway at the area with the power station causes us to end up at this door, because:  The floor descends into a series of stairs.  Now let's explore this hall again.  Because we all love this hall don't we.  Say, what's this.  Welcome to the Executive section of the Flight Deck.   This is sort of a teaser area that gets you ready for the Executive section of the ship. Get used to this stupid decor because that's what the level looks like in entirety.  There's also a few tougher enemies here to further prime you for Executive, but we aren't going to see everything it has to offer yet.  Ooh, logs. LOG Internal security report, subject: Edward Diego. We're gonna nail this guy to the wall. I am now working as his personal secretary, and I've already found signs of a cover-up in C-Space. Nothing relating to mutagen research, but I'm looking. This thing is big. Oh, so Tri-Op knew that Diego was up to no good, huh? This is only from August, so I wonder what Schuler managed to find in the months leading up to November.  I guess this is the Executive flight bay?   Well this is pleasant.  Ew.  LOG Security bot went bananas in the convection shaft. Had to toss in an EMP grenade. Huh. Anyways, the bearings in the northeast convection shaft are shot. I left the repulsors on for the maintenance people. That's it for today. i guess we really did forget Even without knowing what happens later with SHODAN, how do you react to that situation with a security bot with just a dismissive, and slightly amused 'huh'? What the gently caress. Did no one ever talk to anyone else about this poo poo? "Oh man, Steve, you'll never believe what happened today, I got attacked by a Security Bot!" "Hey, that's crazy, Frank, I got attacked by a Security Bot last week!" "Wow, I'll bet these incidents have no relation whatsoever and are not at all indicative of some greater problem with our system of controlling the robots!" "I know, right? Now I'm going to go stand in Beta Grove for about six hours. I know people have been getting sick after going in there but I have no pattern recognition skills or concept of cause and effect!" "Neither do I! I'm going to go get back to work on that radioactive trench in Medical because I additionally have no ability to critically evaulate others' ideas!" "Boy, Steve that sounds like it might be...uh...You know funniest thing, I can draw no further conclusions based upon the evidence you have given me! I guess I can't critically evaluate ideas either!" "Two peas in a pod we are, Frank, two peas in a pod."  Now we go across the hall, passing this gold plated elevator.   Well this seems :Step right into my trap, little Hacker!cripes  This is some trap SHODAN, two Security Bots, wow.   Up the ramp on the left side is this little alcove, which has a camera. Not much use to us, as we've already cleared out pretty much all of the flight bays on the level.  However, there is this SHODAN log up those ramps in the middle of the room. LOG Cyborg Sixty-five V: You have been selected to keep all robots, cyborgs, and mutants, away from Beta Grove on the Executive Level. No one may enter while my experiments there are in progress. And be certain that none of the lucky subjects escape. BETA GROVE HAS SHODAN'S VIRUS IN IT THIS IS THE INFORMATION TO BE GLEANED FROM THIS LOG We need to get rid of that grove somehow, we don't want SHODAN to have access to her virus. She has way too many weapons for us to worry about.  Here we've got an armory, but it's locked in cyberspace.  Luckily the terminal is right there. So let's get into cyberspace and unlock that door.  Pretty good haul here. A few hollow point magazines, a Medipatch, and a Magpulse cartridge are definitely worth that trouble. The extra landmines and concussion grenades are also welcome additions.  We leave the room with armory and head left, up a ramp, into this room.  Oh, why are you in here.  To guard this very important log, you see. And I'm not exaggerating this log's importance.  This is our first Diego log! LOG Oscar, guess what: I'm under investigation, so shred what you've got--shred it all, got that? Now get this, the logs of the experiments are protected by some program called SHODAN, so I picked up some Hacker who's going to crack it for us. That gives me access to the robos and the other systems on the Station, so we've got a shield if they try and dust me. Sit tight, baby, it's under control. Look at that smug bastard. So apparently Diego was conducting, or greenlighting, some kind of virus experiments under the company's radar. That's what Bianca was initially brought in for, and why Diego needed access to SHODAN. He's such a loving idiot, how did he not know what SHODAN was? She's appparently in charge of everything electronic on the loving station. Typical rear end in a top hat executive. Now we have to clear this level. We'll be bouncing around a bit and I'll try to contextualize where we are so you guys don't feel completely lost. First, we back track to one of the earlier flight bays. Though we cleared them out, we didn't explore them in full, which gives us a few things.  Like this log here. LOG For some reason, the cyborgs are patrolling the access corridors around Flight Bay four. What are they guarding there anyhow? Wait, okay now I'm unclear of the timeline. Did cyborgs exist on the station prior to SHODAN's big reveal? Flight bay four, by the way, is the place we found the Jump-Jets, and also near where we found the, presumably last, pocket of resistance. Maybe that's what they were guarding? I'm not quite sure.  Additionally, near Robin's log is this small corridor.  Up the ramp is this.  The lifepods. There are two of them, but we can't use them because this is a non-emergency. Stupid AI in control of all station functions. You never centralize all this stuff. What if the central portion fails?  Now we get back into the hall.  Here we find yet another log. LOG These crates give us good position, but I don't see a way to break to the life pods. Zeph and Imran, (Ed. Note: drat them fuckin names why did they make every spoken name so fuckign complicated so i cant tell what to write down) see if you can get down to where it says 'Flight Bay 2.' -There is a shorting out noise- Uh oh. This has to be a comedy log. There's no way it can't be.  Speaking of crates, gee that seems kind of suspicious there behind that huge create, doesn't it?  Ooh.     Well, not much. Wait a second...  Oh great, how productive. I hate flavor sections.  Just want to take one last look at our handiwork in the Node section. Yep. That's why I put this screenshot here. That is the only reason. No other reason. No. So let's check out the other exit to this area we skipped before.   This area actually takes us back up to that hallway we took to get the Node section. So, really not much reason to go up here now. Now, before we go:  Level security is now null.  Alright, let's get out of here.   Why is the button red? Eh who cares, let's go.  oh right we actually have important poo poo to do something about a laser? who remembers these things any more  Excuse me fellas.   Welcome to the Reactor Level.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2014 04:58
|
|
|
It hurts my sensibilities to see you shooting security bots with Penetrator ammo. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2014 09:16
|
|
|
Is that John Conway's Game of Life being played out on the walls? Or is it just noise?
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2014 13:50
|
|
|
That is absolutely my favorite part of System Shock, the whole 'Diego is really just a fuckup executive who has no idea what he was messing around with trying to hide his crazy illegal poo poo' bit. It's the most believable explanation I've ever seen for why someone would be stupid enough to cause a disaster like this. The Hacker has no excuse. Should've known better, damnit.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2014 16:02
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:The Hacker has no excuse. Should've known better, damnit. It's either this or life imprisonment in corporate prison, he doesn't give a poo poo. Plus his Doomguy genes give him the upper hand on mere mortals.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2014 16:10
|
|
|
Valiantman posted:It hurts my sensibilities to see you shooting security bots with Penetrator ammo. Especially when there's only like 12 clips of it in the whole game.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2014 16:34
|
|
|
Valiantman posted:It hurts my sensibilities to see you shooting security bots with Penetrator ammo.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2014 19:14
|
|
|
Hafl posted:Especially when there's only like 12 clips of it in the whole game.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2014 19:45
|
|
|
Blind greed and apathy are about the only sensible motivations that could unleash the unlimited power of SHODAN.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2014 02:07
|
|
|
Glazius posted:Blind greed and apathy are about the only sensible motivations that could unleash the unlimited power of SHODAN. You have no idea of how gloriously right this sentence is. It'll take me a while to get a bunch of quotes among the chaos that is Flight Deck's logs, but I want to point out that you accidentally sequence broke the game by picking up the message about Satellites. You aren't supposed to even be on deck 5, let alone murdering the Cortex Reaver and getting the Rocketeer getup until AFTER you did the LASER Mission and at least of the VIRUS Mission! (Technically, you've been indirectly doing that, but I'm kind of shocked the game let you do that. I think you may have triggered an event flag for some spawns by sheer accident...) But while I'm here, and the time seems to be right, lets talk about the game mechanic that doesn't seem obvious: Enemy Spawning and Encounter Rates. As you play through the game, and along the plot, you will no doubt have noticed that some things are now different for each deck you have torn a Hacker sized hole through. First time you notice this is when you turn restore the Conversion Unit in Med, since now the things that are still being recognized as humanoids are being produced out of it as intended. The rate of them coming back out is sped way the gently caress up as you destroy the nodes as well. Research had a much more concrete reason for things getting back up with its Robot Maintenance Room, which you broke like any other sensible Hacker. And so on and so forth. All of that above, however, is just to add depth to the COMBAT Difficulty you chose when you started the game. Every difficulty has a different set spawn rate, with level 0 being NO RESPAWNS EVER, 1 and 2 being light and moderate, and 3 generally doubling the rate of spawn from 2. To really give you a "holy poo poo, I'm so alone, in this tin can far above the moon". Technically, these aren't really respawns as much as they are "Reinforcements" for plot and universe reasons. There is a further hidden factor within that, however, which, again, I didn't know about until looking it up, but apparently if you say, kill off a certain number of an enemy, its natural predator/opposite will take its place in the lineup of reinforced enemies. EDIT: My apologies, hunting things to extinction on a deck by deck basis CAN work, but as the plot progresses, different enemies will take up the emptied spaces. You can, of course, hunt them down as well  , but the trigger conditions for when the spawns change are both incredibly blunt and spoilery as gently caress. So take your time, you can go back to med and kill the 16 mutants over and over again, because at 10 or lower it just drops them in. But the idea of them being brought back via the Reconstructor, albeit reconstructed WRONG (just like you, with that implant in your head) makes too much sense to not be an intended distraction that something about killing them over and over and over is wrong, because they're stuck in the same loop you are.And Backstory: Bianca, Diego, and Trioptimum SecOps Security Memo posted:Our plan to "hire" me as Diego's assistant seems to be working, especially the part about me being "scatter-brained" and "dense." Thanks for the references, guys! You couldn't have made me look worse if you'd tried. Just what Diego wants... a dim-witted assistant who's got looks and can't program her way into a grade-school mainframe. Faust IX fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Jun 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2014 07:28
|
|
|
Faust IX posted:It'll take me a while to get a bunch of quotes among the chaos that is Flight Deck's logs, but I want to point out that you accidentally sequence broke the game by picking up the message about Satellites. You aren't supposed to even be on deck 5, let alone murdering the Cortex Reaver and getting the Rocketeer getup until AFTER you did the LASER Mission and at least of the VIRUS Mission! The first time you visit Level Five, you get the first email from Anna asking for help. Because I (accidentally) ended up getting footage of it in the update, I figured why not give people the option of going there first? But I realized after I finished Level Five that this whole level should actually not be done until like the mid-game. We haven't even begun collecting the items we need to finish the first mission we've been given, thus we're not even half-way through the early game. I don't think being able to do the rescue mission now is necessarily a sequence break or anything, it's just something that in all likelihood most people won't even attempt before dealing with the laser; a first time player would probably go straight to Level R rather than to Level Three like I did, but I knew it would give us the laser rapier which I really wanted so I opted to travel there first. Even if they did go to Level Three first, they would see how dark it is and, after dealing with invisible mutants for about a minute, they would give up and go to somewhere they can see and actually kill something. I guess Level Three is the beef gate for the middle and late games. If you aren't prepared, it will gently caress you sideways until you either learn how to deal with it or give up and make progress with the laser. I went there because I knew what would be waiting, and I also follow the method of playing games that is essentially, "I need to do as much extraneous stuff before I progress as possible because I might not be able to do it later." You don't need to follow that train in System Shock though, as nearly all areas remain open for the entirety of the game. However, I don't regret doing the Anna stuff first because it's a good taste of how great the game gets after the laser mission. Basically, as soon as you finish the stuff with the laser, the game goes from good to fantastic.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2014 16:51
|
|
|
CARRIERHASARRIVED posted:The first time you visit Level Five, you get the first email from Anna asking for help. I may be getting mixed up, though, it's a long time since I played this.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2014 19:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 16:01 |
|
|
I always dutifully went straight to the reactor level from level 2 (I'm boring like that), and my recollection was that Anna contacts you as you return to the level 2/3/R elevator after firing the laser and destroying it. I suppose that's not really a spoiler at this point, but oh well. Been a few
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2014 19:36
|
|
