System Shock Enhanced - respawning monsters?

[Spalls Hurgenson]

So I've decided to give the System Shock Enhanced Edition a
spin-through. The first System Shock was never my favorite but it's
been a long enough time since last I played that it deserves another
look.

But man, the respawning. I remember System Shock had respawning, but
not that it was this bad. It seems to literally respawn a new monster
every thirty seconds. For instance, Level 3 is a small loop with rooms
hanging off of it. If I kill a monster at the start of the loop, by
the time I get all the way around the loop (30 seconds or so), that
monster will have respawned. Reactor level is similar (its loop is
bigger, so I'll see at least two monsters as I run around). The floor
is literally becoming coated with corpses.

This excessively high respawn rate is really killing the mood. I don't
remember it being this bad last time I played the game and I can't
help but wonder if it is a bug in the enhanced edition or something
caused by running it on a faster-than-expected CPU (possibly the
respawn timer is tied to CPU cycles). Either way, it will probably
keep me from finishing the game.

Anyone else experiencing this? Am I just mis-remembering how cruel the
original was?

[rms]

>But man, the respawning.
Surely this is a difficulty option. What difficulty are you playing on?
Oh and also, I dimly recall shutting down respawning by hitting a switch or
turning off the resurrection chambers, something like that?
rms

[Spalls Hurgenson]

System Shock was unique in how it let you tweeak the difficulty
options: it had seperate sliders for combat difficulty, puzzle
difficulty, plot difficuly (at "easiest" there were no logs to read,
at "hardest" there was a mission timer for the whole game) and
cyberspace difficulty. It was an interesting concept that never really
caught on with any other games.

Anyway, I'm playing at "2" difficulty for combat (this can't be
changed once the game is started). However, IIRC none of the
difficulty levels affect the respawn rate.

All the 'Shock games (System- and Bio-) feature resurrection chambers;
you remember correctly that System Shock made you hunt down a switch
to activate them first. It's one of the first things you hunt down
whenever you arrive on a new level. However, it does not affect
respawning of monsters either.

I'm tempted to dig out my original System Shock CD and run it in
DOSBox to compare the respawn rates between it and the enhanced
version. It's really quite awful in the latter...

[Tim O]

I quit playing System Shock 2 because of a respawning issue. I got
stuck in a hallway where monsters kept getting spawned and didn't have
enough health or ammo to get past it from the save point.

Its when the game was still pretty new, so my memory is a bit foggy on
the whole thing. I just remember I was pretty far into the game and
that the issue was infuriating enough for me to delete SS2 and never
play it again.

[Mike S.]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2015 12:06:11 -0500, Tim O <timo56...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>I quit playing System Shock 2 because of a respawning issue. I got
>stuck in a hallway where monsters kept getting spawned and didn't have
>enough health or ammo to get past it from the save point.
>
>Its when the game was still pretty new, so my memory is a bit foggy on
>the whole thing. I just remember I was pretty far into the game and
>that the issue was infuriating enough for me to delete SS2 and never
>play it again.

You might be thinking of an area of the game known as The Gauntlet by
its fans. It is in the Engineering level. I don't consider this area
far into the game though. But it is the only area where respawning is
a real problem that I can recall.

As far as the first game goes, I don't think it had a problem with too
much respawning at all but I haven't played it in many years so I
can't be sure. What Spalls describes sounds like it makes the game
just about unplayable to me.

[Tim O]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2015 12:35:47 -0500, Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

Yea, I can't be sure. I've played through stuff like the STALKER games
(even restarting after radiation bug in 1st game -read up on that
llittle gem) without rage-quitting like I did SS2 though.

[Mike S.]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2015 13:02:29 -0500, Tim O <timo56...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Yea, I can't be sure. I've played through stuff like the STALKER games
>(even restarting after radiation bug in 1st game -read up on that
>llittle gem) without rage-quitting like I did SS2 though.

Note that System Shock 2 probably has more in common with survival
horror games then first person shooters. You aren't ever supposed to
feel safe. You aren't supposed to kill everything you come across with
near unlimited ammo reserves and then clear the level. This will break
immersion and kill the mood of the game. The game just wouldn't be the
same without respawning.

With that said, the game could have toned it down somewhat, especially
in some areas like in Engineering. Or it could have tied respawning to
difficulty level which it did not do.

[Spalls Hurgenson]

On Sun, 13 Dec 2015 08:01:10 -0500, Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>On Sat, 12 Dec 2015 13:02:29 -0500, Tim O <timo56...@hotmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Yea, I can't be sure. I've played through stuff like the STALKER games
>>(even restarting after radiation bug in 1st game -read up on that
>>llittle gem) without rage-quitting like I did SS2 though.

>With that said, the game could have toned it down somewhat, especially
>in some areas like in Engineering. Or it could have tied respawning to
>difficulty level which it did not do.

There was a patch that let you tune the respawn rate (albeit only by
editing a CFG file) that made System Shock 2 more bearable in that
regard. You could also mitigate the weapon-degradation rate (which I
found far more annoying than the respawning).

I wish there was something similar in the original...

[Mr Rob]

On Sun, 13 Dec 2015 09:34:08 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>There was a patch that let you tune the respawn rate (albeit only by
>editing a CFG file) that made System Shock 2 more bearable in that
>regard. You could also mitigate the weapon-degradation rate (which I
>found far more annoying than the respawning).
>
>I wish there was something similar in the original...

I see that System Shock 3 is now coming (via OtherSide Entertainment)

Boy has that game got some big shoes to fill
--
Rob

[Ross Ridge]

Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>Note that System Shock 2 probably has more in common with survival
>horror games then first person shooters. You aren't ever supposed to
>feel safe. You aren't supposed to kill everything you come across with
>near unlimited ammo reserves and then clear the level. This will break
>immersion and kill the mood of the game. The game just wouldn't be the
>same without respawning.

The fact that System Shock 2 is basically a survival horror when it comes
down it is why I'm not all that interested in the recent announcement
of System Shock 3. I didn't mind SS2 with respawning turned off in
the configuration file, basically turning it into an FPS/RPG hybrid.
That didn't completely disable the respawning though, and the little
bit that remained was bad enough to make me very glad I wasn't playing
the game the way I was supposed to be.

I never finished it though. By the time you got to the final level,
the other space ship, it become a real slog, and really difficult.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //

[Spalls Hurgenson]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2015 14:08:38 -0500, Ross Ridge
<rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

>Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com> wrote:

>I never finished it though. By the time you got to the final level,
>the other space ship, it become a real slog, and really difficult.

I minded the second half less because of the "slog" and more because
the levels either weren't that interesting (in the case of the levels
on the /Rickenbacker/) or downright silly (the levels inside The
Many). The former was just "more of the same"; the latter had giant
teeth descending from the ceiling. Both were also increasingly
dependent on jumping puzzles as a way to ramp up the difficulty.

But I can still close my eyes and feel the frission of terror as I
crept through darkened halls of the /Von Braun/, never knowing what
was around the next corner. That System Shock 2 was able to maintain
that level of suspense for as long as it did is a wonder; that it
started to break down only once I reached the /Rickenbacker/ was
inevitable.

[Mike S.]

On Tue, 15 Dec 2015 09:04:44 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I minded the second half less because of the "slog" and more because
>the levels either weren't that interesting (in the case of the levels
>on the /Rickenbacker/) or downright silly (the levels inside The
>Many). The former was just "more of the same"; the latter had giant
>teeth descending from the ceiling. Both were also increasingly
>dependent on jumping puzzles as a way to ramp up the difficulty.
>
>But I can still close my eyes and feel the frission of terror as I
>crept through darkened halls of the /Von Braun/, never knowing what
>was around the next corner. That System Shock 2 was able to maintain
>that level of suspense for as long as it did is a wonder; that it
>started to break down only once I reached the /Rickenbacker/ was
>inevitable.

Yeah this was the biggest problem. Not the respawning. Not the weapon
degradation system. But this. The last part of the game, starting with
the Rickenbacker, felt rushed.And the Body of the Many was just
stupid, I agree.

[Ross Ridge]

Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>But I can still close my eyes and feel the frission of terror as I
>crept through darkened halls of the /Von Braun/, never knowing what
>was around the next corner. That System Shock 2 was able to maintain
>that level of suspense for as long as it did is a wonder; that it
>started to break down only once I reached the /Rickenbacker/ was
>inevitable.

I still cringe everytime I hear the sound of monkeys screeching the way
they did in System Shock 2.

[Xocyll]

Tim O <timo56...@hotmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

As I recall the first patch introduced options to turn down (but not
off) the respawn and turn down the wear rate on weapons, both of which
were too high at release.

Not in a menu, you had to edit the .ini file.

You could never turn it all the way off because it was supposed to
simulate a living environment where empty areas would attract critters
(either naturally or because Shodan sent them.)

Xocyll
--

I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

[Spalls Hurgenson]

On Wed, 16 Dec 2015 10:46:39 -0500, Xocyll <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:

>>>On Fri, 11 Dec 2015 11:55:54 -0700, "rms"
>>><rsqui...@MOOyossmanMOO.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>But man, the respawning.

>>>Anyway, I'm playing at "2" difficulty for combat (this can't be
>>>changed once the game is started). However, IIRC none of the
>>>difficulty levels affect the respawn rate.

>As I recall the first patch introduced options to turn down (but not
>off) the respawn and turn down the wear rate on weapons, both of which
>were too high at release.

>Not in a menu, you had to edit the .ini file.

>You could never turn it all the way off because it was supposed to
>simulate a living environment where empty areas would attract critters
>(either naturally or because Shodan sent them.)

In System Shock 2, not the original. It's the original I'm having
issue with ;-(

Anyway, it turns out that the save games created in the SS1 Enhanced
edition are compatible with the original version as well (well, that's
not too surprising). So I installed System Shock Classic, transferred
the save games over to the new directory, loaded the EE save-games
and...

... the spawning is /much/ reduced in Classic. In Enhanced, a new
Invisible Mutant was spawning once every twenty or thirty seconds; in
Classic, it was closer to once every two or three minutes.*That's
still fairly high compared to modern games but it is more or less what
I remembered of the original.

I sent a note to the developers; it's an obvious bug. Hopefully they
fix it, because I've basically given up on replaying this game because
of it. Not only does it crank up the difficulty unnecessarily, it
completely ruins the immersion. It turns the creepy corridors of
Citadel Station into a clown-car routine.

[Xocyll]

Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the

entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>On Wed, 16 Dec 2015 10:46:39 -0500, Xocyll <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:
>
>>>>On Fri, 11 Dec 2015 11:55:54 -0700, "rms"
>>>><rsqui...@MOOyossmanMOO.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>But man, the respawning.
>
>>>>Anyway, I'm playing at "2" difficulty for combat (this can't be
>>>>changed once the game is started). However, IIRC none of the
>>>>difficulty levels affect the respawn rate.
>
>
>>As I recall the first patch introduced options to turn down (but not
>>off) the respawn and turn down the wear rate on weapons, both of which
>>were too high at release.
>
>>Not in a menu, you had to edit the .ini file.
>
>>You could never turn it all the way off because it was supposed to
>>simulate a living environment where empty areas would attract critters
>>(either naturally or because Shodan sent them.)
>
>In System Shock 2, not the original. It's the original I'm having
>issue with ;-(

Yeah but I was replying to Tim O who mentioned SS2.

>Anyway, it turns out that the save games created in the SS1 Enhanced
>edition are compatible with the original version as well (well, that's
>not too surprising). So I installed System Shock Classic, transferred
>the save games over to the new directory, loaded the EE save-games
>and...
>
>... the spawning is /much/ reduced in Classic. In Enhanced, a new
>Invisible Mutant was spawning once every twenty or thirty seconds; in
>Classic, it was closer to once every two or three minutes.*That's
>still fairly high compared to modern games but it is more or less what
>I remembered of the original.
>
>I sent a note to the developers; it's an obvious bug. Hopefully they
>fix it, because I've basically given up on replaying this game because
>of it. Not only does it crank up the difficulty unnecessarily, it
>completely ruins the immersion. It turns the creepy corridors of
>Citadel Station into a clown-car routine.

Yeah that sounds absurdly high.

SS and SS2 are two games I really wish would get a true remake (leave
the gameplay alone and just update to modern level graphics, controls,
etc.)

Unfortunately it would probably get even more dumbed down than Skyrim,
require a console controller and have all the replayability of a
paint-by-numbers picture.