GOG to sell System Shock 2

[irishScott]

Oh, for any new players, the GOG version comes with a downloadable manual. Said manual has detailed descriptions of skills, weapons and such. You're going to need the knowledge to select a good build in training.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Uh, I don't remember any "useless" weapons from my playthroughs.

EMP rifle, Stasis Generator.

Also, there are no "useless" skills,

Ummm...

Spoiler

repair and modify

are unneeded due to

Spoiler

maintenance tools and French Epstein devices.

Go into any RPG and make Charisma your maximum priority, and you're fucked in combat.

My sorceress would like a word with you. I didn't quite catch it, but I think it started with "maximized, empowered" something-or-other...

 

[Shadowknight]

I updated my post on page two with a final correction on enabling newsky, and some general tips from Voodoo47 on Gog.com to make sure the mods work correctly with the Gog.com version of System Shock 2.

 

[irishScott]

EMP rifle, Stasis Generator.

Used the former to take down heavy mechs and turrets with ease (due to the lack of recoil and no waste of AP ammo/standard weapon condition) and the latter to freeze cyborg assassins on the run and groups of spiders.

Ummm...

Spoiler

repair and modify

are unneeded due to

Spoiler

maintenance tools and French Epstein devices.

You need both skills to use those tools in the first place...

My sorceress would like a word with you. I didn't quite catch it, but I think it started with "maximized, empowered" something-or-other...

Obviously I was making a general statement. No RPG has perfect skill balance, there are primary skills and support skills. To expect every possible skill to be of critical importance is unrealistic, and to deride some skills as "useless" just because they don't fit your particular play-style is naive.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Used the former to take down heavy mechs and turrets with ease (due to the lack of recoil and no waste of AP ammo/standard weapon condition) and the latter to freeze cyborg assassins on the run and groups of spiders.

Requirement of Energy 6 means 147 modules on Normal to save that 1 AP round on turrets and 2 rounds on heavy mechs, along with taking up 3 spaces of inventory.
Stasis -- yeah, you could tech to Heavy 3 and lug it and prisms around for those enemies; or you could just shoot them.

You need both skills to use those tools in the first place...

No, one uses maintenance and the other has no prereqs. Maintenance also has the bonus of giving you more charge in your implants, powered armor, and energy weapons, while

Spoiler

Repair

gives you no added bonus and is completely replicated by

Spoiler

Auto-Repair Units

, which are plentiful enough.
A couple of the weapons are unbreakable, too.

 

[Daverino]

Requirement of Energy 6 means 147 modules on Normal to save that 1 AP round on turrets and 2 rounds on heavy mechs, along with taking up 3 spaces of inventory.
Stasis -- yeah, you could tech to Heavy 3 and lug it and prisms around for those enemies; or you could just shoot them.



No, one uses maintenance and the other has no prereqs. Maintenance also has the bonus of giving you more charge in your implants, powered armor, and energy weapons, while

Spoiler

Repair

gives you no added bonus and is completely replicated by

Spoiler

Auto-Repair Units

, which are plentiful enough.
A couple of the weapons are unbreakable, too.

Yes, I'm glad I'm not the only one. The reason I replayed the game is because I had to start over and repick my skills. As was slightly alluded to above,

Spoiler

the only weapon skill you need is standard weapons. Once you unlock the AR, you have no need for anything else. Moreover, the AR is so overpowered, compared to everything else, the game becomes terribly easy once you have it.

 

[wanderer27]

I want to pick up this game, but I also want to grab it with SS1 so I'll get the full experience.

Are there graphic mods/updates for SS1?


.

 

[Shadowknight]

I want to pick up this game, but I also want to grab it with SS1 so I'll get the full experience.

Are there graphic mods/updates for SS1?


.

There's mods to enable mouse-look, and add resolutions for 800x600, and 1024x768, I wouldn't recommend going past 800x600, as SS hammers dosbox pretty hard as is. There's also a mod to make some of the textures a little nicer. It's not night and day, but it is better.

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100333
http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=1719.0

 

[irishScott]

Requirement of Energy 6 means 147 modules on Normal to save that 1 AP round on turrets and 2 rounds on heavy mechs, along with taking up 3 spaces of inventory.
Stasis -- yeah, you could tech to Heavy 3 and lug it and prisms around for those enemies; or you could just shoot them.

You apparently didn't have the ammo issues I had; what difficulty were you playing on? There were multiple times, especially on the middle levels, where I found myself with tons of anti-personnel ammo and zero armor-piercing. Try taking on heavy mechs with fucking pellet rounds. Finding an EMP rifle saved my ass.

Ditto for the cyborg assassins. By the time I got to them I was low on ammo and my weapon conditions sucked. They could run a lot faster than me, and I wasted most of what little ammo I had left shooting at them with precious few hits. I had to simply avoid them to save ammo for other enemies until I found the stasis generator.

Maybe I just suck at character building, but that's how I ended up. I typically don't plan my builds in advance, takes a lot of immersion out of the game for me and turns it into a mathematical exercise. I never played video games because I missed math class.

 

[DominionSeraph]

You apparently didn't have the ammo issues I had; what difficulty were you playing on? There were multiple times, especially on the middle levels, where I found myself with tons of anti-personnel ammo and zero armor-piercing. Try taking on heavy mechs with fucking pellet rounds. Finding an EMP rifle saved my ass.

I beat most things over the head with my Crystal Shard, so I was swimming in ammo on Hard. I had something like 150 rounds each of AP and HE, with close to 300 rounds of standard.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I'm unclear....is everything ready to go with this if you put all those mods in the mod folder? Or do you have to do anything else?

 

[Shadowknight]

I'm unclear....is everything ready to go with this if you put all those mods in the mod folder? Or do you have to do anything else?

You need to run sstool first, I added a link to my post. There are remaining compatibility issues with the GOG version of System Shock 2. Fraphics mods (rebirth, the wrench, 400...) seem to be working fine.

I've added a newer version of the graphics pack, I I found out that someone had actually completed the waking up from cryo movie in the SS2 HD demo that came out a few months ago. I put it in as a mod on my computer, and it works perfectly. I threw a copy of sstool into the new pack as well so everyone will have everything they need.

Admittedly, I'm almost regretting making the graphics pack now, as on my i3 at home it runs fine, but the MacBook Air I'm using on the road is struggling a bit with all of the mods and Directx9 tweaks to max out image quality.

*I re-applied new sky and it's working now. I'll upload a new version in a bit, at which point the graphics pack shouldn't require any more changes, short of new mods/new versions of mods coming out in the future.

 

[Albatross]

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
If you have problems,try direct x 9 for those on Win 7.

 

[bbhaag]

I played last night for the first time in over a decade and it scared the crap outta me. I had forgotten how good this game is.

 

[exdeath]

Join us...

 

[Shadowknight]

Looks like sstool 5.0 is up: http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=4141.0

One thing; if you run sstool 5.0 on an existing modded game, you'll need to re-apply the newearth files, available here: http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=4281.0. For a fresh install, run sstool 5.0 first, then drop all mods in per my post, and edit the cam.cfg file to include enhanced_sky 1 as normal.

 

[coloumb]

Hrm... would there be a reason why i can't hear the training module speeches?

EDIT - weird..seems to be working now after turning the music bar all the way up.

 

[irishScott]

Hrm... would there be a reason why i can't hear the training module speeches?

None I can think of, mine played just fine. You install any mods?

 

[Crono]

I played last night for the first time in over a decade and it scared the crap outta me. I had forgotten how good this game is.

I got System Shock 2 a few years ago to play single player. The co-op mode is surprisingly fun for a game that old, once you get mods and networking set up.

It's very atmospheric. It's effectively creepy because of how quiet it is on the ship, relative to nonstop action of other games. When you do hear sounds or the soundtrack kick into overdrive, it gets you going. And the game "cheats" by spawning in enemies a couple times after you think you've cleared an area. Recordings, the harshness of voices over comms, and psi "ghosts" push it over the top. It's a fun game to play at midnight. Plenty of twists in the plot.

I found the spiritual successor BioShock and sequels to have that atmospheric and creepy factor, but not quite as scary, despite System Shock 2 being an older game with dated graphics, even with mods.

I barely play any games anymore, but I would love to see another System Shock game. I'm not even sure how many other games fall into the "cyberpunk" category in the FPS/RPG genres.

 

[WiseUp216]

Installed and working with the Rebirth and SHTUP mods. I'm happy with how good it looks for such an old game but one problem:

Is there a mod that makes the HUD larger at 1080p? I'm playing on a 50" 1080p Sammy from ~7 feet away and working with the inventory is kind of a PITA. Not unmanageable but larger text/icons for all the HUD components would be extremely helpful.

I've done some Googlin' but no luck, yet. A lot of mods to sort through.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Is there a mod that makes the HUD larger at 1080p? I'm playing on a 50" 1080p Sammy from ~7 feet away and working with the inventory is kind of a PITA. Not unmanageable but larger text/icons for all the HUD components would be extremely helpful.

I've done some Googlin' but no luck, yet. A lot of mods to sort through.

Go into your cam_ext.cfg file and it's in the 10th paragraph under display mode:


; enable scaling of in-game 2D overlay (HUD), makes the things like current item/weapon text, or SS2
; HUD/panels, larger at resolutions of 1280x960 or higher with pixel perfect scaling (requires "use_d3d_display")
; NOTE: Enabling scaling may actually improve performance, especially at high resolutions.
;d3d_disp_scaled_2d_overlay 64


Remove the semicolon before d3d_disp_scaled_2d_overlay 64.

 

[nemesismk2]

just downloaded System Shock 2 from GOG and will have to get the manual next

 

[DominionSeraph]

Manual should be included.

 

[WiseUp216]

Go into your cam_ext.cfg file and it's in the 10th paragraph under display mode:


; enable scaling of in-game 2D overlay (HUD), makes the things like current item/weapon text, or SS2
; HUD/panels, larger at resolutions of 1280x960 or higher with pixel perfect scaling (requires "use_d3d_display")
; NOTE: Enabling scaling may actually improve performance, especially at high resolutions.
;d3d_disp_scaled_2d_overlay 64


Remove the semicolon before d3d_disp_scaled_2d_overlay 64.

Will try this later today. Thank you!

 

[georgec84]

This thing is selling like crazy, rising up the bestseller list.