SS2 Baetylus [abandoned]

[664841178fd00Kolya]

Baetylus was a project by Spitter, @ThiefsieFool and @Nameless Voice. It must have been in the works (and abandoned) sometime before 2011.
All I have are these pictures. I hope they can explain a bit more about it.

[664841179032dZylonBane]

I'm not sure I've ever heard of this. I like the look of the architecture.

[6648411790742ThiefsieFool]

It was supposed to be a short campaign for SS2 with big changes to the base game like better combat, skill balance and itemization. The story was kind of a mashup of System Shock and Aliens with the UNN standing in for the USCM. It was only worked on for a brief period between 2005-2006.
If there's anything specific you'd like to know more about, feel free to ask.

[66484117908feJML]

Looked pretty cool tho!

[6648411790a0cKolya]

I would like to know who did the architecture, because it's probably the best I've seen in SS2. What where their references? Do they have an architectural background? Did they do any other game work?

[6648411790b6dicemann]

I've never heard of that one. When was it even mentioned? And it's criminal that the author never released what was done to the public.

[6648411790ecbunn_atropos]

Any playable files still in existence? 😬

[6648411791052ZylonBane]

Only mention of this I could find on TTLG was in this thread, and the name only appears in Kolya's link, to a long-dead page on Spitter's site. There's still a couple of contact links on his home page and Thief page though.

[66484117911a7Kolya]

The long dead page was just a bunch of screenshots almost all of which we have here too.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070705021816/http://thief.interstellarburst.com/portfolio/portfolio.php?p=baetylus

[664841179136fThiefsieFool]

Everything you see in those screenshots was made by Spitter in 2006. There are some files between me and NV but the levels are just some terrain sketches and nothing more than what you see in the screenshots, they were never set up with any gameplay since there kinda wasn't any point.

Development pretty much stopped when Spitter decided to quit working with the Dark Engine, we couldn't find another lead level designer, so from that point on NV and I just focused on our "solo careers" doing our usual thing, him making custom script and puzzle focused missions for Thief, me working on tweaking gameplay and mechanics with Secmod.

[66484117914dcZylonBane]

Do you have copies of the WIP maps?

It would be interesting to try to stitch together a campaign out of the best maps from all these abandoned projects. Like, Goggles somehow goes bouncing between a bunch of alternate universes or something like that. Kind of like the old Sierra adventure Time Zone, if anyone else remembers that.

[664841179166cThiefsieFool]

Well, some of them, not everything that the team worked on actually made it to me or NV, like the armory and outer colony areas, or ajare's AI meshes.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/351840034892152832/664604399515074580/levels.zip

There's allso a level I worked on, NV has a good version of it I think, along with a video of running around in it, maybe he can post that, I don't really want to mess around with it right now, I tried to boot it up and it was a mess.

[6648411791821ThiefsieFool]

What do you know, some more map files and screenshots have been located.

https://nameless.zanity.net/temptf/ShockEd-Baetylus.7z
https://nameless.zanity.net/nukus/
https://nameless.zanity.net/temptf/OldStuff/

[6648411791956icemann]

Be sure to go through the massive old maps archive zip I put up. Has QUITE a bit of stuff.

Interesting maps. Zylon's right on, the unfinished maps being a treasure trove for a FM putting some together into something more cohesive.

[6648411791b14Godlike]

This Fan Mission looks stunning! The Best I've seen so far. People you can't just put such beauty into bin. Perhaps someone one day will implament gameplay to this cool maps. I almost see hybrids lurking around.

[6648411791c67icemann]

Would make for another good community contribution one. Where everyone has to breathe life into one section, add in sound brushes, ecologies or enemy placement etc etc. Then add in logs later + a objectives to complete and a ending of some sort. Back when I checked the level out I was only able to add sound brushes up to a point, then it wouldn't work. Not sure why.

[6648411791df5Dark-Star88]

Good night, what a treasure trove!

[6648411791ee7ZylonBane]

For reasons unknown, Avast now has zanity.net as a blacklisted URL.

[6648411791fd4Kolya]

You really shouldn't be using Avast anymore. They sell your user data. And you don't need anything but defender on windows 10.

[66484117920adicemann]

I stopped using Avast the moment I found that out. Been using Kaspersky since.