SS2 Christine FM1: Ponterbee Station V5

[664980109aa60voodoo47]

yes, setting difficulty/permit to 0 will remove the object when the game exe is used (the object will be editor only, basically). doing this on the ecology object would indeed kill the entire setup, I'm guessing.

pretty sure he'd be fine with some spawning, he just doesn't want to bash an endless hybrid flood with the wrench. as far as I can tell, the first level of Nightwalker hits the spot right now - just enough spawning to keep the player on their toes, without being annoying to the point of the player just giving up and running past the spawns to the other level, "ain't nobody got time for that".

[664980109ae60fbr]

pretty sure he'd be fine with some spawning, he just doesn't want to bash an endless hybrid flood with the wrench. as far as I can tell, the first level of Nightwalker hits the spot right now - just enough spawning to keep the player on their toes, without being annoying to the point of the player just giving up and running past the spawns to the other level, "ain't nobody got time for that".

This is exactly the point. Respawns are important for the game, and I even think the base game could have a slightly higher rate. However, between having too much and none spawns, I would choose the second (playing with less action is better than not playing at all).

[664980109b1baChristine]

I wrote some dml files, this should fix the spawn.
unzip the 7zip in your Ponterbee folder and start a new game.

If it's still too much spawn, let me know, I'll write no-spawns-dmls
[Ponterbee-Spawn-Fix.7z expired]

[664980109b2d2voodoo47]

a dml will (also) get applied as long as the map has not been visited yet.

[664980109b40afbr]

Thanks Christine, it looks way better now. May I ask what exactly the DMLs do, in case I need to tweak another of your FMs? I saw the files, but did not understand what they changed. I managed to understand superficially how Ecologies work in ShockED, and the ones in Ponterbee were supposed to work fine. In fact, the respawn times and rates were lower than in the base game (comparing to MedSci1, which is already a quite "empty" level).

[664980109b519voodoo47]

in short, they are text files you can use to apply properties to objects without using the editor. great for mods and quick patches.

[664980109b671Christine]

I also reduced the spawn-points. (just for the dml files, not sure if I make it in the next Update, I have to test it first)

All marker that belongs together need the same EcoType Number to work right.
I just learned it while I updated the Nightwalker (thanks to Voodoo), in the NightwalkerV3 it is fixed.
I will do it in Polaris, Holiday and Ponterbee too.

[664980109b7ccfbr]

After playing through most of the FM, I think the respawn rate is now spot on. I never managed to clear an area and then relax, there was always somebody lurking around. However, it did not "punish" exploration and make me enjoy more the greatly constructed levels (really nice job with the mall, BTW). It feels how I mentioned before, somewhat higher than the base game. Even if you decide to not include this in the FMs, it would be nice to have it available as an option. I guess many players would enjoy the game more like this. So, thank you very much for this!

[664980109b8e4Christine]

I tried to add the 7zip to the first post, but get a message that the file size is too large.   

I guess Kolya can do it.

[664980109b9c9voodoo47]

you want the dmls to be merged into the FM archive?

[664980109bad3Christine]

No, I just want to add the dml.7zip as a separate file to the first post for the players who want a lower spawn.

[664980109bbf4voodoo47]

done. though this is a fix more than anything, so merging it in sometime in the future is probably advisable.

[664980109bd3dChristine]

Thank you 

I allready have fixed it for the next Version and added some more SPC goodies (waterreflections, even the watersection in medsci looks cool now, that is such a wonderfull effect  ). But I need some time until I release it. Working on the update for Polaris (and after this I will test Ponterbee again)

[664980109bef2Christine]

I have updated Ponterbee Station to Version 5.
The spawn is working now like it should, I hope you'll like it. 

Kolya has updated the first post 

[664980109c0f3Berathraben]

Not sure if this is the right place to report errors. I found a spelling error in the written text in Level 02.STR

It is a minor misspelling of irrelevant in SHODAN's log

EmailName1:"SHODAN 21.Nov.26\nre: Welcome...\n"
EmailPortrait1:"Shodan"
EmailIcon1:"ShodIcon"
EmailText1:"Welcome to MY space station... insect! I hope you had a comfortable flight? I don't know who you are or why you are here... but that's irrelevent because in a few hours I will have cleansed this station of all humanoid contamination... Have a nice stay!\n"

[664980109c1e8voodoo47]

yeah, all issues should be reported here. Christine can fix them, or maybe I will. you want to check the rest of the texts?

[664980109c2e4Berathraben]

I can work my way through the texts and see if I spot any more. If I do I will report them here.

[664980109c758....................]

ChristineI don't know if it's just like this for me, but I don't need NewDark 2.48 or SHTUP-ND to run the mod. I just dropped it in .wine/drive_c/GOG Games/System Shock 2/z (z being a directory I created for SS2 mods.) Then I installed and ran the mod in FMSel.

[664980109c8c4voodoo47]

you do need 2.48, but unless you have downloaded an old NewDark package from the internet and applied it manually to your SS2 install, then you already are running 2.48 (GOG and steam both use 2.48 at the moment, and if you apply the tool to your cd install you will end up with 2.48 as well). not using SHTUP-ND will not prevent you from running the fan mission, but some objects and/or textures may not look correct (for example, if you run the RttUNN mission without it, skyboxes will be completely broken).

[664980109cc82ZylonBane]

(for example, if you run the RttUNN mission without it, skyboxes will be completely broken).

What? How did that happen? SHTUP-ND didn't even exist when RttUNN was created.

[664980109ce47voodoo47]

yeah, but it's been updated, and I had to make a choice, either nice skyboxes, or no SHTUP-ND dependency. I went with nice skyboxes.

[664980109cf77ZylonBane]

There should not have been a choice to make. SHTUP is designed to upgrade the vanilla missions, so if RttUNN just used the vanilla skyboxes, it would be fine with or without SHTUP. The only custom skybox SHTUP adds is the space-with-Earth skybox for use in SCP, but SCP also works fine without SHTUP.

[664980109d0davoodoo47]

iirc, doing anything else would break things even more because of the way FM/mod priorities work - cannot include the original lowres skyboxes in the FM res because they would override the mod skyboxes, if skyboxes are not included AND there is no skybox mod active then the skyboxes will be broken/missing.

will check again, maybe I have missed something. //right, the skybox with earth is needed. so it's either including SHTUP-ND earth skybox in the FM which is not how things should be handled, or just make the mod a requirement. not great, but lesser of the two evils, imho.

[664980109d1d7ZylonBane]

You're ignoring the third option: Do exactly what SCP does to work fine with or without SHTUP.