SS2 Quest Note Notifiers

[6646d5fc58674ZylonBane]

System Shock 2 Quest Note Notifier/New Quest Notifier v1.2
28 August 2023
by ZylonBane

Requires SS2 NewDark patch v2.46 or higher.
Compatible with the original SS2 campaign, SCP, SecMod, Return to the UNN, and any other SS2 campaigns or missions.

Here are two mods for notifying the player when quest notes are added.

New Quest Notifier
Displays the message "Note added to PDA." when a new quest is assigned. There is no notification of completed quests.

Quest Note Notifier
Displays an onscreen message with the full note text when quest notes are added and completed, and plays a sound when quests are completed.

If the messages disappear faster than you can read them, remember that you can press "L" at any time during gameplay to display a log of the last dozen or so messages.

Be aware that quest notes triggered by logs are added immediately when you pick up the log, rather than when you've actually read it. This is because the scripting system has no way to know when a log has been read. So you may see some quest notifications pop up before it makes sense for them to.

These scripts support localization. See the readme.txt for each mod for details.

NOTE: Since at least one person seems confused about this, this mod does not cause quest notes to be logged in your PDA. The base game already does that. All this mod does is notify you when one is added.

[6646d5fc588ceKolya]

Really cool idea. Making people aware of the quest logs is something where the original game slipped up.

[6646d5fc58a2evoodoo47]

back then, it was more than adequate, but people are too used to all the quest arrows and similar nowadays.

[6646d5fc58b29ZylonBane]

To be fair, SS2 has a lot of UI to remember. It's easy to forget the note system even exists. By the time you're experienced enough to know all about it, you probably don't even need it anymore.

[6646d5fc58dafMarvin]

This is so blatantly useful, it should be part of SS2Tool. Would really help a lot of newbies.

[6646d5fc58ea1Kolya]

I would give it some time for testing but you may be right.

[6646d5fc59047Nameless Voice]

You are already told explicitly what to do at almost every opportunity.  You don't need more prompting.
The notes are there so that you can look them up to remember what you were supposed to be doing next in case you forgot.
Having those notifications pop up just seems redundant.  Fine for a mod, but I don't think that should be in the base game.

[6646d5fc59135ZylonBane]

Coming soon... a version that just prints "Updated my journal." when anything changes.

[6646d5fc592b4JML]

Great. Gothic did it that way, and that was satisfactory.

[6646d5fc593b9Nameless Voice]

One other point - doesn't this make the "new message" beep when it triggers?
I'd imagine that would be somewhat annoying, especially if there's several messages at once and it's beeping over emails/cutscenes.

[6646d5fc594d1ZylonBane]

When a quest note is added it manually plays the same beep sound as when all status messages are displayed, so it's a little louder than usual because the same sound is being played twice simultaneously.

When a quest note is marked complete it plays the success sound from the hacking minigame.

I haven't found either to be particularly distracting. The UI is already pretty beepy and bloopy.

[6646d5fc595f7Nameless Voice]

That's probably because we're so used to constant message beeps from Spy.

[6646d5fc596dfZylonBane]

Email notifications, cybermods awarded, chemicals needed, keys needed, keys used, item pickups... that beep's not uncommon.

[6646d5fc59866JDoran]

This is great, thanks mate.

[6646d5fc5995bZylonBane]

Updated the first post. Added a new minimal version of the mod that just displays a generic notification when quest notes are added. Localization support added.

[6646d5fc59a8bicemann]

What a useful mod. This should have been in the main game.

[6646d5fc59bc2JDoran]

Agreed, this mod should have been in the final game (thanks ZB for all of your hard work). Most games would benefit from having a little more time spent on them, I suppose, and if the already mostly superb SS2 had had another three months of development, then I'd imagine something like this would have been incorporated.

This community (and website) really is great, the fan-modding/bug-fixing/feature-adding/etc that has been done, and that will no doubt be done in the future for the two System Shock games, is very good and always interesting. I just wish that every good game had a community like this.

[6646d5fc59cb2icemann]

Doom is the other one with an equally good community. Been some damn fine work done I over there.

The difference with us is that we've done great things with a much smaller amount of people.

[6646d5fc59daaKolya]

I have added this mod to the Newbie Modding Guide.

[6646d5fc5a0efRoSoDude]

Great work on the mod! But, I found a minor issue with it while watching someone stream the game. During the SHODAN reveal, the "COMPLETE: Get to Deck 4 to meet Dr. Polito" log message breaks up the log messages that tell you that SHODAN is hacking your cyber-interface.

https://i.imgur.com/YbXqdvW.png

Not game-breaking or anything, just thought it was worth pointing out.

[6646d5fc5a1d5JML]

How come I've never seen this?!

[6646d5fc5a2d8ZylonBane]

New Quest Notifier and Quest Note Notifier updated to v1.2. Both have been rewritten to track quest activity in a much less resource-intensive way, and with about half as much code. Both now use a metaproperty to attach their script, so they no longer consume a script slot on the player object.

[6646d5fc5a3a5JDoran]

Thanks, ZB.

[6646d5fc5a60asarge945]

Seems my constant whining about script slots finally had an effect on someone. Thanks for the update.