how could you make levels in a system shock game more dynamic?

[687a8dc468c04notaavatar]

I was thinking that the primary thing that can be improved in system shock is the enemies.

While standing around or doing basic patrols is done, I thought that the enemies and the enviromental stuff could to 'jobs'. That is there is a routine for some units that say takes 2-3 hours to finish which they follow while doing stuff to the level. Like that they accomplish something if you wait a long time which changes the game.


For instance, in the grove level, you could have a few units tasked with spreading the plants around (planing pumpkins), or having units setup defenses (i.e. cyborg setting up networks of mines or turrets). Another one that came to mind is stuff tasked with destroying the station, i.e. busting up pipes to slowly flood areas and increase humidity, or dismantling the levels to feed resources into a scrap collector to make more robots. Another idea might be that if patrols find bodies, they have a fear-o-meter, where if they feel that they are in danger, they would explore the map to try to bring more units together to make a 'hunting party'. Alot of these aspects need more of a 'thief' type game then a run and gun like ss remake.

[687a8dc468d2dWhyHelloThere]

I think that's a really cool idea. If there's ever a game with something similar, I know I'd love to play that.

[687a8dc468efafox]

For a sequel or TC-mod it could be nice to have maintenance robots that free roam the station to fix cams, hacked doors or other robots. They could also be made hackable themselves to do stuff that helps the player.

[687a8dc4691d1notaavatar]

Well the problem is that people that rush through the levels would not see anything.  I believe this idea is totally at odds with c-level game development mentality. The closest you can see to this in a FPS game is playing like natrual selection 2 online, where you spread creep (kind of like creep in starcraft for zergs).
I suppose you would need to actually figure out what the station does to the level of a good book to get the 'human' side ideas, and counterpart would have to be made for the biological / invader part.

I think a prerequisite would be that the difficulty level is near a 10/10, the game is stealth based or at least stealth planning based (plan an assault to get a objective)

The interesting thing about this is that basically you need to design a dynamic control system for a complex environment, so it could theoretically have been done 20 years ago and its not really relevant to graphics or computing power, more like determining sensible time constants to interact with the player.

They would need to like hire a think tank to develop game processes that could then be implemented.

A classic idea is growth, which could be as simple as small fleeing enemies that can turn into beasts when they scavenge enough food (like the first alien movie)

Other ideas:
1) booby trapping
2) breeding/replication (worm problem)
3) environmental obstruction/hazards (steam, fog, particulates, flooding, biomaterial spread,  smoke) that favors the enemy type. It could be done to increase their speed, decrease your speed, decrease visibility (favor melee opponents) or give them selves special abilities or interfere with your abilities (like sprinklers to show your cloak)
4) creating 'service' centers. I.e. for cyborgs it could be stripping conduit out to make recharge points, where if you give them time they would make themselves recharge centers, i.e. run away to a 'charge station' that they build to fill shields, or some more complex thing involving scavenged robotics.. or perhaps mutants that resurrect if they happen to die on biomaterial they spread)
5) networking stuff (they start forming networks so more enemies get alerted)
6) upgrading weapons (similar to growth, where they do the same thing as you and get more deadly when they find more materials)
7) upgrading each other

[687a8dc46934ficemann]

Personally I have zero interest in a mod that changes entirely how AI's work / adds new ones. However if you did it in a new FM, then I'd be interested.

[687a8dc46944enotaavatar]

it would also offer a nasty surprise to people who cheese and speed run if they have to return to a area

[687a8dc46958anotaavatar]

The idea of useless NPC robot is interesting, and its even more interesting if it was say booby trapped and turned into a mega version of the kamikazi cars. So lets say you left it alone in exec deck and when you came back it was turned into a slow moving armored bomb


or if you destroyed it and a cyborg came across it, it built something dangerous from the parts.


I kind of started thinking if you use explosives it would like expose parts of the environment that could be turned against you (exposing resources for respawns)

[687a8dc46966bnotaavatar]

and the old idea I had for SS2 is that if you gib stuff it comes back as organs and such that come alive and attack you, sometimes maybe or later. And that they get patrol patterns if you kill it in some useless area that you are unlikely to return to

[687a8dc46982anotaavatar]

and they set up ambushes too