Stuck on Flight Deck - need help (+ some thoughts on the game)

[GamerX]

Hi there,
first of all, let me say that I have never played the original SS1, however, I have played through SS2 (great experience, but also very hard game), Prey (one of my favourites), the Bioshock-Series (yes, it´s a dumbed-down version of SS, but has great story and atmosphere) and most of the other classic immersive sims (Thief 1+2, Deus Ex, Dishonored 1+2...).
I started SS1 on all medium and I managed to get to Flight Deck in about 3 hours. However, I´m completely stuck now. I have to fight a boss here and I don´t have any healing items left and almost no ammo.
Another problem is the difficulty of these hacking puzzles, they start to get really, really annoying in level 5. I simply don´t want to spend 10 minutes solving these stupid puzzles.
Restarting the game on easy is no option for me, if I can´t get on from here, I´m afraid I won´t play it again.

I really can see why this is a classic immersive sim, but does the remake really have to be that hard? I never had such problems with Thief 1+2, even SS2 seems to be a lot easier at the beginning. Did they just remake the graphics and controls without adjusting the gameplay? It seems to be a game just for veterans who have played the 1994 original.

Further problems that I have with this game:

- Enemies hit really hard, they mostly hit their target (hitscan?), poor gunplay
- Some of them are just unfair (e. g. the invisible enemies in maintenance)
- Getting ressources is so tedious with this recycling mechanic. There really should be a button that turns all the useless items into scrap. Why do I have to click on each item?
- These unintuitive, maze-like Maps are confusing, not like in SS2

[Seamus]

Originally posted by GamerX:

- Enemies hit really hard, they mostly hit their target (hitscan?), poor gunplay

Learn to lean and use cover.

- Some of them are just unfair (e. g. the invisible enemies in maintenance)

They don't do much damage and die quickly to the shotgun, particularly with dragon breath rounds.

- Getting ressources is so tedious with this recycling mechanic. There really should be a button that turns all the useless items into scrap. Why do I have to click on each item?

You don't need all that much money and there's a lot of stuff to scrap in the game.

Stop picking up everything unless you're low/out of funds.

- These unintuitive, maze-like Maps are confusing, not like in SS2

Minimap exists for a reason.

As do map markers.

[GamerX]

Thanks for your ideas.

Leaning seems to be almost useless in this game, because you still can get hit when leaning around the corner. As soon as I realized that, I stopped leaning and went to strafe shooting instead.

I constantly use the map and I know that you have to search every box and corpse in such games to get enough supplies, but I mostly couldn´t find usefull stuff. There should be a lot more health items and ammo for my taste. Even the "storage" level was mostly empty in this regard (but full of enemies).

I only found about 3 "big" medipacks in the first 5 levels (which I all have used by now). Then there are these machines where you can buy these "small" healing items, but only 1-2 before the machine is empty.

It´s really getting frustrating, I don´t think I will finish SS1.

[ParasiteX]

Originally posted by GamerX:

Leaning seems to be almost useless in this game, because you still can get hit when leaning around the corner. As soon as I realized that, I stopped leaning and went to strafe shooting instead.

You need to pop back in between shots. Leaning is quicker than moving in and out of cover. Enemies have a very predictable shooting pattern, where they will stand still and shoot, then wait for a short while before shooting again. You need to time leaning when they are on their cooldown.
In addition, when leaning, the enemies will not immediately spot you, giving you a time to tag them with target indicator and get a free initial shot on them.
The exception is when dealing with Security-2 bots. As those will constantly keep moving towards you, even while shooting. So you will need to be on the move when dealing with those. But same as other enemies, they do have a short cooldown between fire bursts where you can get out into open and blast em.

Altough, I haven't tested what new changes they have done with AI with the new patch. So possible need new strategies are needed for some enemies.

[DarkFenix]

Originally posted by GamerX:

Thanks for your ideas.

Leaning seems to be almost useless in this game, because you still can get hit when leaning around the corner. As soon as I realized that, I stopped leaning and went to strafe shooting instead.

I constantly use the map and I know that you have to search every box and corpse in such games to get enough supplies, but I mostly couldn´t find usefull stuff. There should be a lot more health items and ammo for my taste. Even the "storage" level was mostly empty in this regard (but full of enemies).

I only found about 3 "big" medipacks in the first 5 levels (which I all have used by now). Then there are these machines where you can buy these "small" healing items, but only 1-2 before the machine is empty.

It´s really getting frustrating, I don´t think I will finish SS1.

You need to use your resources more efficiently, even on combat 3 the game drowns you in medical supplies and ammo.

As far as medical supplies go, it's about not getting hit, not getting hit is about paying attention to the enemies. They all follow set, simple patterns. When they're shooting, you're supposed to be behind cover, when they stop shooting you pop out and shoot them. Also, you have ready access to free healing on the medical and reactor decks, use it.

When it comes to ammo, I've no idea how you ran out by flight, are you using grenades to destroy cameras and shooting each corpse 10-20 times just in case? Especially since the second weapon you're given has infinite ammo (the sparq).

[ParasiteX]

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

When it comes to ammo, I've no idea how you ran out by flight, are you using grenades to destroy cameras and shooting each corpse 10-20 times just in case? Especially since the second weapon you're given has infinite ammo (the sparq).

You can never be too cautious! Never know if the enemy suddenly wakes up. Gotta nuke the corpse a few times just to be extra sure its extra dead. I always finish em of with a couple railgun shots and a few mag pulses just for good measure.

Reminds me of an anime where the hero is ludicrously cautious to the point he literally disintegrates every atom of his enemies corpse until there is not a single speck left. Even on weak creatures like slimes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_zr1zvy68w

[GamerX]

Okay, it turned out that I did the levels in the wrong order. :-)

I went to flight deck far too early before I even entered the reactor, I also didn´t know what to do considering the "missions". No wonder I constantly was facing higher-level enemies without the right ammo / weapons.

I´m just playing it with the help of a walkthrough now. How were people able to play that through without getting help from internet in 1994?

I mean, I also played a lot of "difficult" (not handholding) games like Dark Souls 1-3, Elden Ring and a lot of games from the 1990s (like the classic RE-games, Fallout, Doom, Quake...).

But difficulty here mainly comes from disorientation because there isn´t a quest log.

Would there be a quest log if I started the game on easy?

I think it´s okay that there isn´t a quest log for people who have played this game before and therefore know what to do, but for newbies like me it´s just frustrating.

[StonedWolf62]

Originally posted by GamerX:

But difficulty here mainly comes from disorientation because there isn´t a quest log.

Would there be a quest log if I started the game on easy?

I think it´s okay that there isn´t a quest log for people who have played this game before and therefore know what to do, but for newbies like me it´s just frustrating.

I never played the original SS1, and I played this on diff 3 for everything except story. (I kept story on 2 so i didn't have a time limit for my first playthrough)

I didn't have any difficulty with knowing what to do though and it confuses me how people are having that issue.
Most the logs you get in the first level tell you exactly what to do, or imply your overall mission at least. And then from there the game practically leads you through it.

I'd love to know why some people have this difficulty, but being a newbie to the game isn't it in my belief.

[Matuse]

An EMP grenade makes the cortex reaver on the flight deck into a complete cake walk. Really, really powerful grenade.

[bjjkdci]

They are not kidding when they say you should be drowning in ammo. I was far too conservative with my gun and ammo choices(but do be cautious in the early going). I completed most of security and the bridge with the sub machine gun as my primary while hoarding plasma cores, rail gun ammo, and emp grenades just in case I needed them, but it turns out I should have had a bit more fun with the gib cannons in certain scenarios. Same goes with energy near the end; I had Sense-Around(I ignored this for so long....) going at all times and I would turn on my shield before any advantageous encounter.

Leaning absolutely breaks hoppers and mutated cyborgs and maybe some others. They aim for the center of your body which will lead them to shoot the wall while you freely shoot them.

While using map markers is a great idea (and one I relied on early on), they broke for me. After a certain point all my markers disappeared and it would not let me place any more, which was a pain as I marked future potential quest items and dropped weapons.

The map and layout, while not immediately intuitive, absolutely make sense. There is always a central area that branches out into quadrants(except maybe storage) and using the the slightly different colours of overlapping floors and the subtle markings of ramps and stairs on the map I was able to determine routes pretty efficiently. While I would get lost occasionally, I felt that the map offered the freedom to avoid certain areas that are hard to traverse or some hallways that respawn more consistently the others once you've done what you needed to do there. I had a harder time determining paths in Prey which I've played over a 100 hours.

Also, keep going the direction you set out on. This game despises doubling back in the early going. Pick a direction or path and see it to it's end as it will probably lead to another area which will lead to where you wanted or needed to go. I wasted so much ammo and energy going back and forth between paths when I was not confident I needed to be there.

Just some random thoughts/observations that may be of help to others.

[GamerX]

Okay, I´m on the engineering deck now, that means towards the end of the game.

After gaining some experience with this game, I can say two things:

1. This is an excellent game. It may not surpass System Shock 2 or Prey 2017 for me, but it will be among the best games I´ve ever played and I´m so glad that I had the opportunity to play the grandfather of immersive sims. I don´t have problems with dated graphics at all, I love the old FPS games from the 90s (Build-Engine games, ID Tech 1 etc.), but System Shock 1 has always been too dated for me regarding graphics AND interface.

2. Now where does the struggle, that I had at the beginning of this game, come from? Let me put it like this: It´s a "Dark Souls issue". What does that mean? This game is similar to Dark Souls in terms of the time investment it requires from the player. If you don´t know how to play Dark Souls, it will be a chore. The same goes for System Shock.

Things I did not know that made the game very hard for me:

- I didn´t know that there are story missions you had to do, I was just trying to get on the next levels of Citadel.

- I didn´t know that you could loot the ammunition of weapons that you find lying around. This is a big issue, this gives you tons of ammo!

- I played through half the game without even knowing that you have these special abbilities (like the shield) that you can enable. Learned that while visiting Beta Grove (shame on me).

- I´m no native speaker of English, however, I always choose the English language in games whenever there is an option for it. I generally like environmental storytelling via audio logs (I first encountered it in the Bioshock- series), yet, sometimes it´s difficult to listen to the speakers WHILE exploring the station, engaging in combat etc. But here, if you don´t always pay attention to what they say, you´re screwed.

But still, without a quest log, it´s hard to figure out where to go / what to do next in many situations. From time to time I had to check a walkthrough on the internet.

Why didn´t they do it like the new Monkey Island game? Here you have an optional "hint book" that you can use whenever you are stuck. First, it just gives you some sense what could come next, if you´re still stuck, it provides you more and more information. So there´s always some motivation to figure out what to do yourself.

That would be a good thing for newcomers to System Shock - because, hell, these immersive sim games (especially Thief, Deus Ex, System Shock) are SO good, this genre needs to be rediscovered by current gamers.

I always thought that Bioshock would be the best immersive sim, but then I played through System Shock 2, Thief 1+2 and Deus Ex 1 so that Bioshock (although it still is one of my favourite games because of story, game world and atmosphere) just felt like a dumbed down version of System Shock to me.

[Golden_Duke]

Originally posted by GamerX:

Why do I have to click on each item?

Most scrapped items get you 0.5x of their worth in credits, but there are some very highly valued items that bring much more untouched than scrapped. Like that precious thing in the form of blue crystal skull in executive level.

[GamerX]

Originally posted by Golden_Duke:

Originally posted by GamerX:

Why do I have to click on each item?

Most scrapped items get you 0.5x of their worth in credits, but there are some very highly valued items that bring much more untouched than scrapped. Like that precious thing in the form of blue crystal skull in executive level.

You mean the one in Diego´s office? Yes, I took it, and, of course, I scrapped it... See, that´s what I´m talking about... you need to know HOW to play this game. It´s not so different from Dark Souls in this regard (did I mention that I played through DS1-3 and Elden Ring?)

[Golden_Duke]

Originally posted by GamerX:

Originally posted by Golden_Duke:

Most scrapped items get you 0.5x of their worth in credits, but there are some very highly valued items that bring much more untouched than scrapped. Like that precious thing in the form of blue crystal skull in executive level.

You mean the one in Diego´s office? Yes, I took it, and, of course, I scrapped it... See, that´s what I´m talking about... you need to know HOW to play this game. It´s not so different from Dark Souls in this regard (did I mention that I played through DS1-3 and Elden Ring?)

Yeah, that one. I found another one in one of the upper levels, don't remember which one.
I didn't know myself, just noticed this when comparing values.