So taking advice from ledeir, started up a thread as it will be easier to track my questions and comments this way.

"How much karma did you have when you faced the arena @icemann? And how did you spec your character?
Its roughly balanced so that you can get up through about fight 5 without needing much grinding. If you pumped your HP then you can likely get further as the main issue with the later fights is they punch hard."

I'd pumped Quickness, ranged and pistol up to 5. Dodge up to 5 and body to 6. Was still using the first pistol you get in the game. Kept it to keep things challenging.

After losing to the mage the first time I farmed for a bit and got the combat skills all to 7.

I've since upgraded to the warhawk pistol.

Question: So will be there actual cyberspace bits in this? I've just beaten Drake Tower and Dark Blade and only encountered cyberspace on the ground level of Drake Tower and at Raitsov's / Matrix Systems building. None at all at Dark Blade. Cyberspace was some of the fun stuff to do in the SNES game, and considering you can farm karma I see no harm (and only good) from having it back in. Sure it's not minesweeper style, but cyberspace all the same would have better in than out. Would provide more of a varied gameplay experience as well.

Why have Drake Tower enemies respawn everytime you come back? They'd clear permanently in the SNES game. All you need to do there is use a story variable to only progress once a floor is cleared. If you had it so that you couldn't use the computers until the enemies were cleared from the level then that would assist with that. That way the UGC better matches up to the original.

Bugs not mentioned yet - At several of the vid-phones if you call someone you only see your face, where as at other spots you see the correct faces.

Minor - Many of the non boss related enemies have their standard Shadowrun Returns names. Changing these to match up to their SNES variants would be good.

Good to see you took the advice. It's much easier to keep tabs on the convo this way.

Most of the scenes are at/close to/slightly over their memory caps, which will make adding full cyberspace environments tougher. Personally, I wouldn't mind adding a few fleshed out ones for major points, and keeping the convo based ones for the smaller less significant nodes.

Drake towers isn't persistant? I retooled the volcano, and I'm pretty sure Ledier did Aneki towers... I wonder if that one just slipped past? I'll post it up in out discord, and see if it was an oversight or intentional.

The vidphones... In DFDC, or returns... (This was later changed in HK with speakers) You have to have the actor spawned on the map to show their picture. Again, memory being closed... Spawned actors are expensive... Which scene(s) did you use the phone and see blank/yourself?

Names? Most of them tgat I've seen are "heavy dude" or the like... Where did you find other names?

Thanks for the comments!

1 scene I recall was on the floor of Drake Tower that had the vid-phone

Originally posted by icemann:

1 scene I recall was on the floor of Drake Tower that had the vid-phone

Noted.

Thanks for starting a thread!
Comments in line.

Originally posted by icemann:

So taking advice from ledeir, started up a thread as it will be easier to track my questions and comments this way.

To give credit where its due, Dave actually suggested that.

Originally posted by icemann:

I'd pumped Quickness, ranged and pistol up to 5. Dodge up to 5 and body to 6. Was still using the first pistol you get in the game. Kept it to keep things challenging.

After losing to the mage the first time I farmed for a bit and got the combat skills all to 7.

Thanks for sharing your character specs. The more people who do this, the better we can balance the mod.

The pistol is definitely "hard" mode. The other weapons definitely hit hard.
If you want "extreme" mode, sell your pistol before talking to glutman ;) The zip gun is even weaker.

You are definitely stronger than I was when I got to the caryards! So I'm not surprised you had a fairly easy time. (and it makes me extra glad I've been buffing the NPCs in the later maps)

Originally posted by icemann:

Question: So will be there actual cyberspace bits in this? I've just beaten Drake Tower and Dark Blade and only encountered cyberspace on the ground level of Drake Tower and at Raitsov's / Matrix Systems building. None at all at Dark Blade. Cyberspace was some of the fun stuff to do in the SNES game, and considering you can farm karma I see no harm (and only good) from having it back in. Sure it's not minesweeper style, but cyberspace all the same would have better in than out. Would provide more of a varied gameplay experience as well.

We would like to add proper matrix runs to some key places. As Dave said, the maps are a bit large so its hard to find places they'll fit. The secret lab has a proper matrix encounter.
Currently I think we have 3 hack points... (one of which was a crude implementation of the minesweeper... needs work...)
- Docks
- Glutman
- Final Boss
I would like to add a proper matrix encounter to Dark Blade, Drake Tower, and possibly Drake Volcano...

Originally posted by icemann:

Why have Drake Tower enemies respawn everytime you come back? They'd clear permanently in the SNES game. All you need to do there is use a story variable to only progress once a floor is cleared. If you had it so that you couldn't use the computers until the enemies were cleared from the level then that would assist with that. That way the UGC better matches up to the original.

Hmm... It is probably an oversight... or maybe a variable broke... I thought I had added persistence to each of the maps... I'll have to take a look.

Originally posted by icemann:

Bugs not mentioned yet - At several of the vid-phones if you call someone you only see your face, where as at other spots you see the correct faces.

There are a handful of maps where I forgot there were phones so I didn't copy the needed NPCs. I'll take a look at the Tower.

Originally posted by icemann:

Minor - Many of the non boss related enemies have their standard Shadowrun Returns names. Changing these to match up to their SNES variants would be good.

[/quote]
Sounds like another oversight... I thought I'd properly named the random spawners as hitmen and snipers... I'll keep my eyes open on my next play through

We just did a bunch of map merging and buffing a lot of enemies so I need to play through start to finish to ensure nothing broke... It'll be a good time to check the various names.

Thanks again for your comments!

Pleasure. This is my first play of the mod. I'd held off for a long time and wanted it to be near complete, to get the best experience and to provide complete feedback.

I am a HUGE fan of the Super Nintendo original, and I'll TBH a bit of a purist. So take my comments with that in mind. As I'm a UGC maker myself (I encorporated some of the SNES Shadowrun gameplay / game mechanics into my UGC also), some of my feedback will be aimed with that in mind from what I've learned. I even did my own take on Drake Tower in my UGC. As well as a random Matrix run generator (random selection from a set of pre-created bits of maps connected by teleporters, with random layouts for enemies).

The trick I used to save on memory was to pool all enemies from a set of single cases of each enemy type stored off screen (to the player). On the run being generated it spawns copies of those at the locations specified in the triggers. As soon as you exit cyberspace all enemies are removed and you either win or lose the generated mission.

Just some random UGC discovery info. Though mine is part System Shock as well. So has elements from that in there too. I must finish off my UGC someday. So busy with other games dev efforts and playing of games.

Anyways. Will report back with future findings.

Originally posted by icemann:

I am a HUGE fan of the Super Nintendo original, and I'll TBH a bit of a purist. So take my comments with that in mind. As I'm a UGC maker myself (I encorporated some of the SNES Shadowrun gameplay / game mechanics into my UGC also), some of my feedback will be aimed with that in mind from what I've learned. I even did my own take on Drake Tower in my UGC. As well as a random Matrix run generator (random selection from a set of pre-created bits of maps connected by teleporters, with random layouts for enemies).

As a purist, It will be good to get your take on the end game maps as those are where we stray the most from the original.

And when this is eventually finished, I'll make sure to check out your mods ;)

Random notes:

Enemies with standard names on top - Ground level of Drake tower. Displayed as "Knight Errand Guard".

GOD DAYAM you have some damn fine art and props in this mod. I just want to rip half of it out and use it in my UGC. Bremerton looks fantastic.

Loved what you did with the octopus. Good work there.

New slime enemies in Bremerton are quite good. Not exactly the same as in the original, but whats done is good.

Places that look spot on - Arena, all the bars and clubs (though some have some changes to layout slightly),

Inside of Bremerton looks COMPLETELY different to the SNES version. But it does look far more like the inside of a ship now. So I'm fine with that.

Jester spirit needs more HP. He went down real fast. 4 hits.

I love how you do the random encounters in this. Shadowrun Returns main campaigns needed this.

Originally posted by icemann:

Random notes:

Enemies with standard names on top - Ground level of Drake tower

GOD DAYAM you have some damn fine art and props in this mod. I just want to rip half of it out and use it in my UGC. Bremerton looks fantastic.

Loved what you did with the octopus. Good work there.

New slime enemies in Bremerton are quite good. Not exactly the same as in the original, but whats done is good.

Places that look spot on - Arena, all the bars and clubs (though some have some changes to layout slightly),

Inside of Bremerton looks COMPLETELY different to the SNES version. But it does look far more like the inside of a ship now. So I'm fine with that.

Jester spirit needs more HP. He went down real fast. 4 hits.

I love how you do the random encounters in this. Shadowrun Returns main campaigns needed this.

Regarding the props, they should all be in Geeked's prop pack. He made them for us, but his prop pack is available to all!

When I started the mod I made it a point to keep things as close visually to the original... Then when Geeked started helping out he gave a lot of the scenes a makeover which kept them looking true to the original while also making them look MUCH better...

We definitely diverge in the towers and bremerton... No question there! The original bremerton was just a bunch of causeways if I remember right... It didn't feel ship like at all.

Hmm... That is pretty quick for Jester... I'll have to think about that.

Glad you like the random encounters!

Jester buff (both combat wise & animations/cinematic) is coming... He's one of the lackluster mini-bosses... So I think that'll fall into my realm of "anything worth doing is worth overdoing."

Originally posted by icemann:

As I'm a UGC maker myself

Which mod is yours? I don't recognize the username... But sometimes they change... And I haven't been following them too closely as of late anyways...

So... Let's toot your horn for a minute. Tell us about your UGC!

My UGC is called "Old Habits Die Hard" which is a quasi-sequel to System Shock 2 (it picks up directly at the end of SS2's ending and continues from there).

SHODAN (the insane AI from the SS games) gains mind and body control of one of the survivors (Rebecca Siddons), the ship travels via the FTL to a parallel universe (which happens to be the Shadowrun universe), as well as travelling back in time, crash landing on Earth. The game then picks up 20 years later, with you the son Rebecca, living a life of hacking and Shadowrunning.

The mod comes in 2 parts. You have the original version of part 1. But you can ignore that one. And then there is the parts 1 & 2 combined UGC (part 1 of it is 100% complete) which has a redone intro and some gameplay and matrix changes.

Part 2 of it is about 80% done. Only needs the final part of 1 quest to be implemented and then 1 further quest.

Gameplay wise it features a mixture of SNES Shadowrun elements (eg karma farming, hiring of Shadowrunners is done via talking to them, open world experience etc), and System Shock (built in player PDA system which you access via clicking on your character, which tracks and gives detailed info on the quests your doing, the Shadowrunners you've met, info on city locations etc etc).

Some quests are multi-ended in that they have various paths to doing them which lead to different maps, and leading to the same eventual outcome, but the fun is in the different experiences you can have via the choices you make in how to complete them. The bit the UGC is on at the moment was a point you get to where you get to decide to do 1 of 2 available missions. Each COMPLETELY different in gameplay styles to the other. 1 is completely stealth based (if an enemy see's you then your back to the start of the level), and the other is combat and hacking based.

Quite a fair few of the missions feature lengthy matrix portions. Some requiring you to go in with more than just yourself, but also to bring along extra hackers to back you up.

Some of the Shadowrunners available for hire are available from the get go. Others have to be unlocked via quests or finding them in the world (all are available later at a central location bar "The Lexington Bar").

You can even take part in randomized Matrix jobs, where the maps and enemy layouts randomize for every job you do.

As it's only been me working on this, work has been on and off over the years. Part 2 has been nearly finished for a long time, but it's just finding the time + motivation to work on it + I'm an indie game developer as well so time often is prioritized there first (look up Bipolar Game which is on Steam for purchase).

Parts 1 & 2 have a heavy Shadowrun SNES influence, while the planned 3rd part will move things far more into System Shock gameplay (resurrection stations, healing beds etc).

With the current gameplay implemented you can expect roughly:

Episode 1 - 30 minutes of gameplay
Episode 2 - Approximately 4-8 hours of gameplay. More if you farm karma or spend time doing the random matrix jobs available.

The original plan was to at some point get all work on episode 2 done and then port everything over to SRR - Dragonfall (as my UGC was all done via the original version of Dragonfall and not the DC version). But now having played your UGC, heard the new music the Dragonfall DC has + the new npcs and enemies it adds in. I'm very tempted to just port everything over sooner to have more options in what I can put in.

Today's notes:

Went to Volcano and the computer on the first level asks if I want to:

(Decking) Hack Terminal
Log-Off System

Choosing decking, asks which person to hack the terminal but shows no'one that I can select.

I assume you have a decking level skill requirement on the terminal? Might want to display that, so that players know what decking level they will need.

I'll assume there is a decking level requirement and go farm some karma and max that skill out. And just noticed the scared scientist with gave me a keycard. I'll go farm to get decking maxed anyway. Want to see if that was what was blocking me.

Aneki enemies at the entrance to the building respawn as soon as you go to another map (even if its to enter Aneki building). This is a bit unfair on players.

Icemann thanks for the praise - loved the snes shadowrun - so making the maps was a lot of fun - yeh made all the bremerton props from scratch - took a bit of time - but that feeling of making your own lego - and then building your own lego ship - aand then later to be able to wander around in it killing enemies - mad stuff. Yes Aneki is a mess - but it was still possible to beat last build i played- Cheers :D

Originally posted by icemann:

Went to Volcano and the computer on the first level asks if I want to:

(Decking) Hack Terminal
Log-Off System

I built the volcano... So here it goes...

The runner decking is just a prerequisite of them being on your team... Their various skill levels cause them to take less damage, the further up they are.

I believe most of the terminals are decking-4 up to decking -7. Originally, they were listed but your team mates skills were often not up to that level.

Maybe I'll add a decking fail option, if your skills aren't high enough, so you'll know you need to upgrade before attempting it again. Good call.