inselaffe on 2/3/2011 at 03:39
There is a mystery red control panel on the reactor deck, next to a grating in which you can peer through into Shodan's DEATH MACHINE!. The wire puzzle is a simple one, which makes me think it cannot do anything of great consequence but it doesn't appear to do anything at all when i solve it. Thought perhaps it might stop the lights from going out when you enter the room that you can see into, but no. So really, i am clueless. Unless it's to do with stuff later in the game?
Also, the game seems to reward trying to interact with anything without knowing exactly what you are doing, in an almost jarring / immersion breaking manner. At least on r&d, the room and then panel to stop robot production, fair enough the code next to the room is fairly obviously for that particular control panel, but how is the player meant to know what it is they are achieving before they do it (if i remember, it is not labelled on the texture and not mentioned in logs as of yet). It's like the player randomly solves all and any wire and circuit puzzles just because they "always do good things".
Incidentally, i don't really know how much or where / what the robot production is stopped. Since i haven't noticed robots respawn on that deck, only cyborgs drones. Would be good if it got rid of the en-slue of respawning hoppers on the reactor level, as they are a pain in the neck. Though do they only get spawned straight away if you die? I spose that gives some punishment for death at least - as otherwise once you've activated the regenerator you feel rather safe.
Acantophis3rD on 2/3/2011 at 21:42
Quote Posted by inselaffe
There is a mystery red control panel on the reactor deck, next to a grating in which you can peer through into
Shodan's DEATH MACHINE!. The wire puzzle is a simple one, which makes me think it cannot do anything of great consequence but it doesn't appear to do anything at all when i solve it. Thought perhaps it might
stop the lights from going out when you enter the room that you can see into, but no. So really, i am clueless. Unless it's to do with stuff later in the game?
I agree with you on the point that this wire puzzle has no direct effect on the
DEATH MACHINE!. But it
activates the light after you steeped into SHODANs trap.
Quote Posted by inselaffe
Incidentally, i don't really know how much or where / what the robot production is stopped. Since i haven't noticed robots respawn on that deck, only cyborgs drones. Would be good if it got rid of the en-slue of respawning hoppers on the reactor level, as they are a pain in the neck. Though do they only get spawned straight away if you die? I spose that gives some punishment for death at least - as otherwise once you've activated the regenerator you feel rather safe.
There is only one terminal to stop robot production, and it is on R&D how you mentioned. It does in fact stop robot production. If you don't switch it off, then
Hoppers respawn in Alpha and
1 Sec-Bot near the computer notes (depending on your combat level). I think that this robot production switch is placed on the wrong deck. It obviously makes more sense to have it on Reactor. Why the designers placed in on R&D and not Reaction seems to always be a secret.
Regarding Cyborg-Drones. It would make more sense if their respawn is stopped after switching Cyborg Conversion Chambers back to Healing, but that is in fact not the case. Thats another good example for design decisions in Shock1 that were made to keep a moderate difficulty to the game.
inselaffe on 2/3/2011 at 23:58
Edit:
What? well it's not doing that in my version. When you go in there, whether or not you've completed the wire puzzle, the lights go off and the door slams shut and all hell breaks loose. Is this another bug like the “vmail button/monitor already smashed” in the office on the medical deck?
It does seem to work but all it does is make a light flash on and off - i thought this always happened. And it only lights things up a tiny amount anyway. So all in all, it's not a great deal of help - in fact it doesn't even help you find the door. Haha. That, and you're pretty much insta-dead at least on hard anyway - unless you can be prompt in your running away.
Also i guess i had never stopped robot production before going to the reactor level. Didn't realise it affected there - that's actually a lot more helpful - bloody hoppers.
Are there any logs to reference it though?
Thanks
inselaffe on 5/3/2011 at 02:50
Ah i just found out that if you shoot all the cameras within the room, then it also triggers the trap, so you can do it from the safety of oustide the room. Shodan will say something along the lines of "destroy my cameras will you" instead.
Still don't know where the robot production stops things spawning?
Once you've completed the reactor for the first time, the amount of hoppers is deadly. They move so quick, are easy to somehow miss even when you shoot at them, and take a fair bit of spark beam or ammo. Couple that with the fact that they don't drop ammo or anything... The fight back to the lift was not fun!
Acantophis3rD on 1/4/2011 at 23:07
Quote Posted by inselaffe
Ah i just found out that
if you shoot all the cameras within the room, then it also triggers the trap, so you can do it from the safety of oustide the room. Shodan will say something along the lines of "destroy my cameras will you" instead.This is indeed a genius find! I see if I can do a video of that line, because I guess that not many people listened to it already.
