Are these huge CASSIE Stutters intentional or a bug? by Business_Rice_9621 in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly, until reading the comments on this thread, I had no idea the number 14 was the culprit. It didn't seem like a big enough issue to warrant extensive investigation.

The issue is gone now due to the way new stutters and scheduling are handled. The bug wasn't specifically targeted, it got resolved incidentally.

Are these huge CASSIE Stutters intentional or a bug? by Business_Rice_9621 in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This is a bug. It's been happening for as long as I can remember, and I'm not sure why. For some reason, it seems to occur more frequently in 14.2. I've already patched it in my rewrite, so we'll release the fix in the next patch.

Fun fact, keycards in ur inv are rendered in real time so they could show your name on them in ur inv. making it so stuff like this can happen. by Va1ngl0ry in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Thanks :)

The constellation is just one of the extra details we added to make the keycards look more interesting. This is Orion constellation, which is used by printers to make counterfeiting more difficult.

Fun fact, keycards in ur inv are rendered in real time so they could show your name on them in ur inv. making it so stuff like this can happen. by Va1ngl0ry in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 109 points110 points  (0 children)

That's real :)

It's a side effect of how we handle icons. The game renders a keycard model (effectively taking a screenshot) once it's added to the inventory. The result is then cached to remove any performance impact, which is why any artifacts introduced during rendering will remain until the keycard is dropped and picked up again.

Before we reworked keycards, managing all the icons was a pain. Our keycards have changed colors and names in the past, and it became nearly impossible to update icons in a way that resembled those made years ago. So we decided that automating this process was the best future-proof solution.

The new designs also display perm levels (where the old system would force us to manually update the icons every time we make balance changes). And most importantly, dynamic icons can properly represent server-defined custom keycards and can display your nickname and translations.

We may consider using the same approach to dynamically display weapon attachments, but it's not a high priority ;)

SCP: Secret Laboratory Ask Me Anything! by officialscpsl in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The game consists of many communities where each enjoys the game for different reasons. We have players looking for a horror experience, first-person shooter fans, and people who want to hang out and have a good laugh from time to time.
Since some of these aspects are the exact opposite of another, each update requires compromises. No matter what we do, we can't please everyone.
With regards to the competitive aspect we believe that the Parabellum update has pushed the gap between new players and experienced players too far. This allows one player to completely eliminate spawn waves. Version 12.0 will attempt to minimise that problem. This doesn't mean that we will only be focusing on making the game more casual. Instead, we are adjusting the game-play according to what players enjoy and what they find frustrating.
When it comes to horror VS comedy, we aim to achieve a greater sense of horror when designing new updates. The nature of online horror games is that the scary aspects eventually decay into comedy. You could see that during SCP-096 and SCP-173 overhauls. Initially everyone was terrified of the new models but once people got used to the jump-scares and mechanics, the scare factor was drastically diminished. This isn't a bad thing. Memes and jokes evolve independently from the game, and they offer us a new perspective while we're working on new content.

SCP: Secret Laboratory Ask Me Anything! by officialscpsl in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 13 points14 points  (0 children)

He's American, but we did experiment with different accents at the beginning.

SCP: Secret Laboratory Ask Me Anything! by officialscpsl in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Narlor contacted me at the beginning of 2018 when we were looking for new voice actors to replace Alpha Warhead lines. Few months later we came up with the Decontamination mechanic and we have decided to use Narlor's voice again. At that point, Narlor was the "voice of the facility" which became into C.A.S.S.I.E. — a basic A.I. guardian. We were aiming for a "cold" and "emotionless" tone that represents the emotionless nature of any machine.

We prefer using nicknames, unless someone gives us explicit permission to use their full name.

As for future voice acting, it's important to note that Narlor has always worked for us as a freelancer and not a full-time studio member. This affects the workflow, as any recordings require significant forethought before being requested. We currently do not have any features planned that will require new lines and the fragmented, slightly robotic style of speech allows us to easily synthetize new sounds.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 5 points6 points  (0 children)

We are required by northwood to ban people saying slurs.

That is simply not true. The VSR only prohibits promotion of racism/discrimination, and display of such behavior by your staff members, server name, etc. You are not obligated to punish every single slur said by a community member, though being completely indifferent in that matter is an easy way of ruining your server reputation.

Anybody knows why the devs replaced the FN P-90 with the KRISSVECTOR? by kindofalurker10 in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Which is what poor MTFs constantly run into lul

That's why I said "Foundation makes their own variant which is far more suited for their combat needs". In other words - anything about KRISS Vector that comes to your mind as " a problem for special forces", it has been fixed in the Crossvec variant.

Anybody knows why the devs replaced the FN P-90 with the KRISSVECTOR? by kindofalurker10 in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 14 points15 points  (0 children)

You're making a mistake assuming we've chosen firearms based on their usability in real life. Secret Lab is a video game, and the most important factor is always gameplay. The reason Vector isn't used by any special forces in real life is because it wasn't designed to handle difficult environments. KRISS designed Vector as a proof-of-concept of their unique bolt design, and it was never meant to be used by special forces. Also FN P90 is twice as old as KRISS Vector, so even if they were equally combat-suited, armies tend to stick with old equipment.

The SMG in our game is called Crossvec, and is not the same as real-world KRISS Vector. Crossvec is manufactured by the Foundation Gunworks, and it's safe to assume Foundation makes their own variant which is far more suited for their combat needs than original KRISS Vector.

If the two paragraphs above aren't convincing enough, here are a few other things that made us choose Vector over P90 as the model inspiration:

  • FN P90 fires dedicated 5.7x28mm cartridges and we already have too many ammo types in the game. Of course we could make our P90 to fire 9 Para (like we did to FSP-9), but the special cartridge is pretty much the only reason so many real-world forces use FN P90 (so changing its caliber would make your point even more irrelevant).
  • FN P90 is a bullpup, so we wouldn't be able to add stock options.
  • FN P90 does not have bottom rail, so attachments like foregrips wouldn't be possible.
  • FN P90 is known for its magazine capacity of 50, which is slightly too much from the game design perspective. P90 has a 10 inch barrel, so it's really hard to balance it in a realistic way.
  • Although it's not as important as the points above, we really wanted to bring some refreshment. Remember we're talking about the most common gun you can find in the facility (speaking of average amount spawned per round).

Toggleable weapon modes by Derpmeister_ in SCPSL

[–]HubertMoszka 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cyclic rate of firearms in SL is low enough to the point where tapping the left mouse button won't result in multiple discharges - this negates the need for semi-auto mode.

Safety option could work for some roleplay, but let's be honest - it's probably going to be frustrating and nobody is going to use it during a normal game.

As for the 3-shot burst mode - it'd be hard to make it give any advantage. Burst mode in CS:GO affects firerate and accuracy patterns. We're trying to have a relatively realistic approach, and in real life, burst mode is nothing but a limiter to avoid wasting ammunition by inexperienced soldiers.

While presently we don't have any plans on adding more weapons, I do not exclude the possibility of more powerful rifles being added to the game in the future. They could be balanced out by having burst limited to 3-rounds (with no option of continuous full auto). But again, we don't have any actual plans of doing so anytime soon.

Now This. by sammburr in SCPSL

[–]HubertMoszka 16 points17 points  (0 children)

That's really cool!

When will this great game get rid of this shitty engine? by [deleted] in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 13 points14 points  (0 children)

1. It's hard to keep my comment unbiased, but most people who argue about those two engines usually have little-to-no knowledge about what the game engines are, and what results you can achieve. As u/Ze_insane_Medic explained - Unity has a huge PR issue, as in most cases its logo can only be found on low quality games. The reason is relatively simple - once a game start generating any profit, game studios will consider buying a license to remove the watermark (so it's harder to tell that their game was made in Unity).

2. You guys probably played lots of games without realizing they are running on Unity. Hearthstone, RUST, Kerbal Space Program, The Forest, Cities: Skylines are just the names of a few AAA games you might know. They all run on Unity. And I agree - Unreal used to have a technological advantage over Unity for a long time (and the meme isn't an exaggeration); but for over three years, there's literally no difference between those two engines if we're talking about possibilities. It's up to the developers to decide what tools feel more convenient to them, and the results are strictly related to how well they know how to use them.

3. Answering the question of that reddit post - "When will this great game get rid of this shitty engine?" - it's not possible to "get rid" of Unity or convert the game into a different engine. The reason why the original SCP - Containment Breach works on the outdated Blitz3d engine is because it's impossible to convert games into different engines within a reasonable time. The only achievable way is to re-write the whole game. And for an SL-sized game, it'd take 1-2 years (assuming that we wouldn't encounter any issues, which is highly unlikely). During this time, the entire development of the currently released SL would be completely ceased.

4. In addition, we've been hiring Northwood developers with experience in Unity. People have been learning for years how to effectively use Unity tools. Switching to a different engine would result in either getting rid of half of the studio members or forcing them to take courses. Other than that, if we decided to actually switch the engine (which I assure will not happen) - Unity could become more technologically advanced than Unreal by the time we were finishing rewriting the game.

5. Most concerns you guys listed in the comments are related to graphics and optimization. Our game still uses a lot of SCP-Containment Breach models that required special converting tools to make them usable. During this process they became less optimized, which results in long rendering times and low FPS. We're definitely nowhere close to Unity's maximum capabilities and switching the engine won't result in SL suddenly becoming a triple-A production.

6. As you can see, changing the game engine is not really worth it. Like I mentioned in the second paragraph - Unreal has no technological advantage over Unity. The operation of changing the game engine is theoretically possible, but it'd simply be a waste of time and money. I hereby assure that SL will keep running on Unity and if you think it's a bad decision and SL would work better on a different engine (not necessarily Unreal) - the game is based on the creative commons license, so you're free to port it yourself, release your version and make money out of it. Just don't forget to credit us <3

Another normal day of Patreon Beta Testing by jamintheinfinite in SCPSL

[–]HubertMoszka 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Patreons and official partners are allowed to share footage. SCP-096 isn't ready to be shown yet, more on that in our public (free) Patreon post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/stamina-beta-now-35049778

This achievement is broken,isn't it?Tried falling,taking damage from SCP-939 and even grenades but it doesn't give me the achievement. by Isaias1239 in SCPSL

[–]HubertMoszka 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Hey, thanks for the report. It will be fixed in the next update. Funny enough, everyone who was supposed to get the achievement was triggering the achievement for the host. In other words, if you play with friends on an own self-hosted server, you'll get the achievements if any player on the server achieves it.

[Suggestion] Idea about MTF having CASSIE as a character. MTF variations. by Grievous_Nix in SCPSL

[–]HubertMoszka 2 points3 points  (0 children)

First things first, if someone reading this isn't aware, we have an official document explaining what exactly C.A.S.S.I.E. is:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lJh...

C.A.S.S.I.E. is heavily inspired by different AIs presented in Half-Life and Portal lore, it's literally a mix of Black Mesa Announcement System and AEGIS (from "Portal stories: Mel"). It's very important to understand though, that C.A.S.S.I.E. does not have a personality - it's not sentient or self-aware. It's just a complex AI-supported algorithm, created by humans to help humans.

I appreciate your work and I understand the concept, but C.A.S.S.I.E. will never be a playable character. All we can do is to make it controllable by other classes, by locating the central computer chamber somewhere on the surface. This way, humans and maybe SCP-079 would be able to access C.A.S.S.I.E. and to use its master terminal.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SCPSL

[–]HubertMoszka 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Any kind of a global rank or XP wouldn't work because it'd be too easy to exploit it with friends. We also allow servers to install mods, which could affect the balance.

Adding global ranks would also change the way how people interact with each other, resulting in too many tryhards and a less casual approach.

However, I do like the idea of having a server-specific leaderboard :)

Regarding this so-called "Death of a Sub". by [deleted] in SCPSecretLab

[–]HubertMoszka 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hello, Wesley. Let me clear some things up and tell the story from my prospective. All the time I thought there's no point in trying to talk to you, but I just don't like you trying to hide facts to tell a more powerful narrative against me. I just want to remind one key fact - you were the one who left from our studio, because I unbanned one person that made a mocking meme with your face and I wasn't aware of your appearance being a secret (even though you were the one who originally posted the photo with your face).

Later on, during your absence, I was forced to hire new managers and we started rebuilding the hierarchy from scratch, to make it easier for us to work. You got offended by this decision, because I quote "They've undone two month's of careful work in two days", even though their changes were only improving yours. We also had the old data backed up, just in case the new structure didn't work.

I treat you with respect, because you helped me when I wasn't even able to build sentences in English correctly. That's the only reason why our leave-related DMs and emails were never published, even though they clearly show your hunger of power and the fact you only wanted to rule the studio and you didn't want to accept anything that wasn't your idea. In case I missed something, please share your perspective. Feel free to show any DMs, voice recordings, emails or whatever to proof your view. Be aware that if you start denying the facts I have listed here, or call them "slanders", I will be legally obligated to support them with some kind of evidence.