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Shadowrun Stealth Mechanics

Pretty cool tech demo. A real shame that none of this made it into the vanilla campaigns

Hey man, I'd like to thank you for responding. I really do like what you're doing here and I can completely understand the difficulty involved in making it happen.

Version 1.13 is out!
Tested: if you attack a guard and not kill him in one attack, he'll turn around and spot you, unless it's sniper rifle and you're out of his vision distance. That means you fail the "shadow" goal. However, if you finish him off in the same round and no other guards hear it, they won't be alerted.

Goal failure notifications won't keep re-appearing anymore. However, quoting an in-game dialog: To make play-testing easier, when a guard becomes aware of you, an "Enemy spotted" balloon will appear. So I decided to keep the balloon appearing every time you are spotted because I think it's useful.

@Nerd Herd
1. This makes sense to me, but nevertheless it can't be changed. You certainly fail the "shadow" goal, but if you kill the guard with multiple attacks in the same round with silent weapons, are other guards alerted in the next round?
2. In all instances when a character would be "flanked" by a guard he will be spotted. And remember that only the character wearing the stealth suit can hide behind light cover.
3. OK, I'll fix that by creating other triggers that fire only once (to be published in v1.13).

I played it twice, I like it.

There are some issues:
1. Shooting a guard turns him around. Unless you snipe him with Eiger or kill him in one shot, you will be spotted.
2. It's difficult to tell if you can be seen from certain places. This is especially hard when you have camera control and/or multiple runners at different parts of the room or are behind cover, because you can see the whole room, but can't tell where you can be seen from.
3. Guards repeat "Enemy spotted!" whenever they see you, for each member of your team. If you fail Shadow or Pacifist, you can keep failing it and see the message pop up letting you know that you have done so... repeatedly

That said, I do really like this mod. It's restoring a feature of the game and it gives you a pretty detailed trial run of how that feature works. It's not perfect, but making it perfect would be like rewriting the game. 8/10

Interesting. Well, I'm currently on the rear end of a Returns playthrough, so I'm going to wrap that up and move on to Dragonfall. Before moving on to the campaign, I'll download this mod and play through your custom level. Sadly, my lack of skills in the editor means that I'm probably not going to be testing that aspect out. However, I'm still dying to give this a go!

Q&A
Does it contain any new mechanics?
No. All mechanics are included in the original game engine and no triggers were used for stealth and NPC alert.

Does cover bonus work in the vanilla campaigns?
No, because the original NPC awareness is set too high and the vanilla runs are very combat-oriented, by the way.

Can the vanilla campaigns be modified to use these mechanics?
Yes, by lowering NPC awareness to 12 or below (I suggest 7) and giving more options to the player rather than walking into rooms full of guards facing the door. Of course, it'd still need to be published as UGC. Be welcome to do it.

Does it work on all three titles?
I tested it for SRR and DFDC, and it probably works with HK, unless they changed the code and dropped StealthTest. HK is great grounds for this, because the new holster button allows for entering turn-based mode with no triggers.

@Jill Sandwich It is a standalone mission that works as a tutorial on how stealth, awareness and noise works in the base game, as these had never really been explained or explored in the vanilla campaigns. It is useful for modders and UGC makers alike, and it's also fun to play and test.

im loving this concept, but may i ask what this mod includes? is it new mechanics for the base game or a full standalone mission with new mechanics?

@El_Poco Yeah, I was the author of both that thread in the SRR forum and the Gamepedia page. In this scenario I adressed these difficulties caused by line of sight, in particular looking around corners, by leaving medium or heavy cover props like dumpsters around corners or giving the ability to hack the cameras. Still, you can fumble your stealth by letting patrols flank you or by missing a pebble throw and attract a guard instead of making him look away, just as in a real tabletop RPG campaign , and combat will follow unless you neutralise the guard immediately. The good news I hopefully bring is that some stealth option is possible without triggers instead of the certain combat that we experienced in the vanilla campaigns, and with a bit of patience and luck, you can avoid most or all guards in a map, or better position the crew to buff and ambush.