walkthrough / FAQ for SS:S?

[justinstyles]

...and have a few questions on ettiquette before I post it.

 

{spoilers}

 

The one written by guilersk for SS was clean and to the point. I quite appreciated it; although it was missing the now oft-asked info about the Big Joe (which s/he does mention that he hadn't found the location), he was thorough about the skill descriptions as well as her/his opinion on which to choose and which to avoid....

 

So I finished SS:S and wrote my own walkthrough since there wasn't one (although I see that now there's one from guilersk @ gamefaq) and have been tweaking my doc as I play through SS:S again after having read this board....

 

My question:

is it considered sufficient credit to mention posters' userIDs about indirect help given via this board or must I ask for permission?

 

{another warning about spoilers}

 

For example, I did not know about Shade or the "Bank" random mission (but completed the game without excessive difficulty) so for completeness, I'd like to include them in the walkthrough, but could only credit this board, not a particular poster since it seems most people cross-pollinate the Nival boards (which are rather slow some years after both titles were released, but when I was finally able to purchase them locally, not importing) and I don't know who really discovered these missions....

Or, should I do a search of this board and give credit to whomever posted it here... since that's where I read it?

 

Recommendations / suggestions on crediting would be appreciated.

If you have advice on writing a walkthrough, I will consider your advice, but since my doc's done except for some of the data, I won't overhaul it unless I've committed some grevious error in accepted usage or format.

 

I know that I'll have to tweak my doc at least once more to include info that I'm playing now, but I think my version will be sufficiently different. I haven't read her/his very carefully as I only saw it today (17 July 2006) after I'd finished the game and am approximately half-way through my second formal run.

Our docs differ not in major ways, but guilersk's missing some info that I included while he included recommendations on tactics and strategies, which I tend to avoid (too easy to result in "my way's better" arguments), and if mine's not helpful, then people will choose guilersk's doc and that's good too.

 

best regards.

[Slaughter]

Sounds good! We could use a walkthrough here at the site.

 

As for credits, I don't think you need to mention a specific person for tips that come from many different people in many different threads.

 

Regarding permission, I think mentioning the person's ID is sufficient. If you had taken a part from someone else's compiled work (FAQ, walkthrough or the likes), you should have asked permission. As you only use their tips freely given in a public forum however, giving credits should be sufficient.

 

Oh, and just some nitpicking. I believe Nival mentioned that the "official" short names for the Silent Storm games are S2 and S3.

[WangChangZhang]

Sounds good! We could use a walkthrough here at the site.

 

As for credits, I don't think you need to mention a specific person for tips that come from many different people in many different threads.

 

Regarding permission, I think mentioning the person's ID is sufficient. If you had taken a part from someone else's compiled work (FAQ, walkthrough or the likes), you should have asked permission. As you only use their tips freely given in a public forum however, giving credits should be sufficient.

 

Oh, and just some nitpicking. I believe Nival mentioned that the "official" short names for the Silent Storm games are S2 and S3.

 

Indeed, SS is a bad abreviation, they even hardly use it here for 'summer semester'.

 

Anyway, it's great that you wrote another walkthrough, I think there can't be enough of them. At least 4 different ones would be nice, because there are a lot of ways to complete the missions in a tactical game and I found myself solving missions differently to those ways mentioned in the only S2 walkthrough I found.

And if there wouldn't have been the boards I'd have missed out a lot of information, especially about S3.

 

About Netiquette: Do as Slaughter said. He summed it up nicely. Just make sure you ask for permission, and then mention their name/ net ID and the name of their document in your walkthrough when you're green to use it.

Concerning the info you got from public forums: Mention the "folks" from the boards by name if you can and wish, or not just stick to "folks". Mention the board name, though.

 

Follow that, and nobody should have reason to complain about mindtheft in your walkthrough.

[Sorbicol]

I hereby give full permission (if you need it!) for you to use any hints or tips I may have given on these forums to help with your walkthrough of S3

 

This totally obsolves me of the guilt I feel having never produced one myself when I threatened to do so about a year ago

 

Great stuff, this game has been crying out for one for quiet a while.

[Crazy Gringo]

Use what you can and will of my hint/tips posted around the forum. If there is any.

[brandeburg]

you are welcome to use my tips and screenshots as well. Do a good job !

[coyot]

Just finished second run of the game yesterday... I've thrown together a few quick hints/ideas at my page.

 

Feel free to bomb me with comments, additions, alternatives. It's sort of "version 0.01" as I will be adding details when playing for 3rd time.

 

If anyone would feel like cooperating on the walkthrough, I'm not against that. (Adding screenshots included.)

[Slaughter]

Hmm, the link doesn't work...

[justinstyles]

I guess I'm fortunate that I have no abbreviations for the game in my FAQ / walkthrough...! Thanks for the advice on it.

 

don't read...

if you don't...

want any...

spoilers

.

.

.

.

.

 

Regarding the walkthrough itself, I'm stymied because I can't complete the mission where Hammer attempts to invade the Sentinels' HQ. I've gotten to the end of the second wave, but am down to 3 group members. Considering that I'm playing an engineer to try out a few ideas that I had during my first pass (and am playing at harder level than the first run), I'd be more comfortable finishing the game one more time to check which factors change when playing as opposed to arrogantly assuming that the first pass was definitive....

Would anyone care to proof the draft that I have, based upon the first pass + up to the Hammer invasion?

 

best regards.

[coyot]

Hmm, the link doesn't work...

 

Oops, fixed now... (forgot the bloody ~)

 

Regarding the walkthrough itself, I'm stymied because I can't complete the mission where Hammer attempts to invade the Sentinels' HQ

 

What's your squad composition and equipment? Do you have enough landmines?

(See the walkthrough - the link now works )

 

Yes, I'd be willing to proof-read your version...

 

(Or, if you'd feel interested, we might merge the walkthroughs together...)

[justinstyles]

Coyot, yes, I'd be interested in potentially merging my walkthrough with your doc as it seems we're working on different elements.

 

I'll post "chapters" in each reply to prevent a single lengthy post.

 

{possible spoilers;

please be

warned}

 

Work has interrupted some S3 attempts at the "Invasion" scenario, but had a few runs where I thought I could get through the mission if I didn't mind have one (or more) dead companions. The major factor was anti-PK weaponry.

Still have yet to install any mods (although some are quite enticing) to avoid "corrupting" my walkthrough... but once that's complete, onto the mods! The one that I wish I had now is the "save anytime"...!

 

BTW, the Sentinel troops are a strange lot. Some of them do a decent job of attacking while others will slaughtered without returning fire nor dodging (ducking... yes, but I think that's a built-in reaction as the civilians do the same in other scenarios). The chap at top in the bunker is the worst; nearly two dozen runs at this mission, and he has yet to do more than crouch. The troops near the stationary guns also do not participate.

 

best regards.

[Sorbicol]

Coyot,

 

I've just spent about 15 minutes reading through the walkthrough you posted the link too. Great stuff all round, I don't think you missed much. I also had no idea you could do all 4 missions if you intentionally failed one so I learned something there too!

 

It was also interesting to read how you approach some of the missions compared to how I do it as well. It's probably worth pointing out that you don't have to use one of the grenades to destroy the crates in the basement on the second mission. You can use one of the Fairbarn Skyes Knives from the starting mission to do this instead.

 

If you talk to Slaughter I'm sure (should you wish) that this walkthrough could be posted on the site. from where I sit I think that would be a very good idea. I'm wondering then if it would be a good idea to trawl through the posts on this forum to add tactical, weapons and squad selection advice that have cropped up in other threads?

 

There is one major bug that I know of, the one in Russia where you have the stealth mission to talk to the official. I've posted about that frequently on this forum so I don't intended to go into it again On top of that I never did figure out exactly what pre-requisites it is that you need to trigger the special/hidden mission in Poland.

 

Anyway, cheers for the post, it's something this site had needed for some time! Justin, I look forward to seeing what you have as well

[Kaije]

Hmm... when I was just lurking around these forums, I noticed a few old threads about the Russian stealth mission being difficult...

 

 

 

SPOILER...

 

 

 

A scout&sniper combo for the following... Use melee or silenced weapons to kill the few patrolling guards until you can get through the garage side door. Once in the mansion, ignore the guard in the bathroom... when you enter the next room he'll come out and start patrolling toward the main hall and is easy to ambush from stealth Use silenced range weapons to kill the guard by the stairs and go up. Loot the small bedroom and attic, have your scout&sniper hide in the back of the center room and bring up your hero (unless he is either the scout or sniper ) and trigger the cutscene...

 

Afterwards, avoid the stairs! Instead, go across the hall and into the room that the THO guards came from in the cutscene. Possibly one guard remains in the room to be killed with silencers or it's just the sniper patrolling the balcony (been months since I did this, can't remember for sure). Ignore the guard on the balcony by stealth&crouching/prone and go into the large master bedroom. So how does this help you escape? Well, it's simple... you can jump out the back window for minimal dmg Open that window and click on the ground directly below and it should show the path down, if not hold 'shift' when you click and you'll be jumping in no time Just make sure your character is right at the window and your moving directly down on the ground outside, otherwise the pathfinding will take you via the stairs...

 

Hope that helps some for that mission...

[coyot]

A scout&sniper combo for the following... Use melee or silenced weapons to kill the few patrolling guards until you can get through the garage side door. Once in the mansion, ignore the guard in the bathroom... when you enter the next room he'll come out and start patrolling toward the main hall and is easy to ambush from stealth Use silenced range weapons to kill the guard by the stairs and go up.

 

Here I hit a brick wall. Even when I killed the guard by the stairs with one silenced burst, I lost the stealth status. I don't know if this is difficulty-related, or a matter of timing. (Does any walking patrol "see" the guard get killed? Or another patrolling guard upstairs hear the silenced gun?)

 

I must admit that I killed the bathroom guy first, but silently without getting spotted, so this shouldn't be a problem.

[Crazy Gringo]

About this stealth issue I read something like this.

If your any burst shots misses and hits the surroundings terrain/enviroment your jig is up and your stealth is blown.

Also there seems to be a 'global' enemy spotted feature which alerts all enemy personnel of your whereabouts when your stealth is blown. This feature didn't to my knowledge exsist in S2 where you merrily could walk around and stealthy pluck your enemies out one by one without blowing your stealth.

[coyot]

Thanks for the info. Makes sense. Hope you don't mind being quoted in my guide.

 

I've just updated it with all the recent knowledge and also The Snitch mission which I completely forgot previously.

[Knan]

About this stealth issue I read something like this.

If your any burst shots misses and hits the surroundings terrain/enviroment your jig is up and your stealth is blown.

Also there seems to be a 'global' enemy spotted feature which alerts all enemy personnel of your whereabouts when your stealth is blown. This feature didn't to my knowledge exsist in S2 where you merrily could walk around and stealthy pluck your enemies out one by one without blowing your stealth.

 

Well, if you get far enough away fast enough and re-stealth, they won't necessarily find you. Hiding in the small top attic has been known to work. (The attic, on the other hand, wasn't good enough on my try ... reloading and hiding one floor further up helped.)

[Sorbicol]

About this stealth issue I read something like this.

If your any burst shots misses and hits the surroundings terrain/enviroment your jig is up and your stealth is blown.

Also there seems to be a 'global' enemy spotted feature which alerts all enemy personnel of your whereabouts when your stealth is blown. This feature didn't to my knowledge exsist in S2 where you merrily could walk around and stealthy pluck your enemies out one by one without blowing your stealth.

 

I like the idea but unfortunately I don't think it makes any difference in this mission. I've killed the guard with a single knife throw to the head before now (i.e. no spray to hit surrounding terrain/environment) and it still de-stealthed the team In the end I put it down to a bug and forgot about it.......

[Kaije]

This doesn't really solve the issue, but I took a glance at the script for the mission and from what I saw...

 

- If a guard can see you at any time, the stealth objective will be failed.

- If you so much as hurt the terror guards upstairs, the main npc needed for the dialogue, or his russian guard in that room (and even after he leaves from the cutscene) the stealth objective wll be failed.

 

I didn't see anything special that concerned the guard downstairs... It might be possible for the guard to make a spot check during a burst shot if you're too close, but I don't see how a fatal knife throw could blow stealth (well unless again you were standing right in front of him).

[Sorbicol]

This doesn't really solve the issue, but I took a glance at the script for the mission and from what I saw...

 

- If a guard can see you at any time, the stealth objective will be failed.

- If you so much as hurt the terror guards upstairs, the main npc needed for the dialogue, or his russian guard in that room (and even after he leaves from the cutscene) the stealth objective wll be failed.

 

I didn't see anything special that concerned the guard downstairs... It might be possible for the guard to make a spot check during a burst shot if you're too close, but I don't see how a fatal knife throw could blow stealth (well unless again you were standing right in front of him).

 

Did you see the range of vision of that guard that appears on the Landing after the cut scene? That was the one that always caused me the problems! And does it count if you are stealthed but still in his range of vision when you throw the knife? It seem to remember that i was shooting at him 180 degrees from where he was facing but the stealth still failed.

[Kaije]

Hmm, actually that's the guard that begins in the same room that triggers the cut scene. He's your problem! Hurting him in any way is automatic failure of the stealth objective

 

He was the reason I learned the jumping out of second story window 'trick'. He caused me a lot of trouble on my first play through. I had my sniper standing in the middle of that landing when I triggered the cut scene and of course she was facing the stairs. Needless to say, it took a couple of reloads to get away once I figured out the guard was there So I did learn, if you have someone stuck in that area after the cutscene, you can have a chance of sneaking out by going prone and crawling away or I just got lucky... My other two characters had to jump for a successful completion.