I think the regular pistol has more stopping power than the Stealth, although that could be my imagination.

Back on topic.
This will be a good enough reason for me to whimp out of the 1999 mode:

The regular pistol does 14 damage, the stealth pistol does 8.
However, the shottime of the regular pistol is 0.6, whereas the stealth pistol's is 0.15. This is basically how long the weapon sleeps between shots, so you can fire about 4 times as fast with the stealth pistol. It goes through more ammo, but has a much higher dps.

And it's silenced.

So yeah, toward the middle bits of the game where conserving pistol ammo is almost never a concern, stealth pistol is king.

Though why need faster firing speed if all you need is 1 headshot? And the 14 damage (+better accuracy IIRC) helps better there...

Yeah, it is marginally more accurate, but 14 damage isn't going to one-hit an MJ12 commando or a MIB, whereas a series of rapid shots will take them down fast.

Plus, as noted: silently.

..er...and then the MIB explodes, admittedly.

yeah it's all about what's more useful against the MJ12 commando's. Particularly the ones in the triad club, I found.

The pistol will be at a huge disadvantage over the stealth pistol in that avenue, thought the supertuned assault rifle is the best tool, imo.

*Didn't read through this entire thread - but did read the article*

Hopefully they put back weapon degradation, limited ammo, and none of that instant-respawn bullshit from the first Bioshock.

I loved Bioshock - but it felt too casual in comparison to System Shock 2. Hopefully this mode gives me what I've been waiting for since - well, 1999.

Instant respawn is in, but it costs money, similar to how it worked in SS2. Or at least that is what I've gathered from interviews. Weapon degradation is probably not in, and limited ammo is.... hard to judge just how limited they mean.

the respawn system in SS2 was excellent - but the last few play throughs I've purposely not switched them on (for as long as possible on some levels).

I miss weapon degradation - even Bethesda got rid of it in Skyrim. There was nothing more tense than being in a tight situation with an almost broken weapon in SS2 - some of the best moments of gaming.

Bioshock had a wonderful atmosphere and excellent level design - but it was so easy most of the time that I never really felt on edge. The trailers look awesome for Infinite - I just hope that they finally make a game evolves on the better elements of System Shock 2. Wish they'd add a more traditional roleplaying and inventory system again too :p

The only games where I ever really liked weapon degradation were Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3. In FC2, that was because I could see that it served an important function: it made it useful - in fact downright necessary - to purchase and use your own weapons instead of just grabbing whatever your enemies would drop when killed. In Fallout 3 (and New Vegas) I liked it because you could use other weapons to repair your own degraded guns, which gave you a use for scavenged weapons without having to pack-mule them back to a trader.

In STALKER, it was just annoying, because you had no way to repair your guns yourself. In fact was there any way to repair them at all? I forget.

never got far in STALKER - was enjoying it, but my PC is dated and while my Mac is capable enough it has a pretty weak graphics card (actually a very weak graphics card)

I liked weapon damage in System Shock 2 - repair was a necessary skill to invest in if you wanted to use firearms.

In STALKER Shoc there's included scripts for repairing weapons but they're disabled by default because the game was buggy and rushed. Pretty much every single mod for the game enables the repair system (talk to a trader and there's dialog options for "fix my shit"). Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat all have repair, and item upgrades, by default. The degradation thereafter works basically just like Far Cry 2's, except you have to spend money when you return to base to get a fresh gun (via repairs) instead of just grabbing an identical copy out of the gun warehouse. Sometimes they jam, but mostly the point of the weapon degrading system is to act as a control on the economy, giving the player a steady money sink as he progresses. Spend weapon condition you have to repair to get back, in exchange for loot off the people you killed (also ammo, but unless you're using guns with rare ammo types like 9x39mm (Vintorez, etc), leaning heavily on shotguns, or are a terrible shot you're almost guaranteed to loot back more than you fire out).
Stalker Call of Pripyat really is an amazing game, everybody should play it. It's pretty much my GOTY for 2010 and 2011. Nothing came out in either year stood up to it for me, no matter how good they were. I've fully replayed it twice already since 2012 started, experimenting with different mods (and recently contributed to the development of a new one currently in beta).

Call of Pripyat is indeed very good.

Yeah I honestly never really fell in love with SHOC the way I expected to. I sort of idly enjoyed it, but not enough to power through the scary bits. COP really hit the sweet spot, I easily liked it enough that I had to make it through the scary bits.

(Yeah yeah I'm a scaredy-cat.)

Dunno, SoC really worked for me... After I installed Stalker Complete. Without it it's a bit shit TBH.
I never really got into CoP unfortunately.

Mods don't count!