In particular, when you are tasked with revisiting Ops and Engineering to reset the core and help SHODAN take over the Von Braun, new monster ecologies are set in both of those levels.

There are at least two instances of enemy spawn tables updating as you progress through the game.

Two pistols and several clips of pistol ammo also get removed from Med/Sci, but resource distribution is otherwise fixed (since cyber module cost and replicator price scaling on Hard/Impossible already tamp down the player's resources as they progress). Numerous Security Computers are removed on higher difficulties to make it more difficult to cancel alarms and keep security down while exploring, and there are some extra Grenade Hybrids in Ops on higher difficulties and multiplayer.

It's pretty well known that the number of French-Epstein Devices scales with difficulty (7/7/6/5 on Easy/Normal/Hard/Impossible), but it extends a bit further. There are a few items and objects that are tied to certain difficulties.I doubt I'm the first person to notice any of these things, but they don't seem to be common knowledge either. While a lot of tribal knowledge is focused on speedrunning exploits and the like, I tend to fixate more on smart intentional design. I spend a lot of time fixing what I assess to be shortcomings in SS2's gameplay, but while digging around in the the game files and tinkering I frequently encounter subtle design decisions that illustrate the thoughtfulness of Irrational/LGS when design gameplay systems and scenarios.

System shock 2 inside the many