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  • The Werivar Expansion Mod.

    MageKing17 16 years ago
    If you want aliens to eat the corpses of other aliens, use the death blocks to drop your item and turn off the built-in corpse.
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    "MageKing17" said:
    If you want aliens to eat the corpses of other aliens, use the death blocks to drop your item and turn off the built-in corpse.


    I'll give that a go when I get to my modding computer, thanks for the suggestion. =) Hopefully with that in place, I'll figure out some way of forcing the alien to retreat on low health, and people will have to worry about leaving corpses around. Update on my success later.
    #
    MageKing17 16 years ago
    "Nocture17" said:
    I'll figure out some way of forcing the alien to retreat on low health
    That's probably going to be your hardest task, I can't think of any easy way to do it. Although... there might be some code that could help. If you can't think of a method, remind me to look it up for you.
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    I'm pleased to say that I've found a way of enforcing HP-dependent fear by creating my own AI_tactic and changing the creature to an identical yet cowardly version of itself for a limitted time. Combined with your advice about Death blocks, this means that for most aliens, when on low health, they will now flee when the player approaches, and when safely away from the player, hunt, kill and eat (without reverting to cowardice due to low health) smaller versions of their counterpart colour until they're healthy again.
    Unfortunately, they'll still mindlessly attack everything else, including the player's turrets and ten million baby aliens, the only way to achieve retreat from all creatures except the one they eat would be to have literally one time based proximity trigger for every single creature type in the game per "fear-capable" creature.

    Unfortunately this has prompted me to introduce small and dire versions for each alien type to produce a food chain, so a lot of work for me.
    #
    MageKing17 16 years ago
    Why not just make it not enemies with any side but the side that contains the smaller version of itself while fleeing? That way it won't actively chase after anything but them.

    You may have to increase the number of sides drastically, but the results will probably be worth it.
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    "MageKing17" said:
    Why not just make it not enemies with any side but the side that contains the smaller version of itself while fleeing? That way it won't actively chase after anything but them.

    You may have to increase the number of sides drastically, but the results will probably be worth it.

    Unfortunately, the AI doesn't seem to work that way. "Fleeing" makes the creature move away from its enemies. If, while it's fleeing, you change its side, it will start to flee from only the side that it's supposed to be feeding on, and ignore the player entirely. If you make its side different while on low health, to only be enemies with its prey, then other enemies will ignore it or kill it without retaliation. I am planning on making one side for each tier of alien, as you said. One side for each alien "grade", and just permanently adding the appropriate prey species onto the tier above its enemy list. They'll periodically kill and eat each other without needing the health much, but it will hopefully make life a little more interesting.

    Version 0.95 almost ready. 1.0 will be reworked from the ground up for every item, creature and area to weed out derelict code to allow me to make some fairly sweeping changes more easily.
    #
    MageKing17 16 years ago
    "Nocture17" said:
    "MageKing17" said:
    Why not just make it not enemies with any side but the side that contains the smaller version of itself while fleeing? That way it won't actively chase after anything but them.

    You may have to increase the number of sides drastically, but the results will probably be worth it.

    Unfortunately, the AI doesn't seem to work that way. "Fleeing" makes the creature move away from its enemies. If, while it's fleeing, you change its side, it will start to flee from only the side that it's supposed to be feeding on, and ignore the player entirely. If you make its side different while on low health, to only be enemies with its prey, then other enemies will ignore it or kill it without retaliation. I am planning on making one side for each tier of alien, as you said. One side for each alien "grade", and just permanently adding the appropriate prey species onto the tier above its enemy list. They'll periodically kill and eat each other without needing the health much, but it will hopefully make life a little more interesting.

    Version 0.95 almost ready. 1.0 will be reworked from the ground up for every item, creature and area to weed out derelict code to allow me to make some fairly sweeping changes more easily.
    Hmm, the killing without retaliation is somewhat annoying. However, if it's low on health, will it really matter that much in the long run?
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    "MageKing17" said:
    Hmm, the killing without retaliation is somewhat annoying. However, if it's low on health, will it really matter that much in the long run?

    When it's a dire creature on only 10% of 1000+ health it might.



    New version available:
    Version 0.95 <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.mediafire.com/?lj1dm2jkint">http://www.mediafire.com/?lj1dm2jkint</a><!-- m -->

    Updates:

    Mainly a bug fix update to get everything working alright before I start doing the crazy stuff I want to do for 1.0:

    Scavenger - new weapon, lightning spray. A rapid, medium range stunning weapon that deals potent damage.
    Nightmare Armour script fix - Nightmare Armour now heals as advertised.
    Devour - Properly upgraded, Dire Reapers can now also be consumed.

    Stowaway - new weapon, pheremone spray. Confuse enemies into fighting one another. A weapon fit for a queen.

    Psionic - Since the Ship Graveyard is an end-game location, having the Psionic's mandatory first upgrades being available there felt a tad sadistic. The liquid region is now much closer to home.

    General - Now accompanying low health food usage increase is regeneration back to 10% of health for all organic races.
    Mines all now drop the items they're supposed to.
    New item, Hyper Recovery Pack. When the recovery pack isn't enough, spice it up a little bit with something stronger.
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    Wonderful work I must say! This has been heavily edited since the original post.

    Playing Human
    I had been in game for a couple of weeks.
    Finally got around to building the hoverbike.
    From that point on I started receiving and endless string of tokens to reduce hunger, just as another poster mentioned earlier.
    Thought I'd mention it since I had a major game event (hoverbike) at the same exact time and the two might be related.

    Also, while the plasma bazooka is reloading, you can't use ANY weapon.

    Thing's I'd suggesttrying to avoid spoilers, have onlt beaten mod with android so far)
    ---------------------------------------------------

    *Android Upgrades/Modifications
    Remove the weight on the android nightvision, make it start off weak, and need optics upgrades to improve (Light Diode + Motion Sensor + Computer Unit + Energy Cell).
    Remove android's ability to use armor, and add two new upgrades: Temperature Regulator (Cooling Unit + Thermal Pack + Computer Unit ) and Forcefield Upgrade (Robot Wreckage + Force Field + Computer Unit + Energy Cell).
    Pommel Upgrades add laser damage, a spread of increasing range and arc, as well as stun of increasing duration (VC Stun Laser + Energy Cell + Computer Unit).
    All upgrades featuring a Robot Wreckage require the Nanite Swarm. Nanite Swarm grants an ability like Devour, that lets the Android break down broken turrets into a computer unit and some energy (the Android will need even MORE computer units with the above upgrades)
    * Constructible Androids: Android Body = Droid Wreckage + Long Metal Rod (x2) + Energy Cell + Power Armor (little bit of everything). Android Body + Turret = Android of that type. Fixable when broken, but VERY heavy (100+) and require two stages ( Broken + Repair, + Robot Wreckage ). Drop a repair to heal them, maybe habitually eat energy plants . The existing androids remain unique (and mortal) due to their weapon and origin, unless you want them to leave a broken pulse android corpse.

    * You might want to cut out the small crystal storage shed in the bottom left of the VC mining fields base . The bots get stuck inside and spam missles THROUGH the walls.
    * Integrate the Long-range detector into the modified radio upgrade sequence. I have seen in Southern Mod (I think) the two as one, using q for the main function and L for regional scans. I'd put it in just before the biomass.
    * Instead of 3 tools, make one: Mining Tools. Considering it's Notrium, they should also need a powered accelerator
    * Random Lava Map (Unless you feel this would make the Hive less unique)
    * Once you get the right items, you can harvest Dire Reapers infinitely. To keep their utility down, maybe they can stun the user for a moment or two (like the insectoid's stun, or the tazer/VC laser stun)
    * Two new turrets : The Sniping Turret, and the all-rare-gotta-build-it-to-believe-it Sonic Turret (Sonic Osc + Adv Turret, Mostly for pushing).
    * A final upgrade to the Hover (requiring both blue prints) to a tank - Right Click to fire a missle (big energy drain ~ 100 to 200?), has a target laser, and has the counter-attack feature of the laser fence. Drop the following : Warp Coil, Laser Fence, Plasma Bazooka, Advanced Power Cell, Targeting Laser. A bit overpowered, yes, but by the time you can make this you are already a god.

    Thing's I LOVE:
    -----------------
    * The Dire Reaper Spawns...now that was a challenge to figure out how to get past.
    * Upgrading my Android. I love how I have to horde computer units and long metal rods. I find myself fixing and cannibalizing lots of turrets.
    * The Android's unique ending. Muhahahahaha.
    * Larding my Scavenger. Top notch - Better than the Weriver IMHO. It's amazing just how many choices you have.
    * the whole mod.

    Thing's I don't LOVE:
    ------------------------
    * The VC snipers.
    * Walking on to a map and being immediately jumped by 4 bots with armor-piercing guns and insta-death missles. Now I quicksave anytime I enter a known hotspot.
    * The Star Sword - Massively underpowered. Should be a one-swing killer for even a dire (if you are so crazy as to fight one hand to hand).
    * The Dire Reapers tend to kill off all the original features of the ship graveyard, including the survivors: kinda spoils it.
    * There are no combination used for the VC stun laser (see above...I'd like to see versions of the better laser weapons with one of these)

    I've already started learning the basics of modding (talking about a versatile, but unfriendly system) in order to make all the android modifications I suggested.
    Question: Does the numbering in items.dat have to be contiguous? As in , could I do all the above as items 1000-1020ish and append them into the file without any bugs? If I can, I will just do what I can and then post or email you them. If not, I don't know how to avoid stepping on your toes.
    Okay I'll shut up now.
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    Bit of an update:

    luckily they don't have to be contiguous. All my new Android work will be done at item 1000 to 1099

    I've learned enough to make a new set of basic nightvision , add it in proper in the player races file, construct its upgrade (Improved Targeting Beam + Computer Unit) as well as define two upgraded states.

    The Basic has brightness of .2 green universally (same as alien weak)
    The Improved is brightness .5 with items shaded a bit blue, and creatures a bit red (but neither is really good for contrast)
    The Advanced is brightness .8, with a clearly noticeable shading. It also does not consume power.

    The basic is weaker than the goggles, but is of course free.
    The improved is all-in-all still inferior but serves as a stepping stone.
    The advanced is still not as bright as the goggles (which are too bright IMO) but has some marked advantages not found anywhere else.

    I'll probably post a goggle version of these upgrades to the mod library thread for anyone to use when I have time.

    I noticed on the goggles entry (even in default) that the red/blue colors are set negative, yet the modding faq says valid values are 0 to 1. Any insight?

    Seeing as how I can't figure a way to compare two bars nor how to set the armor level incrementally, I am opting for rebuilding the android ragdoll to have slots for all current slots plus a few spaces for the thermal regulator as well as some other upgrades I am working on.

    Current Game Plan is to have upgrades for:
    Nightvision (3) Done, but I might expand it to more levels for balance
    Armor Level (Top end will be superior to the best power suit, but will have required far more scrounging)
    Thermal Regulation (3) worse, equal, and better than the enviro suit (final will be pretty much temperature immune)
    Small Reactor will remain the same
    Large Reactor will be added (Using an Advanced Cell + a few more components)
    Strength remains the same
    Endurance gets split into Structure (HP) and Self-Repair (HP Regen): Blue Alien Corpse will not be involved. Eww...organics.
    Pummel ( several; starting at a stun, ending in launched enemy seeking stun bomb, these will not have a standard upgrade item)
    Nanite Swarm (4) Integrating effects of Battery Charger, Biomass Reactor(Eats BAC for energy) and Devour for Broken Turrets, plus create battery
    Heavier initial energy drain, but more starting supplies

    And maybe:
    Rematerializer ( modified form of the weriver recall )
    Built in Weapon System(s) bound to right click
    Malfunction System - recent upgrades make it possible to have a disruptive, damaging and draining tantrum at a random moment
    Tinker with Ultimate Upgrade so its not so WOW and is more NEATO
    Some journal entries etc

    If you don't like what I'm doing just let me know, and I'll spin off my own mod, even use default settings and still give you credit for anything I recreated. Goes for Uberwaffe (sp?) too
    #
    MageKing17 16 years ago
    "OthobRithol" said:
    Uberwaffe (sp?)
    That's actually correct spelling.
    #
    Grim Reaper 16 years ago
    "MageKing17" said:
    "OthobRithol" said:
    Uberwaffe (sp?)
    That's actually correct spelling.
    Not quite.

    It's UberWaffe.
    #
    MageKing17 16 years ago
    "Grim Reaper" said:
    "MageKing17" said:
    "OthobRithol" said:
    Uberwaffe (sp?)
    That's actually correct spelling.
    Not quite.

    It's UberWaffe.
    ...which would make it an error of grammar, not of spelling.
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    You guys are strange
    #
    Anarion 16 years ago
    "OthobRithol" said:
    You guys are strange
    Welcome to the madhouse, AKA, Monkkonen.net.
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    And another update:
    I figured out how to incrementally increase armor (yeah, I missed that little note in bars.dat where it said that altering the temp bar or the armor bar effects the actual value) so The Android will now be able to upgrade his armor directly.

    I noticed how most of the existing upgrades and my planned ones had the common recipe section : + energy cell + computer unit, as well as the fact that the advanced power cell doesn't get much usage.

    It i therefore my intent , or rather is what I just finished doing, to have two components made of power + computer. One basic (normal cell) and one advanced(prism cell). Noticing how similar they were to the repair pack, I went ahead and added the ability to use them as increasingly effective health and energy boosters. It's still more efficient to use a battery charger or energy cell for energy, but the healing boosts from these items should make them useful.

    The fact that I am adding a few intermediary "generic" components means there'll be about 20 less items to define.

    All major upgrades types (Structure, Repair, Power, Armor etc) will have two types of upgrades (basic and advanced) using these items. the basic will obviously have a lesser effect, and in many cases will have an overall cap to effectiveness (for instance you have to use Advanced Armor upgrades to get the last few points of AC, Beyond a certain HP total the Basic HP upgrade won't do anything).

    [edited for tiredness]
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    Well, small child got at the computer I was using before I could complete the post I was working on.

    First: Small update - My computer was being held up in customs following my move to the States, and has just arrived today, allowing me to resume work on mod version 1.0. Since I'm stuck in somebody's basement and am legally obligated to not work in any shape or form for the next three months (where I get to repeat a moving process all over again pending a more permanent visa), expect things to progress a bit more swiftly.

    For version 1.0, my plans are:

    1: Go through and renumber, sort, and tweak all DAT files into a new codified format.

    This will:
    Make future modding easier, for me or anyone else who wants to use my mod as a springboard (hopefully encouraging more people to try making their own changes and start making more mods for me to enjoy).
    Allow me to remove Waffe's old code that even he didn't use by the final version of his mod, rework every script from the beginning.
    Set up the framework for the changes I want to make to the characters, weapons, scripts and items.
    Give me the freedom to start introducing new areas, creatures and characters as I progress through version 1. Currently planned are over a dozen new aliens, new robots, and new marines, and at least two new characters once I figure out how to make them work.

    2: Rebalance and rework the current characters and tech.

    Each tech-specialist character will have a unique item, similar to the Scavenger's "Store", that will be used for the creation of unique items. The Captain will have "Ingenuity", the Android "Engineering", and will ensure that each character really is making things that not every character can. For example, the Captain's ingenuity will combine with a Blue Alien corpse to produce Leather Armour, the Android will meanwhile be able to combine engineering with some Robot Wreckage and produce Plate Armour instead. I'm hoping this will let me have intermediate tech items that any race can produce and then convert into different items depending on what character you're playing, as well as capture the feel of two people looking at the same tool and coming up with completely different ideas on how to use it.

    The Captain will no longer have Experience. All human abilities will come from tech, or from the planned new chemistry system. The ever-favourite hermit companion will have different upgrades available, whilst the other members of the crew are being reconsidered on how they might be reintroduced.
    The Stowaway will still operate on an Evolution system, but likely assimilate some of the Scavenger's abilities.
    The Android will no longer be using nanite technology - Self-replicating nanites don't quite fit into the rest of the setting. Instead, specific upgrades, likely heavily dependent on interactions with the other technological denizens of Notrium.
    The Psionic will have likely lose some of its quest-heavy gameplay to fit better with the theme of Werivar - Extended survival and dominance, rather than rushing towards an ending. As a result, more "psionically active" places will be found across Notrium, which the Psionic may access to acquire new psionic tokens, though taking place over a similar number of maps it does now.
    The Werivar will retain his Experience system, but will no longer gain experience by any method except combat. It will now operate using a similar token system to the Psionic, and will lose many of the features that make playing the Werivar "easy mode" as it is now. The goal will be to make the Werivar a jack-of-all-trades, combining the limitted technology available for it to make, lesser psionic powers that the Psionic, and weak claws, rather than it is now, as master-of-the-universe with a healthy selection of the best pickings of each.
    The Scavenger will expand further into biotech and extend existing abilities, and existing traits will be addressed for rebalancing with the rest of the game world.

    3: Remap the entire planet.

    Werivar had the ship cemetary filled with ultimate monsters, made you cross the second most dangerous area in the game to reach it, and had multiple areas filled to the brim with Dire Reapers and instant kill snipers. While I'll be adding more dangerous enemies than the humble Dire Reaper to Notrium, I'll try and make sure that they mainly show up in places that characters fresh-off-the-pod won't need to spend 99% of their first day.

    Also planned are more in the vein of the Jungle maps, Deserts, Tundras, Swamps and Volcanic Regions are all planned.


    This is a great time to come up with suggestions, since I'm rebuilding Notrium from scratch anyway, I'll be happy to look into whatever schemes might have been originally dismissed thanks to pre-existing concerns.



    A question to anyone who might care to answer: How important is Notrium's map randomisation to you? Part of the original game was being able to come from temperate areas to rainforest to swamp to desert to eden, all over the place. With a larger planet Notrium, I'd be looking towards more a slightly more defined map, with areas semi-randomised within the appropriate areas.
    For example, the missile base would be randomly located within a larger desert region of up to perhaps 5x5 with other desert areas, the gorge within a larger swamp region and so on.
    Would anyone have any objections to a slightly less-random Notrium?




    Othob:

    The Hoverbike causes the Human to gain a huge amount of Exp. This can result in him gaining several levels at once, easily enough to reach the dreaded point where the current coding has him start accumulating reduce hunger tokens. The bike doesn't cause it, but the bug was deep enough to prompt me to do all the work I've mentioned above.

    Reloading any weapon will stop you from using any other. This is an inbuilt part of Notrium's code, not unique to the Bazooka. The reason it's so noticable here is because the bazooka has such a collosal reload time.

    For your other ideas, some of them are really excellent, and I'd love to implement them as upgrades and items for the new version if you've no objection. If so I'll obviously credit you for your contributions. If you're interested in a more involved role, send me a PM and we can try and work something out, especially if it's figuring out coding/scripting. Feel free to play around with the mod as it stands for practice though, that's exactly what I did with the original Werivar mod.

    VC Snipers are being massively revamped, and/ore removed from the current version, along with the reworking of all the other marines. In fact, I'll be experimenting with Marines in general to see if I can't create a random drop system for searching their corpses.
    Dire Reapers will no longer populate 50% of the maps, and will be competing with bigger and meaner nasties on the maps they do inhabit. Oversaturation of Dire Reapers late game got a little bit samey for me too, especially when they started killing off everything else.

    Star Sword... Yeah, that one was always a problem balancing. It's supposed to cut through everything like a hot knife through butter, but still not dominate over ranged weapons.
    Good point on the Stun Laser, especially as a laser upgrade component. I'll take a look at that one as soon as I'm up to that point.

    For maximum item #.... I honestly have no idea, but my work so far on 1.0 has huge numbers of gaps in numbering on everything to give space for changes, and there's no problems at all so long as your entries are all filled out correctly.

    For armour upgrading.... with my modding notes on the computer currently in pieces on my floor as they are... I was thinking a temporary bar that appended itself to the current armour value to make actual armour increasing items stack with upgrade values, and multiple value bars for separate pieces of equipment that all accumulated to reach the total armour value (if you wanted to pursue a multiple armour piece system). Now you've got me thinking about it, I'll certainly be thinking about Armour upgrades for characters in much the same way you've described.

    Well, time to start constructing computers and resume working on my mod. Laters all.
    #
    Endymion 16 years ago
    Less randomization sounds nice but I don't like the idea of simple 5x5 desert area it'd be a bit too open, undefined and random with many bad setups possible. I think in most cases there shouldn't be larger than 3x3 areas without any unaccesible areas anywhere they'd be too open and easy to feel lost in. Cross shaped area where you'd have to go through two or three "survival" areas before you reach any useful or interesting areas for example would be better. But pretty much square shaped but not too large area would be fine as long as it's not completely random with like three or four different well located area types, only area that I think should possibly be completely open as in not having any empty areas in the middle would be arctic area(Lovely place to wander around aimlessly without any food or heat source).

    I kind of might want to see all of the mining areas merged with already existing areas since they're quite boring on their own but maybe it's just me since I haven't played much with races that can mine after going through default(had gotten only two fast metals when I last played as human on werivar).

    I hope you will return ship graveyard back to the way it originally was it was one my favorite areas and possibly create a new junkyard if you or someone else thinks it's necessary to have one(I don't since missile base for example is much more rewarding and interesting compared to it).

    Some other suggestions(mostly about stowaways evolution). First of all both aliens become too powerful too quickly. Stowaway's first two phases are over way too fast you probably wont even get the journal entry about being hungry. Later phases at least until you need to kill dires are also pretty easy because jungle areas have more than enough safely killable aliens. The order you get the abilities should be tweaked a bit so that night vision and motion sensing wont evolve one after another to max. A bit better order for abilities IMHO would be:
    phase1:Night vision weak
    phase2:Motion Sensing Near
    phase3:Acid Spit, Night Vision Normal
    phase4:Motion Sensing Close, Lethal bite
    phase5:Motion Sensing, Feral Rage
    phase6evour, Night Vision Strong
    phase7:Lay Eggs, Sniper Acid Spit, Lethal Fangs, Motion Sensing Far
    phase8evouring feast, Killer Claws, Motion Sensing Distant
    phase9:
    phase10:Hunter Claws

    That way you might actually notice if it's night a few times. Also I wonder have you got any new abilities already planned for Stowaway besides Pheremone Spray?
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    You're probably right. 3x3 will probably be the size I stick to, perhaps with generic cross-over areas between two drastically different areas, like plains between temperate and desert areas, jungle between temperate/rainforest et cetera.

    Mining areas are not planned to be in version 1.0 at all. There will be mining, but it will not be in the same manner as it is currently.

    The Ship Graveyard will also likely be returning to its quieter, non-dire reaper infested early game area.

    The Stowaway is less about becoming almightily strong herself, more about sending her army of drones to slay any and everything in her path. As such, I will be having her focus more on growing and maintaining her hive than on individual combat. Since there are six types of alien currently planned, her army will be quite a bit more varied than before. The ability I'll be trying hardest to make for her is hotkey AI controls for her hive, with keyboard commands for Follow, Attack, Patrol and Guard Firm to easily command a swarm, no matter how large, and make picking out particular individuals as easy as setting everyone to Guard and then clicking the ones you want following you. Other than hive support abilities, like making Royal Jelly (food for the whole family), the only changes I've planned so far is making her evolution upon "maturation" dependent on the size of her swarm (which will grant her a few improvements on her current abilities along with the obvious numerical advantages). If you've any particular abilities in mind for her that you'd care to suggest though, feel free to make the suggestion.

    The Scavenger is more about personal evolution, and as I've been working on him today, I've been leaning further from bio/technological jack-of-all-trades and more towards purely evolutionary upgrades (a Werivar-style technology/evolutionary hybrid is a definite possibility). You're right about the overly quick start, the early Scavenger will have even more potential abilities, but they'll be starting out slightly weaker, and need a bit more time before he's wandering around burning up armies of Dire Reapers. Part of my goal for version 1.0 is to have the Scavenger have a few similarly viable damage options all the way through the game, with equally powerful abilities whose primary difference is damage type. No more Omega Claws + Flame Breath straight to Nightmare Claws + Magma Spray.

    Progress:

    Mapped 90% of new and old races into Creatures.dat, and completed graphics.
    Mapped all non-weapon technological items into new items.dat framework.
    Mapped Human, Psionic and Werivar abilities and finished items.dat framework. Rather than randomly enter one-off dungeons, the Psionic will have to harvest lifeforce, and not just his own, to fuel his psionic power, and convert into psionic tokens at special nodes found throughout Notrium. The Werivar will continue to gain levels through combat, but will receive psionic tokens which can be converted into either upgrades or special abilities.

    Total mod progress.... 3%? I have to go through the entire file once the groundwork is complete, put in new/old graphics, and then start work on weapons and scripts, I haven't even started on plot objects yet, and a lot of creature information is being entered from scratch. Once the foundations are in place, then incorporating the new items should be pretty easy.
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    Done:
    Android Tool Kit - The Warp Engineer's toolkit (including a welding torch) that makes all the following android only
    Android Circuits - a reformatted Computer Unit
    Basic and Advanced Systems Modules - used in most upgrades to provide power, the items can also be used to restore health and energy.
    Micro-fission and Prism Reactors - these replace the small energy reactor and provide the same function (Prism is 3x more effective)
    Nightvision : Basic, Improved, and Advanced (might have 5 steps when done). Improved and Advanced have built in Targeting beams, Advanced uses no energy
    Forcefield and Advanced Forcefield Upgrades- Permanently Boost the Androids Armor. Basic only goes so far, and Advanced is twice as strong.
    Integrated Battery Charger - Eat a Fuel Cell on the run. Will most likely be able to make a battery as well.

    In development:
    Structural - increases both carrying capacity and health maximum. (easy)
    Thermal - Will keep android from freezing/over heating (harder but quick)
    Turret Cannibalization with the Toolkit (easy but long..many combinations and/or scripts, might include random salvage)
    Malfunctioning Systems (a bit complex....)

    Planned:
    Self Repair Upgrades - Health Regeneration (easy)
    Weapons Pod: can include laser, machine gun, flamethrower and maybe even a grenade launcher, right click firing (very complex item with balance issues)
    Ultimate Upgrade Overhaul - Ever wanted to be an anime mecha?
    A means to produce key Android type items: Computer Units, Long Metal Rods, De/Magnetizer etc


    Most likely I will finish up the easier items (self-heal, structure etc) within the week. The more complex items will be delayed by trying to work smoothly with the major changes coming to the core of the mod, as well as utilize the new features being devised.
    #
    Endymion 16 years ago
    It seems Scavenger's evolution is less personal than Stowaway's and more suited for managing and building armies and vice versa... Since simply giving Scavenger hive building abilities from Stowaway doesn't seem like a nice option so maybe if you want to do something about it you might want to make it so that Stowaway also uses the fat system(whom it suits much better) and have Scavenger's evolving be pretty much like Stowaway's but maybe more complex(with item requirements, several types of alien per level, some kind of special tough aliens that you can only find once you're almost ready to level up or something) or have a system where there are no different stages to evolving but only need to fulfill some conditions to get a certain ability. Of course some abilities might require you to have some other abilities already or be very hard to get without or a mix of both(Also you could just simply decide that there's no need for two aliens and just add the fat system to Stowaway and scrap almost everything you did for Scavenger Or if you feel like it ignore the whole matter )

    I think Stowaway should also have some kind of roar to attract or scare enemies. Is it possible to make it do both at the same time to different enemies? Some kind of armor or skin that depending on the situation should be moulted could be interesting. Maybe an armor that cools you down(or warms you) constantly which you might want to get rid of during night or at least if you're going to arctic areas(Though I think that for some reason such an armor wasn't possible or hard to do so maybe it should be simple enviro armor or maybe something resistant to some damage type with some other disadvantage). Such armor could also be used for protecting your body against atmosphere's effect(other races most likely wouldn't be affected as much as aliens) to your thirst if thirst and water are ever implemented. For example when in tropical areas you would get more thirsty with strong moisture blocking layer of skin than without so strong hide but in desert it would have opposite effect.

    Getting health from devouring aliens makes the game way too easy when Scavenger is already awfully strong. I'm not sure if it's a good idea to even be able to devour aliens other than small ones at all(not to mention that you'd need to be bigger than the alien eaten for it to be realistic though I don't think it really matters if it's that realistic or not) but it definitely IMHO shouldn't give health. Something similar to devouring(and better ) could be achieved by making storing of your own acid possible which then could be combined with meat to make more nutritious meal. This acid could also probably be used for making your royal jelly(Naturally acid spit would also use it and maybe lethal bite too). Though I'm not sure what you should need to get and store the acid maybe fat or food and energy.

    Some of the easier endings should be removed from the game at least escape pod(so that communications array given some other more interesting uses(now that I think about it what's the point of getting food generator chip right away, Wouldn't it be better if you had to do something to get it?)) and alien ending (to make killing queens have some effect to the game like reduce the amount of aliens on hive area.)

    I'll probably consider starting to do some modding by myself instead of just "wasting" your time once you have version 1.0 done. Of course I could start now but since you seem to be doing many of the things I would've I'll just wait until you're done with some of them.
    By the way things you have planned for Psionic sound very cool and interesting!
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    "Endymion" said:
    It seems Scavenger's evolution is less personal than Stowaway's and more suited for managing and building armies and vice versa... Since simply giving Scavenger hive building abilities from Stowaway doesn't seem like a nice option so maybe if you want to do something about it you might want to make it so that Stowaway also uses the fat system(whom it suits much better) and have Scavenger's evolving be pretty much like Stowaway's but maybe more complex(with item requirements, several types of alien per level, some kind of special tough aliens that you can only find once you're almost ready to level up or something) or have a system where there are no different stages to evolving but only need to fulfill some conditions to get a certain ability. Of course some abilities might require you to have some other abilities already or be very hard to get without or a mix of both(Also you could just simply decide that there's no need for two aliens and just add the fat system to Stowaway and scrap almost everything you did for Scavenger Or if you feel like it ignore the whole matter )

    Actually, I disagree. The Scavenger's evolution is 100% personal. He has no means of calling forth allies (in fact, asides from turrets, which will be unavailable for him in 1.0, the Scavenger is the only character to have no allies at all), no abilities to help friends, and benefits the least from assistance. The Stowaway is the hive builder, and she won't have as many hoops to jump through as in the current version (where she could spend a month killing Dire Reapers but not evolve, because she needs to kill small blue aliens - like the Psionic, having to engage in special behaviour to level makes a character less likely to be chosen by players, and harder to fit into the mod as it grows). This will end as soon as she matures to adulthood - Lay Eggs. After this, her enhancements will come from hive size - building armies and managing them. Without a hive of a certain size and/or quality, no upgrade.

    I think Stowaway should also have some kind of roar to attract or scare enemies. Is it possible to make it do both at the same time to different enemies? Some kind of armor or skin that depending on the situation should be moulted could be interesting. Maybe an armor that cools you down(or warms you) constantly which you might want to get rid of during night or at least if you're going to arctic areas(Though I think that for some reason such an armor wasn't possible or hard to do so maybe it should be simple enviro armor or maybe something resistant to some damage type with some other disadvantage). Such armor could also be used for protecting your body against atmosphere's effect(other races most likely wouldn't be affected as much as aliens) to your thirst if thirst and water are ever implemented. For example when in tropical areas you would get more thirsty with strong moisture blocking layer of skin than without so strong hide but in desert it would have opposite effect.

    A sheddable skin would be easy enough, make an item that whilst in your inventory increases your temperature, can't be worn and can't be dropped. The only way to stop it would be to Break it, but when there's already a perfectly functional equipment system without the aggravation, that sort of upgrade would just be a disadvantage for the Stowaway that she doesn't deserve or need. Coding the actual temperature script would actually be easier than Enviro armour, since it would just be constant temperature increase/decrease, without the need for multiple scripts for each condition.

    For thirst, I've definitely considered it since I started the Werivar Expansion, but I don't want to feel derivative of roburky's excellent work on S.O.S, which already has a thirst system. Perhaps if enough people ask for it, I'll introduce it, but other than that, it won't be until much later that I even consider implementing that, especially since it falls outside of the core Notrium gameplay I want to be expanding upon and improving. On that same principle, messing with the Stowaway and Scavenger over all the other races, who wouldn't have to deal with such nonsense as swapping armours every other map, doesn't fit with core Notrium gameplay either, which has never been about super-punishing one species over the other.

    For the Roar, I'm afraid there is no differentiation between species except by their hearing. I am scrapping Hunting Cry from the Scavenger because it simply never worked properly, usually attracting one enemy that was nearby anyway. I may consider giving the Stowaway a sonic roar attack, which would take on the stunning properties of Acid Spit, allowing the latter to be a more useful offensive ability.

    Getting health from devouring aliens makes the game way too easy when Scavenger is already awfully strong. I'm not sure if it's a good idea to even be able to devour aliens other than small ones at all(not to mention that you'd need to be bigger than the alien eaten for it to be realistic though I don't think it really matters if it's that realistic or not) but it definitely IMHO shouldn't give health.

    Devouring aliens to gain health is something lifted entirely from the Stowaway, who gains somewhere in the region of 200 Health from a small blue alien corpse. For the Scavenger, only Blue Aliens and Reapers gave health at all, and even then, they were harder to acquire, rarer, and didn't give as much health. The main reason I extended the Scavenger's devour was because as the Stowaway you could and would completely ignore brown aliens, medium blue aliens, and even reaper corpses because all you ever needed was small blue aliens. On the question of realism, the Captain, a human, can eat perhaps twenty to thirty human-sized blue aliens, and still not be full. One can assume that realism is waived. =p

    Something similar to devouring(and better ) could be achieved by making storing of your own acid possible which then could be combined with meat to make more nutritious meal. This acid could also probably be used for making your royal jelly(Naturally acid spit would also use it and maybe lethal bite too). Though I'm not sure what you should need to get and store the acid maybe fat or food and energy.

    I love this idea to pieces. I'm rewriting the Scavenger and Stowaway abilities it's such an awesome idea. This works beautifully, it saves having to use more than one hotkey for Devour, it works with every single tier of alien (each race. including the new ones, will enjoy five or six tiers. Small, Medium, Dire, Grand, Great, and Queen. though Grand and Great may be the same tier, I lack my notes on this computer as always), allowing "digestion time". Any extra Devours would replace the old and serve as markers, allowing consuming the resultant meal of each alien race to have different effects as you increase in level and potency. Devour would never serve as immediate health regain, but the player could keep a reserve of meals which, though not much, would have a weight, preventing stacks of 100+.
    Acid would be weightless, but perhaps with a cap of around fifty, and generated once per second by scripts (many scripts concerning the player refuse to work while combining, which may stop acid production whilst "digesting". Upgraded Devour at higher levels would allow for more acid to be stored, and higher benefits, in a much more subtle way than suddenly being able to consume elephant size aliens to gain 1000 health.

    For the Stowaway, different devoured aliens could be used for producing new eggs of each race, again preventing the need for a hundred buttons on one ability, and controlling availability, whilst having to produce acid would make rapid-fire spit an easily balanced addition to her arsenal, provide a thematic reason for her ability to produce multiple species (but not her own, which isn't around to eat), and would be able to convert any of the meals
    For the Scavenger, different alien meals could serve as nutrition, or as ammunition for things like venom or flame weapons, which gives the Scavenger a purpose for alien corpses which otherwise would have had no use beyond decoration.

    Devour could be given much earlier to both races, since it would be much better balanced thanks to the new time aspect, and would not be exponentially better with each higher tier of alien, discarding the need to "level" the ability. Acid combined with a larger alien would simply provide more "meals" (though I'll perhaps have to come up with a slightly less nauseating term than "soup"), which would individually have the same effects as a smaller alien, only more of it, at the expense of more time digesting.

    Some of the easier endings should be removed from the game at least escape pod(so that life support chip can be removed from taking unnecessary inventory space and communications array given some other more interesting uses(now that I think about it what's the point of getting food generator chip right away, Wouldn't it be better if you had to do something to get it?)) and alien ending (to make killing queens have some effect to the game like reduce the amount of aliens on hive area.)

    I'll probably consider starting to do some modding by myself instead of just "wasting" your time once you have version 1.0 done. Of course I could start now but since you seem to be doing many of the things I would've I'll just wait until you're done with some of them.
    By the way things you have planned for Psionic sound very cool and interesting!

    There will still be the vast majority of those endings, at least for some players. They won't be necessarily be "easy" anymore. For example, for the Alien Queen ending: The Hive will no longer have the queens sitting out in the open, as opposed to there being several underground maps as the players delve into deep, super-dangerous hives with rapidly spawning aliens of all shapes and sizes, one distinct region for each colour queen, all across Notrium. The escape pod will require a tech-savvy race, and likely remain the easiest ending to achieve (after all, the player is simply fleeing from Notrium - they don't "win", they escape).

    Calling for help is one I'm thinking about hard, and may end up introducing something extra to the game, but for the current version, I'll be keeping it the same.
    #
    Endymion 16 years ago
    "Nocture17" said:
    "Endymion" said:
    It seems Scavenger's evolution is less personal than Stowaway's and more suited for managing and building armies and vice versa... Since simply giving Scavenger hive building abilities from Stowaway doesn't seem like a nice option so maybe if you want to do something about it you might want to make it so that Stowaway also uses the fat system(whom it suits much better) and have Scavenger's evolving be pretty much like Stowaway's but maybe more complex(with item requirements, several types of alien per level, some kind of special tough aliens that you can only find once you're almost ready to level up or something) or have a system where there are no different stages to evolving but only need to fulfill some conditions to get a certain ability. Of course some abilities might require you to have some other abilities already or be very hard to get without or a mix of both(Also you could just simply decide that there's no need for two aliens and just add the fat system to Stowaway and scrap almost everything you did for Scavenger Or if you feel like it ignore the whole matter )

    Actually, I disagree. The Scavenger's evolution is 100% personal. He has no means of calling forth allies (in fact, asides from turrets, which will be unavailable for him in 1.0, the Scavenger is the only character to have no allies at all), no abilities to help friends, and benefits the least from assistance. The Stowaway is the hive builder, and she won't have as many hoops to jump through as in the current version (where she could spend a month killing Dire Reapers but not evolve, because she needs to kill small blue aliens - like the Psionic, having to engage in special behaviour to level makes a character less likely to be chosen by players, and harder to fit into the mod as it grows). This will end as soon as she matures to adulthood - Lay Eggs. After this, her enhancements will come from hive size - building armies and managing them. Without a hive of a certain size and/or quality, no upgrade.

    I meant mostly that the methods of levelling up for both aliens felt a bit more suitable to the other one. Killing certain opponents in individual combat vs. eating like a pig. Former seeming obivously more about personal development and latter more suitable for a queen. Also I'm not sure if I understood meaning of personal evolution as you had meant it.
    Have you considered an ability to lay a stack of eggs (like five or three) as a single creature to speed up and simplify things a bit.


    I think Stowaway should also have some kind of roar to attract or scare enemies. Is it possible to make it do both at the same time to different enemies? Some kind of armor or skin that depending on the situation should be moulted could be interesting. Maybe an armor that cools you down(or warms you) constantly which you might want to get rid of during night or at least if you're going to arctic areas(Though I think that for some reason such an armor wasn't possible or hard to do so maybe it should be simple enviro armor or maybe something resistant to some damage type with some other disadvantage). Such armor could also be used for protecting your body against atmosphere's effect(other races most likely wouldn't be affected as much as aliens) to your thirst if thirst and water are ever implemented. For example when in tropical areas you would get more thirsty with strong moisture blocking layer of skin than without so strong hide but in desert it would have opposite effect.

    A sheddable skin would be easy enough, make an item that whilst in your inventory increases your temperature, can't be worn and can't be dropped. The only way to stop it would be to Break it, but when there's already a perfectly functional equipment system without the aggravation, that sort of upgrade would just be a disadvantage for the Stowaway that she doesn't deserve or need. Coding the actual temperature script would actually be easier than Enviro armour, since it would just be constant temperature increase/decrease, without the need for multiple scripts for each condition.

    For thirst, I've definitely considered it since I started the Werivar Expansion, but I don't want to feel derivative of roburky's excellent work on S.O.S, which already has a thirst system. Perhaps if enough people ask for it, I'll introduce it, but other than that, it won't be until much later that I even consider implementing that, especially since it falls outside of the core Notrium gameplay I want to be expanding upon and improving. On that same principle, messing with the Stowaway and Scavenger over all the other races, who wouldn't have to deal with such nonsense as swapping armours every other map, doesn't fit with core Notrium gameplay either, which has never been about super-punishing one species over the other.

    Hmm... Maybe instead of simple armor you could have something like a slowly developing skin(and/or energy shield or something?) that you can grow(or make/collect)(using a bar made for it) in two(or more) ways that are somehow different(stronger armor, temperature resistance) and once you feel like it abandon it and start a growing different type of skin easily or maybe change the direction it grows in the middle of growth or maybe you'd be forced to abandon it when(and be unable to until) it's old enough. Not sure about what use it would have but it should be overall better to have one than not but maybe the whole thing would be too troublesome and unnecessary. It might not even be any kind of armor or skin but only have bar with controllable growth direction with some effect to the game (it'll probably at least make/allow the player to plan and time his actions more in some way)

    Getting health from devouring aliens makes the game way too easy when Scavenger is already awfully strong. I'm not sure if it's a good idea to even be able to devour aliens other than small ones at all(not to mention that you'd need to be bigger than the alien eaten for it to be realistic though I don't think it really matters if it's that realistic or not) but it definitely IMHO shouldn't give health.

    Devouring aliens to gain health is something lifted entirely from the Stowaway, who gains somewhere in the region of 200 Health from a small blue alien corpse. For the Scavenger, only Blue Aliens and Reapers gave health at all, and even then, they were harder to acquire, rarer, and didn't give as much health. The main reason I extended the Scavenger's devour was because as the Stowaway you could and would completely ignore brown aliens, medium blue aliens, and even reaper corpses because all you ever needed was small blue aliens. On the question of realism, the Captain, a human, can eat perhaps twenty to thirty human-sized blue aliens, and still not be full. One can assume that realism is waived. =p

    Oh yeah I had totally forgotten that they gave health for Stowaway ops:

    Something similar to devouring(and better ) could be achieved by making storing of your own acid possible which then could be combined with meat to make more nutritious meal. This acid could also probably be used for making your royal jelly(Naturally acid spit would also use it and maybe lethal bite too). Though I'm not sure what you should need to get and store the acid maybe fat or food and energy.

    I love this idea to pieces. I'm rewriting the Scavenger and Stowaway abilities it's such an awesome idea. This works beautifully, it saves having to use more than one hotkey for Devour, it works with every single tier of alien (each race. including the new ones, will enjoy five or six tiers. Small, Medium, Dire, Grand, Great, and Queen. though Grand and Great may be the same tier, I lack my notes on this computer as always), allowing "digestion time". Any extra Devours would replace the old and serve as markers, allowing consuming the resultant meal of each alien race to have different effects as you increase in level and potency. Devour would never serve as immediate health regain, but the player could keep a reserve of meals which, though not much, would have a weight, preventing stacks of 100+.
    Acid would be weightless, but perhaps with a cap of around fifty, and generated once per second by scripts (many scripts concerning the player refuse to work while combining, which may stop acid production whilst "digesting". Upgraded Devour at higher levels would allow for more acid to be stored, and higher benefits, in a much more subtle way than suddenly being able to consume elephant size aliens to gain 1000 health.

    For the Stowaway, different devoured aliens could be used for producing new eggs of each race, again preventing the need for a hundred buttons on one ability, and controlling availability, whilst having to produce acid would make rapid-fire spit an easily balanced addition to her arsenal, provide a thematic reason for her ability to produce multiple species (but not her own, which isn't around to eat), and would be able to convert any of the meals
    For the Scavenger, different alien meals could serve as nutrition, or as ammunition for things like venom or flame weapons, which gives the Scavenger a purpose for alien corpses which otherwise would have had no use beyond decoration.

    Devour could be given much earlier to both races, since it would be much better balanced thanks to the new time aspect, and would not be exponentially better with each higher tier of alien, discarding the need to "level" the ability. Acid combined with a larger alien would simply provide more "meals" (though I'll perhaps have to come up with a slightly less nauseating term than "soup"), which would individually have the same effects as a smaller alien, only more of it, at the expense of more time digesting.

    Glad you like it.

    Some of the easier endings should be removed from the game at least escape pod(so that life support chip can be removed from taking unnecessary inventory space and communications array given some other more interesting uses(now that I think about it what's the point of getting food generator chip right away, Wouldn't it be better if you had to do something to get it?)) and alien ending (to make killing queens have some effect to the game like reduce the amount of aliens on hive area.)

    I'll probably consider starting to do some modding by myself instead of just "wasting" your time once you have version 1.0 done. Of course I could start now but since you seem to be doing many of the things I would've I'll just wait until you're done with some of them.
    By the way things you have planned for Psionic sound very cool and interesting!

    There will still be the vast majority of those endings, at least for some players. They won't be necessarily be "easy" anymore. For example, for the Alien Queen ending: The Hive will no longer have the queens sitting out in the open, as opposed to there being several underground maps as the players delve into deep, super-dangerous hives with rapidly spawning aliens of all shapes and sizes, one distinct region for each colour queen, all across Notrium. The escape pod will require a tech-savvy race, and likely remain the easiest ending to achieve (after all, the player is simply fleeing from Notrium - they don't "win", they escape).

    Calling for help is one I'm thinking about hard, and may end up introducing something extra to the game, but for the current version, I'll be keeping it the same.

    Probably obivous but the aliens will have more differences than just colour, like different attacks and shape, right?
    Also how distinct the regions are? They might easily be a bit too distinct. I think the difference in region, except distance from other aliens, shouldn't be really related to aliens in the area too much they should just happen to be in the area for no particular reason. The hive desing, aliens and smaller differences in the map(does it have lava?, is it rocky?, what other creatures are in the area?, Is it completely underground as in no aliens above ground?) should be the main differences not the whole enviroement. Of course areas should be varied but since they all pretty much are from the same race they should have some common things in their living enviroement(not just hive). But surely I have no reason to worry and besides all the other awesome things will surely make up for it if I don't think it's as well done as it should .
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    To add an extra twist to the escape pod ending you could always have it return to orbit, but this time be shot at my the VC Cruiser that is parked in orbit. In truth this ending can then be extended with all sorts of mayhem like managing to dodge the cruiser and land in the docking bay of a passing freighter, only to find said freighter over-run with reapers, ad nauseum.

    I guess what I am trying to say is, instead of removing the endings, we can just spice them up.

    The planetoid ending could turn the player into one of the little green guys and have an end-quest
    The subspace radio ending could (and seriously needs) a massive alien spawn or even the above mentioned infested freighter.

    EDIT- all following was originally a PM to Nocture17, but I felt other might have additions, corrections, or use of it. I deleted the PM, but am sorry if it went through anyway, mate.

    was thinking about your desire to have regen rates capped at a specific % of max. the problem as I see it is a lack of multiplication and divide bar functions. Since really division is the inverse of multiplication, and multiplication is really repetitive addition, we could make a built in multiplication script.

    There are too many potential uses to list here, but I have one already in my upgrade work, and both the stasis field and your model of regen would benefit.

    When multiplication is necessary the calling script runs effects:
    17 set bar TIMES to zero
    17 set bar BASE to zero
    17 set bar RESULT to zero
    28 set bar TIMES to bar2
    28 set bar BASE to bar1
    35 run multiplication script

    script (runs every millisecond)
    conditions
    3,TIMES,0 - when times is positive
    effects
    28, RESULT, ADD, 1 - increase the RESULT by the ADD bar
    4, -1, 1, TIMES,0 - reduce times by one

    I'm not sure exactly how the timing might work, and it maybe necessary to break the calling script in half so it waits until the multiplication script is done calculating. With this we could, for instance, determine what is 2% of health or even multiply health by 102%. The TIMES unfortunately has to be positive, and would work best with integers (since anything else would loose the remainder)

    Examples:
    Stasis field wants to know what 1% of health is : set ADD (via effect 17) to 0.01 and TIMES to health
    Micro-fission android upgrade adds 5% to current energy regen: set ADD to 0.05 and TIMES to current value, add result
    Enviro Armor moves temp 20% back to zero: set ADD to .2 TIMES to temp, replace temp with result
    Scavenger can use ability Q 5 times for each fat currently stored: ADD=fat bar, TIMES=5, set bar Q to RESULT

    As an add-in to make this work smoothly (without all that juggling stasis field does right now), I'd suggest two bars are added, Health MAX and Energy MAX. Each time an effect increase the Health or Energy bar's maximum, these would need to be increased.

    Now that I have suggested adding 5 bars of our max 30, I'd say we can reclaim the following bars:
    12 - a counter bar called by the stasis field, made obsolete by the multiplication system
    14 - ending marker (subspace radio) can be replaced by adding a hidden item and using condition 0
    15 - as above, the planetoid
    18 - as above, Android Unique

    So now I am suggesting adding one bar to gain a new logic in the stasis field, the ease of knowing max health and energy, and having a built in multiplication system.
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    Endymion -

    A reasonable point for method of levelling, but I'll see how it turns out with the new hive-size system before I start making large changes.

    As for alien individuality - Small aliens will resort to simple clawing, but by medium size, each will have a specific damage type, and all their own vulnerabilities. For now, they're based on the blue alien, but as I get round to it, they'll probably encompass three different shapes based on the brown, blue, and a third, new appearance with similarities to both.

    Loosely:

    Blue - Physical, most common alien. All varieties will have increasingly lethal physical attacks.
    Brown - Sturdier, electrical energy controlling alien. Larger specimens will have stunning electrical attacks. Second most common alien.
    Red - Immune to fire damage, and healed by lava. Larger specimens will have fire breath. Exclusive to volcanic regions, since they don't appreciate cold areas much.
    Yellow - Desert dwelling aliens, smaller and faster than other aliens. If I can figure out how, larger specimens, though very rare (desert living is harsh), will sit submerged in the sand until prey is near. These will be the only aliens you'll see in the desert, fighting with robots for supremacy, since they're the only species that can deal with desert life, and will share the plains with brown aliens.
    White - Ice Aliens, larger specimens with more health than their blue cousins, and are so cold that their claws lower body temperature when they hit.
    Green - Swamp aliens, they are found in small numbers (and sizes) in temperate and jungle areas, but are more successful in areas of swamp. Large varieties will spit venom, and even small versions have venomous bites.
    Reaper - The arguably most deadly alien, all varieties are near invisible, colourless monsters distinguished only by size and lethality. They'll frequent swamps, jungles and rocky areas, and even their smaller varieties will be dangerous.

    For regions, I've decided to go with the idea OthobRithol suggested to me, Notrium's regions will be banded from west to east. Northmost will be barren arctic tundra and ice. Progressively south of that, temperate regions, jungles, then plains and deserts. If the planet is full of enough places of interest, then that pattern may repeat itself in reverse. There will also be underground regions, the marine spaceship, swamps... All in all, Notrium should be at least 5 areas wide, East-West, and up to 10 areas long North-South. This doesn't include the non-linear regions such as locations underground or in space. Hopefully there's enough space for people to not be bored exploring, enough areas of interest out there that won't just be empty jungles, and not every place will just contain at most three types of enemy (the least will probably be two or more in any particular area), or contain all the same type of enemy.

    Controlled growth resource that you can choose to amass for massive use later, or use up for immediate benefits? The devour/acid system seems to cover that pretty well. You can either digest a lot of food and save it, or allow your acid reserves to accumulate for a massive burst of spit, or never use it until the last moment to conserve your food reserves...


    Warning, the rest of this post gets code heavy.

    Othob - What you say sounds awesome. But I don't have the effects and conditions list handy, and you must really know your scripts, because that one's over my head. I think I remember that discovering 1% of health is actually covered by the system normally though (set bar to N% of maximum is the effect used by stasis field if I recall?), would you possibly be able to make use of that in a multiplication script? I do agree, the lack of "multiply bar X by bar Y", and "increase bar X by number amount Y" and vice versa, are massively important tools to miss out on.

    A vague guess at what your script does (do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), is set ADD to the % you desire, then multiply that by Times and add it to the Result, finally when Times = 0, a second calling script does whatever it needs to do with Result?

    Something I worry about with that is that it takes several milliseconds, what happens if another script calls on the multiplication tool? (If you get a 1 second regen script for 10%, and during those 10 ms use a health pack, what would happen?

    NB: I wrote approximately 100 lines here about two different methods of handling multiplication, positive and negative, both with and without stat maximum bars, and with more or less token items to control the reaction. I have it saved in a PM if anyone is interested enough to PM and ask for them, but out of sympathy for my reader, here's the conclusion I finally reached:

    This can all be achieved without risking calculation interference by conflicting scripts using the same resource, with only two extra bars:

    1: Health, 2: Energy, 3: Juggle, 4: Juggle 2

    Thanks for the bar name by the way.

    Seven invisible utility items:
    1: H.R.T, 2: H.I.T, 3: E.R.T, 4: E.I.T, 5: S.T.1, 6: S.T.2, 7: S.F
    That's Health Activation Key, Health Regen Token, Health Increase Token, their energy equivalents, and Starvation Tokens.

    1: Handling a flat 1% health increase/decrease.
    Whether item-based or repeating script, the regeneration script goes:

    1: Set Bar 3 to 0.
    2: Set Bar 4 to 0. (Both Juggle bars are zeroed. Since scripts activate sequentially, this won't interfere with any other scripts or items).
    3: Add Bar 1 to Bar 3. Multiplier 1. (Sets Juggle 1 to current health)
    4: Set Bar 1 to 100,000, accounting for maximum value. (guaranteed maximum regardless of race)
    5: Add Bar 1 to Bar 4. Multiplier 0.01 (Sets Juggle 2 to 1% of maximum health).
    6: Add Bar 3 to Bar 1.
    7: Add Bar 4 to Bar 1.

    This is simple enough. The first juggle bar holds current health, the second holds 1% of maximum health, and in the end, everything is combined within one script, which works out very smoothly, despite the juggling. There's no need to update a maximum health bar, and in the end it only takes one or two more steps to accomplish over a system that uses one.

    2: Handling a flat 2% decrease from starvation.

    Hard, assuming you can't have a negative multiplier on effect 28 (I admit I have no idea).

    Condition: Player has 0 food and is not an android.

    0: Give Player 1 S.T.1 token.
    1: Set Bar 3 to 0.
    2: Set Bar 4 to 0.
    3: Add Bar 1 to Bar 3. Multiplier 1. (Sets Juggle 1 to current health)
    4: Set Bar 1 to 100,000, accounting for maximum value. (guaranteed maximum regardless of race)
    5: Add Bar 1 to Bar 4. Multiplier 0.02 (Sets Juggle 2 to 2% of maximum health).
    6: Set Bar 1 to 0.
    7: Add Bar 3 to Bar 1. (Again, this just juggles the health around until you have the maximum and current in the right places)
    6: Use S.T.1 x 20.*
    7: Use S.T.2 x 20.*


    * Starvation Tokens require a little explanation. S.T.1 is not used up when used, and runs a little like this:

    Condition: Bar 4 is greater than 0.
    Effect: Add 1 x S.T.2 to inventory.

    S.T.2 on the other hand, has no condition, and is simply used:

    Effect: Remove 1 x S.T.2 from inventory.
    Effect 2: Lower Health by 1.


    Since the maximum health for any character should be 1000 (2% of which is 20), the maximum they can lose is 20 Health a second, and is slightly rounded up (since there's no lower limit on the Juggle abilities -much like temperature, you'll lose 20 health from anywhere above 950 Health). Using items allows you to access conditions multiple times in the same script, so it should (here's hoping I'm right that items can be used in this way), resolve quickly and without needing extending the script out over several milliseconds.

    You may notice that the player will accumulate S.T.1 tokens as time goes on. Which brings us to:

    3: Variable % Regeneration.

    Easier than Starvation. Almost. Let's do Health some more.

    For Starters: Health Regen Upgrades. Each race will have items that give regeneration upgrades and a condition based on number of R.Ts in inventory. (since without a bar, you can't set a maximum value quite so simply). These items will give 1 R.T of the appropriate type.

    As ever, this script will activate once per second.

    1: Set Bar 3 to 0.
    2: Set Bar 4 to 0.
    3: Add Bar 1 to Bar 3. Multiplier 1. (Sets Juggle 1 to current health)
    4: Set Bar 1 to 100,000, accounting for maximum value. (guaranteed maximum regardless of race)
    5: Add Bar 1 to Bar 4. Multiplier 0.01 (Sets Juggle 2 to 1% of maximum health).
    6: Set Bar 1 to 0.
    7: Add Bar 3 to Bar 1. (As you may have noticed, this is pretty much the basic juggle for any two values, so long as you have two bars for juggling values, most simple multiplications should be possible. This is just setting up )
    8: Use H.R.T x 20. (Health Regen Token is used 20 times.)*
    9: Use H.I.T x 20. (Health Increase Token is also used 20 times.)*
    10: Use S.F x 1.

    * Again, the two items need explaining.

    First of all, H.R.T is the key upon which all regeneration is based.

    Conditions:
    1: Character has 0 S.T.1 If the player is starving, they do not regenerate health by this method.

    Effects:
    1: Take away 1 H.R.T.
    2: Give character 1 H.I.T

    This gives the character 1 H.I.T per H.R.T they have, up to a maximum for any race of 20. H.I.Ts then start working. They have no conditions.

    1: Add Bar 4 to Bar 1.
    2: Give character 1 H.R.T.
    3: Take away 1 H.I.T

    Basically each turn, the player's Regen tokens are converted into active Increase tokens. The Increase tokens are then used, giving the player 1% of their health total each, and recycle themselves into Regen tokens again, ready for next turn.

    And what about the S.F item?

    Starvation Flush. A permanent item that is created with the player.

    1: Take away 1 S.T.1

    At the end of each regeneration cycle, one token is destroyed. Because scripts activate sequentially, the player will never regain health for more than a second after the player starts starving, and never be without regeneration for more than two seconds after they find food again.



    So with only two extra bars (one of which was being used anyway), the variable health regeneration and % based health loss are all resolved using only one script each. In the morning, I'll be sure to try and test out whether one script can use the same item multiple times (and I see no reason why not), and if it works out, then juggling and invisible utility items (which I planned on having for other reasons already) solve all the problems I was having with regeneration and health loss in one fell swoop.

    Thanks for getting me thinking on this Othob, I don't think I would have ever reached anywhere near this potential solution without your original TIMES idea.
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    Glad to be of inspiration. It's kind of funny that my exploration of the moding options is providing you with intellectual fuel.

    A vague guess at what your script does (do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), is set ADD to the % you desire, then multiply that by Times and add it to the Result, finally when Times = 0, a second calling script does whatever it needs to do with Result?

    That about covers it. I only gave examples in terms of % of max because that has been the usage we have been discussing. In a more flamboyant mod, it could serve more direct purposes (IE Your
    healing spell heals your Healing Magic skill level x your Mysticism Stat, or acid deals an amount of damage per second equal to the amount you've been hit with, divided by your armor level) Just as long as all the numbers are bars.

    But I don't have the effects and conditions list handy, and you must really know your scripts, because that one's over my head. I think I remember that discovering 1% of health is actually covered by the system normally though (set bar to N% of maximum is the effect used by stasis field if I recall?)

    Not that I am aware of.

    You are using (basically) the method used in the stasis field. Except it only uses one bar. I do understand why you need the 2nd bar, of course. You need something to store the 1% or 2% value for use later.

    Once you have the scripts and tokens worked out, PM me a copy and I will integrate them into the upgrades I have made.

    I've been thinking long and hard about the weapons pod upgrade.
    As it is currently envisioned:

    * A basic mount constructed to hold the pod. This upgrade starts all the scripts and handles triggers. It will likely occupy the body item slot, since I have already done away with its other uses.

    *Individual pods for each of X type of weapons. The pods will be made by combining the appropriate weapon with a few android specific items (circuits, salvage) and a dedicated replicator + android circuits + ammo (except the laser, it will use a micro-fission reactor). These pods will not be functional weapons unto themselves, to avoid the possible simultaneous use of the same weapon by clicking both mouse buttons. They can be broken down, however.

    * On mouse right click, the mount fires off a string of scripts that check for the presence of each weapon, fire it if present, and deduct the right cost form the "pod ammo" bar. I might end up having to use middle click due to the overlap in the hermit/survivor controls.

    * A continuous script runs, checking if "pod ammo" is below max. If so, it deducts from health and energy (if they are above certain minimums, perhaps 100) and raises the pod ammo bar.

    With this framework, the weapons in the pod can be freely mixed and matched, and the overall limits to the number and variety of possible weapons is bound only by my, and future modder's, willingness to script. Add Warp Drill Gun to the list

    New ideas for the day:
    A tamable (and therefore ridable) beast. Given notriums history, it is likely plant based. Or, the VC might have shipped in their own verision of the dewback. Available early on, and infinitely respawning. The player could always have a mount. Give it a mediocre short-range physical attack and Follow/Stay control options.

    Mentioning right-click usage - it is a function sorely lacking in notrium. Condition 37 could be utilized by every race to hold some unique class feature. Since the scavenger is basically a claw/breath fighter, and is likely to have one set of claws and multiple breaths, why not bind all the claws to right click?

    A dedicated cold damage type for your ice aliens, that freezes (stuns) and reduces temp. Add to this a few choice weapons (IE Snowblaster = radiator + cooling unit, uses crystal ore for ammo)

    A juggernaut ability for somebody: Boosts run speed, adds a continuous 180 degree damage arc in front, and has a counterstrike like the laser fence (but physical). Go Reaper Bowling.
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    Having experimented with the item token, there are a few niggles to using multiple items in the same script, but overall, it seems to work the way I thought it would, allowing you to essentially apply multiple conditions during the same script, basically replacing the Times and other bars with items.


    Why two juggle bars? To allow for easier juggling, and more complicated juggling at that, I initially started with it since I didn't have my notes and couldn't quite remember how I did it to start with. Having taken a look again, with one bar, you can: Take the bar you're changing, set Juggle to store its current value, max the initial bar, add the % of that bar you want to add to to the Juggle bar, zero bar 1, and set it to the juggle bar. This drops the total bars needed to only three, but the whole process is much smoother and more refined with the second bar.

    You're right, for Starvation, you can't make do with one bar, you'd have current health on Juggle 1, and in order to make the S.T tokens work, you need another bar set to 2% of your total health. Without an effect to set a bar to N% of total, the only way to isolate a % of total is with a second bar, which is why you need Juggle 2, without it, % subtraction is impossible. The two can be used for every form of multiplication in a single script execution. The two bars would also allow you to pull off Healing x Mysticism quite easily.

    Set Juggle 1: Healing.
    Set Juggle 2: Mysticism.
    Use Healing Token x 10 (or whatever maximum skill level is).
    Healing token: So long as Juggle 1 is positive, add Juggle 2 to Health. -1 from Juggle 1.

    By the end, you've added Healing x Mysticism. Each additional bar allows for an additional component to the equation.


    For right click.... I'm not so sure. Something I don't want happening is someone trying to pick something up with right-click, and accidentally starting world war 3, using up valuable ammo, and with right click to pick up, I don't think it cares if you're picking something up or actively shooting. Nor does it really care if you're changing ally AI settings. It works for the Aleryon mod; there's virtually no right-clicking that isn't shooting someone in it (which is great, since it's very much a shoot 'em up), but in Notrium where 50% of the game is you scrounging for supplies? Not so convinced.

    I'm all for the android having the weapon pod upgrade for its internal weapon systems, allowing it to fire everything at once in a grand orgy of devastation, but I'd be more for having it operate as a weapon that called upon the other weapon systems and consumed their ammunition accordingly than as "free" uses of the other weapons available to it, which may not have any ammo at all. Eventually, the android will be able to produce fresh ammunition for all their weapons, and have a ball going into overdrive.

    If there were thematic enough options, then I might consider alternate uses for right click, but they would have to be cool enough to make it irresistable, and still make sense. The Scavenger, for example, only has two pairs of claws, no matter what they use them for, but can easily have four separate claw weapons in their inventory at once; most of the Scavenger's higher level claws are awesome close combat weapons, with more damage, range and versatility in damage than any other race's close combat features. Four of them active at once? That's 200 damage every tenth of a second or so, in four different damage types, which most races will have at least one they aren't immune to.... Overpowered.

    As for secondary fire... perhaps, with very particular weapons, like an assault rifle with a grenade launcher attachment for the human, a missile launcher which could launch guided and unguided missiles (on a side note, this makes me think of a lock-on system, where you could hold left-click to improve a target lock, and then use right click to fire - snap shot straight flying missiles, or take time and aim for heat-seekers. Free idea for anyone planning/working on an action mod right there)... But this would need to involve each race, and would need to be top notch. Even then, probably not in this version.


    Tameable Beast - That'll involve some fun, but it might be doable. I was still planning on an alien herbivore for some of the areas (in fact, I might even make another hyper-common prey species as well, that all the aliens can easily hunt down and eat for health recovery. Time to hunt and eat some alien bunnies.). I'll consider it further as I get to work on the new herbivores.

    Cold damage - Planned actually. In fact, since I will be removing the fire extinguisher (the pod-escape will likely remain, but in a different formet), whilst the particle accelerator + glass tube will allow for a gas spray purely for knockback purposes (using small amounts of ether as the spray, and being part of the new path to making the flame thrower), replacing the tube with a cooling unit will make a weapon much like your suggested snowblaster, including crystal ore as ammo.

    Juggernaught ability - Hm. Not planned for any characters yet, but maybe as a psionic ability for either the Werivar or Psionic in the future. The Scavenger, and likely Stowaway will however have a similar pouncing ability, where they follow their bite forwards, taking down anything in their way.

    Right, back to work for me.
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    Having experimented with the item token, there are a few niggles to using multiple items in the same script, but overall, it seems to work the way I thought it would, allowing you to essentially apply multiple conditions during the same script, basically replacing the Times and other bars with items.

    Niggles? Quaint word. Do explain, I hope to recreate an approximation of the system to work with in testing my work and keeping it easy to integrate.

    For right click.... I'm not so sure. Something I don't want happening is someone trying to pick something up with right-click, and accidentally starting world war 3, using up valuable ammo, and with right click to pick up, I don't think it cares if you're picking something up or actively shooting. Nor does it really care if you're changing ally AI settings. It works for the Aleryon mod; there's virtually no right-clicking that isn't shooting someone in it (which is great, since it's very much a shoot 'em up), but in Notrium where 50% of the game is you scrounging for supplies? Not so convinced.

    Good point(s). Well then on to plan B : Using the middle mouse button. And for those that don't have one, I will make a simple combination pair for the toolkit to swap back and forth between the wielded weapon / middle button version of the items. To comply with your ideals I'll make the wieldable default, and the mouse click version the combination.

    I'm all for the android having the weapon pod upgrade for its internal weapon systems, allowing it to fire everything at once in a grand orgy of devastation, but I'd be more for having it operate as a weapon that called upon the other weapon systems and consumed their ammunition accordingly than as "free" uses of the other weapons available to it, which may not have any ammo at all. Eventually, the android will be able to produce fresh ammunition for all their weapons, and have a ball going into overdrive.

    Since my goal is to have my work integrated into yours, rather than be a mod thereof, I will have to yield to you on this point. I'll recode what I have to simply use relevant ammo types. Saves one bar and a script anyway. I had, however, looked forward to making the Pod bar upgrades you suggested, and liked your idea of health fueled weapons.

    Speaking of yielding on a point : you mentioned at some point the android would no longer gain energy regen. I can completely understand why: with enough reactors, the android is no longer dependent on any resource (which breaks the balance). In a vain effort to keep the reactor upgrades in the game ops: , and because I think it adds to the subtlety of the upgrade system , how about a compromise? Assuming the android loses X energy per second by default, it can use reactors to reduce said usage to X/2 per second.

    Otherwise, the reactors serve only as superior battery extensions, or are made irrelevant by them. That would make battery extensions the ONLY base/universal item used to "upgrade" the android. I think thematically that is a sore spot. I suppose a better battery extension is feasible, but it lacks the depth of systems integration I am trying to create. Whereas our brave Captain is scrounging for parts to make a new machine, the Engineer is scrounging to add to itself.

    If there were thematic enough options, then I might consider alternate uses for right click, but they would have to be cool enough to make it irresistible, and still make sense. The Scavenger, for example, only has two pairs of claws, no matter what they use them for, but can easily have four separate claw weapons in their inventory at once; most of the Scavenger's higher level claws are awesome close combat weapons, with more damage, range and versatility in damage than any other race's close combat features. Four of them active at once? That's 200 damage every tenth of a second or so, in four different damage types, which most races will have at least one they aren't immune to.... Overpowered.

    I don't quite follow this. Four claws active at once? I was not suggesting a scavenger claws pod, but just binding one to the other button. With the addendum I made just above, you could still pull it off elegantly. It was just an example actually. Other nifty tricks that could be bound to a middle mouse (since right is wrong ) would be zoom features (toggle), a power-dodge (while held speed increases, drains something), special vision (toggle), dual mode weapons (like the missile launcher you described). One nifty use for the Stowaway (once she is a queen) would be to fire off the "baby swarm".

    Some things I want to run past you before I start coding again:
    1 )What weapons to include in the first-run pod? I was thinking options for: Pulse Laser, Rapid Fire Pistol ,Flamethrower, Pebble Shotgun, and Sonic Oscillator. These are all good weapons, but not the best in their class (meaning wielded weapons still serve good purpose)
    2 )I assume Temperature will be using a similar token system; or will it continue as is?
    3 )The caps for the android's health regen, and the value of each "token". I'll need to scale the complexity of the Repair Upgrades to compensate.
    4 )Do you have a specific item(s) in mind for the lesser armor upgrade, or should I leave the recipe as is for a placeholder?
    5 )Any objection to the Robot Recharge ability (carried battery charger) having an auto-use script for fuel cells when energy hits zero? Alternately, it can use "Stored Fuel", a non-breakable item made by combining a fuel cell with And. Recharge. Also thinking of adding in a battery maker upgrade(costs 100 energy, 10 health) for use in repair packs.
    6 ) Hmm, come to think of it, that might be a use for the "reactors" -determining capacity of stored fuel. But that'll need a bar and extra scripts.
    7 )Can I make references in journal entries to the Android calling himself Kryton, calling the Captain Lister, the Weriver "Cat", and some poor sod that didn't live "that Smeh..that Smeh..that Smeghead"?
    8 )Working on the salvage turret ability:
    * Combining And. Tools + broken turret(each type) = salvaged turret parts(one for each type), The combine time is currently 20, might go higher for balance.
    * The token runs a series of condition 8 (random 1 in X chance) followed by effect 16 (give item) for each possible item type
    * valid items are all components, not weapons (machine gun turret would give a particle accelerator, not a rapid fire pistol)
    A)Currently it is used to activate, but I'd like to make it run automatically on creation. Any idea how?
    B)Do you think every item should be salvageable, given that the chance of 100% salvage is likely around 1 in 1000 or more?
    C)If no, what items should be omitted? Computer Units are the reason this exists (either 50% or 100%), Otherwise repair packs makes this pointless.

    edited for inadvertent smilies
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    "OthobRithol" said:
    Niggles? Quaint word. Do explain, I hope to recreate an approximation of the system to work with in testing my work and keeping it easy to integrate.

    You need to have a condition in the item's own use script that there must be at least one of it. You can't just have it removed by event, (indeed, you shouldn't have it removed by event at all), but as an effect 16 to force its removal. Even after this, it doesn't quite seem to resolve perfectly, though I haven't sat down with a calculator to see how successful the actual output was. For my test, I set up a collectable token which engaged in the same "A>B>A" regeneration method mentioned above, to boost morphing (A relatively stable bar) at 1 per second, for up to 5 tokens, but it instead engaged in a periodic increase of 1-2, maybe 3 with full upgrades. It was noticably faster the more tokens, but it didn't quite come out perfectly. Still, with polish, it should be possible to fit even this lower scale into a regeneration script with few hitches.

    Good point(s). Well then on to plan B : Using the middle mouse button. And for those that don't have one, I will make a simple combination pair for the toolkit to swap back and forth between the wielded weapon / middle button version of the items. To comply with your ideals I'll make the wieldable default, and the mouse click version the combination.


    I'd be fine with allowing an optional device to let people customise their own gameplay to their desires. Possibly by a 0 weight auto item. If and when further potential abilities that fit for other races come to light, being able to combine to pick which has the middle click associated with it would work out for people who want that action.

    Since my goal is to have my work integrated into yours, rather than be a mod thereof, I will have to yield to you on this point. I'll recode what I have to simply use relevant ammo types. Saves one bar and a script anyway. I had, however, looked forward to making the Pod bar upgrades you suggested, and liked your idea of health fueled weapons.

    Maximum ammo capacity upgrades should still be in the game; they'd however apply to all the android's self-replicating ammo weapons except for grenade launcher (which will always have one shell), and they will still be fuelled by the android's health to restore the expended ammo. The only different I'm enforcing is that the pod will use multiple types of ammo, and therefore more health to restore them all, not removing the features.

    Speaking of yielding on a point : you mentioned at some point the android would no longer gain energy regen. I can completely understand why: with enough reactors, the android is no longer dependent on any resource (which breaks the balance). In a vain effort to keep the reactor upgrades in the game ops: , and because I think it adds to the subtlety of the upgrade system , how about a compromise? Assuming the android loses X energy per second by default, it can use reactors to reduce said usage to X/2 per second.

    I'd just decided on allowing the android an equippable reactor (yes, equippable) that whilst equipped halved their energy consumption, but prevented the android from equipping other important gear. This goes with other equippable items for the other characters which will have similar effects. The android will be able to drastically reduce their dependency in return for hindering their capacity in other ways.

    There will still be immobile battery generators, ones that require fuel and one that does not. The android will be able to construct superior versions of each (since he is of course, highly skilled in creating energy supplies for ship-systems), so the android will periodically have to go back to base to recharge (much like humans have to go back to Stasis Fields to Regenerate).

    Otherwise, the reactors serve only as superior battery extensions, or are made irrelevant by them. That would make battery extensions the ONLY base/universal item used to "upgrade" the android. I think thematically that is a sore spot. I suppose a better battery extension is feasible, but it lacks the depth of systems integration I am trying to create. Whereas our brave Captain is scrounging for parts to make a new machine, the Engineer is scrounging to add to itself.

    The android will be able to combine android circuitry to battery extemsions, creating a more efficient, dedicated power storage system from the technology that would otherwise be unable to interface with their internal battery technology. Just because the android uses the same technology as everyone else doesn't mean they can't do it in their own way.

    I don't quite follow this. Four claws active at once? I was not suggesting a scavenger claws pod, but just binding one to the other button. With the addendum I made just above, you could still pull it off elegantly. It was just an example actually. Other nifty tricks that could be bound to a middle mouse (since right is wrong ) would be zoom features (toggle), a power-dodge (while held speed increases, drains something), special vision (toggle), dual mode weapons (like the missile launcher you described). One nifty use for the Stowaway (once she is a queen) would be to fire off the "baby swarm".

    So... which claw would be linked? The Scavenger can have as many as four claws at once, all different types, or he can have exactly one of them greater than all the rest. That's the main problem with the Scavenger, there's simply so much potential for difference, you'd need an extra version of every single one of his claw weapons to function, and there are at least eight different claws or more. With your combination idea, I suppose Bites could be linked to middle click, which would work well for the Scavenger. I like the baby swarm idea for the Stowaway too. You've convinced me, I'll check to see what would fit the Werivar, Human and Psionic.

    Some things I want to run past you before I start coding again:
    1 )What weapons to include in the first-run pod? I was thinking options for: Pulse Laser, Rapid Fire Pistol ,Flamethrower, Pebble Shotgun, and Sonic Oscillator. These are all good weapons, but not the best in their class (meaning wielded weapons still serve good purpose)
    2 )I assume Temperature will be using a similar token system; or will it continue as is?
    3 )The caps for the android's health regen, and the value of each "token". I'll need to scale the complexity of the Repair Upgrades to compensate.
    4 )Do you have a specific item(s) in mind for the lesser armor upgrade, or should I leave the recipe as is for a placeholder?
    5 )Any objection to the Robot Recharge ability (carried battery charger) having an auto-use script for fuel cells when energy hits zero? Alternately, it can use "Stored Fuel", a non-breakable item made by combining a fuel cell with And. Recharge. Also thinking of adding in a battery maker upgrade(costs 100 energy, 10 health) for use in repair packs.
    6 ) Hmm, come to think of it, that might be a use for the "reactors" -determining capacity of stored fuel. But that'll need a bar and extra scripts.
    7 )Can I make references in journal entries to the Android calling himself Kryton, calling the Captain Lister, the Weriver "Cat", and some poor sod that didn't live "that Smeh..that Smeh..that Smeghead"?
    8 )Working on the salvage turret ability:
    * Combining And. Tools + broken turret(each type) = salvaged turret parts(one for each type), The combine time is currently 20, might go higher for balance.
    * The token runs a series of condition 8 (random 1 in X chance) followed by effect 16 (give item) for each possible item type
    * valid items are all components, not weapons (machine gun turret would give a particle accelerator, not a rapid fire pistol)
    A)Currently it is used to activate, but I'd like to make it run automatically on creation. Any idea how?
    B)Do you think every item should be salvageable, given that the chance of 100% salvage is likely around 1 in 1000 or more?
    C)If no, what items should be omitted? Computer Units are the reason this exists (either 50% or 100%), Otherwise repair packs makes this pointless.

    edited for inadvertent smilies

    1: The pod will accept, I'm thinking, only weapons in-built into the android. The android still only has two hands, and no method of triggering more than one weapon at a time. As a result, whatever the android can have integrated, can be part of the cluster. For a general selection, let's say a plasma cannon, a bullet-using projectile weapon, a laser weapon, and a grenade launcher.

    2: Temperature will likely share starvation's %-based damage, but without its regeneration halting powers. Your body isn't dying from lack of resources, it's being damaged just like anything else.

    3: My current caps are: 1% health for the android's regeneration. Each token is worth 0.1%.

    4: I do believe it's Heavy Robot Wreckage + Engineering Tool = Armour plating. Armour plating + Android Circuity = Core Plating. But until I've finished the robot creatures, feel free to keep all as is.

    5/6: The android should be able to use fuel cells directly, so no complaints about an integrated battery charger, especially when it stops the android from making use of the overall more efficient stationary generators. I don't much care for the auto-use of anything. If a human hits 0 food, should they automatically consume food? It just takes away one of the facets of the game, which is resource management. Battery extension upgrades already determine how much "fuel" the android can hold by increasing his battery, perhaps I'll think of something that could/would serve to offset an androids energy needs, but I suggest you wait until I finish enough of the mod to have working generators and we'll decide then if something more is needed.

    7: You can make all the Red Dwarf references you like, but don't be offended if they don't make it into the finished journal, they'll at least have given me a chuckle.

    8: I'm pondering how to achieve a very similar thing with random marine drops, once I have more on how to work that, I'll come out with a more comprehensive answer for this.
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    The token runs a series of condition 8 (random 1 in X chance) followed by effect 16 (give item) for each possible item type.
    Currently it is used to activate, but I'd like to make it run automatically on creation. Any idea how?

    I'm pondering how to achieve a very similar thing with random marine drops, once I have more on how to work that, I'll come out with a more comprehensive answer for this.

    In my situation I have a work-around. Since only items are configured for multiple condition-effect entries, but only scripts can be working independently, I am using a combination of the two. I have added a hidden item (that the player starts with) called the "Loot Item" that is set to check for the existence of several items, and if found to use them. This item is activated by a script that periodically uses it.

    In your situation, you could have all marines drop a "Search the Corpse" item (with a similar random table for each marine type you desire), that when picked up is in turn activated by this "Loot" item. For marines, might I suggest a "binary" ammo looted. Set up 4 or more C8/E16 sets giving 1,2,4,8 etc pieces of ammo. This should effectively generate a random number looted. I plan to use this in the salvaged machine gun and flame turrets.

    Having only done very preliminary testing, I can not estimate the effective lag produced by the repetitive running of a long item with 10-20+ C8/E16 blocks being activated twice a second.

    Edit Note: I just discovered effect 59, so this is probably going to end up with a direct loot script, without the hidden item.

    I'd just decided on allowing the android an equippable reactor (yes, equippable) that whilst equipped halved their energy consumption, but prevented the android from equipping other important gear. This goes with other equippable items for the other characters which will have similar effects. The android will be able to drastically reduce their dependency in return for hindering their capacity in other ways.


    Sounds extremely good in all honesty. I can start adapting the current upgrades towards a scaled reactor system. I do think it should be a staged item (like the radio) with either repetitive upgrades(like the current reactors), or a unique series (like the radio) that at its peak performs the 1/2 loss.

    What kind of other devices do you have planned in curiosity?

    The android will be able to combine android circuitry to battery extemsions, creating a more efficient, dedicated power storage system from the technology that would otherwise be unable to interface with their internal battery technology. Just because the android uses the same technology as everyone else doesn't mean they can't do it in their own way.

    So you are suggesting an Android Battery Extension = Battery Extension + Android Circuits, say 50? (the battery extension is 30)

    I assume Temperature will be using a similar token system; or will it continue as is?
    Temperature will likely share starvation's %-based damage, but without its regeneration halting powers. Your body isn't dying from lack of resources, it's being damaged just like anything else.

    Let me be more specific: I am planning to have a multiple use android upgrade that gradually reduces the effect of temperature. Do you plan to implement a "temperature resistance token" that when present alters the temperature accordingly like regen tokens, or to use the system as it is now (where a script manually adjusts the temperature). I am more for a token, since it makes what I am doing easier, but if the Captain is still going to use an enviro suit, it is simpler for it to not use tokens.

    You can make all the Red Dwarf references you like, but don't be offended if they don't make it into the finished journal, they'll at least have given me a chuckle.

    Really more of a joke. I've been watching RD on netflix a lot lately, and the parallels just make me laugh. I have more than enough work to do on items, to really be messing with the journal.

    New Ideas:
    -------------

    In a wave of medication/illness induced delusion I came up with almost a "store" (but don't let that anti-thematic notation dissuade you) that would accurately be called the "Industrial Replicator".
    *It uses an alternate inventory to hold its interface
    *It is accessed by a plot object (computer terminal graphic) constructed from many parts (I'd want it to be one of the more complex combinations trees in the game)
    *There is only one in the game, with the first piece in the hermit's hut: A heavy (100ish) housing. He had one (explaining how he is still alive) but it is broken
    *Alternate location is inside the missile base, with the other wreckage.
    *When right-clicked, the machine opens the alternate inventory.
    *All items are zero-weight
    *The "Store" inventory holds its stored supplies, and entries for each item it has data on.
    *Each item entry has two hot keys, generate and recycle
    *Upon generation, an item of that type is added to the player's main inventory, and the materials removed from "Store" inventory
    *Upon recycle, the entry checks for its presence, removes it and adds to the stored materials (at a loss, perhaps 50%)
    *The base unit only knows how to make a handful of items
    *New items can be added to its list via a system like the refinery chips, use of a food replicator chip etc
    *Energy and Health could be used to fuel it as well : Insert Appendage entry and Transfer Energy entry. Painful and expensive.
    *If moveable, one entry would Pack it Up for Transport: Drop the inventory version (exceedingly heavy) and destroy the plot object. This is possible because everything is actually in the player inventory, just in a place they can't access.
    *Technically, there can be multiple units, by using multiple inventories, but I think one is enough.
    *Alternately, you could use this to just rework the current refinery system (since ores will be gone, and the system was unwieldy)
    *Entries are easy to make: just copy the original item, remove all its uses/conditions/effects/combinations, set weight to zero, and add in the two controls.
    *For added complexity and balance controls, multiple materials could be added to separate item types (Food is made up mostly of Organics, and thus cannot be made from recycled computer units. I'd suggest: Organics, Common Elements, Rare Elements and Radioactive.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Edit Notes: When opening replicator, use effect 52 to set inventory, event 62 to open, event 60 to prevent player from dropping entries, event 45 to deny weapons (has no ammo, suspension of disbelief) and event 1 to stop them from moving and possibly picking up an item into the replicator inventory. Some of this can be replaced by teleporting the player to an empty, dark, enclosed space.

    If recycle can't look into another inventory, then it won't work.

    Entry must be included to "turn off replicator" that restores all the default settings changed above (effects 52, 60, 45, and 1)
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2nd Edit Notes:

    How are you planing on making sure the player does not have too many health or energy regen tokens. When making the android self-repair upgrades, I am having trouble preventing A) the basic from working over 5, and B)either from working over 10. The best I can do is to have two to four hidden items or scripts (likely items in this case to keep them all together in one lump). The first checks if you have 5 tokens, and if so drops the hidden marker that blocks the basic. the next checks for 10, and if so drops the marker that blocks the advanced.

    As you can see, I am keeping the two-tiered upgrade system going, so that to be at its peak, the android must have access to the prism crystals. Which, by the way is making the ultimate upgrade completely obsolete.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    The "salvage" system of pair condition 8, effect 16 (c8/e16s) works like a champ, but it is a bit bulky. The routine for the basic machine gun turret is several hundred lines long by itself. This can be shortened, I am sure, by lumping some of them together IE since all turrets share certain elements (Computer Unit, Energy Cell, Long Metal Rod, Motion Detector) these can be dealt with in an intermediary item called "Basic Turret Salvage". This item is given by all salvaged turrets, and is also activated by the loot script. That would save about 200-300 lines in item.dat.

    An example of the code, that might be of use in your marine drops:

    A Bullet Salvaged.;//--------- START OF MG AMMO ---------
    none;//event failure text
    none;//no sound, could get annoying
    0;//does not vanish after event, removed at end
    u;//normally done by script, but just in case
    -1;//no quick key
    begin_conditions;
    8;// occurs if random # is zero
    2;// range, 1=50%, 2=33%, 3=25%, etc
    0;// not used
    end_conditions;
    begin_effects;
    16;//give item
    72;//Bullets
    1;//quantity
    0;//to main inventory
    0;//not used
    end_effects;
    Some Bullets Salvaged.;//
    none;//event failure text
    none;//no sound, could get annoying
    0;//does not vanish after event, removed at end
    u;//normally done by script, but just in case
    -1;//no quick key
    begin_conditions;
    8;// occurs if random # is zero
    2;// range, 1=50%, 2=33%, 3=25%, etc
    0;// not used
    end_conditions;
    begin_effects;
    16;//give item
    72;//Bullets
    2;//quantity
    0;//to main inventory
    0;//not used
    end_effects;
    Some Bullets Salvaged.;//
    none;//event failure text
    none;//no sound, could get annoying
    0;//does not vanish after event, removed at end
    u;//normally done by script, but just in case
    -1;//no quick key
    begin_conditions;
    8;// occurs if random # is zero
    2;// range, 1=50%, 2=33%, 3=25%, etc
    0;// not used
    end_conditions;
    begin_effects;
    16;//give item
    72;//Bullets
    4;//quantity
    0;//to main inventory
    0;//not used
    end_effects;
    Some Bullets Salvaged.;//
    none;//event failure text
    none;//no sound, could get annoying
    0;//does not vanish after event, removed at end
    u;//normally done by script, but just in case
    -1;//no quick key
    begin_conditions;
    8;// occurs if random # is zero
    2;// range, 1=50%, 2=33%, 3=25%, etc
    0;// not used
    end_conditions;
    begin_effects;
    16;//give item
    72;//Bullets
    8;//quantity
    0;//to main inventory
    0;//not used
    end_effects;
    Some Bullets Salvaged.;//
    none;//event failure text
    none;//no sound, could get annoying
    0;//does not vanish after event, removed at end
    u;//normally done by script, but just in case
    -1;//no quick key
    begin_conditions;
    8;// occurs if random # is zero
    3;// range, 1=50%, 2=33%, 3=25%, etc
    0;// not used
    end_conditions;
    begin_effects;
    16;//give item
    72;//Bullets
    16;//quantity
    0;//to main inventory
    0;//not used
    end_effects;
    A Lot of Bullets Salvaged.;//
    none;//event failure text
    none;//no sound, could get annoying
    0;//does not vanish after event, removed at end
    u;//normally done by script, but just in case
    -1;//no quick key
    begin_conditions;
    8;// occurs if random # is zero
    4;// range, 1=50%, 2=33%, 3=25%, etc
    0;// not used
    end_conditions;
    begin_effects;
    16;//give item
    72;//Bullets
    32;//quantity
    0;//to main inventory
    0;//not used
    end_effects;------ END OF MG AMMO --------


    The values I have next to the condition 8 range are the logical chances given the description of condition 8 in the modding faq, but in a simple trial (n=10) setting p0=1 (which should be a 50% chance) produced a 90% chance. As a result I set all the p0=2 or above, and I got a nice random distribution. It usually gives between around 10 to around 30 bullets, and in all the testing I didn't see the final big bullet drop (32) but ti should be possible.

    As it has been a while since my last update:
    Android Tools renamed to Engineer's Tools, and given a new inventory icon (tool and blowtorch extending from forearm)
    Salvaged Parts renamed to Spare Parts
    Finished Structural Upgrades (Health and Carry Capacity)
    Finished Health Regen Upgrades(With built in maximums, 2 tiers, uses current regen bar framework, with easy conversion to tokens, new icon made)

    Left to do:
    Enviro Upgrades (trying to find a way to avoid multiple scripts)
    Weapons Mount + Pods (far easier than I thought it would be)
    Finish Random Salvage system (trying to also build a framework for a universal random loot system)
    Malfunction System
    Possible Ultimate Upgrade replacement
    Possible Pummel or Engineer's Tools upgrades
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    I'm going to be replying less for a week or so, each time I read these forums I seem to pick up as much work to do as I just got finished.

    "OthobRithol" said:

    New Ideas:
    -------------

    In a wave of medication/illness induced delusion I came up with almost a "store" (but don't let that anti-thematic notation dissuade you) that would accurately be called the "Industrial Replicator".
    *It uses an alternate inventory to hold its interface
    *It is accessed by a plot object (computer terminal graphic) constructed from many parts (I'd want it to be one of the more complex combinations trees in the game)
    *There is only one in the game, with the first piece in the hermit's hut: A heavy (100ish) housing. He had one (explaining how he is still alive) but it is broken
    *Alternate location is inside the missile base, with the other wreckage.
    *When right-clicked, the machine opens the alternate inventory.
    *All items are zero-weight
    *The "Store" inventory holds its stored supplies, and entries for each item it has data on.
    *Each item entry has two hot keys, generate and recycle
    *Upon generation, an item of that type is added to the player's main inventory, and the materials removed from "Store" inventory
    *Upon recycle, the entry checks for its presence, removes it and adds to the stored materials (at a loss, perhaps 50%)
    *The base unit only knows how to make a handful of items
    *New items can be added to its list via a system like the refinery chips, use of a food replicator chip etc
    *Energy and Health could be used to fuel it as well : Insert Appendage entry and Transfer Energy entry. Painful and expensive.
    *If moveable, one entry would Pack it Up for Transport: Drop the inventory version (exceedingly heavy) and destroy the plot object. This is possible because everything is actually in the player inventory, just in a place they can't access.
    *Technically, there can be multiple units, by using multiple inventories, but I think one is enough.
    *Alternately, you could use this to just rework the current refinery system (since ores will be gone, and the system was unwieldy)
    *Entries are easy to make: just copy the original item, remove all its uses/conditions/effects/combinations, set weight to zero, and add in the two controls.
    *For added complexity and balance controls, multiple materials could be added to separate item types (Food is made up mostly of Organics, and thus cannot be made from recycled computer units. I'd suggest: Organics, Common Elements, Rare Elements and Radioactive.

    End game permanent manufacture....
    In keeping with Werivar, I'm retaining Mining after a fashion, in various areas there will be sites that mining devices can be set up, and each site will have a different material to produce. There will not be "ores" to convert, the resources will be purified as they are extracted, keeping things simple.
    Following this, I've plans on a "generator" - a replicator cell based invention which picks up items and adds them to its inventory. Along with this will be program chips, used to determine what to make, and view the inventory of the generator. This is on top of portable replicators, and more specific versions involved with set item manufacture.

    How are you planing on making sure the player does not have too many health or energy regen tokens. When making the android self-repair upgrades, I am having trouble preventing A) the basic from working over 5, and B)either from working over 10. The best I can do is to have two to four hidden items or scripts (likely items in this case to keep them all together in one lump). The first checks if you have 5 tokens, and if so drops the hidden marker that blocks the basic. the next checks for 10, and if so drops the marker that blocks the advanced.

    As you can see, I am keeping the two-tiered upgrade system going, so that to be at its peak, the android must have access to the prism crystals. Which, by the way is making the ultimate upgrade completely obsolete.

    Huh. For some reason I'd thought there was a condition that checked that the player had LESS than X items. Well, no matter. Let's just do it in reverse.

    Regeneration Potential Token. Effect: None.

    Upgrade Conditions & Effects.

    Android Basic Regen upgrade Condition: Must have 6 RPTs.
    Effect: Remove 1 RPT. Add 1 Regen Token.

    Android Advanced Token: Must have 1 RPT.
    Effect: Remove 1 RPT. Add 1 Regen Token.

    The android starts with 10 such tokens, determined in race. Likewise, since the android runs on Armour upgrades, it also starts with 12 of those, with exactly the same method. Any limitted upgrade would thus have a certain amount of potential that was simultaneously expended, no fuss.

    Alrighty, gotta go catch up on modding. Ta ta.
    #
    OthobRithol 16 years ago
    I did it just the other way around, but the way you suggested is shorter in code lines overall.
    Armor won't need proxy tokens, since it is a bar, and can be set with a maximum. Armor upgrades check themselves directly against the bar, and add directly to it.
    I'll use the same system in modeling the enviro upgrades

    I can understand the desire to get away from me

    Anything I can do to take the load off? I have just about finished everything I set out to do.
    #
    Nocture17 16 years ago
    "OthobRithol" said:
    I did it just the other way around, but the way you suggested is shorter in code lines overall.
    Armor won't need proxy tokens, since it is a bar, and can be set with a maximum. Armor upgrades check themselves directly against the bar, and add directly to it.
    I'll use the same system in modeling the enviro upgrades

    I can understand the desire to get away from me

    Anything I can do to take the load off? I have just about finished everything I set out to do.

    Since I've not even finished re-ordering the item list, I've still got to make images for several of the items, and I've not even got to reworking the new weapons (let alone all the upgrade trees from one weapon to another), I don't think I've even got to a point where it would be easy to take any work off me, but thanks much for the offer. I've not had much chance to work on it properly for the last few days, but hopefully now I'll have the time to get the last push finishing items.dat. Once that's done, a lot more things will fall into place, which will be hopefully speed everything up a great deal.

    For Marine corpses, I've decided that they'll drop plot items, which will allow on-pick-up calculation of item drop. It's actually creature corpses (and turret corpses) in general that make up the bulk of my remaining work in items.dat.

    On a side note: Alien images now complete, as are the new marines. One item - the Bio Detector, has been removed entirely, whilst several items now have many more uses.
    #
    kopana 16 years ago
    You know, first time I posted on this forum, not so many posts ago, was at least four years ago. I've loved this game my entire life, and to come back to it now and see that a brilliant prodigy is continuing the work of the LAST brilliant prodigy, on an even higher level, is downright astounding. You sir, kick ass.
    #
    Forum » The Werivar Expansion Mod.
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