Notrium Version 1.3 Progress - Instant Kingdom

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Notrium Version 1.3 Progress

Quanrian 20 years ago

This is just what it appears to be. I'm sure many of you would love to know how progress is coming along so that is what this thread will do. Both me and Ville 'may' post here at our discretion to keep you, the loyal forum goers up to date on the progress.

Things not to ask.

When is Notrium 1.3 coming out ?

Don't ask this please, we just don't know yet and any date we give you we more than likely can't stick to.

Will you add 'this' (replace 'this' with something you'd like added) ?

Great ! You've got an idea, stick it in the Ideas thread.

Basically to sum it up, only put comments here, no ideas. If you want to ask a question about something we mention, that is ok, but do not ask questions that don't relate to this thread please.

I want to keep this thread neat so you guys can see the information clearly without having to dig through a bunch of chatter so I will be vigorously modding this thread and if something is offtopic I will remove the post entirely.

If you're worried your post if offtopic, play it safe and post in a thread that is more appropriate

This thread doesn't require feedback to serve its purpose, just me and Ville keeping you guys filled in.

ville 20 years ago

I'll start by saying I've finished making the new AI system. It's going to be quite different from the one before under the hood, but you will mostly see it as creatures behaving more randomly. They still won't be intelligent enough to do any real AI stuff like hiding or using varied attacks. But what you will see is creatures acting like they actually were minding their own business until you come along. They even team up when somebody alerts them.

I've also made a new system for the item and plot_object effects. Now you can do the same things in both. Also there is a way to define specific quick keys for items, which you will see utilized. I'm now moving on to implement scripting, probably followed by the much needed moddable bar system.

Most of the bugs from 1.2 have been fixed, but new ones have also mysteriously appeared. We're expecting a hefty beta phase.

Quanrian 20 years ago

We're still in the early stages, but the AI is mostly worked out and Ville has only to work on the bugs I outlined for him, implement some changes than it comes back to me for some more testing and I'll add more content. This is how we're going to be doing things until the end when we will do something different to catch any remaining bugs and get final input before the actual release of 1.3

I've kept you all in the dark for a long time about the new, mysterious race, and well I guess its about time I let the cat out of the bag since you guys aren't likely to even try the new race for a month or two at least.

The new race is going to be a weird one, a Psionic. The race will play unlike the other in several ways.

The Psionic cannot carry anything. Yep you heard me right it can't carry even the lightest items, only weightless items can be carried ane even then the Psionic is restricted heavily in what it can use.

Unlike any other race the Psionic is like a living conduit of energy, and as such it slowly recharges its energy over time so it will never entirely run out.

The energy bar will be very important to a Psionic, far more than even the Android because it will power quite a few of 20+ abilities the Psionic will possess.

The Psionic is also very fragile and as such must be very careful about temperature and the damage it takes.

Unlike the other races the Psionics best friend is time, it has an extremely slow rate of hunger and has no other drains so it can sit and wait for days on end without problem.

The Psionic must combine special tokens in most cases in order to be able to make use of its special abilities which only it can use.

The Psionic is the only race that will actually and truely level up, gaining new tokens allowing it more abilities and also enhancing it in important ways, one of which allows it to finally carry items. These new tokens will be earned in special areas that represent the Psionic's mind and will present unique challenges.

The Psionic is geared towards vets and the long standing desire by them to have a race that actually levels up. As such newer players will have some difficulty with it.

The Psionic is the magic race in Notrium and so players desiring that type of gameplay from their race should be satisfied.

Well that is more than enough for you guys to chew on. Go ahead and vote on the race in Races poll started by Zex if you like

We're still in the early stages, but the AI is mostly worked out and Ville has only to work on the bugs I outlined for him, implement some changes than it comes back to me for some more testing and I'll add more content. This is how we're going to be doing things until the end when we will do something different to catch any remaining bugs and get final input before the actual release of 1.3 I've kept you all in the dark for a long time about the new, mysterious race, and well I guess its about time I let the cat out of the bag since you guys aren't likely to even try the new race for a month or two at least. The new race is going to be a weird one, a Psionic. The race will play unlike the other in several ways. :!: The Psionic cannot carry anything. Yep you heard me right it can't carry even the lightest items, only weightless items can be carried ane even then the Psionic is restricted heavily in what it can use. :!: Unlike any other race the Psionic is like a living conduit of energy, and as such it slowly recharges its energy over time so it will never entirely run out. :!: The energy bar will be very important to a Psionic, far more than even the Android because it will power quite a few of 20+ abilities the Psionic will possess. :!: The Psionic is also very fragile and as such must be very careful about temperature and the damage it takes. :!: Unlike the other races the Psionics best friend is time, it has an extremely slow rate of hunger and has no other drains so it can sit and wait for days on end without problem. :!: The Psionic must combine special tokens in most cases in order to be able to make use of its special abilities which only it can use. :!: The Psionic is the only race that will actually and truely level up, gaining new tokens allowing it more abilities and also enhancing it in important ways, one of which allows it to finally carry items. These new tokens will be earned in special areas that represent the Psionic's mind and will present unique challenges. :!: The Psionic is geared towards vets and the long standing desire by them to have a race that actually levels up. As such newer players will have some difficulty with it. :!: The Psionic is the magic race in Notrium and so players desiring that type of gameplay from their race should be satisfied. Well that is more than enough for you guys to chew on. Go ahead and vote on the race in Races poll started by Zex if you like :)

ZeXLR8er 20 years ago

Wow, now that's what I call a new race. I wonder how the intro is going to read.

Quanrian 20 years ago

Yes and creating a magic based race is a fairly daunting task. It took me a while just to come up with the magic system employed by the Psionic. There will be several Psionic Disciplines from which the 4 tiers of the magic system are derived. Obviously all aren't available, so that is why you'll want to level the Psionic up in various ways to get it to its full potential. The story for the Psionic also ties into what has been built up through the Expansions and you'll find it ties in and explains somethings that were left unexplained.

I've spent ALOT of time planning this new race and I do hope when everyone finally gets to try it that it shows. The most difficult thing with a Psionic will be how you will ration off your energy and even your health to the various abilities. The Psionic even has its own VERY unique look to it, designed by me and I have to say I'm very happy with the end results, despite how bizarre they are

ZeXLR8er 20 years ago

So how is the progress going with the update, Ville? Is it coming along as easily and quickly as you expected?

ville 20 years ago

That's right. At the moment I'm making the bar system, but it affects so many things in the game that I've had to disable most systems to make the game start. Now I'm working on gradually re-enabling things like damage, items and weapons. As you can see I've really had to strip everything down. I just hope I can bring the whole thing together.

UsErNaMe 20 years ago

So the Psionic is some kind of magic creature?
How does it attack? With a fireball or something?
Or did I misunderstood something?

ville 20 years ago

It has its own weird magic weapons.

The game is progressing well, I've almost got the new bar system in place. Now it should be possible to finally add the breath bar for the hardest difficulty level.

ZeXLR8er 20 years ago

How will the breath bar work? Will it go down constantly, or will it go down only when you are moving or fighting and go up when you take a rest?

Quanrian 20 years ago

You're just fine about asking questions based on an update to the game's progress either me or Ville post. Be kind of mean if I didn't at least let you ask to try and squeeze a bit more out of us. How much you'll get out of us is a totally different thing though

The bars aren't set in concrete, none of them. The whole things was redone, so naturally some testing needs to be done. The breathing bar will go down only in certain situations I assume as that is how it was meant to work, though it will probably function somewhat as a stamina bar, where as moving for long periods of time will deplete it.

Its all hypothetical till I get my hands on it. Since I don't have a new working version, can't tell you anything just yet. For a solid answer on the oxygen bar you're going to have to wait, sorry.

ville 20 years ago

That's right, even I don't have an answer on that as some of the bar functions don't work until I implement the scripting. On their own they work just like the food and the health bar, they can be added and decreased by items, plot_objects, firing weapons, getting hit by a bullet and some other things not yet thought of.

With the scripting you should be able to do something like decreasing the health bar when some other bar, such as the breath bar, goes too low.

Some bars are still hard coded, such as the temperature bar. I couldn't find a good way of making it moddable, but you can at least change whether it is used or not, and whether it shows or not.

Quanrian 20 years ago

You guys have been pretty great with your ideas and your passion towards the game and I am sorry the game wont be out sooner, so since you wont get to actually play the Psionic for quite some time I thought I'd at least show you the graphics for it. Done by me of course

This first one is a 3rd person view, fully rendered. Since the overhead tends to semi-ruin the design

http://www.geocities.com/quanrian/psionic2.jpg

This is what you will actually see in the game, mind you it has quite a bit of alpha mapping in the game which you can't see in the image.

http://www.geocities.com/quanrian/psionic.jpg

Both images are hosted on geocities, so nothing I can do if they don't come up for you.

ZeXLR8er 20 years ago

Wow, that's all I can say!
How long did it take you to make that?! You can even see inside it!
I really can't wait to play it! One question though: how come the bird's eye view shows it's body as a square shape when it looks so circular?

Quanrian 20 years ago

Well seems like Ville was right and they might of gone so far as to actually kill my site

I also uploaded Quibbles latest version as well though.. so who knows.

The black outline is simply a bounding box to help place it in the grid I've got setup for creature graphic's creation. That graphic is one cell.

It took me several hours, I'd say about 4 to 5 hours to get the result I wanted, get the creature graphic entirely done and finished and get it into the game. Glad you like it, it was meant to be very different, you have to hear it as well to see how different it really is

roburky 20 years ago

You can see graphics on geocities adn the like by copy-pasting the address into a new window.

And it looks nothing like I expected. A fresh suprise.

Quanrian 20 years ago

I was going to make it simply a human with a big head. Though Ville in his great wisdom told me he wanted it bizarre looking, so after some sketching that looks very little like the final result, that is what I got. You can't tell there either, but it is also very small in the game to justify the small amount of health.

Here's the description for the Psionic Race:

Very slow food drain. Can only use Psionic Abilities. Cannot Carry Items. Fragile Body. Slowly Recharges Energy.

Those are how it starts out mind you, not its full potential. It can actually carry things after a certain point. The best part about the Psionic is you really don't have to level it up, it'll just make things considerably harder for you. You can also level it up to whatever degree you like.

Devon 20 years ago

I've put the images on one of my webpages that allows direct linking, so here they are....
(I hope that's ok - if not, delete this posting)

ZeXLR8er 20 years ago

Does the Psionic walk or float?

Quanrian 20 years ago

Somewhere inbetween the two Zex.

ville 20 years ago

I've posted Quanrian a new version, he will soon tell you first impressions of the new AI. Keep your ears open, there are a bunch of improvements that will make new weird weapons available.

Lochen 20 years ago

new race looks cool but how will it get the ablities? like how would it get to the new areas if the other races couldnt?

ville 20 years ago

Yes. Quanrian has made a special area for it.

Quanrian 20 years ago

Notrium version 1.3 includes several new features, among them are weapon and item classes, which allow you through the player_races.dat file to limit what a race can use.

The Psionic start with several Psionic Tokens which represent a discipline, they are used to access the deeper recesses of the Psionic's mind which are essentially dungeons or dreamscapes where the Psionic obtains new Tokens which allow it new abilities. Only the Psionic starts with the Tokens, therefore only the Psionic can access the special areas which take place in its mind.

So you may spend a considerable amount of time conquering each dreamscape so that your Psionic becomes more able and of course powerful.

Version 1.3 is shaping up quite nicely and I strongly believe many modders will be pleased with the host of new options available to them, not to mention the flexibility offered in their execution. Weapons, Items and Plot Objects are more or less standardized, using the same effect and condition system. Yes you heard me right. You can now make some very bizarre weapons indeed. Dare you make a creature spawning, ether eating contraption !? Well you can in 1.3 and much more !

It will be key to the ambitious modder to more or less memorize what each effect does as they are commonly shared amongst the files.

Once you decide upon what you want to happen, you than choose what will be the source. Should it be used at will with a left click as a weapon ? Allowing for things not possible before, like a potion that must be selected like a weapon, than used to restore vital health or whatever your creative mind desires. Perhaps you'd prefer to have a secret ambush triggered as a player nears a certain object, than you would use a Plot Object and spawn a creature when they approach the object. Of course the old traditional route of executing an effect from the inventory is still very viable and lets you allow the player to be safe as they use the item, yet now unlike before you can have effects cued to different keys and of course have multiple effects instead of just one.

Well that is enough for now

Enjoy

I'll be happy to answer any Mod specific questions in the appropriate thread. Notrium version 1.3 includes several new features, among them are weapon and item classes, which allow you through the player_races.dat file to limit what a race can use. The Psionic start with several Psionic Tokens which represent a discipline, they are used to access the deeper recesses of the Psionic's mind which are essentially dungeons or dreamscapes where the Psionic obtains new Tokens which allow it new abilities. Only the Psionic starts with the Tokens, therefore only the Psionic can access the special areas which take place in its mind. So you may spend a considerable amount of time conquering each dreamscape so that your Psionic becomes more able and of course powerful. Version 1.3 is shaping up quite nicely and I strongly believe many modders will be pleased with the host of new options available to them, not to mention the flexibility offered in their execution. Weapons, Items and Plot Objects are more or less standardized, using the same effect and condition system. Yes you heard me right. You can now make some very bizarre weapons indeed. Dare you make a creature spawning, ether eating contraption !? Well you can in 1.3 and much more ! It will be key to the ambitious modder to more or less memorize what each effect does as they are commonly shared amongst the files. Once you decide upon what you want to happen, you than choose what will be the source. Should it be used at will with a left click as a weapon ? Allowing for things not possible before, like a potion that must be selected like a weapon, than used to restore vital health or whatever your creative mind desires. Perhaps you'd prefer to have a secret ambush triggered as a player nears a certain object, than you would use a Plot Object and spawn a creature when they approach the object. Of course the old traditional route of executing an effect from the inventory is still very viable and lets you allow the player to be safe as they use the item, yet now unlike before you can have effects cued to different keys and of course have multiple effects instead of just one. Well that is enough for now ;) Enjoy I'll be happy to answer any Mod specific questions in the appropriate thread.

ville 20 years ago

Yesterday I made a system for each weapon class to have a specific picture for them when the player holds them. Basically you can now have the player carry a sword, and have the graphics for that. And when he changes to the longbow, the picture will represent that.

And there's more! I've implemented the new push system. The heavier the creature is, the harder it will be to push. Any creature can also be pushed, not just your friends.

Lochen 20 years ago

wow sounds like a whole lot of new helpful and neat stuff going in cant wait to download it

Eternal 20 years ago

what do you mean graphics for a sword? do you mean on the actual player model? and how much harder will this making new graphics?

ville 20 years ago

Here's how it works. The head and the foot frames of the player creature graphic are like normal, but you can define a separate middle part graphic for each weapon class. For example the alien player normally looks like he's only using his claws even when he was holding the welding torch. Now I've got it set so that the torch belongs to the tools weapon class, and the alien looks like he's holding some sort of a tool when he's holding the torch.

So it doesn't make anything more difficult, it just allows your player to look like he's holding a specific weapon.

Wicked 20 years ago

will the middle layer be customizable?

ville 20 years ago

Only that layer will be customizable, but not fully. It can have only four animation frames per weapon.

ville 20 years ago

I've now implemented the moddable particles. You can now define their sizes, textures, and a few variables. This should finally allow for cool effects, such as making the flamer's bullets look more like flames.

Eternal 20 years ago

does that also mean my humungo mechwarrior doesn't have to emit tiny little footprints really close to each other? (i dont accaulty have a mech).

ville 20 years ago

Doesn't the size of the creature already affect how far apart the footsteps are? Anyone tested this?

Quanrian 20 years ago

Nope its not the size. Its how fast the creature is moving. The slower it moves the closer the footprints are to each other. I know this from when I was testing the vines in the Eden area in 1.2. The game places the footprint at a set rate, so that is why the speed causes the footprints to spread out more or less from each other. Now if you mean how spread apart the left and right foot print are horizontally from each other, that I'm not sure about but it always seemed to be the same.

You'll all be happy to know you can define what particle is used for a foot print in 1.3

Not sure how useful it will be, but it is a long requested addition.

Quanrian 20 years ago

Just a small addition regarding the AI. The AI is very smart now, in fact you wont find the enemies easy picking at all anymore. They'll gang up on you, sometimes to the extremes. If the feeling of survival has been lost, don't worry its definately back. You'll find yourself running away at times or depending much more on weapons that stun. Walking around slowly is also important, the more enemies in your range also means the more that will be alerted when one enemy notices you. I literally had about 20 creatures chasing me and more were coming !

I can definately see turrets playing a larger part in your survival as well as any pets you gain during play, which will help even the odds just a bit.

There are still only 2 AIs to pick from for friendly creatures, but you now get to pick which 2 AIs it will use, giving you more flexibility. Though I suggest ahead of time to make one of the AIs be to guard/wait.

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