Allow to continue digging while taking damage

[ghostbuster]

I recently had a stupid death in the sandworm lair.
I was trapped in the sand. I had an air recycler tinker and a good (7 turns) randard digger.
As a result, I was loosing approximately 1 air per turn, but with my digger, it was quite enough to reach a safe room at a distance 2 without running out of air.
The problem is that you cannot dig if you are damaged (healh or air). I had no tport item (yes I know, this was a mistake). And the result was fatal.

I remember having had similar problems while trying to dig while standing on lava. The damage was far from being lethal, but it was sufficient to forbid any kind of digging.

I undertstand the reason to stop an action if the player is damaged; It can be a life saver. But in this situation, it was just forbidding any action that could save the player and was actually a killer.

Why not add in the game option a way to suppress it and let the player continue a multiturn action like digging even if he takes damage?

[Radon26]

wholly support the idea!!
if not an "option", then perhaps a popup window. still, something.
there are situations like the above.

[grobblewobble]

Yes! This would be a great idea.

To give another example: I could not enter a vault, because the only entrance required digging and on the other side a monster kept spawning shadows, which almost hit me for 1 damage while I was digging. Really silly to be forbidden to continue to dig there.

[Davion Fuxa]

An alternative idea might be to make so that instead of you being 'stopped' mid process when digging, perhaps we could make it so that instead of you taking a set amount of turns to dig down a wall, you do a set amount of 'dig work' when you try to dig down a wall. If a wall for example was to have 10000 hit points, you would do say 500 dig damage, and 10 turns in something interrupts you; the end result is that the wall should have 5000 hit points left.

[Radon26]

That is an idea, that i am rather conflicted about.
If "dig", and a few specific talents are the only ones that can damage a wall, that would theoretically be a reasonable change.
Instead of active, "dig" would be a sustain, that allows you to "bump attack" a wall. tiny change, but allows you to take a break, without having to restart from scratch.

However, if the wall hp would work the same way as mob hp, that would be a massive change in game play, likely requiring a lot of work.
the way i imagine it, a fight could cause a lot of destruction to the environment, exposing you to more enemies.

at the same time though, what about computer resources?
normally, a lvl has maybe 20 to 40 mobs. 100 or more, on extreme maps. Then, there are something like 200 wall/tree/mountain tiles in the more open maps, to 2000 on maze type maps. An individual mob was 20 times more expansive than a single wall piece, That would still be a major increase used up space. the extreme maps are barely playable. this would make them completely unplayable.

Now, you might do something like "only actually damage walls have hp value", that might negate the problem i just mentioned.
if the first version is done, that might work. If its the second, then you are going to damage ALL the walls with your AoE talents, and generate lag though that anyway.

[Patashu]

He's not saying the walls have literal HP like a mob does. It would be 'digging_hp' that is only interacted with by the use of Dig. Nothing else damages it, heals it, etc. 'Dig' reduces 'digging_hp' according to some calculation per turn, and if the wall's 'digging_hp' hits 0 it turns into floor. Simple.

It's not a high memory requirement, either - Let's say a map is 200x200 in size, 4000 32 bit integers (or floats if that's how you store them) is only 16KB of extra data.

[Davion Fuxa]

If walls could be damaged by mobs then that could lead to some really cool effects in gameplay - Massive Blow might not necessarily just send you through a wall, Massive blow might be able to send you through multiple walls if they are weak enough. Depending on the wall types, you could perhaps burn them down with wood or send a current of Lightning through them to hit an enemy.

But Patashu is correct that I mostly mean that there would be a digHitPoint counter. I got the idea for it from RimWorld where pretty well everything on the entire map has a hit point value (and you can have some pretty big maps in that game). While it is possible to blow up walls with anything that causes damage, really I would be suggesting only things that would be Dig Damage would damage a Wall.

[Sheila]

I think of this in the same way that elona resolves autoturn, long duration actions that can get interrupted by taking damage, such as eating and reading (I forget if digging as well)
you get a prompt asking you if you'd like to stop your current action each turn you take damage, and that's probably the safest way to do it, then it's up to the player to decide whether he or she wants to risk finishing the action but it would be nice if it was added.

Another idea I've had for a while that I honestly believe digging needs is the ability to set a path for the character to dig through, mostly a selection just like a beam spell, and then it'll make a simple automated process that involves dig > step to next space > dig > step to next space, and so on, until interrupted, running out of walls, or reaching the desired tile. Digging is super tedious and that's the best I can come up with to make it better.

[nsrr]

What about a 'Wand of Digging'? Digs out up to [tier] walls in a beam, starts long cool down on charms. I think this would be balanced against a pick axe because: 1) it would need to be equipped 2) you would have to be out of combat for any extensive digging, due to long cooldown 3) it has the downside of putting all charms on cooldown.
On the other hand, you /could/ use it while surrounded by mobs and backed against a wall. I suppose to counteract that it could have a chance to fail (20%-ish?), which wouldn't really make any difference in cases where you are free to dig a long path by conventional means. I think that would be about comparable to a psycho port torque, for in-battle use, since you would have to be next to a wall (preferably one with a room on the other side) and it would have a chance to be a waste of a turn that stops you from using other charms for a long time.

Thoughts?

[Radon26]

so... how does that idea compares to psychoportation...

well, you have to spend a turn to wear it on.
then you spend another turn to actually use it.
then, you have to walk away from the enemy at your normal speed.
That's not even accounting for slows, pins, grapples, rushes...
And the enemy can still follow you.
you argue that psychoport sends you to more enemies? the wand can still open a path to a room full of elites and a rare.
...
and to top it off, it might effectively disarm you (shared cooldown), without doing anything. seems shitty to me.

i propose slapping "grant talent: pulverising auger+<tier>.
the staff has ego that grants a sell, so that's shouldn't be too bad.

also, DG was watching this thread!

[nsrr]

The idea was to have something that would make out of combat digging less tedious, so it /should/ be less optimal than a psycho port, to avoid abuse. One downside I had not thought of before, however, is that wands are arcane powered, making it unuseable by anti-magics.Maybe a torque or totem would be better.

[Shaidyn]

I totally agree. If you as a player make the choice to dig instead of take the damage, you should be allowed to.

I'd like to tack on another suggestion, which is the ability to dig when hostile targets are visible but NOT hitting you. I recently had an issue where I was teleported into a corner of the map by an enemy, from which there was no exit back to the rest of the map. Unfortunately, the walls were transparent, so I could see him, but there was no way for either of us to damage one another. Regardless, I wasn't able to dig my way out.