Our community module

[Canderel]

In terms of leveling up:

All parts/mutations level up individually, giving one lots of different imrovements almost continually. But each part has a max level --- maybe not?! Almost I guess like iron vs steel vs titanium etc. Also when removing a part some of its power lingers. So you can either build so that you keep you parts on you for long before switching (less frequent levelling up), thus optimising the permanent gains, or switch to more powerful parts, whose permanent gain wouldnt be as close by and perhaps not as strong.

[Rectifier]

I've actually played around with the math for such a system, I think it could be really cool. For display purposes, if you have a paperdoll up at all times, you could "flash" the body part that takes damage, even with the color of damage that hits it or a particle effect (fire etc.). The same could be done with enemies; it could focus on the last enemy targeted (or still alive) and also allow you to look at other with the mouse. Critical hits specific to being hit in special body parts - say, antenna, like in Fallout - could have really cool gameplay effects, and even simple things like arm shots and leg shots would make for fun gameplay.

So does this mean each section of the body would have its own hp bar, critical wound areas, and low chance side affects when damaged basically? Sounds very Fallout-ish, I happen to like that.

[Postman]

How about unconstrained self-modification meta-game without leveling parts? All stast are defined by body parts. And stats are not direct sum but product of interactions of body parts - for example heart (bio or reactor) generate some amount of energy, hands channel this energy (with coefficients and max capacity) to strength&speed, legs - to movement speed/stamina, brain - to accuracy/intelligence, but bigger heart need intelligence to be controlled and stamina to be beared, thus closing the loop. Different parts can consume/generate/channel/leech different resources - psi-tech heart can consume some psi produced by brain etc.

[Canderel]

Todo: create a runnable module.

I think something along the lines of the tutorial. This would force us to think about the mechanics.

Imo bricks idea of armor is overly complex. Just let armor absorb 50% of damage...

[darkgod]

Yes, *always* get something playable quickly

[Canderel]

https://github.com/reenenlaurie/Gene-Revolution

That is a copy of the example module. No alternations.

[Rectifier]

Awesome.

[bricks]

Imo bricks idea of armor is overly complex. Just let armor absorb 50% of damage...

It definitely threatens to be too complicated. I've a few ideas about how it could be done; I'll keep thinking about it and try to jump on implementing it once some of the groundwork is there. Then we can see how it plays. Just to collect ideas:

Bodies are composed of parts; these parts are variable, but follow a standard scheme for type.
Parts have sizes and damage resistances/susceptibilities. The latter may or may not be inherited from armor.
Attacks can hit the whole body or individual parts of the body.
Some attacks have precision ratings; these determine re-rolls for the purposes of accuracy. (i.e; weapon precision 2 allows you to take the better of two rolls. Noninteger rolls could work; 2.6 could mean 2 rolls 40% of the time, and 3 rolls 60% of the time.)
Damage to overall health is taken as the sum of the individual hits.
Body parts themselves may or may not also take damage; the definition of "damage" may be different for these.

I'm assuming we're not totally eschewing the notion of armor and weapons apart from body parts, though conceivably one may choose a chainsaw arm over an arm that can grasp a weapon, or a type of torso may be too bulky for armor.

Stealth is something that was only mentioned briefly. I like the idea of everyone getting the option to be stealthy, though I don't care for the "roll vs. perception" version of stealth. Perhaps one type of effect could be a stealth field, which has high energy drain, short duration, or some other disadvantage. "Hearing" is another sense that could be incorporated as part of size and other factors, so a truly stealthy player would need to be both hard to see and quiet.

[Kemsha]

I like all the ideas I see so far.

What i would like to see is normal (purists?) humans. I've always liked the mercenary and smugglers that survive with their wits (and gadgets). Think Boba Fett and Han Solo

It would add items and inventory to the game but it's hard for me to think of a roguelike without loot. Having it only on bosses seems... odd.

In terms of characters, it could be merged well with the other types I think. On your hand you could have the Blaster Pistol or the Vibro Blade implant, or the spore spitter

[yufra]

https://github.com/reenenlaurie/Gene-Revolution

That is a copy of the example module. No alternations.

Thanks Canderel. I have forked the tree (https://github.com/mfajer/Gene-Revolution) and will start hacking on it a bit. I agree that getting a demo of the mechanics up first should be at least my main priority, and actually hope that we will end up completely scrapping it at least once.

I think we should take advantage of the built-in Github wiki instead of the Google document, what do you think?

[Canderel]

Agreed on the wiki. We should just port to check that we don't lose ideas? Othrwise people can just raise their ideas again.

Forked or cloned?

[Devorius]

How about rather than damage reduction, armor has a chance to prevent damage from reaching body parts. If the check succeeds, then the armor will take the damage instead. This means that armor will have its own hp (durability) and when it reaches 0, the armor is rendered useless (either totally destroyed, or just unusable allowing for it to be repaired).

The armor's block chance could reduce with damage it has absorbed also; you wouldn't expect a piece of armor that's been riddled with bullet/blast holes to offer the same protection as the same piece in mint condition.

[Grey]

Make a game before thinking about armour. One you have an idea of how the combat flows you'll have a much better idea of what armour can add to the game (if it's even wanted). Don't just invent complexity for complexity's sake.

This thread really needs someone to take the helm and start coding some real gameplay. The vast majority of the discussion will amount to nothing more than intellectual masturbation unless you have an operational base to apply the ideas to.

[yufra]

Canderel, it is definitely a fork which seemed to be the option Github was steering me towards. It looks like each developer is supposed to have their own fork and then do a "Pull request" (like I just did) so now you (the manager) can pull my changes to the main branch. If you would prefer to work on a single branch then set me up as a collaborator for the main branch (username is mfajer) and I will start directly modifying your tree.

Grey, you are right and that is exactly what I am doing. I am toying with some changes to the engine that I think will help the AI and UI, and the first version of those changes are already in my fork. I referred DarkGod and some others to take a peek and give me some feedback on it. The basic idea is to separate the effects of a talent from the actual action of the talent. For example, ToME's Dual Strike involves an attack with the off-hand weapon, and a conditional stun and attack with the main-hand weapon. All of this is wrapped inside of the talent's "action" function, and there is no easy way to determine the probability of each of the three effects. My proposal is to make this possible, so the player (or AI) could easily see during targeting the complete probability of each effect. For clarification, by "complete probability" I mean the stun would be the probability of the off-hand weapon hitting and then multiplied by the probability of the target's saves not removing the effect.

[Canderel]

No I think forking is great, I'm just new to git...