View Full Version : BSM Rank and Class System
I'll start with what I got so far, the 5 groups and the skills and parameters I think should be available when leveling up.
Trooper
REA, DEX, SHT, GFT, STR
Sniper
EYE, SNP, CAM, AGT, DEX
Sapper
SAP, DEX, HWP, INT, REA
Scout
EYE, HRN, CAM, STH, AGT
Medic
MED, HP, EN, STM, INT
Then we have the cost of those skills
Health = 2
Energy = 2
Eyesight = 2
Hearing = 2
Strength = 1
Stamina = 1
Dexterity = 1
Agility = 1
Reaction = 1
Intelligence = 2
Shooting = 1
Sniping = 1
Gunfighting = 1
HeavyWeapon = 1
Throwing = 1
HandToHand = 1
Camo = 2
Sapper = 2
Medic = 2
Stealth = 2
Leadership = 2
Charm = 2
These are just my thoughts, and what Kyle suggested in the other thread, having the option to buy skills for another class at a higher cost should be included somehow.
When I only give each class 5 skills to choose from in each, I have the GUI in mind. I think there's room for 6 or 7 on each "page" of the dialog screen, and I want to fit that limit. That can be solved by showing the classes on the first page, the player can then choose the class and on the second page we'll have the skills. To put the "penalty" on the cost of skills outside the chosen class would be easy to implement.
What say you?
Yeah, it's a pretty good idea to devote a thread to this new endeavor of yours, as the consequences for what you're trying to do are pretty enormous, especially with making sense of how factions develop/distribute/interact over the map. I savor the opportunity to have more control over how one skills develop in the game, and if your mod works as planned, that's exactly what we'll get.
BE5's and 7.62's methods of elevating skills and attributes are too nebulous to me. Sometimes there's an elevation and one is left wondering, "Now why in the world did I just get this raised under these circumstances instead of that...?"
It sounds like you're aiming at getting rid of that ambiguity, and I feel that that's a good thing.
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Before I comment on what you posted, I'd like to say that I'm happy that you're seriously considering my suggestion about making all skills available to all classes, but that skills outside of a class' skill pool cost more.
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Trooper
REA, DEX, SHT, GFT, STR
Sniper
EYE, SNP, CAM, AGT, DEX
Sapper
SAP, DEX, HWP, INT, REA
Scout
EYE, HRN, CAM, STH, AGT
Medic
MED, HP, EN, STM, INT
I've scrutinized this list for quite a while, and can't find no glaring faults with it. Good job! It looks like you're really committed to having no more than 5 skills per class, and if that's the case, then the only suggestion I have is for the Sniper. I'd swap the dexterity for stealth. There's no question that Snipers' hands are highly trained for wielding bolt-action rifles, but what makes a Sniper especially deadly is not the nimbleness of his fingers but his ability to infiltrate a region without detection. This takes a tremendous amount of will power, endurance, and agility. The nimbleness of his fingers will help him none when he's detected and a hail of rounds are directed his way!
Health = 2 Yup!
Energy = 2 Yup!
Eyesight = 2 Yup!
Hearing = 2 Yup!
Strength = 1 Yup!
Stamina = 1 Yup!
Dexterity = 1 Yup!
Agility = 1 Yup!
Reaction = 1 Yup!
Intelligence = 2 Yup!
Shooting = 1 Yup!
Sniping = 1 I'd make this cost 2 points. Being able to make a successful shot while taking into account air pressure, barometric pressure, air temperature, wind currents, and more... Well, in my mind, that's more like conducting surgery at long range, with the intent to kill instead of heal, of course!
Gunfighting = 1 Yup!
HeavyWeapon = 1 My feelings on this are mixed, primarily due to this being a skill that covers SO many different types of typically bulky weapons. I've never fired a machinegun firing 7.62s, nor have I ever fired a grenade launcher, but in my mind, the amount of training to use these safely and properly has to be more robust than a standard small arms weapon. Perhaps raise this cost to 2?
Throwing = 1 Yup!
HandToHand = 1 For a brief period of time, I studied karate, and while the Hand to Hand skill in the game certainly doesn't look like it's all that sophisticated, I can say that the mental discipline required to fight, and fight WELL, is pretty demanding. One's ability to read the opponent's body is also vital, and not an easy thing to do. That's my experience anyway. Maybe raise this cost to 2?
Camo = 2 The first two years of my university years were spent studying commercial illustration, and the one thing that I never forgot is that the human eye/mind is an EASY thing to fool visually. Smearing on makeup, and securing local flora and fauna to one's body is not a "rocket science" skill. Snipers and scouts, I'm sure, take it to the next level, as their main concern is trying to counter others who have been TRAINED to detect THEM. I think that this skill is meant in the more general sense, so I'd lower its cost to 1.
Sapper = 2 Yup!
Medic = 2 Yup!
Stealth = 2 Yup!
Leadership = 2 Yup!
Charm = 2 Yup!
Hope this helps in some way!
:)
Well, I'm open to add one or two more skills to each class, if they fit the concept. And we could also add some skill points to the class automatically when leveling up. Like you always get 1 point of sniper skill when leveling up as a sniper, or one point of sapper skill when leveling up as a sapper.
When on the subject of sappers, the main reason I merged the HWP skill and class with the sapper class is that it would otherwise be rather unattractive as a choise. It's also the reason I gave the HWP cost a 1 instead of 2. But if one is of another class, the cost should be 4, not 3.
And I also gave the sniper class the DEX instead of stealth to make it more distinct from the scout class. But you're right, the sniper class should have the stealth skill as well.
The stealth skill is also one of those hidden values that doesn't show anywhere in the game, and there's anotherone called professionalship(shouldn't it be professionalism?), that also could play a part in this new rank system. I'll make a new system to display those values, either by adding it to the player journal or in the leveling up screen.
It's been a long day and I need a nap, I'll add more when I've slept on it.
In regards to assigning more skills to each class' skill-pool, if I were you, I'd consider adding maybe 1 more skill/class. The trick being that if too many skills are assigned per class type the more likely it is that they'll all become too similar.
I like your idea of auto-upping the primary skill trait of each class with every level.
How would the maximum number of points be determined? An average of their primary attributes/skills minus the # of unsuccessful attacks at a target and/or other unsuccessful actions (a Medic failing to do a good job with applying first aid), or...?
For example, to keep the math simple, say that with every new level the character automatically starts with a experience modification multiplier # of "10." Every time a Sniper misses with his sniping skill, 1 is subtracted from 10. Every time he's successful 1 is added to whatever was lost, but to never exceed 10. His experiences will affect how many points he'll be awarded come time to level up.
Now. Let's pretend that the maximum number of potential points a character can earn is based on an average of the three most essential skills in that class' skill-pool divided by 10. Thus a Medic with an intelligence of 63, a medical skill of 57, and a dexterity of 51 would get 6 points to spend with every leveling (63+57+51=171, then divided by 3=57, then divided by 10=5.7 rounded up to 6).
So that Medic can receive a maximum of 6 points for that leveling up, based on his top three attributes/skills. But let's pretend that he had three rather unsuccessful attempts at applying first aid, and then afterward had 1 successful medical application, he'd end up with an experience modification multiplier of 80% (10-3=7, +1=8, x10=80). One would take the maximum potential points of 6, and multiply that against the experience modification multiplier, which results in the character having earned 5 points out of a potential of 6 to spend (6 x .800=4.8 rounded up to 5).
Can anyone explain to me what is meant in 7.62 by the Scout class? Are they intended to be the "hardest of the hardcore" special forces type, or...? To be the ultimate infiltrator...?
Also, am I correct in stating that even though the values for stealth and professionalism are "hidden" they are still impacting gameplay?
What is meant by "professionalism?" How well one interacts with one's comrades? If one talks to them a lot, will that extra effort at communication result in better results, and what are those results? Better morale so that a squad's adrenaline rush and recovery from said rush are better, or...?
Forgot to add that congratulations on being a librarian; in my opinion, THE most important government job any society can offer, and with potentially enormous consequences for the good of society. :grin:
Especially if they're programming for 7.62!
;)
I like the idea of having the amount of points depend on player actions, but there is no way to actually do what you're suggesting when it comes to checking successful sniper hits and such. The released source code mostly deals with quests and some AI things, like how patrols behave but not how NPC does. It's too bad because that's what I'd like to tweak a bit. And most of the games calculations are also hidden, like the weapon system, behavior and how the skills play a part in those.
The scout class is something Nightprowler came up with for the BSM, and a scout can be very useful in some situations in the game, especially on some random maps where you can place a scout before the enemies reach you. He'll be able to spot the enemies long before they spot your shooter/sniper and you can pick them off before they get too close. My scout almost never fires a shot in a firefight, and when he does it's when something has gone wrong. The most important thing when using a scout is to watch the "visibility" bar in the lower left corner, it shows you where the good hiding spots are on any given map.
I would say that the Stealth skill is very important and it impacts the game when fighting. I think there's a check all the time to see if the enemy can see you. Since it stands against the enemy's eyesight AND hearing, I would say it's more important than the Camo skill.
I think the Professionalism skill mostly has to do with your RPC interaction, or at least that's what the released source code seems to indicate. When hiring new mercs there is a check to see if your Prof skill is high enough for that merc, I think it's usually around 25. The game also gives you 10 points every time you complete a mission successfully, and it deducts 50 if you kill one of your mercs and 15 if he dies in your service. It might have other functions, but as I said earlier, it's hidden in the unreleased code.
It's a shame that we can't get a better look at the hidden mechanics.
And here I spent all of that time reflecting on my earlier years of playing tabletop Dungeons & Dragons, GURPS, Battletech, and whatnot...
I miss those days! Sitting around a kitchen table, surrounded by good friends, snacks, and staying up till the wee hours carefully using one's brain.
I think that out of all of the roleplaying systems I've played, GURPS was, without question, the most logical, sensible, and easily applicable. I've taken a look at the latest edition of D&D's rules, and while much better than its immediate predecessor (an easy thing to do, in my opinion), it's mechanics are still clunky and far more abstracted compared to GURPS' system.
I've always been surprised that Steve Jackson hasn't cashed in on his near-flawless system by licensing it to virtual creations. The creators of Fallout approached him, but in the end he declined. :(
I'm guessing that they wanted too much "ownership" out of something that's clearly Jackson's baby...
Sorry, started reminiscing there. :)
Back to the Scout class... The role that you described sounds an awful lot like a real life spotter for snipers. Not how I was imagining it, but in BE5 I always had the stealthiest person play that role. Send them out and watch where the rounds land in relation to the targets' positioning.
I didn't know that there was a "Stealth Indicator Number" on display in 7.62. Not that it matters a whole lot, because I always have my squad move from one spot of concealment/cover to another, and preferably in the shadows. That's useful to know though, so I'll check for it the next time I play.
R@S,
:?: Let me see if I'm understanding one of your goals correctly:
are you trying to enable us to pick any avatar that we wish, and then assign a class to that avatar? If so, I'd much prefer this to the current system, of being "stuck" with a specific CHARACTER with an already well-defined background. For some reason, having this background already there reduces the sense of immersion for me. As a player, I would much rather prefer to select my avatar's appearance, then his/her class type, and allow me to imagine and role play out "who" my character is. Is this what you're aiming for? If so, I'd advise supplying a clearly defined description of what each class does, and its exact starting stats, and have all of these definitions easy to find, and preferably, compare to one another.
:idea: I'd like to pitch a class-type that I can't recall ever seeing being spelled out in the Blue Sun Mod...
Close Quarters Battle Specialist
Imagine a SWAT officer and you'll have an excellent idea of what I mean, which is someone who is highly trained at fighting in-close to their targets, both with small arms and hand-to-hand.
I'm not going to quote exact figures here, since I can't see what your starting stats are for the other classes, there's no point in me stating starting figures that could be substantially different than yours, so I'm just stating generalities.
Endurance: high due to constant drilling with the "weapon at the ready." Out of all of the attributes/skill levels I'm proposing, this one is the "least necessary" to me.
Eyesight*: high due to constantly training the entering of rooms of various lighting conditions, and having to quickly determine whether a foe is friendly or not
*Since I'm not sure how 7.62 handles this, perhaps an attribute/skill to better describe what I'm trying to get at here is Intelligence. While I'm sure SWAT officers have to have excellent eyesight, that doesn't necessarily mean that they can see things more CLEARLY at a DISTANCE, but rather that they're highly trained to quickly ASSESS whether a potential target is friend or foe.
Hearing: high, again due to constantly drilling to be as perceptive as possible within environments that are so small as to allow no room for error.
Snapshot: high, for reasons that should now be obvious.
Shooting: high, again as above.
Hand-to-Hand: high, as above.
Reaction Time: I don't want to split hairs here, but my lack of knowledge regarding 7.62's mechanics does leave me guessing. If the Eyesight attribute doesn't due, and/or the Intelligence attribute is too vague, then perhaps what I'm really looking for is the ability to react QUICKLY to what's being seen/heard. I'm just bringing it up here so that you can better be in my shoes to understand my thinking. Well, however you decide it should go, if you come to the same conclusion as myself regarding this matter, then the Reaction Time should also be highly refined.
Throwing: They're pretty good with those grenades, aren't they? Out of all of the stats/skills proposals here, this is the second weakest one to me.
:!: Now, if you'd like me to create a background story for an avatar/character, then I'd be more than happy to do so.
Not to toot my horn too strongly, but I feel that I'm a pretty solid writer, and I already have a character's background details cooked up that would be fairly...um...interesting. I'll put it down for you if you'd like to head in that direction.
Let me know!
:grin:
R@S,
:?: Let me see if I'm understanding one of your goals correctly:
are you trying to enable us to pick any avatar that we wish, and then assign a class to that avatar? If so, I'd much prefer this to the current system, of being "stuck" with a specific CHARACTER with an already well-defined background. For some reason, having this background already there reduces the sense of immersion for me. As a player, I would much rather prefer to select my avatar's appearance, then his/her class type, and allow me to imagine and role play out "who" my character is. Is this what you're aiming for? If so, I'd advise supplying a clearly defined description of what each class does, and its exact starting stats, and have all of these definitions easy to find, and preferably, compare to one another. Yup, that's what I wanna do. The player only has to choose how the avatar will look from the 8 available models, then this new class system will deal with the skills. I think there'll be some minor differences in their starting physical attributes, but those won't make any difference in the long run. I was thinking that the male models will have a little higher strength from the start while the female will have better agility. But as I said, the differences will not be that big and it wont affect the gameplay.
Consider your new class added, is it OK if we call it a Skirmisher? These are the main 5 attributes for that class if I were to pick five.
Reaction(This skill covers your idea for EYE and HEARING, at least when in confined spaces.)
Stamina(endurance)
Snapshot
Strength
Shooting
I would say that Reaction and Snapshot would be the main skills for this class, and EYE and HRN should be there as well. Maybe we could make so that every other lvl up we could have 2 sets of skills, like when even the choice would be the above skills, but when odds we would replace strength and shooting with Eyesight and Hearing. On second thought, we should do something similar on all classes, having only the most important attributes available every time.
Consider your new class added...
Yay! I'm quite happy about this! :grin:
"Skirmisher" is a much more succinct, and great way of summarizing my too-long Class Name. I'm definitely in favor of it! :grin:
Reaction
Stamina (endurance)
Snapshot
Strength
Shooting
The above list looks "right on" to me in regards to what I was trying to get at. I'm honestly surprised that 7.62 didn't supply such an "obvious" class-type before.
No one's perfect, but now that I'm here...
;)
About alternating attributes/skills that are available when leveling up with Even and Odd numberings...
My initial reaction, and I'll be very up front about this, is deeply related from my prior experiences of going from playing Dungeons & Dragons to GURPS: I strongly feel this "alternate-leveling" should be avoided.
In D&D, such Even's/Odd's "availability" leveling up's were commonplace, and if that's all that one ever knows, then it's highly likely that there will be no questioning of such a design scheme, but after playing GURPS...
I strongly feel that one doesn't even have to play GURPS to quickly and deeply appreciate the utter soundness of its logic, and easy-to-grasp "relay-ability" of WHY the game's mechanics are setup the way they are, because they model one's real life experiences extremely closely. They also maximize a player's ability to chose exactly what they want his/her character to be, without causing Game Masters a ton of frustration designing a mission/dungeon for a gaming environment that is so seemingly "player friendly."
I strongly feel that a good deal of D&D's design problems are from how it was designed too much around the "supposed" needs of the Dungeon Master in order to get a "good" role playing experience, but that's a whole thread in and of itself...
One would also be mistaken to assume that a game design system such as GURPS would make it more challenging to enjoy and become immersed in fantasy-based environments, but one would be very wrong in making such an assumption, but that's a whole different thread as well...
Anyway, back on target: alternating "when" an attribute/skill can be raised seems too arbitrary to me. Now, the way BE5 and 7.62 automatically elevates certain skills is also arbitrary to me, but that's due to there frequently being no clear connection between an event that just occurred and the elevating of an attribute/skill that may not be related to said event. It may not be as arbitrary as it appears, but until we can see the guts of its mechanics, we can only judge what we actually experience.
It also reduces player options, and having put GURPS through the grinder many a time, I can say that with all confidence that putting that power in the player's hands can work, and does not "have to" lead to headaches and "failure."
If I was a player, I'd prefer to always have full access to my character's attributes/skills, and have growth be managed by...
(1) ...the cost of raising attributes/skills, with some being clearly and reasonably more challenging to raise than others, and...
(2) ...the number of points that I get to spend.
So, in this game-based-economy, my options are kept wide open in regards to what I could invest in, but my resources are limited so I have to chose what is most valuable to me at a given time. As circumstances change, so will my decision making, and like any real life flesh and blood human being would do, I'll alter my choices as necessary.
Before I go, a link to all things GURPS. Take a quick look at the write ups for the products, and be prepared to drool. Illuminati is a BLAST to play as well. AWESOME game. Bye for now!
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/
OK then, I'll start coding the bugger this weekend. I will have to see if I can find a way to implement some of the suggested things, but I'll try. I'll release it through Flügenweb or a$$ möde:D
I had some spare time at work today and managed to write about 500 lines of code for this new project. I've made some minor changes to simplify matters and I hope it won't piss you off too much;)
I made it so that ALL skills in the selected class only costs 1 point, think of it as you already had your basic training and you only need some minor adjustments to improve the skill. But for the skills outside your class I made the following cost and divided them into 2 groups, Parameters and Skills:
Parameters:
Health = 4
Energy = 4
Eyesight = 4
Hearing = 4
Strength = 2
Stamina = 2
Dexterity = 2
Agility = 2
Reaction = 2
Intelligence = 4
Skills:
Shooting = 2
Sniping = 4
Gunfighting = 2
HeavyWeapon = 4
Throwing = 2
HandToHand = 4
Camo = 2
Sapper = 4
Medic = 4
Stealth = 4
Maybe we should change it so that the attributes costing 4 costs 3 instead?
Since I haven't touched a role-playing board game in more that 25 years, you need to explain things to me as you would a total n00b:grin: Otherwise you'll never get your ideas through, yes, I'm that daft:cool:
EDIT: I forgot to say, when implementing this into the mod, it will cause some problems with the outsourcedINI mod and i might be forced to remove it. But it needs some testing to make sure and it might only affect a small part of it, time will tell.
and I hope it won't piss you off too much
R@S, don't worry about upsetting me. I've survived one on one critiques with some pretty brutal professors in the past. :grin:
It's late. I'm tired. So this will be kept short, but sweet...
Parameters:
Health = 4 Yup!
Energy = 4 I'd make this cost 3 points. In my experience, increasing one's energy is pretty easy; go out and do some light exercise. Of course, I think what "Energy" here means is something a bit more profound, like physical energy WITH emotional vigor (sort of like morale), so I'd raise the cost a little more for that.
Eyesight = 4 Yup!
Hearing = 4 Yup!
Strength = 2 Yup!
Stamina = 2 Yup!
Dexterity = 2 Yup!
Agility = 2 Yup!
Reaction = 2 Yup!
Intelligence = 4 Yup!
Skills:
Shooting = 2 Yup!
Sniping = 4 Perhaps drop this to 3 points. Out of all of the skills that I rank by difficulty, none can be more challenging in scope, mental pressure and physical acuity than Medic. As challenging as being a sniper is, I think being a Medic is harder still.
Gunfighting = 2 Yup!
HeavyWeapon = 4 Perhaps set to 3, and for the same reasons given for "Sniping" above.
Throwing = 2 Yup!
HandToHand = 4 Yup!
Camo = 2 Yup!
Sapper = 4 I'd lower this cost to 3. While there's no question that being a sapper is very difficult, I think it's somewhat safe to say that it's not as challenging as putting back together a broken body. Ironic that. ;)
Medic = 4 Yup!
Stealth = 4 Yup!
A good list. Let's see how it works! :grin:
By the way, what is the "outsourcedINI" mod that you referred to?
Good night!
Snore!
Kyle
June 30, 2010
I stayed up too long last night and coded some more, the leveling up system is now complete. Now comes the next stage, deciding when the leveling up should happen. I though locking it to the CGL would be the easiest way to go, but have changed my mind. I think it would be best to tie it to the killcounter which is independant from things that might cause problems. Here's my preliminary thoughts:
lvl 1 Kills 20 (+20)
lvl 2 Kills 50 (+30)
lvl 3 Kills 90 (+40)
lvl 4 Kills 150 (+50)
lvl 5 Kills 210 (+60)
lvl 6 Kills 280 (+70)
lvl 7 Kills 360 (+80)
lvl 8 Kills 450 (+90)
lvl 9 Kills 550 (+100) //Maybe all the next level ups should be at a 100 kills?
lvl 10 Kills 660 (+110)
lvl 11 Kills 780 (+120)
lvl 12 Kills 910 (+130)
lvl 13 Kills 1050 (+140)
lvl 14 Kills 1150 (+150)
lvl 15 Kills 1310 (+160)
lvl 16 Kills 1480 (+170)
and so forth.
This can go on until all attributes has reached their limit, the player can keep leveling up as long as he keeps killing.
Now I need to check where the attribute cap for the skills are, I know that the hearing cap is at 200, but where the rest of them are I have no idea.
As it is now, the player will get 5 points to spend at every leveling up, and he can save point for the next event. I had a though that I could also add a point if the player completes a specific mission, or place a few easter eggs that will give a point. I also thought of giving the player a chance to get another point by having a small bonus mission on the level up screen, but I'm to busy for that and it would take too lang to make all those new missions.
outsourcedINI is a mod guineapig made, check your 7.62\ini\ folder for a outsourcedconfig.ini file for more info. It makes a few hard coded setting open to adjustments
EDIT: I did some quick testing and it seems that the cap is much higher than I first thought. Check this out:
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/9105/shottest1.jpg (http://img215.imageshack.us/i/shottest1.jpg/)
But since the stats are too high, it does some weird things to the game. The amount of time it takes to raise and shoot is acually a negative number, like -2.14 seconds. Look what happens when I select single shot "shoot until dead":
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/7785/shottest2.jpg (http://img64.imageshack.us/i/shottest2.jpg/)
Since shooting is now a negative number, it fires 100 shots in less than a second. Talk about a hail of bullets:D
Here's the first test version of the new Class System. If you don't wanna ruin your current game, copy the whole game folder to another folder and run it from there(I dunno if this works with the Steam version).
Then copy these files to your \7.62\Quests\mods\RAS\ folder and start a new game.
Enter your Kill Book and choose a class.
Once you've killed your first 20 enemies, enter the Kill Book again and select "Level Up"
I haven't put a cap on the skills yet, you can raise it as high as you wan't. Try to keep an eye on where the game engine starts to have problems with the high skill level. As of now I'm thinking of capping it at 200, but if some skills can be raised without problems I might increase the cap for those skills.
Class System v1 beta (http://www.mediafire.com/?gm2dgz4ggl5)
Have fun
R@S
Oh, and one more thing, I've added a cheat to make the testing easier. Just open the console and write throw cheatlvl and you'll be given 5 points to spend. Keep in mind that you can do this as many time you like, but don't spend them all at once, there's a limit to how long a dialog can get, and if it's too long it'll CTD.
Wow!
You're fast! :shock:
Me likes you FAST! :grin:
Don't kill me when I say this, but during the day as I was working I was wondering if there should be a combat skill other than sniping that should also be more challenging than 2 points per level, and I came to the conclusion that Reaction time should cost 3 points per level, instead of 2.
My reasoning is that combat is an extremely stressful experience, and if one's doing something like clearing rooms, and it's dark, dusty, etc., etc., reading the situation wrong can lead to all kinds of misery, like killing someone who shouldn't be dead.
Now, I don't think it's possible to mistake a target for someone else in the game, but these kinds of situations are a REAL life concern, so...
If you agree, perhaps in your next version raise it to 3?
Alright, got to download, backup my old files, and start a new game.
Can't wait! :grin:
And that "bug" with single fire! Perhaps it should be changed to "Apocalypse Fire" when the character reaches the right level? ;)
I can't imagine how thick the tracer rounds would be if you were firing at full auto!
hehe, yeah, once I know exactly what I wanna do, there isn't much that can stop me from doing it.
I'll consider raising the cost for Reaction to 3, but I need more time testing the system to make my final judgement. The situation you're describing is, at least by the game engine, associated with the adrenalin which is tied to the experience level of the player. If the adrenalin level gets too high, the bullet spread gets very wide and civis might get caught by those stray bullets. I'm not sure, but I think the Reaction skill controls how fast you raise your weapon. But it's easy to check by using the "cheatlvl" function, I'll do that tonight when I gget home.
While working I had a few other ideas, here's the best of them:
Perks! What you call "Apocalypse Fire" I call the "Beserker" perk. For a short period of time, 1-2 minutes, the skills that causes this "bug" will be raised and the player will be able to cause mayhem. Other perks I have in mind is "Quick-Draw McGraw", "Eagle Eye" and "Tank". Feel free to tell me not to do this, or give suggestions on other perks that might be fun to have.
R@S,
Cool! :grin:
Just to be clear, I've NEVER made adjustments to the outsourced.ini file. So, if this mod does interfere with said file because a player has changed its default settings, I wouldn't know it.
SUGGESTIONS
Clarify
Once I opened up the Kill Book, it took me a bit of clicking to figure out what was going on in order to Level-Up. I honestly feel that with a few more words, such frustrations can be dramatically reduced and enhance the enjoyment of the mod. With that, here's my first suggestion...
(1) Offer the following options when Leveling-Up:
Class-Based Parameters and Skills
Class-Based Perks (if implemented, see below for more)
All Other Parameters
All Other Skills
Avoid abbreviating Parameters and Skills whenever possible. If abbreviations have to be used due to display limitations, then I'd certainly always supply an option entitled "Key to Abbreviations."
(2) In the Read Me, I'd consider adding the following directions to clarify and ease things for those new to the mod:
Important Points Regarding the BSM Class-Based System
(1) The player must start a new game. Feel free to backup the old Saves.
(2) Select one’s desired avatar.
(3) Adjust the avatar’s beginning Skills.
(4) Start the game.
(5) After the very first and unavoidable dialogue interaction is over, one will need to access their avatar’s Inventory and then right-click on the black-covered “Kill Book” in the lower window of the Inventory screen. Select “Show kill statistics” and then select your desired class type.
(6) Every time a leveling-up has been earned the player will be notified by an in-game message.
(7) To spend one’s newly earned points, once again go to the Inventory screen to gain access to one’s “Kill Book.” Right-click on it and select the appropriate options...
(8) Rinse, wash, and repeat. Oh, and HAVE FUN!
Perks
My feelings towards this are pretty mixed. It might be "easy" to generate some of these, but there are inherent risks of having them. Such as...
...will the AI have access and the capability to use them?
...will there be enough of them to create a "universe" where they comfortably fit? If there's too few of them, then they'll seem contrived, and if there's enough of them, then they're going to be compared to Fallout's superb implementation of them. And, if that happens (and it will), then it's highly likely that in spite of our best efforts, we're going to fall far short. Fallout is simply one of the best games ever made, and to be held to such high expectations...!
If we go the perks route, then I'd say it's imperative to have enough to avoid feeling contrived. So, then we're stuck being compared to Fallout's system.
My advice? If a perks system is going to be created, we might as well draw as much as we can from The Master, and carefully consider what can be "ported over" from Fallout. They're not only extremely well designed, but are also usually quite humorous in a very dark and twisted way.
I have to wonder if development time would be far better spent by investing it in creating new equipment, and/or new missions/campaigns, and/or do both.
Perhaps the AI are free from having any perks until the player decides to start purchasing them for his own/comrades' avatars?
Going the perks route is, I feel, going to open up a whole can of worms.
That said, I do have a few suggestions for perks:
(1) Berserk should be kept confined to its classic definition, which is for hand-to-hand combat. Traditionally it should temporarily elevate Strength, Reaction Time, Hit Points, grant High Pain Threshold (the ability to temporarily "shrug off" damage that's received), an increase in the number of melee attacks that one can make, and the ability to be "immune" to being shocked by the sudden appearance of enemies or by the number of enemies. All of these sound great, but there should be a severe penalty after the Berserker's Rage wears off, such as terrible fatigue, suddenly being shocked by the loss of the bonus Hit Points along with any Hit Point loss due to receiving damage, and being lethargic (one's movement is reduced AS WELL AS the number of normal attacks one can make), and one's ability to react are also penalized till the "exhaustion" wears off and one's Parameters return to normal.
(2) There's a number of ways that one could explain the sudden ability to fire off extra rounds. Here's mine...
“Lucky” Misfire—whether Jerry-rigged or purely by happenstance, you have a knack at getting your weapons to fire off extra rounds at just the right moment.
There would be NO bonuses to hitting one's target. All that this perk would do is temporarily increase the firing rate of one's weapon. Firing a single-round would produce two rounds, burst fire would release 30% more rounds than before (rounded up), and automatic fire would be increased by 50%. The length of time that this perk would last is 1 min. The drawback (and I strongly feel that there should always be drawbacks when designing perks so as to keep them interesting and balanced) would be that for the following minute, one's weapon would be overheated, and would have a lower rate of fire than normal. This would mean that during this minute that semi-automatic fire would be unavailable (this would also apply to bolt-action rifles), burst fire would be reduced by 30%, and automatic fire would be reduced by 50%. Also, overheating will increase the odds of jamming by 25% and misfiring by 25%. So, one would have to apply this perk wisely.
(3) Extra-Penetration would temporarily allow rounds to pass more easily through all types of materials, including bodies. I don't even know how feasible this is, because just like BE5 before it, it seems that 7.62 only allows for a tiny degree of round penetration around doorways and windows. I've yet to see a round penetrate through a body and inflict damage to another person who is behind that one. I'm not going to supply any particulars regarding this perk as I'm imagining it because if it's not even possible I don't want to waste the time detailing it. If it is possible, I'll throw some details out...
That's all for perks ideas from me for now. Again, perhaps it'd be more advantageous to lay a perks system aside, and instead see how equipment enhancements and missions/campaigns could alter the game for the better (especially if the Ecomod is tightly integrated)...
Equipment Enhancements
I really like a lot of the suggestions made by Archangel which can be found here: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpost.php?p=159587&postcount=5
I don't necessarily agree with all of the details, but the general direction for most of his ideas are well thought out. I also feel that a lot of these could be done with but a few cosmetic changes to already available equipment.
For example...
Darken an ordinary canteen, and maybe put a decal on either side of it an image of a bendable drinking straw (like the ones available at nearly any restaurant). This specialized canteen allows its user to be able to drink from a connected rubber hose that can be clipped on fabric near the neckline of its wearer. When its wearer gets thirsty, a drink of water can be acquired by sucking on the end of the hose near the wearer’s mouth. Allows one to replenish 10% of one’s depleted stamina and keep one’s hands on one’s weapon.
I'd also consider reducing how quickly drinking from an ordinary canteen completely refreshes one's Stamina. In my opinion, it's way too fast. A swig from a normal canteen should, at most, restore 25% of one's Stamina, so several swigs would be needed to get back up to 100% if one was severely exhausted.
Mission/Campaign Ideas
I've got a campaign idea that I think would be very interesting to create for 7.62, but I'd like to avoid sharing it publicly, as it would do a lot to remove the element of surprise and story/character development. If you're open to programming a Campaign whose storyline/events are plotted out by someone else (such as myself ;) ), let me know and I'll PM you a very basic plot that I feel would be pretty interesting to experience.
Bugs
The game was quite unstable, especially for the first 45 minutes of the game. I encountered numerous CTD's, virtually all of them related to my avatar being shot dead. Note that I did NOT have any comrades as part of my squad at the time. These CTD's were the first ones that I've ever had while playing 7.62.
Alright, I hope that you've found this report detailed enough to be truly helpful.
I REALLY enjoyed the amount of control that I now have as a player in advancing my desired Parmeter and Skill levels. There weren't any "immersion" issues because I was able to justify within my own mind why the skills I selected were advancing.
The next time that I'll play (probably tomorrow night) I'll use the cheat code to give myself extra points to see what might happen.
Good Night (or should I say "Gute Nacht" oder "Guten Morgen?"),
Kyle
July 1, 2010
:)
Thanks for all your suggestions, I'll make the whole system easier to understand, promise. But it's still only the first beta, and I have already improved it a bit. I've changed the starting map, you won't start in Puerto Viejo anymore. I was planning to start with the "Choose Class" dialog where I'll explain how it works. The player will then be told to find Alexey Rezvi to continue the game. I'll also give the player some starting equipment depending on what class is selected, like camo kit when scout, sight if sniper and so forth. I think that'll increase the "feeling" of the class system and might entice people to choose other classes than scout or sniper. But it's still only in my head so feel free it offer more of them, hm, suggestions:-P
The Outsourcedconfig mod might be removed, it interferes with some of the latest game settings. I've contacted guineapig about it, and if we're lucky he might still have the source code for it. Then I can deactivate the stuff that is incompatible but keep the stuff that isn't, some of which is really important to minimize the frustration(like civies taking one shot and everybody gets hostile)
I think I'll skip the perks, since I'll be working on adding maps from Reloaded and making new missions, that'd take too much time, and I only have a limited amount of that. Your campaign ideas might be very useful when doing that, so feel free to send me what you've got, my own creativity is pretty dried up on that front by now.
Your CTD issues isa common one, and I think it might have to do with some folder being set to read-only. Since there are some blood layers added when shot, and those might be the cause, try turning off blod in your game settings(E6Config.exe, the first tab, Advanced button). Let me know if this fixes it.
And please don't speak German, I only know a few words and there might be some misunderstandings:grin: Please, I'm a Swede, and not very proud of that fact:grin:
R@S,
You're welcome for the feedback; it's the very least that I can contribute for the return that we're going to get from this thing. :)
I didn't realize just how ambitious your plans are in regards to what you're trying to accomplish, which is pretty substantial already! Porting over Reloaded's maps? Wow! I'm practically ready to worship you man! :mrgreen:
Moving the game's starting point to a new location with an "Introduction to the New System" mission is a very smart move because of its consideration of the players' needs. Being well educated is always important, and absolutely necessary to enjoying a game as sophisticated as 7.62 (which is going to get raised even further more with this mod).
I applaud your decision to start players out with an item that's closely related to their class selection. Not only will this be a great "hook" to tempt players to try one class over another, but I also strongly feel that it will almost guarantee repeated replays of the game because of the desire to simply try out what the other classes have to offer. Brilliant! :grin:
I didn't realize that the Outsourcedconfig.ini did so many important things for the game. My fingers are crossed that the source code is still preserved so as to make your life easier.
Let me thank you in advance for your willingness to consider my campaign suggestion. I promise you that it has what I feel is a pretty interesting twist not just story-wise but also in regards to strategic considerations.
I'll probably need several days just to get the basic plot done, as my nephew's birthday is tomorrow (quite a drive to get there too) and Sunday is the Fourth of July, with big family plans for that.
Yeah, I feel "so free" with my government working so hard to keep piling on trillions of dollars' worth of bank debt onto the backs of us ordinary citizens! Woo-hoo! Please keep giving me, my children, and my grandchildren, more debt that isn't ours to be enslaved to! There's just so much to be happy about! :rolleyes:
Sorry for the therapeutic rant...
Alright, time to go. Keep your eye on your PM. I hope that its contents will bring a smile to your face.
Yours,
Kyle
:)
July 2, 2010
Kyle, take your time, I have things to do before I can start with new missions anyway.
Class System v2 beta (http://www.mediafire.com/?2ozfwjtmimn)
Here's the second version of the new class system, I've made a few improvements and added the class based starter equipment. You still have to find the drunkard Paquito to get it, but you'll find some stuff in the car at the first map that will have to due until you do.
To complete this new system I have to get cracking on the starter attributes of the different characters. I did the math and discovered that they all don't have the same amount of point, it ranges from 1155 - 1179, Cameron having the lowest total amount. It's weird, I almost always selected him and he turned out to be the one with the lowest skill points, go figure.
There are several ways to go about this, like giving everybody the same total amount of points and then spend them based on their appearance, like sex, size or something like that. It's the one I'm leaning towards.
Or they could all have the exact same starter stats, bar the strength/agility thingy based on character sex that I mentioned earlier. It's a bit crude and not a very creative way to go.
Or I could let them keep all their Parameters as is and only change their skills, giving them all the same total amount but redistribute the skill points so that they all have the same in those only. It's a compromise but it might work if one spends the point right.
Feel free to post your input.
Once the new skill system is finished I might start on the new Global AI, something I started on for the ARM Project. My idea is to create a dialog screen where you can do all the Holding cities, Placing and paying militia with a few simple clicks on the mouse. It would remove the need for town mayors and would make the whole economic system of it much easier to grasp. Once again, input is welcome:)
R@S,
I'm really looking forward to trying out v. 2 of the beta sometime tonight. Unless you say otherwise, I'm assuming that every time a new update comes out we should start a brand new game.
Your efforts with ARM are highly commendable, and will certainly positively alter the entire gaming experience in a positive way.
It gives more power to the player, and that's a good thing.
I too noticed that the starting point totals were sometimes substantially different from one character to another. Like you, I prefer playing Cameron, but didn't know he had the lowest point total of all of them! :)
Again, being a GURPS devotee, my strong preference would be to simply allow the player the option of choosing any avatar he/she wants, have them virtually be a "blank" slate, and spend points to set their Parameters and Skills.
If I'm not mistaken, the classic Jagged Alliance 2 also had an avatar-creation system similar to what I've just described above. The reason why I prefer this approach, is that while it may seem "less creative" than other approaches, the point to remember is that when going with a system as just described, most, if not all, of the creativity, is in the player's hands, and the more options one gives the player, the more freedom, and hopefully, the more enjoyment he/she will have while fashioning the avatar.
This also simultaneously creates a sense of "ownership" over the avatar, helping to transform them from a "mere" avatar into an actual character fashioned within the player's imagination.
In fact, if it's at all possible, I'd even avoid naming the available avatars. Simple "title" them something like...
"Avatar: Male 1,"
"Avatar: Male 2,"
"Avatar: Female 1,"
and so on and so forth...
Just make sure that there's a screen by which the player can then type a personalized name to his/her newly selected avatar. See, another example of empowering the player, and giving him/her another opportunity to express their own creative capabilities.
I wish I knew how flexible this engine is in regards to modding. While I'm totally in favor of giving a lot of creative power to the players, I'm also in favor of emulating realism as in a title such as this, it heightens one capabilities of becoming immersed in the virtual world.
So, for example, I am in favor of having the player "stuck" with having to deal with gender-based advantages/disadvantages. In GURPS, the stronger one becomes, the larger one is, and the larger one is, the more likely he/she is in regards to producing noise, being seen, look more or less intimidating, etc., etc.
If this can also be done within the confines of 7.62's engine, then I say let's take a shot at it, and see how it goes.
To be more specific with gender-based advantages/disadvantages...
Let's say that all male avatars start with the same basic Parameters and Skills levels. The same holds also true for the female avatars.
But the men are stronger than the women, but (as you suggested earlier) the women will have more agility.
To be fair, I'd advise that when all is said and done with setting up the most basic Parameters, that the point totals are equal between the genders, but not distributed the same.
Here's an example of what I mean...
http://i49.tinypic.com/5otthk.png
Oops! I reversed the figures for women for Dexterity and Agility! Dexterity SHOULD be 53 and Agility SHOULD be 57!
I'd give both men and women an equal number of points to spend in adjusting their Parameters and Skills. I would be careful to give "X" points for Parameters and "Y" points for Skills, meaning that one can not take Parameter points and spend them on Skills, nor vice versa. Every role playing system I've ever participated in has Parameters as being more important than Skills, because Parameters affect so many different game mechanics at the same time. To allow players to be able to take Skill points and spend them on Parameters at the start of the game would most likely mess up the game balance in major ways.
It would also be nice to allow players to lower one's levels below the STARTING point by up to 30%, and then get those points to spend elsewhere (again, lowering the level of a Parameter by 7 points means that those 7 points can only be spent on other Parameters, and not be diverted to Skills). This way, if a player wanted a really ignorant, slow-learning, yet very strong Soldier, they could do so by reducing the Intelligence by 30% below the starting figure.
Is there a way to have a [+] and [-] menu button at the end of each Parameter/Skill entry, and a running total of the number of points left to spend displayed somewhere nearby, so that making adjustments is an easy thing to do?
Let me know if any of the above is confusing, and I'll try my best at describing it better. :)
And before I go, I'm happy to take more time in writing up a campaign-proposal. Things are pretty crazy around here right now. And having two kids makes working on any of this a nighttime-only endeavor.
I don't play violent games around them, as they're still far too young to understand what's going on, or to appreciate the full consequences of what they're witnessing.
That's it for now. Off to the beta and then to bed. I'll give feedback ASAP, but tomorrow's going to be a most busy day.
Yours,
Kyle
July 3, 2010
:)
R@S,
Have a bug for you. Testing out whether or not it'll be recognized that I should level up.
At 23 kills nothing happened. When I checked the Kill Book I saw this...
http://i49.tinypic.com/xfti4h.png
Good night!
Kyle
July 4, 2010
:)
Just make sure that there's a screen by which the player can then type a personalized name to his/her newly selected avatar. See, another example of empowering the player, and giving him/her another opportunity to express their own creative capabilities.you can change the name of the avatar in the character creation screen where you spend the 30 point on skills.
And you're totally right, there should be 2 sets of points, one for parameters and one for skills. It means a lot of re-writing of the code, but I think it's worth it. I regret not thinking about this when I first wroth those 1500 lines:rolleyes:
I think giving all the characters the same amount of skill points distributed among the attributes, but with small differences based on size and sex is the way to go. It seems we're in agreement there and I'll start editing the preset.ini files once I'm finished with changing the points system.
I could create the +/- system you mentioned, and have that available only tat the game start. But we need a minimum number for both skills and parameter, or just having a max on how many points a par/ski can be lowered.
The bug you encounter is a prime example of my laziness, I just stopped the level up process at 23 and then forgot the "else" thingy in the code. I already fixed that yesterday and there's now 63 levels and the "else" issue has been fixed.
EDIT: Due to th engine limit of the dialog tree, it causes a CTD when it gets too long, I had some problems implementing the new start distribution system. But with some coding jujitsu and mental wrestling I found a solution:grin:
I dint put a cap on anything, so the player can redistribute the Parameter values freely. I think we can give all the characters, both male and female, the exact settings in the parameters as long as they all have the exact total amount. Maybe setting all the parameters to 70 and let the player create the character as wanted. Talk about freedom, eh. But it could also lead to a lot of clicking at the start of the game, so I'll let the testers try the new system and offer changes if it gets too much of a click-fest.
Here's what I'm thinking:
HP 90
EN 90
EYE 70
HRN 70
STR 70
STM 70
DXT 70
AGT 70
REA 70
INT 70
EXP 30
SHT 30
SNP 30
GFT 30
HWP 30
THR 30
HtH 30
CAM 30
SAP 30
MED 30
STH 30
Total: 1070
I've also increased the number of levels, there's now 100 levels which means if the player kills around 10000 enemies he'll reach that. But that sounds unlikely, but you never know, some people like killing:evil:
I'll upload the next version in an hour or so, still need to edit the Preset.inis and do a quick test session.
Oh, and I forgot to say - Happy Independence Day to you Kyle, and all the other Americans that might read this.
EDIT 2:
Class System v3 beta (http://www.mediafire.com/?mzenylanfck)
BUGS
I received my first 7.62 Blue Screen of Death, with an Error Report that read, “…ati 2cqag.dll… Page_fault_in_nonpaged_area…”
When leveling up, the word “Strength” is misspelled.
SUGGESTIONS
Typically, when creates a character, the Parameters are selected and set based on the class that one has selected. With Beta v.3, one cannot adjust the Parameters, and one has to set the skills before one has even selected a class.
Character-creation typically looks like this (that is, if it’s not based on a randomized system, such as Dungeons & Dragons):
(I.) Select class after being informed of what the advantages/disadvantages are, then…
(II.) Set one’s attributes, and finally…
(III.) Set one’s skills.
If the above structure can’t be done, then I advise to supply an informative statement on the Avatar-Selection screen, something along the lines of, “…The classes and their Skill-Sets are… On this screen one may only adjust the starting Skills, but once in-game, one will need to access the Kill Book through the Inventory screen, and from there select one’s class and then be able to adjust Parameters…” This informative statement will help Players avoid undue frustration because they’ll know what to expect as part of the modified process.
I’d also supply where it can be readily seen at least a brief summation of what each Parameter affects, and what each Skill does do/not do. This will help players spend their points with more confidence.
When it comes to displaying current Parameter/Skill levels, I’d supply the level they’re at immediately next to the listed attribute, but before any written descriptions of what it does. For example…
Reaction [78] Influences how quickly one can respond to shock.
Strength [103] Specifies how much can be carried & its impact on speed.
I’m tired, so I can’t recall for sure if this is being done in the current build; if a Parameter is reduced then those points are made available for only Parameters, and are not shared in any degree with the number of points that are available for Skills. The same is also true vice versa.
QUESTIONS
How does Intellect impact the game now that the new system’s in place? I know before that it had a sizeable impact on gaining experience points, but now what does it do/not do?
In the first town, the Police Station has at least one window that does not behave as if it’s transparent. If you’re looking at the front of the Police Station, it’s the window to the left of the double-door entrance. The enemy can see in, but my avatar cannot see anything other than the exterior environment. Am I the only one experiencing this, or…?
EQUIPMENT
Why aren’t boonie hats, berets, head wraps, etc., available in the game?
The reason why I ask is that head cover could definitely play a role in how a player is able to perceive the environment. None of the above would offer any protection towards rounds or shrapnel, but…
Boonie Hat: +5 camouflage (breaks up the shape of the head), +5 seeing (due to offering steady shade)
Kevlar-type Helmet: +2 seeing (the small brim offers some unsteady shade), -15 hearing (noisy and blocks the proper reception of sounds), and +whatever it is for protection against rounds/shrapnel.
Etc.
Also, I noticed in the BSM thread that observations have been made regarding how weapons’ attributes are currently set. If the postings are accurate, then it would be nice to address these inconsistencies. It might not be as much of a “headache” as it sounds, especially if awesome mods such as BloodyMoney for Brigade E5 are consulted. BloodyMoney used the terrific work that was done for the superb Immortal Badass mod, and I know that throughout IB’s development there was a lot of attention spent on trying to get the weapons’ attributes consistent and based on real life values. Now the reason why I bring up BloodyMoney first is that the creator of Immortal Badass highly lauded it.
Alright, have to hit the rack.
Thanks for the hard work. The advances you’ve made from v.2 to v.3 are noticeable and appreciated! I'm happy with the huge pool of money you gave us up front, so that we can hire mercs as we deem so we can test the system harder and more thoroughly. Smart.
Kyle
July 6, 2010
Typically, when creates a character, the Parameters are selected and set based on the class that one has selected. With Beta v.3, one cannot adjust the Parameters, and one has to set the skills before one has even selected a class.
Character-creation typically looks like this (that is, if it’s not based on a randomized system, such as Dungeons & Dragons):
(I.) Select class after being informed of what the advantages/disadvantages are, then…
(II.) Set one’s attributes, and finally…
(III.) Set one’s skills.
f the above structure can’t be done, then I advise to supply an informative statement on the Avatar-Selection screen, something along the lines of, “…The classes and their Skill-Sets are… On this screen one may only adjust the starting Skills, but once in-game, one will need to access the Kill Book through the Inventory screen, and from there select one’s class and then be able to adjust Parameters…” This informative statement will help Players avoid undue frustration because they’ll know what to expect as part of the modified process.
Due to engine limitations I can't mod anything before a new game is actually started, and the GUI is hard coded and can't be changed, at least for now. The Parameters distribution screen should load on startup, if it doesn't there might be a problem with your installation. Maybe I should write a better description in that screen, but I like to think that the players are smart people and will figure out how this works pretty fast. And if anyone makes a mistake in the character creation screen, starting a new game to correct it isn't that hard to do.
You were the one asking for more freedom when setting the skills and parameters, are you regretting that already:-P You CAN re-distribute the parameters at the game start, you'll get the "Decrease" option once you've chosen a class. Once you actually decreased a parameter you'll have some points to spend and you'll get the "Increase" dialog option as well. And distributing Skill point s already done in the character creation screen, no need to make one similar to the Parameter start system.
I’d also supply where it can be readily seen at least a brief summation of what each Parameter affects, and what each Skill does do/not do. This will help players spend their points with more confidence.
Since I don't know how all the parameters and skills actually affect the gameplay, I only suspect, writing this might make me a liar;) And I think that if the player has to figure that out for himself, playing this game many times might actually be more fun. But with your help we could create a FAQ so that the player can check what the attributes does and how this new system works. Since I'm the one behind the code, I already know too much and you'll be better at figuring out what questions a new player might have about it.
When it comes to displaying current Parameter/Skill levels, I’d supply the level they’re at immediately next to the listed attribute, but before any written descriptions of what it does. For example…
Reaction [78] Influences how quickly one can respond to shock.
Strength [103] Specifies how much can be carried & its impact on speed.
Great idea, and I've already added the number in the dialog screen for all the attributes. The description is not necessary, or at least I think it's not.
I’m tired, so I can’t recall for sure if this is being done in the current build; if a Parameter is reduced then those points are made available for only Parameters, and are not shared in any degree with the number of points that are available for Skills. The same is also true vice versa.
Yeppers, that's how it works. But you only get one chance to decrease any parameters and that has to do with creating a character, skills are never decreased since they are already very low(30) and this could cause some serious balancing issues, especially at the beginning af the game.
How does Intellect impact the game now that the new system’s in place? I know before that it had a sizeable impact on gaining experience points, but now what does it do/not do?
I think I've mentioned this before, I haven't changed or disabled the old system. One can still train the attributes as before, but with this system one can increase some values that were hard or impossible to train before. The main goal of the BSM is to increase the fun, to me that means more time fighting and less time doing all the other "boring" stuff, like running around on the map with a full backpack:grin:
In the first town, the Police Station has at least one window that does not behave as if it’s transparent. If you’re looking at the front of the Police Station, it’s the window to the left of the double-door entrance. The enemy can see in, but my avatar cannot see any
thing other than the exterior environment. Am I the only one experiencing this, or…?
Never noticed that myself, but I suspect it has to do with the map meshes and what kind of material the devs used when they made it. And no, nothing can be done about it.
Why aren’t boonie hats, berets, head wraps, etc., available in the game?
I guess you'd have to ask the devs, oh wait, you can't:-P Deadhead and the HLA guys made some berets and new headgear, and from what he told me it's a process that requires a lot of time and skill. Altering all the merc head models, editing their AZP archives and a whole lot more. Since I'm only one guy with limited time and no skill in creating/altering 3d objects, I haven't bothered with it.
Also, I noticed in the BSM thread that observations have been made regarding how weapons’ attributes are currently set. If the postings are accurate, then it would be nice to address these inconsistencies. It might not be as much of a “headache” as it sounds, especially if awesome mods such as BloodyMoney for Brigade E5 are consulted. BloodyMoney used the terrific work that was done for the superb Immortal Badass mod, and I know that throughout IB’s development there was a lot of attention spent on trying to get the weapons’ attributes consistent and based on real life values. Now the reason why I bring up BloodyMoney first is that the creator of Immortal Badass highly lauded it.
Have you tried the alternative WEAPONINFO_ALT file? Just backup the old WEAPONINFO file, rename the WEAPONINFO_ALT to WEAPONINFO and start a new game. That file uses the work of Incapacitator and is more "realistic" than the vanilla one. But it also make the game so much harder...
I've incorporated both Outsourced mod and Merc Consultant into the BSM source and I've added the option to disable the new class system in the former. To make it fair for those who play with the class system disabled I've increased the preset parameters with an additional 50 points. I'll upload the next version later tonight, now I need a nap, crap and eat:cool:
Here's the latest version:
Class System v4 beta (http://www.mediafire.com/?tzwtjumymwg)
I had another idea regarding the whole class system, and it's from JA2. What if we made the class given based on a set of questions, and depending on those questions the player will given a class. Then we could also add perks, or traits if you like, also based on the answers of those question. We would only have to have a few perks available, and the player will only get one. If there was a way to lock the activation of said perks to the keybord, it would make the use of them mush easier. I know there's a way to check for keyboard input, but afaik it only works in the dialog screen. But if not, then it would be worth pursuing.
safoolfool
07-06-2010, 06:53 PM
Hey, I figured I'd chime in on this. Firstly, I think the classes are a great idea, as is leveling up in general.
That said, I personally would avoid a test. Almost all of the time when I start a game I have a plan for what I want to do, and so the test is a mere formality, and I chose the answers explicitly to get the class I want. I don't know for sure, but I imagine that's how most people go about it. In that case, a test seems like a waste of your effortm it isn't going to show people what they want, they'll just know what they want so the test is pointless and a waste of time.
This was especially true in BE5, where the questions ended up clear cut and pointless. How would you get into your house if you locked yourself out? a) break the door with my macho strength b) sneak in the back c) use my dexterity to pick the lock d) wait until a locksmith comes and spend time practicing first aid. How would you impress a girl? a) win an arm wrestling competition b) sneakily cop a feel c) show her my dexterity by dancing d) win a surgery competition.
Basically, it seems to me that letting the player chose everything is easier for both them and you. A game like morrowind worked it into the game in an immersive way: the police steward was asking you questions, like what did you do before being arrested (I was a fighter/thief/mage) when were you born (under the sign of the warrior/rogue/wizard) and could you sign your name (sure, my name is R@S McModder). The tests weren't helpful, but they made you fit in. In 7.62 you don't really need character immersion.
Yeah, I agree with you, the more straight forward it is, the better. My main thought was of course to add perks, but as Kyle said before, one has to go all in or not go at all. The proposed way was a compromise, and a bad one at that. But since I finally learned how to externalize these things, I could have a turn on/off function in the ini file.
You were the one asking for more freedom when setting the skills and parameters, are you regretting that already You CAN re-distribute the parameters at the game start, you'll get the "Decrease" option once you've chosen a class. Once you actually decreased a parameter you'll have some points to spend and you'll get the "Increase" dialog option as well. And distributing Skill point s already done in the character creation screen, no need to make one similar to the Parameter start system.
Trust me, I'm more than happy that (thus far) you're pursuing my admonitions to give the Player as much freedom as possible when fashioning their characters. My main concern is causing too much confusion, and I'm just trying to conceptualize the easiest path to getting there. Having some attributes adjustable on one screen and then another without being able to see what classes are available, nor see what the consequences of choosing a class may bring, well, to me that's confusing. And confusion generates frustration, and the one thing that I would love to see happen is people go, "Wow! What an awesome and easy to use mod! Let me tell my buddies..." :)
Alright, so as I earlier presumed, engine limitations are handicapping the class selection and generation system. So, what if we deliberately "lock down" the avatar selection process like this (if this is doable)...
Pick your avatar's appearance. Change the avatar's name if it's so desired, and then make it so NONE of the Parameters and Skills can be changed on THAT screen. In fact, I'd set ALL of the numbers for Parameters and Skills to 0 so that there's no mistaking that adjusting these attributes on this screen is impossible. Have a statement that says something like, "After selecting your avatar's appearance and name, proceed in-game to select its class, and then establish its Parameters and Skills by opening up the Inventory screen, and right-clicking on the Kill Book."
Now, if something like that can be established, there's no confusion.
Then, when the Kill Book is right-clicked on, I'd have an option that says, "Generate Characteristics."
The first set of menu options could be entitled, "Select Class." The classes would have their Parameters/Skill-sets displayed, and I'd also supply an option whereby the Player could look up the definition as to what those Parameters/Skills effect. I feel that this is important, because I was quite shocked to read that Energy determines how long a character can hold his/her weapon in a readied position. I wouldn't have been able to just deduce that on my own. Nor would I have been able to figure out that Reaction has to do with responding/recovering from being shocked. Initially, I thought that it had something to do with how quickly one can direct one's weapon towards a different target. Guessing at what does what increases confusion and thus frustration. I prefer to be proactive on this matter design-wise, and avoid negativity whenever possible.
After the class is selected, the new menu option could be entitled "Set Parameters." And again, I'd supply an option to see what the Parameters/Skills impact.
And then the last menu option would be made available, "Set Skills," and also supply a definitions option.
Since I don't know how all the parameters and skills actually affect the gameplay, I only suspect, writing this might make me a liar And I think that if the player has to figure that out for himself, playing this game many times might actually be more fun. But with your help we could create a FAQ so that the player can check what the attributes does and how this new system works. Since I'm the one behind the code, I already know too much and you'll be better at figuring out what questions a new player might have about it.
I've spent the last 12 years of my life being a teacher, so it's innate in me to avoid confusion whenever possible. So I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record on these kinds of design issues! :) I certainly understand your concern with not knowing "for sure" what every Parameter/Skill does/doesn't do, but even if we give the "textbook definition" of what they are in-game, along with a Disclaimer in the F.A.Q., I still feel that this would provide a more satisfying experience to the players. I'm also basing my conviction on this because of my decades' worth of role playing experience, and without exception, EVERY friend who ever played a random-centered game such as D&D first, immediately loved the crystal clear immediacy and control of GURPS. Sure, through no fault of our own, we might not be able to give a "crystal clear" view of all that there is to know, but if we give them a "frosted glass" access, I'm confident that they'll be happier with it and the knowledge that there's a degree of mystery to it will most likely bring them back for more replays.
And I'd be happy to write a F.A.Q. for the good of the mod and the community. :grin:
I think I've mentioned this before, I haven't changed or disabled the old system. One can still train the attributes as before, but with this system one can increase some values that were hard or impossible to train before. The main goal of the BSM is to increase the fun, to me that means more time fighting and less time doing all the other "boring" stuff, like running around on the map with a full backpack
I must have overlooked the fact that the old system is still intact. I think that this design decision of yours is even more brilliant than before. :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyle View Post
Why aren’t boonie hats, berets, head wraps, etc., available in the game?
I guess you'd have to ask the devs, oh wait, you can't Deadhead and the HLA guys made some berets and new headgear, and from what he told me it's a process that requires a lot of time and skill. Altering all the merc head models, editing their AZP archives and a whole lot more. Since I'm only one guy with limited time and no skill in creating/altering 3d objects, I haven't bothered with it.
Wow. Reading about all of the horror getting something like cloth-hats in sure makes it clear that such feats should be left at the very bottom of the To Do list. What irritates me is when games are marketed with features that aren't supplied in-game. I mean, the very cover of the game's package shows a boonie hat wearer. It's trivial in the Grand Scheme of things, but nevertheless, it still gets under my skin a bit.
Have you tried the alternative WEAPONINFO_ALT file? Just backup the old WEAPONINFO file, rename the WEAPONINFO_ALT to WEAPONINFO and start a new game. That file uses the work of Incapacitator and is more "realistic" than the vanilla one. But it also make the game so much harder...
Ahh, that's VERY GOOD to know! That's definitely a point that should be detailed in a F.A.Q. I've already backed up/overwritten the original file with the alternative one. :)
We would only have to have a few perks available, and the player will only get one. If there was a way to lock the activation of said perks to the keybord, it would make the use of them mush easier. I know there's a way to check for keyboard input, but afaik it only works in the dialog screen.
The idea of this is intriguing to me. Perhaps the best way to go about this is to supply in the character creation process one last menu option that displays itself after the Skills have been set, something that could be entitled "Perk Selection." I'd offer at least a few choices per class type (some of these could be shared between classes), if not all of them, and the Player could select only one. I'd also supply an option that could be entitled, "None selected," so that if a Player wants to skip something that seems a little too fantastical they can avoid it altogether. Kind of like being able to skip over the science fiction aspect of Jagged Alliance 2. I really applaud the game designers' decision to make this an option for the players.
What makes this all the more tempting to me is that it would sure entice players to play through the game again with a different Perk in effect. Perhaps a new Perk selection could be earned at Level 7, then another at Level 14, and then another at 28, and so on with the doubling. A cap could be put on the maximum number that's attainable, perhaps 3? These Perks, if they're not properly balanced with negatives, could get enormously powerful in combination within a short matter of time. Perhaps it's best to just limit it to one choice, as the consequences for it game-balance wise would certainly be more manageable. For that matter, each of these Perks could scale-upwards at level 7/14/28... Hmm...much to think about! :)
I've incorporated both Outsourced mod and Merc Consultant into the BSM source and I've added the option to disable the new class system in the former. To make it fair for those who play with the class system disabled I've increased the preset parameters with an additional 50 points. I'll upload the next version later tonight, now I need a nap, crap and eat
Sounds great. I hope you had a great poop after your nap. Personally, I'd do the poopin' first as it'll ensure a more restful rest. ;)
Alright, time to test Beta v.4! :grin:
R@S,
SOOOO tired!
Deleted my prior Saves. Installed v.4. "Blue Sun Mod" loading window appeared, but the typical 7.62 golden screen never had a chance to be seen because I had a CTD.
I had a hunch that it might be due to my using the WEAPONINFO_ALT (which was renamed properly), so I installed my backup of the original WEAPONINFO and I restarted the game. That worked! :grin: But...I wasn't able to try out the more realistic weapon settings!
:cry:
I really wanted to experience that!
OTHER BUGS
The introductory video played TWICE; once immediately after I started a New Game, and again after I selected the avatar.
Once the Kill Book is opened up, the title of the book is misspelled as "KillBook." It needs a "space" between the "Kill" and the "Book."
With the first time usage of the Kill Book to setup one's Parameters and Skills I was offered up just ONE chance to Decrease Parameters, but since I didn't have the Parameter settings memorized I chose instead to "Check Parameters & Skills."
After I checked them out, I selected "Back" to return to the previous menu offerings, and I was disappointed to note that the "Decrease Parameters" option was no longer listed.
So I went to Load the start of the "Bus Map," and discovered that it wasn't auto-saved. That would've been helpful, as typically whenever someone enters a map that's automatically done for the Player.
With no other option left, I tried to start a New Game, which automatically caused a CTD and a "Crash Screen" report window was lovingly waiting for me.
I was then forced to restart the game from scratch, and right after I finished doing what I could on the "Select-Avatar" screen, I clicked on Health so that I could decrease it and the introductory video immediately started playing--this confused me, to say the least. I hit Escape to cut short the video, and found that my menu options had changed; what was new was that an "Increase Parameters" option had been now added. While I was able to figure out what to do, it was disorienting, and if I was new to the mod, with the CTD episode, and then the videos suddenly playing, and the menu options changing during one of the playbacks, well, that would make quite nervous about proceeding further...
Later on, I noticed that this limitation in being able to look back and forth at one's overall listings and then going back to adjust them is absent once one Levels Up to Level One. These menu settings are...
1) Spend Points
2) Check Parameters & Settings
3) Close
And these worked just fine without there being any CTD events. Can the very first initial Character Creation menu be altered to work as it does once one Levels Up to Level One?
SUGGESTIONS
I'd add a statement so that the players are aware that the 6 points they get at leveling up are not the only means that they'll be earning points, since the old system is still also in effect. Maybe something along the lines of...
"These 6 points are in addition to any increases one may gain as part of the default in-game rewards system."
When establishing my starting skill levels, I keep missing adjusting Stealth because it can't be seen. I overlook the fact that one can scroll the menu options further down. If there's a way to add a downward pointing arrow, or the words "More options below" or... That would help in this accidental oversight from occurring in the future. The "Stealth" listing is also missing from the Unit description page (the last visible entry is "Doctor," which in itself is also confusing since the Skill that one can adjust is listed as "Medic").
In regards to the above, I can't recall if Professionalism is also a Skill that has issues with being seen?
The opening text for when one is just about to start creating one's character is a bit confusing. Perhaps consider altering it to...
"Welcome to Algeira!
You've been contracted by Mr. Alexey Rezvi to locate Ippolit Bashirov. You are to promptly meet Mr. Rezvi at the hotel in Puerto Viejo to receive details regarding this mission. The guide that Mr. Rezvi hired for you, Paquito, is missing along with your equipment! It would be prudent to check on his whereabouts after Mr. Rezvi's been contacted.
1) Continue with character creation..."
Banking is BACK baby! :grin:
Yay! It took but a minute to figure out how to enter large denominations with the banker. Oh, what a sight to see! I haven't yet completed enough time to see if the $1,000 I deposited will have accrued the proper 5% interest, but I am excited to see that this option is back, and am already confident that it'll be working fine.
Time for bed!
Thanks for the great work. The dialogue options displaying one's current levels in Parameters and Skills sure helps to speed things up when investing one's points. Another big improvement.
Snore!
Kyle
July 7, 2010
:)
I had a hunch that it might be due to my using the WEAPONINFO_ALT (which was renamed properly), so I installed my backup of the original WEAPONINFO and I restarted the game. That worked! :grin: But...I wasn't able to try out the more realistic weapon settings!Don't worry about it, I've prolly forgotten to add a weapon or something in that file, I'll fix it for the next test version, it wouldn't be that hard.
The introductory video played TWICE; once immediately after I started a New Game, and again after I selected the avatar. I think I made a booboo and has the start video option playing twice, both in my start replace phrase and in the outsourcedconfig files. I think you can fix this right away by setting the IntroMovie "0" in the outsourcedconfig.ini. But I have also turned it oof the the source code for the next version.
With the first time usage of the Kill Book to setup one's Parameters and Skills I was offered up just ONE chance to Decrease Parameters, but since I didn't have the Parameter settings memorized I chose instead to "Check Parameters & Skills."
After I checked them out, I selected "Back" to return to the previous menu offerings, and I was disappointed to note that the "Decrease Parameters" option was no longer listed. I think you went one step to far when you were browsing the first increase/decrease menu. Once you select "Done" the ability to decrease parameters is gone for good. This dialog screen looks like this:
1) Increase Parameters
2) Decrease Parameters
3) Check Parameters
4) Done // Once you select this option, you can't go back. The character creation is complete.
EDIT: I've changed the last dialog option to "Done (complete character creation)" to minimize confusion about how sever this choice is:)
I've now added a list of the attributes in this screen showing what attributes are tied to this class you selected. I think that'll make it easier to choose what parameters to increase/decrease.
Later on, I noticed that this limitation in being able to look back and forth at one's overall listings and then going back to adjust them is absent once one Levels Up to Level One. These menu settings are...
1) Spend Points
2) Check Parameters & Settings
3) Close
And these worked just fine without there being any CTD events. Can the very first initial Character Creation menu be altered to work as it does once one Levels Up to Level One? The CTD events at the parameter increase/decrease screen could be caused by the dialog tree limitation, or rather, my attempt to circumvent it. We'll have to see if this occurs in the next test version, if it does I might have to try a different way. The weird thing is, I never had any CTD's when testing it.
When establishing my starting skill levels, I keep missing adjusting Stealth because it can't be seen. I overlook the fact that one can scroll the menu options further down. If there's a way to add a downward pointing arrow, or the words "More options below" or... That would help in this accidental oversight from occurring in the future. The "Stealth" listing is also missing from the Unit description page (the last visible entry is "Doctor," which in itself is also confusing since the Skill that one can adjust is listed as "Medic").
In regards to the above, I can't recall if Professionalism is also a Skill that has issues with being seen? You snooze, you lose:-P I could divide the dialog options so that they all are display without having to scroll, but keep in mind that this is also tied to the screen resolution. As it is now it displays all options for me, but I'm running it on the highest resolution available. Both stealth and professionalism isn't available to check anywhere in the vanilla game, but since stealth is an important skill, I've added it to my dialog screens. I hope that in the future the players will use the kill book rather than the journal tab to check the current levels.
Banking is BACK baby! :grin:
Yay! It took but a minute to figure out how to enter large denominations with the banker. Oh, what a sight to see! I haven't yet completed enough time to see if the $1,000 I deposited will have accrued the proper 5% interest, but I am excited to see that this option is back, and am already confident that it'll be working fine. I think the 5% DAILY interest calculations might be to generous. I would either have to lower it, mebbe to 3%, or make the interest calculated on a weekly basis. But this needs testing before anything is altered.
I've added your suggestion to the start dialogs, thanks for making that for me.
R@S,
I'm happy to hear that WEAPONSINFO_ALT is probably an easy fix. I'm quite sure that once players discover that there's an .ini that supplies more realistic weapon performance settings that a good chunk of them will migrate to use the alternate settings. That will please the "hardcore" crowd.
The "intro video playing x2" fix will be most welcome. Yay!
Your changing of just "Done" to the statement that also specifies that by "Done" the Player is agreeing to completely end the character creation process is a very wise move.
For some reason, it didn't register that the screen resolution could be affecting just how much text I can see on screen at one time. Hah!
Yeah, I'd have to agree with you that if the interest rate is set to 5% a day that they would be too generous. There wouldn't even be a little bit of a challenge buying the newest equipment just by waiting around and letting the bank do all of the earnings-work. If it's compounded daily, then a rate of 2-3% would be better, or if it's compounded weekly, then the 5% might do. I agree with you that this is one feature that should be tested more thoroughly before making alterations to it. Here in the US one's lucky to find a bank that will even give an extremely meager 1.2% to a member's savings account, and that's for a month's worth of time. I'd assume that since the region's so poor, it's desperate for capital, and banks would probably be more generous to a client that's likely to bring a lot of it into the country.
SUGGESTION
I'd supply two more options to the Character Creation and Leveling Up menu options...
Return all Parameters to previous levels. and...
Return all Skills to previous levels.
If a Player becomes dissatisfied with a number of his choices, it might just be quicker and easier to start from the previous settings for either all of the Parameters or all of the Skills. This way, having to do scores of "Decrease" clicks can be avoided, and reduce a Player's frustrations.
I'm happy that you feel that my dialogue suggestions were sound ones. Always happy to assist where I can.
Looking forward to the next release, as always.
Yours,
Kyle
July 7, 2010
Here's the next test version:
Class System v5 beta (http://www.mediafire.com/?nmzaij5n4zm)
I've fixed the WEAPONINFO_ALT and it was as I suspected, I'd forgotten to add the XM-18 grenade launcher and that caused the CTD.
I've also divided the parameter selection page into 2 pages, since you reported a CTD I checked the log myself, and iven if I dint get a CTD there was a warning about scrolling. Once I divided those screens the warning disappeared and I hope your CTD's will as well.
Sweet! Got it. More later... :grin:
By the way, being a Swede, are you aware of this mod, Cry of Fear using the original Half-Life engine? Their work is incredible. There's no way that I'd ever guess from the screenshots that they're using the original HL engine.
If you ever played the now legendary Afraid of Monsters mod for HL, then you'll have a good idea of what the terrifying potential of this mod is going to be. I never finished that mod. I couldn't take it!
Cry of Fear links:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/cry-of-fear
http://www.cry-of-fear.com/
And the classic Afraid of Monsters. Wear diapers when you play it... I'm serious!
http://www.moddb.com/mods/afraid-of-monsters-dc
Nope, never heard of any of those mods, they look great though and I might give them a whirl when time permits. The sad thing is that I haven't had much time to play other games this past year, the only one I played through was Borderlands. I've recently bought the latest STALKER and hope I'll have time to play that soon, but for the time being most of my spare time goes into a big black hole called Modding 7.62:D
I ended up not having time to give build 5 a try last night. :(
But I remembered an observation that I forgot to mention earlier regarding the Sniper's set of attributes. I'd exchange Dexterity for Stealth, or at least reduce the amount of Dexterity for some degree of higher Stealth. But perhaps you know something from digging into the game's guts that I don't, such as perhaps Dexterity plays a much larger role than officially described in sniping at a target.
I envy your ability to play the latest STALKER. My rig can barely play the original STALKER, and the only way I was even able to test the Super Mod Pack was due to the fact that the team working on it is going the extra and generous mile to release a version of the mod for players whose systems are not powerful enough to run the game with higher end graphics. All of the AI, gameplay, and other adjustments are there. If you haven't tried out STALKER with SMP, you can find it here:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/super-mod-pack
STALKER is a great game (another one I haven't finished due to other duties, and now, like you, contributing to 7.62). But someday I will play STALKER to the very end and of that I have no doubt. It's a nearly-perfect game world, where the sense of dread is ever palpable.
I've heard that STALKER's sequel, Clear Sky, isn't as good, but that the Call of Pripryat is right up there with the original STALKER. Oooh man, to have enough money someday to get a new rig! :mad:
One last observation about a mod that's not our own... If STALKER was able to make dread palpable, then Afraid of Monsters makes fear incarnate. I don't know if I'll ever complete that horrifying mod. :grin:
Have to go. I hope to get some time on build 5 tonight!
:)
Yeah, SATLKER is a great game, I played through the first one several times. Haven't tried that mod tho. The second one was a big disapointment since it mostly used the same maps as the first one. It was still great, but I felt ripped off after playing twice for basically the same game. And boy was it bugged at the release, it took several months before they had a patch that made it work for me without too much hassle.
I thought about the Sniper Class's dex/stealth thingy but decided that having the dex was the best way to go. Otherwise the scout and sniper would have almost the sam class skills bar the Reaction/Sniping difference. And I think the dex paramter is the best one for a sniper, changing, clip, draw your secondary weapon, going prone/standing up and similar actions are important, at least how I play it.(I'm only using two or three mercs and leave my sniper without a spotter/ protection)
I'm anxious tho know if the CTD issue has been resolved. If it has we can move on to the naxt step, finding an upper limit to the various attributes. Then off to the new Global AI system, I've already made the basic code for it, around 500 lines, now I need to find some suitable names for the Reloaded maps that will act as permanent maps that the player can conquer.
Ninja2dan
07-08-2010, 06:30 PM
Personally, I'd like to see a Sniper that acts more like a real sniper. This means most importantly the ability to make precision shots without a lot of aiming time, and makes those shots really count. Concealment is an important aspect for snipers, but it's not their primary skill of focus. In theory, they should be far enough away from the enemy that concealment plays little into their overall strategy.
Tactile speed is also not really a key fundamental with snipers, they concentrate more on deliberate and precise movement than rapid movement. Rapid movements are easier to detect, even at a distance, and could give his position away. Slow and defined movement is what keeps a sniper alive.
The Scout on the other hand should be relying on stealth and concealment as their number-one skill focus. They are usually going to be up close and personal with the enemy, attempting to blend into the surroundings just feet from enemy patrols.
For them, rapid movements are more important than precise movements. They should be relying on CQB-oriented weapon systems, to include hand-to-hand methods and melee weaponry for silent kills. The ability to quickly reload magazines or switch from an SMG to a throwing knife should be fast, while their ability to accurately hit targets at a distance is often a rarely-used skill.
Because of the limited number of squad members, it's often not going to be desirable to use a "spotter" with your sniper. In this game, snipers will usually need to operate solo. Because of this reason, I can understand where you are coming from to give a sniper the ability to quickly swap from their long rifle to a secondary weapon. But I think their primary focus should not be on dexterity or stealth as much as the skills required for precision shooting or their stamina that allows them to crawl in the prone for long distances.
I dunno why, but I have a strong feeling about the sniper class and dexterity when it comes to game mechanics. I always felt that operating heavy machinery is what a sniper does, and dexterity is a good thing to have for that:-P
But this is just speculations on my part, and your idea of adding Stamina to the sniper makes much sense. I think that to fill that need I'll give all the classes an additional skill. Here's what I'm thinking:
Trooper [Class Skills: Strength, Dexterity, Reaction, Shooting, Gunfighting] + HeavyWeapon
Sniper [Class Skills: Eyesight, Agility, Dexterity, Sniping, Camouflage] + Stamina
Skirmisher [Class Skills: Reaction, Stamina, Strength, Shooting, Gunfighting] + Throwing
Sapper [Class Skills: Dexterity, Reaction, Intelligence, Sapper, HeavyWeapon] + Eyesight
Scout [Class Skills: Eyesight, Hearing, Agility, Camouflage, Stealth] + HandToHand
Medic [Class Skills: Health, Energy, Stamina, Intelligence, Medic] + Shooting
Why give the medic shooting as a class skill? Well, this class has only 1 Skill and 4 Parameter, if I added another Parameter it would mean that if this class is chosen, 3 skill points would have to be spent on the medic skill. This way it makes it more balanced and the reason for choosing this class isn't only the Intelligence Parameter this class has.
I really got a lot out of reading Ninja2dan's supporting statements for adjusting the Sniper class as he describes. I'd hate to run into you Ninja2dan if you're a car salesman! ;)
Trooper [Class Skills: Strength, Dexterity, Reaction, Shooting, Gunfighting] + HeavyWeapon
Sniper [Class Skills: Eyesight, Agility, Dexterity, Sniping, Camouflage] + Stamina
Skirmisher [Class Skills: Reaction, Stamina, Strength, Shooting, Gunfighting] + Throwing
Sapper [Class Skills: Dexterity, Reaction, Intelligence, Sapper, HeavyWeapon] + Eyesight
Scout [Class Skills: Eyesight, Hearing, Agility, Camouflage, Stealth] + HandToHand
Medic [Class Skills: Health, Energy, Stamina, Intelligence, Medic] + Shooting
In spite of my earlier concerns of having too many attributes per class, reading this proposed update to them makes perfect sense to me. I'd run with it R@S! Looks great to me, and I can't wait to try them out in game. :)
In regards to the AI update that you're incorporating; I know that the main goal is to have militia build up in a sensible and controllable way, but is there any way that you could tweak how the police respond to attacks not intentionally directed at them but are whizzing nearby anyway? I can't tell you the number of times that I've tricked smugglers to open up on me and I'm practically behind a police officer at the time, and it seems no matter how many times the rounds snap past the seams of their uniforms, they NEVER respond to the shooters. On the other hand, if I so much as turn a corner with my weapon at the ready (not even firing!) and there's a police officer there, I get a stern warning, and then a second or two later in Real Time they're "converted" into becoming my enemy. Why's the double standard so huge? :-x Can this be adjusted into something more believable?
In regards to naming the locations that you're porting over from Reloaded... I wish I knew what the locations looked like. I think that a pretty sensible rule of thumb would be: if the location looks grand, name it something majestic. The other sensible rule of thumb would be to use a Spanish-ized name of a Roman Catholic saint. In fact, what would be quite clever is to name them based on a dominant feature of the region. For example, if there's a town near the coastline, you could look up a patron saint of the sea, or against shipwrecks, etc., and name that location after that saint.
If there was a location that was quite foreboding in appearance, you could come up with a back story that the region was once/possibly is cursed, and that region could've been renamed to invoke the power of a saint who was supposedly powerful at destroying witches, blocking curses, etc.
As a former Roman Catholic, I know that there's a saint associated with just about any thing you could imagine.
You could have a lot of fun with this in an intellectual, literary way. Book nerds like me would certainly get a good geeky laugh out of it. :)
To help you out, I found a couple of sites that could ease your searching. The first link is quite strong, as it's already broken down into categories, and the second link has some categories at the bottom of the page that might prove useful. All you'd have to do is find a saint that you think emulates the region, and convert that name into its Spanish counterpart (if it's not already Spanish), and voila(!), a great name that's convincing on a deep level.
Here's the links:
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/patron00.htm
http://saints.sqpn.com/
One more point to consider about location names: if in the end you decide to go with the campaign proposal (that I have yet to write!) some of these locations could have been renamed after local war/drug-lords, and some of these guys could be crazy enough to insist that their territory is named after their third wife or favorite dog.
Hey, it's a STRANGE world! :grin:
Now, before I head out to finally get my crack at v.5, I have one more question related to STALKER Clear Sky: I already know that my system can't play it, but I prefer to have hardcopies of my games, and I've found it on sale for $7.00. Is the prequel to STALKER worth buying/playing at that price, especially in light of mods that have surely made important adjustments to it? If I get a strong enough reply, I'll buy it now, and set it aside till I have a rig that can handle it (it shouldn't take too long, maybe within the next decade!).
Alright, now I'm off to v. 5. Report will be up ASAP.
Yours,
Kyle
July 8, 2010
:)
Ninja2dan
07-09-2010, 07:11 AM
I dunno why, but I have a strong feeling about the sniper class and dexterity when it comes to game mechanics. I always felt that operating heavy machinery is what a sniper does, and dexterity is a good thing to have for that:-P
But this is just speculations on my part, and your idea of adding Stamina to the sniper makes much sense. I think that to fill that need I'll give all the classes an additional skill.
Having been Sniper qualified in the Army and having operational time as a Sniper while serving as an LEO, I'm all too familiar with how snipers work and what their jobs include. We spent a lot of time practicing skills and movements slowly and precisely, making sure not to do anything too fast that might cause attention. The human eye sees movement first, then shape, then color. So a sniper's most important aspect to not being seen/detected is not to move or to move so slowly that the enemy doesn't notice it.
That doesn't mean we're always slow, but it's just how we usually operate. Slow and steady, with every inch of movement planned in advance. If we're doing our jobs correctly, we should be in a position where the enemy never even knows we're there. So we have plenty of time to adjust those optics, control our breathing, and shoot the enemy right between the eyes.
Hauling heavy gear is also part of the job for any combat-based ground soldier. But with the sniper, we drop our heavy loads at a rally prior to moving into our hide area. We then carry only minimal combat load, because the more crap you haul around the bulkier you are and the harder it is to move quietly or not being seen. Having a large 160-pound rucksack on makes it a bit difficult to low-crawl 150m along open terrain trying to get into position.
I think your ideas of skill point assignment sounds good, and look forward to seeing how it plays out.
I really got a lot out of reading Ninja2dan's supporting statements for adjusting the Sniper class as he describes. I'd hate to run into you Ninja2dan if you're a car salesman! ;)
I just like to help make sure that tactics, techniques, and skill attributes of the real-world operator is described properly. I don't know if anyone else here has military or tactical law enforcement backgrounds, so helping provide knowledge about those jobs could help everyone have a better understanding of how those roles are done in the real world.
Unfortunately, too many games have been jacking up the sniper role because the developers lack actual knowledge or experience about the role and base their information off of highly unrealistic movies, television, and other poorly-made games. R@S is doing an outstanding job of reworking the system, avoiding mistakes that the original dev team made. If he feels that a more realistic approach will benefit the mod, then I'm more than happy to supply the information.
Regarding the new maps, R@S posted a few screenshots of some of them a few days ago. I can't remember which topic it was in, maybe the main BSM Mod topic. I must say, some of those new maps make me drool. The possibilities running through my mind of future scenarios has had me dying to get the game running again.
Thanks for those links Kyle, they'll come in handy:)
I was thinking of "giving" one or two of the new sectors to the Palinero faction and place them in that country. I think that'd even make the vanilla campaign a bit more fun if one chooses that way.
IMHO Clear Sky would be worth buying at that price, the community has added a lot of features and if you only player through SoC once you wont be too upset about them having the same maps. Since I loved SoC I played it several times and knew the maps like the back of my hands. And the frustation of not being able to play Clear Sky when I first bought it made me a bit to judgemental about it, but truth be told, it was still very fun to play.
The game engine calculates how near the player is to his maximum weight when it does the camo/stealth calculations. the less your merc is carrying, the better chance of staying hidded. This is just one example of how the engine uses the different attributes to calculate things, and that's where my gut feeling about sniper and dexterity comes into play. I'm glad that we all agree that the adding of one more class skill might work, will try to impement it for the next test version.
And let this be proof that with a cogent argument I'd be willing to alter my work, even if it ends up a compromise;)
Chortles
07-09-2010, 10:33 AM
Ninja2dan, how could we tweak this system or utilize it if one were to decide to use the sniper/spotter for this one? (i.e. by, uh... having more leeway with regards to team/squad size. ;) )
For some reason it seems to me that such would help make the "stereotypical" sniper more viable, whereas without a spotter I'd be more likely to go the designated marksman route in-game.
Don't worry, I am aware that the answer is that "SBRS AHOY!" As much as I like CQB weapons personally for fitting my frame better. :P
Ninja2dan
07-09-2010, 12:27 PM
Ninja2dan, how could we tweak this system or utilize it if one were to decide to use the sniper/spotter for this one? (i.e. by, uh... having more leeway with regards to team/squad size. ;) )
For some reason it seems to me that such would help make the "stereotypical" sniper more viable, whereas without a spotter I'd be more likely to go the designated marksman route in-game.
Don't worry, I am aware that the answer is that "SBRS AHOY!" As much as I like CQB weapons personally for fitting my frame better. :P
I'm not sure I fully understand the question, but at first glance it looks like you're asking about using a possible "spotter" role. By somehow tweaking the max squad size, and offering an additional class role as a Spotter that would work alongside the Sniper. Or am I way off?
I apologize in the delay to my testing last night, but I can't locate the last officer remaining, and I wanted to eliminate him so that I could rest for 24 hrs., check the bank account (to see if it's working). I don't want to deal with the possibility that if I leave the area and return, that the officers will have repopulated the town, and then I have a whole new firefight to deal with just to check something that should take but a few seconds' worth of time...
So, my report sans what's mentioned above...
First, no CTDs, even after Leveling Up to Level 1. No double video plays, and all in all, I'd have to say that some pretty annoying headaches are gone. THANK YOU! :grin:
You were right in saying that the alternate WEAPONSINFO.ini is more challenging. It seems to me that the weapons are a lot more lethal, and I'm certainly not being as sloppy moving through the area of operations.
Personally, I like it. I'm eager to find out how the weapons higher up on the CGL feel like with this config.
SUGGESTIONS
Is there any way to add a Settings option that would allow us to shutoff the red "Injury" numbers that appear whenever an enemy is shot, or bleeds out due to blood loss? To me, I don't want to see that info, and it's hard to ignore it and then later exploit it by gaming the system. I'd rather not see the numbers, but rather respond to what my avatars' eyes are telling me in order to plan my tactical response.
Is there any way to have the Stealth skill appear on the very first screen so that we could invest our initial 50 points into it right away?
What would happen if we didn't spend our 50 points on that screen; would we be able to spend them through the Kill Book in-game when we get to setup our Parameters?
Of course, we could just tryout my earlier recommendations about setting all Parameters and Skills to "0," have a little note that we have to adjust in-game through the Kill Book, and perhaps avoid some frustration. But that's just me. ;)
I have to echo the request to increase the number of comrades we can have in our squad. In the Bloody Money mod for BE5, the number was increased to 9 (which would better reflect the element-size of SF units), although it was a bit of a chore to use, because these mercs were only accessible by "targeting" them with the mouse. Of course, it'd be ideal to not only increase the squad size, but to also have them be as readily accessible as the other 6.
R@S, you're welcome for the links. :grin:
And thanks for your input regarding Clear Sky. Will order it ASAP.
Ninja2dan, your detailed firsthand expertise is certainly welcomed here! :)
My Dad retired as a First Sergeant in 1990, so while I'm familiar with some of this stuff I don't have the firsthand experience of an enlisted man. Perhaps I need to dig up some of his old manuals, and make them handy?
A while ago, I did some research into how camouflage works in real life on the human mind. Patterned camouflage is ideal if the wearer is not moving, and/or moving very slowly (reflecting what you said Ninja2dan), but is actually easier to spot when the wearer is moving (weird!). If one is moving, solid colors that approximate the surrounding environment makes that wearer harder to discern (weird!). I see that some countries now are painting their larger vehicles in very chunky and blocky "camouflages," which I assume is to try and take advantage of the human mind's weaknesses at seeing a set of solid-colors in motion.
Interesting stuff, nonetheless.
In regards to a Spotter class... Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Spotters qualified to be Snipers, and isn't it "common" for Spotters and Snipers to switch roles from time to time? If this is the case, then the solution would seem obvious: have binoculars available (to open up the field of vision) and have two Snipers in one's squad.
I'll try to look up those screenshots of Reloaded elsewhere on this board. Thanks for the tip.
And I have to agree with R@S, the man is as good a listener as he is a designer. In fact, I'd argue that you can't have one without the other! :)
Every great modding endeavor I've ever contributed to has had leadership with good ears, a solid brain, and, of course, generosity by giving so much to the community for free!
If only the Real World could operate like a modding team, eh?
Ninja2dan
07-09-2010, 05:03 PM
Perhaps I need to dig up some of his old manuals, and make them handy?
It would depend on which MOS he served as. I served as both 11B (Infantry) and 13B (Field Artillery), and still have access to a large portion of my old field manuals. I was also an instructor for several courses, and have TM's, FM's, STP's, etc for quite a few MOS's other than my primaries. The question is really going to be which type of reference materials would be useful for the modding "team" (R@S and any other coders, animators, model artists, etc).
If anyone does need a particular reference item, I can find a way to upload it. If I don't have it myself, and it's not on the restricted list, I'm sure I can get it. Just bare in mind that a lot of material is either still restricted, or has been placed back on the restricted list since 9/11. Just because a manual cover states "Approved for public distribution" doesn't mean it still has retained that status now, so care must be made to ensure the material is legal for public viewing.
A while ago, I did some research into how camouflage works in real life on the human mind. Patterned camouflage is ideal if the wearer is not moving, and/or moving very slowly (reflecting what you said Ninja2dan), but is actually easier to spot when the wearer is moving (weird!). If one is moving, solid colors that approximate the surrounding environment makes that wearer harder to discern (weird!). I see that some countries now are painting their larger vehicles in very chunky and blocky "camouflages," which I assume is to try and take advantage of the human mind's weaknesses at seeing a set of solid-colors in motion.
The majority of modern camouflage patters have been designed to blend into the environment from various distances, even when the wearer is moving at a "light" speed. But it doesn't matter how good the camo is, anyone running across a field is going to be spotted. So yes, rapid movement even in camouflage is going to give your position away. But if moving slowly and precisely, as Snipers are trained to do, your camouflage can keep you nearly invisible even at a close range. In other words, no swatting at mosquitos.
In regards to a Spotter class... Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Spotters qualified to be Snipers, and isn't it "common" for Spotters and Snipers to switch roles from time to time? If this is the case, then the solution would seem obvious: have binoculars available (to open up the field of vision) and have two Snipers in one's squad.
Correct, the Spotter is nothing more than a regular Sniper really. They both have the same training, although in many circumstances the Spotter is the junior of the two. While both soldiers will often swap out roles to keep from getting fatigued or "tunnel-vision", the senior member of the sniper element is usually the primary shooter.
The Spotter's role is actually a lot more than most movies or games care to show. Obviously the Spotter "spots" targets for the Sniper, but he is also responsible for assisting in target detection and identification, and helping maintain security. Very often you'll see the Spotter armed with an M16A2/M203, which is very effective at helping break contact or engage multiple enemies faster than the Sniper's bolt-action. Even if the Sniper is armed with a semi-auto, their magazine capacities limit their effectiveness if they were compromised.
In a game like this though, I wouldn't really see the point in having two characters that operate as a team having the same Sniper-type skill sets. I would prefer to have my second team member (the Spotter role) trained in decent grenade-launcher skill, good observation/hearing/detection skills, but generally wouldn't need as much focus on long-range precision marksmanship. If you have both members of your sniper team engaging enemies through highly-magnified optics, then your Spotter's supporting capabilities just went out the window.
I'd probably just throw a Scout-type of soldier in as my spotter, get him skilled up with locating and observing targets from a distance, and make sure he is capable of accurate long-ranged UGL fire. If he ever does need to fire his primary weapon, it's most likely going to be automatic fire at close- and medium-ranged targets, and he'll need to rely more on rapid movements, reloads, and quick target transitions instead of slow, precise, long-ranged shots that the Sniper is known for.
Other skills that might be useful for a "spotter" type of role might be some good "engineering" knowledge to deploy defensive countermeasures such as AP mines, or is capable of cutting through fences or picking locks to allow the sniper element to access certain sniper hides.
First, no CTDs, even after Leveling Up to Level 1. No double video plays, and all in all, I'd have to say that some pretty annoying headaches are gone. THANK YOU! :grin:Thank you, it's a load off to know that:)
Is there any way to add a Settings option that would allow us to shutoff the red "Injury" numbers that appear whenever an enemy is shot, or bleeds out due to blood loss? To me, I don't want to see that info, and it's hard to ignore it and then later exploit it by gaming the system. I'd rather not see the numbers, but rather respond to what my avatars' eyes are telling me in order to plan my tactical response.I dunno, but I suspect that it's hard coded, as most of the GUI is.
Is there any way to have the Stealth skill appear on the very first screen so that we could invest our initial 50 points into it right away? Nope, hard coded.
What would happen if we didn't spend our 50 points on that screen; would we be able to spend them through the Kill Book in-game when we get to setup our Parameters?Since that part is hard coded it would be tricky, but I could add a check to see if the skill are all 30, and if the are give the player those 50 points back. But I'm not inclined to do that, too much work for a small detail and it'll result in too much clicking.
I have to echo the request to increase the number of comrades we can have in our squad. In the Bloody Money mod for BE5, the number was increased to 9 (which would better reflect the element-size of SF units), although it was a bit of a chore to use, because these mercs were only accessible by "targeting" them with the mouse. Of course, it'd be ideal to not only increase the squad size, but to also have them be as readily accessible as the other 6.As in BE5, the GUI can't handle that many mercs, and it causes serious balance issues. But it can be done and guineapig started on it for the outsourced mod. I can finish the job, adding an entry in the outsourcedconfig.ini where the player can set the number of mercs for himself, like choosing a numer between 6 to 20 team members. I've seen it, and here's the proof:
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/5273/teamsize.jpg (http://img43.imageshack.us/i/teamsize.jpg/)
where the player can set the number of mercs for himself, like choosing a numer between 6 to 20 team members. I've seen it, and here's the proof:
Holy cow! I thought that the limit for extra squadmates would be similar to BE5's (that's if "9" was the uppermost limit for BE5's engine), but to have 20 in 7.62! :grin:
You're right though, having that many units in the game would be awfully unbalancing, unless the number of enemy AI units scaled appropriately, but that would probably lead to computational issues for a lot of players, so...
But that would be fun to try out, nevertheless...
:grin:
I'm sorry to hear about all of the hardcoding. :(
Well, regardless, I have no doubts that by the time this baby's done it's going to be a mod that advances the original title by a tremendous degree, and there's a lot of mods out there that can claim that, but can't prove it. This one will. :)
safoolfool
07-10-2010, 12:49 AM
Are unit cards hardcoded? I'd love it if they were scaled down to a quarter of that. All I really need is name, time left, and health/stamina., the enormous picture and really tall health bars just don't seem necessary. That would also let you see more than 9 (or w/e) mercs at once.
Then again, even if you let the player have 15 units and the enemies have 3-4x as much I don't think it would work to well, since the maps are too damn small for having 75 people at once (that and the game would probably explode).
Need help folks.
This is weird.
Until v.5, I've never had an issue with "losing" the last member of an enemy group, but since I've installed v.5 it's happened to me twice.
I deleted all of my Saves, and started over from scratch to test the game further than I did before, and once again, the last policeman can't be found.
Might this be due to...
...the Col. and his inferior leaving the station shortly after the shootout begins? The two of them have done this before numerous times, and has never been an issue, so I don't see why it would be now.
...a wounded officer crawling away to a yellow safety zone?
...DeNiro from Taxi Driver is NOT in this build. Instead of the yellow taxi, there's a red auto. Is this related in some weird way, or...?
Exasperated me!
Kyle
July 10, 2010
Are unit cards hardcoded? I'd love it if they were scaled down to a quarter of that. All I really need is name, time left, and health/stamina., the enormous picture and really tall health bars just don't seem necessary. That would also let you see more than 9 (or w/e) mercs at once. Their pictures can be scaled down, but the engine still reserves the space for the original picture so that wont work.
Until v.5, I've never had an issue with "losing" the last member of an enemy group, but since I've installed v.5 it's happened to me twice.I think you said a few days ago that you re-installed the game. Could it be that you forgot to turn on the "Last Enemy" in the options? That would explain your troubles:)
I did a little testing last night with larger player team size and decided to put the cap at 12. Through the outourcedconfig.ini one can set the number between 6 and 12 and I hope it gives the sense of freedom. The reason I dint make the cap higher is mostly due to the spawn points. If the team is too big they wont all fit and the player would be forced to spit their team when entering a sector. It would mean a lot of dragging and dropping of their name tags on the "enter town window" before entering a town. But I think 12 is more than enough and most people will have only 9 or 10 mercs, if they use this function.
I'll add the new skills the the classes today, it wont take much time. If people are interested I could release the next version of the Class System later, just let me know.
Chortles
07-10-2010, 10:53 AM
Then again, even if you let the player have 15 units and the enemies have 3-4x as much I don't think it would work to well, since the maps are too damn small for having 75 people at once (that and the game would probably explode).There's far worse dude (or dudette, I don't ask if someone ain't telling)... I've seen a video with a claimed 1500 different and unscripted AIs (750 vs. 750) in ARMA II.
Ninja2dan, thanks for answering my questions about the hypothetical spotter build. Basically I was referring to this:Because of the limited number of squad members, it's often not going to be desirable to use a "spotter" with your sniper. In this game, snipers will usually need to operate solo. Because of this reason, I can understand where you are coming from to give a sniper the ability to quickly swap from their long rifle to a secondary weapon. But I think their primary focus should not be on dexterity or stealth as much as the skills required for precision shooting or their stamina that allows them to crawl in the prone for long distances.As such, I was wondering if there was a way to make it more viable, i.e. to make the squad more able to "spare" a person to act as a spotter. If I had six operators to work with in 7.62, I'd most likely set aside the best at sniping and close-quarters defense to act as my sniper/spotter pair, then try to get the other four to emulate a fire team... possibly swapping out one of the two 'regular' riflemen for a designated marksman. If I could spare someone or had more people to work with, I might even add a flanker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper_team) to the sniper team, as mentioned in the link.
Kyle, I believe the term you were looking for is "digital" camouflage, or "digicam," though a more accurate term would be pixelated camouflage.
R@S, personally I'd prefer a higher "hard cap" be possible in the new outsourcedconfig.INI, but 12 as a default cap sounds appropriate... both for manageability and because it's close in size to a modern Western infantry squad or section, as opposed to common video game references to a "squad" as 4 (more like a fire team) or 6 members. While I'd want the ability/option to "break the GUI" :P... 12's definitely a good choice as a default/recommended, so you have my agreement on that much.
The reason for the low cap on team members isn,t just balance but the ability to play the game without frustration. I've been forced to lower it even more, the cap is now 11, because if the team is bigger than that, weird stuff happens, like team members leaving your team for no reason whatsoever. Of cource I want to give the player as much freedom as possible, but not at the expense of playability.
Here's the laters test version:
Class System v6 beta (http://www.mediafire.com/?mmymyjy4mzt)
Changes in v6:
- Temporarily placed Mercon on starting map
- Fixed issue with start dialog
- Removed Show Intro Movie from the OutsourcedConfig.ini
- Added a 250 point cap on all Parameters and Skills
- Added a sixth Class Skill to all classes
- Added the increased player team function in the OutsourcedConfig.ini
Let me know how it works.
Ninja2dan
07-10-2010, 06:20 PM
Ninja2dan, thanks for answering my questions about the hypothetical spotter build. Basically I was referring to this:As such, I was wondering if there was a way to make it more viable, i.e. to make the squad more able to "spare" a person to act as a spotter. If I had six operators to work with in 7.62, I'd most likely set aside the best at sniping and close-quarters defense to act as my sniper/spotter pair, then try to get the other four to emulate a fire team... possibly swapping out one of the two 'regular' riflemen for a designated marksman. If I could spare someone or had more people to work with, I might even add a flanker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper_team) to the sniper team, as mentioned in the link.
In any situation where you have a smaller "squad" or element, such as SpecOps units, managing a team and deciding what roles each will take on a mission is part of the challenge. This is why most SF operators are trained in a variety of skills, because they might be required to swap roles on different missions or even mid-mission. For example, while one operator might be acting as a sniper/observer for one mission, he might be taking part of the assault/entry team on the next mission.
The element size in 7.62 is pretty small, and the guys are closer to a SpecOps unit than your regular infantry squad. Because of this, I prefer to keep enough equipment available that I can outfit every character depending on the specific mission at hand and what role they will be required to take for that mission. I also like to cross-train the characters on similar skills, and buddy up as many as possible to increase effectiveness and survivability.
As you mentioned, it's usually a good idea to use a spotter in this game that is good at CQB, just in case their section is surprised or compromised. The sniper's slow but long-ranged weapon system can be used against enemies as they close in, while the spotter's rapid-fire short- or medium-ranged weapons are used to finish them off. Rarely would you need a spotter to actually take long-ranged shots, in most cases the only time I'd do that is if my sniper was dead/disabled or performing another critical task such as healing or reloading.
As for this "flanker", I've never seen any such role used in the US military by a member of the sniper team. The task that they described is usually performed by members of a nearby infantry/scout squad, or maybe even a light-armor unit. Snipers are also being deployed more often in clusters, multiple sniper teams deployed in the same AO to cover different sectors. By doing so they can provide cover for each other, and help ensure they have an entire area under the scopes.
In games like 7.62 though you shouldn't need a third character on your sniper team. If an enemy does happen to be spotted outside of the sniper's capabilities, then a member of your assault team should be able to take care of it. When no such enemies are known, that third member might be rotting away twiddling his thumbs instead of supporting the team better such as assisting with entry/assault or medical/support duties.
But everyone has their own methods, their own tactics, their own style of play. If that particular tactic works best for you, by all means go for it.
Kyle, I believe the term you were looking for is "digital" camouflage, or "digicam," though a more accurate term would be pixelated camouflage.
I haven't seen any vehicles painted in a digicam pattern, but I have seen a lot of oddball patterns since WWI. Back in the earlier wars they used to paint large circles on their tanks, polka-dotted armor was supposed to make them harder to spot. It wouldn't surprise me though if some nations were trying out a vehicle-based digital pattern, seeing all of the "hype" about those styles lately.
The reason digicam is supposed to work better than regular patterns is because the small "pixels" appear to blend together much smoother from a distance. Solid lines used in all previous patterns were often easier to spot than a broken-up pattern, and the digital patterns are also much harder to see using night vision devices or other electronic imaging.
R@S, personally I'd prefer a higher "hard cap" be possible in the new outsourcedconfig.INI, but 12 as a default cap sounds appropriate... both for manageability and because it's close in size to a modern Western infantry squad or section, as opposed to common video game references to a "squad" as 4 (more like a fire team) or 6 members. While I'd want the ability/option to "break the GUI" :P... 12's definitely a good choice as a default/recommended, so you have my agreement on that much.
There are a few problems that I see with having that many characters on your team. The spawn areas are already too small, especially if you are using a vehicle, and adding more characters is only going to make spawning in even worse. Unless R@S or someone else can figure out how to enlarge those spawn points sufficiently enough to support the larger teams, you're just going to have a huge mess.
Another problem with it is that the element in 7.62/BSM is not intended to replicate a full-sized infantry squad. Your team is made up of mercs, and is intended to function more like a SpecOps element. If you planned to keep the element together as either a full squad or into two fireteams, then it wouldn't be so bad. But the maps aren't large enough to support such large elements.
The reason for the low cap on team members isn,t just balance but the ability to play the game without frustration. I've been forced to lower it even more, the cap is now 11, because if the team is bigger than that, weird stuff happens, like team members leaving your team for no reason whatsoever. Of cource I want to give the player as much freedom as possible, but not at the expense of playability.
I remember finding a posting somewhere while playing the vanilla game, before I even knew about the mods, about how to "hack" the game and allow larger squad sizes. I tried it a few times, wanting to give myself better odds and just to see how it would work out. But it was horrible.
First, in order to select those team members you had to pan all over the map looking for them, and manually select them. Second, you had no clue as to their operational status without actively selecting that character. They could be shot, bleeding out, dead, or burnt out from running and you'd never know. It was a huge inconvenience, and I decided not to deal with it. I learned to just stick with the default squad size.
If it were possible to somehow alter the GUI to allow more characters, then I can see it being OK up to a point. But even if the bugs you mentioned above were fixed, the maps are still not large enough to support huge squads. Sure it would be fun to have 20 grunts armed with nothing but hand grenades and knives, running around like wild indians out for blood. But if you're trying to play the game seriously, it's just going to be too crowded.
Besides, with games like this I tend to prefer using smaller elements. When fighting using unconventional tactics, smaller teams tend to work better because they are harder to detect and have a little more freedom of movement and options. But if others want to run with 8-10 characters, and any bugs associated with using that many are fixed, then it's your call. Like you said, it's good to give people additional options that support their own style of play.
R@S,
I've only ever played 7.62 with the "auto-reveal-of-the-last-enemy" deactivated. For myself, it heightens the tension till the very end, because you can never know if that last enemy is going to deliver another dosage of grief just before the sortie's over.
I'll try build 6 and see if an enemy goes completely missing again. Three times in a row...what are the odds of that happening? I hope that they're VERY low indeed! :-x
Is the fact that DeNiro's missing from my game an indication that something's wrong, or...?
I have to agree with a number of the points that Ninja2dan brought up in regards to squad size. This game is definitely designed with SF tactics in mind, and while it does no harm to set the maximum cap at 11, I'm certainly not ever going to go past 9, as that's a pretty routine size for a SF team.
The scale of the maps are such that there isn't enough room to try tactics that require more room. I used to be pretty active in playing Combat Mission Shock Force, and to compare the scale of the maps in that game to this one is a perfect illustration of what I mean.
With the release of the Marines module for CMSF, a number of mission designers started using the squad size of the Marines to simulate SF squads. If there's one title that has a larger percentage of players who are active/retired military personnel, I can't think of one (and "Yes," that includes the Operation Flashpoint and ArmA communities). Like Ninja2dan, they're quick to supply detailed critiques to make the missions more accurate and better, and when it comes to the SF-type missions using the 9 man "Marines" setup, I've yet to read any criticisms of it.
So R@S, I wouldn't pull my hair out trying to figure out a way to get 12 or more units functioning properly in the game. I'd put that at the very VERY bottom of the To Do list.
And in regards to the "blocky" and "chunky" camouflage schemes that have come into prominence on tanks, personnel carriers, and the like... I wouldn't use the word "digital" to describe them. Digital camouflage deliberately evokes the usage of pixels that sort of "fade" one into another at the edges of another color, so that the boundaries between the different colors appear "soft." Very much like how the artist Georges Seurat invented pointillism to create images that appear to have smooth transitions of colors at a distance, but when one gets closer the multitude of dots become more distinct. I wish I could find the vehicle photos that I've stumbled across in the past, but when I say "blocky" I mean BLOCKY. The schemes look downright silly, but I'm assuming that they have to work on some level, right?
Time to play v. 6.
:grin:
I activated the "last enemy" feature and I was able to clear out all of the police.
The last officer kept peeking around the corner of a building while my two mercs took shots at him till the bitter end. Is the last man standing setup so his behavior is a bit suicidal, or...?
DeNiro and his yellow taxi was still gone from this build. Is this intentional since we get the red car at the start of the game now, or...?
I liked having the Merc Recruiting Agent right at the startup site. With the amount of cash we now have, I decided to actually use him for the first time. Out of the four mercs I summoned, only one was willing to be hired by me, Dessert. Another one, Ali, was pretty hostile. We had "words" and was I surprised to get a M60 from him. Nice! Then I summoned Sonar. She wasn't interested in me hiring her. So "words" were exchanged once more. I got a MP5A4 tricked out with a collimator and suppressor. Nice. I summoned Beaver, and he wasn't interested in joining either. So I threw the "dictionary" at him and got a tricked out Saiga shotgun.
After so many declinations, I stopped summoning them.
Are all of the declines typical when using the Recruitment Agent? If so, are there any work arounds to finally getting them hired, or are these only attainable after completing certain missions?
If they are only acquirable after certain events have been triggered, what will happen now that they were killed at the very start of the game? Will they suddenly reappear, alive again? Will they have their gear restored, or...?
I'm hitting the sack. Tomorrow I plan on testing out going to get Pacquito, get my missing gear, and check out the bank to make sure it's working.
Good night all!
:grin:
I find "Last Enemy" very useful, especially in city maps where the enemy has a tendency to get stuck in walls. It saves a lot of time having it turned on, you don't have to run around looking for that missing guy you missed in your first sweep. What the setting does is make the last man standing seek you out instead of you seeking him.
The Taxi diver is removed, he was not needed anymore since I changed so much in the startup of the game. The car has always been in that location, people just started noticing it when the taxi driver appeared:)
The mercs wont work for you if you have too low professionalship, and since you decided to kill Ali, you got a 50 point drop in that. That's the reason you couldn't hire any mercs after killing him, and you need to do some missions to raise the proffesionalship before anyone will work with you again.
EDIT: Ali only works with black people, if you're using mercs with any other nationality he wont join your team.
R@S,
Ahh... All of those things are VERY good to know.
I like that the last enemy standing tries to hunt you down. Kind of gives his last moments a tragic sense of desperation. I'm leaving that setting as is. Especially since the enemy can "disappear" inside of walls. Didn't know that one either, and I don't desire to have to ever search for such.
Poor Ali. I had no idea that I had to be black to get him. And after I axed him, my loss of Professionalism virtually guaranteed that nobody was going to work for me afterward...
Lesson learned. The next time I summon potential squadmates, I'll leave him off if I'm white, which is a shame, as he has some of the best stats out of all of them. :(
Sorry to see that DeNiro's gone. That was a nice Easter egg in my opinion.
Off to do some more testing! :)
MoreDread
07-13-2010, 12:31 AM
i just can't take it anymore....
kyle and r@s... i have only read about half of this thread... i haven't been able to access the forums since about 2 1/2 weeks ago...
is there some way we can meet in an irc chat, skype or icq or something similar?
you have been adressing the most important aspects of whats missing in 7.65 just now and i'd really love to delve deeper into whats possible to do with this (sadly) dying game... please excuse me saying that because i know .. something could be done about this.
i'm saying this because i'm fed up with seeing my favorite sofware developers go into bankruptcy... especially because at some point in my life, i'd love to go professional.
there are many things i'd like to respond to in this thread..... but i'd much rather talk to you guys 'in person' because i'd prefer an immediate response.
MoreDread,
Well, I'm genuinely flattered that you'd like to include me in your chat-lasso. :)
I'm very eager for the kind of game mechanics that we're discussing, evaluating, and in R@S' case, designing here, and I mean that in a much larger sense than just 7.62.
I'd be open to such a chat, although it's been years since I last used such a medium of communication. Please note that this week is going to be VERY tight for me time-wise due to some major house repairs that I'm undertaking tomorrow.
Feel free to PM me with your thoughts and suggestions, and I'll see what I can do to follow through with them from this end.
Good night!
:)
I've sent you guys my contact info, feel free to contact me.
I've been working on the Reloaded maps, adding guards to the Palinero faction was much easier than one might imagine. Since that faction only has one city, I'm not sure how it will affect the gameplay or how the final vanilla govt quest might react. But that will have to wait until the main gloabal AI is done.
R@S,
I realize that you're swamped right now, so this is just a quick note to check your PM, as I've enclosed my proposal for a campaign to you.
It's not chock full of missions (although some are very obviously "there" without having to be written about in detail) but rather is, in my opinion, the very fertile soil to grow missions out of. I really hope that you like what you read, and PLEASE do NOT hesitate to respond with a critique. It's the best way to grow! :grin:
----------------------
I've been swamped with Real Life issues, but I did have some time several nights ago to press further on with the last build. I went to get my gear from Pacquito's cousin, and was totally surprised to face the military. Well, I guess that I shouldn't be "so" surprised, I did wipe out an entire station's worth of officers and took over a city!
M4A1's left and right and several Minimi's, and they're all pointing at ME, "Mr. Nice Guy." Whoa, did that give me some stiff opposition that I had to carefully think through!
It was challenging and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The sniper rifle that Pacquito's cousin was saving for me was a nice surprise.
When the battle was over, the kill count was at 39...1 away from leveling up to 2nd level. Frustrating! :) I quit the game with a TON of formidable weaponry to sort through.
Which got me to thinking. Is there anyway to bundle weapons of the same type and condition together? For ex., let's say there are 5 M4A1's in mint condition without a round having been fired, could those be listed with a single image of an M4A1 with a subscript number "5" printed near it? I just think that would speed up the sorting process greatly.
There was something else that I had wanted to mention, but I can't remember it now and my nearly 2 year son probably made off with the Post It note like a little bandit. :) If it comes back to me, I'll mention it here.
------------------------
MoreDread,
I'm hoping that later tonight or tomorrow night I'll be able to send you and R@S a PM with my contact info. Like R@S, my schedule's packed right now. I'm doing some very important house renovations that are just wiping me out, and I hope that the worst of it will be over by this Sunday, but that's if the weather cooperates.
Come the very end of July I'll be having a childhood friend of mine and his family staying with us for a week and a half. Can't wait. It's been a long time since we've seen them last. During that time I'm hoping to have my days and nights filled with fishing, lazing around on the beach, and playing Illuminati late at night. Those little tykes of mine would love Illuminati too, but just so they could play with the cards and miniature money! :grin:
My break's done. Time to get back to scraping paint up. :(
Ciao guys!
MoreDread
07-17-2010, 12:58 AM
weekend! finally!
allright i've been thinking about the best way to get in contact with some people.. i'd like to keep this open. in the last post i mentioned both R@S and kyle, but that doesn't mean i want to prevent others from having a chance to voice their opinion. so i'd say everyone is welcome to join in.
since atm i'm still forced to use this macbook to access the web, quite a few of the IM apps are not the best choice for me.
i'm registered on skype and i think i could theoretically revive my old ICQ account, but since R@S is using neither of those and i don't really wanna sign up to too many services i think it might be best to meet in the IRC network.
if you guys agree then i would look for an easy to use browser based client to access it and post a link here. that would allow everyone to join in without having to download any software or go through any kind of registration process .. keep it simple and accessible.
i live in germany, so thats gmt+1
since kyle lives in sweden, it won't be hard for us two to find an agreeable time to meet... to make the best choice for everyone we would have to find out more about the timezone of every participant. so plz post yours or send me a pm.
the topic would be the class system first and foremost, but of course also exploring what people would like to see in the game and what can be done.
personally i love to wrap my mind around RPG systems and discuss them, but i'd also love to get involved a little more into modding the game.
since my expertise lies in modeling, animating and a little texturing, but the only thing that can be done is reskinning characters and weapons/items right now (on my part), i'd be interested in trying to do a couple of weapon models for the game as well.
so if you have any suggestions, please don't hesitate to tell me. if you have reference pictures as well, that'll increase the chance that i'll actually get around to do it.
note that i'm capable of modeling a gun just fine, but i haven't researched how to get the weapon models ingame. from what i've seen it shouldn't be too hard a task.. but you never know. i'm just saying: no promises.
Well, it looks like I'm the odd man with a GMT+5 (I live in Michigan, USA), and I've never used ICQ, but am happy to learn if that's the way the two of you would like to go! Once we're in agreement on a chat system, I'll download and get an account setup ASAP.
I am SO happy to hear of your skills!
That's VERY good news for this entire community.
Yes indeed!
More later.
:grin:
MoreDread
07-17-2010, 02:55 AM
oh right... i remembered you posting that you're a swede and falsely deducted from that that you're living in sweden... didn't even ask.. my bad
in other words.. maybe i'm the odd one out ^___^
we shall see
Don't feel bad.
We're all a bit "odd" around here, which means that as a community, we're COMPLETELY "normal" to each other.
Now if only the whole world would get on board.
:)
They could be normal like US.
:grin:
So, you're still around afterall MoreDread;)
Anyways, I just popped in quickly to give you some bad news, my computer just got blown out by a lightning storm that passed by during the night. If I'm lucky it 's just the power supply unit, but I need to buy a new one before I can check to see if any more damage was done. Since I have all the mod files backupped I'm not that worried about that, but still, I have a lot of stuff on it that I haven't had time to copy to my usb drives. Keeping my fingers crosssed.
And I'm the swede here, and I too live in the GMT +1 zone so no worries there. I'll try to get back to y'all when I come back from the city with the new parts and hopefully have a functioning computer again. This laptop sucks and I had planned to buy a new one after the summer when the paycheck for my extra shifts arrive, but if my stationary needs more repairs that might have to wait:(
MoreDread
07-17-2010, 11:57 AM
aww bad news indeed.
well good luck.. it happened to me too once...
the fuse saved my pc tho.
http://chat.mibbit.com/
here check this out:
simply insert your desired username, and enter #bsm in the channel field, then hit go...
i'll be waiting there for the weekend, however i might not respond immediately as i'm not the only one using this computer.
Wow. What awful news R@S!
Meowcat of the YARM mod had something happen to his rig too.
I hope it's not me triggering all of this electronic pain! ;)
The very best of luck to you on this.
Got to go. A farmer's market and then an art festival to check out and then it's back to working on that terrible porch from the Realm of Flames and Brimstones!
Yay, I'm back online and it dint cost me that much, all that was destroyed was the PSU, the router and the network adapter, but I had a spare adapter in a drawer collecting dust.
I'm on the Mibbit as well, but I need to set up a few things regarding my security system, it's complex and might take a while. I'll reply to the PM later if we dont hook up on the IRC before that:)
Yay, I'm back online and it dint cost me that much
Yay! Good for you and your wallet! Congratulations. :grin:
I needed some good news today; I wasn't able to get the primer painted over the now completely-scraped porch/steps, and there's a high chance of thunderstorms all day tomorrow. That means all of that rain will have access to the newly exposed pre-1978 paint, and that runoff could end up all over my lawn and sidewalk for my kids to get exposed to! :mad:
I'm honestly considering getting up at 4:30 AM and start painting with the just the porch light as my light source, and hope that the primer will be finished setting up before the first drops fall... I don't think that I have much choice on this matter. It's too scary to think of the alternatives. :(
I'm going to do a bit of writing, and then go to bed.
Yay...paint!
Good night!
Is there some way whereby the Player could easily keep track of how his Parameters and Skills are advancing? For example, something like this...
Strength: 75 [+2](+1)
Sniping: 38 [+1]
Shooting: 43 [+4](+2)
Etc.
The red font is the current level, the green font would be from points spent by the Player whenever he leveled-up, and the blue font would be whenever the Player earned an attribute increase from doing something in-game (resulting from the game's default award system).
This way the Player could try and develop a "feel" on how certain actions in-game may/may not influence one's attribute advancement.
:)
I'm not sure there is a way to change the color in the dialog, and even it was, it would require a lot of more coding. What you're suggesting would require the engine to keep a lot of numbers in the memory, something I always try to avoid due to the memory leak. I'm not inclined to change it since I'd never add something that might decrease stability. And if you ever get around to write the "How to train skills" FAQ it wouldn't be necessary;)
MoreDread
07-20-2010, 09:53 AM
hey R@S, sorry for not getting back online that day.. i fell asleep before my laptop was returned :grin:
anyway.. i was fooling around with the class system and i came to these conlcusions:
first it would be great if you altered the dialogue... instead of first choosing to in or decrease your skills/parameters set it up like this:
first you choose skills or parameters
the response is a list of your choice, either all your skills or all your parameters
you can then make your pick, and once you have done that, your selected skill/parameter is shown yet again in the response.
you are then given the choice to either decrease, increase or go back.
this way you wouldn't have to print the whole list and click through the menu several times for every individual point you wanna spend.
only the skill/parameter you are changing would be shown, which should prevent a ctd because of too many lines in the dialogue. i was able to spend about 30 points before it crashes... this should make it possible to spend about a 100 or even more.
furthermore i think with 3 points to spend you're not really getting enough
its 48 points on a class skill or parameter
and only 16 on a non class one.
because there are only 16 cgls
so if you're starting with 30 in let's say stealth and you decide to max it out, you'd still only have 78 on cgl 16... that beeing the ONLY skill you raised.
how about 5 points per cgl, and 1 or 2 for every won battle?
that way you'd be able to max out one skill completely, or get 3 very high ones... and continue to get more points even when you've reached the max cgl... or without raising it if you prefer to stay in the earlier cgls to get better beforehand.
MoreDread,
I wish that I had a more complete understanding of the cgl process myself. It leads me to ask questions like...
...if one maxes out the cgl level, will it impact one's ability to level up with the spending points method? I'm guessing that it wouldn't. The cgl level may be maxed, but one is still able to earn points and spend them.
Without doing any math, you may still be right that there aren't enough points being awarded in a timelier fashion. I can't say for sure because my hands have been tied from doing testing due to the porch work.
But at least I got the primer painted on yesterday. :)
One thing that needs to be kept in mind is the maximum attribute cap that R@S placed of 255. Again, without knowing for sure, I'd imagine that having Parameters and Skills at that high a number would make one's character virtually a god (where's the fun in that?), so R@S' leveling up setup may still work well in the bigger picture (which, again, I haven't been able to experience yet).
I hopped on to chat last night, but no one else was on. I logged in at 23:00 hours your time. Hopefully soon we can all bump minds on that thing! :grin:
I'm a bit tired after a very long day, but I'll try to explain it as best I can.
When you start a new game, after the vanilla skill distribution system, you'll get the opportunity to re-arrange the Parameters as well. This is the only opprtunity you'll ever get to decrease any stats, so the dialog changes mentioned dint make much sense to me. And these dialogs are "fixed", you can browse them as much as you like without having the "too long dialog tree" CTD.
Since you get 3 Skill points and 3 Parameter point to spend at every level up, this will be enough point at each level without the rick of a CTD. And I plan to remove the cheaterlvl function as soon as the testing of the system is complete, so no CTD by cheating either. In the meantime, please exit the Kill Book dialog when you sense that it's getting close to the limit, the point will still be there to spend afterward.
The level system is not tied to the CGL of the game, it's completely independent from it and is based on kills. After 20 kills you'll get to level 2, at 30 you'll get level 3 and so forth until you reach level 9, which requires 100 kills to avhieve. All the other levels also requires a 100 kills, and there are 100 levels. In the end, if you've killed 10550 enemies you would have had 300 skill points and 300 parameter points to spend. And I can also reward the player a few more points by adding it to the reward system in quests, making the total even higher.
Since I now have a new game progression variable, I can ignore the hard-coded CGL's and have things available at player class level instead. I could also have special shops available, selling stuff dependant on what class and level you have achieved, circumventing the entire vanilla CGL's.
MoreDread
07-20-2010, 10:28 PM
aaalrighty then!
*the following is sung to Eric Carmen's awful classic "All by Myself"--go here if you're into REALLY bad music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4WQfkRhb30&feature=related*
I'm on Mibbit
all by myself
I'm on Mibbit
all by myself
Two nights in a row,
how long can a man go?
Being on Mibbit
all alone!
I'm on Mibbit
all by myself
Ohhh-ohhh!!!
I'm on Mibbit
all by myself...
*sniff-sniff* :cry:
Now, on a more serious note...
Sounds to me as though R@S has his brain wrapped pretty tightly around the whole point-earning/spending aspect of the game. His plans sound pretty solid to me.
It's weird that there could be a day where the cgl-system won't even be a part of the thing anymore!
On a certain level, that makes sense. I'm trusting that R@S is going to cook something up that's understandable and far more organic and less "forced" than what's in 7.62mm by default.
R@S, one of the things that I've been thinking about is that 7.62 is missing some "flavor" objects that could be used tactically, and what I mean by that is stuff like an abandoned, rusting van whose side door is open, and part of the wall on the other side of the cab has been blown away, either by an auto accident or an explosion or... Anyway, the point is, this model could be spawned randomly nearly at any location, "fit" in to its surroundings, and offer the Player and the AI an object that would offer concealment/cover, and allow people to fire rounds from the opening.
Crashed helicopters with open crew bays, dilapidated shanty huts, abandoned construction (large piles of cinder blocks with rotting boards, with weeds growing wildly through them, a half finished building that's been vandalized, a now-useless cement mixing machine, etc.), even a fishing trawler with a huge hole running through its belly and sides (that was one POWERFUL hurricane!) could appear anywhere, not look out of place, be randomly spawned, and offer up terrain that could be used by the Player/AI.
Is this kind of thing doable, and would MoreDread be interested in doing work along these lines, or...?
Time to go. :grin:
MoreDread
I'm not so tired today and think I understand your suggestions better. Are you thinking of having the dialog screen stay at the same page after a point has been spent? That could easily be done I think, unless it's one of those shared ones from the starting dialogs. i'll look into it.
Kyle
If you had been there a little earlier we would've met, I think I logged out around that time. I only have 2 more days of double shifts, then I'll have more time to spend online and wont have to hit the sack so early.
I've moved some quests around, the Koan quests has been moved to Crazy Bob so that they aren't that important anymore. I think i'll start on the new missions this weekend, I now have a lot of new maps to use for them. I think the chat will be very helpful in their development, Dodger and I made some pretty good ones that way. I hope y'all will help out with the process.
MoreDread
07-21-2010, 10:50 PM
yea thats pretty much what i meant...
i just tried to come up with an idea that would be a little more user friendly and at the same time at least put some delay on the ctd thats caused by cluttering the conversation window.
its true that when playing without the cheat you probably won't make it happen during normal gameplay. but some people like to save their points for later and with a max of 300 points it could happen. also theres the 'character creation' where you could theoretically move an infinte amount of points around.
thats why i added that only the skill you are currently raising/lowering should be updated with the new value and shown, and not the entire skill list.
for example: ( '<' is the question '>' are your choices and '->' is the one you pick)
< you have 0 parameter points and 0 skill points what kind of statistic would you like to change?
> parameters
> skills
> nothing, i'm done with the character creation process.
-> parameters
-------
< physical or mental parameters?
> physical
> mental
> back
-> physical
-------
< which parameter would you like to change?
> HP: 100
> energy: 100
> strength : 80
> agility: 70
> dexterity: 50
> stamina: 80
-> stamina
-------
< your current stamina is: 80, you have 0 points left to spend on parameters
> raise
> decrement
> back
-> decrement
-------
< your current stamina is: 79, you have 1 point left to spend on parameters
-> decrement
-------
< your current stamina is: 78, you have 2 point left to spend on parameters
etc.
-------
that way you wouldn't have to display the list of parameters for every single point you add/remove and you could more easily adjust a character to your personal needs without getting a ctd (as it is now, i'm crashing after removing and then adding 30-50 points)
also note that i put the list of the parameters only in the players response, marked by '>' and not the actual conversation window.
that should also reduce the cluttering of the window quite a bit, as only the one you pick gets printed to it.
now i don't know if you can actually show the value of the players statistics in the response. if this is possible then i think it would be the most effective way to do it. if not you might still do it that way, but include the choice to have your stats printed to the conversation window...
< which parameter would you like to change?
> HP
> energy
> strength
> agility
> dexterity
> stamina
> show current parameters
also i have divided the parameters into physical and mental because as we know, you can't fit them all into the same dialog, and this would allow making a somewhat informed choice without having to look at the first half of it, and then have 'more' as a response to see the other half, i just pulled physical/mental out of my a$5 ... you could use class/nonclass or something else, whatever you prefer. the main idea is that you don't have to view the whole list upfront to make your choice.
on a sidenote: i didn't have much luck in getting the model exported yet... i have spent some time making a new one from scratch with less polies on it to rule out the fact that a too high poly count may be causing the crashes. i should be able to finish it and try again tomorrow.
Once again, the character creation process does not cause a CTD, you can increase/decrease it as much as you like and nothing bad will happen. You might notice a small flicker of the dialog window when you press the Parameter you wanna increase/decrease, that happens because I made the dialog process shut down and then open up again. I just tested it again, lowering my Energy to 10, it left me 90 points to spend. I put those on the Health, all in one go. No CTD. I had more than 180 dialog screens without any problems. And there isn't that much clutter in the dialogs, it just prints how many points you have left to spend. I think the way it's set up now is the system with the least amount of clicking and browsing that the engine limitations permits, and that's my goal, I hate too much clicking;) btw, are you using the lastest version(v6)?
The level up system is something completely different, and implementing a similar shut down/open up process is much more complicated. I might be able to do it, but since the CTD threshold is around 25 points, I've felt that it wouldn't be necessary. But if I can figure out a simple way to do it, I will, promise:)
EDIT:
The shutdown/ open up process uses the PrintGreetings() phrase, it was the only way I could get the dialog to start up again properly. As it is now it's used by the creation process, but I guess i could put an "if" function on it to send the player to the right dialog screen. That would mean I could implement a similar system for the level up system without too much of a hassle, I'll see if I have enough energy to do that when I get home tonight.
EDIT again:
Here's the latest source code files. It's only for MoreDread since he's the only one using the Reloaded maps addon:
http://www.mediafire.com/?qkr6mv5k4dv89p3
Just put the files in your \7.62\Quests\RAS\ folder.
MoreDread
07-23-2010, 09:32 PM
cool, i'll check it out right away.
should we chat again this weekend? i've got enough time now, but i might not be around on the next 3. i'll be hangin around in there for as long as i'm awake today, too.
btw.. i still haven't figured out a way to export the model, but it's mainly because i got sidetracked working on a high poly model of the gun.
this has almost no relevance to 7.62 modding.. well it might help me create some better textures for the gun if you could help me with figuring out the polygon limit of the engine.
i literally spent the whole of my free day working on it.. and i'm quite happy with the result, so since i didn't have any success with the export, let me at least post some pictures of the hi poly version.
http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/9281/colt191103.jpg
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/4471/colt191102.jpg
and while searching for references, i stumbled across this website...
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2009/12/21/hera-1911-carbine-kit/
people are crazy
MoreDread,
Those models look GREAT! Am I happy that you're onboard! :grin:
And the link to the HERA 1911...we have to get one of those in-game. It's too crazy to avoid! :grin:
Had a hard day today. I finally finished the porch, but there are two doors covered in flaking lead paint. I got them primed, but what I never thought about was the door frames which extend beyond the door's thickness both on the outside and inside. I'm not shelling out more money to test those areas, so I'm just going to assume that they were painted when the doors were painted (the frames aren't as flaky as the doors so the paint job looks newer), and I'll have to address them too. Supposed to rain all day tomorrow, so...
Good night, and keep up the great looking work! :)
I'll be available at the chat all weekend, and the coming week as well since I have 12 days vacation, HURRAY!:)
I've made some changes to the number of kills needed to reach the next levels, I think that I actually never killed more than 3000 before I finished the game. As it is now, 8000 kills are needed for level 100, and the first 25 levels can be reached after 50 kills each. I was thinking of changing the next 25 levels to 75 kills and then the last 50 levels at 100 kills.
The new testing base files are now uploaded, but since you two already have a working version you can use that until you decide it's time for a clean install again. I plan to make at least one new mission this weekend, and if you have time to help me test it I'd be grateful. You know where to reach me.
While fixing the "DisableCapturing" setting in the OutsourcedConfig.ini I discovered that I could actually fix the already existing AI. It would be much simpler than rewriting it from scratch and I think the economic system already in place can be tweaked to a satisfactory level.
All I have to do is add a few sector heads to the maps that doesn't have them, there are 5 of them in the vanilla game, then make 6 new ones for the Rekoaded maps. I'll do that this weekend, it wont take much time.
MoreDread and Kyle, I've sent you the latest files, I made a few new missions and tweaked the class system as I mentioned earlier. If you have time we'll chat about it later.
I'm sorry for my absence and lack of testing. :(
Tested the basement's floor for lead paint, and...
Of COURSE it's COVERED in it! :evil:
We're tapped out financially, so I'm not going to be able to paint the whole thing by the end of this summer. I decided instead to clean/paint a path to our small freezer and then the steps that lead out to the backyard. These are easily the most heavily trafficked areas down there, so they have to be addressed, or otherwise we'll be tracking that stuff upstairs to where the kids are.
I am so SORE from being stooped over all day every day! Can't feel either of my hands from the wrists-down, due to leaning on them all of the time.
Sorry for venting, but this is a nightmare for me. I never imagined a day where one's home is one's own worst enemy, and yet here I am anyway. :cry:
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It's been hard to keyboard anything, but over the past several days I've been making updates to the original campaign proposal. I'm fleshing it out so that it makes more sense, has a structure that's grounded more firmly in military doctrine, and the like. Double-checking stuff with some valuable sources to ensure as much immersion as possible.
I'm also making it easier for anyone to read it and instantly go, "Oh yeah, that makes sense..." programming-wise by color coding things.
I'm hoping to be done with it by tomorrow evening.
We'll see.
I'd be testing, except that my hands are so shot that I'm stuck with either choosing to flesh out vital campaign points or test out the latest build. I badly want to do both, but the numbness gets insurmountable after about 45 minutes, which is very little time to thoroughly test (and then I have to write up my report), but is enough time to get some solid writing done.
Gotta go and apply my time before it's gone!
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