Solar's wishlist

[Eddie]

I second posting links to repos, that way I can merge them in even if Meridian doesn't like it (like the awesome, cheesy but so much easier to use that it's worth it scanner)

Could you please post your executable for the folk like me who don't know how to merge and build their own executable?

[Arthanor]

You could only display it for researched enemies. I think that is doable and would not be cheaty. The point is to hide the math from the player. Think Blowpipe vs Osiron Security. Another example: Self Charging Laspistol vs Mechtoid. Takes a lot of shots, but you can kill a Mechtoid with that.

Now that I'm thinking about enemy info: The mind probe should show resistances too, and not just armor. Would have to solve the display space problem first though.

The thing is, if a weapon is 0-200% or 50-150% is not always clear. If that were explicitly stated in the Bootypeadia, I would say it's not that important (something for the nerd button). But right now I still have to look in the ruleset from time to time because I'm not sure about the damage range. I would still prefer to have the damage range, because why no. It does not use that much more space and saves me a little bit of math.

Randomness is stated most of the time, or part of a broad category (melee is 50-150%, plasma stun and ranged is 0-200%) and a good half the time the lower limit would be zero, which is wasting space for nothing. I think average power is enough, like in the ufopaedia.

I also think armor and resistance should be left to the player. resistance*TotalPower - Armor*ArmorPiercing is already a lot better than resistance * (StatMod1 * Stat1 + StatMod2 * Stat2 + Base Damage) * RangePowerLoss - Armor * Armor Piercing and keeping things independent of enemies allow you to quickly gauge which weapon is on average better for a gal.

We still need ideas how to display this stuff for melee weapons though, because they don't have a target crosshair. And melee weapons is where this would be most helpful because these are the bulk of stat dependent damage items.

A very good point, maybe in the attack bar next to the "Hit" or "Stun" keyword?

[/quote]

Could you please post your executable for the folk like me who don't know how to merge and build their own executable?

I could publish my code on github.

What I have is an executable that *should* work on Xubuntu 14.04 (I compile individually on my different computers even though they share the same OS because I figured there's a small chance of it going wrong and I'd rather waste idle computer time compiling than my active time debugging) and I have no idea (nor interest in learning) how to compile for others.

My stuff isn't very different from Meridian's, except for having a few cheaty/ott things that he/Dioxine rejected (the scanner and extra inventory stats are all I can think of right now. I use to have statistical ammo conservation and manufacturing profit too, but it got pulled so now everyone has it).

[Dioxine]

You could only display it for researched enemies. I think that is doable and would not be cheaty. The point is to hide the math from the player. Think Blowpipe vs Osiron Security. Another example: Self Charging Laspistol vs Mechtoid. Takes a lot of shots, but you can kill a Mechtoid with that.

Then it's not cheaty but Friendly Tell-You-All Advisor, which is also bad. The player should get info about weapons damage, but come on. I'd feel insulted as a player if the game was so forthcoming. I want my math in the game, thank you.
Also, there is problem with 'what research?'. In Piratez, you usually have to research the corpse to get resses, but sometimes corpse is shared, and you need to research live enemy.
I'd be happy if there was a "target analyzer" function available to enable in Mind Probe type items, which will display you sort of a fake armor entry for the enemy, with their paperdoll, weapon(s) held, and armor values AND resistances (maybe resistances only in broad terms, like 'immune', 'very resistant' (1-20%), 'resistant' (21-70%), 'normal' (71-110), 'susceptible' (111+).

Displaying damage ranges would tell you nothing, since both Gaussian double-dice, and UFO single-dice have the exact same ranges while differing very substantially in the chance for rolling high or low.

[Solarius Scorch]

While watching Meridian's LP (ep. 155), I've decided to add another one:

Upgradeable facilities
An option to make facilities upgrades from other facilities, like Barracks -> Luxury Barracks. The new building replaces the old building. It would still cost time and money, but the old building would still function until the new one is complete (so no need to send soldiers away, for example).

[Arthanor]

Have you ever tried to sleep in a room that's being renovated (ie worked on during the day and you'd sleep there at night)? Or use a bathroom that's also being worked on? They certainly don't work with 100% efficiency. ~50% if you're lucky, and trying to keep things ~50% useable would probably slow the work (by requiring extra precautions) by a significant amount too.

I sort of agree that destroying/selling normal barracks to build luxury ones on top is annoying and silly and that it should be faster to upgrade than to build in a new slot, but definitely not 100% efficiency on the old building.

It could be made so the upgrade process has a global, ruleset defined, old building efficiency, cost reduction (% of old building construction cost) and time reduction (% of old building construction time), then that could be tweaked and useful. After all, you should save time when building a luxury barracks on top of a vault (don't have to dig or rebuild the foundations) too, and you can store crap in parts of the vault while converting others.

[Solarius Scorch]

Well, half the reason for the suggestion is that there's a problem with the people who sleep there - you need to sends them to another base or something...

Maybe it's not a good idea, but I think it's acceptable if the old building stayed active. After all, gals upgrade it themselves, and they're not sleeping when they're working, right?

[Arthanor]

I'm just saying that keeping the old building that's being demolished at 100% efficiency while demolishing it is not really realistic. For having lived in a house under renovations, rooms that are being renovated are not nearly at 100% capacity. 50% maybe. But in practice we didn't use them at all (so 0% efficiency). During the work, the house actually accommodated 1/3 the normal number of people. We could have lived there, but that would have been at the cost of reducing the useability of other rooms further and our comfort/morale would also have suffered

The variation of perceptions is why I suggested global efficiencies being definable in the ruleset. If you think you can have as many people sleep in a demolition/construction site as in properly built rooms, you can set the efficiency to 100%  (and you can't argue that they're sleeping in the workshop or something since those are also running at 100% efficiency with runts using all the space). Meanwhile I can set it to 25-50% for my mod because I think organized rooms can accommodate more people than a half-built space with junk everywhere.

Just saying if we're going to have the feature, it might be better to think about these at the same time. Otherwise, after the upgrade mechanic is put, someone will request lower building efficiency and the code will have to be revisited, which takes longer than designing and doing it properly all at once.

[Solarius Scorch]

Ye, I fully agree with your conclusions.

[KateMicucci]

If the purpose of the suggestion is to remove the headache of having to get remove gals while the facility is being rebuilt, then lowering efficiency during the upgrade defeats the point.

[Arthanor]

 

Would you also support a feature that only enabled ignoring 100% of armor for guns instead of letting modders decide how much is ignored, because the purpose was to ignore armor?

If the aim of the modder is to make it easy to upgrade, they set efficiency to 100%. If they want to help but just a bit, they can set it to 50%. You can do the whole range with the efficiency, instead of only a binary choice. What's not to like?

[Dioxine]

I have no idea what could be the purpose of 'building upgrades' in this game, other than making GUI more complicated (as opposed to razing old building and constructing a new one).

[yrizoud]

The game engine is player-friendly when you can start building a new facility in a free block, and when it's complete, if you need the space, destroy the old one (ex: large sonar "replacing" small sonar). When you reach a point in a game/mod where a base is filled and the game/mod requires you to build more in the same base, it's an uncomfortable situation.

I think any mod/TC should avoid this situation, because unless the player already knows EVERYTHING in advance, there is no way he can plan his base development. For example if the last-tier research will require 6 different buildings in the same base, I want to know in advance, to save the spots (and not build them in 6 different bases).

[Dioxine]

Then you will just raze some useless crap and build these 6 buildings. What's the problem?

[Solarius Scorch]

OK, I've been convinced, deleting this point.

[yrizoud]

Which 'useless crap' ? In 5 minutes, an other research topic may unlock something which requires it.
Game: "HA-HA! I made you destroy it. Now what *else* do you destroy, in order to rebuild it?"
Me: *shoots screen*