[DONE] [Suggestion] Random manufacturing

[Meridian]

11. RANDOM MANUFACTURING
Priority: low
Justification: I know you don't like this idea, but I have some potential uses for it - mostly to do away with some random treasure lists, which are awesome but not optimal in some cases. Still, nothing really revolutionary.

@Solar/Drages/all:
So, let me know what do you expect from this feature and how should the ruleset definition look like...

[drages]

Thx for opening this topic.

Randomization is something to break linear game play. For example, You want to create an ultimate weapon as a rare thing, maybe 1 or 2 for total game. To able to make this, you need to create very special game conditions (with much modding skill to code all the unique missions, characters, items, story) or gazillion of A-B-C items to limit to manufacture that weapon. This could be happen for huge mods like X-Com Files which got many story elements and objects to use for unique things. BUT you need to give huge time and knowledge to create such thing.

So you just want to add a more powerful plasma weapon to game. You can only do that just making the required items hell of a number.. like 150x heavy plasma.. is it cool? nop...

You can make a special manufacture, name "Ultimate Plasma Weapon Project" and it could need 5x Heavy Plasma.. the result could be some Alien Allow, Elerium and %5 possibility a next generation plasma rifle. I can create many possibilities over this.. New armor, new energy resources, longer and mostly unpredictable/non-linear game play. Another possibility is to change all the research structure of alien tech. You can get alien power core tech just with one alien power core for example.. but you can make a manufacture to obtain the alien core from it with a percentage, you just cannot figure out alien tech with just a core (it could be done with randomize % research code too).

Randomization should be everywhere to have a complete line. Research, Manufacture and Loot. OpenXcom allows re-research something from same source (which xenonauts does not have), so this researches can have percentage possibilities. So you can find something very unique when you interrogate 12. sectoid... because he wants to talk more then other 11.. why not?
To get random stuff from aliens is very nice. Yes, you can do it already now, but it comes sooner or later rather then being very unique with special possibility code.. maybe first time maybe never..

For loot randomization, as here https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,6868.0.html , loot transform (shortcut to have tons of mini manufactures for looted items) should have this too, so you can have a good working plasma weapon core from all the alien gear you collected with %5 chance per weapon.. Because all of the alien weapons just self-destruct, but sometimes they are less damaged..
You can create manufacture for every loot to get random items from them but it would kill the system because of ultra boring tons of projects. Random Loot Transform with random manufacture is very smooth streamlined experience. Having random research to this is just perfection.

As code part, very simple for me ..

Code: [Select]

producedItems:
     STR_ALIEN_ALLOY: 2-5 #RANDOMİZE 2 TO 5
     STR_ELENIUM: 1-3
     STR_POWER_CORE:0,50-1,35-2,15 #NO CORE %50, 1 CORE %35, 2 CORE %15
Thank you!

[Nord]

+1!
I think a syntax must be equal to random research.

[Solarius Scorch]

I must say I am not as excited about it as before; Meridian convinced me that it would be easily abused by savescumming, and actually would encourage it more than most RNG elements. But on the other hand I am aware that modders will find ways to use it beyond my wildest imaginations, so... let them worry about it.

As for the actual format, I don't have much, except that it would be a list instead of one item... But you can already have lists (for producing multiple items), so I suppose we would need new options:
1. A random item is chosen from a list of items (like in random loot from maps); for example a project "open the purse" can give you either a diamond, a ruby, or a gold coin.
2. A random set of items is chosen from a list of sets of items; for example a project "open the box" can give you either 10 diamonds + 1000 gold coins, or 1 steel helmet + 1 plate mail + 1 set of gauntlets, or 1 Scroll of Up Yours Player You Get Nothing.
3. (Optional) Like 1 and 2, but you get to also define a number of resulting items; possibly also whether they can be mixed or not. (Just like the random items from maps.)

I don't feel competent enough to actually suggest the syntax, though.

[Nord]

Must admit, that this feature is more useful in my case than itemtransformation. In fact, one can replace transformation with some processing in most cases.
But Solarius is right, you never can imagine how something will be used by curious people.

[Solarius Scorch]

I've only just read the [Suggestion] Item recovery transformation topic and I also think that

to recover tons of various loot instead of a loot box (and skip the manufacturing project to open a loot box)

is a better solution than getting random items from manufacturing, for two reasons:
1. Less savescumming potential.
2. Less hassle on the players part.

So if I were to choose between the two, I'd certainly go with item recovery transformation. But I'm sure some things can be done with random manufacturing which cannot be done with random item recovery, it would be nice to have both, I guess.

[Dioxine]

2. A random set of items is chosen from a list of sets of items; for example a project "open the box" can give you either 10 diamonds + 1000 gold coins, or 1 steel helmet + 1 plate mail + 1 set of gauntlets, or 1 Scroll of Up Yours Player You Get Nothing.

This is what I imagined it would look like. Allow to set a selection of "boxes", maybe with syntax something like this:

Code: [Select]

    producedItemsRandom:
      RANDOM_SET_1: 60
          STR_DIAMOND: 10
          STR_GOLD: 1000
      RANDOM_SET_2: 40
          STR_OLD_BOOT: 1

So this would give you 60% chance of manufacturing set 1, and 40% of set 2...

[drages]

So if I were to choose between the two, I'd certainly go with item recovery transformation. But I'm sure some things can be done with random manufacturing which cannot be done with random item recovery, it would be nice to have both, I guess.

As I said, this is a system which needs randomization at every aspect. It could look that one is enough but when you start one, you will need others to complete your ideas. Random loot transformation is just seamless random manufacture line. Smooth play is very important for player here. Ppl should able to get boring clicking as less as we can. I like to play xcom as long as it gets without finishing it.. but i dont like to make 50 manufacture to just able to make find a rare item.

For this reason, unlimited researches with percentage possibilities could bring you tons of options for any part of the game.

[Meridian]

So you can find something very unique when you interrogate 12. sectoid... because he wants to talk more then other 11.. why not?

If I play the game for the very first time and the first Sectoid doesn't give me anything, I will probably try the second one; some people may even try a third one. Nobody tries a fourth one.

If I play the game for the second time or more; and the first Sectoid doesn't give me anything, I immediately stop researching Sectoids.

What exactly is the motivation for the player to "try again"? How is he even supposed to know that something "might happen"?

[drages]

If I play the game for the very first time and the first Sectoid doesn't give me anything, I will probably try the second one; some people may even try a third one. Nobody tries a fourth one.

If I play the game for the second time or more; and the first Sectoid doesn't give me anything, I immediately stop researching Sectoids.

What exactly is the motivation for the player to "try again"? How is he even supposed to know that something "might happen"?

I can be maybe wrong, but vanilla game does not tell you about anything with the interrogations of the same alien will give you more things.. like ufo info.. So just adding some info about the possibility of finding new things from interrogations at ufopedia with the first interrogation would be enough to inform player. After all possible researches acquired,  we can inform player with everything done again with ufopedia.

An alien navigator can give you ufo info but with a little chance it can give you "Advanced Ufo Crafting" tech which make you upgrade your aircrafts.. so you can craft MK 2's... you can live without it, but it would be a nice bonus. You can get this info when you interrogate "every" navigator races for %100 percentage if you want to make this for sure to get in a game play.

A commander can give you very nice things with some possibilities too, mostly for endgame.. maybe you want to make things harder and longer to get.. so every commander got some chance to give you the viral information.. but only when you get all the things,you can get that info for %100..

[Meridian]

OpenXcom checks if the alien can still tell you anything... and if not, it won't allow you to research anymore.

Note sure how OG worked, probably it allowed, but as I said, as soon as I saw that Sectoid Soldier doesn't tell me anything, I stopped trying.

[drages]

OpenXcom checks if the alien can still tell you anything... and if not, it won't allow you to research anymore.

Note sure how OG worked, probably it allowed, but as I said, as soon as I saw that Sectoid Soldier doesn't tell me anything, I stopped trying.

At fiest sectoid soldier interrogation ufopedia could say "We need to interrogate more to find out any secrets.Even we fail to get any info from some of them, there could be one who is more willingly to talk.."

And a mod with randomization would tell this kind of things at mod info anyway..

[Meridian]

well, open another thread for research and describe how should it work.... research has many more attributes than manufacture, some depending on each other; it can unlock zero, one or a million topics at once, it can show one to four pedia entries at once, etc. Do you want random on project level, or on attribute level, or on attribute item level, or on all of them and how would it work if one passes and another one doesn't, etc.

if someone makes a complete and meaningful proposal, we'll see...

[drages]

well, open another thread for research and describe how should it work.... research has many more attributes than manufacture, some depending on each other; it can unlock zero, one or a million topics at once, it can show one to four pedia entries at once, etc. Do you want random on project level, or on attribute level, or on attribute item level, or on all of them and how would it work if one passes and another one doesn't, etc.

if someone makes a complete and meaningful proposal, we'll see...

To be honest, research got many feature already so maybe i can do what i want as it is. So manufacture and loot randomization is enough for projects in my mind.. after that if i need something to fill, i can tell you then.

[Meridian]

So, the syntax would look like this:

Code: [Select]

    randomProducedItems:
      -
        - 60
        - STR_MOTION_SCANNER: 4
          STR_MEDI_KIT: 3
          STR_PSI_AMP: 2
      -
        - 40
        - STR_MOTION_SCANNER: 40
          STR_MEDI_KIT: 30

or alternatively (both are accepted):

Code: [Select]

    randomProducedItems:
      - [60, {STR_MOTION_SCANNER: 9, STR_MEDI_KIT: 8, STR_PSI_AMP: 7}]
      - [40, {STR_MOTION_SCANNER: 5, STR_MEDI_KIT: 6}]


PS: random manufacture will be able to produce only items, no craft
PS2: 60 and 40 are weights, not percentages... 6 and 4 would accomplish the same result

EDIT: Also, it won't be possible to auto-sell when random manufacture is involved

Question: How would you like to inform the user what will he get from the project? (on the attached screen)

Hoping for answer/feedback like:
1/ don't show anything to the player
2/ tell player it's gonna be random, but not any details
3/ tell player all the details/possibilities
4/ make a popup each time something is produced about what was actually done
5/ something even more crazy
6/ etc.