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Incline Compound (formerly known as Shelter) update thread

shihonage

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COMPOUND: (a CRPG which is NOT A MOD of Fallout: Tactics)

94Xa8.jpg
 

MisterStone

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So you guys are definitely scrapping the FO:T tile art? Sounds great; I was afraid I would have to buy that crap game in order to play this when it comes out.

Maybe you can just buy the assets from that crappy Eastern European fallout ripoff, what was it called... ?


Er, wait, is this going to be a commercial release?
 

shihonage

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Yes, unless something goes horribly wrong, we're scrapping the FO:T art.

I think I know what ripoff you mean, but I forgot its name. It is certainly an idea.

Yes, we plan to be a commercial release. Preceded by an alpha demo (like Fallout was).
 

getter77

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I look forward to trying a team based almost entirely upon throwing people around! Best of luck with this and keep posting cool stuff as it gets wrangled.
 

Ogg

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PwRT... how ironical.

Other than that, nice bits of info here. Really looking forward to next weekly update.
 

Shoelip

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It lives!



08_12_21_HolyFuckingShit.jpg


So um, I've been wanting to know, how will that non-lethal combat or whatever that was supposed to be pat of this work?
 

shihonage

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Thanks guys.

Ogg: I had turn-based combat working before, and went through several stages of design before adopting PwRT.

In Fallout, turn-based combat worked because the boundaries of the world effectively ended at the town border.

In Shelter, there's no boundaries. This creates problems determining combat participants. Who to freeze, who to unfreeze, and when. Is it merely a radius. If so, how long-range weapons will work into this. Will the unfrozen have an unfair advantage until they walk into the frozen area of turn-based events. What would be the turn queue for that. How many separate turn queues should be spawned in the game at any given moment. How do you draw exact boundaries between one "turn-based combat encounter" and corresponding queue, and the others. Can they merge ? Should the entire world freeze and 1400 active entities take their turns...

In the end, it didn't work so well no matter what I did. It would've worked if we had maps like Fallout, but in Shelter, at any moment someone can run in from the big map and attack the town guards.

That's when the PwRT approach was adopted.

Shoelip: We're still tuning combat, including the non-lethal part of it.. Right now people give up before they are allowed to be finished off. A white flag appears above their head. For player, giving up is a choice. When an NPC gives up to player, in combat targeting menu you see an option to loot them, and they can't do anything about it.

Some NPCs will never give up, or will specifically not give up to factions hostile to theirs.

Those that do give up, are frozen for an interval, and the victor comes up to them and takes their most expensive weapon. If they persist and attack again, they get finished off.

We're still working out the kinks of that mechanism and its interaction with inter-faction relations.
 

Shoelip

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Hm, sounds like a start but I hope the difference ends up being deeper than just having them still running around after you beat them. I was really interested in this when I first hear it would try to implement non-lethal combat because most CRPGs don't even bother with that particular aspect of RPG mechanics, just to avoid the repercussions. That is, the possibility of interacting with hostile NPC through means other than simply hitting them until they stop moving. The only game I know of that actually included a non-lethal combat mechanic, only did so for the sake of obsessive fidelity to the rules, which isn't a bad thing as such, but it really didn't add anything to the game either since none of the repercussions of being able to defeat an enemy without ending their life were taken into account. Heck ToEE even let you use raise dead on enemies but they still acted exactly like they had before you killed and stripped them.
 

shihonage

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Well, the one obvious repercussion to beating someone to a pulp is losing reputation with their faction. The more you lose, the more quests close up with that faction, you eventually will get cut off from their doctor and ammo supply, etc.

Killing someone will carry a much higher price, almost irredeemable through good deeds. Unless they are a scumbag hated among their own, in which case they'll have a custom human-life-worth variable which may just be zero.

The principle of people reacting differently after you just beat the hell out of them must be implemented. So far I did a manual implementation of it for one person - if you non-lethally-defeated her, her description changed to "She looks angry", and next time you talked to her she'd force you to apologize lest you are cut off from further interaction/questing with her.

This was done outside of the C code, using the scripting language Shelter parses, but it was still a lot of manual work and I need to add this functionality to the person-compiler-tool.
 

Shoelip

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Yeah, it's the people reacting to you differently after you've just beaten them that I was interested in. Several games have things where you can kill someone, then his that person's friends will hate you, I was interested in this game because it looks you'll be able to thrash someone and then have them decide that they don't want to end up dead, and decide not continue fighting you at least until something changes in their favor.

What would be even cooler is if you could knock people unconscious and take them prisoner then decide what to do with them. Sell them into slavery, try to work out your differences and befriend them, finish them off, let them go... :)
 
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Re: Shelter dev. update thread.

shihonage said:
It is PwRT. Unlike RTwP combat where you freeze the world at will, with PwRT the world is frozen UNLESS you perform an action or move. This takes flinch response out of the equation.

The combat has firearms, melee weapons, and a basic throw system that is still being developed. Right now you have inertia which, properly utilized, allows you to knock people unconscious by slamming into them. It also reduces your chance of being hit with firearms.
You mean moving makes you harder to hit?

Have you expanded the team or is it just you and your cousin?

Looking forward to future updates.
 

shihonage

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Shelter development update 11/11/09
_____________________________________

I will not be lamenting real-life issues that continuously impede progress of a hobby project such as Shelter. Nobody wants to hear that.

Another consideration - major "OMG we just made an awesome thing and it is awesome" updates are a rarity in such a complex project. So, I'll be focusing on what has been done every week. No matter how insignificant, no matter how technical it may seem, it is all part of a larger plan.

___

So, this week, I quickly realized that the decision to merge Player's reputation with in-game factions into Achievements was a mistake. It's rather stupid to have a "Reputation with Robotic Frogs" range from -5 to 5, and it also confuses the future scripting, where on the "Evil" scale -5 is supposed to be greater than -4, which is at odds with math's definition of "GREATER".

So, Player's reputation has been moved back into Faction Relation Matrix. Faction Relation Matrix used to be trinary - containing values of F_NEUTRAL, F_HOSTILE and F_FRIENDLY. It will remain this way for inter-faction relations, which, for the sake of sanity, will remain very clear-cut.

When it comes to relations between factions F_PLAYER<-->F_ANY_OTHER_FACTION, however, the stored value is no longer trinary. It is a negative or positive number, and it affects Reputation Achievements.

There are now TWO Master branches of Reputation Achievements for each Faction. "Friend" and "Enemy". They both rise in levels starting from 1, according to reputation value tiers defined for each.

This makes it more intuitive. A "(2) Greater Enemy" of faction F_ROBOTICFROGS is Higher in level of that Master Achievement than merely "(1) So-so Enemy", just like a "(2) Greater Friend" is - in relation to its own Master Achievement branch.

___

This week, I also implemented proper support of Achievement-locked dialogue options. These options existed for a year, however we lacked the tools to automate their use. Much of Shelter relies on an external scripting language, which we would've named ShelterScript if it wasn't for unfortunate alliteration. However, coding in this language is as much of a bitch as coding inside Shelter itself. This is why making external tools was mandatory.

Now the tools and Shelter are in sync, and the functionality is as follows:

Any line that you say to an NPC, including those that invite us into quest description, can be locked into Achievement requirements.

For example, the NPC says: "I am so bored here, I want to see the world !", - an opening to them becoming your party member.
One of your dialogue options would say "I will show you the world - shining, shimmering, splendid !", and it would be in red. Underneath it you will see "Achievement required: Explorer: Visited 5 or more settlements".

If you click on it despite it being red, you will get a blow-off, such as "You ain't from 'round here, I dun' trust ya 'nuff. Ahyuck burp".

Reputation Achievements can be used in similar manner to control which quests are accessible based on how much the Faction trusts you at a given moment.

This is explicitly designed to avoid the Trustworthy Idiot NPC Syndrome (TINS) where you come into a new town, nobody knows you, yet they will go "Psst... hey kid, wanna blow up a nuclear bomb ? We've just met, but something tells me you're more trustworthy than any of these other people I've known my whole life".

It is highly unnatural and it breaks immersion. On a related note, when you initiate dialogue with people, they will rarely, if ever,go "Greetings, traveler, and welcome to our glorious village of Sandy Shades !". In many cases they will ignore you until you initiate dialogue - from whichever angle your current Achievements may allow you to do so.

Also, killing someone of a faction reduces your reputation with them. A few weeks ago the uncomfortable variable has been introduced which measures an individual's "worth" with a given faction, in terms of reputation you lose after killing them.

What is the true measure of a man ? I don't know... but right now it's 50 points.
 

Trithne

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Interesting ideas there. One thing though: Do you feel it's necessary to have the text options so clearly indicate 'THIS WON'T WORK' to the player? Highlighted in red, and then saying 'If you go and do this thing, then this option will work' seems pretty bad to me. Basically, what you describe is an excellent system for tracking these sorts of variables, but keep it in the backend, don't show the player what they need to 'achieve'.
 

shihonage

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Trithne said:
Interesting ideas there. One thing though: Do you feel it's necessary to have the text options so clearly indicate 'THIS WON'T WORK' to the player? Highlighted in red, and then saying 'If you go and do this thing, then this option will work' seems pretty bad to me. Basically, what you describe is an excellent system for tracking these sorts of variables, but keep it in the backend, don't show the player what they need to 'achieve'.

The traditional options of hiding the non-qualified dialogue choices are also available, and will be used where appropriate, but the purpose behind THIS functionality is product of a lot of thought and discussion.

The goal is to make dialogue into more than clicking-through-all-the-shit-you-need-to-click-through. It has to be a game of cards. Multiple achievements (on OR basis) can activate a single dialogue option-or-quest. Numerous achievements can cancel each other out. Seeing what's available in advance from several people around town lets you plan your character development path (the character being sum of his achievements) and calculate your sacrifices.
 

shihonage

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Shelter development update 11/18/09

This week, an SSL (Shelter Scripting Language) command "MACH_LVLCHK[]" was created to check if Master Achievement branch is between levels X and Y, and whether no branch of such Master Achievement has been earned by Player at all.

The default NPC greeting that they used to take from individual files of randomized phrases, has been discontinued. Instead, root-level dialogue bricks are now used to define what NPC says when you click on them.

The base condition for a variety of greetings the NPC uses, depends on MACH_LVLCHK.

Simply put, the "gossip" section of NPC greeting, the simple part where you freely navigate an open, static dialogue tree, the quest-free section, as it were, changes dynamically based on your reputation with NPC faction, which is monitored via Master Achievement tiers.

If you've not done squat for them, the greeting will be cold, and the following dialogue tree will be cold. Once you get in the habit of helping their people, their greetings will warm up accordingly, and "gossip" trees will change.

===

Items that lie on the ground. So far there hasn't been any. I was hoping to avoid putting this in, but it will have to be done.

The big world map is 3000x3000 squares big. Shelter's big world is a combination of tricks, where small maps are detailed, overlayed over the BIG (travel) MAP, which by itself occupies merely 18,000,000 bytes. I do not look forward toward increasing those memory requirements, so I found a different solution for handling items-on-the-ground problem.

Upon entering any detailed map (a settlement or an ENCOUNTER), all items in the world will be queried for their "lying on the ground" status and coordinates, and placed on the map accordingly. This way, the BIG MAP remains the way it was.

===

I am playing with the idea of destructible environment. The mechanism to save and load dynamically altered maps has been in place for a long time. The ability to target individual tiles via low-res transparency mask generation is in the engine as well.

I am thinking of making settlements destructible, tile by tile, by attackers. The settlements' populace will rebuild it to its former state. Gameplay implications of this are questionable, but "[re]building the settlement " functionality will be useful should we proceed with the "Follower" system.

===

I am also playing with the idea of the "Follower" system. People who are predisposed to gaining certain skills that you are superior at. If you let them follow you around, they will learn from your use of that skill.

Getting X followers to their skill cap will increase your "Teacher" Master Achievement tier. The higher the tier, the more followers you get. At some point the tier will change the name and become "Faction Leader". That's when you willl go to a preselected map and your followers will build a base there. YOu will become an in-game faction with much influence.

Made emergent enough, Followers could get their own Followers...

How this translates into "fun" I am not sure, but something about this feels right. It will also open way for "Fetchers".

===

... I am also playing with the idea of having your followers be your lapdogs. The game would allow you to give them orders to retrieve items YOU are supposed to retrieve, based on your quest log. You would only be able to send them to locations you already know .You may also send them to kill people you've already met.

===

All of this may be too ambitious, but on the other hand, I never liked the idea of remaining a loner in the game. I want the Player to be able to start alone, and then become

a) Joseph Stalin
or
b) Joseph Stalin who runs a kitten rescue agency
or
c)Mother Theresa
or
d) Mother Theresa that runs a bordello, if he/she so chooses.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to tend to the Warp Gate. There's been an unscheduled offworld activation.
 

shihonage

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Shelter development update 11/25/09

It is so easy to forget why we started this Shelter project. As days go by, one gets lost in the intermediacy of it all. Climbing one hill just to see another on the horizon... with no end in sight.

I have a confession to make. I've not replayed Fallout 1 in many years.

Last week, I've read a Fallout walkthrough, and it all came back to me. How Fallout was ambitious not in scope, but in depth. How this depth caused it to remain game that has an active mod community 12 years after release... despite the fact that modding Fallout is not far removed in complexity from brain surgery.

I also remembered that Shelter was born out of necessity... a necessity to preserve something intangible, something that is a sum of many parts, something impossible to explain. Something I only saw in Fallout, that needs to be cultivated. It's not about 50's humor or radiation. It is about preserving and evolving the true concept of a Role-Playing Game - through richness of underlying gameplay mechanics. The richness that allows one to create a world. A world... not a series of levels separated by puzzles, scripted fight sequences and linear NPC quest chains. A world where a red X does not appear when you aim at someone the "storyteller" can't handle you shooting.

In less abstract news, I am reworking Shelter's UI structure, to allow for more flexibility necessary for looting shelves and placing items (such as explosives) on the ground.

By default, dialogue-triggering achievements will be now HIDDEN, so all dialogue will look the same. A perk will be available which will show the affected dialogue options in different colors and the necessary requirements.

Shelter now uses a preliminary base-stat system. This is what a typical initialization looks like for an average person:

EQUIPSLOT[SELF`SLOT_HANDS`Knife]
EQUIPSLOT[SELF`SLOT_HIP`10mm SMG]
EQUIPSLOT[SELF`SLOT_TORSO`Leather Armor]
EQUIP[SELF`10mm JHP]
EQUIP[SELF`Med Pak]
EQUIP[SELF`Med Pak]
EQUIP[SELF`Med Pak]
EQUIP[SELF`Med Pak]
EQUIP[SELF`Med Pak]
SETSTAT[SELF`faction`F_PLAYER]
SETSTAT[SELF`gender`G_MALE]
SETSTAT[SELF`level`5]
SETSTAT[SELF`s_MELEE`100]
SETSTAT[SELF`s_LIGHT WEAPONS`90]
SETSTAT[SELF`s_FIRST AID`70]
SETSTAT[SELF`s_SCIENCE`82]
SETSTAT[SELF`awareness`8]
SETSTAT[SELF`luck`5]
SETSTAT[SELF`intelligence`5]
SETSTAT[SELF`appeal`5]
SETSTAT[SELF`strength`7]
SETSTAT[SELF`endurance`5]
SETSTAT[SELF`dexterity`5]


In Fallout, a person with entirely average, "balanced" stats got the short end of the stick. In Shelter, they will have a special Achievement you earn by being average... one that will open certain doors.

Not literally.
 

shihonage

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Shelves and sensibility - (Shelter devupdate 12/02/2009)

SHELVES:

One of those little things I took for granted in Fallout is that many places had shelves and lockers. Searching those was one part of core gameplay. Their owners noticing you and attacking you was another.

Shelter now has searchable shelves. With owners.

Said owners will come running if they notice you messing with their stuff.

Whether the locker belongs to someone, is displayed in a message that appears when you Search it. It will NOT appear if your Awareness is below a certain value. Awareness, as you may recall, is part of our preliminary base stat system called ALIASED.

Awareness
Luck
Intelligence
Appeal
Strength
Endurance
Dexterity

Upon dragging an item into your inventory, there will be a check performed against Player stats and the owner, which may or may not cause the owner to attack you. I'm working on this check right now.

Another thing I'm finalizing is the Steal skill, which will be similar to looting lockers, only used on people.

Here's how shelve looting looks. Yes, reuse of the inventory image falsely suggests that shelves do, in fact, have a torso.



NON-LETHAL COMBAT:

Non-lethal combat has been downsized in scope. Reading that Fallout walkthru made me realize the need to keep the scope manageable. Managing NPC reactions after they "gave up" and are still pissed at you firmly walked into the category of unmanageable.

Therefore, NLC now only works for Player.

For instance, if you are stealing from someone's locker, and they attack you, you can give up to them. They will take your most expensive item, then the give-up flag starts blinking and you can increase the distance between you two, before they may aggro you again for standing with your weapon drawn too close to them or whatever.

If the item you took is the only one you have, it works out nicely. If, under some odd circumstance, you give up to a person while carrying something worthless, like a rope, they will yell "You are of no worth!" and attack you. Good luck with that!

Combat/aggro in Fallout was used to control the flow a great deal. Non-lethal combat currently allows for retarded exploits, such as giving up to guards and then going right past them during the "grace period". However, we will figure out how to make it work.

Here's a reminder of what our tactical menu looks like. Where else would you have the option to give up to the very leader of human resistance?

 

zenbitz

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Another thing I'm finalizing is the Steal skill, which will be similar to looting lockers, only used on people.

I really hated this aspect of fallout. I mean really - what is it trying to represent? Picking someone's pockets? And yet you can end up with all sorts of useful items! As well as basically use x-ray vision on them to see what they have!

I think it would be better to implement more "social" thieving like:
- extortion (threaten them)
- grift (talk/trick them out of their money)
- seduction

None of these should let you obtain some kind of important critical item.

I guess you could have some kind of "steal weapon" combat skill to represent grabbing stuff that is in the NPCs hand! But they would always notice...
 

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