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    Notrium Final Mix - New Version out. 0.31

    Venom31 13 years ago
    "Nocture17" said:
    Because the scavenger almost literally cannot defeat a battledroid (I should know, I've spent hundreds of hours playing the sucker), and impossibility isn't a particularly rewarding gameplay experience compared to challenge and success. If something is *impossible* for one particular race, then I'm doing something wrong, good game design includes a fulfilling experience. It might require lateral thinking, excessive tactics, and hit and run combat over the course of a week, but every enemy must be either undefeatable for a good gameplay reason, or undefeatable by everyone.
    Good point, but I killed battledroids. Lots of them, already. Not more than several at once, however, but they're perfectly doable. Haven't you tried Electro Spray on them?
    Also, a major point, NO raging. It abuses many of his ranged and splash weapons, incl. sprays, fire breaths, makes biocannon shoot silly if you move sideways just a bit...

    Back on topic - So, with that camps-ships-scavenge system it'll look much like S.O.S. I can remember most of techy items were lying there near various wrecks, sometimes with a sentry mechanism in place...
    #
    Matz05 13 years ago
    I think that wrecks/discards are a good idea, but don't forget that a few ships probably... shall we say... "airbursted" either due to missile hits in the atmosphere, atmospheric stress, or iternal explosions, so some scrap metal (and the occasional other item) might be left.

    In the name of a dynamic world... Can terrain be modified after its generated? Could wrecks in other levels be added/removed on a very, very small chance each day, with a message given about "marine activity and heavy machinery" (wreck removed) or "an explosion" (wreck added) being heard from a location, alongside camps being occasionaly cleaned up/left in places near marine territory but not the player?
    Or would that spoil Notrium's resourse scarsity puzzle?
    #
    Endymion 13 years ago
    That reminds me that it might be interesting if there weren't any marines in the planet initially but that they would slowly move in at some point like once the missile things have been destroyed or once they have enough living scouts around or something. Of course I'm not sure how difficult it would be to do with Notrium.
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    "Matz05" said:
    Can terrain be modified after its generated?

    No, terrain is created at map creation as is never touched again, unfortunately.

    wrecks...

    Agreed, scrap isn't unlikely, and woulf probably be the most likely "technological" item you'd come across.
    Bear in mind however that unauthorised ships aren't necessarily a very common occurrence, there are what, two, three ships a year? It's blackzone hive sector and the V'E was specifically pushing the edges of known space.

    Now, I was totally planning on having a crash happen, but I'd be making a big thing of it - it would only happen once (at random, set by doom clock) and would occur in maybe one of three places. A potential survivor wouldn't be out of the question either, depending how quickly you reached the area and got inside. This event would not even happen if you had destroyed the missle defence droids.

    Making wrecks happen "daily" would cheapen the occurrence, it should be a major thing.

    [quote[alongside camps being occasionaly cleaned up/left in places near marine territory but not the player?
    Active Camps may eventually be tidied away if they remain untouched long enough and their inhabitants switch out of guard mode, but I sincerely doubt that VilleCorp personnel actually care about littering, or recovering corpses from the alien infested wilderness, it's even a stretch they'd bother with a destroyed spaceship (they certainly never come looking for you in any version of Notrium, they're too busy making nefarious lighters). The ancient ruins you start in are home to a small fortress of destroyed ships (seriously, I just started default and counted - there were ten crashed ships in Ancient Ruins, if the metal ruins from the desert are ship related as well, that's a lot of ancient, rusted machinery even their robots are just too lazy to deal with).

    Or would that spoil Notrium's resourse scarsity puzzle?

    It's hard to give an adequate explanation for what goes on here.
    Eventually, any technologist will achieve critical mass - it will cost fewer bullets/resources than one gains, on average, from killing large quantities of enemies.
    Some items will have limitted quantities, mainly the "400" series (item numbers) - Things like fuel cells, demags, grav devices etc.

    On the other hand, with the exception of Fuel Cells (which would still, very, very, very rarely be dropped by laser marines) and demagnetisers (which are limitted in use numbers anyway, with a limit that will probably kick in before you run out of demags anyway), and maybe empty cannisters (again, very rarely dropped by flamer marines - who will mostly drop "ash"), the only "puzzle" is a binary one - either you have access to an item or you don't. Infinite energy couplings wouldn't be useful - you only need a few.

    In this sense, the technology scattered around the map isnt so much a puzzle as it is "seed money" to get you started. Making this regenerate isn't so much messing up the puzzle as it is messing up the flow of the game.

    Ultimately, I still haven't touched the replicator tech (opinions on that welcome by the way), potentially anything relevant that couldn't be got from killing enemies may simply be replicable anyway, just to make sure you could build ten thousand turrets if you felt the need.


    That reminds me that it might be interesting if there weren't any marines in the planet initially but that they would slowly move in at some point like once the missile things have been destroyed or once they have enough living scouts around or something. Of course I'm not sure how difficult it would be to do with Notrium.

    I rather like this idea actually - why would Villecorp need to have an active presence on the planet while their mechanical minebots are carrying out their jobs fine? In design perspectives, it would be fantastic to give the player that sort of control over their environment.

    In theory, while this is a lot of work (but what isn't in Notrium?), it's quite doable (the number of scouts is very doable as well, just add a token to inventory on Scout-spawn, remove it when Scout-Death, but the other way sounds more interesting and under player control):

    1: Their bases can start empty, all the plot objects (the important/hard part) and tech in place, and with signs of their previous occupation - including rubbish left around the place, abandoned bullets, research facilities.... And the area is filled by aliens as per a normal area. "Marine" drops like a supply container or a marine camp would have a conditional not to drop unless player has X. Active interior areas for Marines would be on "lockdown" and inaccessible.

    2: Disable missile base (considering the missile turrets are immobile and large, for technologists, this would probably be a simple fight using grenades, which would be in high supply once you can consistently destroy mining bots). This sets an Event bar to a random X-X number and gives a token (this token controls the next event, and would in this scenario remove any existing token for, say, the spaceship crash). This bar automatically deteriorates; when it reaches 0, the bar is disabled and the token removed and replaced with a new token.

    3: Each seed (including a precursor-seed for Marine area control) has a condition: Marine Activated Token in inventory. If this is present, all the previously dormant marine facets (there would be a similar spawn opportunity for scouts in jungles/plains/volcanic/desert areas which would be activated), as would all the marine interiors, and the shuttle would appear.

    Result would be an entire faction appearing on a conditional, reestablishing their old base, and littering the area with their tools and resources.

    Now seeds are present, the old area manager in these areas is destroyed, and any alien presence that was there to begin with will rapidly and inevitably be worn down and destroyed as marines begin to purge the area. Meanwhile scouts would start looking around for.... well, you actually.
    #
    Anonymous1157 13 years ago
    I second the entire-faction-appearing-suddenly idea. Besides the fact that you seem to have already figured out how to pull it off just by writing it down, it would probably be awesome in-game.
    #
    Venom31 13 years ago
    An interesting idea. I just hope no 1000 snipers drop-down from orbit behind your back.
    #
    Nocture17 13 years ago
    "Venom31" said:
    An interesting idea. I just hope no 1000 snipers drop-down from orbit behind your back.

    I'm good, but not good enough to spawn 1000 snipers only in your game, solely to mess with you.

    Wellp, I guess I'm signed up for a mess of work. I'll try and get 0.3 done and uploaded with the Ship Graveyard area complete this week, then I'll be throwing in to making a larger natural setting. If anyone wants to take up the version from then on to continue on the "scattered loot" Notrium model, then you are of course welcome to (I'll even answer questions about my increasingly indecipherable coding).


    How do you folks feel about redundancy? Multiple natural items with similar functions but different particulars, or group everything together under broad types? I could spend forever making slightly different tree/fruit/plant items, or everything could be covered by:

    Tree with fruits (also destroyable for instant branches)
    Edible plant that's way better cooked. (green plant)
    Easy to eat plant. (mushrooms)
    Poison mushroom. (also mushrooms)
    Psycho weed (Yellow bloom, also nature's stim-pack)
    Poisonous fruit, (almost identical to tree with fruits - muahaha.)
    Thorn bush (Injures you? Check. Probably useless when you kill it, with a low chance of berries? Check. Hateful things? Oh yes check.)
    Cactus (For the sweet, sweet juices within)
    Blocking undergrowth. (Because hey, you have a machete and it's a jungle, and I might as well make you suffer to get some plant fibres off these things).
    Fibrous plant (well, probably two types, one being water reeds).
    Insect Nest (Bees, honey, you get the idea)
    Animal/Avian Nest (Eggs, Angry alien, tinder or kindling?)
    Tindertwig - Makes sparks when violently snapped, can be used together with tinder (not kindling) in your inventory to start a short-term fire (at least enough time to add some real fuel to the flame).

    Also covered by natural seeds would be:
    Herbivore (A twin "species" of symbiotes would cover the small and large variants, rather than having multiple species dependent on region, they'd eat most of the above, making you have to compete with them.... Or cage them in with barricades, feed them useless shrubberies to fatten them up, then finally knife them for their tasty loins.

    Is this enough variety for a full island (probably a fairly large and variable one, considering the presence of temperate, tropical and desert zones within the same landmass), or should I devote time to survivalist gubbins?
    #
    Curudan 13 years ago
    "TNN17" said:
    Ultimately, I still haven't touched the replicator tech (opinions on that welcome by the way), potentially anything relevant that couldn't be got from killing enemies may simply be replicable anyway, just to make sure you could build ten thousand turrets if you felt the need.

    Personally, I'd prefer if it was possible, through scavenging or replicating for a player to stay alive indefinitely, but whatever replicator wizardry this would require shouldn't come into play until past the point that the player could have feasibly won the game through one ending or another, anyway.

    Perhaps some kind of advanced alien nano-assembler present in a heavily guarded marine base?

    "Nocture17" said:
    How do you folks feel about redundancy? Multiple natural items with similar functions but different particulars, or group everything together under broad types? I could spend forever making slightly different tree/fruit/plant items, or everything could be covered by:
    I'm fine with just having one plant or alien to fill each ecological and gameplay niche.

    If you will add the ability to chop down trees for wood, will the trees grow back over time? If not, do you have plans to add some kind of permanent placeable technological light source, that coupled with a stasis field and some kind of ether burning cooking surface, would allow you to outgrow the use of fires for heat, light, and cooking?

    Apologies if any of these things already exist in the latest version, I haven't had a chance to try 2.5, yet.
    #
    Narvius 13 years ago
    "TNN17" said:
    (but what isn't in Notrium?)

    Dying.
    #
    Anonymous1157 13 years ago
    IF (Emphasis: IF) you need to add a nitpicky, redundant variation to the game, I think there should be a very good reason for it not being so redundant. For example, besides eating them, one could also be able to shoot watermelons out of a cannon, or use lemons to make batteries. (Not that I specifically want those fruit in the game; it's an alien world, after all.)
    #
    Matz05 13 years ago
    I agree, variations of items are good if some variations behave differenty. Some aliens being armoured, some having claws, some being edible raw, etc. and each corpse having multiple uses with only one able to be used? like cooking browns or getting claws?

    Same with other items?


    (And wouldn't coconuts make better cannonballs? Much more regular shape!)

    Lemons might make kinda lousy batteries for a lot of uses.
    ...I can see some kind of solar hydroponics unit (hightech flowerpot) a power converter and a blue herb making a nifty solar array though...

    EDIT: By the way, I didn't mean a wreck every day, I ment very rare random wrecks that can ONLY come at a certain time of day (midnight?) Or at least some kind of journal-like progress report mentioning any significant off-level (random?) events that happened in the night?

    You said somthing about NPCs a while ago?
    If you include other survivors/hermits/etc who may be hostile or friendly, balancing will be crucial. Maybe give them strength and inventory near a beginning protagonist, but one "good" item that is thier signature and they will not willingly part with it? Common but still dangerous weapons and some "theme" that shows thier mindset towards survival? Examples:

    "Steel samurai"
    Android with a Blade, a pile of batteries and some Hover Skates(sig)? Dangerous to a protagonist but not able to fell battledroids singlehanded.

    "Lawnchair defender"
    Slow Human with a Double Pebble Shotgun(sig, might have a corny name for it) and standard armor? Stays at the entrence to his encampment shooting the wildlife and nosy Marines. Very annoing, but not Dire Reaper material.

    "Twitch"
    Human technician with a Laser Unit (Laser Pistol?) and a tendency to spray shiny red death at whatever startles him and run blindly away. Probably more likely to find his corpse than him due to the aggro that attracts, but you may be able to rehabilitate him into a respectable wingman. Might have a signiture turet that shoots at you unless you are friends with him that he always repairs and insists on carying around outside of combat?

    "Hunter"
    Werivar with a Railgun(sig) and a bunch of Alien Meat. Will use claws in melee, gun at range. Will go out of his way to finish off an enemy he has engaged, even if it left the screen. Don't aggro him.
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    "Curudan" said:
    Personally, I'd prefer if it was possible, through scavenging or replicating for a player to stay alive indefinitely, but whatever replicator wizardry this would require shouldn't come into play until past the point that the player could have feasibly won the game through one ending or another, anyway.

    Indefinite play should be possible regardless of anything else, and without the need for any replication at all.

    The minimum (non-respawning) tech needed to have the possibility to create any item would be:

    1 Light Diode; 1 Pulse Beacon; 1 Particle Accelerator; 1 Battery; 1 Fuel Cell; 1 Energy Coupling; 1 Warp Coil; 1 Solar Panel; 1 Field Emitter; 1 Storage Container; 1 Glass Tube; 2 Scrap Metal; 2 Computer Units; 1 Tzo Crystal; 1 Empty Container; 1 Gravity Device, 1 Lighter, 1 Pistol Chassis, 1 Demagnetiser.

    This isn't to say you'd be able to make everything at once, but really - that's not a lot of stuff. Energy is recoupable (even the Android should be able to run at a surplus once he gets an operational power supply and ether generator/biomass decompositor), batteries and scrap are recoupable, ether is recoupable, tzo crystals are recoupable, and bullets are recoupable, this is my current issue with Replication:

    It's redundant.

    The hard to find tech: Particle Accelerators, Field Emitters, Solar Panels, Fuel Cells, Energy Couplings, Demagnetisers, Storage Containers, Glass Tubes, Warp Coils, Gravity Devices, Pistol Chassis', Empty Containers and Pulse Beacons, Light Diodes.

    Particle Accelerators - You'd need four or so for the escape ending, twenty-six to have literally one of every gun, and let's say that there are personal tech items I've forgot and add five. - This is only thirty-five.
    Light Diode - You only need five.
    Solar Panels - Three and I'n pushing it.
    Fuel Cells - If you have a 1/100 chance of a stun laser marine dropping a stun laser, then you'd actually get an unlimitted number of these anyway.
    Warp Coils - Three, if you want a Warp Gun, a Warp Drill, and a ticket home.
    Gravity Devices - Again, four or so for escape, two for other uses, maybe ten total on the outside?
    Pulse Beacon - Four. Tops.
    Field Emitter - If you wanted extra, permanent, stasis field bases in five maps you'd need ten tops.
    Demagnetisers - Twenty-two. The two are for the gun and making infinite batteries out of scrap metal.

    None of these complicated devices is easily replicated, but really, for those you can't easily find elsewhere - Why do you need more? You can already survive indefinitely. The only things that would be possible to replicate in a sensible fashion would be:

    Pebbles, Scrap Metal, Computer Units (maybe), Bullets, Food, Glass (tubing/container), Pistol Chassis, possibly Energy Couplings, and water. On the outside, maybe Motion Detectors and Medikits.

    This allows: Infinite Batteries, infinite pistols, infinite bullets, infinite food, infinite empty containers storing your infinite water, infinite pistol turrets, and infinite health - provided you could gather appropriate raw materials to manufacture them.

    If it's too complicated to replicate normally, and can't be looted from your enemies, the biggest probability is that it just isn't necessary to have that many.

    If you will add the ability to chop down trees for wood, will the trees grow back over time? If not, do you have plans to add some kind of permanent placeable technological light source, that coupled with a stasis field and some kind of ether burning cooking surface, would allow you to outgrow the use of fires for heat, light, and cooking?

    Certain trees, and certain trees only, would be instantly destroyable for wood. Whilst there will be a low % chance of them spawning/respawning, this will only happen in spring. Doing so will also remove the long term benefits of the tree - namely fruit, which will drop once every few days.

    Permanent light source - Possibly, only the human right now needs a light source outside of special cases (indoor areas only, where turrets/vehicles/night vision wouldn't be useable). I may attribute a light to the Ether Burner (the aforerequested heat source/cooking tool which is planned, but not implemented), or the Ether Generator (burning fossil fuels to power your bases, huzzah). Ether will be either directly "growable" from a biofuel manufacturer, or gatherable from other sources (well, it will technically be both, but good luck doing that simultaneously?).

    The Stasis Field is present in 0.25, and later versions will have actual shelters you can enter into to rest, dropping your deterioration and helping you heal without technological involvement (and with the protection that your enemies must kill it to reach you, unlike a stasis field).

    However like all your structures, these will be vulnerable to destruction by rampaging aliens, and deactivatable at your leisure (though reactivating them each time will take some energy); so before you start up a large permanent base encampment you may want some turrets or the like to defend it.
    #
    Nocture17 13 years ago
    Matz: Nice archetypes, but remember I'm planning on having the major NPCs be *few* in number. Your survival is an exception, not a rule, there won't be many around to help or hinder you, as such you might find one of your crewmates roaming the jungle, but I wouldn't expect there to be many, and they would (probably via bar-based omnigun) have several selectable weapons if you allied with them (though they may be in those very archetypes when first encountered). I believe I went into how this would be handled earlier.

    In the face of overwhelming support for "just fudge it so it's interesting" (thankfully), I'll stick with the table above. Enemies will be differentiated on tactics, capabilities and environment, and those that leave corpses (useless varieties will simply leave "decaying", useless corpse-plot objects that eventually self-delete unless eaten by scavengers first) will each have their own utility, even if that utility is primarily just "eat the thing".


    Updates: Slow. I'm sick (getting better!) and my productivity is low as a result. Plus loot tables and seeds are probably the most work intensive code I have. I've worked through the loot tables however, and will be coding up the first of them (thankfully I can use them for multiple wreck types so I'll only need two or three in total) over today.

    Wreck loot: Each wreck's gains are determined by chance, availability and integrity, determined by type (each wreck is in a varying degree of disrepair), and chance though collapsing the waveform.

    Chance is an intital random number between 1 and 100. High is better, the more intact the ship's integrity, and the more likely you are to get multiple items from it.
    - Tools, Blow-torches, and cutting torches increase this number by 2, 4 and 5 respectively (Cutting torches are turning out so useful I'll probably leave the android with it and just let him work on his Warp-Collision bombs as his only non-upgrade unique). These stack, so the maxium figure is 111.
    - Each wreck has a multiplier - A rusted scrap heap might lower this end result by as much as 50%, a recent, high quality wreck by only 5% of so (you won't get the best items without tools). You can only get one of the *best*-type items from a top quality wreck (field emitter/diode/particle accelerator for the fighter craft).

    Availability is how likely an item is to occur - the most useful items aren't automatically high integrity (a pistol chassis aboard a fighter is an example of a vital but low integrity item you might find). This is determined by two things - the range of how many number results the item may spawn on (say: 85-90 = Fuel Cell), and how likely an item is to double-dip (a fuel cell deducts at least 2 per "hit", so you have a tiny chance of double, or even triple, dipping it, the top items will never double dip).

    By combining these three, each wreck will give random items (the minimum "get" is 1 scrap metal from a wreck up to the vanishingly unlikely one or two of everything on the way down).
    And once this is done the loot table for the other types is just cut and paste, so hopefully I can move on to making the area later.

    Updated update: Update updated!
    Foolishness aside, the tables are complete through the power of Notepad and having none of my notes available. They just require testing... and allocation of the right item numbers when I grab my lunch break. Which is now.

    Dire Updated updated update:
    There will be a hopefully minor delay to my progress on the game. Whilst my notepad coding was flawless and beyond pro (the good news), my Eee PC netbook has randomly blue-screened and is now giving me a black screen at start up refusing to boot.

    This is a known issue for Eee PCs, so hopefully (Oh god hopefully), this is going to be remedied with a quick call to the manufacturer without losing my entire harddisk. If not, I will, needless to say, be royally peeved, and lose all my new images, notes, and progress from 0.25 > 0.3 (at very least finishing the weapons, mixing up seeds and all the other stuff I've been yammering on about all week). If this happens (and I'll let you know if it does), then I guess I'll just start from 0.25, finish up the weapons (again), and then head straight into making the new spawns and the like.
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    Right! Good news and bad news folks.

    Bad news: Netbook recovery has failed, rather inconveniently leaving me without my primary modding machine.

    Good news: I've successfully saved my Notrium from my Netbook to my computer (it pays having spares, as you might guess I have bad luck when it comes to computers randomly dying on me, my fault or otherwise). This means that the vast majority of my work is intact (barring a few project files that were stored elsewhere).

    This is more than a little annoying, and there will be some delays as I try and get the little *uc*tard working again.
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    In celebration for not losing everything, and as a tertiary backup for my data, here's a slightly early preview of version 0.29, now included in the first post as the unstable version.

    <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.filefactory.com/file/cbd21c5/n/29.rar">http://www.filefactory.com/file/cbd21c5/n/29.rar</a><!-- m -->

    Every weapon should be available to make (at this point, I consider its absence a bug so please report any issues), Stasis fields should be available, a bunch of other stuff should be available, and I've snuck in a few goodies to help make sure that's possible. I've also added the first of the Wrecks for your perusal, and some early-bird props of other inclusions scattered about the place.

    The only item with hints attributed is Ingenuity, but it should be adequate to show what to expect.
    #
    Curudan 13 years ago
    Trying out the latest version, and I can't seem to equip to gauss pistol. I've already combined it with a bullet clip, so it should be loaded.

    EDIT: It wasn't letting me equip the beam sabre either. But then both started working again after I dropped a few pounds of items.

    Double Edit: Never mind, the problem was that I was in a stasis field. ops:

    Triple Edit: Alright, I think this is a bug at least. Beam sabers can't be equipped when you are in a stasis field. That's fine they're energy weapons, after all. The problem is that they don't un-equip when you enter the field.
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    Hm.
    1: You shouldn't have to combine the gauss pistol with the clip at all. Is it not letting you equip it at 0 loaded?

    2: Do they *fire* when you're in the field? - FIXED. Wrong value in the "vanishes when used" field was making it act weird. Also fixed the Stasis Field, it wasn't 100% denying weapon use whilst inside, now it'll take a maximum (usually less) of one second outside of the field for your weapon to reactivate (it could be faster, I'm just a junkie for hitting the game engine as softly as possible, I need all the spare capacity I can get).

    Thanks for the report (and don't worry if reports turn out to be nothing either, I'll forgive you. ).
    #
    Venom31 13 years ago
    I just wonder how many games use that frequency-based script launching. Isn't event-based scripting more preferrable in some cases? Just a thought, anyway Ngine has both types, event-based one is when script is called by some stuff, but the possible events are pretty much incomplete...
    #
    Nocture17 13 years ago
    "Venom31" said:
    I just wonder how many games use that frequency-based script launching. Isn't event-based scripting more preferrable in some cases? Just a thought, anyway Ngine has both types, event-based one is when script is called by some stuff, but the possible events are pretty much incomplete...

    Notrium engine does have both, unfortunately the event is typically "Use X", "hit by", "death", "fire on", "Right Click X", or "Enter X" - the latter is not something that can be harnessed for scripting purposes.

    There are scripts that can be activated via scripting (I habitually turn off and on major series of scripts when they're triggered, such as illnesses), there are major series of effects that can happen based on a conditional (making an entire faction appear is an event-based "bosses are both dead, call in the cavalry"), but usually the event in question is based on a timed condition check.

    Almost all N scripts are dependent on time - even death calls happen 1ms after the fact (I'm pretty sure it's 1 ms, I've been coding around such things) so unless the time for running the script is 0 (at which point it is literally "as soon as X then Y"), it is a time based event - it's just how often it checks the event in question to see if the event is true. Even terrain operates on a timed call (it's potentially a 0 time call, but for infrequent non-major events that's a trifle excessive).
    Even something like Redemption's guns akimbo code depends on a timed condition check - even though the event in question is Right Click.

    I could make a conditional "player comes close" plot object "event" (vanishes), then make it self-delete every 1000 seconds, with a "give token when X" to give the disabling feature. This won't, however, make any difference to leaving the stasis field (there is no "player leaves proximity" event).

    If you know something I don't though, please tell me, life would be so much easier if I could auto-run events as soon as they occurred without straining the Ngine.

    Update: Introduced is the new, broken, battleship. These powerful warships apparently didn't fare very well in some long past space battle, crashing on the planet below. Don't expect to find many of them however, just expect it to drop about three times as many goodies when you do.
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    Four day weekend here I come. Plenty of time to kick back and.... code more.

    Updates: Ship loot tables are complete, as are the ships themselves.
    Reapers have been modified. Try to guess how when you see them in action.
    Wreck spawners have been created.
    Ship graveyard implemented. It's a horrible, horrible place full of Reapers, pain and misery. The only redeeming quality is that it doesn't have an all-Reaper area controller (it may one day).

    In three attempts, the only time I came close to nullifying the area was a mutual destruction of myself and the Reapers (I ran out of Medikits at the last four), so you'll probably want to not do as I do and head straight there with nothing but a blade and a beam sabre (A vibroblade should do it).

    Also: Don't stay out in the rain, especially if you're an android, as stated, this place is not a nice place.

    Still to go: The Var'Equanillan area and plot objects.
    Wisps.

    Hopefully this will be completed tomorrow, there won't be much more content than 0.29 beyond the area and starships (all the more reason to tell me any bugs you encounter in 0.29 so I can fix them for 0.3).

    I'll keep some of the more "special" areas of the region for after v0.3, I just want this stable version up and done before I move on to rewriting the three thousand or so lines of code that represent spawn management.


    Further Updates! I wonder if anyone actually reads these editted in updates before someone posts again?
    Bug in bows has been fixed - It shoud now correctly determine whether you have explosive ammo and berate you accordingly only if you have it, or unequip the bow if you don't.
    Bug with Red Tea fixed - It should now give an empty cannister as normal.
    Bug with Bandages fixed - Bandages are no longer fundamental undroppable items useable by anyone.
    Reaper weapon range reduced - Their attack range was twice standard melee range for some reason (presumably my own dubious sanity). This has now been reduced to "slightly more than melee range".
    Ration text fixed - % causes a minor text hiccup, now remedied.
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    More interesting than my usual bug-fix updates - there are now gremlins in the code, something I've long since suspected.

    The only difference is that now they're actually useful!

    Behold the first Gremlin - the Brown Alien gremlin:



    Now you see them.



    Now you don't.


    By using them as eat items, whenever a cookable item is near a fire it will, once the other Gremlins are coded, be converted in place, rather than randomly within the fire's perimeter.

    As soon as no items are within range, or the gremlin moves too far away from the fire, it instantly dies, leaving the lone brown alien corpse you can see in the images.

    For a slower cooking item, the gremlin can be made to spawn/move slower, as necessary.

    I've also included gremlins that ensure you never get the item you need, that aliens always appear when you're worst equipped to deal with them, and to make sure it always rains when you're trying to start a fire.

    As a result of the effectiveness of my new alliance with the code Gremlins, "using" items to cook them shall be removed (unless people desparately want to keep it for nostalgia purposes), which will clean up some of the button uses for items.
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    Brown Aliens now have an extended use, to someone willing to get their hands dirty.

    Gremlins are implemented. Fires now interact with more items than ever before, and have supplanted the Use options for Water cans, brown alien corpses, and a few other newly interactive items.

    Moderate update: The V'E is coming along nicely, despite large numbers of new plot objects, graphics, and props, three of my least favourite things.

    Further updates: It still needs some furnishings, a few temporary item spawns to reward you for reaching it, some more wreckage, doors you have to break down and the corpses of your dearly departed crewmembers, but the walls actually work the way I was hoping they would, so it's looking pretty good in my opinion.
    #
    Kario 13 years ago
    are Nocuture17 and Tnn17 the same people?
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    That's right. My inability to remember passwords has me using the Nocture account on one machine, and the TNN17 account on my primary modding machines.
    #
    Kario 13 years ago
    Funny how you both have the same amount of posts!
    #
    bwansy 13 years ago
    I've been busy lately so I couldn't give you any feedback. It's always nice to see the mod progressing steadily. As I'm reading your updates various terms seem to pop out of nowhere that made me somewhat lost. XD For instance, what are gremlins and what do they do?

    Meanwhile I'm downloading 0.29.

    EDIT: Bugs I've found so far:
    Blue alien meat and small blue alien corpse can't be consumed.
    Claw knife doesn't seem to do any damage (while knife and blade work fine)
    #
    MageKing17 13 years ago
    "TNN17" said:
    That's right. My inability to remember passwords has me using the Nocture account on one machine, and the TNN17 account on my primary modding machines.
    If you're using FireFox, you can ask it to reveal your saved passwords.
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    "bwansy" said:
    I've been busy lately so I couldn't give you any feedback.... For instance, what are gremlins and what do they do?

    Hey, no problem. I appreciate feedback when available, but if that's weekend only/monthly, that's fine.

    Gremlins are the ghosts in the machine - in 0.29, if you leave something near the fire, it will drop the fire treated item, and it will remove the existing item; however it will do this in a random area around the fire itself, so the cooked item could start far away from it, and end up inside the flames.

    With the Gremlin, if something is cooking distance away, an invisible gremlin is formed, ambles over to the item, and eats it. Then it spits out the cooked item in exactly the same spot it ate from; cooked aliens turn into meat, water gets replaced by hot water.... As soon as there's no more cooking to be done or it gets too far from the fire, the gremlin dies. It also works on stacks, I personally think it looks pretty neat.


    Claw knife doesn't seem to do any damage (while knife and blade work fine)

    I've just checked this in game and it seems to be working normally.
    Could you please confirm which enemy you were using it against?
    Are they showing up as injured when you hold the mouse over them?
    Are you holding down the attack button or are you timing your hits for best impact? All the melee weapons work best with a little variation in their timing.

    Blue alien meat and small blue alien corpse can't be consumed.

    That's weird. Blue alien meat cannot fail to be consumed, I didn't set any restrictions on consumption at all. I just editted in an consumed 125 meats at once and didn't encounter a restriction.
    Small blue alien can't be used with maxed out food, but otherwise has similarly no conditions on its use.
    Both have help text active, is it giving any message?
    If the problem persists, can you send me a savefile?

    Thanks for these, even though I didn't find the bugs in question, I did discover that claw knives couldn't make alien meat, that's been fixed.

    This reminds me!

    Has anyone played the Android yet? All I hear about is the Captain!



    "MageKing17" said:
    If you're using FireFox, you can ask it to reveal your saved passwords.

    I could, but then I'd have to email myself, transfer them, blah blah blah. And Chrome has a habit of not remembering my saved passwords anyway. It's not too inconvenient, and I'm incredibly lazy.
    #
    Thereaper 13 years ago
    Nice hard work, this mod is great... but it needs more maps
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    Yeah, I'm working on redoing the Var'Equinallin internal map, slowly (I've been enjoying some time off work thanks to the Royal Wedding/Bank Holiday combination here). I'll hopefully slap something up over the weekend, though it may not be a finished model, all the graphics work for furnishings has really taken it out of me.
    #
    Thereaper 13 years ago
    I'll see In the moment i try to create a mod but i don't know how create a new Race (i'm new lol) I'm a fan of your mod, and 1 more time, Nice Work ! =)
    #
    TNN17 13 years ago
    Updates, though given the lack of interest of late, I may be updating very few folks indeed:

    Well, I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things, and there's one thing for definite.

    I hate making maps.

    I have a series of props that need completing, for the interior of the V'E, which is now finally completely redone (again) to my moderate satisfaction (Notrium isn't as hot at making indoor maps as it is outdoor ones). The Var'Equinallin is still a bit of a TARDIS, but now isn't larger than several of the outdoor maps, which is nice.

    Still to make:

    Reactor Core.
    Doorway (destructible).
    Hominid Corpses.
    Power station.
    Walls ("internal" ones, rather than those done with tiles).
    Crates and other containers.
    Small Tables/counter surfaces (I feel like I'm working with the Sims here).
    Miscellaneous clutter.
    Fix the lighting - I've been having a little trouble with the lighting, I've had it with a low maximum light threshhold which has been giving me some problems getting the torches to work, but I may be able to fix it by making it have a normal max-light level and then playing with offsets so it's always at the minimum light level state. I just need to be able to sit down and have a tinker with it.

    Now made: Beds (admittedly terrible ones, but there's not much in the way of top-down sci-fi bedding to work with), including medical station beds.
    Tables (actually rather pleased with it, though I'll probably vary it more)

    I'll be leaving quantum plot devices for a later version, I just want to get this out of the way and get onto a more meaty part of the project.

    Honestly I can't wait until I'm slogging through seven thousand lines of scripting setting up the new realisting drop system, it'll be much preferable to this slog.
    #
    Curudan 13 years ago
    I haven't posted much lately, mostly because I've been busy with a spring computer refresh, and I don't want to hassle you about your mod.

    But I do want to say that I love the work you've done so far, and I am eagerly anticipating new releases. Notrium is definitely in my top ten, and your mod is fixing so many of the things that bug me about it. I've been following this thread with interest, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
    #
    Venom31 13 years ago
    The absence of posts doesn't mean absence of interest

    I couldn't test the mod so much lately, so I have nothing valuable to say. V'E insides of several maps size? Oh my. Kind of forcing to think it's comparable in size with Notrium itself, lol. Anyways, original logs about hunting down stowaways reminded me of some old, old 8-bit console aliens game. Ripley also did best with flamethrower there. And grenades...
    #
    Nocture17 13 years ago
    Oh you folks are still around? Hah, my bad. I was taking a break on the assumption that interest was running low and everyone was burnt out with FM. Do feel free to hassle occassionally, I am by nature a slacker, if it wasn't for Reaper's hyper-enthusiastic modding activities I'd probably still be playing flash games being bored.

    Yes, the V'E was huge inside, probably about as big as the lake plus a jungle map. Pretty extreme for a ship that on screen is only two-fifty pixels high when it's placed.

    When it's done, the V'E should contain a number of valuable supplies, even complete weapons - it's pretty hard to reach being in the ship graveyard (currently I have it just mapped as a contiguous area through the graveyard, even that, skirting the edge of the area, is pretty painful with the ionic rain and reapers, so I'm not too worried about tangible rewards from it).

    Once all the props themselves are done, I'll also be working on plot objects to make the teleports happen, and turn a few of these props into valuable object droppers.

    Hopefully my primary modding machine will be fixed soon, I get more work done on that one, if only because it's too small to distract me with other video games.


    Minor Updates.

    Walls Re-Added.
    Second Hatch entry added.
    Metal Pillars re-added, though they're unlikely to be used in the current map.
    #
    Forum » Notrium Final Mix - New Version out. 0.31
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