Here's where we stand now.
The current primary emphasis of my own efforts are in rewriting a lot of the code to make it more object-oriented and maintainable. This is a big project and won't see a lot of payoff to the player, so the next release is likely to be a bit further off without a lot of proportional reward. That's temporary though. The good side of this is that it'll make the game easier for new developers to work on, will make future development faster and easier for me with less propensity for bugs, and will lay the foundations for being able to make the game moddable using text files to define weapons and such in the future.
Puzzlemaker is also on the project and is working on a separate set of features LCS, but I'll let him talk about it if he'd like to. ^_^
Edit: A separate forum would be swell, too.
[ May 18, 2008: Message edited by: Torak ]
Visible genders would also allow more prudish players a choice in the gender of their love slaves.
Character Gender -- I am willing to add character gender if you can go into their profile and change it manually from Male to Female to This Liberal Needs No Conservative Gender. Although perhaps adding a hidden unchangable variable as well would govern how Conservatives, and in darker times, moderates, would respond, regardless of your setting. Liberals would always respect your choice.
Tanks -- Yes, eventually. Someday. When molotovs are added. They keep getting pushed back, but never canceled. The addition will probably come after creatures are overhauled, as I'm planning on splitting armor and clothing, and perhaps giving a secondary weapon, which could be a throwable or perhaps a melee weapon for when you're out of ammo. However, I have to note, you aren't really supposed to be able to win the high end sieges, and you can expect to see other difficult to handle issues, like soldiers throwing grenades at the start of combat and helicopter strikes on your compound.
What sort of creatures should be added?
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan S. Fox:
<STRONG>Character Gender -- I am willing to add character gender if you can go into their profile and change it manually from Male to Female to This Liberal Needs No Conservative Gender. Although perhaps adding a hidden unchangable variable as well would govern how Conservatives, and in darker times, moderates, would respond, regardless of your setting. Liberals would always respect your choice.</STRONG>
Free sex changes?
I was actually referring more to the idea that when you see:
code:You would instead see:Radio Personality Corporate Manager
Teenager Security Guard
code:♂ Radio Personality ♀ Corporate Manager
♀ Teenager ♀ Security Guard
Also, you could possibly choose to play as either a male or female upon commencement of the game, since that's a classic roguelikeism (something which is based on something which is based on something).
What's the rationale behind allowing changing between one, the other, or none?
[ May 19, 2008: Message edited by: BishopX ]
Allowing you to change is because, as BishopX says, it's more Liberal. Thematically, the game currently ignores gender entirely, not for simple oversight but because it's more Liberal to do so. If we're going to change that, I want to at least make the implementation of gender done in a very Liberal fashion. It's not a "free sex change", just that your Liberals need not adhere to Conservative Ideas about gender and identity. Of course, if you're dropping pick up lines on Conservatives, said Conservative dates might disagree with this, but that's their problem...
[ May 19, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
Liberal Crime Squad is a game that doesn't make sense. It's not supposed to make sense. It just happens to coincide with most conservative perceptions. This is a game where you seduce people and convince them to fight off the national guard. Where Janitors start out with experience in medieval weapons. Where Soldiers walk around in apartments with their Army Bodyarmour on and M16 in hand. Where playing a guitar will cause people to try to kill you, or, if you happen to be good, will cause people to kill others.
This is a game where you can vastly change an entire nation through mass slaughtering and other felonies.
Gender doesn't matter. This isn't a dating sim, for fark's sake, it's the world through the eyes of a lunatic. Though the eyes of a lunatic, doing 'liberal-oriented crimes' will cause you to become smarter, stronger, better, faster, more charming, and more confident. (juice) And through the eyes of a lunatic, gender doesn't matter.
[ May 19, 2008: Message edited by: Twerty ]
Personally, if gender is implemented, given that it's currently not in place intentionally, I'd like to see it be done in a light and entertaining way that enables cool situations, possibly sets up some humorous exchanges, and is very "Liberal". But I'd like to be able to discuss this and get people's opinions about it, including contrary ones, without having it become a heated argument.
Just trying to explain why gender probably wasn't there in the first place. That's just my two bits. Didn't mean to lash out or anything.
Also, Little, I stand corrected. xD Then again, it's not like lunatic rapists have normal 'tastes' if you know what I'm saying. >.>
Gender isn't in the game in the first place because it's Liberal to ignore it. ;) But it's also something that, like getting arrested for selling 'brownies', is frequently asked about. People want a way to check people's gender before asking them out, as they might find it weird that their male alter ego is suddenly dating a Richard when they are not gay themselves. When told gender isn't even tracked by the game, more than one person has suggested it.
There's certainly nothing broken about the game not tracking gender, it's a very intentional design decision to fit with the theme of the game. But since it's brought up occasionally as a recurring question, I'm open to adding it; I'd just want to make sure it's implemented in a way that's similarly keeping with the theme and serves to open up new possibilities, like hilarity from Conservatives in the Gentleman's Club getting creeped out by your crossdressing founder asking them out.
[ May 19, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
- [???]
- Change location names and do more with business fronts.
- Add some more clubs, add bouncers.
- Make dating more interesting.
- Add more information about prisoners, at least stop them from being called prisoners once they join up.
- Allow you to give up when you are at a site (even to non-police, but might get some... special treatment, depending on who given up to).
- [???]
- Have people on site become witnesses in the trial, they can be specific about what they witnessed by recording the combat actions and injuries they saw, the victims can cry about how they got their faces mutilated etc..
- [???]
- Try to lump lcs actions in to sprees that can be reported on in the newspaper as such, keep track of achievements in this record and improve the narrative in steps, car chases need news repercussions.
- Hospital condition and procedures described in much greater detail.
- Need more things to publish, and more groups to offend (he he he,
that's vague isn't it...)
- More robust list of issues and laws, it doesn't even cover all of the
ones listed on the ACLU's website.
- Ability to make LCS official uniform and symbol.
- Ability to drag already-taken hostages along to sites for various reasons.
- Ability to grab a person and put a gun to their head to affect the flow of a (potential) firefight, funny conversation stuff to go with that.
- [???]
- Ability to pistol-whip hostages (and have associated reasons for that).
- Mental illnesses from the more fucked up indoctrinations and also as an affect of CIA interrogation/sieges.
- Add age and age effects.
- Police lockers with riot gear, gas masks, gas during sieges, if times are really fucked up and conservative they could use mustard gas during sieges.
- Protests and riots.
- Opera houses, universities, construction sites, hotels (with associated valet lcs actions/uniforms), stadiums, fucked up basements in conservative houses, varied building sizes, elevators, hidden doors in places where it would make sense.
- [???]
- Being about to post bail to get squad people (and random people) out of jail, jumping bail, having court dates that you can go to or not, various associated media stuff surrounding trials that can make it profitable to leave members in custody until the bitter end, but a downside would be having fucked up things happen in jail.
- Keep track of surveys and do graphs.
- Conventions, protests of these (WTO etc.), turnout can be based on public opinion in part.
- Lots of evil constitutional amendments and an ability to view the current state of the constitution, conservatives can clarify portions of the bill of rights.
- [???]
- Ability to file law suits, possibly have law suits filed against you
- Effects of being caught with bloody/damaged clothes.
- Sleeper cops giving more information about raids, get updates on
investigations from them, investigations relating specifically to your
front business.
- Make getting a wheelchair more exciting.
There were more writeups and ideas on paper, but he doesn't have the rest of those. :( Regardless, there's a lot of great material to work with here, much of which wouldn't take much effort but would contribute to making the game that much cooler.
[ May 19, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
Sounds awesome, although I wonder how the interface could handle it. Divide your LCS into diffrent branches that can run automatically or manually?
Honestly, I'd just like the ability to divide my LCS into diffent parts. You know, a Combat Branch, a Recruiting Branch, a Legal/Illegal Fundraising Branch(es, a Law Branch if nessecary.
It'd clear up alot of clutter in the 'A'ctivate menu and Squad Formation menus.
A more dynamic system for organizations, and organization interaction. AKA you can piss off all individual organizations, and they can ask for help from each other, etc.
Also config files.
This could be cool. What if I pissed off the Cable News by killing a few News Anchors and shooting up the station, and they agreed to help the CIA by shutting down Hippie News, Indepdent News, and Underground News, therefore causing a complete blackout.
I think it'd be intresting if cover-ups only worked with the Conservative station and the indepdent ones would have to be shut down? If you could work with them, offering them protection?
Edit: We might get moddable text files for weapons? Sweet!
[ May 19, 2008: Message edited by: Little ]
quote:
Originally posted by Little:
<STRONG> :DHonestly, I'd just like the ability to divide my LCS into diffent parts. You know, a Combat Branch, a Recruiting Branch, a Legal/Illegal Fundraising Branch(es, a Law Branch if nessecary.
It'd clear up alot of clutter in the 'A'ctivate menu and Squad Formation menus.</STRONG>
One of the things that Puzzlemaker is working on is allowing the LCS to form subsidiary organizations, not just having external ones. This may be able to support your idea and the automation of certain tasks, at least in some form.
Etc, etc.
Also: Do Not get your hopes up about the config files. Config files are hard.
Edit: Yeah, I forgot to mention sub-organizations you can start and stuff.
[ May 19, 2008: Message edited by: Puzzlemaker ]
It sounds awesome though. What would my interior organizations be able to do?
Would it be possible for a part of my sprawling organization cut all ties with me then strike out on it's own as another Liberal Crime Squad?
Then you could choose to basically ignore them and let them go around(like a liberal, weakened version of the CCS?), ally with them or kill them off(if this was discovered, very negative coverage?).
quote:
Originally posted by Little:
<STRONG>Why would cable news be pissed at a genetics factory being shot up?It sounds awesome though. What would my interior organizations be able to do?
Would it be possible for a part of my sprawling organization cut all ties with me then strike out on it's own as another Liberal Crime Squad?
Then you could choose to basically ignore them and let them go around(like a liberal, weakened version of the CCS?), ally with them or kill them off(if this was discovered, very negative coverage?).</STRONG>
No, I meant the cable news would defend the genetics factory viciously.
As for the rest of the questions; I have no idea.
1) Not implemented at all, or
2) Implemented realistically.
The whole "Liberal Gender" thing isn't really as funny as I think you think it is. I steered clear of saying it the first time, since I wanted to give you a chance to defend it, but I think it sounded like a really stupid idea. ;-)
Gender inequality (particularly wage disparity) would also be an excellent subject for the game. E.g.:
Arch-Conservative: Women are considered chattel and are not allowed to vote or own property.
Conservative: Women have suffrage, but are still considered inferior to men.
Moderate: Women are legally equal to men, but still draw poor wages.
Liberal: Women are mostly equal to men, with slightly dissimilar incomes.
Elite Liberal: Women are considered perfectly equal to men.
There would be plenty of opportunities for jabs at fierce right-wingers like the Bountiful, B.C. enclave (a Mormon-ish cult where women are considered property and receive arranged marriage) and/or the Islamic terrorist-fundamentalists which require women to hide their faces in public and whatnot.
Gender symbols aren't part of the 32-127 ASCII range, but are part of the 0-127 range. I used the Unicode symbols for the convenience of the internet, not for the convenience of the game. Unless pdcurses interprets the symbols as control characters, the VT and FF characters (ASCII 0xB and ASCII 0xC) are printed as male and female gender symbols in codepage 437.
Also, unless I am mistaken, the Koran gives them the right to vote, or something like that.
And no, I am not Muslim, if you where wondering.
quote:
Originally posted by Puzzlemaker:
<STRONG>the Koran gives them the right to vote</STRONG>
and before you accuse me of anti-islamism, note that the Christian Bible also says stuff like that.
[ May 20, 2008: Message edited by: a1s ]
that being said, a wheelchair-bound person should still get hit every time they are fired at- it doesn't take an Olympic crackshot to hit an object that is stationary or moving at a constant velocity.
in a getaway however they should have the effective agility of [top liberal in the group]-5 (it's on wheels, if you push it- it moves on it's own!)
I think it's very funny, but more than that, I think it's very realistic. As I mentioned before, it's not a magical sex change option, it's a matter of a different paradigm on gender and identity. This may not line up with yours, but it's one that's held by many people in the real world, and it's one the LCS would support.
It is actually an important but often overlooked part of the gay rights movement that many people are transsexual and identify as a different gender than the anatomy they were born with. They do, for the most part, have their decisions respected by those around them, but it has been a difficult part of the gay rights movement to even get legislation protecting the right of these people to equal employment opportunity in anti-discrimination laws, and gay rights groups have pulled out of support for otherwise highly favorable legislation because they perceive it as pulling the latter up behind them, and they support GLBT rights, not just GLB and throw the last group under the bus.
The Liberal Crime Squad pushes for these Liberal ideals, the absolute Elite Liberal Agenda, not a more moderate half-way that some would prefer, but the far left wing. That means they have full support of the gay rights movement, including support for the recognition, respect, and equality for transsexuality and transsexual people. It is not simply a matter of humor and a joke, but that this is a fact of life for some people and recognition of people having the right to make decisions about their own gender identity and have others respect that is part of the ideological stance of the LCS.
I have personally known former men who now identify as women, former women who now identify as men, even people who don't identify as either gender, but something different or neither, and have new and different pronouns for their identification which they specifically request others to use in reference to them. Like it or not, changing gender and even defying it completely is a canon part of the LCS's stated ideology and worldview, and I'm not going to take that out because it seems unrealistic to some. The idea that it's just a joke to enable people to make a choice like that and is unrealistic is in fact one of the Conservative ideas that the LCS fights to end. In another time people would have said the same thing about implementing gender realistically to the suggestion of letting people flip a switch in their profile setting sexual orientation.
The fact is, not everyone in this world agrees on everything. You're not going to agree with everything that the LCS believes, and you're not expected to. But for many people this sort of thing is an aspect of life for them, and the LCS fights to represent those people. When I say that I would be okay with adding gender if you could change it in your profile, and that there might be a secret variable tracking your original gender and Conservatives might refuse to acknowledge your new one while Liberals would, I am proposing a more realistic system for gender, and one that adheres more closely to the world as it is seen by the sort of people you play as in this game. You may personally perceive it to be unrealistic that people would have the right to choose their gender identity, but that doesn't mean it's unrealistic for the sort of people you are playing as.
---
Representing M/F--
This may seem stodgy and Conservative, but I don't want to get into putting non-printing characters in text in hopes that they will be printed and not treated as control characters, when that is completely out of my hands as a programmer to enforce. Dwarf Fortress has the luxury of displaying using its own defined character set in OpenGL, but LCS is totally at the mercy of the console it lives in. The Linux and Mac ports don't use the same library and don't use the same console, and as a result, both butcher a lot of the ASCII LCS already uses. They rely on horribly ugly hacks to do things like represent the US Flag as a bunch of tildes and underscores, and that's just so you can understand what you're looking at. When I put a M or an F on the screen I know that it's going to be an M or an F no matter what console, library, and operating system is being used. Given that LCS already suffers from portability issues in its display, I like the security of knowing that what I'm programming is both standard and consistently implemented.
---
Wheelchair--
The game already implements wheelchairs in a pretty reasonable fashion. It's not exciting to get one, that's just a one-line thing that is a real snoozer (you activate->find a wheelchair (replaces steal cars for legless/lower body paralyzed liberals), and the game tells you if they succeeded), but once you have one the game handles it pretty gracefully. How it's implemented now:
1) Wheelchair is currently neither weapon nor armor. It's a special item with its own slot and it's only used if you need it. You need one if you can't walk, but once you have one you can travel in site actions and move around and fight as normal with a squad. Of course, if you don't have command of your arms either, you'll just sit there and look on with authority as others battle far you, but that's another matter.
2) Wheelchair doesn't affect combat, but you'll be sitting on a permanent and juice-immune 1 agility if you are fully body paralyzed. If you can move your upper body but can't move your lower body, or you have no legs, your agility will not be nuked completely, but it'll still be quartered (including juice bonuses), making them easy targets to hit, and attacks will do much more damage as they'll get nice, clean shots in on your wheelchair-bound Liberal to boot.
[ May 21, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
[ May 21, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
(Any appearance otherwise is just because the name generator picks from both male and female names.)
[ May 21, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
If you start screwing around with the door he'll see you immediately since he's standing there and kick your butt. Or more likely you'll waste him and smash the door in, but either way you're not going to be picking up those pretty CCS Vigilantes hanging out inside without getting shot unless you get by him peacefully.
Right now the gentleman's club allows anyone who looks presentable in, but if you shoot the place up and it goes high security it will be converted to invitation only and he'll always reject you no matter what. You can't bribe the guy just yet but that'll be later.
Also, this system supports future clubs with bouncers at the door, including ones more friendly; it can spawn moderate bouncers that turn conservative if you make trouble or try to force your way into the entrance.
quote:
Originally posted by Puzzlemaker:
<STRONG>I agree with most of those points; but I don't really want to touch the Islamic part of it. Mostly because it's a stereotypical thing to assume; in a lot of Muslim countries, woman have a lot of rights.</STRONG>
Hence why I specifically said "terrorist-fundamentalists" -- not Muslims in general, but Muslims who are both terrorists and fundamentalists. Ironically, the fundamentalists are more radical than the people who interpret the Qu'ran literally. Muslim people on a whole are probably the nicest and most generally level people I've ever met. If I recall, the Qu'ran even considers it culturally reproachable to insult someone -- even calling someone a "kafir" ("unfaithful") is almost as distasteful as a disbelief in Allah itself.
The terrorists who blow up buildings in the name of Islam, on the other hand... anything goes with them.
[edit] I should mention that I was specifically thinking of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood when I brought up the equality issue. In THT, women are abrogated as property by the United States, which had descended into an arch-conservative religious society and been renamed Gilead after an unnamed dystopian disaster. Women had no legal power, and due to the alarming increase in sterility, fertile women were forced to become breeders through a wild interpretation of a Biblical passage where Rachel asks her handmaiden to be impregnated by her husband, with the handmaiden literally (but probably not really) being impregnated upon the wife's knees, and then takes the baby for herself.
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan S. Fox:
<STRONG>The Liberal Crime Squad pushes for these Liberal ideals, the absolute Elite Liberal Agenda, not a more moderate half-way that some would prefer, but the far left wing.</STRONG>
The majority of that post was well conceived, but I still think it's pretty strange. The GLBT rights fall under the homosexuality issue which is already represented; the wage disparity and other aspects are more generally relevant to the MF gender, as there is no such disparity for transgendered/bisexual/homosexual people that I'm aware of (although I'm (for lack of a better word) not intimately aware of the details of that sort of thing). Regardless of how someone views their gender, they do have a physical sex which is almost always easily defined -- a sliding scale from male to female anatomy, with an inverse Gaussian distribution.
If a woman identifies as male, she is technically incorrect: she can identify with the male gender, but will always have female anatomy until she changes it (and even then will still have female genes and be incapable of reproducing). If you want to implement "gender" versus "sex", you've made a good enough argument that I would accept it, but I think it's important to have both.
Never expected a simple request like that to go so far off track...
[ May 21, 2008: Message edited by: JT ]
Jt, is regards to wage disparities and the like, most transsexuals experience bias in the same way GLB folks do, as outright discrimination rather than the more subtle misogyny which is a problem for women and as such should probably fall under the gay rights category rather than any sort of gender-equity category becuase the nature of the issues they are dealing with. A prime example of this is the man in Oregon who got pregnant, virtually every Ob/Gyn he talked to refused to take his case.
If LCS is going to take on sex/gender and the like as a issues or mechaincs, I would urge whoever is doing it to treat it to ignore sex and focus exclusively on gender. This fits the atmosphere much better, and give the player greater tactical freedom.
quote:
Originally posted by JT:
<STRONG>If a woman identifies as male, she is technically incorrect: she can identify with the male gender, but will always have female anatomy until she changes it (and even then will still have female genes and be incapable of reproducing). If you want to implement "gender" versus "sex", you've made a good enough argument that I would accept it, but I think it's important to have both.</STRONG>
quote:
Originally posted by BishopX:
<STRONG>If LCS is going to take on sex/gender and the like as a issues or mechaincs, I would urge whoever is doing it to treat it to ignore sex and focus exclusively on gender. This fits the atmosphere much better, and give the player greater tactical freedom.</STRONG>
What I would like to do is have it to so both are tracked, but with very different functionality. Sex itself not on their character sheet, but when you want to change someone's gender identity, it has a note about what Unflexible Conservative Society believes their gender to be. Then, when you go out into the gentleman's club and start hitting on Conservatives, they respond according to both your set gender and sex (that is, if they aren't the same, they probably respond negatively, and if they are the same, they respond accordingly) -- unless your disguise skill is high enough, in which case you might get your face clubbed in on your first date when they finally figure it out.
[ May 21, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
I added age and aging today. Currently shows birthdate, age in profile. Age affects stats. Your birthdate is based on your character creation choices (your "class" too, now, you're not just a transient). You can also die of old age, though I'm not sure how well that works, as I haven't been able to test it yet. What would you to see in age and aging?
Also, I'd like Supreme Court people to age.
[ May 22, 2008: Message edited by: Little ]
Go here, find the latest revision, click download. Save it in an existing LCS install directory, over another exe. Delete your save unless you want the game to crash, and then run as usual.
Re: Supreme court, GOOD CALL. I forgot about that. Definitely a must-have.
[ May 22, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
Also, prostitution income is (or was until recently, don't remember) under the vague label "hustling".
All of you are incredible! There's few independent open-source games that get this kind of attention, and it's great to see the community pulling together to keep the wheel of progress turning.
Extra props go to you codemonkeys who make all our hairbrained, half-thought-out ideas into workable game mechanics.
I <3 you all.
I'm not sure this is entirely bad (it's like we get our very own Liberal Televangelist), but it does seem a bit out of whack.
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan S. Fox:
<STRONG>What would you to see in age and aging?</STRONG>
Added basic hostage negotiations that you can trigger by talking to alarmed Conservatives while holding hostages and threatening to execute the hostagaes. Right now it's not based on persuasion or anything, just some choices and the enemies you're facing. Mildly fun, but the whole hostage execution thing is generally bad business for your juice.
You can also yell your Liberal Slogan at Conservatives in hope of this fazing them, though if you're the type that never changes your slogan, the default "We need a slogan!" might be embarrassing to utter in public. This has one current purpose and will later have more. Currently, it can scare people off if you have a very high juice Liberal and the LCS is feared. Later, once not everything you do is guaranteed to be reported as political activism, it will ensure that if any of the people who hear you survive, your site action will be connected to the LCS in the news. Spraying graffiti when you're on site will be another way to "sign" your misdeeds and guarantee that people know it was you.
Edit: For aging, my rough draft that I made earlier today had strength, agility, health, and heart dropping off at old age, while charisma, intelligence, and wisdom increase with age (charisma not for physical beauty, but for social influence and experience). The heart and wisdom effects are fairly small -- a swing of 4 points between them by the time they're 70+. And teenagers do generally get better stats when they turn into adults -- though their class becomes "Political Activist" since they're growing up as LCS Members. (High school dropouts and some fast food workers are also spawned as teenagers and go through the same process.)
Having a problem fitting the age into the profile screen. You can see it there, but it's actually sitting where damage is displayed if the Liberal is injured. I'll also have to fit gender in there and anything else that ends up being added.
[ May 23, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
[ May 23, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
quote:
Originally posted by McWaffle:
<STRONG>quick and probably pansy suggestion: volunteering for liberal candidates in election years. Get Out The Vote as a legal activity, for example. Boosts the odds of liberal candidates getting elected, depending on the skill and number of LCS members working for the campaigns.</STRONG>
This can potentially be tied into the organization system... Eventually I would like for temporary organizations to be created for elections. Also, being able to get people to volunteer for other organizations, and donate money, etc.
As an aside, does anyone know how to edit the Firefox dictionary? I just accidentally added the word "Liveral" to it, and I don't think that really needs to be part of my vocabulary (digitabulary?).
Also, are temporary leaders possible? Like, if mty founder goes to prision for three years, can the next in line get the group to stay together?
Edit: Yeah, the correct stuff was overwritten? I think? Anyway, it's fixed now.
[ May 23, 2008: Message edited by: Puzzlemaker ]
How about a Daily Show analogue? You know, the Daily Show is really REALLY popular and actually affects the way some Americans think. Satire is a powerful tool.
Changes in the last day:
- Liberal Guardian special editions no longer award Juice to everyone. I tested just toning down the juice award, but ended up going with removing the award entirely. They're still a powerful influential force in the media, but they won't supercharge your entire organization.
- Minor site actions no longer get reported in the media. The cutoff point and the amount that different crimes contribute to this are all variable easily, so I'm happy to hear feedback on how it feels. This allows you to do minor site actions to steal goods for money and increase juice without them being reported as political. Right now that isn't really useful, but at some point the public and media will likely get a lot of more judgmental about wanton criminal activities.
- I think I've fixed the dispersal bug where the founder was not replaced correctly and/or random subordinates dying triggered the death of the entire LCS.
- Being in prison will no longer induce loss of contact. History and/or fiction is ripe with tales of ringleaders still giving orders through codes and proxies to their old group via visitations. This will make prison less dangerous, but executions are still a looming risk, and it'll allow you to mount daring raids to save the founder. Should be fun.
- Massive Conservative Response "ENEMY" units once again cause enemies to spawn on you. This was taken out awhile back in favor of making the raid units instead spawn randomly, so that you didn't have to be by the door to be under threat. I think I just never finished this refinement, since I didn't take the units out, just made them not spawn enemies. Well, now both systems are in place: you not only get a high random spawn rate for the raiders, you also get large groups in roving units. Truly, the forces of Conservatism are mighty.
- "ENEMY" units in site mode will no longer bumble around blindly until they run into you, at least not when you're close. They now look around and move to attack the LCS if you move next to them or onto them. This means running between two ENEMY units will, predictably, result in both groups closing in and attacking at once. It also means you can't dash past them in hallways anymore.
- Conservatives can now get Notoriety, which is basically Juice for Conservatives. Moderates get Fame. People like Police and CCS Members can start with a pretty sizable amount of Notoriety, making them tough. Notoriety is not usually converted into Juice if they're turned Liberal; they lose all Notoriety and start from zero Juice. The exception to this is if they're in the negative -- then they'll end up starting with negative Juice too. Eventually I'd like to make it so that in interrogations and seductions and such one of the big things you're doing is reducing their Notoriety to drop their stats to a manageable level.
- The successive hit penalty for SMGs has been reduced by over 40%, making them much more accurate. Since SMGs start with a high base accuracy, this should help make them a much more viable weapon.
- The amount of heat needed to generate police sieges has been reduced by 60%, making police much more likely to attack your safehouses. Note that this is based on the new system, where police are very slow to warm up to attack anyway, and moving around frequently doesn't help much.
I also have some ideas to float:
- Provide only one, or even no abandoned warehouses to the player as safehouses to start with. As safehouses can be captured from the CCS, allow these to function as upgradable safehouses the way warehouses do. Apartments can still be rented as usual. The CCS would have "business fronts" on their safehouses -- eg, the Desert Eagle Bar & Grill would just be their business front name, and it would revert to something much less legitimate sounding and much less heat-dispersing when the LCS takes it, at least until you upgrade it.
- Make business fronts and fortifications mutually exclusive, forcing you to specialize in either avoiding or fighting sieges at a location, but not both. You would start out with two (mutually exclusive) installation options: Establish a business front, or fortify for a siege. The business front would enable more "legitimate" things, like setting up a public clinic or printing presses, for example. The siege fortifications would unlock your usual options of buying emergency food provisions, security cameras, secret stuff hiding caches, etc., to enhance your fortified safehouse. You would not be able to do both.
- Link the likelihood of sieges and the ability of a safehouse to disperse heat to the number of Liberals at a location. Every six liberals would reduce the quality of the safehouse by one point. It would probably use six to eleven liberals as the baseline, and have less than six give you a one point bonus, with twelve to seventeen being the first level of penalty. Note that the way it works now, a single point less safehouse quality doubles the effective heat at the location, while a single point more quality halves the effective heat. Combined with the first suggestion here about reducing your free safehouses to the homeless shelter and maybe one warehouse, this would give pressure to spread out your operations more, rent apartments, etc..
You get the save I sent you?
quote:
Originally posted by penguinofhonor:
<STRONG>It refuses to run, giving this error:
(http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/2678/errorzb6.png) </STRONG>
I have this problem....
# This is a test comment
OBJECT ORGANIZATION
NAME CCS
ALIGNMENT -1
SWAYABLE 0
ATKPOWER 50
OBJECT ORGANIZATION
NAME LCS
ALIGNMENT -1
SWAYABLE 0
ATKPOWER 50
DAMN!
EDIT: Little, I just fixed the bug that caused your crash. Good news: Your save isn't damaged. If you want to load it, just use it with the new version. Committing a new exe right now.
[ May 24, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
Could you send it back to me?
What about hiring prostitutes and strippers to help bring in income, seduce conservatives, and train as assassins/bodyguards!? Or is that already in the game?
1) Recruit prostitutes.
2) Order your people to engage in prostitution for money.
3) Seduce both Liberals and Conservatives as a form of recruitment. They act as full members in almost every capacity, but will be loyal specifically to their lover, rather than the organization in general, and so cannot be promoted.
4) Seduce armed Conservatives in order to gain the opportunity to kidnap them later when they're not capable of defending themselves.
You can not currently:
1) Rob, assassinate, or otherwise take advantage of seduced people other than recruiting them.
2) Turn seduced people into sleepers.
3) Use seduction to get access to restricted areas and steal or sabotage things.
4) Have/use strippers for anything.
[ May 24, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
It'd be cool to be able to designate a character as a bodyguard, who would maybe would get bonuses in combat and learn faster or something. Of course you could only give body guards to important members and they couldn't be changed often, You could only designate a small number per person depending on importance, maybe the founder could have three or four and most other important members could have one.
Does that sound cool?
[ May 24, 2008: Message edited by: Ioric Kittencuddler ]
1: Not knowing who people are in encounters.
What I was thinking is people like agents, probably shouldn't show up as agents in some situations, so perhaps people should show up as, "Person" or maybe as, "Person?" showing that you don't know by glancing at them what thier job is. In continued thinking about this, I came up with this next idea.
2: New Encounter Action: Look at
Perhaps everyone shows up as just a person, maybe with thier name in grey, until you look at them, and then you would know some more about them, such as job and political views. The downside of this is that staring at people might attract attention from that person, assuming they notice, another use for the stealth skill perhaps? Of course this got me thinking about a third idea, all things come in threes you know.
3: New Skill: Perception
A skill that would allow you to notice more about someone when you, "look at" them, also I was thinking that a skill like this could fit in with the idea of not knowing the stats of new recruits right away. For more fun, maybe perception could be what allows you to know when the conservatives are suspicious, as well as when a massive responce is coming. I just liked the idea of someone wandering around not knowing of the impending doom about to befall them.
4: Organizational Help
I'd like to be able to change the order of my liberals on the activate page. It would just be a nice option, so I can group them by task, or place.
5: Suggestion for the multiple safehouse upgrade paths
I think after getting a buisiness front I ought to be able to upgrade it further, aka, buy more buildings, and make it a chain, or some other odds and ends to make my squad that much more invisible.
6: Site Suggestion
More sites than just the appartments should have more than one floor, also could upper floors have fire escape ladders, or even just windows to jump out of to avoid the mindless automatons on the floors below.
ok, I'm done for now. back to shedding some liberal light on those kept in the dark by evil conservatives. By shed some light I mean bust some heads, I'm one year in and have over 500 kills.
quote:
I think after getting a buisiness front I ought to be able to upgrade it further, aka, buy more buildings, and make it a chain....
If it is a business front, the objective is to hide the Ilegal actions you perform behind that front... Not start an capitalist enterprise...
quote:
Organizational Help I'd like to be able to change the order of my liberals on the activate page. It would just be a nice option, so I can group them by task, or place.
We are all wishing some kind of way to organize this or at least be able to divide activists in groups to easyly assign tasks in bulk... but I think Johnathan's view about this (and probably correct) is that if you could easyly have hundreds of activists making money like that the game would loose the escense of having squads changing the world by performing numerous acts of bravery ;) Nevertheless... Some kind of organization would be nice.
Some notes I made while playing the lcs_win32_3.12.1 just ideas & commentaries.
What about not being able to run anymore... Tired, broken leg, etc. So you have to either fight or give up.
Someone Mentioned bribing? Bribe a police officer to let you go? (if it is a minor crime, of course, cant expect him to let me go if I just killed his partner)
Or spliting up while escaping so the officer only has to chase one person... and you can maybe save your founder if being chased.
by the way, Great addition to the text in chases. I love the fence-climbing and other stuff.
Css should be able to imprison your activists and you should have to rescue them as when imprisoned.
the decimal numbers in the skills is an excellent addition, as small as it may seem, it makes level gaining a much funnier experience.
Why dont you choose anymore the topic of conversation? to make it faster?
[ May 25, 2008: Message edited by: Alexhans ]
My way that saved some time was giving people lame code names, like, "Kidnap 1", "Spray 5", "Hacker 3", even doing this I spend quite a while re-doing my squads, especially when I am moving people not doing site actions, and I want them to continue non-site actions, since this works when people are not in squads, and I use the option to re-locate people.
My latest idea is to recruit people in the order in which I will be having them do tasks. We'll see how that goes.
Also I didn't want a capitalist organization, I wanted to be able to buy new safe-houses.
EDIT: Sorry for the original ranting tone of this.
[ May 25, 2008: Message edited by: Hanure ]
quote:
Originally posted by penguinofhonor:
<STRONG>people aren't literally invisible to the police due to their 162 sleepers.</STRONG>
But there should always be that small, small chance that you'll be raided.
quote:
Originally posted by Ioric Kittencuddler:
<STRONG>You know, I just started up a new game with the latest version and saw something quite out of place when I pressed "L". The President, VP, and Attorney General all had female names. Something that obviously would not happen in a strongly conservative society like the game starts in.</STRONG>
Two words: Margret Thatcher. Though in general I'd agree.
Though as currently defined, it's hard to degrade fortification-style upgrading; it's all or nothing. What most quickly springs to my mind isn't feasible with the current system, but it seems intriguing: a fort, having high security and in its purest form, no contact with the outside world, should be very hard to infiltrate. I.e., the police manage to send 3 undercover agents into your soup kitchen and grab your founder (to fight their way out with as a meatshield) before anyone's the wiser. Or they covertly map the place so that when the Air Force joins them in a siege they know where to bomb. Or the CIA sneaks in and plants a packet or two of C4. Or the CCS strike team initiates a raid from the middle of the hideout with zero warning and non-squaded members spread out all over the map, scrambling to join the organized ones before they get gunned down. Or a smaller-scale CCS assassin team that either gets spotted at the door; or freely roams the base 'til they find a LCS Terrorist Leader; or gets halfway in before they catch whiff of Liberal Caution, depending on how guarded/open the safehouse is. Increased fortification elements could add to the difficulty progressively, and a fully isolated fortress would make infiltration nigh impossible (e.g., guards at the doors communicating with a central control, cameras everywhere, etc). If you wanted to set up a little printing press or clinic in the front room to add a small veneer of legitimacy, you have to make it easier for people to get in (whether covertly, or behind a battering ram).
Basically, more tradeoffs. Though for now, I'd just suggest having fronts able to have some security measures, at the cost of less heat dispersal. I'm not sure we could currently add more "functionality" to forts under the current system.
[ May 26, 2008: Message edited by: E. Albright ]
Food Co-Op: Business
Community Paper: Writing
Soup Kitchen: Cooking
Free Clinic: First Aid
Unitarian Church: Religion
Community Center: Teaching
(Or possibly throw Business onto all of these for the cost/profit part, and have the other as just its "effectiveness" in terms of propaganda and cover.)
The other thing with this is it could open up an action option for LCS members stationed there to actively support whatever activity is ostensibly being performed by non-member staff/volunteers, which would allow them to practice the operative skill instead of actively working for the LCS that day.
For those of you who don't code, think of it like this: It's the different between a gigantic stack of paper, and a shelf filled with labeled binders.
quote:
Originally posted by E. Albright:
<STRONG>Two words: Margret Thatcher. Though in general I'd agree.</STRONG>
Um... the Prime Minister of England? Believe it or not, America and England have not been the same country for hundreds of years. ;)
I've got another idea once we add sexes.
In a super conservative society the sexes of people in certain professions would be heavily slanted with only females in degrading jobs like prostitutes and strippers and whatnot, and only men in 'respectable' jobs like corporate managers. As you convert the country to a more liberal way of thinking things will start to even out.
[ May 27, 2008: Message edited by: Ioric Kittencuddler ]
The next guy I got was a socialite whom with 8 wisdom whom I converted in 6 days and he became a sleeper.
It seems totally random. The only thing that seems consistent is that if you don't succeed after nine days then they announce the person missing.
EDIT: Nevermind, that isn't even consistent.
[ May 27, 2008: Message edited by: Ioric Kittencuddler ]
quote:
Ioric Kittencuddler on M. Thatcher:
<STRONG>Um... the Prime Minister of England?</STRONG>
Canada also had a female Prime Minister once -- Kim Campbell -- who was also a conservative. However, she wasn't anything special, and only lasted a few months due to a minority government.
In general, I'd suggest that the United States of Liberal Crime Squad play into gender stereotypes and sexuality stereotypes as much as possible. Something along these lines:
* Arch-Conservative: 100% male, 0% female, 0% other
* Conservative: 90% male, 10% female, 0% other
* Moderate: 75% male, 20% female, 5% other
* Liberal: 45% male, 45% female, 10% other
* Elite Liberal: 33% male, 33% female, 33% other
[edit]Joke: for the last 1% of Elite Liberal, perhaps the president could be an animal.
[ May 27, 2008: Message edited by: JT ]
You only need to get their heart above their wisdom, you don't need to drop their wisdom to one.
quote:
Originally posted by Ioric Kittencuddler:
<STRONG>Alright I've been trying again, this time with a character that has 5 seduction and 4 interrogation I kidnapped a doctor with 11 wisdom and started out with everything in the book, then gradually wound it down but the bastard was announced missing on day nine, two days after his wisdom had had reached one. Finally, he converted on day 18.[ May 27, 2008: Message edited by: Ioric Kittencuddler ]</STRONG>
The thing is that you have to build both persuasion (brownies is good) and interrogation stats (tend to someone without converting him for long time), have high heart, and if the Kidnapped is a Big Character (CEO, Eminent scientist, etc) Youll have to have the skills that he knows to impress him... (Business, Science, etc). I also use many people on the conversions (thought Im not sure it changes anything.) In 1 or 2 days ANY hostage I take has 1 wisdom, beating... hehe.
Note that I'm saying all this out of experience... I didn't look at the code. But I can usually get the sleepers I need with work & planiffication.
Don't use the latest revisions, MASSIVE code overhauls. Massive.
Yeah, you need a sitemaps.txt for it, it should be somewhere.
Which is good.
quote:
Originally posted by E. Albright:
<STRONG>By the sounds of it, code architecture refactoring; i.e., nothing the end user will directly experience, and will only indirectly later when the updating and bugfixing is prompter, cleaner, and more consistent.Which is good.</STRONG>
Pretty much, yeah.
quote:
Originally posted by Ioric Kittencuddler:
<STRONG>Hey, I just realized something. Where are the chop shops for stolen cars?</STRONG>
Something to come soon enough, says Jonathan.
I dunno, does this sound like I really stupid idea? I'm just trying to think of all the angles.
quote:
Originally posted by BishopX:
<STRONG>Ioric,You only need to get their heart above their wisdom, you don't need to drop their wisdom to one.</STRONG>
This just in. I beat up a security guard at the Sweat Shop and took them hostage. I then completely forgot about them for three days. On the fourth day I accidentally pressed 2 instead of 6 and realized I still had them, and they were heavily wounded. I then tried to convert them with restraints food, water, and lights on. On the seventh day I got their heart to eleven while their wisdom was at ten. on the eighth day they were announced missing. On the ninth or tenth day, I can't exactly remember, they were converted.
So no, not even making their heart become higher than their wisdom is enough. :(
[ May 31, 2008: Message edited by: Ioric Kittencuddler ]
quote:
Originally posted by penguinofhonor:
<STRONG>I'm pretty sure that getting their heart above their wisdom is a requirement, and the more their heart is above their wisdom, the higher the chance of you converting them is. Though it's still chance.</STRONG>
No one ever said anything about chance.
I'd love to see more uses for having lots of money. Hiring mercenaries to harrass the CCS or jailbreak your guys, buying a car, more upgrades to safehouses, bribing judges and cops to make them partial sleepers...
The trick where you get benefit for not wiping their heart is this: Though you can't turn people into sleepers, you CAN convince the police that no kidnapping took place and they abandoned their old life to join you of their own accord if their final wisdom is three or more and their final heart is eight or more. This is difficult to do, especially because wisdom will tend to drop of its own accord when they're being persuaded, and can easily go below three. You'll get a special message in this case.
With or without that trick, getting heart above wisdom is necessary for one of the mechanisms to convert them, but it's not the conversion point itself. The conversion point is heart five above wisdom. Yes, that is quite difficult to achieve before the media reports their kidnapping. You will have at least 4 and no more than 17 days before it's publicized as a kidnapping. This is on a probability curve somewhat weighted toward the lower end.
The other two mechanisms are both related to the degree to which the character likes you; there's two levels of like needed, and which one you have to beat depends on how effective your talking is. Once they are getting "clingy", a successful talk about the issues will instantly convert them. It takes a few more tries to get it if your talks are unsuccessful., it will take a few more unsuccessful talks that result in them breaking down, since the amount of like needed to convert them when they're unhappy is a bit higher. Both are very similar triggers, they just have different like thresholds.
Regardless of the details of how it works now, interrogation does need continued revision. It needs to be more communicative, for one. A couple of bars on the bottom of the screen giving a visual feedback on the state of the interrogation would be a godsend -- things like how close they are to conversion by alignment shift, and a visual depiction of how much they like or hate the interrogator. Feedback like that helps the game feel less random, and more under the control of the player. In games, as in life, a feeling of lack of control is just frustrating. As LCS is largely a strategy game, knowing what effect everything you do has on the game is crucial. Not every number and formula has to be exposed -- eg, the die roll for whether a skill check succeeds or not doesn't have to be shown -- but everything that isn't shown must be noncritical to decision making. Sacrificing clarity for immersion doesn't work, since it simply makes the game less fun.
Additionally, the balance and options need work. Most of the options are just fun toys that in practice do very similar things to one another. Having options be more consciously strategic and have more clear and direct effect, for example adding options back in that cost money, will also help.
[ May 31, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
What did you think about my post at the top of the page?
Is it too stupid?
[ June 01, 2008: Message edited by: Ioric Kittencuddler ]
quote:
Originally posted by Ioric Kittencuddler:
<STRONG>Ah, thanks for explaining that. I guess I'm just gonna need to work at it.What did you think about my post at the top of the page?
Is it too stupid?
[ June 01, 2008: Message edited by: Ioric Kittencuddler ]</STRONG>
I would think it would make them more likely to jail for longer periods of time, honestly.
The idea of making response stronger based on perceived threat would work great with this, see, women would just be perceived as less of a threat in conservative society. Most of the time at least.
First is non lethal weapons at more liberal levels of weapon control. I know its been bandied about but the idea is that things like tasers are more effective at stopping a person cold then a gun with one hit. Either they could do massive amounts of subdual damage(DnD term for non lethal) or give the person a special state that clears when they leave the site. Either way the person hit would be effectively dead for at least a couple of turns up to leaving the site. If you can't haul the person off the site then they don't die but get captured by the police. Not sure how using it as a weapon of the LCS would work but there that is.
Stupid lack of sleep cant remember my second idea.
Cool idea though.
As a side note, I really like the way that sex is not tracked at all.
The reason why it takes so long is because of the way the system works and not the fault of hard endgame. Maybe randomize when congress and supreme court acts on legislation. Maybe make every day have a .01% chance for one of the branches to act on one piece of legislation. Perhaps a wait till end of month button. But dont talk about the endgame as just holding down W. Though unfortunatly that is all it ends up being at times.
Having a wait one week button or a wait one month button isn't a bad idea if it'll tick off the days visually (very quickly) and interrupt if anything important happens. In fact, I think it would be very good for the game. Though it's not meant to be a game about long waiting periods, it still happens, especially due to the time scale of political movement in the game. Just letting the player press less buttons would be a blessing here.
Also, is it possible to cancel your lease on an appartment?
quote:
Originally posted by mainiac:
<STRONG>Or a go into hiding command. As the LCS leader, I know we're really only needed once an election cycle. I can therefore safetly tell my people to disperse for 20 months at a time and head up into the mountains to practice buddhism and basket weaving.</STRONG>
I would LOVE to eventually see a "go underground X long" command. There should probably be a risk that less juicy/passionate members would sell out and not come back, with a separate chance of said selling out resulting in betrayal to authorities (versus them just taking a 9-5 and trying to forget their "follies of youthful indiscretion (and/or criminal liability)". Selling out should probably be a factor of not just juice but profession; an inactive, non-brainwashed office worker/programmer/college student/teenager would be much more vulnerable to "sensibility" when not actively engaged than, say, a hippie, transient, or gang member. Age would also count for something; if you joined the LCS at 49, you're less likely to repent and try to settle down than someone who joined at 17/21/25...
[ June 02, 2008: Message edited by: E. Albright ]
However, if that Collage Student just got out of collage after he resumed his education, and he couldn't find a 9-5 career, I'd say he'd be likely to join back up(if only to get a roof over his head).
It'd be intresting if stats like Intelligence, Wisdom and Heart played into it. Like, if I have a smart Collage student and I disband for three years,, he'd be more likely to pick up a 9-5 job than the one with lower intelligence.
1) A wheelchair issue (I'm still playing the "new interrogation" version...alpha8 is it? And haven't d/l'ed the latest yet)...if the country is predominantly conservative still, few if any locations should be wheelchair accessible.
2) I think one thing LCS really needs, I haven't noticed much recent discussion of it, besides aging justices, is more direct political activism. It doesn't even require politicians to become more than just a name. Assassinations, bribes, and any other interaction is just an event.
3) I could really use an improved interface on view active liberals. Being able to reorder the list would be helpful, as would searching or sorting by attributes/skills. When I do the stupid little projects I like to do, like maxing the rifle skill of all my 25 agi liberals, which currently numbers ~15. It's really tedious to first scroll through them from the stat view, note the name, and then find the guy again on 30 pages full of Diwakers.
4) I know a rigid hierarchy is too conservative, but the ability to appoint a few officers would be nice, e.g. a lieutenant who could easily step in as interim or replacement leader without everyone losing touch if the leader is arrested or killed.
5) Has anything been done to differentiate disguise from stealth? They both only seem to be used when entering a location and not when leaving. It would make more sense if you used disguise on the way to, say, the AM radio station studio, and stealth to avoid encounters on the way out. (assuming you're afraid of pitchforks...speaking of which, I live in Texas and know a lot of rednecks... every single one has at least a few guns and no pitchfork).
And one question...does the wheelchair thing mean limbs are getting blown off again? I used to love having lots of maimed liberals running around, but in the version I'm currently still playing, all of the 500+ LCS members in my current game have all of their limbs, though a very large number have had noses blown off, and several have had their faces blown off, including my poor leader, Mao.
[ June 10, 2008: Message edited by: Elmyr ]
One is control. There should definitely be a way to reorder your list of liberals, or maybe the list should automatically sort based on the location of your liberals. Also, and this would change how enjoyable the game is greatly, there should be an option you can set for every single liberal as to what their default option instead of just idling would be. That way you can set your active squads do various things, be it repairing clothing, spraying graffiti, or writing for the liberal guardian, without having to retask them every single time they have to go out and cause trouble.
I also think it should be reams harder to change public opinion. As is, I can shift opinion 20% in a day. Because of this I can build a squad of heavy hitters in my first year two months before election day and have an elite liberal president right away. Also, and I may be wrong about this, but I think the number of conservatives that appear are tied directly to public opinion. While this makes sense in a way, it makes the game less fun, as it's actually difficult to keep yourself in a situation where there's a decent number of targets. Everyone who doesn't absolutely have to be conservative for their profession isn't, so in the end you only fight cops and scientists and corporate managers. I know this is intentional, that the game starts hard and gets easier as public opinion shifts in your favor, but it's not as fun later on when you aren't going to be swarmed by people of every profession.
Also, you should keep adding in new things you can do in the game. New locations are nice, but what's really nice is new things at old locations. Maybe the corporate HQ should also have a computer you can crash, and maybe the police station should have an evidence room (which of course would always be guarded) that you can retrieve some of your lost equipment from, or maybe just raid to steal whatever from. I've mentioned metal detectors would be nice (go through one, and it doesn't matter if your weapons are concealed or put away entirely, but a good bluff should still be able to get you through.) More stuff to spend money on would be nice too. Maybe hire a PR firm for a small popularity boost. Maybe bring in non LCS members to teach them at an inflated price. How about a basement you can dig beneath safe house, that could then be expanded into a shelter, which would protect your liberals from airstrikes (there are still airstrikes during long sieges, right?). Also, maybe allow for expanded business fronts (they would cost money on a daily or monthly basis, since your would have to make things look more legit, but they would also work
much better.)
I love the CCS, and think you should also add more of that sort of thing in. Other factions wouldn't even need to be violent, you could make a non violent groups for each degree of political leaning (one for elite conservative, one for regular conservatives, one for centrists, one for liberals, and one for elite liberals.) This would also add a difficult choice, as you would eventually want to off the liberal and centrist faction when you are past their level liberalness, but there would be some major popularity hits involved with attacking people who by all rights should be your allies, or at least neutral to you.
Oh, and please do not add gender to the game. It's a great joke that gender is ignored, very liberal indeed. It also makes me feel fine giving liberals code names that imply both gender and profession (guess what I call my prostitutes?).
Anyway, enough of what I'd like. Your doing great work on this game. Keep it up.
quote:
Originally posted by Elmyr:
<STRONG>1) A wheelchair issue (I'm still playing the "new interrogation" version...alpha8 is it? And haven't d/l'ed the latest yet)...if the country is predominantly conservative still, few if any locations should be wheelchair accessible.
[snip]
And one question...does the wheelchair thing mean limbs are getting blown off again? I used to love having lots of maimed liberals running around, but in the version I'm currently still playing, all of the 500+ LCS members in my current game have all of their limbs, though a very large number have had noses blown off, and several have had their faces blown off, including my poor leader, Mao.</STRONG>
I've seen limbs blown off, but it's usually fatal. However, wheelchairs are indeed needed for missing legs and/or spinal injuries.
To flesh out finding a wheelchair a little more, I'd like to see a couple more possibilities for getting one.
1) Steal a wheelchair from a hospital during a site action. This is alienating, however, because it says you think you deserve a wheelchair more than anyone else who is injured!
2) Apply to a charity to get a wheelchair. It's free, but can take anywhere from a day to a couple of months.
3) Buy a wheelchair. $350.
Reading some conservative books might have a small chance of raising your wisdom, but you could couteract that by reading something like Turkey soup for the liberal soul.
[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: Wiles ]
To slip bombs past guards and security checkpoints you could use sleepers...that'd be interesting and it'd give you a reason to turn security guards and other rank-and-file conservatives, as opposed to the usual PR kidnappings where you make sleeper news anchors, CEOs, radio personalities, judges etcetera.
The impact of the targetted bombing could be different depending on the public's opinions. If everyone fears and loathes the intelligence service, blowing up their supercomputer would seem heroic rather than treasonous. Causing a nuclear power plant meltdown or killing random people in the park would probably be seen with a rather dim view by the general public. Other actions like blowing up corporate accounting departments could be seen as neutral if people don't hate the corps, and heroic if they do.
[ June 13, 2008: Message edited by: Brendan ]
quote:
Originally posted by Brendan:
<STRONG>Causing a nuclear power plant meltdown or killing random people in the park would probably be seen with a rather dim view by the general public.</STRONG>
For the power plant, that would depend on whether 1) the bombing was detected as such (i.e., bombing or dangerous negligence as the cause of the meltdown?) and 2) if the power company/police were credible enough to be believed upon said detection.
quote:
Originally posted by E. Albright:
<STRONG>For the power plant, that would depend on whether 1) the bombing was detected as such (i.e., bombing or dangerous negligence as the cause of the meltdown?) and 2) if the power company/police were credible enough to be believed upon said detection.</STRONG>
Those are really good points, actually. I think that if you had a well-made bomb, it would completely destroy itself upon detonating leaving behind no incriminating evidence, and if it wasn't so well-made (maybe bombs themselves would come from setting up a bomb production operation in one of your safehouses, and the science skill of the liberals making the bombs would be taken into account) it would leave behind components of the bomb so that the conservatives would be able to figure out it was a bombing and not an accidental meltdown.
Although I suppose if you had a complete meltdown the conservatives would never be able to tell the difference, considering it wouldn't exactly be ideal crime scene investigation conditions. So maybe the strength of the bomb could also be taken into account here, and if the bomb was not catastrophic enough to destroy all of the cooling systems or the control rods or however nuclear reactors work, you would end up with a power cut and a sort of 'state of emergency' at the power plant. You would garner some support for the banning of nuclear power anyway, but it would be traceable and people wouldn't treat it with as much as a knee-jerk; maybe it would put public interest in the issue of nuclear power to high, but not through the roof like an actual meltdown would.
Also, the second idea would give everyone another really good incentive to completely discredit the individual organizations.
Destroy conservatives through nuclear holocaust! :DFallout Crime Squad!
...(The gender symbols are not in the ASCII table, and LCS does not use Unicode for display, so they aren't really an option.)...
The first 16 characters in the ASCII table are reserved (I think the female char means "line break" or something), I'm there's a way to print them but I don't know if ncurses can do it (I suppose it can, since a lot of roguelikes use curses)....(The gender symbols are not in the ASCII table, and LCS does not use Unicode for display, so they aren't really an option.)...
Um, yes they are. they're ASCII CodePage437 symbols 0x0B (male) and 0x0C (female). Alternate gender symbols are also available in codepage437: 0xA6 and 0xA7 (the underlined a and o, which mean feminine and masculine respectively I believe. Unicode calls them the FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR and MASCULINE... respectively)
LN
Converting people to liberals by way of speech or guitar should give the same juice bonuses killing them would.the juice gain from kills is balanced by the great heat gain from it, while the most you guitarists can be chraged with is disturbing the peace...
How is the OO code coming along anyway? I might like to try my hand at tinkering with the code, but I wouldn't want to do something and then have it be reverted due to OO. OO would be easier to work with too.
Avoiding being offensive in LCS? ???
If someone doesn't want to get wet, he shouldn't go to a swimming pool.
If you get church, then in other cities there MUST be another religion's temple. Oh, and they all are fighting against each other. So, you can choose to ally / subordinate to one of them, and you must sabotage others. Or you can conquer them all (recruit the high religionmen).
My two Z$
IF you want it to be. Of course, then you be Pope Crime Squad / Dalai Lama Squad / Bin Ladin Suicide Bomber against Nuclear Installation or whatever.
The tactics could contain a tradeoff between the effectiveness of extra fighters and the amount of indirect fire recieved. In a nutshell: v. loose formation, only your six member squad fires but you don't loose any members to random shelling, airstrikes, snipers, etc. v. tight formation (human wave) tons of liberals get to fire but casualties from more distant enemies skyrocket. Then have a few levels in between.
I'm Little, and I approve of this message. 8)