4
« on: June 29, 2013, 11:14:31 am »
Some tasks (often done repeatedly in succession) need too many keystrokes, although they are important, frequent actions.
I'd like to suggest some possible improvements.
In between some random ideas, which focus around safe houses and economics.
Before I begin: I am not sure which exact version I have. It features e.g. "optional multiple city mode" and "Added option to disable autosave from init.txt" which suggests 4.07.1+, yet it prints Version 4.06.3 in the beginning.
Support Groups - Group control for support-liberals
Make a second kind of squad, which is for support-liberals. It can have more than 6 liberals in it, but can't raid. In the activity menu you don't see the individual liberals of those groups anymore, but the name you haven given to the support group (e.g. "Tailors", "Doctors", "Teachers", "Hackers", "Individuals with heat", "Clowns I don't like" etc.), which makes overview easier.
Selecting the support group and choosing an action makes every liberal in this group do this action.
Plus points for having an "goto safehouse"-activity, which lists safehouses and makes it easy to change locations for huge amounts of liberals.
How it can be used:
Oh noes, my 20 uber-hackers got the secret file, but have so much heat, the roof is on fire!!! I transfer the whole group to appartments xy and make them tailor suits until the situation is clear.
Safehouse-hopping with big groups (squads + doctors + teachers + students ) is a less annoying task.
Quick change of activities possible: Having many intellectuals, who write to the Liberal Guardian, while the active squad is on the loose, but change to tailoring, while the active squad is on pause due to death.
Bonus cookies if groups are structured as hierarchical trees (moving the whole tree from A to B, while maintaining the granularity to command the subtrees)
Squad Inventory
Items can be transfered to safehouses. What if you could transfer items to squads? The items would exist in the same safehouse as the squad. If the squad moves, the items move with them.
Cool again for safehouse hopping, because you don't have to transfer the 6xLab Coat, 6xHeavyArmor, 6xPolice Uniform, 6xDeathSquad Uniform, 6xM16, 99xAmmo, etc. with your Infiltrator/Berserk-squad.
Auto-Sell stuff
Right now you can "1. Repair Clothing" and "2. Create Clothing". How about a third option: "3. Tailor and Sell"
Everything produced this way will automatically be sold to the Pawn-Shop.
Could require a safe-house upgrade e.g. "vendors dock" or "garage" (and requires a transport car at the safe house)
Bonus-points for not showing sold items individually. Oh god do I hate all those "xy created an expensive suit"-messages at the end of the day. Better: Show a list of characters (or safehouses) and how much profit they made. The sum at the bottom. All in one screen, which can be skipped by one key press (instead of holding down a key until it is fiiiiaaanaaaaalllyyy finished)
"Last activity"-activity
Store the last activity for every liberal. (If they are structured as a support group, "last activity" will apply to every individual liberal)
Oftentimes I have many supporting liberals, who do something primary (e.g. learning First Aid) and something situational (healing the clumsy). Oftentimes the switch happens at the same time for many liberals:
New Recruits arrive: All teachers (primary: learning skills) start teaching.
Squad is hurt: All doctors (primary: learning First Aid) heal. All teachers start teaching. A tailor (primary: tailor suits) starts repairing.
Conservative visits the house: All tenderer (primary: Writing to news) start tending the conservative.
Conservative falls asleep: The gravedigger (primary: looking for trouble) starts his thing. The tenderers start writing to the news.
etc.
Having a "last action" especially in combination with groups would make it easier, faster, more fun.
Auto triggers
What if tailors would switch production automatically as their tailor-skill improves? (to the more profitable item they still can produce)
What if you could set a "passive limit" to all your enlightened drones/sleepers, making them "lay low", if their effectiveness is below xy% and start whatever you told them if they are above this threshold.
What if you could set a threshold for heat? (Indicating with some color-full letters that a safe-house is not safe anymore) So you get a warning like "Danger, 100% heat!" instead of a warning like "You are under siege."
Safe houses and Safe house upgrades
Not really a workflow-suggestion, but since the suggestions make management of many liberals, groups and safe houses more feasible/fun. It would maybe add to the game to have more Safe Houses and Upgrades.
Maybe to add more depth to the gameplay, maybe just as a money sink or for the great feeling of achievement until a raid burns everything down.
Upgrades would be limited (e.g. 2 per Safe House) to diversify/specialize them. Stuff like:
Vendors dock - Makes "Auto sell stuff" possible.
Noise insulation - Reduces heat from kidnappings and Military Training (at least I think it should produce heat)
Cold Store - Reduces heat from bodies. Enables lame puns.
Server/Cluster - Increases hacking effectiveness by X.
Operating equipment - Increases effectiveness of "healing liberals" and ""healing" conservatives"
Laboratory - Increases profit from brownies. Maybe one could manufacture chemical- or genetic-stuff someday? (TNT, C4, L4, poison, flaming rabbits etc.)
Workshop - Increases tailor-skill. Maybe one could manufacture tools? Weapons? Drones? Tanks? Consent?
Massage Parlor - Increases effectiveness of prostitution, makes it safer. Increases heat. Makes recruitment easier.
Larger-than-life statue of LCS Founder (Pappmaché) - Costs much much money.
Suprematism portrait of LCS Founder (Macaroni) - Costs much much money.
anyway.
Rhetorics 101 OVER 9000!!!!!
Talking with people is the most effective way to train liberals' persuasion.
So I use it often for a long period of time without the intent to drop, recruit or bribe the person(s).
Basically it's just pressing B 6 times for every liberal I train.
Day-wise it is FAAAR more effective than taking classes in the university and does not cost a thing.
But it IS annoying.
Would be great to skip that grind by attending a class, which is as effective as talking with people, but skips "holding B". Even if it is not a free action, even if it costs 100 $ a day; most often I would use it, because it is less grindy.
Wait a day Skip Messages
In addition to W, it would be cool to have a "Wait a day and skip messages", which lets you play the "Go forth"-actions, but skips stuff like "xy went raiding in Cosmetics instead of Learning Law", all the "x produced y"-messages after the raids, "Squad arrived at safehouse"-lines, etc.
Interlinked Menus
Add more linkage between menus. Like a possibility to access "liberal's details" from the activity menu.
Or the possibility to add/remove a liberal from a squad when you are in his details. Or equipping him from his details.
etc.
Less carpal tunnel - more XML keybindings
Although the "first key is the hotkey"-scheme is kinda cool for beginners, I'd love to use different keys. Just to speed up the input.
something like ESDF for movement, space for waiting. J = Fight, K = Use, L = Talk, I = Kidnap. etc. (Try it out, it's absolutely liberal! Especially because you have the F-and-J markers on your keyboards and all relevant actions lie beneath your fingers)
Since this is an efficient, but exotic config, I guess it would be cool to edit the hotkeys in an XML or the init file. At least for Raids/Fights, where the amount of actions is very limited.
Mapping those often-used keys to options (instead of A,B,C and 1,2,3, like in "Select Target, Select Liberal, Talk/Seduce/Abort/xy") would be cool as well.
Actually one could easily apply this config to all menus.
Let's say the hot-keys are:
U, I, O, P
J, K, L, ;
Space (wait)
For main-menu it maps each row (keyboard) to a column (actions). Except: Wait (Space), Quit and Vehicle (which could remain this way)
For "Activate Liberal" one could collapse some menu entries (heal + teach = Support Liberals, Go Shopping + Steal Car = Acquisition, Legal Fundraising + Illegal Fundraising = Fundraising, ...)
Economic stuff
- Driving an "Ice Cream Truck"/"Pizza Delivery"/Van enhances brownie-selling results. "Hello, Sir, I'd like two scoops of MARIJUANA, if you know what I mean."
- Gang Members not only sell weapons but "baking mixture" as well, an item which enhances brownie-selling results, but increases heat. (Other sellers: Hippies, Yoga Instructors and of course Police Gang Units (gratis bullets inclusive))
- Experimental Viagra can be found in Cosmetics. It can be equipped and raise prostitution success. So does equipping the expensive dress/suit, bondage gear or Guy Fawkes mask.
Take all my money!
So I got all those money and it keeps on piling up. Every month!
I use it to light cigars, replace my wall papers with stock certificates and drink Evian Water, but it still keeps growing. How to get rid of it?
- Maybe _building_ safehouses
- Financing those activist hacker groups in china or those ex-revolutionaries in Cuba, who will send new, trained recruits.
- Buying liberal TV commericals.
- Bribing everybody
- Manufacturing tanks
- Building the 2000ft, golden, trans-gendered John-Locke-statue-of-liberty in D.C as the non-plus-ultra of liberal iconicism
Oh god, such a wall-of-text. Sorry, if it is too long or too unstructured. Wrote it down as I played without a "big thought-out concept".
p.s. First post. Hello, fellow gang members. I am fully supportive of all those "agendas" I'd like to hear more about. Please speak _loud_ and _clear_.
