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Author Topic: suggestion  (Read 12704 times)

Gruegirl

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suggestion
« on: February 06, 2008, 03:32:00 pm »

If you recruit a conservative by dating, shouldn't there be an option to turn that conservative into a sleeper?
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2008, 07:19:00 pm »

But if they spend all their time keeping up appearances in Conservative society and avoid explicit contact with the LCS, when would they have time to be with their new loviepie?
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Mercutio Valentine

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2008, 02:25:00 pm »

Completely unrelated, but since there's a suggestion topic anyway...

(Disclaimer: I expect none of these to see the light of day, and you've probably seen them all, anyway. Just throwin' 'em out there.)

1. Useful Loot -- To put it bluntly, there's no real reason to steal besides for money in the very beginning, both for vanilla LCS and the current alpha. My suggestion? Make loot physically useful. F'rex, require computers stashed at the location to hack. Since you're toying with a "groups" dynamic already, this would tie in well-- I'm sure the Liberal Guardian would enjoy a donation of new computers, printers, and a few suits to boot. This also can be used to make sieges more interesting. I have a full item list with possible uses somewhere if you're interested.

2. Black Market Arms -- As far as I can tell, one really has no option besides stockpiling a major arsenal ASAP if they want to have decent guns later on. This makes no sense in either real life or the game world. After all, if the freaking LCS is running around, you know arms dealers are too.

3. Lower the main character's starting stats. 20 is too much-- It makes him almost superhuman, and better than pretty much anything you're going to recruit barring Agents. Maybe drop it to 15ish?

4. "Targets of Opportunity" -- Maybe the president's passing through town on a pre-determined route, or a state senator's going to be at X place at Y time with low security. Maybe there's an open test of a new military technology that could be wrecked, or maybe there's a large-scale natural disaster to make press off of. Regardless, shit happens. The LCS world seems a bit static for a game about massive sociopolitical change. A few random targets of opportunity with player input would help a lot. The thing is, it doesn't require much-- I'm not talking about randomly generating a new location to use, I'm talking about giving a pop-up with choices of action and associated costs/effects from time to time.

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beorn080

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2008, 06:30:00 pm »

Alright lets run through these.

1. Useful loot has been suggested I think.  The actual use of loot isn't really money per se but getting more crimes committed at the site. Its not obvious but the more you do at a site that gets in the paper, the more it influences people.  If you run in and steal a T.V., it doesn't really do much.  If instead you go in steal everything that isn't nailed down, bust down every door in your way and some that aren't, and kill a couple dozen conservatives, you really convince people that your right.

2. Black markets are a great idea. I think once the other groups get added in we'll see something similar to this represented by the other groups.

3. Your supposed to be good.  The idea is to give you an incentive to risk your leader.  If he sucked would you really use him for anything more then initial recruiting. He's a front line fighter who can stand toe to toe with the nastiest conservatives and win, at least until a lowly security guard gets a lucky head shot in.

4. Great idea but could be tricky to implement.  More randomness is always good.

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a1s

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2008, 07:24:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by beorn080:
<STRONG>4. Great idea but could be tricky to implement.  More randomness is always good.</STRONG>

not really. you just put a new potion in (F) at random intervals, "E:go to ---" and then you use site generation code to generate random high security site. that has a yellow target of opportunity (yes, having a yellow sign say "president" seems silly, but it kind of fits).
encounter ideas:
in a president encounter you can talk to the president or kidnap him.
in a military scenario, you can sabotage the prototype (if you fail- it attacks you!  :)
in a sports event you need to take over the commentator booth. and... um... if you do poorly people will be mad at you.
in a corporate expo you need to go in and... destroy as many new cool things as you can?

something like that.

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I tried to play chess but two of my opponents were playing competitive checkers as a third person walked in with Game of Thrones in hand confused cause they thought this was the book club.

Earthquake Damage

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2008, 09:07:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by beorn080:
<STRONG>until a lowly security guard gets a lucky head shot in.</STRONG>

This is why I never use my leader anymore for anything dangerous.  You don't exactly have fate points or anything to save yourself from a shit roll, so you probably shouldn't roll any more than necessary.

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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2008, 09:15:00 pm »

1. Right now, if you steal fine cloth from sweatshops, it'll reduce the cost of making clothing by 50%. Definitely planning on making more useful loot.

2. Yes! This has been on my personal to-do list for awhile now. Black market would have much higher (2-5 times higher!) prices, but would provide illegal equipment. So legal guns mean cheaper guns, but if you're willing to pay premium, you can always have them smuggled in.

3. Your starting skills are definitely much higher than most people, and you even start with higher physical attributes that characters naturally are capable of, which mean your character is inherently better, not just more skilled. You're supposed to feel stronger than other characters in the field you specialize in. If you choose a sneaky rogue build, you can make your founder into the the best infiltrator out there. If you choose a violent combat build, you can make your founder into the best fighter out there. The broad initial skill set doesn't make the game easy, but it does help to give you a head start.

4. This is doable and a good idea, it's just a question of having time for it.

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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2008, 09:16:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by Earthquake Damage:
<STRONG>

This is why I never use my leader anymore for anything dangerous.  You don't exactly have fate points or anything to save yourself from a shit roll, so you probably shouldn't roll any more than necessary.</STRONG>


Any ideas on how to change this? It's fine to keep your leader hidden in a bunker, but I want to make it easier to have them out and about more at less risk.

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beorn080

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #8 on: February 07, 2008, 10:21:00 pm »

Well the problem isn't multiple rounds of combat damage so much as the lucky shots that blast a heart or brain. Perhaps a hidden dodge skill based on juice. Maybe the admittedly cyberpunk idea of dermal implants to permanently increase armor. How about when you go out in a squad with subordinates they will throw themselves in front of bullets that are going to hit you. Maybe you can randomly catch bullets in your teeth instead of getting them shot out.
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Ustxu Iceraped the Frigid Crystal of Slaughter was a glacier titan. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered carp composed of crystal glass. It has five mouths full of treacherous teeth, enormous clear wings, and ferocious blue eyes. Beware its icy breath! Ustxu was associated with oceans, glaciers, boats, and murder.

Earthquake Damage

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2008, 09:24:00 am »

Ooh!  I like how you think.

If cyberpunk features like implants are ever added to LCS, they should phase in gradually as the years progress.  So maybe there's something really basic available in 2020, but by 2050 there're quite a few gadgets around.  Naturally, your enemies would have access to the same wacky technology (if not more?).

Dodging ability based on juice is a fair idea.  Rather than base it on your "level" (Activist, Revolutionary, Elite Liberal), it might make more sense to use some sort of logarithmic or Fibonacci scale since, in theory, you could be running around with over 9000 juice (or is there a cap?  I'm not sure).

Having a character's subordinates soak blows for them would be pretty cool, though it'd be best to limit it to critical hits (organ damage, etc) and mortal wounds (maybe include a hit that would cause bleeding).  Thus lackeys can keep your VIPs alive, but won't protect them every time they stub their toes.  Naturally, you'd have to reroll the damage when someone does defend their leader since they'd have to be awfully talented (not to mention crazy) to block a heart shot with their own heart.

Also, bullet catching should be filed under dodging as cool flavor text that starts to appear when high juice characters dodge successfully.

[ February 08, 2008: Message edited by: Earthquake Damage ]

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Mercutio Valentine

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #10 on: February 08, 2008, 01:48:00 pm »

Alternately, have a high juice character have a probability of simply shrugging off a fatal wound so that it just knocks him down to the next damage class. "Fight through the pain. Just a flesh wound."

Or another idea: each level (Revolutionary, Activist) gives 2 or 3 rounds of "Adrenaline" so that you can't go die while on site until it runs out, but will instead hover at NearDETH and refuse to go down from (non-critical) damage. Basically gives you the choice of Scarface-ing down a horde of enemies with your last moments or escaping to fight another day. You could even have this do permenant stat damage for every couple of rounds of Adrenaline usage.

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Alaern

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #11 on: February 08, 2008, 05:42:00 pm »

Well, let me toss my two cents.
Since charismatic leader is supposed to go to hell and back with his comrades and stay unscathed, why not give him some additional juice-dependant hit points? Just some godly luck that forces all bullets to take non-lethal paths in his body, leaving nothing but a scar. That scar shatters the image of an invincible cool leader, though, hence juice loss. Once juice hits zero, then it's all over.
To avoid absurd situations you may want to make juice loss progressive - the more hits get soaked during a mission, the more rapidly you lose your image - right until you leave the building. On the next mission leader should suffer no such penalties, though (or perhaps a little shelter/hospital rest is in order?).
As an alternative, juice hp may be available only if at least one party member is still alive and ready to fight. If leader is alone, he still can go on with his normal hp until someone gets a lucky shot that incapacitates the leader (damaging his juice if his own hp aren't enough), who is then brought into custody/kidnapped by rival group and should be rescued afterwards.
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #12 on: February 09, 2008, 12:57:00 am »

High juice liberals already take low damage from hits by virtue of their higher stats, so for now I'm experimenting with just increasing the amount of damage necessary to qualify for a critical hit.
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Solara

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #13 on: February 13, 2008, 12:07:00 pm »

I really like the idea of someone throwing themselves in front of a bullet for their leader. I guess they'd have to have really high Heart to be that fanati-- ah, dedicated though.
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #14 on: February 13, 2008, 03:58:00 pm »

Sounds like a to-do then: If your leader (or someone else very important) is going to take a critical hit, lower juice liberals can hurl themselves in the way of the bullet/knife/fist/syringe and take the hit themselves. I'd give the full critical hit to the new person -- if the leader is going to get their heart blasted, and some hippie throws herself in the way, she gets her heart blasted instead. You see exactly what they saved you from. If it's just teeth knocked out, it's not a big deal, but some things are really important, and you want to know that you just dodged a bullet.  ;)
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