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Author Topic: suggestion  (Read 12706 times)

Rakeela

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #15 on: February 13, 2008, 06:43:00 pm »

Well, it really should require high heart, or at the very least a heart stat that is sufficiently high over their wisdom stat.  And no dodging in front of bullets for characters with 2 agility if it can be easily avoided.
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #16 on: February 14, 2008, 02:14:00 am »

I have Liberals hurling themselves in front of attacks working initially... it's hilarious. Mainly because for testing, I have them jump in front of EVERY attack. Actual log:

Billy Bob Baird shoots at Police Officer with a AK47!
Billy Bob Baird JUMPS IN FRONT OF THE ATTACK!
Billy Bob Baird hits the body twice.
Billy Bob Baird cries silently for mother,
breathing slowly, then not at all.
Nobody can carry Martyr Billy Bob Baird.
C - Reflect on your Conservative ineptitude

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Wisq

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #17 on: February 14, 2008, 04:05:00 am »

The leader-protection is a fantastic addition -- it'll definitely let me lead from the front lines, rather than my current policy of "never do anything illegal and never let any direct subordinate go to jail" (to avoid confessions & racketeering).

It has me wondering, though:  From my reading of the code, it becomes fully automatic once your leader has a certain juice, and as long as you have party members with high enough stats (modified by juice).

Now, if I remember how sieges work, you get to keep replacing dead party members with others as they go down.  So I assume that means that a high-juice leader is practically invincible to a base raid (where subordinates are replaced automatically), so long as you don't run out of decent fodder.  Is that intentional, or unbalanced?

It also seems to always go in order, so I'm assuming you can choose who will take bullets for you by changing the party order, rather than a random (qualified) party member taking the bullet.  Same question applies here.

[ February 14, 2008: Message edited by: Wisq ]

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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #18 on: February 14, 2008, 10:19:00 am »

Your reading is correct. I haven't balanced it any, or refined it in any way -- just wanted it working to start with. Suggestions on the details of the implementation are welcome (don't worry about what I put in there to start with, I just wanted something).

Edit: Bear in mind that high juice leaders don't get hit for >10 damage to the head or body very frequently. Their high agility and health play a big role in reducing damage below that level. If it's a dismembering blow to the arm, or even a glancing blow to the head, they can't get someone jumping in the way. It only kicks in for hits that could potentially kill the leader, or give them a crippling hit, like heart blasted or lung pierced.

[ February 14, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

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Wisq

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #19 on: February 14, 2008, 12:18:00 pm »

Cool, makes sense then.  Most of my leaders tended to get blasted before they got any kind of decent juice anyway, so I wasn't aware of how survivable they were at high juice level, with or without bullet-fodder.
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #20 on: February 14, 2008, 05:11:00 pm »

I tried getting bullet fodder to kick in, and seriously, my all B founder (combat specialist) had dozens of kills, 300 juice, holding off wave after wave of raids from the front lines (spent five rounds exchanging fire with a tank before giving up), and it never had to kick in. Eventually every other Liberal was dead, including other Urban Commandos, and he died in a car crash after stealing a car so he could break the one other survivor out of jail.
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Solara

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #21 on: February 15, 2008, 12:08:00 am »

How do you even get that kind of SuperLiberal anyway? My guy accidentally gets in a scuffle with a security guard and suddenly he's bleeding all over the place and needs to spend two weeks in the hospital...
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Wisq

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #22 on: February 15, 2008, 01:44:00 am »

I'd answer, but with all my reading the source code and answering questions, I'm starting to feel like I'm just sitting here spoiling all the surprise for everyone.  :(  Let me know if I'm wrong.  :D
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Little

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #23 on: February 15, 2008, 02:05:00 am »

Your wrong.

Please PM me some strategy if you can get super liberals!

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a1s

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #24 on: February 15, 2008, 02:28:00 am »

quote:
Originally posted by Wisq:
<STRONG>I'd answer, but with all my reading the source code and answering questions, I'm starting to feel like I'm just sitting here spoiling all the surprise for everyone.    :(  Let me know if I'm wrong.    :( )

[ February 15, 2008: Message edited by: a1s ]

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Wisq

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #25 on: February 15, 2008, 02:46:00 am »

Well, I haven't actually gotten my leader up to anything higher than 50 in my current game, but I have several gang members with 250 juice, 8 pistol skill, etc.  I've lost a few of them in the process, and most of them have spent a fair bit of time in the hospital, so it's not foolproof, but it's not insanely difficult either.

I started my current game before the "jump in front of your leader" patch, and my primary goal was to keep my leader alive -- and squeaky-clean.  This strategy relies on never committing a crime, and never letting anyone get arrested.  It doesn't matter how many people die under your command -- if they never wind up in prison, you're safe.

Meanwhile, I've got a judge teaching law to my leader, so by the time I slip up and go to court, I can defend myself without trouble.  Key things to avoid until then:  I don't teach criminals; it makes me one.  I don't let anyone under me do a non-interactive crime -- no selling brownies, no activism, no sweatshop workers.  I never let anyone give up to the cops, no matter how good they are -- better to fight their way to martyrdom, even naked and unarmed, than to get arrested and risk a confession.

Recruiting is a very fast way to get to 50 juice points.  Once you hit that, you have a +2 bonus to all stats.  This is a waste of time for my gangsters, who can get to 50 almost before they're recruited, but it's a good way to give the leader a running start, and much safer than starting from 0.

If you're ready to begin murdering people, I hear the best place to get juice is the aptly-named Juice Bar -- there are lots of mostly-unarmed conservatives to hunt.

If you have a decent team of cop-killing thugs and want to take a run at something bigger, date someone from a building so you get a map of the whole facility.  I dated a liberal judge, and got a full map of the courthouse.  Once I had that, I could see where all the loot and action-points were, and could very efficiently run through the place grabbing anything that wasn't nailed down.

Eventually, the "MASSIVE CONSERVATIVE RESPONSE" (MCR) showed up -- which was great for me, because it meant I stopped having to battle security guards.  I looted the entire place, slipped past the MCR (probably because they stepped onto my old square just as I stepped onto theirs!), and only had to shoot a single cop to escape at the end.

Yeah, I got lucky, but I wasn't risking my leader.  With a skilled group of thugs, my leader should be very easy to keep safe -- I'll put myself at the top of the group so I always get the first attack, and then anyone I don't hurt/kill, they'll finish off.  And if anyone actually hits me, any one of my team will be glad to take the bullet for me.

With the "jump in front" patch, it should be a lot easier to keep your leader safe, so long as you ensure your thugs have high heart and agility.  To get their heart up (and wisdom down), always have them do both community service and activism before you recruit them.

If the patch had been in place when I started, I think I would've just gone out and tried pure thuggery -- and it's very likely I'd be the one with 250+ juice now, not my goon squad.  :D

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Mercutio Valentine

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #26 on: February 16, 2008, 02:30:00 pm »

Few more suggestions.

1) Riots -- If a high popularity, ultra-violent LCS nails a target when interest in said target is high, shouldn't there be a small chance for the public to openly riot? (Tensions breaking from a sharp, sudden blow to the normal state of affairs.)

In regards to how this could be implemented, one could go all the way from having a one-time site that's permenantly on "Massive Conservative Response", a lot of loot, and general anarchy, to just an event window that pops up with various courses of action that cost different amount of money/selected liberals to disappear from the LCS for a few days while they ride the wave and keep the riots going.

2) Re: Tanks, it's possible to disable them without blowing them up IRL. Even modern tanks can be stopped by small arms fire/small explosions (as in molotov cocktails)-- Treads (on older models mostly), sensors, and weapons systems can all be disabled with a little luck, which leaves the crew (while perfectly safe) trapped, unless they want to come out and try to fight their way some hardasses that disabled a tank while on foot. Just something to think about.

3) CIA interaction. Once you piss them off, they keep coming-- Why not bring the fight to them until the point where it's more profitable to just settle with the LCS? Again, this could be implimented at almost any level of complexity.

4) Corruption. Being able to bribe cops/CIA agents/etc. to act as one-off Sleepers/etc. (or "contacts") would be awesome. This, however, would have to be complex, and would be a bitch to add in-- It's just a pipe dream, really.

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Wisq

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #27 on: February 16, 2008, 04:03:00 pm »

I'm wondering if I should work on and submit an update to the way "poll for opinions" works.

Currently, if I have hackers (for lack of a shorter term than 'programmer') poll for opinions, they give me one poll result per hacker, the results can overlap in terms of topics, it's up to me to remember them between reports, and if I want more exact figures, it's up to me to average or deduce them.  (Obviously, if the polls are accurate to within +/- 4 points, and I see a 68 and a 60, then the exact answer is 64.  Not that it matters that much.)

My hackers also stop collecting opinions at that point, so I either have to reassign them all back to it, or I have to do what I actually did, and comment out line 570 of daily/daily.cpp.    :)

Edit: Alternatively, turn the whole report into something you call up on demand, like the 'L' agenda status screen.  The hackers would just be working in the background to keep it current, similar to how the Dwarf Fortress bookkeeper keeps the stock counts accurate.

[ February 16, 2008: Message edited by: Wisq ]

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beorn080

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #28 on: February 16, 2008, 04:37:00 pm »

The way you described it was the same as it previously was.  Still the showing the changes day to day would be helpful I think.
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Wisq

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Re: suggestion
« Reply #29 on: February 16, 2008, 04:58:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by Mercutio Valentine:
<STRONG>2) Re: Tanks, it's possible to disable them without blowing them up IRL. Even modern tanks can be stopped by small arms fire/small explosions (as in molotov cocktails)-- Treads (on older models mostly), sensors, and weapons systems can all be disabled with a little luck, which leaves the crew (while perfectly safe) trapped, unless they want to come out and try to fight their way some hardasses that disabled a tank while on foot. Just something to think about.</STRONG>

There are ways to disable them, but not the way you're thinking.  Small arms fire isn't going to do anything to a modern tank except draw attention, and from what I hear, molotov fuel is better used against the tank's ventilation system than against the body.

Reportedly, one very effective disabling tactic uses something we already have in-game -- spraypaint.  Distract the tank, then have some daring militant get on it and spray over all the viewing ports.  With no ability to see, the tank has to either retreat (and hope they don't crash into stuff), turn out (and get shot), or be vulnerable to attacks against its other systems.

The joint between the tank and turret is one of the most vulnerable spots, enough so that the Israeli tanks feature hanging balls-on-chains behind the turret (that look somewhat like a fancy middle eastern headdress).  :)  The intent is to prematurely detonate inbound rockets before they hit the joint.

Ultimately, even though it takes some serious guts and cunning to take on a tank up close, a tank without proper infantry cover is still pretty vulnerable.  There should be ways to at least make it retreat, if not disable it outright.  

Once disabled, there are probably a few different ways to harm the crew, too -- and if that gets you even more publicity but takes a few combat turns to do, then it becomes a cost-to-benefit action.

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