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Author Topic: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo  (Read 12434 times)

Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #15 on: June 03, 2007, 11:02:00 am »

That's interesting, they are treated like the WADX keys -- the left arrow also works like the 'a' key on all screens, and so on (so you can activate the uninvolved with the left arrow, and wait a day with the up arrow...). I actually didn't add the arrow key support, that was already there in 3.09. I'm glad, too; I use a different keyboard layout than the standard one, and it would have gotten really tiring for me to use the WADX keys when doing a lot of testing. As far as the problems created by how it was done, I don't think I'll worry too much about it, I think it's probably more trouble than it's worth to change.
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #16 on: June 03, 2007, 02:11:00 pm »

I added slMagnvox's suggestion about being able to send your Liberals to the Free CLINIC from the [A]ctivation screen. They can now [M]ove to the Free CLINIC. I've tested this, and it seems to be working exactly the way it would if you'd taken a squad, only (by design) it skips the screen asking if you want to [F]ix up your Conservative wounds. Also, now when your activists get cornered and beaten by angry rednecks or what have you, instead of having their activities cleared, they'll automatically schedule themselves for a clinic visit on the next day. This means that you can still cancel the visit just like you can any other activity -- they return to the safehouse first, and then you just have to give them something else to do (or tell them to do nothing). If you don't tell them to do something else, they'll take it upon themselves to hit the Free CLINIC!
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Keiseth

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #17 on: June 03, 2007, 08:25:00 pm »

I've got a  bit of a suggestion myself, but I have no idea how it could be implemented properly...

Anyways, playing 3.10a1, I have achieved my first victory! I suspected I was on that route so I backed up my save & score and disbanded to check and sure enough, victory! I'd like to go back and mess around more with that file though...

Anyways, a lot of my liberals got very powerful by the end, but none of them ever got better with their weaponry. Unless I seduced an agent or something, I was dead meat in combat! And even then, I'd need more then one agent... and could never get enough.

So here's a suggestion! Some sort of firing range Activity or building. The liberal will use their gun and clip(s) to practice with a weapon. Maybe it could increase their skill (with time) from zero to something almost sane. Three, maybe four?

Because training somebody from 0 with a weapon to anything higher seems damn near impossible... Or is it supposed to be that way?

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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #18 on: June 03, 2007, 11:24:00 pm »

I like that idea, Keiseth. I think the easiest way to do it would be to assign a price to it and let people practice with their firearm with the [A]ctivation screen. At, say, $50 a day, they can slowly and safely train their pistol or rifle skill up to about level 4. Alternatively, I've been considering whether a new location in the U District should offer a variety of classes -- pay a hefty tuition and enroll for a month, and get a level of Law, Writing, something else... Eh, it would be cool, but as I think about it, it'd be a pretty decent amount of work to fully implement.

I've also been thinking about making a gun control issue. At the moment it seems to be a glaring omission, given how pertinent it is to the LCS's activities. That particular issue would probably be influenced any time the LCS uses guns in combat. You'd see a progressive scale, movement in either direction simultaneously helping and hindering the LCS...

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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #19 on: June 04, 2007, 12:10:00 am »

I have a request for opinions.

I'm adding a few new weapons, but don't want to complicate the skill system further. I'm trying to fit everything under existing gun skills. So I'm splitting the weapons like this: If it's bigger than a pistol, and fires only one shot per round, it's a rifle. If it's bigger than a pistol, and fires multiple shots per round, it's an assault rifle. The problem is that I'm adding a couple of weapons that aren't actually assault rifles to this category. The main issue being an SMG (submachine gun -- smaller and fires pistol ammunition). So I think I might need to rename it. I'd like to keep the name for the skill under 14 letters long. It's currently "Assault Rifle" -- 13 letters. I'm thinking about "Machine Gun" -- 11 letters. The problem with this is that the usage of the term Machine Gun to cover all fully automatic firearms may be a distinctly American usage. Otherwise it could be taken to refer to very heavy personal weapons unsuitable for LCS-scale fighting. I'd like to get other opinions about this (do you even care?), simply because I'm developing for public release, and I want people to be happy with the name for the category.

The other alternative is to add a new skill for it. I'm just trying not to inflate the skill set unnecessarily.

Edit: At the moment, what I'm going to do is just leave it Assault Rifle and let people figure out that SMGs are under the assault rifle skill in this game.

Edit again: Actually, for now I'm going to make the SMG draw on BOTH pistol and assault rifle skills. It's fairly abstracted anyway, and I like the idea of having it be influenced both by your skill with small weapons and your skill with fully automatic weapons.

Edit tres: The multi-skill system seems to be working well, and I'm comfortable with that, so unless anybody has any objections, I'll probably use it in the next version.

[ June 04, 2007: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

[ June 04, 2007: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

[ June 04, 2007: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

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slMagnvox

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #20 on: June 04, 2007, 03:51:00 am »

If you've got a clever hybrid that uses both pistol and assault skill when attacking with an SMG, that sounds pretty appropriate, and cool also.

The liberal agenda doesn't include gun control.  Liberals hate guns, and want to disarm everyone.  The Liberal Crime Squad loves guns and arms Teenagers and Sculptors alike.  Any gun violence should, hypothetically, strengthen the liberal agenda.  While any LCS member perpetrating gun violence should, hypothetically, undermine the liberal agenda.  Leaving it ambiguous would be fine with me, the game is such a cheerful exaggeration, but if you'd like to make some future mechanics to penalize reckless gun use, hah, or encourage your more well armed crime squads to be more discreet, I'd be on board for that as well.

And the FREE Clinic bit, score.  Now I can laugh hassle-free when my stupid hippies and college students get multiple ribs broken.  One possible bug though, sometimes previous version they'd get hurt so bad I couldn't squad them up, told me to procure a wheelchair.  Never did find that wheelchair.  Do these immobilizing injuries break the auto FREE Clinic trip?  Shouldn't I just play test a little and find out?  Hah, later this week I'll have plenty of time for several games of new version.

Thanks Jon Fox!

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Tommy2U

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #21 on: June 04, 2007, 05:31:00 am »

GURPS had a "Light Auto" skill for burst firing SMGs and assault rifles, I kinda liked the name.
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #22 on: June 04, 2007, 10:49:00 am »

Light Auto is a great name. I may not need it, due to the skill hybridizing, unless that system turns out to be too confusing in practice, but I end up going back to having each weapon have only one skill I'll probably go with that.

My thought on gun control would be that you'd need to get it to Elite Liberal status -- the extreme of having all guns completely banned for civilian use -- but that doing so would be somewhat counter-productive toward certain strategies. The main issue is that I'd want that issue to be carefully manipulable by the LCS. There should be a concrete way to Liberalize the issue and a concrete way to de-Liberalize the issue. If the LCS shoots up a police station, should that help or hurt the Liberal Agenda? On one hand, they've demonstrated the dangers of guns. On the other, if the LCS is getting positive press for this, aren't they glorifying gun use? Isn't their ability to resist police sieges something the public would like to maintain, rather than hurt? And if armed LCS action actually hurts the Liberal Agenda on gun control, and makes guns more acceptable to the public, how does the LCS promote gun control? One thing I'm reluctant to do is invalidate a very combat-oriented play style, in which the player has a lot of weapons and a lot of people to use them, and is constantly fighting.

One possibility is that Gun Control could be made an issue that tends to slowly Liberalize over time, and so long as the LCS doesn't hurt the issue. Thus, as long as they disarm in the very end, Liberals will forget their temporary Conservative leanings and return to their True Liberal Nature. I'm not sure if I like this approach though, it seems to be a bit of a weak solution to the issue. If I do add a gun control issue, I'd want it to be properly thought out, and be an interesting dimension that adds to gameplay rather than just getting in the way.

I considered whether they'd need a wheelchair when adding the FREE Clinic job, and consciously decided not to require them to procure one. I don't know how they get there, but they do. By the way, you can get a wheelchair by going to the activation screen and selecting the teal a car option. It'll have changed to ecuring a wheelchair.

I'll have to release what I have at some point. The writing system is incomplete, but it'll give people a taste and I'll be able to hear feedback on what's there so far.

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flap

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #23 on: June 04, 2007, 11:04:00 am »

quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan S. Fox:
<STRONG>
One possibility is that Gun Control could be made an issue that tends to slowly Liberalize over time, and so long as the LCS doesn't hurt the issue. Thus, as long as they disarm in the very end, Liberals will forget their temporary Conservative leanings and return to their True Liberal Nature. I'm not sure if I like this approach though, it seems to be a bit of a weak solution to the issue. If I do add a gun control issue, I'd want it to be properly thought out, and be an interesting dimension that adds to gameplay rather than just getting in the way.

</STRONG>


These are very good questions, that you probably find in all real life revolutionary groups : they start with great ideas of peace and all that, but recruit a bunch of terrorists, who once they have tasted blood can't stop it... How many groups of resistance and in the end been worse for the population than the oppressor they were fighting.

Here to achieve your goal you need to behave against your original thought (use plenty of weapons). That would probably be accurate if to finally win the game you would have to manage that part of getting rid of lust for blood, and bunch of terrorists. Kind of cleaning that part of your history...

Yuck. When we think of it that game is quite disgusting, but fearly close to reality. (well, even if you replace liberal and conservative by any other type political conflict you would imagine : dirty yellow against magic blue)

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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #24 on: June 07, 2007, 11:36:00 pm »

TADA!

I have an insane week, including a police officer kicking in my front door and missing two college assignments, but that hasn't stopped me from finally releasing the new version of Liberal Crime Squad! Now with writing crazy rants, more interesting liberal guardian, new weapons, and an altered police search method! Also with bugfixes and balance tweaks. Try it out! Let me know what you think!

Download the new version of LCS: 3.10a3!

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4bh0r53n

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #25 on: June 08, 2007, 07:17:00 am »

why'd the police kick in ur front door?
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.B.H.O.R.S.E.N.: Abhorrent, Bloodthirsty, Hitchhiker-Obliterating Ravager from the Sunless Enchanted Necropolis

I dont explode Cats, its way to hard to coax them into the microwave...

Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #26 on: June 08, 2007, 11:57:00 am »

I'm a scrawny programmer type, and I got locked in my bathroom for four hours without roommates, the tools to fix the door from the inside, or the physical strength to force my way out. Eventually a police officer came and saved me. I was happy to have her help, I just wasn't able to get to the front door to let her in.  :D

I gave her written permission afterwards.

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4bh0r53n

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #27 on: June 08, 2007, 12:00:00 pm »

ok, just wondering lol, like the new update, downloaded it 3 hrs ago....

one person was put in prison for 27 months at one point XD

[ June 08, 2007: Message edited by: 4bh0r53n ]

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I dont explode Cats, its way to hard to coax them into the microwave...

Keiseth

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #28 on: June 08, 2007, 04:49:00 pm »

Woooooohoooo! New LCS! New LCS! Hey, are the save-games compatible across versions by any chance? What about the score-board?

Wait, a police officer kicked your door in? You gotta be careful! Working on LCS could be illegal. You know, if you had set up a business front, that probably wouldn't of happened! Yes. A business front in a college. It's possible.

Heh, that's a scary thought though. "I didn't do it! I'm innocent! Toady put me up to it! He said he'd drown my fort if I didn't work on LCS! Aieee!"

Thanks for the new version! We owe you one!  :D

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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.10 (Formerly "what would you want to see?&quo
« Reply #29 on: June 08, 2007, 05:32:00 pm »

No, save game files aren't compatible between previous versions and this version. The reason is that the game now has to remember more information related to the Liberal Guardian, and I changed the way the save files are formatted to make up for this. I could have made them compatible if I'd been really clever about how I did it, but I decided not to be really clever about it and just told the game to ignore/overwrite saves from older versions.

Edit: But the score board is compatible, yes, you can copy that over. The high score format hasn't changed since LCS 3 first came out!

And you're welcome. I enjoy working on it! Let me know how the Liberal Guardian feels; it's still roughly made, so any feedback will help me to refine it and make it fit in with everything else. Also, how are the new weapons? Do they make sense? Are they confusing? Do you get an idea of how to use them, or is it unclear where they fit in?

[ June 08, 2007: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

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