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Author Topic: LCS and sleepers  (Read 1512 times)

fastjack

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LCS and sleepers
« on: April 04, 2004, 07:23:00 pm »

hello all, i came across this site thanks the the superb ww1 medic (best ww1 game ever    :) and then i came a cross lcs and i love it, one the funnest/most humorous games ever.  

One problem that i am having is that i dont know how to make sleepers, i kidnap and turn all sorts of people but then they just join me, and i dont need/want them except on the inside.

bugs ive noticed: pgedwn doesnt work (already been noted i know) i am running win2k so maybe that has something to do with it? (what am i missing in the industrial sector since i cant use it?)

sometimes when i recruit someone and they come by they become a hostage for some reason (seems random enough to me) and if i try to tend to them the game crashes.

suggestions: itd be great if you could assign jobs by squad, take out a lot of donkey work. (also assign cars).  Also if lawyers/judges who are working for me could be used to defend my guys? otherwise what does law skill do?

thank you, and great game?

ps. is there another version/patch planned? any ideas on when?

pss. it would be great if you could train, i notice that if i leave college students soliciting donations for a year then they are better at persuading than anyone else is by default, that seems imbalanced to me.

psss. what good is having a printing press? how do i use it?

[ April 04, 2004: Message edited by: fastjack ]

[ April 04, 2004: Message edited by: fastjack ]

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Toady One

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Re: LCS and sleepers
« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2004, 07:43:00 pm »

Thanks!  There seem to be a number of new people showing up.  Is this all from that discussing on State a week or so ago?  I got a download spike when that started.

Sleepers aren't that useful yet, except for lawyers and judges (I didn't finish them).  In order to get one, you need to take a kidnapped hostage and convert them before the kidnapping is reported.

It seems that page down is mapped kind of randomly based on a number of things, although I'm not sure what.  I'm just going to provide alternate keys.

I haven't seen that hostage crash before...  I'll look around.  Has anybody seen this?  Is there a way to reproduce it fairly reliably?

I agree that assignment for jobs and cars is fairly clunky now.  I'll try to fix it up whenever I get a chance.

Law skill is used to defend from the special attack of judges and to influence juries both when defending yourself and when you happen upon one in the court house.  You can use your sleeper judges and lawyers in court, but not the ones that are part of the squad.  This isn't really justified in any real sense, but it makes getting those sleepers more rewarding.

We've discussed training before...  I guess there might be a place for it, but on-site experience has to be more rewarding.  I know that the skill gains from some of the more passive activities are way too high.  I haven't thought about a fix yet.  Maybe there should just be a cap on the level attainable by doing low risk activities.

Since there seem to be quite a few bugs, I was planning to put out a fix version in the next couple of weeks if I can find time for it.  I'll post a list of known issues in a few days and work from there.

Edit:  The printing press is used to amplify public opinion changes from your adventures.  Also, you can sometimes happen upon certain salacious items that can be published by your newspaper.  This will be done automatically if you have a newspaper and such an object.

[ April 04, 2004: Message edited by: Toady One ]

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fastjack

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Re: LCS and sleepers
« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2004, 08:25:00 pm »

I know that the underdogs just put a bunch of your games up, and they are very popular.

I read taht lawyers and judges were useful but still couldnt get them to work, now i see taht i need to do it quicker.  What skill helps with converting, persuasion?

i found that the page up and down on my keyboard work, so now i dont need to hunt around the homelss shelter forever looking for gangers.

the version that i got the hostage crash on may have been older than the latedt release, i downloaded from your site (b4 was theunderdogs) just to make sure i had the latest version and havent seen it yet. also i think someone mentioned it in passing in another thread.

i think the cap for low risk activities seems the best.

when i get police files or my hackers get secret corporate files can those be printed, or are they just for money?

last question:  to influence public opinion should i engage in particular actions, eg. to make them outraged at animal testing free animals? i would imagine so (since that is the coolest way to do it) but i just want to make sure.

thankl you for your quick reply!

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Toady One

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Re: LCS and sleepers
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2004, 11:53:00 pm »

Cool.  I downloaded the original Oubliette (on which LCS is loosely based) from Underdogs.  I like how that one guy said that WW1 Medic sounded like it was made by pre-schoolers.  He he he.  And the Underdogs page calls it "Liberty Crime Squad".

For converting people, it takes the best charisma+heart+persuasion of the assigned people, and adds the number of assigned people and a fraction of the money spent.  It's still kinda hard to get a sleeper, but maximizing those three traits and spending a lot is the best way.

You should be able to print all of those things.  If you have a newspaper, it will ask you to do it when the month changes.

Yeah, the type of action/target influences what the public thinks.  It's also important to keep the public turned off of cable news and am radio, or their views on everything else will slowly go conservative.

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Antilles

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Re: LCS and sleepers
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2004, 12:41:00 pm »

Friggin' awesome game. It's become my current obsession now. Anyways, got like a thousand various questions to ask, so I'll just fire off a few for now and make a list for later.
So, sleepers. Lawyers I understand, haven't really tried using a 'sleeping' judge, but it'll probably be obvious... other than those, there are no other people you would benefit from creating as sleepers? CEO's, corporate managers etc. all useless?
Clothes. Are they all useful, becuase I seem to be using only the security, police and guard variant... Oh, and does any of them have a better 'armor' value, or do I have to keep wathcing my poor underlings get their limbs blown off?
The radio and cable network... how do I lessen their popularity? Breaking in and take over a show doesn't seem like a very good way to make'em unpopular...
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Toady One

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Re: LCS and sleepers
« Reply #5 on: April 06, 2004, 01:12:00 pm »

Actually, I just looked at the code -- I did program one more thing for sleepers.  As long as they are "good enough", they'll have a minor impact on views relevant to their profession every month.  The more you plant the better.  "Good enough" means CEOs, media people, eminent scientists, judges, lawyers, corporate managers, cops, etc.

CEOs, radio/cable news people and actors get better bonuses.  Note that radio/cable news people don't detract from the radio/cable news view, but every view, randomly selected (instead of just alienating the audience, they use their program as a means to spread the word).

The uniforms are the most useful clothes.  If you are going in to shoot up a place, I think trench coats might give you a minor bonus, although the next version will have riot gear and tear gas and demonstrations, at which point I might think more about armor.  Until that point, use trench coats for fighting and uniforms for everything else.  I think in the next version, if it isn't too much of a hassle, I'll probably allow you to wear more than one piece of clothing, so you can bring your favorite politician's mask in addition to wearing a security uniforms and a bullet proof vest, or something along those lines.

Taking over shows (if done with a charismatic and persuasive group) is great for changing a random set of views (whatever you make your show about).  Lessening radio/cable popularity works like everything else.  Commit crimes at the site without alienating the masses, and it will be reported in the media positively, which makes people think your "stand" against conservative media is the right thing, according to the messed up premise of the game.  The more drastic the events that take place, the more the views will swing.

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