An idea for a new trait. Tell what you think!

[Rusty]

To begin with,
I do some Roleplays from time to time and one of my characters is a pyrokineticist. I realised that would be a nice trait to choose for our characters in Cataclysm (or it could be added as a mutation, which seems more sensible).

I’ve thought about it for some time and made a template of how it would look:
Pyrokineticist
Cost: 2
"You have a paranormal and terrifying ability to generate fire out of nothingness - from a little spark to a blazing fireball. Doing such things makes you feel really bad, though."

Character would be generally able to set things on fire, be it by touch or from the distance. By some sort of a menu he would choose the power of the charge and the mean of discharging (sparks, rays, fireballs, exploding bombs etc.). There should be a hidden meter of usage of the ability; the more fire we play with, the more unstable we become, up to the point of spontaneously generating fire in the least suitable moments (when sleeping for example xD ). OR/AND generating fire would cause being light-headed and pain, amounts of which would rise drastically if we overuse the power. In extreme cases there would be nose-bleeding and passing out, maybe even brain frying.

The more complicated alternative introduces us learning to harness the power (first we could not control it at all, burning poor npcs by accident and melting down cars, etc., of course additionally feeling more and more sorry and sick)

Or there could be a negative counterpart.
Unstable Pirokineticist
Cost: -4

Effects as described above, all the bad things making us thinking suicidal.

Ye, I think it’s all.

I know it looks hilarious if we take realism into consideration, but hey, we can already mutate ourselves into bears and shoot lightnings from our fingers, so why not?
I will be thankful for any support or criticism.

[FunsizeNinja123]

No. -90519582.

[Straume21]

That’s an interesting idea, I’ll say that, but given that the actual player is in control of the character suicide, I don’t think a character-motivated suicide would be reasonable in this game.
Honestly, I don’t think I would want it in any game I play, but that’s just me.

A possibility is that the negative trait you mentioned functions similar to the high adrenaline or shaky hands traits, where the player would start fires randomly in combat, possibly to their own demise. It could be an interesting prospect.

[i2amroy]

“Magic” (with a few lovecraftian-esque exceptions, such as artifacts) is out for normal humans in the Cataclysm world. That said having a fireball launching bionic would work, and maybe once the nether mutation tree goes in we might see a mutation like that, but other then that…

That said having a pyromaniac trait where the player gains morale from watching fires and might use accessible methods of fire (matches, lighter) to start fires when stressed wouldn’t be out the window and I could definitely see something like that going in (assuming it wasn’t too performance draining, which IIRC was the problem it was first attempted to be implemented).

[KA101]

Other problem with the previous pyro implementation, IIRC, was that it had the character light fires without player input: you were gonna light a fire every so often, the only question was whether you manually did it or the character did it because you waited too long.

[Zireael]

There WAS a pyro implementation?

[KA101]

There WAS a pyro implementation?

Almost a year ago now. Failed merge review.

[Aluminumfoil]

There’s already a mini-flamethrower bionic, it’s just essentially useless, since its functionality can be duplicated with a rag and a match. Maybe it could be changed into a more powerful, longer-range flamethrower that cost more power than the current one, and inflicted pain and/or arm damage to the user. I think it’s fairly safe to say that nobody with access to bionics is going to be suffering for want of a way to light a small fire on an adjacent square.

If I were making a pyromania trait, I’d just have it inflict a static -10 morale penalty, and then grant a morale bonus per fire in sight, since the game already appears to track numbers of visible things in real time. Something like,

morale_bonus = 25*(1-1/(1+num_fires)) - 10

Which would taper off at +15 morale with a map full of fire.

[i2amroy]

[quote=“Zireael, post:6, topic:5922”]There WAS a pyro implementation?

Almost a year ago now. Failed merge review.[/quote]
Yeah, it was back when I had no real clue what I was doing.

[KA101]

[quote=“Aluminumfoil, post:8, topic:5922”]There’s already a mini-flamethrower bionic, it’s just essentially useless, since its functionality can be duplicated with a rag and a match. Maybe it could be changed into a more powerful, longer-range flamethrower that cost more power than the current one, and inflicted pain and/or arm damage to the user. I think it’s fairly safe to say that nobody with access to bionics is going to be suffering for want of a way to light a small fire on an adjacent square.

If I were making a pyromania trait, I’d just have it inflict a static -10 morale penalty, and then grant a morale bonus per fire in sight, since the game already appears to track numbers of visible things in real time. Something like,

morale_bonus = 25*(1-1/(1+num_fires)) - 10

Which would taper off at +15 morale with a map full of fire.[/quote]

Bionic flamer is pretty much guaranteed to start a fire. Other stuff sometimes needs fuel.

If you’re gonna burn an entire screen (and take both lost resources and performance) that’d best give more than +15 morale. Thinking closer to 30 for small fires. How about increases for more intense burning?

How about the fire traps in the Strange Temple? That ought to be worth something

[Aluminumfoil]

The general formula,

morale_bonus = x(1-y/(y+num_fires)) + k

Will give you a shape-adjustable asymptotic diminishing returns curve that’s cheap for a processor to calculate on the fly.

You can make it do compound effects, too, by using the variant,

morale_bonus = x(1-y/(y+(c_1num_1 +c_2num_2 + … + c_n*num_n)) + k

where

k = baseline (for instance: -10)

x + k = maximum (whatever the max morale you want the player to get from pyromania is)

c_n are weighting factors for how much each element is worth.

y determines how steep or shallow the curve is. Big y gives shallow curve.

For instance, if you wanted a maximum of +50 morale, a baseline of -10 morale, moderately shallow curve, and red fires to be twice as good as pink fires which are twice as good as yellow fires, you could use:

morale_bonus = 60 ( ( (1 - 4/(4+num_yellow +2num_pink + 4+num_red))) - 10

Ye olde diminishing returns curve:

I’m pretty sure the fire traps in the temple are just red fires, aren’t they? If not it’d be easy to add them in with another c_n*num_n factor.

[Blackopsman9999]

I think the chart should be flipped for a pyromania trait.

[Weyrling]

I think the chart should be flipped for a pyromania trait.

I’m assuming you mean switch the axes and not flip the chart.
So that a few fires isn’t good enough, and you have to really light everything nearby on fire to get your :D?

Probably need a few more changes to make it work out right.

[Sir_Scarfalot]

[quote=“i2amroy, post:4, topic:5922”]“Magic” (with a few lovecraftian-esque exceptions, such as artifacts) is out for normal humans in the Cataclysm world. That said having a fireball launching bionic would work, and maybe once the nether mutation tree goes in we might see a mutation like that, but other then that…

That said having a pyromaniac trait where the player gains morale from watching fires and might use accessible methods of fire (matches, lighter) to start fires when stressed wouldn’t be out the window and I could definitely see something like that going in (assuming it wasn’t too performance draining, which IIRC was the problem it was first attempted to be implemented).[/quote]

This. Starting characters, unless they spend a TON of points, are, y’know, humans.

[Birdie]

Pyromaniac trait, yes please!

[GlyphGryph]

Even mutation and bionic level stuff should thematically have a method of action.

The idea in the OP specifically precludes that though.

Specifically, though, why would we want to provide an ability that offers no benefits over existing fire creation options except the ability to do it at-will with absolutely no cost in resources?