Cutting off limbs [Advantages, bionics, coding, limb parasites?]

Game Talk The Lab
1

I accidentally used a hacksaw on myself in-game and it told me “aw, that’s a bad idea”. First thought: Haha, humorous. Second thought: Why can’t I saw off my limbs?

First off, there are bionics like the blaster arm that already take one off, so the gruesome image of literally hacking it off with a saw is a welcome immersion into the eyes of a survivor. A buff to that weapon would also be nice, but that’s not what I plan to try.

Now, we don’t just have to use that blaster arm- what about hacking off your left arm and replacing it with a chainsaw? Or replacing your leg with a double-barreled shotgun? How would that work, exactly? Is it possible in code, or would it muss up the UI too much? Certainly it’d be a cool thing to try out.

Also, what if we implemented a new parasite that embedded itself in one of your limbs, quickly destroying it and- if not treated in a hospital- moving onto your torso? When you see your limb turn yellow, you know you’ve either got to book it to the nearest doctor or literally hack it off. Now, of course, this would be once-a-game Very Rare, but adding a bit of flavor to the survivor who couldn’t manage with all four limbs. So instead they walk with a cane, use a peg leg, or use only one arm.

Finally, I want to implement this not just because it’s cool, but because if a player’s like- “I have a hacksaw. What if I sawed my arm off?” Instead of making a joke, how about letting them do that, 'cause it’s, you know, a zombie survival staple at this point?

Questions are: How do I make a limb permanently damaged? I’ve had a little experience with the code (and could probably make a generic “human leg” item appear when you cut it off, unless the new butchery system has that covered) but not enough to know how health works, ever since we made broken limbs heal-able. How does the grasping system exactly work? I know the Blaster Arm is supposed to disallow you from holding certain rifles, but beyond that… finally, is it possible to add a Barrier-Of-Entry to CBMs so that you need a certain other CBM/to be missing a limb?

2

This would actually be a good idea, now if only I could actually code…

[quote=“kilozombie, post:1, topic:6284”]I
Also, what if we implemented a new parasite that embedded itself in one of your limbs, quickly destroying it and- if not treated in a hospital- moving onto your torso? When you see your limb turn yellow, you know you’ve either got to book it to the nearest doctor or literally hack it off. Now, of course, this would be once-a-game Very Rare, but adding a bit of flavor to the survivor who couldn’t manage with all four limbs. So instead they walk with a cane, use a peg leg, or use only one arm.[/quote]

This could actually be relatively easily added, and we could probably make it have a 0.05 percent chance to be transmitted, by, say, a bite wound, or uncooked meat.

3

Part of the problem with implementing this sort of thing is we don’t have a robust ‘what happens when you’re missing an arm’ system, we just have a few checks scattered around that treat it specially. If/when we do have such a system, I could see something like this happening along with bionic prostheses (possibly even ones good enough to make you lop off that arm intentionally).
This would go in along with a system for handling ‘off hand’ weapons and such.

4

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:3, topic:6284”]Part of the problem with implementing this sort of thing is we don’t have a robust ‘what happens when you’re missing an arm’ system, we just have a few checks scattered around that treat it specially. If/when we do have such a system, I could see something like this happening along with bionic prostheses (possibly even ones good enough to make you lop off that arm intentionally).
This would go in along with a system for handling ‘off hand’ weapons and such.[/quote]

It seems like the way you’re describing it requires either a total rehash, or a clever maneuver of the system. I’ll take a quick check through what code there is. I don’t imagine checking for limbs whenever you do any action would be very good for processing speed, and maybe finding all the instances and making “special cases” for it would be simpler for the user, but more complicated to implement.

Is there currently a system to figure out whether or not a weapon can be wielded because of broken limbs? If so, this could be simple… and if not, we could just add a “two handed” tag to items like rifles and work it out in the wielding function. Of course you could hold it with one hand, but with greatly reduced to-hit or gun accuracy. (Maybe wait for the new gun aiming system before working that out?). Then find a list of manual tasks that would absolutely require 1/2 arms, and figure it out then.

edit: Real quick realized that if to-hit and accuracy work how I think they do, all you need to do is “is player attacking? y.” and then “do they have 1 arm?” and if so, halve/whatever their to-hit/accuracy. And if they have no arms, disable wielding altogether. (Difficult!?)

5

[quote=“kilozombie, post:4, topic:6284”][quote=“Kevin Granade, post:3, topic:6284”]Part of the problem with implementing this sort of thing is we don’t have a robust ‘what happens when you’re missing an arm’ system, we just have a few checks scattered around that treat it specially. If/when we do have such a system, I could see something like this happening along with bionic prostheses (possibly even ones good enough to make you lop off that arm intentionally).
This would go in along with a system for handling ‘off hand’ weapons and such.[/quote]

It seems like the way you’re describing it requires either a total rehash, or a clever maneuver of the system. I’ll take a quick check through what code there is. I don’t imagine checking for limbs whenever you do any action would be very good for processing speed, and maybe finding all the instances and making “special cases” for it would be simpler for the user, but more complicated to implement.

Is there currently a system to figure out whether or not a weapon can be wielded because of broken limbs? If so, this could be simple… and if not, we could just add a “two handed” tag to items like rifles and work it out in the wielding function. Of course you could hold it with one hand, but with greatly reduced to-hit or gun accuracy. (Maybe wait for the new gun aiming system before working that out?). Then find a list of manual tasks that would absolutely require 1/2 arms, and figure it out then.

edit: Real quick realized that if to-hit and accuracy work how I think they do, all you need to do is “is player attacking? y.” and then “do they have 1 arm?” and if so, halve/whatever their to-hit/accuracy. And if they have no arms, disable wielding altogether. (Difficult!?)[/quote]

There’s a weapon-side “two hands mandatory” tag. Mostly bows.

0.05% seems small but it also depends on how often you check it. A 5 in 10,000 shot that can come up 20-30 times in one good fight (say a horde? bear in mind the push for mandatory damage if it “hits”, powered armor or no), will start adding up.

6

It’s really not an issue of performance, it’s just a matter of integrating the checks into the code i a nice way.
If you want to look into it, the main thing would be to write a clear method that tells you how many hands you have free, taking all the weird corner cases we might have into account, then you use that method to make checks everywhere it makes sense. Mostly those places would be wielding or using weapons, or interacting with things.

7

i got a question what happens if your head is biten and you cant cure it can i saw mi head off and get an implant?

8

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:6, topic:6284”]It’s really not an issue of performance, it’s just a matter of integrating the checks into the code i a nice way.
If you want to look into it, the main thing would be to write a clear method that tells you how many hands you have free, taking all the weird corner cases we might have into account, then you use that method to make checks everywhere it makes sense. Mostly those places would be wielding or using weapons, or interacting with things.[/quote]

This would actually fix the “blocking while you’re doing something else” thing that we have right now. The game could check how many hands you have free- starts at 2 if you’ve got two good arms. Reduced to 0 if you’re wielding anything, but immediately bumped to 2 when crafting/sleeping/etc. The game will then say “welp, both arms are free, must not be effectively wielding” and not block or use any weapon techniques as you shouldn’t.

Certain weapons could use only 1 hand, but I’m not sure how much of an actual advantage that would be. So maybe just a “hands-free_2arm” tag, as well as a “hands-free_1arm” that’s less effective, as well as “hands-occupied_2arm” and “hands-occupied_1arm”.

I dunno. I’m not a good coder, just the logistics of the thing. I’m willing to try and figure this out code-wise though.

Yeah, I don’t think anything that common should have (even small) a chance to be a game breaker to the unprepared. Instead, possibly an ambient disease that you can catch near radioactive areas? Give the player 1% chance every day cycle to be infectable, and then bump the chance for radioactivity/radioactive enemies to give it to you. So generally you’d be safe, but some days it’ll be Bad News Bears. But by the time it’s really relevant, you’ll probably have a hacksaw/disinfectant lying around, or be able to quickly hoof it to a hospital. I’d say give the player ~24 hours to resolve it, with plenty of forewarning (Something in your arm squirms!) like parasites do ATM.

9

nope

That’s a good point I hadn’t thought of, unarmed you can block marginally, but with a weapon with no blocking ability, you lose even that.

The advantage of one-handed weapons would be auxiliary items you have to hold. For example you could hold something with good blocking ability. Also once we have two hands in, you get the pleasure of equipping your flashlight and it taking up one of them :smiley:

10

nope

That’s a good point I hadn’t thought of, unarmed you can block marginally, but with a weapon with no blocking ability, you lose even that.

The advantage of one-handed weapons would be auxiliary items you have to hold. For example you could hold something with good blocking ability. Also once we have two hands in, you get the pleasure of equipping your flashlight and it taking up one of them :D[/quote]

Hm. Maybe if we are going to implement two hands SOON, then I should wait.

11

See?! I wasn’t crazy when I suggested this months ago. I just didn’t have as many good reasons as you do.

12

this is alslo nice place for new bionics and mutations!!!
bionic arm/leg what can replace missing limb and/or mutation in lizard mutagen what give limb regeneration (increasing need to eat if 1 or more limbs missing) and after long time (1-2 seasons?) it will give broken limb what need to be fixed with split

EDIT: limbs repaired by bionic maybe will not regenerate during sleep like normal but repairable with soldering iron and electic scrap with risk of damaging it more and maybe give some types of these bionic limbs

civilian: fragile , encumbrance 2 for replaced parts, rare in doctor office, common in hospital, sometimes from shocker zombies after butchering

rich civilian: more resistant to damage than civilian, encumbrance 1 for replaced parts, rare in hospital maybe maison too

experimental/prototype: more resistant to damage than rich civilian, no encumbrance maybe bonus to throwing and accuracy (arms) and speed (legs), sometimes random malfunction turning upsides in downsides need repair with soldering iron, loot from labs and broken cyborgs

military: damage resistant, no encumbrance, rare from military bunkers spawn in rooms with armor and sometimes from bio operators , realy rare from shocker zombie (war weteran out of service?)

maybe bionics from zombies (all bionics not only limbs) may have chance to make infecion (less chance with infection resistant)? and all bionic arms and legs are resistant too deep bite (because its metal and some wires)?

realy, cutting off limbs is full of possibilities and can give so many places for more diseases (like gangrene) and other features!

13

Ooh, or a profession that starts you legless and with a wheelchair.

Still waiting from Kevin to hear back about the “two hands” feature.

14

Crap, sorry, lost track of this thread. No, I’m not going to be working on off hand support soon, I didn’t mean to discourage you from working on something related, I just tend to spout off what my plans are in a particular area when it comes up.