[SPOILERS] The Outpost

[Sehn_Knight]

Could the outpost have a personal storage shed where you could drop some of yours or your survivors equipment?

[mwswimmer]

Name it Woodbury, or Tacoma It has a nice ring to it

[Antistar]

Maybe it could the same (or similar) random name generation as used in world creation.

[vache]

Cities have randomly generated names. You could name it after the nearest city.

[KA101]

Cities have randomly generated names. You could name it after the nearest city.

This is probably the best way to go: that way people will finally notice the city names pre-mortem. (We use 'em in the memorial logs.)

[Zireael]

Cities have randomly generated names. You could name it after the nearest city.

That’s a great idea!

[Coyote]

[quote=“vache, post:24, topic:9295”]Cities have randomly generated names. You could name it after the nearest city.

This is probably the best way to go: that way people will finally notice the city names pre-mortem. (We use 'em in the memorial logs.)[/quote]

Off-topic, but it feels stupid to make a thread just for this suggestion:

There could be city limit/mile marker signs on the side of the road. Real fragile, so cars can just flatten 'em without much issue.

Alternately, the city name could spawn on nearby newspapers on the ground.

[jokermatt999]

I seriously can’t wait until this gets merged. As for creating another dimension, if there’s no current system for it, it’d be nice to have one, but -10 Z is a decent quick fix since that’s a project in its own right.

[Coolthulhu]

I wouldn’t recommend using -10 z-level as a workaround here. In 2D mode it would work just fine, but in 3D mode it would simulate the alternate dimension every turn. 3D mode isn’t yet capable of running 2 z-levels at once, but it is supposed to have that functionality and only in the form of running all z-levels at once.

A better idea would be adding some large number to x and/or y coords. For example, half of the maximum value of 32 bit integer. Anything beyond that would be a special area where mapgen would use special rules. Players could never reach area this far without cheating/debugging/getting a bug. Later on there could be a special fix for cases at “the edge of the world”, but that would be a very minor thing - more of a novelty, like Minecraft’s Far Lands.

[acidia]

I’ll look into the nearest town name thing… are the town names decent (versus silly) though?

The biggest issue with throwing the npc off to a far corner is that they are stored with a particular map title. By saving people in “hell” I don’t have to create a new list of NPCs to be managed because I always know where they are stored, in the map square -10z from the quest giver. Creating a single z level shadow world to save everyone and allow for simulating time might be interesting… how difficult will it be to keep separate z levels that will not be simulated in the rest of the world? Creating an entire region may be unnecessary, having a single ‘end of time’ location to store people would work but keeping track of who needs to return where would create a lot more info that needs to be stored/loaded.

[Boy1der]

This is quite literally the best mod that I have ever heard of for Cataclysm. Is there currently any test version? Best of luck on your very ambitious project!

[vache]

The city names are generally pretty reasonable, I’m not sure, but I think they draw from the same pool as the world names. As for the other thing, I’m not really sure what the problem is. Are you trying to ensure NPCs don’t leave their location while the player is off traipsing around doing quests and whatnot? In the long run, the solution to that might be that quests are associated with a role, not a specific NPC, so if the NPC in the leader role dies, the one that takes their place can assume their same role as the quest hub/turn in location. In the short term, maybe just force the NPC to do nothing but wait for their return when they’ve given you a quest. If they die, they die. Call it a feature.

[acidia]

This is quite a ways out so no test version yet.

The issue is that when you assign an NPC to a detail their success is simulated through a series of character/chance rolls. The outcome is hidden until the duration of the task is fulfilled. Until then, we need to store the NPC in a map location other than in front of you. Easiest is -10z but I guess would become a problem when z levels are all simulated. Storing the player character during transit is another issue… sending the player character to a boring world and granting you a ‘negative sleep’ (you are wearied from you labor/trip) status allows the world to be simulated while the reality bubble has nothing going on in it. The encounters you have on transit, if you are a caravan guard, will be in actual areas along the path to your destination but the bandits you are ambushed by have to be generated when you teleport in. Get a situation snippet, fight the battle, loot the corpses, and talk to the caravan master to continue on your trip (sending you back to an isolated area so that time can be simulated). If you don’t have any encounters, the player simply hits a ‘quiet journey’ screen (like the epilogues) before waking up exhausted outside their destination with a bit more cash and a few days before the next caravan leaves. The end result is a much quicker pace for the player.

Simulating the tasks off screen means that far more complex actions are possible… I mean, send X party to clear Y town is 100% feasible. All you need is a calculation to determine how successful they are and you are good. The number of zombies the party can take on might be 1d6 * 10 per character in the party, any more than that and you can do a KIA check based on skill levels. Parse through the town and remove a percentage of the monsters. Simple version done, pick up you NPCs with more combat experience, maybe some loot, and a bounty. The town will be partially cleared/thinned but the loot from the corpses will also be vacuumed up. Send your squad on an autonomous looting raid, just take every item of value greater than x from a list of random houses [a,b,c]. For each item, give it a 20% chance to be dumped on the floor where the player currently is. Convert the overmap tile from ‘house’ to ‘looted house’.

[Coolthulhu]

Well, -10 z-level wouldn’t help here either - they’d still be stored somewhere (their x/y coords would still need to be valid and remembered), it’s just that they would be all underground.

NPCs are stored either in the bubble or on overmap tiles. They don’t really need to be spawned anywhere to be processed. It would be better to create an abstract non-location for them to operate on them than to hack around coordinates. Especially if you don’t want them to actually do the regular NPC AI things like searching for items and getting themselves killed by zombies.

[Snaaty]

This looks great so far. I don’t know what you are doing, but when adding new NPC stuff imho it’s always better to think “big” and to make a clean and polished addition rather than a couple of semi-finished and unbalanced missions. Your probably know thath though.
There was that one thread where the OP had a pretty well thought through idea of NPC stuff, I liked how well structured everything was there.

[acidia]

I’m stuck on a work trip for another couple of weeks so progress is going to be slow or non-existent. I might get a chance to upload the first twelve missions next weekend but it is still uncertain.

Rough Mission Line for Construction Foreman

1. 2x4’s to enclose barn
2. Blankets for beds
3. Nails for continued construction
4. Salt to trade for agricultural supplies
5. Fertilizer for the crops
6. Stones for the well and fireplaces
7. Pipes for the pump and sawmill machinery
8. Motors for the sawmill
9. Bleach for sterilizing equipment for clinic
10. First aid kits for clinic (building advancement is not apparent from clairvoyant mode, half wood wall -> wood wall or dirt -> dirt floor)
11. Welders for the chop-shop
12. Car batteries to power equipment

Next Missions<

13. Two-Way radios for scavengers
14. Backpacks for scavengers
15. Homebrewer’s Bible for bar
16. Sugar for alcohol production
17. Glass sheets for green house

If I have the time to sit down and look at the new mission system I’ll let you know. Putting them in a sleep mode in ‘hell’ accomplish exactly what I need, simply (they are already stored correctly so I don’t need to add anything). Being able to do the same thing with the player just makes it all the more desirable. Even creating a new list for stored NPCs doesn’t solve the issue for the player.

[jokermatt999]

For people who don’t follow the github, I figured I’d mention the pull request has been submitted.

[DONE] Commune I

I don’t generally test other PRs before they’re in game, but I may have to make an exception.

[acidia]

I suck at keeping this updated…

As mentioned above, the 17 missions I listed are all in the PR that is already up. Part II, focuses on the new mission system for factions/companions.

This slow gif displays how everything got implemented for the faction/outpost/companion missions. Pretty close to the test I showed earlier. The basic missions that have already been finished:
-Purchase East Field
-Upgrade East Field I
-Plant East Field
-Harvest East Field (50%)
-Assign Scavenging Patrol
-Assign Scavenging Raid
-Assign Ally to Menial Labor
-Assign Ally to Carpentry Work
-Assign Ally to Forage for Food
All missions aren’t immediately available, you’ll need to either complete missions for the holder or be successful in the entry level to prove you are competent for the more advanced missions. The only remaining mission that I really want for part II is the caravan protection one… these are critical to part III when I look at having the missions actually alter the faction food/wealth. Then I’ll focus on either getting a third (miniature) settlement up to act as a trading partner, looking at having the player tag along for some of the above missions, fleshing out the mission simulations (currently there is only one death path the dangerous missions), or progress the foreman/story missions so that the Old Guard start showing up at the Commune.

Thoughts or suggestions?

[vache]

I think the $ figures on things are a little jarring. It would make more sense to me if they claimed a large chunk of your first harvest in exchange for goodwill or some position of power within the commune. Then after it becomes a little more established, then they move on to a fairer trading system.

The only other real issue I have is with the idea as a whole and how it fits in right now. Gameplay-wise, I don’t think there will be much of a reason to want to establish or help the commune, since all the benefits that would be provided by it (protection, food supply, water supply, etc) are all things that, usually by the time the player would be in a position to effectively help the commune, they will be far past needing. It’s not a problem with the commune itself, but I think short of revamping the rest of the gameplay progression, there will have to be some special thing opened up by having a fully functioning commune. One solution might be to have the evac shelter computers have some way of giving the player a mission to find an evac center. That way it would tend to drive the player towards the center as an early game goal, which then leads them to the other quest lines.

[BTW, I don’t mean to sound too negative, this is pretty awesome stuff.]

[acidia]

Ya, not going to work without currency. The yield of your first crop is too difficult to track since you can plant just about anything and harvest it in whatever order you want. Heck, you don’t have to use the overseer for either action… you can plant or harvest all of the crops in the field on your own if you are short on cash. Once your fields have expanded you won’t want to plant several hundred carrots every few weeks by hand… until a fire wipes your entire crop out and you end up poor again

The commune’s goal will remain NPC development, once the commune is big enough the limit on your companions will be your income. The entry level jobs will train basic skills but when the Old Guard set up shop you’ll be able to ship your companions off to train for weeks in a basic training regiment or a combat specialty. Result is that endgame areas can be designed to effectively be impossible to beat without a trained force… existing areas won’t be cutoff but if you want to access the airport/cultist temple/army base you better have friends. Not to mention some form of story progression from the commune itself.

The refugee cent is mundane enough now that adding a locator to the evac terminal might be worth doing.

EDIT: Harvesting is done, just have to add caravan missions and figure out saving off-map NPCs.