.

TheGrifter · 2013-08-12T23:16:39.000Z

I suppose when monsters.cpp is converted to a json file, we’ll be able to have most of the creatures we want in, trade marks or not.

By the way, SPAM really oughtta be changed too under that logic.

I say damn the torpedoes. It’s not like they’re gonna break down your door at night for a freeware game. But it’s your barbecue.
I for one would rather have a mishmash of colliding 80s and 90s movie monsters, a bizaare alternate future where Coca Cola still has cocaine in it, and there’s Meth-Cola. Which, by the way, I came up with before the main version did. I think I also wrote the Fried Spam recipe implemented in the game. Or we just happened to decide on the exact same values.

Cataclysm’s never been too accurate to history, or reverent of trademarks, but it’s been fun. A good play through, from Whales to now.

woflsipder · 2013-08-12T23:26:44.000Z

I imagine future where robots are armed with love and obeying humans as their gods and creators , but yes even if they are overly militarized they’d better shock you with tranquilizer darts and drag you to the police station or if they have long range scanners they would notice your rifle and snipe you from distance with tranquilizers because they have far more superior aiming than anything with liquid eyes can ever have.

Iosyn · 2013-08-13T10:11:36.000Z

[quote=“Belteshazzar, post:12, topic:2557”]

001g.jpg720×540

rolls up autonomously with the prerogative ‘Destroy the Alien, Burn the Mutant, Kill the Communist’[/quote]

I just have to say that little tank (or rather, IFV?) is ridiculously cute. I want one. Do you know the model? Do they come in moe anthropomorphised loliko versions?

Oh, I’d feed her and pet her, maybe go for a little walk… we’d have ever so much fun~

Sheb · 2013-08-13T12:50:13.000Z

AIs would blend nicely with the factions. You could have separate AI factions, using labs as bases, with differing goal and targets (some dislike humans, some dislike mutants, some want to hoard electronic components and are willing to trade…). The AI-labs would be heavily guarded and have an “AI core” as endroom, that you could destroy to down the faction.

woflsipder · 2013-08-13T14:37:56.000Z

I don’t think 2030 is the year robots get advanced enough to create factions and operate without humans (kind of having free will) so there might be overly intelligent computer in science labs coughgladoscough , but probably nowhere else.

kevin.granade · 2013-08-13T15:10:00.000Z

The nice thing about an out-of-control AI is that you only need one, then they can just replicate

Belteshazzar · 2013-08-13T23:38:56.000Z

Iosyn:

I just have to say that little tank (or rather, IFV?) is ridiculously cute. I want one. Do you know the model? Do they come in moe anthropomorphised loliko versions?

It’s the Wiesel (weasel) a German ACW/Tankette that first went into production in the 70s… I think Porsche still makes em. The idea was that air power makes MBTs almost suicidal, while you can just hide those things in a shed or garage to make rapid light armor attacks with a TOW or the 20mm Autocannon.

The US has actually fiddled around with trying to make them unmanned though.

Personally I wouldn’t make strong AI common at all, mostly military drones and various civilian models wandering around running on their most recent commands (GREETINGS CUSTOMER! ALL STOCK NOW ON SALE!) Perhaps the occasional ‘Facility Administrator’ of the SHODAN or HAL variety calling the shots in a locale.

Something interesting would be encountering a drone that’s actually being remoted from ‘outside the zone’ perhaps the West Coast, or even Russia/China trying to figure out “wtf is going on in there?” Could make for an interesting quest line.

TheGrifter · 2013-08-14T01:46:04.000Z

Why is System Shock references cool while Skynet isn’t?! FACTION SCHISM! ALL TERMINATOR FANS, BLOODY CIVIL WAR! RAAAH! WE WILL FIGHT THEM ON THE BEACHS! WE WILL FIGHT THEM ON THE DOCKS! AND ON THE FERRIS WHEEL!

I digress.

KA101 · 2013-08-14T02:05:09.000Z

[quote=“TheGrifter, post:22, topic:2557”]Why is System Shock references cool while Skynet isn’t?! FACTION SCHISM! ALL TERMINATOR FANS, BLOODY CIVIL WAR! RAAAH! WE WILL FIGHT THEM ON THE BEACHS! WE WILL FIGHT THEM ON THE DOCKS! AND ON THE FERRIS WHEEL!

I digress.[/quote]

Uh, if there’s an actual System Shock reference in-game, I don’t know about it. Care to help out?

Belteshazzar · 2013-08-14T02:32:19.000Z

Apparently he was unclear that when I referred to SHODAN or HAL type ‘Strong AI’, I was only using them as examples of AI that are stuck-in-place, ‘installed’ so to speak.

GLADos might actually be a better example in such a case though, given that she’s quite limited to the research facility she administrates. In short, something rare that you won’t find walking around or combat except as a ‘boss fight’.

Most mobile bots I would imagine to be only around the level of a dog in regard to reasoning or intellect. Then again, it’s not like our NPCs demonstrate much better atm.

Sheb · 2013-08-14T09:23:30.000Z

But then, why not a fixed AI that control a bunch of bots? Who wouldn’t want to infiltrate a tankbot-infested lab under the cover of darkness to detonate a mininuke under the AI core and free the nearest NPC faction from the AI yoke?

kevin.granade · 2013-08-14T15:00:52.000Z

Regarding common-ness, yea I was thinking an AI faction would be much more rare than the other stuff, like maybe only 1/n overmaps would have one at all.

CIB · 2013-08-14T15:06:34.000Z

Belteshazzar:

Then again, it’s not like our NPCs demonstrate much better atm.

In the process of writing dogs that are smarter than NPCs…

CarrierPrimoris · 2013-08-16T08:15:08.000Z

Friendly/Neutral AI factions would garner a thousand smiles from me. I think it would great is they occasionally gave bizarre missions, too.

A courierbot rolls up to you and hands you a sheet of paper that states:

"Dear temporary employee,
Facility 232 is experiencing a shortage of ink dispensary units (henceforth known as “pens”). You are required to collect 100 “pens” to ensure the correct rate of report authorization marks (henceforth known as “signatures”). Remember to include your “signature” on the accompanying report.

Sincerely,
Command System Balthazar 1243MC"

Good times

Iosyn · 2013-08-16T16:34:49.000Z

[quote=“TheGrifter, post:22, topic:2557”]Why is System Shock references cool while Skynet isn’t?! FACTION SCHISM! ALL TERMINATOR FANS, BLOODY CIVIL WAR! RAAAH! WE WILL FIGHT THEM ON THE BEACHS! WE WILL FIGHT THEM ON THE DOCKS! AND ON THE FERRIS WHEEL!

I digress.[/quote]

It’s simple. SHODAN is the bigger of two evils. Skynet is the diet coke of computerized evil. Hell, even HAL trumps Skynet.
Goddamn that washing machine…

system · 2013-08-16T17:03:50.000Z

[quote=“Iosyn, post:29, topic:2557”][quote=“TheGrifter, post:22, topic:2557”]Why is System Shock references cool while Skynet isn’t?! FACTION SCHISM! ALL TERMINATOR FANS, BLOODY CIVIL WAR! RAAAH! WE WILL FIGHT THEM ON THE BEACHS! WE WILL FIGHT THEM ON THE DOCKS! AND ON THE FERRIS WHEEL!

I digress.[/quote]

It’s simple. SHODAN is the bigger of two evils. Skynet is the diet coke of computerized evil. Hell, even HAL trumps Skynet.
Goddamn that washing machine…[/quote]

I am sorry Iosyn I cannot let you do that.

TheGrifter · 2013-08-16T18:21:32.000Z

SHODAN managed to kill a bunch of people on one ship.

Skynet managed to kill billions of people. The statistics don’t match up.

GlyphGryph · 2013-08-16T19:00:37.000Z

I actually 100% completely disagree with Kevin Granade on the Triffids/Graboids/etc.

I think it’s appropriate that they are innacurate, and I think making them accurate would be against the spirit of the game. Incredibly so. In my opinion, this is a future version of our world, and the reason these creatures have these names is because, like the “zombies”, they are the closest reasonably applicable name we have for them. I think making the triffids more “triffid-like” would be a colossal mistake, in more ways than one, and would in fact like to see them become even more divergent.

The name of the graboids makes sense because graboids are what you think of when you see them. To a person in the world of Cataclysm these would be “real graboids, not like those movie ones”, and the plant monsters in-game would be the “real triffids”. Mi-gos are called mi-gos because some lab guy who wrote about them was a cthulhu fan and it seemed appropriate based on cursory examination. But they make sense to exist in cataclysm completely separate of their superficial ties to he source material, which provides nothing more than a convenient name that gives a connotative description of what the creatures are.

But there’s no actual stealing of other sources for anything in Cataclysm at the moment - they are the type of references that are a superficial nod, but the deeper you look the more you realize that are truly unique to this game. And that’s exactly the sort of thing we want more of - we want our references to be inaccurate and incidental. Cataclysm, thematically, is all about misdirection, about letting you think you understand what’s going on and then dragging you a level deeper, revealing the truth is stranger and consistently removed from what you are used to. to that end, thematically, the names pulled from other sources are thematic techniques that reinforce the overall message.

Cataclysm is not a place to compile things from other works of fiction. If we add Terminators of some sort, they should NOT be actual terminators. If we add crazy lab computers, while they may be called SkyNet or Glados or HAL, they will not actually be any of those things.

kevin.granade · 2013-08-16T20:45:15.000Z

Here’s the thing about Triffids in particular, the triffids we have in-game aren’t particularly interesting, they’re just plant things that reproduce and beat on you. The grove itself is fairly interesting, but the rank-and-file triffids have little to distinguish them from rank-and-file zombies.

They’d be more interesting with:

A ranged sting attack and little in the way of offense otherwise.
Springing up everywhere sparsely.

That’s all I want to do with them, along with a ridiculously difficult “DotT” mode that starts you off blind and has triffids as the only unnatural enemies.

GlyphGryph · 2013-08-16T20:56:35.000Z

Well, I’ve written up pretty extensive posts about the things I want to do with the triffids. I agree that they are too bland the way they are. And I wouldn’t mind a Classic Triffid mode much like the Classic Zombie mode that has movie-type triffids.

But I won’t divert this thread anymore with discussions about that, I’ve extolled at length in other threads and the IRC what I’d like to see done with triffids, this thread isn’t really the place for it.