I'd like to synthesize some of the other posts I've been making about loyalty into a coherent picture and get some constructive criticism. It's longish, but I've organized it for readability. The personality management part of the RPG hybrid I'm working on involves hiring NPCs to fill certain essential roles on your team. In the most common example, a starship, you might need a couple of engineers, a navigator or two, and maybe a gunner (more or less depending on the size of the vessel). A colony or station works the same way, but may have different roles. The System In Brief Hire people and raise their morale. Give an NPC inventory, resources, wealth, access to facilities, or personal attention to do so. As NPCs become more loyal, you can use them to perform increasingly difficult tasks in the game. Start: Creating A Party You start the game alone, as a character with stats. Building a party means you seek out NPCs in hiring halls, bars, academies and such. You can also hire them away from competitors or shanghai them. The NPC The NPC has a default set of skills, a personality of a certain strength, two factions they like and one they dislike, and a starting morale and loyalty. Skills determine success in certain areas; personality and faction allegiance govern events such as bickering, brawling and murder; personality also governs the chance for positive and negative events, which are higher the stronger the personality. Morale determines effectiveness in danger and combat and ultimately governs loyalty. Morale NPCs lose morale naturally by -2 each game hour (which is somewhere between 15 to 60 seconds, haven't decided exactly). Three things naturally boost morale: Facilities, events and interactions. Morale also drops more sharply based on certain status effects. For example, if your crew is starving (meaning you’ve run out of automatically deducting foodstores), cumulative morale loss is -5 per game hour. If you work them to exhaustion and starve them, the loss is -7 per game hour. When morale drops below 0, it begins to affect loyalty. For every -2 points below 0, the NPC’s loyalty drops by 1 point. Facilities Objects like VR pods, beds, or arboretums recharge morale for each hour the NPC spends in them. The quality of the facility determines how much morale the NPC recovers. The type of facility matches with the personality, and determines whether or not an NPC will use it .The Pious personality won't use the Eros Pod, for instance, while the Merciless type gets nothing from a walk in the arboretum). NPCs can also staff facilities and improve their effectiveness. For example, you won't catch the Fanatical NPC at the bar drinking, but if it's run by a favored NPC, they'll stop by and chat, thus getting some of the benefit of the facility. Same might go for a dias, which is useless unless used by a crewmember who can sing. NPCs must be given time off to make use of facilities. The more time off you give them, the more they can recharge. However, the catch is that you pay them by the voyage, not by the hour, so the less they work, the less economically efficient you are. Events Events can add or subtract morale depending on personality. For instance, infighting, which is based on a probability event between certain personalities or factions, can reduce morale among those involved. On the other hand, the Bumbling personality, lowers his own morale but raises morale of those nearby when he fails because the events are entertaining. Interactions The player can directly interact with NPCs to raise their morale. For instance, he/she can rally the team, providing a temporary boost; or promise the NPCs certain resources by a certain time. Simply talking to an NPC may raise their morale, while asking them about their troubles may trigger quests that not only raise their morale but also unlock the ability to make them devoted to your cause. Success or failure is governed by the player’s character’s skill in talents like Intimidate, Speechcraft, and Leadership. Additionally, character traits and flaws can raise or lower morale on a permanent basis (such as Commanding Presence, which raises morale for all those within the player’s character’s radius). Loyalty Loyalty comes in 4 flavors: Respect (the default), Devotion, Fear and Hate. Each range from 0 to 100, and certain events or player actions can switch the types. Beat your characters mercilessly for their mistakes, and they may grow to fear or hate you. Accomplish missions and award them bonuses, and you'll raise their respect. Do life quests for them or their allies, and they become devoted, which unlocks abilities and lets you cybernetically and genetically modify them. Loyalty governs many of the random and semi-random events in the game. Whether or not your team can be hired away, bribed to look the other way while someone sabotages your ship, or mutinies is based on loyalty. When loyalty is zero under Respect, the NPC has a chance to act based on their personality. The majority quit, but some may sabotage and others, based on the viciousness of their personality, may mutiny. When loyalty is zero under Fear, the NPC has a chance to flee, stealing resources or performing mild sabotage to cover their escape. (This is for evil player characters and shanghaied personnel.) When loyalty is Hate (at any level), the NPC will attempt to flee, attack, or sabotage whenever they get the opportunity. (This is for prisoners and shanghaied personnel.) When loyalty is zero under Devotion, the NPC switches either to Respect (random level) or Hate (random level), since the player has fallen in their eyes. Under Devotion, normal morale loss will never bring an NPC below Loyalty (1). Since it took a lot of effort to get them devoted, simple discomfort and abuse means nothing to them. It takes a specific act to lose devotion, such as attacking their allies or gravely injuring them. Gameplay You free wander as in Morrowind, taking on tasks and affecting the game universe. The stronger you are as a faction, the more impact you can have. The game universe updates based on Risk-like stats with occasional "rolls" going on in the background changing the game map. You level up by buying upgrades for your ship / base and training and equipping your crew. Gameplay is largely on the order of combat, stealth and trade, with some other simple forms of gameplay (mining, expansion, exploration) tossed in. Combat / Danger During combat and danger events, the morale and loyalty mechanisms slow down drastically. Time scales down to 1:1, and as such morale and loyalty mostly only rise or fall as a result of actions the player takes. Theoretically, the player COULD be engaged for hours, slowly losing morale naturally, but that seems more than manageable and should be the exception, not the rule. NPCs have whatever morale and loyalty they had at the start of the event, which affects whether or not they flee, surrender, sell you out (in the case of their own faction attacking you), or cause additional trouble through sabotage and mutiny. Travel Warping between locations involves a number of game days. There is a mini-game involving moving resources and assigning personnel to tasks that make the journey take a shorter or longer amount of time. This is meant to give the player time to interact with his/her crew and manage them and the ship. My hope is that it fuses the macro goals the player chooses with the micro goals of successfully being a captain. Traveling itself is also dangerous, and introduces random problems based on the route traversed and the skill the player shows in managing ship and crew. Conduits may need to be repaired, and little engineering puzzles may crop up that involve moving resources around and taking risks. This adds an element of danger and excitement to even a normal, non-combat voyage. Managing Specifics Players can set individual schedules and tasks for a maximum of 15 characters. To grow, they must promote existing crew to head departments (Engineering, Tactical, Operations) and assign them resources. NPCs use these resources to automatically acquire new crew as needed in ports, or may barter existing crew back and forth with the player’s approval. At higher levels, the morale of NPC department heads and their department fuse. The personality events still work, and the dynamic of facilities, events and interactions is still the same, but not every NPC is simulated. NPCs really become "personnel points" behind the scenes, with one being selected for some dramatic event every once in awhile. View 3D. Multiple zoom levels like Aliens Vs. Predator (console) or Freedom Force. Clicking characters reveals health and morale. The 15 key characters can be micromanaged, sent to facilities, interacted with, etc. If not micromanaged, NPCs make the rounds automatically, according to schedule player sets or a simplified needs system. The base or ship’s map (decks) are exposed to the player’s view wherever their key 15 characters are, with the rest greyed out. This represents “comm pins” or whatever that have continuous audio-visual contact. NPCs may disappear as they go off duty, not sure about this one yet. When they commit misdeeds, NPCs are only visible doing so if they’re near another NPC, the player’s character, or some sort of security device. Otherwise the AV pins only show the NPC’s location and tactical situation (ie, the map). For large crews, polys will be a problem. The solution, I think, is to only show characters wandering in and out of the radius of the player or the key NPCs. This would at least be better than trying to show screens and screens of characters. Whew! Okay, that's basically it. Any suggestions or comments you have would be appreciated. -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership... [edited by - wavinator on March 12, 2004 6:06:37 AM]

The four "flavors" of loyalty seem a little sketchy. Why would someone with zero fear flee?

Have you ever played a Super Famicom game called Wonder Project J? It's a strange little indirect sim game, I guess would be the best way to describe it. Your character (not the player character, but the main character) is named Pino (It's close to the story of Pinochio in content, and borrows liberally) and you have to teach him how to react and behave in different scenarios. He's basically a dynamic, interactive NPC, which seems to be exactly what you're looking for. Check it out some time (it can be found in emulator form). It's a fairly complex game, but I'm focussing on one very narrow cross-section, so bear with me.

He has four major categories of stats: Combat, athleticism, intelligence and sensitivity. Each is comprosed of skills and tendencies, like arm strength or musical ability. The sum of his skills and tendencies is calculated and he gets four primary values for the main four categories, and the central aspect of his personality is defined by the dominant one. If his athleticism is above the other stats, and you go to the shop, the shopkeeper will say, "My, what an athletic-looking boy!" If it's intelligence, you'll hear "You look like a smart lad!" or something. But there are more than four possible ways for him to be. A dominantly combative boy with a high sensitivity level might be an unstoppable fury of tournament-winning swordsmanship, but if his old friend steps into the ring with him, he'll refuse to fight.

You could co-opt that balance by having four values, one for each "flavor" of loyalty. A shanghai'd scientist would have some decent hate, no devotion, and little respect, but if you keep her fear dominant (maybe by threatening her family) then she will upgrade your weapons and won't try to blow up your lab, but after a while she'll either crack under the strain or come up with a daring escape plan or seduce on of your guards or something, so you'll eventually have to either let her go or kill her, unless you manage to win enough of her respect and devotion to offset the hate, at which point you could let her fear go down and she'll stick with you of her own free will.

It's a really neat game. I think that you could get a lot of good material from it. It has a "loyalty" stat, too, but I'm thinking of the four main ones as your four "flavors of loyalty" in an allegorical way, since the loyalty used in Wonder Project J was combined with things like diligence and fatigue to decide when Pino would or would not obey orders, and didn't have much effect, otherwise, since there was no way for him to actually mutiny (He pouted, instead. Those wacky Japanese).

So, look that up.

EDIT: You didn't mention The Sims in your post that I noticed. I can think of two reasons for this. First, you took a lot of ideas from The Sims and didn't mention it. Second, you made all these ideas up on your own, and don't realize that The Sims did a LOT of it already. In the first case, nevermind. In the second, put The Sims on your list of games to look at.

EDIT REDUX: Your idea seems to involve a "home base" where you'll do things like train NPCs, upgrade technology, collate intelligence, and interrogate prisoners. If that's the case, then maybe you can bypass to high-poly crowd problem, at least indoors, by making the player character use security systems to monitor personnel. Have general locations marked on a map as moving dots, and let actual watching be done either in person or through surveillance cameras. You can give the PC some kind of fancy headset so he won't have to actually go to the security hub to see the tape (you could even remotely access the camera in other bases to coordinate movements), but if you think, "Say, what's the new guy doing in the lab all alone?" you can bring up that screen and check it out. In fact, if something's been stolen, you might be able to pull up the surveillance footage and look at it.

This system could be an alternative to the "zoomable" view. After all, since you're dealing primarily with NPCs, you won't need to issue insanely detailed orders, and waypoints etc. can be done from a map. Maybe a helmet cam on your soldiers and a lapel-pin cam on your spies would be enough to keep you informed. I don't know how big a "surveillance tape" would be, memory-wise, but if you do it like the action recorders in Unreal Tournament and similar games it should be pretty efficient, and you could keep a lot of "tape", which could be used for everything from investigations to reconaissance to combat training aids.

[edited by - Iron Chef Carnage on March 12, 2004 12:20:28 PM]

[edited by - Iron Chef Carnage on March 12, 2004 12:33:50 PM]

This sounds like a lot of fun to play.

A few things:

1. Devoted characters - I can see some major problem like attacking their faction being a problem, but why set loyalty at 1? Doesn't this allow a chance for devoted characters to do something not very in character? I'm assuming that loyalty 1 (when the scale is from 0 to 100) is really low. A player shouldn't let them get this low? I'm guessing for them to ever drop to one you would have to be starving and overworking them and THEN do something like attack their faction. Maybe have their morale decrease more slowly from overworking, etc. than those who are not devoted?

2. Have you decided on how to represent the loyalty? You've metnioned a lot of good ways. I'd play this game if it were fuzzy or if it were in a status bar. Considering the type of game that it is (fairly heavy on micromanagement) a status bar doesn't sound like it would be annoying to players. This would be especially needful if you have to be above a certain level to trigger a devotion quest, etc. Fuzzy is great when it gives the information to the player, but when there is a fine detail that we are not able to see then it can be frustrating. This leads players to sitting with guides to decipher the fuzzy before making wrong decisions. Frankly, this takes me out of a game a lot more than a status bar. Okay, so I can ask her how she is feeling after she says X. . . guess I'll have to just wait for that response. I like to know how close I am to that objective and the fuzzy means that I don't have any idea and can't gauge how well my efforts at making nice are working.

3. Will the different factions be better than others at various tasks? Otherwise, I can't see any real reason not to make a ship and crew of one pure faction. If this is the case, then you probably want to make it so that smart players can choose fairly compatible clans and be great and some things but only moderate at others. Also, you will want to make it so that if someone wants to have hot-shot gunners or super hyrdroponics officers they don't have to play as a fear-inspiring leader of a warlike race or a goodie-two-shoes flower sniffer. Allow for complimentary factions that give a good specturm of abilities. Strengths and weaknesses are great, but I would avoid pigeon-holing them to the point that character development dictates the player's style of play.

4. Just curious, is there an end game or central storyline? Morrowind is fantastic in it's scope and I truly appreciate that but I wanted to "win". I'd suggest having all of Morrowind's immenseness but design a central storyline or a branching storyline that can be played through. In Morrowind, I played until I became the leader of the mage's guild and then I was like, "Okay, that was cool. . . now what?" I can very much imagine myself putting a great crew together in your game and saying the same thing. Now that I have this great ship and a fantastic crew. . . what do I do?

5. Micromanagement is a lot of fun. I like your idea of scalability (sections vs. individuals at some point). Maybe make the morale modifier shift up and down in those departments based on the department head's leadership skills? You can keep the leader happy, but if the leader is poor then they would be disgruntled anyway. Also attach their performance to the leader's abilities so that players have to find a fine leader and fine engineer or face the choice of making due with a poor leader but fine engineer or a fine leader but poor engineer. Players could promote through their ranks, but then they take a hit to the morale of the section (due to the disgruntled demotee).

6. Ship's structure - I wouldn't make it too difficult to keep the ship happy if players invest in this. A fully staffed ship at some point should be able to take care of itself except when worked upon by outside forces or by important decisions (like attcking an allied faction). Micromanagement is fun when you can optimize with it, but when it is necessary to barely keep functioning then it becomes tiresome. A good micromanager should be able to keep their ship purring soundly and have a happy and eventually devoted crew. If you've played The Sims then you probably know that it can be a drag to constantly have to green up when the player gets to the point that they have other goals (like skilling up, getting friends, or getting better jobs). At some point, players will want to shift their focus outward and only manage problems instead of managing day-to-day. A devoted crew should be easy to manage except after making bad decisions. I know that in games that require micromanagement one of my goals as a player is to sort of make that perfect terrarium where my "stuff" works for itself. Anyway, my point is that not doing this could make the game frustrating and make one of the gamer's goals unattainable.

Thanks for sharing this. If you need a game tester, then I'd be happy to help (as a tester - not as a lead). I know some code, but I'm not to the point that I would feel good doing white box testing. I'm assuming your an independent developer, but if you are not then ignore this offer. ^^

[edited by - dink on March 12, 2004 5:05:17 PM]

[edited by - dink on March 12, 2004 5:09:17 PM]

Man what an impressive system you have thought up here, Ive read it some tiems already cos of the idea, that alone sounds so cool.
As I said those listed features are just great, and this thread gives me many ideas as well, very inspirational.
I cant think up of anything online that it inspires me in a concept im trying to make just started a thread as well, but maybe I can be usefull I hope.

I did not read this in it, have you also made it possible to give an NPC on your ship that has a high function doing X, begin capable of running things while the player character needs to go away.

Or to let an NPC character take over part of a micromanagement part of the ship/vessel/colony what so ever, when the player character needs to attend to other things. I think you already covered this but im not sure so just my 2 cents.

Ow and that everything that you mentioned, the sub levels of moral and loyalty and such, afect eachother and every action a person NPC or PC makes in the game.
With this I mean like when hes in a fight or something that it would not only tjek is morale, but it would also depend where his loyalty is towards the player character or the NPC. ?

Well actually everthing I mentioned are just nitpickys the thing youve come up with is really great, and if done in a deep and complex way could turn out just lovely. Cant add anything to it, nice thread ill keep reading on this one as ideas come along.

quote: Original post by Wavinator
The NPC
The NPC has a default set of skills, a personality of a certain strength, two factions they like and one they dislike, and a starting morale and loyalty. Skills determine success in certain areas; personality and faction allegiance govern events such as bickering, brawling and murder; personality also governs the chance for positive and negative events, which are higher the stronger the personality. Morale determines effectiveness in danger and combat and ultimately governs loyalty.

How many factions are there going to be? You say a personality of a certain strength does that mean that some personalities are better then others or that a npc has a certain ratining in a personality like 30% couragous. If its the latter does that allow for a npc to have multiple personalites? Such as 60% couragous and 40% fanatical.

quote:
Facilities
Objects like VR pods, beds, or arboretums recharge morale for each hour the NPC spends in them. The quality of the facility determines how much morale the NPC recovers. The type of facility matches with the personality, and determines whether or not an NPC will use it .The Pious personality won''t use the Eros Pod, for instance, while the Merciless type gets nothing from a walk in the arboretum).

NPCs can also staff facilities and improve their effectiveness. For example, you won''t catch the Fanatical NPC at the bar drinking, but if it''s run by a favored NPC, they''ll stop by and chat, thus getting some of the benefit of the facility. Same might go for a dias, which is useless unless used by a crewmember who can sing.

NPCs must be given time off to make use of facilities. The more time off you give them, the more they can recharge. However, the catch is that you pay them by the voyage, not by the hour, so the less they work, the less economically efficient you are.

Do facilities do anything beyond raising moral? For instance if I install a machine shop, will my more technical minded npc spend their off time toying with designs perhaps improving some system or building a new device. Are there on duty facilites as well or only off duty ones?

quote:
Events
Events can add or subtract morale depending on personality. For instance, infighting, which is based on a probability event between certain personalities or factions, can reduce morale among those involved. On the other hand, the Bumbling personality, lowers his own morale but raises morale of those nearby when he fails because the events are entertaining.

I assume there are events other ones that alter moral?

quote:
Loyalty
Loyalty comes in 4 flavors: Respect (the default), Devotion, Fear and Hate. Each range from 0 to 100, and certain events or player actions can switch the types. Beat your characters mercilessly for their mistakes, and they may grow to fear or hate you. Accomplish missions and award them bonuses, and you''ll raise their respect. Do life quests for them or their allies, and they become devoted, which unlocks abilities and lets you cybernetically and genetically modify them.

How are these 4 flavors related? Is it like a scale from hate to devotion? Or do all npc posses all 4 at the same time and the level of each determines their actions?

quote:
Loyalty governs many of the random and semi-random events in the game. Whether or not your team can be hired away, bribed to look the other way while someone sabotages your ship, or mutinies is based on loyalty.

It would be interesting if the diffrent duties or jobs a npc can be assigned to had there own set of positive and negative events. For instance a traitorious comm officer might block a distress call from one of your ships or outposts, a traitorious security chief might not inform you of thefts going on board your vessel.

quote:
Gameplay
You free wander as in Morrowind, taking on tasks and affecting the game universe. The stronger you are as a faction, the more impact you can have. The game universe updates based on Risk-like stats with occasional "rolls" going on in the background changing the game map.

You level up by buying upgrades for your ship / base and training and equipping your crew. Gameplay is largely on the order of combat, stealth and trade, with some other simple forms of gameplay (mining, expansion, exploration) tossed in.

Thats it for gameplay? Thats a shame, there is so much more you could do, espically with exploration. Ever seen startrek? Or played the card came based on the series? Well in the card game you had to complete missions, and your opponents would put obstacle cards under the mission cards that you had to overcome inorder to complete the mission. Such as force field science 2 engineering 1, required to complete. You could do something similar for your game. Imagine beaming down to an alien planet with a few choosen NPCs you encounter an alien ruins, depending on the skills of your npc you maybe able to gain entrance into the the ruins and be able to extract an alien power generator.

quote:
View
3D. Multiple zoom levels like Aliens Vs. Predator (console) or Freedom Force. Clicking characters reveals health and morale. The 15 key characters can be micromanaged, sent to facilities, interacted with, etc. If not micromanaged, NPCs make the rounds automatically, according to schedule player sets or a simplified needs system.

The base or ship’s map (decks) are exposed to the player’s view wherever their key 15 characters are, with the rest greyed out. This represents “comm pins” or whatever that have continuous audio-visual contact. NPCs may disappear as they go off duty, not sure about this one yet.

When they commit misdeeds, NPCs are only visible doing so if they’re near another NPC, the player’s character, or some sort of security device. Otherwise the AV pins only show the NPC’s location and tactical situation (ie, the map).

For large crews, polys will be a problem. The solution, I think, is to only show characters wandering in and out of the radius of the player or the key NPCs. This would at least be better than trying to show screens and screens of characters.

It might be better to just have crew shown as blips on a map of the vessel or outpost. Then when your tavelling through the ship you can see all the nearby npcs. But I want to be able to see all of them while I''m in walkmode. I want to go into the bar, and see the my crew laughing and drinking, maybe a couple of drunken npcs are singing drinking songs. It could even be open mike night and some of the npcs are on stage singing or telling jokes. Or I want to walk down to the crew deck and see a couple of bored npc playing craps in the corner. Maybe even a couple engaged in the throws of romance.

You could hve npcs form relationships and families, with the player presiding over the couples wedding.

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
The four "flavors" of loyalty seem a little sketchy. Why would someone with zero fear flee?

In truth Devotion and Respect are the ones that have the most work put into them. Hate is somewhat anomalous. Respect, Fear and Devotion are all supposed to represent obedience. The higher the value, the more obedient the NPC. These are all supposed to be one linear value with a label that changes. When the label changes, the meaning of interactions is supposed to change. For example, hit an NPC whose Loyalty is Respect, and it lowers morale, but hit an NPC whose Loyalty is Fear, and it raises morale (just think of all those cheesy serials you''ve seen were the villian slaps around his henchmen for failing to get the hero :D)

I guess I''m trying to say that if for some reason an NPC is no longer terrified into obedience, they get away from you. If they''ve been terrified, then you''ve either done something pretty drastic to them (dropped them in a Nightmare Pod, perhaps? ) or they weren''t a brave personality to begin with.

What would make someone no longer afraid of you? Most likely an increase in what I call Threat Value, which is a numeric sum of the power of an NPC''s allied factions, skills and personal inventory. If an NPC, for example, get ahold of superior firepower, their Threat Value goes up. This can correspondingly quickly reduce their fear. Same goes if they''ve been successfully bribed by a faction that promises to rescue them if they''ll sabotage you.

But you''re right, it does need more work.

quote:
Have you ever played a Super Famicom game called Wonder Project J?

No, but I''ll certainly now be looking for this.

quote:
A dominantly combative boy with a high sensitivity level might be an unstoppable fury of tournament-winning swordsmanship, but if his old friend steps into the ring with him, he''ll refuse to fight.

Hmmm... That''s appealingly complex. Did you as a player understand that this might happen? Or did you have to figure it out from situation to situation?

quote:
You could co-opt that balance by having four values, one for each "flavor" of loyalty. A shanghai''d scientist would have some decent hate, no devotion, and little respect, but if you keep her fear dominant (maybe by threatening her family) then she will upgrade your weapons and won''t try to blow up your lab, but after a while she''ll either crack under the strain or come up with a daring escape plan or seduce on of your guards or something, so you''ll eventually have to either let her go or kill her, unless you manage to win enough of her respect and devotion to offset the hate, at which point you could let her fear go down and she''ll stick with you of her own free will.

Now do you think that this can only be achieved using four variables simultaneously? Right now I don''t see a need, but I''m open to the idea.

quote:
EDIT: You didn''t mention The Sims in your post that I noticed. I can think of two reasons for this. First, you took a lot of ideas from The Sims and didn''t mention it.

Heh. What''s that old quote? "Talent borrows, genius steals." Actually, I''ve been studying the Sims and a game like it that has builder aspects called Space Colony. What I''ve wanted is some of the addictiveness without the banal subject matter. It just isn''t very heroic to pee on yourself, you know? And, as a leader of a ship or colony, it didn''t seem too appropriate to directly control people''s eating, hygiene, or entertainment. It also interfered with the notion that YOU are also a character in this game universe, rather than the disembodied controller of the little Sims or Space Colonists.

quote:
EDIT REDUX: Your idea seems to involve a "home base" where you''ll do things like train NPCs, upgrade technology, collate intelligence, and interrogate prisoners. If that''s the case, then maybe you can bypass to high-poly crowd problem, at least indoors, by making the player character use security systems to monitor personnel. Have general locations marked on a map as moving dots, and let actual watching be done either in person or through surveillance cameras. You can give the PC some kind of fancy headset so he won''t have to actually go to the security hub to see the tape (you could even remotely access the camera in other bases to coordinate movements), but if you think, "Say, what''s the new guy doing in the lab all alone?" you can bring up that screen and check it out. In fact, if something''s been stolen, you might be able to pull up the surveillance footage and look at it.

This system could be an alternative to the "zoomable" view. After all, since you''re dealing primarily with NPCs, you won''t need to issue insanely detailed orders, and waypoints etc. can be done from a map. Maybe a helmet cam on your soldiers and a lapel-pin cam on your spies would be enough to keep you informed. I don''t know how big a "surveillance tape" would be, memory-wise, but if you do it like the action recorders in Unreal Tournament and similar games it should be pretty efficient, and you could keep a lot of "tape", which could be used for everything from investigations to reconaissance to combat training aids.

This is a very interesting idea. Technology presents some tricky expectations and conundrums, such as how can there be an unsolved murder onboard a ship when DNA evidence, truth detection and the like should all be so advanced. Hence you should be able to pull up security tapes.

I think that takes away from the possibilities of plot and intrigue, though. Rather than going through the actual effort of designing a recording system that is used for such a narrow purpose (i.e., 99% of the time security tapes show nothing) wouldn''t it be better to simply create a binary result to crimes: Either they''re detected, or not detected. If detected, they pinpoint the criminal, case solved. If not detected, then the criminal employed some superior technology or skill, and you have to solve the crime through other means.

It might be worth it if the whole of the game were about actually looking at these tapes and seeing whose doing what, fraternizing with whom, and so on. But I think for the yeild it''s more work than necessary.

Good idea, nonetheless.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by dink
This sounds like a lot of fun to play.

Thanks! And thanks for the thoughtful feedback.

quote:
1. Devoted characters - I can see some major problem like attacking their faction being a problem, but why set loyalty at 1?

Actually, this is the lowest it can go through normal hardship, such as not enough sleep, food, too much work, etc. It still ranges from 0 - 100, just like any other Loyalty.

quote:
Doesn''t this allow a chance for devoted characters to do something not very in character? I''m assuming that loyalty 1 (when the scale is from 0 to 100) is really low. A player shouldn''t let them get this low?

I thought that once they were devoted, it shouldn''t end the attention to pay to their morale (which directly affects loyalty). My reason for this is that many games give you an enjoyable task only to take it away from you during the middle of the game. If you enjoyed tending to your people via missions and facilities and such, then you''d have to get more people in order to keep enjoying that gameplay once you get someone devoted. Also, if the gameplay stopped once the person was devoted, then loyalty would seem to be a gameplay mechanic that only got in the way of you making super-characters.

quote:
I''m guessing for them to ever drop to one you would have to be starving and overworking them and THEN do something like attack their faction. Maybe have their morale decrease more slowly from overworking, etc. than those who are not devoted?

The slow decrease idea may work (then again, may confuse a character whose gotten used to the subconscious estimates it''s going to take to manage people, as in many short-term goals games where you automatically think, "I''ll bet it''s time to do X now" without even looking at whatever timer or status bar a beginning player normally goes by. For instance, in Space Colony, you develop an intuitive feel as to when it''s time to feed a particular character, or check on oxygen levels, etc.

The devotion scale serves two areas: It gives a segmented series of sub-goals after getting a character Devoted; and it keeps the gameplay surrounding morale ROUGHLY the same.

Body modifications, for instance, use the segmented sub-goals idea. Surgical implants of varying risk and invasiveness have a certain Devotion limit: At around 1, it''s general non-neural implants; at 25, it''s subdural armor, tissue grafts and spinal reinforcement; at 50, neural implants that increase mental stats and all skills as well as synthetic organs; at 75, its full cyborgization; at 100, it''s a ghost implant, which allows you to take over the character whenever you wish and automatically when you die.

Ideally, players are going to want to keep Devotion high in order to keep modifying the character. Now, I could simply make morale follow more slowly, even at the rate of half, but it just seemed that after all the work you had to do to get someone Devoted, it would be lame to lose all of that because you, say, ran out of food. At Devotion, the NPCs are supposed to believe in you, and that you''ll get them through things. So the loss to devotion, I thought, should only come from moral quandries, such as making decisions that violate the morals of the NPC you''re dealing with (each personality type falls under 1 of 9 moral categories, btw, which I haven''t introduced here yet).

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2. Have you decided on how to represent the loyalty? You''ve metnioned a lot of good ways. I''d play this game if it were fuzzy or if it were in a status bar. Considering the type of game that it is (fairly heavy on micromanagement) a status bar doesn''t sound like it would be annoying to players. This would be especially needful if you have to be above a certain level to trigger a devotion quest, etc.

This is very true, there''s a careful balance here. I really like the idea of a fuzzy loyalty that has to be infered from other NPCs and the NPC''s behavior (and facial features, if I have the power to do that). I really haven''t decided what to do here. I definitely like public and private loyalty.

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Fuzzy is great when it gives the information to the player, but when there is a fine detail that we are not able to see then it can be frustrating. This leads players to sitting with guides to decipher the fuzzy before making wrong decisions. Frankly, this takes me out of a game a lot more than a status bar. Okay, so I can ask her how she is feeling after she says X. . . guess I''ll have to just wait for that response. I like to know how close I am to that objective and the fuzzy means that I don''t have any idea and can''t gauge how well my efforts at making nice are working.

The bar you''ll have to be more concerned about than anything is morale, which feeds into loyalty, so that will be visible. But you''re right, it''s a problem when the player thinks, "okay, that should be making you more loyal... let''s try to get you to do this... nope, not loyal enough yet."

It may very well need to be a visible status bar, with a second, hidden loyalty verifiable through personal interaction with the NPC and those NPCs that interact with him/her. This could create some of the ambiguity that I''m looking for without the attached frustration.

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3. Will the different factions be better than others at various tasks? Otherwise, I can''t see any real reason not to make a ship and crew of one pure faction.

I honestly hadn''t thought to make them different, but now that you mention it I see this is a HUGE point. Nice catch!

My thought was that you get your NPCs somewhat semi-randomly: That is, when you''re trying to put together a team those present are partly random and partly based on the area where you''re acquiring them. This determines initial NPC skills available and their contacts, who can help in certain areas. This also can have some impact on your ship if the two factions start fighting amongst themselves in the galaxy at large.

But I see now that if not strengthened, this is more of an annoyance rather than a strategic tradeoff (which all choices in gameplay are supposed to be). I should do exactly as you suggested, and make certain faction allegiances give certain bonuses beyond just skills and contacts.

One thing I''ll do is change the learning rate and cost for skills by faction, so that NPCs of certain factions can level up quicker. Another is to give factions bonuses to the results of skill tests, so that some achieve the more favorable results than others. I could also give factions knowledge of areas of the map, such as hazards for navigation or secret tech caches. I could even do something like the Masons, and give certain factions a bonus to passing obstacles like customs based on a secret handshake or something.

And, then, there''s always favorable reaction adjustments, which NPCs of a faction might be better or worse at.

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Strengths and weaknesses are great, but I would avoid pigeon-holing them to the point that character development dictates the player''s style of play.

Actually, this gives you one more reason to get NPCs devoted, as they switch their primary faction allegiance to YOU, rather than the Synicate, Church, Navy or whatever.

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4. Just curious, is there an end game or central storyline? Morrowind is fantastic in it''s scope and I truly appreciate that but I wanted to "win".

Yes, currently there''s an actual storyline that plays itself out in missions with victory conditions (as Starcraft did, but with a bit more flexibility for failure). The plot involves the "stellaforming" of the galaxy by a common enemy known as the Anlife, or Siegers, and each playable species has 1 of 3 goals. The generic one is "beat the Siegers." Then, each can end with a racial goal (Terrans have to liberate a Sieger-infested Earth, which unifies all human empires against the Siegers; another race has to join the two halves of its severed soul, which stops an eternal civil war allows them to hedge out the Siegers; still another actually BECOMES the Siegers).

Finally, there''s a 4X empire goal for each faction or empire in the game, matching its moral setting, such as "conquer 3/4 of the map" for an expansionist empire, or "convert 3/4 of the population" for a religious faction.

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I''d suggest having all of Morrowind''s immenseness but design a central storyline or a branching storyline that can be played through. In Morrowind, I played until I became the leader of the mage''s guild and then I was like, "Okay, that was cool. . . now what?" I can very much imagine myself putting a great crew together in your game and saying the same thing. Now that I have this great ship and a fantastic crew. . . what do I do?

Yes, good point. Open ended games have a tough time satisfying you with a feeling of victory. I''ve never committed to it, but one idea I''ve kicked around for quite some time is a limited life. The player has a limited time before they have to retire, as in the Sid Meier''s old Pirates! game. When you retired in that game, it gave you a sum of your accomplishments.

If I did that, I could even add in inventory items and mysterious, alien "fountains of youth" here and there that all extend life a bit longer. Upon retirement, players would have the option to start a new character as a descendent of the old character: The changed galaxy would still be as the player left it, and some of the player''s reputation might transfer over, and maybe some assets. But the player would go through the same leveling process, building a new team, etc.

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5. Micromanagement is a lot of fun. I like your idea of scalability (sections vs. individuals at some point). Maybe make the morale modifier shift up and down in those departments based on the department head''s leadership skills? You can keep the leader happy, but if the leader is poor then they would be disgruntled anyway.

Yes, I like this. It could be as simple as that, a percentage determined by skill in leadership. At a high leadership, all transfers; but at a low leadership, only part of high morale transfers.

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Also attach their performance to the leader''s abilities so that players have to find a fine leader and fine engineer or face the choice of making due with a poor leader but fine engineer or a fine leader but poor engineer. Players could promote through their ranks, but then they take a hit to the morale of the section (due to the disgruntled demotee).

Hah, nice. I like tying performance to leadership. The player can take leadership to do things like rally. I wonder if the player''s skill in leadership, in keeping with this paradigm, should also affect NPC''s performance. I don''t want to overcomplicate the skill tests, which simply have a skill level and a target number. However, for a skill test, it might not be too much to show the skill and then the amount that the player''s leadership modifies the skill.

Promotion and demotion, btw, actually do change morale not only for the NPC but for NPCs in the department, based on their personality and their skills.

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6. Ship''s structure - I wouldn''t make it too difficult to keep the ship happy if players invest in this. A fully staffed ship at some point should be able to take care of itself except when worked upon by outside forces or by important decisions (like attcking an allied faction). Micromanagement is fun when you can optimize with it, but when it is necessary to barely keep functioning then it becomes tiresome. A good micromanager should be able to keep their ship purring soundly and have a happy and eventually devoted crew.

Again, very good point. The ship or base actually IS ALWAYS self-sufficient provided that:
A) You''ve got qualified personnel (not always possible at the beginning due to availability in the area or your finances)
B) You''re in a trouble-free area, such as cruising through normal space

The ship troubles requiring micromanagemnt arise from travel "off the main roads". That is, you can either pay the extortionist price of jump gates and only go to highly populated parts of the map, or risk roughing it through uncharted space on an untested superstring. The latter can cause internal phenomena of radiation, heat, or mind or density altering effects. The frequency of the effects depends on your location and how fast you''re going (faster = worse, but gets you to mission points and trade opportunities sooner).

Combat and boarding, when it does internal damage, may also create these kind puzzles, which require you to reroute power, use equipment, make repairs, etc.

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Thanks for sharing this.

Thanks for paying so much attention!

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If you need a game tester, then I''d be happy to help

I have been working on this thing off and on for a long time, and don''t know how long its going to take (only have a design doc, about 200 models, and some core code written so far). But I''d be more than happy for any help when the time comes!



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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
How many factions are there going to be?

Right now I''m looking at a minimum of 49 factions spread across 7 interstellar empires. Factions are a bit generic: They may be tribes, dynasties, commerce groups, security organizations, religions or NGOs. Factions are major or minor. The major ones actually do things on the map. The minor ones sort of succeed and fail based on shifting alliances with the major ones.

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You say a personality of a certain strength does that mean that some personalities are better then others or that a npc has a certain ratining in a personality like 30% couragous. If its the latter does that allow for a npc to have multiple personalites? Such as 60% couragous and 40% fanatical.

Each personality has a strength from 1 to 10. This is a multiplier against probabilities within their behavior. Take the Trouble Magnet, for example:

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Trouble Magnet
Somehow, this character always gets into trouble...


Pros

• If Devoted, gains a luck bonus to any learned Skill (25 * Personality Level)
  
• Increased chance for missions offered (adds Personality Level * 5%)
  
• Improved chance of critical hits (adds Personality Level * 5%)
  
• Entertaining tales of trouble and adventure add Personality Level in Morale to all around when not working
  

Cons

• Increased chance of Life Missions (by Personality Level * 10%)
  
• Increased chance of hostile random encounters (adds Personality Level * 10%) after leaving any port
  
• Radiated unhappiness increases Sieger occurences in local area (adds Personality Level * 5%) when Morale is < 25
  
• Chance of Ship / Base mechanical failures (by Personality Level * 10%) when Morale is < 25
  

Each personality is meant to be a sort of "chess piece" you place aboard your ship where you expect certain benefits and drawbacks. I thought about mixing the personalities, which would mean mixing the personality types, but I mainly rejected the idea because of loss of strategic gameplay. The more characteristics any one character takes on, the less any individual characteristic matters.

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Do facilities do anything beyond raising moral? For instance if I install a machine shop, will my more technical minded npc spend their off time toying with designs perhaps improving some system or building a new device. Are there on duty facilites as well or only off duty ones?

Yes. Duty facilities either provide resources or enable functionality. A staffed Ops console provides life support, for example, while staffed engineering consoles provide power output and reduce or remove the chance of certain internal damage events.

I hadn''t thought of that specific possibility for the machine shop or duty consoles to add morale, btw, but I''ll certainly add it. I''ll add a Tinkerer personality who gains morale from using duty facilities as well just for this (giving the player a reason to double up on certain work stations).

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I assume there are events other ones that alter moral?

Yes. They cover: Encounters, contacts, mission-specific situations, away missions, leave, faction actions, skill success or failure, and a couple of other areas I''m too foggy to remember ATM.

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How are these 4 flavors related? Is it like a scale from hate to devotion? Or do all npc posses all 4 at the same time and the level of each determines their actions?

All are a linear measure of loyalty, with the TYPE of loyalty being the label and governing the behavior at given levels.
Respect is the default. Maxing respect gives Devotion. Respect and devotion can be turned to Fear or Hate by player actions or start as such if player reputation warrants (you''re Lord Vader, IOW)

There is only one loyalty at any given time for simplicity''s sake.

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It would be interesting if the diffrent duties or jobs a npc can be assigned to had there own set of positive and negative events. For instance a traitorious comm officer might block a distress call from one of your ships or outposts, a traitorious security chief might not inform you of thefts going on board your vessel.

Oh, good call on the comm officer. I''d planned for this position to send out encrypted messages, too, which reveal your position and increase your encounters with enemy factions. The security will definitely do as you say, and even frame characters he/she dislikes. Engineers will overload the ship''s power distribution system, navigators will cause misjumps and delays, cooks will poison the food, etc. (The events happen at a critical time, btw, so it''s not a simple matter of removing the traitor unless you save and restore).

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Thats it for gameplay? Thats a shame, there is so much more you could do, espically with exploration.

Haha! No, that''s all for the summary! There''s psionics, character classes with special abilities, a bunch of skill test mini-games involving animated status bars, a form of science-based "spell casting", a combat-like conversation system that can cause status effects, some base-building, and a reputation system that opens up sociopolitical gameplay. That sound better?

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Ever seen startrek?

Seen it? I''m cribbing notes for random plot and character events based on the website''s program summaries!

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Well in the card game you had to complete missions, and your opponents would put obstacle cards under the mission cards that you had to overcome inorder to complete the mission. Such as force field science 2 engineering 1, required to complete. You could do something similar for your game. Imagine beaming down to an alien planet with a few choosen NPCs you encounter an alien ruins, depending on the skills of your npc you maybe able to gain entrance into the the ruins and be able to extract an alien power generator.

Exactly. Using the same engine that displays the player''s ship, I''ll be adding tilesets for different sites. The sites may have obstacles in the form of debris, radiation or particle fields. There may be active enemies, such as mecha run amok, nanite swarms or tribal squatters. There may also be switch/key object puzzles, such as a slot needing a battery or station that has to be staffed to operate equipment.

Better yet, these sites may be interconnected, so that activating one changes the nature of another. Imagine accidently shutting down an alien site that controls tectonic activity. Now subsequent random earthquake events damage the only defense grid that protects the continent you''ve landed on from killer comets.

Exploration has three things you might like going for it, btw: The setting of the game is somewhat post-apocalyptic, meaning there are myriad tech and resource caches with unknown hazards; second, map fragments, clues and data are inventory objects that can be stolen or bartered, and pieced together to find these locations; other factions may send expeditions to compete either in a friendly race or hostile fight for the spoils of a particular site.

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It might be better to just have crew shown as blips on a map of the vessel or outpost.

Yes, this might make the graphic drawing aspect easier and be consistent when the player gets past 15 crew. My only concern is that if the player does a lot of NPC directing in the beginning, they''ll be relating only to stale dots unless they''re in the room. OTOH, if the ship is large I may have to swap out graphics, which may make your idea much more feasible.

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Then when your tavelling through the ship you can see all the nearby npcs. But I want to be able to see all of them while I''m in walkmode. I want to go into the bar, and see the my crew laughing and drinking, maybe a couple of drunken npcs are singing drinking songs. It could even be open mike night and some of the npcs are on stage singing or telling jokes. Or I want to walk down to the crew deck and see a couple of bored npc playing craps in the corner. Maybe even a couple engaged in the throws of romance.

I''ll do you one better. Depending on how much can be animated, each of these events should be an opportunity to interact and create results. Gamble with your crew, sing or tell a joke and you raise their morale or loyalty, depending their personality and the personality of those around. The gameplay here won''t be super-detailed, but there will be a success/fail chance based on skills and a few variables governing the interaction and creating strategies.

One slippery idea I''ve been working on is that how you behave sends a signal to the other NPCs as to what''s okay and not okay. If you''re carouse alot, they should come to see gambling as okay. If you''re constantly studying and training, they should come to see this as desired activity. I''m still working to bugs out of this idea, and it may be too much given everything I''m trying to do with personalities and such.

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You could hve npcs form relationships and families, with the player presiding over the couples wedding.

Yes, I''ve got that. I''m going to post a larger list for feedback soon, one that covers gameplay and NPC responses to things like holding a funeral service, having an honor banquet, reprimanding a character, performing a public execution, etc.


Great feedback, btw!

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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Jamaludin
Man what an impressive system you have thought up here, Ive read it some tiems already cos of the idea, that alone sounds so cool. As I said those listed features are just great, and this thread gives me many ideas as well, very inspirational.

Thanks for responding (responses are inspiration, too!).

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I did not read this in it, have you also made it possible to give an NPC on your ship that has a high function doing X, begin capable of running things while the player character needs to go away.

You can designate NPCs to handle things while you''re gone, and they''ll do so based on the resources, leadership skills and material you leave behind. You set up reporting frequencies, and things will be managed (behind the scenes) by a simplified system based on abstract "dice rolls."

The same goes for a special position you can assign, which is your second in command. Your Exo, or Executive Officer, can be assigned to handle internal or external affairs. So let''s say you have a mutiny in the middle of fighting a bunch of pirates. The Exo can be set to handle the naval combat or security situation while you do the other; or both, while you sneak of to the lifepod to escape. :D

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With this I mean like when hes in a fight or something that it would not only tjek is morale, but it would also depend where his loyalty is towards the player character or the NPC. ?

Yes, this is a good idea. Stealing, for example, becomes less offensive to a loyal ally who is willing to forgive you, depending on the magnitude of the theft.

Thx for the feedback!



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Hey Wav, thanks for concuuring with some of my ideas glad that I could be of some help, this sure is an intersting thread, and your ideas and previous threads ar of the same good caliber I noticed. So I am shamelesyy pluggin my thread in, its about some concept thoughts deep ones like this one, its called

Concept Design - How To : By Jamaludin (ofcourse

Thanks I would really like youyr input in some of the things listed there by me and the others, thanks allot :D And I will keep checking this one :D