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Original post by Jotaf Then, there's the fact that this is a balance just like any other. Games that railroad you through a story are one extreme (same as the game always creating life-savers), completely open-ended games are the other extreme (as playing a heavily simulation-based game). There should be always a chance that a life-saver is created for you, but the rest of the time you're on your own. Maybe this could be tied to the difficulty setting, instead of simply being hard-coded.

You know, I actually REALLY like the idea when you tie it to difficulty level!

On easier settings, I really don't have a hard time with the game spawning resources or rabbit out of the hat solutions (such as a passing destroyer that blasts all the pirates, stabelizers your reactor, and generally saves your hide).

By the time you start playing hard, you'll know alot about the game world and be able to take care of yourself.

Maybe I could phrase it something like this:

Easy - Somehow, you seem to be the luckiest person in the galaxy. No matter how dark it gets, you always have a plan, a resource or a way of escape.

Medium - You'll have to watch your back but you're not in this alone. Your team and passers by may help you out of a jam from time to time, and you'll often have a trick up your sleeve.

Hard - It's a cold, hard cosmos, and you're on your own.

Hahaha. Shades of Ringworld's Bred for Luck - maybe that could be the name of your 'Easy' setting.

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Original post by Wavinator Quote: One last thing though. I don't think there should be punishment for moving a wounded comrade (ie x amount damge, -5 if moved). Unless it can be garuanteed that leaving him there will be perfectly safe until you come back. Otherwise, you may have the tools to save a comrade, but not the ability to take him to them or the time to bring them to him. The problem with this is that the player won't realise it's a hopeless situation without many futile attempts. Which can be frustrating. Does this mean that you also think allied NPCs shouldn't be able to be incapacitated or KOed by anything? What would transform the above situation you mention into something like "Man, I tried to save my executive officer but we were surrounded and didn't have the equipment-- but I really made those guys pay for that loss when I..." IOW, what would make you accept a loss but rather than feel upset at the game, you feel upset at the denizens of the game, which in turn deepens your emotional connection and drives you to seek justice or even revenge?

Hmm, perhaps i should give an example of what I mean.
You're half way through a level and one of your teammates has a rather serious injury (80% damage -5% if moved). You decide to save him at all costs.
Save game.
You decide to go forward and carry him along to finish the mission. However, becuase of the distance you incur more than 4 injury penalties and the NPC dies.
Reload.
You decide to take him back to your ship to heal him, however you're already so far from your ship that you incur more than 4 penalties. He dies.
Reload.
You realise you can't move him forward or back so you decide to go to the ship yourself and get the medicine to him. You don't have enough men to post a guard on him so you leave him there and go back to your ship to get help. You try this a few times trying to get there and back as fast as possible. But each time the enemy patrol always has more than enough time to find his body and finish him off.
Reload.
Reload.
Reload.

The problem here is that in that situation your team mate is already dead (even if you play the rest of the mission perfectly) but you have no way of knowing it without going through all the possibilities. And that can be frustrating (especially if you have limited gaming time).

There are a couple of possible antidotes for this that come to mind.

I.) There have already been a couple of suggestions (most recently by rmsgrey) that the any character on the team should always be able to stabilise to state of the injured party (just basic first aid stuff). Not to necessarily improve his health but just to make movement safe.

II.) The movement penalty could be one time only thing. So, no matter the distance moved or amount of time spent moving, the player can easily calculate the chances of survival for his wounded. e.g.
96%, -5% if moved = He's practically dead unless I can bring the health pack to him and keep him safe while I'm away. but...
94%, -5% if moved = As long as he doesn't get hit by any more enemy fire he will be safe.

III.) Totally ignore the movement damage thing.

From what I understand option one seems to be the closest to what you're aiming for.

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It's a universe of FTL drives, psionics, and space monsters, and you're doubting monomolecular blade crafting? [grin].

[wow]Wonders shall never cease!!

People seem very reluctant to this idea, mainly the fact that they can lose characters to injury. I think the problem the fact that players don't want to play without a safty net and the thought of anything risky scares them off. But why its not like Wavinator is suggesting anything new. In Jagged Alliance, Fallout and Xcom just to name a few all have the fact that as a character gets injured they become weaker. As well as that it is possible for a heavly injured character to bleed to death. Does this make those game unplayable? No. The player simply learns to plan ahead, by bringing along things like extra ammo and medkits.

If get into situation where a characters is heavily injured on a mission and after saving and reloading a dozen times you learn that you get go forward or backwards without them dying and then isn't enough time to get help from the ship. Then you should ask yourself, why didn't you bring a couple of midkits with you in the first place? Then you could have saved the life of that npc. Generally critical life saving equipment is only useful when brought in advance there is no point in trying to get when you need it because by then its to late.

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Original post by thelurch You're half way through a level and one of your teammates has a rather serious injury (80% damage -5% if moved). You decide to save him at all costs. ... ...

Thanks for the clarification, I get what you mean now.

So it's not so much the status effect, it's the turn around time to alleviating the status effect that seems to be the issue (or at least the hopeless aspects to the effect).

Now, ironically, without ANY status effect, if this were a combat situation you could still run into the same issue with healing and enemies. Think of this: You're midway through underground ruins that keep repopulating enemies and run out of plain restoratives (things that just repair your HP). Now this can happen to you in any game from Fallout to Morrowind.

Here's two interesting related anecdotes: In System Shock I screwed up somehow and quicksaved my game with 2 bullets and 7 health. I was right outside a cargo bay with two autoguns and a bunch of zombies, no health anywhere on the map and no way to go back and get ammo. I rushed in time after time, dying again and again, until I finally mapped the area and figured out how to jink, dodge behind cover and smash the enemies with a simple wrench.

In Morrowind, like an idiot I decided to wander all the way up the slopes of Red Mountain with a half-broken sword and NO HEALING SUPPLIES. I got the NPCs with me killed, got lost, and was down to 2 HP on the sword (meaning one extra swing and it broke). I would sneak inch by inch, find little cubbies to sleep and restore in, and it took me about 3 real-time hours to get down, restoring maybe a dozen times after getting killed or hopelessly surrounded.

Now, of all players out there I consider myself a restore crybaby. [grin] I hate getting stuck, so as a designer that's tops on my mind. But to be fair I recall these experiences, both of which sent me cursing enough to make a sailor blush, as one of the most intense and (on later recall) FUN experiences of the game. (Okay, so maybe I'm some weird gaming masochist, I don't know).

The point is that sometimes we have to be laid low in order to really triumph. You don't get that with a safe, conservative damage model where you can ALWAYS reliably predict how many hits you can take and how long it's going to take to get through some challenge.

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The problem here is that in that situation your team mate is already dead (even if you play the rest of the mission perfectly) but you have no way of knowing it without going through all the possibilities. And that can be frustrating (especially if you have limited gaming time).

Yeah, a situation like this can engender a feeling of "I can't believe they let this happen." I ran into this in Escape Velocity where I got trapped after simply running out of fuel.

The really nasty thing is that you'll never see this in a level-based game because there are invisible walls hampering your freedom. But in an open-ended game, this may be one side effect to freedom.

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II.) The movement penalty could be one time only thing. So, no matter the distance moved or amount of time spent moving, the player can easily calculate the chances of survival for his wounded. e.g. 96%, -5% if moved = He's practically dead unless I can bring the health pack to him and keep him safe while I'm away. but... 94%, -5% if moved = As long as he doesn't get hit by any more enemy fire he will be safe.

I should have been much more specific, but that's how I saw this as happening. Always being able to stabelize the character MAY work, but I'm thinking now that that really should be a matter of how you've trained your people.

NPCs have limited skill slots, just as you do. If you choose to train everybody in first aid (in case the doctor goes down first) then I'm okay with you stabelizing a progressive damage status effect like bleeding. I have to go with a certain level of player responsibility here or it will feel like your choices are meaningless. One outcome of lots of choice must be that you can make suboptimal choices.

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Original post by TechnoGoth If get into situation where a characters is heavily injured on a mission and after saving and reloading a dozen times you learn that you get go forward or backwards without them dying and then isn't enough time to get help from the ship. Then you should ask yourself, why didn't you bring a couple of midkits with you in the first place? Then you could have saved the life of that npc. Generally critical life saving equipment is only useful when brought in advance there is no point in trying to get when you need it because by then its to late.

It might suffice to add warnings / tutorials and then make certain events just less likely per difficulty level. That way, people can play to the amount of risk that is acceptable.

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Original post by Wavinator Quote: II.) The movement penalty could be one time only thing. So, no matter the distance moved or amount of time spent moving, the player can easily calculate the chances of survival for his wounded. e.g. 96%, -5% if moved = He's practically dead unless I can bring the health pack to him and keep him safe while I'm away. but... 94%, -5% if moved = As long as he doesn't get hit by any more enemy fire he will be safe. I should have been much more specific, but that's how I saw this as happening. Always being able to stabelize the character MAY work, but I'm thinking now that that really should be a matter of how you've trained your people.

Okay then, in that case all my worries are totally unfounded. And you're absolutely right about the excitement of surviving high risk situations.

However, just for the sake of argument[smile].
You will notice that what made both examples you gave exciting and memorable and fun was the fact that you could survive!! Things only seemed impossible but in actual fact they were just really really reeeaaalllyyy difficult.
What I was reffering to was a case where something seems really really difficult but actually is impossible.

Just wanted to clarify as you've already addressed and solved the issue. Okay, I'm shutting up now [ignore]