I'm beginning to think that this game will need a really well-made backstory. Highly-individual gears can be quite surprising for the would-be players, so a decent backstory could really help.

BTW, are you really working on the game now? 'Cause this might be a game I wanna get my hands on (after being completely bored by the so-called next-gen games blah blah blah arrgh).

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I've been thinking of this in view of a game like Borderlands or Phantasy Star Online. In those games you've got loads of weapon combos, yet there are constraints that clamp them to a relatively tame mean. In Borderlands (or so I've heard 2nd hand from a friend) you've may get a gun with an awesome, super accurate scope but which only has 2 shots. Or in Phantasy Star you may get a gun which you can improve to insane levels but which only works on 1 class of enemy. This has got me thinking that if the majority of gear clumps toward some mean (and it HAS to because all random systems do) then provided that mean produces relatively average or above average gear you don't have a problem. (To clarify that is to say the gear is special in some ways and mediocre in others). It seems to me that if you have this sort of situation and enough gear the need for balance becomes limited to making dominant weapons rare and limited in use. You don't have to make each (or even the majority) of the weapons themselves balanced because in an open world game the player can flee from one challenge and scavenge for gear elsewhere. The only real downside I can see is having to be a packrat, but I really hope players can get into the "playing with the cards you're dealt" mentality.

You will make the gears' functionalities depend on their components, won't you? 'Cause I wanna see, say, a strange rifle which at one play session shoots a bolt of destructive energy, because it's bullet is composed of a bit of life force of the user. But the next time I re-start the game, the rifle might shoot a bolt of destructive energy which also creates a "morale-drop" area around it, 'cause now it also needs some "evil thought" as a component of it's bullet. That'll be really cool.

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Haha, that's actually cool. Maybe all governments demand that superweapons be turned over to them-- for a reward. If you don't and they know of it then they start making life tough.

Clearly that'll be cool. But perhaps this won't make much sense if there's no "technological advance" of some kind in the game. If the demanding factions are able to reverse-engineer the superweapons and thus increase the weapons' availability in the game's universe (and also greatly increase the prices of the weapons' components), that'll make more sense.

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That would be funny because then a player holding onto their nova cannon would be forced to be a frontiersman. I wonder if that actually is a bad idea?

Not, if social context plays a big part in your game. It's all depend on you, and it should go hand-in-hand with the intensity of the trading system. If the trading system involves many psychological complexities (persuasion, lying, etc), then the more social context in your game the better.

If you want less social feel and more *cough*mindless*cough* actions in your game, then don't hesitate to give the player many ways to escape from being shunned by the NPCs.

Sounds like a fun idea. Are you planning on taking it to the level I suggested in this ancient thread - RPG: Item system - kind of long

It would be interesting to be able to swap and change components of items with alien ones for potentially unknown consequences of blending technologies. So taking your standard issues Ares 5 laser gun and fitting it with the alien power cell you’ve just won in hand cards might have unforeseen benefits an penalties.

While a lot of games have degradation system I’ve yet to see one with a tweaking system to go hand in hand with degradation. If my laser gun looses accuracy if I don’t perform maintenance on the firing chamber ever 500 than why can’t I use my engineering skill to give it a bit of TLC and improve the accuracy? It might take gold to repair but if I get my hands on platinum I can improve it.

The main problem I have with item systems in games and especially generated ones is that 99% of gear you find it junk or collected only for resale. For instance in Borderlands which I playing at the moment I’ve not upgraded any of my gear in the last 10 levels, as the stuff I’ve already got is better than any of the new stuff I’ve found since. Part of this is a flaw is the content generation system in the game since a level 23 gun shouldn’t be weaker than a level 13 gun.

Perhaps you could look at ways for the exotic gear to improve over time? There is something to be said for familiarity and nostalgia of getting something and never changing it unless its broken.

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Original post by TechnoGoth Sounds like a fun idea. Are you planning on taking it to the level I suggested in this ancient thread - RPG: Item system - kind of long

Haha! Wow, that must have been the first time I replied to one of your posts and I don't even remember it.

Your component idea would be cool for item construction or rigging items. A centerpiece of what you discussed way back when was quality. I'm not sure I'd want that, though, because it automatically implies that a device or component is inferior to something else out there. While that could encourage the player to search for better quality components, it would also reveal an absolute scale. This would tip players off to the range of component values, ruining the mystery of what's "out there."

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It would be interesting to be able to swap and change components of items with alien ones for potentially unknown consequences of blending technologies.

This would be cool especially if, in rogue-like fashion, the names and characteristics changed from game to game.

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While a lot of games have degradation system I’ve yet to see one with a tweaking system to go hand in hand with degradation. If my laser gun looses accuracy if I don’t perform maintenance on the firing chamber ever 500 than why can’t I use my engineering skill to give it a bit of TLC and improve the accuracy? It might take gold to repair but if I get my hands on platinum I can improve it.

Okay this actually would be cool. Maybe I'll use real element families and make up some rule as to why gold would be better than lead for upgrading while still keeping the basic idea that it takes something from the metal family to improve a component.

What do you think about the idea of forced trade-offs? That is, something improves accuracy but lowers durability while something else improves durability but lowers supported temperature (i.e., firing rate)?

If you don't do something like this then again you end up with trash, this time with everyone just looking for the platinum once they find it and discarding the gold because it's inferior. I don't want that.

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Perhaps you could look at ways for the exotic gear to improve over time? There is something to be said for familiarity and nostalgia of getting something and never changing it unless its broken.

Yes this is tough to balance in and of itself-- finding gear and getting it as a reward versus buying it versus also improving it. But it'd be a very enjoyable aspect if I could get it right.

Dont forget to have an attribute of what an object is made of (and quantity) so that the option of using their broken down components as 'fuel' or repair bits
can add a puzzle element (more options and decisions of what to canibalize and what to repair).


Remember also unless you universe is a well shaken jumble of random items you will have local predominace of certain technologies and their resultant items and selected because of practical reasons (like availability of component to make or fuel) and a real use in that locale.

Patterns of usage of items could also exist where some are leftovers of previous ages or a long gone enterprise that exhausted their reason to exist.

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Original post by Wavinator Quote: Original post by TechnoGoth Sounds like a fun idea. Are you planning on taking it to the level I suggested in this ancient thread - RPG: Item system - kind of long Haha! Wow, that must have been the first time I replied to one of your posts and I don't even remember it. Your component idea would be cool for item construction or rigging items. A centerpiece of what you discussed way back when was quality. I'm not sure I'd want that, though, because it automatically implies that a device or component is inferior to something else out there. While that could encourage the player to search for better quality components, it would also reveal an absolute scale. This would tip players off to the range of component values, ruining the mystery of what's "out there."

True the quality aspect was a big part of that system, you probably wouldn’t want it in your game. Instead you’d probably want to think about a manufacture/origin system. In which manufacturers have a set of bonuses and penalties a selection of which gets applied to each item from that manufacturer. So an Ares Laser Gun might get the “Over Charge” Bonus that doubles damage and decreasing firing speed by 20%, but also comes with the “faulty power cell” penalty which has a 1% chance of completely draining the power cell with each shot. While the Atlas Laser Gun might have the “Precision Crafted” bonus giving it a 10% accuracy increase.

You could even have a gameplay aspect around these manufacturers in which the player can shape the traits and product lines they offer through missions, and selling the rights to discoveries to them.

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Quote: While a lot of games have degradation system I’ve yet to see one with a tweaking system to go hand in hand with degradation. If my laser gun looses accuracy if I don’t perform maintenance on the firing chamber ever 500 than why can’t I use my engineering skill to give it a bit of TLC and improve the accuracy? It might take gold to repair but if I get my hands on platinum I can improve it. Okay this actually would be cool. Maybe I'll use real element families and make up some rule as to why gold would be better than lead for upgrading while still keeping the basic idea that it takes something from the metal family to improve a component. What do you think about the idea of forced trade-offs? That is, something improves accuracy but lowers durability while something else improves durability but lowers supported temperature (i.e., firing rate)? If you don't do something like this then again you end up with trash, this time with everyone just looking for the platinum once they find it and discarding the gold because it's inferior. I don't want that.

I think material families and trade off are a good idea. Probably easiest to do with material traits that item stats are derived from. So gold would have high conductivity which increases accuracy in a weapon and high malleability which decrease durability.

You might want to still thinking about have material tiers as some materials are always going to be better than others for a given application. So copper and gold might by common and good for most items your high end master crafted equipment is going to use something more exotic.

Just a side note, I think a key to objects that require maintenance (for those not into micromanagement) is to have the game prompt the user to maintain items.

While I liked the maintenence factor in Fallout 3, after a while having to stop and check for maintaining items kind of broke the flow. Instead the game could have prompted when you pick up an item you can repair other items with (ex: "Your rifle is loosing accuracy, would you like to repair it with the one you just found?"). Another option is to allow the player to choose automatic repairs (ex: repair rifle when accuracy < 66% and repair item available).

For a space game you could be prompted every time you dock with a salesman type interface (ex: here is the breakdown of your systems, what would you like us to repair) or have your engineer ask you periodically if you would like to repair some system with onboard parts. Eventually the player could own his own base and repairs could be automatic everytime he docks.

Basically I'm looking for a way to not require the player to stop and think about repairs every so often or go into a battle wondering why the weapons are doing so little damage only to realize repairs cannot be done in battle...

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Original post by Wavinator With weapons especially I never want to leave the player helpless, so status effects or reduced functionality probably work best. Although in an open world it may be acceptable to tell the player with a degraded weapon, "run!"

I'd say 'depends' for standard issue EQ it may be reasonable to say unmaintained weapons experience a 10% degradation per 1000 (or whatever) uses. But for more exotic stuff, I'd love for an unmaintained alien super weapon to explode my ship just to teach me a lesson (just make sure I know that's what happened).

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I've been thinking about this. Though it's much more abstract than I've thought of it before I'm trying to do crew, and the concept of specialists and lore could really work to my advantage here. Scientists, for example, might be considered dead weight on a ship that doesn't do a lot of exploring, but they may be worth dragging around and feeding simply because, like a lawyer on retainer, having them available in a pinch can mean the difference between recognizing valuable resources or useless trash.

There is so much you can get out of this idea, I suggest you run a separate thread on "What crew can do for your ship"... or did you already do this?

The pertinent thought is this: It would be cool to allow the player to have access to science archives which translate the scanner codes (AS234-FGG4593Q) into relevant resource names (aspartine ore), or you can hire a scientist who's skill rating versus the rarity of the item roughly translates into probability of identifying it. Thus the player can choose whether to be responsible for prospecting or just paying for some level of automated prospecting.

Similarly, the player may hire a maintenance officer to maintain all equipment on board. performing maintenance tasks on a given device has a fixed cost no matter when you do it. But a higher skilled maintenance officer will do it later in the items degradation cycle, reducing the cost of maintenance, and extending the useful lifetime of the item (assuming, like me, you want to be an a*****e to your players and make items eventually become unrepairable). Furthermore, if the player manages the maintenance of his EQ directly, he can manually get the maximum possible efficiency. Also, your maintenance officer may have affinities to certain classes of devices, or even specialize such that having multiple maintenance officers managing different devices gives the maximum performance.