(whoa, LordElectro and I signed up on the same day.. freaky o_O)

how about these for properties?

01* stickiness (coat gernade so it sticks to its victim; keeping some materials stable; squirt on floor for tar trap; etc)
02* ph level (acid; base coat to protect against acid; etc)
03* mass/weight (this is common sense)
04* burnability (low= burns long and hot, medium = rocket fuel, high = explodes quick)
05* strength (armor; blades dont dull so often; etc)
06* heat (would this be a good heat sink?)
07* magnetic (does it conduct magnetism very well?)
08* electric (does it conduct electricity very well?)
09* roughness (traction; aerodynamics; etc)
10* energy (in my game this would be good as your robot powered by a piece of material that generates raw energy for you)
11* bouncy (ability to take damage and reverse it; bouncy gernades?; rubber coating to take some of the impacts; etc)
12* state (liquid, sold, gas, or plasma; would determine what this element is; useful for smoke screens; liquid or solid fuels; etc)
13* type (for special weapons; tractor beams, sheilds, cloaks, energy blasts; this property would keep it interesting even more!)
( and im shur i could think up a couple more )

i like the idea of not getting: 1 kg + 1 kg = 2 kg. this way some very good materials might require a lot more regular materials to make, since they're more valuable. in a sense they would "cost" more to make. (in my game you create things via a energy-to-mass converter, so it would cost you more energy to make "rare" materials because you would have to create more base elements to mix to get the desired resultant.)

im going to start coding on my "in-game chemistry" monday when im back home at my computer, but i still dont have any good ideas for a mixing formula that is non-reversible. (to deter hackers from knowing exactly what to mix to get an end result by reverse engineering the mixing formula). it needs to be non-reversible, let the player know a little bit of what to mix to get a desired result but still add in unexpected results.

this is the main part of the whole system, and i dont know. im going to go look into hashing functions, maybe they will provide some ideas for me.

- jeremiah
http://fakemind.com

Edited by - fakemind on November 21, 2001 9:32:14 PM

I think if you''re going to have sooo many properties that you''ll have to at the very least provide some hints about what they are, and how to manipulate them. Maybe some recovered chemistry (alchemy?) tomes from an ancient civilization (oooh maybe the ancient civ could be now and your game is in the future, eh?) or something.

As for hackers using the binary to figure out how the chemical processes go:
1 - that''d be pretty tough, and you wouldn''t have to worry about it until your game gets really popular
2 - one easy solution is just to do all chemical calculations on the server, and send results to the players afterwards. Then just don''t distribute the server binary. This way hackers have nothing to "reverse engineer" and the only way to figure out how the chemical stuff works is to actually try it with your chemistry lab that you provide in the game.

I must say this is an interesting idea ... programmers have put a lot of effort into getting realistic physics in their games - why not have realistic chemistry as well?

I wonder though, would you have a predetermined number of mixes or could you set each element up with the correct valencies and calculate chemical reactions on the fly? For example, the Ultima IV reagent system - the spells fizzled if you mixed the wrong components. But surely if you mixed up, say, sulfurous ash with black pearl in the wrong quantities without other suitable reagents, wouldn''t it blow up? or ash and spider silk might burn away.

If you could come up with some chemical system, you might be able to invent spells the designers didn''t anticipate - or build a lightweight waterproof suit of armour out of some sort of plastic substance your character discovered by accident :-)

--

Get A Stripper on your desktop

Hope nobody minds, but I''m moving this to the Game Design forum, as it''s not really about programming.

i plan on designing it where the mixes are done in real-time through a sort of mixing function. this way, i can make shur that every possibility that i want in the game is possible through mixing certain base elements together, but theres nothing to stop the player from mixing some things together and coming up with something i didnt think of. or perhaps a material thats stronger or has more _insert_property_here_ than i predicted.

im trying to develop the game so the player will have very basic components to work with. enough to create a fully working and good robot. however, i also want to give the player artistic license to do things with the basic components that i probably didnt think of. im making the game for the player, so THEY can create weapons and robots and discover new things the programmer didnt simply hard-wire into the game. ya know? i dont want the player to be limited to what my imagination can come up with, i want them to be able to come up with new ideas and new ways of doing things.

anyway, ive given more thought to the basic components and basic elements and how they could be mixed effectively. im not quite done fitting all the pieces together yet though. so im not going to post any more specific ideas yet, until i get all the pieces figured out. :-)

also, about reverse-engineering. in the multiplayer online mode, players will have to go through a server to keep the formula(s) for their materials secret from their opponents. if they connect peer-to-peer then theres no guarentee that your opponents are not cheating and can figure out how you came up with your materials. the server may be able to keep your mixing combination safe from your opponents, but the mixing function still needs to be non-reversible because of single player mode. i dont want them to be able to figure out exactly what to mix and in what order, etc, to come up with a specific resultant with certain properties. i dont think it matters how hard reverse-engineering is, or that it might not happen until my game becomes really popular. what good would it be for my game to become really popular only for hackers to reverse-engineer it and ruin the fun? im trying to think far enough ahead to keep my game around for a while and once i get into coding heavily i wont run into any problems because i have planned far enough ahead.

just some more thoughts...

- jeremiah
http://fakemind.com

Edited by - fakemind on November 24, 2001 12:57:38 PM

uh, fakeminds idea is quite similar to mine, although i was just thinking to let the player create magic potions out of ingredients.


Edited by - snow on November 24, 2001 3:04:56 PM