Burn! Burn! Ahahahahahaha!!!!

I have burned a countless number of cities, trees, items and creatures :-E until fire effect was done.
Fire spreads, grow and dies down if has nothing to catch on.
Living creature can catch fire and burn, especially if fire is very strong. Good new, fire doesn't eat up a lot of CPU time. So burning down whole city doesn't hurt game performance.


What have left:

• Different fire resistance for items, like map cluster have it now and 'power' fire gets from burning them.
• Play with fire constants, so it will act more like real fire.
• Add crafting flag for effects. Cook meat, forge steel, craft mana grenades!
• Ensure that fire vs mana routines work well. Mana should explode when exposed to fire.
• Add 'prevent fire from spreading' to map cluster (ovens, campfires etc). 

Once it is done I can continue to crafting and expand it considerably.
Build a campfire, use matches to start a fire and roast roach leg!

Mana and Fire.

It is odd!
As I wrote in previous post, I have underestimated the difficulty of City Development  story, but!
Today, I have finished not only encounter routines and 5 encounters, but already implemented map effects, like fire and mana.
Fire doesn't exist in game literally, but it is just a matter of time. Mana is reworked to effect.
The most important part, algorithms for these map effects have been done and they are easy to work with and of course, they are animated.


For example mana is no longer a collection of pools on the ground.
It is more like gas. So, once mana bag explodes it releases a small shroud of thick gas, "the mana".
Shroud expands and shrinks based on its concentration (resource), acts like malevolent shroud.
If creature with mana perk founds itself inside it uses its ability if mana shroud concentration is enough for it.
It means: marathoner would be constantly hasted in shrouds, panisher will regenerated like mad, torturer will be enrages and helmint will spawn at alarming rate etc.

Good news! Even if mana became considerably more dangerous now it will evaporates eventually.
Try to use tactics when fighting necromutants in mana shrouds!

So, I'll add fire to the world of Fallen (flamethrowers? Explosions? Grenades?) and will start big crafting overhaul.


PS
You can taste new mana concept. I have updated a build. ^_^

City development is finished, for now. Encounters are to be started.

Nudists? In my Fallen?

I have to admit, I have underestimated the epicness of City Development story.
Some of them are epic on their own, like prisons or gates.
The week I have devoted to this story has come to end and all tasks that were left at the list are going to Idea storage.
We will refine them into full-scale stories and their day will come.
Nevertheless, I like the results. Cities are no longer a bunch of buildings near roads.

The screenshot you see above is about 'nudist bug'. I have added couple of new items, but, occasionally left 'body armour' flag for them. So people were wearing sewing kits instead of jackets and dresses.
I have fixed it, so sorry, no more swinger parties.
 So, this week done list:

• Map development tools upgrade for items and clusters.
• Markets, kiosks, guard posts.
• warehouses (only ugly ones).
• vagrants and their camps.
• garbage and junk. (we need more!!!!)
• creatures on streets.
• parks.
• shops.
• BIG button "exit to global map".
• Refactored crafting. Ready for upgrade.
• Reworked crafting GUI.
• Couple of new schematics.
• Weekly refactoring. Removed old and obscure code of old global map and road map. 
• few really of minor fixes.

Next week will be the week of random encounters and situations. I have wrote about this concept in previous posts.
If I'll fulfill it before the 'deadline' for this task, I'll start cluster states like fire or wild mana.
We need it for crafting (so you can roast meat, burn woos or make other crafts that need heat) and other features like mana contamination and explosions.

As usually, I'll update build tomorrow, on Saturday.

=======

Semi-done ascii mode.

my drawing mad skills ^_^

Craft: small refactoring and GUI rework done, back to City development!

As mentioned, I have refactored crafting interface, so it is ready big expansion I plan for this part of the game and GUI is not longer as horrible as before.
Just a little bit ^_^.

I am back to City development and going to start with poor districts near the city wall.
Also, generator doesn't respect a side of a wall and may place few houses from outer side of a wall.
It is easy to fix, but I am not sure of it. Theoretically, the poorest people may settle outside of the city wall.

Districts near city walls should have guard posts and guards patrols, houses of poor people, vagrants campfires, garbage dumps and so on.

markets and guards

Phew! It took a bit longer to implement markets. It was not because markets are so complicated.
Truth, they are not, just a bunch of people selling stuff from mats. Nah.
I have added couple of very nice tools for city generation. I think they will pay off this weekend, when I plan to finish User Story for cities and I'll speed up future development.
Also, I'll move few items from checklist to separate stories. For sure: radio, prisons, factories, "rogue" buildings and maybe city gates. These buildings need special care and their own story!
Also, I plan to rework crafting GUI, just a bit! It wouldn't be such tremendous facepalm like it now.

EDIT: oh. I just got. I have wrote nothing about guards! They use the same tools I used for kiosks. So, technically guard posts are kiosks that are selling distributing justice for free.
It is not the end, of course. Guards will have big posts near city gates and city watch headquarter.

City progress and procedurally generated encounters on local map

random picture of a catman

NPC roles, subgroups and city feature.

Subgroups? It is tree-like structure, like:

City ==> Noble family ==> guards, servants and workers.

They are an alternative to private property, so mundane citizens wouldn't sell you stuff from nearby shop an prevent servants to sell their bosses' stuff. 
Even then, they were eager to sell you shop signs of their neighbor's shop. I have fixed that, of course. 
Combined with NPC roles, subgroup ended to be to be easy way to handle city population. I mean I can track every single creature, except for vagrants, from very first group of a city. This mechanic is to be expanded to handle quest or track players actions.

But! The most important goal is to create lively looking city.
As I mentioned before, you should be able to play full game without leaving a city.

Good example is “Arcanum”.

I have set a priority plan for city development:

Top priority items include places you as a player interact the most: shops.

Yes, yes. I see what you did here! Buying and selling stuff!

Weapons (melee and ranged), armour and general store for the rest.

Second priority: Quest locations;

Quest givers like “that NPC with exclamation mark”.

And the Third is decoration.  

Includes places that don’t affect gameplay, at least right after implementation, but create atmosphere. Theatres (or musicians meet ups), special shops (like bookstores or fish markets), schools, houses of spiritual guides, forums, groves,
Okay, I have already added parks, but it was done to test item distribution algorithm.

^_^

Of course, I have few small tasks to be done in between.
For example I have to ad BIG ‘leave local map’ button when you come to ancient lift or tunnel location instead of mystery requirement to press enter.

When I am done with at least halve of city features list I will have very tasty tasks “additional features for character” and “procedurally generated encounters on local map”.

“Additional features for character” is very easy to understand. More features for the God of Features!

While “procedurally generated encounters on local map” are a bit more complicated.

I am not going to invent a bicycle if say that huge maps need encounter to be interesting to play. At best - dynamic encounters.

Well. It is fun to meet a giant roach. Sort of.

Fun to meet a necromutant. Yeah, a bit.

It is much better to meet roach fighting necromutants. (it happens rather regularly)

So, I have decided to expand this feature uncontrollably.

I’ll make list of potential encounter. Game selects from 1 to # variants and puts them together in different combinations. Idea is very simple, but can lead us to completely amazing results.
For example our game selected 3 civilians near campfire, 4 guards patrol and necromutant horde of 10 monsters.

It could be interesting on it is own already, but placing it results to different outcome.
For example:
civilians surrounded by mutants, guards aside: guards trying to save doomed civilians.

Civilians and guards near campfire, mutants aside: necromutants attacking guarded camp.
Add couple of pack snails and we have caravan attacked by monsters.
Replace civilians by bandits and we have very odd situation and so on.

As a Player I want Towns to look more like actual towns.

User Story: As a Player I want Towns to look more like actual towns.

 

This is the first step of Town and City generation routines. You can understand from one glance that this City is far from been completely generated.
Central districts have only two types of features - villa and ancient lift. It understandably not enough.

Outskirt districts have no special features at all and the cheapest districts, near wall have nothing at all. City wall doesn't have gates and so on.

Even then it is a huge step forward comparing to older towns.
I want to devote next week to development of city-life gameplay, so you can find activities without leaving town at all.
To achieve it I have to do a lot, but let's prepare 'first mile' features list:

1. Subgroups.
Creatures may be a member of a big group like city and a smaller one, for example: manor, villa, shop, guild, workshop etc.
This feature should be expanded, like group maybe owner of other groups. For example Villa group (read group leader) owns 2 workshop group, 1 tavern group and 6 house groups. It can lead us to interesting stories about wealthy families  or guild influence politics.

2. Creature roles.
Something like RPG "professions", but profession is too narrow meaning. I don't think that "profession" includes Hobbo or Lord, but "role" works fine.
Right now all Human beings are just humans, survivors of the Frontier. Not for long.
Every single role will have:
a.AI setting that will override creature AI settings. So 'guard' will engage the melee, but 'maid' will try to flee. Shopkeeper will try to stay at the shop etc.
b. Item flags. Guards gonna wear helms, bullet-vests and armed with big guns and heavy melee weapons, gentlemen wear top hats,  tailsuts and armed with canes or sword-canes, hobos wear rugs and chip bandanas, armed with  bare hands, sticks or stones.
c. Name. Obvious. You can see that %Person% is a shopkeeper and not a bandit leader.

List of must have city roles:
a. City watch.
b. Nobility.
c. Workers.
d. Servants.
e. Shopkeepers.
f.  Lowlifes and vagrants.
g. Entertainers.


3. City features.
As I mentioned before, cities need different features, including, but limiting to:
a. Markets, fairs, kiosks.
b. Shops.
c. Tavernas and meet-halls.
d. Villas and mansions.
e. Major house or magistrate.
f. Guard posts and prisons.
g. poor huts and wealthy houses.
h. Warehouses.
i. Graveyards.
j. City gates.
k. Workshops and factories.
l.  Parks and gardens.
m. Cultural buildings (theaters, arenas etc).
n. Military building (not guards' buildings; barracks, training ground).
o. "Rogue" buildings. Dens disguised by normal locations.
p. Radio.
q. Scientific buildings. Labs and inventors.
r. City decorations and utilities (statues, bins, benches, flower gardens, wells).

All feature should have different building styles and signs (when it is acceptable).

4. Map objects upgrade.
Map objects right now are mere named location. They should be expanded and do these jobs:
a. Game should be able to get map coordinates from object.
b. Object could be linked to a group.
c. Object may have different polices. Like restrictions to enter. "Don't dare to enter %lords name% mansion, trespasser!".

5. Player's basic reputation.
Game should keep records of players actions to allow NPC to react properly.
This task needs  research.