Dark vision cone behind your back

[phil235]

Thoughts?

[TheNightingale]

That actually looks pretty interesting. It helps maintain immersion, allows ambushes to succeed more easily, and isn't too restrictive for peripheral vision.
How does it interact with x-ray vision and optical meson scanners? How about natural darkness behind your back - is that amplified to make it darker?

[Atlanta-Ned]

+1. Why the heck not.

[MMMiracles]

I think it'd look a lot better if it just made the cone behind you slightly darker and stopped rendering mobs. Having big empty spaces that can change when moving around looks really ugly if you turn around a lot.

[ShadowDimentio]

Literally worse than Bay/10

[onleavedontatme]

I think it'd look a lot better if it just made the cone behind you slightly darker and stopped rendering mobs. Having big empty spaces that can change when moving around looks really ugly if you turn around a lot.

We discussed the cone/mob thing but apparently it is a performance issue. Shame.

[phil235]

That actually looks pretty interesting. It helps maintain immersion, allows ambushes to succeed more easily, and isn't too restrictive for peripheral vision.
How does it interact with x-ray vision and optical meson scanners? How about natural darkness behind your back - is that amplified to make it darker?

We can easily change the dark cone's icon or remove it (by making its icon_state null) whenever we want. We can have a smaller cone when we have xray or nightvision glasses for example, or no cone at all (for a hypothetical 'eyes behind your back' mutation). The only thing we can't do is make mobs appear above the cone's darkness (for thermals for example).
Natural darkness doesn't interfere with the cone at all.

We discussed the cone/mob thing but apparently it is a performance issue. Shame.

At least I didn't find a simple way to implement it.

[phil235]

Would it be possible to see it as a more gradual change (like unconsciousness and lack of oxygen/low health) rather than be somewhat jarring dark and black squares?

Sure, we can make the darkness be progressive, we can even make the cone not match the tiles and make the border of our vision a straight line.
Just need a good spriter

[Cheimon]

I feel like this is just going to result in idle people spinning around, which won't add any of the immersion that this change seems to be seeking.

[EndgamerAzari]

This would also potentially open up the possibility of an all-around vision genetic power.

[Shaps-cloud]

I feel like this is just going to result in idle people spinning around, which won't add any of the immersion that this change seems to be seeking.

Turning more than once a second gives you a chance to snap your neck from whiplash, scaling up for how much you do it per second

[Ikarrus]

This looks legitimately interesting and a perfect example of "Paranoia"

I feel like this is just going to result in idle people spinning around, which won't add any of the immersion that this change seems to be seeking.

It's more like now shifty eyed people will actually look shifty-eyed. Whether they're looking out for any witnesses, or they're just incredibly paranoid about something (or are just massive dorks and are now broadcasting that fact).

It sounds perfectly immersive imo.

[Cheimon]

Immersive as a Dead or Alive fan station, sure.

[Zilenan91]

Looks cool, but I'd prefer if it made it so that the area behind you was "dark" rather than black like it is now, much like Lifeweb, so you know/icly remember the basic outline of the area behind you.

[Atticat]

This looks legitimately interesting and a perfect example of "Paranoia"

I feel like this is just going to result in idle people spinning around, which won't add any of the immersion that this change seems to be seeking.

It's more like now shifty eyed people will actually look shifty-eyed. Whether they're looking out for any witnesses, or they're just incredibly paranoid about something (or are just massive dorks and are now broadcasting that fact).

It sounds perfectly immersive imo.

Lifeweb already did this. Works fantastic. You can hide in darkness too, going invisible unless someone brings a light near you.

[kevinz000]

No. Worse then baystation where immershuns is more important then here.

[TheNightingale]

It means I can buckle someone to an Interrogation chair and be the bad cop standing behind them making threats, whilst the good cop is still visible.

[PKPenguin321]

would make horde combat very very very annoying
>blob round
>wave of people goes in to fight blob
>half their screen is dark and they can't see people behind them pushing past
>they all die from friendly fire before they even reach the blob

>shooting up assistants as nuke ops
>turn around to see how your team is doing
>they're all gone and have been eaten by the other half of the assistant horde which was behind you all along

would make combat in general annoying actually
>yakkety saxxing away from a sec officer
>literally can't see them or their shots and can't dodge

>captain in rev lasers 4 assistants who tried to kill him and is kicking ass
>suddenly gets tased out of nowhere
>killed by an invisible man who he had zero chance of fighting
>murderer was behind him the whole time

>traitor sneaking into a department for a stealth assasination
>gets the stun, gets the headset off, gets the kill
>before he can hide the corpse he's suddenly called out
>people were silently watching him from behind and he had 0 indication

>ninja
>teleports behind u
>draws katana

cool in theory on the surface, but bad if you look at it in any depth, and bad in practice

[Nienhaus]

Would it be possible to see it as a more gradual change (like unconsciousness and lack of oxygen/low health) rather than be somewhat jarring dark and black squares?

Sure, we can make the darkness be progressive, we can even make the cone not match the tiles and make the border of our vision a straight line.
Just need a good spriter

I offered to do this.

[DanielRatherman]

I could construe all of those examples as positive things as well.

>blob round
>wave of people goes in to fight blob
>half their screen is dark and they can't see people behind them pushing past
>they all die from friendly fire before they even reach the blob

All the more reason to not blindly stumble into dark maintenance tunnels like lemmings and shoot each other to death: which I add happens a lot already.

>shooting up assistants as nuke ops
>turn around to see how your team is doing
>they're all gone and have been eaten by the other half of the assistant horde which was behind you all along

Should have watched your six, fluke-op.

would make combat in general annoying actually
>yakkety saxxing away from a sec officer
>literally can't see them or their shots and can't dodge

>captain in rev lasers 4 assistants who tried to kill him and is kicking ass
>suddenly gets tased out of nowhere
>killed by an invisible man who he had zero chance of fighting
>murderer was behind him the whole time

Tase n lase combat is stale and overly reliable anyway. Not to mention the ability to ambush more heavily armed foes has been a part of the game for a long time via chameleons, darkness, disguises, etc.

>traitor sneaking into a department for a stealth assasination
>gets the stun, gets the headset off, gets the kill
>before he can hide the corpse he's suddenly called out
>people were silently watching him from behind and he had 0 indication

>ninja
>teleports behind u
>draws katana

cool in theory on the surface, but bad if you look at it in any depth, and bad in practice

The most valid point: that someone attempting a stealthy kill can more easily be foisted- but I remind you that the vision cone works both ways- and for every murderer that gets caught, one more will get away with it because he waited until witnesses turned their backs.

I would support 100%, as long as the aforementioned changes to how faded the cone is are applied and it isn't too nausea inducing.

[Steelpoint]

It'd be worth a shot, but I think I would prefer if it did still show the basic landscape of what's behind you, but its just darkened.

[TheWulfe]

No no no NO. GOD NO. Forcing players on a swivel pivot of 4 cardinal directions just for sight has so many cons to just basic interaction with the game. Immersion? Do you guys not believe your characters can turn their heads and pivot hips or is the entire station full of people with broken necks?

And can you even imagine combat? Imagine what even basic dodging in a fight might do, some guy goes out your arbitrary line of sight and now you need to get him back in. You're probably not going to click for your look since you have gun in your hand to not want to waste ammo so you're going to move in a cardinal direction. From there you either spot him or move all the while if you also dodging him you're cutting off line of sight, meanwhile he has to do the exact same thing to any bit of your movements to spot his movement. Now you're both flailing around like Michael Keaton in his no-neck-turn Batman suit, playing more against a vision system than against each other.

The only reason it semi-works on Lifeweb is because it's godawfully slow-paced and based on an entire different playstyle and code (and even then it'd be more enjoyable without it).

[Saegrimr]

Clearly just make everybody have to manually turn before they can move or shoot in that direction like they're in a gygax or something. :^)

[Zilenan91]

Now that I think about it actually, the only reason this works in Lifeweb is because everything is so lethal and slow paced. People more or less die in one hit if they're unarmored, so combat is over fast. This wouldn't really fit our low damage and high speed.

[srifenbyxp]

Clearly just make everybody have to manually turn before they can move or shoot in that direction like they're in a gygax or something. :^)

But battle mechs has scanners installed, so it'd make sense if they have full 360 degree vision.

[PKPenguin321]

I could construe all of those examples as positive things as well.

>blob round
>wave of people goes in to fight blob
>half their screen is dark and they can't see people behind them pushing past
>they all die from friendly fire before they even reach the blob

All the more reason to not blindly stumble into dark maintenance tunnels like lemmings and shoot each other to death: which I add happens a lot already.

then the blob wins every time because the only way to beat it is swarming/cheesing it with R&D

>shooting up assistants as nuke ops
>turn around to see how your team is doing
>they're all gone and have been eaten by the other half of the assistant horde which was behind you all along

Should have watched your six, fluke-op.

watching your six when the direction you face is almost always dependent on which way you're moving is way more difficult than you'd expect, especially if there's no gravity

would make combat in general annoying actually
>yakkety saxxing away from a sec officer
>literally can't see them or their shots and can't dodge

>captain in rev lasers 4 assistants who tried to kill him and is kicking ass
>suddenly gets tased out of nowhere
>killed by an invisible man who he had zero chance of fighting
>murderer was behind him the whole time

Tase n lase combat is stale and overly reliable anyway. Not to mention the ability to ambush more heavily armed foes has been a part of the game for a long time via chameleons, darkness, disguises, etc.

"tase n lase" combat has nothing to do with this, it's the fact that you can be totally invisible to somebody because they happened to be facing the wrong direction and kill them dead with 0 counterplay is cancer

not to mention stealth has been almost limited to those things and requires traitor items/setting up the arena beforehand (darkness)/putting actual effort into your stealth (disguises), while people not being able to see behind them means you can just walk on up to them with 0 preparation or effort and if you luck out and they're not looking at you, they die with no counterplay

>traitor sneaking into a department for a stealth assasination
>gets the stun, gets the headset off, gets the kill
>before he can hide the corpse he's suddenly called out
>people were silently watching him from behind and he had 0 indication

>ninja
>teleports behind u
>draws katana

cool in theory on the surface, but bad if you look at it in any depth, and bad in practice

The most valid point: that someone attempting a stealthy kill can more easily be foisted- but I remind you that the vision cone works both ways- and for every murderer that gets caught, one more will get away with it because he waited until witnesses turned their backs.

generally untrue considering the "crew-actively-hunting-for-murderers to murderers ratio" is like 15 to 1 or something. traitors have to watch their backs more than the crew. it really shouldn't be that way.

[phil235]

Sure, we can make the darkness be progressive, we can even make the cone not match the tiles and make the border of our vision a straight line.
Just need a good spriter

I offered to do this.

You can still create a new cone if you're up for it. As I said, this post is just a proof of concept, I didn't want you to work hard on a well-made cone that had only a very small chance to end up in the game.

[Steelpoint]

The only way we'll ever know if it works is to see it made well and tested.

I think the best way to improve it is to ensure the actual environment behind the player is still visible (chalk it up to a combo of situational awareness and familiarity to the environment) but simply greyed out.

[DemonFiren]

This would also potentially open up the possibility of an all-around vision genetic power.

Implanting cameras into your skull, when?

[leibniz]

Not sure how I feel about this, wasting that much screen space is.. well, wasteful.

[Lumbermancer]

I don't know. It seems interesting on paper, and I'd like to see how it would change the gameplay. But I also fear it would affect it too much. Also it looks shit.

[Super Aggro Crag]

would be ass and crap

[ShadowDimentio]

This is a shit idea and everyone would hate it.

[Luke Cox]

This is one of those things that could be either amazing or total shit. Test it.

[Malkevin]

This looks legitimately interesting and a perfect example of "Paranoia"

I feel like this is just going to result in idle people spinning around, which won't add any of the immersion that this change seems to be seeking.

It's more like now shifty eyed people will actually look shifty-eyed. Whether they're looking out for any witnesses, or they're just incredibly paranoid about something (or are just massive dorks and are now broadcasting that fact).

It sounds perfectly immersive imo.

Lifeweb already did this. Works fantastic. You can hide in darkness too, going invisible unless someone brings a light near you.

Difference is the LW run speed is significantly less, if someone on there has max run speed they'll blink past you without you being able to notice them a lot of time.

[PKPenguin321]

This is one of those things that could be either amazing or total shit. Test it.

when i suggested this back when i was new and naive i was told that it was tested before and resulted in people being annoyed and getting headaches

[onleavedontatme]

This is one of those things that could be either amazing or total shit. Test it.

when i suggested this back when i was new and naive i was told that it was tested before and resulted in people being annoyed and getting headaches

The way erro tried to do it was having your character always at the bottom of the screen, so the screen flipped wildly as you turned. We also moved faster then.

A cone of darkness behind you is nowhere near as disorienting as the screen orientation flipping around.

[JJRcop]

Why don't we have a strafe key with this? Pressing or holding the key locks your orientation when you move.