Away Missions 2.0 (Now with feature creep in the last post)

onleavedontatme · Sat May 30, 2015 1:48 am

FEATURE CREEP LINK: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 067#p92067

List of people helping on the project
-Stickymayhem: new turfs, mapping dungeons
-WJohnson: mapping dungeons
-Xhuis: Bossfights (or he's making them for mining anyway)
-Ausops: Sprites
-Remie has been providing technical support to me so shout out to her

I've been very busy these past couple weeks, but I've finally started work on the migrants (proof https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/9699)

I have had time to think about it more in depth though, so I'll write down the ideas I've had since last thread. This will act as a roadmap as well to keep track of me actually working on this.

Summary: The asteroid will be replaced with a full Z level "planet" (it's almost a full Z level anyway). The planet will be home to mining, various environmental hazards/monsters, ruins/bases/other fun things to explore, and the migrant base.

Properties of the Planet:
-Random maps might be possible later, but I'd rather start with a single modular one with randomly seeded, premade ruins. I'm not actually sure if loading parts of maps is feasible, but I have an ugly workaround in mind if not. These ruins would be more involved than the single empty rooms we have on mining currently. Wjohnston and Sticky have expressed interest in making locations to explore.
-Boss Fight Dungeons, Xhuis is working on these with Sticky
-The theme of the first map will be a red/martian desert, with black mineral walls (unless someone has a better colour scheme/setting suggestions
-Breathable atmosphere, or at the very least no cold/pressure damage. "Surviving" against bad atmos is usually very dull. You either have a suit and are immune or don't and die quickly.
-Can build anywhere on it without poking holes into space Done https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/9699
-Environmental hazards would include a sandstorm that functions similar to the floor being lava. Anyone outside (in the planet area) will take damage, and the tiles themselves will have a sandstorm effect/overlay.
-Monsters would have nests, that spawn additional monsters (with a cap) until destroyed.
-Station bounced radios only?
-People on the planet count as dead for objective purposes

The Migrants
-Plasmamen? Unless someone wants to make a new race. Otherwise, Done by Remie
-Have a prebuilt base across the map from the station base
-Base powered by an anomaly core
-Have a spawner ghosts can click to spawn in as a migrant, provided the living migrants remember to fuel the machine (feed it plasma, for plasmamen)
-Have a 3d printer for building retro lasers, swords, picks, etc
-Have some blueprint variant (flags for staking claims?) so they can build sandstorm proof shelters/designate new areas as bases
-The first migrant to spawn is the leader with a random objective (repair their base/ship, get the captains laser, have X plasmamen go home on the emergency shuttle, etc). It's up to him whether or not to pursue it via diplomatic means/trade or through violence. The ones who spawn after are bound by the rules the leader sets, which will be added to their notes. Alternatively they could just exist to rejoin the crew, but I think that'd be sort of boring.
-Captain likewise sets rules for dealing with migrants, they can always be valid if he wills it.

Getting to the planet
-"Space elevator" connecting station and base (big, round/square shuttle with doors on multiple sides)
-Away base will have a landing field for the white shuttle and for the security prisoner transfer shuttle
-Escape Pods can be emagged to launch early, or launched via a console inside (during Code Red? Or simply give the captain the ability to order evacuation on his computer). They will fall randomly on the planet. An emergency cabinet inside the pod will open to grant basic survival gear (a shitty mining pick, most importantly). This is the primary reason why I want the planet to not have pressure damage, so that pods can reach it without killing everyone inside. They obviously will not go home at round end if they're used to reach the planet. Partially done. I've got escape pod random random destinations at map start working, need to add a red alert toggle
-Not sure if teleporters should work here
-Maybe add a chance for things to "fall" if they loop in space enough times
-Exile Pods: Small, personal drop pods (think ODST, not like our shuttle pods) that break apart on impact. Security would start with a handful of the pods for throwing unruly assistants into the wild. The pods would come only with a pick and whatever gear security is feeling generous enough to provide to the criminal.

Away Team
-Miners are replaced with the away team. One will spawn as the team leader with a different coloured helmet or something. Maybe they should get those old NASA suits instead of rigs, they seem more suited to explorers.
-Mining voucher system will stay in place, as will most of the current mining gear
-Miners will get laser rifles (ion rifle sized laser guns) with detachable, rechargable magazines for dealing with migrants/monsters. Spare magazines will be purchasable in the voucher system
-Miners will get a simple mob companion MULE (covered in bags and stuff, looking more like the military ones than our SS13 variant). It will act as a mobile storage unit which they can drag around (and a ghost will be able to click on it to inhabit/drive around/talk to them).
-Bluespace shelters. Miners will each get one emergency shelter, deployable out of a capsule/small box/whatever (and will call in a shuttle to instantly make a safe base from sandstorms. Can't be moved after use).

As usual, comments, additional ideas, and criticism welcome. Anyone who wants to help map/sprite, or hell even code some of this, I'd love that as well. Most of this is more or less simple to code (other than the randomly seeding ruins). Will just be time consuming.

Remie Richards · Sat May 30, 2015 2:15 am

Some INTERESTING, nice changes here.

Post by **PKPenguin321** » Sat May 30, 2015 2:18 am #91729

This is a neat idea, but eats into things like mining and pods waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much
I don't see why it's not just it's own thing, put the whole Away Team and migrant planet on one of the empty z-levels or something

Incomptinence · Sat May 30, 2015 2:24 am

Rename assistants to away team instead of miner so they go away.

onleavedontatme · Sat May 30, 2015 2:31 am

PKPenguin321 wrote:This is a neat idea, but eats into things like mining and pods waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much
I don't see why it's not just it's own thing, put the whole Away Team and migrant planet on one of the empty z-levels or something

Because if its not part of mining it runs into the old problem away missions had of not having any real purpose in the round other than places for the crew to loot. I want it to be more integrated into the round, not a tacked on diversion. Give a place for traitors to work off camera, bored assistants to go fort building in instead of greytiding, etc. Also there has been a ton of work done on mining, I'd rather build off years of work than start from scratch.

There's been a push to streeeeeeeeeeeetch the rounds out to 2 hours, so I'm hoping to radically alter the structure of the round enough so that there are things to do for those two hours. I want to give players the space and tools to make their own little stories and goals, a third faction with ambigious loyalties to keep things fresh each round, and just enough PVE pressure to give "meaning" to it all.

onleavedontatme · Sat May 30, 2015 2:33 am

Incomptinence wrote:Rename assistants to away team instead of miner so they go away.

Maybe security should get "exile pods" that shoot you down to the planet (in a small personal ODST style drop pod that breaks on impact, not on a full shuttle style pod)

Remie Richards · Sat May 30, 2015 2:35 am

Kor wrote:
Incomptinence wrote:Rename assistants to away team instead of miner so they go away.
Maybe security should get "exile pods" that shoot you down to the planet (in a small personal ODST style drop pod that breaks on impact, not on a full shuttle style pod)

How about the exile pods have much worse (none at all?) gear, and if you make it back to the station you go free?

onleavedontatme · Sat May 30, 2015 2:37 am

Remie Richards wrote:
Kor wrote:
Incomptinence wrote:Rename assistants to away team instead of miner so they go away.
Maybe security should get "exile pods" that shoot you down to the planet (in a small personal ODST style drop pod that breaks on impact, not on a full shuttle style pod)
How about the exile pods have much worse (none at all?) gear, and if you make it back to the station you go free?

They'd need at least a pick in case of landing in a cave, but yes, that'd be a fun way to deal with greytiders.

Hopefully there will be some admin leniency on exile as well considering they can easily respawn as migrants if they don't make it back.

Post by **lumipharon** » Sat May 30, 2015 2:44 am #91738

Kor wrote:
Because if its not part of mining it runs into the old problem away missions had of not having any real purpose in the round other than places for the crew to loot. I want it to be more integrated into the round, not a tacked on diversion. Give a place for traitors to work off camera, bored assistants to go fort building in instead of greytiding, etc. Also there has been a ton of work done on mining, I'd rather build off years of work than start from scratch.

There's been a push to streeeeeeeeeeeetch the rounds out to 2 hours, so I'm hoping to radically alter the structure of the round enough so that there are things to do for those two hours. I want to give players the space and tools to make their own little stories and goals, a third faction with ambigious loyalties to keep things fresh each round, and just enough PVE pressure to give "meaning" to it all.

Old away missions were like that because literally all 90% of them had, were a bunch of things that will kill you, and piles of fucking weapons.
Like remember that NT cruiser one? That has, 50+ syndie mobs, and probably 100+ weapons.

I don't agree with this 'replacing' mining - I don't see any reason why it can't exist along side it.
For example, certain minerals could spawn only on the planet, or even some new shit that is exclusively there. Bam, miners have a reason to go.
There could be bits of old alien tech that science could either: use in the experimentor to get something new and neat, or: decon for unusual/high research levels. Bam, reason for science to go.
It's an alien planet, so surely it will have alien plants/creatures to collect? Bam, reason for botany and kitchen to go.
Need to build a base to survive the angry alien environment? Bam, engineering has a reason to go.
Any of the above chucklefucks are invariably going to be eaten, so Bam, reason for sec to go.
Any of the above cock gobblers are invariably going to get hurt, so med has a reason to go.

Hurtling through space until you eventually hit the planet sounds pretty hilarious, although being able to survive re-entry with just a spacesuit seems a bit dumb. Conversely, flying along in space then randomly getting sucked into a planet and dying also seems pretty dumb.

onleavedontatme · Sat May 30, 2015 3:02 am

lumipharon wrote: I don't agree with this 'replacing' mining - I don't see any reason why it can't exist along side it.

I more don't see any reason why it should exist separately if it's going to overlap in function. What will you miss about mining if it's expanded/altered to include what I've been posting about? (this is my most important question, I need to know what makes people afraid to see the asteroid changed so I don't ruin mining for them) Other than their title of "Miner" the job isn't losing anything (other than maybe kinetic accelerators as they'd be worthless in atmosphere).

Also everything you suggested (tech, plants, rare metals) is very interesting, and what I had originally intended for away missions, but it takes a lot of time and work to sprite and code all that stuff. It'd be much easier to build off of mining than start all over elsewhere. A large part of why old away missions were killing fields full of guns is that we didn't really have any other spare content to put in them, and people weren't willing to design a dozen new plants every time they made a map.

Post by **lumipharon** » Sat May 30, 2015 3:17 am #91744

Because if you're replacing mining with these, then you're forced into making the alien world/whatever a giant lump of space rock like the asteroid, to allow miners to still do their job.

So for example, with this system, if we ended up with multiple different world (randomly selected at round start or whatever), while having one of them being a big rocky thing full of ore is ok, if we have no seperate mining roid, then every alien world map would need to be full of rock/ore.

That means no swamp worlds/deserts/forests/whatever.

onleavedontatme · Sat May 30, 2015 4:42 am

lumipharon wrote:Because if you're replacing mining with these, then you're forced into making the alien world/whatever a giant lump of space rock like the asteroid, to allow miners to still do their job.

So for example, with this system, if we ended up with multiple different world (randomly selected at round start or whatever), while having one of them being a big rocky thing full of ore is ok, if we have no seperate mining roid, then every alien world map would need to be full of rock/ore.

That means no swamp worlds/deserts/forests/whatever.

That's a fair point, though I think it could be somewhat mitigated by just having small outcrops of high yield mineral walls in deserts, forests, swamps etc.

I suppose you wouldn't do much actual digging on those maps, but from what I gather miners don't really do much digging now anyway. There are already massive precut tunnels.

Stickymayhem · Post by **Stickymayhem** » Sat May 30, 2015 4:49 am #91752

I'd love for pods to have this secondary use but mining is pretty decent as is and I'd hate to see that touched in a drastic way that diminishes its role. There are plenty of other options and once someone builds the foundation other coders will likely leap at the chance to fill it with awesome stuff like lumi suggested.

Post by **PKPenguin321** » Sat May 30, 2015 4:56 am #91757

Kor wrote:
PKPenguin321 wrote:This is a neat idea, but eats into things like mining and pods waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much
I don't see why it's not just it's own thing, put the whole Away Team and migrant planet on one of the empty z-levels or something
Because if its not part of mining it runs into the old problem away missions had of not having any real purpose in the round other than places for the crew to loot. I want it to be more integrated into the round, not a tacked on diversion. Give a place for traitors to work off camera, bored assistants to go fort building in instead of greytiding, etc. Also there has been a ton of work done on mining, I'd rather build off years of work than start from scratch.

There's been a push to streeeeeeeeeeeetch the rounds out to 2 hours, so I'm hoping to radically alter the structure of the round enough so that there are things to do for those two hours. I want to give players the space and tools to make their own little stories and goals, a third faction with ambigious loyalties to keep things fresh each round, and just enough PVE pressure to give "meaning" to it all.

But making it it's own z-level planet kind of thing (secondary asteroid similar to the mining one would work just fine) accomplishes basically all of those things, and it being part of mining doesn't really stop it from being a place "for the crew to loot."
Couldn't this be implemented without destroying the mining job?

Stickymayhem · Post by **Stickymayhem** » Sat May 30, 2015 5:02 am #91758

Also you'd end up with miners going straight to the migrant areas which would either have to be prevented through policy or allowed with no real acceptable reasoning. It's a bit messy.

Also part of the challenge of mining is the atmosphere. If you can just whip off your suit you can stack medkits and the challenge disappears.

Keep em separate.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Sat May 30, 2015 5:49 am #91771

Great idea, but I do think that if we went with this that we would have to cut out the mining asteroid. Otherwise we would have a lot of duplicated functions, I'll expand when I get to a computer.

Incomptinence · Sat May 30, 2015 10:37 am

Just let separation of migrants and mining be a mapping difference. Then it could differ between servers if we wanted it to or something. Also most mining gear beyond brute melee stuff have atmosphere gimping involved so that would need to change or tie it to natural gravity or a toggle or something or remove it I dunno.

Not-Dorsidarf · Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:33 am

I like this idea with one exception - The entire mining section is bad. Removing the entire gameplay of mining and turning it into "Run around with no suit and every rock you see is an ore?"
Lets not even get into the utter, gobsmacking, short-sighted idiocy of giving unimplanted station jobs roundstart laser rifles, which would have to have a stupid hacky z-level check or something to work. Or the fact that this whole idea is about creating a set of team antags with free objective every single round and equipping them with laser rifles.

Leave mining alone, make this a seperate Z

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Sat May 30, 2015 10:49 am #91788

These lasers don't necessarily need to be lethal on humans. They could be specially designed to harm the monsters on the planet, but coincidently the design to do that renders the lasers as being very ineffective against humans.

Not-Dorsidarf · Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:33 am

Name one single other type of weapon in the game artificially limited to only work on special snowflake mobs.
Just make the planetoid depressurised - plasmamen have their space suits anyway, and if you''re scrapping the entire mining job you might as well give their hardsuits to this new job.

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Sat May 30, 2015 2:03 pm #91811

I like the idea of mining not requiring massive pressure help, but then I very rarely play miner.

Where a good atmosphere would be really awesome is in the gulag. Currently it's useless the moment someone breaches into space, which is pretty easy to do, even by accident. A kind of feral planet area where criminals could go mine and either die or get back could be a really good replacement for the current gulag, which has a number of problems.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Name one single other type of weapon in the game artificially limited to only work on special snowflake mobs.
Just make the planetoid depressurised - plasmamen have their space suits anyway, and if you''re scrapping the entire mining job you might as well give their hardsuits to this new job.

Kinetic accelerator is pretty shitty against station crew, I guess.

I think there was talk of having plasmamen being made not spaceworthy so they could have more of a station role, though.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Sat May 30, 2015 3:45 pm #91819

Just call them Expeditionary Carbines and give them a special pin that makes them nonfunctional on the station Z. I don't think this should remove or replace Mining, though, but I do like the idea.

onleavedontatme · Sat May 30, 2015 3:53 pm

Incomptinence wrote:Just let separation of migrants and mining be a mapping difference. Then it could differ between servers if we wanted it to or something. Also most mining gear beyond brute melee stuff have atmosphere gimping involved so that would need to change or tie it to natural gravity or a toggle or something or remove it I dunno.

What other mining gear is bad in atmosphere?

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Removing the entire gameplay of mining and turning it into "Run around with no suit and every rock you see is an ore?"

Was only a suggested fix to Lumi's issue of "we can't have swamps." The map I'm planning now would have plenty of space to dig. I think balancing between "too much of this z level is mining" vs "not enough is mining" will be tough, but doable.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote: giving unimplanted station jobs roundstart laser rifles,

Why is that a big deal? Scientists can get bombs within the first few minutes of the round, which are far more powerful. Engineers can build stun prods (or release a black hole), roboticists can emag cyborgs easily, traitor cargo can order tons of weapons, etc. Hell the HoP is unimplanted and starts off with all access. Not sure what chemistry has these days but they used to just be able to melt peoples faces off with acid in spray bottles. Everyone in the crew used to have stun gloves. I don't think people having access to weapons is a bad thing, especially weapons that don't even stun like laserguns.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:I Or the fact that this whole idea is about creating a set of team antags with free objective every single round and equipping them with laser rifles.

Rules for migrants might need some changing, or maybe melee weapons only for them.

onleavedontatme · Sat May 30, 2015 3:56 pm

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Name one single other type of weapon in the game artificially limited to only work on special snowflake mobs.

Lasertag guns only work on humans, and only humans wearing specific clothes at that. The projectile code is very flexible

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Sat May 30, 2015 4:04 pm #91825

Just wanna throw in my +1 for this idea, it seems really cool. I feel like some of the reluctance you are seeing is due to making such a sweeping change to a big part of the game. I feel like as long as it is well tested it will be a really good addition though, cant wait to see it in action

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Sat May 30, 2015 7:20 pm #91862

The difference is that no other non-Security non-Command jobs outright start with a lethal weapon in their locker. I don't see it as a huge issue, but giving it a pin wouldn't be bad at all.

Summoner · Post by **Summoner** » Sat May 30, 2015 8:40 pm #91883

I love this idea, I really like to see stuff like the exile pods and escape pods heading to the planet.

Atticat · Post by **Atticat** » Sat May 30, 2015 8:47 pm #91888

I'm begging you; turn the planet town into a wild-west esque outpost where sheriff is a role and the law of the gun is all that matters

also we need a space saloon

onleavedontatme · Sun May 31, 2015 2:54 am

Atticat wrote:I'm begging you; turn the planet town into a wild-west esque outpost where sheriff is a role and the law of the gun is all that matters

also we need a space saloon

Rules would be up to admins, not me

Wyzack wrote:Just wanna throw in my +1 for this idea, it seems really cool. I feel like some of the reluctance you are seeing is due to making such a sweeping change to a big part of the game. I feel like as long as it is well tested it will be a really good addition though, cant wait to see it in action

It's frustrating that people complain of a stagnant valid/shuttle call meta but are generally react poorly things that would alter the flow of gameplay too much (not that there aren't well thought out criticisms as well)

Stickymayhem wrote:I'd love for pods to have this secondary use but mining is pretty decent as is and I'd hate to see that touched in a drastic way that diminishes its role. There are plenty of other options and once someone builds the foundation other coders will likely leap at the chance to fill it with awesome stuff like lumi suggested.

It took several years and several coders for mining to reach the point it is at now, it'd be difficult (and incredibly time consuming) for me to make an entire new resource system that makes the planet attractive.

Stickymayhem wrote:Also you'd end up with miners going straight to the migrant areas which would either have to be prevented through policy or allowed with no real acceptable reasoning. It's a bit messy.

Ideally the map will be dangerous enough and filled with enough rocks that you can't just rush across it

Stickymayhem wrote: Also part of the challenge of mining is the atmosphere. If you can just whip off your suit you can stack medkits and the challenge disappears.

There was a very high casualty rate in old away missions despite not having to wear a suit. Medkit doesn't help much if the monster puts you into crit.

Jacough · Post by **Jacough** » Sun May 31, 2015 3:31 am #91931

How about the exile pods have much worse (none at all?) gear, and if you make it back to the station you go free?

Once the exile pod lands it deploys a couple of items:
[*] prisoner hardsuit: Not exactly a real hard suit. Provides no protections except the very bare minimum of what the prisoner needs to survive the cold vacuum of space. Also comes with a half full emergency oxygen with 200 kpa of oxygen (better get home quick or find another source of oxygen!)
[*] one stack of bruise packs, one stack of ointment, and one bandage
[*] disposable light taser: Four shot taser that will freeze an NPC mob in place for three seconds. Doesn't work in a pressurized environment much like the miners' weapons and can't be recharged like a normal taser. Use it wisely.
[*]One food ration (equivalent to 4no raisins).
[*]One chocolate bar
[*] exile ID: has assistant and mining post access and nothing more.

onleavedontatme · Sun May 31, 2015 3:51 am

Jacough wrote: [*] prisoner hardsuit: Not exactly a real hard suit. Provides no protections except the very bare minimum of what the prisoner needs to survive the cold vacuum of space.

This is exactly why I want the planet to have atmosphere, because otherwise prisoners/escape pods would need to provide space suits, and that would be way too many space suits.

Jacough · Post by **Jacough** » Sun May 31, 2015 3:59 am #91933

Kor wrote:
Jacough wrote: [*] prisoner hardsuit: Not exactly a real hard suit. Provides no protections except the very bare minimum of what the prisoner needs to survive the cold vacuum of space.
This is exactly why I want the planet to have atmosphere, because otherwise prisoners/escape pods would need to provide space suits, and that would be way too many space suits.

In that case you could say it's a planet extremely close to the sun without oxygen so the temperature outside is extremely hot, like inferno hot. The suits themselves could just be fire resistant like a fire suit but not space worthy.

Post by **lumipharon** » Sun May 31, 2015 7:01 am #91948

Make it cold so we can use those winter coats (which provide strong cold resist) to survive.

I believe the outside of Wj's moon base away mission has that sort of condition (toxic, cold atmos, but perfectly survivable with wintercoat and internals.

But yeah, I'm still not satisfied with any argumen for replacin mining- it permanently pideon holes every alien planet into being half solid rock.
It doesn't have to be some place filled with loot and resources out the ass to be interesting.

Even the chance of neat shit will attract people.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Sun May 31, 2015 2:50 pm #91989

I really like the idea of giving a good use for the winter coats. I think Lumi might have a point about the mining thing though, what if some of the planets still had some high value minerals like uranium and diamonds, and the explorers could call the miners when they find them

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Sun May 31, 2015 3:01 pm #91990

One possible idea is that we can have multiple planets in the solar system? Its far from the current reach of this new mechanic but what if we simulate multiple Z-Levels that each represent a different planet within the solar system that SS13 is based in?

We could have multiple planets, and asteroids, that simulate different conditions. So a mercury like planet would be akin to a desert planet with a extremely high temperature. In addition a Migrant ship would start out on one of these planets at random with no way for the station to (initially) determine which planet has the ship.

This would allow for several things, firstly in that the asteroid z-level could still co-exist alongside this new system, but with it lacking any permanent structures that currently exist, secondly it would mean running into Migrants as a crew member not a guaranteed ordeal and thirdly it simulates a wide array of hostile conditions and put a different amount of pressure and difficulty on both the crew that go there and the migrants.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Sun May 31, 2015 3:41 pm #91995

IS it possible to add an array of new Z levels to accomplish this? The alternative is trading our current space content for it, which i think is a poor idea

Remie Richards · Sun May 31, 2015 3:43 pm

We can have functionally infinite z levels, so we don't *have* to replace anything.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Sun May 31, 2015 3:47 pm #91997

On reflection perhaps a better system is simply to make a pool of planets where only one is used per round. Makes things far easier to balance and whatnot.

My only concern with the planet and the asteroid is that how exactly would the 'explorers' on the planet do? Cave diving is fun and all but unless we're prepared to do up a entirely new system of content for the explorers then what we really have is two different variants of the mining job.

Jacough · Post by **Jacough** » Sun May 31, 2015 5:37 pm #92003

Steelpoint wrote:On reflection perhaps a better system is simply to make a pool of planets where only one is used per round. Makes things far easier to balance and whatnot.

My only concern with the planet and the asteroid is that how exactly would the 'explorers' on the planet do? Cave diving is fun and all but unless we're prepared to do up a entirely new system of content for the explorers then what we really have is two different variants of the mining job.

Ancient Artifacts that r&d can use in the experimenter like strange objects? The explorers would have a special camera they can use to take a picture of the artifact which well then send a message to R&D stating whether it's valid or invalid for research. If it's valid, pack it up and send it to R&D. If it's invalid you can smelt out down for a few pieces of random ore. Or use it to decorate your autism fort if you prefer

Cheridan · Post by **Cheridan** » Sun May 31, 2015 8:10 pm #92019

lumipharon wrote:Because if you're replacing mining with these, then you're forced into making the alien world/whatever a giant lump of space rock like the asteroid, to allow miners to still do their job.

So for example, with this system, if we ended up with multiple different world (randomly selected at round start or whatever), while having one of them being a big rocky thing full of ore is ok, if we have no seperate mining roid, then every alien world map would need to be full of rock/ore.

That means no swamp worlds/deserts/forests/whatever.

Planet mining doesn't have to be like asteroid mining. Just have strip-mining on those planets instead of having rock walls. Dig down into the dirt.

onleavedontatme · Sun May 31, 2015 9:01 pm

Jacough wrote:
Steelpoint wrote:On reflection perhaps a better system is simply to make a pool of planets where only one is used per round. Makes things far easier to balance and whatnot.

My only concern with the planet and the asteroid is that how exactly would the 'explorers' on the planet do? Cave diving is fun and all but unless we're prepared to do up a entirely new system of content for the explorers then what we really have is two different variants of the mining job.
Ancient Artifacts that r&d can use in the experimenter like strange objects? The explorers would have a special camera they can use to take a picture of the artifact which well then send a message to R&D stating whether it's valid or invalid for research. If it's valid, pack it up and send it to R&D. If it's invalid you can smelt out down for a few pieces of random ore. Or use it to decorate your autism fort if you prefer

Who is gonna code and sprite all that though? Or design the particulars of the system, and balance it, and make it unique enough so that it doesn't overlap too much with normal RnD? It'd be different if people were coming in here volunteering to code something but "just make an entire new game system on top of the new system you're making" is not very helpful. I don't want to sound like I'm throwing a fit/taking my ball and going home but I simply do not have the time nor the will to create something that involved when I'm already have a large list of things to do.

I'm also somewhat confused because "expand mining into planetary mining" was the poll option that won in the migrants thread, but there seems to be little to no support here.

Cheridan wrote:
lumipharon wrote:Because if you're replacing mining with these, then you're forced into making the alien world/whatever a giant lump of space rock like the asteroid, to allow miners to still do their job.

So for example, with this system, if we ended up with multiple different world (randomly selected at round start or whatever), while having one of them being a big rocky thing full of ore is ok, if we have no seperate mining roid, then every alien world map would need to be full of rock/ore.

That means no swamp worlds/deserts/forests/whatever.
Planet mining doesn't have to be like asteroid mining. Just have strip-mining on those planets instead of having rock walls. Dig down into the dirt.

Clever

Falamazeer · Post by **Falamazeer** » Sun May 31, 2015 9:10 pm #92022

I'm in favor of planetary mining.

I like the features as you outlined them thus far. If you build it, they will come.

onleavedontatme · Sun May 31, 2015 10:13 pm

It would of course also be possible to split them back into an asteroid/planet if people like the planet enough to keep it and there is enough content developed for it to justify it existing as its own job

Post by **lumipharon** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 12:40 am #92041

If it's a big issue for you Kor, just make an alien planet (do you have an official name for what these would be called by the way?) the way you see fit (with all the mining etc), then we can test it out with regular mining in the game and see how it goes from there.

Getting it functional is the biggest priority, it honestly doesn't matter if it's little more then a barren, empty desert to begin with - features can be added in later, and once the bones of it are up, you'll probably have an easier time of getting other coders to add shit to it.

onleavedontatme · Mon Jun 01, 2015 1:37 am

lumipharon wrote:If it's a big issue for you Kor, just make an alien planet (do you have an official name for what these would be called by the way?) the way you see fit (with all the mining etc), then we can test it out with regular mining in the game and see how it goes from there.

Getting it functional is the biggest priority, it honestly doesn't matter if it's little more then a barren, empty desert to begin with - features can be added in later, and once the bones of it are up, you'll probably have an easier time of getting other coders to add shit to it.

Away Missions got added in bare bones last time and the backlash got them removed rather than fixed.

Guns/enemies aside, there are plenty of maps (listening station, meatpacking place, wizard academy, WJ's two stations, beach bar) that didn't have the loot problem. They still got taken out because they drew people away from the station for no real purpose. People got upset because the rounds structure was disrupted. Players on the non combat missions got bored and returned home rather quickly.

The enemy spam death missions were in fact the most popular, but pissed people off even more because they'd spawn as a traitor or whatever and discover their target+30 other people had fucked off to go die elsewhere.

I'm probably not being very coherent but basically I'm worried if its' bare bones players will get bored and the powers that be will call it pointless/demand its removal (much like they've made space travel near impossible, mining is the only thing we let happen off station with any regularity). If its not integrated with the round it'll be declared pointless and maybe cut out entirely.

I guess mining at the same time is possible, if a bit of a mapping headache.

I suppose nobody trusts the "we'll try it this way and revert if nobody likes it" by now, but I've removed plenty of stuff (like away missions) after testing periods.

There are practical/performance concerns as well, adding other Z levels/mobs/turfs/lights/machines isn't free.

EDIT: Offical coding name? I dunno, Away Mission 2.0. I don't think it matters that much. The planet name itself? Could be chosen randomly every round, or picked by players in a poll or something.

Post by **lumipharon** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:45 am #92057

The thing with away missions is that it's super easy for anyone and everyone to go to it.

One guy tells the AI to open the gateway shutters, then the entire crew can flood through in 10 seconds if they want.

With mining and space travel, it requires more effort, so you see less people running off to do it, even though they have some neat loot.

onleavedontatme · Mon Jun 01, 2015 4:21 am

Speaking of space travel requiring effort, something Sticky brought up is nagging at me now.

Z levels really are not very big in any one direction (x or y). They can hold a bunch of tiles, but they're very easy to cross. Only a minute or two at most.

The only reason space is hard to explore is because of the empty z levels and random transitions. A single planet Z level where you can see the borders would be very easily crossed by the migrants/crew, especially if we did more open terrain on one of the planets. Even with mining walls digging in a straight line would be done very quickly.

I can't think of a real solution other than multiple Z levels and I'm not sure how well received that would be. That might be too drastic of an alternation.

Post by **lumipharon** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 4:26 am #92062

Z-levels are pretty big considering the station doesn't even fill it entirely, and that's packed full of shit.

Unless you're trying to make some absolutely huge ass planet z-level I don't think it should be an issue. and if you are, that in itself could be an issue, since there's only so much stuff you could be putting into it, it's inevitably going to big a feature empty.

onleavedontatme · Mon Jun 01, 2015 4:50 am

lumipharon wrote:Z-levels are pretty big considering the station doesn't even fill it entirely, and that's packed full of shit.

Unless you're trying to make some absolutely huge ass planet z-level I don't think it should be an issue. and if you are, that in itself could be an issue, since there's only so much stuff you could be putting into it, it's inevitably going to big a feature empty.

Apparently I don't have to use the standard Z size, but yes, too large would be an issue as well.

I've gotta figure out the right balance between "you can find everything in 30 seconds" and it being a complete wasteland

onleavedontatme · Mon Jun 01, 2015 5:52 am

256x256 (current)

500x500

1000x1000. The max, and obviously far too large.

How should the map be structured?