My methods so far have been revolving around enormous lists of variables (somewhere along the lines of one per consequence-action), even more gigantic dockscreen/dialog lists to implement consequences, and still more lists of modified wingman base code for each other developed characters' actions/reactions. The goal is to treat each scenario as an interactive story, one which manipulates the player's emotions like a book or movie to create a deeper experience and make them think "What would I really do if this happened to me?" without overdoing the complexity. A big part of it is simulating other people that the player can interact with and who you can watch develop over the course of the scenario. Wingman dialogue (what do they think about events/actions + giving the sense of interaction) and AI (individual personalities influencing strategy + making sure important characters don't die in the first minor encounter because of sheer stupidity) custom-tailored for each other character seemed like the best way to go about this, but the current setup doesn't give the player any way to respond outside of dockscreens.
This style drags the focus away from piloting/combat skills a little, but having to think your actions and strategies through to implement your skills effectively is a challenge in itself.
So... Thoughts? Ideas? Criticisms? Slander?
The biggest problems at current are having to use enormous lists to provide interaction and the player's current difficulties in responding to dialog. Another little hitch is my illiteracy in t-Lisp
and the fact that I have yet to locate the code for creating an AI. I'm adept at creatively modifying and re-purposing preexisting code, but I have a little...er...difficulty in creating my own t-Lisp from scratch.
