Personal health

[Betelgeuse]

I am of two minds on this idea. it would be easy to add (you can even mod it in) and add many interesting decisions (ie go into the suspect station yourself or waste money sending in robots to go in knowing that they will not do as good of job as you could)

On the other hand it would though add another thing to keep track of adding to the learning curve.

We kind of already have it in a simple form with the auto doc and the Teratons.

What are your thoughts on this?

[F50]

I dislike this. Ship health is enough.

[Fossaman]

I think if there were a way to make it optional, with no penalty for not using it, then it would be great. Sometimes you just want to blow stuff up instead of talking to people, though.

That said, it's a good idea. I think it would add quite a bit of depth to the station encounters. But it really depends on which direction you want to take the game. Too much of that, and it becomes a computerized version of 'choose your own adventure' novels.

Perhaps instead of personal health, a personal inventory could be used instead. Various items like armor, or a surgical mask, or a respirator, or an environmental suit, or any of dozens of other possibilities would increase your chances of surviving any given encounter. You could expand that to include bargaining and mission assignments, I suppose. It really depends on whether that's the direction the game ought to go; from what I remember of the Teraton code in the XML, all of this could be done within the existing game code. (At least, in terms of gameplay. Actually creating a personal inventory 'hold' would be a bit trickier.)

Note: Not saying personal inventory is a good idea, either. It's another option for the game, though, certainly.

[Periculi]

I think if there were a way to make it optional, with no penalty for not using it, then it would be great. Sometimes you just want to blow stuff up instead of talking to people, though.

You don't have to talk when you are being cooked by a microwave trap in a hostile enemy wreck.

The only thing to think about personal health at that point is your lack thereof.

In regards to traps on wrecks, looting is the option. Either you don't take the risk (to your personal health) or you do. If you dock and go running into the wreck to get the loot, you could run into something nasty.

Risking your personal health could be very much an optional thing- do you risk docking with a station that is independent and not part of the CW and it's standards of environmental purity? Do you risk going into an enemy station, knowing that the smoldering ruins could be unstable or hold unknown dangers? Do you reduce your risk by investing in some kind of scanning equipment or robotic loot bot?

The number of things that could be a risk to your personal health is staggering, considering the technologies and environments of the game.

Perhaps instead of personal health, a personal inventory could be used instead.

Personal inventory in the way you are using it is all described as being something that protects your personal health. To make such items useful we would need varying states of personal health. Dead .. Injured .. Healthy.

Personal holds are not tricky in the least, as long as we have some personal items to put in them. Placing a segment of titanium armor in the personal hold would be somewhat trickier, but doable.


George already makes use of a great personal health system with the teratons- A random bit of danger with survival depending on devices available.

Why not expand along the same lines?

[Fossaman]

Personal inventory in the way you are using it is all described as being something that protects your personal health. To make such items useful we would need varying states of personal health. Dead .. Injured .. Healthy.

You don't necessarily even have to include varying states of personal health. There's no reason not to leave it at the living/dead set-up that exists currently. Sure, you can add more...but what effect are injuries going to have on gameplay? Having a character with an eyepatch and a prosthetic kneecap might be interesting, but I'd be very reluctant to have injuries affect what I was able to do in the game. At that point, I'd be tempted just to start a new game, rather than having to deal with the annoyance.

[Periculi]

I was thinking that could be arranged in a quickly closed scenario- figure that if you make it back to your ship you will be able to be healed-

You have your hazard suit and other survival gear on and become injured but not killed (healthy to injured), the content generation fills in the results for you to read or ignore as you survived to loot and should start looting immediately.

Longer term health issues might be fun, rather than annoyances- like being infected with strange alien disease that may prevent you from leaving your ship in certain docks until you get rid of the contagion, sort of like radiation.

You could also become more and more artificial over the course of the game, due to unfortunate accidents beyond the ability of your ships auto doc to heal in time to save your {body part}. As part of the scoring, that could be entertaining:

"I just finished the game!"
"Oh, yeah? How much of you was left?"
"Well, I think a few square inches of brain and my trigger finger might have been original organics...the rest was body by Dvalin!"

[Betelgeuse]

ooh I love that idea Periculi

no docking for 3 min. unless you have been vaccinated or have equipment for that (robots to send in or some kind of suit)

another idea is you can not talk to ringers or Teratons without X amount of modifications giving you another upgrade path (personal upgrading)

[digdug]

ooh I love that idea Periculi

no docking for 3 min. unless you have been vaccinated or have equipment for that (robots to send in or some kind of suit)

another idea is you can not talk to ringers or Teratons without X amount of modifications giving you another upgrade path (personal upgrading)

Isn't this going to be the same as "character levels" ? If your level is not high enough you cannot (or can do) this and that.
I thought that we wanted to try to keep "player levels" away from the game.

[Betelgeuse]

ooh I love that idea Periculi

no docking for 3 min. unless you have been vaccinated or have equipment for that (robots to send in or some kind of suit)

another idea is you can not talk to ringers or Teratons without X amount of modifications giving you another upgrade path (personal upgrading)

Isn't this going to be the same as "character levels" ? If your level is not high enough you cannot (or can do) this and that.
I thought that we wanted to try to keep "player levels" away from the game.

Kind of but there is no paths in levels like there is in this.

For example you could alter yourself to become an Ares but by doing so lose the respect of the Commonwealth. As opposed to a cybernetic path that is perfectly acceptable.

Another issue that does come with levels but may come with this is you may lose points with Domina or even the ability to gain new points.

And that stuff was just off the top of my head I am sure there are other issues.

[F50]

I always wanted to be part of the enhanced/augmented/neo human debate.