KickStarter Mechajammer (formerly Copper Dreams) - cyberpunk RPG from Whalenought Studios

[Jim the Dinosaur]

nvm, I misread your comment

 

[Infinitron]

Yeah, you could let the AI run its own schedule of turns separate from your own, or even let it "cheat" and just run like a RTwP AI does. Dead State could have used that.

 

[Athelas]

I wonder what happens if your turn comes up while an enemy is charging at you. Can you move out of the way and will it follow you indefinitely? Can you outrun it if you move faster? Can you charge at it yourself and interrupt its assault? Lots of interesting situations to consider.

 

[Sensuki]

The AI won't be cheating, it will only be able to execute an action on it's turn. That's also better for performance as well. The less shit running per frame, the higher FPS the game will run at. Need everything you can get with Unity

I plan to rigorously test the AI so hopefully it turns out somewhat sensible

I wonder what happens if your turn comes up while an enemy is charging at you. Can you move out of the way and will it follow you indefinitely? Can you charge at it and interrupt its assault? Lots of interesting situations to consider.

The default move for a melee attack is called 'close distance' which means that the unit will move as close as possible/into attack range and attack. In the case of selecting to run at the unit, it will probably end up being similar to what would happen in a real-time game, the units would meet up and attack each other. If the target runs away (and thus out of range), the unit will just move as close as possible.

 

[ArchAngel]

The AI won't be cheating, it will only be able to execute an action on it's turn. That's also better for performance as well. The less shit running per frame, the higher FPS the game will run at. Need everything you can get with Unity

I plan to rigorously test the AI so hopefully it turns out somewhat sensible



The default move for a melee attack is called 'close distance' which means that the unit will move as close as possible/into attack range and attack. In the case of selecting to run at the unit, it will probably end up being similar to what would happen in a real-time game, the units would meet up and attack each other. If the target runs away (and thus out of range), the unit will just move as close as possible.

Sensuki, I hope you understand that if this game system lead by you fails we will force you to apologize to Sawyer

 

[Infinitron]

Can you queue actions? That's required to maximize your efficiency when using actions that take less than the space of a turn. Probably too complex to design the UI for it though.

 

[V_K]

If this turns out a worse clusterfuck than the usual RTwP that'd be quite an achievement.

 

[Sensuki]

Sensuki, I hope you understand that if this game system lead by you fails we will force you to apologize to Sawyer

It's not led by me. I did not create the system at all. Hannah and Joe did. I really like the system they came up with and have made an effort to understand how it works, to provide useful feedback.

Can you queue actions? That's required to maximize your efficiency when using actions that take less than the space of a turn. Probably too complex to design the UI for it though.

The system is designed so that a unit can perform one action per turn. Some actions include an optional short move but I believe if they don't take it, they'll go back into the wait queue faster than other characters.

How I think these 'combined' actions will work (from what Joe and I discussed) is that if the player wants to move a unit first they'll click the action(button or hotkey) that allows a short move and place a dummy/ghost avatar of the unit where they want to move it and then click an enemy to attack with the action they've selected. That unit will then first move to the position selected and make the attack from that position. If they want to move after - they'll select the action(button/hotkey) click the enemy with the action they've selected and then place the dummy avatar and the unit will perform the attack animation and then move to the designated location. Placing the dummy avatar in the same location makes you not move (I think).

Hopefully that sounds intuitive and simple to perform but obviously there will need to be some designation somewhere in the UI itself - most likely in a hover tooltip - as to which actions include a short move, and also somewhere that explains how they work.

 

[ArchAngel]

It's not led by me. I did not create the system at all. Hannah and Joe did. I really like the system they came up with and have made an effort to understand how it works, to provide useful feedback.

Yes but we know you, if you get involved you get involved all the way. And since they gave you access to it and you can give them feedback since the prototype stage (as you said), if it bombs we consider you the guilty party as well

 

[Sensuki]

Fair enough, I will accept blame if it bombs

 

[ArchAngel]

Fair enough, I will accept blame if it bombs

Of course I am not talking about sales here but Codex approval of the combat system

 

[CryptRat]

When the game comes to a player unit's turn, the game will stop and wait for player input. When the player issues a command to their unit, the game will play out the unit's issued command in real-time until the next player unit turn where the game will stop and wait for player input again. When a unit has completed their turn, they will go back into the wait queue.

As you already mentioned, this combat system really sounds like Grandia system with more attention to positioning. Will be great for sure.

Now I'm intrigued : one particularity in Grandia is that very powerful skills take a long time to execute and if you get your turn quickly after they are planned you can interrupt them. I imagine this could happen when putting up an explosive for example, or using some weapon. Do you think there will be such mechanism in the game (powerful actions which take a relatively long time)? Not that it is mandatory, it's fun though.

 

[Sensuki]

CryptRat I'm not sure as of yet the exact length of animation times for different actions, whether they will be the same or different. Whalenought_Joe might be the person to ask there.

But stuff that is more powerful will obviously have some drawback to make it so that properly executing the action requires use of strategy and tactics. My grenade example is pretty much in line with what you mentioned - where the grenade will deal very high damage but will take time to throw, and then it will not explode immediately.

Some made up examples - an aimed shot with a sniper rifle will have aim time before the shot is fired, during that time he might be interrupted by something such as a flashbang grenade and not be able to see his target. A Rocket Launcher may also not fire instantly and take time to aim and then to go off - balancing it so that it you have to use teamwork to properly execute the action.

But yes there will be an interrupt system like Grandia too, I believe.

 

[ArchAngel]

CryptRat I'm not sure as of yet the exact length of animation times for different actions, whether they will be the same or different. Whalenought_Joe might be the person to ask there.

But stuff that is more powerful will obviously have some drawback to make it so that properly executing the action requires use of strategy and tactics. My grenade example is pretty much in line with what you mentioned - where the grenade will deal very high damage but will take time to throw, and then it will not explode immediately.

Some made up examples - an aimed shot with a sniper rifle will have aim time before the shot is fired, during that time he might be interrupted by something such as a flashbang grenade and not be able to see his target. A Rocket Launcher may also not fire instantly and take time to aim and then to go off - balancing it so that it you have to use teamwork to properly execute the action.

But yes there will be an interrupt system like Grandia too, I believe.

The rocket launcher example would be awesome in the game if it will be possible for the game to automatically pause while the rocket is still flying towards its target

 

[Sensuki]

Well if an enemy fired a rocket at your position and it became your turn while it was in mid-air, the game would pause and you would be able to execute a move command to get out of the way (if there ends up being rocket launchers in the game, I'm not sure about that one yet).

 

[Jimmious]

Sensuki do you know visually what are they aiming for? Should we expect something similar to SitS?

 

[Sensuki]

I do and no it won't be like SitS.

Modern Resolution (1080p+) graphics, 3D world with 2D characters. Isometric style camera with a fixed perspective. The art style will be stylized of course.

I've only seen placeholder art, so I'm not sure what the final art style will look like for environments and stuff. I've no doubt that whatever Joe comes up with will look cool :D

 

[Excidium II]

To make a spergy overview with plusses being overlaps and minusses differences:

rtwp:
+ synchronous resolution
- uninterrupted planning

phase-based:
+ synchronous resolution
- synchronous planning

turn-based:
- asynchronous resolution
+asynchronous planning

so going off Sensuki's comment, they could just sell it as the perfect mix of each system come to save crpg's.

I need to find a new name for my favourite type of combat structure. It seems completely futile to attempt convincing people phase-based does not imply simultaneous resolution.

Recently in another thread I gave an example of how the use of grenades will likely differ from straight turn-based (or phase-based). In turn-based games usually you select a grenade, click where you want to throw it and the animation plays and you deal some damage to targets in the area of effect. In Copper Dreams, grenades will take time to throw and time to explode, so if you just throw a grenade at some enemies, they might move out of the AoE explosion radius if their turn is coming up soon - so you will have to use strategy, tactics, movement and positioning to make your grenade throws count.

That's only really true in TB systems where resolution immediately follows declaration in a character's turn tho. And even then, in Shadowrun for instance since people can get such high reaction times thanks to cyberware and magic, a combat round is divided in further chunks and grenades only go off after the last turn of the next chunk (or on the thrower's turn if he has enough initiative to act on multiple rounds).

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

I need to find a new name for my favourite type of combat structure. It seems completely futile to attempt convincing people phase-based does not imply simultaneous resolution.

You're right, I fucked that up (for the millionth time). So, phase-based is just about the distinction between planning and execution phases, which distinguishes it from TB which handles these for each player separately. Still leaves this system as a unnamable hybrid.

 

[Immortal]

I think Shadowrun also uses 3D maps but this is not obvious if you enable orthographic projection. Copper Dreams should be something like Shadowrun with "pespective projection" enabled, but with an actual Z axis.

Opposite.. In Shadowrun the Characters are 3D, The maps are "2D". (All the walls and tiles are 2D Images with an isometric perspective to trick you, there is no Depth to those images)

 

[Excidium II]

Opposite.. The Characters are 3D, The maps are 2D.

It's unity, everything is 3D.

 

[Immortal]

It's unity, everything is 3D.

Actually everything that uses DirectX / OpenGL is 3D. Video cards render everything as a 3D matrix.
The way I used the term "2D" is the fact that the maps in Shadow Run are made up of Images that are painted on a flat screen with some trickery. They have no "depth" or polygon shape. Very simple painted collision.

 

[Excidium II]

Yeah, I know.

 

[Immortal]

Yeah, I know.

No you don't.
The fact you tried to state that Unity is a "3D" engine (even though it supports 2D games)
When in fact it's impossible for Unity to be anything but 3D because it relies on OpenGL (Which then relies on a video card Hardware API) just shows how clueless you are.

But you tried to sound smart.. so I guess that's something.

 

[Excidium II]

Suck my dick lmao. That is common knowledge.