Anyone for a trip to mars?

[devinpatterson]

 

At a guess, I'd say he's looking for something like this...Rounds are ejected from the barrel like a traditional gun using a propellant, and once clear of the muzzle a small rocket on the base of the round ignites, pushing it to terminal velocity.

 

That's an interesting hybrid weapon. I wonder if the added idea of a caseless ammo would be over the top. Seems like the propellant is backed up against what is essentially a solid fuel rocket anyway so......maybe a little micro spark/arc to set the whole thing going, then the propellant sets off the solid fuel propellant all in one smooth process. Ammo would probably be a pretty penny though.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

The winding canyon- is that a Martian canyon?

Maybe the rocket base could have a Mars VR pod, with a "combat trial" mode showcasing potential threats, either made on earth as a what-if scenario or shipped from Mars by the army bot; even if the exact canyon isn't reused, having a gladiator-style pit and/or canyon-of-doom with the beta resources could be a good showing, and actually would make sense if the final creatures and levels are different or aren't shown in the sim, whether for practical or plot reasons.

Perhaps the doc bot would somehow beam the simulation as a "recruitment" mechanism? IE like the Anchorage pod, with the bot duo taking the place of Operation Anchorage's Benjamin Montgomery it could be rather fun to see them bickering, with the captain raving "Greetings from Mars" etc. in a patriotic pep talk "training" exercise.

[Nihilisaurus]

 

At a guess, I'd say he's looking for something like this...Rounds are ejected from the barrel like a traditional gun using a propellant, and once clear of the muzzle a small rocket on the base of the round ignites, pushing it to terminal velocity.

 

That's an interesting hybrid weapon. I wonder if the added idea of a caseless ammo would be over the top. Seems like the propellant is backed up against what is essentially a solid fuel rocket anyway so......maybe a little micro spark/arc to set the whole thing going, then the propellant sets off the solid fuel propellant all in one smooth process. Ammo would probably be a pretty penny though.

Caseless ammo could work, but risks introducing all of its inherent problems, like 'runaway gun' issues, not something you want firing ammo that expensive. On the plus side, so long as the traditional propellant charge is small, the weapon would work pretty well in space, avoiding the main problems of throwing the wielder around and a buildup of heat from fired rounds that the atmosphere would usually absorb.

[tizerist]

Hey, I've flicked through (some of) this thread a couple of times, and yeah I could see this being really really good.

But at what stage is this project? It's hard to tell with 36 pages. It appears you're past the brainstorming stage and are now trying out possibilities for gameplay, but the mod itself is early days but confirmed?

Thanks!!

Edited June 5, 2012 by tizerist

[devinpatterson]

The winding canyon- is that a Martian canyon?

 

Yep a martian canyon/ravine. But if I can't finish the FEV monstrosities in time, the space marines (shorthand for skeletal/desiccated corpses in power armor with trauma suit technology, missing limbs and other body parts) might be the opponents to fight. Equipped with a rocket launcher or two they could pose a threat to the mech.

 

That's assuming the mech is done soon. I did implement a fireweapon command and corresponding animation (copied into the idles and plugged into the script). But it's really

. It fires at ridiculous rates, has no auto aiming (so most shots go right over the head of a normal sized actor), etc......but I'm working on a couple of ideas.

 

Maybe the rocket base could have a Mars VR pod, with a "combat trial" mode showcasing potential threats, either made on earth as a what-if scenario or shipped from Mars by the army bot; even if the exact canyon isn't reused, having a gladiator-style pit and/or canyon-of-doom with the beta resources could be a good showing,

 

That's an interesting idea with a lot of potential. But as much as players would enjoy an arena, it's a tough sell (contrived) to show opponents from a what-if scenario. I mean they could guess that some of the bio-weapons might escape and run/program a what if scenario. But they wouldn't have any chance of knowing about the space marines, rad ghouls, the nightmarish FEV horrors etc.

 

How about a compromise/spinoff, based more on your canyon of doom? Essentially a VR equivalent of a safety & training tape, a demo level in a simulated reality. But of course being pre-war (and assuming we keep the Chinese base, which I think is a must), the opponents would be Chinese.

 

So say, instead of an arena you have a little mini anchorage type sim. It would teach the player that your suit is as important/critical as your health, give you a chance to test your new jumping skills, introduce the mech and familiarize you with the new martian Chinese troops (as best the U.S. intelligence was able to portray them pre-war). If the demo mod is still too small after that we can include a segment/level focused on a "what if" scenario for the bio-weapons, ie part 2.

 

Part 1;

So as a lead up, lets plop the player down in a tunnel/hallway leading to, or close(ish) to the terminal. Well also pop up a note with the basics (you'v been traveling in space for over a month, and have just exited the ship etc). They will encounter some space marines (at least one should be missing it's head, because I want to dwell heavily on the horror theme for the mars project) and dispatch them. That way we get to show off the space marine assets. Possibly include some rad ghouls (iffy).

 

Continuing on to the terminal, the PC runs across a corpse with holo tags and takes them (the ID's will be needed to run through the sim). These are from a soldier that never made it to the VR intake. So when the player arrives at the terminal he is identified by a protectron (or other bot) as Sargent X (due to the holo tags), told that he is 105189756 minutes late and that all new arrivals must view/engage the safety/training VR. Dialog with the bot informs the player that the exit to the rest of the complex will not open until the training VR is completed.

 

The VR loads with patriotic ramblings and safety information (notes for now, maybe voice in teh main mod). This would be a good place to implement a slideshow (just a short one). Something that stresses the red menaces threat on mars and how it affects the very way of life for every american...yada yada. How uncle sam needs you, your no good to uncle sam dead, and your suit means the difference between life and death, blah blah blah. Then it moves on to ramblings about safety issues re: your suit.

 

Next your dropped into a relatively straight forward skirmish or stealth mission (based on the players style) with a simple objective facing Chinese martian troops. Maybe shoot for half an hour of game/play time? I'm assuming these are all Panzer Dragoon level (ie elite), since it doesn't make sense to send your common Chinese grunts. So I'll reskin some Chinese stealth suits, maybe modify the helmet/visor. Well throw in an opportunity to use the mech (important military training). We'll throw in a couple of Anti-material turrets (during the attack on the chinese outpost) to drive home how deadly the automated defenses on the mars project are. Possibly show off a new weapon like a Chinese variant Anti-Material rifle. The player will complete the sim at the Chinese outpost and the VR will end.

 

If we need more game/play time we can include a 2nd corpse, a scientist. His holo tags could start a different VR based on a "what if" containment failure of the bio-weapons division (his specialty dept). That shouldn't involve too many new resources, so it shouldn't be too difficult to make. Or we can detail a little more of the terminal and connecting complex. Maybe throw in one of the new RoboBrains, that has gone insane or on the verge of it, from the two centuries of isolation. I don't want to go too much further than that though, because that is essentially the area where the mainframe AI makes contact with the player. And I havn't finished her holo's yet.

 

and actually would make sense if the final creatures and levels are different or aren't shown in the sim, whether for practical or plot reasons.

 

True, good point, the VR would be based pre-war, and doesn't have to reflect any of the current reality.

 

Perhaps the doc bot would somehow beam the simulation as a "recruitment" mechanism?

 

It would be cool to include him in the demo, but it seems unlikely considering his current circumstances in teh bio-weapons research facility. Also did you ever come up with an idea for his origin. ie was it a matter of desperation (one bot, 2 brains) and they had no choice, being thrown together by circumstances? Or is/was there a deeper thread that connected them before the operation, brothers or some other bond?

 

 

Hey, I've flicked through (some of) this thread a couple of times, and yeah I could see this being really really good.

But at what stage is this project? It's hard to tell with 36 pages. It appears you're past the brainstorming stage and are now trying out possibilities for gameplay, but the mod itself is early days but confirmed?

Thanks!!

 

Some resources are done mostly actors, but a large portion, like the FEV horors are not. I may talk to dogtown and Quetzlsacatanango about using some of their more twisted creations as a base. The plot line is fairly close to being finalized and it's mostly the details that need to be worked out. Right now we're discussing the demo and I'm targeting a late next month release on that (have a demo of the sunset targeted for late this month).

Edited June 5, 2012 by devinpatterson

[devinpatterson]

Oh, on a related note the Xera mod in the cryo facility is pretty much story boarded, just need to fill in the details. We have about 19 pages of notes, but most of that is my long winded ramblings. I'll condense everything down make sure we're both on the same page and put up the notes this weekend, but I'll probably have a thumbnail sketch of the whole thing much sooner. That way everyone can see where it fits in. She also made us a very nice atomic laser (a OWB contract). I'll see if I can put up a pic later.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

 

 

It would be cool to include him in the demo, but it seems unlikely considering his current circumstances in teh bio-weapons research facility. Also did you ever come up with an idea for his origin. ie was it a matter of desperation (one bot, 2 brains) and they had no choice, being thrown together by circumstances? Or is/was there a deeper thread that connected them before the operation, brothers or some other bond?

 

They definitely knew each other before the war- they were very good friends, as I detailed some while back.

it's a lot to keep track of, definitely, but long story short, the doc was a center left reformer with qualms about the mcarthyist fascism permeating from up high and the solder a center-right captain with a grudge against the commies and/or a strong, weary sense of "get the war done first or we're fu**d" while still sharing private doubts with his friend.

This falls apart when his son/wife whatever is infected following the FEV outbreak and quarantine, this after many of his former comrades were similarly infected and "purged" hardening him to the prospect; his friend, the lead surgeon, tries to save him/her, but a Chinese sympathizer on his team (the guy had relatives on the Fallout 3 mentioned-only Ebon Atoll Cruiser that was sunk by friendly fire during anchorage, or who died fighting bread riots, or something to that effect) sabotaged the surgery out of spite (the captain didn't attempt this with anyone else, he just shot them) and a firm belief that the Plague is uncurable.

This leads to the son's death; as the center-left doctor had covered for his more radical friend on several occasions, and the centrist captain had covered for the left-leaning chief doctor every now and then, the whole shebang really screws with his head, he starts seeing enemies everywhere, goes berserek and it all goes to hell and the doc is fatally wounded, transferred to the brainbot, and later "rescues" his stasis friend by transferring him to the other slot; the hope being that he could "restrain" the broken captain from doing anything too stupid, and to an extent he's succeeded. Two hundred years later, an increasingly bitter doctor is coexisting with the deranged, disembodied and Mcarthyist mind of his former best friend, the only "human" in the entire facility, the others having long since either died (many after being infected and killed as "feral FEV" monsters- a subtle tragic horror belying the macabre "no American would die so easily" ranting he gives during fights- and adding a similarly dark element to the otherwise comical duo.

[greenknightfury]

This is all coming together beautifully.

[devinpatterson]

With suits being so essential to a players survival in the martian wasteland and such a focus on them already (like the new power armor and the new assassin suit Apocalyptic Girl and I have been working on) I thought it would be cool to add a little extra detail. I'd like areas of high FEV concentration (high viral loads) to trigger a biological hazard alert. As well as the same for radiological hazards and chemical hazards. It can be a short bark (that can be turned off if it's annoying) or an actual popup, but it only happens when initially entering or re-entering an area (so it shouldn't be annoying).

 

I think it would also be cool to have suits that work better vs some hazards than others (mostly I'll accomplish this by sorting them into general categories to go into form lists). So for instance the mars power armor T-51d will be particularly effective at blocking chemical damage. The all purpose science suit will provide good all around protection to all three but provides little DT. The martian Chinese stealth suit will only provide biological protection (no rad or chem resistance). And so forth. This will make the suits important in pressurized interiors as well as outside. The player is going to have to decide how to balance their use indoors for protection from those 3 hazards vs the suits being damaged and needing repairs (depending on how many repair kit materials we decide to include in the various facilities).

 

The mars mod is unique (or at least rare) in that it will feature all 3 hazards heavily. And on that note I'd like to propose the additional twist of mutations. The FEV viral loads in many areas are far greater than earth and pairing that with lots of rad hotspots should cause accelerated mutations the player wouldn't see earthside. I'd like to play these as 90+% negative (various cancers and what have you), but with a small chance of neutral mutations (albinism for instance, we'll recolor the pc's hair and eyes) and an even smaller chance of a beneficial mutation (aka a perk) in the classic gamma world/sci-fi vein.

 

Cancers and other common maladies can be healed by specialized autodocs on the station.

Edited August 15, 2012 by devinpatterson

[greenknightfury]

With suits being so essential to a players survival in the martian wasteland and such a focus on them already (like the new power armor and the new assassin suit Apocalyptic Girl and I have been working on) I thought it would be cool to add a little extra detail. I'd like areas of high FEV concentration (high viral loads) to trigger a biological hazard alert. As well as the same for radiological hazards and chemical hazards. It can be a short bark (that can be turned off if it's annoying) or an actual popup, but it only happens when initially entering or re-entering an area (so it shouldn't be annoying).

 

I think it would also be cool to have suits that work better vs some hazards than others (mostly I'll accomplish this by sorting them into general categories to go into form lists). So for instance the mars power armor T-51d will be particularly effective at blocking chemical damage. The all purpose science suit will provide good all around protection to all three but provides little DT. The martian Chinese stealth suit will only provide biological protection (no rad or chem resistance). And so forth. This will make the suits important in pressurized interiors as well as outside. The player is going to have to decide how to balance their use indoors for protection from those 3 hazards vs the suits being damaged and needing repairs (depending on how many repair kit materials we decide to include in the various facilities).

 

The mars mod is unique (or at least rare) in that it will feature all 3 hazards heavily. And on that note I'd like to propose the additional twist of mutations. The FEV viral loads in many areas are far greater than earth and pairing that with lots of rad hotspots should cause accelerated mutations the player wouldn't see earthside. I'd like to play these as 90+% negative (various cancers and what have you), but with a small chance of neutral mutations (albinism for instance, we'll recolor the pc's hair and eyes) and an even smaller chance of a beneficial mutation (aka a perk) in the classic gamma world/sci-fi vein.

 

Cancers and other common maladies can be healed by specialized autodocs on the station.

 

All of this is excellent! I really like the idea of the perk/drawback mutation thing ala Gamma World (was trying to put together a Fallout style campaign for Gamma World recently) it bugged me in the Fallout games that there weren't mutations like that, they would fit perfectly into the lore and you get examples of it with the Family in FO3 (they are forced by mutation to be cannibals, and learned to just use blood to ease the need for people for food) and the question in the GOAT about what to do when you sprout a third arm through random mutation, and of course the natives of Point Lookout.

 

The different suits offering different levels of protection for different hazards makes perfect sense as well, and they already have suits that protect from rads and/or poison in the game so that at least means two different threats are already coded in. Might have to script the FEV hazard from scratch though, probably with stages of effects, something like the levels of rad poisoning (I'd suggest Charisma/Intelligence damage along with the mutation chances, with a increased chance of mutation for each level of FEV infection).

 

I'd say for mutation chance make say 5 levels of infection with a +10% chance of mutation per level, with +5% per level of rad poisoning or biohazard exposure. As for mutations themselves...I'd say weigh it more like 75% (chance of getting it with each mutation) negative the rest benign/neutral or advantage. Some ideas for the mutations:

 

Negative:

1.) Hearing Loss : -1 Perception as your hearing becomes erratic.

 

2.) Bad Eyes: This mutation causes you to lose 2 points of perception unless you wear glasses (basically the four eyes trait, so they would be pretty much immune)

 

3.) Arthritis: -1 Agility, -10 lbs carryweight and 5% movement speed reduction.

 

4.) Tremors: Due to the constant trembling of your hands you have +2 weapon spread and -5 chance to hit in VATS

 

5.) Stinker: You now exude a foul stench making you hard to talk to. -10 to speech and barter skill

 

Neutral:

 

1.) Colorblind: Just slapping the black and white vision filter on. (this is one you should make reversible, since it might upset some after a while)

 

2.) Shroomin: You sprout odd fungus on your shoulders, -1 Charisma but one cave fungus added to your inventory every 12 game hours

 

 

Positive:

 

1.) Eagle Eye: +2 Perception as your vision sharpens.

 

2.) Springy Joints: +1 Agility, +10 lbs carryweight and +5 movement speed.

 

3.) You Smell Gooood: Your body now produces pheromones giving you a +10 to speech and barter skill.

 

4.) Cat-like hearing: You hearing improves giving you +1 Perception

 

5.) Ready and Steady: Your hands are steady no matter what the circumstances. -2 weapon spread, +5% to hit in VATS

Edited August 16, 2012 by greenknightfury