Subset Games Forum

alright can't wait, I'll do the lets play and show off it ok

edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2QsySxc ... e=youtu.be done but I didn't last as long as I thought I would LOL

Oh nice, good on you for finding and fixing the graphics bug. That occurred to be in both games I've had that went decently long.

I know you're still fine-tuning the enemy spawning difficulty stuff - have you considered making it a composite scale? I had one ship where I had upgraded the Shields to 3 (6 power total), engine to 3 (or 4, can't remember), and weapons were still at 4, and I was getting spawns of enemies with 4 shields, or 3 shields + firebombs that I just couldn't kill at all, and that killed me before I could run. Maybe it should be considering shields, and engine, and weapons? I dunno.

3clipse wrote:Oh nice, good on you for finding and fixing the graphics bug. That occurred to be in both games I've had that went decently long.

I know you're still fine-tuning the enemy spawning difficulty stuff - have you considered making it a composite scale? I had one ship where I had upgraded the Shields to 3 (6 power total), engine to 3 (or 4, can't remember), and weapons were still at 4, and I was getting spawns of enemies with 4 shields, or 3 shields + firebombs that I just couldn't kill at all, and that killed me before I could run. Maybe it should be considering shields, and engine, and weapons? I dunno.

Any ship that isn't a Cruiser is spawned based on the event, not your ships systems. I'm looking at the balance like this...

Tier 1: Civilian Sector events
Tier 2: Deep Space events
Tier 3: Cruiser
Tier 4: Quest event beacons (obtained from defeating Cruiser)

Civilian sector doesn't seem to an issue, but the jump from that to being able to survive all of the events in Deep Space is still a bit of a leap. However Deep Space will also spawn every event that appears in Civilian sector. So sometimes you're luckier than other times and it's not a big deal. I realize everyone plays a little different so that's why it's so important for me to get feedback on the balance from users. I myself tend to level up the engines earlier than most (I think). Higher engines means your FTL drive powers up faster so you can run sooner. Of Course sometimes your pilot system or engines are hit right away, and in that case there isn't much you can do to run "faster".

I could add system checks to existing events that spawn level 4 shield ships, but otherwise don't have a way to scale those events. The main issue with the system checks is... everyone levels up their ship a little different. If I were to include Weapons for instance, what happens when a user does most of their damage teleporting crew over? They wouldn't meet the higher Weapon system check. So "damage" is hard for me to test. You could do with with crew, weapons, or drones. So that left me with the "core" systems that every ship has. Those are sub systems and Shields/Engines. Sub systems is another one not everyone levels up. So that left me with just Shields and Engines. Even those aren't really a guarantee. Shield tank, or Evade tank for instance.

I'm still wondering if someone can build a Shield-less ship that can survive against the standard 4 shield ship in the game. If so, they could avoid all Cruiser class ships that way. The same goes for a Low engine ship (see the Lets Play Vid) where you don't ever level your engines up. If the ship is strong enough to Shield Tank and live, you don't need to dodge.

So in conclusion, I can add a check to the events that spawn a level 4 shield ship (stronger ships), but what would you recommend is required to trigger the fight? Or simply edit the events to allow for a bribe beforehand, which was what I figured I would do when I first started this mod.

Just add a bribe option, I think. Sometimes it's not a problem, but I had two successive ships get trashed by a 3 or 4 shield cruiser that had more guns than I did.

Why don't you test for lvl x engines OR shields OR ___ and just c/p the ship spawn event?

I understand your frustration. I wanted the same event to display different options based on how many sectors you've beaten, and I was only able to do that by making (for example) civilian_sector_1/2/3/4 in sector_map, setting the min sector for the various versions to appear, and playing around with percentages.

thashepherd wrote:Why don't you test for lvl x engines OR shields OR ___ and just c/p the ship spawn event?

I understand your frustration. I wanted the same event to display different options based on how many sectors you've beaten, and I was only able to do that by making (for example) civilian_sector_1/2/3/4 in sector_map, setting the min sector for the various versions to appear, and playing around with percentages.

Just to be clear...

I don't see how you can do a check for Shields OR Engines. I can do one or the other, and even randomly pick which one, but not check both in the same event with an OR. I can do both with an AND (Cruiser event).

Although if I'm going to go in and edit these events I can just do the bribe option. I'm thinking now of even adding in some blue options based on your crew. So if it's a Rock ship and you have a Rock crew member you could bribe for lower resources than if you didn't. That type of thing.

*EDIT: loving the feedback you guys give. Thanks!

I meant have one event that only fires when your ship has engines over a certain level, and a duplicate event that only fires when your shields are at a certain level - hence giving you an "OR". Would that not work for you?

thashepherd wrote:I meant have one event that only fires when your ship has engines over a certain level, and a duplicate event that only fires when your shields are at a certain level - hence giving you an "OR". Would that not work for you?

Ok, I see what you're saying. What I did previous was create an eventList and include two events. One that checks shields, and one that checks engines. So when the main event fires, it randomly chooses one of those.

The result of that is, you might have the shields but not the engine. So sometimes it triggers and sometimes it doesn't. That isn't the same as checking both at the same time with a standard OR. Which would result in triggering the event all the time because at least one is above the requirement. That is what I thought you were recommending which I would have loved to do.

Hope that makes sense.

DrkTemplar wrote:

thashepherd wrote:I meant have one event that only fires when your ship has engines over a certain level, and a duplicate event that only fires when your shields are at a certain level - hence giving you an "OR". Would that not work for you?

Ok, I see what you're saying. What I did previous was create an eventList and include two events. One that checks shields, and one that checks engines. So when the main event fires, it randomly chooses one of those.

The result of that is, you might have the shields but not the engine. So sometimes it triggers and sometimes it doesn't. That isn't the same as checking both at the same time with a standard OR. Which would result in triggering the event all the time because at least one is above the requirement. That is what I thought you were recommending which I would have loved to do.

Hope that makes sense.

Gotcha. The way you did it before is pretty much what I was suggesting. Maybe you could pop up a dialog box and use the exclusive-blue-text approach, where if you have shields/engines over a certain level the default option disappears, you have to pick the blue text, and it spawns the appropriate ship?

thashepherd wrote:Gotcha. The way you did it before is pretty much what I was suggesting. Maybe you could pop up a dialog box and use the exclusive-blue-text approach, where if you have shields/engines over a certain level the default option disappears, you have to pick the blue text, and it spawns the appropriate ship?

This is what I'm doing for the Cruiser events that I wrote, but didn't implement this logic in the existing events. If I did that I'm back to trying to figure out what is required to be able to fight a level 3 shield ship versus a level 4 shield ship (as an example). Whenever you didn't meet these requirements you would basically have a "nothing" event instead. My first implementation of the Cruiser (Battleships than) were random events that were basically "nothing" if your ship wasn't strong enough. The problem with that was sometimes you hit 2 or even 3 of those events in a row, and it kinda sucks having nothing. Based on a suggestion of having an End Sector mini boss, I went with that implementation instead for the Cruiser events. I found the gameplay was better because it didn't take up the random beacons with "nothing" events when your ship was weak.

So I could do this kind of logic with those events, but imagine when you first start off. You might run into a few "nothing" events in a row in each sector until your ship was stronger. Not a deal breaker at all, but not as "fluid" as having an event every jump. I have even removed all NOTHING events from spawning in this mod because I felt it was a waste of time. It's a waste of time because you aren't being chased by rebels, so really it just cost you 1 fuel. Now technically not triggering a Cruiser at the start of a new Deep Space sector is a "nothing" event, but hopefully you get what I mean.

I think providing the player a bribe option would allow them to decide if their ship is strong enough or not.