Day 13: A Long Break

I took a long break to contemplate whether or not anything is worth doing and now I’m back.

Here are some of the logs from the before times I didn’t release with a few modern updates.

Unplaced Npcs

My focus started on the AI and the way Npcs move from room to room. I was having a musical chairs issues, where some npcs weren’t being placed into “stations” because their AI didn’t have enough available options.

• Tweaked the distribution of which Npcs can go where.
• Added more rooms and stations
• Added “fallback stations” to some levels that unplaced Npcs can use if all else fails.
• If over 30 turns go by without coming in contact with the player, an npc will target the player’s current room. (Npcs may be getting stuck in loops)

I added some “passing stations” to rooms where I saw fit after noticing the NPCs getting bottlenecked into certain rooms. For Administration and Security I could picture unaffiliated Npcs visiting for one reason or another like “customer service” or “to chat” but they’re not allowed to loiter for more than 1 hour (1 turn).

May No Longer Be Relevant, But it’s How the Sausage is Made

• Created a lua module for tasks, forgot to export and return the table for it. Took forever to figure it out
  • Then had clashing global vars because I forgot to make those same tables local inside of the modules.
• I disabled the HUD. Needs an overhaul.
• Here’s a screenshot of the old 1st level from before the break:::

The Caution System:

The system is essentially an array of objects with this schema:

const caution: Caution = {
	npc: watcher, //npc reporting the caution
	time: 15,     //number of turns caution is active
	label: 'questioning', //the outcome
	type: 'seen', //poorly named, unimplemented, wildcard.
	authority: npcs.all[watcher].clan, //who to report caution to
	suspect: s, //player or specific npc name
	reason: 'theft', //still opaque. Adds more specification. 
}

* I switched from Lua to TypeScript https://ts-defold.dev/

Each turn the cautions are looped through and checked if they can be addressed. This may involve an NPC confronting another NPC or the player with questions or issues. I did a poor job of introducing interactions in a prior post so I’ll put this here:

Interactions

The trade and give interactions haven’t been set up yet, but Pockets will allow you an attempt to pickpocket and NPC or other Actor. If you fail a skill check you may create a “snitch”. When this new caution is addressed, it requires that if this NPC (victim) crosses paths with Security a Questioning caution will be created.

The Talk interaction will bring up a dialog sequence.

Questioning Cautions

I added the confrontation logic I used for interactions and added it to level load as well.
I created a new caution for “questioning”. If the player or NPC is wanted for questioning, and the player and authority cross paths, the player will be stopped by that authority for questioning. I added dialog scripts for these which are in poor shape.

Rooms

Went from 21 rooms to 28. There are only 3 actual levels for these though. layout:::

export const RoomsInitLayout = [
	['alley1', 'alley2', 'alley3', null, null],
	['unloading', 'warehouse', 'commonsext', 'storage', 'maintenance'],
	['loading', 'lockers', 'commonsint', 'chapel', 'inn1'],
	['baggage', 'customs', 'lobby', 'recroom', 'pubgrill'],
	['grounds', 'reception', 'admin1', 'gym', 'store'],
	['entrance', 'viplobby', 'security', 'infirmary', 'dorms'],
]

Character Stats

Skills and Binaries

This is what I’m using right now for skill checks. Skills have values 1 to 10 (not counting bonuses) and binaries range from -1 to 1

local skills = {
	constitution = 5,
	charisma = 5, -- deception?
	wisdom = 5,
	intelligence = 5,
	speed = 5,
	perception = 5,-- insight
	strength = 5, --carrying capacity, intimidation
	stealth = 5-- !!
}

local binaries = {
	evil_good = 0,
	passive_aggressive = 0,
	lawless_lawful = 0,
	anti_authority = 0,
	un_educated = 0,
	poor_wealth = 0
}

• Later I add attitudes towards other clans. For testing it’s just a random number between -9 and 9 representing how positive or negative an Npc feels towards each clan

For next log

• I think there’s going to be a few entries that sum up old notes, and involve any relevant, current updates.
• Maybe a screenshot with the current state of the game.