Open Source Lugaru: Pie in the Sky

[rudel_ic]

Okay, this topic is for wild ideas, concepts and the criticism of those. I'll link to each idea in the original post when I get around to it. Please give your idea post some sort of title or I'll come up with one.

Please think your stuff through before posting. Assuming you have done that, everything goes. If you want to discuss the details of making a tower defense mod or if you want to mesh Lugaru and Black Shades together, post away. Crazy stuff is welcome here, that alongside discussion about implementation details.

The List Of Pies

• Mod organization with directories and metadata
• Miscellaneous features (1)
• Miscellaneous features (2)

[rudel_ic]

As I predicted, we will have to differentiate between maps and assets for opensource Lugaru and maps and assets for vanilla Lugaru for obvious reasons. The easiest way to do this is to use new directories and metadata.

It makes sense to describe asset directories with metadata, specifically bounds for the format in a directory. So if there's a Mods/Rudel/Maps/ directory, then it includes a file called content.description. That content.description file would contain something like

Code: Select all

maxplayers:
128
modelist:
survival ctf koth classic story animated replay

.. and so on.

The game handles mods by looking at directories inside of Data/Mods/. It still completely preserves the vanilla Lugaru functionality, of course. Also, if there's no content.description in a mod's asset dir, then it assumes the data inside the dir is as vanilla Lugaru expects it.
So a mod called Rudel could or could not have the directories Mods/Rudel/Maps/, Mods/Rudel/Models/, Mods/Rudel/Textures/, Mods/Rudel/Skeletons/ et cetera. Each of these has a content.description file. The content.description file is of course tailored to the asset content in that directory.

Meaning the content.description inside of Mods/Rudel/Textures/ would be like

Code: Select all

forcesuffix:
png
bigtextures:
1
alpha:
1

Inside of Mods/Rudel/Models/, it would be like

Code: Select all

modelformats:
solid x dae
bodies:
Body Body2 Wolf Horse Wizard Juggler
weapons:
Knife Scimitar Grenade Dildo Guitar Skateboard
immobiles:
Box Wall Chimney Window Door Roof Floor Stairs Chair Table Painting StreetStraight StreetCurve StreetEnd StreetCrossing Lamp 
solidloadcode:
minimized
solidsavecode:
minimized

etc

Finally, new assets like vertex and fragment shaders and whatever else comes to mind come into similar directories, like Mods/Rudel/Shaders/.

Of course, inside of Mods/Rudel/, there's progress data and mod settings et cetera. Also, there's a thumbnail and a cover, together with a mod.description file which holds obvious data.

Opensource Lugaru gets a menupoint for mods also. It does what it needs to do: Display modnames, mod covers, mod description in normal display mode. In list display mode, it displays modnames and mod thumbs.

The currently running mod is highlighted there, and you switch by clicking. It is saved in Mods/current.mod. If that mod in current.mod doesn't exist, the current mod is the default mod, and that is Mods/default/ or, if that doesn't exist, no mod at all.

The game reloads content if timestamps on files have changed, and that every time some menupoint has been clicked or some level is being loaded. It then sets constants et cetera accordingly.

Discuss!

[Lotus Wolf]

Honestly, I'm not up to this right now. However, I shall return!

[iLag]

A built-in mod-manager would make my life a whole lot easier. I think what you have planned there is better than my idea, (though my idea was possible in only a few hours).

As for new features, I have a few. Unfortunately, most of them are more utilitarian than crazy.

Free hands with two weapons:
When you have more than one holsterable weapon which doesn't go into the same slot - a knife and a sword, for example - you should be able to holster both at the same time and fight with only fists. This would not work with two swords or two knives.
Tapping E (draw/holster) would still switch to the other, but holding E would leave you unarmed.

Faster crouching speed:
There is nothing more annoying than being just an inch too far away from an enemy to spinebreak them, but so close that rolling will alert them to your presence. To solve this, the crouch-moving speed should be slightly increased, so that it is barely faster than the walking speed of enemies.

Manual knife-throwing:
Holding down Q (throw knife) will make a crosshair appear. and you will be facing the same direction as the camera. While in "aim mode", you will be forced to move at walking speed. Clicking the mouse will then throw the knife at the crosshair. Releasing Q, rolling, or pressing E (draw/holster) will get you out of aim mode without throwing the knife. Note that this is an alternative to automatic aiming, and that this can only be done when standing on solid ground.
One more thing: if a manually-thrown knife hits an enemy while he is rolling, they will be hit. No, the knife will not go through them as when automatically thrown; they will be hit. Justification for this comes from how much harder it is to accurately throw manually when enemies know how to roll away.

How about adding a bow?

• There would be a bow plus a quiver with a limited number of arrows.
• Arrows could be reused, but only if they hit something soft. Hitting soft ground and bodies would render them resusable, but not if they hit hard ground or rocks or walls, etc.
• The code for flying arrows could be recycled from the knife throwing code, BUT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CATCH THEM IN MID-AIR, only dodge them. Also, the arrows will go a bit faster, if possible and not unbalancing.
• There will be no auto-aim with the bow. Instead, to aim, you would hold down mouse1 (attack). You would then be forced to move at walking speed, you would always be looking away from the camera, and a crosshair would appear. After about a half-second, you could fire by releasing the mouse. Releasing early will cancel you out of aim mode without firing the arrow. Rolling or pressing E (draw/holster) will also cancel you out of aim mode safely.
• You can not fire without aiming, and you can not aim unless you are standing on solid ground.
• Once you fire an arrow, you will have to nock another arrow. You would do this by pressing Q (pick-up). This should take about a quarter-second. This will automatically be done when the bow is drawn.
• You will not be able to melee attack or reverse while the bow is drawn. You will still be able to counter-reverse.
• When holstered, the bow would be around your back, and the quiver on the left hip.
• If you have a bow, then you will not be able to sheath a sword. While not entirely realistic, this will help keep the bow balanced.
• Stealing a bow will only steal the bow and maybe one arrow if it was nocked. You'll have to loot the corpse to get the quiver

[h2ostra]

A built-in mod-manager would make my life a whole lot easier. I think what you have planned there is better than my idea, (though my idea was possible in only a few hours).

As for new features, I have a few. Unfortunately, most of them are more utilitarian than crazy.

Free hands with two weapons:
When you have more than one holsterable weapon which doesn't go into the same slot - a knife and a sword, for example - you should be able to holster both at the same time and fight with only fists. This would not work with two swords or two knives.
Tapping E (draw/holster) would still switch to the other, but holding E would leave you unarmed.

Faster crouching speed:
There is nothing more annoying than being just an inch too far away from an enemy to spinebreak them, but so close that rolling will alert them to your presence. To solve this, the crouch-moving speed should be slightly increased, so that it is barely faster than the walking speed of enemies.

Manual knife-throwing:
Holding down Q (throw knife) will make a crosshair appear. and you will be facing the same direction as the camera. While in "aim mode", you will be forced to move at walking speed. Clicking the mouse will then throw the knife at the crosshair. Releasing Q, rolling, or pressing E (draw/holster) will get you out of aim mode without throwing the knife. Note that this is an alternative to automatic aiming, and that this can only be done when standing on solid ground.
One more thing: if a manually-thrown knife hits an enemy while he is rolling, they will be hit. No, the knife will not go through them as when automatically thrown; they will be hit. Justification for this comes from how much harder it is to accurately throw manually when enemies know how to roll away.

How about adding a bow?

• There would be a bow plus a quiver with a limited number of arrows.
• Arrows could be reused, but only if they hit something soft. Hitting soft ground and bodies would render them resusable, but not if they hit hard ground or rocks or walls, etc.
• The code for flying arrows could be recycled from the knife throwing code, BUT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CATCH THEM IN MID-AIR, only dodge them. Also, the arrows will go a bit faster, if possible and not unbalancing.
• There will be no auto-aim with the bow. Instead, to aim, you would hold down mouse1 (attack). You would then be forced to move at walking speed, you would always be looking away from the camera, and a crosshair would appear. After about a half-second, you could fire by releasing the mouse. Releasing early will cancel you out of aim mode without firing the arrow. Rolling or pressing E (draw/holster) will also cancel you out of aim mode safely.
• You can not fire without aiming, and you can not aim unless you are standing on solid ground.
• Once you fire an arrow, you will have to nock another arrow. You would do this by pressing Q (pick-up). This should take about a quarter-second. This will automatically be done when the bow is drawn.
• You will not be able to melee attack or reverse while the bow is drawn. You will still be able to counter-reverse.
• When holstered, the bow would be around your back, and the quiver on the left hip.
• If you have a bow, then you will not be able to sheath a sword. While not entirely realistic, this will help keep the bow balanced.
• Stealing a bow will only steal the bow and maybe one arrow if it was nocked. You'll have to loot the corpse to get the quiver

I feel like higher crouch speeds and bows would disrupt the balance of the game, and overpower the player side. After all, it is easy enough to use a spine-crusher anyway. if you are having trouble keeping up, it's not that hard to get the hang of cutting corners and the such. And good luck sneaking around at high speed in real life. There are a couple problems with bows. First off, knives already cause a fair bit of player-favorable unbalance in the game , and I think bows would only compound that. Second, the problem with a third-person cross-hair scheme (aside from not fitting in well with the aesthetic of the game) is the problem of triangulation. Since the cross-hair has no set depth, it could signify an infinite amount of points at which you could possibly be aiming, since the origin of the projectile is not at the same place as the camera.

Now, I have no programming skills, but I'll throw out a couple ideas of my own:
-Insane-mode multiple-wolf combat improvement: As many have noticed, fighting multiple wolves in insane mode presents a couple problems, the most glaring of which is the tendency they have to teleport. This is not a natural pounce, but rather an instantaneous movement across unreasonable distances and heights. If there is any way to fix the teleportation issue, I'm all for it.

-Enemy rabbit knife-throwing: this would require some testing, and work on the AI, and I'm not really sure if the results would be satisfactory, but I am interested in the concept of enemy rabbits being able to throw knives. Perhaps it could be implemented only in higher difficulty levels? Or perhaps not at all, if it created too many balance problems in the gameplay.

-Higher level cap for campaigns: A problem faced by the "Ancestral Tales" mod, that apparently, it can only handle 50 levels in a mod. I'm no expert, But I can't see any reason that it couldn't be higher, and I doubt it would be overly difficult to implement.

-Miscellaneous mod support: Perhaps the above should fall in this category, but whatever. What I'm talking here is simple stuff like making it easier to change the music, format of main menus, etc., and adding support for more than the 8 or however many structural models that are currently allowed in-game. Just making it easier for the same kind of modding that has already been taking place without the code.

As someone with very little experience in the technical aspects of the computers, I have no idea exactly how feasible most of this is. If anyone with more experience would like to propose better options, be my guest.

[iLag]

I feel like higher crouch speeds and bows would disrupt the balance of the game, and overpower the player side. After all, it is easy enough to use a spine-crusher anyway. if you are having trouble keeping up, it's not that hard to get the hang of cutting corners and the such. And good luck sneaking around at high speed in real life.

This doesn't change that 1) it's extremely annoying to be that close but not close enough and 2) you already crouch-move just as fast as them. What I'm asking for is such a slight increase in speed that it's almost unnoticeable.

There are a couple problems with bows. First off, knives already cause a fair bit of player-favorable unbalance in the game , and I think bows would only compound that.

Let the AI throw knives and shoot bows. Balance problem solved.

Second, the problem with a third-person cross-hair scheme (aside from not fitting in well with the aesthetic of the game) is the problem of triangulation. Since the cross-hair has no set depth, it could signify an infinite amount of points at which you could possibly be aiming, since the origin of the projectile is not at the same place as the camera.

Actually, no, triangulation shouldn't be a problem. Video games do it all the time. The actual crosshair will be on the hud, but an invisible line can be made between the hud icon and the nearest point the line touches. Then, the arrow could be told to fire from the player to the point being aimed at. It's not that hard to implement.
As for not fitting-in with the aesthetic of the game, that's kind of the point. What I may want to do in the future is make my own mod based off of this engine with a unique feel for it, and not more of the same.

Now, I have no programming skills, but I'll throw out a couple ideas of my own:
-Insane-mode multiple-wolf combat improvement: As many have noticed, fighting multiple wolves in insane mode presents a couple problems, the most glaring of which is the tendency they have to teleport. This is not a natural pounce, but rather an instantaneous movement across unreasonable distances and heights. If there is any way to fix the teleportation issue, I'm all for it.

Yes. Any bug-fix is good in my opinion.

-Enemy rabbit knife-throwing: this would require some testing, and work on the AI, and I'm not really sure if the results would be satisfactory, but I am interested in the concept of enemy rabbits being able to throw knives. Perhaps it could be implemented only in higher difficulty levels? Or perhaps not at all, if it created too many balance problems in the gameplay.

It would probably fix the balance in knives. I'm for this.

-Higher level cap for campaigns: A problem faced by the "Ancestral Tales" mod, that apparently, it can only handle 50 levels in a mod. I'm no expert, But I can't see any reason that it couldn't be higher, and I doubt it would be overly difficult to implement.

Any removal of artificial limitations is good in my opinion.

-Miscellaneous mod support: Perhaps the above should fall in this category, but whatever. What I'm talking here is simple stuff like making it easier to change the music, format of main menus, etc., and adding support for more than the 8 or however many structural models that are currently allowed in-game. Just making it easier for the same kind of modding that has already been taking place without the code.

Any removal of artificial limitations is good in my opinion.

As someone with very little experience in the technical aspects of the computers, I have no idea exactly how feasible most of this is. If anyone with more experience would like to propose better options, be my guest.

All of it is feasible.

Dialog bug fix:
Lines of dialog 10 and 13 characters long should NOT crash the game under any circumstance. Find out what causes this and fix it.

[Noz]

Normal maps would be wonderful. Also, texture based sound differences, like different sounds for sand, grass and rocks. I would also like to see a hiding function of some sort. Post process effects would be cool too. Also, we could fix some basic bugs and some annoying bugs.

Also, I think a fun mod would be a super-powers mod where you have to fight super strong enemies by only using average strength and a special power, or just super strength.

But the one thing I want to see the most is a usable map editor.

[Radu]

Also, we could fix some basic bugs and some annoying bugs.

Why not fix all the bugs?

Also, I think a fun mod would be a super-powers mod where you have to fight super strong enemies by only using average strength and a special power, or just super strength.

Doesn't sound like fun to me! Sounds more like get a new keyboard before playin' it.

But the one thing I want to see the most is a usable map editor.

demanding stuff is easy isn't it?

[Healey]

oh boy, this is too great, even to hear people talking about this. lugaru is about to explode beyond the 20 dollars it was worth to the value of a moonrock. thank you so much for the open source

[qubodup]

I just found a small set of freely licensed models that should be just perfect:
http://opengameart.org/content/three-characters
(from http://kernel-script.deviantart.com/art ... -151755522 )

[Untadaike]

Manual knife-throwing:
Holding down Q (throw knife) will make a crosshair appear. and you will be facing the same direction as the camera. While in "aim mode", you will be forced to move at walking speed. Clicking the mouse will then throw the knife at the crosshair. Releasing Q, rolling, or pressing E (draw/holster) will get you out of aim mode without throwing the knife. Note that this is an alternative to automatic aiming, and that this can only be done when standing on solid ground.
One more thing: if a manually-thrown knife hits an enemy while he is rolling, they will be hit. No, the knife will not go through them as when automatically thrown; they will be hit. Justification for this comes from how much harder it is to accurately throw manually when enemies know how to roll away.

That's a great idea. There is an alternative to this that I thought of, however. When you hold down Q to enter manual knife-throwing mode, the game freezes, like in Fall Out 3. (Except that you don't have the ability to target specific points of the enemy's body). You can't move, jump, crouch or roll, only look around with the crosshairs to aim. Not that I know anything about game programming, but this might prove easier to implement into Lugaru since there's already the function of freezing movement with the "V" key in debug. Maybe it would be "easy" to customize this feature into the manual knife-throwing function, by freezing everything except mouselook.

[kehaar]

mmm, Sky Pie.

1: Repairing the "map objectives" list so they really work!! Right now the only reliable objective is "Kill Everyone", and laudable goal in most situations, I'll admit. And you can "talk to someone" (find the right character to have a chat with.)

But it would be great to be able to have maps where you could "Kill Someone" (kill one particular character out of eight) and "Kill All But One" (kill everyone except your friend/mom/ally/person you need information from, etc.) and "Go Somewhere". The last one does work, but not very reliably.

2: Maybe a mod so you could knock enemies out, rather than kill all of them. That way you could encounter them again, to talk to/interrogate, or to fight again, or just to not have killed them.

3: I'd love to see a fix that allowed you to move or rotate an object once you'd created it. Even if you couldn't re-size it, just being able to reposition it would make map building 30 times easier. Re-sizing would be total gravy, I know.

4: Remaking some of the models for building stuff-- some of the best shaped objects use up FPS at a crippling rate, making them effectively unusable for extensive building if you are on an older or weaker rig, and making maps unplayable if someone built them on a faster rig. Same for intersections between objects.

if that were done, you could maybe...
5: Fix it so you can have more than 8 npc's on a map. It wouldn't have to be infinite, but maybe something like 12 or 15 would make a nice population bump.

6: Make doors that open, or doors that reload you into another map! This is used in tons of games to make interiors/exteriors, and to make buildings seem bigger on the inside. This brings up the problem of loading you BACK into the old map if you go back through the door, so it opens up (heh heh) a whole lot of considerations about story structure.

F'rinstance, right now if you're building maps and you want to continue a plot bit in an the same area as the last map, but after a big battle, you have to scatter some corpses around. Of course, where you place the corpses is unlikely to be where they fell in the player's fight, but it's all you've got. If you put in 2-way doors, you'd have to make a way for maps to be saved as the player last left them. Wouldn't be a bad thing, but it might be a very tall programming project.

Also, doors can be locked and require keys or actions of various types, but I don't know if this would add to gameplay or not.

Heh, I just realized that fixing all these in Lugaru is pretty much what Overgrowth is being built for.

[Untadaike]

How about the ability to equip opponents (and yourself) with any weapon model that's in a "weapons folder". So you can have unlimited weapon models and just cycle through all of them in the way you cycle through the three normal weapon types. That way you can have many different weapons of each type. That would be so so so cool for making campaigns.

[kehaar]

^ ^ ^ brilliant! or Maybe you could equip them like clothing/skin decals-- so like you'd type "clothes fancypants" in, you'd type "weapon machete" and it would appear.

That would add such a big jump in realism! You could have 6 or 10 variations each of knives, staffs and swords; it would look great.