Dungeon Adventure MOD MOD

[Psychic_Llamas]

sounds good, i like thee sound of those tech branches. will each branch divide into different adventurer classes? such as dungeon lore allowing a bard type class, magic allowing sorcerer/wizard type class, stealth allowing rogue/assassin type classes, combat alowing warrior/paladin/monk classes? and then there could be mixed classes requiring research of 2 or more branches, such as magic and combat for paladins etc.

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

sounds good, i like thee sound of those tech branches. will each branch divide into different adventurer classes? such as dungeon lore allowing a bard type class, magic allowing sorcerer/wizard type class, stealth allowing rogue/assassin type classes, combat alowing warrior/paladin/monk classes? and then there could be mixed classes requiring research of 2 or more branches, such as magic and combat for paladins etc.

You have anticipated release... oh, about 3 or 4 or so! In the first release, I plan to have each of the three different skill tech branches anchored in a simple class. Combat = Fighter. Stealth = Rogue. Magic = Mage. In later releases, the cross-over combos may be introduced. I am not even going to address religions in the first release -- that will have to wait for later. So, no divine casters or Pallys in release 1.

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

You know, I have realized that I am easily distracted when it comes to working on this mod.

After posting about how I was going to tackle the tech tree this weekend, I have ended up working on something completely different. (Ooh, look! Something shiny!)

Anyway, I played around with an idea I had for an environmental enemy: the Green Death. The Green Death is a rapid growing fungus that evolved in The Dungeon. Perhaps it is fueled by mana or... something else. In any case, it is a virulent plague that, if released, can overwhelm the entire Dungeon unless the player gets it under control.

Here is video clip of a preliminary version of the Green Death:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R42BAWVEHZY

This uses a new terrain texture and a modified version of the leafy trees terrain feature. If you look closely, you can see the green bumps scooting back and forth. Creepy!

The terrain effects haven't been implemented yet. The Green Death will slow movement, cause damage, and have a chance to poison units travelling through it.

EDIT: Forgot to mention this before. No, the Green Death will not have the "twittering birdie" forest soundscape effect. It does sound sort of silly right now. rest assured, it will be replaced with something suitable sinister. Like a scuttling or glooping noise.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

coooool! so how does one control the spread of green death? through a spell like Hold Plant, wither or something like that? some kind of fire spell *cough*Blaze*cough* to burn them away? any way that non-magic users could hinder it/remove it? such as a molotov cocktail item, or dropping a lamp?

You have anticipated release... oh, about 3 or 4 or so!

hehe, thats cool. i do hope there is a wider range of classes later (much later i expect) down the road. i love variety

 

[Ekolite]

Seriously, I can't wait to play around with this! It might be nice to have barb or enemy civ ''camps'' in some dungeons that you can capture to rest in. Will there be a beta release any time soon? Just so we can have a go with the WB?

Would also like to see a tunnel blocked with boulders that you would have to get rid of some how.

I already have a small dungeon planned out - now with added green death .

 

[Ekolite]

One thing you might want to think about is having different types of green death with different spread rates, including one type that doesn't spread that allows the creator of the dungeon to control where and how fast it spreads. A designer might want teh Green death to seal off a passageway if the adventurer took too long getting there, but might also want to create islands in the green death with chests or altars on, in which case he's put non-spreading Green death around all the tiles he wants to keep bare. They'd all look the same to the player though.

 

[Ekolite]

Also, do you have a kind of trap that can be triggered when a player lands on a different tile? You could create a kind of trip wire effect with tiles in a row across a corridor trigger a nearby trap, maybe arrows coming out of the wall? A high level stealth character would be able to see some of these trigger tiles automatically and disarm them.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

i like Kol's tripwire trap idea, would really be awsome

ill have a play around with cave-in/rubble graphics for tunnel blockages.

 

[Ekolite]

What about a different kind of door that's like one of those grates you get in castles (can't remember the name). You wouldn't be able to open them like a normal door, they'd have to be triggered by standing on a visible (or invisible) switch. This way you could add to the puzzle aspect of the game. Find the door. Find the right switch for the door. Possibly whilst avoiding fake switches that explode in your face .

You could also make rooms that when a player entered they triggered an invisble ''close'' switch that caused a grate to be lowered across the corridor they just came from. There's no turning back.... Mwa ha haah haaa!

 

[xienwolf]

Porticulus I believe.

 

[BeefontheBone]

Close. Portcullis.

 

[xienwolf]

A question occurs suddenly:

Are you using walls as Terrain (like Mountains basically. So real easy to code), or are you using them like Rivers?

Pretty sure that all the screenies I have seen have them being Terrain, so each wall takes up an entire square of potential space. I'd love to see it instead be done as rivers though. I am not sure that it would be absolutely horrible to code either. Just have no units be allowed to cross rivers (except possibly with a magical spell to let you walk through walls), and have rivers block sight range. That one could be a tad tricky, but instinct tells me it isn't.


Trying to think of what other implications that would have though... I guess that doors could be a bit troublesome then... but you already have unique doors for each of the directions, so you could just write them to be a bit smaller and along the border instead of centered...

I think I recall reading somewhere that there is an issue with having multiple river graphics... Doesn't seem like it should be true though. But I suppose if you cannot then it would mean you can only have 1 image for your walls...

 

[Arctem]

I think it would work better the current way, with walls taking up a full space. It means that maps will end up being bigger, but will look better than a bunch of impossibly tall and skinny walls. Also, remember that some abilities let you dig through walls. With river-walls, what will you see when you dig through them? The only choices would be either a huge empty spacen that lets the adventurer move freely througout the dungeon, before reentering wherever they want, or a grid of walls that just looks ugly. Finally, having full tile walls will allow you to use rivers for something else.

When digging through walls will they just be instantly cleared? I think it would be more interesting to change them into a "tunnel" space which has a 0.1% chance to collapse each turn, possibly blocking your escape right when you really need it, which would encourage players to leave one adventurer behind to cover their escape, at the expense of lowering their fighting power.

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

coooool! so how does one control the spread of green death? through a spell like Hold Plant, wither or something like that? some kind of fire spell *cough*Blaze*cough* to burn them away? any way that non-magic users could hinder it/remove it? such as a molotov cocktail item, or dropping a lamp?

Fire is your friend. The Green Death does not like fire. There may eventualy be other ways to control it, but fire will be the original solution.

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

@ PL and Kol.7: Yep, I would like to put boulders in The Dungeon. I am hoping that PL can get those wonderful looking boulders in a format that I can use.

The traps already work like tripwires. It is possible to string a line of trap units across a hall or room, and have them generate a common effect. If I can figure out a way to call up the projectile effect animations, and have them run correctly, then "arrow traps" would be possible.

Also, I had planned a special trap that locks all of the rooms doors when tripped. Combined with a gas cloud trap, this could be nasty indeed!

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

@Xienwolf and Arctem:

The walls are a terrain feature, take up a full tile, and will stay that way. Too much of the rest of the mod relies on this assumption.

It is possible to dig through walls or pass through them in some cases.

As far as making the new passageways more prone to cave-ins: Hmnn. Have to see if there is a way to make that work easily.

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

Well, I did finish the first stage of the tech tree renovation: scrubbing out all of the old techs and hunting down every reference to them in other XML and python files.

The XML was a pain, because the references are everywhere. Got it done, though. The python was easier, because most of the references can stay in for now -- they don't break the game if they still refer to old techs, they just return a void for whatever function is calling for that string. I can live with that for now!

I now have a new tech tree in-game that consists of a single tech: Dungeon Lore. (More importantly, it is possible to start the game without any XML errors.)

My next step will be to add in the rest of the techs in the framework. Then I'll start hanging the functions and dodads onto the new techs.

Sorry -- no screenies or teaser video clips at this point. This type of mod work is pretty boring and not very photogenic, but needs to be done. When I have a nice tech tree done, I'll post a screenie of that!

 

[Wyrmhero]

Well, I did finish the first stage of the tech tree renovation: scrubbing out all of the old techs and hunting down every reference to them in other XML and python files.

The XML was a pain, because the references are everywhere. Got it done, though. The python was easier, because most of the references can stay in for now -- they don't break the game if they still refer to old techs, they just return a void for whatever function is calling for that string. I can live with that for now!

I now have a new tech tree in-game that consists of a single tech: Dungeon Lore. (More importantly, it is possible to start the game without any XML errors.)

My next step will be to add in the rest of the techs in the framework. Then I'll start hanging the functions and dodads onto the new techs.

Sorry -- no screenies or teaser video clips at this point. This type of mod work is pretty boring and not very photogenic, but needs to be done. When I have a nice tech tree done, I'll post a screenie of that!

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

nice work i know how hard it is to find every sigle reference of something in the XML, its extremely time consuming.

 

[Arctem]

A few things:
1. What kind of bonuses will class techs give? Obviously magic techs will allow new spells, but will fighter techs just give a straight +1 strength or will they allow the adventurers to gain new promotions. Maybe at the start they can only get up to Combat 3, and the rest are unlocked through techs, along with promos that give you special abilities. Also, some techs could let you upgrade into knights or other high-level classes, but you would be neglecting promo techs in order to research those.
2. Couldn't you just give the cleared spaces the tunnel improvement which has a certain chance to collapse each turn?
3. What about cross-school spells? Like combining fire and water to make a steam attack.