[Brainstorming] Resource System Ideas

Jul 27, 2016
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#1
So how would you all think this should work? Feel free to post your ideas and edits to other's ideas and lets see what we can cook up that'll work this time. :)


This is going to be a little bit for the Chemists and Scientists that float into the game than the average player. The general idea here is you have true 100% purity being a resource with nothing else mixed in and than you have variable % purity where you end up with an ore made of several resources. Also you have Alloys and other composites made from several different pures and ores for a variety of uses. Now none of these will be hard coded in but all once made will be saved to the database so others can just look them up to make them. The first player to make or discover a particular combination of resources gets to name it (Assuming it is an appropriate name) it is saved for use to use.

The 100% resources are built in unless the devs find a way to make them dynamic as well. So any ore you run into will either have a generated name based on what it is made of at what % values or it will simply be called a resource ore and list what it has in it and at what % values.

For sanity's sake I'm just going to make up resource names and stats to make it so I can finish this idea since we don't know what we're going to be able to do with what yet.

Crystal: Strong internal structure and good at storing energy and information.
Conductite: Really good conductor and highly malleable.
Insulatite: Really good Insulator and a good energy stopper. Very hard in solid form and not very malleable.
Armorite: Extremely hard often used in armors and ammunition.
Phasite: A strange mineral that is slightly out of phase with normal matter and producing a massive amount of energy. Often found is stable form near Crystal deposits and in ores with it.
Auralite: Has a strange energy field around and causes mutations in things that come into contact with it. It is use with Crystal and Phasite to make powerful reactors, weapons, and ammo. Often causes strange mutations in nearby resources as well giving them strange new properties.

Yes I just made these off the top of my head.
Here's a list of possible stats:

  1. Energy Storage: How well a resource stores energy.
  2. Energy Conduction: How well a resource conducts energy.
  3. Energy Insulation: How well a resource insulates from energy.
  4. Information Storage: How well a resource stores information (Read/Write).
  5. Hardness: How hard a resource is or how structurally sound it is.
  6. Malleability: How malleable a resource is. (Basically how well it changes shape)
  7. Phase Shifting: How well if at all a resource can shift phases or tolerate this shifting. (Should be two stats but made it one)
  8. Energy Generation: How much and how well a resource generates energy.
  9. Radiation: Dangerous emission levels
  10. Mutation Effect: Mutationous effect level if any.

Nothing really interesting here just some ideas. Mainly to help below.

Most of these are stats that could be handy for things say having a resource that is 100% pure means you have 100% of a single stat or group of particular stats while combining it will others could give it more or less of its stats than normal but also giving it other traits. Say for example you would be highly unlikely to use a resource that is way too malleable for armor but when combine with a resource that is normally used for armor it makes the armor more flexible and lighter when it is taking hits reducing overall damage taken. Also you might want energy conduction traits on that armor letting you absorb energy based attacks powering up your reactors.

Say Crystal + Conductite + Armorite + Phasite created a armor you could use to take a crazy amount of damage while also having some of that damage phase right through you doing no damage. On the off chance you did get hit by a weapon able to hit you the damage would be minimal. While it'd be an unhealthy idea to use just plain old Conductite unless you knew for a fact the only thing you'd need to worry about is energy weapons. That said the second you get hit by anything else you'd be wishing you had more HP from say Armorite or Crystal being mixed in.

Same thing could be said with weapon ammo. Just normal Armorite could be used to make the bullets harder than most things but you won't be able to hit things out of phase. Energy based ammo could hit out of phase targets though as well as any rounds using Phasite although based on the amount damage could vary.


Another thing could be when building reactors to power your frame. You'd need a lot of Crystal, Phasite, Conductite, and Auralite in this case to make powerful reactors. (Keep in mind these are just theory resources not ones I'm asking for.) Depending on the alloys you made out of them and other resources you might run into one that works really well as reactor casing or as reactor generator parts but finding one that does well for both could be rather tricky.

One combination could give you 1,000,000 power generation but make your reactor so unstable if you aren't careful you'll explode without much warning taking yourself and the area with you. While the same combo used in weapon ammo could make you the God Reaper of worlds assuming it doesn't go off in the chamber. :)

Keep in mind when a player creates a particular alloy or other type of combination or resources it gets saved to the database so other players can use it. So if Player A makes a Super Armor Alloy, Player B doesn't have to go through that same mind numbing process that could have taken Player A weeks to get right. Also keep in mind that once players discover something like that the enemies will try and claim it for themselves as well if they are able to. Could be by any means from hacking into the player communication network to launching an all out attack on their research lab on some isolated planet but at some point they will get their hands on it. Needless to say they enemies will try to keep up with the players and if we get OP, they'll get OP in resource to us to fight back. :)


Yes still working on this idea but in the mean time anyone else have some ideas?
 

Nubilus

Omni Ace
Ark Liege
Base Commander
Jul 27, 2016
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Germany
#2
First of all good thoughts. We may need to work on these names but I think they will work for now.

The way you described Auralite made me think of some kind of shield generator. Like Phasite + Auralite + some prefab components (preferably conductors and reactors) would give some sort of Shield.

Also, how would Radiation(9) and Mutation(10) affect the player and his surroundings? Or even his gear?

The part with custom alloy creation would be 1. kinda hard to code and save... Imagine 1000 players each creating a vast amount of alloys. How would you save it? 2. Will all those alloys be listed in your printer? I think some hardcoded alloys with some variations are good enough.

Enemys advancing in tech with the players is... well okay in some aspects it would eliminate the player and enemy level since they would always be on the same strength, at least with some restrictions. But how would it be balanced in regards to new or less well equipped players? they cant possibly have the needed strength yet to fight the enemy...

But these are just my thoughts on this subject.
 
#3
Well, to teh balancing between player and ai i would say that the AI uses the same as the most players use. So if many players use a flexible armor, the AI uses that too, then you could counter with a hard fullmateljacket bulelt type that hits harder than the other ones, since hollow point bullets would be useless.
 
Jul 28, 2016
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#4
Are you planning on rarities for these materials?

Have you considered bio origin in addition to mineral origin for crafting materials? I would envision these being harvested from mobs attacking while you were thumping, or possibly have a plant harvesting analog to thumping.

How many material types do you envision having, total?
 
Jul 28, 2016
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#5
Here is a copy/paste from another thread of how I think actual crafting should work. Seems relevant here.

In my opinion crafting should be simple.
  1. You pick the device you want to craft from a menu of available devices
  2. You move sliders around until the final device has the stats you want
  3. You provide the mats the printer is asking for
  4. Optionally save your slider selections so you can print another of the same device when you want to.
  5. Press Print
  6. Make a note of how long it will take to print and come back when it's done to claim your new toy.
So the printer should do all the work, the game will combine everything into alloys and compounds as needed, or keep pure mats as needed.
 
Likes: OziriusSVK
#6
well... i don't like that idea... its that "easy crafting is better than anything else, right?"-shit. I heard that FF had in the beta a far more complex crafting, and i think you need rather complex crafting than easy crafting, 'cause it gives you the opportunity to make the weapon the way you want it, to the last fucking number. Im actually playing a game where you can modify your weapon till the last bit, from scopes, over muzzle attachments like muzzle brakes, compensators, silencers etc over ammunition type (actually just used by shotguns since hollowpoint ammo is a skill, and you can use slug, buck, flettchet and holowpoint ('cause hollowpoint doesn't work on shotguns)) to mods, like a zenit klesch attachment (laser pointer and flashlight), AN-PEQ 15, railcovers and some other mods. And even when a collimator has some better stats than teh other one it doesn't mean that the better one works better for you, even when my MOR has better stats than the it doesn't mean taht its better than the XPS-2.
So, if you got simple crafting that gives just premade or semi premade shit it still doesn't give you what you want.
E.g. if i want a Plasma MG that has a huge mag and has just a slightly better RoF it will be very unlikely that i will be able one, since most ppl would prefer a fast RoF 'cause of teh higher DPS. I would still prefer 'cause i don't want DPS but long fire time... (and maybe more acc if they would make a LOGICAL recoil system, not the same disaster like in FF, where when you used the alt fire mode that shot 1/2 as fast as normal mode you still lost teh acc as fast as normal (even when you should have less recoil through less RoF....)) i hope you get what i mean.
if not, then in short: An easier and simpler system would end up in having less control over the outcome of the weapon, a harder and more complex system woudl end up in having higher/maximal control over the outcome.
 

EvilKitten

Well-Known Member
Ark Liege
Jul 26, 2016
777
1,557
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#8
Complexity for the sake of complexity is meaningless. I think the word you are looking for is instead engaging, which may or may not involve complexity.
 

OziriusSVK

Death Reaper
Jul 27, 2016
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44
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Slovakia
#9
Here is a copy/paste from another thread of how I think actual crafting should work. Seems relevant here.

In my opinion crafting should be simple.
  1. You pick the device you want to craft from a menu of available devices
  2. You move sliders around until the final device has the stats you want
  3. You provide the mats the printer is asking for
  4. Optionally save your slider selections so you can print another of the same device when you want to.
  5. Press Print
  6. Make a note of how long it will take to print and come back when it's done to claim your new toy.
So the printer should do all the work, the game will combine everything into alloys and compounds as needed, or keep pure mats as needed.
Well spoken, really one of the best ideas, mainly because of point 2 :D
  • You move sliders around until the final device has the stats you want
 
Likes: Col. Kernel
Jul 28, 2016
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#10
well... i don't like that idea... its that "easy crafting is better than anything else, right?"
<snip>
if not, then in short: An easier and simpler system would end up in having less control over the outcome of the weapon, a harder and more complex system would end up in having higher/maximal control over the outcome.
Not at all. I want a slider for every single aspect of whatever device you're attempting to craft can do. Add a numeric input, if it'll make you feel better. But I want full control over my design parameters. I want the output from the OB Firefall crafting. I just want it in a human friendly user interface.

What I don't want is the input where I have to experiment with adding another 100 grams of material X to improve something by a tenth of a point.

tl;dr I'm a min/maxer. But I have a life and a job. I don't need a 2nd job that doesn't pay, I have better stuff to do. Crafting should be easy and fun, as well as produce superior products.
 

TankHunter678

Well-Known Member
Jul 26, 2016
369
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#12
hmm maybe something a tad more min/maxer + life friendly? :D
Eliminate the "Information Storage", "Radiation", and "Mutation Effect" stats. Those are the 3 that would be really hard to simulate in the crafting system. All the other stats work for the crafting system.

Input is more a concern for min/maxers and those with a life. It needs to be simple enough to be easy to understand for those who do not have time to research everything, while complex enough that min/maxers can get the most out of their gear.