Planet's Building

I have been thinking about DH2 being less hundred planets scattered with small amount of rooms to small amount of planets with expansive rooms.

I would like to see Planet A with couple of sections, for example: I know Tatooine is not going to be on the mush but will use it as example..On Tatooine you have Mos Eisley, Mos Espa, Anchorhead as just example of 3 cities..then there is environment - Dunes, Caverns, judland wastes, Beggar's canyon.. Then there is also example of fortification - Jabba's Palace...then also example of Mos Espa Raceway.....

Having nice smoothly built detailed planets with substance, open areas, Point of interests as such really allow nice exploration, travel and more importantly for this game...places of bases, fortifications and such used for FACTIONS and TPs...

Imagine a event of Rebellion to take members through forest area (the players have obstactles in the forest alone to get through) then approach a hidden empiral outpost that needs to be hit. (as quick example).

To me, this mush seems it will focus on small pitch battles, player friendly and fun events that the environment and building need to support .

Last comment - Rivers, Lakes and Oceans code - Not a coder so not sure how hard this is, but ability to travel on or above water and beneath water would be COOL thing to have....obviously maybe limited to 1 or 2 planets - like Corellia for example. Then think of the possibility of either Pirate Island Base..or Gungan like under water complex or city... Might be Hell to Code this last comment but throwing it out there...Thanks.

Bob the Builder

Good idea.

I think we can do that without coding anything.

But talk more about terrain. What specifics could you see each terrain being used for during RP? For attackers or defenders or just explorers or pirates... like Endor Moon style traps in forests? What about what?

How do you make environment really matter other than just being "stuff to get through to reach the base"

Environment can do wonders for RP - here is example of TP..

The task force moves to a mountainous area. They first need to get across a ravine to get to other side...Some players may have jet packs and others may have grappling hooks...GM allows those players to +Check jet pack operation or +check throw for grappling hook..

some party members get across, maybe setting robes for the others climb over. +Check athletics or climbing...1 person may not be able to make across..

Now the group heads to the base of the mountain - they have two options climb/fly up the side of the mountain to the top or take the dark cave to that might be secret passage into the lair..

The group goes the dark cave way - Through couple of rooms the group can face hazards or sentries along the way to then finally make it into the belly of the fortress.

Obviously quick example but there are many many possibilities where if GM looks at the descripts of rooms and players..they could use the basic layout to plan out TP/Events stuff.....As one example.

Well, for underwater stuff you'd just set a lock that checks for the 'submersible' trait on whatever is trying to pass through it, be it a person or a vehicle. It would not be difficult to do, nor would it require massive amounts of coding.

More hazards, more seedy hangouts, more out of the way locations for RP, more of all of that stuff! To be honest DH1's grid was pretty sweet and there isnt a whole lot that needs to be changed about it.

With fewer planets, I imagine there will be more hangouts per planet rather than the current single cantina for each prominent world.

I'm up for building if builders are needed. I can resort to writing descs if I can't figure out those crazy MUSH building commands.

Builders: definitely needed. The 7 worlds we're relaunching with are going to be at a much higher level of detail and much better-designed.

One of the flaws of the DH1 grid is its highly linear nature. There's seldom more than one way from point A to point B. Each of our 7 worlds will be approximately Coruscant-sized (40 to 80 rooms, not including private property of the houses/aparments/flats/tents/slum dwellings variety, which will use a different system) and will include:

• a grid system that allows many routes between any two points
  
• an automated map system that will always give you a 'you are here' on either a city-level or world-level map (depending on whether you're inside city limits of a major settlement or not)
  
• some form of public transit system to speed up travel between areas
  
• a dedicated "crime grid" (of varying size for different planets) consisting of the seediest places where it's almost impossible to get without serious streetwise or an invitation from the crime types
  
• areas flagged "neighborhood" where you can automatically create a private house/apartment/suite/whatever, which will cost upkeep, can store your stuff, and can function as a setting for urban warfare if attacked (a house in the Houses Made Of Durasteel Plating neighborhood might afford excellent cover!)
  
• no-police zones and zones that are "high security," where the local police force will respond far more aggressively to any sign of conflict -- a sort of "green zone" that's the inverse of "no-police" zones -- both types of zone marked on the map
  
• dynamic weather/time. Descriptions that reflect the current situation on the ground and weather/time emits every so often.

We are also doing a few other things with planet design to make logistics easier for major factions and even small merchants. We are trying to put "Container Yards" or "Warehouse Districts" adjacent to major spaceports. We are talking about different ways to revamp our container code to make it more useful. You need to pick up some raw materials for your orbital factory? You wont have to travel far on-world.

We will do our best to locate on-world industrial centers near spaceports and the container yards/warehouse districts. The less time and effort you have to spend hauling "stuff" around the more time you can devote to having fun.

We also have some new Mass Transit code. The code will try to detect major events and close off affected destination and departure points. It will also allow droids (including loader droids) and retinues to automatically follow players from one Mass Transit terminal to another.

Normal armies cannot use Mass Transportation.

Having read the posts about travel times, it occured to me that with planets we might want to consider incorporating a sort of 'travel time' aspect as well. Let's be honest, no one in their right mind is going to @dig 4000 rooms to represent walking across the desert. So maybe having a system in place that does a simple '@pemit' to the player when you move from one zone to the next. The reason is obviously combat.

If I'm in Coruscant Government area and am fighting Ethel, and Jedi is in the main spaceport, the current system is they show up. Oh wow, that's awesome. My hard work setting up an ambush and what not is wasted.

But, since you're crossing from one zone to another, when you leave from the spaceport zone to the government zone a message pops up 'In order to transit, it takes 7 minutes (7 combat rounds)'. Ok, now my ambush gives me 7 roudns to do something with. And then obviously, if you're just going someplace to RP, you can go there.

Thoughts?

A very good idea. At specific points note "this takes X amount of time" which we ignore for getting to the bar scene, etc... but not for combat.

Also: Do people LIKE environmental hazards that auto-wound? ie: the way DH1 works now in the wilderness?

Enviromental hazards have their place. The unfortunate reality becomes if you just happen to carry that item, or know what the item is. If it were cleaned up significantly I could see it being useful. Otherwise can it. As it currently is used it makes no real sense unless it has serious implementation adjustments too.

There are scenarios I could see it being useful (hidden tucked away based, etc) but otherwise? Meh. An annoynace, not an enhancer.

But what if the "automated" part was removed and, instead, it came as part of GMed scenes. Ie: It doesn't really matter when running around, but if you're doing a SpecOps infiltration, it's part of the game then?

Couldn't GM's do that regardless? Should rooms also include a collection of commonly found NPCs to select from?

They could.

I just hate automatic-damage.

I have been pushing for wilderness and survival to get a lot more love than they currently have. They could be like nopolice zones, except rather than crime havens they are just unpopulated. There could be parts of them which are like the dedicated crime grid, and you need a dedicated survivalist/tracker to show you how to get there.

There could be awesome wilderness camps for smugglers and other stealthy people. Survivalists can share their survival skills with their friends and escort them. They can also +forage for useful wilderness-derived items.

So you can set up camp in the wilderness for a while and stockpile equipment and resources before you launch raids into the city. Or maybe you keep a few landing beacons around so you can use it for smuggling things onto the planet. It's hidden and reasonably secure, but it's unlikely to be great as a permanent hideout.

There should be enough that it still requires some work or luck to find the one that you've decided to hide out in--and even more if you keep moving from place to place.

From what I understand, the current set up of wilderness is only one step above waterboarding. It's a sort of investment-return aspect. If the investment of time to make it happen can be reduced, and the return for that time maximized sure. I also think with the more centralized planets there can definately be a much larger role for wilderness... but in the end it's like Troll 2.

I don't mean to sound rude, but I have no idea what you just said.

The people I talked to who did building on DH1 said that the wilderness code is a complete mess. The reason DH1 didn't have more wilderness on it was the difficulty of putting the code into rooms and areas. And when I say difficult, the builder who told me this said it took them about a week to get one wilderness area set up and it required wizard intervention through the week.

So, unless the code to put in wilderness was changed (or has changed) based on what this person said, it would probably be better to use it sparingly.

Ah. Sounds delightfully broken. Nevertheless I would rather see a revamp and give people access to some more cool options than to just say 'it is a nightmare let's not do it.'

You'd be right about that. Setting up wilderness on DH1 was a real pain and I never fully mastered it.

Gulp did produce some code that automated the process for builders .... about a month before the DB crash. It was one of dozens of projects that we just never had the time or energy to recover.

I have an idea for wilderness without random damage but still making survival useful.

Take the following scenario:

You are in a desert. You want to travel across the bleak wastes to some place. So you try.

The game rolls your survival skill vs the difficulty of the terrain. You succeed!

You move to the next room with some message stating your skillful use of the terrain to find a good route.

Or if you fail: It doesn't move you to the next room. You remain where you are and it states you are unable to navigate a path or don't have enough supplies to go on. It sticks a timer on you and you can't attempt that passage for some length of time, perhaps determined by degree of failure.

So the cost of failure is time wasted rather than piles of damage. It becomes relevant if the travel is time-sensitive such as rushing to defend a base or attempting to attack (it gives the opponents more chance to scout around the area and find you if they are online and have trackers about).

What about making certain rooms just straight up impossible to access for people without the required wilderness/streetwise ability?

I think that would be quite workable as well, with the proviso that people following the character with the skills may be led through those areas.

Is there a space navigation skill? If so, dense nebulae and asteroid fields could have the same effect. And ships fleeted with their guide may follow safely.

This could give rise to a dramatically increased importance in having scouts and trailblazers friendly to you. Sure, you can take the long way around or the easy path, but your enemy can see you coming.

SPACE: You cannot hope to find your way through this implausibly dense Star Wars asteroid field with your meagre skills of navigation!

SPACE: Your sensors are clouded by nebula emissions, yet your keen navigational awareness allows you to pilot through the obfuscation.

There is a Navigation skill and it will be a very useful skill to have.