Project Longshot Overview Project Longshot is the tentative name given to a game where we are breaking through as the modular being in the Plexus, working through the prospective situations where we are helping ourselves handle a fight between the competing factions of the post-existential world. We have to understand this as a game now. **Mechanics** -Immersion Sim components -Meta based around not resource limitations but being able to dynamically reconfigure your charavter in a ryhtmn of chaos as you handle mounting challenges, how you shift modes and set those modes up is a core aspect of play. -There are 4 modes: [Industrial] - The industrial mode is the standard one, your industrial exosuit that was made for technician work and management, it is able to re-wire parts of the level and comes with a range of plasma torch and power welder gear that helps with everything. [Navigational] - More mobile mode that has you able to move rapidly and navigate elaborate spaces. [Commercial] - Evasive mode as you're basically a cyborg dancer, which is neat for being able to play a more light rogue build. [Chronological/Overclock] - Berserker modules that allow you to dilate time and go fuckwild nuts when you need to. It's a bit much. We should try something more straightforward. You have the wiring capacity and a constant allocation [[flux|Flux]] akin to a realtime AP system (it's stanima but not stamina, if that makes sense). Allocation flux budgets change with the timing, as there are time states you go by where life is flowed. When we have the chimes? No idea. There is an allocation mechanic to follow. The Weapons -Dustcannon (tracking utility) -> Pulsed Dust cannon (tracking+timing for damage optimization) -Plasma torch (Melee) -Missile carbine (leading utility) -> Homing missiles (easier tracking, but slower projectiles) -> Grenades (geometrics/spatiality) -Nanite Rifle (area denial / compounding damage) -Electrolaser (charged plasma cannon weapon, so both tracking and leading are important! This is a heavy EMP cannon that is able to wipe shields) The Drones -Loiter Drones (autonomous loitering missiles that will slow down and stop based on your mouse programming [hold clicker down, release to enter loiter mode]) -Patroller Drones (autonomous patrol drones that will use the navmesh to locate and find enemies for you) -Orbiter Drones, defense (drones which orbit and shoot at incoming enemy projectiles) -Orbiter Drones, regen (drones which orbit and provide a health regeneration system for you) The Defenses -Interceptors (stops projectiles, can be disasmed with the electrolaser and such) -Shields (resilient to the hitscan weapons, can be disabled with tracking weapons) Gadgets -Connectors (connects nanofiber wires, has guerrilla warfare uses when combined with mines or drone modules) -Mines (deployable mines) The connector basically is a tripwire mechanic with modular creativity, as you can hook up suicidal drones to it and use it to reveal the locations of dangerous enemies. The connector mechanic is great. Game Systems Procedural Generator The procedural generator is a mechanical system that has no real forum. There is a lot of procedural mechanics to follow, for there is a lot of effective procedures. -Cellular Automata for the Sprawl? This is the contentious concept, how massive of sprawl can be made by using cellular automata to create a seemingly endless space? Is it necessary or will it prove too resource demanding? -Directed gen design The generators used are mostly directed and regional, they aren't meant to replace conventional level design but augment it for some sections and establishing the sense of a shifting, dynamic alien environment in levels where such an environment exists. Maybe there are diegetic entities able to manipulate the generators? -Labrynthine Sectors Potentially a game mode in of itself, labrynth mode as a challenge mode where you are subjected to chaos to see what the generators toss at you? -Directors Procedural encounters that adapt to the player's strategies, either to play into the strat or against it. Diegetic directors here are preferred, with directed spawns being able to be stopped by killing a high ranking opponent who was giving you too much trouble. Killing commanders causing other units to behave differently isn't really new, halo did it decades ago but this tries to combine the halo system with the left 4 dead system. So there could be a fun meta concept where NPCs affect the game world and killing them changes the level gen with tradeoffs to that. Unclear how this will work in practice but it is worth exploring. AI Mechanics -State machine system All the enemies follow a state machine where they have the following "default" behaviors: Patrol mode Guard mode Assault mode Retreat mode But there are modes unique to different enemy types, Phase Controller for miniboss enemies also would exist, but as we have discussed in an old enemy concept system there is a general set of mechanics. Sapient mechanics One of the fundamentals to setup will be the 'controllers' for the different sapients. Due to the sprawlverse having radically different sapients, different template controllers are needed with controller systems uniquely their own that can be replicated and modified for different NPC types. Take the scope implied here with a grain of salt, only worry about human and [[ikirmite|Ikirmite]] controllers for now. **Human Controller** -Bipedal locomotion, pretty straightforward. -Can walk limited slopes -Can swim, but not efficiency without specialized modules -Can jump (cybernetics enhance jump capacity) -Can climb, with modules allowed for better climbing General stats: Decent health, Middling speed High strength **[[Utanguis|Utanguis]] Controller** -Can walk surprisingly steep slopes a la an apalca. -Autonomous limb behavior can allow for you to detach your arms to ambush enemies in different areas or scout places -Can't jump well -Not good at swimming at all -Needs to rely on arms for anything to do with climbing -Is tetrapodal in locomotion -Has a large profile, so they draw more fire and may have to tank more harm than other sapients able to rely on evasion more General stats: High resilience to damage Can move decent velocities High strength, but is a bit of a sledgehammer with their melee -Loads of symbiont capacity **Ikirmite Controller** -Molluscoid locomotion(?) -Only aquatic -Is HUGE (they're the biggest sapients in the roster) -Needs a specialized suit for land activities, where they are clumsy and reliant on the capabilities of the exosuit instead of their biology. General stats: Slower, even in water (the vikala are consirderably faster for reference) Very high health Very high strength, they hit hard as fuck on land or in the depths so don't go into melee range! **[[Fosskemian|Fosskemian]] Controller** -Generally bad stats, they aren't fast (they waddle when not sliding) or have good health. -However they do have very good sliding capabilities due to their flipper lungs so they are very positioning based, their sliding time is far longer than other sapients without augments and can attack while sliding. -They are amphibious, but aren't terribly fast in water simply able to be buoyant in it General stats: -Some damage resistance -Not fast outside the slide mode -Not strong -More capacity for shoulder mount weaponry and symbionts **[[Whandl|Whandl]] Controller** -Fairly small and tanky -Not fast moving, they're crablike after all -Can climb surprisingly well unlike crabs and are able to aim weapons while climbing due to their limbiness General stats: -High damage resistance -Average movement -Average strength (smaller profile) **Vikala Controller** -Mostly aquatic sapient, with some land capacity but nothing terribly good -Rapid aquatic movement -Grappling hands capability allows them to have long reach to grab objects or hit something with a melee attack (push daggers yay!) -They have natural quills as well General stats: -Fast movement underwater, slow movement on land -Average health -lower strength, but compensated for with the quills and grapple arms **[[Harlapa|Harlapa]] Controller** -Very OP natural stats. They are insanely regenerative and tanky due to being made of programmable matter, their meta was in the grand scale weakness of lacking populations relative to other civs due to their growth being dependent in recollecting a specialized form of metamaterial instead of simply fucking. -They really shouldn't be often encountered as NPCs, miniboss enemies moreso than ikirmites or utanguis when encountered in game so hard to say. Only sapient more absurd would be the Dioviermes. **Shifter Controller** Shifters are able to swap controllers of the different types of sapients dynamically, these are sprawl entities and they are able to combine and merge all matter of beings from their cosmic catalogs. However for the sake of the game there's 4-5 archetypes they shift between with a 'tier' system based on their density in a given sector: (T-2)**Cloud** - Area denial, damaging "cloud" that chases you, intercepts your tracking projectiles and projects sub-forms that attack you with heavier attacks (lots of melee meta here) (T-2)**Blockade** - Chokepointer, a blockade that emits projectiles and locks you into areas for other shifters. Can be destroyed with enough focused attack (T-1)**Flood** - Creates a dangerous floor that hurts you, with subforms that shoot at you if you try to avoid them. Can actually be attacked at least. (T-3)**Usati** - The echoed memory of vaguely raptor-like sapients lost to time that only exist in the cosmic archives, they are uniquely dangerous due to having OP all around stats, they were rapid regenerating, extremely strong and extremely fast. And armed with ancient sprawl weaponry. The shifters at times aggregate into these when you piss them off hard enough, (T-1)**Mimic** - Humanoids that copy your stats and loadout basically, usually only encountered in the lower levels of shifter complexity **[[Diovierme|Diovierme]] Controller** The Dioviermes, god worms really arent ones you should give coherent stats. Ikeitan, Harlapa at their highest capacity and [[Composer|Composer]] level territory with them. Elder entities by all definitions. Wherever they are present, they are basically this endless being. The dioviermes keep spreading out infinitely, branching and weaving around the landscape, their trails are very long. The branches themselves are extremely dangerous if they see you as a threat. They are not their organic form at all. The organic dioviermes, their primitive forms, are found strewn across the galaxy in idiosyncratic locations but none of the civ clusters have stumbled across these residual colonies as of 2740 AD. They were the exiled ones, abandoning galactic civilization and remaking quasi-TIndvits. These worlds have defensive sentinels since they're not stupid, but it is unclear why they did this over a simulation. In truth many dioviermes made simulations of Tindvit as well, but subfactions in subfactions in a galactic civilization revealed enough interest in the project despite it being regarded as a dumb, pointless affair of idealists like the Archivists (of whom were far, far, far more successful). But you wouldn't realize it beyond the vaguely centipede form. The organic diovierme is a large organism that was able to glide the mists of Tindvit, in a niche akin to a large sugar glider mixed with a spider monkey. They were absolutely pathetic creatures, they bred through splitting after they grew large enough. -Automata Controller Various [[Machines|Machines]], dont worry about it There is a lot more we can say now. We have the marketability question. We can try a twine game, maybe strike up talk with alumni about the sprawlverse but don't put the cart before the horse there. We have tried to refine and show our maps more at least.