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[DaEezT]

I'd like to give a quick introduction to the basic ideas behind AliensRL and how some things work.

Kornel already hinted at some of the features that might come in future versions:

        -- more interesting tower structure
        -- many tower features, like terminals and special rooms
        -- security and military tower with rogue security bots
        -- taking over cameras and security bots
        -- hacking the terminals to manage energy flow or locking corridors
        -- corridors between towers
        -- a general Master AI (Queen) that fights the player
        -- several objectives and many ways to finish the game
        -- tower structure requiring tactical planning
        -- a more sinister and scary mood

The gameplay is supposed to be horror survival like, with an Aliens theme.
In addition, gameplay should be object driven. What does this mean?
It means, that you don't go around killing things for level ups, items, and gold. Instead, you are working towards an objective.
Think DeusEx or System Shock 2. Those games don't reward you for killing things, instead XP/CM come from exploration and finishing objectives. The same basic idea was applied to AliensRL.
Right now, you still get some XP for killing enemies, simply because there are no objectives or side quests. But the goal is to reduce those to a minimum and, eventually, completely remove them.

Another thing that all of you probably noticed is the inventory system, or the lack of it.
The idea is to make gameplay tactical and a bit realistic. You don't have an infinite inventory that let's you carry 4 red armors, 3 bfgs, a rocket launcher, etc.
You have your sidearm holster, the ability to carry another weapon slung across your shoulder and the option for a third (heavy), if you have the needed armor. That's it.
This leads to some tactical decisions throughout the game. Picking up a weapon you just found isn't always the best course of action. If you run out of ammo for your new toy you'll have to go and find a different one.

The inventory/weapon system also has two special features:
It takes little time to switch to your sidearm. So switching to it to finish off an enemy is always a valid option, if you want to save some ammo for your primary.
Tossing a grenade does not incur any weapon switching penalties and also takes little time. So feel free to toss them in between pulse rifle bursts.

Armor and ammo are categorized into Light/Medium/Heavy.
Juveniles are light, Workers are heavy, the rest is my secret ;D
The ammo categories can be seen in the character screen.
Using ammo against a stronger type of armor (e.g. shooting a pistol at a Worker) is not the best course of action.

One last morsel of info: There isn't enough ammo in the game to kill all the enemies!
So you gotta break your AdoM/Nethack/Diablo habits and stop clearing every room on every floor in every tower ;D

[bfg9001]

Question.... on the character screen, where it shows your weapon like:

Weapon: M41-A pulse rifle
Ammo: M309    Dmg: 15/H


What does "15/H" mean exactly?

[DaEezT]

The number is the amount, the character is the type/category.

[Schluberlubs]

Question.... on the character screen, where it shows your weapon like:

Weapon: M41-A pulse rifle
Ammo: M309    Dmg: 15/H


What does "15/H" mean exactly?

The 15 stands for the the damage each bullet does (if they hit perfectly, that is). The H stands for the level of armor penetration (Low/Medium/High). I think thats what they stand for but I'm not certain.

[torch]

Unless I am missing something, can we have a save option please?  I enjoy fighting my way through the levels but only during my coffee breaks which isn't enough time to finish a whole game. 

I appreciate there is a lot to save / reload as each level has to be written out to the file, plus all the items and the aliens. 

What are the chances please? 

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

Save/Load is on the future feature list, I just hadn't had the time to implement it in the 7DAY period.

[torch]

Save/Load is on the future feature list, I just hadn't had the time to implement it in the 7DAY period.

Hooray and I quite understand that putting that much effort in on a 7 day development would have had a serious impact on what you put into the gameplay. 

[Darwinism]

Per Aliens, where the pulse rifle made its debut, the rifle should have a clip size of 99. Not to mention the pulse rifle's under-barrel grenade launcher, but that could just be represented by better accuracy/range with grenades when using it. Also, the MP5 fires 3-round bursts IRL, and you can bet your ass it won't be used after we're floating around the stars. Maybe a new name?

edit: Also, why does the ammunition in a weapon disappear when you drop it? I never had that problem in DoomRL.

[Fingerzam]

edit: Also, why does the ammunition in a weapon disappear when you drop it? I never had that problem in DoomRL.

I think the game auto-unloads the weapon as you drop it. Though I guess the ammo just disappears if you already have full ammo.

[Darwinism]

I'm pretty sure it doesn't auto-unload, and I've never survived long enough to get max ammo...

Oh, and I just checked it. The ammo goes where the woodbine twilleth.

[Malek Deneith]

The auto-unload works when you swap weapons with ones on the ground but not when you drop them for some reason.

[Tao_Taoz]

[1st post]

the mp5 should get replaced by the MP7.
shown here --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_MP7 with details.

could always make a fictional version bearing whatever stats and capabilites.

however, you should make all damage in the game much higher and give the armors larger protection bonuses. making both the aliens and yourself take much less effort to take down.
maybe make everyone do things gradually slower (move, reload and such) as they take more damage. Giving medics a 25% (or 15%?) bonus against this and an added 5% bonus with each level they progress in their medic skill.

I find the weak damage system to be the biggest pressing issue with the game thus far.
taking too long to die and taking up too much ammo per kill takes away from the games intensity.

It's no fun having to empty your last full clip into a target only for it to absorb the damage without penalty as it claws away at you continously for well over serveral turns just to take your life..... assuming you're not currently maxed out on medic packs since you can use them one after the other even while under attack.(and surrounded by claws).

things are just too drawn out...

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

Well I'd like to hear other's opinions on that.

There's a reason for the aliens to be so tough -- they don't have ranged attacks, so they need to have a chance to come up to the player before being destroyed. Also they should be feared.

Lowering Player HP? Ok.
Lowering Alien HP? No way.

[TFoN]

Considering the first movie occures around the 22nd century, I don't think any weapon used now, even the new ones, will be very current then. And what marine would be equipped with such an outdated weapon?
I suggest making the Pulse Rifle the basic weapon (using MP5 statistics), as that was the weapon used by marines in Aliens, finding a different weapon to take the current statistics of the Pulse Rifle. The 99-bullet clip size issue mentioned earlier should also somehow be addressed, either by changing the clip size or by explaining why the clip size's smaller (it's quite a big detail, with regards to canonity). Different types of pulse rifles is probably the best way to go about it, IMO.

I think reducing alien HPs while increasing their speed, numbers and/or damage is a good idea.
Reducing player HPs is definately a good idea, but let him start then with a choice between a flack jacket or a gyro-stabilizer. At the same time, make gyro-stabilizers rarer and heavy weapons more common, giving a reason to start with AC 0. I think giving HW specialists a Smartgun at start might work out fine, in context.

Using medkits during combat doesn't make much sense to me, either.
How about adding stimpacks which add temporary HPs? Application time becomes faster with higher medical skill (and with appropriate armour, with an in-built fluid transmission device?).

[Tao_Taoz]

Lime Green=added text
Yellow=changed text


If you watch the movie you see them taking out aliens with relative ease... the issue was that they were swarming or coming out at them in all directions. observe -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V0J3bVInS8 :P

a single burst from a pulse rifle is seeminly enough to mess one up pretty badly if not kill it outright.
though for the game it should take 2(to 3?) and 1 for smart rifle or whatever its called.

and just make ammo more scarce or that you only find weapons of ammo around corpses and locked sercurity rooms (Civilian tower), armories (Military tower) and weapon/ammo caches (storage tower). perhaps have the armories accessible through a long hallway guarded but automated remote sentries that you could disable through a randomly spawned terminal found somewhere on the same level. sercurity control rooms sealed with security cards found off a corpse, can be welded/blown open.
find portable welding equipment in the Engineering tower and explosives in the storages weapon cache or some such.

you could give some aliens a little less health (20% to 10%, 15%? idk) less while giving some while evenly giving them better protection versus low level penitration.
but still applying the slowing effect but to a lesser extent since half of "stoping power" is in relation to how a target receives damage to its internal orgains or motor functionality.
leaving only the light force and light penitrating eeffect to help keep off the creatures from over taking you or your postion as qucikly as the would otherwise.

idk. you could make them spill a little more blood with acid damage which could spray in random directions.(eh? ehh?)
maybe burn away that "invincible" armor we wear.

see, my problem was that I was running around with an mp5.
as a scout with only basic training.

once I got to expert things were alot easier.
but I don't like how that works..

I'd rather we develop our weapon class skills more gradually since the current way of development is too slow and then suddenly dramatic.
rather have more levels with lower cost and a more natural progression. so the change between basic and advanced is less drastic. Replacing the words with levels up to 10 or 9.

you can then label levels 1="untrained", 2 & 3 as "basic", with 4 & 5 as "proficient".
followed up by advanced for levels 6 & 7 then onto 8 & 9 for "expert" with level 10 as "master" or "Mastered". 

then either lower the cost of skill advancement accordingly or lower the costs to be approprietly match things up.

naturally, you would recieve less bonus per level then how things currenlt are.