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Topics - Newts Revenge

Pages: [1]
1
-- AliensRL (0.8 (BETA 2)) Post Mortem -------------------------------

  Name     : Scrood
  Class    : Scout
  Rank     : Elite
  Result   : Killed the alien Queen and escaped

  Total Experience : 35595
  Experience left  : 4595
  Game length      : 21117 truns

  Armor   : Power armor [4]
  Sidearm : M4A3 pistol (11/12)
  Primary : M41-A pulse rifle (60/60)
  Heavy   : M56 smartgun (50/50)
  Medpacks: 5

-- Graveyard ---------------------------------------------------------

  .|.......#..#*.A.#.....
  .#.......#..|....#./...
  .#.......#..#....|....|
  .#.......#..#....#.....
  .#.......#..#....#....+
  .#..A....#..#....#.....
  .#.......#..#....#.....
  .#.......#..###########
  .#AA.....#..#..........
  .#.......|..#.|.+|.....
  .#.......#..#....%.....
  .#.......#..#......A...
  .#.......#..###########
  .#.......#..#.|........
  .#.......#.%#..........
  .#.......#..#........./
  .#.......#..#..........
  .#.......#..#..........
  .#.......#..#..........
  .#.......#..#....A.....
  .#......A#..#..........
  ##########  ###########

-- Skills ------------------------------------------------------------
  Sidearms      : master
  Light weapons : expert
  Heavy weapons : expert
  Technical     : expert
  Medical       : expert
  Fitness       : expert
  Perception    : expert

-- Ammunition --------------------------------------------------------

  9mm ammo      : 395/400
  .44 ammo      : 150/150
  M309 ammo     : 285/500
  M250 ammo     : 380/500
  60mm gren.    : 40/40
  12g. shells   : 200/200
  frag grenade  : 5/3
  inc grenade   : 0/3
  krak grenade  : 3/3

-- Kills (3362) ------------------------------------------------------

  1248 juveniles
  69 workers
  774 warriors
  948 hunters
  322 elites
  1 queen

-- Messages ----------------------------------------------------------

 Nash is dead. Head to the top of the
 Main Tower to kill the alien queen.
 Good Luck.
 You enter the corridor. Entering
 Civilian Tower, level 1...


2
AliensRL / Yet more suggestions...
« on: June 06, 2007, 17:51 »
Yes, even more of them :)
Feel free to ignore them for now if you've had enough!

Here they are:

-Acid splash.
 AFAIK there's no indication yet of whether the aliens of AliensRL have "acid for blood" like the aliens of the films, but let's assume for a minute that they do :) As happened to several characters in the film "Aliens", if the player kills an alien at point blank range, they may be splashed by the acid. This may result in a severe health loss over several turns, or it might damage or destroy the player's currently worn armour. Obviously this would make the game a lot more difficult, and even near-impossible on the "exit run" where aliens can pop up at point blank range, so some kind of balancing feature might be needed to allow the player to get away from faster aliens that have closed them down, without killing them - the flash grenades that I suggested in another thread would be good for this.

-Acid structural damage.
 This is an even more extreme idea based on the effects of the "acid blood" as portrayed in the films. After a few turns, alien corpses would actually burn through the floor and create a pit leading to the floor beneath the current one (though not on the ground floors, obviously). If there is an item on the floor at the location of the pit, it drops through to the lower floor (where it is displaced to one side if there is an item already at the location it drops to). Perhaps lower level-aliens should not cause this structural damage effect, and additionally main corridors be immune to the effect, otherwise they might quickly become impassable due to the number of hunters that you have to kill in them. Pits are visible - if the player falls in a pit then they drop down to the lower floor, sustaining some damage (this could be quite useful on the "exit run"!). Aliens will never walk on a pit tile.

-Automatic Surgeons
 These are fixed-in-place medical units found often in rooms of the medical tower and occasionally in the others. They can heal damage that medkits cannot, such as radiation damage, and the dreaded alien impregnation (see below). The surgeon can be used by activating it in the same way as a door. Following doing this, the player will be asked to confirm that they want to enter the automated surgeon unit for treatment. Using the surgeon takes a significant amount of time. The player is not allowed to use a surgeon if there are any live aliens in the room with it, or if any doors leading into the room are open.

-Facehuggers.
 Currently the aliens in AliensRL don't have a "facehugger"-style stage capable of laying eggs in a host, but Kornel has hinted in another thread that "impregnated" humans might make it into the game. So presumably there is one :)
 Facehuggers would be very fast, very weak enemies. Instead of attacking the player's health when they get close, facehuggers would attempt to leap onto the player's face and force their "affections" onto them ;) Their chance of doing this successfully should depend on the player's Fitness skill (the higher it is, the more chance of them failing). If they fail, they can try again in the next turn if they are still alive.
 If the player does get "implanted", the facehugger dies. The player then has a few hundred turns before they "hatch". In that time, they need to find an automatic surgeon (see above) and use it, which will remove the alien embryo. If they fail to do so in time... well, we all know what happens then!
 While the player is implanted, aliens will not attack unless the player attacks an alien. If they do that, then all aliens who can see the player (except facehuggers) will attack.

-Containment doors.
 These are heavy doors across the central corridors that are very difficult to open once they're shut. The purpose of these is twofold: one, to break up the rather open structure of the towers, and encourage the player to sometimes leave the central corridors for reasons other than heading to or from a lift and searching for items; and two, to provide an alternative way of cutting off approaching aliens in the main corridors. Containment doors would be located near the central crossroads of the main corridors, and possibly near the connection point to neighbouring towers as well.
 The containment doors would have a "panic" button located next to the wall on either side of the door, which closes the door when activated. The player can activate this switch in the same way as a regular door. Once closed, the containment door won't open again unless the player "hacks" the door control switch by activating it again (10% chance of success per level of technical skill, and the attempt takes a relatively long time to execute). The player should be prompted with something like "Attempt to bypass door controls Y/N?" if they indicate this action, to avoid accidentally trying to hack when aliens are bearing down on them, and getting shredded as a result. No aliens can open or break down containment doors, not even Elites.
 Most containment doors are initially open. However, some containment doors are closed, so the player must decide whether to try and go through them or around them. Additionally, some of the closed containment doors have damaged electronics and cannot be opened at all (the player will find out that they are dealing with such a door on their first successful bypass attempt). To avoid generating non-completable maps, there must be an alternative route to go around any permanently closed containment door - that probably means doing a search of the map to check that one side of the door can be reached from the other.
 Optionally a containment door could take a few turns to shut. Anything on top of the door tile when it shuts is displaced randomly to the nearest empty space on one side of it. Out of the initially open containment doors, some randomly chosen ones will malfunction when used and only close partially, meaning aliens and the player can still get "under" them (i.e. the partially closed door tile remains passable). To this end containment doors have 3 states - open, partially closed/closing/opening, and fully closed.

3
AliensRL / About the title logo.
« on: June 06, 2007, 17:38 »
As I'm sure many of you are aware, in the past fan-made tributes to the Aliens franchise have tended to be stomped on heavily at some point by the commercial interests that own the franchise. IMHO, being a non-graphical roguelike may give this game a measure of immunity from such a fate, but I wouldn't count on total immunity if I were you. What do you think are the chances that Fox's lawyers could get to you where you are?

IANL, but I think that if anything is going to get you into trouble, that title logo on the main page will. You should give some thought to redesigning it if there's any chance you might be at risk.

You are probably in violation of copyright with the use of the Tower Assault theme as well (unless you had permission to use it?). However I would expect Team 17 to be less trigger-happy than Fox. Even if they aren't more sympathetic, they are at least less likely to have legions of bored and bloodthirsty lawyers on speed-dial...

4
There are obviously supposed to be missions in the game, although I don't know how much you have thought about what they should be, so I'll post some of my thoughts here. BTW is the design you're working to on these forums anywhere? It might save me repeating stuff you have already thought of :)

The beginning and the ending of the game suggest two obvious new missions...

1. Find the "master shutdown" automated colony defense system and disable it, so that a rescue ship can land. The top of the military tower seems like the logical place to find this.

2. Find the communications array controls and send a distress signal. The top of the engineering tower seems like the right place for this.

Then there are the 2 missions that are already implied in the game...

3. Kill the queen
4. Escape the towers

So that gives 4 "critical" missions. As you can see, having the first two in the game would probably mean changing the ending.

If you allow the player to exit the towers without completing all of the critical missions then you'd need multiple endings depending on which ones they didn't do. For example, if they killed the queen and escaped but didn't send a distress signal, they would get the current game ending.

Here are some more ideas for optional missions:

-Retrieve the colony surveillance system logs. These are at the top of the Security tower. This mission is given to you at the start.

-Find the colony superintendent's records. These are found at the top of the Civilian tower. This mission is given to you at the start.

-Find the research report on the alien species' physiology, created by the colonists before the colony was overrun. This is at the top of the Medical tower. You don't get given this mission until you find the colony superintendent's records.

-Kill the juvenile queens. There are 3 juvenile queens in various locations around the towers who are waiting to leave and found their own colonies. You only get given this mission once you find both the surveillance logs and the research report.

-Destroy the hatcheries. In various places around the towers there are groups of rooms that have eggs in them. The eggs are in clusters, and if one egg is attacked then the others in the cluster will spawn juveniles a few turns afterwards. As well as counting towards completing this mission, destroying (or hatching) eggs causes a reduction in the danger level. To destroy a hatchery you have to destroy or hatch at least 75% of the eggs in a hatchery area, and you get experience for each hatchery destroyed. The mission is completed and bonus experience given if you get them all. You only get given the mission once you have the surveillance logs and the research report.

-Find survivors and get them to safety. Survivors would be found mainly in the Civilian tower, in rooms without aliens. You get given this mission when you get the surveillance logs, or when you find a survivor. This mission would be most easily done by simply having survivors being "rescued" when you find them, and disappearing. If you're feeling ambitious though you could make them independent entities who follow the player around and need to be taken to the exit of Civilian level 1... and if you're even more ambitious than that then you could make them able to arm themselves and shoot at the aliens! If you're going to do either of these things then you should let the player tell them when to follow and when to wait where they are by activating them the same way as doors. If you're going to let them arm themselves then you need to somehow make sure that they don't pick up weapons that the player wants.

-The Heist! You remember the Heist, right? :) This quest is a tribute to Tower Assault and would take place on the top floor of the Storage tower. You would be given the mission when you enter the floor. It requires you to find and destroy several "locks". Once you get them all, a door appears to a secret vault room. The vault contains loads of money, which you can't spend, but that's OK because going in there completes the mission and gets you loads of experience that you can spend. The Heist should be done under a time limit of some kind - at least radiation, preferably a proper "countdown to destruction".

5
AliensRL / Another YAVP
« on: June 03, 2007, 08:29 »
I still don't know what YAVP stands for, except that it means a win :) Yet Another Victory Parade?

This time was a bit of a walk in the park, although I nearly ran out of pulse rifle ammo while trying to hunt down a gyro. There were smartguns lying all over the place, but I couldn't pick them up! Grenades also seemed to be really easy to come by this time, there were rooms full of them in security.


Code: [Select]
-- AliensRL (DAY 7++) Post Mortem ------------------------------------

  Name     : Hudson
  Class    : HW Specialist
  Rank     : Experienced
  Result   : Killed the alien Queen and escaped

  Total Experience : 9165
  Experience left  : 825
  Game length      : 126348 truns

  Armor   : Gyro-stabilizer [0]
  Sidearm : M4A3 pistol (12/12)
  Primary : M41-A pulse rifle (45/60)
  Heavy   : M56 smartgun (45/50)
  Medpacks: 10

-- Graveyard ---------------------------------------------------------

  #.......%#....
  #....+...#....
  #......A.|....
  #....|...#....
  #........#....
  #........#....
  #A.....+.#.../
  #........#....
  #........#....
  #........#....
  #..|.....#....
  #........#....
  #........#....
  #........#....
  #........#....
  #........#....
  #..|.....#....
  ##############
   .............
   .............
  #######-######
  #.............
  #A............
  #A............
  #.............
  #####-########
  #..A..........
  #.............
  #...........%.
  #.............
  #......A......
  #.............
  #.....|.......
  #............%
  ##############
  #.............
  ##############
  #....AA..#.%..

-- Skills ------------------------------------------------------------
  Sidearms      : advanced
  Light weapons : advanced
  Heavy weapons : basic
  Technical     : untrained
  Medical       : basic
  Fitness       : basic
  Perception    : basic

-- Ammunition --------------------------------------------------------

  9mm ammo      : 191/400
  .44 ammo      : 36/150
  M309 ammo     : 275/500
  M250 ammo     : 30/500
  60mm gren.    : 12/40
  12g. shells   : 200/200
  frag grenade  : 2/5
  inc grenade   : 0/5
  krak grenade  : 0/5

-- Kills (492) -------------------------------------------------------

  195 juveniles
  10 workers
  87 warriors
  146 hunters
  53 elites
  1 queen

-- Messages ----------------------------------------------------------

 You lightly hit the juvenile!
 You barely hit the juvenile!
 You barely hit the juvenile!
 You heavily hit the juvenile!
 You criticaly hit the juvenile! The
 juvenile dies.
 You reload your weapon.
 You prepare your heavy weapon!
 You enter the corridor. Entering
 Civilian Tower, level 1...


6
AliensRL / It doesn't get much closer than this...
« on: June 01, 2007, 17:22 »
Down to 15 rounds (9mm) with an Elite on my tail when I finally found the lift down from civ 2. Had to run for the lift with it swiping me from behind.

Should have made it out easily after killing the queen (even though I never even saw a heavy weapon), but couldn't find lifts for love nor money on the way back down. Keeping a record of the way you came seems to be a very good idea. I ran out of pulse rifle ammo about 4 floors up with no sign of a lift down to the 3rd floor of anywhere, and had to downgrade to the MP5.

I like the ending :)

Code: [Select]
-- AliensRL (DAY 7++) Post Mortem ------------------------------------

  Name     : Meat
  Class    : Marine
  Rank     : Experienced
  Result   : Killed the alien Queen and escaped

  Total Experience : 7650
  Experience left  : 490
  Game length      : 115945 truns

  Armor   : Flak armor [2]
  Sidearm : M4A3 pistol (10/12)
  Primary : MP5 submachine gun (5/30)
  Medpacks: 3

-- Graveyard ---------------------------------------------------------

  #..............
  #......+.......
  #..A...........
  #|.............
  ###############
   ..............
   ..............
  ###############
  #..............
  #.....*........
  #............A.
  #%......|.....A
  #..............
  #...A..A.......
  #..............
  ###############
  #..............
  ###############
  #..............
  #.....|........
  #..............
  #............*.
  #..............
  #..............
  #..............
  #..............
  ##############-
  #....A.|......A
  #......|.......
  ##.............
   ##............
    ##...........
     ##..........
      ##.........
       ##########
        ##.......
         ##...%..
          ##A....

-- Skills ------------------------------------------------------------
  Sidearms      : advanced
  Light weapons : advanced
  Heavy weapons : untrained
  Technical     : untrained
  Medical       : basic
  Fitness       : basic
  Perception    : basic

-- Ammunition --------------------------------------------------------

  9mm ammo      : 0/400
  .44 ammo      : 24/150
  M309 ammo     : 200/500
  M250 ammo     : 150/500
  60mm gren.    : 8/40
  12g. shells   : 200/200
  frag grenade  : 0/5
  inc grenade   : 0/5
  krak grenade  : 0/5

-- Kills (324) -------------------------------------------------------

  124 juveniles
  6 workers
  46 warriors
  115 hunters
  32 elites
  1 queen

-- Messages ----------------------------------------------------------

 The elite shreds you!
 The elite shreds you!
 The elite shreds you!
 You use a medpack. You feel much
 better! The elite shreds you!
 You open the door. The elite shreds
 you! The elite shreds you!
 The elite shreds you!
 You activate the Elevator. Entering
 Civilian Tower, level 1...


7
First I would like to say that the core gameplay feels just right and should not be changed in any major way. It feels oppressive and tense, just like an Alien game should! IMHO it is particularly important that the number of basic actions that the player can perform does not increase too much. You don't want this elegant game to become a mess of unintuitive controls like NetHack is (I don't like NetHack, for that reason and others).

Here are a couple more observations I made about the game:

-It seems that when Elites first start appearing, unless the player has been really lucky and found a pulse rifle early, the only means of defending against them are the Krak grenades... which are also really hard to come by at that stage. I don't think that Elites should be made any weaker, or the pulse rifles come any earlier, but perhaps Krak grenades should spawn much more often on the earliest levels with Elites. I haven't yet tried the Colt against Elites, so maybe that is an option too. Edit: Found out in my last game that the MP5 will kill Elites too, at the cost of much ammo, so it's just the combat shotgun that is useless against them.

-Once the player has a pulse rifle and a heavy weapon, the aliens don't seem to be much of a threat any more. Even the Elites die like flies to the Smartgun, while the pulse rifle takes care of everything else. Even the constant spawning of Hunters all over the place doesn't seem threatening, since there is also a lot of ammo around. I would suggest that at about 100000 turns, Main tower levels 6 and 7 should become far more dangerous (Elites everywhere, hordes of juves in rooms, etc). That should give enough time for the player to get in, kill the queen and out again if they don't waste time hunting for the big guns, but if they do go looking for the big guns then they will need them.

-Health seems to be much less vital than ammo, which doesn't seem right. It's easy to stay at 10 medkits most of the time (except when taking on an Elite without a suitable weapon, in which case it should be "Game over, man" unless you have a krak grenade... instead you are able to burn through 10 medkits to win by attrition, as I did the first time this happened to me). Using medkits during fights is too easy as well. I would suggest reducing the medkit limit to 5, making them take much longer to use (the equivalent of several turns), and making the player unable to use them while being attacked.

-Radiation seems pointless. The health drop is so small that it's barely even noticeable, and there doesn't seem to be any way to defend against it. So I just ended up ignoring it. If you want to give it a little more "bite", you should make the health drain much more rapid, and give the player some way of dealing with it that requires modifying their actions. I've suggested one way to do this on the list below.




New Feature Suggestions

-A save feature! And fix the map generation bug that can put doors too close to the outer walls, please. :-) Also, change the default keybinding for the character screen to 'c', so that pressing Ctrl-C by accident is far less likely.

-It would be really handy to know which regions have been explored. Room or corridor tiles that have been seen could be shown as a dark grey '.'. This way the player would know when they've gone in a circle, or when they've already opened a door and didn't like what they saw on the other side, so shut it again quickly.

-Levels of Fitness skill allowing the player to carry more grenades (1 extra of each type per level of skill).

-Levels of Perception skill allowing the player to see aliens which are 1 or 2 tiles beyond their light radius. For every alien that is in this area, in every turn, there is a chance (5% per level of skill) that the alien will be revealed to the player, without the alien noticing the player.

-Exploding fuel barrels. Does this feature even need an explanation? :) They would go off like grenades when damaged in any way. Found in large numbers in the Engineering and Storage Towers, and often close together so that they can be set off in chain reactions!

-Radiation suits, and accumulating radiation. Change the radiation damage so that it steadily increases the longer that the player remains unprotected on an irradiated level. Also add a new armour type, the radiation suit, which is found commonly on irradiated floors. It offers no protection and cannot equip heavy weapons, but it stops radiation from having an effect on the player while worn.

-Countdown levels. Veterans of the Alien Breed games will know what I mean :) The countdown begins a few turns after entering the floor, with the voice message "Warning. Reactor breach imminent." and from then on all the walls and floor tiles get drawn in red. There should be lots of ammo and grenades lying around on these levels, so that the player can afford to be a bit more reckless with ammo than usual. Once the countdown has started, it doesn't stop even if the player leaves the floor and comes back again. When the countdown finishes, the whole floor becomes saturated with high-intensity radiation that saps the health of the player and all aliens very quickly (at least 10 HP per turn, not affected by armour,  although the radiation suit cuts the damage in half). It remains irradiated permanently. The first floor in all towers, and the last floor that connects to another tower, are not allowed to be chosen as countdown levels, but any others are fair game. The 7th floor of the main tower should perhaps always be a countdown level :)

-Armour durability. Each type of armour has a limited number of hits it can take before it is destroyed. This number is higher the rarer the armour type is. For example, the common Flak Jacket can only take 15 hits, while the Power Armour can take 100 or more. Technical skill increases the durability of armour by 25% per level of skill.

-Map terminals. These are randomly placed in rooms. When "activated" like doors, these automatically put the player into an extended version of the "look" mode which allows scrolling the view, so that the player can examine the structure of the map without having to move around. This extended view is only available when the player enters look mode by activating a map terminal.

-Flares. These work exactly like grenades and are effectively a new grenade type. Instead of exploding, of course, they light up an area for an extended period of time (hundreds of turns). Intended for use in the low light levels, where they should also be quite commonly found.

-Flash grenades. These do no damage, but stun any aliens in the blast range for 1-4 turns.

-Grenade belt. When found, it doubles the player's grenade carrying capacity. Maybe this should be an armour type, so that there is a cost associated with it as well.

-Shipping Crates. These are passable, line-of-sight blocking tiles that occur inside large rooms, mostly in the Storage Tower. The player can climb over crates at 10% of their normal movement speed (plus another 10% per level of Fitness skill). Aliens can climb over crates at 75% of their normal movement speed. Crates do not block the sight of aliens. A single crate is placed next to the player at the start of the game, to give the game a "Start to Crate" time of zero (this is a gaming in-joke, if you don't get what I'm talking about :)).

-Rubble and barricades. These are new tile types that work exactly like the shipping crates mentioned above. However they are found in all towers, they are placed in a different way, and they are not found in such large numbers.

-New Alien types. These would only appear well into the game, and some of them not until very near the end.
 -"Runner". These are similar to juveniles but have greatly increased speed, so that they are even faster than Hunters.
 -"Shadow". These are similar to Warriors, except that they are slower, and invisible until they attack.
 -"Leaper". These are exactly like Hunters under normal circumstances. However, if they are within 6 tiles of the player and have a direct line of sight to the player, then they can jump across 5 tiles to land right next to the player. They can only do this if they moved towards the player in the last turn and have not been shot since then, so the player can keep Leapers at bay by shooting them before they can jump.
 -"Elite Leaper". Leapers that are as tough as Elites.
 -"Tank". These are so heavily armoured that they can only be hurt by explosives, or high-accuracy weapons such as pistols (they have "weak spots" that can be hit for "massive damage", you see, but only if shot at with sufficient accuracy ;)). Tanks are very slow, but they hit hard. They can also break down doors. They don't just open the door like Elites do, they actually convert it into a corridor or rubble tile.
 -"Hydralisk". An Easter Egg enemy that only occurs in one place in the game, although I have no idea where that should be. The Hydralisk will keep its distance and shoot at the player, with attacks that are similar to the Colt attack. It is otherwise similar to a Warrior.

-A motion tracker. Once the player has it, the motion tracker "pings" unseen aliens (or any other moving object) near to the player when they move. Line of sight is not required. A "pinged" alien is shown as a green '?'. Aliens that are not moving will also occasionally be pinged (10% chance per turn).

-Automated Defense Turrets. These are randomly placed in rooms in the main, security and military towers, and aliens do not spawn around them (unless they are inactive - see below). They are hard to kill except by explosives, and have a limited ammunition count. Some of these are "safe" and will shoot at the aliens, but not the player. Others are "rogue" and will shoot at anything that moves, but the player can avoid being targeted by standing still. Some turrets are inactive when first found, and need to be activated in the same fashion as doors before they will do anything; it's up to the player whether they want to risk activating a rogue turret! Any inactive turret has a chance of being made "safe" when the player activates it, if it wasn't "safe" already, and the chance goes up with each level technical skill. At the highest level of technical skill, even rogue turrets will not shoot at the player.

-Tazer and Modified Tazer. These are found in Civilian, Security and Engineering. The Tazer is completely useless, and can't be picked up unless the player has at least one level of Technical skill. The Modified Tazer is a short range sidearm that doesn't do any damage, but will stun an alien for 1-4 turns. If the player has the required skill, then when trying to pick up a normal Tazer they will automatically try and convert it into a Modifed Tazer (with a 40% chance of failing, minus 10% per level of Technical skill). Rarely, Modified Tazers will also spawn.

-EMP grenades. These won't be much use unless "robotic" enemies make it into the game (such as the rogue defense bots that Kornel already planned, or the Turrets that I propose above). EMP grenades would disable robotic enemies in their blast radius for 50 turns, without actually destroying them. Their blast radius is big enough to cover most of a medium sized room, so it's hard to miss with them.




Some Tentative Suggestions

These ones I'm not so sure of, because they involve complicating the core game mechanics in some way, particularly by adding new controls or resource types which aren't natural extensions of the ones already there (unlike flares). I mention them only in case they might inspire Kornel or others with new ideas.

-Security cameras, and terminals that the player can use to access them. The cameras would be randomly placed alongside the walls of rooms, and are non-obstructing (like corpses). The player can activate a camera terminal using the space control, like doors. They then enter the camera viewing mode, where they are shown the view from one of the cameras instead of their own current view. In this mode they can cycle through all the cameras on the current floor by using '<' and '>', or leave viewing mode by pressing escape. These controls are explained by a command line message when they enter the camera mode.

-Run mode. This is a movement mode that can be toggled on and off by the player (maybe by "S" for sprint). While in run mode, the cost of movement is halved, but reloading is impossible, and accuracy of firing and grenade throwing decreases. Aliens can also use "run" mode; any alien that sees the player begin running will begin running itself 4 turns later, and will not stop running until it is dead or loses sight of the player. If the player is already running when first seen by an alien, then the alien will begin running immediately. Aliens will not run unless the player does, but will advance slowly as they usually do. The amount of time that the player may spend running should be limited by a "stamina" meter which depletes quickly while running and refills slowly while not running, and is affected by the player's Fitness skill. Aliens do not have this limit, and can run forever.

8
AliensRL / Unreachable exit :(
« on: May 29, 2007, 19:12 »
I thought I was in with a shot of winning the game, and then this happened...



The only door to the room with the lift is blocked off by part of the thick outer wall :(

Code: [Select]
-- AliensRL (DAY 7++) Post Mortem ------------------------------------

  Name     : Vasquez
  Class    : Scout
  Rank     : Experienced
  Result   : Deceased
  Died on  : Main Tower, level 7

  Total Experience : 9540
  Experience left  : 420
  Game length      : 105501 truns

  Armor   : Power armor [4]
  Sidearm : M4A3 pistol (12/12)
  Primary : M41-A pulse rifle (45/60)
  Heavy   : M56 smartgun (50/50)
  Medpacks: 10

-- Graveyard ---------------------------------------------------------

            #############
           ##..#.#....#..
          ##...#.#....#..
         ##....#.#....#..
        ##.....#.#....#..
       ##....A.#.|....#..
      ##.......#.#....#%.
     ##.......%#.#....|..
    ##||.......#.#%...#..
   ##..===.....#.#....#..
  ##...===..%..#.#....#..
  #....===.....#.#....#..
  ......|......#.#....#..
  .....|.......#.#....#..
  ........A.A..#.######-#
  ............A#.#.......
  ##############.#.......
  %........%....%#.......
  #/############.#.......
  A.#.....#....#.#.......

-- Skills ------------------------------------------------------------
  Sidearms      : advanced
  Light weapons : advanced
  Heavy weapons : untrained
  Technical     : untrained
  Medical       : expert
  Fitness       : untrained
  Perception    : untrained

-- Ammunition --------------------------------------------------------

  9mm ammo      : 70/400
  .44 ammo      : 0/150
  M309 ammo     : 430/500
  M250 ammo     : 115/500
  60mm gren.    : 16/40
  12g. shells   : 200/200
  frag grenade  : 5/5
  inc grenade   : 0/5
  krak grenade  : 3/5

-- Kills (480) -------------------------------------------------------

  178 juveniles
  14 workers
  96 warriors
  137 hunters
  55 elites

-- Messages ----------------------------------------------------------

 The juvenile shreds you!
 The juvenile shreds you!
 The juvenile shreds you! The
 juvenile shreds you!
 The juvenile shreds you!
 The juvenile shreds you!
 The juvenile shreds you!
 The juvenile shreds you!
 The juvenile shreds you! You die.
 Press <Enter>...


9
AliensRL / What I think of the game
« on: May 29, 2007, 11:38 »
Hi. I just discovered AliensRL and I really like it so far. It was easy to learn how to play it thanks to the clean interface and sensible controls, and it is fun and very absorbing. It has great potential. However there are a couple of things I need to say about it...

- No save function = MAJOR sadness :(  The game needs this more than ANYTHING else. On my second game I had played for a couple of hours and just started to feel like I was getting somewhere, and then I discovered what happens if you accidentally press Ctrl-C instead of Shift+C.... aaargh! Also it takes quite a while to play the game and I don't like having to leave it running to avoid losing my game while I do something else.

- There are an awful lot of flak jackets lying around and no real reason for them to be there, since only the first one you find is any use. With weapons it makes some sense to have them lying around in case you run out of an ammo type and need to switch, but I can't see any reason for all the trash armour to be there. It would make more sense if your armour eventually wore out from taking hits and needed to be replaced.

That's all I'll say for now except keep up the good work, and for Newt's sake watch out that you don't get Foxed!

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