Function Part Discussion

Yes, i meant wires. Sorry.

Actually, you can make a rope/cable out of virtually any solid material. Another thing is if it is actually usefull.

About chains... You could make a chain out of any material as well. Metals are usually used because they are strong.

For the buildings, I dont know. At least, player's should be allowed to use them, even if they are purelly aestethic.

Finally, yes, astronauts will try to grab a rope to leave the spaceship, otherwise it will have a chance of drifting away. Some tecnologies like tractor beams or astronauts equiped with jetpacks can avoid losing the drifting astronaut. Or we could just scrap the idea of losing astronauts.

Daniferrito wrote:

Finally, yes, astronauts will try to grab a rope to leave the spaceship, otherwise it will have a chance of drifting away. Some tecnologies like tractor beams or astronauts equiped with jetpacks can avoid losing the drifting astronaut. Or we could just scrap the idea of losing astronauts.

I Kind of like that Idea, however will we actually test whether or not the astronaut has access to a rope, I think they should just have them *equipped*

Also climbing should be something we add later on (you could , say equip a rope to your character so that you can climb ledges) I think this would be useful when you become sapient. So you can tie up an animal or set a trap. (even if you can't climb with it (If we are planning to implement traps)

Dani, I would think the casing of the wire would be unneccesary to specify. The player should just choose what the wire is made of, and that implies the conductive material on the inside.

But what about making a rope out of concrete? Or glass? I think there should be some limitation.

Same as above.

Okay, aesthetics are fine.

I agree with untrustedlife here. Equipping is always simpler. Also, equipping a rope would allow moving up steeper angles, as you mentioned. Traps will be implemented, but not to great detail.

Concrete i'm not sure about. Glass it is possible.

Yes, we might need to put some restrictions.

I'm not sure what you mean about the wire.

You said wires should be made of

Quote :

made out of a connective material on the inside and an optional aislant material on the outside.

I think the outside material is unnecessary. Choosing the inside material is enough, and should be equivalent to just choosing the material for the FP.

So would then the wires have aislant insulation or not. It is important, as no aislant insulation means wires cannot touch the floor nor other wires, but you save up on plastic to cover them. If we force to have all wires aisled insulated, then why wont we let the player chose what are they aisled insulated with?

When i'm refering to wires, i mean high tension wires (Around 100000V), which they usually are a 20cm thick wire made out of aluminium, uncovered and hanging from high tension towers. There also exists another version of cables that go through the floor of buried under it, made out of copper and with aislant insulation.

They would have it, but it would be implied. The player wouldn't have to choose a material for it or have it cost him extra. It would essentially not exist. Any wire would be assumed to be inside a proper casing.

Also, I think aislant is only for Spanish. An English synonym would be insulator.

Aha! So that was what an aislant was!

I was actually thinking that aislant was insulator, but I was still in a dilemma on whether or not it actually is, and I didn't want to end up looking stupid.

In my opinion, all wire would automatically be insulated. We really don't need that amount of complexity mentioned, it would just annoy the players.

Also, wires and cables would require additional technology, am I correct?

What? Aislant sounded so English-like... Sorry, yes I meant insulation the entire time.

Well, assuming it is always there and it costing no extra materials is an option. It probably is the easiest option for the game, as we dont have to check if non-insulated wires touch each other or any of that. I just wanted to make that clear, so we could choose one of the options.

Ropes will be unlocked by Weaving, an Invention under Crafting. Cables will come under Civil Engineering, a Research unto itself. Chains come from Engineering, an earlier Research than Civil Engineering. Wires will be unlocked by the Research "Electricity".

To set the terms straight, cables, chains, and ropes are three variants of the same FP, Ropes. Think of the single and double sided blades which are both variants of the FP "Blade". Wires are for conducting electricity, like the Sim City analogy Dani used.

Now let's try and wrap up ropes. Make sure, Tarpy, to add the other ones mentioned above to the list. We will get to them in due time. Anywhere I highlight in blue I want revision or confirmation. Red means I need suggestions in the first place.

They have several functions. They would be an aesthetic available in the Tech Editor, as well as a TO units could be equipped with to climb angles greater than 45 degrees. Units equipped with a rope can also use the ability "tether", when in space, to attach to their spaceship. Vehicles equipped with a rope can also use "Tether" to hook on to another vehicle. This would be akin to how trucks could tow other vehicles in Men of War. Units equipped with a rope can also restrain an animal (this whole concept has to be specified. How would restraining work?).

Lastly, ropes could only be made of compounds tagged as BLANK.

NickTheNick wrote:

They have several functions. They would be an aesthetic available in the Tech Editor, as well as a TO units could be equipped with to climb angles greater than 45 degrees.

Here, you mean, by what I understand, that units can be equipped with them, so that they can then throw them and climb cliffs and walls, right? Also, would there automatically be a hook attached to the rope when equipped? We should also discuss stuff like how fast can a unit climb with a rope and how much force can a rope actually withstand. Nevertheless, this is a great idea.

NickTheNick wrote:

Units equipped with a rope can also use the ability "tether", when in space, to attach to their spaceship. Vehicles equipped with a rope can also use "Tether" to hook on to another vehicle. This would be akin to how trucks could tow other vehicles in Men of War.

They would also be able to be attached to animals.

NickTheNick wrote:

Units equipped with a rope can also restrain an animal (this whole concept has to be specified. How would restraining work?).

Lastly, ropes could only be made of compounds tagged as BLANK.

In my opinion, restraining is pretty much useless, and I agree that ropes should be made out of an, uh, unspecified compound. I'm going to update the list right now.

The next type of rope are cables. They would primarily be used in construction due to their strenght. Anything else?

Wait, is everyone fine with 45 degrees being the threshold? If that's the case, any angle past 45 degrees would require climbing equipment (aka a rope). Should different organisms have different thresholds, or is that too much?

Precisely Tarpy. The hook would automatically be attached and not have to be accounted for. It will be implied just like the casing of the wire. I think the speed of climbing should just be half the normal speed of the organism, or some other nice fraction. What do you guys think?

Yup, animals can tether as well.

I would think that restraining could have its uses, such as domesticating animals or taking prisoners in battle. Suggestions?

We still need a tag for compounds that can be used for ropes, unless someone can make a good case how any solid compound can make a rope.

NickTheNick wrote:

Wait, is everyone fine with 45 degrees being the threshold? If that's the case, any angle past 45 degrees would require climbing equipment (aka a rope). Should different organisms have different thresholds, or is that too much?

I'm personally fine with universal treshold being 45 degrees. However, what about orgs that can climb these angles without ropes? I'm taking a stupid example now, but flies can scale walls naturally. It would make no sense to see an org like them use a rope to climb walls.

NickTheNick wrote:

Precisely Tarpy. The hook would automatically be attached and not have to be accounted for. It will be implied just like the casing of the wire. I think the speed of climbing should just be half the normal speed of the organism, or some other nice fraction. What do you guys think?

I agree with everything here.

NickTheNick wrote:

I would think that restraining could have its uses, such as domesticating animals or taking prisoners in battle. Suggestions?

We still need a tag for compounds that can be used for ropes, unless someone can make a good case how any solid compound can make a rope.

That gives me an idea on how should we easily implement prisoners of war. Every time an individual in a unit gets below 20% of their health, they would be unable to fight or move anymore. Allied medics can heal them, and allied soldiers can carry them to a safe location. However, enemy troops can also capture them using the rope, and these prisoners can later be ransomed for money.

NickTheNick wrote:

I found the attack types on a old thread here. The different types of attack are:

Slash
Blunt
Pierce
Biological
Ballistic
Energy

I've been thinking, where would sonic damage go, or was that already discussed?

Sonic would be under energy, or maybe its own category, but please stay on topic right now.

@Tarpy: Exactly, there are some organisms that can climb steeper angles. But would it make sense if all organisms either had the 45 degree angle or could climb anything? It seems a bit extreme for me.

That seems like it would introduce a lot of micromanagement for prisoner taking. Upon further speculation, I think it would be better to leave prisoners out, since it would cause too much complication. We could come back to it at the future, once we have the playable game and can more effectively propose its implementation.

However, I still think animal restraining is important. I'll post some ideas on the use of restraining animals, with rope, and the process of domestication later today. In the meantime, you guys can suggest what you think for it.

There really isn't that much to restraining animals. Restrained animals would simply follow the unit they're being restrained by or can be attached on to poles and fences (might be hard to implement), and that's all I can think of, but if you have any more ideas, they are welcome.

So each unit can restrain an animal up to but not exceeding twice their own mass. For animals larger then that, more units are required.

Animals can be harnessed to a building or stationary TO of any kind.

Let's just leave it at 45 degrees for now, and we can change that later if need be. Units normally cannot walk on slopes exceeding 45 degrees, but ropes will let them except they move at 1/2 speed.

And lastly, I finally thought of something. We could have a compound tag called "Polymer". Anything tagged with polymer could be used for a rope.

Also, Tarpy, wires are not a variant of ropes. They are their own FP. You should change that in the OP. Chains wouldn't be necessarily more sturdy, just able to resist more force. Cables would actually not have a constructional purpose, because of the same dilemma as before in that we won't have a full architecture/physics simulation in the Tech Editor. Instead, it will just be a stronger alternative to chains and ropes, fulfilling the same roles as both.

Tarpy, thoughts? Could you update that into the OP?

Also, not specifically directed at you Tarpy, but we ought to pick up the pace on this thread. Only several FP's have been covered so far, and it would be a waste to allow the days to pass by and the life of the thread to ebb away. Of course, if you guys are busy with other matters thats entirely understandable, but if you can I would appreciate it if you contribute and participate to get the ball rolling again. When the thread first began it had a much quicker rate of development.

Also, to those that worry that the future FP's to discuss will be tedious or challenging as some of the past ones have been, myself included, do not fear, since the concepts we are developing now will help apply in the future. For example, this thread led to the offshoot thread of "Tech Object Propulsion". Once we settle the formulaic patterns of calculating vehicular motion on that thread, any further propulsion FP's raised on this thread will be easy as pie. Plus, many of the future FP's are much simpler than what we've had so far. Lastly, there are also far more building FP's ahead, which are much easier than FP's regarding tools and vehicles.

Discusing propulsion and weapons on another thread just takes them out of this one, so we can jump into the next ones.

I believe we can leave ropes as you stated. We can come back at it later, but seeing how intense discusion is about them, we should keep on.

So hammers! I can see two uses for a hammer. A weapon, which we discussed about in the weapons thread, and a tool.

What are the uses of a hammer as a tool, and how do the propierties of the hammer affect the uses?

The uses of a hammer i can think is sticking nails and shaping metal (for smithing). However, i dont believe size or material of the hammer would matter too much (maybe non-flamable materials only for smithing).

There is other use. Throwing down walls, or constructions in general. For that, we could just use the weapons stats, as that is what most sense makes.

What do you think about that? Any uses i didnt mention? Any characteristics that might change its uses or effectivness?

I think hammers could be simplified to just give a bonus to units constructing buildings. It could give a 100% or so bonus to the construction speed of units equipped with it.

Then, we could use Raptorstorm's chart of effectiveness midway through this thread to calculate the effect of the material on the effectiveness of the tool. I think there should be differences based off of what its made of.

For example, say the hammer is made of a compound tagged as "Hard Rock" (Or solid rock to prevent confusion with the music genre). "Solid Rock", according to Raptor's chart, has an effectiveness of 45%. Therefore, the computer does the simple calculation of

100% x 45% effectiveness = 45%

And voila. A hammer made of solid rock would give a 45% bonus to construction speed. A hammer made of a material with 100% tool effectiveness with give 100% construction bonus. The tool effectiveness just states a multiplier to apply to any bonuses of a FP.

I usually dont like such characteristics that dont relate directly to any physical property, but it is fine here. There are things we simply cannot simulate. Like for example, how obsidian, when hit in the right spot with the right force, breaks into very thin layers that can be used as extremelly sharp edges (we could do each of the specific ones, but not come up with a simple way for everything, unless we simulate everithing al the way to the atoms)

Okay, so hammers would be quite simple. We have the equation for calculating their accuracy on this page. They give a base bonus of 100% to construction speed to any unit equipping them. I think all that is left is to assign it a number for how much damage it does. I think the damage of arrows was somewhere in the 20's. What would you suggest?

Isnt that to be discussed at the weapons thread? Also, hammers have their damage based on their mass and size (the bigger, heavier hammer the most damage it does).

I though i alredy made a post about hammer damage. It might be here somewhere. Let me ook for it and i'll quote it.

Edit: Here it is! Six pages befor this one.

Spoiler:

I think we could fit in some quick damage discussion to this thread.

I remember all that, and I commend you for your work. However, I think I can think of a simpler way.

We can give hammers a preset damage, that would scale with the scale of its size, meaning a doubling of the size would double the damage. Then, the effectiveness of the material would factor in, and then we're done, and we've got the damage.

Also, to accomodate for your comment on hammers being more effective than swords against plate armour, damage types come into play. Plate armour will simply provide more protection to slash attacks than it would to blunt attacks, and that difference in effectiveness would be covered.