Function Part Discussion

Updated the description. Also, unfortunately, I don't really have the time to come here that often like I did a few months ago. School year is ending in a little more than a month and I am being pounded by exams. I will still come here and post, of course, but I am going to be relatively less active than before until June. After June, I'm going to have all the time to come here and contribute. Also, I don't want to hold up the expansion of the wiki. I won't have the time to finish of the FP wiki page until June, so if anyone wants to make a wiki page for FP's, feel free to do that. I will still post my version of the page once I'm done, but that won't come at any close time interval.

I dont agree on using effectivness for hammers. While it makes sense for blades, which depend on how sharp the blade is, which depends on how "good" the material is, hammers dont mind if the material is good or bad, only how heavy it is (think about aluminum. While it might have a high material effectivness, a mace made out of it would be extremelly light, and not able to damage a lot).

Well, putting a base value and then multiplying by the factors is basically the same concept than the coeficient. What about this formula:

Damage = Base damage*size*mass

As mass will probably be around 20Kg, base damage will proabbly be around 1.

Yes, damage and armor types is what i meant about blunt damage being more effective against armor (and buildings).

Don't worry about it Tarpy, school, and especially exams, are far more important than participation here. Take any time you need or want to deal with other matters. I myself will ultimately have exams this year too, but it seems to be much later in the year than most of the users here.

Dani, I like that equation you put, because then like you said the mass of the material it is made of affects the damage, with just a single equation and only 3 variables. However, say the player decides to stretch out a specific part of the hammer, but not stretch out the other parts to keep the shape proportional. Would the computer still be able to calculate the scale? Or would it have to use volume?

Well, the hammer is composed of two parts, the handle and the hammerhead. the size is just the distance from the grabing point in the handle to the hammerhead. If the user decides to put extra things in there for decoration, we can just ignore them. Volume should not be used, as volume directly relates to mass.

I didn't mean extra objects, I meant changing the shape of the hammerhead. Also, to clarify, all of this discussion is about pure hammerheads, which are called "Hammer" in the FP list, disregarding handles. So, what if the player made the hammer longer but not wider, or wider but not longer? Would only the first one affect size since it is the only one affecting the distance to the handle?

Well, if you change volume mass will change. About size, it only matters the distance from the grabing point to the center of the head. If you make it wider, the center is the same, so the size doesent change. If you make it longer, the center swifts awaw from the handle, so the size would increase by half the lenght added (as the center is in, well, the center).

Actually, the damage depends on more than the head. It involves the arm as well:

Damage = base damage * (lenght of arm holding weapon+lenght of handle (if any))*mass of hammerhead.

You could actually use a hammerhead without any handle, by grabing it directly. It would be more similar to holding a rock to hit stuff with.

When you say "length of handle" in your equation, do you mean length from the handle to the hammer?

Other then that, it all sounds good. If Tarpy doesn't mind, I'll update the OP whenever he is busy with exams or other activities. I think this should wrap up all to do with hammers.

Yes, i meant that.

Well, if we are done with hammers, what about we keep on? Next one on the list is "pot". Unless i'm missing some meaning (which, given the statistics, i am), a pot is just a container. (i just looked, a pot can also be used to cook)

On the subject of containers, i believe there should be only one fp that can hold things, with variants to hold gases, radioactive materials, or just solids in exange for less resources required (for containers with holes).

If for cooking, it must be made out of a material that is water and fire resistant (non-flamable and if we add a property to say it doesent degrade on water, that too). The inside volume determines how much food can you cook at a time. Double the volume, double the amount of food cooked at a time. As long as the material is ok, it doesent matter for much else (unless you want to carry it or put it somewhere where weight is a concern, in which case you always have the mass of any given object to worry about).

I think cooking can be discarded. Meat will just be directly fed to a fire or oven and come out as cooked meat.

I think storage is the only purpose. I agree that buckets, pots, baskets, and all the rest should just all be variants of an FP called "Container". I'll look through the list and collect them all here.

On the list there is Pot, Bag, Bucket, Basket, Crate, Bottle, Can, and Jar. I will only list and explain the ones I think we should include below.

Pot: Hold solids and liquids. Must be made of ceramic?
Bag: Holds solids. Must be made of polymer.
Crate: Holds solids. Must be made of metal or wood?
Can: Holds liquids and gases. Must be made of metal. (Btw, when I think of a can in this sense I mean this.)

Any suggestions for new ones or changes of these ones? We might even be able to finish the concept for all of these in this discussion, instead of just pots.

Bones should be a candidate for pots. Also what about the different plants and there uses of cellulose or a large piece of fruit, could also be used as pots.

A bag, could be a stomach of a creature as-well.

Why should we care about that clasifications? What does that bring to the game? Why not just call it container and just depending on the material it is made of determine if it can hold something or not? For example:

(Materials from one line can hold anything noted above them)

-Solid materials: Solids
-Ceramics (Rock as well?): Liquids
-Plastic: Unpressurized gases
-Just metals: Presurized gases and radioactive materials
-Energy field (special case): Antimatter

For solids and liquids, you dont need a top. For gases up, or if you go to space, you need the full container covered (having a top)

What about things like bags? Should we add a further category for if the material it is made of is fabric? I think such a category would only hold solids.

I think it could hold water as-well, A animal stomach for example could hold a liquid, so can any other solid object. Think a primitive canteen.

Fair enough. Btw, I've noticed I have referred a lot to compounds being tagged as this or tagged as that, so I will start compiling a list of all these tags so we don't forget them.

I think its sufficient to say that we have finished containers as well. To recap:

Containers hold compounds in quantities based on the hollow volume inside of them. Containers are only for being carried by units. Storage of compounds in a building falls to stockpiles. The material they are made of determines what types of compounds they can hold.

Solid materials: Solids
Ceramics: Liquids and Solids (I don't think stone could be shaped easily enough to make portable containers)
Plastic: Solids, Liquids, Unpressurized Gases? (Wait, Dani, are we actually going to be distinguishing between pressurized and unpressurized gases? How would that work?)
Metals: Radioactive Materials, Solids, Liquids, Pressurized Gases (Look above)
Energy Field: Anti-Matter

A container, when made, will have a check run on it by the Tech Editor before it is saved and registered. If the hollow space in the container is sealed, gases can also be stored (if gases are allowed by the material it is made of). If the hollow space is open, than gases cannot be stored. This would be tagged on to the container by the Editor for all of its interactions in game.

Also, this means that we can cross off all of those repetitions of containers on the FP list.

How pressure would work:

For liquids or solids, a container can hold a volume of that material equal to its internal volume.

For gasses:

-Plastics can hold a volume up to 1x to 3x their internal volume in gas.

-Metals and above can hold a volume up to 30x to 200x their internal volume in gas.

Holding unpresurized gases is quite ineficient, so we might want to assume all gases are presurized at about 100 atm. However, outside pressure changes depending on planet (or depth under water), so i'm not sure about that.

You didnt put solid or liquids in the plastic line.

For compounds, their tags and properties we might want to start a new thread, if we dont have one alredy. Things we might want to discuss there:

-Tags for compounds (flammable, solid, liquid, gas,...) Tags are either yes or no (boolean)
-Properties for compounds (density,...) Properties should be numbers.
-Each compound, with some description, its tags and properties.

That is three separate lists. You should be able to know everything about any compound only by looking at the tags and properties.

I have a few ideas about those tags and properties, but i'll wait for the thread.

Oh, okay, that makes sense. However, instead of changing the state of the gas from pressurized to unpressurized between transaction, I think it would just be better to make metals have a multiplier to their gas storage capacity, like you mentioned.

How hard would it be to factor in the pressure from the atmosphere or being submerged in water?

Added solids and liquids to the plastic line.

I'll make a new thread on compound tags and properties tomorrow. Ive been formulating some ideas for compounds myself.

Dani, how hard would it be to factor in the pressure from the atmosphere or from being submerged in water?

EDIT: Btw, I updated the OP to include the new FP descriptions, as well as updating the list tracking our progress. I also updated the FP list to merge all the container FP's into one FP called container.

Not too hard. The thing is just a difference of pressure, so at higher outside pressures, you can store more gas.

For example, if you have a tank with 10l internal storage and a maximum pressure difference of 250 atm (BTW, thats a usual scuba-diving tank).
On space (0 outside atmosferes), the internal pressure would be 250-0=250, so the total amount of gas it can contain would be of 250*10=2500l (on one atm).
On earth's surface, the total gas it can contain would be (250+1)*10=2510l.
30m under the sea: (250+(1+30/10))*10=2540l.
500m under the sea: (250+(1+500/10))*10=2910l.

Actually the difference is not big enough to deserve so much hassle in my opinion. Anything lower than 50m under the sea requires special training, decompressions stops,...

Plus, if you fill the tank at surface, you can fit 2500l. When you go under the water, you could put more gas inside it, but where are you going to get it?

This seems like going too much in depth for gas storage. I'm worried that the player will have to take too many factors into account when trying to estimate or plan out how and where to store his resources. What do you think?

NickTheNick wrote:

This seems like going too much in depth for gas storage. I'm worried that the player will have to take too many factors into account when trying to estimate or plan out how and where to store his resources. What do you think?

QFT

Yes, that was what i was saying, too much hassle for not enough difference.It matters more at low pressures, but low pressures allow so little storage...

Oh ok, so I guess it would be better to not include it. That means we can move on to the next FP, but I am very sleepy right now so I will have to drop back in tomorrow.

Okay, next FP is pulley.

It would be used to move objects and your units along Z axis.

I think pulleys are useless, because as I've said before we won't have a full architectural engineering simulator in the Tech Editor. Can someone convince me otherwise or should we move on?

If pulleys are useless, okay.

Then next FP is cage.
It should be used for traps, and kepping organisms inside. it coud be wooden, or metal.