GearHead2 v0.422

[Joseph Hewitt]

I've just uploaded v0.422 to SourceForge and updated the roguelikedevelopment page. The big change this time around is the rewriting of the RPG mode mecha arenas. Currently, there are two- one in Maquise Spinner, and a second at Cayley Rock.

Here's the detailed list of changes:

- Added Disintegration status effect (ghweapon.pp)
  It's like Poison, but for metallic things. DC5 ArmorPiercing Brutal damage delivered every status update; may not be resisted. Currently this status is only used by a couple of Mad Scientist weapons. I'm planning to keep it pretty rare, like RUST.

- Fixed bug with displaying missile accuracy (description.pp)

- Three new themes, by Francisco Munoz (series/THEME_*.txt)
  Plus one from me.

- Added theme checker (customization.pp)

- Camraderie now based on Conversation (ghchars.pp)

- Fixed bug with quest dungeon subscenes (navigate.pp)

- RandomMecha command now prints announcement (arenascript.pp)

- Fixed quest component reuse bug (navigate.pp)
  Quest components should now definitely never ever be reused.

- Added ReturnTo scene attribute (arenascript.pp)
  The arena manager "teleports" you to the arena. After the fight, you are returned directly to the scene you started from.

- Added quest SubMemos, GQSubMemo ASL command (arenascript.pp)

- Removed unused textures (glmap.pp)

- Fixed Martial Arts bugs, by Francisco Munoz (effects.pp,gearutil.pp)

There are also a bunch of new portraits and a few new quests. The time has come to start expanding the game world. Tonight I hope to add two spinners from the Free Commerce States; for now the L5 region is a 50 x 50 map, but as more colonies are added it will probably grow to 100 x 100.

Try the new arenas, and let me know how you like the competitors. I know that most of them do the exact same thing after the fight is won. This will be fixed later on.

[Anticheese]

Cool! Good to see that GH2 is alive and well!

What can we expect out of the new spinners?

[Joseph Hewitt]

Xianzai Spinner is a trading hub. Lots of stores there, a hidden black market, and a personal quest from the police chief.

Gaos Spinner is a resort station. The city itself is divided into two levels: a lower habitation zone and an upper park zone. This spinner will feature the largest (and only fully legal) mecha arena in L5.

Kosaka Spinner is the capitol of the Free Commerce States. There's a big FCS government building, then smaller buildings for the L5 Alliance and the Rishiri Dominion. There should probably be some kind of political intrigue quest.

I need to add some local quests which are more finely tuned to the nature of their cities; in a capitol city, for instance, the quest should probably be a non-combat politically-relevant quest of some sort. For a trading city I should work in something about smugglers.

I seem to be able to design small towns better than I can design cities. Small towns have character; big cities all seem the same. Plus, small towns are out on the edge of civilization, and may have all kinds of dangers to excite the PC... big cities are, by their very nature, largely safe.

Maybe this is because I grew up in a small town of 300 people. Anyhow, I'm thinking of new things to do...

[Aquillion]

Hmm.  You could always throw in some historically significant architecture...  even if the Spinners aren't so old, relatively speaking, there are probably some buildings in Kosaka of importance.  (At the very least, if the "big FCS government building" has been the central government building for the states for long, it probably has a history attached to it, like Capitol Hill in the US or the houses of parliament in London.)

In the trading city, there could be (through quests and special dialogs) exotic things available to buy that aren't available anywhere else.  Players could have to go through minor quests just to get the opportunity to buy them ("My shipment of rare items X has been delayed!  If you investigate and resolve it, I will allow you to buy a few..."  When the player protests about getting the opportunity to buy their reward, the NPC explains that the waiting list to purchase one is normally decades long.)

Resort-specific quests...  Hmm.  If some sort of monster or rogue robot got loose in the station, the player could be hired to take it down quietly.  Think Jaws or something similar...  the management wants Rogue Worker Drone 357 eliminated, but doesn't want to cause a panic that could hurt business.

[Epsilon]

Disintegration sounds really cool... I really, really need to try to get this working in Linux. I hate Linux.

[Francisco Munoz]

Just some minor stuff...
http://www.m-w.com
 The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar above.
Suggestions for beuracrat:

    1. bureaucrat


(The frenchy half of canukland is crying about this mistake ;-) )

[dPB]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

big cities are, by their very nature, largely safe.

What about a large city ruled by megacorps, and you live in the shadows...  Don't mind me, it's because the first thing I thought of when I read that bit was shadowrunner for some reason. I loved that game. it's a pity microsoft wants to bugger up the license.

okay de-rail over.

Also: Can't wait to try out the new version

[Anticheese]

I would have thought big cities to be unsafer..

In a small community most people know each other and local law enforcement has a much lesser job at hand, whereas in a big city there is more ground that may be staked out by less favorable elements of society and so forth..

[Keiseth]

More colonies? That means more people! More people means more conflicts! More conflicts means more war, too. And if I've learned one thing from playing too many PC games over the years, it is this:

*Adopts a really awesome look, leaning against a wall and looking cold and distant momentarily.*
War... War never changes...

That, and that more places to go means usually, more entertainment! Woohoo!

Also, a suggestion if I may. If you want to add some danger to a huge city, without making it like the Snake Lake Waterfront (I mean, constant danger) you could make a random chance every turn or move, that thugs and such would leap out and attack you. The chance would be really low, I imagine, enough for the occasional attack without it being redundant.

For real style, have the attacker(s) get first strike. That'll really keep the player on their toes. Maybe a chance of a randomly generated character being attacked, and the option of having the player save them (or not!) for a reward?

Just random thoughts. Anyways, awesome work! I have to try it, but I still have to finish GearHead 1!

[Francisco Munoz]

I will not be very difficult to add an low life gang AI that checks if you get near and how many people are around...
 If the gang team is larger than yours+civilians .. he could try to attack... and then the fun starts.
 Otherwise they try to look hard.

[Erathoniel]

Doesn't work on my PC. Makes it to start screen, sees starting screen flash, black screen, folder with GH2. Did I forget an installation step or something (I just unzip it, right?), or is it a glitch. ASCII works, SDL doesn't. Previous versions work, however. Not sure about 4.21, but 4.20 does. Downloaded it two times, neither worked. Oh well, back to ASCII.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Erathoniel

Doesn't work on my PC. Makes it to start screen, sees starting screen flash, black screen, folder with GH2. Did I forget an installation step or something (I just unzip it, right?), or is it a glitch. ASCII works, SDL doesn't. Previous versions work, however. Not sure about 4.21, but 4.20 does. Downloaded it two times, neither worked. Oh well, back to ASCII.

Weird. Has anyone else had this problem? I tested the v0.422 archive on my work computer today, and it worked fine.

How much memory does your computer have?

[Erathoniel]

I have about 10 gigs currently free on hard drive, 1.9 gigs of ram, a 1.81 GHz dual core processor, I want to say 526 or so megabytes of graphics card memory, and I run Windows Media Center on a laptop. I can run games like Morrowind without much problem, but I seriously prefer GearHead for the mecha and the feel.
Edit: I can see the menu before it crashes, just so you know. I have the same hardware that works with 4.20 and previous (before Sourceforge).
Edit 2: I just went back, not even 4.20 works. Or 4.21. I have no clue, I used to be able to play it. Maybe I downloaded something that's killing it.
Edit 3: Killed my BitTorrent (I use it on Jamendo), and it works now.
Edit 4: It doesn't like BitTorrent or iTunes running on startup, but if I turn them on afterwards, it's ok.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Weird... I'll make a note of that. Thanks for your help.

Edit- I'll try to make a new release soon. Xianzai Spinner is done, and Gaos Spinner is almost done. I have some new NPC quests added for the new locations, but no local quests geared for them yet. Fortunately there are plenty of generic local quests to go around.

[Epsilon]

Joe, is there a possibility of contacting anyone to make a Linux binary for the next release? I'm stuck on a Linux PC until I scrape up US$160 to replace a motherboard and for some reason I can't even INSTALL the Freepascal compiler.