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Author Topic: LCS 3.18, so whats next?  (Read 2993 times)

killerbees1218

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LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« on: January 31, 2009, 02:54:52 am »

Myself among many others are a fan of LCS, and as a fan I am curious as to where exactly the development of LCS is actually headed.. The way things seem to be going now, we get an update every 6 months or so with the occasional "SURPRISE" at certain times. However with hardly no directed information on whats being worked on, added, or fixed it just seems like the development is out of whim rather then planned. Is there a thread I am missing, and if so can we have THAT Stickied, or is there a way we can have the main continued developer post a sticky based on whats being worked on, what needs to be worked on, and whats being added. I love the new features that 3.18 add's but we know we can make a good game great with even more additions, tweaks, and improvements to the actions and interface. I feel LCS can be more alive with a bigger playerbase like Dwarf Fortress if it had more informative development posts, instead of having Fox reply to a random thread whenever someone asks a question out of the blue.

To sum it up I am basically proposing a stickied thread to better direct new, and old players of LCS alike to the progress and direction in which LCS is headed.

Thoughts?
« Last Edit: January 31, 2009, 03:00:48 am by killerbees1218 »
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Yanlin

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #1 on: January 31, 2009, 03:50:10 am »

Basically John picks something to work on and works on it.
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #2 on: January 31, 2009, 04:02:08 am »

The way things seem to be going now, we get an update every 6 months or so with the occasional "SURPRISE" at certain times. However with hardly no directed information on whats being worked on, added, or fixed it just seems like the development is out of whim rather then planned.

Basically John picks something to work on and works on it.

That's pretty much exactly how it goes, at least from me. I'm a full-time college student, and I'm majoring in game design. That means I spend a lot of time making games, modding games, and programming, and I'm not usually in the mood to spend my free time doing these things as well, since I get my "fix" of it doing homework. When I do, it's entirely a hobby; many of the developments in LCS are less an outcropping of what people want in general and just came about on a whim because on that day it sounded good to me. New releases from me usually come when the mood strikes to work on LCS, and they stop when that passes.

I do have a file that I keep on my hard drive which is a sort of plain text record of LCS's past, present, and future development. Not everything on this list will ever be done or is necessarily a good idea: some are written down because they were interesting, or I didn't want to spend much time thinking it through now but didn't want to forget it either. Many of these are taken from forum threads. Some of them, especially later in the list, came from the original plans for LCS's future development that were dropped when Toady switched focus to Dwarf Fortress. Some things I do implement, but later reconsider, and revert the changes a couple releases later. Some things I bring up in the forum and drop because after discussion it didn't seem like such a hot idea. Some things I just boldly add and see what happens. It's very freeform.

The entries with * indicate that it's already implemented, but not released. The entries with + indicate that at some point or another I wanted to draw extra attention to it. It could be high priority, or extra cool, or something that needs additional thought.

OUTSTANDING BUGS:
- Wiping out experience due to stat losses from temporary damage
- Busted musical conversions of police and club security
- Fix linux saves
- Sleeper with broken neck crashes game when activated
- Sleepers not getting out of hospital?


* Allowed animals to get skills
* First aid skill gains fixed
* Tweaked colors on the skill screen
* Changed 'slams the door' to 'bashes the door'
* Teaching survival now lists tailoring instead of garment making

* Tactics only works for ranged defense
* Knives do 10-30 damage instead of 5-25
* Chains and crosses do 5-15 damage instead of 5-25
* Pitchfork does 10-50 damage instead of 5-55
* Melee counterattacks, bonuses to melee defense based on the defender's melee skill with equipped weapon
* Capped damage multiplier due to good attack roll, strength bonus, etc. at triple damage
- Add secondary weapons
- Add combat knife, throwing knife, current knife is switchblade
- Martial artists disarming enemies
- Duffel bags/Dollies penalty for hammerspace use and abuse
- Expand guitar: Roll on possible music effects, like allow a liberal to attack twice, force a morale check on enemies, convert enemies, reduce enemy juice, stun enemies for a turn
- Make fire damage clothing
- Add grenades: flashbang, tear gas, frag
- Gas masks
- Tactics does other things instead of defense bonus

- Allow lawyer sleepers to be elected to public office
- Public opinion graph

- Add conversion center -- turns into "Homo Rehab Center" when C+
- Add Drag Queen
- In Arch-Conservative society, you get a free AK-47 when you open a bank account
+ New district: Suburbs? Business district? Inner city?
- Pirate radio
- Firing range
- Dojo
- Community College courses
- Divide crimes between Liberals on site actions
- Way to dismiss Liberals from the LCS

- Pirate gear

- Add sentencing to ADX Florence (now you do lose contact)
- Scale of rehabilitation: L+ Society rehabilitates everyone (over time in prison), L rehabilitates low juice and brainwashed, m/C rehabilitate brainwashed, C+ "re-educates" low juice (add messages about how this is changing over time)

- Can go to newspaper HQ to leak them a story, grant an interview

- Add criminal justice issue/prison conditions issue (prison)
- Add drug policy issue (DEA Local Office)
- Add immigration issue, affects juice level of sweatshop workers, legal status, whether they will be prosecuted, deported, or executed (INS offices)
- Women's rights issue (strip joint)
- Racial justice issue ()
- Add HIV/AIDS issue, AIDS Patient, HIV tracker -- add ability to eradicate HIV/AIDS permanently if it stays L+ long enough
- Socialized medicine is slow: "Bee arrives at the University Hospital." "Bee is now waiting in the waiting room." "Bee is now filling out paperwork." "Bee is filling out forms in order to release his medical records." "Bee is waiting, pending approval for a preliminary check." "Bee is refilling paperwork because the approval was denied." "The hospital has ran out of papers, Bee must wait for new forms to be delivered." "Bee finally gives up and takes the Nurse hostage." "Bee is told that for the Nurse to authorize 'medical assistance fast-track due to patient taking hostage a Nurse', the Nurse to fill out Form #596A and wait 6 business days."

- Convincing conversions from interrogation -- allow made sleepers
- Driving practice
- Add wizard mode

- Creatures catch fire
- Easter egg: Codename "Dwarf" doesn't notice being on fire
- Investigate other siege bugs
- Allow guitar to be used for raising money
- Allow moving hostages
- Have hostages dragged by the last people to be automatically bumped up during sieges
- Have blind people have special text, modifiers for various situations
- No tongue people struggle to communicate

- Is disguise skill gain fixed to risk properly?

- Differentiate clothes into styles, just like masks; allow profiling by police, clothes type influences respectability in recruiting

- Message log
- Add Phoenix Wright-like dialogue for ace attorney arch-rival
- Equipment storage trick
- Make multiple recruit meetings in one day happen simultaneously in the same room, or some other limit on recruitment
- More long-term criminal record
- Improved crime tracking and prosecution
- Can beat escaping prison charge
- Risk to sleeper lawyer (assassinated)
- Have people on site become witnesses in the trial, they can be specific about what they witnessed by recording the combat actions and injuries they saw, the victims can cry about how they got their faces mutilated etc
- End of month Intelligence Report: key sleepers, ongoing investigations, CCS activity level, other analysis
- CCS can kidnap LCS members who are on the street doing activation things to find your safehouses
- Bombs to destroy chunks of buildings
- Gang Unit, death squads do Rampart-ass stuff
- Site crime scaled by location for determining newsworthiness of the story
+ EuchreJack's Used Sportcars and Salvage
- Banks to rob that do absolutely no good to the LCS reputation but do rake in cash
- LCS labeled as a terrorist organization
- Flashbangs, frag grenades usable by siege units
- Tactics skill to take cover from grenades
- Gun control has own issue, violence can sway for or against it depending on the weapons the LCS uses (using illegal guns undermines the LCS position and supports the Conservative "only criminals will have guns" theory)
- Sleeper judges appointed to Supreme Court
- Donate money to charitable causes, political campaigns
- Pay taxes
- Impeachment against President, Supreme Court
- Foreign policy
- Cabinet members matter
- Allow rejoin after disband
+ CCS Sleepers show up during CCS site raids
- CCS Sleepers warn of upcoming CCS actions, allow you to intercept their cars and fight it out
- CCS Boss Sleepers cripple the organization
- Limit black market in some interesting ways
- Love slaves blow cover when lover becomes involved with the system, not by ratting you out, but by doing stupid lovestruck shit
- Change location names and do more with business fronts
- Add some more clubs, add bouncers
+ Make dating more interesting (choice of venue, how fast to go, what to talk about)
+ Allow you to give up to non-police, risk of being tortured depending on location
- People with negative juice should sometimes eat brownies instead of dealing them, and then do more stupid shit at random
+ Add a day counter on hot cars, ways for skilled criminals to deal with hot cars, make people in them get pulled over, then you can have police beatings administered directly to pulled over lcs members instead of just being on the news
- Hospital condition and procedures described in much greater detail
- Need more things to publish, and more groups to offend (he he he,
that's vague isn't it...)
- More robust list of issues and laws, it doesn't even cover all of the
ones listed on the aclu's website
- Ability to make lcs official uniform and symbol
- Ability to drag already-taken hostages along to sites for various reasons
- Make conversation with a gun to a hostage's head more interesting
- Ability to pistol-whip hostages (and have associated reasons for that)
- Wearing lcs associated attire could be illegal, and it doesn't just have to be your official uniform but stuff that's been used repeatedly in lcs operations, make wearing police uniform a crime
- Mental illnesses from the more fucked up indoctrinations and also as
an affect of CIA interrogation/sieges
- Protests and riots
- Police lockers with riot gear, gas masks, gas during sieges, if times are really fucked up and conservative they could use mustard gas during sieges
- Opera houses, universities, construction sites, hotels (with associated valet lcs actions/uniforms), stadiums, fucked up basements in conservative houses, varied building sizes, elevators, hidden doors in places where it would make sense
- Sentencing to reeducation camp during fucked up times, ability to
visit and rescue squad members and others from the camps
- Being about to post bail to get squad people (and random people) out of jail, jumping bail, having court dates that you can go to or not, various associated media stuff surrounding trials that can make it profitable to leave members in custody until the bitter end, but a downside would be having fucked up things happen in jail
- Keep track of surveys and do graphs
- Conventions, protests of these (WTO etc.), turnout can be based on public opinion in part
- Lots of evil constitutional amendments and an ability to view the current state of the constitution, conservatives can clarify portions of the bill of rights
- Legalization of human testing and then have human test subjects appear in the labs (criminals at first, etc.)
- Ability to file law suits, possibly have law suits filed against you
- Sleeper cops giving more information about raids, get updates on investigations from them, investigations relating specifically to your front business
- Effects of being caught with bloody/damaged clothes
- Make getwheelchair() more exciting

+ Interrogation balance!
+ Balance molotovs... again!
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2009, 04:08:12 am »

I have another file that serves a similar purpose but is organized differently. The same disclaimers about nothing being set in stone or necessarily a good idea apply here too... these weren't written to be shared with the public, and much of this is just to organize thoughts and mull over different ideas. Feel free to criticize anything you don't like, just don't judge me too harshly, this is like my closet here. The weapons list near the bottom in particular I think I was moderately leaning against having at all last time I worked on it, feeling it wasn't that meaningful, but it's in the file, so here you go.

Here the + and - are completely interchangeable. The number of + or - signs before the entry indicates its depth, similar to the way Liberals are organized on the promotion screen.

---- LOCATIONS
+ New district/districts
+ + Uptown
+ + Suburbs
+ Counter-culture-ish Nightclub (almost all Liberal, some political activists and other radicals, shut down if free speech goes archconservative)
+ Sexy Nightclub (seduction actions more likely to succeed, shut down if prostitution/gay rights goes archconservative)
+ Newspaper offices -- can give them your stories, but don't get any juice or LCS support for it; can grant interviews
+ Convention Center
+ Firing Range
+ Dojo
+ Community College
+ Dormitories
+ Banks to rob
+ Union offices
+ City hall -- incorporate some ability to forge citizenship documents
+ Law offices
+ Mega-Church Of Oprah And Jesus
+ Car dealership / chop shop
+ Military base
+ Ex-Gay Treatment Center

---- INTERFACE PAGES
+ LCS official uniform and symbol
+ Public opinion graph
+ Pirate radio
+ Ways to dismiss liberals from the LCS
+ Allow moving hostages
+ Message log
+ View criminal record
+ View ongoing police investigations
+ View CCS activity graph and statistics
+ View media control
+ Explosives skill, can manufacture bombs, molotovs
+ Unassigning cars

---- SYSTEMS & MECHANICS
+ Lawyer sleepers, some others can get elected public office
- Make fire damage clothing
- Interrogation bonus for masks
- Interrogation spending, balance
- Balance molotovs
- Require computers for hacking
- Make multiple recruit meetings in one day happen simultaneously in the same room, or some other limit on recruitment
+ More long-term criminal record
- Can beat escaping prison charge
+ Risk to sleeper lawyer (assassinated if infiltration too low, reduction in infiltration, etc.)
+ Have people on site become witnesses in the trial, they can be specific about what they witnessed by recording the combat actions and injuries they saw, the victims can cry about how they got their faces mutilated etc
- Fix fruit stand bullshit once and for all
- People leaving hospital/clinic go to shelter if their base is under siege, get arrested if shelter is also under siege or shelter is their base
- Drawbacks to Liberal laws:
- - Police Regulation -- Prison grants juice in Arch-Conservative society, strips it and causes Liberals to desert in Elite Liberal society
- - Police Regulation -- Evidence less likely to be thrown out in court
- - Death Penalty -- CCS has an easier time of it
- - Labor laws/Immigration -- Can't liberate sweatshop workers
- - Immigration -- Illegal immigrants have a chance of abandoning the LCS to make a new life
- - Freedom of Speech -- Backlash when attacking Conservative Media

---- SITE ACTIONS
- More random text for hostage threatening
- Creatures catch fire
+ Molotovs destroy vehicles
+ Expand guitar: Roll on possible music effects, like allow a liberal to attack twice, force a morale check on enemies, convert enemies, reduce enemy juice, stun enemies for a turn
+ Allow guitar to be used for raising money
+ Divide crimes between liberals on site actions
+ Have hostages be dragged by the last people (first people? choice?) promoted during a siege
+ Have blind people have special text, modifiers for various situations
+ No tongue people struggle to communicate
+ Can hack computer terminals at various sites for documents -- corporate sites, police
+ Check disguise skill gain against risk
+ Eliminate equipment storage trick
+ Shelling, snipers during sieges
+ High tactics on the part of enemies gives them a free attack when they enter
+ Non-violent crimes don't alienate moderates, but do trigger alarm
+ Masks reduce heat gained from actions
+ Reduced spawn rate in apartments, no security guards in secured areas

---- CONTENT
+ Pirate gear
+ 2100 Easter Egg: "Cyber-keytar", "Holo-paint", "Forcefield Prybar"
+ Ninja turtle, batman, purple gorilla masks
+ More issues:
+ + Marijuana/drug policy
+ + Animal rights (replace animal testing)
+ + Race issuse
+ + Prostitution
+ + Immigration ("In an elite liberal society immigration quotas are repealed and all illegal immigrants are granted amnesty. In that case sweatshop workers would be replaced with union and nonunion workers, since sweatshop owners wouldn't be able to hold deportation over the heads of their workers in order to keep them working.  In an archconservative society illegal immigrants are executed. So in that scenario if a member who was arrested is an illegal immigrant rather than being deported he would be brought to court and sent to death row if convicted.")
+ + Welfare
+ + Religion (affects the number of people with skill in religion)
+ Expand "clothes" into sub-types, allow profiling by police, differentiate respectability of clothes for recruiting
+ Add Phoenix Wright-like dialogue for ace attorney arch-rival
+ Add always moderate children (eg, always backlash for hitting or fighting in front of one)
+ More guns:
+ + Israeli weapons dealer:
+ + + (.45 Clip)
+ + + (.45 Pistol)
+ + + .50 AE Clip
+ + + .50 Desert Eagle Pistol
+ + + (9mm Clip)
+ + + 9mm UZI
+ + + (Aslt/Rifle Clip)
+ + + Galil SAR Carbine
+ + Russian weapons dealer:
+ + + (Aslt/Rifle Clip)
+ + + (AK-47)
+ + + (Shotgun clip [ 8 rounds, all shotguns ])
+ + + Saiga 12 Combat Shotgun (Shotgun Clip, 1 shot, high damage)
+ + + (9mm Clip)
+ + + (9mm Pistol)
+ + Pawn Shop:
+ + + Civilian AK-47 (Aslt/Rifle Clip)
+ + + (AR-15) (Aslt/Rifle Clip)
+ + + TEC-9 Pistol (9mm clip)
+ + + (Pump Shotgun) (Shotgun Clip, 1 shot)
+ + + (.44 Magnum Revolver)
+ + + (.22 Revolver)
+ + + (.45 Pistol)
+ + + (9mm Pistol)
+ + Not sold:
+ + + AA-12 Assault Shotgun (Shotgun Clip, 2 round burst, high damage, carried by death squads/CCS Bosses)
+ + + SCAR-L (NATO Assault Clip, carried by special forces)
+ + + TEC-9 Mini-SMG (9mm Clip, rarely carried by gang members)
+ + + M16 (Aslt/Rifle Clip)
+ + + M4 Carbine (Aslt/Rifle Clip)
+ + + 9mm MP5 (9mm Clip)
+ Make purple gorillas intelligent enough to recruit (one to two intelligence, low heart, one wisdom, no skills, low agility, normal health, superhuman strength, can't wear armor, euthanized when captured (or sent to a preserve in Africa, if animal rights is Elite Liberal))
+ More things to dodge in car chases:
+ + Drawbridge jump (try it? find another route?)
+ + Red light with cross-traffic (gun it? slow down and turn?)
+ + Truck pulling out of garage ahead (swerve to dodge? slow down and avoid?)
+ + Shortcut through oncoming traffic (take it? find another route?)
+ + Offroad through public park (take it? find another route?)
+ + Pursuers pull close (ram them off the road? keep your distance?)
+ + Train crossing ahead (gun it? avoid?)
+ Grenades, tactics and agility roll to avoid effects:
+ + Flashbang grenades steal a turn from the character, carried by SWAT, Soldiers
+ + Fragmenton grenades do massive damage to party, carried by Soldiers
« Last Edit: January 31, 2009, 04:11:22 am by Jonathan S. Fox »
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #4 on: January 31, 2009, 04:17:22 am »

I found what looks like a more up-to-date version of the first file. That or it's older, I'm not certainly. It's mostly a duplicate, but here's a couple parts that might be interesting:

OUTSTANDING BUGS
- Busted musical conversions of police and club security
- Fix linux saves
- Sleeper with broken neck crashes game when activated
- Sleepers not getting out of hospital?
- Michigan labeled MC instead of MI
- Massive negative numbers for news story pages -- check forum for better description, page 3 of 3.18.0 thread
- Infinite molotov attacks (with no fire starting) if you have 0/0 molotovs
- "hurls a molotv at" molotov is misspelled
- "execution of an automoton" automaton is misspelled
- "Accorded to sources" should be according
- News articles have weird ass spacing
- Disbanding and coming back rescues founder from death row
- Corporate "mercinaries" should be mercenaries
- Debate stuns should be cleared at the end of the day
- Debate stuns should not stack infinitely
- Losing a liberal (one man squad, if it matters) to conversion and stealing cars with another character that day will create a "You're spotted by people and blah blah" message and enter you into combat against the arch-conservative and the just-converted character. One attack message goes through, and then the carstealer magically gets away.
- Lab techs can't work at nuclear plant
- CCS should hold people they catch in chases hostage and interrogate them
- Crack heads no longer have terrible Intelligence and Health
- Recruiting after being crushed into a cube in a police chase
- Can assign child workers to prostition
- Life cycle for animals is not correct
- Police Negotiators alienated if you punch other cops when they're looking

PRIORITY FEATURES
- Buy spraypaint automatically when tasked to graffiti
- Add loot to Bar & Grill and other CCS safehouses
- Bar & Grill: like the cigar bar downstairs, locked door on the side with guards posted by it.
- Bomb shelter: hallway, then locked door with stairs behind. Posted guards at the top.
- Animals that get arrested are put down (or adopted in L+)
- Mimes
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #5 on: January 31, 2009, 04:20:03 am »

And finally, if you'll excuse the mountain of text, I also have a history of LCS's development, starting with 3.13.0, which may or may not be interesting, but I figure while I'm sharing the rest of my files on the game, I might as well disclose this in full as well:

3.13.0
# Police raids that succeed confiscate a proportion of LCS funds
# Make small squads have better stealth and disguise
# No juice gain for lockpicking
# Add Guy Fawkes mask
# Tank is immune to such Liberal noise! (All special creatures?)
# Guard dogs bark, tanks rumble, creatures cry out at pickup lines, in response to issues
# Killing animals, tanks not murder (unless animal rights is at max in the case of animals)
# Make liberated workers not auto-join if nobody can lead them
# Lawyer - sleeper lawyer costs $100 instead of $5000 for ace liberal attorney
# Make sleeper lawyer based on stats, pick best one
# Some improvements to the $5000 Liberal Ace Attorney
# Show years, other updates during disband
# Add age and age effects

3.14.0
* Add Ted Stevens mask
* Prisoners are now more interesting (they're called prisoners in site mode but are actually crack heads, prostitutes, gang members, HS dropouts, teenagers, or professional thiefs, and therefore have much better skills on average than the previously worthless prisoners)
* Prisoners no longer spawn in unsecured areas of the prison, only secured parts
* Can "free oppressed" on Liberal prisoners during site actions to instantly recruit them -- this will trigger Conservative alarm
* Prisoners are no longer interested in talking about the issues, but will still accept pickup lines
* Give attackers a bit of extra juice for delivering the finishing blow to an enemy, more for powerful enemies like CCS Vigilantes
* More work to make people like the LCS than it is to make them hate it
* Fixed some graphical issues with law changes
* No more Liberal Guardian HQ, it's back to the printing press system; the Liberal Guardian itself operates as it did before, you just don't have to spend a safe house on it, and can divide your printing operations across the different locations
* Printing press is now only $5000 instead of the $10000 formerly required for the Liberal Guardian HQ
* Easier to execute people in interrogation (instead of the pretty much always absolutely everyone refusing to do it)
* Dogs and other animals now start with ages in single digits instead of 20 or more years
* HS Dropouts now start with less skills than before
* College students, certain professionals, older characters start with bonus skills
* Changed black market gun buying interface from the normal one to one more like the mask buying interface; this isn't great news, as the new interface isn't as convenient to use, but it is much easier to maintain and supports more items. It serves as a sort of prototype for the direction shops really need to move in in general, but demonstrates weaknesses too. A hybrid interface in which it shows the party across the top, doesn't back out when a gun is purchased, and still has the automatically named, lettered, priced and paged list similar to this new interface, may be the ideal balance for a future release. For now it's a work in progress.
* Black market guns now have variable price depending on how illegal they are
* Fixed agents' cars having very strange dates
* Changed the way body armor works, more effective against weak weapons
* Body armor now protects head as well as body, but less so
* Tanks no longer invulnerable, just have very high armor
* Guard dogs, genetic monsters, tanks no longer default to type "Liberal" if you manage to recruit them
* Guard dogs and genetic monsters now display the status "Animal" instead of "Liberal" when at full health
* Can buy molotovs in the tools section of the pawn shop. Molotovs are a special weapon in which the weapon itself acts as ammo if you equip it again when you already have one. This took some hacking to do, since the game considers clips and weapons to be different things, so if any bugs come up with this system, let me know. Right now molotovs create a "debris" tile where you're standing, but eventually I want this to be fire, and having fire in the same tile will endanger everyone in the tile, cause enemies to want to flee, spread, etc.. There's no arson law either, but that is another thing to add.
* Disable autosave when disbanding
* Kidnapping on a date has a little bit of flavor text, less likely to have the tables turned if you have a weapon

3.15.0
* Conservatives may now flee combat, whether from injuries or because they're unarmed nobodies and lose their nerve
* Changed conditions for when high security and closing down locations get applied
* Removed the crime threshhold to make the news, because I implemented it incorrectly when I put it in a few versions back, and it was ignoring the severity of the crimes, just looking at the quantity of them
* Further tweaked the price of the newly returned printing press down to $3000, from $5000
* Added fire, which spreads, destroys terrain, burns allies and enemies, and causes Conservatives to run away from combat
* Added arson crime
* Split the carrying an illegal weapon charge into separate charges for carrying and firing it
* Split assault into misdemeanor assault (punching, paint splashing) and felony assault (stabbing, shooting, clubbing)
* Added a CCS popularity level (which makes the Liberal Guardian an effective way to suppress the CCS's effectiveness too, because people will start hating the CCS)
* CCS and independent gangs can now spray over LCS tags you manually place in the world, and their own tags... you can spray over theirs too
* Some sites will always have graffiti, especially crackhouses, which will be littered with it
* Fixed bug in sentencing of large numbers of murders
* Fixed bug with Liberal Guardian news stories about Conservative Crime Squad actions
* Fixed an interface conflict with buying molotovs
* Fixed an issue with molotov long name being too long and cutting off the quantity of a stack in the equipment screen
* Fixed the bug with popular votes that caused conservatives to reject change and liberals to accept it regardless of how politically favorable the proposition in question is (a cute political commentary there, but not one that makes for good gameplay, especially since it makes the game virtually unwinnable as Liberals will always destroy their own paradise before it comes into being)
* Fixed a bug that caused the threaten hostages option to be darkened when you had hostages and lit when you didn't
* Fixed crash bug with sleeper lawyers
* Fixed an oversight in car chases that caused swerving to avoid obstacles to be much more dangerous for moderately skilled drivers in good cars than it should have been
* Fixed a bug that allowed some site specials to be created in unrestricted areas when they shouldn't have been
* Fixed a bug that caused nonunion workers to have their codenames replaced by the words "New Union Worker" when recruited
* Fixed an incorrect message when non-police raid an empty safehouse
* Fixed car chase bug where sometimes you'd have a (flying?) person on foot chasing you that you couldn't get away from
* Fixed a bug in the text that displays when your liberals get caught disposing of bodies
* Fixed an issue with the graffiti code that caused you to be unable to work on abortion rights murals, and changed the order of the check for police spotting you and check for continuing a mural; I don't think either of these would have be crash issues though
* Made an attempt to catch and repair the rare dead liberal in a squad bug when it happens, since I haven't been able to figure out what causes it... no promises here

3.15.1 Bugfix release
* Fixed crash with cover fire
* Fixed crash with second-rate clothing
* Fixed broken armor
* Fixed molotov to ammo bug when buying guns
* Fixed bug that allowed CCS safehouses to be "closed down"
* Fixed bug that made CCS sleepers eat on your budget, and caused them to then abandon their safehouses when they run out of food
* CCS sleepers will now be outed and given to you to command as footsoldiers when you capture their safehouse, rather than bumming around as "sleepers" when they are no longer useful
* Fixed bug that caused sleepers to go into hiding when they lose contact (they will actually now "lose contact" only if someone in the chain of command is dead, they are exempt from problems resulting from people within the chain of command in prison or in hiding)
* Fixed minor bug with healing
* Possibly fixed the problem with sieges of locations with no liberals, but haven't actually tested whether my fix works or not, since it's a rare bug, so let me know if the problem persists

3.16.0:
* Made gunuse only trigger when you fire, not when the enemy fires
* Fixed display issue with court when you have a sleeper lawyer
* Made Congress more volatile
* Testing giving Senate the House code
* Tweaked accuracy for the assault rifles
* Liberals no longer swing their guns at pursuing vehicles when out of ammo
* CCS will appear later in the game
* CCS Members will not spawn anywhere until they start attacking
* CCS creature names changed
* Two new CCS creature types: Arsonist and Sniper
* CCS characters will no longer show up as such in site mode, but instead will be "hidden classes" similar to the Professional Thief
* The CCS will not act when you are not there to see the news stories -- this is mainly a balance feature to make the country change more slowly when you can't directly respond to it
* The CCS can now attack your safehouses once it is sufficiently developed enough
* The CCS can now capture your starting warehouse safehouses from you if they win a battle there
* Changed armor calculations, mostly using Paul's suggestions for armor
* Changed the way the sliding-scale "critical hit" damage bonuses are calculated
* Ensure that prot is never less than 0 after modifying it for armor quality in the damagemod() function
* Combat to-hit rolls changed, simplified; several other success rolls in other parts of the game have also been simplified
* Agility is no longer used to dodge bullets if you're getting shot at with a gun
* Prevented your health stat from acting as body armor; it still helps reduce damage if the enemy rolls a really good hit, but won't stop bullets outright
* Interrogation very hard against enemies with interrogation skill
* Knowledge skills Science, Religion, Business, now provide bonuses in interrogation even if the hostage has no knowledge in those areas
* Hand-to-hand skill: gave multi-hit ability (up to 5 times per round), increased damage with skill, renamed to Martial Arts
* Small fry conservatives no longer flee in terror if you aren't armed
* Removed police records from courthouse
* Gave .44 Magnum revolvers to club security when gentlemen's club is high security, renamed them to Enforcers
* Prevented crash-inducing money items from being created outside of sitemode where they belong
* Fixed stack corruption when police confiscate funds
* Strengthened Radio Personality and News Anchor sleepers
* Nerfed stat boosts from Urban Commando and up juice levels
* Changed Elite Liberal to 1000 juice, made 500 juice Liberal Guardian
* Made you keep stealing cars if you don't succeed the first day
* Made you keep making clothing until you say to stop
* Made garment makers unable to make high-quality clothing if the job is difficult
* Let you sell second-rate clothing for second-rate prices
* Second-rate clothing is not as bad of a disguise penalty as before
* Second-rate clothing no longer shows up yellow on site
* Fixed bug in which it was impossible to have clothing be permanently degraded in quality when damaged
* Fixed display bug with birth date on profile of a liberal
* Sleepers can be promoted to active LCS members
* Debaters in combat can yell at people in car chases, hand dollar bills between windows, wink through side view mirrors, etc.. This isn't actually described this way in game, but it's essentially what's happening. This now works without having to have a gun equipped.
* Debaters that are given guns will now use them rather than argue about things
* Safe cracking and lockpicking calculations in general have been changed; among the effects, locks in secured sites are harder to pick, and it's much easier to free the fluffy bunnies at the cosmetics lab
* Spending money when recruiting characters now works properly
* Made a couple options when interrogating people cost money
* Whenever you recruit a new character, you can now choose to have them become a sleeper
* Sleepers can now be activated similarly to normal liberals, with their own activation screen; they have separate tasks and a new system for managing their infiltration level and effectiveness
* The main screen has been changed a bit to fit in the expanding number of features
* Rednecks can now start with shotguns
* Injured people will now be debilitated in footchases
* Footchases are now more chaotic, as your people can be tackled by pursuers if too slow, or run ahead and get away while the rest of your people are still trying to escape if they're especially fast
* Added new characters: Veteran, Martial Artist

3.16.1 Release
* Made sleight of hand affect whether you get caught stealing
* Fixed stack corruption bug with persuasion attacks
* Fixed the election corruption bug
* Added juice check to engage in cover fire
* Added police SWAT armor
* Changed suspiciousness of weapons, more black and white
* Disabled crimes about carrying and firing illegal weapons -- the tracking for these is terrible, and you'll rarely run into the problem
* Made interrogation reduce 'juice' for powerful Conservatives before it reduces their wisdom directly
* Fixed interrogation text display bug
* Interrogation bonuses for wearing some armors, masks
* Revised income calculations for different selling music, art, tshirts
* Need to equip a spraycan before assigning people to graffiti
* Wearing a nice suit gives bonuses is soliciting donations; wearing a clown suit gives penalties
* Added public nudity arrests for people out raising money while naked, not currently applied to when you run around in site actions while naked

3.16.2:
* Fixed bug causing difficulty rating on making elephant and donkey suits to be extremely high
* Fixed bug causing expensive suits and elephant and donkey suits to cost an extra $200 in materials to make
* Fixed bug causing printing press to be grayed out if you have less than $5000, instead of $3000 as it should be
* Fixed bug causing you to attempt to escape/fight a siege if you press 'f' when a safehouse (not squad) is selected that has people in it, even if there is no siege to escape from
* Fixed bug causing unburied corpses to be counted against the former boss's recruitment cap
* Fixed bug causing the "go to free clinic" activity to be displayed as "promoting liberalism"
* Fixed crash bug caused by having someone assigned to spray graffiti when they're not equipped with a spraycan
* Fixed bug causing everyone just below founder level that is qualified to take over to be promoted if the founder dies, instead of just the most qualified
* Fixed bug causing an extra keypress to be required when recruiting people
* Fixed bug causing some sleepers to be ignored in a month where other sleepers were arrested
* Fixed bug causing police sleepers to leak files to you even when they're set to be affecting the issues
* Fixed bug causing a blank keypress delay when sleepers snooping around don't find anything
* Added death squad uniform
* Added truck pulling out in front of you, stop light with cross traffic in car chases (in addition to the existing fruit stand)
* Changed free speech arch-conservative text
* Changed thresholds for the house and senate to be considered arch-conservative or elite liberal
* Changed display in the promote screen for the founder level from "LCS Founder" to "LCS Leader" to reflect that the position is inheritable
* Changed some of the activation colors and gave colors to sleeper activities
* Death squad officers will no longer be removed from the chase when they tackle your people
* For clarity, when your people escape in a foot chase, it will display the text saying this before removing them from your party
* Enemies will no longer take over the driver's seat if you kill the driver of their car -- they will just crash immediately
* Reduced the defense bonuses given to both sides during car chases
* Shots to the legs during car chases will now hit the car body and do no damage
* Changed skill-attribute links: art, music, cooking are now based completely on heart; religion is now 50-50 heart and wisdom instead of 2/3 wisdom 1/3 heart; business no longer involves charisma and now is just wisdom and intelligence; medical skill is now fully intelligence based instead of 50-50 agility and intelligence
* Normal everyday firefighters are no longer always conservative
* Polls will no longer report the public being most concerned with the LCS, as it's a given that the LCS tends to dominate news cycles if you've been active
* Polls will no longer report the public's opinion of the Conservative Crime Squad before the CCS is on the news
* Softened the caps from activation-based fundraising skill gains; they now gain slowly after the cap, instead of not at all
* Made selling brownies train persuasion less quickly, added small business and cooking skill gains
* Slowed juice loss from prostitution
* Made stealing and breaking down doors not in themselves trigger news stories
* Allowed you to force news reports on your site actions that would otherwise not be notable enough to make the news by hollering your slogan or spraying tags while on site (thus "claiming" the action)
* Fireman sieges no longer kill everyone if you give up, they will arrest people
* The end of the game you lose amendment is no longer proposed by a Constitutional Congress triggered by opinions on the issues, but by Conservative control of Congress; this allows you significantly more time to turn out disastrous results, and makes it more likely that you'll survive imprisonment and be released to the country down the tubes, which is always fun
* Changed some text with scandalous cable news memos that you can publish
* Made all of the appropriate buildings undergo renaming and renovation when the country gets really C+, not just the prison
* Made sites only go to high security if at least a modest amount of crime occurred on site, not just any time there's an alarm
* Removed electronic protection racket; it was just so much money :(

3.17.0
* You can now see two steps away in the sitemode minimap
* Heavily revised character creation
* Added footchases when you're to be arrested during activations, so that your people can defend themselves or flee
* You can now disband and come back -- this is still largely an incomplete feature, but you can still do it
* Fixed crash bug related to people selling art
* Removed survival skill
* Increased the effect of Intelligence on you ability to shut down the nuclear reactor by 50%
* Fixed 95%+ of the text writing over the map display bugs, where it persists between messages even as the blank area is erased; due to some awkwardness with lockpicking, whenever you try to pick locks it won't overwrite the map for a bit, so you'll get this a little there, but otherwise most of this should be gone
* Banging, smashing, or using a crowbar against doors will now tend to quickly create suspicion
* Disbanding will now require a keypress to advance between months
* Simplified disbanding screen, elections will no longer be shown when disbanding
* Made recruiting a touch easier, emphasized charisma more
* Made interrogation chats a bit harder when the victim is tied up
* Made high infiltration sleepers more slow to lose infiltration when spreading liberalism than low infiltration sleepers
* Made it so that sleepers and others not based at the homeless shelter don't get reported to be "slinking back to the homeless shelter"
* Made it so that people don't return home if their base is under siege
* Failed repair rolls will no longer permanently degrade clothing, instead just failing to repair the clothing today
* Made tanks much more resistant to non-fire damage

3.18.0
* New skill page!
* Made juice partially multiply base stats, partially add to them, to preserve the inherent character of your recruits and founder
* Cap stats at 20 after juice is applied; still useful to have base stats above 10 (only possible for founder) because this accelerates learning
* You now get more skill experience if you have high stats in that area, less if you have low stats -- this ignores juice
* Elite Liberal police issue now spawns moderate Police Negotiators which use persuasion attacks and cause a negative news story if shot at
* Persuasion attacks now can stun their opponents
* Allowed you to keep LCS going while your founder is in prison without losing contact
* Love slaves lose juice, abandon LCS if their recruiter is in prison and they aren't (or vice versa)
* Health is now much more effective at reducing damage in combat
* Let you rescue brainwashed people before they're rehabilitated
* Sleepers will no longer be assigned to heal liberals
* You will no longer kill CCS members only to see police killed in the news
* Bug: "talks like a Conservative and pretends to belong here" -- needed a name before the text, now there is one
* Altered weapon balance
* Altered character creation questions
* Age more directly determines random skill amounts
* May have brought some unintentional sentencing disasters under control
* Made juice loss for the boss when a subordinate is sent to jail proportionate to the subordinate's juice
* Fixed juice reductions when you gain juice but the gain is capped at less juice than you have now
* Brainwashed sleepers/liberals can't recruit: this is now more obvious
* Brainwashed now referred to as Enlightened in game
* Missing birthdate month and ageless liberals fixed
* Sleepers at the clinic will no longer spam you about leaving it
* Ancient homeless shelter turn passing bug fixed
* Fixed obscure crash involving car chases
* Shortened some skill names
* Removed deprecated "pawn all extra ____" option from pawn shop
* More issues are voted on per round of voting in politics
* Liberals will now stop interrogating hostages when they're converted
* People under the age limit at the gentleman's club will no longer be told they are violating the dress code
* More interrogation text
* Make horrible torture easier to get if you have no heart and are using props
* More random text for hostage threatening
* Detatched wisdom from bluffing -- now disguise and charisma
* Clubs skill now used for out-of-ammo guns
* Throwing skill now used for molotovs
* Manual reloads will now replace half empty clips
* Fixed some display bugs
* Can now recruit animals at L+ animal research issue
* A couple more responses from the bouncer
* Run into smaller groups in apartment buildings
* Increased black market gun prices when they're illegal
* Altered old age effects a bit
* Fixed the bug with newspapers not displaying most news stories
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Yanlin

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #6 on: January 31, 2009, 04:21:59 am »

*Blink* Big post...
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Gunner-Chan

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #7 on: January 31, 2009, 06:04:36 am »

Wow. It's like a mini toady dev log.

But if I may ask, how would the uniform thing work? Do you set a set of clothes that everyone in the lcs will try to wear, or is it just for raids?

Lots of new guns I see too, but for some reason the russian dealer looks a bit weird. Is the 9mm he sells supposed to represent the PM Makarov? As that is 9×18mm not 9x19...
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Yanlin

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #8 on: January 31, 2009, 06:19:00 am »

John, I suggest you make an entire post with that stuff and sticky it.
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chaoticag

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #9 on: January 31, 2009, 07:48:26 am »

- Make fire damage clothing
The wording is just a little weird on this entry, makes me think you can buy a fire jacket.
Also, its great to see that you haven't forgoten about mimes.
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Karlito

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #10 on: January 31, 2009, 08:08:37 pm »

I like how you can see the differences between John and Toady's writing.  Toady sure did like using "fucked up" a lot.
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killerbees1218

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2009, 12:39:29 pm »

That was the kind of reply I was looking for Fox! A lot of details there, you should definitely sticky a topic, or this topic with your list of ideas, completions, to-dos, and plans! It helps us fan boys look at what's done, what needs to be done, what could be done, and what bugs are still in and need to be fixed. I understand your a full-time student and just want to congratulate you on your ability to make some time to keep LCS alive. I hope that you can find a successful career and maybe one day we'll be on your forums talking about a cool brand-new game you developed or helped develop.

Now considering that you ARE busy, have you ever thought of accepting help with someone to work with so that they, or that extra someone could work on somethings, keep you updated while you are doing college duties and then you could help them with things when you have the time. Kind of have an organized team forming with you as the general director? I've been very excited about LCS as I believe it still has -alot- of open potential that could be put to use and played out if the features were in place, and you've proved that with the long list of things that aren't even in yet. I must say alot of them are great ideas that I wish were in already, haha!
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E. Albright

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #12 on: February 01, 2009, 04:53:26 pm »

Bees - LCS is open source. If someone wants to carve off a chunk of development and git'er done, they can, and if it's deemed fit for mass consumption, it'll get folded into the core development branch.
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Servant Corps

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #13 on: February 01, 2009, 05:20:34 pm »

Quote
Now considering that you ARE busy, have you ever thought of accepting help with someone to work with so that they, or that extra someone could work on somethings, keep you updated while you are doing college duties and then you could help them with things when you have the time.

Technically, I have been doing that too. I sent in code for a new Stalinist organization. However, since I also got college duties, it's very hard for me to finish up the next batch of code.
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Deadmeat1471

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Re: LCS 3.18, so whats next?
« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2009, 11:50:19 am »

I just got to say for what its worth, keep up the good work! .18 was best update yet, amazing  ;D
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