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[dennislp3]

Hey!

So I have been working on a simulation game for a few months that I want to try and make. As it stands it is simply a large collection of .txt files on my computer.

While I have most things fleshed out there are a few things I would like to flesh out more in a complex manner but I am not 100% sure the exact direction I want to take them or how I want to calculate these things. I am personally no math or physics wiz but I also want to create a deep and complex simulation.

I don't plan on this being done anytime soon and I am certainly not a veteran or experienced game developer, modeler, coder, or texture artist. But I want to use this game project as a long running learning experience. I prefer long complex problems that keep giving me more to learn on a daily basis then simple problems that are solved quickly and easily. I learn more and my interest is held longer with a learning "project" vs a learning exercise.

I know I am capable of all the things necessary to create a game. I just need to have a clear cut goal and project to sit down with and grow with to fully learn and get into development.


Also if anyone could point me towards a game engine that might fit my needs of a 3d open world game best I would be most appreciative.

The premise of the game is similar to that of DF though not entirely. I don't care to share many ideas as of right now...hopefully you can understand my desire to protect my ideas while they are in an infantile state.


So straight to the point. I wish to present what I have so far and ask you all as people that play games what would be most attractive mechanically speaking. If you have any ideas on anything to add to make the whole system more believable or otherwise accurate please suggest away. The game is meant to be complex in nature but that does not mean these complex aspects would make the game itself excessively complex. The complexity of these systems is to create a game with tons of variables so that the simulation is both accurate to a degree and deep as to allow many possibilities.

I am looking for complex and unique ways to model:
Health
Stats in general (likely a web of related or connected stats)
Food
Combat


Health
My ideas for health as of right now are to have multiple health bars or one general health bar that is influenced by many factors.

Some of these factors would be overall nutrition, age, physical fitness, and injuries.

The easiest way to tackle this would be a separate location based damage model for injuries and bars or numbers for overall health.

An example (without pictures) might look like this

Body Health:
  Head: 100% (or an HP system instead of a percentile. IE 100/100 instead of 100%)
  Chest: 100%
  Back: 100%
  lower Body: 100%
  L/R Arm: 100%
  L/R Hand: 100%
  L/R Leg: 100%
  L/R Foot: 100%
  Blood: 100%
  Organs:
    X
    X
    X. etc

Overall Health: X% (using weighted averages from all categories below)
   Diet/Nutrition: X%
      Carbs: X%
      Protein: X%
      Fat: X% (Positive up to a degree...then it turns detrimental)
      Vitamins: X%
      Minerals: X%
      Hydration: X%

   Illnesses: X (each listed illness would add a negative health value dependent on severity)
   Age: X (similar to illnesses. Being old would add a negative health value)
   Defects: X (essentially permanent illnesses. Things like weak immune system etc)
   Fitness:
     Aerobic Health:
     Muscle Ratio:
     Activity Level: (A Hard working slave while not likely to live as long due to nutrition issues may for example be much healthier on a physical level than a nobleman that does nothing.)


Stats

Likely have many things from physical to mental stats and skills.

Is a web of interconnected stats/skills more attractive or are static separate skills and stats more attractive?

For instance if I have both strength and dexterity do I want them naturally connected? Would improving strength improve dexterity as well to a minor degree?

I would prefer a strongly connected system to avoid silly things like a man with 5000 strength and no dexterity, or reflexes, or other physically related stats...

Keep in mind that the games setting will not have body builders and stuff like we have today...so all stat gains will be through general actions or specific training.

IE a hunter might gain small amounts of strength over time from firing his bow (from drawing it over and over and over). Naturally learning to make this action smooth and quick could increase dexterity, reaction time, and even other stats.

Or would it be best to make each action simply train one stat and one stat alone?

Also would a capless skill/stat system be better than a static one? It would of course be balanced so that one could not have unlimited strength or something silly by making it harder and harder to get stronger the stronger you are as well as decay factors to create a soft cap.

Food/Nutrition

Food will be a big factor in the game and to a more complex degree than DF where one food can sustain one person forever. This of course would tie in greatly with the characters health.

So far having the health of food being tracked by each food item being comprised of nutritional information as well as a size modifier.

IE a big carrot (say 50% bigger than average due to farmer skills and other factors) might have lots of vitamins and minerals while having few carbs and no proteins or fat. This would lead to needing to compliment it with meat or other foods etc.

Or would it be simpler to dumb things down so that each food has a set static quality of nutrients and there is simply one type of nutrients. Variety of food would simply grant a larger happiness bonus.

Combat

This is a big one that I have yet to come up with...mostly in terms of the mechanics.

How should it be calculated and handled?

Any ideas for ways to calculate forces involved with weapons and armor making contact?
Should it be static simple numbers? (10 armor blocks 10 damage. a sword has 10 damage as a stat so it does 10 damage modified by the character strength etc)

Or more robust?
Weapon speed and velocity (weight and character stats a huge part here)
Armor density, thickness, and coverage etc.


If more robust what sort of factors and (if your a math/physics whiz)  calculations would you see used?

The game is planned to be real time combat in a 3d environment (think Kenshi or similar)

[SHAD0Wdump]

Stats

Likely have many things from physical to mental stats and skills.

Is a web of interconnected stats/skills more attractive or are static separate skills and stats more attractive?

For instance if I have both strength and dexterity do I want them naturally connected? Would improving strength improve dexterity as well to a minor degree?

I would prefer a strongly connected system to avoid silly things like a man with 5000 strength and no dexterity, or reflexes, or other physically related stats...

Keep in mind that the games setting will not have body builders and stuff like we have today...so all stat gains will be through general actions or specific training.

IE a hunter might gain small amounts of strength over time from firing his bow (from drawing it over and over and over). Naturally learning to make this action smooth and quick could increase dexterity, reaction time, and even other stats.

Or would it be best to make each action simply train one stat and one stat alone?

Also would a capless skill/stat system be better than a static one? It would of course be balanced so that one could not have unlimited strength or something silly by making it harder and harder to get stronger the stronger you are as well as decay factors to create a soft cap.

A simple idea I have to handle the issue of certain stats massively outpacing others would be to require all other related stats(Such as strength being related to other physical stats as dexterity or constitution) to be at least half or 3/4ths or some fraction of the improving stat's number. if one of the other related stats is lower than that required fraction, it gets improved instead of the target stat.

Example: Your character just fired his/her bow, the stat to be improved is strength. Dexterity is under the fraction threshold to allow strength's improvement, so dexterity gets improved until it is over that threshold. Next time shooting the bow gives a stat increase, strength will get the point.

[dennislp3]

Certainly a different route. I will toy with that path and see how I like it. Thanks!