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[Jonathan S. Fox]

Windows Download:
http://www.jonathansfox.com/lcs/lcs_win32_3.12.2.zip

You may be able to use your old save, but probably only if your last version was an intermediate version exe through the links in the Future of the Crime Squad thread, not the actual 3.12.1 release. If you try using an old save and the game crashes when you start it up, it's probably the save file. Just take it out and start a new game.

The title screen won't display the correct version because I forgot to update it, but it should be the right one.   :p

----

New in this version:

- Nerfed Guardian special edition Juice, no juice given for releasing special editions. Still good to do it for the effect on the issues.

- Minor site actions not reported. This can be refined so give me feedback.

- Going to prison no longer disbands subordinates.

- Siege units now act correctly in massive response and generate attackers.

- Siege units now attack the LCS if the LCS gets close instead of moving randomly. This also means you can't "run past" them when escaping.

- Conservatives get their own brand of Juice (Notoriety). It's wiped to 0 when they turn Liberal, unless it's negative, in which case it's turned into negative juice.

- SMGs more accurate. The first shot is the same as ever, but successive shots are much more likely to hit. Should make them much better/more viable weapons than they were before.

- Police more siege happy. They're still pretty slow to react in this version.

- Can initiate basic hostage negotiations on site by talking to alarmed conservatives while holding hostages and threatening to execute them. This was done in the middle of the night in a few hours, so I'm happy to hear feedback on it and suggestions for improvement.

- Age and aging effects. You can see their birthdate and age in their profile. I am aware of a bug regarding wounds showing up in the same place if they're injured and overwriting the age text; kind of running out of room for things on the character sheet and need to figure out what to do about that.

- Changed recruiting. It's now a lot like dating. Aware of the bug regarding recruiting expenses being reported as dating expenses.

- Bouncer at the front door of the Gentleman's Club. He will let you in right now if you have enough disguise skill, but eventually you'll be able to bribe him, and at that point he'll go guest list only permanently for that club.

- Many bugs fixed, including a lot of the ones that were reported after the last release.

[ May 24, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

[ May 24, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

[Little]

YAY!

[Skeeblix]

Man, you're a machine. I was just looking at some of the code to maybe get an idea of how the game works, and reading some of your other planned changes and thinking I wouldn't see .2 for at least another two days.

Like I tell you every time, keep it up, I really love how it's turning out.

[Little]

Any advice on how to get major juice?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Steeblix --

Well, the current release is pretty much the game as of last night's writeup in the Future of the Crime Squad, plus three bugfixes, so it wasn't much work here. But yeah, I'm on vacation, and this is my primary hobby right now. Knock on wood.  :p

Little --

For juice, site actions with your squad. It doesn't have to be violent -- my last test game, our slogan was "We don't shoot at cops" -- just breaking in, spraying graffiti, smashing machines, and stealing things is enough. It's not super fast, but it's development based on the actual experience of the characters, which is good. Any form of combat where you don't alienate people though will result in Juice.

If you leave your people at home doing little or nothing, they won't get much juice under the new version no matter what they do -- if they aren't risking their necks in site action or doing something else heroic like that, they won't become well known and inflamed with Liberal Passion.

[Twerty]

Sweet. I'll be sure to play this... as soon as I finish my current game. Can't transfer old saves. ;P

[penguinofhonor]

.

[BishopX]

Looks very good.

A couple of questions though, does hacking or murals give any juice now? They aren't site actions but they do create risk of arrest.

Also, does the new heat reduction only effect police sieges or does it effect CIA/mercenary sieges as well?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

It's probable that old saves don't transfer from 3.12.1 but do transfer from some of the intermediate SVN versions.

Hacking and murals DO give juice as usual.

The reduction in the amount of heat to trigger a siege affects only police. I don't think CIA and such even rely on heat to decide where to attack -- they're more rare and much more random, which adds an element of danger and unpredictability.

[Skeeblix]

The new recruitment system may need to be looked at. It seems as though certain character builds make recruitment nigh impossible. I've tried on 50+ people now with a character rolled on all "B" answers, the typical Grunt leader, and talking with most people just doesn't work. Even the ones who come back for a day or two take off after another day of talking.

I'd love to spend the $50 on props, but making that much with one person involves either immediate illegal actions for a few days, which I tend to avoid until I have a few recruits rather than risk the leader, or ages of the legal stuff (one person can't raise funds very effectively legally), which slows thing down a considerable amount. I like my actions swift and deadly, and not being able to get a single person to join (aside from a reporter I seduced) throws a major wrench in the gears.

I think some tweaking may need to be done, I wouldn't think it would be this hard to recruit site Liberals. Moderates, I could understand being freaked out by a guy talking about some of this stuff, but when 95% of all Liberals think you're crazy and walk out the door, something may be flawed.

I don't know what skills it operates on (was thinking persuasion), but an all-fighter build is almost entirely non-viable from the get-go. I'm in March already, and I've been getting 5+ people per day on site, and MAYBE one will stick around for a day, and then leave on day two. Two months, and not a single recruit.

I might just be getting frustrated too easily, so I'll keep at it, but feel free to take a look for yourself with an identical build and see what I'm talking about.

[ May 25, 2008: Message edited by: Skeeblix ]

[Puzzlemaker]

You really should just sell some brownies; the chance of being picked up was lowered drastically.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Tried with an all B founder; got Malcolm Guy, Gang Member, 1 intelligence, 2 charisma, 8 heart, 0 persuasion. First round of recruits, about seven of them, all walked out the first day. I set him on brownies as Puzzlemaker suggests, as this has two advantages: One, it gives money, and two, it trains persuasion, which will help my chances when talking to them.

After I got persuasion up to about 3, I took the founder off brownies and sent him to grab some new recruits at the vegan co-op. Much better results this time, especially when I was able to spend money, but I wasn't able to maintain $50/day/person for more than a couple days even after a about two months of brownies, so after that I took him to apartments and had him smash into apartments and grab TVs and VCRs, then go to the pawn shop to fence them.

This strategy was successful, and combined with the fast train rate of persuasion, I was able to start recruiting people. I was stopped after a couple weeks of this when a Soldier intercepted me on the way out of his apartment with his TV in my arms and pumped three shots from his M16 into my founder's torso on my way out the door. It's currently Mar 26 (game starts Jan 1, so I'm just under three months into the game) and I have:

- Founder in Clinic, badly wounded
- Top skill is persuasion with 5.64
- 3 Hippies have been recruited and are on brownies duty
- $29 in the bank

It's obviously not easy, but it's doable. The problem with the all B founder is that she starts with medium heart, low intelligence, low charisma, and no persuasion or seduction. This makes her an absolute brick to recruit with. On the plus side, persuasion is no longer purely a charisma-based skill, so it's not going to be capped at 2 for you. One other thing to consider is doing some individual site actions to build a street reputation/get your juice up before trying to convince people to follow you around. Otherwise, I would just suggest picking a different build. The all B founder and a couple of B heavy builds can be beasts in combat, but the cost is that your natural leader is a goon, and you won't be able to "safely" build an organization (need to take risks to make money or grind persuasion by talking to everyone to compensate).

[ May 25, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

[Skeeblix]

It's as much as I figured then. I can certainly see how a thug can come across a little wacky. The game is ever-changing, and so are the strategies. Guess I'll just be re-learning things then.

On another note, I think the cap you set on new reportable actions may be a bit high. I think someone storming into the police station with an AK and blasting 3 cops into pieces would get media attention.

Maybe murder could be the only always-reportable crime? Perhaps only in the major sites like the Police Station, Courthouse, Cable TV, etc. Other things like B&E and theft I can see going unreported, as things like that happen regularly in real life, but as it stands now, the cap has removed a lot of flavor of the game by leaving most of your exploits unknown to the public. Or maybe I just like seeing the media grandeur.

Food for thought, I'm certainly not afraid to contribute ideas and possible changes.

So far, I'm really digging this latest version. The hostage mechanic adds a lot of flavor on top of utility. It's actually something I'd been hoping for for awhile, I've just kept forgetting to say anything about it.

The only thing that I can tell needs polishing is the character sheet display issues, and it's purely cosmetic. So much info, so little space. Perhaps a redesign may be in order in the future.

You devs are doing it all right so far. Nothing has wound up horribly broken, the game is fun, and it only keeps getting better. Your time spent on this game is truly appreciated, and the new releases always get me excited to see your work in action.

In case I don't say it enough, keep it up!

[ May 25, 2008: Message edited by: Skeeblix ]

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Oh, please, feedback is welcome, I really appreciate it. Going through the test with the all B founder being able to recruit was good, as it helped me to feel out where the difficulty was on that.

I had thought that the equivalent of one murder was the cutoff for when the story was newsworthy, but that's obviously not the case. I definitely set it too high then, so I'll have to look at that. It's possible to change the weightings on different crimes too, so that's another option -- theft, breaking and entering could contribute nothing (though still be reported if other things happened) while smashing things and shooting at people could contribute a lot.

Edit: Having the weighting be different by site is a great idea. I'll definitely consider that option when I'm working on it.

[ May 25, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Hm, I started a character with 5 persuation and they're now up to ten, but still almost never are able to convince people to help them.

How do I get a leader who's really good at seduction, interrogation, and persuasion?

[ May 25, 2008: Message edited by: Ioric Kittencuddler ]