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[Jonathan S. Fox]

I'm planning to add secondary weapons before next release. Secondary weapons can be instantly (no time lost) swapped with the primary weapons. Some weapons won't be able to be equipped as a secondary weapon. Melee secondary weapons will be used to counterattack melee attackers, if the primary weapon is a ranged weapon. For example, on your turn, you shoot your .45 at a telemarketer. On the telemarketer's turn, he punches you, but you deflect the blow and knife him with your secondary weapon. On your turn, you shoot again with the .45. (Note melee counterattacks are already in, but using secondary weapons to help is not -- so as it stands, you'll just club the telemarketer with your .45 instead.)

With this change, I'd also like to partially remove the squad inventory, and that's the focus of this post.

Specifically:

- Outside of site actions, there is no squad inventory. Nothing that isn't worn or carried in a weapon slot may be brought onto a site action.
- Weapons, items, loot picked up on site go into your initially empty squad inventory. Inventory works as normal. When you return to base, your inventory is purged and all equipment is dumped back into your safehouse inventory.
- The equip screen on base access the safehouse inventory directly, instead of the squad inventory.
- Pawn shops also directly buy from your safehouse inventory, not your squad inventory.
- Moving equipment between safehouses is accomplished through an interface similar to moving non-squad-members between safehouses.

This will prevent you from coming with clothes to change into on site, but after much consideration, I'm prepared to sacrifice this ability.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this proposed solution to the squad inventory issue.

[Gimmick Account]

This is a great idea, being able to take 129 computers and around 15 pieces of spare clothing of various types with you may have been convenient, but it sure was silly. Now the choice of clothing will be much more important. Disguise or defense?

The only suggestion I have is that your car should give you some room to store spare ammo, weapons and clothing articles, with larger cars being able to hold more. This would make cars other than the sportscar useful, too (in fact, the sportscar would be completely unusable for this purpose)! You'd access your car by walking on one of the 'EXIT' tiles (or it could replace one of them, so that you don't have to suffer through a prompt asking you if you want to go home or just take something out of the trunk every single time you're done with a mission)

EDIT: I guess if you let the conservative alarm go on for too long, they might ransack your car. At least that's what I would do if I was a conservative! So there could be another 'switch' option to park your car in front of the building (potentially unsafe) or further away (no access during the mission)

[mainiac]

- Pawn shops also directly buy from your safehouse inventory, not your squad inventory.
- Moving equipment between safehouses is accomplished through an interface similar to moving non-squad-members between safehouses.

Praise the Fox!

[Virroken]

Does this mean I'm not allowed to carry 310239810239 assault rifle clips around anymore?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

You are allowed to carry 310239810239 modulo 10 clips, plus the one in the gun.

Edit: That means 9.

[EuchreJack]

I was thinking, what about layering of clothing?

Essentially, if my squad is wearing trenchcoats to hide their shotguns, couldn't they also be wearing civilian body armor under the trenchcoats?

This could be implemented with other clothing hiding body armor, but there may be a point where realism is totally lost...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Like trying to hide Heavy Body Armor under Bondage Gear.  Yeah, that might not work...

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Could just classify bondage gear as a form of body armor that provides no protection.

[Alexhans]

- Moving equipment between safehouses is accomplished through an interface similar to moving non-squad-members between safehouses.
- Pawn shops also directly buy from your safehouse inventory, not your squad inventory.

Even if there is no LCS member in the safehouse?  What if it is being sieged?  It's a good idea but it should be deviced as to not look like cheating, moving magically to save them from attacks.

This will prevent you from coming with clothes to change into on site, but after much consideration, I'm prepared to sacrifice this ability.

I mildly disagree with this.  Being able to change disguises throughout the mission to get different kinds of cover is an interesting feature that enables some tactics like starting with a Sec Guard disguise to accomplish something and after putting on a Gear.

Maybe it could be layered as EuchreJack says.  (Is this the time to make something out of masks?)

[chaoticag]

This is going to make inventory managment much easier, without it being a pain in the ass about hauling loot out of places. I fully approve.

[mainiac]

Hm... maybe there could be three kinds of inventory?  Loot and primary weapons could be left the way that Mr. Fox described the latest implement.  Then an inventory could be added for items which can be hidden while on a mission.

The breakdown:
1) Loot: [hammerspace] [teleportation]
loot doesn't clutter your inventory, but is automatically transported to the safehouse if anyone survives the mission (silly, but spares lots of hassle)
2) Primary Weapons: [dropped if naked] [no hammerspace]
This is most good weapons, rifles, swords, maces, flamethrowers.  Anything small: handguns, knives, goes in the secondary slot.  Not sure about cocktails and crowbars.
There is no hammerspace here, each squad member can only carry one primary and they complicate disguise (as already implemented).  If you want to pick up another, you have to drop what you are carrying.  Dropped weapons do not count as loot (silly, double standard, but I think it would work).  Since you can't loot primary weapons without an empty primary weapon slot ("Liberal isn't desperate enough to use such a conservative tool!"), getting bigger guns is a little harder.  It would be hardest, hopefully, at the end of the game, because guns are harder to find and you won't have as larger a stockpile from earlier.
3) Items: [dropped if naked] [has hammerspace],
This is secondary weapons and a collective squad inventory of small items.
a) secondary weapon, can be melee weapon, handgun or thrown weapons.  Maybe there should be two or three slots?  (So you can hold a handgun for shooting and a knife for melee counter attacks.  Or so you can hold a handgun in each hand for +2 to badass and -2 to accuracy)
b) light weapons (INCLUDES: knives, handguns NOT: SMGs, swords MAYBE: crowbars, molotov), these can be freely swapped for the secondary weapon
c) ammo
d) "light" clothes (INCLUDES: "clothes", wife beater, masks, armbands, toga, green LCS uniform NOT: other uniforms, costumes, body army, suits, dresses; all too bulky to be hidden while disguised [except maybe a suit/dress in a briefcase])

Loot, needs it's teleporting hammerspace (for now at least), because otherwise you can't loot enough.  Theft is one of the most straightforward (but risky) ways to gain funds, so gimping it would make the game harder for newbies and less balanced, IMHO.  Hopefully, someone can come up with a witty rejoinder on liberalism that could be put in the game to hand wave away the inconsistency.  With the right pun, inconsistency is a good thing.
Primary weapons lose their hammerspace (according to what Mr. Fox's implemented plan).  This is where hammerspace is biggest impact, so if it's fixed here, hammerspace doesn't look ignored anymore.
While it could be possible to set inventory limits on the items category (possibly linked to strength/disguise), IMHO, that's not necessary.  Besides ammo, which is small and light, you don't need to carry many of these types of items.  Disguises and armor don't fit into this category, so you have to pick between being stealthy or armored on a mission.  You can do absurd stuff, like have one guy carry around 6 desert eagles, but it doesn't really affect the game.  And that equipment is expensive.  Besides, it's COOL to be able to carry 12 knives into battle, or whip out a new handgun everytime you run out of ammo.  Carrying 20 molotovs into battle might be absurd, but it's pretty damn liberal!

Potentially there could be a forth type of inventory:
4) Backpack Space:
This only applies if you don't give a damn about stealth, so you are fine with carrying around a backback full of dangerous stuff.  If you are wearing a backpack, you can carry disguises, smgs, swords, etc.  Backpack space items are dropped if you don a disguise.  So basically the idea here is, you could storm into a new studio an AK-47 and body armor.  You highjack the conservative media, and gun down the security that shows up to stop you.  But you don't want to fight swat, so you toss aside your AK and armor, put on a business suit (w/ an smg hidden if it goes FUBAR), and slip past them disguised as a civilian.  Right now, backpack space adds little to the game, so doesn't need to be added.  But it's something to consider.

[Servant Corps]

You know, er, I kinda like Hammerspace?

Not all of us are good at roguelikes. Some us play for the political satire.

In fact, I've been playing a roguelike on my mobile phone and I've been dying every two seconds. Not to mention that the person I'm taking orders from is not paying me for my mission, and furthermore, is charging me money to heal up once I run out of the sewers after being wounded by rats! What a racket.

The fact is, I say make the roguelike portion of the game easier and focus instead on the political satire. Hammerspace is easy, it's simple, it's effective, let keep it. But that's my view.

[E. Albright]

I would argue in favor of adding a single "free" item slot per person that can be filled with whatever: duffelbags, backpacks, briefcases, huge pockets in really baggy jeans, etc. This would allow bringing in a hidden gun or a change of clothes, but not a suit of Heavy Body Armor, an AK, 9 clips, and a couple of Molis. If one is inclined to take maniac's route, this would also be usable for looting primary weapons. Possibly assign stealth penalties based on what was crammed in there, if anything. Alternately, it could be focused as a "change-of-clothes" slot, and only allow that to be place there.

Regardless, though, I'd say if we're moving away from hammer space, it looks like it'd be a good time to try to add armor as a separate entity.

[mainiac]

Being able to change disguises throughout the mission to get different kinds of cover is an interesting feature that enables some tactics like starting with a Sec Guard disguise to accomplish something and after putting on a Gear.

Right now, you can almost count the number of places the security uniform doesn't get you into on one hand.  If you can swap it for body armor the second the alarm is raised, it's useful to the point of being gimmicky.

[beorn080]

The Security uniform doesn't work for police station, court house, Prison, and possibly one or two other minorish spots. Granted, those spots also have easy to make disguises or or easy to purchase ones, like suits or guard uniforms.

I like the idea of primary and secondary weapons.

Clothing should have three possible layers, Coat, Outer wear, and Inner wear. Coats would only be, for now, the trenchcoat, Outer wear would be things like uniforms and street clothes, and Inner wear would be body armor, bondage gear, and other nearly skin tight clothing. Certain layers would go together, such as army uniform and army body armor.

[Gimmick Account]

The security uniform does work in courthouses.