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[Mechanoid]

By the way, how do you hire people, once you get the Leadership skill?

Stand next to the person you want to hire and press 't' Then, press the key for the direction the NPC is standing in.

The amount of people you can have is limited by how many leadership points you have; the most you can have is 3.
Also, i havn't tried it yet, but you MIGHT be able to avoid this limitation by taking an NPC with the leader skill who already has followers on as a follower to yourself. That way you have a bunch of NPCs linked to another NPC, which is linked to you; potentially every NPC could end up following you if you did this enough times, where every NPC has leadership at 3, and 3 followers with leadership 3, etc. Of course the amount of food it would take to keep this number of survivors alive would quickly become impossible to maintain.

[commondragon]

By the way, how do you hire people, once you get the Leadership skill?

Stand next to the person you want to hire and press 't' Then, press the key for the direction the NPC is standing in.

The amount of people you can have is limited by how many leadership points you have; the most you can have is 3.
Also, i havn't tried it yet, but you MIGHT be able to avoid this limitation by taking an NPC with the leader skill who already has followers on as a follower to yourself. That way you have a bunch of NPCs linked to another NPC, which is linked to you; potentially every NPC could end up following you if you did this enough times, where every NPC has leadership at 3, and 3 followers with leadership 3, etc. Of course the amount of food it would take to keep this number of survivors alive would quickly become impossible to maintain.

Npcs with the leadership skill are immune to becomming followers

[Saint]

sorry deon, I look closer now and see they are fine, the faces are the part the threw me off for a bit.
Nice job.

[Robsoie]

Nice update for your tileset.
The only bad point in my opinion is your replacement for the fire.
While the original was not really the best fire sprite, i feel the replacement is not really something that "block" the player moves as it looks more like some smoke.

[Deon]

Well yeah, the idea of eternally burning cars is quite silly, I meant the huge flame and something. The car could be smoking so you would be unable to cross it because you would suffocate, that was my idea when I've made it . Because yeah... It would be better to have cars and trucks, with unability to jump on trucks because they are high . It would make more sense.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

"Day 24. It's been been pouring rain for the past week. Those fucking cars are still on fire. I just know CHAR has somthing to do with that."

[woose1]

"After breaking down some of my furniture for possible barricading supplies, my room-mate pounced on them and offered to sell them to me for my hunting rifle. I hate this place."

[Shiv]

"Day 6:  the second day in the gun shop turned fortress.  Dean collapsed yesterday from hunger but Joe and I are still holding strong.  I feel a bit guilty not sharing my groceries with Joe but he's not long for this world any how.  Dawn has arrived, and I feel myself learning more and more daily, maybe I'll survive this yet.  I'll sleep during the day while the zombies are less relentless."

"Day 6 - 2:  Awakened to sharp pains in my neck leg. Looked up to see the zombie of Joe chewing on me.  Blasted him with a shotgun and rolled back over.  The wait continues."

[Dervin]

May I ask, what is a neck leg?

[Tarran]

May I ask, what is a neck leg?

Uhhhh, a leg for a neck?

[Shiv]

May I ask, what is a neck leg?

Good question.  Not sure what I meant there unless I just couldn't decide where to be bitten.  Or the neck of the leg, AKA the thigh, perhaps.

My subconscious does weird shit.


Edit:  Man it's disappointing how bad the AI is but still, it's a pretty fun game.  I'm on Day 20 now and have an Army Rifle with 120 rounds of ammo, an Army vest, a med kit, and 3 Army rations.  If followers worked a bit better I'd have some of them too but they all forget to eat (even if food is right there on the ground) and die. 

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Sounds like you're in a good position to search for this "easter egg" the developer spoke of.

[roguedjack]

Hello, dev here.
I don't like registering on other games forum to spam about my game but it seems most of the discussion happens there instead of Roguelike Temple (http://www.roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=1197.15), so I might visit here from time to time. 
Deon, good job on the graphics.

Edit:  Man it's disappointing how bad the AI is but still, it's a pretty fun game.  I'm on Day 20 now and have an Army Rifle with 120 rounds of ammo, an Army vest, a med kit, and 3 Army rations.  If followers worked a bit better I'd have some of them too but they all forget to eat (even if food is right there on the ground) and die. 

They should take the food and eat when hungry.
The only reason they do not :
1. Their directives is set to "don't take items".
2. Their inventory is full. Most likely you gave them too much items, because they are supposed to always keep one slot free for food.
3. You gave them an order to guard/patrol and let them rot here with no food.
4. They are in danger and don't have time to eat (unlikely).


To everyone, about the AI in general, I'd like to hear about concrete problems so I can try to fix/improve them:
1. What AI (baddies, goodies or followers)?
2. What does this AI do that is stupid/bad/annoying?

Thanks.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Well, the three issues I have with the AI are as follows:

1: The AI Survivors have no ability to push or break objects to insure their own survival. For example: if I surround a sleeping survivor with shelves, then they will remain their untill they starve to death.

2: The Survivors will immediately jump on a just-broken object and grab the wood that is clearly mine.

3.The Survivors can be manipulated into trading anything for anything, no matter what it is worth, by dropping everything besides what you want to give away at your feet.

The zombie AI is fine, though. Please, feel free to talk with us here. I think I can safely say that we would all love talking with the developer of this game. It shows great promise, especially considering this is but Alpha 3.1.

[Mechanoid]

To everyone, about the AI in general, I'd like to hear about concrete problems so I can try to fix/improve them:
1. What AI (baddies, goodies or followers)?
2. What does this AI do that is stupid/bad/annoying?

Serious issues:

• The player may also be effected by is the of sight /line of fire blockages. At certain angles and distances, your LOF will travel into a place where your LOS cannot see; and where your LOF will get 'stuck' on a wall despite your LOS making a perfect path to the target. This could be transfering over to the Ai. Your LOS will also "bleed through" objects sometimes, this is the most obvious when you shove shelves in front of a store doorway; and see some of the second row of shelves through the first.
  
• The AIs pathfinding. Getting stuck in corners, stuck behind a row of 3 cars (or 2 cars against a wall) and things like that. Human and Zombie Master AIs have a easier time since they can jump cars, but it still probably applies if the area in question isn't passable. (cars on fire, walls... other friendly AI's) Pretty excusable for the stupid skeletons and zombies, but neophytes and disciples should be a little "smarter" about how they move. It just feels like cheating to plink away at a disciple with a pistol with impunity from behind a row of cars; it should at least run around to the opening, or out of sight (and then camp there, waiting... heh) if it can't find a path.
• Soldiers are holding onto their rifles and not switching to using their pistols when they run out of rifle ammo. They seem to be reloading their rifles just fine though.

Those are the major major ones i've found. Some minor things (the most important ones are bolded) i have seen, suspect, or feel the AI is/not capable of are:

• Backup upon backup of melee weapon. 2 stacks of 3 crowbars, AND A BASEBALL BAT. Almost half the starting inventory filled with backups.
• Doesn't seem to manage reloading their weapon? Maybe an issue with the weapon and/or ammo and wether it was given? Traded? Picked up? Of course, they don't really live or stay in my LOS long enough for me to notice.
• Doesn't seem to use pills, if they're close to sleeping they won't pop their blue pills; they don't seem to use green pills if they're getting tired or are already tired from melee/running.
• Abuses cellphone/flashlight charges until the device has been completely used and rendered worthless/useless.
• Pushing things around for their own survival. Surround a human AI with furniture and he'll starve to death, wether they're a follower or not. Followers would probably accept the situation; non-followers not so much.
• Never goes to sleep until they're sleepy enough to do so. Sleepy, making them slow, making a new zombie very easilly. They should try to get to a bed in their LOS, or just where they are if they havn't seen or heard zombies/trouble and take a rest. (acting as the player does)
• Probably a good idea to do for the above, the AI should try to close doors and windows before it goes to sleep if it can see/remember any being nearby where it will sleep.
• Never eats until they're hungry enough to do so, or will eat food at a potentially inappropriate time (risking their own and others' lives) it'd be good for them to eat if they can get the most from the food, when they can see another food item but don't have enough inventory space to pick it up. (acting as the player does)
• Doesn't seem active enough in searching out food. They just wander around in the same building for a few hours wasting away instead of moving to a new location. They'd have to have been awake to get the army care package message ONCE, right?
• Never gives another AI an item it has; everything is always a trade, no exceptions.
• Followers don't complain enough about their needs to their leader, just in case the leader forgets.
• Get their priorities straight about what weapons and ammo they should have in relationship to their skills, and what skills they should get in relationship to what they've seen or have. A human player probably puts more a priority to choosing "Light Eater" then anything else, and "Agile" more then "Carpentry" -- more priority for choosing firearms if there's a gun in the inventory instead of choosing bows. That kind of thing.
• MORE COMMANDS FOR FOLLOWERS. Gaurd and patrol are awsome, but not enough. More, MORE!
  "Home" the AI is told that this point on the map is the base of operations, and that it should return here if it becomes lost, injured, sleepy, etc.
  "Stay" the AI stays on the tile indicated and can do what it needs to, including running away. [Probably back home.]
  "Hunt" the AI wanders off and tries to kill as many weak zombies as the resources it's holding will allow. Maybe set what level the player is willing to risk the AI on (Hunt... Disciple.)
  "Search" the AI wanders off and tries to look for the specified object. To make things interesting, some objects can only be asked for if the game has generated it AND the player has seen it before. (Everyone would know of pistols and food and ammo (moreso if they had firearms skill) but not of army armor, weapons, and items)
  "Push" the AI is first told to move to a starting location next to a pushable object. The object to push is then selected. The AI then treats that object as its center of movement until the object has reached its destination, recovering stamina as it goes (by popping pills if it has any)
  "Equipment" the AI is given a list of items it should try to keep in its inventory at all times. [This could probably include a "dump all" command so the AI can be given everything it needs by the player. Micromanagement!]
  "Items" the AI is told what items it can use at what time and what circumstance. "Flashlights" could be set to "20 to 6" so it'd use the flashlight throughout the night, assuming it wasn't sleeping. As well, optionally durring "Rain" or "Heavy Rain" etc. A cell phone obviously should give the player the ability to order followers around without being next to them.

Also, battery items so that flashlight and cellphone can be used again.
[Also also, spraypaint colors and a paint store... So i can draw naughty things on the minimap with enough effort. ]