Story Generator

[JimmyAgnt007]

Ive been thinking of programming a story generator.  A setting similar to Rimworld (Sci-fi) but without the tedious base building that I could never hope to match.

I have fun playing Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress but Rimworld lacks much of the story that DF has.  On the other hand the learning cliff (not curve) of DF makes it difficult to access the very deep story. 

So in broad strokes I would like an interface that coveys journal entries based on the choices made by the player.  If you have ever played Zafehouse Diaries you have the gist of it.

Unlike ZD i dont want a set or forced ending.  I want to tell the story until its done.

What kind of setting do people want?  What interface choices do you want?  What visual information do you want shown to you?  Anyone know C# who wants to help?

[akiceabear]

One comment - setting: not fantasy. Futuristic, historic, realistic, scifi, all good, but please not fantasy.

[JimmyAgnt007]

Agreed.  My preferred setting of the moment is my "Scrapyard In The Void" setting I used for some d20 Future games.  Ship gets sucked into an empty universe populated only by the other ships that get sucked in.  So your ship flies around until you find another ship.  Who they are, what they are, how you deal with them, and what you loot from them is all up to the player.  Finding survivors, eating them, enslaving them, whatever.

The closest I would get to fantasy is maybe making magic a thing in the sci-fi setting.  Or just having undead and such.

[StorymasterQ]

That actually sounds very interesting. If you're avoiding fantasy but still want a little bit of magic, just use Clarke's Law on sufficiently advanced technology.

And 'undead' could just be some sort of parasitic life form that lives specifically in corpses. Maybe even an energy life form, some sort of puppeteer species that's anchored in time and space and can only move about by manipulating other bodies, preferable already dead ones, as living ones usually don't like being controlled.

IDEAS!

Unfortunately, it's so far away from the thing I'm going to work on for Nanowrimo, so I'd probably just throw ideas for you to develop.

[JimmyAgnt007]

no worries, if im going to have the depth i want im going to need all the ideas lol

I was working on what kind of stations would be needed on the ship (feel free to suggest some less obvious ones) when i got into how to manage stress on the ship.

Here is what i have so far, let me know if something isnt clear or doesnt make sense. 

Crew when called on a station generate stress (variable based on skill, personality, experience) This only happens once per shift (encounter, time between sleep) and under most circumstances it never causes an issue.  however when you call someone to operate more than one station they gain more stress.  stress stacks and any amount over the character threshold is carried over to the next day.  anytime someone hits that limit, they gain the stressful shift debuff.  that carried over stress stacks with the next days duty but only has a negative effect if it pushes the person over their limit.  if the stress stack exceeds double the threshold the person gains more serious debuffs and their threshold decreases (specified amount) if they reach triple then they suddenly start suffering personality breaks (crazy stuff)

For example:  Default threshold is 20, Typical station call is 10stress so someone can man two stations without problems under ideal situations.  Scenario effects may add or relieve stress.  If someone suffers 1stress in addition to working two stations they are at 21 stress.  the next shift they start with 1stress so working two stations without any troubles results in going back to 21 again.  working a single station would result in 11, and not suffer any ill effects.  after that shift they would be back at 0.  attaining 40 stress results in the threshold falling to (lets say 15) and brings them closer to the triple point (now only 45).  also only 15stress is relieved between shifts.  so only working a single station will lower stress by 5 each day assuming nothing bad happens. 

There are three shifts on a ship, certain systems need to be manned all the time to avoid random bad things from happening.  Each crew under ideal circumstances has a shift working a station, a shift off duty, and a sleeping shift.  The crew must rotate positions to maintain functions.  Manning two stations in a single shift is less stressful than two work shifts in a row.

A Moral officer doesnt have a station and doesnt gain stress from working two work shifts.  He has two special stats, a moral pool and a counselling skill.  The moral pool is used by the crew to take care of stress over their limit, once its used up then stress accumulates normally.  Counselling skill removes an equal value of stress from the highest stress individual on board. 


This is just the basic system, not quite ready to dive into all the little things that could alter values, just building the core system here.

[StorymasterQ]

Hmm, I like those stress mechanics. The numbers may need to be adjusted and balanced but the best point would probably come from test play.

If a crew operates two stations, does he switch from one to the other during the shift? Doesn't that add the stress every time he switches? Or does a crew only accumulate stress when they start to man a station he hasn't manned already that day? What if there are two crew members and three stations and they share manning one of them, will they accumulate less stress?

[JimmyAgnt007]

of course numbers are just placeholders for now.  i had to pick something for the concept.

A station can only be manned by a single person per shift and you are correct that they only gain stress from stations they havent already manned that shift.  i wasnt planning on letting two people man the same station.  the game would be turned based im thinking, and each turn would be a shift.  so 3 turns a day.

[StorymasterQ]

Sounds solid.

For the Morale officer, if he doesn't have a station, how do you differentiate between him working a shift or sleeping? Also, no stress for two shifts may be OP. Maybe a smaller amount? Also, he does still need to have a sleep shift, right?

[JimmyAgnt007]

For the moral officer, i was thinking his 'station' would be more abstract.  As in he doesnt need a physical system installed to do his job.  You could still assign him shift work though.  Also he is more 'on call' than working hard at a task so its not as stressful for him to always be working.  But i intend to develop him more once I get the rest of the crew worked out.

[StorymasterQ]

So the morale officer walk around the ship during his work shift? Visiting all the stations, maybe? Does his morale pool only used by the crew of the station he's currently visiting or by all the crew altogether? Or (after rereading your first post) do you mean the pool is only used to counteract stress over the limit? If no one has stress over their limit, this pool is not used.

Also, with the counseling skill, does it "remove the equivalent of stress from the crew with the highest stress" only when the player clicks an action button or does it happen automatically at the end of the day or something? This probably needs some sort of cooldown.

Also also, decide once or for all, will it be moral or morale officer, because I think they're different?

[JimmyAgnt007]

Im rethinking a bunch of things now, my buddy and I were talking and have been focusing on the crew stations and sleeping assignments.  A dedicated moral officer will be something for a bit later in the game once we see how stress functions on its own. 

That being said, he would focus his efforts on whoever is worst off on board, helping remove stress effects or dealing with insanity.  Assuming its business as usual then yes, visiting the stations of the most stressed crew.  Not sure if I want to keep the pool reserve or not but maybe save it for when something bad happens.

also, i think at the end of the day he might 'make a difference' with one of the crew.  but things have changed a lot in the last few hours. 

also also, Moral officer is what i mean when talking about the job, stress is the stat of the crew.  Moral in general is the average stress of the whole crew.  for now anyways.