Modding brainstorms

This is a page for brainstorming. Ideas posted here are not always good ones, but sometimes we just need to let our minds run rampant.

Put any ideas for modding here. Some of these might be useful for the Edition, others might become standalone mods. If you think something is definitely prime material for the Edition (beware "scope creep", suggestions that make the Edition cover more ground than it already does), then it can go HERE for review.

Upgraded content

Textures

High-resolution textures are highly welcome. --geyser

The environment could do with less dull colors, and the character textures have far too much compression/dithering. --geyser

Another challenge is to add reflectivity channels to all the "metallic" parts (characters, objects, environment). --geyser

Precipitation

What can we do with precipitation? The only precip. we see in the game is snow in the last level. What a tease! Can/should we add snow to other levels, or can we add new kinds of precip. like rain/sleet? --Iritscen

Isn't there rain in Rooftops? Gumby

Er, hmm, I guess so! Strange that I forgot that. Maybe it wasn't raining hard enough :-D Well, I still want to see more precip. Snow in particular has some nice possibilities, aesthetically. I guess I just need to know how it is produced from the binary data. --iritscen 02:12, 14 November 2008 (CET)

Precipitation is set up in PART. I think what you really want is for the rain drops (or hail stones) to deal damage. Heavier rain/snow is possible, but it could mean a lot of stress for the engine, depending on how much is "enough". Another problem with heavy rain and snow would be the lack of realism on the ground: ripples in puddles or footprints in snow would have to be implemented with character-emitted particles, puddles themselves would have to be set up from scratch... Sounds like a lot of work. --geyser 04:03, 14 November 2008 (CET)

Damaging precipitation is easy enough. Heavy rain is too much work, methinks, but snow could be done, maybe. Gumby

Just for the record, I never wanted damaging precip, that was geyser thinking weird things. Anyway, it was silly of me to forget that Rooftops has rain. So that makes two levels with precip, eh? That's not so bad as just one level with precip. I suppose that satisfies me... for now. --iritscen 02:53, 6 December 2008 (CET)

Retrograded content

It's hard not to notice that some stuff looked better pre-beta. Let's make a list and see if we can turn back time to give Oni back some of the pretty stuff it used to have. Look at the "Pre-beta content" page's screenshots for ideas, there's a heckuvalot of thing to remark upon there.

Models & textures

Muro's face was a lot nicer back when they made the 1999 trailer. --geyser

One can also see animated terminal screens in the trailer. That's currently very doable if you ask me. --Iritscen

Lighting

Barely visible in this shot from the trailer is a totally different wall down in the lobby. The lights actually appear to cast light on the wall (not dynamic, I don't think, but s clever imitation of it), as opposed to now, and generally the whole area is just 100 times better-looking than it is now (maybe I will get a comparison shot up here at some point). Can this be done with vertex lighting or some other means that doesn't involve re-writing the engine? --Iritscen

This is a beautiful shot of the early Lab. It shows just how good baked lighting can look. Now, I'm not saying we try to make the Lab look this way, because obviously the Lab is now seen in the daytime, not at night, but it shows what should be possible, particularly at night. --Iritscen

Weapons

Some people have noticed that there are some different weapons in some early art and/or screenshots. Want to bring those up here? --Iritscen

One thing I can definitely see was different is the gun used here; it's also got a laser sight! --Iritscen

General

TCTF HQ looked crazy better at one time; look at those sweet railings! --Iritscen by way of geyser

I'd like to see a clear shot of Damocles, because I think the concept art looked a lot better, but I'm not sure. If so, this is quite fixable. --Iritscen

Feast your eyes on the comparisons made here and tell me which looks better, the left or the right: Pre-beta_content#Syndicate_Mountain_Compound. Should we even be surprised at this point that the left is the pre-beta version? --Iritscen by way of geyser

Mapping

Someone really ambitious could try to recreate the missing levels that were in the pre-beta, if only for testing at the time, because there's some interesting designs there: Pre-beta_content#Pre-beta_levels. --Iritscen

New animations

Hi-yah!

Anyone want to try their hands at animations? New ones, not tweaked ones? How about giving Konoko some authentic martial arts moves? (Maybe more on this later.) --Iritscen

New characters

Ideas from geyser

Oni characters have a modular design one can take advantage of, by "swapping bones" and authoring all-new textures. One can thus create entities more or less closely related to Oni's original ones, possibly with new storyline roles (Ninja Comguys, BGI executives, cyborg enforcers, WCG troops... you name it: it's almost easy - if you're creative). --geyser

New/revised scenarios

"Reshuffled or upgraded binaries are worthless without some genuinely inventive level logic." - geyser

Taking advantage of savepoint slots

For one thing, Oni's levels allow for 10 savepoints each, which allows:

• either for more savepoints throughout a mission (possibly a lot harder)
• or savepoints that "revisit" a level (alternate missions and storylines)
• or non-mission savepoints like Oni Team Arena (and other such things) --geyser

"Real" gun mod (new difficulty setting)

Oni may be more realistic about guns than many games, but it does give in to one long-standing tradition, which is that characters can take a ridiculous amount of bullets before dying. Even though TCTF members have armor they can wear, Konoko spends plenty of time out of her TCTF battle outfit and takes no more damage than when she's in it.

It would be interesting to amp up the damage gunfire does, and see what effect it has on the gameplay. Imagine actually having to take cover from enemy bullets instead of weaving in and out of them knowing that an occasional hit won't matter. It would also emphasize the importance of stealth over running headfirst into every battle. Let's say, instead of Konoko being able to take two SMG clips worth of bullets, it only takes 10-15 bullets (1/3 to 1/2 of a clip) to bring her down with this mod.

Admittedly, I'm also bringing the idea of armor into this, which I know we've talked about before. It would make more sense, with this mod in place, if Konoko's battle armor absorbed more damage than her jacket and blue jeans. (Of course, that might make one wonder why she doesn't wear the stuff more often... maybe it's better to leave armor out of this.) --Iritscen 16:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: Another aspect of realism would be to greatly increase the distance at which gunfire can be heard. Right now, it's definitely too small of a radius to be realistic. And do bullets hitting walls attract the AI's attention? They don't seem to. Certainly if I heard a bullet hit the wall next to my head, I'd at least be on alert to see who was firing, even if I didn't immediately know their location. This modification would also balance out the added power in a gun with the fact that enemies are more likely to come find you when you use it. --Iritscen 16:51, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

AI improvements

Patrol paths

It is also essential to set up innovative patrol paths (redeeming stealth). --geyser

Ninja dodging

I don't know if this was a "manufactured" shot or not, but it's still awesome. Now, Loser has already gotten basic dodging working; what would it take to specifically get ninjas to either "ninja-slide" or jump as a form of dodging fire? Also, that jumping dude is really jumping. How would the game play out if the ninjas actually did have greater leaping ability than Konoko? It would make sense, wouldn't it? Especially if they're androids as some people like to think ;-) --Iritscen

NOTE: Ninjas actually jump higher than Konoko if they use "jetpack timer" powered jump as well (hold spacebar). According to my observations (only empiric - nothing proven) there is probably bug in AI2 code. AI2 computes distance of far jump as if char used jetpacked jump, yet AI2 for some reason CANNOT do more than tap jump.

Next, for AI2 "special" dodge - looks like AI2 is somewheat "vector" powered. And by than way, AI2 can only run/walk/creep. Acrobatics are MELEE only. If we had source....you know the rest.:--Loser 19:26, 13 November 2008 (CET) /NOTE

So it looks like there's two things worth looking into (second one may be too hard, I realize, but this is all hypothetical):

- Can we get AI2 to do more than a tap jump? (P.S.: Can ninjas actually jump as high as seen in that picture?) --iritscen 20:10, 13 November 2008 (CET)

- Are we sure that nothing short of engine patching would allow cool dodge moves? If the AI knows when it's being fired at, is there some way to add to the dodging routines links to the animations for side-rolls/slides and high jumps (for ninjas)? Actually, I thought a little more about what you said, and it seems that what I'm proposing here is impossible to do without actually altering code. --iritscen 20:10, 13 November 2008 (CET)

Ninjas do run/jump significantly faster/higher than Konoko, especially with the maximal body size factor. As for the jetpacking (an upwards acceleration), it's equivalent to lesser gravity, so just make the character-specific gravity factor smaller and you're done. --geyser 00:00, 14 November 2008 (CET)

Won't that mess up the speed at which the ninjas fall back down? Gumby

Not much. Anyway, it is very straightforward to tweak the tap-jump parameters (initial velocity and "gravity" acceleration) so that the AI behaves consistently. Like for the dashing, it is not clear whether the implementation is bugged or incomplete, and there is a workaround, so a "real fix" is not very likely or urgent right now. --geyser 14:07, 14 November 2008 (CET)

Hypothetical features = real scope creep ^_^ As for flashy dodging, there's more to an implementation than "patching" the engine: in order to figure out just what needs to be rewritten and how, you need the source. Or rather Loser needs the source. Get the source, give it to Loser, and then Just Watch. --geyser 14:07, 14 November 2008 (CET)

Better Mutant Muro combat

This is basically just a summary of a chat I had with Loser about Mutant Muro and his current shortcomings. We felt that there are a few notable issues with the killed_griffen=true fight:

1. Muro's generally quite easy to run circles around for the entire fight; the problem is that:

A. He lacks few truly dangerous and hard-to-avoid moves; the forward-sliding move is good, and the lightning is kinda tricky to avoid, but nothing else is hard to deal with.

B. Does being so big mean he has to be that slow? Muro goes from being dangerously agile and acrobatic to a giant that just plods around.

C. His limited moveset is very predictable. There's rarely a sense of "I wonder what he's about to do". This allows abuse of the AI, by running around in a small circle just ahead of him, letting him catch up to you, then cartwheeling away as he gets close enough to use a melee attack. If he uses the "oops I should really stop getting my hand stuck in the ground" attack, you run in and hit him a few times and then cartwheel away as he crouches, and you are outside the range of the lightning. Lather, rinse, repeat.

2. Konoko's Daodan status is completely overlooked. Has she gone Imago? Is she at least close to Imago? If not, could she realistically defeat Imago Muro?

Loser and I agreed that Mutant Muro needs:

• more fast moves that are hard to dodge
• moves that deal way more damage so he's actually intimidating to fight, as he should be
• less predictability

Suggestions to meet these criteria include:

• another energy-based attack besides the push/pull lightning that is actually harmful (but dodgeable, of course)
• speeding up his walk
• giving him a bigger leap attack (does anyone ever get landed on by the current leap? not me)
• adding a new move such as a grab (perhaps stabbing his target with his hand) or a massive throw

You might say, "Now, hold on, we don't want to make an impossible fight here." But notice point #2 above; it's unclear to what extent Konoko is using, or needs to use, her Daodan abilities to beat Muro. What if we present the fight as being too difficult for her unless she uses hypoes to go into an overpower state? It can be hinted in the Pause Game screen earlier in the mission that she needs to save hypoes for this fight so the player has fair warning. And using a modded ONCC and/or some BSL, we could have her abilities increase dramatically while in overpower, so that she can fight Muro with better odds.

Well, what do y'all think? And feel free to correct me if I mis-stated your point of view, Loser. --Iritscen 17:59, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Riddles for engine patchers

Dynamic holstering

Combat situation and owner's weapon based. Customized for each weapon. That means:

-new flags in CMBT file. It has "melee override" so far, used values are 0,1,2 (cancelled),3,4,5. New values should be counterparts of these ( long (6) medium (7), short(8) ), but causing AI to holster/unholster weapon rather than switching melee/weapon stance.

-new flag in ONWC file. Currently there are some (appearently) unused flag bits which should be used for this.

-Add new flag. Weapon with this flag causes AI which wields this weapon to unholster when focused enemy is knockdowned, even if it is in range where our AI should have weapon holstered according to CMBT. Holster again when focused enemy goes into any different animation than knockdowned, blownuped or lying (so AI holsters as enemy tries to getup). -- Loser

I don't understand some of what you propose above, it's very brief and technical; are you saying that you want AI to be able to shoot someone when they've been knocked down?

I may not understand what you wrote, but it made me wish, for the first time, that I could unholster a weapon while knocked down, and shoot the enemy before I got up. That would be an awesome combat technique. Characters already have a small arc of rotation when on the ground, for some reason, so what if they had a gun in their hands and could aim with a vertical arc from the ground to the ceiling, and with a limited horizontal arc similar to what they seem to have already? --iritscen 20:10, 13 November 2008 (CET)

Brilliant idea !!! Somebody should check whether it is possible. Sorry, I cannot...x_X

About that you don't understand: old wish of mine. Three wishes in fact.

• 1) You see AI character. Unarmed. You run to fight it (no stealth killing). AI2 hears you when you are still quite far, turns, UNHOLSTERS ITS MERCURY BOW (or any other weapon) and....^_^.
• 2) You see AI shooting at you with w3_phr. You dodge shots while approaching this enemy, but at certain distance, AI HOLSTERS ITS WEAPON (not holding it in hand) and fights with you. If you try to run away or somehow you cross requred distance, AI unholsters and fires again.
• 3) You fight with AI from case 2). This AI manages to knockdown you. Now when you enter knockdown animation, AI automaticaly unholsters its weapon and fires at you. You get up as quickly as possible. The moment you start getting up, AI holsters and continues fighting you with MELEE. -- Loser

Ah, I see, that is a good idea. --iritscen 20:45, 13 November 2008 (CET)

Smart jumping

Add this as flag in ONCC. If set, this AI tries systematically (not MELEE randomly) to jump across gaps it can pass in order to reach its enemy. -- Loser

Unsticking bug

Yes, I know that Neo never gets this one, but I do, and geyser, too. Type a cheat into the pause window, and the camera goes flying away as if you pressed "]" in dev mode. I believe it is caused by some sort of overflow in the cheat buffer. The buffer is not cleared when you close the window. For example: type "live", close the window, open it again, type "forever". I got it to bug up by typing random gibberish, too. Clearing the cheat buffer when you close the window might fix the problem. If someone (Neo?) who knows more about these sorts of things could comment, that would be great. Gumby 21:10, 15 November 2008 (CET)

A question and a fact:

1. Gumby, is there any reason why you are calling this effect "unsticiking"? There is no mention of "unsticking" in the engine apart from the unstick keypress event, which I think corresponds to Ctr+Alt/Shift+U (because it indeed "unsticks" a "stuck" character).
2. Once and for all, I'd like to stress that it is not true that "the camera goes flying away". What happens is that the character drifts away, the velocity being frozen. The character is not rendered during the drifting. If you jump, the camera fails to drift up.

geyser 00:14, 16 November 2008 (CET)

Ok, then what should I call it? Bug-induced-derendering? Gumby 04:52, 16 November 2008 (CET)

The drifting caused by ] can be called "the ] bug/feature". As for the thing you're trying to fix, when and if you're sure the problem is with the cheat buffer, then I'd call it the "cheat buffer bug", intuitively enough. --geyser 05:23, 16 November 2008 (CET)

Transforming Muro

Am I the only one who thinks it's a bit weak that Muro transforms into his Imago state off-screen? The camera cuts away, and then back, and bam! he's mutated. But of course the reason is that the engine doesn't support morphing geometry in models, we all know that. Now, my question is, Shouldn't it be possible to cycle through transitional models rapidly to give the illusion of a morphing model? --Iritscen 01:59, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, would rather not. Spamming up level19 with ONCCs is a bit unneccessary... Gumby 14:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

It would totally be worth it if we had the ability to produce a cool transformation, imo. A little annoyance when switching characters vs. a majorly cool upgrade to the final fight. --Iritscen 16:47, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Annoying bouncing shells

I think this was discussed a while back, but isn't there a way to stop bullet casings from bouncing perpetually? And was this the result of a mod we made, or did they always do that? --Iritscen 16:47, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Miscellaneous tweaks

All click-clacks are equal

A more general problem is that the Medium and Heavy variants don't sound softer than Konoko's footsteps, as if all the footwear had very hard soles, not rubber or plastic. The only way to fix this is to add some Impt, extend the ONIE, adapt ONCC, and tweak/(re)author OSBD and/or SNDD. --geyser 13:13, 14 November 2008 (CET)

To me, the problem is that characters like Barabus and Mutant Muro have the same footsteps as a Comguy or light Striker, when they should have plodding, heavy footsteps. In fact, the male footstep sounds softer to me than the female footstep, which has a noticeable high-heelish aspect to it. --Iritscen 19:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Smart alarm behaviour

Loser wanted to make the AI attack you even when trying to get to an alert console. I don't think he made any changes in that regard yet, but I was chasing down a ninja Comguy who wanted to push the alert button, and when I got in his way, he *did* attack me. I think that further increasing the likeliness of the AI to attack you while in run-for-alert-console mode is not necessary, and maybe even a bad idea, since they can now dash as fast as Konoko, and so it's much more exciting/frightening when they run for the console. Staying and fighting would make them less of a threat, really, since after pressing the button they will fight you anyway and then you will also have other problems to deal with too. So I vote for "no change" in this regard. --Iritscen

"This is a mistake". The point of Loser's aproach is that AI will interrupt their console-running job only when the player is about to take advantage of them (e.g., tackle them - Konoko still dashes faster than anyone except for Ninjas - or backbreak them at the console). They will then resume running as soon as they've put some distance between them and the player (e.g., by knocking the player down and/or retreating). This should much more consistent than the way it happens with the original AI: if you force a console-running AI to fight back, they typically won't resume the alarm-running job when they have the chance. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

I dislike the current console behavior. You can just backbreak them as they use the console. Not sure what the best fix is though. Gumby 06:12, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Breakable glass tweak

I don't know whether it would be too much for engine or not. Due to the fact we can import level geometry (incomplete so far, I know, but still...) what about modifying breakable windows, giving them more GQs.

Point is that then big glass panel would not be fully shattered because one small bullet from w1_tap hit it in the corner (only corner is shattered), while bigger blasts (w3_phr, w5_sbg) would destroy larger area of glass panel or whole panel.

I can see one bug tough - shooting edges of such a glass panel will make it "float" in the thin air. --Loser 13:25, 15 November 2008 (CET)

Heh, that bug alone is a good reason not to do it in the way you suggest. Also, if "only the corner is shattered", surely, the shattered section won't be rectangular? The only thing that will look good is a dense curtain wall: little glass panels and criss-crossed beams between them; but then you'll complain about grenades and such not damaging the (thin) framework ^_^. There is an alternative approach - to somehow make some projectiles go through glass without breaking it (basically creating a decal and moving on). I'd say that's definitely possible. But - scope-creepy ^_^ --geyser 00:14, 16 November 2008 (CET)

Just a reminder that this page isn't about what should be in the Edition; that page is here. This page is for items that may or may not be in scope for the AE, but even if they aren't, could still be done separately from the AE. In other words, people can suggest anything and everything here.

In response to this idea, I am actually happy with the glass as it currently breaks; it's fun to watch a whole pane collapse at once, although I don't know how realistic it is. The one thing I find odd in the area of weapons vs. ordinary windows is that the SBG's shots either explode when they hit glass, or bounce off it, if you hold the 2nd trigger. I'd like to see them break the glass and keep on going. --iritscen 00:32, 16 November 2008 (CET)

The Xiox-button pusher

For some reason, the guy who seems to be a scientist, who reports on Konoko's increasing Daodan surges, is dressed in a TCTF cop uniform. He should be a scientist in a coat like the woman in the same scene who reports on the power of the Xiox-destruct mechanism. --Iritscen 20:24, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Touching up the Shinatama farewell scene

I've never been very impressed by the place that Konoko finds Shinatama in the APC. Mainly it's the fact that Shinatama is just sitting there, and there's some really thick, ugly square-edged cables nearby. If we could make those wires look more realistic, and maybe show that Shinatama is still hooked up to them, and maybe also that she is restrained, it would help flesh out the setting a bit more. Otherwise it's kinda silly how Konoko wants to get her out of there but just stands there until Shinatama receives the self-destruct order. Also, Shinatama really needs to show some damage, not just sit there slumped and say she's been hurt. --Iritscen 20:24, 18 April 2009 (UTC)