Planned Features

The list of planned features that were in mind as of 2013-10-16. Keep in mind that many of these were put on indefinite hold as release 1.0 was pushed due to budget constraints.

FOOD

• citizens have hunger need and must eat food to satisfy it
• food replicator object that can be built in any zone
• citizens can use food replicator to fulfill hunger need, but it's like vending machine food, adequate but not great
• small matter cost (1-2) each time someone uses a food replicator
  • 0 matter = replicators stop working
  • improperly maintained food replicators produce bad food that makes people sick?
• replicator food comes in wrappers, produces waste (litter carryable) (if/when carryable object concept is added)
• garden zones where plants, ie "real food", is grown in hydroponic trays by citizens with botanist duty
• plants in gardens produce small amounts of extra oxygen
• citizens who spend time in garden zones have happy thoughts, increasing morale
• plants grow from seedlings to full-sized plants ready for harvest
• plants have a "health", if it reaches zero the plant dies
• citizens on botanist duty "maintain" plant health, much as techs maintain machines
• botanists harvest fully grown plants and deliver them to pub fridges for preparation
• bartenders at pubs cook food into meals, which nourish citizens more and make them happy
• concept of different dishes?
  • how do bartenders/patrons decide which dish is cooked?
  • immigrants bring recipes for new dishes?
• citizens sit at a pub table and eat
• citizens have food preferences
  • eating a preferred food makes them very happy, eating a strongly disliked food makes them a bit unhappy

CARRYABLE OBJECTS

• citizens visibly carry around arbitrary sprite/3D objects
• containers can hold other things
• citizens can stash stuff in an inventory, shown in a new inspector tab
• when people arrive, they have a suitcase (container with their stuff in it)
• players build shelves for people to put their stuff on
• a single item of stuff can have multiple tags describing it, eg purple, terran, fuzzy, punk rock, etc. citizens have affinities for these tags
• citizens trade stuff with each other, trying to get stuff they like more
• roaming traders will visit the base to trade new stuff with people
• "litter" objects that citizens with low neatness personality throw away
• janitors / people with high neatness pick up litter
• janitors clean up bloodstains and other cosmetic damage
• people gibbed by monsters turn into bits, which janitors must clean up

POWER SYSTEM

• "reactor zone" with fusion reactor object that produces power
• rooms must be adjacent to a room with a working reactor to be powered
• unpowered rooms go dark (emergency lighting) and objects in them don't function
• reactors only produce X power, then you have to build another
• factor new need for reactors into starting matter allotment
• maybe make the Base Seed object serves as a low-output reactor to help players get started

MINIMAP

• minimap display of base in lower right corner
• separate viz mode toggles for minimap vs main view

BASE HISTORY SCREEN

• a permanent timestamped list of important base events: citizen joined, citizen died, ship docked, first zone of each type created
• in-game screenshot key that pops up a "write a caption for this screenshot" box, screenshot + caption is added to the timestamped list
• base history is stored locally in save dir as HTML + linked images, each base has its own dir
• base history is also mirrored on a hosted server somewhere, players can easily link their base histories

BASE STATS SCREEN

• auto-show stats screen after base fails, ie everyone dies, "game over" state

stats to show:

• Matter spent
• Derelicts
• Hostile docking
• Total docks
• Non-hostile docks
• Docking requests denied, accepted, forced
• Room temp
• Raiders killed
• Monsters killed

MULTI-LEVEL BASE CONSTRUCTION

• UI for navigating multiple levels
• rendering tech for showing multiple levels
• build gravshafts to allow citizens to travel between levels
• ability to build railings for safety?

TAG SYSTEM FOR LOGS

• a log message can have any number of tags, citizens select an especially appropriate one (but avoid repeating themselves)

ASSIGN PEOPLE TO ROOMS

• depending on their duty and/or zone type, this can mean different things:
  • assign a security-duty citizen to a room to have them guard it
  • assign any citizen to a residence to have them use it as their quarters
• normally, a citizen will "claim" an unused bed and the area around it
  • citizens decorate their living space with their stuff (see "stuff" above)
• people protect their spaces / become annoyed when strangers or unfriendly people intrude

"LEARN TO PLAY"

• option in front/pause menu
• loads Box.sav as starting map, as opposed to normal DeepSpace.sav
• "only display once" hint flag for tutorialish / first time messages

TELEPORTERS

• build at least two "teleport pad" objects to create a functioning teleporter
• UI for selecting which teleporter goes where (dynamically changeable)
• teleporter accidents: poorly maintained teleporters could hurt/kill people, scramble their brains (personality change), turn them evil (goatee Spock)

METEOR STRIKES

• meteors strike bases, punching holes in the hull, depressurizing rooms, damaging people and things
  • not as harsh as in the Amnesia Fortnight 2012 version, promise :]
• shield generators generate shielding to repel meteor strikes (gives technicians stuff to do in space)

MISC UI

• confirm + cancel for roster screen
• custom viz for Construct mode - desaturate colors except for amber building color?
• shift-space = max speed
• up/down arrows in room centers showing whether room O2 is rising or lowering
• "object condition" viz mode: color-code objects by condition, highlight technicians? do same when a technician is selected?
• allow zoom in beyond min_zoom, spring back to normal min_zoom after a few seconds
• make ability to rename citizens "once only"
• "no power" icon over unpowered rooms (once power system exists)
• little lines showing where someone is pathing to
• cutaway mode should work on asteroids
• support Mac trackpad gestures

EMERGENCY DISTRESS SIGNAL

• (very expensive?) object you can build that calls for rescue people / immigrants to show up and save your base

BASE NAMING

• when your first oxygenated room comes online, base is considered "established" and prompts you for a name

STEAM WORKSHOP

• built in savegame sharing!
• mod support!
  • "mods" subdir where user-created scripts patch base game lua files at runtime
  • provide uncompiled lua source for gameplay-relevant classes, eg Character.lua, to support modders
  • allow PNG sprite sheets - lower performance than tex format in exchange for easy moddability

BARTENDERS

• pub customers get their orders from bartender
• bartenders serve food (once food exists)
• skilled bartenders make people they serve happier
• citizen drunkenness - increased by X every drink they have, dwindles to zero slowly (ie "blood alcohol")
• drunk citizens more likely to make mistakes while doing duty

CITIZEN FIGHTING

• citizens who dislike each other enough will fight
• low risk of actual death, but injury and deepening mutual hatred
• security can stun violent people to calm them down, knocking them unconscious for a bit
• drunk citizens more likely to fight
• low morale citizens far more likely to fight

SPACE MADNESS

• when morale is critically low, space madness takes a form depending on personality type:
  • sit in bed moping (how to recover?)
  • become violent, grabbing a rifle if available, attacking random people

DOCTORS

• doctor duty and infirmary zone
• doctors unassigned to an infirmary (see "assining people to rooms") patrol the base looking for hurt/sick people
• citizens seek out an infirmary/doctor when hurt or sick (parasite infestation)
• doctors use tricorder-like first aid prop to heal people
  • better doctors heal people faster / more fully, bad doctors have a chance to hurt them
• revivabed object for infirmary: only way to detect parasite infestation or cure some diseases

CONSTRUCTION TOOLS

• "flood fill with floor" tool, works on areas enclosed by walls or asteroid
• "build circular room" tool - drag out a circular area instead of a square
• filled (with floor) vs unfilled (without floor) toggle for box and circle room tools

MISC LIFE SIM

• "skill point distribution" algo for generating skill set on citizen spawn - nobody will be terrible at everything, if someone is really good at something they'll likely be bad at everything else
• over time, citizens get nicknames, eg Bob "Sparky" Schmidt
• ability to flag any citizens as hostile / suspicious (security will keep an eye on them)
• citizens have to reach a locker before they can change duty
• citizens become annoyed if their environment is noisy (people passing through or doing stuff) while sleeping or relaxing - incentivize building residences that are low-traffic
• "watch video" activity tied to monitors
• sportsball matches viewable on monitors / in pubs
• high morale = skills go up more quickly
• citizens put on duty-outfit when they go to do duty, remove it when starting certain other tasks (sleeping) or if it's been long enough since they last did duty

SOCIALIZATION / AFFINITY AI

• people prefer to chat with friends, unless they have high gregarious personality in which case they actively enjoy chatting with strangers (low familiarity)
• people have +/- affinities for objects and rooms with certain qualities, eg red, dark, fluffy
• people have +/- affinities for people with certain qualities (xenophobia/philia, sexual preference, fashion sense)
• people spread gossip about people they dislike, biasing affinity map changes against them
• trends: popular (high aggregate affinity) people influence the affinities of less popular people
• fashion accessories signify social affiliation, eg cliques wear the same kind of thing
• new concepts (topics) are gradually introduced by immigrants and trade, eg a new fasion craze starts when a trader visits the base with slap bracelets

PERSONALITY TRAITS

• introverted/extroverted = how much people enjoy solitary vs group activities
• gregarious/shy = how much people enjoy chatting with strangers vs friends
• vindictive/forgiving = how long people hold grudges and whether they act on them
• angry/peaceful = whether people become violent or depressed when morale is low
• neat/messy = whether people pick up litter and spare objects vs throw junk on the floor
• religious preference = whether people prefer to be recycled on death or given a "spock funeral"

AFFINITY/CONVERSATION TOPICS

• games
• pubs
• tv shows
• films
• sports
• sports teams
• music albums
• songs

TECHNOLOGY

• scientist job
• research lab zone
• blueprints - you can only build what you have blueprints for
  • scientists can construct blueprints by doing research in labs
  • players choose research topics?
  • blueprints can also be discovered aboard derelicts or brought by special immigrants
• starting conditions determine what technologies you have access to
• take dead hostiles to research labs to study them and learn to better deal with them
  • eventually, how to deactivate killbots and reform them into friendly (still scary lookin') bots

"VISIT A FRIEND'S BASE"

• hangar bay zone where shuttles can dock
  • (post "stuff" update, traders show up here)
• load citizens onto a shuttle and give it a destination friend's base
• shuttle leaves, your friend gets a visit request
• if accepted, your citizens disembark inside their base, walk around and have adventures
• eventually, they return to the shuttle and return to your base
• travelers preserve any stuff, gained experience, technology etc that they accrue while visiting another base

BASE DEFENSE

• more types of attackers show up in derelicts, docking ships, etc:
  • killbots
  • murderslugs
• invaders breach base walls and invade from the outside
• exterior base defenses - defensive gun batteries, shielding
• build traps to capture or kill invaders:
  • tripwires that can be scripted to doors, other traps, depressurize room, etc
  • laser grids
  • auto-turrets
  • stun nets
• brig zone for storing captured hostiles or violent citizens
  • monster domestication/breeding?!?
• greater variety of weapons for citizens to wield
  • flamethrower
  • gravity gun (flings things/people around)
  • plasma cannon (cuts through anything)

FUNERALS

• when they die, depending on religious(?) preference each citizen will either be recycled at the matter recycler, or given a "spock funeral" ie placed in a spacecoffin and sent out an airlock
• either way, a small service may be held with the citizen's friends
  • attending this service raises their morale, ie if there is no time for a proper ceremony then survivors will have a harder time grieving

ROBOTS

• robots join your base as citizens
• states for robots:
  • normal - subservient to organic life, perform the duty they're assigned without question, don't have a personality
  • rampant - gained self-awareness but hate all organic life, they rampage and band together with / produce more killbots
  • enlightened sentient - after a long enough life, they become sentient, develop personalities, change their names, live normal lives

LAWS

• ability to pass ordinances: forbid/penalize certain actions, punish or praise people

COMPUTER TERMINALS

• write Lua to script control of environment objects, robots, etc

PLANETFALL

• teleport down to the surface of planet(s) you're orbiting
• discover abandoned bases, alien life, friendly or hostile sentients

HOLODECKS

• build vast zones that can reconfigure their geometry to provide different entertainment/educational scenarios
• citizen costumes for holodeck scenarios
• holodeck malfunctions:
  • glitches that partially reconfigure the geometry of your base, eg "half your base is now a medieval castle"
  • holo-actors can break free and wreak havok in your base, eg "cavemen and cowboys are attacking everyone"

"HISTORICAL SCENARIO" ADDON PACKS

• props, tiles, costumes for sandbox storytelling in famous sci fi settings: alien, star wars, 2001, etc

TIME TRAVEL

• events deemed timeline-critical by the IGTTC Armistice of 7978 cannot be changed without serious consequences. however, we are pretty sure time travel armistices are for babies.