Dynamic Skills

[cavesomething]

A nicer way to do that is to have an idea of melting down items and reforming them.

so you have one recipe to turn x daggers into m lbs of molten iron, then you have another one to turn the molten iron into swords, or short swords, or whatever it is.

of course, molten iron should do fire damage don't forget....

then of course, magical items would be made of molten iron (or bronze) and other ingredients.

this is both simpler and saner as well as being more realistic (inasmuch as a fantasy RPG can be....)

[Rednaxela]

A nicer way to do that is to have an idea of melting down items and reforming them.

so you have one recipe to turn x daggers into m lbs of molten iron, then you have another one to turn the molten iron into swords, or short swords, or whatever it is.

of course, molten iron should do fire damage don't forget....

And perhaps the molten iron should cool off over time so it's unusable except to remelt.

[cavesomething]

yes, that can be done in the arch I believe....

on a similar note, maybe icecubes should be safely meltable (without destroying their contents) if they are brought to a stove? (this in addition to flint and steel approach)

[Aaron]

yea, i guess this will split into at least one more file. one for formula's, and one for rules, like adding dragon hearts adds fire resist, and chinese dragon hearts adds cold resist...

[Aaron]

well, im out of school now, so more effort twoards this. ive been thinking and it seems like this will end up affecting most of the game. im thinking that it will be easier if i change the item system a bit, but seems like this is going to end up being a ....

[Rednaxela]

being a ....

big project?

[bort]

being a ....

big project?

No.
A pain in the ...
I'd estimate that on average a code file for dynamic skills would be about ~1000-6000 lines of C.. or ~600-900 lines of python..
You need a whole team to begin on dynamic.


So better start recruiting...

[cavesomething]

the two stage alchemy I suggested wouldn't require any code changes, just the addition of some new items, some arch changes and recipes. (many recipes).

consider, if you define for each skill a number of 'bases'

smithery would have iron, steel, and bronze.

alchemy might take fire, air, earth and water. (the classical elements)

bowyer would take shaft, string and flight (or something similar).

all of the 'basic' items for each skill would be a combination of these key 'elements' (a bronze dagger would be 1 bronze, a iron broadsword 4 iron, a plate mail 20 iron, etc).

each of these could be melted down to give the basic components again.

by then adding back the basic components plus some other items, then enchanted items would be created.

so 1 bronze + 1 potion of fire resistance = 1 bronze dagger (resist fire +n)

4 iron + 1 potion of fire resistance = 1 iron broadsword (resist fire +n)

4 iron + 4 potion of fire resistance = 4 iron daggers (resist fire +n)

4 iron + 5 potion of fire resistance = explosion

possibly the recipes could be simplified by adding psuedo-items (if the source items are enchanted add a special magicalness +n item, if they are unpaid add a special thieved item) then if they are present, add them to the item stats at the end. (at this point you need code changes, but only minor ones)

[Rednaxela]

Cavehippo:
It wouldn't require any code changes, but I think that doing some coding would be easier than the massive number of recipies required.

[Aaron]

cavesomething: you basicly described dynamic alchemy(or insert skill here). except the recipies were more like dagger + potion of fireresistance is a fire resist dagger, and 4-6 daggers + potion would be a sword of fireresist, and so on. although if i do use mikees archs, maybe he'll shut up for a while...