Dev Log 41: Noise System; Vacation

Hey guys, while the rest of the team is working on wrapping up the remaining content (a few obligatory teaser screenshot included below), I took the time to work on some of the last game mechanic stuff to be implemented.

Most importantly, I implemented a noise system so the player will now have to consider more than just visual perception when handling a hostile area. This system works in a simple manner - certain actions, mostly relate to combat, such as firing weapons, grenade explosions, etc now emit a certain level of noise that travels through the map, with walls and other obstacles dampening their propagation (with certain thick walls doing so drastically). This will cause certain weapons - crossbows, knives and silenced pistols (and to lesser extent sledgehammers), will now have an edge over other weapon types when doing a stealth assassination.

In addition to this, a lot of NPCs will now holler for help on their turn if they are not stunned or incapacitated, so it's important to dispose of them quickly and silently if you want to avoid fighting the whole camp.

These changes will undoubtedly make some encounters more difficult so we will go through most problematic of them to make sure they are not too ridiculous.

In other news:

• Mechanics
• Added hard difficulty (less player health, less healing with longer cooldown)
• UI
• Pathfinding estimation during turn based combat no longer show the path once it gets into the undisovered part of the map
• Added an option to automatically overwrite saves
• Numeric pad cannot be used for dialog choices
• You can now properly target items in your action bar, quick bar, weapon and shield switch buttons (e.g. for recharging, reloading, etc)
• Items
• Cryogas grenade added
• Added one more acid type
• Added five new drugs
• Added two new poisons
• Added silencer enhancement that can be added to 5mm pistols and SMGs
• Added Biohazard suit
• Creatures
• Added two new Faceless types
• Added five new creatures
• Added one new turret
• Feats
• Changed Premeditation - Now also requires 6 intelligence.
• Changed Gun Nut - Upper damage bonus changed to 15% (down from 20%).
• Changed Gunslinger - AP reduction changed to 2 (down from 3) and only applies to firearms now.
• Changed Opportunist - Bonuses changed to 25%/15% (down from 35%/20%)
• Changed Recklessness - Critical damage chance bonus changed to 7% (down from 10%)
• Changed Cerebral Trauma - Damage bonus changed to 20% (down from 25%) and psi burn changed to 10% (down from 15%)
• Changed Quick Tinkering - Cooldown changed to 2 turns (down from 3).
• Changed Steadfast Aim - Bonus crit chance per AP cost changed to 0.5% (down from 1%)
• Changed Mental Subversion - It now stacks up to 75% (up from 50%)
• Changed Snipe - Fixed the bug that caused the attack not to do those base 100% of damage in addition to bonus damage and also changed the bonus damage per stealth point to 1.5% (up from 1%). Feat description also now displays exact numbers. Also now requires 30 stealth to obtain.
• Changed Sharpshooter - Damage changed to 30% (down from 50%).
• Changed Special Tactics - Dexterity requirement removed.
• Added Meditation (Continue from Tranquility) - Maximum psi points increased by 25.
• Added Psionic Mania - (Continues from Psychosis) When activated makes your next offensive psi ability an automatic critical hit. Activating this will remove up to 15% of your health, but cannot kill you.
• Added Neural Overclocking - Critical damage bonus of psi abilities increased by 30%.
• Added Psychostatic Electricity - When you damage a target with your electrical psionics you apply a debuff that increases the chance for the target to be critically hit from all sources by 5% for 2 turns. Stacks 5 times.
• Added Telekinetic Undulation - When you damage a living target by moving your telekinetic proxy, there's 50% chance it will be dazed for 1 turn.
• Added Corporeal Projection - All telekinetic damage increased by 5% for each point of strength above 5.
• Added Elemental Bolts - Increases electrical, acid and heat damage of all special bolts by 100%.
• Added Concussive Shots - When you deal mechanical with your crossbow you have 40% chance to daze living targets for 1 turn.
• Tweaks
• Cryokinesis and Pyrokinesis can no longer be launched through fences and other partial obstacles
• Resolve and fortitude base resist chance increased slightly
• Upper Tornado crossbow damage slightly reduced (not retroactive)
• Electrical pistols now only have 50% chance to trigger the stun on the initial target; this might also affect some electrobolts fired by the NPCs as well
• Pistol damage reduced by ~20% across the board
• Stalkers in the passages near SGS no longer respawn
• Psi Empathy feat will now reduce base health points by 25%
• Psi regeneration now scales with will and intelligence: psi regen = 5 + (will+int)/2
• Ranges of a number of psi abilities have been reduced: Bilocation - 7, Cryostasis - 6, Electrokinesis - 8, Frighten - 3, Mental Breakdown - 5, Neural Overload - 6
• Psi costs of a number of psi abilities have been modified (mostly increased): Cryokinesis - 15, Cryokinetic Orb - 40, Cryostasis - 65, Electrokinesis - 35, Exothermic Aura - 40, Forcefield - 25, Mental Breakdown - 60, Neural Overload - 15, Pyrokinesis - 40
• Psi booster cooldown changed to 3 turns (down from 6 turns)
• Metal plates enhancement will now provide less mechanical resistance
• Metal armor mechanical and energy resistance reduced across the board. Threshold remains the same. Not retroactive.
• Reinforced Fabric Ballistic Panel damage resistance reduced slightly
• Execute can no longer be preformed with electrical pistol. I cannot remove the bonus damage from electrobolt jumps easily without rewriting a good chunk of code so I'm just going to ban the electrogun from the club.
• Throwing knives upper damage range reduced
• Blob Pistol shooting sounds changed
• Increased crossbow max range by 2 and optimal range by 1 (not retroactive)
• Daze debuff now also reduces movement points by 30
• Sniper damage increased by ~20% across the board.
• Plasma sentry laser damage increased
• Made energy core and firearm barrels more easily available from merchants
• Armor penalty of boots reduced (not retroactive)
• Bugs
• Spiked boots will no longer double-trigger things like force emission and fancy footwork
• Taser will no longer consume twice the energy
• Taste for blood will no longer grant a stack when killing machines
• Hopefully fixed all achievements to work correctly
• On kill effects will now properly trigger when target is killed by an on hit effect (such as electrical melee weapons, force emission and special bolts)
• Fixed the bug that caused the game to on rare occasions skip the player's turn
• Premeditation no longer increases the range of pyrokinetic stream (that caused it to bug out).

That's all for now. Concerning the content - there's just one "biome" in Deep Caverns to be done before the "final event" in the game, but after that, as I mentioned before, we have to go back and rework some old areas and sprinkle a bit more flavor across the world.

Before we can do that, however, we'll need to recharge our batteries for the next three weeks by ditching our underground coding facilities and getting some Mediterranean sand in our toes (at least in my case). In the meantime, let us know how you like these changes.