Light
Radix
Join Date: 2005-01-10 Member: 34654Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2005-01-10 Member: 34654Members, Constellation
Consider forcing dynamic infestation to require a certain light level (meaning lack thereof), and having light effects (flashlights, lasers, field lights) actively damage and/or shrink it.
Secondly, consider having dynamic infestation spawn intermittent "lanterns" (as per the concept art) to make up for this, creating more light where there is deeper darkness, and less light where there is more, so as to create an almost enchanting atmosphere.
This may have the side effect of attracting a few female players, but I'm no expert on that matter. Note also that I'm not saying the game should deviate from sci-fi horror by suggesting these 2 items, but rather that the scifi-horror atmosphere could benefit from a slightly different (perhaps one third?) alien look and feel, rather than merely replicating exactly the feel found in NS.
Secondly, consider having dynamic infestation spawn intermittent "lanterns" (as per the concept art) to make up for this, creating more light where there is deeper darkness, and less light where there is more, so as to create an almost enchanting atmosphere.
This may have the side effect of attracting a few female players, but I'm no expert on that matter. Note also that I'm not saying the game should deviate from sci-fi horror by suggesting these 2 items, but rather that the scifi-horror atmosphere could benefit from a slightly different (perhaps one third?) alien look and feel, rather than merely replicating exactly the feel found in NS.
Comments
Also, how would it attract female players?
Second, you wouldn't have the DI entity checking for it all the time. DI would wait for interaction from a given light source. You don't need to enable it in every light. You could build a brush entity that could be placed in rooms that the mapper considers to be "well lit" which would push the DI back. Then you could take flashlights and other weapon-style light-emitting entities and give them an output that interacts with the DI's geometry propogation system.
Hmm, fireflies and sparkles in the air in brightly lit rooms doesn't really go with the NS feel/universe but I guess it could work even though i don't support the idea. However the idea of preset map area entity being the feature that pushes back DI is pretty neat, could be used near fires or lava or extreme cold? It would make it feel far more real and like a living organism as it creeps across the map, recoiling when the environment is too in-hospitable for growth. Kinda like a fungus or slime mold.
Why is this?
You don't even need light to directly interact with the DI. You just need *some* form of brush entity *somewhere* that asks "Is there DI here? (No: Continue) (Yes: Push it back)", combined with an additional inverse DI-paint tool added to the flashlight and other major in-game light sources.
Probably the most optimized way, to design the brush entity for example, (assuming that using light itself would indeed be too taxing, which is likely) would be to author a trigger_push which, instead of effecting clients, effected the DI, perhaps with more of a "melt" effect than a "push" in the interior of the brush.