Goonhub
09-19-2020, 02:35 AM
Gang has been in an unusual state for a while. Some people like it, some people hate it. For the last 2 or 3 years, I'm fairly sure that I'm the only dev who has worked on it in any large capacity, and my changes to it are still very much incomplete. But due to circumstances, I can't give it the attention that it really needs to get quickly up to par. That's not to say I ever planned on abandoning it, far from it, I still have many plans, but I also have many other projects that pull me in different directions.
Recently, I've been hearing more and more that the rounds it facilitates are too chaotic or too banal compared to the other rounds to stay in rotation. So I'm posting a poll here. Do we remove Gang from normal rotation for now or to we keep it?
From my end, things would play out pretty similarly development-wise regardless of the outcome of the vote. The notable difference is that if we vote to remove Gang, then I would simply make updates and manually turn on a round of Gang every so often to get feedback and see what's working and what's not.
I'll likely leave the vote open for a week or two, maybe until the end of the month. And then we'll see.
What the future of Gang mode might look like
I, and others, have had a lot of ideas for what's wrong with gang, how it can be fixed, and just fun improvements on top of everything else. I'm going to outline a few of my plans for gang that have as of yet been unrealized. These are very things I will be working on or considering when it comes to gang in the future; nothing is set in stone here, but I wanted to share some of my plans so as to paint a picture of what gang could be:
- Tagging - This has been a big issue. One of the main objectives of gangs is to control turfs. I tried to facilitate that with giving points for controlling turfs, and that has lead to gangs capturing turfs, but it still lacks one of the fundamental things that this feature is suppose to have. That the turfs you capture are yours and that you should know it. Right now, it's very hard to tell if you are standing on a turf you own or don't unless you can see the tag on a single tile of a possibly very large area.
-I've thought that perhaps gang members should have a special vision overlay that allows them to see which gang owns any area/tile at a glance. They'd be colour coded. Maybe only visible via an ability button or when wearing your gang clothes.
-The two options for changing gang turf tagging I've been mulling over are this:
a. You can only capture an area that is adjacent to an area that your gang already owns. This I think would lead to more interesting "turf wars" in that you slowly have to push back gangs to gain some turf.
b. Similar to above, but this would have every spray paint tag have an area around it, like a radius of 6 tiles around it that captures those tiles as your "turf". And you can only paint over a turf that your turf owns. And spraypainting over a rival gang's tag tag would be a two step process where the first spray would be "X-ing" it out and removing their ownership of the surrounding areas so you can eventually move in. Of course you'll always own the area your locker is on so you can always expand out and with this method, having a visible overlay to see which tiles belong to whom is an absolute must. This could become tedious with all the spraying though.
- Gang points- This system is painfully unfinished. No one is to blame but myself, I just couldn't motivate myself to continue fleshing it out. The way gang points work right now, most people can't buy much fun items, and there really aren't a ton of them to begin with.
- I'll likely change gang points to work in a way such that gang members gain points individually and as a group at the same time. Individual points will be for purchasing personal items in the locker. Things like guns, meds, weapons, armor. Group points will be for things that will buff the gang as a whole: things that can help defend your gang without active intervention, sentry turrets, maybe an NPC bodyguard to defend the locker or patrol your area.
-Put the various types of common gang playstyle on equal footing in terms of points. So you can't just brew chems or grow plants for 40 minutes to amass enough points for weapons to wipe the station. So there are big negative effects for gangs and their points when they bomb the station.
- Make objectives clearer. Add HUD indicator for active gang objectives. Show them which way they can go to find their targets for kidnapping, and tagging
- Gang clothing - This one is tricky. I've tried to make gang clothing a legitimate tradeoff, but sometimes it doesn't work. You get considerable buffs when wearing your gang clothes, but it also makes you a target. But sometimes not enough of a target since you can hide your colors under an exo suit. I've thought about making gang clothing be either headgear or exo suits, no jumpsuits to hide.
- Gang themes. This was started and never finished like everything else. I wanted to have like a theme that each gang could have that comes with different types of thematic items and weapons they can buy. Like an Old West gang, Ninja Gang, Kung Fu Gang, Spaceman Gang, 30's Chicago Gang. Things like that. But I'd need a lot more sprites and more items.
Recently, I've been hearing more and more that the rounds it facilitates are too chaotic or too banal compared to the other rounds to stay in rotation. So I'm posting a poll here. Do we remove Gang from normal rotation for now or to we keep it?
From my end, things would play out pretty similarly development-wise regardless of the outcome of the vote. The notable difference is that if we vote to remove Gang, then I would simply make updates and manually turn on a round of Gang every so often to get feedback and see what's working and what's not.
I'll likely leave the vote open for a week or two, maybe until the end of the month. And then we'll see.
What the future of Gang mode might look like
I, and others, have had a lot of ideas for what's wrong with gang, how it can be fixed, and just fun improvements on top of everything else. I'm going to outline a few of my plans for gang that have as of yet been unrealized. These are very things I will be working on or considering when it comes to gang in the future; nothing is set in stone here, but I wanted to share some of my plans so as to paint a picture of what gang could be:
- Tagging - This has been a big issue. One of the main objectives of gangs is to control turfs. I tried to facilitate that with giving points for controlling turfs, and that has lead to gangs capturing turfs, but it still lacks one of the fundamental things that this feature is suppose to have. That the turfs you capture are yours and that you should know it. Right now, it's very hard to tell if you are standing on a turf you own or don't unless you can see the tag on a single tile of a possibly very large area.
-I've thought that perhaps gang members should have a special vision overlay that allows them to see which gang owns any area/tile at a glance. They'd be colour coded. Maybe only visible via an ability button or when wearing your gang clothes.
-The two options for changing gang turf tagging I've been mulling over are this:
a. You can only capture an area that is adjacent to an area that your gang already owns. This I think would lead to more interesting "turf wars" in that you slowly have to push back gangs to gain some turf.
b. Similar to above, but this would have every spray paint tag have an area around it, like a radius of 6 tiles around it that captures those tiles as your "turf". And you can only paint over a turf that your turf owns. And spraypainting over a rival gang's tag tag would be a two step process where the first spray would be "X-ing" it out and removing their ownership of the surrounding areas so you can eventually move in. Of course you'll always own the area your locker is on so you can always expand out and with this method, having a visible overlay to see which tiles belong to whom is an absolute must. This could become tedious with all the spraying though.
- Gang points- This system is painfully unfinished. No one is to blame but myself, I just couldn't motivate myself to continue fleshing it out. The way gang points work right now, most people can't buy much fun items, and there really aren't a ton of them to begin with.
- I'll likely change gang points to work in a way such that gang members gain points individually and as a group at the same time. Individual points will be for purchasing personal items in the locker. Things like guns, meds, weapons, armor. Group points will be for things that will buff the gang as a whole: things that can help defend your gang without active intervention, sentry turrets, maybe an NPC bodyguard to defend the locker or patrol your area.
-Put the various types of common gang playstyle on equal footing in terms of points. So you can't just brew chems or grow plants for 40 minutes to amass enough points for weapons to wipe the station. So there are big negative effects for gangs and their points when they bomb the station.
- Make objectives clearer. Add HUD indicator for active gang objectives. Show them which way they can go to find their targets for kidnapping, and tagging
- Gang clothing - This one is tricky. I've tried to make gang clothing a legitimate tradeoff, but sometimes it doesn't work. You get considerable buffs when wearing your gang clothes, but it also makes you a target. But sometimes not enough of a target since you can hide your colors under an exo suit. I've thought about making gang clothing be either headgear or exo suits, no jumpsuits to hide.
- Gang themes. This was started and never finished like everything else. I wanted to have like a theme that each gang could have that comes with different types of thematic items and weapons they can buy. Like an Old West gang, Ninja Gang, Kung Fu Gang, Spaceman Gang, 30's Chicago Gang. Things like that. But I'd need a lot more sprites and more items.