Grand Rogue Auto 0.3.8 Released !

Behold, Grand Rogue Auto 0.3.8 !

Why not 0.4, you may ask? Because I have to work on the faction and combat stuff some more before being able to switch to the mission system. This said, this new release introduces major changes regarding the controls and the combat system. As usual, this article gives detailed information regarding the update and what I am going to work on next.

1. Running, Shooting and Stamina

As explained in this article, the player can run and shoot 2 times per turn. To do so, you must switch to running mode by using the 3rd button on the left (the walking/running guy) panel, or by pressing the [W] key. In running mode, everything you do -except waiting- consumes Stamina. If your stamina goes below 0, you automatically switch back to walking mode.

In running mode, you can move 2 times per turn (useful for chasing NPC) or fire one time and move one time, or fire two times. Firing in running mode reduces your accuracy considerably. Using burst fire (glock, rifles and smg) in running mode is counterproductive, it will eat all your remaining actions points and your accuracy will be reduced too, so you should stick to standard / aimed (more on that later) shots for the time being.

Your total Stamina is based on your Strength attribute. Some drugs can increase your maximum amount, and some items may restore your current value. Also notice that some weapons (shotguns) will reduce your stamina points greatly when you're hit.

NPC don't understand this concept yet. So you won't see other NPC running or shooting 2 times per turn until a little while (but yes, it's coming). However, they can use burst shots now.

2. Health and Combat System

The health bar disappeared, it's now replaced by a bar for each one of your body parts (head, torso, legs, and arms). If one of those bars goes 0%, you're dead. Same for the enemies. The torso is the easier to hit but it has the most HP, while the head has 50% less HP, but it's also much harder to hit. As a result, it is now possible to aim at specific body parts with most weapons (except some smg and melee weapon). By default you will aim at the torso, it's the easiest to hit, but it has the most HP. There's also a (30%) chance to hit another body part by 'mistake'. In the above screenshot, I shot 2 times using burst fire (which always targets torso) and you can see that the bullets hit different body parts. You can also notice that combat logs are now more informative.

To aim at a specific body part, granted you're not in burst-mode and that you weapon supports this fire mode, you can either right-click on your target and use the drop-down menu, or press the [V] (or NumPad [+]) key to cycle between body parts. You can see where you're currently aiming at in the Target area of the right panel, next to your hit chance.

There's still work to be done on that part. I'd like to add specific negative effects when a limb is wounded and when it is critically wounded. I would also like allowing the player to use healing items on specific body parts (fallout style). It will be done sooner or later. Also the introduction of body parts, that can be different from a NPC to another allows me to add special creatures with tails, wings or whatever (well, probably not in this game, but you get the idea).

3. Damage Types and Armors

Weapons now have a damage type: guns and rifles are using piercing damage, shotguns are using impact, melee weapons are split between impact and slashing, the RPG launcher uses explosive damages.And so on, there's currently 7 different damage types (it can be changed easily), with fire, electrical and chemical.

This is important because Armors have been introduced. They can be bought in weapon stores and gang hideouts. Armors protects specific body parts against one or several damage types:

You can only use one armor per body part (granted it's compatible). So basically if you buy an armor covering both your body and your legs (like riot armor) you won't be able to wear boots. Theoretically armors should support special effects, and have a durability that decreases each time it soaks damages but it's not implemented properly yet.

4. User Interface

It has been improved to accommodate those changes. 

• Information panels for weapons and armors are accessible from weapon stores and from your inventory. 
• It's also possible to switch weapon quickly using the mouse by right clicking on your weapon's name or image in the right panel. 
• The targeting system (using keyboard) has been rewritten, the cycling is ordered by distance, the current target stays selected while it's in your line of sight.
• A key has been added [E] to cycle between enemies only. 
• You can toggle run/walk mode using the [W] key or the 3rd button on the left panel.

There's probably a few other tricks I forgot to note regarding the UI. Still, i hope it's intuitive enough for the time being. A complete overhaul is planned, but I still have a few things to add first.

5. Zombie Mode 

Yeah, it was broken in the previous version. They were attacking each other and dieing before doing much damage. It's now fixed. Zombies are less numerous at start, and have a reduced line of sight, but they have an innate claw attack that will infect people when hurt. Infected people slowly loose health and when they die, they turn into zombies. You can cure yourself using the anti-venom found in hospitals and some houses.

6. City, NPC, Factions, Misc.

Regarding the city, NPC, and stuff. Gang members will buy better weapons if they have the cash for it. The combat AI can use burst shots, but it can't really aim its shots or run yet. Logic of couriers has been improved, and shops should be getting new stocks more quickly. A police station has been added, and the police forces will try to "liberate" city blocks from the gangs. I also added more weapons, npc, armors, tiles, furniture, sprites and items to the game. All in all, it's more polished than before. There's also a faction called The Brotherhood (temporary name) added to the game, they have specific sprites and weaponry, and they own a few weapon stores in town. It's a demo faction created using the faction editor, and it may or may not be used in the storyline later.

7. Bugs fixed and added

I fixed some annoying bugs (people closing/opening doors in loop), but the main news is that I found why the game was using so much memory. It was definitively a stupid mistake corrected by removing a single line of code (shame on me). Anyway, the game uses much less RAM than before, and it should be much more responsive when playing in a big city (granted your CPU can handle this many NPC).

This said, I have done a hell lot of changes in the lowest layers of my code to implement the combat system (and other stuff) properly. I've done little play-testing, so you are kinda bound to find new bugs (or old ones reappearing) in this release. Please report them in this topic. Seriously, inform me about any weird behavior you encounter, I may already have found it, but it's best to be sure.

8. Modding and Game Engine

This is the new tileset editor. It allows to add new wall and floors to the game easily. Yeah it's far from being intuitive, but it will be improved as the development advances.

Here is the new armor editor. It allows you to add new armors or edit existing ones. It's fairly easy to use, but notice that even if you can assign a special effect to an armor, it won't work in-game yet. I'm hoping to fix this for next release.

The weapon editor was improved, special effects are working, and are applied to the person hit by this weapon. You can also select the damage type, set if a weapon is innate (can't find in any shop, don't drop on death) or not, and if it's a legal one or not. 

The effect editor was improved too. Effects can cancel one another (like an anti-poison item can cure you from a poisoned state). You can set a probability of success to an effect, like having 50% chance to loose 10 stamina on hit.  Much more is coming regarding those special effects, but I will detail that in another article.

9. What's Next ?

So, I am going to finish the combat system as cover (from objects on the map) and area of effect are not yet handled. I will also expand the health system. I also definitively need to reduces the load on the CPU, this version hasn't been optimized as the previous ones, and you can feel it if your computer is a few years old. I know how to, but yeah it's going to take time. I'm also going to finish the faction warfare system. This done, I will release 0.4 and start working on the mission-related stuff and buildings with several floors.

Note: If you have a previous version of GRA installed and if the game crashes at world generation, delete the whole folder and try again.Custom or old weapons, effects and items aren't compatible with this new version.