As always, please give your feedback in the related Improvements Feedback thread.
(Edited by Johnny at 1:44 pm on 1/2/2021)
Cybernetic eyes will now correctly enhance your character's ability to notice things. The bonus should be the same whether you have one or two replacement eyes.
Has been added to better communicate the status of a vehicle on the fly. It includes common warning lights that reflect the status of your vehicle.
This also includes a "caw mute" and "caw unmute" command to tell the systems to not audibly warn your character if there is a situation of concern.
I've written the final pieces of code that the corpshare market needed to reset itself at the end of the cycle. The share prices & ongoing events won't reset, but each corpshare account will be emptied after prizes are assigned.
CORPSHARE PRIZES
There is a new option at the corpshare terminal, 'claim prizes' which will let you claim prizes. This is only possible AFTER the corpshare cycle has ended and prizes have been assigned. And only while you still work at your corporation.
The Reset Password button shown next to each of your Character accounts was broken for users who were behind common web proxy servers (perfectly normal stuff your ISP or Job might be doing). I have fixed the issue. If you've always found this button broken, maybe you know why now!
The XTO command now lets you target more than one person. Just separate the people with commas, no spaces.
(Edited by Slither at 3:01 pm on 1/3/2021)
The Judges that were using entirely random SIC aliases on the WJF key have been re-educated. They should all now use proper aliases.
The maps available of the city have been updated for the first time in several years, showing you all the hard work our builders have been putting in adding to the city.
As commonly requested: a new female version of the studdly has been added as new cyberware.
(Edited by Slither at 1:00 pm on 1/8/2021)
This is no longer a job that you just 'rp' doing. There are custodian boards at both NLM and VS which show the locations of messes that need cleaning up.
These messes will show up in the room description. There are a variety of different messes, like coffee spills and overflowing trash bins. The messes also shows how long it has been there (fresh, day old, week old, month old, etc).
Anyone can -technically- clean the mess up (you use the 'clean
Messes will spawn randomly daily, and will pile up if they are not cleaned, leading to a gross corp. Eventually that might even effect stock prices. Who knows?
Have been added to topside mechanic's shops. In a continuing effort to balance out the costs of mechanics shops, these machines assist in making repairs cheaper and more profitable for mechanics.
An 'estimate' command has been added to garages for mechanics to help with pricing suggestions for repairs.
These vary by shop and are just a rough guideline to give players a starting point on what to charge, given the complexity with doing car maintenance.
These prices align with what the NPC mechanics already charge and should help take out some of the mystery of doing mechanic work.
Have been added to companies in game where appropriate, including information that should help mechanics know the standard loadouts of their fleet vehicles and some other additional information.
SEARCH BEHIND [kiosk / wall art]
You can now hide and search for items hidden behind some of the every day things around the city. Cube Hotel rental kiosks, NLM street terminals, even art hung on a wall are all examples of things you might be able to hide something behind.
You'll find you can't put something larger than the hiding spot behind a thing, only one thing is going to fit there and it can't be too bulky either. Find those tracebacks!
You will not search behind these things when you search through a room, so be sure to be through in your detective work, gumshoes.
Now available from convenient dispensers near your favorite glory holes, locker rooms and other such locations. xhelp if you find a spot that seems like it'd have one and it don't.
It's now possible to find certain characters that will sell you a disposable firearm, no questions asked.
SOME cyberware can now be customized in appearance with some new commands:
@designs
@check
@color
@appearance
@design
This changes how the cyberware is displayed in your nakeds, and is now accessible to cyberdocs.
CYBERNETIC SYSTEM RESOURCES
A new unit has been added to cyberware called "system resources". Some cyberware generate system resources, and the purpose of these resources will be expanded on later.
Existing cyberware have had their PDS values adjusted where we've reduced the PDS penalty for wares. Where we've reduced this PDS, the cost has been shifted to the concept of system resources provided by a processor unit. You can think of this new cost as CPU provided by the main computers you have installed in your body.
Once you reach the maximum amount of consumed CPU (as provided by an installed processor), you will not be able to install further wares that require CPU.
Not all wares have been reduced, but a LOT of them have. In some cases, you may find your wares are costing you significantly less in terms of PDS. The goal with this change is to permit a broader variety of cyberware implants being used by everyone.
If you have a /system command that shows output in your vision, you'll see available CPU displayed there as a percentage of your capacity.
Fixed a bug that was causing the new corporate janitorial messes to cause tracebacks when looking at a room.
(Edited by Johnny at 11:55 am on 1/21/2021)
When you use @xlisten to listen to certain chat channels, you'll get some helpful guidance on using the channel including not to share your character's details.
Staff can manipulate a channels .listen_msg to customize these or fix typos.
The long debated 'face' location has been added! We Recommend that players update their 'head' nakeds to split hair and facial features between the two areas. Clothing & combat has been updated to account for this new location.
If there are clothing items that should be updated to have a face location, please @bug it and our lovely staff will make sure the item is updated if we agree it should be.
The TO command, socials where you target someone (smile johnny), poses directed at you (not emotes!) and a few places where the game targets you as the direct object of a message can now show up brightly like when you speak loudly or emote loudly.
We've reduced the threshold for this behavior (which affects speaking and emoting loudly too) in half, meaning it will happen when its less crowded now.
You can now find wheelchairs and mop buckets around the game in a few spots. They work sort of like motorcycles in that you ride them. After you do that, you can wheel or push them around, respectively.
They are a bit rough, find the edges and give me feedback. These are our first unpowered ground vehicles I believe. Don't expect to go too fast in them, they're not made to get you around at any real speed. :)
You'll find you need a mop in the same room as a spill or diry floor custodial mess to clean them up now.
When an admin unpuppets an NPC, we will now ask them a series of questions that are meant to quantify the tone of the puppet and the outcome of the puppet for the player(s) involved. Once we have gathered enough data over a period of time we will be able to add code that will slice and dice this data, presenting us with information about how often we are providing positive/negative outcomes, coupled with positive/negative tone. This will be very interesting, and is macro enough that we will be able to share these analytics at town halls.
We can also get micro enough, since the questions are specific to an NPC, and see if specific NPCs are always providing positive outcomes or negative outcomes, and tweak that balance.
Generally, we think we want to shot for 30% positive, 10% neutral, 60% negative or something along those lines. This is cyberpunk after all, and a beat down, a fuck off, a chewing out, are all negative outcomes.
We're tracking tone as well, because there are NPCs who are ALWAYS going to be assholes in how they relate to PCs but might be giving positive outcomes. You could have an asshole boss who is promoting you while calling you an idiot. Or a gang leader that is telling you not to fuck up while they jump you into the gang.
Being able to pivot along the 2 axis will give us lots of info to play with.
While yesterday you could push yourself along if you were riding in the mop bucket, you can now also push the mop bucket along without first riding in it. Janitors rejoice!
Found another place where 'somewhere' was coming from on the @who and have cleaned that situation up. Now folks will be accounted for right in this use case. Won't tell you what it was so as not to leak who is where. :)
Guest tours in the Red Sector will now start inside The Edge so they can enjoy the show too. Show'm what you got, Withmore!
Before, it was unclear if prosthetics were metal, or capable of sensation. Now, coupled with the @design system, prosthetics like cyberlimbs can be coated at the 'prosthetics painter' in the SK kiosk room.
Using
coat cyber with painter
A cyberdoctor can select a new exterior coating for the prosthetic from 'polymer colors' to FleshRight(tm) real sensation skintone skin.
MULTI-NAKED PROSTHETICS
Cybernetics that replace multiple locations now support multiple naked message overrides, to better support the disguise and layering system.
The command has changed from:
@appearance cyber is
to
@appearance cyber
Use the push command to push the wheelchair someone else is sitting in to an exit:
push wheel to [direction]
Other wheelchair commands (while I work on the examine):
ride wheel
wheel wheel to [direction]
unmount wheel
Uninstalling can no longer be done while:
* The patient is awake and the procedure requires a knockout.
* The patient doesn't trust you. (with the same exceptions as install)
* Uninstalling or installing other cyber.
It is no longer possible to install many cybernetics simultaneously.
Uninstalls and installs also cannot be done while aiming, climbing, flying, driving, and a bunch of other situations where doing delicate cybersurgery made no sense.
As a reminder, the syntax for trusting your cyberdoc is:
@trust doctor to operate
Bleeding all over the place gets messy, especially when you're fighting someone. These bloody messes now will need to be cleaned up! They also reveal some interesting facts about what went on potentially to those with the right tools and skills!
You won't get useless information anymore when you examine one of the new unpowered vehicles like wheelchairs or mop buckets.
Additionally, staff can now define examine files for specific vehicle generics (and their descendents) via @edit-help and then set the generic to use the new file by @setting the .examine_file property of the generic.
CORPSHARE PRIZES CHATTER
The winners of the corpshare prizes each quarter will get pushed out to chatter.
Each week we will auto generate the current top 3 for each prize (in future there may be more than one) and that will get pushed out to chatter.
These are TOPSIDE only chatter events, so you'll have to talk to a bartender or other chatterer to get this paydata.
NPCs have been configured to pick this up and give it to you as part of their streams.
A new line of coprocessors has been added to the game. These add system resources for specific kinds implants. These can be purchased from the SK kiosk as usual.
FLESHRIGHT BALANCE CHANGE
Fleshright coatings on prosthetics now decrease their PDS load, but increase their CPU load.
Nito-Kodak is pleased to announce their new product: A holoprojector module that fits in your cybernetic eye from Saedor-Krupp!
You may use this to project either a still image or a moving image from your eye. This requires being able paint the scene in your mind well enough, as well as being able to program the module to project it. The quality of the image will depend on how well you you achieve both of these things!
Note: It's a holoprojector module. It doesn't produce sound, don't try to make it!
Judge helmets before 'face' was added were a full-face helmet that covered your entire face. Now that we have an actual location, we have retconned the WJF helmet to be the half-face helmet style that lets everyone see your judicial sneer.
Skateboards and longboards have both been added to the game. You ride skate to get on one and dismount skate to get off. While you're riding, you push skate to [direction] to ride it in that direction.
You can also smack each other in the face with them.
Thanks go out to RedSteelButterfly for writing the descriptions and messages and to Mirage for inputting them all.
(Edited by MirageGM at 1:01 pm on 1/25/2021)
Skateboards and other unpowered vehicles now expose the rider such that you may be hit by an aggressive or inattentive driver in the express tubes. When this happens, you'll be dumped from your ride and it may be trashed.
Push has been removed from the commands you use for elevators. I know, ugh!
It has been replaced with press jab smash punch or touch. When you use one of these, the action you take will be reflected in how you press the button. Let you add a little emotion to this annoying $%@$@ change.
Why did we do this? In order to straighten out conflicting commands that are now more of an issue than they already were, we have made the decision that 'push' commands will be reserved for objects in rooms that you can interact with. Any room that defined a 'push' command (when you 'examine here') was blocking the numerous objects that define a 'push' command. With mop buckets, wheelchairs and skateboards needing to get around (especially through elevators), this was an issue. Sure, we could have come up with other commands this time for pushing push-able vehicles, but this wasn't the first time this issue had come up (over 25 different kinds of things define push commands) and we're going to continue to add 'push' type things in the future, so it made sense to make this change now and put the stake in the ground for how we're going to do it going forward.
TYPE / INPUT
Rooms that had 'push' commands where you were typing longer form words into fixed consoles, computers and the like now use 'type' or 'input' as their commands.
PRESS / SMASH / START
Gaming and VR rooms that used to allow 'push' now use these more video game terms for there commands.
JACUZZI ACTIVATION
When in the jacuzzi, use the command 'activate' to turn on the bubbles & jets.
PANIC / LOCKDOWN BUTTONS
Specific locations which had panic or lockdown functionality behind a 'push' command have been moved to physical button objects you'll need to find before using.
You'll need to pay entrance fees just like everyone else, but you can still roll up into the club. (in wheelchairs, mop buckets and on skateboards)
Them damn skater punks are no longer immune to those of you that pick pockets. They are more difficult to pick though.
You can throw and someone else can catch your skateboard, wheelchair or mop bucket now.
You can inspect your unpowered vehicles now too. Scrut away kiddos.
It's possible to drop your unwanted unpowered vehicles in recycling chutes. It's also possible that future unpowered vehicles like bicycles will not fit in the chute.
Also: if you happen to find yourself in the place where the chute goes when something is dropped into it, you'll see improved messaging as the item drops into the room. Additionally, I added code to raise an error if the object (for whatever reason) does not go anywhere, preventing the recycling chutes from being used to generate infinite sic credits from bugged items.
Cybernetics now list the substitutions they accept in @check, which allows for some more advanced programmatic substitutions to be utilizable in custom designs. For example the color of color eyes.
Speaking of, the color eyes have been made customizable to showcase this new functionality.
The unpowered vehicles now support jumping, shoving, falling and just riding around on rooftops. It's more difficult to jump without getting hurt while on one of these things, but when you do fall down, you shouldn't get stuck, the board shouldn't get stuck and you might even roll away.
We've reformulated fall damage to deal with falling from higher places better. Before, it was possible for well stated characters to become invincible to fall damage, no matter the height. This might make super high jumps in topside much more dangerous, but they were always supposed to be very dangerous.
Just so you don't think all falling is going to hurt more, we ran the numbers extensively and are happy that the new formula is producing fall damage in the same ranges as the old formula. Here's a 2 floor sample showing the one dependent stat increasing from left to right while the other dependent stat is represented by the different colored lines. You can see that as your stats go up, the damage goes down (you'll note there is some randomization at play too).
(reposting this with the correct chart for new fall damage)
We've reformulated fall damage to deal with falling from higher places better. Before, it was possible for well stated characters to become invincible to fall damage, no matter the height. This might make super high jumps in topside much more dangerous, but they were always supposed to be very dangerous.
Just so you don't think all falling is going to hurt more, we ran the numbers extensively and are happy that the new formula is producing fall damage in the same ranges as the old formula. Here's a 2 floor sample showing the one dependent stat increasing from left to right while the other dependent stat is represented by the different colored lines. You can see that as your stats go up, the damage goes down (you'll note there is some randomization at play too).
Two new SK cybernetics have been added to the game. A spine replacement and a dynamically resizing breast implant.
Both are supported by the design system.
To read more about the design system, please read the shiny new helpfile at:
help cyber-design
The cybernetics security device no longer announces in the player's voice that triggered it, fixing a possible meta-exploit.
The long very simple cybernetic price board at the various clinics have been upgraded! DocSign (A division of SK) has provided all the established outfits with touch-sensitive digital cybernetics price charts that wirelessly connect to the SK and VS product databases!
Cyberdocs working at one of these clinics can get access to the configure panel each high tech device sports. Able to define the advertising headline, what wares are sold, how much they're sold for and an array of other bells and whistles, docs are in full control of how they market what they sell!
Customers should be sure to take advantage of the touch-sensitive display to get more in-depth information provided by your clinic's doctor and backed by SK and VS product facts.
DocSign - "A doctor's best friend."
Characters skilled at trading can now notice prices on cybernetic price charts that seem higher than they should be.
This is fixed. NPCs will follow you through doors with fees correctly now. We broke this during skateboard code. Thanks for the report.
I've gone through all the verbs that build the messages you see when you ask for chatter, and extracted commonalities to properties. I've also expanded some of the word lists so that the messages will be less likely to be exactly the same, with just the name/date changed.
In moving them to props I've made the props accessible by $builders who, in the future, may want to add words to the word lists, for more options.
I'm also keeping an eye on places where we should have a mix word list and a topside word list. The best example of this is when deaths are reported on chatter. In the mix someone might get ghosted, topside someone will get killed.
Tailors can now set the tread pattern for footwear they are creating. Once you use this on a @finalized item, you will not be able to change its @name or @coverage anymore. Basically, once you make a pair of shoes fully, you can't fix coverage issues or change your shoes into a pair of underwear or a hat.
Inspecting footwear will let you see what the tread is like on the bottom.
THIS IS STILL EXPERIMENTAL
If things don't look right, I might have to purge the tread pattern datastore and we'd all start over with them, so do your best to find the pattern you like for your shoes. If we're having issues, bring'm up on the board.
Why do you need tread patterns? You've begun leaving footprints in the bloody messes. No, you can't detect these yet, but you're providing me with test data and letting me refine the "footprints as evidence" code.
There is now an NPC (in a place you will reasonably stumble on them) that will sell chatter tidbits on the current goings on in the corpshare market. These are randomly pulled from the current 'events' happening in the corpshare market, and will NOT encompass everything going on. However, if you spend time paying attention, and talk to these folx often enough, you'll be able to see some of the macro trends affecting various stocks. Again this DOES NOT MEAN that what you hear is the ONLY thing happening for a stock, just that it is ONE of the things.
I plan to add additional NPCs, with different requirements at different places (like your corps).
Characters skilled at trading can now notice prices at stores that are higher than they think things should be. Your character may be wrong of course.
PC Leased business revenue is now subject to fluctuation on a monthly basis based on interaction of said business with the in-game world.
Best get to hustlin'
Some people were spamming sit/stand in the park to get that park stench on them. I find this to be OK when people emote rolling around in the garbage, but not OK when they don't. Since we can't have nice things...
There is now a cooldown on this. If you want to sit/stand over and over, you can do so, but unless it's happening over a longer period of time, it ain't doing fuck all for you.
DIVING IN TRASH
Since people might want a more IC way to get smelly in the park, you can now 'dive in trash' or 'dive in garbage' while on a park path, and you'll get smelly this way. However, please be aware that this is fucking disgusting and the messages reflect this.
This chatter will now refresh every 1 to 3 days. Again, it picks random events that are ongoing, so you might hear the same thing 6 days in a row, but you might also, hear new stuff. The chatter ONLY sticks around for the 1-3 days as well, when new chatter is added, the old stuff is removed. This means you are incentive to check in on it often, or, since there is a cost involved, pool resources and track macro trends with your ace kool. Or whatever ace kool is but with corpies.
To prevent installing partially designed cyberware, a prompt has been added when a player attempts to install partially designed cyberware asking for confirmation to proceed.
Crate runners have ALWAYS had a cap to how many crates can be 'outstanding' at one time. The number was 3. However, there was also a bug where most of them thought they had like -77 (Bruce) and -396 (Larri) so we were NEVER seeing the message about having too many runners out.
Moving forward this bug had been fixed and the max raised-- but it's still possible to hit it if a LOT of people are running crates at the same time.
(Edited by Slither at 6:07 pm on 1/31/2021)
We already had weapons checkpoints which would not let you through them if you had a weapon. There are now appearance and scent checkpoints. These can be configured individually, or you can have a weapons/scent/appearance checkpoint all in one.
The only one in game is at a popular topside bar. If you show up looking like shit, or smelling like shit-- you ain't getting in.
This does not apply to employees, WJF, or building corpsec, of course.
You can now glance at someones face. Thanks for this Johnny!
GLANCE PRONOUN SUBBING
Glance now properly subs in pronouns where it didn't before.
If you type @rules you will now see one liners for each rule. The full rules are still available but this acts as a quick reference so you can more easily internalize these.
After further discussion, for game balance reasons, we have made it so MEGA CORP employees cannot run these crates. These are not intended for them and there isn't much reason for corpies to be doing this and we do not want to encourage it. The restrictions have still been loosened, so certain places that couldn't now can, but if you are a straight up MEGA CORP employee, ya out of luck.
