Multiple different types of citizens in one city

[Flygon]

Because of the random sex bug they leave the pants at home, so no one will miss the show.   

I have absolutely no idea how much innuendo you intended, just then.

[Buster's Uncle]

Now, about those worker designs...

[Buster's Uncle]

scient didn't get to it last night, but says he's got it set up on his laptop - he has a long bus ride tomorrow, and is planning to work on it during that.

Now, about those worker designs -- I'll pitch in, but I won't do your project for you...

[Kilkakon]

I agree, I have absolutely no idea how to take that statement you made BUncle hahaha.

Yay, that would be awesome to have the workers done. I can picture great ones for LE, that's for sure. Like females. I've heard good things about females.

Morgan's followers should wear money instead of clothing. And top hats, can't forget the class.


But the big thing is to get a release of the stuff that's been done already. I'd love to play with COMMFREQ, for example.

[Buster's Uncle]

Hmm. Lal's people ought to be all sorts, but that's too complex - maybe just make then generic east Indian, male and female?

[Kilkakon]

Agreed--one thing though, definitely keep the racial tones the same regardless of citizen type (talent/worker/drone/whatever) as that's going to cause problems otherwise.

Gaian talent women would probably be those telepathy naked tree types?

[Buster's Uncle]

Yeah, you get to do four individuals for each faction with Talents in there, don't you?  Can get in a little diversity that way.

Custom specialists would be nice, but surely too complex.  -"Too much sugar for a nickle", we say 'round these parts...

[Kilkakon]

Programmatically, it would be easier to clone the whole set of citizens and specialists rather than have specialists as an exception. Of course, art wise they can just be the same images copy/pasted down.

[Buster's Uncle]

I 'spose that depends on the code, doesn't it?

[Buster's Uncle]

scient, did you learn anything about this?

[Yitzi]

I wouldn't think that would be too hard to code, if one could do that scient stuff at all...

Actually, I would think it would be.

A general rule for assembly-language patching/modding: If the new system requires keeping track of more information than the old system, it'll probably be somewhere between hard and impossible to code.  (I managed to make do with the extra alphax variables by replacing some landmark info, and even that had its flaws; 2.0 will replace that with reducing the technical maximum* for previously existing rules, but that's a lot of work.)

On the other hand, if Scient says he can do it, maybe it's not as hard as I thought.

*The game sets limits that are stricter than that anyway; I'm actually removing the existing limits.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well drat.

[Kilkakon]

*bumps anyway so scient might see it and comment*

[scient]

There are mechanics that already exist inside base structure to handle the gradual change of base structure from original faction to their new orders after being captured.  This mechanic could be applied to population.  The problem will be adding in the loading of pcx data for indiv factions citizens.  Right now, it just uses one for all besides human vs alien.  The limitation would be if there is room or someplace in faction structure to link to this information.  Actually modifying code to display diff talents and what not would be relatively simple. The problem is finding the room to load the pcx data based on way game handles memory and structures.

Before I target something like this, I think I would try the more modest goal of enable negative resource icons for base structure.

[Buster's Uncle]

...Adding a row of citizen icons to the main faction .pcxs would be simple once the icons are designed and made.  My main concern would be that it would tend to render the modded version incompatible with vanilla faction files, absent a if-nothing's-there-default-to-the-old-way line in the new code.