Another long post, but since a few people have asked, I decided to post this for critique. Comment on however much you can stand to read. :) For those who don't know the sci-fi RPG I'm working on has character, vehicle and ship interaction, mainly through combat, stealth and trade. Since the game is open ended, it's a bit less forgiving about stealth than your normal level-based game because failure is not game over and you can always come back better prepared. This means that triggering alarms can trigger waves of guards who thoroughly search the area, rather than constantly standing down as they would in Thief or System Shock 2. Since it's an indie game, I'm going with a stat heavy but interface light approach. You get lots of stats under the hood, but a quick interface to sum them up. Those players that want to stat monger can call up details, but those who don't can simply look at two bars. The ton of stats are included in order to make a wide variety of items that interact with each other in interesting ways. Basics No matter if you're playing a human or alien or flying or driving, you use the same rules. You have a Perception meter and a Stealth meter. Each represents the average of all your detection and stealth stats. Each has connected to it a thinner bar with a word in it. Under Perception, this bar shows whatever search mode you're in (more below). Under Stealth, this thin bar shows your worst stealth stat, and changes based on what you detect your enemy to be searching with (this requires an observation test). Stealth Mode When you go into stealth mode, the two parts of your stealth bar go more translucent the more likely you are to be detected. Both can be different levels. Once in stealth mode, you can commit crimes like picking up things that don't belong to you. Search Mode When you go into Search Mode, you switch from using your general Perception stat to the specific one you've toggled. Since this is 3rd person / iso, you then get 3 Search Markers around your character/vehicle/ship representing the 3 closest signals or 3 signals you've locked onto. The wider the arrows, the more uncertain the direction (the worst being a full circle, all 3 in concentric rings around you). The more translucent the marker, the farther the signal. Signals also show up on the minimap if you have one. Detection Arc Detection arcs range from 1 to 360 degrees. Humans get a cone of about 45', but helmets and gear can modify it. Being struck in a blindspot negates defenses, btw. Stats For Stealth

• Spectrum (has a <--Spectrum Graphic-->) - How visible you are, represented by a graph with spikes. The more visible you are in any part of the spectrum, the higher the spikes.
• Camoflague - How close you match the pattern of the surrounding area in shape, size and movement.
• Reflection - How much you reflect directed energy waves / beams like radar, lidar or motion tracking.
• Vibration - Sound you make by moving over surfaces, opening doors or using mechanical equipment. If atmosphere is present, this carries in the form of noise.
• Psion - Emissions produced by strong emotions and thought in general.
• Chem - Emissions produced by smells, pheremones or chemical gas.
• Mass - Gravity waves made by an object's mass. Massive objects "drown out" less massive ones, making it difficult to use near gravity wells but excellent in deep space.
• Digital - Electrical, electronic or quantronic energy detectable in technological devices.
• Bio - Organized electrical or chemical energy patterns detectable in living organisms.
• Resonance - The specific molecular resonance of a substance or item, such as a weapon or nuclear material.

ID Check These stealth stats are percentages from 0 to 100. They represent the chance of being identified by certain people or devices. The chance decreases the further you get from frequented locations.

• Appearance - Chance that you'll be recognized by facial recognition cameras or local eyes.
• Mindprint - Your unique mental fingerprint. Must be taken with a psi-probe, and lasts for about 6 months. (Favorite tool of repressive governments built into public neural jack kiosks).
• DNA - Your unique biological fingerprint.
• Transponder - A unique transmitter embedded in expensive equipment like vehicles or starships.
• Tracks - Chance that you are leaving behind a trail (either in particles, blood or material)

Beating Detection You beat the stats in the following ways:

• Visibility - Match the energy of the environment. Use shadows for light, stars and reactors for IR, planets and jovians for radio.
• Camoflague - Match the shape of the environment, using dense cover, holograms or disguises.
• Reflection - Use smart armor that not only absorbs but retransmits signals so there is no visible "hole" than can be triangulated. Or use energy intensive, short-term use phase technology, which makes you intangible.
• Vibration - Move more slowly to reduce noise, and wear stealth gear with vibration absorbing properties.
• Psion - Counter with meditation, psi dampeners or KOing NPCs.
• Chem - Counter with masking nanites or sealed clothing.
• Mass - Land on planets, or orbit closely to stars or dump inventory.
• Digital - Switch off equipment or buy dampened gear
• Bio - Hide in areas dense with life, like cities, forests or oceans.
• Resonance - Generally unbeatable but can be masked beneath layers of dense material like rock or lead, or in stealthed cargo pouches or holds. Detecting a specific item requires a deep, high intensity scan, with a longer scan revealing more detail over time.
• Appearance - Change with disguises like biomasks or identity suits (think Total Recall: "Two weeks... two... weeeeeeks!" :>)
• Mindprint - Unbeatable, but the subject must have been recently printed and the range is only a few kilometers.
• DNA - Use illegal nanotech to slightly alter the unused junk DNA in your strands
• Transponder - Hack it or take it to a pirate chop shop. If you shut it down, it will be suspicious.
• Tracks - You can perform a specific skill to misdirect or cover your tracks

About Security In general, enemies have multipel levels of security. Players trigger higher levels by leaving behind evidence, and trigger lower levels by waiting or running a ruse. Unprepared

• NPCs are at 1/2 Perception and wander around randomly, slowly, or not at all
• Weapons in use are light, on safety, and take time to charge / ready
• NPCs must go missing for more than 2-5 hours before NPCs search for them. After 2-5 more hours, NPCs upgrade to Alert
• If the player is sighted once or twice, NPCs upgrade to Active. After that, they upgrade to Alert
• If evidence is found (dead body, gunshot, explosion), NPCs upgrade to Alarmed
• Sensor sweeps are non-existant

Active

• NPCs are at full Perception but wander on slow, light patrols
• Weapons are standard but not readied
• NPCs that go missing for more than a few hours trigger an upgrade to Alert
• If evidence is found (dead body, gunshot, explosion), NPCs upgrade to Alarmed
• Sensor sweeps are regular and predictable

Alert

• NPCs are at full Perception and wander frequent patrols, that scan the area randomly on one or two stats.
• Weapons are standard and readied / charged
• NPCs that go missing for more than about 10 - 20 minutes trigger an upgrade to Alarmed
• If evidence is found (dead body, gunshot, explosion), NPCs upgrade to Hunting
• Sensor sweeps are regular but occur in random locations.

Alarmed

• NPCs are at full Perception and wander frequent, heavy patrols that scan the area randomly on three or four stats.
• Weapons are standard and readied / charged
• NPCs that go missing for more than about 5 - 10 minutes trigger an upgrade to Hunting
• If evidence is found (dead body, gunshot, explosion), NPCs upgrade to Hunting
• Sensor sweeps are irregular and random.

Hunting

• NPCs are at full Perception and wander frequent patrols, heavy patrols that scan the area randomly on as many stats as possible. Guards are posted at chokepoints and high value areas. Doors and equipment are under lockdown. NPCs mob on any point of action continuously until the threat is neutralized.
• Weapons are best and readied / charged
• NPCs that go missing trigger a call for reinforcements
• If evidence is found (dead body, gunshot, explosion), Elite NPCs use the evidence to track the player.
• Sensor sweeps are as constant as possible.

Did I miss anything? :P

Quote:Original post by PSWind
Pretty solid from what I see.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to read it.

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I haven't taken the time to fully read your previous posts but does this relate to on foot, in space, or both? Does this mean you can go stealth, in space? How would that work beyond getting through blockades undetected Not that there is anything wrong with that.

This is for stealth in space, for vehicles (air / sea / land) and for when you're on foot.

Stealth is good for dealing with superior enemies in a lot of ways: Making hit and run attacks, getting within weapons range without getting battered, and performing dirty tricks like leaving behind a cask of antimatter right off their port bow.

Stealth will let you land on colonies you're normally barred from (maybe to meet your smuggler contact). It will also give you an advantage if you decide to sack the colony.

It also allows you to steal things from ships or bases (like tech or special characters). You could get close enough to EVA over a team to hijack or sabotage a ship.

Merchants will also have a need for stealth. If you have a secret market with good prices, you'll want to lose the vultures that start following as a result of your killer sales. Alternately, you can track a ship that has a secret jump route, becoming a vulture yourself. And, if you get into deep debt, there are those pesky bill collector probes and bounty hunters that you'll need to lose from time to time. =)

Awareness/alertness escalation is rather detailed, but you don't seem to cover becomming less alert.

IMHO its still one of the major flaws with most stealth games. Theif solves it by practically never letting a fully aware (hunting as you call it) person drop down again, but in some levels it happens over time, or after a suitably large search has taken place.

Most games seem to work on a horrible 'time out'. It can really destroy the stealth aspect (in, say, Deus Ex) when you can shoot someone though the head and then just lay low for the next couple of mins. On comming back the guards have all returned to their default state, despite one of their comrades quietly bleeding into a gutter.

It would be nice if you could reduce the awareness in a number of ways. An excuse (thinking random sounds were rats etc.) a distraction (ah! fire! better sort that out sharpish!) a frame (blame some unsuspecting civilian) or perhaps some kind of retreat state (remaining guards tighten up patrol routes to just a couple of central rooms rather than the entire building).

Quote:Original post by OrangyTang
Awareness/alertness escalation is rather detailed, but you don't seem to cover becomming less alert.

Hmmm... You're right, good point.

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Most games seem to work on a horrible 'time out'. It can really destroy the stealth aspect (in, say, Deus Ex) when you can shoot someone though the head and then just lay low for the next couple of mins. On comming back the guards have all returned to their default state, despite one of their comrades quietly bleeding into a gutter.

I tried to cover this by the escalation based on obvious evidence, such as finding a body, or an explosion or gunshot. But, again, this makes the alertness go up, not down.

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It would be nice if you could reduce the awareness in a number of ways. An excuse (thinking random sounds were rats etc.) a distraction (ah! fire! better sort that out sharpish!)
...

I think what's needed are two classifications: Either your presence has been hinted at, or is obvious. Hints can be mistaken for other things, but obvious evidence of your prescence is such a screwup that it requires a diversion.

So maybe if you're just glimpsed, or make a slight noise, then the NPC should react casually if the security level is below Alarmed, and check it out. They'll move to the point of the interest, and if they find nothing, they'll de-escalate, and make some comment like "I'm hearing things" or "Jenkins, quit playing around!"

At Unprepared, the same NPC will de-escalate maybe a dozen times before calling buddies who wait around the area for awhile. Maybe they comment to tell you what's going on, saying something like, "Something not right here."

At Alert, you only get 2 or 3 chances before they call in backup. The whole calling of backup thing shoud increase the chance that you'll get caught.

To de-escalate, you should be able to

• Use "Jedi mindtricks" with psionics
  
• Project a hologram of something innocuous, like a rat or asteroid
  
• Use some sort of sensor echo device or setting on scanners
  
• Use some kind of skill bluff to impersonate someone or something else
  

At Alarmed and above, NPCs don't de-escalate unless you fake signals that you're leaving, which can be some sort of sensor equipment option. The only other alternative would be to create, as you said, a massive problem for them elsewhere. If you're only hinted at, then this will be a great way not to de-escalate security, but to clump them around the problem area; but if you've been discovered, they should still deal with the problem but hunt you as well.

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... a frame (blame some unsuspecting civilian)

I don't quite see how this one would work.

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... or perhaps some kind of retreat state (remaining guards tighten up patrol routes to just a couple of central rooms rather than the entire building).

This is good, I think if their forces are reduced past a certain point, they should hole up and wait for reinforcements. Maybe you can lengthen this time by destroying their ability to call for off-map help.

Quote:Original post by Wavinator

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... a frame (blame some unsuspecting civilian)

I don't quite see how this one would work.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how you'd actually do this in a game, but I stuck it in as another plausible way of calming down the hunters. The only way I could imagine would be to be seen impersonating someone and acting suspicion. They give chase and you lead them round the corner into the person you've been impersonating. While they grab the innocent you've quietly slipped away. Of course that kinda requires you to have not been positivly identified as someone else first.

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... or perhaps some kind of retreat state (remaining guards tighten up patrol routes to just a couple of central rooms rather than the entire building).

This is good, I think if their forces are reduced past a certain point, they should hole up and wait for reinforcements. Maybe you can lengthen this time by destroying their ability to call for off-map help.

Something more complex than just the size of the force I think. Probably based on confidence/confusion. A person who constantly hears you in the same area and has a mate with him is going to feel pretty confident about tracking you down. But a group of people who are hearing noises everywhere and getting shot at from all sorts of different angles are going to be much more jumpy, even if they are a bigger group.

Seems like a solid system, I only have a few minor suggestions.

Under stealth stats, I would add footprint, this is the the overall trace/evidence of your activives. It covers everything from footprints in the snow, to leaving dead bodies lying around. The higher the the footprint the more likly the security will escilate whether they detect you or not.


Also I assume that for each stealth stat there is a corresponding detection stat? Also for detection devices you may want to think of having a set of high level detection equipment that use negative detection technology, in other words it looks for whats missing and inverts stealth ratings for the purposes of its test, so the higher your stealth rating the more likly you will be detected.

Lastly, you might want to think of adding stealth decoys and jammers. Examples might include holo recorder and projector, scans a target and records their actions, then can be used to create a holo version of that target and its recorded actions, diffrent level can recorder longer and are less likly to be noticed. Used to conivce guards that another guard is still alive.