What do you consider classical features and mechanics?

[Psiweapon]

I'm thinking about some common features that aren't present in zap'm that I might implement in the future, but i'd like you to point me to some other roguelike features you consider I might not have thought of.

Off the top of my head:

-Food clock
-Races
-Gods/praying (this would look very different in any case)
-Digging
-Engraving
-Manufacture of items (elvish, orcish, that kind of thing, I don't care much for that)
-Bones (I'm sure I'm not able to do this and won't be in a long time)
-Wishing

anything else? Most of them sound like a tough nut to crack for me, but I hope I'll be able to pull off a couple of them...

[Ari Rahikkala]

Trying ZapM out after having gotten used to Crawl, I'd say that it's not really lacking in gameplay features, but in interface. I don't know if I'd miss these so much if I were a new player, but knowing I don't have them makes the idea of playing a game of ZapM sound like a chore:

- Autoexplore (it's not as important on this mapsize but it's still damn nice to have)
- A health bar, possibly an energy indicator of some kind?
- A 'r'est command that waits for longer than just one turn (goes well together with the lack of a food clock)
- Automatically try to open doors by bumping into them

[Ancient]

Hmmm. How about:

- A robot repairing other robots? Such enemy would accompany Cylon forces but hopefully not Daleks!
- Junk assimilator device? It would be used on robot wrecks to turn them to credits.
- Actually implement the anti-grav belt? I saw it commented in the code. (Armor.cpp)

[Psiweapon]

I'm copying all  this to a file in my HDD and see what can I do.

I myself have hit the "o" key playing zapm, and then thought, wtf am I doing.

Thanks!

[Fenrir]

We need some serious sci-fi gods.

[guest509]

  I think a good way to go is to NOT just remake D&D/Tolkien things with a thin sci-fi veneer. However, if you want to make some races here are four that fit the old mold. I think they are stolen from Traveller, not sure.

1. Human - Of course. Not good at anything, not bad at anything.
2. Belters - Aloof. Intelligent. [elves]
3. Heavy Worlders - Squat. Hard as stone. [dwarves]
4. Far Siders - Little guys. Ask them where they are from and they'll say, "from the far side of..." [halflings]

The roleplaying game Alternity could give some ideas as well.

[Psiweapon]

We need some serious sci-fi gods.

Ufff, I've been thinking about that.

I don't think that just gods would make the cut. I see it moar liek two/three gods with a fundamental principle and a corporation mixed in, or something like that.

Or to put it formally: It'd be cool to put in at least a couple of non-gods in the "religion" mechanics. Examples from worship-worthy entities in different media:

a chaos god, a rampant AI (or the fuckup code itself), House Harkonnen,  Cthulhu... and who knows what else. Or maybe that's a bit of mental fapping and a solid but more conventional pantheon is a better idea.

I think that god-character exclusion and affinity would flow more or less quite naturally, I think.

A third (riskier) alternative is to develop original gods that showcase staples of the genre(s) (which would kick some serious ass if done right but is quite easily fumbled...)

  I think a good way to go is to NOT just remake D&D/Tolkien things with a thin sci-fi veneer. However, if you want to make some races here are four that fit the old mold. I think they are stolen from Traveller, not sure.

1. Human - Of course. Not good at anything, not bad at anything.
2. Belters - Aloof. Intelligent. [elves]
3. Heavy Worlders - Squat. Hard as stone. [dwarves]
4. Far Siders - Little guys. Ask them where they are from and they'll say, "from the far side of..." [halflings]

The roleplaying game Alternity could give some ideas as well.

I'm trying to implement races/species in the game *rite nao* and I've thought about belters and squats already too... I had no idea about Far Siders, but why not? Problem is: there are already "space elves" (E, E, and E) in the game, and elven stuff, and from there it's a question of replacing, using them both, or... ?

I've been thinking of this: Human, Cyborg, Droid, Space Elf and Reticulan (little gray alien).
Humans could be anything, cyborgs can't be quarterbacks because it's doping, droids can't be psions because it's impossible, elves and reticulans can't be Marines (no xenos scum in the space marines) nor Janitors because it's below them. Reticulans can't be Quarterbacks either because they're wimpy.

Anyone could play either Ninja or Astronaut. Besides that, the little gray alien "ninja" should be called "abductor" or something like that, and no-marine species could use a variant warrior class. Probably a lot of equipment adjustment would be fitting for all or most of combinations.

[wire_hall_medic]

I think the idea of megacorps filling in the "gods" roll of most RLs is pretty clever, actually.  In a sci-fi setting, why wouldn't they slap a monitoring chip (ie, track the piety) of their endorsees (ie, worshippers)?

They even fit easily into the standard god portfolios; the god of strength becomes a cybernetics corp, the god of good becomes a massive nonprofit, the god of thieves becomes, I don't know, a data acquisition service?  Even racial gods could fit well, in the form of planetary governments endorsing characters.

I suppose I immediately think of endorsements, like pro sports.  But actual employment would work too.

[Psiweapon]

I've already started implementing altars. Not every "god" will be contacted via altars, though.

[Bear]

Dude, in a SF setting you don't have Altars.  You have VR terminals, or web kiosks, or something, where the characters establish a secure network connection to their sponsor and then get their mission or submit their report or experience the latest unlocked content of their patron company's gameworld or some combination of the above.

[Psiweapon]

Man, I made the altars for chaos, "in game". (which is questionable)

And "out of game", which is more important, I made them in order to have a feel of what I needed to implement Computer Terminals. I had to figure out how to introduce a new command, dungeon feature, et al.

But yeah, it's cheesy.

[Fenrir]

Make chaos altars into space-tearing devices that open a rift to subspace. You need not even allow sacrifices into the rift (though you could permit throwing stuff in anyway), but it could have a chance of releasing whatever mysterious forces dwell in subspace, like hideous monstrosities, mutating radiation, desperate distress calls, and anything else you might suppose takes residence in this cosmic space-basement.