race abilities and race switching

[Joe Go 89]

Yo! I'm new to this site, but I have been playing the NES version of MULE and have always been a fan of its simplistic yet elaborate design. I was always disappointed that there were 8 different races, but no real difference between them other than the way they looked.
I dunno how many times race attributes have been suggested or even if they've been suggested at all on this site, but I've come up with ideas for each race awhile ago, after reading character descriptions, that might be beneficial, and I'd like to post them here to see what the pro MULE players think.

Each race as listed below will include:
-description; the ones used below are taken from the NES version, though they are fairly similar to the site versions
-suggested ability; all are open open to debate and can/will more than likely be slightly altered based on discussion and suggestion
-note; just a brief little side-note mentioning specific aspects



note on Random Variation:

in many of the suggested character abilities listed below, their race attributes slightly alter the random variation of a plot which is d7-4 (roll a 7-sided die and then subtract 4 to give +3/-3 production per plot). for more information on Random Variation, read the "How-go-play?" page under section IV part 3.
The abilities listed below will use a similar "d7-4" system as if a die was being rolled to determine this variation. (I'm making a huge assumption here since I have no idea how the core coding works but the die rolling system itself works the exact same way Random Variation does, so I'll go with it.)



Bonzoid
descrip = from the Armpull galaxy, Bonzoids love climbing and are often found hanging around the mountains
ability = +20% movement speed across mountain plots and receives bonus production of any product on a mountain plot, +1 to Random Variation roll per mountain per plot (example: a plot with no mountains normally has d7-4; a plot with two mountains has d7-4+2, or d7-2, when playing as a Bonzoid)
note = the bonus was originally "+10%" rather than the current "+1 Random Variation"; the reason for this change is that a % bonus would only have really affected Smithore (and possibly Crystite) production, making the bonus useless for other products; granted other products aren't the best to produce on mountain plots, but at least the bonus the way it is now makes other products feasible at the very least which would allow Bonzoids to live purely off of the mountain plots.

Flapper
descrip = from the Boird-Drop galaxy, all flappers receive and extra $600 in their nest egg!
ability = +$600 at the beginning of the game
note = definitely open to debate/change--I was just going by the obvious part of the NES description

Gollumer
descrip = from the Neckite galaxy, Gollumers love land and they are willing to stick their neck out to get it
ability = priority in land grants
note = though this might seem difficult to execute in the game engine, I happen to be a bit of a JAVA programmer myself; though it might take a little work, it would in fact not be too difficult at all. my idea would be to create two different land-grant phases: one separate phase at the beginning of each turn for just the Gollumers, and then another phase immediately after for all other races. (This is yet another one of those things where I would have to see the core coding of the game to see how/if it would work )

Humanoid
descrip = from the Earth systems, start with $400 less because they are too smart
ability = -$400 at the beginning of the game; +1 to "Random Variation" rolls for all plots owned by the Humanoid
note = another one that is definitely open to debate/change

Leggite
descrip = from the Afcany plains, Leggites have their feet on the ground, heads in the clouds, and legs everywhere
ability = +25% movement speed during player's phases; bonus is still received through riverbed/mountain plots, but movement reduction IS applied to this bonus
note = this would be useful when attempting to catch the mountain wompus and when time is short, or running short, during your turn

Mechtron
descrip = Evolved from a robotic mutation, Mechtrons are quick deciphers and efficient doers
ability = no special abilities, but allow players to choose this race
note = this would be the true handicap race, having no bonuses at all and allowing for completely fair play

Packer
descrip = from the Silicon system, they love food and make excellent farmers, when they don't gobble their crop
ability = requires 1 extra food unit per turn excluding the first turn of the game; changes the d7-4 Random Variation on food-producing plots to d6-2
note = this ability actually changed the die used to calculate Random Variation; instead of using a 7-sided die, it uses a 6-sided die. I'm not entirely sure how, or even IF, this one would work; I would, once again, have to see the core coding to determine that (and somehow I don't think the creators are going to let me )

Spheroid
descrip = from the Rolldoe system, Spheroids are well-rounded pioneers that hate square corners and straight lines.
ability = plots that are not adjacent to other plots owned by the Spheroid gain +1Unit production excluding the first turn of the game
note = adjacent plots would be the 4 directly next to it and not the 4 corners, since there is only so much room on the planet. this one kinda had me at a loss and completely unsure of what its ability should be, but I finally came up with something that might work



I also have general suggestions for selecting races:
-allow players to change their race (with limits, of course; something like once every 30 days might be reasonable)
-host has option to allow race abilities to be active
-if race abilities are active, host has option to allow only certain races to participate



(special thanks to kipley and Rogue Cat for their input which has inspired many changes in my suggestion so far)

Again, feel free to discuss these abilities and make suggestions of your own; all are open to debate and can/will more than likely be changed anyway.

[kipley]

Thinking of special abilities for each race is a fun exercise... but it can be really difficult to come up with special abilities of any kind of significance that don't wind up unbalancing the game.  For example, from your list....

Bonzoid:  The extra production bonus in the mountains would translate to both smithore and crystite, making this a pretty valuable ability.

Flapper:  This one SEEMS like a good ability, BUT it also puts the player solidly into the lead in the early rounds of the game, which forces him to deal with all the bad events that the lead player gets.  It would be nice in games with an early land auction (you could buy some land, and get out of the lead, and still have some money to work with left over), but the negatives of this ability would be enough such that I would never choose it for myself.

Gollumer:  This is actually a reasonably ability.  It provides a nice advantage, but not so much of an advantage that it would unbalance the whole game.

Humanoid:  +20% production on all plots?  Where do I sign up... that's a HUGE advantage!  And the negative money at the start isn't entirely a disadvantage, either (for the same reasons spelled out in the Flapper section... less money at the start means that you'd get only good events in the early game).  I'd probably ALWAYS choose to be a Humanoid over any of the other races under this system!

Leggite:  Another reasonable ability, in that it provides a nice advantage, without unbalancing the game over-much.

Packer:  While the "advantage" you describe does a good job of matching the character description, I don't think ANYBODY would voluntarily choose to be this race, when there's chance it'll make you lose half your food!  Losing half your food is BAD, and the advantage of possibly getting twice the food is nowhere near enough of a benefit to compensate for it.

Mechtron and Spheroid:  No advantages, so no comment.

So in summary, I would say only that (in my opinion) only the Gollumer and Leggite advantages are "worthy" of consideration to be added to the game.  The other advantages are either way too weak, or way too strong.  Again, just my opinion, others may differ.

But a fun thought exercise!

[Joe Go 89]

again, that's why I posted the ideas open for discussion and debate.
I would eventually like to see the different races have at least SOME advantage over the others--personally I don't see a point in having 8 different races if there's NO difference between them other than the way they look.
It doesn't even have to be these that I'm suggesting, it could be ANY bonuses that the developers see fit; these are simply my ideas

and yes, I agree; stuff that gets you thinking is fun and useful



I read through the "How-to-play?" and came up with a couple ideas that might work out a little better

Changes made

HUMANOID:
"+20% production on all plots" changed to "+3/-3 Random Variation changed to +4/-2 for all plots"

PACKER:
"20% chance to double/half food production" replaced with "+3/-3 Random Variation increased to +5/-4 on food-producing plots"

SPHEROID:
added ability: "plots that are not adjacent to other plots owned by the Spheroid gain +1Unit production per turn excluding the first turn of the game"



I also had an idea for the Flapper, but unsure if it would be reasonable or even possible
the idea is to have the Flapper start out with the same amount of money (so no +$600 at the beginning of the game), but receive a 5% discount on all purchases made and a 5% bonus on all sales made through auctions
the one who buys/sells from a Flapper would still pay/receive the posted amount (including the store)

[Rogue Cat]

I was waiting for another one to post first, so my answer look less agressive. :p

Considering that the production per plot goes from 0 to 8, percentage bonuses would be unnoticed most of times. +20% means an extra unit for every 5 units you have, not a great deal. About others, in no special order:

-Bonzoids are used to hang around at mountains, so I supposse they should suffer less speed reduction when walking through mountain plots. A little help when you have mountain plots surrounding the city. Not treating them as plain plots, just going slightly/moderatedly faster than the other species.

-The +50% speed bonus for Leggites would reduce their need for food, aswell as giving them a lot of adventage when reaching the plots that are located further from town, placing more MULEs or making massive assays in a single turn. Maybe less speed reduction in all terrains might balance it slightly better than increasing their speed.

-Flappers might get those extra $600 without problem. (Notice I'm using a Flapper. :p) That makes starting a little easier, allowing you to buy surplus or save money for plots. However, they would have no special trait other than those extra bucks, on long term they might suffer the bonus adventages from the other players' species.

-Gollumers might get priority to get the plot when grabbing it, but making 2 plot granting turns would make games terribly longer. :p People would hate playing with Gollumers. Or maybe they can increase the chances of having plots actions each turn (like when you get 4 auctions in the same turn and nobody buys them. :p).

-Packers might have a minimal food production of 1 unit in food plots. That means, that even in worst case of a plot producing 0 units, they would produce 1 unit. No use against pest attacks (they eat all they can and more). A little help to prevent total starvation caused by other players.

-Humanoids might have the cash penalty, and if they are that intelligent (I doubt it :p) maybe they might want to gain intelligence adventages. Perhaps something like making other players unable to see the number of units they own of each resource. Changing numbers for a "?" to mask them. That would make other players harder to know if they really need some kind of resource of just want to stack surplus. Competence among sellers/buyers might be altered. I don't know, I can't think anything better for an intelligent ape.

-Mechtrons? How about minimal energy production to 1 unit in energy plots?

-Spheroids? What unique trait can a living bag have? Floating on rivers, maybe? :p Totally random guess here. I can't even deduce their shape in the C64 version.

Finally, an option to allow Species' Special Traits in game or not. For those who want to play in a more traditional way.

[Joe Go 89]

I was waiting for another one to post first, so my answer look less agressive. :p

gee thaaaaaaanks jk

Considering that the production per plot goes from 0 to 8, percentage bonuses would be unnoticed most of times. +20% means an extra unit for every 5 units you have, not a great deal.

yep I suppose that's true, which is probably why most of the % bonuses for abilities will be changed to +/- Unit bonuses (a couple already have)

-Bonzoids are used to hang around at mountains, so I supposse they should suffer less speed reduction when walking through mountain plots. A little help when you have mountain plots surrounding the city. Not treating them as plain plots, just going slightly/moderatedly faster than the other species.

would be a good addition to my ability suggestion already listed above

-The +50% speed bonus for Leggites would reduce their need for food, aswell as giving them a lot of adventage when reaching the plots that are located further from town, placing more MULEs or making massive assays in a single turn. Maybe less speed reduction in all terrains might balance it slightly better than increasing their speed.

hmmm ... well the speed increase would still be affected by movement reduction when moving through mountain/riverbed plots, but I do see where you're coming from

-Flappers might get those extra $600 without problem. (Notice I'm using a Flapper. :p) That makes starting a little easier, allowing you to buy surplus or save money for plots. However, they would have no special trait other than those extra bucks, on long term they might suffer the bonus adventages from the other players' species.

another thing to keep in mind is, like kipley said, that being solidly in the lead during the early turns in the game will give you the more harsh random events that occur, so +$600 has its advantages AND disadvantages (and yes, I usually play as a flapper too but in the NES version; I haven't actually picked a race here on the site yet due to this exact thread )

-Gollumers might get priority to get the plot when grabbing it, but making 2 plot granting turns would make games terribly longer. :p People would hate playing with Gollumers. Or maybe they can increase the chances of having plots actions each turn (like when you get 4 auctions in the same turn and nobody buys them. :p).

sooo you're saying an extra 30 seconds per turn because of adding an extra land-grand phase for the Gollumers would make the game far too long? and not all land-grant phases even take 30 seconds

-Packers might have a minimal food production of 1 unit in food plots. That means, that even in worst case of a plot producing 0 units, they would produce 1 unit. No use against pest attacks (they eat all they can and more). A little help to prevent total starvation caused by other players.

Random Variation takes care of that but *points to first post* with the way its altered for the Packer as in my suggestion, there is a chance that 0 food will be produced, which fits the description that they tend to gobble their crops ... although, this does give me an idea ...

-Humanoids might have the cash penalty, and if they are that intelligent (I doubt it :p) maybe they might want to gain intelligence adventages. Perhaps something like making other players unable to see the number of units they own of each resource. Changing numbers for a "?" to mask them. That would make other players harder to know if they really need some kind of resource of just want to stack surplus. Competence among sellers/buyers might be altered. I don't know, I can't think anything better for an intelligent ape. Tongue

HAHA nice but anyway, if resources were made invisible that would make auctions really confusing especially for the other players ... I see what your idea is, but I'm not sure it would be a good idea or even if it would work

-Mechtrons? How about minimal energy production to 1 unit in energy plots?

Nope. The Mechtron is the true handicap race with no abilities whatsoever; that's why the computer ALWAYS plays as this race, so it only seems right to leave it that way (though I would like to see the Mechtron selectable by players as well due to this handicap, just because ).

-Spheroids? What unique trait can a living bag have? Floating on rivers, maybe? :p Totally random guess here. I can't even deduce their shape in the C64 version.

yeah I had a hard time coming up with some kind of ability for Spheroids too and what I have listed doesn't really make the best sense but it works I guess

Finally, an option to allow Species' Special Traits in game or not. For those who want to play in a more traditional way.

THAT is a good idea as well, and maybe even an option to allow only certain races to participate as well (if abilities are turned on in the host's game).



Changes made:

BONZOID:
-"+10% production per mountain per plot" changed to "+1/+1 to Random Variation per mountain per plot" (example: a plot with no mountains normally has +3/-3; a plot with two mountains has +5/-1 when playing as a Bonzoid)
-added ability: "25% movement speed bonus when traversing across mountain plots"

LEGGITE:
-"+50% movement speed" decreased to "+25% movement speed" (reduction when moving through riverbed/mountain plots is still applied)

PACKER:
-"+5/-4" Random Variation when producing on food plots changed to "+4/-1"
-added ability: "requires 1 extra food unit per turn excluding the first turn of the game"

(GENERAL):
-host has option to allow race abilities to be active
-if race abilities are active, host has option to allow only certain races to participate

I have also changed all the +x/-x Random Variation calculations into dice rolling; hopefully people aren't too confused by this

[Rogue Cat]

Looks like you are really interested in completing this project. We all can give different ideas, but then it's just cropping, selecting and mixing the best part of each one. That was the way the original MULE game was created: a little of economics, a little of real estate...

I just gave my best ideas for it (except for Spheroids, Mechtrons and Apes), but I'm not the best in getting good ideas for games. In fact, until I plan a new ActionScript game and start writing the code, most of them are just a mix of different unfinished projects or a mix of different ideas for games. Looks like you have a good brain for this kind of stuff.

Anyway, take your time to explore and play the game to check if something might improve it.

[Joe Go 89]

another thing I was considering was giving each race a disadvantage as well as their advantages; might give Mechtrons more of a purpose other than just being a handicap race some abilities posted already have disadvantages (like the Packer which requires 1 extra food per turn), so technically I'm already started on that aspect too
of course, some races, like the Flapper and the Humanoid, already have their disadvantages built-in -$400 MIGHT make things a little more difficult in early rounds, and +$600 would cause you to suffer more of the bad random events in early rounds

(by the way, if you think THIS is persistence, you should see the RuneScape clan I'm in; I've written more guides than NASA has astronauts I even came up with Dual-Wielding as a skill its something I never could finish though ... stupid complaining noobs )

[zaphod77]

I made a thread aobut race abilities.  Here' smy take on them.

Flapper: This not only gets 600$, but also a slower time bar. However while the slower time bar is an advantage the extra money is a nasty double-edged sword, which will usually put the flapper in first place at the start. and that's BAD. Implemented in original.  Suggest this race not count for ranking.

Humanoid: less money, smaller time bar. No benefits. it's intended as a handicap race.  The lesser money can be a bonus though.

Mechtron: no abilities but computers using it get more money. For those who wish to win without abilities.

All other races must be better overall than the mechtron.

Bonzoid: Some combination of ignores speed penalty in mountains, +1 production in mountains or +1 smithore.

Packer: +1 food production on all plots, +1 food requirement (except first turn) so you need to either not need the food, or use multiple plots to benefit. I think this is how the c64 did it.  With one property, no penalty. With two, you get a bonus. With three you feed the whole colony just about.

Gollumer: Wins ties in land auction and land grant. No drawbacks.

Legggite: definitely faster movement speed. Should only be slightly faster, but enough to add up. Alternatively, give some extra time (maybe 5-10 seconds or so), to simulate it. 

Spheroid: -1 in mountains (they hate sharp edges).  This is a significant penalty. To make up for it, they get something no other race will get. The ability to get a +3 production bonus.  No learning curve bonus, no economics of scale bonus.  Instead they get a bonus based on the number of different plots they have. If they have two each of two different mule types, their plots get +1. If they have two each of three different mule types, all plots get +2. If they have all four, and at least 2 of each, all plots get +3. Should be interesting.