Greetings again! Simsaladoo here with another update in a new apartment, new city, new state, and with many new classes and actors functioning within the world. Love LA.
So the inventory system is now functioning, the player and npcs can utilize weapons and armor drawn from a database. Your basic system for interface within the world will be fairly simple, but a hybrid of systems you’ve no doubt played and are familiar with. Your Character page, like in Wow, will display your equipped armor and equipment and your primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary weapons. Wut?
It's a 4 slot weapon hotbar system. A quiver of 30 bolts counts as a weapon, and a large bag of throwing axes counts as a weapon just like in Warband. But instead of being on the side of the screen, it is simply part of your character page. Scrolling through those weapons will behave as it did in Warband (mouse up for next offense, down for next defense), but you’ll also be able to set food, torches and other equipment there to use as a sort of hotbar. These slots will be triggerable by the numpad and number keys for direct access to each of them.
Your Equipment window is next, and all of these are draggable windows like in Morrowind. You have a simple loot window where what you’re carrying adds to your character’s weight—triggering Encumbrance. Here’s where it gets fun. Another slot on your Character page is for a backpack you must find or purchase within the world, and having them enables you to add more slots to your equipment window and to your carriable weight! Anything in this window can be drag and dropped back into the world of course, so if you get encumbered you’ll just have to resort to kicking the extra loot all the way back to your village. Kicking NPCs works right now just as a quick side note lol
So Another part of this focus has been adding things TO the inventory so that the NPCs can be told apart for my own AI testing, as well as to start cultivating the looks of the different nations. As such I have a few helmets added now that work when spawned since they are part of the inventory system. The AI cannot choose how it should upgrade yet though, but in due time.
The other part of this post I wanted to focus on was the weapon stances. No one can carry a giant two handed sword or a partisan on their back! The player will not, and the AI won’t either. Large weapons like those will be of a special class that you must pickup and carry just like they were back in the day. Wound that arm and they will be forced to only their regular weapon. Of course, some swords can still be carried on the back if they aren’t too large or heavy, and multiple normal-sized weapons can be worn on the belt.
But AI now has access to all of the weapon animation stances from the inventory: One handed, One handed & shield, two handed, polearm, spear & shield, Bows, crossbows, Atlatls, and throwing. They just don’t know when to switch from their current or how to throw yet. It’s time consuming, but not difficult in its setup so again, in due time.
Hopefully over this Christmas holiday I’ll get a chance to push out some actual media, my apologies. But that’s how perfectionists go. At least with AI being able to trace me for stealth and chase me around I know it’s a bit closer. Soon.
Safe travels.
Simsaladoo