Message-items and blueprint-items.

[electricmonk2k]

TL;DR: Being able to find messages in the map as items can be used as a means of creating more engaging stories in campaigns and scenarios, as well as giving the player hints. Also, scenario-designers can place blueprints in scenarios.

There could be a new type of message in the game. This message is actually an item, meaning that it can be found on the ground (use 'F' to collect), or stored inside a chest. While in a randomly generated map, they won't be of much use (unless you can program an AI to generate these messages based on the map-layout, which I think is unlikely to happen), but in a scenario or the campaign, they can be used to give hints to the player.

For example, in the 2nd level of "Base / New Hope", the chest that you see at the start of the level could have an item inside which is a message. This message could read "I doubt anyone will ever read this. We tried to hold them off but they got us. Here are some items you might find useful" (this might also be an opportunity to explain about the modules and repair-packs in the tutorial (2nd level of the "New Hope" campaign).

As well as giving hints, these messages could be used to flesh-out the story. For example, there could be a scenario where there's a message near the starting-location saying something like "Day 1: Crash-landed. Everything hurts. Must find how to escape". After a bit of exploration, they find a small factory with a chest containing a message like "Day 5: So far, no sign of other survivors. Have managed to build a factory that produces enough iron plates to keep me going. There are some resources 30km to the east, and I'm going to build a mine there". This will encourage the player to explore east before they explore the other directions (in fact, if there are messages, scenarios with larger maps will be possible, as it will reduce the tedium of exploring a very large map). There, they could find a chest saying "Day 26: my supply of chocolate has run out and I have to eat what I can gather from this god-forsaken planet". In the Age of Wonders games (especially AOW2: Shadow Magic), this is used very effectively, and you actually feel like you are part of the story because of the atmosphere that this adds.

Additionally, blueprints can be found as items too. In a scenario, there could be a blueprint inside a chest that could explain how to build a complicated setup using a very-specific shape of land which appears in the map. It's an alternative means for a scenario-designer to show how something should be done (currently, they can only pre-build the complicated setup and hope the player can copy it).

An alternative way of showing messages is to post them on a sign which is a map-object rather than an item. In fact, these signs can even be built by the player with a custom-message. See this thread for how such signs can be useful (as well as giving hints, the player-generated signs could be used by players as reminders).

[ssilk]

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=183 Events (“Againts all odds”. Free-play, global task.)