Tuesday 21 June 2016

Game Maker Progress 11: Equipping Weapons



Hello everyone,

I've managed to get a start on being able to equip items to your character (force?) - it will take some explaining however for you to understand why I'm doing it the way I am. As a character you will have a number of 'units' that will in turn determine your stats. Equipment works in a fashion you would expect when you have multiple units to equip items to. Each unit can equip a weapon and an armour piece currently - which will give it a benefit to the stats it confers. 



Stats Diagram


The above diagram shows how the system will work. With the above - your character will have 15 attack total. If say all your footsoldiers had swords - then you would have a total of 20 attack. It is also worth noting that if you don't have any units to equip a particular weapon to (say bow to archers) then you cannot equip it. Units are the key point in this project for all systems to function - they determine your stats, they equip the items you find and they represent your overall progression in the game.

Equipping Items 1


As you can see in the Available tab you have 1 /  1 - the right integer shows how many of a particular weapon you have, the left integer shows how much you  have that you can equip to a unit. On the right under Equipment Details - you can see how much units have weapons / armour equipped out of your total of those units. The button between the two allows you to equip x1 weapon - depending on how I decide to expand on this I'll likely adjust this accordingly for the sake of convenience (if you have 100 units - I don't particularly want to have the player have to press the x1 button 100 times).

Equipping Items 2
Above we have the same interface - but we have equipped the Iron Sword to one of our footsoldiers! This system provides a lot of flexibility in terms of equipment. I can create simple equipment that confers certain benefits - but the player is free to equip as much or as little of that equipment as they wish - which means they could realistically create their own equipment in the overall sense. Let me explain. 

Lets hypothetically say for now that you are able to have different types of damage, physical, lightning, fire, so on. Say you have 10 footsoldiers with 1 attack base, you equip 5 with a sword that adds +1 attack and +1 fire damage; then you equip your other 5 with a sword that adds +1 attack and +1 lightning damage. That means in combat - you will deal a total of 20 normal damage, 5 fire damage and 5 lightning damage. Effectively the combination is something you as the player have made - not me as a developer. This opens up a number of possibilities to experiment and explore different equipment designs and sets!

Until now - you don't gain benefits from equipping items, and you cannot unequip them - I will be working on that next, but I think the most challenging part has been dealt with so I hope to not have too much issues on those two elements.

Until next time,
Dylan

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