Inventory System

We currently plan to incorporate an inventory similar to that of Diablo and Deux Ex, utilizing a grid based layout with items taking up more spaces depending on their size. We felt this went along nicely with the whole survival feel of the game, resulting in players having to think carefully about what they choose to carry with them. It also enforces the usefulness of player storage on board the ship and the games banking system whilst opening up upgrade possibilities for things such as backpacks or cargo bays. Another point we noted was that arranging items efficiently would allow players to get the most out of there storage, a small benefit but still rewarding for those who don't like messy inventories! Lastly, abundant items such as resources would be stackable.

What does everyone think about a system like this for Wayfarer?

What about weight as a factor? Not necessarily just in the grid system you described, just as an overall factor.

will you be able to, say, buy/craft a new inventory (backpack?) that allows you to carry more stuff, perhaps with a drawback such as slower movement speed or something so i can have one of my crewmates be my pack mule while i run around freely?

Yes, let's avoid the FPS trope where you can carry six rifles, a grenade launcher, and a chainsaw without suffering any movement penalties. I like the notion of rewarding the player who puts some thought into inventory management.

FURTHERMORE: fatigue y/n?

White Owl wrote:Yes, let's avoid the FPS trope where you can carry six rifles, a grenade launcher, and a chainsaw without suffering any movement penalties. I like the notion of rewarding the player who puts some thought into inventory management.

Weapons take up vast amounts of space within a backpack. To compensate you have a primary weapon slot, which will rest over your back when holstered, a secondary weapon which you could rest on your thigh and grenades or other throw-ables stored on your belt. This stops people from carrying an arsenal of weapons around with them and makes you decide before you leave the ship which combinations of weapons you want to take with you, it also encourages teams (if your playing multiplayer) to try and carry different weapon types so your prepared for any situation.

Weight and fatigue is something that we have not completely decided upon yet. If we were to implement it I imagine it would follow an Elder Scrolls style system of over-encumbrance and relative speed modifiers. However with the backpacks already limiting what the player is carrying this motion may prove to be an annoyance. This is defiantly something that will become a lot clearer when we begin testing Wayfarer Alpha.

oblivion style or skyrim style? being unable to sprint or made to move slower seems better than being entirely immobile to me

also, i feel like carrying a backpack full of lead should encumber you more than carrying the same volume of polystyrene. a system that incorporates both weight and volume would be more realistic, but i don't know if it would be as fun. guess we'll wait until the alpha to see for sure.

Id like to see an avoidance of the FPS cliche of being able to carry huge amounts of ammo. I think that ammo should take up an area of the inventory, larger rounds take up more space? so if you wanted to carry rounds of pistol ammo, it would take up less space then ammo for the sniper rifle say...
basically what I'm saying is that conserving ammo should be a priority. possibly expense could play into it?
*End rant*

+1 on primary weapon, secondary weapon, and a few extras being held out of the inventory. The only thing that I don't like about the proposed inventory is that some items have dumb shapes and not being able to fit something even though there is a lot of room in the middle would get frustrating. If the shapes are kept simple then I like the idea. In real like if something didn't fit all the way into a pack then you'd just let it hang part way out of the bag which most games don't account for.

At the mention of ammo I think it should take up a spot in the pack just like anything else. The only exception would be energy weapons which would have the benefit of not taking up an space.

I also think that inventories should be large enough that you don't have to worry about it often but small enough that you can't do everything without traveling back to a base at some point. I don't know what kind of resource collection there will be but minecraft has a fairly large inventory which includes the active bar. However I find that it fills up fairly quickly if you're actively collecting things but there's plenty of room if you're specific in what you collect.

I really think the grid system would work best in a game like this and agree with the point that combining the grid backpack system with a weight could get annoying and may not be the best idea. I think with the grid system however upgrades should definitely be possible to improve carrying space

Yeah, i agree. It's either the grid or the weight. Both would just get too annoying. And upgrades should definitely be available.

Instead of grids or weight, why not have the item take up a certain amount of space based on its weight or importance. Such as one item of lead would take up one grid space, but can't stack, while the foam can stack X amount of times in one grid space. And as for importance, the gun, as the dev mentioned, would take up more room which has the player think more about everybody strapping a gun on and going off the ship. Also I think that if we have a grid system there should be

1. A one click way to transfer items from the players inv to the storage unit
2. An ability to take or give items to other players
3. A way that we can have the game quickly sort the items in a grid. (EX. you have something that stacks in one grid space spread over 16, you press the button and it auto stacks the ones that can be stacked and tries to free up as much room as possible)

seconding overwatch's idea! it would also make you consider what sort of weapon you should carry with you since, say, shotgun shells take up way more space than rifle or pistol cartridges, so maybe shotgun ammo could stack to like 12 while rifle stacks to around 20, hypothetically speaking? and with rocket launchers, just forget about carrying anything other than rockets :P

That is the perfect way to apply my idea, with making people think "well maybe we ALL shouldn't grab weapons" and then poor Joe has no weapon and only has room for what they find, thereby increasing the intensity. Using inventory space in this way increases the survival aspect of planetary situations in which the overall team experience is forcing a much more consolidated approach instead of a, "Ok everybody take a rocket launcher now, it's time to go get some more water"

I really like the idea of specific stacks of specific items to help give the inventory a more survival oriented feel but I have concerns when it comes to single player, if in this setup one person can't really carry much more then a weapon and survival supplies how will that translate to single player?

More room, i guess.

you bring up a good point Vexxtal, I think the most simple way for the devs to deal with this is as Wiki said which is simply to add more room.

It would make perfect sense to add a bigger inventory in solo than in coop. They are doing other tweaks as well to the difficulty and such.

Do you really need all that much more room though? think of minecraft, one person can do just as well as a group for the most part, just at a slightly reduced pace. having my inventory randomly changing size as a go from single to multiplayer could get frustrating. Just my 2 cents.

Then you would need more room in multiplayer aswell as singleplayer because they are planning to make the inventory pretty tight in coop so you wont have 4 soldiers with unlimited guns.
I think there has to be a difference in the size, or else its gonna be overpowered in coop.

yeah.... hmm... good point.... hoping they have a storyline element for whatever they do. to me, having a reason for something is always seems to make a game for something, for example, when mass effect 2 came out, they used thermal clips instead of the overheat bar, and they explained it by having you away from the universe for a number of years, explaining it as "advanced technology" rather then just leaving it unexplained. thought it was a nice thought by the devs. I'd be up for figuring out a good reason if i knew more about what they are planning. lol It would be difficualt, since both MP and SP take place in the same universe....

What about having everything you pick up disintegrated via some sort of "prototype" palm unit, thinking something like a glowing circle in your palm, stored in some sort of "buffer", and then it can be reintegrated when you need it. The inventory cap could be caused by interference of multiple systems in the same region. The palm unit could even glow different colors depending on the amount of "interference". Say, Green for SP, Blue for level one interference, ie one extra player, Orange for two, red for 3 extra players.

This would keep with the futuristic feel of the game, and stop me getting annoyed at the unnatural amount of stuff kept in my non-existent backpack. lol

I've read through all of these.

The first thing I'd like to remind everyone about is the situation regarding ammunition. Currently, our weapons are modern / energy based which do not require ammunition or reloading. The system is based on a capacity/cooldown/overheat penalty system.

Controlling your own rate of fire and managing your weapons energy under pressure will add a lot to the combat. If you allow your weapon to overheat, it will disabled until it cools down and also damages your components.

Components also deteriorate over time, if one of them breaks, your gun is useless until it's repaired, which requires a work station back at the ship and the required resources. So weapon maintenance is just as important as maintaining your ship. Please speak to your mechanic about your weapons inspection and repairs schedule.....

Components can be upgraded of course to allow for better rates of fire, energy consumption / recharge rates etc.

For those of you worried about your inventory space in solo mode, please do bare in mind, you would have as much of a hard time as someone stranded on their own on a planet in multi-player =D Also, the ships mining mechanoid can accompany you and offers additional carrying capacity incase you way yourself down too much.

We're still unsure about the inventory system, but this can all be tested during alpha.