<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry --> <!--X-From-R13: Oqnz Ivttvaf <avtugsnyyNhfre1.vasvpnq.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: from stimpy.globecomm.net [207.51.48.4] by in12.ibm.net id 870683636.38500-1 Mon Aug 4 08:33:56 1997 CUT --> <!--X-Message-Id: 199708040836.BAA16593#user1,inficad.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: Marcel-1.26-0802120424-0b0Ky&5#Gryphon,knoware.nl --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:nightfall#user1,inficad.com"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00368.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00370.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00338.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00101.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00369">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00369">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00369">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Adam Wiggins <<A HREF="mailto:nightfall#user1,inficad.com">nightfall#user1,inficad.com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 01:36:52 -0700 (MST)</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> [Marian:] > On Wed 30 Jul, clawrenc#cup,hp.com wrote: > > at 07:10 PM, Matt Chatterley <root#mpc,dyn.ml.org> said: > > > >At a proposal from one of my wizards, I took into consideration a > > >global 'alchemy' setup, which would allow the mixing of potions from > > >ingredients, for various uses (magical effects, and spell components > > >notably). > > ...deletia... > > >What if we just simulated our own chemistry? Certain objects could as > > >'ingredients' (not really elements, more compounds), and combining > > >these ingredients would have predetermined reactions and results. > > >Further compounds could be obtained by appropriate mixes, which would > > >all have varying effects on the body (infusion of magic could somehow > > >guide these effects). This would obviously extend the alchemy idea - > > >the creation of poisons, herbal compounds and literally anything in > > >any state (which the PC was able to store). > > > First thoughts on a representational model: > > Thus the leaves of the herb WaggaWagga might have a coordinate weight > > of (-5, 8, 3) presuming the simplistic case of only 3 principles. The > > root of the UmbaUmba plant might have a value of (2, 9, -10). Mix > > then together with GooGoo mud (0, 0, 2), and you get a substance (-3, > > 17, -5). That location can be plotted in the coordinate system and a > > result computed: > > Admitting immediately that the finer points of all the above are proba- > bly missed by me, this seems to me to be rather predictable. If you put > two sleeping potions together you get a stronger sleeping potions? *gasp*! One could further conjecture that, were one to take said sleeping potion and divide it into two equal portions (each being half the size of the original portion), one would actually have *two* sleeping potions, each half as strong as the original dose. How predictable! Seriously...yes, this is true, and IMO is a good thing. A 'system' which has completely random results is not a system at all, just a haphazard collection of effects which came out of a random number generator or possibly the coder's ass. I assume your real question, however, relates to the above being kind of boring. Mixing sleeping potions to get stronger sleeping potions isn't terribly interesting. Let's take some examples. Buffy drinks a strength potion, and becomes stronger. Buffy drinks another strength potion, and becomes stronger still. *snore* Now let's toss in some more interesting attributes. Buffy drinks a strength potion, and becomes stronger but slightly nauseuous. Buffy drinks another strength potion, becomes stronger still, starts to twitch violently, and has painful stomach aches. Buffy drinks another strength potion, becomes stronger still, but can't actually stand because of the massive convulsions her muscles are experiencing. More interesting and more realistic. Look in any pharmaceutical text and you'll see that hardly any drugs have simple effects. Usually they do quite a few things to your body, hopefully at least one of which is good, and most of which are probably neither helpful nor harmful. In the case of JCL's model, you would have a large number of attributes. Each attribute is rated numerically, so you might have a potion which makes you strong but certain people may experience nausea or muscle spasms as a side effect. Of course, where this gets interesting is that you could actually poor a huge dose of this into someone's drink as a poison. Sure, they'd be incredibly strong, but if they were in spasms on the ground and dry retching nonstop, it probably wouldn't matter too much. Introduce other elements.. resistance to certain effects (either by 'building up' a resistance, such as myself and caffeine, or Wesley in Princess Bride and the scene with the poisoned drinks, or by inherent race/body stuff). Suceptibilities. Taste - you could have the best healing concoction ever made but find it nearly useless because it smells and tastes terrible, must be consumed at boiling temperature to be effective, and requires doses of several liters to cause any noticable effect. > You would at least need a way to make sure that you cannot just mix two > or three ingredients together and get potion or poultice. And equally Hmm, I don't see this as bad. On the other hand, this is largely served by the above stuff - you have a strength potion, but it's useless because of its side effects. Add in some anti-nausea ingrediants, some mints to make it taste better, and so forth. Also, you could have various effects fluctuate based on external conditions - nightshade that is only poisonous if harvested at exactly 12 midnight, or a leaves that contain a very small amount of something that must be boiled out in large quantity to create a useful potion. How about seasons? If you need that leaf in the middle of winter, you may be out of luck. Then again, the smart alchemist dried a few during the summer for just such an occasion. Now, they've lost a lot of their potentcy during the drying process, but they are all you've got. Etc etc. > important: even if both the herb WaggaWagga and the UmbaUmba plant are > known for their sleep inducing qualities that should not mean that you > can just replace the one with the other and get a similar result. That > is what makes alchemy an art and a lore. Exactly. Or it may be that one causes the body's resistance to the other's effects to be lowered, meaning that the two of them apart do nothing but together they make a sleeping potion. > > A minor weakening agent (-3) that also a *really* effective sleeping > > draught (17), and reduces physical dexterity (-5). > > First off. You could start with having the numbers represent general ef- > fects rather than specifics. That way to create a sleeping potion you'll > have to create a high value for several of those numbers. Well, I'd say that the 'genral effects' would actually be *more* specific than JC's example. For instance, you have a drug which causes the brain of certain species to send severe fatigue messages to the body; another which causes lack of concentration in the same, or very similar, species; and yet another which causes a sort of light-headed melloing effect. Each of them apart don't do a whole lot, but all of them together would tend to make members of the affected species nod off. > Secondly I think it would be better if unless only specific numbers are > high and all others are low but not too low the potion just does not do > much useful. I.e. a potion in which all numbers are high is just a kind > of muddy water. Nourishing perhaps but not magical/mystical in nature. > And potions that have very high negative values act the same as high po- > sitive values. There's plenty you could do defining the general rules for the system. Many effects could have a semi-canceling effect on each other to keep all the numbers from being either high or low. You could make the numbers 'wrap around' - tons of sleeping drug makes a real energy boost. You could cause the potions to become extremely volitile as the numbers get high, or low, or if the combined values for a certain group of effects get too high. You could make it so that the numbers fluctuate with time, the tides, the phase of the moon, the whim of the god(s), how they are prepared, and a thousand other things. > > The reason for doing a coordinate system rather than a flat expression > > for each axis is that it allows you to put in break values. Simple > > things like values on this axis smaller than X have this effect, and > > larger than Y have this totally other effect. Compound that across > > multiple axis, and you can get a result which is far removed from the > > initial components. > > I don't think I know what this means but no doubt it makes sense :) More wacky rules for the base system to spice things up. An example would be an attribute which, under values of 10, cause you to go to sleep, but over values of 10, cause you to break out in a cold sweat. > > This special casing can be handled without undue difficulty by > > building it into the base system. Again, going back to the simplistic > > 3 principles above, just add various other "fake" principles after > > that. Thus WuggaWugga could be (-5, 8, 3, 0, 12, 2) and UmbaUmba (2, > > 9, -10, -5, 9, -10). Then when they're mixed the result is (-3, 17, > > -2, -5, 21, -8). Now you can do your special casing on the fake > > values (-5, 21, -8). Say things like if the first fake value is less > > than -5 it was apply (X,Y,Z) to the base matrix, it its over +5 apply > > (Q,R,S) etc. This results in a really simple way to codify the > > exceptions and and special cases while allowing new components to be > > added which have their own unique behaviour. > > This sounds rather complicated to me. Isn't there a way to do this > without math? Well, computers 'think' only in numbers. If you'd prefer, we could represent it as (very low, average, low, high, average, very high) and assume that average combined with average gives you very high, but JC's way is a bit closer to what the actual implementation would look like. A 'matrix' is just a list of attributes, and an 'axis' is a single attribute. Math terms have the advantage of being very specific, as opposed to vague terms which he could invent on the fly to describe his ideas. </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00337" HREF="msg00337.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Marian Griffith <gryphon#iaehv,nl></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00368.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] New Topic: Butthead features</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00370.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Combat messages</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00338.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00101.html">C&C and Event Rescheduling</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00369"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00369"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00336" HREF="msg00336.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</A></strong>, Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Sat 02 Aug 1997, 19:12 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00480" HREF="msg00480.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</A></strong>, clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Tue 12 Aug 1997, 01:07 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00337" HREF="msg00337.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</A></strong>, Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Sat 02 Aug 1997, 19:13 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00338" HREF="msg00338.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</A></strong>, Matt Chatterley <a href="mailto:root#mpc,dyn.ml.org">root#mpc,dyn.ml.org</a>, Sat 02 Aug 1997, 23:31 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00369" HREF="msg00369.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Virtual Chemistry</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:nightfall#user1,inficad.com">nightfall#user1,inficad.com</a>, Mon 04 Aug 1997, 15:33 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> </ul> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00101" HREF="msg00101.html">C&C and Event Rescheduling</A></strong>, Shawn Halpenny <a href="mailto:malachai#iname,com">malachai#iname,com</a>, Sat 12 Jul 1997, 04:04 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00151" HREF="msg00151.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] META: C&C and Event Rescheduling</A></strong>, clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Thu 17 Jul 1997, 03:13 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00152" HREF="msg00152.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] C&C and Event Rescheduling</A></strong>, clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Thu 17 Jul 1997, 03:33 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00200" HREF="msg00200.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] C&C and Event Rescheduling</A></strong>, Shawn Halpenny <a href="mailto:malachai#iname,com">malachai#iname,com</a>, Sat 19 Jul 1997, 03:13 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>