Scan 3.0 Update / Breakthroughs

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Scan 3.0 / blurb questions

  • How can we better distinguish important scans from unimportant ones? (in scanning mode)

    • Rethink scan “categories” / colors used in PP. Do a simple heuristic
      • White - already scanned
      • Light green - Low important “nature” 1
        • If category = botony, selenography AND If bUnimportant = true
        • Plants are always in the codex, never uses bold text (text is maybe even slightly faded)
        • Uses the same blurb as other plants (title)
        • Maybe categorize in codex together to reduce clutter
      • Dark (saturated) green - gameplay or lore important plant 2
        • Uses plant blurb, gameplay text is ALWAYS bolded or highlighted in someway
      • Light blue - flavor text (non nature) 3
        • if category = xenoarcheaology, lunosi lore, equipment, player insight AND in bUnimportant = true OR bCodex = false
        • Likely NEVER in codex
        • Blurb does NOT show title / subtitle, just the text on a very simple blurb
          • Special blurb for lunosi translation (maybe just code this into text display or something)
      • Dark (saturated) blue - Gameplay object (codex) / Lore / Robot 4
        • if category = xenoarcheaology, lunosi lore, equipment, player insight AND in bUnimportant = false OR bCodex = True
        • Blurb ALWAYS shows title
          • Special blurb for lunosi lore (translates)
      • Red - Critical one off gameplay info 5
        • if category = important
        • EG Blocked Path or Door locks
        • Always unique, never in codex
        • Simple blurb, loud border, no title / subtitle
      • Purple - Golem 6
        • if Category = Golem
        • Sometimes in codex (lore), sometimes just flavor
        • Special blurb
      • Rainbow - breakthrough 7
        • Override everything if breakthrough!
        • Very Special blurb, maybe the illustration thing!

  • How do we define “important”?

  • How do we make scan range clearer? (How far you can shoot)

    • Outline PP only shows at scan range (maybe, might be too oppressive)
      • Yeah, it is too much
    • Play some kind of “out of range” visual? orbs shrink?
    • Do some research on contemporaries. What weapon has a limited range but is projectiles?
      • Flame thrower, but that is pretty extreme
    • Fade out at distance, emit a burst at end (pop)
    • Projectile shink in size with distance
    • Tracers is an interesting idea.
    • OK I think I made small improvements but nothing substantial. hmm.

  • How do we communicate scan “health” better? (progress)

    • Change hue of scan with progress
    • Extra HUD element - added a screen space wheel

  • Should we facilitate the click and hold makes a scan beam?

  • How do we manage confusing / conflicting color choices like orange for nimbus / orange scan color?

    • Done. Simply removed orange from the pool of scan colors

  • How do we manage “Varient” clarity - IE seeing a name on an unscanned object is confusing

    • Updated scan title thing

Blurbs

  • Can we devise a better placement system for blurbs?
  • Are there any updates for the rendering of the blurb (shader stuff)
  • What about the blurb “line”?
  • What else can we do to juice up the blurb experience? / How do we author “important” scans in a way that differentiates them from flavor ones?
    • Need to make different versions of the blurb for different situations
      • Don’t make new widget classes, just use contructor to modify the existing widget (WAY easier)
      • Regular / default
        • Some small hint on missing variants?
        • Clue for scanning them all?
        • Hint for a breakthrough on one of them?
      • Simplified / Unimportant
        • No title, no image, just the text
          • Ehh title is still nice for things like “Copper Crate”…
        • NEVER in codex
        • Mostly used for player insights
        • Could enforce fixed styling, maybe italic and lighter weight / opacity
          • Player insights could always be italic, need a better italic font
      • Important
        • Fallen rocks / broken elevator
        • Could just be the regular one with red background, not unlike how it already is
        • ALWAYS has some bold text
      • Lunosi / translation
      • Golem
        • Weird text, maybe a cooler anim in?
      • Breakthrough

OK

  • Remove rarity display and replace with a “Variant” widget that displays with number it is ✓
    • Works like xing poetry basically ✓
    • Circle that fills in when discovered, outline when it is the current variant ✓
    • Arrange dots in a circle ✓
    • Place on blurb and blurb entries in codex ✓
  • Change font to gontserrat semibold from mustica ✓
  • Use bold text for title on blurb ✓
  • Idea to “pop out” icon on important plants, or maybe always ✓
    • Basically “harvest” the icon widget from the blurb in the parent actor and spawn a new 3d widget at the desired location
  • Maybe make a content verifier on entry widget that checks for bold / no bold for unimportant entries
  • Player insights should always be italic
  • Remove title on player insights

How to differentiate codex / important scans in blurb

  • Do we need to?

  • What counts for “Codex” stuff

  • Not a question- MAKE A FLAG TO HAVE THINGS NOT SHOW UP IN THE CODEX “Unimporant” or whatever lol

    • flag is in, need to populate data and actually set up the codex to ignore unimportant

Plan

  • Make a new blurb in draw.io or something, start “fresh”
  • Do some research on contemporaries

Lunosi Translation

  • GPU?
    • Would be easiest to integrate
    • Likely impossible. No way to access letter info, no good way to get lunosi glyph into material
  • CPU
    • Swap text styles over time
      • May cause word wrap issues, may be ignorable
      • Would be challenging to support styles, but not impossible
    • Append lunosi runes to font and swap characters
      • Theoretically would only need to do the “regular” font
      • Still would have to write a very similar parser to the swap styles trick
      • Would sorta work with text styles, as long as the parser supports it
      • Doesn’t actually avoid word wrap issues as the font is not monospaced

Breakthrough Questions

  • How do breakthroughs stand out from regular scans?

    • Unified special ambient SFX
    • Glowy sparkles around the asset
      • Can be semi hand authored as there will only be ONE of each breakthrough… sorta maybe
    • Literal RAINBOW effect in scan mode lol. Like bold AF

  • How is the scanning experience EXTRA for breakthroughs?

    • Different hyped up SFX for scanning
    • Second “Layer” of scan health, like you charge it up to full then it goes into OVERDRIVE and you scan it more!
      • Flash effect, bonus visuals

  • How does the player know they got something good after scanning a breakthrough?

    • Pop an upgrade visor. We can put all info the player needs there!
    • Significantly jazzed up scan blurb (re-evaluate those first!)

  • How does the player know what to do after scanning all (4) breakthroughs in an area?

    • Scan blurb could explicitly tell the player to go to ship
    • Pop an upgrade visor. We can put all info the player needs there!!!!!
      • Player log, which has a push notif. Maybe a bit of a delay, or after the scan blurb closes!

  • Are there any support scans that go along with the breakthrough? How do we know we are “working” towards a concept?

    • Let’s work on the regular scan 3.0, may get some answers there.

  • Actually build breakthrough system (if not done for crystal cave)

    • Research. Find some contemporaries, or at least some related concepts
      • Seeing the cool chest / upgrade holder after a gauntlet / battle
      • What secondary FX can we use to pull em in?
      • What flair occurs after the player interacts with it?
    • BreakthroughZone
      • Shares tag with breakthrough scan
      • Dips music on approach
      • Ambient hum SFX
      • Particle glowy dudes (purple? Rainbow? Breakthrough colored?)
      • Screen space particle aura effect (research this)
      • Could use relevancy component to do distance checks for FX
    • Breakthrough get
      • Visor? Taking over screen is probably appropriate
      • Different jingle?
      • Sketch idea is still cool but I dunno if we have time. Maybe just use item get straight up and make a research icon instead
      • Pop scan blurb after visor screen

Ideas

4 Breakthroughs on Beach:

  • Sticky crystal at the end of the intro path (sticky stuff exists)
    • Cracked one, filled with sticky
  • Cache Creeper deluxe (physicality of zipwhip)
    • Three fruiting plants, feed the dude
    • Zoops up to ceiling, becomes breakthrough
    • When scanned, gives both pre zoop scan varient along with breakthrough (no missables)
  • Salt crystal in cavern (control / suppress sticky energy)
    • Need some final “controlling” or source crystal that is scanable after
  • Whirlpool plant fruit / seed / tuber (powerplant of the tool)
    • Some reaction that makes the whirlpool plant create the burning seed guys
    • Tubers?