clockwork train centipedes

[Stroam]

A clockwork centipede that segments can be added to. The head segment is a rideable. The segments after can be storage compartments or a grill. Great for roaming travelers, miners, etc.

The compartments are made with gears and smithed metal pieces. The head can only be found underground and must be tamed. Runs on temporal steam or some other made up end game energy source. Not coal or charcoal. The smithing already requires two forests to fuel.

Based on feedback

Energy source could be temporal energized quartz to give quartz more of a use.

Working with parts should have effects like occasional loss of temporal stability.

Parts should have cool names like temporal resonance chamber.

There should be a focus on customization that changes the performance attributes (Think car parts) of the centipede head and the functions of it's segments.

A limit to the amount of sections for balance and game performance considerations.

Stations for modification and servicing of the centipede. (like large equipment in workshops)

https://www.da-files.com/artnetwork/collections/the-steampunk-menagerie/51-img-20.jpg
https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/000/344/322/large/terry-maranda-centi.jpg?1418070382
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ce/47/01/ce470182e671ca542519b5a83641c088.jpg

[AngryRob]

Quartz powder for the battery of the future -- ScienceDaily

I think quartz should be used for some sort of fuel or energy. we have massive seams of the stuff everywhere, so having it be used for batteries would work. What would be really cool is having the battery need to be lowered into and lifted out of the segment with a crane. 

[Astrayo]

Bump, I absolutely love this idea and really want to see it in the game.

If it's modular and can be upgraded in different ways, that alone would make it a step up from something like Minecraft's horses.

I feel like it'd really fit the style of the game as well, it could also just be a really awesome original idea that helps to make the game stand out. Kinda like how the Endermen and Creepers from Minecraft are really memorable. 

I also feel like it'd just be plain fun to have these things around and be able to mess around with them. I actually found myself thinking about the idea of these things a few times since I first saw this thread.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Glitch

[Maelstrom]

I think this is a fantastic idea!  I imagine each segment has a specialized function and maybe a limit of 10 sections to any centipede.  The head would be for steering controls, first segment for the pilot and then additional sections for either storage, battery or passengers.  Add in a requirement that longer centipedes need multiple batteries to sufficiently power the mechanism.  Perhaps batteries are crafted from a temporal gear, quartz and iron plate casing.

Hopefully someone in the modding community might be inspired.

[Stroam]

On 4/28/2021 at 1:13 AM, AngryRob said:

Quartz powder for the battery of the future -- ScienceDaily

I think quartz should be used for some sort of fuel or energy. we have massive seams of the stuff everywhere, so having it be used for batteries would work. What would be really cool is having the battery need to be lowered into and lifted out of the segment with a crane. 

It is quite plentiful and has very little use despite it being available almost from the start.

On 5/12/2021 at 6:54 AM, Glitch said:

Bump, I absolutely love this idea and really want to see it in the game.

If it's modular and can be upgraded in different ways, that alone would make it a step up from something like Minecraft's horses.

I feel like it'd really fit the style of the game as well, it could also just be a really awesome original idea that helps to make the game stand out. Kinda like how the Endermen and Creepers from Minecraft are really memorable. 

I also feel like it'd just be plain fun to have these things around and be able to mess around with them. I actually found myself thinking about the idea of these things a few times since I first saw this thread.

Truly

3 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I think this is a fantastic idea!  I imagine each segment has a specialized function and maybe a limit of 10 sections to any centipede.  The head would be for steering controls, first segment for the pilot and then additional sections for either storage, battery or passengers.  Add in a requirement that longer centipedes need multiple batteries to sufficiently power the mechanism.  Perhaps batteries are crafted from a temporal gear, quartz and iron plate casing.

Hopefully someone in the modding community might be inspired.

All great ideas

[Maelstrom]

Something I failed to mention.  Batteries have limited life and new ones need to be crafted, including using more temporal gears (giving farming drifters a purpose).  Perhaps used temporal gears turn into one or two rusty gears.

[Stroam]

On 5/14/2021 at 3:36 PM, Maelstrom said:

Something I failed to mention.  Batteries have limited life and new ones need to be crafted, including using more temporal gears (giving farming drifters a purpose).  Perhaps used temporal gears turn into one or two rusty gears.

Resource flow is important. I was thinking you'd have to leave something in a temporal unstable area to charge it. The more unstable the area the faster it charges.

[BearWrestler]

I don't know about the player-usable aspect, it's creative but sounds very overpowered and off-theme compared to what's currently available in the game. Especially since the game claims to take inspiration from Lovecraft - if you've read his works, you know that there's a hefty price for using ancient and forbidden knowledge, usually it comes as the cost of going completely insane. So taming the terrifying underground stuff is a no-go unless there's a terrible price to pay for it.

However, I'd absolutely love (i.e. be terrified and run away screaming for my life) seeing a mob like this in caves. The way I imagine it, each segment could individually walk on a floor, wall or even ceiling square, as long as it stays adjacent to another segment through a cube edge of course, and it could also let its segments hang straight down to traverse air blocks downwards. Just imagine these horrors walking on the walls and ceilings and using their length to drop down on unsuspecting travelers.

[Astrayo]

1 hour ago, BearWrestler said:

I don't know about the player-usable aspect, it's creative but sounds very overpowered and off-theme compared to what's currently available in the game. Especially since the game claims to take inspiration from Lovecraft - if you've read his works, you know that there's a hefty price for using ancient and forbidden knowledge, usually it comes as the cost of going completely insane. So taming the terrifying underground stuff is a no-go unless there's a terrible price to pay for it.

However, I'd absolutely love (i.e. be terrified and run away screaming for my life) seeing a mob like this in caves. The way I imagine it, each segment could individually walk on a floor, wall or even ceiling square, as long as it stays adjacent to another segment through a cube edge of course, and it could also let its segments hang straight down to traverse air blocks downwards. Just imagine these horrors walking on the walls and ceilings and using their length to drop down on unsuspecting travelers.

I don't know how it would be off-theme. The game has a big clockwork/mechanical theme, doesn't it? There's the clockmaker class, Locusts are machines, and the player can build their own mechanical things later on as well. Not to mention things like temporal gears and the fact that the part of the UI that tells you your temporal stability is itself a cogwheel.

The game taking inspiration from Lovecraft doesn't mean the game has to work exactly like his stories. The developers should be free to add something like this if they think it would fit, and I still think it would be amazing to have something like this. In fact players in a way are already able to use ancient knowledge. They can use temporal gears to fix translocators for instance, which are literally ancient teleporters. If the developers want to expand on the whole "Players fixing ancient tech" thing, this could be a cool way to do it.

As for it being overpowered, how would it be overpowered? They would likely be lategame and expensive to create/upgrade/maintain. If it would be overpowered somehow, there's nothing really preventing the devs from making it more balanced, is there?

That idea of them being enemies that walk around on walls and ceilings and hanging/dropping down from the ceiling does seem really interesting, though. Would definitely be great for mechanical enemy variety.

[Stroam]

I love the different view points. It is true in the lovecraftian lore, insanity and forbidden knowledge often go hand in hand. That showed up a lot in thaumcraft and it was one of the reasons I liked it so much. Vintage Story currently doesn't have a sanity mechanic and comments from Tyron in the past suggest such a mechanic would only ever show up in the most difficult of settings. Considering that I wouldn't consider this off theme for what is currently in the game. Also in such lore you often find people using objects of power. If you consider the centipede as an object of power and you are building mechanisms(segments) that focus the object to do as you wish then it fits in such style of lore very nicely.

I would say such a thing is not overpowered but filling a need that many have expressed is currently lacking in the game. Resources are really spread out to encourage exploration and no resource lasts very long. That makes gather the resource quicker than building a road to the resource. Currently the answer to this has been to give players larger bags. Many have wanted minecarts and trains which actually have the same issue as roads. A clockwork centipede can essentially be a late game off road train allowing a player to explore and carry the goods they find with them back to their at that point very established base.

[BearWrestler]

On 6/12/2021 at 6:39 PM, Glitch said:

I don't know how it would be off-theme. The game has a big clockwork/mechanical theme, doesn't it? There's the clockmaker class, Locusts are machines, and the player can build their own mechanical things later on as well. Not to mention things like temporal gears and the fact that the part of the UI that tells you your temporal stability is itself a cogwheel.

The game taking inspiration from Lovecraft doesn't mean the game has to work exactly like his stories. The developers should be free to add something like this if they think it would fit, and I still think it would be amazing to have something like this. In fact players in a way are already able to use ancient knowledge.

Spoiler

They can use temporal gears to fix translocators for instance, which are literally ancient teleporters.

 If the developers want to expand on the whole "Players fixing ancient tech" thing, this could be a cool way to do it.

Please use spoilers when discussing stuff new players might not have discovered yet  .

It's not a matter of working "exactly like Lovecraft stories" - by saying this you're implying that it's some insignificant detail that you can leave out without consequence. It simply goes against the core tenets of the Lovecraft mythos*. Might as well throw the "Lovecraftian" moniker to the trash if ancient underground horrors end up as your pets. I for one hope the devs seek to achieve consistency with the lore they have established (or change the lore to fit the game) instead of creating a jumbled mess by just including whatever sounds cool (read: Minecraft).

And yes, I'd argue that

Spoiler

casually using ancient teleporters and ancient mystical gears with mysterious powers, as well as monsters being omnipresent and in-your-face

is already ruining the theme a bit. At the very least you'd expect your sanity/temporal stability to take a huge hit when using one of those artifacts. It's the kind of thing I fully expect to be reworked in the future given that the game's horror elements are still kind of barebones.

Quote

That idea of them being enemies that walk around on walls and ceilings and hanging/dropping down from the ceiling does seem really interesting, though. Would definitely be great for mechanical enemy variety.

Glad that we at least agree on that.

*Pretty much: ignorance protects us from ancient horrors thinly veiled behind our daily reality; too much knowledge leads to madness; those who live who tell the tale do so because they only caught a glimpse of the monster/entity/dark dimension and are haunted by this sight they can't explain to others for the rest of their lives.

[Stroam]

19 minutes ago, BearWrestler said:

is already ruining the theme a bit. At the very least you'd expect your sanity/temporal stability to take a huge hit when using one of those artifacts. It's the kind of thing I fully expect to be reworked in the future given that the game's horror elements are still kind of barebones.

The developers have expressed an interest in making advanced technologies more risky to use and the same could apply to the clockwork centipede. For instance perhaps riding it amplifies the temporal instability in an area or makes it so your stability is unable to recover while riding it.

And I think we all can agree things dropping from the ceiling is an awesome idea but I have yet to see too many places that could support something like that.

[Maelstrom]

How about using the visual effects from temporal storms in increasing amounts as time is spent building/riding/maintaining centipedes?  Additionally, maybe only temporal gears can be used to remove the temporal imbalance caused by same activities and further exacerbated by temporally instable areas.  I imagine one could start with 100% temporal stability, ride a centipede into a deep cave with quickly declining temporal stability and have to abandon the trip within a 60 seconds due to low temporal stability level.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Maelstrom

[l33tmaan]

That's not very useful.

[Maelstrom]

Didn't say it would be useful.  Provided my thoughts on how the story could be told a bit through use of existing game mechanics.  They're suggestions and the devs can do with this as they wish.  I'd be surprised if centipedes in any form discussed hear would make it into the final release.

I don't like game design where something provides a huge benefit without some kind of drawback to balance out the benefits gained.

[Stroam]

 

4 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

How about using the visual effects from temporal storms in increasing amounts as time is spent building/riding/maintaining centipedes?  Additionally, maybe only temporal gears can be used to remove the temporal imbalance caused by same activities and further exacerbated by temporally instable areas.  I imagine one could start with 100% temporal stability, ride a centipede into a deep cave with quickly declining temporal stability and have to abandon the trip within a 60 seconds due to low temporal stability level.

That might be possible, however currently just running around during a temporal storm makes so you're not in much danger. Having that happen while moving around on something ridable wouldn't be much of threat. Reducing the players stability rapidly would mean every time you got off you'd be fighting powerful drifters. It does make it dangerous but also so unfun as to be useless. A balance must be struck between useful and danger that would suit the average player. Unpredictability is a good way to make something more dangerous. If you lose temporal stability at a constant rate it is predictable and therefore not as dangerous. If instead you lose a ton of temporal stability at a random but long interval, then it becomes much more dangerous even if the average works out to be less than you'd have lost at a constant rate.

With enough customization of the segments you could also reduce the negatives at the sacrifice of benefits that allow all players to customize how much risk they want to take.

[Maelstrom]

I think you're including more than I intended.  I meant only the visual warping effect of the temporal storm, not drifter spawning.  Describing it a different way: I was thinking of a localized temporally unstable area centered on the centipede which over time introduces the visual warping effect from temporal storms which becomes more advanced as the length of time spent with the centipede increases.  To my knowledge the only effect of low temporal stability is a poison effect that causes damage. 

I love the idea of random loss of temporal stability (both in interval length and quantity of stability loss).