Immersive sim elements

[ac-arcana]

I'd like to propose several elements that would be helpful for immersive sims.
Support for different damage types. Perhaps via a damage class and a resistance class, which devs could override to add any damage types they want.

Explosives. Ie. Barrels and Grenades
Explosives, if added, could blow open doors.

We have locks, how about supporting damaging them or shooting them to open them?
What about a lock picking minigame that could be replaced on the Dev's end?

How about stealth support? Maybe a demo camera you can sneak around? Sound and light levels could even be components to a stealth system.

Would love to hear thoughts from others on if these would be appropriate to add to some kind of road map?

[Phazorknight]

There are a few points here that should probably be split up into separate discussions.

Damage types:
This is could get pretty granular, but I've actually thought of something similar. I think classes aren't necessarily needed, but instead would add some more properties to the HealthComponent and the WieldableItem components. I can try to implement the most basic version of this, but I'm currently considering this very low priority prior to other bugfixes.

Damagables:
In reference to your suggestion to shooting locks to open them: Technically this is already possible by using the Health and Hitbox components similar to how the TargetDestructables are set up. If you attach these to a door you can make a door destructable. If you apply these to a lock and hook up the death() signal to make the door unlock when the lock "dies", enabling to customize any behaviour desired. I haven't tested this but in theory all these systems are in place.

Lock picking:
This is what I consider very game-specific design. Currently, it's already quite easy for developers to implement their own solution for this: Create a custom InteractionComponent that does what they want. Technically the KeyPad actually works like a "lockpicking minigame". Also adding "SkeletonKey" type lockpicks should already be supported.

Stealth support:
Again, this is very game-specific design, as this heavily depends on NPCs, AI, game states etc. However, the BrightnessComponent can be used for this. It can be influenced by zones which can be attached to Lights etc. The level of brightness on the player can be checked by other entities like NPCs or Cameras to see if they can detect the player or not etc.

As a general note: The more "game-specific design decision" a feature is, the more unlikely it is I'm considering it. Besides moving Cogito away from a lightweight generalist template, these can also introduce unwanted co-dependencies and complexities.
That being said, if someone wants to contribute a system, and it is compartmentalized enough to easily include/exclude it, then I have no problem in adding it.

[ac-arcana]

I appreciate your input on these. It's nice to know that a lot of this is already possible!
I agree then that there isn't a need to go further with lock picking since there is a keypad and any type of special items could potentially be used to trigger an interface like this. Also nice to know the breakable lock is doable. This means that explosives (damage area triggered on death) is doable, and grenades as well. Also destructible doors are supported then too.
I guess I didn't realize how modular all of your components are.

Maybe once damage types are added we could add demos of these in the demo scene

[ac-arcana]

Further to the light thing, I haven't understood it very well. I think the feedback component for it is disabled on the HUD by default? Just going from memory here.

So there already is something for light levels, that's good. Would you consider some kind of emitter and receptor for sound propagation?

[Phazorknight]

For the light/brightness: If enabled in the HUD, there's a BrightnessZone (aka Light) in the Demo Scene that increases the brightness when you enter it, but not much else is done with it to show this off and what it's all for.
I would love to create a more extensive Demo scene that demonstrates this better and show off even more of the features and what can be done with them. Alas I simply haven't had the time.

In regards to sound emitters: Haven't considered anything sound related yet in terms of stealth mechanics. If I'd approach this, I'd probably "fake" it, aka creating a Component that emits signals based on certain parameters (player move speed? WieldableItem loudness?) that would get picked up by listeners which could then react to this.

[ac-arcana]

Time is always the bottleneck isn't it. Always so many ideas but it takes time to write them all.

I really appreciate all the work you've put into Cogito as an extremely useful and time saving jumping off point. I wish to respect your vision for what is right to include and not include.
Once I'm back from my trip this week I'm looking forward to trying to contribute in some of the current issues.

[Phazorknight]

I don't want to come off too dismissive or "gatekeepy". I definitely appreciate any ideas and suggestions, so please keep em coming.

My focus for now will definitely be to "finish what's there" to work towards a stable 1.0 release. This should also then be a good foundation for future features or forks.

[ksjfhor]

As the term 'immersive sim' is a bit fuzzy, afaik there is not a feature complete list of elements like: "I am going to sneak around this guard and not going to kill him" or "NPCs tell of the great Battles you fought or the last big quest you made" stuff like that is hard to get into a template, dispite the fact that it is very, lets say, "oblivion-like".
Other games I would say hit the term are System Shock, Deus Ex, Dishonored, Thief, and Vampire: The Masquerade or even Skyrim.
For sure these games do share Health, Hit and Hurtboxes, Stamina, Collecting stuff, Jumping but the focus on each is different, as you can sneak in nearly all of these games, it has a different weight in Thief/Dishonored/System Shock than e.g. in Skyrim.

What I would include is already mostly here or in the making. So I would rather try to make the current Version more modular and make a feature freeze for now until Phazorknight is happy to release a 1.0-alpha-rc1 :D

For the sneaking part: You can add an area2D circle shape around the enemy and when the player is in the area and not crouching, this could trigger the detection in the enemy script, another smaller area2D triangle shape could ignore the crouching part and detect the player always, that triangle attached with a bone attachment to the head and when the head (or whatever) moves the triangle detection shape moves with it (like being in the viewport of the enemy).

Right now it is possible to work with the BrightnessComponent and check how the player is visible, but that could become very costly with multiple enemys that constantly check if they can see the player, but that is just a guess of me right now, I did not test that, maybe it gets a Problem with 100K enemys, maybe with 10.

@ac-arcana: I don't use your footsteps-part, sorry, I got the Ovani, I cannot say anything about that, so I gotta ask you: is there an implementation of changing the footsteps sounds regarding the player speed (normal/running) or if the player is crouching ?
That would make it easier to implement, as it would be done by the footsteps-node and not yet another 25 lines of code in the player.gd.

[ac-arcana]

The footstep volume is adjusted based on running, walking, or crouching, but not different sounds.
IIRC the player.gd is actually controlling the volume though.

[ksjfhor]

Thats neat, from my testing I would say that different sounds e.g. slower, with bigger gaps between the steps, played when crouching make a deeper immersion than changing the volume of the same sound, but that is just my perspective :)
Like crouching is the opposite of running in terms of playbackspeed on a single footsound.

[ac-arcana]

The player script is still calling for the footstep sound. It also adjusts the rate it calls for footstep sounds based on player velocity

[brian-holsters]

Adding to this conversation i'd suggest making stuff generally more interactable, idk if this is already possible with the elements in place, but i'm really missing the ability (in the demo scenes at least) to shoot at a switch to trigger it for example.

[brian-holsters]

if it is already possible, i think it could be a good idea to expand on the demo scenes with proper examples of all the cool stuff that is possible with the existing components, another very similar thing would be pressure plate type switches that you can either activate by standing on it or by dropping a physicsbody on top of it

[Phazorknight]

the ability (in the demo scenes at least) to shoot at a switch to trigger it for example.

Good idea. I've just added this in 45eeaa8

Basically I've changed for damage checks to not check if an object is a Cogito_Object but instead if it has a damage_received signal. Then I added this signal to most Cogito objects like Doors, Switches, Buttons. This opens up the possibilities for interesting future behaviours, like destructable doors etc. At the same time, the devs still have full control if they don't want to use it.

a good idea to expand on the demo scenes with proper examples of all the cool stuff that is possible with the existing components

I tried to show some slightly more complex stuff to give an idea how objects can be combined in interesting ways, but also don't want to overwhelm new users. I'm currently also focussing more on bugfixing/implementing more foundational stuff that's still needed for 1.0 before adding more content, but I'd be happy to hear ideas or PRs for more stuff.

[Phazorknight]

pressure plate type switches that you can either activate by standing on it or by dropping a physicsbody on top of it

Was curious about how complicated something like this would be to do. My (very WIP) attempt is up in fd4ab51

Still is a bit jittery and doesn't get triggered by the player, but works well with the barrel or the crate. Setting the carryable objects' weight to be heavier helps. Will try to clean it up more during the week.

[brian-holsters]

I haven't gotten time to check it out yet, but for character body detection you could set up a small Area3D on top of the pressure plate and read the object's weight or something like that, you could even add the weights up of all bodies inside the area to make it possible to trigger the plate with many light objects put together