Here are things I would like to add to the game: New ICE ------- - Armor corrosive - each hit lowers rating of armor program. - LockDown - Instead of attacking, it prevents the player from leaving the node while it is active. - Virus - lowers a players health, attributes, or program ratings every few rounds until cured with a medic program, or maybe a new type of program (Cure/Innoculation). - Trojan Horse - appears as a valuable file in a datastore until try to download it, at which point it triggers an alarm or attacks. New Programs ------------ - Freeze - ICE can't do anything for a few turns (can't be attacked either, though) - New virus programs act like stealthy Slow or Weaken programs. - Block - Blocks off node so no ICE can enter it - Garbage - What a program becomes when it crashes. Rather than leaving the deck, it is marked as garbage, and the player has to spend a round to trash it (or reload it). This would allow for an interesting new ICE - one that attacks by filling your deck with useless crap, overlaoding it. - Charm - Makes an ICE fight for you (similar to confuse) - Time bomb - run the program, and in a few turns it attacks everyone in the node. Since you are not in the node, you can't be blamed. Maybe a chance of triggering an alert when first planting it. Plant several to clean out the node :-). - Warp/teleport - teleport to a random node. This could easily be abused, so it should have restrictions, such as it always takes you to a node in an area further away from the CPU, or there is a chance of it failing if you are under attack, and no teleports while the system is under red alert. New Hardware ------------ - Reconstruction module - one shot module which rebuilds entire matrix system. This is rather dangerous, and really hard to justify from a realism perspective, so I don't know if it should be in there. New Missions ------------ - Elimination - Eliminate a certain percentage of ICE in system, all ICE in one node, or a single high-rating ICE. Must also disable ICE port as well. If objective is to eliminate a single ICE, it should be a stationary ICE guarding a node, so player doesn't have to chase it around the matrix. - Search friendly system for particular node or ICE, such as a spyware uploaded by another hacker. Maybe it is a system where all of the ICE are acting as if confused because of a virus program which is affecting entire system. - Distraction - The player must trigger a red alert, then stay in the matrix a certain number of turns (maybe requiring that ICE must follow / no smoke) to distract ICE from other hacker. New Interface Features ---------------------- - Cancel a contract - A list of files downloaded and their value (easy to do - just haven't done it yet) - Configurable hotkeys, and hotkeys for every action in the game. - New wait button that waits for a download to finish. Would have to stop for queries, attacks, alarms, etc. New Gameplay Features --------------------- - Constructs - Friendly programs which help you fight, map the system, or search the system. Would use a Construct program as a basis, and use armor, attack, scan/analyze, etc. programs for attributes. (Shadowrun has these.) - Full matrix access - a player can enter any system in the matrix (or maybe any system previously visited) any time they want, without a contract. A matrix map would be nice. - Custom user missions - for pen&paper DM's who want to use Decker for Shadowrun/Cyberpunk assistance. Select a player's stats and equipment, and the run type and difficulty, and the user gets a single run where saves are not permitted. - New program structure - Programs have base type and options. For example, an area attack program would be an attack program with an 'Area Affect' option. A virus program would be an attack program with a 'stealth' option. This would give a great deal more flexibility to programs. Base Effects: - Attack - Weaken - Slow - Confuse Options: - Area Affect (affects all in node, but -2 to rating against non-phased ICE) - Piercing (+2 to hit, half damage to non-hardened ICE) - Stealthy (use stealth roll to see if detected, -2 to rating) - Compact (Smaller size, but higher difficulty in programming) - New ICE structure - Similar to above, ICE have basic ratings in different areas, rather than a type. Basic ratings would - Attack - How well they attack (0 for white ICE) - Scan - for queries. Black ICE would typically be lower than white ICE. - Defend - How well they defend. Lower for white ICE. - Trace (0 for most) - Gives them a trace rating. Options would be: - Hardened - Phasing - Killer (Attack only) - Trace & dump, Trace & burn (Trace only) - Immune to Hide - Immune to Deceive - Stealthy - Aren't visible until they attack (or maybe become active). Note that this would require a good bit of thought, because some ICE (such as guardian, gateway, and tapeworm) are very specialized in function, and may not mesh well with this. - Bank and/or stock exchange, to invest extra cash. Stocks in companies could change depending on which missions you take for what companies. - Let virus (or other) programs be usable as default attack program. - Scripted missions - so that the game can have some type of plot. I started on this. See the Missions folder for what I have. Plot mission opportunities could be sent to the user via e-mail. - Complex missions, where more than one objective type is active. (This requries a major restructuring and redesign of mission code.) - Extra-valuable files (more heavily guarded), maybe only in banks. - Hacker must clear log files after red alert to get away clean