Plans for v0.43 - Making Girls Trainable and More.
Added 2021-07-04 10:31:08 +0000 UTCFirst up, if you've been trying to download the PC version of v0.42.0 and having problems with Mega I have reuploaded it and replaced the link in the patron release post here. Sorry for the inconvenience, that's the first time I've run into a bug with them!
Now onto the main subject of this post: my plans for v0.43! The focus of the next update cycle will be giving the player the ability to change a girls stats, skills, and opinions. This will be achieved by putting girls into an orgasm and serum induced trance. Before I detail the exact mechanics I want to lay out some problems that Lab Rats 2 has at the moment:
1) There's no way to change girls stats, work skills, sex skills, or opinions! For a game about corruption, there's relatively little you are actually in control of after a character is generated.
2) Suggestibility as a mechanic is janky. It was originally a cap that temporary sluttiness could go over core sluttiness. That was scrapped and it was transformed into it's current form of being a % chance of turning some temp sluttiness into core each turn. Neither iteration has felt particularly satisfying.
3) Core sluttiness is a confusing mechanic to have. This is tied in with Suggestibility, but it was originally a mechanic intended to let you make small incremental changes, but you would need serum to make large sudden changes. In reality it's a muddy stat that increases slowly as long as you keep temp sluttiness high, mostly regardless of serum use.
4) Making a girl orgasm isn't particularly useful or mechanically unique. They give +5 to temporary sluttiness and a small happiness buff. Male orgasms now have a prime place at the center of the research loop by generating Clarity, but female orgasms are a small buff to stats that will likely decay without leaving a lasting impact.
5) Sex and serum effects are disjointed. In Lab Rats 1 serum use was tied directly to sex scenes, implying that sex was important for locking in the effects in some way. It also featured girls being more open to suggestions, even if wasn't explicitly turning her on. Making and using serum is a core bit of LR2, but it's not tied as closely to the sexy parts of the game as I want it to be.
My plan is to address all of these in v0.43 by reworking several old mechanics into a single unified one: Trances. Whenever a girl climaxes there is a chance that she will enter a "trance", a period in which she is highly suggestable. The chance a girl will enter a trance when she cums is equal to her suggestibility score. While in a trance changes to a girls obedience and happiness will be doubled (that includes negative effects!). The trance lasts at least one time chunk, and may last longer at higher suggestibility. Girls with positive opinions of certain things (drinking cum, a particular sex position, ect) may also enter a trance spontaneously or have a higher chance of entering a trance when they cum.
While in a trance you will have the ability to talk to a girl and make "suggestions" to her to influence her stats/skills/opinions. This will cost Clarity, with the cost increasing based on the number of changes you've made in the past. Influencing a girl will also take a time chunk, which will effectively limit how many things you can change at once.
At the same time as I introduce trances I will be eliminating Core Sluttiness as a stat entirely. Most of LR2 already only refers to Temporary Sluttiness (just Sluttiness from here on out), so this change won't have much of an effect other than speeding up how quickly you can progress through the game. I will have to tone down some of the existing events that currently give temp sluttiness boosts to account for this.
There are some details to the system I am still considering (like the ability to put girls into deeper trances with lower Clarity costs by giving them multiple climaxes), but that's a good overview of the plans. Let me know what you think, this idea is still in formation and more feedback is always helpful!
Comments
Also, I highly recommend the idea of a girl getting into a deeper trance with multiple orgasms. I say this because it feels like there should be a prize if the protagonist makes a girl cum like, five times in a row, or something like that. I also love the idea of corrupting someone through overwhelming amounts of pleasure, which that idea would represent.
Killer300
2021-07-14 04:41:42 +0000 UTCOkay, this does sound interesting, and certainly easier to understand than the prior system. Do you think you'll adjust any Clarity gain based on this? It may not matter, as Clarity gets significantly easier to get as the game goes on, but this change obviously makes Clarity more useful as now it directly affects the corruption portions of the game.
Killer300
2021-07-14 04:36:57 +0000 UTCmaybe something like cost to increase is current stat+(total number of increase+1) for example stat 0 to increase to 1, would be stat 0+ total previous increases +1 = 2 cost the second increase to 1 would then be current stat 1+ 1+1 =3 to get to 2 would be stat = 2 previous total 2+3 = 5 so code could be something like this (note im not a coder) for you would set total=0 increase stat cost = stat+total+1 then you would new total= total+1
2021-07-08 11:21:37 +0000 UTCIt will be fixed in .42.1, which releases tonight!
Vren
2021-07-08 06:30:33 +0000 UTCSaves almost certainly won't be compatible. If I've got some spare development time I think I'll add in a bonus cheat mode for patrons to help skip some of the early game stuff that's been seen a billion times before at this point.
Vren
2021-07-08 06:30:21 +0000 UTCOr having the cost be determined by their initial stats, so the higher it is initially, the easier it is to increase. Like someone with 2 intelligence takes just as much to influence to 4 as someone with 8 does to 10, just depending on what they had initially.
IgnusObscuro
2021-07-07 04:53:19 +0000 UTCI'd be wary of setting costs based only on the past changes. It seems like increasing a low stat should be relatively cheap, while increasing an already high stat should be expensive. I'd also suggest capping stat changes, maybe at 2x the original value, to give some weight to each character's original stats.
Steve Sombdy
2021-07-06 16:52:57 +0000 UTCI went from Lab Rats 1 to Lab Rats 2 and it was a surprise not being able to effect a girls opinions, so I like the idea of this change of direction.
2021-07-05 00:08:20 +0000 UTCIf my understanding is correct it's something like this: Currently flirting with a girl increases temp sluttiness up to a max of one heart, which decays over time and has a chance of turning into core sluttiness based on suggestibility. With this change that flirting action action will instead influence sluttiness as a whole (possibly based on suggestibility?) up to the same one heart cap. Would likely need to be balanced but I think it makes the sluttiness mechanic easier to understand
2021-07-04 22:50:04 +0000 UTCBeen waiting for this! This will really solidify the playing mechanics... Could start thinking about making v1.0 after this is in place!
Yellowcake Uranium
2021-07-04 16:55:39 +0000 UTCThough I like the sound of these changes, I have a concern (which you have probably already assessed): a lot of mechanics in the game are tied to sluttiness: events; sex acts she is willing to perform (and ease of performing those actions); and reaction to creampies, just to name a few. In that context, those mechanics are effectively "gated" by sluttiness. By removing core sluttiness, you might be removing the most reliable way to reliably perform those mechanics. The alternatives are somewhat limited: you can use serum to increase temporary sluttiness, but due to serum tolerance of 2 and the side effects of most sluttiness-influencing serums, those cannot really be relied upon to increase sluttiness; you don't have the energy to manually increase sluttiness AND have enough energy for sex; and, economically, you essentially require a very large number of workers to produce enough serum to maintain an economy as well as produce enough serum to work on multiple girls. As-implemented, sluttiness cannot be replaced: * Skills only govern her ability to do things to *you*, but without sluttiness, she will not do those things * Opinions only govern whether she likes or dislikes specific situations; without sluttiness, she will not enter those situations in the first place * Stats, as I understand them, don't govern sex at all. So, unless you implement a "suggestibility" core stat that can be increased by serum to make her more susceptible to advances without temporary sluttiness, this change sounds like you will be increasing the amount of work required to do basic sex things. Of course, it's not all doom-and-gloom: * I might be Doing It Wrong, and there might be easier ways to play that I haven't seen * The above treats sluttiness as-implemented; if the mechanic is decoupled from susceptibility or the decay rate is reduced, they could be more open to things more reliably * As-implemented, when sluttiness plateaus, your options become limited: many sex positions become boring to them, and no effort is required. * I'm not in your head and you may have addressed a lot of these issues already If I may be bold enough to make a suggestion: rather than *eliminating* core sluttiness, imposing a decay rate on it as it is currently implemented may solve a lot of problems. Either way: given that this is a drastic change, do you think it would be possible to release a "demo" of the changes before launch so we can see them in action as you intend?
Eschew Shame
2021-07-04 16:51:37 +0000 UTCThat sounds awesome! Maybe have a small chance/risk to turn her into a sex-crazed nympho for having her mind (literally) broken by the overwhelming stimulus as as reward/danger too?
Shinnjin
2021-07-04 13:16:57 +0000 UTCDo you still have plans to allow us to keep going after the girl is out of energy? I think it would be fun to emulate the "screwed silly" trope that way, possibly requiring her to have had at least one (or more) orgasm before reaching zero energy to allow you to keep going
Baarogue
2021-07-04 13:08:01 +0000 UTCThe changes sound like a lot of fun! That said; what's the status on fixing the errors previously reported? I love the idea of asking Jennifer for permission to date Lily, but with the current build all I get for asking is an error-message followed by a CTD...
Shinnjin
2021-07-04 12:49:47 +0000 UTC
