Luliya

[LyleSY]

Summary

Content "Exodii NPC Luliya"

Purpose of change

Flesh out Exodii, make base more interesting

Describe the solution

New NPC Luliya with Exodii faction, spawns on the floor above Rubik at the exodii base with a broken exodii quad and a golden krar and golden body. She doesn't speak English but eventually the player can figure out that she likes music and if the player brings an instrument she can sing and play with them and give a small morale boost. Some dialogue is gated by time so there will be different interactions at different visits. I believe this is the first time we've used "[You see a thing and then you do a thing]" format in NPC dialogue, but I think it's necessary as a workaround here and also I think it works well and may make sense elsewhere.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Stuff I'm definitely not doing:

• Give her a broom or medical gloves.
• Possibility to make her a follower.
• Give the player the option to kick the body before it's been activated.

Stuff that may be good to do in the future:

• Dialogue for Rubik about her. (highest priority and easiest)
• I'd like to add some dialogue at some point for the player to teach her English to learn more about her deal. I also like the idea to get some kind of translator hack from Rubik. Alternately she could just teach herself passively if the survivor lives long enough.
• Explain her backstory which I've thought way too much about.
• Dialogue for her about Rubik.
• Patrik's idea of a quest chain to fix the quad is extremely interesting. I'm thinking that could be her brother who escaped with her, Samson.
• Give her a quest or service to find MP3 players or music files in exchange for something.
• Other quests for the player to get various unique materials, possibly in exchange for faction credit. This could be a way to drive the player to unique content that is otherwise not connected to any missions.
• Quest chain to bump her up to a better body.
• Quest chain to cure her wibbly-wobblies and allow her to reconnect to the other exodii.
• Quest chain for the player to get her golden body or a golden krar.

Stuff there isn't code support for yet:

• Let her order quads to clean CBMs for the player for free with a small delay.
• Dating and romance options. Marriage, 2.5 cyborg kids, house in the virtual suburbs, cyborg dog.

Testing

Game loads no errors, map assets and Luliya spawn. Dialogue works as expected.

Additional context

Thanks to Erk for talking this through with me.

[MNG-cataclysm]

Choosing to kick Luliya repeatedly should probably cause her to become upset with the player, rather than doing nothing.

Also, what if she could use a mechanical translator similar to that of Rubik, which he uses to explain things if the player doesn’t understand something? It seems that both could access such technology, or the Great Gray for the purposes of translating.

<P.S, If she does become a possible romance, choosing to play the saxophone in the music dialogue should make any related checks automatically pass in your favor.>

[PatrikLundell]

I'm not sure romance with an Exodii cyborg would make sense, as the body parts that would have been involved are likely sacrificed and replaced with robotic parts that lack the now unneeded capabilities.

I'm also not sure the Exodii would be too keen to lose some of their limited staff on one of their temporary stops, unless sufficiently payed for in an increased trade and a decent chance of recruitment of suitable locals into their faction. However I don't think there's any system for an NPC to influence the player to do what factions want, beyond punishment/rewards.

That setting might allow for quests where the player provides Luliya with items used to repair the quad. That could be done through a "dialog" where hand writing and drawing are used to convey the message of what's needed and what the reward would be, possibly gated behind skill checks to understand what the parts needed are (and an option to guess what they might be if the skill isn't sufficient, although that might lead to meta gaming). It might be possible to make a quest chain where language gradually is introduced, to simulate the learning of a local language.

[MNG-cataclysm]

I'm not sure romance with an Exodii cyborg would make sense, as the body parts that would have been involved are likely sacrificed and replaced with robotic parts that lack the now unneeded capabilities.

I suppose romance with the Exodii could occur through the Great Gray or other networks, relying a dream-like trance between two or more cyborgs. Otherwise, there could be certain bionic modules that replace the parts needed with mechanical equivalents, or augment them with some sort of enhancement. It is one of the most marketable things around, it's possible one or more worlds the Exodii visited had something like that available.

Considering that Lulia is described as vain, she probably would have installed one or more of these.

[Maddremor]

Remember that outsiders are ephemeral and disposable. I doubt anyone that formed strong emotional attachments that easily could cope with the Exodii lifestyle.

[harakka]

Considering that Lulia is described as vain, she probably would have installed one or more of these.

That is hell of a conclusion to jump to.

[MNG-cataclysm]

That is hell of a conclusion to jump to.

Would the mechanical dream-trance work better for this?

EDIT: I was not specifically referring to sex, just the ability for romantic attraction and communication thereof.

[Maddremor]

I don't think sex and eroticism is especially interesting or relevant here.

[I-am-Erk]

I'd like to leave any concept of romancing a cyborg from another dimension in the vague clouds of your imagination for the moment pls.

Exodii are not really good candidates to become followers.

[kevingranade]

The exodii do not need a cleaning lady. They have the resources for a better roomba if they want that, they definitely don't need to dedicate a member and their highly capable robot body to that task.
The kicking options are right out, if they're not meaningful interactions the player can feel free to imagine doing it.

[MNG-cataclysm]

What if Luilya oversaw material recovery and management, instead of cleaning?

[Maleclypse]

This is really cool, I like it a lot!