New Attributes: Energy Redirector and Kinetic Absorber

[TaskMasterX]

I was looking for a way to simulate the powers of Bishop and Strong Guy more accurately and I thought I was able to do that with Volatile Storage in FFX3.2 but it wasn't quite there. VS basically tracks the EP of the character when it's above the base Maximum and then triggers a side effect if the absorbed energy isn't used in a certain amount of time. I was looking more for a way to track every absorption of energy from passive and/or active defenses, no matter what the current amount of EP the character has. And then when an absorption is detected then give the character a command for a power, which disappears once the power is used.

So, for Bishop, I came up with Energy Redirector.
How It Works:The character begins the mission with Energy Tanks so they're maximum EP are doubled and they can absorb more than they're Max EP via they're Absorb Passive/Active Defense Powers. They also have no special commands as seen in frame 1.


Once an absorbption occurs...


The character now has custom commands they can use. I gave made it so that you can add up to four different powers. So, if the character can absorb more than one kind of damage, they can have a new command for each of the damage absorbed. Since they're currently isn't a way to detect the kind of damage done, all commands appear and the player chooses the command to trigger the power that has the same damage type as the one they absorbed.


Since I know the Alien Warriors used a Radiation Beam, I choose the Radiation beam and Bishop fires the beam right back at him.


Once the power is used, all commands disappear until energy is absorbed again.
I gave it a customized drawback similar to Volatile Storage, so that if the absorbed energy is held onto for more than 10 seconds, the Side Effect occurs (Explosion, Take Damage, Stunned, Irradiated, etc.,). Also, the character can only hold absorbed energy from 2 attacks. If they are hit and absorb the energy a 3rd time without having released the energy from the 1st absorption, the Side Effect automatically occurs.
Whenever the Side Effect or the Power is triggered, the absorbed energy is then deducted from the character's EP, so you may want to choose or create powers in FFEdit that have No Energy Cost to use with this, since the actual cost of the power is the energy absorbed. Also, the intensity of the attack absorbed affects the intensity of the power the character gets. To get the best results, the power in FFEdit should be Medium Magnitude because the damage will decrease or increase based on that the intensity above or below that Magnitude.
As for the AI, using this power, it's a bit limited but I did get it to work somewhat. When the AI is in control of this character and an absorption occurs, the AI will use only the first power in the ffxcustom list. Since the AI has no way of knowing what kind of damage was absorbed, there's no way to tell it to use a specific power based on that. So, they can only use the first power. I also built-in a 10% chance that the AI will wait to long to spend the energy and the Side Effect will occur.


For Strong Guy, I came up with Kinetic Absorber.
How It Works: It's similar to Energy Redirector in that it detects when an absorption occurs, and it also gives one command after the absorption to use. It also increases the character's strength proportional to the amount of EP absorbed and the current strength of the character. For instance, if the Kinetic Absorber has a Strength of 6 and is punched by a guy with a 3 Strength and the damage is absorbed, the Strength increase will be very little, not even noticeable and when the Strength increases, you'd need an even more powerful attack to absorb for the Strength to increase further. A punch by a character with a 6 or 7 Strength would increase the Strength by about a point.
Also, like Energy Redirector, the energy must be spent within 10 seconds or the Side Effect occurs. The only way to spend the energy is by using the command, not by using another inherent power that uses energy. So, for Strong Guy, I just gave him a command for an extra melee Punch when crushing or piercing damage is absorbed.
Kinetic Absorber does operate differently than Energy Redirector when it comes to the number of absorptions that can be absorbed. The Kinetic Absorber can absorb any number of attacks but must use the power within 10 seconds of the first absorption to prevent the Side Effect. If the character absorbs more energy before they use the command, then the energy accumulates and can possibly increase his Strength further if hit by more powerul attacks, but all energy absorbed is released with the trigger of the Power or Side Effect and the process starts over again when energy is absorbed again.

I'd post the script but I'd have to break it up because the post would exceed the max allowable characters and the Spoiler function seems to not be working  :(

[Epimethee]

Are you trying to tell us that we'll have to do an FFX 3.3? :P

...The attributes sound great, TMX!

[USAgent]

Great custom attributes Task, I can always count on your ideas to make all our characters as closest to their comic counterpart as possible.
Again nice job!

[lugaru]

Very nice! The two are of course designed for characters who felt so-so but far from perfect using conventional means.

[Podmark]

Very cool work. I'm glad to see people are still working to improve this game.