Stealth and Sound

[Grimblim]

Hi.

I recently took up lockpicking as a hobby and it's a lot of fun. The other day I remarked to myself "Hmm.. This sound is kind of suspicious. I'd definitely get weirded out if I were to hear this coming from my front door, or from the dungeon downstairs where the..." Anyway I starting thinking about Kenshi since stealth gameplay is a big part of this game. Wouldn't be cool if the stealth mechanics were built upon even further in Kenshi 2??

I do micro manage a lot in the exciting combat parts of the game, but not so much in the stealth part of the game. But, what if there was a way for characters to make sound on purpose in Kenshi?
There could, for example, be a feature where dialogue could eat up a little bit of time instead of being instantaneous. During such a timeframe the sound of locks being picked might be less noticeable, right?
But dialogues are a weird thing really. It makes you dependent of having someone to talk to in order to talk, but do you really, really need that?
What if player characters had the opportunity to say things without a predetermined conversation partner?

I don't know what such a thing would look like in Kenshi, but in my head I see that interaction wheel from The Sims, but with Beeps face in the middle facing the relevant dropdown menus while I navigate to the subsection that includes "FIRE! FIRE!" so that Beep can distract the merchants while Espher takes advantage of a special discount from their stocks, which definitively could have been classified as a "steal" had the merchants been more engaged in their merchanting at the time.

Stealth is a very complicated mechanic to implement in a sandbox game such as Kenshi, and surely there is not infinite time to experiment with all the fun ways to making it all playable.

I have one more thing though

Beep should have a dynamic "suss"-value for all NPCs that see him.

Beeps "suss" value should decide how likely NPCs are to do the following based on how high it is;
looking in Beeps direction,
following him,
how far to follow him (and at what pace),
talking while following,
notice sounds from Beeps direction

Notably Beep shouldn't get any suss points for shouting "FIRE! FIRE!", but he should get a lot of suss points for being "seen" in the very center of where the shouting originated from

Ideally Beeps suss-value should be unique for every NPC that has "seen" him, but I don't know how feasible it is for every NPC to check for sussness for an entire 30 man player squad at a regular basis.
Maybe a reasonably armed player character with a respectable outfit doesn't need to generate any suss-value..? Expect for with the NPCs with the "busybody" personality trait of course.

BTW.

The main categories in my imagined "The Sims chatwheel" would be:
"Agree" - including; "nod", "Yes!", "vague yes" that takes longer to say and therefore stalls for time.
"Disagree" - including; "No."
"help" - including; "Trade with me!" and misc alarms such as "FIRE! FIRE!"
"diplomacy" - including; "Howdy!", "I surrender!!!", "I'm very big and scary!!", "Have cats! I'll pay!!"
"Stories" - including; "random drinking story" and "have you heard that..." and "Woe is me! How did I end up here?!"
"Commands" - Including; "Follow me", "Ruuun!!" (and ignore combat), "Wait here", "stay low" and etc

Saying "Howdy" a couple of times in the earshot of NPCs could be a great way of erasing Beeps suss-value with those NPCs. Perhaps it even could even have an effect on the suss-value of his nearby visible companions?

The function of "talk"-feature is thus an extra tool for the player to manipulate the NPCs and like this it could be a good idea to limit the visible effect this tool had on the NPCs in the final product so that it becomes a cute addition to how players engage with NPCs and not a "de facto" one, such as perma sprinting or combat kiting in Kenshi 1.

Additional options for non verbal actions should be considered with such an implementation, such as the option to sheath a player characters weapons. Would be a nice thing to be able to do, when the attacking NPC prompts Beep to put away his weapons, after hearing Beeps vocal proposal to surrender.

[Grimblim]

So I've been doing irl lockpicking more now because it's actually a really fun fidget toy, and it has this little window on the side so you can see how the little pins move when you pick them. But now I've begun doing it a bit with my eyes closed and I've learned that it actually makes a lot less noise when you do it like that, and in Kenshi everybody also picks locks without watching the little pins in the window, so it makes sense lockpicking doesn't make much sound in Kenshi.

But, yeah, it made me think about Kenshi again and how eerily the inhabitants of Kenshi blend into the world when I scout for a safe route through the map and how fun it is.
I like listening to the different sounds on the map while I scout and I think it makes me more engaged in the game when I use my sense of hearing as part of the gameplay. All in all I think Kenshi was really well made in the core stealth gameplay.

Character "talk" noises is a probably a pretty silly idea, that Kenshi 2 can make due without, but I love the idea of Kenshi 2 having a balanced stealth gameplay. If it was balanced then NPCs should be able to use it against us too.
No, It's not the same that they can sneak up on us sometimes, while we can do both that and knock them out and take their cats.
Lo-Fi has spend, I don't know how many, years working on this game and has probably tried out a million different things and maybe even thought of this before, but random idea, if the dev team ever should so happen to find themselves in an tremendous abundance of time, maybe consider to add more sneaking sounds to the already existing sound libraries or whatever else the code wizards may call it, so that players can potentially listen more for sneaky Kenshi denizens around them out in the quiet parts of the Kenshi 2 world.
I mean the "too quiet" parts of the world, if you know what I mean.

Random again: Would it be cool if Kenshi characters ever sneezed?

[Grimblim]

Okay.

So I've been thinking lately how maybe 3 seconds is usually a decent amount of time to make up your mind about a lot of things unless it's really urgent, and I've been speculating over the feasibility of the game engine running checks on interval for every NPC on certain values.
An adrenaline meter perhaps, so the game could refer to it's value for how fast a particular NPC would have to make an immediate action, and which sets of actions would be available for it to take based on that value.
Nothing too complex, but the "fastness" which a NPC makes a decision, would be merely how long it would wait (while potentially doing nothing), before taking it's next action.
Actions such as choosing to fight, stand still while waiting for a set amount of time and/or other value checks, run away, seek cover, disband from or join squad, or just adjust the priorities of its own tasks.
Particularly fight or flight would be relevant.
The current Kenshi NPC is not nearly as self preserving as I would like.
I definitively do not see the need to run these checks very frequently for every NPC, buy roaming squad leaders, war leaders , combat flagged NPCs and wayward NPCs that don't have any tasks other than "aimless" ought to revaluate their situation often.

The following factors are examples of things that could be judged as values when the game tries to decide the actions of particular NPCs;

Values created by earlier made decisions.
Limb health and hunger
Equipment and stats
Current task
Their factions and squads distinct behavioural traits
Relevant character traits (The "hotheaded" NPC would obviously not wait 3 seconds for anything)
Proximities to friendlies
Proximities to neutrals
Proximities to hostiles
Proximities to blood, gore and dead guys
Proximities to structures and fortifications
As well as a memory registry of which characters they've seen within a certain timeframe
As well for noises

This is relevant for stealth because stealth is foremost an evasive action, and for NPCs to act more like player characters, they'd have to use stealth at times when it would make sense for them to do so.
Imagine refusing to give cats to the lone starving bandit only to be rushed by 30 previously unseen, but nearby bandmates. Or random NPC squads not running up to my fortress to join the pile of harpoon filled bodies (just cause yay free harpoons I guess), but instead I'd occasionally see glimpses of crouching squads investigating my defences and seek cover until my turret team stops shooting at them.
Sabotaging and destroying structures should always be an option, but I see the issues this could cause with the current Kenshi 1 AI.

I would, however, like it more if less "features" were added in Kenshi 2 in favour of the essentials being improved and polished really well. Stealthing NPCS and all the other stuff above wouldn't make much sense to include without a strong foundation to stand on.
Fight or flight for example. Sometimes when I attack the NPCs it would make more sense for them to take cover/run and hide, than to attack back immediately.
And when I mention running, I'd like to add something.
Athletics is the most valuable stat currently because it decides run speed which not only is good for getting around the map, but is also good for both combat maneuvering and stealth operations.
To be fair the run speed is actually co-decided together with the limbhealth of the legs of any humanoid character (and don't forget the shoes), which is really cool, but otherwise there are no other regulators for it, which makes it a predictable constant.
Could be interesting if there were more factors that played a part in run speed, so that athletics didn't become such a solve everything stat. Maybe hashish smoking could give you lower run speed or stamina or something something.

Also can you please please make character reserved seating options? I don't want the squishy worker drones to sit in the guards man chair.
Also also please more outdoor seating and make chairs an inventory item so you can pick them up like sleeping bags.

tytyty xxx