How about Permadeath, but with the possibility of rescue and revival? The way it would work is that if you "lost consciousness" out on the surface, your body would stay there for 24 hours (or however long seems reasonable) and other players could rescue you and bring your character back to life. The person who rescues you should get some sort of huge exp bonus, to encourage rescues.
Of course this would only work if you had your suit on, since anyone stupid enough to walk outside without it deserves permadeath.
Because you lost consciousness and were barely alive when they brought you in, you would have some memory loss "big loss of exp" and the loss of health and other stats that already happens when you re-spawn. The loss needs to be big enough that its not worth it for people to die and get rescued on purpose, though.
I think this is the best solution posted.
Yay! Its good to have your support on this one Marco, feels like we've been arguing a lot lately
Normaly when an astronaut makes one mistake, he's dead for good. In a game - he would have a chance of suirvival.
There could be several stager of dying, and when you go threw the last one..."goodbye!".
I like the idea of several stages, and the increasing urgency of rescue operations makes for an exciting gameplay mechanic too.
For instance - if a player runs someone over he first goes on the ground beying immobilized. He can call for help ir even help himself using personal med-pack.
So at this stage you can't move but can still call for help (type in the chatbox or use voice commands or any communication protocol Hyper puts in).
In the last version I played, you could not use a medpack or take medicine while in a suit. I would suggest that the suit have some sort of integrated medical reserve, and an automatic needle that could inject things into you (this level of detail doesn't really need to be programmed obviously, but could be used as an explanation for why the suit can heal you).
After few minutes he looses concisnoues, and only his friends can revive him now, and in that state he can be for about 30 min. of real play.
At this stage you can no longer communicate, but your suit can send a prerecorded message once per minute that says [EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION: Andon Zebal lost consciousness Z minutes ago and needs assistance! GPS Coordinates are XXXX YYYY.]
So I'm guessing revival at this stage will simply consist of a suit power/oxygen transfer? Meaning the person can get up and report themselves to sick bay for further assistance.
After that he looses his vital signs, and in order for his friends to revive him with a future tech they will need to do CPR and get him to a med-bay for recuperation in bio-chamber with stem-cells.
At this point, the suit can send out a more adamant message, but only do so every 5 minutes to save power [EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION: SITUATION CRITICAL - ANDON ZEBAL IS IN A LIFE THREATENING CONDITION AND NEEDS ASSISTANCE. GPS COORDINATES ARE XXXX YYYY.]
We would need the ability to pick other players up and carry them. Physically this is no problem since there's the low martian gravity, but I don't know if that would be difficult to program. Maybe the player turns into an item that can be manipulated like other items in the game? You could have them in your inventory, load them into the rover, etc. Maybe even compost if the player ends up dying
I've seen scetches of future-soldier suit design in which it actually suports life when the soldier is injured. It can get him air, meds, food and pump blod. I think it's possible that in the future space suits will have something like that.
I agree.
This is a little further off, but in a Sci-fi book I was reading (The Quiet War, great book by the way) a soldier gets injured and his spacesuit puts him into hibernation mode, lowering his body temperature as low as possible, injecting him with a natural antifreeze, and lowering his heart rate to a few beats per minute. It does this to save power and keep him alive in the event of rescue not happening for a long time.
I would suggest this could be the final stage before permadeath, and the emergency message could go off once every thirty minutes, for 24 hours real time. Surely by now someone will have rescued them. The injured player would not have to be logged on this whole time, since their body is now an item rather than an avatar.
If players doesn't help thei'r teemate - he dies for real and he would have to start the game all over again - including naming his avatar.
The whole idea is to avoid permadeath, but do so in a way that it (relatively) realistic and in keeping with a simulation game.
I would suggest that the earlier and faster the player gets rescued, the bigger the bonus for the players who participate in the rescue. There could even be badges for the fastest rescue, etc.
I would also suggest that if someone is "on duty" (logged on) while the emergency messages are being sent from the suit and they do nothing and the victim dies permanently, the players on duty should get some sort of penalty, like a demotion.
And permadeath should be complete. The player who dies should have to start over just as if they were a new player. We just make it so that it happens only very rarely (which is what NASA tries to do).