Locus Code - Drain Rate

Posts : 88 Join date : 2010-05-30

Alright folks. I need some ideas on how to handle daily drains of loci.

There should be a base number of essence drained off, and then settable variables for the things players are done to lessen that drain. This will be set up so that a loci will automatically refresh/drain essence from a loci each day, and automatically go up in level when it has enough essence or go down in level when essence is too low for too long.

Posts : 3 Join date : 2011-02-04

Cobalt wrote:: Alright folks. I need some ideas on how to handle daily drains of loci.

There should be a base number of essence drained off, and then settable variables for the things players are done to lessen that drain. This will be set up so that a loci will automatically refresh/drain essence from a loci each day, and automatically go up in level when it has enough essence or go down in level when essence is too low for too long.

Would it be easier to do this in a custom forum than code? Forums timestamp every action, so anytime someone wants to take essence, they go figure out how many days it has been since the forum updated, increase the essence appropriately, and then take what they like and leave a note of the new pool.

Posts : 88 Join date : 2010-05-30

Nope, the issue isn't the code, the issue is the formula of how much drain to apply.

Posts : 3 Join date : 2011-02-04

Cobalt wrote:: Nope, the issue isn't the code, the issue is the formula of how much drain to apply.

Oh.
Then I'm utterly clueless Smile

But I'll throw my opinion in anyway.
IIRC the book says that they tend to hover at half full when not tended. So perhaps the drain should depend on the amount in the pool? As it gets fuller, it gets more attractive?

So, when empty, they recharge rating per day. When full, unattended, perhaps they should lose rating per day.

Posts : 4 Join date : 2011-02-05

Preface this with saying I have no idea how complicated it would be to implement, I'm just throwing the idea out there like a pinata that could potentially have very tasty treats in it.

From what I can tell from the books, I make these assumptions:

* Loci fill at a steady rate, barring a change in the area/loci itself. These changes do not just arbitrarily happen, so in a vacuum, a loci fills at rate X constantly. When a loci overfills and goes up in rank, the rate increases.

* Unattended Loci get depleted by spirits and other essence predators eating, which can change as a loci grows in power and extends its pale. The idea I get here is that as the loci gets more powerful, it attracts more attention and more predators. This sloughs off a percentage of X based on the area the loci is in and can depend on things like spirit population in the area.

So an unattended loci has Pool = (Last Week's Pool) + (X per week) - (Percentage of X per week) calculated every week. Unless its a new Loci erupting onto the scene, (Percentage of X) will need to be 100%, because otherwise the Loci wipes itself out or ends up becoming a new Plot device that's about to make things very interesting in that part of the hisil Smile

What would happen then is gauging the effectiveness of a Pack or others 'tending' to a locus - their efforts reducing (Percentage of X) per week in order to both make sure they have a source of Essence for themselves, and if they do so carefully and diligently, allow the locus to grow and become more powerful.

Pool = (Last week's Pool) + X - ((Percentage of X)(100% - Effectiveness of Pack's tending efforts))

So the better they do, the more they reduce (Percentage of X) and the faster they allow Pool to grow.

The problem then is setting a system for judging how Effective the tenders are. The easiest way would be to set a baseline for the number of individuals in the pack - a pack of 7 do a much better job of tending a Loci than a pack of 2 purely by the number of wolves they have that can spend time in the hisil guarding it. So without the players taking any additional action at all, their characters are considered to spend X amount of time monitoring their turf and tending to their loci in the background. Its when a pack is going out of their way to guard the loci and make sure nothing gets their nasty spirit claws on the yummy Essence that the effectiveness of their tending goes up - this could be something like having the pack members each contribute a roll to a weekly job and have the results of that determine their effectiveness for the week. So, as examples:

A 3 wolf pack that does nothing special other than 'average' loci maintenance:

Pool = (Last week's Pool) + X - ((Percentage of X)(100% - 20%))

So this pack would reduce the predation on their loci from 100% (no growth) to 80% each week, allowing the loci to slowly fill, or at least provide enough excess to fill their needs.

Comparably, a 7 wolf pack that does nothing special other than 'average' loci maintenance might look like this instead:

Pool = (Last week's Pool) + X - ((Percentage of X)(100% - 45%))

A 7 man pack has over double the number of individuals that can spend time in the hisil, and will be significantly more effective at stopping predation. They would be able to reduce it to 55% of normal each week, allowing the loci to fill faster - but keep in mind that a 7 person pack will have higher Essence demands as well.

Either of these two packs could ACTIVELY tend to their loci - RPing scenes there, having a plot or two about stuff going on, and submitting whatever rolls staff wishes them to, to lower the predation percentage further and allow the loci to grow even faster, but this would determine the 'baseline' each week.

Yeah, I know, holy shit Marcus, tl;dr. Its 6am, and Im stuck at work. I'm a data analyst - figuring out systems for things is part of what I do all the damned time here. Hee.

Posts : 3 Join date : 2011-02-04

Marcus wrote:: So an unattended loci has Pool = (Last Week's Pool) + (X per week) - (Percentage of X per week) calculated every week. Unless its a new Loci erupting onto the scene, (Percentage of X) will need to be 100%, because otherwise the Loci wipes itself out or ends up becoming a new Plot device that's about to make things very interesting in that part of the hisil

What would happen then is gauging the effectiveness of a Pack or others 'tending' to a locus - their efforts reducing (Percentage of X) per week in order to both make sure they have a source of Essence for themselves, and if they do so carefully and diligently, allow the locus to grow and become more powerful.

Pool = (Last week's Pool) + X - ((Percentage of X)(100% - Effectiveness of Pack's tending efforts))

I believe it happens per day, but that is more or less what I was thinking. The only difference is that I would vary the percentage of X based on how full the loci was... the fuller it is, the more attractive it is. It would range from 0% (empty) to 200% (completely full, bordering on growing). Lets cal this drain Y.

Thus an unattended rating 2 loci will grow at 2 per day till it is 25% full, then it would get a drain Y of 1. It would grow at 1 till 50%, and then get a drain Y of 2, and stop growing.

With level 1 attendance, it would grow at 2/day to 50%, 1/day to 75%, and then stop.

With level 2 attendance, it would grow at 2/day to 75%, 1/day to 100%, and then stop. Since this is full, it would eventually expand into a rating 3 loci. Or you might require level 3 attendance, since this is 'just barely' keeping the spirits from draining it, and you can say something sneaks in to nip a little bit every now and then to keep it from growing.

Rating 3 loci would normally grow at 3/day to 1/6th full, 2/day to 2/6th, 1/day to 3/6th full, and stops there. With that level 2 attendance, it stops at 5/6ths full. Still a useful amount, but you require more attendance to get it to grow than a level 2 did.

Posts : 4 Join date : 2011-02-05

That sounds like a capital idea, IMHO. Would make it so a pack would really have to be diligent and busting ass to tend a Loci to the point it overfilled and ranked up.

Posts : 88 Join date : 2010-05-30

How much they fill up each day is, IIRC, Level of Locus. The big questions are:

A) What is the base rate of drain? -- What is the rate of drain that happens on a loci if it is completely unattended by werewolves and left for spirits to omnomnom?

B) How do we rate the activities of a pack to lessen this drain level?

Thenomain made comments way back before I got married, though I forgot about them. How does this sound?

Quote :: [3-] Thenomain added on Sat Oct 30 15:57:39 2010: Thoughts:

Generates (Locus) per day. Once a week, reduced by (Locus x 6) - that is, an unclaimed locus is burnt almost entirely. If claimed by a pack, loss is reduced by protected to total of (Honorary Rank). If protected by spirits, final value is reduced further by (Rank of all spirits involved). I don't know who feeds the Totem, so it isn't added.

Example: Wussy Locus 1 is unclaimed in the woods. It generates 7 Essence a week, but is eaten for 6 by greedy spirits so it generates only 1 a week. If claimed by a pack of 3 neophytes, that's (2 + 2 + 2) 6 points of protection, so will not be drained by evil spirits. If the pack hires a 3 rank 1 spirits, then it's still being reduced by 3 Essence at the end of the week, as a charge. The spirits may suck more if they're forced to defend the place, just like the werewolves might.

Posts : 35 Join date : 2011-01-26

Looks good to me.

That's natural drain, though. Does that mean, if it only has, say, net 10 Essence a week, that the pack could only pull up to a max of 10 Essence from that week total?

Posts : 4 Join date : 2011-02-05

I would imagine with Theno's idea there is also a Pool stat to keep track of the accumulation. Whatever the weekly/daily rate ends up finally being gets applied to the pool every period. Werewolves actively drawing Essence would pull it from the Pool. You couldnt state you are going to take some of this day's generation, because until the day finishes it technically isnt there for you to take yet, so you take from what's already there. So your limit is whatever is in Pool, not what the loci's rate is.

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