% Firstly, I forgot something.
% If you died recently, death will add a flat +5 to the New_TF_speed value independent of the main function. This is becuase I think saveing that drastic increase would be a bit unfair. This increase should linger for like 300 turns or so, and probbably decay to zero over that period.
% Similarly, cursed items in phase 3 will add an unsaved +7 to the TF speed the same way death does, and cursed items in phase 2, 3, or 4 that are permenantly equipped will add +0.5^2 to the big square root in the main function that will get saved.
% and now for the ranking system! While the generation of the internal number is ludicrously complicated, the rank itself is much less so, and should be very simple to understand.
display("----");
if (New_TF_speed <= 2) % I will use the terms "rate of transformation" or "TF%" to refer to the actual amount of transformation affcting the player.
% Reminder for this rank, and all other ranks. The Strange Surpressor, when on, will multiply your per turn TF% by 0.95, even for the recession in this rank.
% It also affects all priority gain and loss, and all instantanious TF% changes.
display("Rank A Active");
% Set per turn TF % for all body parts to -0.1%.
% Additionally, the most transformed body part recives another -0.1% per turn.
% Chance for transformation to infect ajacent body parts cured of the ongoing transformation is -1000%.
% Set all priority gain factor to 1.25 times.
% Set all priority loss factor to 0.8 times.
% I think makeing priority more difficult to manage when their transformation is recceding will be useful in stopping the player from ending up in a situation where they become functionally invunerable from transformation.
% Maybe you could imply the protagonist is feeling overconfidant and full of hubris that they stop paying attention to that?
% If ( net_TF_level <= 25% and Rank_A == 1)
% Disable Reduce_curse
% So the player isin't wasteing MP on it for no reason.
% end
elseif ((New_TF_speed >2 && New_TF_speed <= 3.5) || (New_TF_speed >2 && New_TF_speed <= 10 && (Cat_priority <= 29.9 && Mouse_priority <= 29.9 && Bunny_priority <= 29.9 )))
display("Rank B Active");
% Set per turn TF% to 0.
% chance for transformation to infect new body parts is -50%.
% chance for transformation to infect new body parts is -1000% when the overall transformation of a body part is <=80%.
% Chance for transformation to infect new "special"/"hidden" bodyparts, such as tails and back-mounted wings for example, is -1000%.
% all priority gain and loss is at normal levels.
% If reduce curse is active, the player recives the Per turn TF% of rank A instead.
elseif (New_TF_speed >3.5 && New_TF_speed <= 7.5) % && (Cat_priority >= 30 || Mouse_priority >= 30 || Bunny_priority >= 30)
% The extra priority check is there, at minimum, as extra insureance to make sure the game is not bugging out.
% I however couldn't get it working?
% I though to make the minimum priority to actually transform slightly higher than the flag's stand-in, becuase of how dangourous high priority is and becuase I thought, "Maybe you would think of how to use that in a cool way?"
display("Rank C Active");
% Set per turn TF% for all currently transforming body parts to +0.05%.
% Selected at random, a currently transforming body part will recive an aditional +0.1% per turn. (The 'lucky' body part will also change every so often, regardless of if it got full transformed or cured.)
% chance for transformation to infect new body parts is -50%.
% chance for transformation to infect new body parts is -1000% when the overall transformation of a body part is <=80%.
% all priority gain and loss is at normal levels.
% If reduce curse is active, the player recives the Per turn TF% of rank A instead.
elseif (New_TF_speed >7.5 && New_TF_speed <= 10) % && (Cat_priority >= 30 || Mouse_priority >= 30 || Bunny_priority >= 30)
display("Rank D Active");
% Set per turn TF% for all currently transforming body parts to +0.15%.
% Selected at random, a currently transforming body part will recive an aditional +0.3% per turn. (The 'lucky' body part will also change every so often, regardless of if it got full transformed or cured.)
% chance for transformation to infect new body parts is -20%.
% chance for transformation to infect new body parts is -1000% when the overall transformation of a body part is <= 50%.
% all priority gain and loss is at normal levels.
% If reduce curse is active, the player recives the Per turn TF% of rank C instead.
elseif (New_TF_speed > 10 && New_TF_speed <= 13)
display("Rank E Active");
% Set per turn TF% for all currently transforming body parts to +0.3%.
% Selected at random, two currently transforming body parts will recive an aditional +0.3% per turn. (The 'lucky' body part will also change every so often, regardless of if it got full transformed or cured.)
% chance for transformation to infect new body parts is -1000% when the overall transformation of a body part is <= 50%.
% all priority gain is 1.1 times higher.
% All priority loss is 1.1 times higher.
% I like to imagine that, as your body gets more unsatbe and more unable to fight off the transformation, it become more succeptable to all transformative stimuli.
% What I am concernd about at this point is that the player could easilly end up in a situation where they are perpetually stuck in a rut where, once theings get bad, the player pretty much can't do anything to regain control of the situation.
% so I thought, maybe there are some small benifits to being at a high TF rate? To give the player a bit of risk and reward? Reward them for doing well in a bad situation?
% therefore:
% player hunger drains 10% slower.
% the player recives an additional per turn HP regen of +0.05. (I like the idea that their body is transforming fast enough to essentially heal wounds by proxy!)
% the player recives an additional per turn MP regen of +0.02.
% If reduce curse is active, the player recives the Per turn TF% of rank C instead.
elseif (New_TF_speed > 13)
display("Rank F Active");
% Set per turn TF% for all currently transforming body parts to +0.5%.
% Selected at random, two currently transforming body parts will recive an aditional +0.3% per turn. (The 'lucky' body part will also change every so often, regardless of if it got full transformed or cured.)
% chance for transformation to infect new body parts is +20%.
% chance for transformation to infect new body parts is -1000% when the overall transformation of a body part is <= 20%.
% all priority gain is at 1.5 times.
% all priority loss is at 1.25 times.
% player hunger drains 10% slower.
% the player recives an additional per turn HP regen of +0.05.
% the player recives an additional per turn MP regen of +0.02.
% If reduce curse is active, the player recives the Per turn TF% of rank D instead.
else
display("This failsafe message should not appear");
end
-----------------------------------------
And, that is about everything I have thought out! Obviously, I couldn't go much further without having to reverse engineer your Body parts system which I think is... going a step too far I think, so I think this is a good place to stop!
Hopefully, this all is good material to hep your game along, and I am curious how much this has done for you already. I might re-build this without all the comments to make a proper simulation to see how the numbers work out in a more realistic setting, but A, I think you are just as capable of doing that, and B, It might be good to let you figure out things and the actual values you want to work with from here. So, unless you ask otherwise, I think I will leave you too it!
Let me know about any other questions you might have, or if there is anything else that you would want me to do for you or your game before the end of September, or if you want to just generally chat. (i'm happy to just talk about things in general, too!) Like, how has the development been going, as well as your life! I hope my work and opinions hasn't been stressing you out at all, or if I was just being annoying, so sorry if I was. I am excited to see where your game goes in the future!
The last thing I will leave you with for now is this: When I first played your game, I was initially confused as to why you had a list of transformed body parts as opposed to a single TF tracker. But, if you had not guessed by now, I have decided that I actually like that system so much that... why don't we go even further with it? Aside from having some 'hidden'/'special' parts like tails and back mounted wings that are invisible until they are needed, why are hands and arms seperateated but legs are not? How about we split them into feet and legs? (Maybe some select animal paws would disable, or destroy, boots?) For the head, maybe ears and muzzle could be separate? For the body, maybe we could split the torso into waist, chest, and internal organs? … Again, maybe that's just going into the realms of the excessive, but the legs especially, when I considered it, I genuinely thought that maybe those should be split if the hands and arms are.
Anyway, I will leave you too it. Tell me what you think, if you want to! I hope this code framework helps, have a good day!
----------
Edit from like four hours later...
Welp, I realized, in my rush to get "the easiest part" finished, I completely forgot to include not one but two things, and have also decided that one of the things I put in there could maybe use a bit of clarification.
Clarification first. So, I mentioned that some of the really big TF speed penalties "won't get saved". Ok, what do I mean by that? Well, you know how I put ten possible previous TF speed values into a vector, and called that the previous values? Firstly, at the very beginning of a run, all these values are filled with 3.5 so that the run can start stable and at the median value. And, after the big main function is all calculated and run, all the values currently in the vector are shuffled down by one, with the oldest one being deleted completely and the new value getting saved to the newest position in that vector. So, the result of the function is instantly saved to the history of your TF speed, but still can get some extra changes to it after that point. Amd since those extra changes won't be put into the history vector, they are "unsaved".
As for what I forget, first, about Reduce Curse. I showed it secretly dropping your rank by one or two stages here, but That was merely one possible option. We can also have it give the player an independent -0.1% TF per turn for it's duration, or, have your TF value devided by three, (unsaved obviously), for its duration. There's a lot of possible solutions here, and I think they are all good. Regardless, I think reduce curse should also remove a bit of priority from all animals, I'm thinking (10*player_level*how_much_it_was_upcasted)-(10*TF rank.) With lower ranks being more unwilling to remove priority from Reduce Curse.
The other part I forgot is biome effect. Basically, it can operate similar to Reduce curse, just in the opposite way, where it increases or reduces priority gain and lossper animal based on the current biome, and will increase or decrease per turn TF% gain and loss based on animal. It's too complicated to correctly model here.