ABSORBER
By Dr Mike
You are able to absorb beneficial properties of other characters merely by getting close to them.
Objects in the game, cars, boulders, etc. have an ABSORB command on them for your character. Using this command will cause you to approach them and trigger a power effect, after which you permanently gain the material property of the object.
Using any close-range attack (either a melee attack or using a projectile or beam up close) on another character will cause you to gain their properties automatically. You will:
- Have the same strength as the target for lifting purposes, if their's was higher.
- Have the same movement speed as the target, if their's was higher.
- Have the same maximum health as the target if their's was higher (and your current health will scale accordingly)
- Recover energy as quickly as the target, if their's was higher.
- Be made out of the same material type as the target.
Changes to strength, health and speed can be seen visually around the character, and decay with time. Rotating yellow arrows around a character means thay are faster than usual, black spheres outlined in yellow denote increased strength, and fiery orange sparks denote increased energy. These cues help you to guage when its time to re-absorb another characters stats with another attack.
Even newer stuff!
Absorbers now look for a special template when they absorb, based on the characters name plus the material type afterwards. This allows you to customise this ability to the Nth degree. Look in FFEdit at the copybot character for an example.
WHen a character hits an opponent or absorbs from an object of a different material to theirs, the game generates a template name based on their original name with a material tag such as '_stone' for stone. If this template exists, the character will morph into it. For example, when copybot hits a stone enemy, he'll turn into copybot_stone, since that template exists. If copybot_stone then hits an energy opponent he'll turn into copybot_energy.
Hitting a flesh character will not trigger a change, as this is assumed the default material for characters.
For an example of this, take the Challengers (Doc Sensation, Optical Girl, The Spark and Rocky IV) against a team of copybots in the dangerroom and watch them change as they attack the different members.
Try the battle both ways (as a single copybot vs the Challengers) to get the full picture.
New Stuff!
In FFX Squared, Absorber characters now take on the properties of the material they absorb more fully:
METAL - the character recieves a significant strength boost
STONE - a smaller strength boost and reduction in speed
RUBBER - an increase in speed and agility
ENERGY - the character becomes energised
FIRE - the character temporarily gains the OVERHEATED attribute
COLD - the character temporarily gains the FROSTBITE attribute
CLOTH - the character loses strength
Customisations
Dummy Power: The power that the character uses on inanimate objects when absorbing material properties off them.
Effect Base:
Acts as a base for the visual effects played to denote absorbed characteristics. If you change this you must create three Resource tab effects with this name followed by 'strength','speed' and 'energy'. So if you customise the third parameter to 'effect_rogue' you have to create resources for effects called 'effect_roguestrength','effect_roguespeed' and 'effect_rogueenergy'.
Absorbing Power:For builtin characters, this is the power which triggers the absorb effect. (Not yet implemented)
See the Customisation Guide for an explanation of Commands, FX and Dummy Powers.
Important: Due to FFX Control Centre having a limit on the number of customizable attributes, Absorber has to be customized manually by opening ffxcustom2.py:
### Absorber (original Absorber)
FFX_ABSORB_CUSTOM=[
["default","ffx_absorb","effect_ffxabsorb","FFX_POWER_CUSTOM"],
["types","dDummy Power","AEffect Base","QAbsorbing Power"],
]