Veist Posted:
Why so vague on the details? Care to elaborate on how it was generating items stats/cost? Or was it just Log in to see images!
There is very little randomness involved, now or ever.
Basically the code is kind of like a genetic algorithm. It picks two items in a category, and creates an offspring item that averages their stats and prices.
The problem was, specifically with special items, that some items in the category were WAY out of normal bounds. For example the Falcon Preservation Plaque. When that item was married with another item, it created stupid stats for the offspring.
The major solution was to restrict the pool of items to those that are common and equippable. Now funnily enough this leaves us with too small a pool to actually create special items (and wouldn’t allow for say, a hacker special item.) So I put in a new piece of code that randomly changes the category of an item to special.
So for example, it might pick two hardware devices, marry them, and then convert it to special. Voila, a hacker item.