Plan for hero sprite overlays

It would be nifty if heroes (particularly in battle, but maybe also on the map) could have a set of overlay sprites drawn over them.

• Add data members to the hero data for specifying one or more optional overlay images. These would default to off.
• If specified, they would be drawn over the hero.
• Add plotscripting commands (or extend set hero picture) to manipulate overlay
• make room in the .sav file for storing hero overlays (see also Plan for new save format)

All the above would be sufficient to allow game authors to plotscript visible armor that changes your heroes appearance.

Other possible improvements:

• Add overlays to the sprite editor, so you can pick sprite A as an underlay while you edit sprite B
• Make visible armor a built-in feature
  • Assign one overlay for each armor type
  • Add a table of armor pictures. This would be a mapping of hero/equipment pairs to armor pictures
  • Automatically change armor picture overlays without plotscripting when items are equipped
    • should be optional so it will not interfere with scripted overlays
• Status effect overlays (similar to the above suggestion)

See Also

• Plan for raising sprite frame limits