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1  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: INT for combat characters - problem and proposed solutions on: January 17, 2022, 12:36:39 pm
Why not just +10 THC per weapon level and -10 THC per evasion level back to what we had in AoD and DR?

That's what we originally had in the first combat demo and didn't work well at all with the ranged combat and burst. The bonus was way too high, making THC penalties from burst not being able to offset them. Plus enemy evasion balance, any difference with the evasion from the enemies made the impact too high.
We already have spread of 0...30 from PER plus 0...18 from STR for burst attacks, it hard to have rather low but still meaningful THC for all range of builds.
I don't think that this can be solved in additive mechanics where short burst mean fixed -25 and long -50 THC.
Must be multiplicative formula, something like:
* short bursts: THC/2 + burst control
* long burst: THC/3 + burst control
2  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: Critical Strike in skill point distribution on: January 17, 2022, 12:26:26 pm
Although I agree on the fact Critical Strike rarely comes from player choices, I'd be against a focus on skill gain from dialogs or takedowns.
The former would throw out of the window a bunch of dialog options and restrict it to the player character (either followers wouldn't gain anything, either characters you don't want to gain CS skill for whatever reason are on the losing end), while the latter would restrict exclusively CS to sneak builds and nearly remove it from combat.
Yes, I agree, focus on skill gain from dialogs creates complication to have more than 1 CS fighter in party...

There are two pools: An attack pool, and a defense pool, which have different values (defense one is higher in the majority of cases). CS gets the defense one only in the cases of killing before attack. The CS LP comes from "outside" the pool when you score a critical hit, doesn't drain any of them. I can't recall the exact value in code, but it was a small flat bonus + damage done.
I thought it came from the defense pool, my fault.
Anyway I see unintentional skill development seems not right.
For example with knife build you use Power or Aimed 90% of times and:
    With CS lvl 3, no feats: CS chance is 13%
    With CS lvl 5, no feats: CS chance is 15%

You have about the same average amount of CS LP regarding of you past experience.
Getting more CSС per level and less CS LP per crit hit will improve situation.
3  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Critical Strike in skill point distribution on: January 16, 2022, 12:17:49 am
Majority of Skill Points in Critical Strike shall come from conscious player choice like CS-option in dialogs or sneak takedown, not from accidental critical shots.

For most of my builds I don't want to develop CS at all. In fact I'm trying to avoid it as possible to have more SP for armor and evasion. For example I usually don't kill a enemy until he attacks my party to prevent all its SP pool to go to the CS skill. But anyway by end of game I have CS skill about the same or even higher than armor and evasion.

Proposal:
1. Change SP distribution for killed enemy. I would reduce average CS points 3-4 times in favor of armor and evasion.
2. If enemy killed in combat before he attacks you - just allocate more SP to weapons skills or distribute evenly between CS, armor and evasion.
3. Most SP for CS shall came from CS-option in dialogs.
There shall be more SP and such option is more frequent. For example, if you have option to start combat with Initiative Bonus you may have an alternative option to start with CS.
4  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: INT for combat characters - problem and proposed solutions on: January 15, 2022, 11:56:32 pm
INT works well enough, but it could be changed so that tagging a combat skill costs 1 INT, while a civil skill still costs 2 INT.

Why not just +10 THC per weapon level and -10 THC per evasion level back to what we had in AoD and DR?
1). Tagging would means more for combat skill: 1-2 level advantage for tagged weapon skill mean +10-20% THC plus passive effect (which also may grow faster with skill level).
2). Overall combat balance will more depending on skill:
   * For pacific and stealth roles combat would be more difficult
   * For combat role - otherwise easier
5  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: EA bugs on: January 09, 2022, 11:22:26 am
When a person has cover from south 50% and west 50% the same cover shall apply for full 90 degree sector.
Now it's 32% for attack from south-west.
6  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: Early Access Comments, Nitpicks, and Suggestions. on: January 09, 2022, 09:04:45 am
Steal skill is boring for now.
All thing that can be stolen in game would be stolen without skill tagging or losing some other opportunity, except one - stealing pistol in the Factory (requires level 4). But the pistol is a regular Longslide - you can bought it in the very beginning of the game.
Would be nice to have:
a). Some unique equipment that can be obtained by steal only, or at least not available on particular stage of the game.
    Examples: Frankestein mask, Night Vision Googles, Hauser pistol, Tactical vest (without Old prefix)
b). Options to steal/persuade, steal/fight for some cases to choose which skill to develop.
c). Cases when steal change NPC behavior. For example:
    Steal level 1-3: not possible to steal
    Steal level 3: +40SP in steal, but NPC will suspect you - banish you from store (for trader), or make further collaboration harder or more expensive (for quest NPC, Maryam in Hydroponics as an example). Can be fixed with speech skills in some cases.
    Steal level 4-10: +80SP in steal, no drawback
7  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: INT for combat characters - problem and proposed solutions on: January 08, 2022, 01:26:56 am
Proposal:
1. Stat checks:
    a. For PC or follower
    b. For PC only
2. More feats with INT requirements - as for now it's only Mastermind.
New unique feats are welcome, but if it's hard to introduce new feats, I would just add INT req for existing.
For example for Educated, Captain, Sharpshooter.
3. Neural resistance.
8  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: INT for combat characters - problem and proposed solutions on: January 08, 2022, 12:36:23 am
Not much sense to have high INT out of combat either, unless you play solo.
1). INT 4, CHA 4 are enough get 2 followers with Squad Leader implant (it's hard but possible to get at early stage of the game).
It's 5-7 tagged skills total depending on companions - more than enough unless you are speech-build (but you can't be a speech build with CHA 4).
Or just get Faythe if Squad Leader is not an appealing option.

2). INT stat checks is definitely good proposal.
However stat checks are mostly party-based (PER checks as example) and right crew (Faythe has INT 9) will likely pass them.
9  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: Early Access Comments, Nitpicks, and Suggestions. on: January 04, 2022, 01:04:18 am
That's fine if you have a brain wave disruptor every time there's 12DR armor.

In my book it's OK if part of content is locked based on skill PC have or don't have (combat or non-combat).
Lack of meaningful differences between weapon classes is not OK. They are meaningful only if they significantly change odds for some fights. Of course situation where particular class is better or worse in almost all situation would not be acceptable.

In my experience the hard fights are hard for every build, but hard fights are fine, it's the distortion of the combat system by high armor values I hate.

In Dungeon Rats particular fight difficulty feels really different for different builds. Some become easier, while some become surprisingly tough. It's a reason I really like the game.

I'm pretty sure 10 penetration from sharp shooter applies to every attack, not just aimed.

It's correct.
10  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: Early Access Comments, Nitpicks, and Suggestions. on: January 03, 2022, 01:00:19 am
IMO Dec 15 armor rebalancing is a step to the right direction. It's OK if a weapon class works better against some enemy type (SMG agains light armor in our example) and worse against the other.

Some Detroit Thugs (the hardest fight in the game so far) wear body armor 5 and 6 ballistic DR - Smiles's Spitfire (11-15 dmg) is great against them, especially with reaction attacks on top. Still there is a guy in the gang with 12 body ballistic DR. Spitfire is near useless but Old Stanley will do about 3 per hit (12-16, 10% penetration), not so good, but eliminating light-armored target first should give you more time to deal with him.

Also playing solo must be hard, it's OK that optional fights are impossible without bunch of gas grenades and energy cells. Or just impossible for some builds.

As long as following conditions are true in late game - current graze/hit mechanics is just fine for me:
1). The ultra heavy armor is rare, let's say 10% - ultra heavy, 20% heavy, 40% medium, 30% light
2). The ultra heavy armor ballistic DR is 2-4 points lower than best available SMG avg hit damage, no penetration
3). Light armor is less that 1/2 DR of the ultra heavy - graze can do moderate dmg, graze +N dmg feats make sense
SMG's are fine right now because of the 20% aimed burst penetration. The problem is with non-burst weapons which have to do aimed shots which are very expensive.

I agree, it's fully valid, but let me point the following things:
The other problem is the uselessness of the other types of attacks, which distorts the entire combat system.
It's interesting because Aimed torso provides more advantages over Regular shot than Aimed burst over Short burst for the same +2AP.

The problem is scaling of AP cost: +2AP to 11AP is OK (M16) while +2AP to 4AP is to much (revolver).
I would suggest more expensive AR burst: +6AP to regular shot instead of +4AP and +4AP for aimed burst over short burst instead of +2AP. For SMG I would leave short burst as is (10-11 AP) but increase aimed burst to +3AP instead of +2AP.

Frequency of armor is somewhat meaningless if every hard fight has ultra heavies in it.
Of course ultra heavy armor shouldn't be in every major fight, but what fight is hard fight should depend on build.

The 12 DR guy will deal with you before you deal with him.
Brainwave Disruptor + Gas MkII make Detroit 12DR thug quite harmless, vulnerable for short burst (all hits, bonus reaction burst) and lost HP every turn.
11  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: Combat in Early Access on: January 02, 2022, 06:50:47 am
Difference between fast and regular attacks in terms of damage is too huge.

Suggestion:
Change -4 dmg for Fast and Flurry to -2 dmg. For Power attack I would leave +4 dmg to be competitive with aimed attacks.

(your suggestion would scale too much or too less with 4 or 6 ap weapons)

All knifes and swords are 5 AP for now. For blunt, they vary from 5 AP (Utility bar, Clawhammer with 9-12 dmg) to 7 AP (Warhammer with 12-14 dmg),
Anyway slow means more power, -1 AP changes less than for light&fast, but -2 dmg also changes less.
12  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: Early Access Comments, Nitpicks, and Suggestions. on: January 02, 2022, 06:20:50 am
IMO Dec 15 armor rebalancing is a step to the right direction. It's OK if a weapon class works better against some enemy type (SMG agains light armor in our example) and worse against the other.

Some Detroit Thugs (the hardest fight in the game so far) wear body armor 5 and 6 ballistic DR - Smiles's Spitfire (11-15 dmg) is great against them, especially with reaction attacks on top. Still there is a guy in the gang with 12 body ballistic DR. Spitfire is near useless but Old Stanley will do about 3 per hit (12-16, 10% penetration), not so good, but eliminating light-armored target first should give you more time to deal with him.

Also playing solo must be hard, it's OK that optional fights are impossible without bunch of gas grenades and energy cells. Or just impossible for some builds.

As long as following conditions are true in late game - current graze/hit mechanics is just fine for me:
1). The ultra heavy armor is rare, let's say 10% - ultra heavy, 20% heavy, 40% medium, 30% light
2). The ultra heavy armor ballistic DR is 2-4 points lower than best available SMG avg hit damage, no penetration
3). Light armor is less that 1/2 DR of the ultra heavy - graze can do moderate dmg, graze +N dmg feats make sense
13  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: Combat in Early Access on: January 02, 2022, 01:41:12 am
Difference between fast and regular attacks in terms of damage is too huge.

Typical example:
    Combat knife: 8-10 dmg
    Melee build, STR 8: 2-4 dmg bonus
    Regular attack: 12 dmg in average for 5AP
    Fast: 8 dmg for 4AP, +5THC
    Flurry: 3x8 dmg for 10 AP, +5THC

Definitely 2 Regular attacks is better than Flurry for the same 10 AP because 2x(12-DR) is better than 3x(8-DR) if DR > 0, +5THC doesn't change it much, so it's hard to find situation when Flurry is a good choice.
Fast is also non-optimal even against 0 DR, however it's still used for spending remaining AP or finishing 1HP enemy. Combat stims and weapon progression can improve situation but armor progression compensates it.

Suggestion:
Change -4 dmg for Fast and Flurry to -2 dmg. For Power attack I would leave +4 dmg to be competitive with aimed attacks.
14  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: Early Access Comments, Nitpicks, and Suggestions. on: December 30, 2021, 12:30:25 am
What is the condition to upgrade Accelerated Reaction I or Cellular Regeneration I to level II?
Total number of corresponding stims consumed?
15  RPG / Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game / Re: Gadgets on: December 29, 2021, 09:39:55 am
Power cell can just add more HP on top of what emitter provides (emitter through efficiency, power cell through more power).
It will be the simplest solution but:
* Adding something against melee seems interesting. Shield blocks outcoming melee attack, why it doesn't block or at least tamper incoming?
* Higher level still doesn't mean better:
    Assume Emitter progression is: {15HP, 3DR}, {20HP, 4DR}, {25HP, 5DR}, {30HP, 6DR} to hold the same 5 hits in the row. Battery progression: +0HP, +10HP, +20HP, +30HP
    Full set of Mk III gives 60HP and 6DR => 10 hits before disabled
    Emitter Mk I + Battery Mk III gives 50HP and 4DR => 13 hits before disabled, it may still be better with right armor.
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