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Incline Fallout 2 Mechanics Overhaul Mod Discussion

DraQ

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Does this destructible environment effect look somewhat serviceable?


Looks great, but you'll need to test it on two adjacent wall tiles to see if it doesn't look too stupid in such case.


The idea would be that every time any projectile, and that means anything that could potentially damage a critter - whether it's a bullet or an explosion's shockwave - enters a critter's hex, there's a certainty that it hits. This is because the THC system would become entirely hex-based: if you hit a hex, you automatically hit everything on it as well. This THC isn't modified by anything: if a projectile and a critter are on the same hex, there's a collision.
A critter doesn't occupy the whole hex, though, so there should be a % chance modified by critters size (could be affected by perks such as small frame and bruiser too, 100% for solid walls and doors) and, if shooting specifically at critter, skill modifier for the shooter (improving the odds compared to raw coverage), on failure the projectile should continue unless it hit the ground. Shockwaves and other contiguous area attacks should always hit objects in hexes they hit like in your model, maybe add burst-like circular spread of shrapnel projectiles to frag grenades (targets in adjacent tiles would get peppered by multiple shrapnel, targets far away, but in range would need a bit of misfortune to be hit).

Overall, you're doing wonders here.
:salute:
 

DraQ

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First, a couple of last energy weapons vids. I adjusted the projectiles so they're invisible when too close to the attacker firing them only after making these vids, so the gatling laser one looks a bit silly.

For pulse weapons, I thought it would be amusing to have an trailing effect: once the projectile reaches its destination (which as you'll see can just be an empty hex), it "chooses" a target from a cone that's constructed behind it, and so on until it reaches its max range (or something blocks it). This means you can, with some effort, get to targets behind walls. I'll need to put together something that lets you see the exact hexes an attack can reach for this type of weapon (and burst and explosives obvs):

For plasma weapons, I thought it could be interesting to have splash damage translated as a "puddle" that does damage the next (couple of) round(s) to those standing on it. A possible alt-fire would create a larger puddle, and would be hex-based rather than target-based:

I felt the gatling laser should be mechanically similar to other laser weapons (including rudimentary wall ricochets); looks a bit iffy but eh:

Laser and pulse look good, plasma looks awful.
Would it be impossible to just treat plasma projectile as small rocket dealing splash damage and using plasma grenade explosion sprite? Or at least make the puddle a cloud of sort using one of the plasma grenade explosion frames.

I'm also unsure about laser ricochet mechanics - one part of me (the simulationist sperg) screams in terror seeing such unrealistic lasers, the other part (somewhat less spergy sperg) notices that Fallout is mostly pulp-quality retro sci-fi and has lasers depicted as glowy spears so bouncy laser ricochets are part of the expected imagery.

The reason for this is of course that as you get better at hitting the enemy, the enemy doesn't get (much) better at dodging those attacks. The devs tried half-heartedly to balance this by implementing D&D-type silliness of better armor making you harder to hit, but this doesn't accomplish much in practice.
Yeah, this needs to go. D&D-esque harder to hit damage is what DT does.

Now, given that in my mod, heavy armor makes you easier to hit in most cases, this to hit chance issue would become even more glaring, if not for the following steps that solve everything in my head:

- AP's spent to aim. You get a very large to hit penalty for trying to attack at the minimum AP cost.
- Movement and attack AP's are separated. You can "simultaneously" attack and move, but at a significant to hit penalty for each hex moved.
- Missing one bodypart can result in hitting an adjacent one (especially extremely hard to hit "embedded" bodyparts will often result in hitting, e.g., the head instead).
YES!
 

DraQ

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That reminds me that I'll probably give grenades and rockets a 3 hex radius rather than the current 2 hex one and scale down the effects/damage as you get further from the center (normally explosions do the exact same damage to everyone).
Maybe give AP rockets small radius and regular ones a large one?

As for plasma projectiles - even better idea - a molotov-like cone instead of circular explosion.
 

dunno lah

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Hey, I just wanna throw an idea out here regarding plasma weapons. Not sure if it makes sense in the simulationist way or in any way regarding ball plasma projectiles, but maybe you could make plasma projectiles, in addition to its small explosive-like characteristics, also lose energy i.e. damage output as it travels to the target. I thought of it as a way to balance lasers and plasmas during my daydreaming sessions on how to make FO "better", where lasers had excellent range and good damage vs plasmas not so good range and insane damage.
 
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Looks great, but you'll need to test it on two adjacent wall tiles to see if it doesn't look too stupid in such case.

Not totally sure what you mean, but the system would probably be limited to making the types of breaches I make in the vid, and expanding on an existing breach by chipping away at the sides. These pretty much work as intended in my tests and look good enough. Anything involving corners or doorways is extremely hard to properly (it's a pain in general because Fallout deals with building "horizontal" walls by making a zigzag pattern that it "cements" with blockers; not a lot of fun to try and make holes in).

A critter doesn't occupy the whole hex, though, so there should be a % chance modified by critters size (could be affected by perks such as small frame and bruiser too, 100% for solid walls and doors) and, if shooting specifically at critter, skill modifier for the shooter (improving the odds compared to raw coverage), on failure the projectile should continue unless it hit the ground. Shockwaves and other contiguous area attacks should always hit objects in hexes they hit like in your model, maybe add burst-like circular spread of shrapnel projectiles to frag grenades (targets in adjacent tiles would get peppered by multiple shrapnel, targets far away, but in range would need a bit of misfortune to be hit).

I suppose that'd be better, yeah. I originally liked the simplicity of my scheme despite the whole critters don't occupy a whole hex thing, but I suppose it's unavoidable to have this sort of thing sneak in... I just realized it would've gotten especially jarring in the case of a prone enemy: he wouldn't be able to escape to an adjacent tile, so every projectile on his path would automatically him, even tho he's lying down. A prone enemy would in my system be harder to hit unintentionally, but easier to hit intentionally, so removing the automatic hits is needed, yeah.

edit: hmm, actually the prone example works doesn't involve the difference between intentional and unintentional, but hitting a hex surface, or whatever is standing on it...

plasma looks awful.

True... I tried making it something like the Unreal biogel weapon, but eh.

As for plasma projectiles - even better idea - a molotov-like cone instead of circular explosion.

That's a very cool idea! I originally decided against using the plasma explosion effect because I thought it'd make plasma guns too much like plasma grenades, which I found boring.

Hey, I just wanna throw an idea out here regarding plasma weapons. Not sure if it makes sense in the simulationist way or in any way regarding ball plasma projectiles, but maybe you could make plasma projectiles, in addition to its small explosive-like characteristics, also lose energy i.e. damage output as it travels to the target. I thought of it as a way to balance lasers and plasmas during my daydreaming sessions on how to make FO "better", where lasers had excellent range and good damage vs plasmas not so good range and insane damage.

I'm generally not a fan of the concept of ranged projectiles losing potency over range, because it creates the weird system where you're better off using them for close range attacks.
 
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DraQ

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Looks great, but you'll need to test it on two adjacent wall tiles to see if it doesn't look too stupid in such case.

Not totally sure what you mean
Make two holes as close together as possible.

I suppose that'd be better, yeah. I originally liked the simplicity of my scheme despite the whole critters don't occupy a whole hex thing, but I suppose it's unavoidable to have this sort of thing sneak in... I just realized it would've gotten especially jarring in the case of a prone enemy: he wouldn't be able to escape to an adjacent tile, so every projectile on his path would automatically him, even tho he's lying down. A prone enemy would in my system be harder to hit unintentionally, but easier to hit intentionally, so removing the automatic hits is needed, yeah.
There are other cases too - for example a rat in front of you (for example rat follower you acquired through rat diplomacy and named Andhaira because it seemed strangely appropriate) shouldn't really interfere with your attempts to hit a guy a bit further away.

edit: hmm, actually the prone example works doesn't involve the difference between intentional and unintentional
It does, it's easy to shoot over guy laying down if you don't want to hit him.

True... I tried making it something like the Unreal biogel weapon, but eh.
But it's a gun that shoots hot, ionized gas, not a goop gun like Unreal.
 
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Ok, fuck it, let's go all out, balls to the wall simulation on this thing:

bbX29rb.gif


The smallest guy is for rats, mantisses, etc., the next one is for midgets, children or the dude if he has the small frame trait (great idea from DraQ), the one after that for regular sized humans and the like, and the biggest for super muties, the dude with the bruiser trait and things like Deathclaws. The wasteland is a harsh place, where a toddler has the same sized genitalia as a super mutant, bodies only grow in length, everybody is always standing facing their enemy face forward with their arms by their side, and rats are represented in an antropomorphic way.

So, how would this work in practice? Well, suppose I want to hit the leather armor dude past the two Ians blocking my view with their inviting backs:

Ll2JeDI.png
[/IMG]
Ll2JeDI.png


In my previously explained, stupid version, I would hit the Ian on the right, because the bullet path (represented by the blood pools) travels through him. Except, this is of course just a trick of hex geometry: the path actually only straddles the outer left edge of the right Ian (or the outer right edge of the left Ian's hex). So in the new system, if you aim properly, the bullet will brush past the right Ian:

yQ5V3lE.png


If you've aimed the shot perfectly for the torso, then it will hit right in middle of the Leather Armor guy's red hexes; if it's slightly less well aimed then one of the hexes around it, and so on, and so on. What you'll notice is that something like the act of aiming for the groin is actually more likely to hit the target in general than aiming for the arms or legs - it's just not very likely to actually hit the groin unless aimed perfectly.

Now suppose I want to aim for the surface the Leather Armor man is standing on instead, say for a rocket. Then the same process takes place, except the projectile slowly descends from the height from which it was fired, down to below the target's feet if properly aimed (of course this rocket could also simply be aimed at the target's torso, or arms, or eyes, but there would be a bigger risk of it simply wizzing past the target without making contact).

One thing that might become a problem for this system is that size becomes all-important: hitting the rats in the FO1 opening would become nigh impossible.

To hopefully solve this, I'd make make aiming against a static target relatively easy: if you spend the necessary amount of AP's to aim and are standing closeby, hitting small static targets without a lot of skill should be easy enough. It becomes harder when a target is moving around rapidly, which like I said is something I want to incentivize. In this case, depending on how fast your reaction speed is you could miss your target by shooting at any of the hexes he moved through along his path.

Another way you could miss against a more dynamic target is if he's spent AP's concentrating on your actions, and tries evading your attack at the last minute by "escaping" to an adjacent tile.
 
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I think I've finally, finally thought of something to do with books. It might seem like something that's super minor, but I hate the way books work in FO with a passion because it basically renders a lot of character building choices moot from the get go. Here I am trying my best to make skills like first aid and outdoorsman more interesting, and nobody'll ever build a character around them because they can just use books instead, the inconsiderate future motherfuckers. So, what these books'd do now is function the other way around: you need to have a certain amount of a relevant skill to be able to read them to begin with, at which point they give something that's essentially a mini-perk. The book effects listed below always occur on a consistent rotation basis so that, e.g., to read your first Dean's Robotics, you need 40% Repair and get an extra ST for all robot companions, the second one you need 80% and get an extra PE point for them, and so on. It's maybe even more gamey than the original, but whatevz:

vAV8lVR.png


Another thing is the combat skills. I've always disliked compartmentalizing a crpg's weapons along a handful of different skills, because it irrevocably leads to arbitrary separations that piss the player off (I'm an ace with my 10mm pistol but can't hit a brahmin 1 foot away with a laser pistol, etc.) and rarely leads to any interesting gameplay choices other than forcing the player to sell certain weapons. The idea I have is to change the 6 combat skills to these:

- One-handed HtH (includes punching for unarmed)
- Two-handed HtH (includes grappling for unarmed)
- One-handed ranged
- Two-handed ranged
- Passive combat (attacking without moving at the same time)
- Active combat (attacking while moving)

While this might seem to still compartmentalize to a significant degree, I want to reintroduce a mechanic I had in an early version of my mod, namely the ability to switch from a two-handed to one-handed grip for each weapon, so that if you're strong enough, you can wield any weapon one handed. Because you'll never get the required strength to do something like single handedly wield a minigun, I want to make one-handed weapons more interesting by letting you "dual wield" to an extent (hey, check the loading screens for FO2 if you don't think it fits the setting ;) ), as in that like with movement, the action points for firing weapons carried in your different hand slots is also separated (though of course like with movement also with a significant THC penalty).

Passive combat would give a steadily increasing THC bonus for every turn spent attacking without moving (this includes rotating to shift your aim), while active combat would decrease the penalty for attacking while moving.

Let me know how utterly misguided I am in all of this.
 

Glovz

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The book thing is an interesting concept but +40% after the initial 40% to be able to read the next book seems overly heavy. Maybe a step decease after the first; +20 after the first, +10 after the second and maybe stay at 10 thereafter. I would be afraid of having to hang on to books too long before they can be read.

The one-handed/two-handed concept is ok, it definitely addresses whole weapon use issue vs skill point allotment but I'm not getting passive vs active combat thing. I think I would need a step by step in game walk-through to better understand that change.

Overall the evolution of this mod and the new mechanics you've been able to explore are amazing.
 
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I think I've finally settled on the replacements for the combat skills. No more weapon-type restricted skills, tho as will become clear I haven't gone all out in this. The new skills apply to all possible attack types:

Control (ST): Decreases the THC penalty for making consecutive attacks within one turn, and in the case of burst attacks, subsequent rounds fired.
Maneuvering (AG): increases your dodge bonus from hexes moved, and decreases the THC penalty for attacking while moving.
Marksmanship (PE): determines how accurate an attack is. While most important for long range attacks, even punches can benefit from a certain amount of pinpoint precision.
Concentration (PE): Determines the dodge bonus you receive from unused AP's, and the THC bonus from attacking without moving (which includes rotating to adjust your aim) for consecutive turns.
Finesse (LU): Influences the result of a damage roll, and the frequency of status effects (e.g. knockouts) and armor piercing.

You'll now also have several other skills to use during combat:

Leadership(CH): Decreases the amount of upkeep needed to maintain team mate morale, ensuring they don't sit out tough fights hiding in cover, or lose heart after a bullet grazes precariously past their private (tuluse so I was thinking of making near miss barks affect morale, rather than thc or AP).
Stealth(AG): If a combatant can't see who he's aiming at, he can't hit him (in fact, they won't even be drawn on the map, like in the fog of war effect of the HD mod, though I might only have it apply in combat mode by default), so spending additional AP's to enter sneak mode even in the midst of battle could be useful.
Traps/Explosives(PE): While you'll of course usually want to set traps before combat begins, you could, if unseen by the enemy (say, because you're sneaking), place traps during as well. Also affects the likelihood of timed grenades going off when intended (and shortfused ones not going off in your hands of course).
First Aid(PE): As long as you have enough "permanent" health left, you can use the First Aid skill during combat to heal HP's and even crippling effects during combat.

Nearly all other skills will have an indirect effect on combat, such as Science(IN) and Repair(IN) reducing the upkeep costs for equipment to avoid most kinds of critical failures, etc.

Now, I hear you ask, "Jim, dear friend, isn't Finesse precariously much like a damage stat, and Marksmanship an accuracy stat?"

No, no, no dear friend, I'd say. First, due to the way it works Finesse only yields good results for attacks with wide damage ranges. In practice, this means using precision weaponry (e.g. laser weapons) in a precise way (e.g. hitting a hard to hit bodypart such as the eyes only increases the max damage of an attack, widening the range). If you were to use a very unfinessed attack, such as a sledgehammer to the torso, which could have a minimal damage range of, say, 30-32, then the difference between min and maxed out Finesse would at most be 2 damage. Second, due to the way the new simulated bullet paths work, each attack takes the shape of a cone: because this cone is of course narrowest right in front of the attacker, even an extremely poor marksman can hit a fully static target right in front of him most of the time. So, high marksmanship will be mostly useful for snipers trying to hit far away targets (or melee characters who want to reliably hit hard to hit bodyparts on (static) targets).

Next, I hear you ask "but won't these types of combat skills make Skills overshadow Attributes completely?"

For two reasons, I'd say no: (1) Attributes will have a far greater effect on the starting value of skills associated with them, and, more importantly (2), each attribute has an effect closely associated to each combat skill related to it:

PE: While you could max out Marksmanship to shoot the testicles off a mosquito at 40 yards, you still need PE to be able to see that mosquito so you can attack him to begin with.
LU: Luck affects the frequency of critical failures, and the delicate precision attacks best suited for Finesse are those that can critically fail most often (relatively little can go wrong while hitting someone on the chest with a club).
ST: while you could max out Control to limit the penalties of recoil, you'll still need the high carry weight that comes with ST (which only applies to equipped items now) to be able to wield heavy weapons which most suffer from recoil (e.g. the heavy Bozar sniper gun, or the minigun) effectively. In the case of melee it additionally affects the damage output for (mainly blunt) attacks.
AG: While you could max out maneuvering to get the most out of each hex moved, you still need AG to give you the most hexes to move.

Finally, I hear you murmur "Hmm, this whole every stat potentially useful thing does strike me as being awefully Sawyerist."

While I agree with his detractors that the outcome of Sawyerist balance seems too homogeneously bland, I find nothing wrong with the theory of every stat being potentially useful to every build. I believe that the key to making such a move not ending up bland is by still making each stat significantly tailored to a specific combat situation. For example, while I severely dislike the idea of a uniform damage stat, such as Might in PoE, because it seems to homogenize every type of attack, regardless of the situation, I do like the Finesse idea because it only results in the best outcome if the player uses precision attacks, meaning the player still has to try and play according to the strengths of his character.

So what I hope to achieve is some kind of compromise between the old weapon-type skills and weapon-independent skills. Yes, Marksmanship is better suited to sniper rifles, Finesse to laser weapons, Control to burst weapons, etc. But what I want to achieve is that unlike with the old combat stats of FO (and those of other crpg's with weapon-type based combat stats) you don't get pigeonholed into using a specific type of weapon, which doesn't result in any interesting tactical decisions whatsoever in my opinion. The player couldn't use these stats to support his preferred playstyle, but just his preferred weapon choice, which I think is far less interesting. So what I want is that the player still has the option throughout the game to use a weapon that doesn't perhaps fully supports his build effectively. E.g. a Control build can use non-burst weapons, but should still try and attack as often as possible in a turn, a Marksman can still use a short-range weapon, he just needs to play to the strength of his precision to hit a specific bodypart, etc.

Hopefully these new skills will allow for a wide variety of builds such as a Control+ Maneuvering run and gunner, a Concentration+ Marksmanship long range sniper, a Finesse+ Marksmanship limbs crippler, a Control+Concentration static heavy gunner, a Finesse+ Maneuvering run and slicer etc.
 

Dickie

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Hopefully these new skills will allow for a wide variety of builds such as a Control+ Maneuvering run and gunner, a Concentration+ Marksmanship long range sniper, a Finesse+ Marksmanship limbs crippler, a Control+Concentration static heavy gunner, a Finesse+ Maneuvering run and slicer etc.
Is this to imply you'll need to tag two combat skills to be effective in combat? Maybe I missed it, but do you still only get to tag three skills?
 
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Hopefully these new skills will allow for a wide variety of builds such as a Control+ Maneuvering run and gunner, a Concentration+ Marksmanship long range sniper, a Finesse+ Marksmanship limbs crippler, a Control+Concentration static heavy gunner, a Finesse+ Maneuvering run and slicer etc.
Is this to imply you'll need to tag two combat skills to be effective in combat? Maybe I missed it, but do you still only get to tag three skills?

Yeah, tagging is the same. But I don't mean you should necessarily max these out; you could have one tagged and increase the other as a secondary skill up till the increments get too high and still have it be useful (with the skill increments starting lower at 75%, perk requirements being more flexible, and the player getting more base skill points to divide I want to encourage a bit more spreading around).
 
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Here's a little LoS experiment I've been trying out that I'd like some feedback on. Critters only being drawn on the map if they're in the player's LoS is something that has been introduced as part of the HD mod's fog of war feature a while ago, but when I tested it out it worked... weirdly. It seems to work independently from the game's obj_can_see logic, and just plain looks jittery.

So, first thing I did was put together a LoS system that I was happy with: the player can see everything he can potentially shoot in front of him in a 180 degree angle. Everything behind him he can't see because of the problem of not having eyes in the back of his head. Now, because this would lead to an extremely jarring system of critters popping in and out of view and an utterly disoriented player incapable of understanding what's happening behind him, I thought it might be interesting to introduce hearing in some way. The idea I had is that whenever somebody isn't in your line of sight, but you can hear him (say, around a corner), then a "ghost" of that critters appears on the place where you think he is. If the player can't hear him (say, because he's sneaking or walking on a non-noisey surface), then the ghost stays in the place where the player last heard or saw him.

In the video below I put this in practice as the player not actively listening while moving around (which is why all the "ghosts" stop at that moment). The ghosts skipping around does look quite silly (us all running around like headless chickens doesn't help either):



One thing I like about this system is how it could combine with the new hex shooting: you think an enemy is standing just around the corner and that rolling a grenade there will send him sky-high, but maybe you simply didn't hear him move away from there.
 
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To make it even more needlessly complicated you could have some generic "?" graphic and roll perception checks to recognize critters. Also I'm not sure if leaving ghost in last spot is necessary in any way and yeah it kind of looks odd and could be potentially confusing. It kind of implies you actually hear the guy there.
 
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I'm not sure if leaving ghost in last spot is necessary in any way and yeah it kind of looks odd and could be potentially confusing. It kind of implies you actually hear the guy there.

True enough I guess, though I do want to leave something so you don't constantly have to stay on your toes to spot moving ghosts that dissappear once you can't hear them. Maybe another color could designate the trail having turned "cold" (the devs actually put in three colors of translucent objects: red, yellow and white (the only one actually used, namely for stealth boys and "ghosts" like Anna)).
 
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Hopefully these new skills will allow for a wide variety of builds such as a Control+ Maneuvering run and gunner, a Concentration+ Marksmanship long range sniper, a Finesse+ Marksmanship limbs crippler, a Control+Concentration static heavy gunner, a Finesse+ Maneuvering run and slicer etc.
Is this to imply you'll need to tag two combat skills to be effective in combat? Maybe I missed it, but do you still only get to tag three skills?

Yeah, tagging is the same. But I don't mean you should necessarily max these out; you could have one tagged and increase the other as a secondary skill up till the increments get too high and still have it be useful (with the skill increments starting lower at 75%, perk requirements being more flexible, and the player getting more base skill points to divide I want to encourage a bit more spreading around).

To get back to this:

I'm thinking of taking it a step further and having the increments run up evenly, so 1-25% costs 1, 25-50% costs 2, etc. up to 175-200% which is the new skill cap, for a cost of 8.

In vanilla FO it's always a no-brainer to just pump your tag skills for the first number of levels, after all, it goes twice as fast up to 100% and it pays off to focus on just a couple of skills anyway regardless. With this system, increasing a skill you're extremely crappy at actually goes faster than increasing a tagged skill from 50% on. It'll of course still be in your interest to focus mainly on a few (tagged) skills, but this should create much more of an incentive to cultivate secondary skills you might only find use for sparingly as well.

Another advantage of these steeper increments is that it lets me boost the base amount of skill points you receive at level up. The vanilla formula of 5+IN*2 meant that a low IQ character wasn't just totally gimped because he couldn't get most quests, but also because he increased his skill at a fraction of the speed of other characters. For the sake of :balance: I want to change the formula to 15+IN*2 or even 20+IN*2, which given the fact that there's no more skill perks or skill bonusses from books, should result in you increasing in skill about as fast as in the original in practice.

edit: A final advantage I forgot to mention is that it increases the bonus from associated attributes: I've removed the minimum skill amount, and made it so that you start off with each skill in a range of 0-60 (or up to 80 with tag) determined by your attributes.

So, for example, in vanilla FO2, the difference between maxed out and no Charisma for barter meant the difference between 20 and 40%: this meant that spending just 20 skill points in 1 level with a 7 IN character would allow you to entirely bridge this gap.

Now, the difference is between 0-60% depending on your Charisma. Because of the new increments, this costs you 105 points to bridge, which'd now take 3-4 levels to bridge, making attributes far more important for character building.
 
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Because I was still a bit vague on the subject of the new combat stats (mostly because I wasn't entirely sure how they'd work), here's a bit more now that I feel I've figured out how to reinvent the wheel (warning, advanced ms paint art ahead):

- Marksmanship: this is essentially all of the old combat skills wrapped into one: with a large amount of marksmanship you'll be able to hit pretty much any static target at whichever distance, though you don't even need any marksmanship to reliably hit a static target standing right next to you. The reason for this is that if you don't move while aiming, and your target doesn't move while aiming, and it's your first attack in the turn, then you'll always attack in the direction you're aiming at.

xo1FFdv.png


Thus an extremely poorly aimed attack follows a broad (width the same size as its length) three-dimensional cone. This makes the target just 10 hexes away shown here already extremely hard to hit (as the attack won't just follow any of the shown paths, but could also hit the ground or fly off into the sky). For the target right in front of the attacker, however, the chance is even relatively good of a hit, given that this is the point where the cone is at its narrowest:

nPDEoPB.png


Even a horribly aimed attack will hit anywhere in the grey area.

The higher your marksmanship, which you can also increase through additional AP's spent aiming, the more exact your aim, which in theory could increase infinitely (though in practice you'll just need 200 to reliably hit an exact bodypart from 50 hexes).

- Control: So, why would you need any other skills if marksmanship is my main THC decider? Well, for one, you could try to attack more than once during a turn, or fire multiple rounds in one attack using a burst. Because all attacks, including melee ones, have "recoil", these subsequent attacks are made at an increasing marksmanship penalty. The control skill is used to diminish this penalty, down to 0 at the maximum of 200% skill.

- Concentration: Another issue is that, while your aim might be pixel perfect, it can be the case that the target isn't where that pixel is anymore, because he's moved. Suppose I have a perfect shot straight in the center of a target that has moved one hex to the side that turn; my ostensibly perfect shot could land anywhere along the path the target has travelled, already at such a small amount of movement greatly dimishing the chance to hit:

q3c2k1r.png


The pinpoint attack could, if poorly "concentrated", hit any of the black squares shown, as this is the path the target travels.

Even if the target hasn't moved during that turn, there's a possibility he'll try and evade my attack at the last moment, in which case I'll have to adjust to hit him. In both of these cases, whether it's the target having moved hexes, or him trying to evade at the last moment, a roll is made of the attacker's concentration against the defender's maneuvering skill. Both attacker and defender can improve their chances by the former spending additional AP's to aim (which doesn't just increase marksmanship, but concentration as well) and the latter leaving AP's unspent during his turn. The better the outcome of the roll for the attacker, the closer his attack is to the final destination of the defender.

- Maneuvering: The attacker may also wish to move while aiming, two actions which are no longer separated. If he does so, then he incurs another marksmanship (and concentration) penalty for each hex moved, or each distance rotated. Maxed out Maneuvering reduces this penalty to 0.

- Finesse: this skill is the only one that doesn't affect the THC-formula, just how high the damage roll will end up.

tl;dr: if you're a melee character and you're approaching a ranged opponent, don't run straight for him and give him an easy shot, but approach him in a beeline.
 
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I'm not sure if leaving ghost in last spot is necessary in any way and yeah it kind of looks odd and could be potentially confusing. It kind of implies you actually hear the guy there.

True enough I guess, though I do want to leave something so you don't constantly have to stay on your toes to spot moving ghosts that dissappear once you can't hear them. Maybe another color could designate the trail having turned "cold" (the devs actually put in three colors of translucent objects: red, yellow and white (the only one actually used, namely for stealth boys and "ghosts" like Anna)).

I think it wouldn't be very helpful because the enemy could be anywhere by then. I wouldn't potentially waste a grenade on a "cold" trail because the guy could already be on the other side of the building.

Maybe implement these different graphics for "last seen" and "last heard"?


...|
...|
X |
...|
...|
X |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
.....@

@ = player
red x = enemy turning around the corner
yellow X = enemy running away

Adding to John's suggestion - if your perception is good and you don't hear the movement noise you can assume the guy is probably still hiding behind that corner. If your perception is shit then you'd have to guess.
 
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I think it wouldn't be very helpful because the enemy could be anywhere by then. I wouldn't potentially waste a grenade on a "cold" trail because the guy could already be on the other side of the building.

Maybe implement these different graphics for "last seen" and "last heard"?


...|
...|
X |
...|
...|
X |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
.....@

@ = player
red x = enemy turning around the corner
yellow X = enemy running away

I don't think I exactly get your suggestion: you're saying every critter gets two ghosts, one for the last time I saw him, the other the last time I heard him, which of course both could be erroneous? That could end up way too confusing, or not?

Adding to John's suggestion - if your perception is good and you don't hear the movement noise you can assume the guy is probably still hiding behind that corner. If your perception is shit then you'd have to guess.

How would you know your perception is "good" though, given that it's heavily influenced by context? Or do you mean that the ghost should always show the correct location of the critter? If the latter then I might as well not use any ghosts to begin with of course...
 
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Glass Fields, Ruins of Old Iran
- Yeah. The screen could get a bit polluted in situations where you're fighting a fuckton of enemies (Metzger's den, Mordinos' casino, trapper town), but in most situations it should be ok? Large encounters happen most often in the desert and are out in the open.

- I was thinking of a simple check. Like, your Perception vs the enemy's Agility, so you can hear the dude in heavy armor shuffling around even if you can't see him. Probably not the best idea now that I think about it as I imagine non-follower NPCs stats were assigned semi-randomly.
 
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So, I've been thinking, right.

First I was thinking about Attacks of Opportunity, what with the whole peek around the corner exploit becoming only more frustrating once the AI is (hopefully) smart enough to exploit it. First I thought using them in the limited way that (I think) most systems do: you save up AP's to "interrupt" an enemy that enters a certain area/LoS. The fear I have with that is that on the one hand it rewards passivity: the complaint (tho I'm not entirely sure if founded) about optimal JA2 play consisting of lying down in front of a door and interrupting the fuck out of anyone getting near, which'd not be much better than the exploit it's meant to fix.

The "solution" to such passivity would seem to apply the principle of AoO's more rigorously: why couldn't the attacker being interrupted interrupt back, etc. This seems to me would seem to lead to a clusterfuck of interruptions that undermines what makes turn-based so elegant in the first place: the total asynchronicity means that I'm sure that what I plan for that turn is executed to the letter, with only the occasional RNG complicating matters.

This in turn led me thinking that maybe, just maybe, turn based isn't exactly the best fit for what (I think) Fallout represents. Turn based is the idealized armchair general's version of combat. I could improve on Fallout's turn based system, but such an improvement will simply involve making the game more tactical, and almost inevitably more static, less chaotic and less risky. I mean, I can add more decisions during combat, but all of these are more or less risk-free: you can decide to spend more AP's aiming, but taking additional time to aim will never leave you doubting whether the enemy will strike first. You can pick up an unexploded grenade thrown at you and throw it back, but you know it'll never blow up in your hands. At least, not within your turn: within this turn everything happens "perfectly".

In this sense I agree to a degree with the people who defended Fallout's combat against the Grunkerites that Fallout possesses a "lethality" that you would lose by making the combat "better", i.e. more tactical. It's just that I think Fallout implemented such lethality in the most banal way possible, namely through wild damage ranges that could result in a sudden crit blowing even the toughest critter away. Instead, this lethality should come through unpredictable AI, less foreknowledge by the player about the success of his actions, and a wide range of possible combat actions and events.

So, in short, I'd like to try out implementing phase based combat (you and the AI first execute a dry run of all your actions, which are then executed for everyone simultaneously, with Sequence indicating the time between planning phases). Will probably fail spectacularly/pathetically!

- Yeah. The screen could get a bit polluted in situations where you're fighting a fuckton of enemies (Metzger's den, Mordinos' casino, trapper town), but in most situations it should be ok? Large encounters happen most often in the desert and are out in the open.

- I was thinking of a simple check. Like, your Perception vs the enemy's Agility, so you can hear the dude in heavy armor shuffling around even if you can't see him. Probably not the best idea now that I think about it as I imagine non-follower NPCs stats were assigned semi-randomly.

How's this instead:

-As long as you see or hear someone, you see them regularly drawn on the screen (this avoids the weird ghost shuffle and having to use multiple colored ghosts to discern different states)
-As soon as you no longer see or hear someone, a ghost is placed on the last seen/heard tile.
-If you mouse over the ghost you get the "age" of the ghost in seconds, so you don't get fooled by a really cold trail.

I actually have a more fun tactical example than the grenade around the corner, namely that it would actually incentivize repositioning as a sniper:

You let loose a round from outside the LoS of a rocket launcher wielding super mutie: you briefly become visible because he hears the shot, then you move away quietly. The super mutie still thinks you are where you let loose the round, and tries to attack your misplaced "ghost".
 

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Jim, you should look harder at X-Com. That's the game that inspired Fallout's combat in the first place. It features overwatch/reaction fire (please don't use attack of opportunity for this. Attacks of opportunity are the opposite, you have the enemy in a tough spot and you get an attack if he moves). It also features very high lethality. The tactic of hiding in one spot and waiting with reaction fire doesn't work for a few reasons. 1) there is a stat that determines who gets to act first in a reaction fire situation. 2) enemies don't move towards you with A* unfailingly. 3) there are quite a few attacks that go through walls.

I'm guessing 3 is probably impossible with the Fallout engine, but you should be able to do 1 and 2.
 
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Jim, you should look harder at X-Com. That's the game that inspired Fallout's combat in the first place. It features overwatch/reaction fire (please don't use attack of opportunity for this. Attacks of opportunity are the opposite, you have the enemy in a tough spot and you get an attack if he moves). It also features very high lethality. The tactic of hiding in one spot and waiting with reaction fire doesn't work for a few reasons. 1) there is a stat that determines who gets to act first in a reaction fire situation. 2) enemies don't move towards you with A* unfailingly. 3) there are quite a few attacks that go through walls.

I'm guessing 3 is probably impossible with the Fallout engine, but you should be able to do 1 and 2.

Yeah, I meant AoO's in the general way of mimicking synchronous actions in turn based, don't know if there's a term that unites interrupts/overwatch/aoo's all under one.

I'll look into it, though phase-based does still seem more elegant to me (I want my properly timed grenades damnit ;) ).
 

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