Experiences with the new salvage devaluation

[peridot]

I've now played about a game and a half with the new low-value salvage rules and I thought it might be valuable to have a thread about people's experiences and opinions.

I was initially quite dubious, but I thought it could be a good change if it spared me having to walk around and loot all the wrecks on the battlefield. Plus it does mean there's no strong preference against no-salvage missions. In practice, though, I always want to collect the gear from custom mecha, and I usually can't tell which ones those are until I've gone over and am picking through their stuff. At that point, might as well cart it home. The situation with complete salvaged mecha is even worse - there's no longer much of a financial incentive to sell them, and who knows when you might need another mech, so I have an enormous list of salvaged mecha sitting around in various cities. The only upside of this from a greedy player's point of view is the increased cash rewards, and the increase is just not that much. So I'm not very impressed with the change.

As I understand it, it was introduced because players who joined factions that rarely offered salvage were getting kind of a raw deal. To me, it seems like distinguishing the factions more would be a good thing. Why not simply apply the +25% cash reward to all no-salvage missions? Then players who like collecting wreckage can join the corporate factions, and ones who don't can join the police. No-salvage factions could also be more generous with custom mecha, to make up for the ones you don't capture.

From my point of view the problem with no-salvage missions is that they're not actually no-salvage - you can still keep anything you can carry off the battlefield. So there's an incentive to go smash any mech left standing and take any portable wreckage. I'm not sure there's a good solution to this. Perhaps no-salvage missions could pay per mech captured? It's hard enough to capture mecha that you can't require it for mission success. In principle the police could consider it theft or require you to turn in anything picked up on the battlefield, but I'm not sure how this would be implemented (seems like it would require keeping track of the origin of each item). My inclination would be to simply leave this as it is, and maybe introduce some missions where there's a time limit (due to reinforcements, preferably, rather than a simple hard time limit, though that would work too) so the player simply doesn't have a chance to go collect wreckage.

So, overall, I'd prefer the salvage discount to go away, and the cash bonus to be applied only to no-salvage missions. Alternatively (or in addition) if it were easy to look at wrecks and tell whether they had custom gear, that might save players the trouble of rooting through every wrecked buru buru in the game. As a third alternative, wreckage collection could be made automatic for all missions, the way it is for some plot missions ("you are attacked by mecha as you approach Hideout!"), though this has the drawback that you can forget you're heavily loaded and walk into the next fight.

[wipmeeniebom]

I'll summarize what I feel about the decrease in salvage sale in one word: Grinding.

The decrease in salvage money means more grinding in order to raise the cash to do the same things as before (buying more equipment and training). Raising renown already involved grinding. Now even more grinding is introduced.

I suppose some players love grinding, as evidenced by the amount of grinding/farming necessary in online games and some rpgs. Grinding, IMO, in those games is a hook in order to lengthen gameplay rather than a balancing mechanic, but Gearhead, being a free game and not being PVP, doesn't _need_ to resort to it.

If the salvage rewards are to remain as they are (or, as I've seen in the other thread, eliminated entirely if deemed unimportant to gameplay), my suggestion would be to implement more systems where rewards are given out for actions other than grinding. Ideally, this would be more content -- more missions rewarding in *non obsolete* custom mecha rather than cash, for instance. But more importantly to avoid the feeling of grinding, missions that aren't tied to a person's renown (because raising renown is a grinding activity). Missions that have a fixed difficulty, and its up to the player whether or not to accept a mission that way over his head, or if he likes grinding, just at his level.

"I have a job for you, it pays a custom Savin"

Obviously, if I'm just the campaign start and I'm running around in a BuruBuru tackling on such a mission will just likely end up getting me turned into paste... but at least it isn't just grinding away at $5k missions. If I do take on a multimillion dollar mission, the rewards are _tremendous_ in both the cash rewards and the possibility of high end custom mecha wihout having to grind through several low level missions to do so. It may sound like I'm just asking to make the game easier, but I'm not. Make such missions next to impossible, if necessary.

In other words, I'd like to have to _option_ to play a grinding game or not. I guess the current system of the core plot not being tied to renown already to some extent, but the escalating difficulty of the core story necessitates grinding in of itself.

[Frumple]

I already played a pretty grind heavy game, honestly, and the salvage change's done nothing to adjust that behavior. Still go and pick up every little piece of equipment, still selling salvaged mecha, still taking missions for the sole purpose of getting cash... except I need the cash worse -- actually 'need' it at all, really, not really having a surplus -- now. It's not coming in as easily on low-rep missions, so I'm running more of them -- well, maybe not 'more, but I actually need to run them to keep me in deluxe rations, spare ammo, and robot parts, where I used to do it for fun an' no other reason. Can see that being an 'okay' thing, I guess; maybe it was too easy to get that first million, at least for a <20 rep nobody.

The reward boost is noticeable, but only in the sense that it actually pays for ammo and repair costs now, heh, at least if you're not running a missile heavy mech. I'unno, really, I'm kinda' ambivalent about it. The numbers might be off, though, at least if the profit margins of the earlier versions are desired -- income went up 25% on about half (and half's being very, very generous for the cash rewards; it was probably considerably less. Might be half now, though, heh.), but the other half dropped by 90%. S'a pretty big net loss, there.

Having more to actually do with the salvaged machines an' equipment, besides sell (which is less beneficial) or strip (which quickly becomes pointless when you've got 20 spares) 'em, would probably make up for the discrepancy, yeah. That's content for a later date though, hopefully. I guess I'm saying the salvage change isn't really bad, per se, it just didn't add anything to gameplay (yet, at least) and slowed it down a bit, which is arguably a negative. I figure I'll wait a few more versions before cracking open the source and recompiling without the salvage adjustment, heh.

[Joseph Hewitt]

The big problem with the previous system is that salvage was far more important than the mission pay rate, making the pay rate meaningless. Also, as you said, some factions don't offer salvage and this puts them at a disadvantage. Because of this I can't see any way for full-price salvage to return.

Here's what I think should be done about the problems...

- Increase the default reward by another 25% or so.

- Improve the mechaprize selector. As you say, the mecha it gives out are useless for the player getting them. This command should use the same selection criteria as the NPC mecha selector, I think- enemy NPCs tend to be given appropriate machines.

- As mentioned in one of the threads, one of the big things currently being worked upon is a series of changes to reduce grinding. More experience and other rewards will be given per mission. Events with a set difficulty rating (quests, arenas, challenging major NPCs, the core story) will not increase your renown by a set rate, but will instead automatically raise your renown to the difficulty rating if it isn't there already.

- Add some extra things to do with salvaged mecha, such as scrapping them.

- Allow the "l"ook command to examine the parts of an inactive mecha. Possibly also add a tag to indicate mass-adjusted items. On a side note, you don't need to destroy a deactivated mecha in order to loot it- you can just walk into the same tile and use the get command.

It's probably going to take a while for experienced players to adjust to this change because the skills you learned previously are suddenly dysfunctional. If you're used to having a surplus of money then finding it changed to a scare resource is going to come as a shock. I thank you all for sharing your opinions and for bearing with me.

[Daemonward]

If you're used to having a surplus of money then finding it changed to a scare resource is going to come as a shock.

Scare resources always shock me. I never see them coming!

[peridot]

The big problem with the previous system is that salvage was far more important than the mission pay rate, making the pay rate meaningless. Also, as you said, some factions don't offer salvage and this puts them at a disadvantage. Because of this I can't see any way for full-price salvage to return.

Much as I like the "kill things, take their stuff" mechanic, I think one could reasonably argue against stores paying for salvage from first principles, or at least from basic ideas about how the game should work.

First, I guess, is the idea that it should be lack of money that keeps players from buying top-of-the-line mecha. This may seem obvious, but it's not the case in (say) your typical JRPG, where it's location that determines what you can buy - as you advance the plot you become able to reach new locations, where you can buy new items; usually you either already have enough money to buy the item or you can get it with a minor amount of grinding.  This mechanic can't really work for GH2 if travel between spinners is to be easy (though the high-end shops and black markets opened up by advancing the plot do incorporate this somewhat). Other games, e.g. Angband, make high-end items simply not available in stores; you can only get them by killing enemies or doing plot-y things. This is present to some degree in GH2, with the Androbot and Exorg shields, and with the custom mecha. Either of these mechanics could be made to work for high-end mecha, and availability in custom stores (needing high faction rank) could work for most buyable items. As it stands, skill training is where money restriction is important. With enough money you can train your character up to arbitrary levels, completely unbalancing the game and rendering irrelevant experience points (except for lancemates). But there's something to be said for allowing a user with enough money to buy (say) a Savin or a Roc. So it's necessary to restrict the money - and if you're going to do this, then you need to make it hard to acquire the price of a new mech.

The next key design point is that players fight a lot. In order to improve your character, you need to fight a *lot* of mecha that are roughly as good as yours. This too is not true in every game; in Battle for Wesnoth, for example, units level up after not very many fights against comparable units. But for a roguelike or RPG it's absolutely the way things work; after all, if the game's about mecha combat by a small troop of warriors, you can't either have it so lethal that a character or mech lasts only a few battles on average or so fast-advancing that you improve your mech after each fight. So you're going to be fighting lots of mecha about as good as yours.

Also important is that most mecha offer something as salvage. This is not the case in, e.g., Final Fantasy VII, where most enemies offer a little money or a few junk items. In something like Nethack or GearHead, if an enemy uses some weapon against you you can (probably) pick it up off the wreck. This offers a ghoulish but fun mechanic where you have an incentive to beat tough enemies to scavenge the cool stuff they used against you. Other games impose this artificially, where you fight through (say) a cave full of poisonous monsters to get to the ring of protection from poison.

If you're going to have all of the above, then the user will have access to lots and lots of wreckage of value roughly equal to their own mech before they should have enough money to upgrade. So if you pay them anything like market value for scavenged parts, they're going to be able to afford to upgrade too soon.

This ought also to allow you to calculate roughly how much to offer for salvage: if to upgrade your mech (to one worth twice as much) you should have to fight ~20 mecha like your own, then salvage price should be ~10%. Or you could apply a similar logic to mission rewards; if you should be able to upgrade your mech every 10 renown, then you should get about 20% of its PV for each renown point the mission reward gives you. Of course this should be the PV you expect them to have, so that users who manage to win with a Dora still make lots of money.

Anyway, I think I'm convinced that paying for salvage isn't going to work for gearhead.

Here's what I think should be done about the problems...

- Increase the default reward by another 25% or so.

- Improve the mechaprize selector. As you say, the mecha it gives out are useless for the player getting them. This command should use the same selection criteria as the NPC mecha selector, I think- enemy NPCs tend to be given appropriate machines.

Usefulness of custom mecha is always hard to judge. My favourite weapon in the last few games was some DC2x10 2.5-ton weapon with OVERLOAD and SCATTER that I got off some random weak custom mech. It didn't do any useful damage, but when faced with a fast enemy with good dodging, I could plink away at them; the SCATTER meant I pretty much always hit, and after a while the OVERLOAD built up and they couldn't hit me any more or dodge my other attacks. So a custom buru buru with the right weapon is more useful to me than a custom savin with a bunch of uninteresting weapons.

- As mentioned in one of the threads, one of the big things currently being worked upon is a series of changes to reduce grinding. More experience and other rewards will be given per mission. Events with a set difficulty rating (quests, arenas, challenging major NPCs, the core story) will not increase your renown by a set rate, but will instead automatically raise your renown to the difficulty rating if it isn't there already.

This could make a huge difference. As it stands, there's a maximum speed at which you can advance through the game. Perversely, this means that if you grind too much at one difficulty level, you can be stuck wading through zillions of easy fights. Being able to jump up in renown rapidly could make a huge difference.

I'd also like to suggest an easy way to add variety to missions: have mission givers offer harder missions sometimes, worth more renown. Even with no additional flavour, it means you need to think before accepting missions, and you don't need to rely on plot elements to skip ahead in renown (or money).

- Add some extra things to do with salvaged mecha, such as scrapping them.

I'm not so excited about this one. I like the idea of there being no incentive to go loot wrecks that aren't custom or otherwise interesting. When I don't do that the missions go much more quickly and more interestingly.

- Allow the "l"ook command to examine the parts of an inactive mecha. Possibly also add a tag to indicate mass-adjusted items. On a side note, you don't need to destroy a deactivated mecha in order to loot it- you can just walk into the same tile and use the get command.

The improved look command should be a big help.

I found an odd quirk about repair on the battlefield: one of my lancemates' mecha was demolished, and after the victory message it remained on the battlefield (though the Field HQ showed my lancemate still in it). I opened it up in the Field HQ and used Repair on the body, and sure enough, it popped back into existence on the battlefield. Would I have gotten to keep the mech even if I hadn't done that? Should I have been able to do that?

It's probably going to take a while for experienced players to adjust to this change because the skills you learned previously are suddenly dysfunctional. If you're used to having a surplus of money then finding it changed to a scare resource is going to come as a shock. I thank you all for sharing your opinions and for bearing with me.

It's definitely going to take some adjustment in the playing style. I would like to ask that you think, if possible, about making the game work for different playing styles. This maybe deserves its own thread, but I'm thinking things like burst weapons and high speed versus staying still and sniping, or grinding enough that all battles are easy versus zipping ahead to win tough battles as early as you can pull it off, or chasing the main plot versus taking time off to explore and do side quests. Or, for that matter, focusing on SF0 combat versus mecha combat versus performance. As it stands I have the feeling that there's kind of only one way to play effectively, though I'm still discovering what that is.

[Joseph Hewitt]

I would like to ask that you think, if possible, about making the game work for different playing styles. This maybe deserves its own thread, but I'm thinking things like burst weapons and high speed versus staying still and sniping, or grinding enough that all battles are easy versus zipping ahead to win tough battles as early as you can pull it off, or chasing the main plot versus taking time off to explore and do side quests. Or, for that matter, focusing on SF0 combat versus mecha combat versus performance. As it stands I have the feeling that there's kind of only one way to play effectively, though I'm still discovering what that is.

Well, one of the big things in the v0.600 series has been trying to make sure that there's no specific strategy or character build required to finish the game. That said, one of the pitfalls of making a complex RPG like this is that there will always be an emergent optimum strategy* and there's not much that can be done about it other than keeping everything playable via non-optimum paths.

One game that handles this very well is Pokemon. For the most part, there's no such thing as an optimum strategy.

I'm not sure why you "have the feeling that there's kind of only one way to play effectively". Could you be more specific?

*I read a very good game design post about this, which I thought was at ASCII Dreams but I can't find it now.

[SharkD]

I think salvage should be abstracted. At the end of a mission provide the player with a list of all the stuff that's salvageable. They can then select what they do and don't want to take home. No running around from one salvage heap to another. Also provide multiple ways of sorting the list - i.e. by mecha and body part, or by module type; and alphabetically, or by PV.

[plllizzz]

One game that handles this very well is Pokemon. For the most part, there's no such thing as an optimum strategy.

playing Heart Gold at the moment

just choose the goddamn Fire starter!

[peridot]

I would like to ask that you think, if possible, about making the game work for different playing styles. This maybe deserves its own thread, but I'm thinking things like burst weapons and high speed versus staying still and sniping, or grinding enough that all battles are easy versus zipping ahead to win tough battles as early as you can pull it off, or chasing the main plot versus taking time off to explore and do side quests. Or, for that matter, focusing on SF0 combat versus mecha combat versus performance. As it stands I have the feeling that there's kind of only one way to play effectively, though I'm still discovering what that is.

Well, one of the big things in the v0.600 series has been trying to make sure that there's no specific strategy or character build required to finish the game. That said, one of the pitfalls of making a complex RPG like this is that there will always be an emergent optimum strategy* and there's not much that can be done about it other than keeping everything playable via non-optimum paths.

One game that handles this very well is Pokemon. For the most part, there's no such thing as an optimum strategy.

I'm not sure why you "have the feeling that there's kind of only one way to play effectively". Could you be more specific?

*I read a very good game design post about this, which I thought was at ASCII Dreams but I can't find it now.

One aspect of "ways to play" is which skills to choose. I realize that the restriction on number of skills is intended to force a player to choose one path through the game, but much as I try different alternatives I always seem to get funnelled into basically the same skill set.

For SF2 combat, obviously Mecha Piloting and Mecha Gunnery are essential, as is Initiative (otherwise I don't have time to do anything in battle!). I first tried Spot Weakness and sniper-type weapons but BV and SCATTER are just plain better; I quickly got to a point where I just couldn't hit the enemies I was trying to beat. So Spot Weakness was kind of a waste of time. I tried doing without Mecha Fighting and Electronic Warfare, but I kept getting blown up all the time. Those two additional opportunities to prevent an attack are just too important, and the XP/money costs of developing the skills are minimal. Again, you could argue that this is a question of "optimality" but I found I couldn't really advance without buying them. I usually buy Repair, but I tried to do without it, only to discover that Haywire and Blind are a colossal pain if you can't fix them during battle (for example, how do you collect salvage and leave the map if your mech is moving randomly?). For SF1 combat, melee just gets me killed all the time, so I never bother with Close Combat; Ranged Combat is really hard to do without.

At the other end of the scale, the "useless" skills: Survival (food? why bother?), Investigation (I'll just pay someone), Medicine (Quick Fix, Antibiotic, Antidote are all weight-zero), Toughness (see preceding). Acrobatics (how am I supposed to survive SF0 combat without armor? Are there even space suits light enough?), Mysticism (what for? and what if I get killed and need cyberware?). Taunt (does it make any significant difference in combat?) and Shopping (minor differences in prices just don't make that big a difference in gameplay).

So far the only interesting "optional" skills I have found are Science (because it allows Robotics, which lets you build an army of pets to make SF0 combat easy) and Performance (as a money generator and for the minigames). Conversation/Intimidation are optional too, I suppose, but it seems difficult to get missions without one or the other, and the game play itself isn't very different. Hard to tell when they're helping. Mecha Engineering is sort of optional, in that for most of the game you don't really need it, but I think that towards the end you really need to be able to swap out parts to build an effective mech.

From a mecha choice point of view, it seems like there's not really any way to build an effective heavily armored mech - you'll get demolished by unarmored mecha moving too fast to hit. There's no point choosing single-shot weapons, because you can't hit anything. High-BV or Scatter is the only way to go. Even status-inflicting weapons are rarely worth it because you can rarely afford to have a single enemy survive many shots. Missiles versus guns is a choice, but in practice the missiles run out so fast that I just end up adding them to fill my mech up to the weight limit. I suppose rolling versus skimming versus flying makes a difference (and could affect your choice of talents), though many battles are in space where there's only one choice.

From a pacing point of view, well, there's a natural pace of advance (one battle per point of renown) which you can't exceed. At this pace you only rarely get out of your depth and have to lose a fight to slow it down. There is some choice in whether you advance in the main plot before or after grinding, but since the total amount of grinding before you reach the end of the main plot is constant, it doesn't much matter; might as well do the grinding early on so that the main plot battles are easy.

There is some choice in the side quests - many spinners have some sort of extra content, and you can choose when and how far to pursue it.

SF0 versus SF2 is a tricky one; it seems as if SF0 is mostly for side quests and non-random content, while SF2 is for grinding and the main plot. This isn't quite true, as there are no-renown-reward fungus-extermination missions (which are a great cash source if you have an army of robots), but for the most part you can't get by with just SF0. I'm not sure whether you can get by with just SF2; you can refuse all grinding missions that need SF0 combat/skills, but there are main plot events that need SF0 combat, so you can't do entirely without it.

Faction choice ought to result in a different way of playing, but in practice they seem to be mostly the same. It does affect which spinners are easy to get missions from, and which have trainers, but otherwise the missions are pretty much the same. I suppose pirate raids give you custom mecha while the otherwise identical intercept-the-ship missions just give you money. (For that matter the cruiser missions aren't very different from non-cruiser missions; they still amount to "destroy all the enemies as fast as you can". I still like the infinite-resupply destroy-the-generator missions from GH1, and the protect-the-truck missions were different because you could leave the enemies alive as long as the truck got through (so, e.g., smoke launchers and haywire worked wonders at leaving them behind, as would BLIND, one hopes).)

[Joseph Hewitt]

For SF2 combat, obviously Mecha Piloting and Mecha Gunnery are essential, as is Initiative (otherwise I don't have time to do anything in battle!).

Initiative has been toned down pretty severely in recent versions. Have you tried playing without it in 0.625? Do you think it needs to be toned down further?

Spot Weakness used to be extremely powerful, and has been toned down. It may need to be improved again.

Electronic warfare and scatter weapons are going to get toned down in v0.700 (see that thread for details). BV weapons will likely lose their to-hit bonus, but have a greater chance of all shots connecting.

I'm curious about the "I couldn't advance without buying them" comment, since the renown system should (in theory) allow all characters to advance at their own rate. Taking the secondary combat skills (initiative, EW, etc) should allow you to advance faster but I've never personally had trouble completing the game without them. At what point would you say you encounter the bottleneck?

I'm also curious about the trouble you have hitting anything. What BV weapons do you generally use?

At the other end of the scale, the "useless" skills: Survival (food? why bother?), Investigation (I'll just pay someone), Medicine (Quick Fix, Antibiotic, Antidote are all weight-zero), Toughness (see preceding). Acrobatics (how am I supposed to survive SF0 combat without armor? Are there even space suits light enough?), Mysticism (what for? and what if I get killed and need cyberware?). Taunt (does it make any significant difference in combat?) and Shopping (minor differences in prices just don't make that big a difference in gameplay).

Survival: Can get items other than food, and also Dominate Animal.
Insight: Useful in many conversations and quests, unlocks extra police missions.
Medicine: Can be used to revive dead characters, and is also used in plot events.
Toughness: Useful for the Hard as Nails talent, also used in some plot events.
Acrobatics: Skinsuit + never getting hit = pretty good.
Shopping: Used to earn money in plot events.
Mysticism, Taunt: Pretty useless at the moment

Hard to tell when they're helping.

I think this may be a big issue. It's not always obvious when a skill has helped. Also, if you don't have a certain skill, it's not always obvious that it would have helped.

SF0 versus SF2 is a tricky one; it seems as if SF0 is mostly for side quests and non-random content, while SF2 is for grinding and the main plot. This isn't quite true, as there are no-renown-reward fungus-extermination missions (which are a great cash source if you have an army of robots), but for the most part you can't get by with just SF0. I'm not sure whether you can get by with just SF2; you can refuse all grinding missions that need SF0 combat/skills, but there are main plot events that need SF0 combat, so you can't do entirely without it.

You can get by without SF:0. There's only one core story event which requires SF:0 combat; in all other cases, there's a way to avoid the SF:0 fights. I don't think it's possible to get by without SF:2 combat though.

[Daemonward]

I think this may be a big issue. It's not always obvious when a skill has helped. Also, if you don't have a certain skill, it's not always obvious that it would have helped.

Is there a way to put the skill used in parentheses next to its associated dialogue option?

You can get by without SF:0. There's only one core story event which requires SF:0 combat; in all other cases, there's a way to avoid the SF:0 fights. I don't think it's possible to get by without SF:2 combat though.

Sometimes I wish there were some SF:1 combat to add a bit of variety. Some combat situations are too cramped for a 15 meter tall mecha and too hostile to go in on foot with only infantry weapons. Does anyone remember Exosquad?

[Frumple]

For SF2 combat, obviously Mecha Piloting and Mecha Gunnery are essential, as is Initiative (otherwise I don't have time to do anything in battle!)

So far, I'm doing fine with just initiative in SF:2 fights, though admitably I haven't hit the 50 renown difficulty spike, yet. Mind you, by the time I do I'll finally have the science score to get sentient robomooks to pilot my mecha -- the only lancemate my current character's found died like two fights after they joined. Well, I just got science 13, so we'll see how things go. First sentient had 17/28/21 Re/Bo/Sp and sticking him into a spare pheonix is doing well enough, so far. Piloting needs a serious boost (started out at +2!), but it's moving along.

Both mecha fighting and close combat do alright... providing you're using thrown/return weapons. Straight up melee's pretty worthless; not only is it more dangerous, it's terribly difficult to keep the target in range in space fights. SF:0's much better about the thrown/return stuff, due to the magnet token... well, and just greater access to throwable weapons, period. Boomerangs and tridents (which can be magnet'd) are easily buyable; deathwings and sparkling lawn darts are rare but powerful -- the deathwings can be gotten off of Assassins, at least. There's also some more esoteric ones out there, like the steel fan, which keys off of charm.

At the other end of the scale, the "useless" skills: Survival (food? why bother?), Investigation (I'll just pay someone), Medicine (Quick Fix, Antibiotic, Antidote are all weight-zero), Toughness (see preceding). Acrobatics (how am I supposed to survive SF0 combat without armor? Are there even space suits light enough?), Mysticism (what for? and what if I get killed and need cyberware?). Taunt (does it make any significant difference in combat?) and Shopping (minor differences in prices just don't make that big a difference in gameplay).

Shopping is... noticable. Really, really, really noticable. The difference is pretty massive; it's not what I'd call minor. Further, the investment overhead -- that is, XP or money you personally spend on it -- is effectively nil. You put one level into it early on and it'll raise itself without issue; my current character's at about 36k total experience, and shopping is at +11 without me putting a single point into it past the initial buy. To give a comparison, that 36k character, who's charm 14, shopping 11, is getting a 60k discount on a vulcan cannon, versus a no-shopping charm 11 -- stripping down the allure suit until charm matched got the discount to a simple 50k; that's something like a 25% discount. That 36k critter still gets missions that pay less than 50k, heh.

Medicine's just convient, imo, if admitably overshadowed a bit by the pills. s->b->enter is faster than mucking around with my inventory, yeh. Acrobatics have skinsuits, not sure if there's anything higher end than the allure for it, though -- I'll admit, I just don't use it. Got better things to spend the talents on, usually. I'd probably suggest either adding some more high-end (powered stuff) class 2 armor, or switching acrobatics to key off weight instead of class -- ideally with a body component involved; i.e. body 10 gets you 3 kg (skinsuit), body 20 gets you 5 kg (skinsuit with some improved bitsies), etc.

From a mecha choice point of view, it seems like there's not really any way to build an effective heavily armored mech - you'll get demolished by unarmored mecha moving too fast to hit. *snip* I suppose rolling versus skimming versus flying makes a difference (and could affect your choice of talents), though many battles are in space where there's only one choice.

Well, if by 'one choice' you mean 'stunt driving', yeah. Born to Fly doesn't effect space flight, which seriously complicated my character's feat choice on figuring that out. If it weren't for that, B2F'd probably be best, hands down. Skimming's pretty weak, talent wise, though; nothing benefits from it, unlike, well, everything but space flight. A big thing with flight, at least in non-space fights, is that you don't stop to turn unless you're a hoverfighter. That, folks, is absolutely freaking huge -- above the speed amd height bonii, imo -- and the big reason for me flight's a major target for non-space battlefields.

Agreed on the heavy-mech, though. Armor past a certain point's just not worth it, and if you do go with a machine that's lower than -2/-2 or so, you're going to be stuck with high BV/Blast/line/scatter weapons just to be able to hit anything. It's almost comedic when my -4/-4 savin spends a half dozen turns trying to hit something with its breaker cannon, only to give up and subsequently oneshot the target with its vulcan. The poor thing's had the breaker's saftey on for the last dozen or so fights; ammo's too expensive to be missing with that thing.

Initiative has been toned down pretty severely in recent versions. Have you tried playing without it in 0.625? Do you think it needs to be toned down further?

Mucking around in 0627 right now; initiative... is probably fine, now, honestly. At the very least, it's considerably weaker than it was, and not a (/as much of a) neccessity anymore. With ini-8 or so, I'm only getting off maybe three shots with a speed 10 character. Previously, I could probably fire off four and still manage to push my machine into a run for the dodge boost. Can't do that any mo'.

Spot Weakness used to be extremely powerful, and has been toned down. It may need to be improved again.

It doesn't help you hit anything, which is the problem. Damage just isn't an issue in GH-as-is; if you can hit it, you can kill it, and in pretty short order. Hitting is the issue, not breaking things into pieces. It probably makes a difference that the major way of boosting to-hit (That is, gunnery.) also jacks the damage as it rises.

Electronic warfare and scatter weapons are going to get toned down in v0.700 (see that thread for details). BV weapons will likely lose their to-hit bonus, but have a greater chance of all shots connecting.

See above, I guess. On th'beneficial side, BV weapons not having an easier time hitting would pretty much put them on-par with single shot weapons. On the not-so-beneficial side, the only reason folks are using them goes 'poof'. Even with scatter getting a hit, I'd imagine the emphasis on them and their line/blast brothers'll just go even higher, 'cause, yanno', they hit things.

I'm also curious about the trouble you have hitting anything. What BV weapons do you generally use?

Personally, I generally don't use any weapon with a BV lower than the machine cannon (4 or so, iirc) unless there's something (very) special about it. Even with BV 4, I have trouble hitting things fairly often; at least, it'll take 3-4 volleys before I land a hit, fairly often. When a BV8 cuts that in half, it's noticable. When it takes 5-8 shots to land something with a non-BV weapon, well...

Obviously, sometimes I'll land th'first shot or whathaveyou, but I'd stand by those numbers fairly well.

You can get by without SF:0. There's only one core story event which requires SF:0 combat; in all other cases, there's a way to avoid the SF:0 fights. I don't think it's possible to get by without SF:2 combat though.

It's not, unless by 'get by' you mean 'get shot down, repeatedly'. I guess with a high enough dodge you could survive constantly getting shot up, but it'd be a bit of a BAD END to finish the last big core battle by having your Dora blown up. Probably amusing, though.

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Re. Exosquad, I still have one of the action figures sitting around somewhere in this house. Th'blue one, widda' wings and the gatling gun. Is still awesome.