Allowing Different Combat Strategies

[Joseph Hewitt]

Shots to kill might not be the best measure, but at least it's better than the guesstimation we were using before. Looking at the median as well as the mean would probably be helpful, as you say. I don't really know how to incorporate damage to the mecha's systems into a useful metric, but that would probably be useful to know as well.

There are a few surprising, or at least counterintuitive results. Armorpiercing seems to be mostly useless; the phase cannon is almost indistinguishable from the shaka cannon. The Mecha Bazooka performs about the same as the Mecha Blunderbuss. Spot Weakness seems to make a huge difference with low damage weapons but not so much with the high damage ones; I suspect there it's running into the to-hit bottleneck. I'd expect that no weapon will get more than 2 to 4 shots to kill.

Next, I'm going to do some systematic exploration. Make some weapons which are equal in all ways but one and see how they compare to each other. I'll use this information to recalibrate the weapon cost calculator. I could also use this for trying out different rule modifications, such as delinking armor penetration from the to-hit roll (as was suggested somewhere in this thread, I think), and seeing how they affect the different weapon types.

I'll post additional data as I get it.

[Ephafn]

I tried substituting a Vadel for the Daum, and setting it to full speed instead of cruise speed. This broke the simulation; all three weapons required in excess of 50 shots to score a kill, so no meaningful comparison is possible. I think Ephafn could've been onto something with that whole "speed modifier is overpowered" deal...

 

A Vadel at full speed goes to around 200, which gives a nice -10 accuracy penalty on an attacker.

By the way, how skilled are your test pilots in the simulation? Higher skill should reduce the impact of modifiers (MV/TR/ACC/speed/etc).

[Joseph Hewitt]

They're scaled to Renown 50, which means that they have rank 9 in all skills.

[Frumple]

S'lil blips like that, that make me go, "Wait, what?" I knew that the skills rose with renown, but not that there were precise levels; how much is randomized? Is it a flat X renown = X rank or does available XP rise with renown and allocates accordingly? Are stats affected? Should... should probably ask those questions somewhere else. Eh.

I see more numbers! Awesome. Some things seem a little odd to me, though... it's one of those things that I know are anecdotal compared to empirical, but the vulcan killing slower than the railgun just seems to fly in th'face of experience for me; which is telling (to me), 'cause my current character has both on the same machine. Is it possible (well, I guess I should try setting up and compiling th'thing myself... *funeral dirge*) to set up a run based on average player stats @ 50 (My char's not even at that, yet, but at least has piloting 10... which I really need to improve, apparently...)? Is... is there a way to actually find out what an average player's stat/skill spread is, at 50 renown? Still! Statistical test a-gogo! I don't even like rigorous testing, but it's a darn sure better measuring stick than silly human eyes an'brains, heh.

/aside/ I could see some freaky battle-calculation functionality added to the maain game via the data that program produces, though it'd take a silly level of effort (or CPU cycles) to implement. "Scanning... target has RG-8: Simulations show you have <Four rounds/X timeunits> to live. Target has VC-5: Simulations show you have <Seven rounds> to live. Target has <ERROR: FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR>: <ERROR: Everything's on fire, Jim.>. Target has <ERROR: INK RIFLE>: <ERROR: OHGODI'MBLIND>."

I guess the question of at what point players feel 'safe' to continue is a bit of a different discussion... balance in complicated (i.e. asymmetrical... I think.) systems is always mind-boggling to me. Kudos for having it as stable as it is!

[Joseph Hewitt]

I think I can sum it up pretty quickly. NPC skill levels (for combatants) are determined by renown. Major NPCs may have a specialty skill; this skill will be a point higher than the others. In general, the random enemies generated in combat will be 20 renown points behind the PC (or 20 points behind the scenario). Some enemies can be higher or lower than this default, but minor enemies will never rise above the difficulty rating of the scenario. Stats are not affected by this scaling. This skill rank limit is used for the lancemate rapid leveling bit; if I remember correctly, LMs will also be 20 renown points behind the PC.

I don't think there's any way to figure out the average player's stats/skills at a particular renown level because it's going to depend a lot on the player's (as opposed to the PC's) skill level. I think I'm a fairly decent player, and my skills tend to be in the 9-10 range at Renown 50. I know some players can make do with lower skills, and some need higher skills to maintain this renown level.

[SharkD]

You could create weapon bonuses that require a specific skill to be active.

[Daemonward]

You could create weapon bonuses that require a specific skill to be active.

Like a sniper scope that only provides a bonus if you have Spot Weakness?

Or how about Spot Weakness providing an accuracy bonus equal to (skill rank)/5?

[wipmeeniebom]

Like a sniper scope that only provides a bonus if you have Spot Weakness?

Or how about Spot Weakness providing an accuracy bonus equal to (skill rank)/5?

Just becase you know where to hit an opponent to hurt him the most doesn't mean you're more likely to hit him.