Android Perk

[arctan2x]

Just kind of a thought, but it’s no secret that people scum.

Especially when there’s a random aspect at character generation. And especially when this random aspect can significantly alter a characters early success rate. The android perk, in my mind, almost encourages scumming to get bionics which go along with your character, and I suggest reworking the perk slightly. I mean, if someone is installing bionics before the cataclysm, they’re going to have chosen which bionics they bought.

I suggest modifying the trate one of two ways:

1. Allow the player to pick from one of several pregenerated pairs of bionics. Set it up to have something like one set which compliments each skill, and limit them to be about equally powerful, if a bionic is very strong attach to it a weaker power source, if the bionic is fairly weak or doesn’t require power attach a slightly more powerful power source.
2. Allow the player to pick their bionics directly, first their power source from a list of the various power sources, then their ‘useful’ bionic from a list of all bionics in the game. Or, alternately, only allow them to pick from a smaller selection of bionics, to limit the power of the trait.

I mean, random values involved in character creation are just bad. Nobody likes them, and nobody likes a handicapped character due to a bad roll. These would just remove that, and could easily be tweaked by modifying the list of bionic pairs or selectable bionics to make it slightly less powerful.

In writing I’ve given myself a third possible way to cover this:
3. Allow characters to spend creation points directly on bionics, potentially starting with many bionics, but having stunted attributes as a result. Set their values so that starting with two boinics would cost 3-5 points, leaving the trait fairly similar to how it is now.

Just my thoughts. Feel free to flame, hate, whatever. Constructive criticism and discussion are preferred though.

I don’t scum often, but in games where a dice roll determines the starting power of my character? You can bet I startscum.

[John_Candlebury]

Meh, I kind of like the currently random Android perk. I mean its kind of thrilling to notice that your starting character has something like time dilation bionic but not enough power to actually use it, and it makes you play much more safely and forces you to get the high skill required too install CBMs if you want to the potentially awesome bionics you started with.

With a good roll, Its always awesome to go all blasting into town in the first day with your fusion arm and internal furnace and even though that sounds extremely overpowered, i have found about that characters that start with strong bionics combo dont tend to last as longer as my other ones, possibly due to the overconfidence of having them.

Also what is the grea problem with scumming? The game is singleplayer, has no goals, nor leaderboards of any sort, so by scuming you are just cheating yourself and if it annoys you so much then simply learn not to do it.

[arctan2x]

This guy has time to make the points he forgot to before!

What archer replaces his arm with a fusion blaster and can’t hold a bow?
What use does a mechanic have for a targeting system?
Who powers their night vision with solar cells?
What lightweight would install an ethanol burner?
What use does a woodsman have for a battery system?

Just a few. There’s lots of times I want to play a type of character, take the perk, and get totally negligible bionics. Being able to choose, even from a more limited list, would remove that frustration and make the 4 point perk so much more valid and less frustrating.

[kevin.granade]

I do have one issue with it, random results inside a point-buy system. Random is fine if you want it to be random, but the game kind of can’t make up its mind about whether to let you start with bionics, so you can start with “some” bionics, but you can’t pick them. It’s a mixed message at best.

Not totally sure what I want to do about it though.

[RindFisch]

I agree that fully random bionics are kinda annoying.
At the moment, the trait is basically priced under the assumption people savescum as it’s way too expensive for most bionics, which just hurts people trying to take it normally. Saying “just don’t do it” isn’t a good answer, the game shouldn’t be designed to encourage it.

Additionally, I feel both getting the best and worst possible bionics are detrimental to the game.
If you get a terrible bionic, you feel like you wasted your points.
If you get a very powerful bionic, that’s one less thing you can look forward to during the game. As aquiring new skills and useful stuff is a huge part of the fun, this actually cuts the fun short.

I’d prefer a choice from a restricted list of nice-but-not-overtly-powerful bionics as well.
If it has to stay random, it should at least become cost-appropriate. There’s no way to balance it handing out Time Dilation and Nictating Membrane at the same time. Either make it always give a useful bionic or make the trait cheaper and never give out the really good stuff.

[arctan2x]

One other suggestion I wanted to make was in the case that devs had it set to random for a reason. Have it check your skills (if you’ve taken any) and weigh its choices based on your skills. Maybe high construction gets you better odds to get integrated tools, martial arts gets you the heat stealer or shocking, high dodge gets active defensive… Stuff like that. Still logical, but remains unpredictable, since it would just modify the weighting.

Again, only if the devs are partial to the random factor.

Halfway related, I’m trying to figure out how to modify a profession to start with an installed bionic. For myself I was going to basically modify the professions I wanted to cost 4 more points and start with specific bionics, then just modify as needed. Anyone know?

[i2amroy]

You would need to add a new field to the json, modify the profession init()-type function to read it and save it, and then you would need to have the profession apply said bionics to the new character (which could probably be duplicated mostly from the android code/functions).

[arctan2x]

Many thanks