Heads-up: Mechanics rebalance -> balance-cap on skills

[KA101]

There’s a PR to rebalance part-installation requirements afoot on Git.

And I like it.

Unfortunately, it would allow us to finally harden the skill cap at 10/99%–just knock down a few CBM-crafting recipes, IIRC, and everything that needed 11+ skill is gone. This would allow us to finally but a hold on ridiculous levels of melee skills and resulting complaints that melee is OP (any combat skill is, at level 32, when the game is balanced around the idea that 10 = “world-class”). It would also mean that (as this PR would change things, and assuming the skill-cap went in) vehicles would be limited to two engines.

This may not please vehicle-builders, and would make the RMCC a relic of a bygone era, so (understandably) folks on the IRC have expressed Dismay, reacted with hostility, and provided ominous warnings of forum toxicity. Golly, that’s quick, the mechanics-skill PR hasn’t even landed yet.

I was rather enjoying the lack of forum flamewars, and would suggest that we kick around thoughts on how this might work more effectively. For example, one thought I’ve had is that (perhaps) same/similar drive units (such as large electric motors, say) might be installable in sequence, so they together function as one “engine” for transmission purposes but provide more power.

To be clear:

1. As I envision this, we would not take away current skill levels–some people Ground Hard for those and want to deal Massive Damage every time. OK, that’s fine IMO. Just don’t claim that stuff needs nerfed because you’re doing Massive Damage using balance-breaking skill levels, and back up your save as new chars would be capped/OP chars wouldn’t be able to become further OP.
2. You could still, given time and resources/practice, get every skill up to 10, and all crafting skill requirements, etc would be scaled with that in mind. This does not represent a change from the policy that we will not use skill caps to make content an either-or choice per character (at least not without some other workaround, see NPCs).
3. I’ve probably missed something, so I may well chime in later.

Have at it, all.

[Derpular]

vehicles would be limited to two engines.

Five engines. 5/2+8 = 10, it’s the sixth that’d be impossible to add.

Or you could always scrap the growth, and have 8 be the “multiple engines” skill. If you’re good enough to get two engines running on the same drive train, three or four doesn’t seem like that much more of a challenge.

Frankly, I’d also drop the constant down to 6, or even 4. We already have hybrid cars that run on two engines at once, it’s not that crazy of a notion or impossible to implement.

[ETA] Oh, no, I’m reading that wrong - you’re right, it’s currently two. But you can move dif_eng modification out of the inner loop and have it be whatever you want.

[ETAA] You’re already counting the existing engines, with “engines.” After the for loop, just call

At whatever scaling you desire.

[Coolthulhu]

I like the caps.

I also like the engine limit. One thing that engine limit shouldn’t cover: idle engines.
With a hard limit, hybrid vehicles are nerfed because electric engines limit the number of non-electric ones.

I wouldn’t force it on everybody, but I think it’s a good idea that should be a part of the mainline game.

I think the perfect solution would be uncapping the number of engines totally and just making sure huge, multi-engine vehicles are realistically useless, like a rolling fortress would be IRL. Not sure how would I balance it, but it would probably involve making vehicle weight matter a lot more.

A partial solution would be making the cap optional, like skill rust. Options could be: cap, no cap and combat-only cap (including dodging). Since “one size fits all” obviously doesn’t fit all here, letting people play with preferred options could be much better than trying to strike a compromise between totally opposed camps (“I want huge and awesome” vs “I want difficult and balanced”).

[Frostwood]

A skill cap option sounds like a good idea, or alternatively add bigger engines or the ability to “power-up” engines with enough skill.

[Vorchar]

Never was fan of 12 skill req of additional engines nor overly huge skill levels. Someone is alwasys going to be unhappy no matter what is done.

Since skil levels arent capped as of right now and people seem to like to go way over them, why not just make caps optional as Coolthulhu proposed. Balance game around 0-10 level and allow option to go past the 10 level and people would still be able to make god characters with cars going at speed of light.

[Derpular]

I think the perfect solution would be uncapping the number of engines totally and just making sure huge, multi-engine vehicles are realistically useless, like a rolling fortress would be IRL. Not sure how would I balance it, but it would probably involve making vehicle weight matter a lot more.

How about adding an explicit “drive train” part?

Any vehicle can have as many engines as one wants, but at most one drive train. Advanced drive trains (higher mech) can accommodate more than one active engine, and possibly require a larger number or positioning of wheels (addressing an unrelated vehicle issue).

Enabling frankentrucks would be a simple matter of modding in ridiculous drive trains.

[Valpo]

Won t stop me from complaining that melee is op because it is from the start at lvl 0.
But regardless i like the skill cap.

[MormonPartyboat]

I was rather enjoying the lack of forum flamewars, and would suggest that we kick around thoughts on how this might work more effectively.

I think one thing that could solve a couple of problems at once would be adding a max RPMs stat to engines and adding a transmission item that has an abstract gear ratio stat and an abstract hauling ratio stat. The max RPMs would be on an engine to engine basis and would be run up against the transmission’s gear ratio stat and the tire size to determine your max speed (i.e., nothing to do with power). Power would come into play with acceleration, run up against the gear ratio and hauling ratio stats. A high hauling ratio would decrease your acceleration while also decreasing the effect vehicle mass has on your acceleration, while a low hauling ratio would do the opposite.

The concept would be that you can get a monster industrial engine and attach it to a bike, but you wouldn’t be able to go safely over 1900 RPMs with it, so your max speed would be significantly lower than if you used a 4 cylinder engine. A fast sports car would want a high RPM engine (in addition to power) to go fast and a racing transmission to help with that, but if it hauls a couple thousand pounds of cargo that would have an inordinately large impact on its acceleration compared to a regular transmission. A deathmobile would use an industrial transmission with a high hauling ratio which would lower its acceleration a bit, but the reduced impact from mass would more than outweigh the drawbacks (actually letting it perform BETTER than with a standard transmission).

Another thing that could be done is that only engines with a transmission would count towards the vehicle’s performance, and the high mechanics restriction on additional engines would be moved to additional transmissions (or remove the idea of multiple engines contributing to performance entirely). This would let you install a small generator in the back that produces electricity but doesn’t contribute to your speed. I’m still digging through the code as I’d like to make the suggestion more substantial but I think the concept would let far larger engines be added without risking tricycles breaking the sound barrier.

[Turtlicious]

Whose going to program all that? I see some really high-concept ideas but the fact is, I don’t see anyone taking the time to do all that, I mean how long was this mechanics thing in the making?

I think lowering the skill cap to 10, and then having a binary switch to go higher is the simplest soluton, and locking all the “add 250 engines for amazing moderns of engineering.” behind that, but leave the normal stuff for us.

[KA101]

[quote=“Turtlicious, post:9, topic:9282”]Whose going to program all that? I see some really high-concept ideas but the fact is, I don’t see anyone taking the time to do all that, I mean how long was this mechanics thing in the making?

I think lowering the skill cap to 10, and then having a binary switch to go higher is the simplest soluton, and locking all the “add 250 engines for amazing moderns of engineering.” behind that, but leave the normal stuff for us.[/quote]

The mechanics thing was a year or two before anyone PR’d it, but frankly is only a few lines of code at most (it’s part of a larger PR; the specific fix is only one line). The thing is that nobody took/had the time to implement it, until now.

Agreed that transmissions/drivetrains are rather complex and I wouldn’t ask anyone to program one as a prereq for this idea to go through.

[MormonPartyboat]

Whose going to program all that?

I could see the transmissions thing being done relatively easily. I think it’d just take some tweaks to the acceleration and speed math, a new item type, and an additional variable for engines. The hardest part I could see would be the logic to only look for engines with attached transmissions.

But like I said, I’d want to dig through the math/code and be able to suggest something substantial before it’s seriously considered.

[Lorith]

Personally, I both agree on a skill cap, and disagree on it as well – I like playing at the insane power levels, once I’ve put in the effort to reach them. I think that if a hardcap goes in, it should have an option to disable it or better yet to change where the cap is. Some may want a lower cap, some may want a higher (or nonexistent) cap.

And some people are not responding to this because they are afraid of getting banned for some reason. Had three people agree with the idea of it needing to be an option but not wanting to post. Silly people, IMO.

The hardcap that is being looked into would heavily limit many playstyles due to the inability to get larger vehicles to move with the limit on engines. Additionally, those who like to build up to being incredibly strong would no longer be able to do so. However some also prefer playing with a limit less than 10, and would also benefit from having an option to change the hardcap to be smaller.

[Valpo]

I feel like exceeding a certain lvl in some skills is simply extremely unrealistic. melee skill directly affects damage… and while you can hit better and harder to a certain point with training… at one point you hit with arround 100% effiziency with every strike doing the maximum dmg possible with your strength and weapon (that would be reasonable) currently you can grind to lv xxx and do untold amounts of damage with a basic strength of 8 which is not justified at all.

As said earlier in this thread its probably possible to install untold ammounts of engines without exceeding the hardcap if its implemented the right way… which is a much better aproach to that particular problem.

edit: When i strife for a powerfull char i want to achieve this within the boundaries of reason . Makes it all the more satisfying .

[IcedPee]

I like everything about this. As long as the option is still in place to go past the 10-level cap and create Godlike characters if we want to, I think this is a great idea.

[Schilcote]

I’d say we ought to allow stats to increase by things other than mutations and silly easter-eggs (very slowly, with large amounts of work involved, and maybe still caps). Your 6-strength lawyer or whatever is going to pack on a little muscle after a few months of beating up zombies and hauling V12 engines around.

So while your super-badass might max out his skill in zombie punching specifically, he can still improve by just getting generally stronger and more dexterous… but it’d be a much lower work-reward ratio than building skills. I imagine similar logic can apply to intelligence and perception too.

It’d also make some sense to have more need to consume food as a penalty for more extreme strength scores. And maybe superintellgent characters could… get bored more easily or something. Maybe we need a boredom mechanic.

Maybe strength could be trained up to 15 or 20 by just making strength checks (smashing things, hitting things, lifting things…) and then going past that requires advanced training techniques or the use of steroids or blood doping or something like that.

[KA101]

[quote=“Lorith, post:12, topic:9282”]Personally, I both agree on a skill cap, and disagree on it as well – I like playing at the insane power levels, once I’ve put in the effort to reach them. I think that if a hardcap goes in, it should have an option to disable it or better yet to change where the cap is. Some may want a lower cap, some may want a higher (or nonexistent) cap.

And some people are not responding to this because they are afraid of getting banned for some reason. Had three people agree with the idea of it needing to be an option but not wanting to post. Silly people, IMO.

The hardcap that is being looked into would heavily limit many playstyles due to the inability to get larger vehicles to move with the limit on engines. Additionally, those who like to build up to being incredibly strong would no longer be able to do so. However some also prefer playing with a limit less than 10, and would also benefit from having an option to change the hardcap to be smaller.[/quote]

Making the cap an Option might be workable but it’d probably get shunted into the Debug section of the options, I’m afraid. Might retitle that part “balance” or something.

And some people are not responding to this because they are afraid of getting banned for some reason. Had three people agree with the idea of it needing to be an option but not wanting to post. Silly people, IMO.

Hey, I asked for commentary. So long as it’s not abusive or otherwise toxic, by all means, post. So far I’m not in total agreement with what’s being discussed, but I’m pleased at the discussion and hadn’t even considered any modding thereof, much less banning people.

[Lorith]

[quote=“KA101, post:16, topic:9282”]Hey, I asked for commentary. So long as it’s not abusive or otherwise toxic, by all means, post. So far I’m not in total agreement with what’s being discussed, but I’m pleased at the discussion and hadn’t even considered any modding thereof, much less banning people.[/quote]Aye, hence why I added ‘silly people’ in there. From what I have seen, the only risk of being banned is when you ignore warnings about language use, or actively attempt to insult/threaten others. shrugs

I think the best option here would be to default to the hardcap of ten and have an option under debug (or balance) to change it. I would recommend being able to lower the cap too, as some people do like lower-power games.

I also like the idea of being able to raise stats by using them, but that is outside this topic really.

[OwenQ]

I think ‘giant insane Mad Max death mobiles’ is too embedded in the Cataclysm brand to be completely removed from the game. I don’t play that way, and was in fact shocked that my Mechanics skill was in the double digits when I was only really conscious of disassembling some vehicles and welding useful bits onto an RV (and repairing my motorcycle), not to mention sky-high melee problems. But I think the god-mode playstyle should stay there, especially because Cataclysm can still kill you if you make a few (or, well, enough) stupid mistakes.

That’s sort of a long-winded way of saying ‘there should be an option to adjust or eliminate the cap’.

As for how it should work in mainline, I really don’t have a very good idea of how skills work under the hood, but hard-capping seems like a good way to bring things under control in the short term. Given my druthers, in the future there would be soft caps through diminishing returns and skills would also be influenced in some way by stats (which would have more malleability as mentioned previously). I’m mainly afraid of the game becoming stale if character progression comes to a halt and everything boils down to accrual of stuff even more than usual

[Marza]

I’ve followed the arguments for the skill system change and they do sound nice, but…

I dunno guys, developing your character into a figurative god and multiple engine rolling fortresses represents a considerable chunk of endgame content. People can sink hours into that. The forum threads for the 2500kph record, Gods of the Cataclysm, et al being evidence for this. It sounds like the above will be impossible after the rebalance.

[Thanyl]

If there’s a way to bypass a skill-cap, it should be through the Savant trait. That would actually make it somewhat useful.