Improved Skill Rust System

[Gilliph]

I want to go over the concept of the “skill rust” system within the game and see if it could be improved upon.

Now I’m unsure how many of you use the current skill rust system in the game but for most of you who do, it can be said to be of some annoyance.

So what I’m hoping to propose is possibly a mod that would set in something like a “skill lock” into the base game, a means of keeping skills from degrading back to nothing without disabling the skill rust.

Say for example you raise your skill for computers to level 8. Some time passes and it starts degrading to nothing.
With a skill lock you don’t end up losing all that progress like a gold fishes memory. Instead it locks at a set skill level depending on your profession, saving you all that time and effort raising that skill in the first place whilst keeping it realistic.

Skill locks can be setup by your selected professions and increased with regular training. For example; as a soldier you would have a skill lock for firearms set to 6, yet lower skill locks for computers set to 4. Training these skills will never degrade till they reach past these locks. Once past they will continue to decrease back to those set locks.

Training on the other hand can help increase a set skill lock, though at a far slower rate. This way you can reach any necessary skill needed for recipes and gradually earn the knowledge to retain the memory for them.

A more realistic skills system that keeps from being too tedious; because having a perfect memory of all the knowledge of the world earned in less than a week ain’t exactly common if not unrealistic.

This is only a premise and I wish to explore the idea further, unless it already been talked about.

On a side note I wish to see how stats could play a role.
Possibly each stat could change the training speeds for different sets of skills? Like strength has a 2.0 training increase to bashing and 1.0 increase for pirercing, dexterity a higher 2.0 training speed for piercing and a lower 0.5 increase for bashing.
Intelligence a training boost for electronics and and cooking and a lower training boost for mechanics and archer, etc etc etc. anyways more of that later I guess.

[TheZoneWizard]

Never understood the logic of skill rust at a speed so fast, as to make it seem like brain damage instead of a paced percentage of loss over a year. Also how would it simulate any measure of realism to lose everything that was learned anyway.

Humble suggestion is turn it off. The only value it serves is to turn it on with a trait

negative trait.
Brain Damage: you forget entire skill sets like a leaky bucket. Regardless of why, you cannot retain things you learn indefinitely like normal people.

[Mantar]

I always used IntCap. You never go below your current skill level, but you can lose your progess to the next level if you’re not practicing regularly, at a rate that depends on your Int.
It makes it more difficult to hit crazy high skill levels, and that’s about it.

[techincal]

Personally I’d remove skill training from books altogether (too powerful and easy), instead make books give a long lasting experience multiplier you get for that particular skill (up to the level of the book) and skill rust would apply to that multiplier.

So if you read a computer book you get a big experience bonus when you use computer skill, but if you don’t use your computer skill, the skill rust erodes the bonus.

[ecchi_squid]

I think the best way to implement skill rust without pissing people off would be for skills never to degrade below any skill level. So progress to the next skill level can be lost, but you won’t forget how to ride a bike just because you haven’t rode one in a while.

[Gilliph]

I like the comments, it gives a lot to think about.

With the Negitive trait Brain Damage I’d replace the term with alzheimer’s.
That condition seams more closely related to utter memory loss; brain damage on the other hand would be more dependant on what part of the brain is damaged.

[Jcd000]

I’d like a system where whenever you regain a lost level, the decay rate between this level and the lower one is cut by half.
At some point you’d stop losing skills.

Of course the current decay rates are too high and would need to be lowered as well.

Adding a lower skill level cap depending on profession and int on top of the above is also reasonable.

[redivider]

Yes I think the same, books should just give a “buff modifier” for the skill, although it would require some more methods for skills that are really hard to train (computer, first aid comes to mind)