Remove driving skill?

[Wyzack]

I was thinking about this one earlier today, is there any reason for the driving skill to exist? Most other skills you have a tiered system where you want to hit eventual milestones for specific gains, such as high cooking to make mutagen or high mechanics to install multiple engines. As far as i know all driving does is stop you from swerving all over the road like a moron. Thing is, even the first time i ever drove a car i did not fumble with the controls and spin all over the place, it just doesn’t make sense. Am i missing something critical that the driving skill brings to the game?

[KliPeH]

I have no stats or facts to back this up, but I think that the higher your driving skill is, the less you swerve with your vehicle anywhere, meaning that at a low level you fumble with the controls both on dirt and on roads, as you level up you stop fumbling with the controls on fixed roads entirely, and then when you reach a certain skill ceiling you stop fumbling with the controls on roads AND on dirt altogether.

[kevin.granade]

It’s not currently terrain-aware, though that’s something we want to add. Right now the chances of fumbling increase as your speed increases, so lvl 3 in driving prevents fumbling at low speed, but it takes progressively more skill to prevent problems at higher speeds.

Also we’d like to have the effectiveness of acceleration and braking vary depending on driving skill.

[Random_dragon]

So it at least isn’t speed-blind? That’s a good sign.

Even if I disliked the driving skill, which personally I’m fine with, removing a skill outright would most likely break shit to an absurd degree. Saves in particular.

[kevin.granade]

Surprisingly enough, saves would be fine, it would just load the old skill and never do anything with it.

[Random_dragon]

That’s…a surprise.

I’m so used to the game bugging when I mess up even the smallest of things that I didn’t expect what should be a fundamental change to be harmless. ;w;

[Coolthulhu]

Right now the chances of fumbling increase as your speed increases, so lvl 3 in driving prevents fumbling at low speed, but it takes progressively more skill to prevent problems at higher speeds.

I don’t think this is the case.
The code that handles fumbling is:

} else if( !should_fall && pl_ctrl && rng(0, 4) > g->u.skillLevel( skill_driving ) && one_in(20) ) { add_msg( m_warning, _("You fumble with the %s's controls."), veh.name.c_str() ); veh.turn( one_in( 2 ) ? -15 : 15 ); }
in map::vehproceed()

This means that more velocity means more fumble rolls (one roll per tile traveled, possibly turning the vehicle faster than the player could turn it manually), but 4 driving is the required skill to avoid fumbling both at 1 velocity and 100000 velocity.

[Random_dragon]

Hmm. That is some arcane mechanics there. o.O