So give it a bit of base ENC. I’m pretty sure it used to give the equivalent of 10 ENC in the past anyways, and it’s as simple as adding a single 3 line thing into the ENC check. Heck, the stiff bionic already causes ENC, so it’s not exactly something new. (And I don’t know about you, but covering my hand in a stiff metal glove is probably going to cause at least some ENC when I try to use it).
[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:6, topic:9592”]The plating is a plate so light that it causes no encumbrance at all. Basically thick foil.
Judging by superalloy items, it’s more like titanium than adamantium, so even if it had the same thickness as plate mail it shouldn’t have the same protection.[/quote]
While bash protection is largely dependent on thickness, the majority of cut protection in the real world depends on the hardness of the material being used. Assuming that it’s thick enough to resist shattering on impact, a thin layer of diamond would protect you much better from a knife slashing you than several times it’s thickness in cotton (and in fact a large portion of cutting defense just comes down to overall material hardness, if the armor is harder than the cutting object none of the “cut” is going to get through, it’s just going to be a weak bit of “bash” instead). As a result I wouldn’t be advertising something like 9/9, more like 4/8 or 3/6.
[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:6, topic:9592”]With mutations it’s easier: they give penalties, so they can give significant bonuses. It would be better to change the penalties instead of countering it all only by buffing the muts, though.
For example, chitin armor shouldn’t penalize dexterity, but it should increase layering penalty on all body parts it protects. That way it would encourage wearing it without any other armor on the body, except maybe light, fitting clothing that doesn’t provide any armor. Then it could have stats comparable to chitin armor.[/quote]
Changing some of the penalties is totally fine (in the cases where penalties actually exist), but it still doesn’t change the fact that many of these mutation numbers are way too low. The shell mutation, for example, states that it “provides excellent armor” and stops you from wearing anything on your torso completely, yet it provides less than half the defense what any type of real armor gives. It’s one of the reasons why it’s looked on as one of the worst mutations in the game, because the benefits it provides are totally worthless in most cases.
Now I’m not saying, “oh, let’s make all of these mutations give plate armor+12 resistance” here. But these numbers could definitely use some rebalances, because right now there is no reason any player would ever want to take them. Many of the mutations, for example, should probably have a higher protection to ENC ratio than normal armor of their type, because they are “perfectly fitted”, at the expense that you can’t ever take them off or change them easily. There are a ton of little rebalances here waiting to be tweaked, and hopefully then some of these things can move off of the “totally worthless” or “purify instantly” lists and actually be used by the player base.
