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1411

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #23: Expanding the Business; Balance Changes

« on: October 25, 2013, 11:00:29 am »

Very interesting idea on the Dexterity, this could make high Dex characters outright viable.
Well, or overly munchy, is the % additive or multiplicative? With feats and the like?

It's additive, though there's only one feat that affects weapon AP cost currently and that's Gunslinger which has a flat modifier. The flat modifier is applied at the end.

1412

Development Log / Dev Log #23: Expanding the Business; Balance Changes

« on: October 25, 2013, 12:11:47 am »

Hey guys, here's an update on what's been happening since the Steam release.

It will be a while longer before a new version is ready, sorry. The reason for that is that I've been somewhat busy with trying to expand the business. The game did well enough on its Steam (pre-)release that I can now afford to hire some people now that will assist with content creation. Unfortunately, this means interviewing, office space hunting, taxes, logistics, and other stuff that's cutting into my development time. So while development is a bit slow until all this settles down, it will pick up pace and go even faster afterwards.

However, I did manage to add some more Lower Underrail areas and I also made a number of balance tweaks, bug fixes and the like:

• Changes
• Players will receive better armor at the start
• Added more meds, ammo and such to the starting areas
• Reduced explosive barrel health to 1
• AP cost of using light weapons (knives, pistols, SMGs or fist weapons) or unarmed attacks is reduced by 4% for every dexterity point above 5. This is very much subject to change depending on how it works out. I want to make high dexterity builds feel more rewarding and this is just the first step.
• Dogs now have 50% chance to apply Tackle effect on hit (down from 100%)
• Skill requirements for recycling items reduced
• Item durability increased, particularly for higher level items. This will make it less profitable (hopefully not profitable in most cases) to repair them for sole purpose of selling them. Also, crafters will be able to recycle them for more scraps them previously since the amount of scraps gained is based on current and max durability of an item. Rate of item degradation should remain about the same
• Mark 2 repair kits now fix 500 durability points (up from 400). Cost increased accordingly; repair kit crafting requirements and components remain the same
• Durability span of items looted from slain enemies increased to 5%-50% (up from 5%-20%)
• Bandits in the "package delivery quest" nerfed
• Minimal stealth requirements (below which player is automatically spotted) reduced
• Increased the amount of special ammo that can be found as loot
• Reduced the cost of amuples and syringes
• Reduced the amount of explosive required to craft traps (it's now same as grenade recipe)
• Increased chemistry requirements of Hexogen explosive to 50 (up from 22). Secondary explosives difficulty modifier in grenade and mine blueprint increased to 125% (up from 100%). Mark 3 grenades/mines are now crafted from 1 hexogen and mark 2 are crafted from 2 x TNT instead of vice versa. Reasoning behind these changes is that crafting high level explosives was way too easy and allowed you to obtain grenades that were meant to be used against level 20 enemies as soon as level 7 if not earlier.
• Player character will no longer obscure targets behind them when issuing offensive commands (such as attacking or invoking offensive abilities)
• Bug fixes
• Exporting a character while trading window is open will no longer crash the game
• Save/load window will no longer lose focus after deletion confirmation pop-up
• Fixed the bug that would cause optional components to give different crafting requirements depending on order they are placed in
• Galvanic vest added to random loot table (and hence the stores too)
• Added missing female riot gear spritesheets (sorry ladies)
• Fixed the bug that would cause the old man in GMS level 3 to repeatedly initiate dialog with you
• Fixed the bug in Abram's questline where you could give Garren information you didn't actually receive
• AP should now correctly be deducted when stacking up utility items during combat
• Other
• Added transition error log; it will be generated in Documents\My Games\Underrail every time there's a transition error. This should help us pinpoint any remaining transition problems
• Removed Media Player requirement by popular demand (you will no longer have to have media player windows feature installed in the next version of the game)

That's all for now. Be sure to let me know what you thought of the balance changes so far.

1413

Site Feedback & Suggestions / Re: Alternative captcha option...

« on: October 24, 2013, 10:13:36 pm »

I've lowered the most threshold to 1 now (was 3 previously). I might look into easing/changing the anti-spam security when I get the time.

1414

Bugs / Re: Riot armor padding bug

« on: October 23, 2013, 09:40:30 am »

I assume you meant laminated vs reinforced ballistic panel.

The difference is not in the mods you were looking at, but rather in the base resistances they offer. The former increases only the damage threshold part - which benefits mostly the anti-bullet bonus (+100% to damage threshold), while the latter increases only the damage resistance part - which increases the all around defensive capabilities of the armor regardless of the type of attack.

Hope I managed to clear that up for you.

1415

Suggestions / Re: Dense Blocks of HP

« on: October 23, 2013, 09:28:56 am »

To clear some stuff up:
- HE and frag grenades do share a cooldown
- I don't know why I kept the 1 turn (2 sec) global cooldown on grenades, but removing it now (it's a remnant of the old days and not really necessary in the current combat mechanics)
- Caltrops do not go away by themselves
- Special bolts have no CDs (except tranquilizing bolt)

Elhazzared, I can't even tell what exactly you're complaining about anymore. In your eyes everything seems ineffective and if something is chance based it's immediately dismissed. Also, some of your complaints are based on false propositions which makes me believe you haven't actually attempted that play-style.

If you're saying PSI doesn't deal enough damage and is all about control, I think you're doing something wrong. Psi scales very well with skill (which you have a number of ways to increase as well) and is pretty much the only thing in the game currently that can dish out continuous high AoE damage.

You can fire three special bolts (there are no CDs) as an opener with a crossbow oriented build using Special Tactics feat. It's a lot of damage, and while it might not be comparable with rifle snipes, it can apply one or more additional effects like stun or burning. You can nuke one target, you can stun 3 targets, you can set targets on fire if they are aligned, you can scare off rathounds with incendiary bolts as a part of your normal attack, etc.

You don't seem to like any CC outside psi abilities pointing out how by themselves they are not amazing. But they are not meant to be and nothing is stopping you from combining more than one to get some battlefield control. Btw, I think that 2 turn AoE cc that allows you to restealth is quite good (flashbangs).

You complain that Cheap Shots is only 15%, but you fail to realize it's a passive chance with every melee attacks. Which you will be doing plenty of anyway if you're melee, it doesn't require any special action to take place. Same with pneumatic gloves. You need to put things in perspective and not just watch the raw numbers.

I don't even know what you mean by Psikers not relying on their skills to apply CC? With exception of Forcefield, they very much do. Try not increasing your psi skill levels and see how effective your abilities will be (including chance to stun/feat/etc).

I could go on, but the point is you need to give a certain build a fair chance at playing it, and playing to its strengths, not just brute-forcing it to expose its weaknesses, before you can really tell if it's viable or not. I'm not saying everything is balanced and well, and there's definitively problems with being melee in some fights in the current state of the game among other things, but it's not as black and white as you make it seem either.

1416

Suggestions / Problems with recycling?

« on: October 21, 2013, 02:24:40 pm »

This has been mentioned in couple of threads (some of which I cannot find anymore). What do you see as problems keeping recycling items from being useful?

I know one complaint was high skill requirements of recycling.

1417

Bugs / Re: Pathing bugs

« on: October 21, 2013, 02:15:55 pm »

I managed to break player pathing! I think. The terrain looks passable here.



Also, pathing creates noticeable lag when the route takes over 1000 MP, more than the junkyard gang war aftermath ever did for me.
Though pathfinding for this long paths probably shouldn't ever happen in normal conditions.

That map is nefariously slow with pathing calculations, I know. There's a technical problem with the engine when mapping really long routes and the map in question is really prone to this happening due to narrow circular layout. I'll probably need to tackle this problem at some point, though it's usually not an issue.

1418

Suggestions / Re: Alpha 0.1.9.1 Feedback

« on: October 21, 2013, 02:03:42 pm »

- I found crafting health boosters not exactly cheap because of the value of the materials you need to craft them and you often have to buy some components because they drop rarely, too.
3x times blood, value 195
1x saliva 85
1x anticoagulant 50
2x syringe, bought : 210
5x ampule, bought: 175

overall you have to spend 715 to produce 2 health hypos.

2 health hypis have a value of 240, if you buy them without mercantile you pay 840

Reduced the base price of syringe from 30 to 10.
Reduced the base price of ampule from 10 to 5.
Upped the max stack size of both that can be found as loot (indirectly reducing their rarity).

1419

Suggestions / Re: Dense Blocks of HP

« on: October 21, 2013, 01:43:53 pm »

I think the grenade damage values are good. Especially the first two tiers. (Higher level frags might be too powerful compared to HE grenades, but I won't judge before I see actual higher level content. Either way, that would be easy to rebalance by increasing shrapnel amount and decreasing shrapnel damage.)


Hmm. You could change grenade crafting to something like this:

Old progression
Mk1 grenades - 1x TNT (15)
Mk2 grenades - 1x RDX (22)
Mk3 grenades - 2x TNT (30)
Mk4 grenades - RXD+TNT(37)
Mk5 grenades - 2x RDX (44)

New progression
Mk1 grenades - 1x TNT (15)
Mk2 grenades - 2x TNT (19)
Mk3 grenades - 1x RDX (30)
Mk4 grenades - 2x RDX (38)
Mk5 grenades - 1x HMX (44)
Mk6 grenade? - 2x HMX (55) - optionally

- Secondary explosive has 25% difficulty modifier. RDX has 30 skillreq instead of 22. Tier 3 explosive would have 44 skillreq.
- The low skill requirements of the blueprint would be retained with similar skill progression.
- Grenade acquiring would be easy to control by modifying the rarity of explosives.
- Crafting Mk2 grenades would now be viable, which really isn't the case with the old progression. Mk3 is better, same component price, more common components.

Vendors:
The amount of TNT currently available in shops is good (making it even more common wouldn't hurt though), but RDX might be a little bit too common. Lucas always has one, Gort always has 2 and you can randomly find plenty more in shops (Len, Johan, Colton, Blaine?). Maybe change that a little.


This way grenade crafting would still be a nice boon, you could craft a few Mk3s or even Mk4 with it early on, but it wouldn't be something you could completely rely on.


PS. give us a blueprint for flashbangs!
PPS. Question! Grenades don't have impact speed listed, how will they work with energy shields? I'm going to assume their impact speed would be at least high or very high.

That's not even close to ok. The way the grenades were balanced was that you should encounter new grenade level about every 5 character levels (earlier if you have high intelligence to craft them), this is why you can't find/buy mark 5s in the current content.

The fact that you can craft the highest level grenade with 44 chemistry (which a level 7 character can pull off with no intelligence bonus) is insane.

Here's how I'm changing it:
Mk2 and Mk3 grenade recipes are swapped. Hexogen requirement is increased to 50. Secondary explosives diff mod increased to 125%.

This will result in:
Mk1 grenades - 1x TNT (15)
Mk2 grenades - 2x TNT (33)
Mk3 grenades - 1x RDX (50)
Mk4 grenades - RXD+TNT (68)
Mk5 grenades - 2x RDX (112)

Much closer to what was intended. You will be able to craft mark 5s approx on level 20, earlier if you have high intelligence.

Btw, impact speed of the fire damage of grenades is high, while shrapnel impact speed is medium.

1420

Bugs / Re: Minor Crafting Bug

« on: October 21, 2013, 01:15:02 pm »

Thanks for reporting this.

Epeli, your calculations are off, because you forgot that the blueprint must first take into account the base requirements of the optional component before adding difficulty modifier. E.g. the second calculation in your post should read: 62 + 6.2 = 68, working as intended.

But you were close to pinpointing the problem. It actually occurs when there are multiple optional components with diff mods and are placed in such way that the second component's base difficulty is higher than the total blueprint difficulty including the first optional components diff mod (in OP that's the barrel retractor with 70 mech requirement). This swallows up the bonus difficulty of the first component in the calculation leaving the calculation with only the second diff mod. When you place them the other way around this doesn't happen and hence the difference in requirements.

I hope I managed to clear it up. Anyway, it's fixed now.

1421

General / Re: Lunatic Gunners - not human?

« on: October 20, 2013, 01:32:19 pm »

Ok, I'll give it a go and see if I get the same results.

1422

Suggestions / Re: Where the PARTY AT!

« on: October 20, 2013, 09:22:56 am »

There will be a more detailed help screen by the release time and possibly a tutorial.

Party will happen eventually (might include cake).

1423

General / Re: Lunatic Gunners - not human?

« on: October 20, 2013, 09:20:05 am »

Are some NPCs 100% resistant? Or is it a random seed thing, or armor? I ran into this issue again with one of the thugs in a shack to the west of Junkyard. He resisted every time, even after a reload (maybe a dozen reloads)

They have to be unaware of your presence. That is, you have to be stealthed and undetected at the time of the attack.

1424

General / Re: Underrail wiki?

« on: October 19, 2013, 09:38:55 pm »

edit - Wiki maintenance stuff. I figured the wiki will have some questionable information here and there, so I made a verify template, just like the one DF wiki has. The idea is that anyone can simply add {{verify}} after any kind of info that could use verification.
Pages with {{verify}} will be listed in Category: Verify for anyone who wants to test things or do some fact-checking.

It will look something like this in practice:    Enemies never detect or avoid traps that are pre-placed into the world^Verify, only player traps.

Cool stuff. I will go through these pages when time allows to clear up as much of the game mechanics as possible.

1425

General / Re: Next release?

« on: October 19, 2013, 09:36:54 pm »

Heya,

I'm currently in the process of expanding the dev team (or creating one rather, since it was basically only me until now) so I have to deal with a lot of non-development stuff right now which will slow down this next update. But after I get this stuff done and settle into a new office, we should pick up the pace again.

Just stay patient.