Melee Weapons, and Dexterity Bonuses

[Strogg]

Got the game yesterday, love it so far, but the melee weapon selection is kind of limited, though I suppose that will change as the game's development progresses.

Weapons I would like to see: machetes, axes, pipes, clubs, and variations based on superior metals.

Also the mechanics in regards to melee seem to favour strength oriented characters, and while light stealth characters are feasible, that is only if you build your initial stats to allow for the more powerful feats in the game as you progress (e.g cut throat). Light melee weapons (i.e one handed) should also receive a damage bonus from dexterity, but only if it is greater than strength.

Keep up the awesome work!

[LazyMonk]

Hey Strogg, welcome to the forums.
Indeed new weapons would be great, and the examples you bring are great, but unfortunately i doubt Styg will be adding any more due to how much it would cost. 

I disagree with your second suggestion, though.

and while light stealth characters are feasible, that is only if you build your initial stats to allow for the more powerful feats in the game as you progress (e.g cut throat).

I consider my stealthy knife&traps specialist a light stealth character, and he is 8-8-8-5-3-3-5.
Whats wrong with going with a high dexterity stat, for the cut throat feat, if you are already doing a "dexterity based" melee character?

Light melee weapons (i.e one handed) should also receive a damage bonus from dexterity, but only if it is greater than strength.

Why? Then the only reasons for pumping strength would be:
-The Sledgehammer
-The Metal Armor
-Full-auto feat (the only feat that requires strength)

With the exception of intelligence, every stat is pretty much balanced. What  you purpose would make strength almost useless.
I believe you are being inspired by the Weapon Finesse feat from D&D that allows a character to add his dex modifier, instead of his str modifier, on attack rolls ( to hit chance ). And although this feat provides more hit chance, with melee weapons for dex based characters, it wont grant them more damage. So if they have a low strength stat, it wont do them much good (unless you are going for something like a duel wielding kukri critical build).
Imagine that we could use Will instead of Perceptions for shooting, inspired by the Zen Archery, another D&D feat.
If you wanted to make a psy gunner/crossbow-guy you could just ditch perception and be fine.
Now this kind of solutions might work with D&D but not so much in rpgs like underrail.

There are already so many stats that you can ignore when going for a pure melee build (intelligence, perception, will, agility) and adding the most important melee stat to that list just seems unreasonable.

[Strogg]

Hey Strogg, welcome to the forums.
Indeed new weapons would be great, and the examples you bring are great, but unfortunately i doubt Styg will be adding any more due to how much it would cost. 

Does the development kit/engine he's using require a more expensive licence to add more content?

Whats wrong with going with a high dexterity stat, for the cut throat feat, if you are already doing a "dexterity based" melee character?

I've had time to think about it, and the stats can balance out pretty evenly, as my new stealth character is 7895533. I guess I'm just used to RPGs like Baldur's Gate and how their rules set apart different character classes.

I believe you are being inspired by the Weapon Finesse feat from D&D that allows a character to add his dex modifier, instead of his str modifier, on attack rolls ( to hit chance ). And although this feat provides more hit chance, with melee weapons for dex based characters, it wont grant them more damage. So if they have a low strength stat, it wont do them much good (unless you are going for something like a duel wielding kukri critical build).

You're exactly right, I meant to say hit chance (because really, the dagger and combat knife don't really come off as strength weapons), but yeah, I've had more time to think about it and that type of mechanic doesn't really fit underrail, since you can pump up strength/agility/dexterity with little trouble.

[LazyMonk]

Does the development kit/engine he's using require a more expensive licence to add more content?

Well Styg is doing the game, mostly, alone and there are things that he cant do himself so he outsources.
This is what he said about adding shotguns, recently:

Adding new weapon types that require new graphics to the game at this point is extremely costly, so that won't be happening I'm afraid.

I also played Baldurs Gate, great fun back then.
Oh and i don't know if you know this already but you get to add + to your stats every 4 levels.
And if you are going for a roguish kinda of character, keep in mind that heavier armors compromise your
stealth so pumping Dodge and Evasion is a must.

[Styg]

What's expensive about adding new weapons is their graphical representation on the character. The reason why is because it uses prerendered graphics where it has a spritesheet for each armor-weapon-animation combo. Retrofitting new weapons with old models will take hours off the 3D modeller's time (time I need for other things) and will inflate the size of graphical assets a lot (character model graphics are like 90%+ of the game's size).

[Strogg]

What's expensive about adding new weapons is their graphical representation on the character. The reason why is because it uses prerendered graphics where it has a spritesheet for each armor-weapon-animation combo. Retrofitting new weapons with old models will take hours off the 3D modeller's time (time I need for other things) and will inflate the size of graphical assets a lot (character model graphics are like 90%+ of the game's size).

Ahh okay, thanks. The devs of project zomboid were having similar issues with updating sprites with new content, so they implemented a system where they generate the sprites from pre-rendered models rather than do each combination manually. Not trying to tell you your business, but just a thought for future development. You can read a bit about it here.

[gaspersb]

What's expensive about adding new weapons is their graphical representation on the character. The reason why is because it uses prerendered graphics where it has a spritesheet for each armor-weapon-animation combo. Retrofitting new weapons with old models will take hours off the 3D modeller's time (time I need for other things) and will inflate the size of graphical assets a lot (character model graphics are like 90%+ of the game's size).

I get that. You could consider adding new guns that have the conceit of using the same frame or very similar looking frames to existing guns. There are for instance, AK Shotguns. Which might be something that you would see in this game because I can see the various people in this setting reusing as much as they could in terms of guns and weapon designs. Why reinvent the wheel when you can just re chamber old guns or stick a slightly different barrel or action on an existing frame?

For me of course, it's mostly a question of more depth and choices in the game, and it just seems to me that some people in this setting would naturally consider shotguns a good choice for the situations they find themselves in. Finding a way to include them without having to spend a lot of money to model it is just a way to make that happen.