Make leather & caparace quality related to damage dealing method

[paulkirikawa]

I've been thinking about this for a long time: how could it be possible that you can acquire leathers above average quality from a rathound/pig/siphoner killed by full-auto lead storm or uncountable knife stabs? It's basically no reason.
Mechanical damage should become a threat if you want to gain high quality leather or caparace, and some other damage/status effect should be totally avoided. For game mechanic, each individual attack decreases critter component quality for a certain percentage, and leather loot shouldn't be found on burn/acid entanglement effected critter, as follow:

Damage type                            Quality decreased per attack (leather)                Quality decreased per attack (caparace)
Blunt Mechanical                                              2%                                                                 15%
Thrust Mechanical (bullets)    depends on caliber, 2%/5%/7%/10%/12%/15%    depends on caliber, 5%/8%/10%/12%/15%/20%
Thrust Mechanical (bolts)                                  5%                                                                  5%
Thrust Mechanical (knives)                                5%                                                                  1%
Fire (ignore burning area)                 15%, remove loot if burnt                                                    4%
Acid (ignore acid puddles)           15%, remove loot if acid entangled                                            4%
Corrosive Acid                                     25%, same as above                                                      25%
Energy                                                            8%                                                                  8%
Spikes and serrated knifes on armor/boots/gloves count as knife attack.
Beartrap, bio, electrical and mental damage wouldn't affect. Cold damage neither, but consider that cryogun bullet and cryokinesis are mech/cold hybrid, big, look like creepy "ice-spear", I think they are equivalent to .44 caliber firearm. Cryo-orb shards count as 7.62mm rounds.

Hence you'd receive a tattered fishing net or even nothing, if you don't hunt properly.
IMO it's a good way to improve immersion, but I don't know if there's so much script work that make it hard to achieve.

[TheAverageGortsby]

You gotta know that games abstract a lot of stuff.  Doing something like that would penalize builds that rely on many actions per turn, like fast melee or SMG builds, and penalizing player choice is something one should only do with good reason.  But score keeping like that doesn't really add much value to the game.  "Immersion" is what you make it - games aren't simulators.

If you need to justify why you get good quality leather from a warthog you just pumped full of 30 rounds of 5mm, consider that a full-grown pig is about 100-400 kilos of angry bacon (presumably on the smaller side since they wouldn't be benefitting from modern farming techniques and sunlight). 30 rounds of 5mm is about 100g of lead, and each bullet hole is smaller than your pinky finger.  You'll find plenty of places to get a few nice pieces of leather.  And that's not even considering all the "immersion" behind the realistic considerations of leather use in textile manufacturing.

No, don't go down that rabbit hole.  It only leads to madness.

[Styg]

"Immersion" is what you make it - games aren't simulators.

Computer games absolutely are simulators - some to greater, some to lesser extent. That's a big part of their appeal.

That said, though I am not against these sort of mechanics in principle, I would not like implementing it in isolation, while leaving other systems and other types of loot/looting simulated to a lesser extent.

[paulkirikawa]

You gotta know that games abstract a lot of stuff.  Doing something like that would penalize builds that rely on many actions per turn, like fast melee or SMG builds, and penalizing player choice is something one should only do with good reason.  But score keeping like that doesn't really add much value to the game.  "Immersion" is what you make it - games aren't simulators.

If you need to justify why you get good quality leather from a warthog you just pumped full of 30 rounds of 5mm, consider that a full-grown pig is about 100-400 kilos of angry bacon (presumably on the smaller side since they wouldn't be benefitting from modern farming techniques and sunlight). 30 rounds of 5mm is about 100g of lead, and each bullet hole is smaller than your pinky finger.  You'll find plenty of places to get a few nice pieces of leather.  And that's not even considering all the "immersion" behind the realistic considerations of leather use in textile manufacturing.

No, don't go down that rabbit hole.  It only leads to madness.

Styg said this trait won't be implemented, so it's pure discussion:
I can get your point, Underrail is not a 2D isometric hunting simulator. My point is (only from my experience), when a PC started to "farm" these wild creatures, he/she have reached a relatively high level with enough offensive & defensive skills, hence the prey won't be a threat to the hunter. Critters automatically ignore traps, and you can use beartrap efficiently with 0 skill.
I'm not interested in "down that rabbit hole" pal, the most immersion-breaking part of crafting system is PC's wristpad recipe metal work. I can make tungsten carbide bullets from thick tungsten ingot, raw graphite and TNT with my bare hand, why can't I one-punch Tchort to hell? But it's really convenient, I'm not against it. I want this loot change just to make farming aspect of Underrail become more reliable, it's all for fun. Anyway, that's possible to make PC gain more advantage from "Hunter" feat beyond 20% bonus knife/crossbow damage towards critters, like:
You can find useful parts on dead prey, your attack won't decrease leather and caparace loot quality. This feat doesn't recover burnt or acid entangled enemy's loot.
I reckon most people wouldn't listen to Edgar's hunting mumbo-jumbo if they don't use xbow/knife, but now it becomes a much useful feat, isn't it?

That said, though I am not against these sort of mechanics in principle, I would not like implementing it in isolation, while leaving other systems and other types of loot/looting simulated to a lesser extent.

Thanks anyway. I hope there's more critter loots in Expedition.

[Tamior]

So even more changes that will make psions totally OP?
I mean, they can literally just mentally overload the critter, thus getting a perfect skin every time.

[paulkirikawa]

So even more changes that will make psions totally OP?
I mean, they can literally just mentally overload the critter, thus getting a perfect skin every time.

I suggested "Hunter" feat tweak above and I hope my intention was not misunderstood. Also I have not share my opinion with psi abilities in this topic yet, and this is my opinion:
They are tooooooo much OP and not fair in any trade, 25% MAX HP loss means nothing.
For trade off, projectiles from TK, EK and Metathermic have to involve accuracy calculating, and THC count with PER, not psi skill score, receive penalty from evasion. Thought Control spells shall be invoked with caster's hit point losing, since there's Psionic Mania and (presumably) having Hemopsychosis in Expedition (http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=File:Hemopsychosis_icon.png) it's at least convincing for me. Other tweaks like reducing damage, increasing cooldown... consider that psi autotracking ice spikes always hit, I srsly doubt these can be called "nerf".

[Tamior]

I suggested "Hunter" feat tweak above and I hope my intention was not misunderstood. Also I have not share my opinion with psi abilities in this topic yet, and this is my opinion:
They are tooooooo much OP and not fair in any trade, 25% MAX HP loss means nothing.

25% means A LOT if you are trying to play with as little deaths/reloads as possible. Say what you will, but this game IS balanced enough that 25% HP is very often the different between being one-shot and surviving.

For trade off, projectiles from TK, EK and Metathermic have to involve accuracy calculating, and THC count with PER, not psi skill score, receive penalty from evasion. Thought Control spells shall be invoked with caster's hit point losing, since there's Psionic Mania and (presumably) having Hemopsychosis in Expedition (http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=File:Hemopsychosis_icon.png) it's at least convincing for me. Other tweaks like reducing damage, increasing cooldown... consider that psi autotracking ice spikes always hit, I srsly doubt these can be called "nerf".

You don't balance things by changing EVERYTHING about it at once. Right now most people agree that pure PSI is one of the strongest builds, but not necessarily THE strongest.
Adding to-hit chance to projectile-based psionic attacks is one thing and it might be warranted. Making THC of those be based of a stat that has NOTHING to do with psionic is just nerfing for the sake of nerfing. That would be just as warranted as making THC chance of ranged weapons be depended on dexterity, while the skills themselves still based on perception.

[ciox]

I always thought this idea was cool ever since I was working on a STALKER mod and wanted the organ drop rate (snork foot, etc) to make some sense rather than be super random, especially since grenades and shotguns were very OP in that game, I thought it would be a cool balance for those weapons to destroy organs and prevent the drop, while the knife would be almost 100% drop.

Unfortunately it kinda depends on everything else in the game and the devs vision whether such a cool feature makes sense to add or no.

[paulkirikawa]

Adding to-hit chance to projectile-based psionic attacks is one thing and it might be warranted. Making THC of those be based of a stat that has NOTHING to do with psionic is just nerfing for the sake of nerfing. That would be just as warranted as making THC chance of ranged weapons be depended on dexterity, while the skills themselves still based on perception.

Let's imagine that if one can barely use a steak knife, hurt himself with safe scissor, accidently pour hot liquid on feet when holding a soup pot (my imagination for 3 DEX) is there any reason he can do SIGNT ALIGNMENT efficiently? Jokes aside, I'm not going down that rabbit hole (didn't know Louis Caroll are welcomed in such way) so I have not started a topic like what "plz! nerf PSI as what I said!" I'm just giving personal consideration under another topic. Don't take it serious since (1)YMMV (2)I'm not the dev, pal.

[Tamior]

I'm just saying that while psi might need some adjustments, those should be done carefully, one step at a time and in context with the rest of the game.

I mean, just think for a second about your "thought control use damages the user" idea. How exactly will that work with tranquility psions?

[paulkirikawa]

I always thought this idea was cool ever since I was working on a STALKER mod and wanted the organ drop rate (snork foot, etc) to make some sense rather than be super random, especially since grenades and shotguns were very OP in that game, I thought it would be a cool balance for those weapons to destroy organs and prevent the drop, while the knife would be almost 100% drop.

Unfortunately it kinda depends on everything else in the game and the devs vision whether such a cool feature makes sense to add or no.

That sounds very intriguing, if I can get more info of your mod I'd be very appreciated. And from what I've seen on the forum Styg and the corp are not sharing their instruments and code for module customization, how had you manage to work that?

[paulkirikawa]

I'm just saying that while psi might need some adjustments, those should be done carefully, one step at a time and in context with the rest of the game.

I mean, just think for a second about your "thought control use damages the user" idea. How exactly will that work with tranquility psions?

I must say sorry for that. Personally I don't like Thought Control and I have had a creepy idea from a creepy novel, a D&D Dark Sun fan fiction, to be honest. In this novel Psions in Athas are divided by their attitude for psionic, despite details you can simply regard them as Tranquility school and Psychosis school. The later one prefer to wreck themselves' mind first, let rage or other bad feeling take over their mind and believe that make them far more stronger than solid tranquilers in wrecking others' mind... So, it's not a serious opinion regaring balance of skills.

[hilf]

At first i was like "No way!" but then i realized this idea might be intended as a replacement to current abstraction, not in addition to it.

By current abstraction i mean this:
- Some creatures don't drop skins/carapaces. It represents cases when skin/carapace was damage so badly it's unusable.
- Other creatures drop skins/carapaces with varying quality values. It represents different levels of damage done to skins/carapaces without rendering it unusable.

If OP's idea is supposed to replace this abstraction then it's not bad. However, i'd improve it by making it more aligned with what we have in game.

If we look at animal skins we'll notice they aren't taken from creature's head. The skin is removed up to the neck. It can be seen i.e. on cave hopper skin. If we take a look at armours made from animal skins we'll notice they aren't covering head. If skin was taken from head as well armour would cover head, just like Rathound Regalia or an armour Heracles made from Nemean Lion.
This is why i wouldn't be decreasing quality from headstrikes.

But which attacks are headstrikes? Typically, critical hits are considered attacks to the head. But excluding all crits from lowering quality would perhaps be too much so i'd count as headstrikes crits that:
- Are single target attacks
- Aren't specifically aimed at body part that isn't head
- Are performed on a creature that is facing the attacker
Maybe there's more conditions that i'm missing here.