PC Perk & Magazine Tweaks (Feedback & Suggestions A21)

[wyr3d]

 
I am just going to reiterate my post on Steam Discussions here:

There are 5 main statistic, each of which has 10 perks, apart from Strength and Agility which only have 9 for a total of 48 perks. First let us address that imbalance:

Perception previously had Lockpicking, which is now (weirdly) been moved to Intelligence. Let's just give that back to Perception first. Now perception has 11 skills, so we'll move Animal Tracker to Agility.

Intelligence dropped to 9 skills so we'll split the overpowered "Advanced Engineering" into "Engineering" and "Electronics", the latter taking over the "bonus XP from electrical traps" function. This brings Intelligence back up to 10.

Strength still only has 9, so we'll to think of something to add here. For now, we;ll just call this "Perk X" and move on. I sure there are plenty of suggestions available to choose from.

Balance achieved, lets move onto the skill magazines:

For the most part these are fine, with each magazine being buffed by a singular perk, and attributing to a singular activity. But not all of them. The first problem has to deal with Tech Planet (Robotics) which governs both robots, and the batons.

So lets split this into two, with the new "Self Defence Weekly" covering batons. For good measure, we will also add a new Tier of baton - the "Shock Baton" which is an upgrade of the Stun baton, and comes with the mechanics of the Repulsor mod upgrade as standard (naturally the mod version will be removed) bring the weapon in line with other weapons in the game

The second problem is Armourer which applies to both heavy, and light armour - so we will split this also, with a new magazine called "Recon Tactics" that will now cater to light armour.

The final problem regards the perk providing buffs, rather than the magazines. Advanced Engineering awards the buff to 4 different magazines, and Lock-picking (for some inexplicable reason) awards the buff to Workstations, along with Advanced Engineering.

First, let's remove Lock-picking from the picture. it makes zero sense to have this buff any of these magazines, let alone Workstations.

Now, since we already split Advanced Engineering into two perks, we will have the first, Engineering apply to Workstations, and the second Electronics apply to Electrician, because this is a no-brainer. The remaining two magazines that were governed by Advanced Engineering a"Repair Tools", and "Traps"

IMO, neither of these magazines really needs a perk to buff them, as the former unlocks the Hammer at 4 magazines, and the Nailgun at 25. There is no real rush to unlock these tools either given their purpose.

The latter unlocks the dart, and blade trap, electrical fencing, and the auto-turrets. Again, I see no need to apply a perk buff, as these a mid to late game base defences by which time the player will likely have already collected enough magazines to unlock them without a buff.

 

[Vaeliorin]

The latter unlocks the dart, and blade trap, electrical fencing, and the auto-turrets. Again, I see no need to apply a perk buff, as these a mid to late game base defences by which time the player will likely have already collected enough magazines to unlock them without a buff.

Maybe for you, but I usually have electric fences on Day 7.  Dart Traps and Blade Traps usually up by Day 21.  So at best they're early to mid game.

 

[wyr3d]

I was referring to the necessity of which, not the speed at which one can actually achieve the task. That said, iunno if that would be viable in A21 (at least not on higher difficulty settings) even with the buff ability - unless all one does is raid Crack-a-Books.

 

[wyr3d]

Right then...

Since it's unlikely The Fun Pimps will see this post, think its an awesome idea and integrate it into the next patch, I went ahead and made a new mod that achieves most fo the functionality listed in the post. I will upload a link shortly to my mods page, but here is the breakdown of what it does:

Each Statistic now has 10 Perks
- Perception got Lockpicking back.

- Fortidude saw no changes.
- Animal Tracking was moved to Agility
- Strength got a new perk, Handy Man. (previously Perk X)
- Advanced Engineering was removed from Intellect, and replaced by two new perks - Engineering, and Electronics

Balance was achieved.

Magazines
The magazines are a little more tricksy, as I do not wish to add texture and so on that will likely have issues with servers. Ideally all my mod should work on servers without need for players to also download them. Therefore I could not add any additional magazines, nor the Tier 3 baton I would like to have in the game to bring that weapon on par with it's peers.

However, since Advanced Engineering was replaced, there was options to at least juggle the magazines it used to cater to a little. This can be seen below in the perk change list: 

Perks
Lockpicking no longer affects workstation magazine frequency, because that made zero sense to me.
Handyman  takes over Advanced Engineering's repair element, and affects repair tools magazine frequency.
Engineering takes over Advanced Engineering's crafting element, reduces crafting time for work stations and affects work station magazine frequency.
Electronics takes over Advanced Engineering's electronics element, provides experience from trap kills, and affects electronics and trap magazine frequency.
Electrocutioner no longer affects robotics magazine frequency

That said, here is a link to my Mod page, where this new mod can be downloaded, along with several others.