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Disarming Mines[message #322364]

Tue, 02 July 2013 21:30

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

I would like to have your opinion on the following:

Looking at this mercs stats would you think that she should have a good chance to disarm mines in the field?

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/134/983.png

I can tell you that she gets blown up by every second (level 3!) mine that she tries to disarm. So cleaning out a mine field is a death sentence to her.
How is this possible with this level and explosives skill?

Here is the calculation:

Explosives *5 = 480
Mechanical *2 = 92
Dexterity  *2 = 150
Level     *10 = 60
_____________________
Sum           = 782

782       /10 = 78   This is her base chance.

Apply "DISARM_EXPLOSIVE_TRAPS_CHECK_MODIFIER":
78        -15 = 63

Apply "bad wisdom" modifier:
63-(100-85)/5 = 60

Apply random number (from 0 to 99) as penalty.

The end value will be much lower than 60 because of the random penalty.
This causes the frequent explosions.

She has no personal penalties so I skipped that part of the calculation. Mercs with penalties (aggressive, heat intolerant, fear of insects, low energy/morale) will have an even lower chance.

Even an Ubersoldier with 100 Explosives, 100 Mechanical, 100 Dexterity, 100 Wisdom and Level 10 will never get a 100% chance. In the real world there are no Ubersoldiers and still the soldiers disarming mines usually didn't get blown up by the second or third mine all the time.

Does anybody else think that this calculation needs an overhaul?
I know that I can just set the "DISARM_EXPLOSIVE_TRAPS_CHECK_MODIFIER" to 0 (or a positive value) but I'm not sure if this is the best solution.

Thoughts?

Maybe this fixed penalty at the end needs to have a smaller range as it affects ALL skill checks and not just disarming bombs. Does anybody had bad experiences with other skills that constantly fail although your stats were in the high numbers?

edit: Even setting this "DISARM_EXPLOSIVE_TRAPS_CHECK_MODIFIER" to 0 didn't help much because of that insane penalty at the end of the calculation...

[Updated on: Tue, 02 July 2013 21:43] by Moderator

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Lieutenant

Re: Disarming Mines[message #322366]

Tue, 02 July 2013 21:45

SharkD

Messages:349
Registered:July 2003

Seriously, yes it is frustratingly hard to disarm mines even with high level explosives skill. Not sure why that is desirable.

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Master Sergeant

Re: Disarming Mines[message #322378]

Wed, 03 July 2013 01:19

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

I just had an idea. I think that a certain randomness is a good thing. It is used to represent "luck". So how about this formula for luck?:

new_chance = old_chance - random( 115 - old_chance / 3 )

It would work like this:

"old_chance" is your chance based on your skills, attributes, experience and a few personal modifiers. Based on that we decide how large the influence of luck can be. Someone who has low skills will depend more on luck than someone who knows what he is doing, right?

So someone with poor skills that grant him a chance of let's say 30 will have to deal with luck based penalty of 0 to 105. There is a big risk of a dice roll that ruins his 30 completely and make him fail.

Someone who has high skills and has a skill based chance of let's say 70 will only have a luck based penalty of 0 to 92. If the roll is higher than 70 -> *boom*

edit: changed that formula a little more. The reason is that only negative results in the final chance will make a merc fail. Therefore we need to make it possible that the random result can beat the skill up to a certain value. If you look at the formula that value is at old_chance = 87.
If you are better than that you are too good to fail. Wink

Mercs with Demolition trait cannot fail if they reach 37 chance by skills/attributes because they get this +50 points bonus and therefore make it to 87 the easy way.

The changed formula will make it harder for low skill mercs though.

[Updated on: Fri, 05 July 2013 21:45] by Moderator

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Lieutenant

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