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Author Topic: battle chems ! - temporarily boost stats using chems on the battlefield  (Read 5827 times)

Offline kikimoristan

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i just got this idea of having battle chems that can boost stats

Chem-Kit (effects temporary for 4 turns)
-Boost Constitution (10 uses)  = +5 health
-Boost Agility (10 uses) = +5 tu
-Boost Bravery  (10 uses) = +5 bravery
« Last Edit: March 09, 2015, 01:28:01 am by tollworkout »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: battle chems ! - temporarily boost stats using chems on the battlefield
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2015, 11:16:49 am »
It's a recipe for mindless clicking party.

First thing you'd be doing before disembarking would be to shoot everyone with all possible boosters. Everyone in the ship. Because not doing wouldn't make sense. And it would be a major pain to do.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: battle chems ! - temporarily boost stats using chems on the battlefield
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2015, 04:53:10 pm »
It depends on the value: For 5 TUs, I wouldn't bother. For 50, I'd do it and loathe the time wasted doing it. We also already have very potent combat drugs.

Now it'd be funny to see a "Battle Drugs" research, which gives every gal a small random bonus (and usually smaller downsides), to represent drugs that they acquired and injected themselves with before the fight.

Offline Meridian

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Re: battle chems ! - temporarily boost stats using chems on the battlefield
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2015, 05:01:11 pm »
I would.
+5 TU is better than +15 armor.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: battle chems ! - temporarily boost stats using chems on the battlefield
« Reply #4 on: November 25, 2015, 05:09:39 pm »
Really? With that kind of reasoning, you're going to hate the early armors in Piratez.

5 TUs is not much. 6.25% boost for a gal with 80TUs. It's one extra step, no help in shooting since that's a flat % of max TUs, half a sword swing. Of course, it might be the step that brings you out of reach of the chryssalid, or back out of line of sight of the dude with a plasma cannon ;)

15 armor is 75% of starting armor and it will help you survive advanced firearms/low power pogrom lasers, and be unharmed against basic firearms. You might also survive a grenade (and will reduce losses of gals away from GZ). Even with mid-game armors, it represents 15-20% armor boosts (after a year play, my best armors are 65, 70 and 100).

Although the TUs might have a higher "maximum benefit", the armor will get you "average benefits" a lot more often.

Offline Meridian

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Re: battle chems ! - temporarily boost stats using chems on the battlefield
« Reply #5 on: November 25, 2015, 05:37:27 pm »
Yeah, I should have been more precise.

"+5 TU and -5 armor" is better than "-15 TU and +15 armor".

From my 20 years of experience playing Xcom, I learned to value movement over armor, no exceptions.

PS: your stats/examples suggest PirateZ, but I was talking about Xcom... this thread is not about PirateZ, or is it?

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: battle chems ! - temporarily boost stats using chems on the battlefield
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2015, 05:40:06 pm »
Now it'd be funny to see a "Battle Drugs" research, which gives every gal a small random bonus (and usually smaller downsides), to represent drugs that they acquired and injected themselves with before the fight.

That'd make more sense, yes. :)

BTW Now I understand why some people say everything here is about Piratez now. :)

I would.
+5 TU is better than +15 armor.

Frankly, I can't see how being able to go one tile further (even when running) would make a difference. Well it might of course, but it would be a rare case, even for melee fighters. Whereas 15 armour points can easily make a difference between death and minor injury (at least in Piratez; in vanilla X-Com, less so).

EDIT: Sorry, I was ninja'd by you Meridian. :) So yeah, I agree.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: battle chems ! - temporarily boost stats using chems on the battlefield
« Reply #7 on: November 25, 2015, 07:26:43 pm »
Yeah, I should have been more precise.

"+5 TU and -5 armor" is better than "-15 TU and +15 armor".

From my 20 years of experience playing Xcom, I learned to value movement over armor, no exceptions.

PS: your stats/examples suggest PirateZ, but I was talking about Xcom... this thread is not about PirateZ, or is it?
You mean there's something else that Piratez?! Ooh.. I just click on "show unread posts" and assumed since it was on combat drugs that it was a Piratez topic. My apologies..

Yes, armor is much less relevant in the vanilla game when pretty much every plasma weapon can fry you until you get power armor (and even then, aliens tend to have heavy plasmas by the time you get it, and they can still fry you easily enough).

Offline Dioxine

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Re: battle chems ! - temporarily boost stats using chems on the battlefield
« Reply #8 on: November 25, 2015, 07:36:47 pm »
I hate potions because it turns the game into a clickfest. You either don't use them and are at a disadvantage, or use them heavily, and suffer through the tedium. And you have a ton of these drugs, because why not? This is especially fine for weak, long-duration potions (you need to drink several of them, each soldier, each mission). Please don't make this into Neverwinter Nights. If you want minor buffs/debuffs lasting for several turns, why not make the life easier and just build them into an armor suit, to last whole battle?

Having said that... most of these effects are working in OXCE already. You can't improve stats like firing, but you can buff/debuff any temp stat (Morale/Energy/Health/TUs), even way above the maximum (it will get trimmed the next turn, though). You can also damage or buff armor. Or inflict any kind of damage upon yourself while using an item. You need to go through a fake weapon not a med-kit, though. This is what I like, you won't do it often because it's one-off, so it's not tedious, and it involves an actual decision.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2015, 07:38:30 pm by Dioxine »

Offline mrxian

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Re: battle chems ! - temporarily boost stats using chems on the battlefield
« Reply #9 on: November 25, 2015, 11:30:15 pm »
If it could be implemented, I see some potential.

Imagine, for example...
A breaching shield that, when used, gives you a sizable bonus to frontal armor, but at the cost of accuracy, and when you use it again the effects go away again.
A force field generator that gives short-term damage resistance.

Many potions would be quite nice to have, if they were expensive to make and only lasted a few turns they could be easily balanced.

I see some potential.