[piratez] Buffing suggestions

[Meridian]

Hi,

Since nothing like that exists, I decided to create a thread for buff requests... let's work together to make things useful.

Today I'd like to propose a buff for the Alliance Advisor.
I tried the advisor several times (on and off camera) and unfortunately have to say, he's quite useless.

Cons:
- takes 12(!) space in stores
- takes one space in craft
- is super weak (tus, stamina, health, armor, everything, ...)
- score penalty for death (I think based on bootypedia... I never actually tried it)
- requires LoS for mind probe

Neutral:
- has heal, but has to stay far behind... I used his heal only once, instead I use gals themselves or dedicated field medic
- has mind probe, but cannot use it over any safe distance

Pros:
- has mind probe

Summary:
- he's literally waste of space
- the healing can be done in million other ways, so I cannot really count it under Pros
- early mind probe is nice... but you can barely use it
- after you get your own mind probe, the advisor is dead weight

Recommendation:
- make advisor's mind probe work without LoS as counter-weight to all his cons... I think his cons currently out-weight his pros at least 4:1
- it you think it's too much, take away his healing
- if still too much, make mind probe cost 55% of TUs, so that it can be used only once

Yours truly,
M.

[Arthanor]

Fully agree! If you get him before field surgery kits and rum, his healing is kind of nice since it is more hp/fatal wounds (also meaning shorter recovery time). But once you can heal yourself easily, it's really not worth bringing him for a front line mind probe..

If we could have something like requires LoF instead of LoS (ie could shoot at the target, despite not being within 20 tiles) that would already help. But the guy is supposedly skilled in voodoo, not just using a scanner, so even LoF shouldn't be necessary.

Also, with the possibility of multiple soldier types, he should be one, and thus live in barracks, with his default armor being the current one and being unable to wear other armors (actually, having his on combat armor could be neat once you research tac armor).

[Dioxine]

It's not actually that easy to get a mind probe at all (unless you have blind luck on your side). So often he is your only means of using this capability. After reading this, I've upgraded his healing speed and number of charges, as well as the speed of his Ident device, and his Bravery (it takes balls to go into a combat zone unarmed). Making him a Soldier would be a really good idea too, saves all that excess storage/tank space and makes more sense too. And allows for an upgrade too He will be outphased completely once Hybrids become a type of hire-able soldiers.

However, I feel like making him a 'press this button to identify everything' guy would be un-fun, making the process retardedly simple, and depreciating research as means of gaining knowledge on enemies. You can use him effectively, but this requires effort (isolating the target so the Advisor can safely pop up and identify it). This way it's not 'push this to get stats' but 'use head to retrieve stats'.

I agree he becomes useless once you have a spare medic and a Mind Probe, that is just as planned.

[Meridian]

Fair enough. You have a point.

For some people it will however remain "f*ck it, I don't care about stats anyway" (or worse "nevermind, I'll look it up in the ruleset") instead of "push this to get stats".

My hope of having useful stuff doesn't die here, there will be more suggestions coming in...

[Dioxine]

(or worse "nevermind, I'll look it up in the ruleset") instead of "push this to get stats".

I don't care about such people. Mind probe is a very powerful ability IMO.

[Eddie]

How about making his mind probe ability not requiring LoS but beeing in a 20ish tile distance? No mind probing from anywhere on the map, but still better than LoS.

[Arthanor]

Fair enough. You have a point.

For some people it will however remain "f*ck it, I don't care about stats anyway" (or worse "nevermind, I'll look it up in the ruleset") instead of "push this to get stats".

My hope of having useful stuff doesn't die here, there will be more suggestions coming in...

For me, it's "F* it, I'll just stun this new guy and let the brainerz figure it out later". Of course, it doesn't work with heavily armored enemies, but you rarely have the luxury of isolating a heavily armored enemy to bring the slow advisor within range (and you don't meet them that often in the early game when the advisor would otherwise be relevant).

[yrizoud]

Advisor needs an assistant girl who leads the way and drop smoke bombs everywhere

[Dioxine]

Advisor needs an assistant girl who leads the way and drop smoke bombs everywhere

Exactly! And if needed, kills anything that unexpectedly threatens him If you know how to use it, no boost is needed (although he'll get a Mindprobe of Haste on a higher stage, once he becomes an upgradeable unit )

[Meridian]

Exactly! And if needed, kills anything that unexpectedly threatens him If you know how to use it, no boost is needed (although he'll get a Mindprobe of Haste on a higher stage, once he becomes an upgradeable unit )

Exactly! That's why I'm convinced he's not worth it.

[Dioxine]

To each their own Might you find attack dogs or Superheroes useful! If all of them suck, then I will cover my head in ash

[Eddie]

Next on the list for buffing: holdout pistol and small revolver.

I get that their perk is their one square size. But I fail to imagine a situation where they might be useful other than for accuracy skill training on disarmed enemies. And I think that is not the use Dioxine intended.

The damage is too low to use them at short range. You will most likely not kill with one shot and then they shoot back.
They are not accurate enough for longer range.

We could really use some ammo that did damage to tu like the spear, so you can remove tu's for reaction fire from a distance. Maybe acid ammo or fire ammo can get that? Or shotguns?

[Dioxine]

They are basically enemy-only weapons for now. So no, no buff needed, they were intended to be useless to the player.

[Eddie]

And what about tu damage for shotguns? Would be a boost for them without increasing damage.

[Dioxine]

That's an interesting idea about these Shotguns (at least for their low-damage pellet AP ammo). I will consider this. However this could be an exploit - it'll be hard to strike a middle ground between useless and OP (it can only do TU damage if it does HP damage).