A thread for little questions

[Whatifred]

Thank you both, I knew I got one someplace, was driving me nuts trying to remember WHERE I got it.

[Nefandi]

I'm having a rough time figuring out how to get the Red Mage quest to spawn in the current version since it no longer comes up just from researching voodoo. I'm up to Mar 2604 on Red Codex. Do I just need to wait...more?

[Marza]

There are a number of tech requirements involved. Do you have B rank bounty hunts unlocked?

[Nefandi]

I do have level B unlocked and I've been trying to do voodoo related research/missions. The tech tree viewer just lists red mage as an item with no prerequisites. I'm thinking there's some kind of in game event that starts the quest, but I'm feeling stumped on how to trigger it.

[Marza]

There is the Wasteland Sorceress event to kick the chain off; given enough time she is guaranteed to appear as long as you're not on the easiest difficulty. As long as you have researched the rights to buy voodoo equipment from the olde magic shoppe, you're mostly good to go.

The actual Red Mage Quest itself will enter the pool around the time the player has geared up for level B bounty missions.

[revenous]

For the description of the fancy shawl there is a line that says, "RF: Cold 75/50".

There are other items that have a similar type of description, but I'm not sure what the RF means and how the mechanic works. Does anyone have additional information? Thanks.

[legionof1]

It's a shorthand for resistance factor. The number before the / is how much the item multiples resist by, the number after is the floor at which it will have no further impact.

The shorthand is needed since there is hard character limit for descriptions.

[Marza]

Full bootypedia article on the subject:
'A class of items which boost Resistances of worn armor.
These items usually fit only certain slots in warrior's equipment, and start to work only the next half-turn after equipping. Effects usually stack unless items share same Gear Type, and even then, only Resistance Factor (RF) doesn't stack. RF is spelled as follows:
>Effectivity: by what factor Resistance is improved between current value and Boundary;
>Boundary: if the current resistance is at this level or better, effect is zero. By stacking, you can approach this value, with diminishing returns, but never reach it.
Lower numbers are better.'

There's a lot going on in one article. Just remember what legion has highlighted; the second number is the floor, and should be compared to the resistance value of your armour. If your armour already has a resistance lower than the floor, then the item is useless to you.

And no, you can't wear multiple hats. And even if you do find a way to equip multiple hats, you'll only get the benefit from one of them.

[revenous]

Thanks for the additional information Legion1 and Marza. I really appreciate it, but I'm still having trouble understanding how this effects gameplay.

Would someone be able to help me with an example? Let's say I have a gal wearing Durathread armor with a 170% cold damage modifier, but she's wearing a Fancy Shawl (RF: Cold 75/50).

Say she gets hit with 50 base cold damage. Ordinarily, I think this would be increased to 85 (50*1.7), but would the shawl reduce this to 47 (50*(1.7-.75)?

And if she was wearing warrior armor (60% cold damage modifier) it would ordinarily be 30 damage, but the shawl would reduce this to 50% cold (the floor is 50), or 25 damage?

Thanks,

[Marza]

I'm not sure I can give a correct worked example, but I'll have a stab (Very old legacy versions of XPZ did go into more detail about how to calculate the diminishing returns, but it took up a bunch of articles for what was essentially just trivia).

Durathread and shawl getting hit for 50 cold damage:

• 1.7 starting cold resistance
• 0.5 boundary resistance
• 0.75 effectivity resistance

Delta boundary resistance
=1.7-0.5
=1.2

Multiply by effectiveness factor
=1.2*0.75
=0.9

Absolute effectiveness
=1.2-0.9
=0.3

Total resistance change
=1.7-0.3
=1.4

Therefore damage incurred
=50*1.4
=70 (so 15 less damage than if you were not wearing a shawl)

Or something like that. I only know of one person who has memorised the full process apart from Dioxine. Everyone else just play by a few maxims:

• If the boundary resistance is better than the armour resistance, then it can be useful
• If you have spare capacity and you really don't know what to carry, then you can consider protective utility items
• If the paperdoll shows naked skin, you'll probably have a sad time in the mountains/arctic
• If the paperdoll doesn't show naked skin, you'll probably have a sad time in the jungle/desert
• If you find a way to wear multiple hats/vests/leggings, don't expect them to stack
• If you think you know how the RF calculation really works, you're probably mistaken
• Hail gasmasks

[Iazo]

Unless I forgot the formula:

Final Resistance = Armor Resistance - (Armor resistance - Resistance Threshold)*(1- Normalized Resistance Factor)

Marza's calculations look correct. It's what this formula outputs.

Don't ask what the formula for stacking multiple resistance items is. That one summons Cthullu.

[legionof1]

That one summons Cthullu.

Who then leaves in confusion and summons a coder instead.

[Iazo]

Apparently, by prettifying the polynomial you get something easier to remember.

Final Resistance = Resistance Threshold + (Armor Resistance - Resistance Threshold)*Normalized Resistance Factor

[lancev]

How do you recover lost souls?
There are several of them in the Halls of Fear mission, but they are not recovered at the end of a mission?

[revenous]

What's the preferring tactic to deal with burning damage? My gals sometimes catch on fire for various reasons, and I'm not sure the best way to deal with it besides equipping a few of them with fire extinguishers.