Condemnation bonuses and penalties

[Eddie]

My thoughts on the condemnation bonuses and penalties:
I would prefere if they had less impact. I don't mind the modifiers to freshness, they are part of the fatigue system. But the changes to other stats interfere with gameplay a bit too much, in some cases in an unfun way. Best example - Pyromaniac gives -1 voodoo power per level. That pretty much takes the fun out of using a wand of firebolts (or any other fire weapon). Not worth using if you loose precious voodoo doing it.
When condemnations encourage you to diversify your weapons it's a good thing. This is the exact opposite.

The bonuses on the other hand are a bit too much in my opinion. A few points more strength aren't significant for an uber, but matter a whole lot to a Lokk'Naar. Same for health. And any change to voodoo power and skill are quite significant since voodoo strength is voodoo power * voodoo skill. I would also prefer not to have any bonuses to bravery, since that intereferes with pirate flag usage.

[Ethereal_Medic]

I'm fine the way those boni and mali work.
They "reward" me for using troops carefully encouraging strategic use of every single dude.

[legionof1]

the wand of firebolts is a point, killing with magic fire makes you worse at killing with magic fire isn't reasonable.

[Meridian]

the wand of firebolts is a point, killing with magic fire makes you worse at killing with magic fire isn't reasonable.

the more you know, the more you realize how much you still don't know

[Martin]

I avoid fire like its a plague now.

[Rubber Cannonball]

On the other hand, one can make better voodoo lightning rods by training with flamethrowers.   

[Martin]

Use of explosives and poisons also result in a bit of a penalty, which is fine because explosives are generally very powerful, BIO is one of the best damage types in the game and poison gas is a hard counter for certain baddies (well, now they come with their special friends who do not care about gas sometimes). Fire is strong, but I doubt it needs to be hit this hard. Losing TUs and perhaps health would be perfectly fine.

[Eddie]

I just noticed that condemnation bonuses also count for piloting now. So the 50+ dodge Lokk'Naars are back. And they even can get maximum approach speed now.

My proposed solution to avoid the invulnerability through maxed dodge would be to have a dodge bonus cap stat on crafts. Doesn't make much sense anyway that a Kraken has 50% dodge when a crew of maxxed Lokk'Naar are flying it. A sensible dodge bonus cap for the Kraken would be 20% for example.

To avoid needing a new variable in the ruleset, the dodge bonus cap could also be calculated from the maneuverability of the craft. For example 20% + craft dodge /2
A Kraken would then be capped at 20% dodge bonus, while a jetbike would have a cap of 45%.

[legionof1]

I will point out that the commends with reaction bonuses are kinda hard to attain with a loknarr. Let go through the list.

Electrifier: Kills with electric & emp, not so easy when most of either group is non lethal until a fair ways into the game. EP ammo is needed before you could start in here with reasonable weight for a lok, Muskets/Air musket with SC ammo could be used but the ammo problem of that line of weapons is compounded by low weight capacity

Chaingunner: 3 kills in a turn with bullets or lasers, several times and only +3 total reactions. Not necessarily very difficult but conflicts with Electrifier above.

Samurai: 8 kill in a mission with melee, not something loks are particularly great with. Need fairly advanced/specific weapons in the right circumstances. Poison dagger counts so that probably the best bet, but animal poison can be hard to come by. 

Street fighter: This ones pretty juicy considering it's a loadout that favors loknarss, but 40 kills before you even see the first rank is a fair wait. 40 kills with comparatively puny arms takes awhile.

Triggerhappy: This one is the most likely, but they all need to be in the same mission, which hinders how high it's likely gonna be. Loknarrs are not well suited
for prolonged exchanges of fire. And there are very few encounters you can just farm without risk.

Bullet Magnet: +2 possible if you have been shot at a few hundred times, and somehow not died as a loknarr. It could happen but not the kinda luck i want to push. I will also point out gal of steel is -reactions and usually accompanies levels of bullet magnet.

There are 2 others Super size and avenger, but the former is +2 after alot of exp gains, and the other is posthumously awarded.

So while it is possible to get that magic threshold loknarr pilot again, it is not what i would call easy. And many ships have multiple pilots required. How many of these super aces are you likely to have in practice? 

[Gremlion]

I think for many of those you can kill parrots, since the wording is not necessarily enemies.

[greattuna]

No, you need to kill enemies for it.
Killing your own units will net you "betrayer", which kills bravery.

re: reaction gains: you can farm both street fighter and electrifier at the same time, since there're two pistols that have EP ammo (niner and manstopper). And killing unconscious people is rather easy too, since you can shoot the bodies until they die.

Bullet Magnet is achievable fairly easy by using a car, and, while gal of steel reduces reactions by 10, it and bullet magnet will both improve bravery for the faster approach speed.

[legionof1]

Bullet+steel both at 10 is net -8 reaction for +10 bravery. Not really worth with how much extra bravery is in commends for less risky activities for a lok.

[BBHood217]

Speaking of betrayer, I had a gal mind control an enemy and made him prime a grenade and let it blow up in his hand which killed him.  The mind controller got betrayer

That was in K1 though, don't know if it still happens in K2.

[Eddie]

I already have two 47% dodge Lokk'Naar without specifically grinding reaction condemnations.

I would say triggerhappy and street fighter are the easiest ways to get reaction for Lokk'Naar. My Lokk'Naar all have some level of triggerhappy already because of the way I use them. Night missions with easy enemies that have poor night vision. Sit the Lokk'Naar in the shadows and throw electroflares at the enemy location, kill everything with reaction fire. Best used with a Shadowbat.

For the bravery bonus, cavalier is probably the easiest way since the Lokk'Naar hemself doesn't need to do that much except be on the mission.
That beeing said, I don't enjoy grinding condemnations. But right now maxxed dodge it is the most powerful thing you can do to win air combat.


Just to make it clear, I really love most of the condemnations. Cavalier especially, since it really gives you a unique reward for saving everybody. But then there are the few condemnations that make your game unneccessary complicated and just kill the fun. Gal of steel is a good tradeoff for a regular gal, but for a pilot Lokk'Naar where every reaction point counts you have to avoid it like the plague. Meaning your pilot Lokk'Naars can't be the ones that drive your vehicles. What BBHood said is another example of condemnations taking the fun out of creative gameplay.

That is why I started this topic. Right now the need to avoid the negative effects of the condemnations make me feel I would rather play without the condemnations altogether. There is obviously a better way than to just remove them, so lets discuss what everyone else thinks.
Just for myself, I can easily write me a mod to remove the condemnation bonuses and penalties.

[JustTheDude/CABSHEP]

I honestly kinda don't like Condemnation that punishes gal for good performance without explenation.
Penalty for hitting friendlies is viable, but why on Earth you get lower Voodoo power for killing with flames? It implies that gal goes insane from this unethical method of killing?
How could being shot at reduce reactions? Improved bravery makes perfect sense, gals get used to it.
Currently, I would rather to give it minimal impact on things that can be easly unintentionally performed (with the exeption of betrayer) and things that have to be avoided on purpose (fire/poison kills).