SCP Beta 4 Issue Reporting

[6742d9296bd64ZylonBane]

Mmm, in a game like SS2 that's a) very looting-oriented, and b) with low object density (by modern standards), I think most people would have a high probability of noticing new things appearing.

[6742d9296bf11voodoo47]

most people do not pay as much attention to small details. I mean, a corpse appearing/disappearing from a spot right in front of the elevator door sure, but a mug.. either way, why not, lets see whether/when someone notices.

[6742d9296c023ZylonBane]

20 mugs it is then.

[6742d9296c13bvoodoo47]

ok now that would be noticeable.

[6742d9296c54cSalk]

A minor thing that's often bugged me about SS2's elevators is how the door-opening button is almost comically huge, but the panel to actually use the elevator is tiny. It looks strangely unbalanced.

I am late to the party but I still like to give my opinion.

I agree completely about the criticism.

The new size of the panel is perfect. The new size of the elevator button could be reduced further.

[6742d9296c90bsarge945]

20 mugs it is then.

Mug Hybrid when?

[6742d9296ca0bvoodoo47]

ooooh. OOOOH.

//hybrid grenade -> mug;

Code: [Select]

ObjProp -1600 "ModelName" = "Mug"

get mugged by a hybrid now.

[6742d9296cd8cZylonBane]

So I thought it would be neat to upgrade SS2's explosion bitmaps with higher-res versions based on the original stock footage.

One pandemic later, I think I've finally located the originals for the other explosions.

https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/86915050-explosion-flaming-fragments

https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/86915078-vertical-explosion-cloud-sparkling-debris

[6742d9296d07fJohnSmith]

Hello everyone. I got back to system shock 2 after a pause, and did some more testing of the issue of research not applying the 25% damage bonus to laser pistol.

First, i can confirm this is not caused by SCP nor NewDark, because i was able to reproduce it in the base game (gog version, 2.46).

Second, i tested using the overload setting vs multiple shotgun hybrids to rule out the issue being caused by a rounding error, since the base damage of normal shot is so small. The test setup was exactly the same as i reported before:
1.25 (mod 2) * 1.3 (energy weapons 3) * 1.25 (research bonus) = 2.03
so damage should be doubled after research, guaranteeing single overcharge killing a shotgun hybrid. The research bonus seemed to have no effect.

Third, just in case there was a small numeric error in how the multiplication is calculated (or the formula is completely wrong), since the multiplier after research in the previous example was only just above 2, i tried a different combination of multipliers:
1.25 (mod 2) * 1.45 (energy weapons 4) * 1.25 (research bonus) = 2.26

This was a bit harder to test, since even without the research bonus (multiplier = 1.81) there was a high probability that 3 cumulative shots could kill a normal hybrid. So i triggered an alarm to make sure i had sufficient sample size. As before, research seemed to have no effect.

When i instead increased energy weapons to 5, giving bonus 1.25*1.6 = 2, in the same situation all hybrids were killed by exactly 3 shots.

This proves that research must have an effect significantly smaller than 15%, if any, and this is not caused by rounding. Perhaps a typo where the bonus is 2.5% instead of 25%? That would explain the small difference voodoo47 was able to measure.

I also tried switching weapons, using different weapon while research was finished, even using higher research skill. Neither had any effect. There is one limitation to my test - i only tried using the default laser pistol for Marine energy specialization, not any of the latter ones found in maps, so it is possible this could be limited to a particular instance.

Also, as a late reply to ZylonBane: of course this matters. Research is one of the interesting alternative choices for early game, and it works well with any other weapon. That it doesn't work with laser pistol is a bug, and if it cannot be fixed, it should be at least documented somewhere, if anyone manages to reproduce the results of my test.

[6742d9296d831ZylonBane]

Using a beefy hybrid, a laser pistol that deals 100 base damage per shot, and a custom script that reports precise damage values, I've determined that damage is calculated as follows (disregarding OS upgrades and vulnerability modifiers):

• If organ for target creature is researched, base damage = base damage * 1.25
• Skill multiplier = 1 + (player weapon skill - required skill) * 0.15
• Final damage = base damage * skill multiplier.

Thus, with a researched hybrid organ and energy weapons level 6, the damage dealt should be:

• (100 * 1.25) * (1 + (6 - 1) * 0.15)
• 125 * 1.75
• 218

And that's indeed exactly what it reports. Now if I perform this test with a standard laser pistol that only deals 2 damage, it should work out as:

• (2 * 1.25) * (1 + (6 - 1) * 0.15)
• 2.5 * 1.75
• 4.375

This yields a random mix of 3 and 5 damage values. So there's something goofy going on with the rounding algorithm. But still, in my tests the 3s and 5s averaged out to 4.25, so that's close enough for me.

If I try this with overcharged shots, which have 12 base damage, that should be 26.25 damage. This yields 26 damage per shot in-game.

In conclusion, research bonus working fine, move along, nothing to see here.

[6742d9296daedJohnSmith]

Interesting, the 3s would partially explain the results i am seeing. I used the same conditions as in your test (energy weapons skill 6, with and without research), and research _did_ have an effect. It just took a larger sample size to see without having access to actual damage numbers.

What confuses me, and what contradicts your formula, is that increasing energy weapons skill by one seemed to have a significantly larger effect than the research bonus in my third test case in the previous post. That is, if you take twice modified laser pistol with energy weapons skill 4, research should give larger bonus than increasing the energy weapons skill to 5, but my test showed the opposite. Could you look at what damage numbers these cases produce?

Just to rule out interaction with modify bonus, i found similar case with just energy weapons skill 1 and research vs energy weapons skill 2, although the difference wasn't as large, so i cannot rule out rounding errors or randomness. Since i cannot see damage numbers, i 'measured' all cases by how many shots on average it takes to kill normal hybrids (during alarm, on medsci).

[6742d9296debcsarge945]

This yields a random mix of 3 and 5 damage values. So there's something goofy going on with the rounding algorithm. But still, in my tests the 3s and 5s averaged out to 4.25, so that's close enough for me.

From my understanding (I proved this when I did armor testing in another thread to compare Tank 10% armor vs health for the RSD mod), a damage value of 4.35 should give you 4 damage, with a 35% chance to give you 5 damage instead. You shouldn't be getting 3 damage values at all.

Basically it's integer damage, with the decimal used as a chance to round up to the next value.

[6742d9296dfc3ZylonBane]

I know, the thought that Dark might have a bug is hard to believe.

[6742d9296e167JohnSmith]

I suspect the bug is either specific to the bonus damage from research, or the numbers turn out just so that only the research bonus produces visible difference. Although the second possibility would be very unusual, since i often compared research vs modify bonus, and there should be only 0.4% difference between them (assuming the info online is correct, that modify is calculated as 1.1 * 1.14 = 1.254 ). And increasing weapon damage (15%) behaves much more consistently as well.

That is why i am interested in a comparing the damage numbers directly. I suspect in all other cases we will see expected numbers.

[6742d9296e949RocketMan]

Just to confirm, is the fusion cannon supposed to have a clip size of 40 and use 2 ammo both for normal and death mode?  If so I would argue this is extremely beyond broken and not a sane design choice in any way.

The modifications increase clip size and reduce ammo consumption...  When it takes 20 shots to drain a clip already, that makes both modifications worthless except for the damage buff.  Also both modes use the same amount of ammo.  It's so bad, you can use the gun itself as a means of storing prisms, to save an inventory slot.

Reducing clip size to 20 and increasing consumption to 4/8 would make a lot more sense and incentivize modifying the weapon.

[6742d9296ea4cvoodoo47]

so.. you want to nerf the already almost useless fusion cannon?

[6742d9296eb3bRocketMan]

How is it useless?  That's just something that spread like contagion and now everyone says it like it's common knowledge.

[6742d9296ec58voodoo47]

SCP already gave it a boost (damage and projectile speed), and it's still not amazing. lot of cm investment, eats maintenance tools like popcorn, splash damage mostly harmful to the player, and does not really kill the higher tier enemies in one hit. the only good part is that prisms are fairly plentiful, and the ammo consumption is low once the gun is fully modified.

just a reminder - in vanilla, you need 6 shots to kill a spider or something ridiculous like that.

[6742d9296ee38RocketMan]

Ok so that's good that you fixed the damage output.  But now it is a good weapon.

The SFG is arguably one of the best weapons in the game so if you're investing in that you're half way to a fusion canon already.
Fusion canon fires infinite distance in a straight line, making it easy to lead slow big targets like bots
There are a lot of cubby hole type rooms full of eggs and spiders in SS2 which makes the death mode invaluable for clearing them safely.
I only invested in the minimum required maint skill (3 I think) and it restores 4 levels to the gun.  I usually throw away my extra maint tools because they are taking up room in my inventory.  The only weapon I have issues maintaining is the EMP rifle.  And with anti-entropic field, this is even less of an issue.

I would argue that the grenade launcher is a shittier weapon than the fusion canon but this is ok because it's a level 1 weapon.  To make it good you have to invest in heavy anyway so by the time the grenade launcher is any good (and the diverse ammo becomes a perk), you're pot committed to that branch of weaponry anyway. 

On hard, I can max out heavy and energy with mid exotic and 1 standard for a pistol and still have no stat issues whatsoever, 4th tier psi powers and enough tech skills to do literally anything in the game (given the special items) and still have CMs to spare.  So the resources are there and the FC is a good weapon.  It just seems to have been forgotten or poorly advertised or something.

[6742d9296f18cZylonBane]

I usually throw away my extra maint tools

[6742d9296f96bRoSoDude]

Yeah, the Fusion Cannon is in a weird spot in SCP, primarily due to the vanilla design. Instead of being a BFG Distintegrator of All Things, it's an ammo efficient but underwhelming workhorse weapon you unlock at Heavy 6. It consumes half as many prisms as the SFG (or one fourth as many on AREA mode), but that's all it really had going for it in vanilla. SCP/ADaOB improved its utility by adding 10/15 incendiary damage to NORM/DEATH on top of the existing 20/30 Energy damage so it's more even in killing power across enemy types, increasing the projectile speed from 60/24 to 80/40, and reducing the NORM splash radius from 10.00 to 5.00 so you don't kill yourself with it constantly. However, these changes don't fundamentally fix its peculiar role in the arsenal.

I made the following tweaks in SS2-RSD to bring it more in line with the death machine you'd first expect:

-Increased Fusion Cannon ammo usage from 2 to 4
-Increased Fusion Cannon reload time by 6x
-Increased Fusion Cannon energy damage on NORM/DEATH mode from 20/30 to 30/45
-Increased Fusion Cannon NORM mode radius from 5.00 to 7.00
-Increased Fusion Cannon Repair skill requirement from 4 to 6
-Fusion Cannon now experiences moderate recoil
-Mods list:
    <<<Level 1: Skill 4 Required>>>
    -Degradation -20%, Damage +10%
    -Capacity +50%, Damage +10%
    -Projectile Speed +50%, Damage +10%
    <<<Level 2: Skill 6 Required>>>
    -Damage +20%
    -Consumption -25%, Damage +10%
    -Unlock DEATH mode, Damage +10%

With base damage alone you'll need 5 shots to kill a Rumbler on NORM mode, or 3 on DEATH mode. With +15% Sharpshooter, +20% mods, and +25% research bonus that comes down to 3 shots on NORM mode or 2 shots on DEATH mode. Assault droids likewise die from 4 NORM hits or 3 NORM hits with damage bonuses. Spiders and Cyborg Assassins go down in 2 NORM hits unmodified, or 1 NORM hit with damage bonuses. All lower tier enemies die in 1 hit. I think it's important to retain some granularity in time to kill for tougher enemies, otherwise the cyber modules and O/S slots players allocate towards damage bonuses are pointless.

If I had to recommend anything for SCP (which isn't supposed to be a comprehensive balance/gameplay overhaul mod), it would be to increase the Energy damage by 50% and double the consumption. Stasis Field Generator consumption ought to be halved too.

I would argue that the grenade launcher is a shittier weapon than the fusion canon but this is ok because it's a level 1 weapon.  To make it good you have to invest in heavy anyway so by the time the grenade launcher is any good (and the diverse ammo becomes a perk), you're pot committed to that branch of weaponry anyway.

This is where you're wrong; the Grenade Launcher was quite good in vanilla already, especially because of an oversight that gave it +100/128% damage bonus from mods instead of +10/25% like every other weapon. ADaOB made it even more busted by buffing the base damage and removing all damage scaling... except accidentally leaving scaling on frag grenades so they become the best grenade type for every enemy after modification. This means there's little incentive to go past Heavy skill 1, but that first skill investment is insanely powerful. Voodoo has made it clear that SCPb5 will revert all of the ADaOB grenade changes, but they should be factored into your current analysis. I otherwise had a similar experience as you did when I did a Heavy build on SCP and spammed the Fusion Cannon all the way from Command through to the end without ever running out of prisms.

[6742d9296fcc9voodoo47]

literally the opposite of what the actual reality is

ok am I being pranked here?

[6742d9297028aRocketMan]

This is where you're wrong; the Grenade Launcher was quite good in vanilla already, especially because of an oversight that gave it +100/128% damage bonus from mods instead of +10/25% like every other weapon. ADaOB made it even more busted by buffing the base damage and removing all damage scaling... except accidentally leaving scaling on frag grenades so they become the best grenade type for every enemy after modification. This means there's little incentive to go past Heavy skill 1, but that first skill investment is insanely powerful. Voodoo has made it clear that SCPb5 will revert all of the ADaOB grenade changes, but they should be factored into your current analysis. I otherwise had a similar experience as you did when I did a Heavy build on SCP and spammed the Fusion Cannon all the way from Command through to the end without ever running out of prisms.

I never play the game vanilla so I was unaware of these glitches but I was referring to the fixed SCP version.  At level 1 each ammo type is not as good as a comparable dedicated weapon like AP bullets or EMP balls or worms or whatever.  I wasn't really trying to make a point about the grenade launcher either except to say that since it gets better with CM investment into the heavy branch, it somewhat offsets the penalty of having to max out that branch to get the fusion canon.  Again, taking the fixes into consideration, the FC is quite a good weapon, not for some obvious niche use but for miscellaneous uses that come up more often than you'd think.

[6742d9297037dRocketMan]

Voodoo:  ???