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[Hague]

For some reason my founder seems to suffer grievous wounds consistently. He's currently a Liberal Guardian with these stats: HRT: 17 INT: 10 HLT: 14 AGI: 12 STR: 12 CHA: 22

He's wearing a security uniform. However, one single shot from a security guard's .22 will make him badly wounded. A similar wound on a lower ranked lackey with a health of 9 deals a mere light wound. I've even seen them take shotgun shots to the leg and so on. I don't know if this is a bug or not, though. I'll try equipping him with army body armor and try again.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

You're -probably- just getting unlucky. There's a wide range of damage you can take given a bullet shot. A .22, while the least powerful gun in the game, is still more than enough to kill instantly if it gets a good damage roll and hits the head or torso. Health will help negate the bonus damage they get from having high skill in pistols, but it isn't enough to stop the bullet. Body armor should help, but only for the head and torso.

Note also that recently combat is much more dangerous for your high-juice Liberals than it used to be, because I've been slowly and steadily reducing the effects of physical attributes on combat, making it much more skill based. This is something I've actually been doing in many areas of the game.

Hmm... I think I may add a dodge skill. Or acrobatics, or tumbling, or some other similar skill?

[Hague]

Sounds like an ample place to use the tactics skill. Really, you can't dodge a bullet. But you can tactically use cover and such to avoid gunfire. If you do add a skill such as dodging, it really should only be useful against melee attacks.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Oh, that's perfect. You're absolutely right. I'll use tactics for it.

Honestly, that reasoning is why I removed agility from non-melee rolls in the first place.

[Hague]

Though, now that I think about it. Tactics in this manner should be relative (a bit) to agility. What good is knowing where to move when you can't get there fast enough. Reflexive movements are usually a combination of intelligence (fast thinking) and agility (fast moving)

[Earthquake Damage]

Sooo, maybe a penalty for low Agility (below 5, as with Health and combat damage), but no significant bonus for high Agility since it's mostly skill and intuition?

While I'm here, if you haven't already, you should probably add some modifier to attack rolls based on combat experience.  Sure, you can hit a wart on a mule's ass at 500 yards in the shooting range when you're calm and stress-free, but doing the same in the heat of battle's a different thing altogether.

[Rezan]

You're -probably- just getting unlucky.

Then so am I. Every time I have engaged in combat, I have been shot dead, dying or severely wounded by a single bullet; and this usually happens if I get shot in the arm or leg as well. My opponents however seem to be able to withstand at least three of MY bullets before they're rendered useless in combat.

[Cosmonot]

Though, now that I think about it. Tactics in this manner should be relative (a bit) to agility. What good is knowing where to move when you can't get there fast enough. Reflexive movements are usually a combination of intelligence (fast thinking) and agility (fast moving)

I wouldn't penalize people for having low agility; it's already important enough, seeing as how it's tied into all the weapon skills. I would just give a straight up bonus to everyone in the squad based on the highest tactics skill available.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

You're -probably- just getting unlucky.

Then so am I. Every time I have engaged in combat, I have been shot dead, dying or severely wounded by a single bullet; and this usually happens if I get shot in the arm or leg as well. My opponents however seem to be able to withstand at least three of MY bullets before they're rendered useless in combat.

You might be getting unlucky, or you might be poorly prepared to fight the enemies you're losing against. Combat attack rolls (and damage) use the same code regardless of which side you're on (just "insert attacker here, insert defender here, and go"), and I've tested combat pretty extensively, so I'm all but certain there's no bug there.

Getting shot up in itself doesn't take much unluckiness, especially if you aren't trained for it. This is even more true if your enemies are police. In that case:

a) They're probably better shots than you.
b) Their guns are pretty decent.
c) They have moderate to good physical stats.
d) They're wearing body armor.
e) They start with several levels of Conservative Juice.

LCS enemies in general are not like most RPG enemy fodder; they're fully powered characters equal to and often greater than yours, and if their job involves carrying a gun, they are pretty much guaranteed to have at least several levels of skill with it. Even an all B founder with an AK-47 is more likely than not going to lose a shootout with police if outnumbered even 2-to-1.

If you are going to fight anything more powerful than rent-a-cops, I would recommend a full party, body armor if at all possible, upscale weaponry, and getting some practice against easy targets. You might consider recruiting Army Veterans as well, as they'll come with all the abilities of a soldier, minus the equipment and alignment restrictions. Another consideration is to have someone with high first aid skill -- it doesn't restore health, it stops bleeding, but that 1% health loss per round from bleeding is what actually kills most liberals, and it's also the only way you can die from wounds to the arms or legs.

Over the last several releases, combat HAS become more dangerous for your people, mainly due to the effort to minimize the direct effects of physical attributes in combat, which previously weighted things more in your favor, as LCS members with juice tend to have higher physical attributes than most enemies. I did play a full game a week or two ago, so believe me, I'm plenty well aware of this. I have no opposition to ideas to make combat less lethal for your side. It's not unplayable or anything, but the combat difficulty may be pushing the too high side of the spectrum.

[Rafal99]

I think that both Tactics and Agility should affect the chance that the enemy won't be able to hit you. Something like Tactics*2 + Agility. Surely you can't dodge a bullet, but if you are running faster and can jump some obstacles, then you are harder to hit and can find better place to take cover. If you find some nice corner to hide and shoot, it also matters how fast you can get there.

I like the fact that combat is hard. That way you are forced to avoid alarming Conservatives as long as you can. And when you really need to fight, then...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

remember that you have an unlimited source of bullet fodder gang members you can recruit. Also getting better weapons is not much a problem if you have a professional thief to bring money. I have just cleared Intelligence HQ out of every piece of equipment, without causing an alarm. 16 computers and some other stuff = 4000+$ from one raid. I am playing 3.16.2 version, but it should work in 3.17.0 too, since nothing changed in that topic. Destroying doors create more suspicion now, but I never do it. With security 7+ you can unlock any door.

      

 

[Jonathan S. Fox]

One thing I could do is only use part of your agility -- say Agility/4, for example. This would prevent agility from being a huge deal, but would still give you a bit of a bonus for high levels.

[Cosmonot]

I think there really is a problem with combat due to the recent changes to health and armor.

The root problem is that weapon damage was originally written on the assumption that without armor or high health, you'd usually take a strong enough hit to get incapacitated. Since 4/7 of the time you get hit in a limb, where you don't have useful armor, hardly anyone gets a non-incapacitating wound now; if you get shot in a limb or unprotected vital location, you almost always start bleeding out or just plain die. Even the piddly .22 revolver has a damage range with a midpoint at 75, and if a guy takes more than 49 damage he's mostly useless in combat.

Another thing to note is that armor is actually quite powerful (police vests will usually let 5 health liberals survive a three hit burst from an m16), but since most armor doesn't provide good coverage to your limbs you end up having to rely on the health mod, which usually won't do much.

The current system may be more realistic, but it's also not a lot of fun, as it makes getting into fights impractical except as hit-and-run affairs where you kill one or two conservatives near the entrance to a site before they can react and then run away. If you get into situations where the conservatives can get shots off at you, people will start getting incapacitated very quickly due to limb wounds even if they all have fifteen health and army body armor. If you don't have armor, the result is largely the same except people are going to die when they get shot in the chest rather than shrug it off. It also heavily devalues the health stat.

[BishopX]

Also, the damage done by chains seems a little much. One hit to the arm put my founder into badly-wounded.

[Cosmonot]

The damage done by the chain was probably some combination of a bad defense roll, good attack roll, and strength bonus. Chains do poor damage, otherwise.

[Think0028]

I have to agree with Cosmonot. Granted, with the old system, I used to be able to take on multiple (2 or 3) police officers at once with only my leader wielding a knife which definitely shouldn't be possible, but now I have a tough time even killing lone Security Guards with the 9mm.