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[TFoN]

Code: [Select]

Skill           Base cost
------------------------------------------
Sidearms-       800
Light Weapons-  1200
Heavy Weapons-  1000
Technical-      400
Medical-        600
Fitness-        600
Perception-     400


Class           Overall Bonus
------------------------------------------
Marine-         100 (only bonuses=300)
HW Specialist-  260
Scout-          260
Technician-     300
Medic-          380

I've had this around for quite a while and kept forgetting to post it.

My conclusions and opinions:

• Marines'll be better balanced by just having their bonuses. Pure weapon chars aren't that efficient as it is, and any better rounded class'll have plenty of XP points saved through their bonuses to pursue weapon skills with at least the same ease as marines.
• Technicians are only slightly better than marines, as while their bonus is much higher, high technical skill isn't very useful right now, compared with other skills.
• Medics are the best class available, considering just how useful high medical skill is and how many XP points are saved by accessing that high skill level through a medic. By starting a medic with one level in sidearms you might have a *slightly* rough start (fighting for advanced sidearm skill), but everything clears up once you can recover from almost any degree of injury using one medpack. With that, you're free to pursue other skills - with a saving of thousands of XP points (300+600+900 for a medic of expert medical skill. Consider that advanced sidearms skill costs him 800+1600, which means he buys them for 600 points beyond the bonus).
• Scouts are next best, considering that sidearms are currently the most useful weapons and that his general bonus is otherwise very good. Still, if you intend on putting many levels into medical, you're saving more points by picking a medic.

[Firstblood]

I still consider Scouts by far the best, and both my wins and easy starts have been Scouts. The total saving I think is only around 700 xp points for a Medic compared to Scout (Master skills aren't implemented in my version), and by that time you have probably over 20,000 xp points anyway, so its little difference, its just that Scouts have a nicer start in the current game incarnation.

If I didn't pick Scout, I would probably pick Medic or Marine. Weapons skills are really useful, and even if you take Marine, you're still only 2,000 xp points down to a Medic if you max all skills, and again, you need over 25,000 xp points to do that anyway. Technician is outclassed by Medic right now (since tech skills aren't implemented), and a HW Specialist is outclassed in practically any situation.

Basicly, all the classes are pretty much the same at the end of the day, but they have different starts.
(50% is a big bonus for med and techs, but I prefer 20% in a sidearm capacity)

[zaimoni]

You don't have to max all skills to win the the game, and furthermore it's probably a design flaw if this is possible.  It's definitely an ironman style of play.  I think it's more interesting to look at skill costs for the "key track".

Code: [Select]

-- Skills ------------------------------------------------------------
  Sidearms      : advanced
  Light weapons : basic
  Heavy weapons : advanced
  Technical     : advanced
  Medical       : basic
  Fitness       : basic
  Perception    : basic

This is from my first winner in AliensRL++, posted about elsewhere.  Technical was raised for the reload speed bonus, which is slated to go away when real uses are implemented.

As you see, Medical skill is not overwhelmingly useful; it is quite possible to keep medpacks from falling below 5 even at Medical unskilled.  (What is needed: a pulse rifle when entering a level with elites, as a backup for krak grenades.)  My starting skill choices with this Marine were S/F/P (to get reasonable grenade throwing and the ability to reliably kill a hunter at range 8 with an M3P4).  I deferred Heavy weapons until Military 4 on the assumption that I don't need to spend XP on a skill that I won't use shortly.  In retrospect, I should have gotten Medical Basic before Technical Basic, but it definitely could wait until after all of Sidearms advanced, Light weapons Basic, Heavy Weapons Basic.

[Firstblood]

Yeah I agree, you don't need maxed skills at all. I've been thinking of doing an absolute minimum xp win, and just get the "needed" skills, but never got around to it.

[TFoN]

Well, I've only actually reached the queen once. I killed her, but died on the way down, with 0 medkits. This was with a scout. Since then, I haven't managed to play it enoguh time straight to create a worthy mortem.

Still, from what I've done, it seems to me that exploration bonuses are given once per story. This is mostly untested, but I don't believe I've ever recieved more than one such bonus per story, and am certain I haven't recieved more than one bonus pery story per tower (e.g. I've never gained a bonus twice on storage tower level 1). This, crossed with the fact that XP per kill is very low and non-worthwhile in comparison (considering the limited amount of ammo throughout the game, much of which is needed to survive the way back down), means that you aren't likely to reach the XP cap anyway, if you're playing effectively.
Now, since I find max. medical skill to outweigh max. sidearms skill throughout the mid-game, I'll take expert medic and advanced sidearms for that while. Here, the difference between a medic and scout is effectively 1,320 points (1800 (medic bonus) - 480 (scout bonus)), which, for illustration, is worth 132 hunter kills and buys more than basic light weapons. The reason I'm happy with being expert medic/advanced sidearms is mainly my frequent use of the combat shotgun, which hardly requires training (though even with trianing, neither medic nor scout benefits cost-wise over the other), and during its use I benefit more from medical skill than I do from sidearms skill. Meanwhile, I'll try keeping a Colt around for the elites, who go down practically like warriors from a standard pistol, backing kraks effectively. For the most part, once I have advanced sidearms, expert medical and a few other skills (I work towards basic light weapons and advanced fitness and perception, out of which scouts have a slight advantage with fitness (240 points at advanced)), I'll start working towards expert sidearms, which I certainly agree is worth having. By this time, the medical skill bonus is fully factored in. I can also choose to advance in light/heavy weapons skill instead of sidearms, gaining an even bigger advantage over a similarly built scout, cost-wise.
In order to gain advanced sidearms skill, often before I engage in any serious combat, I'll scout the bottom story semi-throughly, gaining my first exploration bonus. This is either enough or almost enough (I don't remember) to gain advanced sidearms skill with a medic, and of course gives me some useful knowledge of my surroundings.

One of the reasons I like expert medical skill so much is that even with a healthy elite at point blank range, I'll almost never have to use more than one medkit to reach a point where I can either fire freely for a few turns before healing again, or just hit him with a krak, more than surviving the blast. Otherwise, an elite causes enough damage to rival the amount of healing gained, leading to serious waste. This also means that, when urgent, I can "safely" heard 2-3 elites around me, getting several with one krak and using only 1-2 medkits. Most other targets I kill several at a time with my non-sidearm combat shotgun.


Regarding the marine class, unless I'd want to advance in 2-3 different weapon skills without taking levels in any non-weapon skill, I can't really figure why I'd want to pick it. I agree that HW Specialists are outdone by most classes in most ways, but consider that they're at a bonus on every non-weapon skill, and twice as much with fitness, compared with the marine, and that they're better with heavy weapons, making them significantly superior, unless you abandon both non- and heavy weapon skills almost entirely.

[zaimoni]

Strange, on a Military Tower ascent (no .44 colt, it won't spawn...) ammo is not critically limited -- once at 36 shotgun shells and near a CS, switch to CS for Military 1 and 2 and ammunition problems are over as long as one systematically explores each level, doesn't backtrack, and otherwise uses good procedure.  The real difficulty is finding a pulse rifle in time (preferably on Military 2, although one should swap right before the elevator in that case).

[TFoN]

I usually do storage, with its massive amounts of shells and good amounts of .44. It also continues having shells up to the higher levels, which if remember correctly military doesn't, and with a colt I'm anyway prepared for elites so I'm in less need of a PR. Well, I'll be playing AliensRL more in the near future, so I'll be sure to check this out.