Game Difficulty variations & influences 4.30 (254587)
Posted: Thu, 7. Jun 18, 22:41
Hiya,
I am playing a vanilla main campaign game on 'very hard' difficulty and it's interesting to say the least.
I didn't see wiki or forum mentions of some things that seem to also be part of the difficulty setting influence(s) that I'm observing..
boarding
I scrounged early on and found a 5 star boarding exp marine officer, so that is related to all below. Also the target ship was a Styrvok (Container & Energy).
boarding npc (non-plot) ships is much harder. The plot taranis, did with 8 raw recruits w/o losses. lol, NOT an indication of what is to come!
attempt A
-----------
- 48 recruit and 2 vets
- successful hacking phase
- target hull down to ~5%
- all surface elements destroyed (less drone bay)
- 26 cargo lifter drones on board (lost the 10-15 welders since I reloaded)
- boarding resistance ~30
== boarding failed.
attempt B
-----------
- 48 recruit and 2 vets
- successful hacking phase
- target hull down to 1%
- all surface elements destroyed (less drone bay)
- 26 cargo lifter drones on board (lost the 10-15 welders since I reloaded)
- boarding resistance ~30
== 49 losses, 1 vet remain, success
ship repair
- 5-star engineering of course on the ship now
- zero welder drones available
- ship taken down as described in boarding
The usual things seemed pretty much like 'normal' -- hull restored fairly fast along with weapons..
However the engines are (as usual) still somewhat quirky in what is shown. Namely the max velocity stat variations from before even boarding/owning until the ship is sitting just getting fixed in or out of zone,sector, etc seems to not really matter that I can see.
In this case I did destroy a couple energy and container storage bins fwiw.
Anyhow, I'm ~8 hours past the taking the ship and engines are still ~50% and max velocity is unusable. Boost will give around 700m/s at this state.
When I peek in on the engineer, he has always shown to be working on one of the storage bins that were destroyed.
AFAIK, they do jump around some and not necc fix each item from start to finish before doing some repair elsewhere -- so figured maybe he was fixing the engine some and going back the the storage bins.
This seems to be the case since I have seen very slight engine damage % move slightly upon return of a jaunt in AL.
The above observations I assume are derived from the difficulty setting, despite not having seen mention of those being affected by difficulty.
I thought maybe I'd add to the wiki, but there is still the outside chance that for some reason the destruction of the storage bins taking a LONG TIME to fix is also true in normal, if that is what is taking so long..
Boarding in normal is a cake walk mostly, so the amount of destruction in the above case is typically never needed. Biggest impediment to boarding success in normal IMO is the lone hero NPC who wanders in and potentially ruins the whole situation.
enemy squads
These kind of concerned me at the start.. However they are 'nice' to a certain extent and don't always prioritize the skunk as primary target just to be mean.
In the plot game, once acquiring the taranis these mobs are approachable and due to the increase in fighter count, are a nice source of missiles and weapon mods.
As a matter of fact, I have no functional URV wharf yet on the plot station, majority assets held up in the DV shipyard for lack of RMP (not giving my stash from the plot CV to them), and about 2M cr with 90% in escrow on a trade for the time being, leaving me with about 20k. hehe
BUT! I was snagging the nearly worthless trade updates from the DV habitations and the mobs of REI fighters yield the 2 remaining parts I needed for the rare engine. lol.
Anyhow, mainly I'm frustrated with the very long wait on getting my captured styrvok working and figured unless there's something unique (destroyed storage bins for example) in my case, that the players may benefit with some additions to the wiki XR 'difficulty' section.
I am playing a vanilla main campaign game on 'very hard' difficulty and it's interesting to say the least.
I didn't see wiki or forum mentions of some things that seem to also be part of the difficulty setting influence(s) that I'm observing..
boarding
I scrounged early on and found a 5 star boarding exp marine officer, so that is related to all below. Also the target ship was a Styrvok (Container & Energy).
boarding npc (non-plot) ships is much harder. The plot taranis, did with 8 raw recruits w/o losses. lol, NOT an indication of what is to come!
attempt A
-----------
- 48 recruit and 2 vets
- successful hacking phase
- target hull down to ~5%
- all surface elements destroyed (less drone bay)
- 26 cargo lifter drones on board (lost the 10-15 welders since I reloaded)
- boarding resistance ~30
== boarding failed.
attempt B
-----------
- 48 recruit and 2 vets
- successful hacking phase
- target hull down to 1%
- all surface elements destroyed (less drone bay)
- 26 cargo lifter drones on board (lost the 10-15 welders since I reloaded)
- boarding resistance ~30
== 49 losses, 1 vet remain, success
ship repair
- 5-star engineering of course on the ship now
- zero welder drones available
- ship taken down as described in boarding
The usual things seemed pretty much like 'normal' -- hull restored fairly fast along with weapons..
However the engines are (as usual) still somewhat quirky in what is shown. Namely the max velocity stat variations from before even boarding/owning until the ship is sitting just getting fixed in or out of zone,sector, etc seems to not really matter that I can see.
In this case I did destroy a couple energy and container storage bins fwiw.
Anyhow, I'm ~8 hours past the taking the ship and engines are still ~50% and max velocity is unusable. Boost will give around 700m/s at this state.
When I peek in on the engineer, he has always shown to be working on one of the storage bins that were destroyed.
AFAIK, they do jump around some and not necc fix each item from start to finish before doing some repair elsewhere -- so figured maybe he was fixing the engine some and going back the the storage bins.
This seems to be the case since I have seen very slight engine damage % move slightly upon return of a jaunt in AL.
The above observations I assume are derived from the difficulty setting, despite not having seen mention of those being affected by difficulty.
I thought maybe I'd add to the wiki, but there is still the outside chance that for some reason the destruction of the storage bins taking a LONG TIME to fix is also true in normal, if that is what is taking so long..
Boarding in normal is a cake walk mostly, so the amount of destruction in the above case is typically never needed. Biggest impediment to boarding success in normal IMO is the lone hero NPC who wanders in and potentially ruins the whole situation.
enemy squads
These kind of concerned me at the start.. However they are 'nice' to a certain extent and don't always prioritize the skunk as primary target just to be mean.
In the plot game, once acquiring the taranis these mobs are approachable and due to the increase in fighter count, are a nice source of missiles and weapon mods.
As a matter of fact, I have no functional URV wharf yet on the plot station, majority assets held up in the DV shipyard for lack of RMP (not giving my stash from the plot CV to them), and about 2M cr with 90% in escrow on a trade for the time being, leaving me with about 20k. hehe
BUT! I was snagging the nearly worthless trade updates from the DV habitations and the mobs of REI fighters yield the 2 remaining parts I needed for the rare engine. lol.
Anyhow, mainly I'm frustrated with the very long wait on getting my captured styrvok working and figured unless there's something unique (destroyed storage bins for example) in my case, that the players may benefit with some additions to the wiki XR 'difficulty' section.