I've stolen the combat calculation method of Civilization and turned it into a skill system. I'd like to hear what you think. As it goes with these things, it's kind of long, but I've formatted it for easy reading.
The Basics
Skills are a linear range with a start and end number dependant on what is using the skill (human, alien or machine). Human skills top out at 1000. Machine skills top out at about 10x. As with most skill systems, skills are based on stats, so if a character doesn't have a skill, the stat is used instead.
In any contest, two numbers representing either opposing skills or one skill versus a challenge rating are added. The percentage of the total each occupies results in percentage chance for success or failure. Example: Ensign Jones is trying to navigate a wormhole. His Navigation skill is 100. The wormhole's difficulty is 100. The total is 200.
100 / (100 + 100) = 50%.
Jones has a 50% chance of success. Now if he navigates another wormhole, with a 300 challenge rating, the calculation is
100 / (100 + 300) = 25%
Basically, skills are either opposed or a challenge rating is randomly generated in the game world. (Challenge ratings and enemy difficulties go UP the farther out you explore, btw.)
Skill Slots and Skill Decay
The player and NPCs may only have a number of skills equal to their Intellect / 5. Since the range for humans is 10 - 100, this means between 2 to 20 skills. Other races have different limits, except the playable Rogue AI class, which has no limit.
Players can choose to "deactivate skills" and learn new ones in their place. The deactivated skills decay by 1 point per day. Example: Swapping out Navigation 500 would result it being lost in 500 days (almost 2 game years). For balance, it's more difficult / expensive to raise skills the higher they are, so players who swap out skills constantly will be paying a hefty price. This enforces the limits of the Intellect skill and encourages players to enlarge their pool of hirelings.
Skill Tests & Complexity
Skill tests have multiple trials. So Jones has to make not just 1 successful Navigation check to transit a wormhole, he may have to make a dozen or more, depending on the complexity of the challenge (which is always displayed, by a scan in this case).
To be successful, a character must win a number of tests based on their level of experience (see below). So in a Navigation 100 vs. wormhole 100 test, Jones may have to win the majority of 10 trials.
Experience Level
The number of trials needed to win is based on experience level: Green, Regular, Veteran and Elite.
- Green must win 75% of all trials.
- Regulars must win 50% of all trials.
- Veterans must win 33% of all trials.
- Elites only have to win at least 1 trial.
Skill Test Chart
The skill test is compared to a chart of percentages and results for each percentage. The challenger, attacker or one who attempts a skill test occupies the upper part of the chart, the defender the lower part.
Example: In a Nav 100 vs. wormhole 100 test, Jones occupies 100% - 51% of the skill test chart. The challenge occupies 1 - 50%.
Example 2: In a Nav 100 vs. wormhole 300 test, Jones occupies 100 - 76%. The challenge occupies 1 - 75%.
Degrees of Success or Failure
For each test, a second number is generated to determine the
degree of success or failure. The lowest number out of all tests is used. Here is the breakdown:
- 1 - 5% Critical Success (3x damage done/resource gain)
- 6 - 20% Great Success (1.5x damage done/resource gain)
- 21 - 80% Standard Success(Full damage done/resource gain)
- 81 - 95% Mild Success (1/2 damage done/resource gain)
- 96 - 100% Neglible Success (1/4 damage done/resource gain)
(Replace "success" with "failure" and "resource gain" with "resource loss" to get the failure chart)
Example: Let's say Jones wins 2 out of 3 trials on Nav 100 vs. wormhole 100. The first degree is 99%, which is a neglible success. The second degreee is 5%, which is a critical success. The best result is used, and Jones gets a critical success based on the Wormhole Navigation Success Chart. (Had it been a failure, the worst result would have been used-- it's only fair!
)
Each test has it's own customized chart. In this case, Jones, who is an Elite, pases throught the wormhole with no damage, no fuel loss and in record time, which is a Critical Success as wormholes go.
Skill Improvement
Skills can be improved by use; assigning characters to training facilities or having your character use them; by paying to use facilities at colonies and space stations; or by tutoring.
Use: Every critical success raises a skill by 1 point. Winning all skill tests in a contest which is equal to or above a character's skill gains points equal to the number of tests. The tradeoff here is luck (real and in-game as a character stat) and time.
Training facilities: Various pods, equipment and facilities raise skills based on their quality. The tradeoff here is expense of investing in facilities, occupied crew, the amount of energy and space they consume aboard your ship / station, and wear and tear with use (requiring time spent in maintence and possibly even supplies if you let maintence drop too low).
Paying: Neural RNA therapy and cortical interfaces can raise skills instantly. This is expensive, however. Every 20 points raised costs an additional 15 credits over the base price of 100. So going from 0 to 1 costs 100, 1 to 2 another 100. At 21, the price goes up to 115. Examples: Going from 1 to 100 costs 13k. 250 to 500 costs 93,400. Going from 900 to 901 costs 1535. Expensive, but not bad when you consider its a college education in minutes.
Tutoring : Characters can train other characters up to their skill level. The number of points per hour is based on the Intellect/25 of the character being taught. The tutor must make a successful Instruct skill test versus the level of the skill to be taught. This means that it's easier to teach someone a skill if they know a little bit than if they know nothing at all. Tradeoff here is time and idled crew.
Skill Specialization
Every skill has a subskill. For every 50 points invested in a skill, players may choose for their own character or crew a specialization in a subskill. The options are:
Specialize In Subskill : Add +5 each time taken to skill tests involving this specific category.
Example: Navigation Specializations
- Piloting (small ships)
- Helm (big ships)
- Launch / Land (fuel use and possible damage)
- Gravigation (wormholes and planetary flybys)
- Stellar Cartography (misjumps, getting lost)
- Manuever (docking, evasion and combat)
- Efficiency (engine wear & tear and fuel use)
Failsafe: Retry any failed roll for this skill test
Precautionary Measures: Seasoned characters can soften failure. The entire success / fail table for this skill is improved by 1%. If taken 5 times, players can eliminate catastrophic / critical failure in the skill category by adjusting the entire table downwards.
Example: Taking Navigation (Failsafe) five times yeilds no critical failures!
quote:
- ------ ==== NO CRITICAL FAILURES POSSIBLE ===
- 1 - 15% Great Failure (1.5x damage taken or resource loss)
- 16 - 75% Standard Failure (Full damage taken/resource loss)
- 76 - 90% Mild Failure (1/2 damage taken/resource loss)
- 91 - 100% Neglible Failure (1/4 damage taken/resource loss)
Skill Combination
The skills are linear partly to allow NPCs and the player to combine skills. Skills can be combined either for a single task, such as creating a special project, or to operate a piece of equipment.
Skills are combined with the designated lead character getting 100% of his/her skill rating, and all other characters adding 50% of their rating. For projects and tasks, the maximum number is related to the Leadership skill level of the leader you designate (else NPCs nominate the highest ranking character, whether most skilled or not). For workstations and panels, the maximum skill is the number of characters that can stand directly next to it or network with it if you have Networking Subprocessors installed in your ship / base's main Computer Core. For equipment, it is a fixed number depending on what the equipment is.
Example: Let's say you assign Ensign Jones to work with Ensign Rho on a tough upcoming jump. Their skills are 100 and 100 respectively. By combining skills, they total 150. Now the contest is 150 vs. 100, which improves your odds a bit.
The exception to this rule is a game mechanic called Synergy. Two characters with similar personalities, likings and traits can produce Synergy whenever they work together. This allows them to blend their skills together at full strength. If Jones and Rho were in Synergy, their rating would be 200; others could still add their talent, but would only do so at 1/2.
Skill combination takes time on the order of 1 game hour per every 50 points to be combined for projects and 1 second per 50 points for real-time challenges. For projects, the tradeoff is that the characters must be willing to work together, and be together in a meeting area. Appropriate meeting facilities (chairs, table) builds up the "work" faster. You also might want to have replacement crew to take up the slack while the huddled characters brainstorm.
Equipment Requirements and Skill Caps
You're only as good as what you have to work with. Carmack would have trouble programming Quake using an ENIAC, but could probably work miracles with a Cray X1.
Most objects have skill requirements to successfully use. This is done to encourage skill improvement, as better items have higher requirements, and to provide challenges requiring multiple teams (such as a mysterious alien artifact).
Workstations for such functions as Helm, Security, or Engineering also have skill caps representing the quality of the workstation. This is done to help encourage interior ship / base upgrades and create a tradeoff in investing in a system with a cheap price but more frequent replacement needs versus one with all the bells and whistles that crew can grow into.
For simplicity, the station limit is simply a skill number. So a Nav workstation of requirement 15 / limit 250 will only be good so long as a character is between 15 and 250-- then they will outgrow it. (They could still use it, but it would only confer 250 points to all Navigation checks).
Versions
Some skills have versions which effectively duplicate the entire skill. The best example is the skill Language, which has an Anglex or Galactic version, both of which occupy a skill slot each. Other versions apply to the equipment of the different races, so that some skills have a Species version as well. So Jones may be an ace Navigator of Terran ships, but is not automatically qualified to pilot Kovaunn or Zelenae ships.
Some skills span multiple versions for the sake of other skills. Language, for example, allows characters to use alien workstations and some equipment up to 1/2 their normal skill level, the higher Language is. If Jones had Language skills in Kovaunn or Zelenae, he could at least understand the readouts and dials!
The Culture skill and its subspecializations (technical, transport, military) allow a character to apply skills at full level. So if Jones has a high Culture knowledge of both Kovaunn and Zelenae, he'd get Navigation up to his Culture skill in either area. (Culture cannot be raised higher than Language, btw, so there's no worries about Jones being illiterate but skilled in flying).
Whew! Okay, that's it for now. Comments as always greatly appreciated.
[edited by - wavinator on April 5, 2004 4:25:48 AM]
