I was thinking about a sci fi RPG, and i thought about pilots, who fight from inside combta vehicles, but then came to think, what stats of the pilot modify the vehicle power? How could he/she increase the damage output or the "health" of the machine?
A "ploting" stat wouldn't seem to work, as it should be a stat all classes have.
Thanks in advance.
Stats for pilots in RPG?
Speed and accuracy? Piloting a vehicle sounds somewhere between rogue and archer to me. A weapon mastery stat which multiplies damage might be relevant too.
It depends on how the game works.
I played a really fun space game called Space Rangers and it's sequels. In that you had stats like Trade and Charisma. Trade made you better at trading so you could buy stuff cheaper and sell stuff at a higher cost, just like a "bartering" type skill that you get in some RPG's. And the Charisma skill meant that you made more money as the reward from missions/quests. There was also an Attack and Defense stat which basically just made your pilot better at those things and improved your damage and ability to take damage. They could be reworded to be Accuracy and Nimble-mindedness or something, but I think most players don't think about this kind of thing. You see Attack / Defense / Trade / etc and you know what they do and don't question it.
For health you could just call your stat "Engineering" (or Tech) or something like that. Make out that pilot does tweaks on his ship and that increases the health.
I played a really fun space game called Space Rangers and it's sequels. In that you had stats like Trade and Charisma. Trade made you better at trading so you could buy stuff cheaper and sell stuff at a higher cost, just like a "bartering" type skill that you get in some RPG's. And the Charisma skill meant that you made more money as the reward from missions/quests. There was also an Attack and Defense stat which basically just made your pilot better at those things and improved your damage and ability to take damage. They could be reworded to be Accuracy and Nimble-mindedness or something, but I think most players don't think about this kind of thing. You see Attack / Defense / Trade / etc and you know what they do and don't question it.
For health you could just call your stat "Engineering" (or Tech) or something like that. Make out that pilot does tweaks on his ship and that increases the health.
For me, it depends on the aspect of the ship being modified as well as the elements of gameplay the player can experience.
In general, I would have characters modify things that the ship can do, rather than what the ship is. So a skilled pilot can maneuver a ship better, aiding in dodging or turning, or can move from point to point faster or with less fuel consumed or a lower chance of detection or something. For something like weapons skills, better targeting or target tracking might apply, as well as higher rate of fire or more sophisticated types of ammunition or variants of weapons. An engineer could keep different ship functions operating at higher levels of damage or with a lesser penalty. You can distribute these tasks across several characters as well, if the ship is large enough.
In all of these cases, I would have base stats for the ship and its equipment, and have the characters modify those stats with bonuses or penalties. It depends on the design of your game, but do you need to have all characters with all of these skills? If the only things a player can do involve piloting a ship, then piloting is probably a stat that all characters would need to have, though not all at the same level. But even then it could be interesting to have other characters with different abilities that the player can recruit to fill out a crew or perform specialized functions.
In general, I would have characters modify things that the ship can do, rather than what the ship is. So a skilled pilot can maneuver a ship better, aiding in dodging or turning, or can move from point to point faster or with less fuel consumed or a lower chance of detection or something. For something like weapons skills, better targeting or target tracking might apply, as well as higher rate of fire or more sophisticated types of ammunition or variants of weapons. An engineer could keep different ship functions operating at higher levels of damage or with a lesser penalty. You can distribute these tasks across several characters as well, if the ship is large enough.
In all of these cases, I would have base stats for the ship and its equipment, and have the characters modify those stats with bonuses or penalties. It depends on the design of your game, but do you need to have all characters with all of these skills? If the only things a player can do involve piloting a ship, then piloting is probably a stat that all characters would need to have, though not all at the same level. But even then it could be interesting to have other characters with different abilities that the player can recruit to fill out a crew or perform specialized functions.
I think you misinterpreted me, and i didn't expalin enough. The pilots i'm talking about are tank/mech pilots, and they would be in the same situations as infantry.
Anyway i decide to scrap this class because it may be too hard to balance, its either overpowering infantry because of having a tank, or "what is the point of the tank if a soldier has the same power?"
An idea i just got is making vehicles to be crewed by more than one person, so you have someone driving it and one or two guys firing the cannons. This way it can be "n" times more powerful than a single soldier at feet.
And the stats depend on the people inside, troopers fire better, engineers make it last longer, etc.
Anyway i decide to scrap this class because it may be too hard to balance, its either overpowering infantry because of having a tank, or "what is the point of the tank if a soldier has the same power?"
An idea i just got is making vehicles to be crewed by more than one person, so you have someone driving it and one or two guys firing the cannons. This way it can be "n" times more powerful than a single soldier at feet.
And the stats depend on the people inside, troopers fire better, engineers make it last longer, etc.
What sort of battle system do you plan on having?
Turn based tactics? real time tactics? third person shooting?
Turn based tactics? real time tactics? third person shooting?
Realistically, I think the vehicle's ability to take damage or the power of the weapon systems should change, depending on who is piloting it. If anything, only the control and maybe accuracy should change.
For example, a new player might control a mech with somewhat sluggish controls. An advanced player with more experience piloting a mech could get into the same vehicle and be able to move and aim relatively faster.
If you have some uber player in a mech fighting against an entire team of infantry, it's going to be a somewhat one-sided fight. If you know what it takes to destroy that mech and can force the pilot out, the gameplay would be a bit more balanced.
For example, a new player might control a mech with somewhat sluggish controls. An advanced player with more experience piloting a mech could get into the same vehicle and be able to move and aim relatively faster.
If you have some uber player in a mech fighting against an entire team of infantry, it's going to be a somewhat one-sided fight. If you know what it takes to destroy that mech and can force the pilot out, the gameplay would be a bit more balanced.
Are you talking about a multiplayer situation, where you're one of several team members fighting against a roughly equal enemy force? The Battlefield games did a pretty good job with this, since sometimes you get in a tank and you're a juggernaut of killstreaking fury, and other times you get in and barely put the thing in gear before someone crams an AT rocket up your tailpipe.
The pilot's ability would allow them to more completely realize the machine's potential. I'd be inclined to look at it more as reducing penalties than adding abilities, although the two would amount to the same thing. So when you get in a tank, you obviously get to enjoy a thick metal armor and guns too large for any infantryman to wield them, but the penalties would be things like reduced agility, limited field of vision, slow rate of fire, inability to use cover and being a huge, sluggish, high-value target on the battlefield.
So maybe a pilot's skills would improve mobility in different types of terrain, so a newbie pilot would slow way down and lose maneuverability unless they were on a paved road, while an expert pilot would be able to romp through marshy fields with grace and alacrity. Guns would cycle more quickly as you and perhaps your crew gain skill at timing the actions. Training and experience could allow accurate shooting while moving, manifesting in the game's interface as reduced view-swim or a higher accuracy rate in different circumstances.
For a walking mech-type vehicle, penalties to be reduced might include reduced accuracy and mobility while shooting in a direction other than the way you're walking, since you'd be dealing with the dual threat of irregular cockpit bouncing and not being able to see where the heck you're going. Faster target locks for missiles, improved footing on uneven terrain, quicker recovery from kinetic weapon impacts, that sort of thing.
You could offer passive bonuses to defense, simulating a skilled pilot's ability to anticipate threats and orient the vehicle minutely (more precisely than the game controls might allow) in order to bear the brunt of attacks on the thickest part of the armor.
As for balancing against infantry, have a soldier with a bazooka be able to counter many of the mech/tank pilot's skills, so the pilot's ability to use his armor effectively is tested against the soldier's ability with the bazooka targeting system to bypass armor or strike at vulnerable joints and exposed control modules. Improved targeting speed could be countered by target-jamming countermeasures that perform more or less well depending on the target's skill in that discipline.
So a fight between two mechs would be fairly straightforward, and a fight between two soldiers might have a certain character to it, but a fight across those classes could see the infantryman using smoke grenades and zones of cover to break the mech's line-of-sight or thwart his targeting heuristics while maneuvering into a position to take a shot at a weak leg or softer armor while the mech pilot reads the terrain and uses area denial tactics to herd the footsoldier into a killzone where the larger, more cumbersome weapons can reach him.
Throw in some specific gear for the task, like EMP grenades or decoy modules or anti-infantry machineguns that reduce the mech's ability to fight armored targets, but can increase their effectiveness against light infantry, and you're in business.
The pilot's ability would allow them to more completely realize the machine's potential. I'd be inclined to look at it more as reducing penalties than adding abilities, although the two would amount to the same thing. So when you get in a tank, you obviously get to enjoy a thick metal armor and guns too large for any infantryman to wield them, but the penalties would be things like reduced agility, limited field of vision, slow rate of fire, inability to use cover and being a huge, sluggish, high-value target on the battlefield.
So maybe a pilot's skills would improve mobility in different types of terrain, so a newbie pilot would slow way down and lose maneuverability unless they were on a paved road, while an expert pilot would be able to romp through marshy fields with grace and alacrity. Guns would cycle more quickly as you and perhaps your crew gain skill at timing the actions. Training and experience could allow accurate shooting while moving, manifesting in the game's interface as reduced view-swim or a higher accuracy rate in different circumstances.
For a walking mech-type vehicle, penalties to be reduced might include reduced accuracy and mobility while shooting in a direction other than the way you're walking, since you'd be dealing with the dual threat of irregular cockpit bouncing and not being able to see where the heck you're going. Faster target locks for missiles, improved footing on uneven terrain, quicker recovery from kinetic weapon impacts, that sort of thing.
You could offer passive bonuses to defense, simulating a skilled pilot's ability to anticipate threats and orient the vehicle minutely (more precisely than the game controls might allow) in order to bear the brunt of attacks on the thickest part of the armor.
As for balancing against infantry, have a soldier with a bazooka be able to counter many of the mech/tank pilot's skills, so the pilot's ability to use his armor effectively is tested against the soldier's ability with the bazooka targeting system to bypass armor or strike at vulnerable joints and exposed control modules. Improved targeting speed could be countered by target-jamming countermeasures that perform more or less well depending on the target's skill in that discipline.
So a fight between two mechs would be fairly straightforward, and a fight between two soldiers might have a certain character to it, but a fight across those classes could see the infantryman using smoke grenades and zones of cover to break the mech's line-of-sight or thwart his targeting heuristics while maneuvering into a position to take a shot at a weak leg or softer armor while the mech pilot reads the terrain and uses area denial tactics to herd the footsoldier into a killzone where the larger, more cumbersome weapons can reach him.
Throw in some specific gear for the task, like EMP grenades or decoy modules or anti-infantry machineguns that reduce the mech's ability to fight armored targets, but can increase their effectiveness against light infantry, and you're in business.
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