New XP Calculator

[slawyer]

I have enhanced the xp calculator I made in August 2011:

startradersrpg.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&board=rules&thread=1032&post=11917

It's too big to upload here, so I've shared it on Google Drive:

docs.google.com/file/d/0B_bzA3uAE2OjelVINU43WFNJbGc/edit?usp=sharing

This new one is in xlsm format (Excel macro-enabled workbook), macros are just some simple VBA to copy values when you click the button or select a new profession to reset the calculator.

I use it to plan how I spend my XP, so I know how many more I can spend before my level will change, and what I should spend it on.

It calculates your level from your stats and skills, how far away from the next level you are, and how much stats and skills cost at your current level.

You can enter values for how you plan to spend your XP on various stats and skills, and it will tell you how much they'll cost. Then you can click the "Apply Points" button to apply them.

You can project your character far into the future and see how various strategies for spending XP would work out over time.

I added a new NPCGenerator sheet that generates a typical NPC to compare against your character, to see how you match up against the worst case (max possible level NPC the game will give you). The worst-case NPC is highlighted in yellow and the worst-case alien is highlighted in green.

Your stats and skills are shown in graphs with the projected NPC stats and skills. Each is scaled as a percentage of your character level, for easy comparison.

My technique for XP: keep Quickness/Strength/Stealth/Warrior @110%/LVL. Analysis of the NPC generator indicates that for high level NPCs on Impossible, stats average ~111.5%/LVL and skills average ~109%/LVL, so my technique seems about right.

Enjoy!

[Cory Trese]

Very well done. Your analysis is pretty darn accurate.

Beyond the 110%/LVL, where are you spending XP? Pilot?

[slawyer]

I only have 16 points to spend on other stats/skills every 10 levels, so I raise either

• Pilot +2, to catch up to Stealth
  
• Wisdom +1 Tactics +1, to improve Tactics more
  
• Charisma +1 Intimidate +1, to improve Intimidate more
  

Pilot is my secondary skill, currently at 570 so it's on par with ~level 1036 NPC. It has to take a back seat though, in order to keep Stealth/Warrior so high.

Wisdom/Charisma/Tactics/Intimidate get even less emphasis. I've had those holding at 150 for a long time now to focus on Pilot.

I think I understand now why you don't count Strength toward character level, and why you count Stealth twice.

It allows for some random high level NPC's to have particularly high Strength, which definitely makes them tougher to deal with in combat and keeps the game interesting.

And the ones with huge Strength might have any kind of other distribution of other stats and skills, which is awesome.

The ones with higher Stealth will have lower other stats and skills overall, and the ones with lower Stealth will have significantly higher other stats and skills, which also keeps things more interesting and unpredictable, since you can't tell which ones are Stealthy or not until to try some combat moves against them.

I can't wait to see the new upgrades.

[starfixer]

Wow, I have no idea what I'm looking at right now.

What's the max alien NPC warrior skill in relation to thier level? 110%?

[slawyer]

For very high level NPC, stats/skills are about 55% of level, so you can estimate their stats by multiplying Level * 0.55. That applies to both enemy captains and aliens.

Aliens can be up to 4X your level on Impossible.

[slawyer]

Feb 24, 2013 20:07:37 GMT -5 starfixer said:

Wow, I have no idea what I'm looking at right now.

Are you looking at the spreadsheet? I can answer any questions about it. Sorry it's confusing! I tried to explain in the note cells, but I know it's probably not very intuitive.

There's two ways to use the XP calculator -- starting from a character you already have, you can just type your numbers into the yellow cells, and it will calculate your level, etc. Or you can select a profession from the list and it will reset everything to base stats for that class and set Experience to 0.

Then you can select stats/skills to boost, and it will show the XP cost and number of levels. If you want very accurate Experience tabulated, you should only spend enough to go up one level at a time (or less), otherwise errors might start to accumulate.

The NPC generator just rolls dice to generate a random NPC like the game does, and highlights the rows that match your character level and difficulty for max NPX (yellow highlight) and Alien (green highlight) you might meet. You can scroll down to find the highlighted rows to see the detail stats, and recalculate the sheet to generate a new NPC to get an idea of how the stats might vary.

There's some columns calculating some statistics about the stats and skills rolled in the grouped columns that are collapsed. You can look at those to see things like averages, percent of level, etc. Since I play on Impossible, I added columns for calculating things relative to the player level too (those are the "Lvl/2" columns).

[starfixer]

Feb 24, 2013 21:08:44 GMT -5 slawyer said:

For very high level NPC, stats/skills are about 55% of level, so you can estimate their stats by multiplying Level * 0.55. That applies to both enemy captains and aliens.

Aliens can be up to 4X your level on Impossible.

The max of any NPC's skills are only 55% of its level?! Thats so low. That mean they must invest in each of their skills (negotiate, explorer, intimidate, tactics etc) evenly right?
For some of my captains, even when I'm at a high LV (50, 100,150) I keep one of my skills at 150% or even 200% level, 200% or 250% if its warrior. I understand that enemies have a much higher level than you so it would be unfair for them to invest in a skill that much, but certain AIs could at least have one of their skills 100% level (115% for warrior because its easier to invest in) on high levels.

I'm not saying I don't trust you slawyer, but that just seems really low, especially for the absolute maximum of any skill

[slawyer]

No, it's the average of all the stats and skills that is around 55% of level. It can vary by around 1-2%, and stats tend to be a bit higher than skills on average. Strength in particular can be quite a bit higher or lower, since it doesn't have any effect on level at all.

Also, note that the 55% rule only applies to very high level NPCs (like level 500 or more) -- at lower levels, the number of dice rolls isn't high enough to even the stats out yet.

The reason it's pretty uniform for the high level NPC's is because there's no emphasis on particular skills (all are treated equally) so Stealth tends to be about the same as the other skills.

Of course, the actual Stealth of the NPC can vary up or down, and that has a big effect on the other stats, since Stealth counts twice as much towards your level.

It sounds like you don't keep Stealth very high, if you're keeping lots of other stats so much higher than level. Putting X less points into Stealth frees up 2X points for other stuff.

You might want to check out some of the scenarios I posted in that thread a year and a half ago, linked above in my OP.

-edit-
Here's a link to that post with the scenarios:
startradersrpg.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&board=rules&thread=1032&post=11878

[starfixer]

But certain enemies do put emphasis on certain skills. I've been unable to retreat against non-aliens before with pilot at 200% and ship fast/quick, and some captains are definetly harder to change range on than others that have the same level (so pilot/stealth must vary alot). And certain enemies with 2x my level I can board without a problem, while others will inflict more damage if I attempt to do so or be able to ram me.

According to the chart, the max levels of all lv100 enemies are less than 60%, so if I keep my pilot at just 110% no enemy 2x my level or less will be able to change range on me at short as long as we have equal ships. But this isnt the case

[slawyer]

Pilot doesn't help you retreat; Stealth does that.

Retreat is:

(your dice)

STEALTH + TACTICS + (SPEED * STEALTH) + (SAILS|ENGINES) [Ancient Reactors: +8]

vs.

(npc dice)

PILOT + STEALTH + ENGINES + CREWMORALE + (AGILITY * PILOT)

(SAILS|ENGINES) means +Sails if combat range = 3 or +Engines if combat range < 3.

CREWMORALE is the bonus (0-20) for current crew level and morale.

SPEED is 0 = slow, 1 = medium, 2 = fast
AGILITY is 0 = slow, 1 = medium, 2 = quick

The dice test is:

Shot = Player dice + 1d42 - (npc dice + 1d42)

If shot < -3, the npc gains range on you. If shot > 3, you gain range or escape if range = 3. If -3 < shot < 3, range stays the same.

You might be getting bad rolls, or your Stealth might be too low.

If you could keep Stealth at 200% level, you could get away all the time, but your other stats would really suck, to the point where you couldn't do much else and the game would be very boring.

Having Pilot 200% of level should mean that nobody can get away from you when you try to close range, no matter how high level they are (except aliens, they might beat you in Pilot).

[starfixer]

Woah woah woah, I thought pilot helps change range at short (advance/retreat) and stealth helps change range at long (advance/retreat) though I have noticed with hi pilot the ability to advance easily but not retreat. Cory actually stated as well that pilot does advance/retreat for short, stealth does advance/retreat for long. But my observations have said otherwise, incuding dodging torps when advancing with high pilot but not when retreating. How did you even find that out? I want to be able to find things like that out

Back to this, some enemies with the same level and a fast ship can escape me, while some can't. Some enemies that are 2x my level with a quick ship can gun me, some can't. So there is a differene in skills among NPC greater than 1-2%, unless its all ship.

[slawyer]

Advance vs. torps is the same dice roll as escape/retreat.

Advance vs. guns is different, that uses Pilot and Agility instead of Stealth and Speed.

I know these things because I went to the dark side.

I decomile the game back to java and read the source code.

[martyparty]

Feb 27, 2013 19:20:05 GMT -5 slawyer said:

I know these things because I went to the dark side.

I decomile the game back to java and read the source code.

Tsk tsk bad boy!

Now you're gonna make Cory & Andrew's brains ache writing legalese into their games to make everyone promise not to decompile their apps!

[BlastGT1]

OMGWTFHAX!!

Didn't you post about having done that some months back, or was that somebody else?

[starfixer]

Feb 27, 2013 19:20:05 GMT -5 slawyer said:

I decomile the game back to java and read the source code.

Well thats why you got to level 700! You know every lttle detail about the game!

How do you decomile the game back to java and read the source code? I kinda want to do it myself. I think it would really help me out