What trajectory for a Hunder?

[contributor]

Now I have to figure out what to do with my pack. I keep trying and miserably failing surveillance missions. I've never successfully accomplished one that wasn't more than one location in ganger land. Trying to raise my rep with BS now to get the pass and not finding much Threaten work, which is about the only thing I'm really qualified to do other than wage all out war on somebody.

Hmmmm, as I type a Threaten mission against Aztek just came up. It's a total waste of my time but I might as well give it go. If it goes badly maybe I'll start the war.

[fallen]

Jan 15, 2015 2:23:10 GMT -5 contributor said:

The canine spy-net is not as easy to implement as it would seem because there's something of a skill mismatch going on. Getting 3 evo-rigged hunds and the implant that gives you +1 perception for each one is good, but then on surveillance the option that favors a large team relies on Stealth and Intelligence, whereas the option that doesn't favor a large team relies on Stealth and Perception. So if you want to spy with a pack there's little point in installing that implant. I would be better just to build your knight's Intelligence which is actually in xp point conflict with perception and intimidation. So again it has to be a very specific thing and he won't be good at other things that Hunders are good for. At the moment my thought is that if you want to do surveillance with a big group, a Hunder doesn't offer any real advantage.

Thanks for this very pointed feedback - will definitely work on this next release.

[contributor]

That's why I love you guys.

And unfortunately even Aztek is scared of my pack, so no real fun just yet.

[fallen]

contributor - this sounds like a good thing. Are you rolling with 3 pups?

[grävling]

Jan 15, 2015 15:52:22 GMT -5 contributor said:

Now I have to figure out what to do with my pack. I keep trying and miserably failing surveillance missions. I've never successfully accomplished one that wasn't more than one location in ganger land. Trying to raise my rep with BS now to get the pass and not finding much Threaten work, which is about the only thing I'm really qualified to do other than wage all out war on somebody.

Hmmmm, as I type a Threaten mission against Aztek just came up. It's a total waste of my time but I might as well give it go. If it goes badly maybe I'll start the war.

In River Park the Brave Star Offices (Envoy Hub) and the Javat Spice Hall (Bondsman) are often good for threaten missions.

[contributor]

Yeah I've got 3 now. Atilla is still rocking the Shock Maw 1 and the other two have knashers. I'm playing the whole map now so I need some hunds that can take down drones. If you're going to tweak surveillance missions I might keep the team as they are now and give those a try later, otherwise I might retool for more physical damage. How much more powerful are the Hydraulic jaws than the knashers? All of them have the top hardened armor from OX.

[grävling]

Jan 15, 2015 16:53:48 GMT -5 contributor said:

Yeah I've got 3 now. Atilla is still rocking the Shock Maw 1 and the other two have knashers. I'm playing the whole map now so I need some hunds that can take down drones. If you're going to tweak surveillance missions I might keep the team as they are now and give those a try later, otherwise I might retool for more physical damage. How much more powerful are the Hydraulic jaws than the knashers? All of them have the top hardened armor from OX.

I find the ability to pop in my knashers over my shock maw whenever I see a robot very useful. Atilla should have lots of AP by now, so get him a pair. How's your Knight's Firearms skill? The technique of 'pop the predator drone 1 with your mk251 bounty and then have the dogs finish it
off' works for me. I don't like the heat penalty of the hydraulic jaw (as it kills people) enough to want to pay for it. I suppose having 1 dog be 'DEATH-of-ROBOTS' might work. I haven't tried that.

[contributor]

grävling, you've just revolutionized this game for me! I don't know why, but I was thinking that once you've got the Shock Maw you were locked into it. I didn't know you could put on Knashers over top of them. I took a little time to get everybody a Shock Maw and a pair of Knashers this morning. My Firearems skill is not great, maybe 5 or 6. My knight is actually my least effective fighter so far. I think his brawling is at 5. Is the Lit-Fist Proto glove from the BS ladder the best shock glove out there? I'm close to getting that. Hopefully it will help him out a bit.

As for drones I haven't actually taken a Predator down yet. I've taken a few KH drones down, including the long range canons. I really like the image of my hunds just crunching into a drone and thrashing it all around. Now that I know about the knashers and implant weapons I might put the hydraulic jaw on just one of them, and keep them as my drone cruncher. They'll be a little sad to be told to "stay" when we're just doing shock damage though. I'm also going to look at the spread sheet and see what Shot-guns are available for swatting drones. I do have the MK251, which is nice, but I haven't see it do really high damage yet.

[grävling]

The lit-fit proto is indeed the best. But if you have the Taser Glove from Harken Pawn Brokers, you won't see that much of a difference.
The Mk251 bounty doesn't to great damage. Its unique selling point is that it does _enough_ damage, and that even rotten shots can
expect to have 1 of their 2 shots connect. (And has cheap ammo). If your firearms and brawling are both at 5 then, hmm, you have been
spending your XP on AP? An assault rifle might be something that you would enjoy. Check out the one in the Consignment store in Dorchester,
also I think there is a good one at Mars Corp Importers in Charlesbank. (If not, try Fairlight Outfitters).

[contributor]

For the time being I've actually been focusing on building Mind, Perception and Intimidate. I'm really surprised though how unreliable Threaten jobs are. Even with Mind 10 and Intimidate 15 I still tend to lose more than I win and the pay just doesn't seem that good. There are much more reliable ways to make money and gain rep. Getting headwear, a data-port and building hacking and electronics skills give you much easier work and higher pay. Granted I'm playing on the highest difficulty level, and I could do some different things with my build like getting Evo Rigging 2 and the Aggro-phero injector, but then I could just kiss gaining any more xp good-bye.

So, I'm not trying to complain, just saying that the cost-benefit ratio of these jobs pushes you to always do one thing, unless you really just like walking across lots of maps for a big dice roll that might net you nothing. It seems like the more guaranteed success is the less they should pay. Jobs where you have a high chance of losing on a dice roll, even with good stats, should pay more.

[grävling]

Jan 17, 2015 3:55:50 GMT -5 contributor said:

For the time being I've actually been focusing on building Mind, Perception and Intimidate. I'm really surprised though how unreliable Threaten jobs are. Even with Mind 10 and Intimidate 15 I still tend to lose more than I win and the pay just doesn't seem that good. There are much more reliable ways to make money and gain rep. Getting headwear, a data-port and building hacking and electronics skills give you much easier work and higher pay. Granted I'm playing on the highest difficulty level, and I could do some different things with my build like getting Evo Rigging 2 and the Aggro-phero injector, but then I could just kiss gaining any more xp good-bye.

So, I'm not trying to complain, just saying that the cost-benefit ratio of these jobs pushes you to always do one thing, unless you really just like walking across lots of maps for a big dice roll that might net you nothing. It seems like the more guaranteed success is the less they should pay. Jobs where you have a high chance of losing on a dice roll, even with good stats, should pay more.

I actually think that the odds of successfully completing a negotiate or threaten mission are set too low -- or rather they do not improve
markedly as your stats improve. Whereas, heck, I can _always_ capture or kill a target. If I take such a mission, I know it will succeed. But then, I am playing Brutal as well.

[contributor]

grävling, I think we're saying the same thing. Even with high stats your odds of successfully completing a threaten mission seem quite low. It's a huge investment of XP to get your Mind or Strength and Intimidate sky high whereas getting good at combat doesn't seem to take that many points. With 5 or 6 brawling my hunds almost never miss. I'm playing quite aggressively now and have yet to lose a pup. With three amazing melee fighters and a Knight whose moderately good with a rifle and shock gloves even capture missions aren't too bad. I often complete them on the 2nd round, as I bring down 4-5 foes every round.

To summarize, I've invested much more (xp, cash and DV) in being able to successfully threaten and it's still highly unreliable. I've invested much less in combat, but pretty much never fail a combat based mission and they pay better. So it's kind of a no-brainer, which missions to take. I'm not trying to whine, just analyzing in case the Trese Brother's want to factor this in to future game balancing. Ultimately I think it's most fun when specializing one way really pays big dividends.

[fallen]

#CK-2957 - add cyberware that adds job bonuses.
#CK-2958 - investigate Hunder Evo-Rigging bonuses vs. penalties for large teams.

[grävling]

Jan 20, 2015 23:24:36 GMT -5 fallen said:

#CK-2957 - add cyberware that adds job bonuses.
#CK-2958 - investigate Hunder Evo-Rigging bonuses vs. penalties for large teams.

Great! I think we were also asking for

- investigate the failure rate in threaten missions and for CKs who are well-trained in threaten
- investigate the failure rate in negotiate missions for CKs who are well-trained in negotiate

with the idea that skilled knights shouldn't fail as often as they do now. If you want to keep the chance of failure as high as it is now, boost the prices of the jobs. Right now it isn't cost effective to take negotiate and threaten missions, even if you have such skills at 11 or 12, because you fail at them as often as not, so you are better off with a capture or assassinate mission that pays better and which is straight-forward to accomplish, with no 'dice roll for failure' aspect.

[contributor]

Jan 21, 2015 0:35:23 GMT -5 grävling said:

Jan 20, 2015 23:24:36 GMT -5 fallen said:

#CK-2957 - add cyberware that adds job bonuses.
#CK-2958 - investigate Hunder Evo-Rigging bonuses vs. penalties for large teams.

Great! I think we were also asking for

- investigate the failure rate in threaten missions and for CKs who are well-trained in threaten
- investigate the failure rate in negotiate missions for CKs who are well-trained in negotiate

with the idea that skilled knights shouldn't fail as often as they do now. If you want to keep the chance of failure as high as it is now, boost the prices of the jobs. Right now it isn't cost effective to take negotiate and threaten missions, even if you have such skills at 11 or 12, because you fail at them as often as not, so you are better off with a capture or assassinate mission that pays better and which is straight-forward to accomplish, with no 'dice roll for failure' aspect.

Yep, those too. Sorry to pile it on fallen. Sometimes I feel like I just keep asking for things to be made easier, but that really isn't my concern here. It's more about keeping the top of the job tree balanced out so that it's worth it to develop intimidate or negotiate knights. As is mentioned assassination and capture missions are guaranteed wins, even without exclusive focus on combat skills and they pay more. Threaten and negotiate are up to a dice roll that doesn't seem to have such great odds even with really boss skills. So the game seems to push you in one direction in terms of what types of jobs you take.