Level?

[sakai4eva]

How is level determined anyway?

[ehkamp]

I don't know how Level is determined, but I do know these things about it:

• Unlimited.
  
• The Captain's Level determines the Title (e.g., Level 14 = Master Captain).
  
• The player Captain's Level is used as the average enemy Captain.
  
• Heavily affects Difficulty
  

[Cory Trese]

final int PointsPerLevel = 6;

Level = ((Quickness + Wisdom + Stealth + Charisma + Negotiate + Intimidate + Pilot + Explorer + Warrior + Stealth + Tactics - 50) / PointsPerLevel) + 1;


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Because Level is skill / attribute based (not total XP) the "Level" can be different based on how the XP is spent, in what order and in what concentrations.

Therefore, depending on the character's build, Level 50 can be reached with a range of at least +/- 500XP based on the strategies that I am (so far, someone probably knows more) that I am aware of.

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ST RPG uses two types of Level. Game Level and Character Level.

Enemy Captains are scaled vs. Character Level
Approximately Everything Else vs. Game Level

Here is the equation for game difficulty....

int premium_raw_glevel_int_dtx = (int) Math.ceil(Turn / (200 + (5 * GameDifficult)));


Raw Game-Level is used to scale almost everything. The area of the game, the alien threat and other factors increase game level.

For example, one of my Captains ("Vega Thulun XXXVIII")

- Level 38
- 9544 Turns
- Impossible Difficulty

At some point he fell considerably behind the game's difficulty curve -- on Impossible his GameLevel is 48, on Normal it is around 40.

[slayernz]

The formula for determining levels is more complex because of the fact that the cost of XP to increase skills/attributes goes up every few levels. I'm sure that Cory has the formula for calculating XP points floating around somewhere

Cory ... I looked at your formula for game difficulty:
int premium_raw_glevel_int_dtx = (int) Math.ceil(Turn / (200 + (5 * GameDifficult)));

If game difficulty starts at basic (0) to Impossible (7), doesn't that mean as game difficulty goes up, the difficulty level is actually lower on any given turn.

EG:
At 9500 turns,
Basic = 9500 / (200 + (5 * 0) = 9500 / (200 + 0) = 47
Impossible = 9500 / (200 + (5 * 7)) = 9500 / (200 + 35) = 40

Perhaps you were wanting:
Turn / (200 - (5 * GameDifficult)) ?

Using the above formula, at turn 9500 you'd get
Basic = 47
Normal = 48
Challenging = 50
Demanding = 51
...
Impossible = 57

[Cory Trese]

In my backwards universe ...

Impossible = 0
Basic = 7

[slayernz]

Oh okay ... you're weird but we still love you

[sgtcookie]

So to level up quickly, spread points around the stats?

[absimiliard]

Other way SgtCookie.

Stats cost more than skills do. So to level up faster spend on skills first, and only raise stats when you have to. To try to keep your level lower spend on as many stats as you can and only raise skills you have to.

(note that keeping level low that way is VERY dangerous, stats contribute a good chunk less to most tasks than skills do, so you are easier prey than a captain who's spent the same XP but spent them on skills)

-abs

[sgtcookie]

Sorry, I did mean skills. In my head skills ARE stats. But the answer is yes? To level up faster train a broad range of skills?

[absimiliard]

Yup. At (initially) 3XP per point of skill vs. 6 XP per point of stat you will level up a lot faster by training skills.

(you'll also be more survivable, as skills impact the things you do more directly than stats.)

That said, I prefer to level up more slowly if I can. I figure the more XP I put into stats the better I am. (with the caveat that I like to have enough skills to survive on)

So my typical progression is to skill up only essential skills for my survival/mission-completion, then I hammer stats as long as I can, and when combats start getting nastier I turn back to skilling up more.

-abs

[oldalchemist]

Hmmmm...I'm at 47 and looking to hit 50 and retire this smuggler captain. I guess that I should be dumping points into my Explorer Skill of 2 for the level boost rather than humping Quickness uphill.

[Tenebrous Pirate]

I have found that the quickest way to power level up is to blockade a planet repeatedly. Second behind that is repeated surveillence activities. This can be reliably done once your tactics is at least 15.

[oldalchemist]

Yeah, but I wanted my levels and my friendly reps. Smugglor (terrible name, I know) wants to really retire when he retires. Non of this 'I try to get out but they keep pulling me back in!" baloney.

Oi! How about that 'future retirement,' Cory! At least get us some art of a Captain relaxing in a hammock with an umbrella drink!

[Tenebrous Pirate]

I hope retirement offers starting over as the son/daughter of the character at level 1 again, with the last ship you used before retiring. ;-)

[slayernz]

Oh that'll be awesome being able to pass the ship on to a younger captain. In that case though, you should also need some age-related impact to your game play. Kinda like the ole Pirates game
When you are a young whippersnapper, you get bonuses to strength and dexterity related attributes. You get negatives to wisdom and Charisma (let's face it, no crew wants to fly with a pimply faced Wesley lookalike).

As you age a little, your wisdom and Charisma bonuses go up, but when you hit a peak, your strength/dexterity related stats start declining.

Towards the end you should have very good wisdom and charisma bonuses, but you've had so much of you replaced in the cloning vats that going toe to toe with a native Ablalutian would pretty much see you taken back to the ships in several wheel barrows.