Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sonlirain]

The idea would be to split the character level into 2 cathegories.
Combat experience (and levels) would be earned by doing combat related activities while civilan exp would be given for trade, production ETC.

Now skills would be divided into combat skills and civilian skills where civilain points could only be used on (future) civilain skills while combat only on combat related skills.

My idea of skill division

Combat

Combat/combat - obvious.
Combat/civilian - As counterintuitive it might sound the skills are related to out of combat logistics. A militaryman is not going to turn those suplies into space parts for the shield generator.

Technology

Technology/combat - Focuses on upgrading the ships that influence their fighting prowess like more armor, extra flux dissipation ETC.
Technology/civilian - Focuses on less volatile things like larger cargo capacity, increased travel speed or production bonuses.

Leadership

Leadership/combat - More ships in fleet and in combat better CR in combat.
Leadership/civilian - Better logistics out of combat better CR regeneration out of combat due to better organization.

Industry

Industry/combat - Focuses on military construction, skills increase combat related stats on ships like armor or turning on ships created in your outposts.
Industry/civilian - Your typical skills related to industry. Better prices when trading, Better mining. More effecient construction.

What purpouse would it have?

Usually in a game like this (the closest comparison we have is mount and blade) playing a peacefull trader is nearly impossible since the bulk of your experience is earned by combat and if you want to RP as a trader then tough luck because you're going to be level 1 FOREVER and never upgrade any skills related to what you want to do unless you do the exact opposite and slaughter enemies for exp... to become better at trading!
It's obviously pure nonsense of the "I killed a dragon so i guess i'm no longer illitrate now" variety.

Now with this system in place a character would get better at doing peaceful things by doing peaceful things.
And ditto for the ones who want to play as a murderous fiend.
Sure he's going to become a more profecient killer with each level but killing traders alone won't give him any experience in things like mining.

[Gothars]

What purpouse would it have?
Usually in a game like this (the closest comparison we have is mount and blade) playing a peacefull trader is nearly impossible since the bulk of your experience is earned by combat

This doesn't have to be am issue if the game takes trade and co. seriously and distributes a lot of XP for it. After all there's no inherent reason why combat should yield more XP than an equally risky economic endeavor. I'll just trust Alex here to find the right balance.

It's obviously pure nonsense of the "I killed a dragon so i guess i'm no longer illitrate now" variety.
Now with this system in place a character would get better at doing peaceful things by doing peaceful things.

It is a simplification, but if plausibility is really a good argument against it, why stop here? You could also say "Why should I become better at mining when I'm just trading all the time?". "Why should I become better at using missiles if a only used ballistic weapons?". If you go down that path you will end up with something like the Elder Scrolls system, where only doing a specific activity improves that activity. It is more realistic, but IMHO far less fun than a simple XP system.

[Talkie Toaster]

If you go down that path you will end up with something like the Elder Scrolls system, where only doing a specific activity improves that activity. It is more realistic, but IMHO far less fun than a simple XP system.

Plus it also makes it hard to diversify later in the game. If you'd been building up a trading empire and decide you want to go take on the pirates plaguing it, you'd end up having to chip away at comparatively dull small fleets for a few hours until you were actually competent enough to take on a fleet of your level.

[Sonlirain]

Plus it also makes it hard to diversify later in the game. If you'd been building up a trading empire and decide you want to go take on the pirates plaguing it, you'd end up having to chip away at comparatively dull small fleets for a few hours until you were actually competent enough to take on a fleet of your level.

Well the way i see it it would actually make it far easier to diversify.

Let's say that we're playing a trader who somehow got to lvl 40 and spent most of his points into non combat skills.
Since he's now fairly high level he needs a LOT of exp to levelup (in order to put the points he earns through leveling into relevant combat skills).

Now in my vision the same trader would be most likely a lvl 1 combat / lvl 40 civilian character that would probably levelup his combat level after the first larger battle.
Also note that if he did well as a trader then he probably flies a decent ship to fight in if he decides to.

[Gothars]

Well the way i see it it would actually make it far easier to diversify.

I agree, but I don't think that's a good thing. To stress the Elder Scrolls comparison again: If you can build your character into a can-it-all know-it-all most players will likely do. That a) robs you of any really meaningful decision what you want to be (answer: everything), b) through this undermines the roll-playing aspect of the game and c) decreases replayability. At least that's the effect it had on me in TES.

[Sonlirain]

That would depend on how many skills there are and how much time you want to spend leveling them.

A lvl 20 might for example have mastered mining and ore processing but have no clue when it comes to actually using the metal to create something.

[Talkie Toaster]

Plus it also makes it hard to diversify later in the game. If you'd been building up a trading empire and decide you want to go take on the pirates plaguing it, you'd end up having to chip away at comparatively dull small fleets for a few hours until you were actually competent enough to take on a fleet of your level.

Well the way i see it it would actually make it far easier to diversify.

Let's say that we're playing a trader who somehow got to lvl 40 and spent most of his points into non combat skills.
Since he's now fairly high level he needs a LOT of exp to levelup (in order to put the points he earns through leveling into relevant combat skills).

Now in my vision the same trader would be most likely a lvl 1 combat / lvl 40 civilian character that would probably levelup his combat level after the first larger battle.
Also note that if he did well as a trader then he probably flies a decent ship to fight in if he decides to.

That's not really the case, though. A level 1 combat/40 civvie is going to have none of the upgrades necessary to compete with a level 40 enemy fleet, and is going to be massively outmatched by any combat-focused officers they've bought. And they'd still have to fight through dozens of battles before getting access to any of the interesting skill perks. It only seems better because it's an extreme edge case- a trader who hits 20 and decides they'd like to get better mileage out of their flagship can get a solid grounding in combat skills with a few levels of interesting mid-level trading, and jump straight in to piloting ships with interesting abilities, rather than having to be a bit-part player in large fleet battles until they get enough XP to be a notable combatant.

[JT]

There are strong realism arguments for both perspectives, but I think that going for the amorphous XP pool gives more freedom.

However, what should be done in recognition of the need for the non-combat part of gameplay to be competitive instead of the "slay a dragon" mentality would be to ensure that activities that provide profit also provide experience. Sort of a Euro Truck Simulator 2 kind of thing -- experience by distance and danger of cargo for trading, experience by difficulty and danger in extraction for mining, experience per "find" while exploring/charting/surveying frontier worlds, experience over time while administrating a trade centre, etc.

[Aratoop]

JT has effectively described everything I want from this game