Failed skill checks causing huge morale drops?

[GraveDigger]

Been a while since I played, hopped in on a Hard campaign, made it to second era and it seems now whenever I fail even one skill check (eg, failed doctor check, space parasite), I often have a huge drop in morale. Recent example, left a ship to ship combat, morale on screen said 104. Flew away victorious and a couple seconds later I failed a doctor check, and then bam, 9+ 'low morale' icon appears. Failed another check (airlock incident) and my crew is about to mutiny.

Seems far more significant than I remember...was this adjusted in the last year or so, or am I just really unlucky with RNG on these events?

Thanks!

[Gilmoy]

AFAIK, nothing has changed.

Failed Doctor checks can be devastating, like 20 hits of -50 HP each.
(-50 HP will cause roughly -50 Morale.)
20 hits is almost guaranteed to hit 17-18 different crew, and a few of them 2x each.
If you fail 1 Doctor check ever, shame on you, and you get what you get.

Thus, preventing failed Doctor checks is worth some Panic Mode thinking.
In fact, it's worth inventing the category of panic-mode behavior to rescue a game.
You can't play ST:F without having that category fully operational, for exactly this reason.

Strive very, very hard to have 0 failed in-flight skill checks ever.
Even with that effort, 1 failed check per game decade is tolerable, usually in bad rumors.

I'm at the other end of the spectrum: I have seen 0 mutinies, total, ever.
It's not hard to be there: just use panic-mode thinking every turn, every game, all game long.

[Trese Brothers]

Nothing has changed. Rumors, quadrant danger, ... Where was the doctor saving talent?

[GraveDigger]

I want to say my doctor was showing something like 11 [15] on her profile for Doctor. I did not have any other characters with doctor skill, so it would only be her and her talents saving the day.

Could have just been bad luck, as I decided to start a new game today and I've had very few failed doctor checks that have resulted in much of any significant morale/health challenges.

Yesterday was just brutal though. I am used to failing skill checks early game causing that but was surprised in 2nd era that I didn't have enough talent points to avoid it.

Thanks for the response!

[davea]

High danger quadrants cause a surprising amount of morale damage. I try to set up my initial crew to have two skill saves for every ship category and one medical, before even moving the ship. Then I get one command, one intimidation, and a second medical skill save as soon as the officers get a level.

[GraveDigger]

Been thinking a lot about this while playing my next game and I think it was a combination of Rumors and quadrant danger. Radiation storms seem to do a number on my skill checks and morale.

[Gilmoy]

Yes, I see the same thing.
Radiation Storm works by scaling every in-flight skill test's strong dice by ~191%.

Here's some examples from my IJCK data.
I show Ship Ops skill save and in-flight skill test dice (only).
The other ship saves (Electronics, Navigation, Pilot) work similarly, for all rumors.
(The mental skill tests scale standard dice instead, which is much less of a problem.)

1. Year 9 Week 2, 2nd ship, skill save 50s+31 = 26.2 expectation
My theoretical max skill save for this ship is 50s+50 = 30.0 expectation.

• Danger 6 (Dax Divide)
  
• with no rumor:
  
  • 37s+51 = 25.0 (save)
    
  • 37s+50 = 24.8 (pass)
    
  • In-flight Ship Ops strong dice are scaled to ~74% of my ship's strong dice.
    
  • Tests' standard dice are always near my ship's max standard dice.
    
  • Overall, Ship Ops tests are scaled to ~86% of my ship's max skill save.
    If I attain my max skill save of 50s+50, this quadrant would be "easy", or routine.
    
• Radiation Storm rumor begins!
  
  • 71s+49 = 38.2 expectation (pass!!)
    
  • 71s+52 = 38.8 (save)
    
  • 71s+48 = 38.0 (save)
    
  • 71s+50 = 38.4 (save)
    
  • 71s+53 = 39.0 (fail, 1 hit for 100 ship damage, 2 hits for -71 HP, -22 Morale total)
    
  • 71s+52 = 38.8 (save)
    
  • 71s+51 = 38.6 (save)
    
  • In-flight Ship Ops strong dice are now scaled to ~142% of my ship's strong dice, an increase of 1.91x.
    
  • Overall, Ship Ops tests are now scaled to ~128% of my ship's max skill save, an increase of 1.49x.
    So they're quantitatively harder, and you can expect to fail more (most!) of them.
    

With no rumor, each Ship Ops test is a coin flip, with slight advantage to me.

With the rumor, each Ship Ops test overwhelms my puny dice.
I pass 1 of 7, save 5 of 7, and fail 1 outright, taking damage.
4 consecutive tests all in Ship Ops beat my 3 Ship Ops skill saves (at that time).

~~~~

Heavy Patrols and Xeno Fleet work the same way, but with slightly lower scaling.
Note that all ship-based skill tests, and all rumors that affect them,
scale the tests relative to your ship's max skill save.
This makes it fair, all game long:

• small ship is at no disadvantage compared to a large ship
  
• large ship doesn't make it easier, your larger ship dice see proportionally larger tests
  
• new L1 crew doesn't matter (except that you may fail to attain your max skill save)
  
• experienced L40 crew doesn't make it easier, rumors still beat your max save

One cute byproduct of this is that a badly-damaged ship sees easier tests
This can save you if you need to travel a bit to repair and hire replacement crew.

[Tomcat]

You need at least 3 doctor saves the entire game. At least past the tutorial phase.

I like running a Doctor/Medic/Scientist officer for saves. 2 doctor saves is risky but can work temporarily for a short time. Less than that, there will be chaos. Of course, if they die in combat, you need to emergency promote someone into a doctor role and apply two saves.


Should try to get at least 3 saves for anything space related btw.

=================


If you are trying to beat dice rolls on stats alone, you need MULTIPLE doctors. If you play long enough and on certain settings, doctor tests will be in the hundreds. To the point where you need to have saves and just enough where their cooldowns can match with your needs. Impossible to beat unless you fill your ships with all doctors, but that would take away from needed stats like Command and Tactics.

In the end game, you can just conscript combat medics for doctor saves if you use a large ship. Conscripts have poor attributes but you dont need attributes on non-combat crew.