Any way I can see movement stats?

[Lampros]

So I can know definitively whether racial descriptions about movement indeed applies in the game - e.g. Dwarves are slow? (I am still not persuaded unless I see it, because I see no visual difference in movement range from Dwarf to Troll).

[frdnwsm]

From what I have read, dwarves take a -1 hit to movement, trolls get a +1, both due basically to leg length. There is no visual aid to movement ability that I can see; I have wondered about that myself since there is no in game documentation to support this. It could be confirmed by experimentation, I imagine. Make a troll character and go on a combat mission with Duncan and Is0bel. When in tactical movement mode, check out how far each of them can move, un-modified (no spells or cyber in effect) using 1 AP. That should provide adequate information and be easy enough to do.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

From what I have read, dwarves take a -1 hit to movement, trolls get a +1, both due basically to leg length. There is no visual aid to movement ability that I can see; I have wondered about that myself since there is no in game documentation to support this. It could be confirmed by experimentation, I imagine. Make a troll character and go on a combat mission with Duncan and Is0bel. When in tactical movement mode, check out how far each of them can move, un-modified (no spells or cyber in effect) using 1 AP. That should provide adequate information and be easy enough to do.

I see. I am kind of leaning toward Troll for all my melee builds anyways now. I know that you ultimately get only +2 or +1 Karma over the alternative races, but frankly every Karma advantage is precious, especially early on. And the movement edge would absolutely be an icing on the cake. For instance, if Trolls indeed have a movement edge, then I don't feel compelled to get Synthacardium MK2 for the extra movement and would definitely opt for Suprathyroids instead (the movement edge of Synthacardium is negated, so I will have a net gain of +1 Strength, Body, and Quickness and a net loss of +1 Throwing Weapons and Dodge. I think the optimal body slot is clear then.

[Lampros]

Also, I frankly don't understand the use of Dodge. It does not increase the enemy miss chance but only increases the enemy likelihood of targeting you? So someone will be targeted anyways, and why would I not want my Adept (who has heal, soft cover, and often better armor and hit points) targeted instead?

[Lampros]

Originally posted by SpenReyn:

That is an issue I have with the Dodge skill in the game, especially if you are trying to go solo then dodge is completely useless

Wait, so you sure it doesn't decrease your chance to get hit but only chance to be targeted? There seems to be a lot of uncertainty over this...

[Lampros]

Originally posted by SpenReyn:

That is an issue I have with the Dodge skill in the game, especially if you are trying to go solo then dodge is completely useless

And as a follow-up, what's the best "survivability" build then for an Adept looking to solo or even simply survive being out "in the open" a lot?

[frdnwsm]

The dodge question is seriously up in the air. From what I tried out in Dragonfall, it seems to make the enemy miss ... a lot. We're talking high levels; 7 or more. In the first dragonfall mission, I made a gun build with a bunch of quickness, ranged weapons and dodge, and not much else. I stuck the other two crew members off in a hallway somewhere, so they couldn't be targetted, and ducked behind a table. I duked it out with every guard they had, including Mr. Minigun. Even he had trouble hitting me. (Yes, they did shoot at me.)

I'm convinced that dodge does reduce enemy hit probability. Unprovable, unfortunately, without seeing actual numbers, nor can I quantify it at all.

The racial movement thing I am looking into right now. I have done only 1 test, with Is0bel vs my human shaman. She seems to have the same movement ability as he does, which is contrary to what I have read. This does bring up the possibility, however, that NPCs work differently, and they all have the same base movement regardless of race. I intend to check this out fairly thoroughly, possibly tomorrow. I'll start new games with 3 different races, and test the combat movement of each character over a known distance, and see what happens.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

The dodge question is seriously up in the air. From what I tried out in Dragonfall, it seems to make the enemy miss ... a lot. We're talking high levels; 7 or more. In the first dragonfall mission, I made a gun build with a bunch of quickness, ranged weapons and dodge, and not much else. I stuck the other two crew members off in a hallway somewhere, so they couldn't be targetted, and ducked behind a table. I duked it out with every guard they had, including Mr. Minigun. Even he had trouble hitting me.

I'm convinced that dodge does reduce enemy hit probability. Unprovable, unfortunately, without seeing actual numbers, nor can I quantify it at all.

The racial movement thing I am looking into right now. I have done only 1 test, with Is0bel vs my human shaman. She seems to have the same movement ability as he does, which is contrary to what I have read. This does bring up the possibility, however, that NPCs work differently, and they all have the same base movement regardless of race. I intend to check this out fairly thoroughly, possibly tomorrow. I'll start new games with 3 different races, and test the combat movement of each character over a known distance, and see what happens.

But is it the Quickness that did it or the Dodge? I'd think you'd need to try 3 different repetitions of the same mission in solo to be sure: 1 build with NO Quickness or Dodge; another build with 7 Quickness AND Dodge; and, a final build with just 7 Quickness with NO Dodge.

[Lampros]

Also, as you implied: Even if we figure out that Dodge does indeed reduce your chance to get hit directly, we need a rough idea of how high we need to push it to have meaningful gains. If you say you need 7 or more, then I am not sure if the opportunity cost is in any ways worth it at all.

[frdnwsm]

"And as a follow-up, what's the best "survivability" build then for an Adept looking to solo or even simply survive being out "in the open" a lot?"

Never tried a solo run; I'm a sociable person. As for survivability, you should have a decent idea by now. Quickness isn't a core skill for a physical adept, so getting a lot of dodge might be a bit iffy, as well as being unproven. Staying mobile helps; get jolt alert and magnetic arm. Stay hasted, get things like stride, get armor 10, use hit and run tactics, use cover whenever possible. .

[frdnwsm]

Well, I know what happens to me if I have small amounts of quickness and dodge and try to fight all those goons alone; I get wiped. However, you do have a point; pumpin up both doesn't help pick which of the two plays a bigger factor. I will indeed go back and try 2 different builds. Unfortunately, there is no way to get the third possibility, lots of dodge without quickness. Still, comparing the two builds that I CAN create should give a lot of information.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

"And as a follow-up, what's the best "survivability" build then for an Adept looking to solo or even simply survive being out "in the open" a lot?"

Never tried a solo run; I'm a sociable person. As for survivability, you should have a decent idea by now. Quickness isn't a core skill for a physical adept, so getting a lot of dodge might be a bit iffy, as well as being unproven. Staying mobile helps; get jolt alert and magnetic arm. Stay hasted, get things like stride, get armor 10, use hit and run tactics, use cover whenever possible. .

What about the 10 percent hit chance decrease Totem? Have you experimented with it?

Too bad that all variations of Blur are 1 turn only. It's pretty inefficient for the Adept himself to cast it.

[frdnwsm]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Also, as you implied: Even if we figure out that Dodge does indeed reduce your chance to get hit directly, we need a rough idea of how high we need to push it to have meaningful gains. If you say you need 7 or more, then I am not sure if the opportunity cost is in any ways worth it at all.

Not necessarily. I was trying to say that without numbers to crunch, I can't give exact figures, the way I can when checking my own hit probability. That being the case, I can only get a real feel for what's happening when I have high values.

Logically, if I can show that dodge at high levels reduces enemy hit probability that noticably, then by extention, small amounts of dodge should help also; we just can't see it visually. The difference between the foe having a 60% chance of hitting you and a 50% chance would be hard to detect without numbers, but the difference would certainly be significant. The game would take it into account even without us seeing it.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

Originally posted by Lampros:

Also, as you implied: Even if we figure out that Dodge does indeed reduce your chance to get hit directly, we need a rough idea of how high we need to push it to have meaningful gains. If you say you need 7 or more, then I am not sure if the opportunity cost is in any ways worth it at all.

Not necessarily. I was trying to say that without numbers to crunch, I can't give exact figures, the way I can when checking my own hit probability. That being the case, I can only get a real feel for what's happening when I have high values.

Logically, if I can show that dodge at high levels reduces enemy hit probability that noticably, then by logical extention, small amounts of dodge should help also; we just can't see it visually. The difference between the foe having a 60% chance of hitting you and a 50% chance would be hard to detect without numbers, but the difference would certainly be significant. The game would take it into account even without us seeing it.

Ah, ok. That makes sense.

[frdnwsm]

"What about the 10 percent hit chance decrease Totem? Have you experimented with it?"

Unfortunately not; I can't try everything. It does sound rather useful however, and at least we have a straightforward figure to work with.

[frdnwsm]

Trying to do a quantitative analysis of the effects of quickness and dodge is rather frustrating for an OCD afflicted person. There are so many variables that could be affecting results, all I can really get is a general qualitative assessment.

The initial Dragonfall scenario is the easiest to experiment with, since I have just created my character and can easily put 40-45 karma aside so as to increase stats in mid combat. Unfortunately, the enemy comes in from all 4 directions, so some of them get uncovered shots at me, and they are of varying abilities. The first ones are straw men that you are supposed to kill off fast, since you are working with only 3 men after Monica goes down. The later ones that show up when the doors are ready to open are harder; you are meant to flee rather than try to face them all down.

All these variables, none of which have numbers to give me any visual clues, make any conclusion pretty general. All I can say is that pumping Quickness up to 6 makes my character somewhat harder to hit, but hardly invulnerable. Doing the same with dodge appears to about double the effect.

By contrast, I can see exactly how much Quickness affects my ranged accuracy. Every extra rank of Quickness improves my accuracy on the same target by 6-7%. One can only assume that it works the same way to reduce enemy accuracy when firing at you; namely, that each rank has a certain effect. Similarly, getting ranged weapon skill ranks increases my accuracy by a specific amount per rank. If dodge is the analagous defensive skill to ranged weaponry, then each rank of dodge also detracts from enemy accuracy. How much is anyone's guess.

If the game AI chooses targets by their vulnerability, then if you are much harder to hit than your companions, you will indeed see the enemy target you less often, as a side effect of the increase in your defence.