What's the progression system like in this game?

[Neonetik]

I am considering buying this to play with a friend, but I despise progression systems with an intense, unwavering passion. I truly hate any game that forces you to play for a certain amount of hours to get a bigger number next to your character that suddenly means you're allowed to do things you couldn't before, or do things better, simply because you invested enough time into the game. I enjoy having my skill being the only factor in determining whether I win or lose, not how big a certain number is due to time invested. I don't want victory to be determined by character power, but rather, by my ability.

I despise stuff like borderlands, warframe, rogue legacy, and anything else with that style of progression system. That said, I am at least ok with something like Dark Souls, as even in the weakest possible state, beating the game without taking a single hit is still very possible with enough skill, and becoming very powerful can literally take just a few minutes if you know how the game works. Meanwhile, those other examples don't allow this.

Could someone clarify what the progression system in this game is like for me? I understand there is one, but I don't know the form of which it takes.

Cheers.

[Smurff-a-thon2k]

then skip this game and move on, you're obviously not going to give it a chance or not able to

[FourGreenFields]

Each character has 5 skills, ranging from 0 (? or 1?) to 100. Helm (steering the sub), mechanics (repairing mechanical stuff), engineering (repairing electrical stuff), weapons (duh), medical (duh). Roles specialising in a skill (e.g. captain for helm) start with 40-50 (random) in that skill.

Those are bound to the character though. Each crew-member, and if that crew-member dies (at least if for good; MP has some respawn shenanigans), then the "progression" is gone.

Currently, you can allways do everything though. Just affects success chances for repairs (-> potential injuries, but no wasted resources), speed, weapons accuracy. Upcoming patch will apparently add "perks" that change that.

[The Flaming Pike]

FourGreenFields sums it up rather well. You can do anything right from the get-go, but your efficiency depends on your class and level. Technically, you can be an engineer and steer the submarine. It will be a bit harder - the sub won't respond as quickly as with a captain - but you will still manage to do the job and may even get a feeling of accomplishment by doing so.

I usually either play as a mechanic or an engineer ( like most veterans who want to help players I guess ). With those two jobs, we have our own tasks of maintaining the sub, but sometimes ( often times ) things go wrong and you have to do the job of another. Even a mechanic can still heal a wounded crewmember or kill a hostile creature. However, the injury treatment will lack in efficiency ( the person you're healing may have strong side-effects ) and the damage done on the creature will be lesser than with a security officer. I think that's a normal thing, it's like in real life: if you're not a doctor but must treat a serious injury, you may succeed, albeit not as well as if it had been done by a doctor.

As for your selected jobs ( ex: a mechanic will repair machines ), it's quite rare to fail and injure yourself, even at the beginning levels. You may get an injury from time to time, maybe less than 10% of the time, and by the time you have gained a level or two ( doesn't take long to do that ), you will very rarely fail.

I would say the medic job is the one job that benefits from gained levels, but then again if you have learned the job's complexities ( memorizing ingredients required to produce an item, knowing what to use to treat X injury ), your chances are greatly augmented.

So no, it's not like Borderlands... You can kill an endworm ( the biggest creature in the game ) as a medic or a mechanic if you want... If you have the ammo of course.

I believe many would agree you can really enjoy the game with low levels.

[Hammer O'Malley]

Yea there are a varied number of ways to play this game. The campaign is progression based but not in for far as your character. They can do anything from the get-go but its a little harder. The progression comes in the way of gear mostly and subs/upgrades that cost money or you find in salvaging wrecks.

You can play one off scenarios like among us or short scenarios where upgrading and progression aren't really a thing. I think there is enough of this game to satisfy what you are looking for. It isn't a level up to progress game. Any starting character can complete any job for the most part.

[Dbat]

To my knowledge the only upgrade you absolutely need to progress is submarine hull upgrades. The further you get in the game, the greater the water pressure is on the hull. You can purchase other upgrades for the sub to make equipment more efficient or get new submarine guns, but it isn’t required.

Enemy health also doesn’t increase the further in you get, they just throw larger swarms and occasionally some new threats and missions.

[Warlord33]

in normal multiplayer single missions it doesn't really effect anything.
In campaigns, it does to an extent but still not enormously, others have said it better than I could.

Having higher weapons skill basically just decreases your spread with handhelds and increases the speed your turrets rotate.
The only tangible thing medical skill does under most circumstances is if you are too low skill to use a certain type of medical item, there's a chance that you will fail the skill check - for example healing wounds less and giving them a little opiate addiction, in the case of something like fentanyl.
Mechanic skill slightly impacts how fast you use welding/plasma cutter fuel, and how fast you do repairs - also, if you're lower than the minimum level to repair something (55 in most cases, most mechanics start at roughly 40 i believe) there's a chance (scaled to your level) that you'll get damaged and stunned. Also your fabrication speed will be much slower if you're too low a level for the item you wanna make, but this barely impacts normal early gameplay honestly.
Electrical is basically same as mechanic except for electrical items. If you are too low electrical level you can just turn off the power to the item though and you won't be stunned.
Helm skill denotes how fast the ship reads your actions and turns it into ballast/engine movements. This can be important, but honestly not hugely.

The different skill levels are less for the progression and more for splitting up classes, so bare that in mind. I think you'd still enjoy the game, I agree with you in a lot of ways about meaningless numbers-over-skill and that's not the case in this game at all, at least in my opinion.

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Originally posted by Neonetik:

I am considering buying this to play with a friend, but I despise progression systems with an intense, unwavering passion. I truly hate any game that forces you to play for a certain amount of hours to get a bigger number next to your character that suddenly means you're allowed to do things you couldn't before, or do things better, simply because you invested enough time into the game. I enjoy having my skill being the only factor in determining whether I win or lose, not how big a certain number is due to time invested. I don't want victory to be determined by character power, but rather, by my ability.

I despise stuff like borderlands, warframe, rogue legacy, and anything else with that style of progression system. That said, I am at least ok with something like Dark Souls, as even in the weakest possible state, beating the game without taking a single hit is still very possible with enough skill, and becoming very powerful can literally take just a few minutes if you know how the game works. Meanwhile, those other examples don't allow this.

Could someone clarify what the progression system in this game is like for me? I understand there is one, but I don't know the form of which it takes.

Cheers.

currently game is getting rework that each class of crew will have 3 small tallent tree's who expands the role of the crew(not in game now but will be soon)

aside from progression is stockpiling weapons , materials , explosives ammo and meds for "harder challanges" as well upgreading the ship

but in new update a lot change , some very specialised or super equipment will be only avalible to craft by your profesion , but once crafted anyone can use it.


as for roles the only 2 thing who limit you can do on some ship is your "access card" , security gets access to "secure locker" , and poison locker in medbay (captain gets access to both)

in singleplayer , or friend coop none of these limitations are relevant unless you want to keep guns away from certain idiot playing with you