As I am getting through my updates to the internal damage system in order to make way for future updates to combat and medical, there is one thing that is pretty clear to me. To achieve any level of depth without a clunky system we will have to move to combat mode at some point. We lose out on so many possible options for combat without combat mode due to the lack of the secondary action key plus combat mode is significantly more intuative to use when compared to the intent system for combat.
I do want to make sure that all secondary interactions are still consistent, and will still probably keep most things that have different āmodesā to still have modes (for example, medical scanner would be left click to scan and use in hand/right click to change mode) since sometimes understanding if something has a right click action or not can be confusing. For weapons and combat things, right click would unlock options for things like having a more powerful swing attack on the right click and stuff like that.
I have every intention to eventually move to a combat mode style system as it gives us so much more options when it comes to making combat have more depth since there is only so much you can do with a single action compared to 2 actions that have interplay with each other.
Shitpost aside, my only serious issue with combat mode is what it does to muscle memory. Everyone will have to completely re-learn how to combat from close to zero.
On a tangential note I would really like to see RNG re-introduced to combat in some form at some point because adding a layer of RNG on top of skill keeps things interesting for everyone regardless of their skill level (and potentially their ping too) in the game.
I myself have finally had enough time thinking about combat mode and trying to work on things that donāt have combat mode to realise how much of a better system it is. My only genuine logical flaw that I can place on it is right click needing to open the context menu but that is only really an issue when you allow things to dump billions of items on a tile at once, plus I have a PR that improves the alt click menu somewhat already
I was thinking about doing RNG for things like guns; the faster you are moving and the faster your enemy is moving, the more variation the bullet could have on impact. If a target is running at you fast, then the bullet might only graze them instead compared to if you get the jump on them while they are standing still it is much more likely to do some serious damage as it peirces in. I think guns and projectiles are the perfect candidate for more randomised levels of damage since they have many different situations where they need to have different roles:
Quick kills for unarmoured and unaware assassination targets
Not so quick kills when in melee combat against a hostile target
Bulletproof armour
Non-lethal takedowns on someone who should be an actual threat and not go down so easilly
Of course all decisions wouldnāt be pure 100% RNG, things would be different depending on the situation to make them better at specific roles and not randomly useless at unpredictable times.
You can rebind (if its avalaible) toggle off and toggle on to 1 and 4 respecfully to give the same effect as help/harm intent, feels better to have a definite off button rather than togglesā¦
Ctrl clicking is generally how grabs were done anyway too.
Only hard thing to get over is RMB examine being moved to shift RMB and replaced with shove*
okay first thing first:
RNG in combat: bad. We are not here for xcom: knockoff in space.
speaking of combat mode I would be actually glad to see it introduced, this would spice up combat pretty neatly. Theres no muscle memory in current combat since all you do is click on people near wall, press one kye and strangle/toolbox them. Its not like youre doing sick combos like sleeping karp or karate.
RNG in combat isnāt necessarilly bad, the problem is with inconsistency as that is the point at which you become unable to make plans. Randomness can exist without becoming inconsistent if you know what types of combat situations players will be getting into and how to effectively manage that. Obviously something like randomly missing is horrible, but I will probably end up adding mechanics such as bullets not always dealing the same amount of damage, unarmoured targets may have chances to have the bullets deal more damage by striking somewhere important for example while wearing armour reduces the damage taken but the severity of the random ācritical hitsā.
I agree that RNG in armor/penetration is okayish, but anything more than that would hinder planning as You mentioned.
Current critical hits are aiming at limbs afaik
Also, I dont like the idea behind standing still = taking more damage. Actual combat is already benny hill theme worthy.
That effect over to TG is applied only when wearing certain mask (like the gasmaks).
Regarding RNG, iād be fine by it, since right now shooting at something will always hit no matter what really, but it has to be really, and i mean really fine tuned to work right.
Honestly I used to hate it because āURGH CHANGE BAD ME HATE CHANGEā but sometimes change good. Itās objectively better than the shitty intent wheel
THAT is bad tho. RNG is straight up unfun to deal with in ss13 and I found it super refreshing to see bee not have that shit when I first joined. Please donāt.
I wanna say that if you introduce it, there is going to be a lot of shoving and unintended screwdrivers going in lathes.
Though I think this will be a positive change, maybe not at first, but after a month or so people wont be wanting to go back.
We will also probably get a large influx of tg and flup players by doing this, which you can probably figure out the obvious positives and negatives of.
