BSM Rank and Class System

[Kyle]

I ended up not having time to give build 5 a try last night.

But I remembered an observation that I forgot to mention earlier regarding the Sniper's set of attributes. I'd exchange Dexterity for Stealth, or at least reduce the amount of Dexterity for some degree of higher Stealth. But perhaps you know something from digging into the game's guts that I don't, such as perhaps Dexterity plays a much larger role than officially described in sniping at a target.

I envy your ability to play the latest STALKER. My rig can barely play the original STALKER, and the only way I was even able to test the Super Mod Pack was due to the fact that the team working on it is going the extra and generous mile to release a version of the mod for players whose systems are not powerful enough to run the game with higher end graphics. All of the AI, gameplay, and other adjustments are there. If you haven't tried out STALKER with SMP, you can find it here:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/super-mod-pack

STALKER is a great game (another one I haven't finished due to other duties, and now, like you, contributing to 7.62). But someday I will play STALKER to the very end and of that I have no doubt. It's a nearly-perfect game world, where the sense of dread is ever palpable.

I've heard that STALKER's sequel, Clear Sky, isn't as good, but that the Call of Pripryat is right up there with the original STALKER. Oooh man, to have enough money someday to get a new rig!

One last observation about a mod that's not our own... If STALKER was able to make dread palpable, then Afraid of Monsters makes fear incarnate. I don't know if I'll ever complete that horrifying mod.

Have to go. I hope to get some time on build 5 tonight!

[R@S]

Yeah, SATLKER is a great game, I played through the first one several times. Haven't tried that mod tho. The second one was a big disapointment since it mostly used the same maps as the first one. It was still great, but I felt ripped off after playing twice for basically the same game. And boy was it bugged at the release, it took several months before they had a patch that made it work for me without too much hassle.

I thought about the Sniper Class's dex/stealth thingy but decided that having the dex was the best way to go. Otherwise the scout and sniper would have almost the sam class skills bar the Reaction/Sniping difference. And I think the dex paramter is the best one for a sniper, changing, clip, draw your secondary weapon, going prone/standing up and similar actions are important, at least how I play it.(I'm only using two or three mercs and leave my sniper without a spotter/ protection)

I'm anxious tho know if the CTD issue has been resolved. If it has we can move on to the naxt step, finding an upper limit to the various attributes. Then off to the new Global AI system, I've already made the basic code for it, around 500 lines, now I need to find some suitable names for the Reloaded maps that will act as permanent maps that the player can conquer.

[Ninja2dan]

Personally, I'd like to see a Sniper that acts more like a real sniper. This means most importantly the ability to make precision shots without a lot of aiming time, and makes those shots really count. Concealment is an important aspect for snipers, but it's not their primary skill of focus. In theory, they should be far enough away from the enemy that concealment plays little into their overall strategy.

Tactile speed is also not really a key fundamental with snipers, they concentrate more on deliberate and precise movement than rapid movement. Rapid movements are easier to detect, even at a distance, and could give his position away. Slow and defined movement is what keeps a sniper alive.


The Scout on the other hand should be relying on stealth and concealment as their number-one skill focus. They are usually going to be up close and personal with the enemy, attempting to blend into the surroundings just feet from enemy patrols.

For them, rapid movements are more important than precise movements. They should be relying on CQB-oriented weapon systems, to include hand-to-hand methods and melee weaponry for silent kills. The ability to quickly reload magazines or switch from an SMG to a throwing knife should be fast, while their ability to accurately hit targets at a distance is often a rarely-used skill.


Because of the limited number of squad members, it's often not going to be desirable to use a "spotter" with your sniper. In this game, snipers will usually need to operate solo. Because of this reason, I can understand where you are coming from to give a sniper the ability to quickly swap from their long rifle to a secondary weapon. But I think their primary focus should not be on dexterity or stealth as much as the skills required for precision shooting or their stamina that allows them to crawl in the prone for long distances.

[R@S]

I dunno why, but I have a strong feeling about the sniper class and dexterity when it comes to game mechanics. I always felt that operating heavy machinery is what a sniper does, and dexterity is a good thing to have for that

But this is just speculations on my part, and your idea of adding Stamina to the sniper makes much sense. I think that to fill that need I'll give all the classes an additional skill. Here's what I'm thinking:

Trooper [Class Skills: Strength, Dexterity, Reaction, Shooting, Gunfighting] + HeavyWeapon
Sniper [Class Skills: Eyesight, Agility, Dexterity, Sniping, Camouflage] + Stamina
Skirmisher [Class Skills: Reaction, Stamina, Strength, Shooting, Gunfighting] + Throwing
Sapper [Class Skills: Dexterity, Reaction, Intelligence, Sapper, HeavyWeapon] + Eyesight
Scout [Class Skills: Eyesight, Hearing, Agility, Camouflage, Stealth] + HandToHand
Medic [Class Skills: Health, Energy, Stamina, Intelligence, Medic] + Shooting

Why give the medic shooting as a class skill? Well, this class has only 1 Skill and 4 Parameter, if I added another Parameter it would mean that if this class is chosen, 3 skill points would have to be spent on the medic skill. This way it makes it more balanced and the reason for choosing this class isn't only the Intelligence Parameter this class has.

[Kyle]

I really got a lot out of reading Ninja2dan's supporting statements for adjusting the Sniper class as he describes. I'd hate to run into you Ninja2dan if you're a car salesman!

Trooper [Class Skills: Strength, Dexterity, Reaction, Shooting, Gunfighting] + HeavyWeapon
Sniper [Class Skills: Eyesight, Agility, Dexterity, Sniping, Camouflage] + Stamina
Skirmisher [Class Skills: Reaction, Stamina, Strength, Shooting, Gunfighting] + Throwing
Sapper [Class Skills: Dexterity, Reaction, Intelligence, Sapper, HeavyWeapon] + Eyesight
Scout [Class Skills: Eyesight, Hearing, Agility, Camouflage, Stealth] + HandToHand
Medic [Class Skills: Health, Energy, Stamina, Intelligence, Medic] + Shooting

In spite of my earlier concerns of having too many attributes per class, reading this proposed update to them makes perfect sense to me. I'd run with it R@S! Looks great to me, and I can't wait to try them out in game.

In regards to the AI update that you're incorporating; I know that the main goal is to have militia build up in a sensible and controllable way, but is there any way that you could tweak how the police respond to attacks not intentionally directed at them but are whizzing nearby anyway? I can't tell you the number of times that I've tricked smugglers to open up on me and I'm practically behind a police officer at the time, and it seems no matter how many times the rounds snap past the seams of their uniforms, they NEVER respond to the shooters. On the other hand, if I so much as turn a corner with my weapon at the ready (not even firing!) and there's a police officer there, I get a stern warning, and then a second or two later in Real Time they're "converted" into becoming my enemy. Why's the double standard so huge? Can this be adjusted into something more believable?

In regards to naming the locations that you're porting over from Reloaded... I wish I knew what the locations looked like. I think that a pretty sensible rule of thumb would be: if the location looks grand, name it something majestic. The other sensible rule of thumb would be to use a Spanish-ized name of a Roman Catholic saint. In fact, what would be quite clever is to name them based on a dominant feature of the region. For example, if there's a town near the coastline, you could look up a patron saint of the sea, or against shipwrecks, etc., and name that location after that saint.

If there was a location that was quite foreboding in appearance, you could come up with a back story that the region was once/possibly is cursed, and that region could've been renamed to invoke the power of a saint who was supposedly powerful at destroying witches, blocking curses, etc.

As a former Roman Catholic, I know that there's a saint associated with just about any thing you could imagine.

You could have a lot of fun with this in an intellectual, literary way. Book nerds like me would certainly get a good geeky laugh out of it.

To help you out, I found a couple of sites that could ease your searching. The first link is quite strong, as it's already broken down into categories, and the second link has some categories at the bottom of the page that might prove useful. All you'd have to do is find a saint that you think emulates the region, and convert that name into its Spanish counterpart (if it's not already Spanish), and voila(!), a great name that's convincing on a deep level.

Here's the links:
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/patron00.htm

http://saints.sqpn.com/

One more point to consider about location names: if in the end you decide to go with the campaign proposal (that I have yet to write!) some of these locations could have been renamed after local war/drug-lords, and some of these guys could be crazy enough to insist that their territory is named after their third wife or favorite dog.

Hey, it's a STRANGE world!


Now, before I head out to finally get my crack at v.5, I have one more question related to STALKER Clear Sky: I already know that my system can't play it, but I prefer to have hardcopies of my games, and I've found it on sale for $7.00. Is the prequel to STALKER worth buying/playing at that price, especially in light of mods that have surely made important adjustments to it? If I get a strong enough reply, I'll buy it now, and set it aside till I have a rig that can handle it (it shouldn't take too long, maybe within the next decade!).

Alright, now I'm off to v. 5. Report will be up ASAP.

Yours,
Kyle
July 8, 2010

[Ninja2dan]

Originally Posted by R@S

I dunno why, but I have a strong feeling about the sniper class and dexterity when it comes to game mechanics. I always felt that operating heavy machinery is what a sniper does, and dexterity is a good thing to have for that

But this is just speculations on my part, and your idea of adding Stamina to the sniper makes much sense. I think that to fill that need I'll give all the classes an additional skill.

Having been Sniper qualified in the Army and having operational time as a Sniper while serving as an LEO, I'm all too familiar with how snipers work and what their jobs include. We spent a lot of time practicing skills and movements slowly and precisely, making sure not to do anything too fast that might cause attention. The human eye sees movement first, then shape, then color. So a sniper's most important aspect to not being seen/detected is not to move or to move so slowly that the enemy doesn't notice it.

That doesn't mean we're always slow, but it's just how we usually operate. Slow and steady, with every inch of movement planned in advance. If we're doing our jobs correctly, we should be in a position where the enemy never even knows we're there. So we have plenty of time to adjust those optics, control our breathing, and shoot the enemy right between the eyes.

Hauling heavy gear is also part of the job for any combat-based ground soldier. But with the sniper, we drop our heavy loads at a rally prior to moving into our hide area. We then carry only minimal combat load, because the more crap you haul around the bulkier you are and the harder it is to move quietly or not being seen. Having a large 160-pound rucksack on makes it a bit difficult to low-crawl 150m along open terrain trying to get into position.

I think your ideas of skill point assignment sounds good, and look forward to seeing how it plays out.

Originally Posted by Kyle

I really got a lot out of reading Ninja2dan's supporting statements for adjusting the Sniper class as he describes. I'd hate to run into you Ninja2dan if you're a car salesman!

I just like to help make sure that tactics, techniques, and skill attributes of the real-world operator is described properly. I don't know if anyone else here has military or tactical law enforcement backgrounds, so helping provide knowledge about those jobs could help everyone have a better understanding of how those roles are done in the real world.

Unfortunately, too many games have been jacking up the sniper role because the developers lack actual knowledge or experience about the role and base their information off of highly unrealistic movies, television, and other poorly-made games. R@S is doing an outstanding job of reworking the system, avoiding mistakes that the original dev team made. If he feels that a more realistic approach will benefit the mod, then I'm more than happy to supply the information.


Regarding the new maps, R@S posted a few screenshots of some of them a few days ago. I can't remember which topic it was in, maybe the main BSM Mod topic. I must say, some of those new maps make me drool. The possibilities running through my mind of future scenarios has had me dying to get the game running again.

[R@S]

Thanks for those links Kyle, they'll come in handy

I was thinking of "giving" one or two of the new sectors to the Palinero faction and place them in that country. I think that'd even make the vanilla campaign a bit more fun if one chooses that way.

IMHO Clear Sky would be worth buying at that price, the community has added a lot of features and if you only player through SoC once you wont be too upset about them having the same maps. Since I loved SoC I played it several times and knew the maps like the back of my hands. And the frustation of not being able to play Clear Sky when I first bought it made me a bit to judgemental about it, but truth be told, it was still very fun to play.

The game engine calculates how near the player is to his maximum weight when it does the camo/stealth calculations. the less your merc is carrying, the better chance of staying hidded. This is just one example of how the engine uses the different attributes to calculate things, and that's where my gut feeling about sniper and dexterity comes into play. I'm glad that we all agree that the adding of one more class skill might work, will try to impement it for the next test version.

And let this be proof that with a cogent argument I'd be willing to alter my work, even if it ends up a compromise