Even since NC1 I have always been a little confused *exactly* how these work. How *exactly* do SKILL boosts/decreases affect their subskills?
I am sure there is no exact answer, as it depends on the skill, but if anyone could answer some of these questions it'd help. Although they aren't exactly direct questions, but help on each topic would be awesome.
1.) For example. The CON skill determines how durable you are, right? It contains subskills like Body Health, resists, Endurance for stamina, etc. Now let's look at a Filter Heart 1.
CONSTITUTION: +1.00
X-ray resist: . . .+3.65
Poison resist: . . +3.65
Body health: . . .-1.81
Endurance: . . . .-1.20
This is what just baffles me. It increases a Mainskill, yet decreases some subskills of that Mainskill. +1 CON, -1.81 Body health. Well, doesn't just adding to CON by itself increase the subskills of CON automatically? Therefore, what is the resultant effect on Body health if it is added to via Mainskill, yet subtracted from directly?
2.) As far as attack brain implants go, how are we supposed to know which ones to use? Say you're a Rifle Spy. How do you know whether to choose from a Coordination Advancement brain implant (+DEX only, which I assume adds automatically to it's subskills), or a Long Distance CPU (+Rifle Combat, +Weapon Lore, +Tech Combat, but no DEX boost).
3.) Hearts have always just confused the hell out of me for these same reasons, because they often add to CON and then take something away from CON.
The only one I think I fully understand are the Experimental Hearts. I think these should be for spies, because they both add to CON, Health, Endurance, and subtract from Athletics and Agility. The subtraction from Athletics is weird because it's a CON subskill but I think I get the point - spies would have enough Dex (and points in Agility) to compensate for that loss.
But a lot of the other hearts seem so strange to me, specifically the Cyber Heart.
Strengthen Heart is strange because it gives CON and Health and takes away ATL, all of which are under the same mainskill, so who is this targeted for?
Advanced Heart, same thing, and even stranger perhaps (since it focuses on Endurance which no one uses I think).
And back to the Filter Heart.
4.) I still also have a problem with building CON in general.
I know to always put Body Health to base 50 because that is when a 'soft cap' starts and it starts requiring 2 points instead of 1 to add to it, but other than that, I'm clueless. I get the concept -- If you have more Body Health you'll live longer, but would take more damage per hit since you have no resists. If you have no Body Health and all resists, you should take very little damage but not have as much health. Aren't both of these the EXACT same thing? One guy has Lots of health and loses Lots of health when he's hit. Another guy has very little health and loses very little health when he's hit. (???) How are we supposed to know?
I have even looked at NCSkill and I still don't know exactly how we are supposed to know how to not build a setup in a way that doesn't waste your points.
5.) On that note, *DO* mainskills even drip-into subskills and increase them slightly at all, or is this an incorrect assumption on my part? I know that +STR (and nothing else) will increase your damage with heavy weapons. But I guess this could be true, not because it adds to Heavy Combat, but because STR is used in the calculation for damage of a heavy weapon. With that in mind... what would something that adds +CON (and nothing else) do for you? If it doesn't add automatically to the Con subskills like Health and resists, then what effect would it have on the player at all??
Being from NC1 I feel like I should know all this stuff down to the code but I was never really in clans so I never really had a clue, just kind of guessed. Thanks if anyone can help clarify anything a bit.