SKILLS vs Subskills and subskills in general?

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.

1. I'm pretty sure Con affects health
2. I don't think Dex boosts anything
3. ?
4. you just have to find your preferred balance
5. I think that's an incorrect assumption
http://www.techhaven.org/resources/w...nce-guide.html
Based on that guide, it doesn't seem like skill values have any effect on subskills, damage output, or anything else like that.

There is no such thing as a "preferred balance" in this scenario because it's ALL in Con. If I was balancing health vs. my damage output, then yes, there would be a preferred balance. I could choose to be a glass cannon or I could choose to be a tank or somewhere inbetween. That's something that's a preferred balance.

CON setup is not the case at all. With the way it currently is, it seems it's easy to make obsolete builds. For example if I put all CON in BH and that's it, I'll have more health, but it seems that I'll just receive more damage simply because I have more health (and you'd take more damage without resists). This means that there's simply a superior balance somewhere, and if you do anything else it's obsolete and you've wasted your points.

An experiment I just did with a new 0/2 spy:

It looks like at 0 CON (if that were possible), and 0 BH, you'd start with 234 health, but since you start with 2 CON, you'd get +16, as it appears you get +8 per 1 CON, totaling 240 to start out with. Makes sense so far... but look at this...

2 CON
0 Body Health = 240 health
1 Body Health = 248 health (+8, +8 total)
2 Body Health = 256 health (+8, +16 total)
3 Body Health = 256 health (+0, +16 total) (WTF?)
4 Body Health = 264 health (+8, +24 total)
5 Body Health = 272 health (+8, +32 total)
6 Body Health = 280 health (+8, +40 total)
7 Body Health = 280 health (+0, +40 total) (?!?)
8 Body Health = 288 health (+8, +48 total)
9 Body Health = 296 health (+8, +56 total)
10 Body Health = 296 health (+0, +56 total) (??)
11 Body Health = 304 health (+8, +64 total)
12 Body Health = 312 health (+8, +72 total)
13 Body Health = 312 health (+0, +72 total) (??)
14 Body Health = 320 health (+8, +80 total)
15 Body Health = 328 health (+8, +88 total)
16 Body Health = 336 health (+8, +96 total)
17 Body Health = 336 health (+0, +96 total) (??)
18 Body Health = 344 health (+8, +104 total)
19 Body Health = 352 health (+8, +112 total)
20 Body Health = 352 health (+0, +112 total) (?)

2 CON + 1x Paratemol (+2 CON)
0 Body Health = 256 health (+16)
2 CON + 1x Paratemol (+2 CON)
20 Body Health = 368 health (+16)

- Every +1 CON gives +8 health (since +2 CON gives +16 health regardless whether I have 0 BH or 20 BH)
- Every +1 BH gives +8 health... but sometimes it doesn't give you anything...?
- On this experiment overall, because +1 BH doesn't always give you health, 1 point of BH is on average worth 5.6 health, not 8 health. (112 / 20)

Conclusion: I don't get it.

If CON and BH both add to your actual health, then what is the point of having an implant (Filter heart as example) that simultaneously adds to CON and subtracts from BH? Unless my assumption that mainskills DO affect subskills is true, then it might make sense, since the +1 CON would also be adding to all resists (poison, fire, etc) behind the scenes.

It's still very unclear and if anyone knows more I'd be happy. Personally I think we should get full descriptions of what each subskill does and the formulas. (For example, "Your character's health is influenced 50% by CON and 50% by your Body Health stat" "Your xray resist is 80% XRR and 20% CON" etc ... I'm just guessing.)

The reason to use a different heart is because some of them add and subtract different things. I believe some give you resists and some sacrifice some runspeed.

..well, yeah, we can see which mainskills/subskills they increase or decrease, but I think you missed what I meant. The 'problem' is that all the skills affected are completely contained in CON, and nothing else.

Here is the easiest example I can think of:

Strengthen Heart v.02
CON:+1.65 HLT:+13.18
ATL:-5.44

vs.

Advanced Heart v.02
CON:+1.68 END:+13.44
ATL:-5.54

They both add +1 to CON. They both add +13 to a CON subskill. (the game rounds down on increases) They both subtract -6 from ATL (CON subskill). (the game rounds up on decreases)

I could add 13 points manually to Body Health and use an Advanced Heart v.02, or add 13 points manually to Endurance and use a Strengthen Heart v.02, and have exactly the same result, as far as I can tell. This CAN'T be right, because then this means there must be one heart that is simply superior to all the others, since they all only affect things in CON.

Think about it. If you are allowed to add points to any subskill in CON (which, we can), then whatever gets the biggest total of +points would be the best, since you could just rearrange your points manually anyways...

If I make these three hypothetical items...

Heart1:
Health +10
Fire resist +5
Athletics -5

Heart2:
Health +15
Fire resist +5
Athletics -10

Heart3:
Health +10
Fire resist +10
Athletics -10

Assuming you'd have at least some points in your health, fire resist, and athletics, all three hearts are exactly the same! So, if I were to make Heart3 have a bonus of Fire resist +15 instead, that is now the superior one, and the other two are obsolete.

See why I'm confused that all the affected skills are within the same mainskill now?

I delved into the maths of health here. Sadly I appear to have done something with the graph (edit: just added at the end), but the conclusions are still visible.

1. Yes, con effects health, but nothing like as much as HLT. They don't directly effect subskills however - your con level doesn't effect how much you have in your HLT subskill. It may effect some of the ultimate calculations however. Although I don't believe that say, pistol damage incorporates dex, int or str at all.

2. As said above, I'm far from sure that dex effects your rifle damage at all. It's best if you consider mainskills as pure requirements - certainly needing more dex to reach a certain weapon is the only reason to use a Coordination Advancement chip. There's a more real choice however between something like the Distance CPU and a resist implant like the PPR

3. Let's come back to this

4. Honestly? A combination of experiments with the likes of Nskill and in game. There's a reason con setups used to be closely guarded personal (or clan) secrets. They are difficult to get "perfect" and there is no 100% ideal. It entirely depends on what you are fighting and what other compromises you want to make. How much does speed matter to you? What armour are you wearing - and do you need to sacrafice resists for the benefits of PA? Etc.

5. No, mainskills don't drip into subskills. Mainskills occasionally are used in the formula for a particular calculation - but boosting a mainskill does not boost the constituent subskills. A full-capped rifle spy still has a remote control of 0, say. Mainskills are best thought of pretty much purely as requirements - which yes, does mean that stuff boosting con is pretty pointless.


Now, let's look at your more recent post, and in doing so come back to question 3. Yes, those hearts in theory all have the same amount of buffs and nerfs. What you are failing to consider is how they fit into individual people's setups. Remember that to raise a skill to 50 costs 1 skill point per level. 50-75 takes 2 skill points, 75-100 3 points and then a massive 5 points for over 100. So it becomes much clearer which one is better, depending on how you are set up. If you have 50 base HLT, and 0 base end, then Strengthen Heart is worth effectively 26 skill points from it's health gain, enough to easily offset the athletics cost, while endurance would only be worth 13 points, possibly not being worth what it would cost you to get ATL back up, depending on how much you'd invested in that.

It's also worth pointing out that the game does not round down the benefits from your implants. If it says you get +5.17, then you get +5.17. It''s just that the skill window displays the last whole number you reached. Equally, if you need a dex of 100 to use a gun, then dex 99.99 won't cut it - you need dex 100.

1. Hm. are you sure? When I made a new character to test this, I un-assigned all CON points at character creation, so I had 0 BH.
I went to Plaza-2 (time had passed - not sure if you have SI on character creation).
Starting with 2 CON automatically, I popped one Paratemol for a gain of +2 CON and received +16 health. (NB assumed it acts as the stated +2 CON on my skill screen and not +2.82 CON.. possible error)
Every time I added one point into BH (and let it settle), I got +8 health. But, every 3 or 4 times I added a point into BH, I got nothing at all. The health would "want" to boost, and it would go up for a split second, and then back down.
First time it happened I tried waiting, zoning, waiting, still nothing.
Wouldn't this mean that, as an average, at least, before any discovered softcaps, that 1 point of BH ~= 5.6 health?, which would mean that if 1 point of CON == 8 health, that CON is actually better at adding health?
(of course, items that do add to either of them will usually add more BH than CON)

2. Ah, just requirements. Hmm... I might do another experiment. I'm 95% sure that INT and DEX does have an affect on tradeskill calculations, though. Like, I'm pretty sure INT of 80 with CST of 200 is worse than INT of 100 with CST of 200, even though there is nothing that really says this in-game. I think I remember seeing a thread long ago that stated this. (If I remember right, even STR was calculated in your repair skill, by 10%, or something really strange)
Agreed about the implant choice you mentioned. That makes more sense to me.
I'll do an experiment soon (a new char with all skills at default and all subskills at 0), and pop some +DEX drugs and see what happens.

4. Yeah, I was being too dramatic saying there is one exact superior combination, however, it is certainly a window. All points in BH and nothing in resists would be quite bad I think, but I assume it has to do with your response to #5 where skills start taking more points after 50. So the best goal may be 50 for all resists and 50 for BH as a starting point ... but then I wouldn't be sure whether or not to add remaining points to resists or to BH. I'm assuming BH.
The one thing I will say I think is a true choice is having a runspeed factor in CON. BH and resists are all the same thing to me -- durability. Runspeed is of course different.

5. Ah yeah, bad terminology on my part. They don't literally add points to the subskills but I thought maybe they added to what the subskill actually does behind the scenes. For example (I thought), "A character's Poison resist is calculated by 75% PRR and 25% CON" or something.
(Ouch.. this example would be a hard one to test for.. if CON really does add to health, to make other uncontrolled factors in the experiment.)
(Was thinking to take damage from a poison spell, heal, pop a lot of +CON drugs and try again. However, since CON would add health... I believe you'd take slightly more damage, simply because you have more health. (Actually, this was something I remember from NC1... maybe this isn't true now))

>50 points
Yes, good point. I was hoping someone would bring that up. I realized it, but didn't want to think that's the only thing that would separate those hearts, but I suppose it is. It does make sense, but it just seemed way too subtle to me to be the answer, but you're right. Thanks.

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It's also worth pointing out that the game does not round down the benefits from your implants. If it says you get +5.17, then you get +5.17. It''s just that the skill window displays the last whole number you reached. Equally, if you need a dex of 100 to use a gun, then dex 99.99 won't cut it - you need dex 100.

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Interesting. I want to test this. I see that it adds decimals within the implants window, so +1.65 DEX and +5.06 ATL would show +6.71 ATL, but I'd like to test to see if it actually acts as +6.71 ATL or if it acts as +6.00 ATL. Maybe you are right here. Will be back.

Thanks.!

I love the fact that you have tried to dig into the maths of this whole thing and you have had the patience and time to devote to it. I feel a little bit like I have short changed you therefore by only commenting on in such a blunt way.

The problem is (not the only one) I think that due to these annoying decimal places it makes the game so much harder for your average joe public with a rudimentary grasp of maths (me) to work out point efficiencies and all the other stuff we like to tinker with.

I don't understand why they had to change it from 1+1+1 etc to 1+1.59697834 or whatever.

It was so much easier to work out with a pen and paper the old way. I am sure it would make things much easier to balance and code also if they could go back to nc1 (sorry I sound like a broken record) skill sets and keep with the whole numbers for leveling skills. It is just so much easier to do I feel.

However props to you guys for the research.

Here we go again with the NC1 nostalgia.

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Originally Posted by William Antrim

I love the fact that you have tried to dig into the maths of this whole thing and you have had the patience and time to devote to it. I feel a little bit like I have short changed you therefore by only commenting on in such a blunt way.

The problem is (not the only one) I think that due to these annoying decimal places it makes the game so much harder for your average joe public with a rudimentary grasp of maths (me) to work out point efficiencies and all the other stuff we like to tinker with.

I don't understand why they had to change it from 1+1+1 etc to 1+1.59697834 or whatever.

It was so much easier to work out with a pen and paper the old way. I am sure it would make things much easier to balance and code also if they could go back to nc1 (sorry I sound like a broken record) skill sets and keep with the whole numbers for leveling skills. It is just so much easier to do I feel.

However props to you guys for the research.

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Presumably they thought working with decimals would let them fine tune things better. I'd have to agree it was a bad idea, especially when certain combos leave you with frustrating +x.97 and similar.