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[DEVBLOG#209] The Strong bois - what are we changing with Hussars? (Patreon)

Published:
2022-11-06 12:59:01
Imported:
2022-11
Tags:

Content

Hello beautiful people on this marvelous sunday! 

Today, I would like to show you what we plan to add/change in the Hussars Xenotype mod we're in the process of developing.

This mod expands on the content of Hussars, the genetically engineered warrior xenotype of Biotech DLC. Hussars are engineered soldiers. They fight aggressively and with precision, heal fast, thrive in extreme temperatures, and freely ingest military drugs. They have a genetic dependence on go-juice, which also makes them less likely to rebel against their commanders. While hussars' emotions make them dangerous in combat, they can't relate to baseliner humans. They are famous for their blood-red eyes and "hussar stare", a dead expression that unsettles many people. Their lack of expression and burning aggressive nature has led to many violent misunderstandings. In most societies where they live, hussars are kept separated from the rest of the population. Hussars are single-purpose tools - and they generally aren't bothered by the fact.

Our main inspiration was essentially Witchers from, well, you guessed it: The Witcher. Death stare, strong and reliable, skilled in every way, with no emotion and full loyalty to the one paying their bills. Did I just describe a perfect VE team member? Perhaps.

NEW GENES

Our mod should add some new genes for Hussars.

DUTIFUL

Carriers of this gene have a greatly increased sense of duty and will never break down when drafted.

prefixSymbols: obedient, loyal, dutiful, steadfast, steady, composed

Complexity: 1Metabolism: -1

This gene makes it so that mental breaks cannot trigger if a pawn is drafted. If the pawn is drafted and is meant to receive a mental break, it instead gets ‘remembered’ and happens as soon as the pawn undrafts.

BULLETPROOF SKIN

Carriers of this gene have their skin reinforced by organic kevlar-like strands, allowing them to deflect smaller calliber bullets and only end up with bruises.

Prefix Symbols: kevlarSuffix Symbols: resistantWhole Name Symbols: bulletproof

Complexity: 1Metabolism: -1

This gene allows the users to change any sharp damage with less than 20% armor penetration into blunt damage of equal value.

GIANT

Carriers of this gene are slightly larger than baseline humans.

Complexity: 1

This gene simply increases the drawsize of the pawn with this gene by 10%, making them visually larger than other humans without this gene.

WEAPON APTITUDE TERRIBLE

The carrier's aptitude in {0} is greatly reduced. Aptitude acts like an offset on hit chance and accuracy.

Effect: If melee: Melee Hit Chance -8, if ranged: Shooting Accuracy -10

Complexity: 1Metabolism: 3

Uses the weapon tag system introduced in 1.3. Can be: Short shots, Long shots, Melee, RangedHeavy, RangedLight.

WEAPON APTITUDE POOR

The carrier's aptitude in {0} is reduced. Aptitude acts like an offset on hit chance and accuracy.

Effect: If Melee: Melee Hit Chance -4, if ranged: Shooting Accuracy -5

Complexity: 1Metabolism: 2

Uses the weapon tag system introduced in 1.3. Can be: Short shots, Long shots, Melee, RangedHeavy, RangedLight.

WEAPON APTITUDE STRONG

The carrier's aptitude in {0} is increased. Aptitude acts like an offset on hit chance and accuracy.

Effect: If Melee: Melee Hit Chance +4, if ranged: Shooting Accuracy +5

Complexity: 2Metabolism: -1

Uses the weapon tag system introduced in 1.3. Can be: Short shots, Long shots, Melee, RangedHeavy, RangedLight.

WEAPON APTITUDE REMARKABLE

The carrier's aptitude in {0} is greatly increased. Aptitude acts like an offset on hit chance and accuracy.

Effect: If Melee: Melee Hit Chance +8, if ranged: Shooting Accuracy +10

Complexity: 2Metabolism: -3

Uses the weapon tag system introduced in 1.3. Can be: Short shots, Long shots, Melee, RangedHeavy, RangedLight.

CLOTHED SPEED

Carriers of this gene move faster while clothed, and slower while naked.

If wearing clothes: +0.1 c/s movement speed

If naked: -0.2 c/s movement speed

Complexity: 1Metabolism: 1

Can’t exist alongside Naked speed.

TOUGHNESS

Carriers of this gene have thick skin, dense flesh, and durable bones, and take much less damage than other people from the same blows.

Prefix symbols: hard, tough, heavy, strong

Complexity: 1Metabolism: -1

Forces Tough trait.

NEW ITEMS

Below are the new items added in this mod.

HUSSAR WINGS

Text.todo

A set of mechanical, spacer-tech, back-mounted wings that allow the user to propel themselves in the air and glide a short distance.

Research project required: Recon armor

Crafted on: Fabrication Bench

Resources required: 30 Plasteel, 3 Components, 50 Steel

Crafting skill required: 6

Worn on Waist utility slot.

Does not require any fuel.

625 Market value.

Quality affects the distance of the Short Jump ability.

Grants the ‘Short jump’ ability which has a 15 second cooldown.

When worn, eliminates path cost from travelling on difficult terrain, such as stone chunks, mud etc.

NEW ABILITY

SHORT JUMP

Using hussar wings, propel yourself into the air and glide a short distance.

This ability allows your character to select any unroofed tile within the radius of 6.9.

This ability allows the players to literally jump over walls, provided the landing area is unroofed.

Pawn will then jump vertically in the air, and then slowly glide towards that location. This will probably need some custom animation to look good.

Sound cast: Longjump_Jump

Sound landing: JumpMechLand

warmupEffecter: JumpMechWarmupEffect

flightEffecterDef: JumpMechFlightEffect

As you can see, we don't want to make sweeping changes to the whole xenotype: I believe Tynan came up with pretty reasonable xenotypes, with unique characteristics and a place within RimWorld universe. What I aim to do is just to add to it, to make there xenotypes feel more unique and diversified, so they don't just feel like a baseliner with a few forced traits, but instead as a new race you need to play around and accomodate.

Let me know what you think of these additions, and if you like it, be sure to let me know as well. It's uncharted waters for VE, so we're really trying to see what the community expects.

Files

Comments

Yusuf Tagari

Very cool, though will the different aptitudes make a noticeable difference?

Comton

Then the winged hussars arrived !

Alexandre F.

I kind of like this approach to the xenotype, I didn't expect much of Hussars and I find the new genes quite flavorful. I'm just hoping Sanguophage will be a little larger than Hussars. I don't know how I feel about the new equipement. It's like a flavored jetpack that makes them jump like Sanguophage can. It's kind of odd imo. I always welcome more equipement but it does feel a bit unneeded.

Oleg Oleg

Interesting! Though being honest I feel like large could actually make the lawns larger, thus automatically incurring a metabolism cost scaling with their metabolic rate, plus a bit of extra buffs to offset things that aren't directly influenced by body size (melee damage as an example) In addition, the "can't relate to baseline humans" could be a trait as well, something along the lines of "all those with the gene have [X] when interacting with those without the gene, such as no relations/mood gain, perhaps the opposite even A trait to add blood lust might be a good idea too, since they're killer machines, though I'm not actually sure if this fully fits in Perhaps it could be combined with that "can't relate to other humans" gene, and maybe rather than the gene being the deciding factor during interaction it could be blood lust in general - so a non hussar could still interact in some positive way with the hussars

Veed

Very cool, thank you for keeping up with more mods and updating everything in a short amount of time ❤️

Wilhelm Fiore

I wasn't really excited about Hussars Expanded but this looks really cool! I will admit though, for a second I thought that the wings were caused by a new xenogene, and I got a bit bummed out when I saw they were just an equippable item, haha.

Owain I Jones

A lot of cool ideas here! I like the weapon aptitudes, and Giant is very fun. I'm not quite so sure about the balance for a few of these though. Firstly, I like the way Dutiful works, with mental breaks being banked for later, but that still seems way too powerful for -1 metab. Especially since, in theory, you'd never even have to undraft a hussar if you're only interested in them as a soldier - just manually command them to eat and pop some wakeup every now and then. That, or you could just command them to go stand in a 1x1 room that you wall off before undrafting them to avoid the consequences until they calm down. Point is, it's very cheap for something with downsides that can be avoided through some careful management. Secondly, Clothed Speed is interesting but it should definitely have a negative metabolic cost, not a positive one. The only time a pawn isn't going to be wearing clothes is if they've got Naked Speed, which is already incompatible, or if they're a nudist - so realistically, as it stands for 99% of pawns it's just a buff to metabolism and movement with no practical downside. Lastly I'm really not so sure about Toughness. Biotech already gives us Robust, which is a .75 multiplier on damage which costs -2 metab. Toughness is stronger, giving a .5 multiplier on damage, plus the benefit of (presumably) suppressing the Delicate trait if the pawn had that naturally, all for half the metabolic cost. All in all I hope this doesn't come across like I'm being overly critical, but these are my honest impressions.

Noisy Koi

What about a "gear up" gene that allows hussars to equip items faster?

NeverSink

Generally excited for that and the hussar wings sound awesome, but I think the metabolic multipliers are all a bit skewered as others pointd out Regarding Dutiful: - I don't think Dutiful is too powerful for it's cost. Keeping a pawn drafted at all times is a big drawback and the breaks still happen. Clothing Speed: - Clothed speed should definitely have a cost, not a benefit, but personally I don't think the perk is very flavourful. It's basically active all the time and I'd cut it. Weapon Aptitudes: - The weapon skills are something I find VERY cool, but the advantages/disadvantages numerically don't make sense. The disadvantages are all giving too abusable with (as it's very easy to take advantage of not using 1/5 of all weapons), while the advantages cost too little. Personal suggestion would be +2/+4 for boosts and -1 for disadvantages, with only one disadvantage tier being there (the stronger one) Toughness: I see a lot of issues with the 'toughness thing'. Not only is it too cheap (should be 5-6 cost) - but it also introduces the problem that all Hussars the player encounters are tough, which makes getting tough supersoldiers a bit too easy and devalues the worth of one of the best perks ingame. If I may: I'd either skip the tough part or add a rare second subrace "Super-Hussars", which get the toughness trait, but at the cost of something like "Can't perform any skilled labor" trait, (maybe exclude them from warcaskets to not make them *too good for free?*) and maybe a second drug dependency.

Bohemian Romantic

Hmm, I think this may be one I skip. From the in game description I see Hussars more as highly unstable blunt instruments, send them into a warzone en-masse and just leave them to cause havoc and devastation. If anything a unique version of the berserk mental break would be great, one where they attack anyone who ISNT a hussar. Could even make it an ability we can trigger; they go berserk and become extra tough during it, but you'd better keep them away from your regular pawns when you do. Really lean into that line about needing to separate them from the general population. Sadly I just can't get behind the Witcher angle.

Lennybolt7

I recommend the tough gene doesn't force the tough trait, and instead reduces the damage taken like the resilient gene does, otherwise a standard hussar with the tough trait will outclass the subrace in damage soak

The Rat King

I know its only cosmetic but Giant is neat helps set them apart especially when combined with hulking body. any chance we get the inverse of this trait and maybe one for default draw size so xenotypes can vary in size amongst themselves aswell?

Jack Williams

Dutiful seems mad exploitable lol. If a pawn is at-risk to mentally break, you can draft them and put them somewhere more convenient. Clothed speed seems OP as well - this is literally just the regular speed genes with the arbitrary limitation of "must be clothed" - which is going to be literally every pawn outside of a nudist. So basically for zero utilitarian drawback, you're giving us a cheaper speed gene.

Ennek

Wings are very cool, weapon traits open up the option to tailor genetics for combat roles which is also cool. Clothed speed sounds redundant as others have said.

Con

I like most of the changes but like others have said, clothed speed is an odd one. What if they just ignored movement penalties from equipment instead? That might be even more OP but it could be balanced by the right metabolism cost

Toilailee

I'm conflicted about this: This isn't very flavorful, but a solid improvement to the vanilla hussars (other then the naked speed which should probably go away or changed as in above post), with the toughness and weapon aptitude additions feeling like fixed omissions from the vanilla. (well I feel thoughness should become 25% and robust 50% as well as 50% is kinda a lot for a non-modified human) But this indeed feels like an extension of vanilla and I don't really like the vanilla genemodding content (the genes themselves - the system is fine): Too much of it is 'forced vanilla variance' - as in a 'genemodded warrior' doesnt feel something like a (40k) space marine or (fallout) supermutant, because with few, often weak or cosmetic exceptions, they can be duplicated by non-genemodded pawns with training and lucky trait rolls. Not to mention lessen variance inside race. If the content isn't yet locked in, I'd love to focus on another part of the witchers and extend the combat drug angle. E.g. drugs that will kill anyone without the corresponding gene (or just the go-juice dependency), but with strong effects with heavy drawbacks. E.g. something like (would like to use witcher potion names, but they sound kind of unintuitive..): Hunter: Movement speed, darkvision (I assume that removes slower speed in darkness..?) and +25% weapon range for 3 hours at which point his rest bar is emptied (I assume this forces sleep? Intention to force wakeup for more thematic drug use or you know sleeping it off). Burnout: Ignore health effects (I mean stuff like infections, food poisoning or cryptosleep sickness - dunno how easy to implement), Combat boosts (firing/melee speed?), movement speed and the jump ability with very low cd for an hour, but then falls into coma for a day after it wears off and/or some additional after effects. MAD: As above, but even higher bonuses, ignore all health effects except destruction of the brain and missing limbs and berserk for 10 seconds. The drug can be taken again (with the autoinjector below) to refresh the timer, but the pawn dies when it eventually runs out. Could also simply put the pawn into a coma if death is too harsh, although it would still naturally die if it has sustained lethal damage when the 'ignore health effects'-thing wears off. Then either a utility item or an implant for an autoinjector with a very minor (mostly flavor) constant effect simulating a tiny drip feed of go-juice that fills go-juice dependency and will quickly give go-juice addiction for pawns not immune to it. Main use is to allow instant administration of go-juice and the above drugs (the pack will automagically keep MAD going after the first dose is taken until turned off - this would be really nice to be possible 'remotely' so you can (permanently) turn off your MAD hussars after the enemies are dead).