[1.3] Rah's Bionics and Surgery Expansion - v3.0 (Feb 5th, 2022)

Started by Rah, December 27, 2016, 02:49:44 PM

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Rah

#30
Quote from: Love on December 28, 2016, 09:45:12 AM
I just wish you could figure out a way to balance the cost without having to rely on putting hundreds of metal on a crafting table and somehow only coming away with an arm.

It's not just an arm though. Bionic parts should be rare and expensive. With regards to the metals; plasteel and components are usually the only rare resources in Rimworld that are used to make end game items - and steel to a certain degree.

Love

How about cutting down on the steel/plasteel and adding uranium to the costs? Maybe even make them take longer to build...

Rah

#32
Quote from: Love on December 28, 2016, 11:16:00 AM
How about cutting down on the steel/plasteel and adding uranium to the costs? Maybe even make them take longer to build...
Doesn't make much sense to add a radioactive material to body parts, but the work time suggestion isn't a bad idea.
Btw, have you completed the game on intense or extreme?

Love

Quote from: Rah on December 28, 2016, 11:54:45 AM
Quote from: Love on December 28, 2016, 11:16:00 AM
How about cutting down on the steel/plasteel and adding uranium to the costs? Maybe even make them take longer to build...
Doesn't make much sense to add a radioactive material to body parts, but the work time suggestion isn't a bad idea.
Compact power source.

Quote from: Rah on December 28, 2016, 11:54:45 AM
Btw, have you completed the game on intense or extreme?
No, I haven't, that's just not the way I prefer to play. Your mod is just in an interesting position because it fixes a lot of the flaws of EPOE but at the same time to balance it out it makes some changes that I'm not particularly fond of.

Difficulty aside I just don't like the logic of going through so much metal to create something so small.

Rah

@Love
I totally agree about it not being completely logical to use so much metal on certain parts, but that's how the balance is achieved at the moment. If you want to pretend, you could explain it by saying that they need to extract only the best and purest parts from the plasteel, and that they also waste a bunch of material in order to make the advanced and complex parts.

Would you be interested in a Lite version of this mod? I might put one together if I have the time.

Love

A Lite version would be nice.

What's wrong with the Uranium suggestion for bionics?

Rah

Quote from: Love on December 28, 2016, 12:23:54 PM
A Lite version would be nice.

What's wrong with the Uranium suggestion for bionics?
As a power source, it makes more sense. It's a bit hard to balance though, and even the ship reactor only requires steel, plasteel and components.

Love

I understand. When you do the Lite version, could you restore the stuff to the traders too?

ainsyl

First of all, awesome mod. Although I have some balance thoughts on it, even if you won't change a thing I'll still keep using it because it's exactly what I've wanted. EPOE is great but had too many workbenches and the vancidium thing turned out to be a game breaker when raiders started spawning with vancidium weapons and those sold for thousands of silvers.

That said, had some time to test today, hope you don't mind some thoughts on it. Some, as in, a massive wall of tl;dr text.
For context, I either use Cassandra on Intense or Randy on Rough, so bear in mind I'm leaning more towards vanilla mat ratios than extreme hardcore.

I've made a little table for comparison (see below). It shows current steel, plasteel, component and hyperweave costs, then some total cost columns in steel and plasteel (components are counted as steel) that take into account the prereq parts (simple > bionic > advanced bionic upgrades).
Included at the top are the late game top resource-heavy items/placeables, the power armor and the ship parts, for comparison.
I took the ship reactor as the base value, needing the most resources in vanilla. The last column is the item's plasteel cost in "reactors".

1. COST

1.A - STEEL

To take a vanilla item for reference, power armor is 450 steel + 135 plasteel = 585 materials, which covers 2 legs, 2 arms, torso (again, counting components as steel).
Very simplified "game-y" human body distribution is 50% torso, 10% head, 10% arms, 30% legs.
That'd be baseline 1 arm is ~30 mats, 1 leg is ~88 mats, torso ~290 mats.
Hands and feet are ~2% of the whole body, so 12 mats for hand and 12 mats for feet.
I have no idea how much a spine would weight but maybe we can assume that it's not just a spine but also part of the back to support it? About 25% of the torso, so if torso is 290 mats then a spine is ~74 mats.
Same logic for the jaw and pelvis.
For the jaw, take 20% of the head. The power armor helmet is 175 steel + 60 plasteel = 235 mats, so the jaw would be 48 mats. This one looks strange, but maybe you have to replace muscles too in the neck, idk.
For the pelvis, take 15% of the torso, 44 mats.

I'd also drop a ~20% increase on them for prosthesis socket, material loss during manufacture, installation cost, whatever.

- 1 simple prosthesis arm 30 steel
- 1 simple prosthesis leg 88 steel
- 1 simple prosthesis hand and feet 14 steel

There is no two tiers for the following so I'd split the material requirements around 20%/80% steel/plasteel ratios for these:
- 56 materials for bionic jaw - 12 steel, 44 plasteel
- 52 materials for artificial pelvis - 10 steel, 42 plasteel
- 88 materials for bionic spine - 18 steel, 70 plasteel

Anything more and I'd start putting manipulation and movement penalties on them because HEAVY. There's simply no place for that much steel in those tiny pawn bodies D:

But for bionics we have to spruce them up, so to plasteel we go.

1.B - PLASTEEL

Well, currently some of these parts cost about x1.6 the amounts it'd take to build a starship reactor so yeah, I'd balance it hard. Unless I'm actively trading for plasteel, I'm not really amassing them that much, but limbs are flying off left and right, so a regular player won't see much past the simple prosthesis, maybe the bionic for that favorite pawn.

So, real world plasteel is steel and fiberglass, so it'd replace some of the steel in the simple prosthesis version during upgrade. Makes sense to at least use as much plasteel as it would to make the simple one, but once again drop a 15% on them for aforementioned reasons (mats loss, new socket, etc.).

- 1 bionic arm 40 plasteel
- 1 bionic leg 120 plasteel
- 1 bionic hand and feet 16 plasteel

For artificial nose, see 1.C below (hyperweave).
Advanced bionics, see below point 2.

1.C - HYPERWEAVE

I love the idea of using textile for organs! But I'd switch around the ratios for the squishy organs - more hyperweave, less plasteel. I can buy plasteel being needed, but a ship's structure beam's worth or plasteel for a heart is pushing it.

So pawns have 2 lungs, 1 liver, 1 heart, 1 stomach, 2 kidneys in the torso, 2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 nose in the head.
So if a torso is 293 mats, minus the spine (~74) and some more bone structure is around 200 mats. Split between 7 organs, ~30 mats each.
Add half of this as plasteel requirements to keep the damn thing together.
Drop a 20% on it as installation cost.

Nose and ears are more soft than strong, so I'd stay more hyperweave than steel. It's also just cosmetic. About 10% of the head, ~6 mats. Add the 20% plus half of it in plasteel for support.

Eyes, now this is tricky because it's a finicky organ and can give lots of bonuses. Let's say you have to replace parts of the interior face bone structure to get it working, and you'd need gold for circuitry. 30% of head, 70 mats. Add the 20% plus half of it in steel/plasteel for support.

- 1 synthetic liver/kidney/heart/stomach/lung 36 hyperweave, 18 plasteel
- 1 artificial nose 6 hyperweave, 3 plasteel
- 1 bionic ear 6 hyperweave, 3 plasteel
- 1 bionic eye 84 hyperweave, 42 plasteel, 25 gold

I think that's it?
But we still have advanced bionics. Just dropping a metric crapton of plasteel on it feels strange (where does a nuclear reactor's worth of plasteel fit in a pawn?), maybe time to add a new material?

2. POWER SOURCE/URANIUM FOR ADVANCED BIONICS

Basically "powered" bionics with small, self-contained power source. And okay, a little more plasteel and +10% installation cost.

- 1 advanced bionic arm 44 plasteel, 8 uranium
- 1 advanced bionic leg 132 plasteel, 26 uranium
- 1 advanced bionic hand 18 plasteel, 4 uranium
- 1 advanced bionic foot 18 plasteel, 4 uranium
- 1 advanced bionic spine 20 steel, 78 plasteel, 20 uranium
- 1 advanced bionic eye 92 hyperweave, 46 plasteel, 28 uranium
- 1 advanced bionic ear 8 hyperweave, 4 plasteel, 2 uranium

For reference, cryptosleep casket is 5 uranium.
I just divided the mats cost by 5 and added it as uranium cost. I never get much of these. I heard it can be found as veins, I've never seen one. Most I get is from random drops.

ItemSteelPlasteelComponentHyperweaveTotal cost - steelTotal cost - plasteelTotal cost in reactors - plasteel
Ship structural beam200150104501500.30
Ship reactor300500259255001.00
Ship engine200300258253000.60
Power armor135184501350.27
Power armor helmet607175600.12
--------
Simple prosthetic arm130423000.00
Simple prosthetic leg130423000.00
Simple prosthetic hand100317500.00
Simple prosthetic foot100317500.00
Artificial pelvis2001002001000.20
Artificial nose600600.12
Power arm505053500.70
Bionic arm30084303000.60
Bionic leg30084303000.60
Bionic hand20022252000.40
Bionic foot20022252000.40
Bionic spine20040053254000.80
Bionic eye20051252000.40
Bionic ear600600.12
Bionic jaw5010021001000.20
Advanced bionic arm30024806001.20
Advanced bionic leg30024806001.20
Advanced bionic hand18012503800.76
Advanced bionic foot18012503800.76
Advanced bionic spine40023758001.60
Advanced bionic eye18021253800.76
Advanced bionic ear501100.22
Advanced power arm25045056001.20
Exoskeleton suit20060063506001.20
Power claw5017500.00
Synthetic lung100501000.20
Synthetic heart1501001500.30
Synthetic kidney100501000.20
Synthetic stomach100501000.20
Synthetic liver100501000.20

3. MISC THINGS

- I didn't have time to test the weapons and the exoskeleton much, so no input on those.

- The joywire and painstopper seems too cheap at the moment. Gold is easy to come by, and both of those implants give crazy bonuses.

- Would it be too coding heavy to have a baseline value for materials, and a mod setting in options to multiply the baseline values manually or by difficulty setting? I think the Stack XXL mod uses something like this. That way everyone would be able to set their levels according to their playstyle.

- A Steam Workshop entry would be great. Please? :) Automatic updates are good.

- Echoing the request to put the eyepatch back. Aside from of enjoying naming pawns with shot out eyes as *something* Boss and giving them the eyepatch, it also took away their disfigured debuff. Since you already have a solution for shot off noses with the artificial nose, maybe something for poor eyes?

If you read it this far, let me say thanks again for the mod! Hope you don't take any of it as too harsh criticism or anything, it's not intended. I just like it that much that I'd love to see it balanced so more people could use it.

Love

ainsyl is speakin' my language here.

Rah

#40
Hi ainsyl, thanks for taking the time time to calculate all of that out. Another way to find out the cost is to take the market value of f.ex the bionic leg, which is approx. 1500 in vanilla, and divide it by 14, which is the plasteel value - and you get 107. So in theory, one would assume that a bionic leg should not cost a lot more than that number in plasteel. Now, in the original EPOE mod, the market value of a bionic leg is 4000. Divide it by 14 and you get 285, close to what they cost in my mod.

But let's go back to the vanilla calculation; The problem with significantly reducing the prices to the values you've put fourth, is that players will once again be able to create a bionic army. Losing limbs will be easy to fix, like in the original mod. At least from my experience, plasteel is quite easy to get a hold of on intense and extreme. If you are operating an efficient base on extreme with say, 10-15 colonists, and you are not 100% focused on rushing to the ship and ending the game, you will gather quite a large amount of plasteel from all the mech attacks and poison ships. And your base will be producing a lot of money, which enables you to buy more plasteel if you need it.

Another thing to remember is that in the vanilla game, bionic parts were extremely difficult to obtain. Sometimes you would find only 2 or 3 in an entire playthrough. The normal bionic parts and the advanced ones in EPOE give great bonuses as well, to things like manipulation, movement etc. That's another thing to keep in mind with regards to cost.

I'll tell you what though; I'll most likely release a Lite version soon with reduced cost on everything. Sounds good? ;-)

Quote
- Would it be too coding heavy to have a baseline value for materials, and a mod setting in options to multiply the baseline values manually or by difficulty setting? I think the Stack XXL mod uses something like this. That way everyone would be able to set their levels according to their playstyle.

I have not looked at that, but I suppose it can be done.

QuoteI understand. When you do the Lite version, could you restore the stuff to the traders too?
@Love All the EPOE parts can appear on traders.

edit: I will be testing the main mod some more though and see if I have to reduce some of the cost a little bit.

Love

I really think time is the way to go here. Make it take several days to make some of this stuff, and why not? prosthetics and bionics are really freakin complicated.

that'll balance things out with the reduced costs

ainsyl

Thanks for reading, Rah.

I didn't even think of looking at the part market values. Now I understand where the material costs came from.

I guess it is tricky to get a balance between "EZ bionic army" and "very rare bionics", we might just be looking at it from different playstyle standpoints. I don't pimp out my colonists with bionic parts unless they lose the originals (and even then, losing an arm is just meh, might not bother, but losing legs are brutal D:) and run only small bases (max 8-10 colonists). But I understand someone might just make a squad of cyborg ninjas and go to town. Literally.

That's why two versions or an adjustable multiplier would be great if possible (not as a priority, of course) so everyone could choose. Yeah, the original mod is still there but now that there is an option, I'd rather take my 600 plasteel bionic arm, thank you very much ;)

That said, you convinced me to give extreme a try. I'll start up a new playthrough to see the difference. On intense silver was never a problem, getting the damn traders to finally grace me with their presence was.

Rah

1.2 - EPOE Hardcore Version
* Rebalanced market values on bionic parts
* Increased work time for bionic parts
* Reduced cost (mainly plasteel) for bionic parts. ex: 1 bionic arm is now 180 plasteel, 6 comp, 1 simple arm


Thanks to all who offered feedback. It should be a little bit less extreme now in terms of cost. Will continue testing to see if I've hit the right spot.

Ashnal

#44
Just my 2 cents, but if the issue is a bionic army on extreme due to an overflowing supply of plasteel via mechanoid raids ....

Why not just reduce the amount of plasteel you get from disassembling?  You might also want to reduce the advantage a Disassembler/Butcher gets from manipulation/Sight as well.

This way you can have tons of mechanoids dying at your doorstep without having enough for a bionic army.

So my suggestion of a way forward, have two mods. The re-organization and tweaks you've made are great for everyone, not just those that play on extreme. SO the first mod would be the improved EPOE proper, with costs balanced for a plasteel income of playing on rough or below. The second mod, would act as a modifier to be loaded in conjunction with the first, reducing plasteel income from disassembly for players who like to play on intense and extreme, getting bombarded by mechanoids without much to obtain from it.

THis way costs stay the same for all players, but hardcore players will have less plasteel income. I stand behind ainsyl's analysis for the actual costs :)