How to fix Electro-Chimeras?

[Mazryonh 0]

I know that the AMK team was planning on throwing out these creatures entirely for version 2.0, but I think they could be great with just some minor changes.

 

For one thing, I think they are great addition to SoC in that they are one of the few ways that the game engine uses other damage types from a creature that is not from Impact-based, Bullet-based, or Rupture-based attacks. Most of the other damage types that armour protects against (such as burn damage, chemical burn damage--should have been called chemical corrosion damage, in my view--or electricity damage) come from anomalies, and because anomalies don't move on their own and have a small radius of effect, are easy to avoid so along as you are careful. Therefore when you wear armour that doesn't protect much against anomalies, such as the Exoskeleton or Berill-5M Armoured suit, it's not that much of a problem if you have the special anomaly detector from Sakharov that displays them as icons on the PDA map, or if you use lots of bolts. For the same reasons, there's often little to no point in using the artifacts that reduce damage from these more exotic sources as well.

 

Creatures like the Burer or the Pyrogeist (both of which use fire damage), and the Electro-Chimera (which uses electricity damage) are much harder to avoid, since they'll actively seek you out and try to hurt you, which is another incentive to use the right armour (or at least the right artifacts) to reduce damage. Since no one I've seen wants to give humanoid NPCs the means of non-bullet, rupture, or explosion damage, despite the fact that real-life methods exist for this, such as flamethrowers, incendiary grenades or bullets, electrolasers, flamethrowers or gas grenades modified to spray corrosive chemical weapons, etc., keeping creatures who can deal these types of damage is an important part of the gameplay in my view.

 

Having said that, the current version of Electro Chimeras is completely unbalanced. They often come at you in BIG PACKs and explode with electricity EVERY TIME they are shot (albeit with a small recovery time between explosions), so unless you are able to snipe ALL of them from a safe distance so that you can't be hit by their electrical discharges, you are very likely to die many times before successfully killing them all. There are two ways around this:

 

1) Either make it so that when heading into a level, the number of Electro-Chimeras is limited to three. For some reason, whenever you first enter a level there's huge hordes of mutants waiting for you. This could be a bug on the part of the A-life program (since you've never been there before, there's likely to be huge number of monsters that have accumulated there), but so as long as you've got a shotgun or a submachine gun, can sprint some distance, and carry enough ammo to kill them all, it's not much of a problem. Big packs of Electro-Chimeras are a real problem, though, with big packs of Bloodsuckers a close second (since they turn invisible and are very resistant to everything but buckshot from shotguns).

 

2) Change the abilities of Electro Chimeras so that they explode with electricity only when they die, and instead of having them deal rupture damage when they attack with their claws, have them deal electricity damage instead. This would make a bit more sense, because if they are coursing with electricity, they should be able to shock those they attack just by touching them, unlike other mutants who have to hit hard enough to make their rupture attacks get through armour. This time, their electrical explosion attacks are much more bearable and tactical, now that they will force the Marked One to get some fair distance away before delivering the killing blow, as well as stocking up on electrical-resistance artifacts or armour.

 

3) Make them only spawn in when the Stalker chat network mentions them, and have Barkeep or Sidorovich give rewards when the player kills the Electro Chimeras mentioned. This way, seeking them out for the bounty on their heads could be a great way to motivate players to kill them. It also makes their appearances more special.

 

These solutions could go a long way towards making these unique creatures less of an annoyance and more towards enhancing the mood of the Zone. There's lots they could do for the game without removing them entirely.

[ahilej 0]

Briliant. I just had very, very bad times with packs of Electro Chimeras, not that they are unkillable, but their ingame appearance lacks creative sense. I think that this is one must-to-have solution, if not in the first release of the AMK 2.0, maybe as an addon or patch.

[Master Bates 0]

Although I think the concept of the Electro Chimera is pretty cool, and I agree that we need more wildlife doing non-conventional damage, I honestly found the Electro Chimeras to be ridiculously unbalancing, causing the game to behave wierdly. They quite thoroughly broke several missions - for example, Bullet's brother and the people guarding him were apparently killed by Electro Chimeras soon after I entered the level, so rather than leading me to the ambush site Bullet simply wandered around the Dark Valley at random killing things until he was finally overrun and I failed the task. They can also leap ridiculous distances, and their tendency to get up in your face combined with the electrical discharge they release when shot makes fighting them needlessly, pointlessly hard. I'm fine with challenging, difficult enemies - several of the creatures inhabiting the Zone are essentially mini-boss battles all by themselves, and that's exactly how it should be. But 'challenging' and 'difficult' is not the same as 'annoying', and that's really the best word to describe fighting an Electro Chimera right now.

 

However, rather than removing it entirely, I'm in agreement with Maz in that it should be heavily changed into something that is still challenging, just not impossible.

[ahilej 0]

Bates, :-)

yot really do not need to finish every quest ingame, like you would not in real life.

And Bullet is a sidequest.

If you are eager for a PSO-1 for your AK-74, then, before Dark valley simply go to Screw at the Freedom base, he will give you PSO-1 for a bottle of vodka.

Or alternatively you can shoot only the snipers at Wild Territory (the first line of Mercs positioned in the narrow passage on the first floor), and without the need to proceed for Kruglov you will have several PSO-1 scopes, AK-74 rifles and a free Stalker suit.

Or you can go for Kruglov, it is really of no importance whether you save him before Dark Valley or after.

You can even go to the Sakharov's bunker and see what he has for sale. He offers best prices for monster parts too.

Only you will not be able to get the task for X16 lab, this is possible after X18 documents.

And equip yourself with a flamethrower if you hadn't done so, it will be given to you as a reward for defending the Monolith attack squad at the Barrier, alongside with Freedom soldiers. With a good suit, and an Battery artifact (you can find it in Garbage, on the way to Dark Valley) you can burn Electrochimera and receive only a minor damage. It is likely that electric discharge when burning them is set to minimal possible.

But I agree that something should be done with Electrochimeras, they should not roam in packs as first, because they are very unbalanced then.

 

[Master Bates 0]

Electro-chimeras become pretty bearable after you get an Ecologist Suit and a couple of batteries, I am satisfied to report.

[Mazryonh 0]

Master Bates,

 

I think I tried that once, with a SEVA suit and a Universal Protection Duty suit. Both were somewhat worn down so I used a Battery artifact to make up for the loss in electricity resistance.

 

Didn't work too well for me, sadly. I think the AMK mod version I'm using (1.4, EN 92) caps resistance to the various types of damage at some level so you can't be healed by those damage sources at more than 100% resistance like you could in the vanilla game.

[Lum4r 0]

Actually, when I made it to Pripyat, there was a group of about 8 or so Electro Chimeras. After failing a few confrontations I went back to the bar, gathered up all of my Urchins, made Stone Porcupines out of them (took about an hour and a half), and went back to face them with my 100% protection to shock. When I started attacking them however, I couldn't help but notice that the discharge was still inflicting damage. So I looked at the script... once I could find it, that is.

 

 h:bone("bip01_spine") -- ÷òîáû ó÷èòûâàëàñü áðîíÿ
         h.power = 1/dist
         h.type = hit.strike --chemical_burn
      db.actor:hit(h)
         h.power = 15/dist
         h.type = hit.shock
      db.actor:hit(h)
          end

It seems the "electrical" discharge from the Electro Chimeras also inflicts a small amount of chemical damage (strange how that's the only English comment in the whole document). Guess it's time to whip out some Pellicle.

[ahilej 0]

Lum4r,

I do not read ingame code, I simply do not understand it. But have discovered also that the Electro Chimeras are invulnerable to rocket launcher projectiles as well! The shell that will clearly tear up nearly every tank armour, except maybe the heaviest ones, does nothing to them.

So climb up to the highest point around, carrying a scoped assault rifle with 500 rounds, measure the electric shock distance carefully, and... make yourself several cups of cofee, or byu at least three Cola or beer cans, put a largest pot full of popcorns at the table where your monitor is...

And finish the shocking bastards :-)

 

[utak3r 6]

Hm, some nice ideas here, I'll sit down to it and see what I come with...

 

h.type = hit.strike --chemical_burn

 

It seems the "electrical" discharge from the Electro Chimeras also inflicts a small amount of chemical damage (strange how that's the only English comment in the whole document). Guess it's time to whip out some Pellicle.

 

No no no... the "chemical_burn" word here is commented out - that means it WAS there some time, but it's not already.

 

 

update:

OK... when it attacks, actor gets two types of wounds at the same time: normal strike (from claws) and an electric shock. Just have a look (the original source is messed in the meaning of formatting, here is the clean version):

 

local dist = db.actor:position():distance_to(obj:bone_position("bip01_spine"))
if dist < 25 then
    local h = hit()
    h.impulse = 0
    h.draftsman = db.actor
    h.direction = vector():set(0,0,0)
    h:bone("bip01_spine")

    h.power = 0.6/dist
    h.type = hit.strike
    db.actor:hit(h)
            
    h.power = 8/dist
    h.type = hit.shock
    db.actor:hit(h)
end

 

See? First you get h.type=hit.strike and after applying it (via db.actor:hit(h)) you get another one h.type=hit.shock. So, if you want it to attack only with the shock, put "-- " in the front of the first db.actor:hit(h), so it won't be called.

 

More will follow

Изменено 15 Декабря 2009 пользователем utak3r