Desperate Programmers

It’s been a while since I was around. Left MMOs for the good.
Some weeks ago a friend showed me a game called NosTale and i’m a bit hooked up on it

As a comeback i want to shar MultiNos with you.
MultiNos allows you to run as many instances of the game at the same time under the same windows user as you want and you computer is capable of. Run shops, Raid and participate in your Fam-Meeting all at the same time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Now that you know how the basePrize is calculated you can tell what any items would need to be build.
The exact how-about shall be described below for any items without individual recipes:

In the first step the basePrice is transformed to some performanceGoal. It takes a few variables from the current gameplay settings, but here i will only put them as constant as they don’t seem to be in the focus of a change anytime soon.

extendedPrize = Extended_Baseprice = ( (128 / 255.0f)^2 + 0.5) * basePrize* 0.6;
This is slightly below 0.45 * basePrize, but not exactly.

And from this the performanceGoal is described with
performanceGoal = extendedPrize * (log10(extendedPrize ) / 14 + 0.5)

From here it is a simple algorithm to get the needed parts:

Let’s see an example:
The Tangent Weapon Part 10
WP 10 has a .def basePrize of 38400
-> extendedPrize = 17325
-> performanceGoal = 17325 * (log10(17352) / 14 + 0.5) = 13907

Possible parts are the PartList of Chems.
The most valuable from them Gamonin with a basePrize of 5760:

=>
Parts = Gamonin, Gamonin, Trisol, Strastin, Tiberal, Arillium

Partlists
Of course you need the basePrize and the PartLists to do this calculation.

• Chems:
  Gamonin(5760), Adiclovin(2880), Trisol(1440), Strastin(720), Tripantol(360), Tiberal(180), Metal D(90), Arillium(45), Meritium(30), Solantium(15)
• Weapon Mod Parts:
  Tangent WeaponMod Part Reg.# D11H6/MOD-10(7680), each part below halfs the prize
• Implant Parts:
  BioTech Implant Part Reg.# 222-DKIH6-J(76800), each part below halfs the prize
• Weapon Parts:
  Tangent Weaponpart 10(38400), each part below halfs the prize
• Vehicle Component:
  NExT Vehicle Component 10(512000), each part below halfs the prize
• Vehicle Componentparts:
  NExT Vehicle Componentpart 10(102400), each part below halfs the prize
• Medical Substances:
  ProtoPharm Medical Substance 10(7680), each part below halfs the prize
• Armor Parts:
  Tangent Armorpart 10(76800), each part below halfs the prize

While it is often very difficult to tell how much credits an item is worth for any runner, it is a very fix thin for other things in Neocron.

To find out what you’ll get from the trader or which items you need to construct Neocron uses the ‘baseprice’ field in the item database. This field is left open for the most things. Here i want to show you how the baseprice is calculated when this field is empty (filled with a 0).

The price is calculated independend between item types:

• Normal weapons
  basePrize = 200 + TechLevel * 800
• Discardable weapons (Grenades, Drones, etc)
  basePrize = 25 + TechLevel * 100
• Ammo
  basePrize = 10 + TechLevel
• Implant, Armor
  basePrize = 100 + TechLevel * 600
• Everything else
  This one is easy. It’s simply worth nothing (for the friendly NPC Trader)
  basePrize = 0

What is this of use? If you go to your local trader, you will nowhere see the basePrize but some value dependend on it and your char’s very own barter and int skill.
If you want an item to be build from an blueprint the basePrize jumps in again. It determinates what parts you will need to get first.

5. Reduction for resistance skills (other then PSI)
   The resistance skills only work slight different to the PSI.

   Instead of applying to all damage types caused by PSI they work allways but only for their own damage type.

   The formular is the same (except for the multiplier)

   • Resistance < 75:
     The reduction % is calculated as (Resistance / 75.0) * 0.7 * 0.52 * 100

   • Resistance R >= 75:
     The reduction % is calculated as (pow((Resistance -75) * 0.03125, 0.666) * 0.3 + 0.7) * 0.52 * 100

   These values are hard-capped at 70%
   This cap is reached at 176.2 Resistance Skill

6. Putting that all together
   Some players think that the resistance% are just added, but this is not the case. (And neither are the reduction points added, but that is just a difference in the roundings)
   In order to calculate the final resistance values, the seperate resistanc% are transformed into a damage factor:

   DamageFactor = 1 - Resistance%/100

   The complete damage factor (prior to class cap) is then done as

   DamageFactorPsi * DamageFactorShields * DamageFactorArmor * DamageFactorSkill

   Because of the caps in the seperate Damage Factors, the best you can get is 0.7 * 0.15 * 0.5 * 0.3 = 0.01575.
   So prior to capping the characterclass limit you will get at best to 98.425% reduction.

   In the last step the characterclass cap is applied to keep the maximum reachable resistance between 75% and 92%

7. What is still missing?
   While i am pretty sure on the given values and modifiers i am not quite sure if i missed a factor in the process, and i am constantly trying to catch those errors (If there’s work done, there are errors done as well)

   Some of them were corrected at the time i wrote this down, as some values were a bit unbelieveable in the extrapolation.

   So if you see mistakes by comparing and finding a discrepancy or having reasonable doubts about them, please tell me and i will investigate this part again and check if i have read or interpretated something wrong.

   And at the very end: don’t forget to have fun. Numbers are not everything and it is often much more enjoyable to let 5 be even.
   Have fun!

Let’s continue with a mystery

3. Effect of shields: Absorber, Deflector, Protector
   Shields come in handy espacially for a PPU. They are capable to reduce the damage up to 85%, just how that is calculated seemed a mystery till now:

   Each of the shields only effects two damage types but they are also effected by the very same damage types themself
   The ShieldRawDamage is just calculated like RawDamage is done for a weapon

   ShieldRawDamage = WeaponTypeEffect * WeaponEffect * dmg%/100
   (You can watch this value in the damage.log if you have turned logging on)

   The WeaponTypeEffect for the most direct-cast Shields (such as group or plain Deflector) is in Patch #168 fixed to 2304.0 and the WeaponEffect ranges from about 0.3 to 1.5.

   Here is a hard-cap: Whenever the ShieldRawDamage exceeds 4096 it is cut down to that value.
   That means whenever you can cast shields with a damage value above 4096 don’t bother for more dmg% for the shield% … it won’t change anything.

   For a TL100 Rare deflector this limit is reached at 4096 / WeaponEffect / WeaponTypeEffect = 123.5% which is a fairly low value.

   With the capped ShieldRawDamage we have now the maximum influence a single Shield can have.
   This influence is now reduced depending on the damage that you are going to take:

   ShieldCorrectedDamage = ShieldRawDamage - **classified ** *(RawDamageTypeA + RawDamageTypeB)

   Where the RawDamageTypeA and B are the raw damage values of the two damagetype the shield is good for.

   From that ShieldCorrectedDamage the resistance percentage is created for a PPU and any other different:

   • For a PPU:
     ShieldReduction% = ShieldCorrectedDamage **classified **(85)

   • For a others:
     ShieldReduction% = ShieldCorrectedDamage **classified **(30)

   The shields efficiency is after that all capped to 85%
   With that in mind, you will - as a PPU - reach this cap for a 200dmg hit (split into 100+100 for both damage types) with ShieldRawDamage. If you are again using the TL 100 Rare Deflector you reach this limit with 109% in the weapons damage info.

4. Reduction for armor
   Armor caclulation is quite simple.
   You need to get the armor amount first, there are 4 regions that are used: Head, Torso, Legs and AllAtOnce. For Head, Torso or Legs just sum up all armor values for the caused damage type up on that body part. For AllAtOnce do sum it up for Head, Torso and Legs and build the middle.

   Armor that covers multiple regions would be counted multiple times for the AllAtOnce region.

   Once you have got the RawArmorValue you can calculate the resistance as

   ArmorResistance% = SquareRoot(RawArmorValue / 255) * 50

   The armor resistance is capped to 50%, meaning that you would cap armor at 255 if you could get to it.
   Right now i am not quite sure if the factor 50 and the 50% cap is constant or probably one of the “Stellschrauben”. There are some hints that point me towards it beeing a changeable thing.

Some info’s were hidden by me behind ** classified ** tags as I am not really sure if it is a good idea to post them completely. All char dependend factors influencing them are given.

The resistance calculations are one central point in Neocron, but beside the nearings in NSkill not much is really known about it.
For NSkill 2 we are trying to get a better understanding of the formulae used in neocron, and naturaly this includes the way how the damage reductions are done in detail.

1. Calculation of the raw damage value
   • Each weapontype has a definition which damagetype and how much of that damage will be caused - relatively. This value will be refered as “WeaponTypeEffect” in the following.
   • Each weapon has a link to the weapontype and a constant modifier that defines how strong that weapon is within this weapontype, this value will be refered as “WeaponEffect”
   • Depending on the character skills and the itemstats a “ItemDamagePercent” is calculated that shows the effectiveness of the specific item. This is the same dmg% shown in the info dialog (allthough containing the hidden decimal fractions)

   With this information we can calculate the raw damage a player will do on instant damages:

   RawDamage = WeaponTypeEffect * WeaponEffect * dmg%/100

2. First possible reduction: PSI Resistance
   If the damage cause was a PSI module, then (and only then) the damage will be reduced dependend on the PSI-Resistance skill of the victim. So far so known.

   The formular used for this reduction is split into two cases (I will refer the result as SkillEffect)

   • PSR < 75:
     The reduction % is calculated as (PSR / 75.0) * 0.7 * 0.3 * 100

   • PSR >= 75:
     The reduction % is calculated as (pow((PSR-75) * 0.03125, 0.666) * 0.3 + 0.7) * 0.3 * 100

   This SkillEffect is hard-capped at 30%
   With PSR = 107 (*) the SkillEffect reaches 30% the first time. Any more points spent in to this skill have absolutely no effect for resisting PSI.

   So that the damage after the first reduction will be
   RawDamage * (1.0 - SkillEffect/100)

   (*) because in reverse : pow((30 / (100 * 0.3) - 0.7) / 0.3 , 1/0.666) / 0.03125 + 75 = 107

:edit: the PSR Formular >= 75 corrected (transfered faulty from script)
Thanks for pointing that out spiro
:edit: Updated the formular again with something i had overseen.

Vor über 4 Jahren erschien ein kleines Tool, dass es den Spielern von Neocron ermöglichte eigene Icons für Gegenstände in Neocron zu entwerfen und zu verwenden und Gegenstände, die ursprünglich die gleichen Icons nutzten auf den ersten Blick unterscheidbar zu machen. (z.B. Recycle/Salvage-Tools, Waffen-Mods etc)

So brachten einige Nutzer Grafiken hervor, die noch heute verwendet werden.
Maarten “Eagle” Tops’s Grafiken für die PSI Module und Bone-Implantate sind noch heute im Inventar zu bewundern.

Mit einem Eintrag von aKe`cj im Neocron Brainport: Eure Ideen, Vorschläge und Wünsche hat bei mir das Grübeln über das alte Ding wieder begonnen. Gemäß den RoC(*) brauchte ich jedoch die Genehmigung von KK, um damit zu beginnen.

Nun … ich hab ein OK bekommen damit zu beginnen und daher möchte ich euch den ersten frühen Teaser-Screen präsentieren … ja ich bin ein mieser GFXer, aber vielleicht kann die Community ja wieder kreativ zusamenarbeiten und Neocron gemeinsam voran bringen.

Coming soon ….

(*) Um Missverständnissen vorzubeugen: Die Software wird ein 3rd-Party Produkt (meines) sein, ReaKKtor Media ist nicht mit dieser Software assoziiert. Die Genehmigung bezieht sich lediglich auf §17 der Verhaltensregeln zu Neocron.

Andere Features, die das alte ItemGFX besaß werden nicht wiederbelebt.