Update Cranberry's mission

[PatrikLundell]

Summary

None

Purpose of change

Fix #81733 by changing Cranberry's mission dialog so it gives you a chance to get the protective gear required by the quest.

Describe the solution

• An adjustment of the dialog.
• Changed the trade spawn chance for the suit from 25 -> 100% to ensure you can actually get the required gear without having to wait until the RNG trade inventory refresh finally gives you access to it. Note that the trade offer for the gear expires with the Light Retrieval quest, so if you performed that quest without buying the gear you're may be in for a waiting game otherwise.

Describe alternatives you've considered

• It would be better if there was a way to get the mission and advice and then back out/put the quest on hold, but the standard quest dialog structure doesn't support that.
• Find a way to make the environment suit spawn chance depend on whether you've taken up the offer to buy it as part of the Light Retrieval quest.
• Find a way to move the spawning of Cranberry to after the Light Retrieval mission that's backwards compatible with saves where it's already spawned. I will need help to find the syntax for that, though.

Testing

Teleported to Hub01 and talked with Cranberry, going through the changed dialog to verify it was changed.
Talked to the intercom and saw the existing inventory was unchanged (no suit), but debug waited a week and saw it showed up (weak verification of 25% -> 100% chance, but I think it's enough).

Additional context

Placing this in draft until the spawning of Cranberry can be moved without duplication in existing saves where it's spawned but Light Retrieval hasn't been completed.

[John-Candlebury]

I dont think this a good solution to the problem.

If killing the leech plants is almost impossible without the electric armor, and then trivial with it, that seems like a very solid case that leechplant attacks remain overtuned. Because the quest should be difficult but not certain death even if you have no armor. I think we should start by nerfing leech plants until the mission is completable when its offered. I've aready nerfed them once, but the player has gotten less powerful since then.

The current quest order works better without the change too, you are supposed to be able to buy all the basic hub gear before Light retrieval, since it serves as the ending setpiece + the entirety of Cranberry's dialogue works bettwe if you arent a mercenary veteran.

[PatrikLundell]

I tried to fire at a leech critter with a bow while trying to stay out of its attack range. I did have something like a 10% chance of hitting it at maximum aim, and my character is good with a bow (I expect about the same chance with a rifle). which is probably caused by them being flagged as HARDTOSHOOT, so you really don't have any choice but to get really close to them or, possibly, use explosives (RPG, hand grenades, etc.) to get rid of them. As it stands, you have to have protection and you have to melee them in practice.

• Can't hit them from a safe range (HARDTOSHOOT).
• Can't slowly whittle them down from a safe range (they're replicating at a great speed).

Having fought them in the past in labs, protective gear is required, melee is required, and periodic retreat out of reality bubble range is required to recover breath. The Cranberry mission infestation is small enough that you might be able to do it without running out of breath if you don't try out various things and thus have them replicate too much during that time.

Getting rid of HARDTOSHOOT might possibly work for the Cranberry mission because you can use the fence to keep them out of their range, but it depends on whether you have a sufficient chance to hit at that range, as you have to overcome the replication rate (and you'll still have the problem of running out of ammo, because you'll need a lot of it).

As the mission stands, you have to have protection and you probably have to go into melee (again a lot of grenades might work, but you'd have to have a lot of grenades at hand, as well as the skill to throw them without blowing yourself up).
If you want to try the fight out yourself I can provide you with a save.

[John-Candlebury]

Agreed I think it makes sense to start with removing hard to shoot and probably adding a longer cooldown to the electric attack.

[PatrikLundell]

Removing HARDTOSHOOT will help with the quest, but won't do much for general encounters, because you'll get swarmed rather quickly. I guess snapshots without HARDTOSHOOT might still be useful, though, but the PC will still have to defend against melee attacks as well as the electric ones.

A larger cooldown on the electric attack does little against a horde that's attacking you. It would make a difference for a single monster, but when you're facing 20 or so it matters little, because you'll constantly suffer from electric attacks (which linger, as well) from some of them, and just the mechanical task of grinding the replicating horde down one by one takes a lot of time (with a lot of electric attacks received as a consequence).
You'd have to remove ranged electric attacks from them (making them melee only), but I'm not sure that would make unprotected melee viable anyway, because you can't dodge every attack, and the effects of electric damage are severe. Again, it would work on a single monster, but not on a group one, and certainly not a replicating one.

I don't see any way these monsters can be modified to not require countermeasures, and I don't really see a need for it, as long as this quest provides you with a decent guide to get protection. In general, you can typically tell when these critters are nearby by "sound" cues, so you get a warning you need to get protection (which isn't that different from dealing with stinkers, acid spewers, and smokers). Specific protection ought to have properties that make you elect to wear armor instead of specific threat countermeasures most of the time, and the suit at least has the disadvantage of requiring you to do without boots, as well as being warm.

As these monsters stand, they're a chore to deal with with protection, but not much of a threat (beyond the inevitable damage to your melee weapon: I believe I've had to replace my weapon several times to eliminate a single lab horde in the past). This means they could be made to be a little more capable in melee, but that would make them even more of a chore if you also have to deal with taking enough damage to being required to retreat and heal (thus requiring multiple trips to the site), as well as increased damage to your equipment. I, for one, would just avoid such a nuisance when at all possible, and only slug through them if I actually need to get through them and there is no way around them. Thus, such a change would make them more suitable to guard a valuable resource than to be another random lab monster group.

[John-Candlebury]

I think you can nerf the monsters as much as you need and in the ways you deem necessary to so that the quest stands a decent chance of being completed. Just checked yeah they are well overtuned. They need it no matter what.

I really don't want people metting cranberry after the third mission, it throws a wrench on plans I have set but not yet executed.

If you dont want to do it, I can do it someday this week.

[PatrikLundell]

You'll have to do it, as I don't see how you can retain an electric ability on a replicating horde and still expect players to be able to take them on without electric protection.

You can have an electric melee ability on a non replicating enemy as long as you can hit them with ranged weapons (and non conductive pole weapons). However, that a rather severe disadvantage for melee oriented characters, which I don't think is good (personally I only use melee as a backup, both because it seems safer to me, and because the game penalizes melee severely through stamina loss and equipment damage (both weapons and worn items)).
You can also have a replicating horde enemy without any electric ability, but then it really should be a different monster, which changes the nature of the encounter completely. It can also be noted that Cranberry is equipped to to deal with an electric threat.

[Termineitor244]

Maybe a new "super charged electric rod" (or something) that could be added to the Hub sell list, or given by Cranberry at the start of the mission, and deploying the item generates a new immobile and without attack "monster" with electric armor that only the leech plants are set as aggressive towards it.

So you could deploy it as a decoy for the leech plants, and you could more easily kill them, a reduction in the cooldowns of their electric ranged attacks could be good too.

The "monster" can be a small but enclosed generator that emits strong electromagnetic signals, or whatever fits the lore of the monsters better.

[PatrikLundell]

Won't work unless you introduce new logic that allows monsters to be more hostile to some enemies than others so they attack only the decoy even when the player or Cranberry is closer to them. I guess you could achieve that by somehow disable their hostility towards everything but the decoy, though, so you'd have to attack non resisting targets, which isn't exactly thrilling or a challenge.

[Termineitor244]

Won't work unless you introduce new logic that allows monsters to be more hostile to some enemies than others so they attack only the decoy even when the player or Cranberry is closer to them. I guess you could achieve that by somehow disable their hostility towards everything but the decoy, though, so you'd have to attack non resisting targets, which isn't exactly thrilling or a challenge.

In my previous tries with Cranberry he always turns tail after seeing the swarm haha, I couldn't get him to get close. And, well, yeah, they would turn their attention to you if you were to be exactly to the side of them, if not they would still prefer the most close targets, it's one of the ways of dealing with zombies that spawn in police road blocks, lead them to the robot that lights the area, and they will try to attack it, so you can deal with them one on one (Or maybe two to one) if you get close enough to attract the one closest to you.

I deal with the Kevlar Hulk in the island prison in that way, I attract it to the still living prisoners, and while they die at its hands, I just prepare some fire in its way to me, so when it finishes with them, it tries to reach me, and dies by fire! :D Extra points for enabling me to steal all the food of the prisoners.

What I say is that it would at least enable that kind of gameplay for these creatures, and that in turn would decrease their difficulty by given more options to the player in how to deal with them.

[PatrikLundell]

In my recent (after this PR) quest it followed my character into the fray when I climbed the fence and went into melee, so the flight logic changes have probably had some effect.

You're right that decoys that can't be damaged (or are used up only slowly) could be used to reduce the pressure on the PC a bit, but electric attacks are just so damaging (probably worse than acid, given its severe stat reduction) that you can't really melee such creatures without protection (melee only damage may be doable, though, but not ranged).