Occupations Expertises & Balance

Context

Long-time players, we realized while playing last version in MP that there was very little unique to our characters after a few months surviving. We also found several issues with balancing of professions, traits and skills.

Balance is based on our experience combined with calculations. The formulas used can be found here if you are interested. With balance of game design in mind too, we added books for all skills since the current learning curves (fast for crafting skills, slow for fighting skills) make it so that there was little interest to pick something else than a fighter. With this addition, you focus more on your occupation gameplay/roleplay without having to grind skills for days or use exploits.

The Mod

Adds skill balance and signature abilities to occupations. This way, we increase the variety of runs in single player games and have complementary team compositions in multiplayer.

Out on a raid, you let the burglar picklock the front door silently. Out foraging, you bring your toxic mushrooms to the chef for some poison cleaning techniques. And if you burned yourself? Better let the Fire Officer treat your wound.

Detailed Content

• Each occupation now benefit from at least one signature trait
• Signature trait cannot be learned by others
• Some professions have adjusted starting skills points
• Costs of all occupations have been re-calculated
• Costs of all traits have been re-calculated
• Books for all skills added (spawn in areas corresponding with skill)
• Intercompatibility with some existing book mods to avoid duplicates

Occupations Signature Traits

Unemployed

• Professional Slacker
• Can slack off on a chair, couch or bed to reduce boredom and unhappiness

Fire Officer

• Burn Extinguisher
• Greatly reduces the duration of burns when cleaning them.
• Can craft fire extinguishers.

Police Officer

• Firearms Technician
• Can salvage parts from all firearms.
• Can reassemble shotguns and handguns to perfect condition using parts.
• See it in action here

Park Ranger

• Braid Threader
• Gather long grass when removing grass from the world.
• Can braid long grass into twine.
• Can braid sheet rope into rope.
• Forest Hike
• Walk through trees at 75% speed.

Construction Worker

• Wall Breaker
• Can destroy walls and furniture using a pickaxe.
• Pickaxes will be highly damaged in the process.

Security Guard

• Night Owl
• Requires little sleep
• Shake it off
• Can shake the fatigue away when tired
• They will always remain at least drowsy

Carpenter

• The Way of the Saw
• Produces more planks when sawing logs.
• Sawing logs reduces Stress, Boredom and Unhappiness.

Burglar

• Burglar
• Can hotwire vehicles without required skills.
• Less chance of breaking the lock of a window.
• Paperclips lockpick
• Allows lock picking with paperclips.
• The paperclip is consumed on failure.

Chef

• Cook
• Knows all the recipes from cooking magazines.
• Antidote Techniques
• Can remove toxins from poisonous mushrooms and berries.

Repairman

• MacDuctaper
• Can create duct tape from leather strips, water and glue.
• Fixes with duct tape does not increase the number of times repaired of the item.

Farmer

• Skills update: Spear +1
• Canning Specialist
• Can make jar lids from small metal sheets.
• Can make vinegar from alcohol.
• Can make sugar from radishes.

Fisherman

• Bait Seeker
• Can instantly find bait in some rotten food.

Doctor

• Surgeon
• Can train suture on meat.
• Can train suture on corpses (need to saw them to parts first).

Veteran

• Desensitized
• No panic from all sources except night terrors.

Nurse

• Pharmacist
• Can craft all medicine from medicinal plants

Lumberjack

• Axe Man
• Chops trees 25% faster.
• Forest Walk
• Walk through trees at 59% speed.

Fitness Instructor

• Aerobics Coach
• Regularity for aerobics (squats/pushups/situps/burpees) increases 5 times faster.
• Characters within 3 sq. around you increases aerobics' regularity 3 times faster.

Burger Flipper

• Cook
• Knows all the recipes from cooking magazines.