some adjustments i'd make to winona's skill tree

[fabin]

her skill tree's pretty decent overall, i'd make a few small adjustments to it. i made some quick notes to show what changes would be nice

reminder that these are just my ideas for skills, not every one of them needs to be in the tree, you can pick and choose which fits best

for the first shelf:

* some features shown in the preview stream (like portable structures and sleep mode) were said to be part of the base kit. these additions make winona more enjoyable to play without significantly increasing her power. dunno why they changed their mind

* the spotlight skill is noticeable, but it isn't worth it because of the sheer importance of sleep mode and portability. i'd reduce it's stats a little bit and merge the skill with the base kit, and add some skills to the spotlight that would make worth it picking over other stuff

* quick charge seems very strange, unless you pick some of the wagstaff stuff, because realistically you'd only ever need to recharge the controller, and that's it. the purpose of this skill's very weird

* (from a suggestion) a nice alternative would be if contraptions behaved the same way they did before, and power saver added the sleep mode function to contraptions

i would add some skills that increase her gadgetry a bit, since it would fit with her engineer/tinkerer theming. for example:

handy dandy toolbox: would allow winona to make a portable toolbox, which could store tools and contraptions. 6 slots, costs 2 tape, 2 cut stone and 1 scrap. usable by anyone

bio-electrical conversion: could allow her to make a recharging station that would charge specific items. (e.g: remotes, lanterns, miner hats, morning stars, W.I.N.B.O.Ts and W.O.B.O.T) it'd have 3 slots and charge items instantly when connected to a generator. it'd cost 3 tape, 2 boards and 3 electrical doodads. could be portable and accessible by anyone

tough tools: tools made by winona would have 33% more durability. also would allow her to use tape to repair tools and armors once

spotlight targeting: spotlights could be aimed with the handy remote, and would stay aimed until disarmed

eco-illumination: spotlights would allow plants to grow when light is being shined at them, and would consume even less energy

conelight: spotlights would shine a cone of light instead of a spot, which would cover about 4.5 tiles ahead of where it's aiming

and etc.

for the second shelf:

* the catapult skills are very powerful, but the first level of each is very underhwelming. i'd just remove the first level of rapid fire and explosive volley to give space for mastery skills at the end of the branch

* same case as the catapult skills, the main difference being that these are very noticeable. i'd just merge the first two, so it goes from 25% > 50% > 100%, to 37.5% > 75%. a slight decrease in stats, but in turn they could add more generator skills

the second shelf is much more interesting than the first one, but could still use some more diversity in skills, such as:

sturdy catapults: catapults that would be destroyed by attacks would turn into debris, which could be repaired by a winona with a trusty tape, altough it will be rebuilt with only half hp. catapults that would be trampled would still be destroyed instantly (catapult branch)

hard shell: all winona structures would be resistant to instant destruction, and would allow them to be hit 3 times before being completely destroyed (catapult branch)

lightning powered: lightning rods nearby generators will power them for the duration they're charged (generator branch)

pseudo-engineering: G.E.M.erators would affect spotlights with different effects depending on gems socketed (generator branch)

e.g: red gems would give health regen akin to wormwood's photosynthesis skill, blue gems would cool you, purple would decrease sanity, yellow would heat you up, green would give you sanity regen, orange would increase work speed and iridescent would do all of the above

super-charge: the handy remote could gain a new ability that would super-charge generators, increasing catapult firing speed by 25 % and spotlight light radius by 100% but increasing power consumption by 66% and damaging all connected catapults by 2 HP/s. after 40 seconds, all contraptions go inactive for 10 seconds, and generators continue draining energy as if being used. (generator branch)

and so on

i don't have many thoughts on the 3rd shelf, as it's pretty good. only thing i'd change about it is the teletransport station's teleport range

 

so, what do you guys think? did you like some ideas i pitched, or was it all hot garbage? i wouldn't mind some feedback

[lenship2]

pretty cool

Spoiler

51 minutes ago, fabin said:

first shelf:

i agree mostly, but i think the energy saver should be kept and changed slightly to also allow a choice of keeping or reverting the new sleeping functions of winona's devices by having/not having the skill respectively.

57 minutes ago, fabin said:

bio-electrical conversion: could allow her to make a recharging station that would charge specific items. (e.g: remotes, lanterns, miner hats, morning stars, W.I.N.B.O.Ts and W.O.B.O.T) it'd have 3 slots and charge items instantly when connected to a generator. it'd cost 3 tape, 2 boards and 3 electrical doodads. could be portable and only winona'd be able to access it

i feel like this is sort of unnecessary given how fast the devices charge off the floor, especially if the quick charge skill becomes base kit. also, isn't winona's quote for the lantern about it not being electric? smh my head

1 hour ago, fabin said:

33% > 75%

maybe 37.5% > 75% for more consistent numbers?

1 hour ago, fabin said:

sturdy catapults: catapults that would be destroyed by attacks would turn into debris, which could be repaired by a winona with a hammer. catapults that would be trampled would still be destroyed instantly (catapult branch)

why not repair them with her trusty tape™?

1 hour ago, fabin said:

lightning powered: lightning rods nearby generators would charge them by half their capacity whenever struck (generator branch)

anything lightning powered at the moment seems sorta counterintuitive; getting half charge back while raining would be... alright, but the randomness and overall scarcity of lightning makes it questionable. although: ultimate wicker x winona synergy

1 hour ago, fabin said:

pseudo-engineering: G.E.M.erators would affect catapults with different effects depending on gems socketed (generator branch)

i feel like it would be hard to realistically add gem effects for catapults, why not spotlights instead?

 

1 hour ago, fabin said:

super-charge: the handy remote could gain a new ability that would super-charge generators, increasing catapult firing speed by 25% but increasing power consumption by 63% and damaging all connected catapults by 1 HP/s

66% for more consistent numbers? also, i think instead of damaging catapults it could instead temporarily disable them for an effective cooldown that you could hypothetically mitigate by using multiple generators. also also, if it's the generators being super-charged, could we see even bigger spotlights with it?

[fabin]

13 hours ago, lenship2 said:

also, isn't winona's quote for the lantern about it not being electric? smh my head

i wamt electric lamtermn...

13 hours ago, lenship2 said:

why not repair them with her trusty tape™?

makes more sense, yeah. i just pitched the hammer idea since winona does actions a lot faster, so doing it with the hammer seemed to be "balanced" to me since it's a bit slower

13 hours ago, lenship2 said:

anything lightning powered at the moment seems sorta counterintuitive; getting half charge back while raining would be... alright, but the randomness and overall scarcity of lightning makes it questionable. although: ultimate wicker x winona synergy

well, the idea behind it was to add some use to lightning rods near winona catapult setups. plus i just like lightning-related stuff, and powering a generator with it seemed cool

13 hours ago, lenship2 said:

i feel like it would be hard to realistically add gem effects for catapults, why not spotlights instead?

13 hours ago, lenship2 said:

also also, if it's the generators being super-charged, could we see even bigger spotlights with it?

sure