Part 21: Skills and talents breakdown

Skills and talents breakdown.

A lot of this will be self-explanatory so I'll stick with the in-game descriptions and only add something if I think that it's worth it. Also I'll still mention talent descriptions during the updates, so you can skip this if you don't really care.



-Skills-

Quick shooting:"This skill determines how quickly you can aim and how accurate you can shoot when in quick fire mode."

Accurate fire:"The skill that determines accuracy and time to aim at an enemy in aimed fire mode."

Heavy weapons:"This skill defines your accuracy when firing with heavy weapons - underbarrel grenade launchers and machineguns. Furthermore, the higher this skill, the lower is dispersal when using long bursts with a machinegun."

Sniper:"Skill that defines accuracy and time to aim at an enemy in optical scope mode."
--
What's interesting about the basic weapon skills is that only heavy and sniper really rely on your score. You can still shoot okay with lower scores in quick and aimed but you'll really suck at sniper/heavy with a low score. The main benefit from a higher score is the reduced aiming time, but you have to raise a skill pretty high to really notice it. Accuracy seems to be much more influenced by aiming mode, your weapon and what attachments it has.
--

Throwing:"Skill that defines accuracy of throws."

Melee combat:"This skill affects both damage and chance to hit in close combat. Moreover, the higher this skill, the bigger is your chance to dodge an enemy melee attack."

Engineering:"This skill affects the success of mining and defusing mines, item repair and lock picking."
--
It probably should say "placing mines" as this isn't Minecraft. Also the influence on repair is a bit odd to explain. Basically, when you repair something you'll restore 1% status for every second of repair time. How much repair time you will get from a single "charge" of a repair kit depends on your skill and on the item. For instance, armor is much harder to fix than guns.
--

Medicine:"This skill defines the amount of health points that you recover by using medkits."

Camouflage:"This skill defines the ability to move stealthily. The higher it is, the smaller the character's detection range, and the more time it will take for an enemy to notice him."
--
Pretty cool skill, and Akhmet is your only chance to have a good score. Raising this skill is fucking hard as you need to move around near enemies without being detected, and each success will only add a tiny amount of sub points. It's best to start with a good score and hope to grab a couple of points along the way.
--

-Parameters-

Health:"Health points define the maximum amount of damage you can withstand."

Strength:"Strength defines the total weight you can carry without being overloaded. It also affects maximum throwing range and the damage you deal in melee combat. If you are strong enough, you can raise heavy weapons faster and keep them ready for longer."
--
Strength is pretty important if you want to use the good stuff in the game. Low Str builds can work, but you really need to know what you are doing and what things you can get.
--

Stamina:"Stamina defines the amount and recovery speed of energy points. The higher your stamina is, the longer you can run and hold your weapon in a ready position."

Dexterity:"Dexterity is how fast you move and how quick you move equipment in your pockets or backpack."
--
I actually forgot to bring up that different sections of your inventory have different time costs. The backpack is the slowest, while the pocket is the middle ground. Things in your vest can be accessed the fastest, but some vests also have a lower area which is roughly on par with your pocket. It sure helps to keep this in mind when placing your items.
--

Eyesight:"Eyesight defines the distance and the speed of detecting enemies. Moreover, good eyesight will increase the chance of spotting enemy mines."
--
Really important. I would never play this game with bad eyesight.
--

Hearing:"The better your hearing is, the bigger the distances for noticing enemy movement."
--
A high score will also let you hear sneaking enemies.
--



-Talents-
--
Most talents are organized into trees and you need to pick them in order. Also what talents you can pick is tied to your level. You might be able to see a little line under each row of talents. This means that at Lv1 you can only pick talents above the first line. You need to advance to Lv8 to pick talents all the way at the bottom.

A lot of them are meant to fix/workaround a low score. The game has little room to grind or to really improve by time. So the developers figured this would be a good method to circumvent this. I tend to agree as grinding is boring as fuck, and a story driven game should be experienced without roadblocks.
--

Precise strike:"Unlike some "wannabe Chuck Norris" guys you know for sure where to strike to get your enemy down. Your blows in hand-to-hand combat are more precise."

Brawler:"Your punches are really strong, so you can kill a bull with your bare hands."

Affinity to pistols:"Your pistol just jumps into your hand. Cowboys from the old West would envy your quickness."

Accuracy:"Your pistol shooting became much more accurate."

Fast aiming:"Your pistol moves faster than your eye when it comes to aiming at enemies."
--
All weapon skills will work in the same three stages, reducing time to ready your gun, increasing accuracy and reducing the time to aim.
--

Affinity to assault rifles:"An assault rifle in your hands is ready for shooting faster than a thought."

Accuracy:"An assault rifle in your hands hits as precisely as a sniper rifle at point blank."

Fast aiming:"You waste no time targeting your AK at enemies. It almost targets itself."

Affinity to machineguns:"You handle machineguns like toy pistols. Eins, zwei, fire!."
--
"Eins, zwei" is German for "One, two"..I have no idea why it's used here.
--

Accuracy:"In your hands, a machinegun is not a "support weapon". Few bullets are wasted on "keeping enemies down", most make them go down for good!"

Fast aiming:"It normally takes a few seconds to aim a machinegun at an enemy. You don't need those seconds."

Affinity to rifles:"No matter how long and heavy a rifle or a shotgun is, you can get it ready in the blink of an eye."

Accuracy:"Whether unleashing a flechette hailstorm across the street or scoping for targets half a mile away, you always hit the mark."

Fast aiming:"Optical scope or not, you lock enemies in your crosshair faster than lightning."

Affinity to submachine guns:"You can pull an SMG ready faster than your enemy could spell "submachine gun"."

Accuracy:"They say an SMG can't hit a wall in daylight from 10 feet. You prove them wrong again and again."

Fast aiming:"You don't have to look at an enemy to know your SMG is aimed right at his heart."

Natural born sniper:"When your weapon has a scope, no distance and cover makes your enemy safe."
--
Can't really say what this does, as I never picked it. I assume it makes your sniper shots more accurate and it could also give you a higher chance to penetrate cover.
--

Grenadier:"In peaceful times you could excel at basketball. Now you excel at scoring grenades into the smallest crevices."

Armor piercing:"Every bulletproof vest has weaker spots, and you happen to hit them all the time."

Sapper's sense:"Your sixth sense never fails you when something is deadly wrong. No mine is hidden well enough to catch you off guard."

Master sapper:"They can blindfold you and tie you up, yet you will still easily defuse any mine in the world."

Runner:"Your stamina has increased. You can run, run and run. And run even more."

Second breath:"Your body possesses strong recuperative powers. You regain stamina much faster."

Weapon care:"Even a WW1 rifle becomes shiny new in your skillful hands."

Eagle eye:"Your eyesight got so sharp you can recognize a type of bullet in flight."

Radar:"You can sense living beings without seeing or hearing them. You devil, how do you do that?."
--
While the first skill will increase your eyesight, I can't say what the second one does exactly. Never had a need to pick it.
--

Burglar:"Only a few locks can resist your lock picking skill. You've met none yet."

Strong back:"You can carry way more than the average person. Quite appropriate for a Marauder, eh?."

Mule:"You can carry surprisingly large amounts of weight!"
--
Each of the two will give you additional 10kg carry weight. I guess they didn't want to raise your strength as it influences more than max weight. This is a pretty useful tree, as the good equipment is heavy.
--

Quick hands:"You can get a needed item out of a filled backpack faster then another person would get it from his pocket."

Beefeater:"Your health has increased. You can take much more damage than an average man."

Diehard:"Your health got so good that some bullets leave only a headache."

Dealer:"Your barter skills are amazing. Actually, you may try to sell yellow snow in the winter."
--
Traders sell high and buy low. But this skill stops being useful in the later stages of the game as money becomes less of a problem. Also if you're a nosy player you don't need this at all.
--

Appetite:"You regain more health from consuming food."

Field medicine:"You can do a successful heart surgery with a kitchen knife. Your use of medkits has vastly improved."

Healer:"You can heal broken bones and critical wounds right on the battlefield."

--
And that's it for the talents!
Now you can understand why I said that most of them are meant to fix your scores. Don't have good engineering? Take burglar, weapon care and the mine skills.

This game is not that long. You can burn through it in 20 hours if you play on normal and don't do too much micro management/trade. So there is really no room to train your skills efficiently. In that light, they made a good choice with the talent system, I think.