Mechanics skill reduction

[facepalm]

Since the new skill leveling means mechanics is in need of some love, I thought I'd take a crack at that.

Desired skills goals, sorted by mech level:

*Mechanics 3: You've read Under The Hood, and are a basic mechanic. You can repair a few minor things, but you'll probably get around by removing good parts off of other cars and welding them to your own.

*Mechanics 6: You're a good mechanic. If the cataclysm hadn't happened, you'd be that guy who has an auto shop out of his garage that operates on word of mouth, who can fix nearly anything and get it up and running again, cash up front. Since this is the future, you can also install (but not necessarily repair) some future gizmos, like composite armor, and since the cataclysm did happen, it wasn't a big leap to use your skills for the care and feeding of vehicle-mounted weaponry.

*Mechanics 8: You're an expert mechanic. You can slap a pile of steel lumps and somehow a car will roll out. Fancy solar panels? Sure. Two engines? Not a problem. Repair damn near anything? Alright.

Generally speaking, this turned out to be a pretty simple reduction of 1/3 difficulty for most parts (rounding up), with a few exceptions including armor plating and the more exotic guns (laser, plasma, fusion), which I felt were already in a mostly good place. Particularly important changes from a gameplay perspective: all basic car parts can be replaced by level 3, solar panels can be installed at level 4 and repaired at level 6, security systems can be removed at level 6, and multiple engines start at level 8.

I have much less experience with the fancier parts, like the minireactor engine and laser turrets. Let me know if I made anything too easy to achieve.

[KA101]

Minireactors are NOT common tech. I'd say 8 here.

[KA101]

Exotic energy turrets seem like 7-8 territory: energy weapons were just getting out of the labs and into military/LEO first-rounds procurement & field use when the Cataclysm hit. (They aren't prototypes/betas, but neither are they tried, true, and regular tech. Lotsa unknowns yet to work out.)

[facepalm]

There's laser turrets, plasma turrets, and fusion turrets. They were all at 7, but I lowered the plasma turret to 6 to match the plasma engine, and the laser turret to match the plasma turret. Which of the three is the most exoticest?

[ETA] Also, mounting a fancy gun doesn't necessarily imply a fancy mount. The fusion turret is complicated, but it's a self-contained kind of complicated, with its own ammo supply. Maybe it ought to be easier to mount than the others, due to not having to feed off vehicle systems. Problem is, that'd also make it easy to repair with the current "difficulty + 2 = infinite repair, just add electricity" system, and the fix for that would be much more involved than tweaking a few json numbers.

[KA101]

Power feeds are more exotic than self-contained. I intended this to apply to all three, and since I missed the plasma engine, please consider that level 8 (on par with minireactor, NOT something taught in the local technical school) as well.

[KA101]

The M2's known for recoil. I'd say mounting one someplace that most likely isn't built to take the punishment would be 5, maybe leave it at 6.

[KA101]

Burst-fire 40mm launcher attached to uh, ...wherever the PC wants, ought to take some doing, I'd think. 5 seems better.

[KA101]

High pressure and linking up the connection to the tank(s): 5 or 6 please.

[KA101]

This may need revisited but as is, it's probably good enough to hard-cap skills at 10 and begin the rebalance. Thanks.

[KA101]

Rivet and any other IRL mechanics, I'd appreciate your thoughts. Apart from my wanting to bump some difficulties, I like what I see here.

And I very much appreciate your taking the time to get engines under 10. That was the major blocker for hard-capping skills at 10.

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

I like this, and I agree that some of the difficulties should be a bit higher.

I think KA101's covered it nicely.