Brand New Parts Balancing Suggestion
Would BNPs be quite as big of a deal as they are right now if they consumed the whole toolbox on use, not just themselves?
I feel like that'd at least cut down on how annoying stacking a green toolbox with an extra charge addon is, though perhaps it's just a bandaid solution to a wider problem. What do you guys think?
Comments
I had another idea the other day on how to make BNP less annoying but more useful at the same time. I'll quote what I said to a friend in a discord server: What if instead of it giving 25 percent like it does now, you gain extra repair speed by %5 each time you hit a great skill check for as long as you're on the generator and not letting go? It would provide good timing and predictions on whether the killer would come to the gen or not and would promote good reaction time.
The nature of this change means that you are encouraged to use BNPs strictly on brown toolboxes, and never use them on anything better.
So, let's do some math and compare, then:
NOTE: All calculations below assume you are repairing the generator by yourself.
Currently, a brown toolbox with no addons saves you around 5.33 seconds on a generator. It has 16 charges and is consumed at 1.5c/s, taking 10.67 seconds to deplete in exchange for 16 seconds worth of progress.
A commodius toolbox with no addons saves you around 10.67 seconds. With 32 charges, consumed at 1.5c/s, it takes 21.33 seconds to deplete in exchange for 32 seconds worth of progress. (This is the highest amount of time you can save with one toolbox without addons or perks like streetwise.)
A BNP currently, **without taking into account the charges it does deplete from the toolbox**, saves you 15 seconds (it adds 12 charges over 5 seconds which is a 7 second timesave, and adds 4 more charges per skill check, which is 4 seconds each; 7 + 4 + 4 = 15). (4 charges is 5%; 12 charges is 15%.)
However, with the current system, the rest of that toolbox would then save you less time than it normally would, since using up a BNP consumes a portion of its charges - it's essentially repairing at 2.4c/s (12 / 5) while using the BNP; the skill checks are strictly a bonus and don't consume charges. This means that a brown toolbox would only have 4 charges left instead of 16, and would only save an additional 1.33 seconds - 16.33 total combined with the BNP; therefore the BNP by itself actually saves 16.33 - 5.33 = 11 seconds, as the brown toolbox by itself could have saved 5.33 seconds. A commodius would have 20 charges left and would only save an additional 6.67 seconds - 21.67 seconds total combined with the BNP; therefore the BNP actually saves 21.67 - 10.67 = 11 seconds once again, as the commodius toolbox by itself could have saved 10.67 on its own. Therefore, how much time a BNP saves you actually depends on the repair speed of the toolbox - a toolbox with higher default repair speed actually benefits less from a BNP; as these do not influence a BNP's repair speed. Both brown and commodius toolboxes came out to 11 seconds because their repair speeds are the same; a commodius simply has more charges.
So now let's compare this to your suggestion. Assuming that the survivor brings a brown toolbox with a BNP (and no 2nd addon), it shaves 15 seconds off the gen, and then the toolbox is fully consumed, meaning you save a total of 15 seconds on that generator. As we calculated above, a brown toolbox with a BNP under the current system saves 16.33 seconds in total, therefore your suggestion actually makes close to no difference if the BNP is used with a brown toolbox - instead, it indeed does exactly as you said - it discourages stacking BNPs with stronger toolboxes, including green toolboxes with charge addons as you mentioned.
Whew, that was a lot of math.
It could be a good idea yeah. But i'd prefer if they made it so that brand new parts would increase great skillchecks bonus progression by 2 or 3%; and if they made that add-on give 100/ 150% bonus points for great skillchecks "instead of what it currently does".