Advanced Mechanics

The wiki does a decent job at explaining these mechanics, but doesn't get everything completely right leading to some confusion I've seen several times before. Most of this is not at all important to know, but if you're a big curious nerd like me then let's get deep into the weeds on the most complex Qud mechanics.

AV and PV

References

XRL.Rules.Stat.RollDamagePenetrations()

XRL.World.Combat.MeleeAttackWithWeaponInternal()

XRL.World.Parts.MeleeWeapon

XRL.World.Parts.MissileWeapon

XRL.World.GetMissileWeaponPerformanceEvent

Items.xml

If you have no idea what AV and PV are or what they do, try reading my explanation here before trying to wrap your head around the content in this article.

First off, let's get something straight: the game lies to you. When it comes time to display PV to you, you don't actually have the PV it says you do. Instead, you have 4 less. If I were to guess the reason this is, if you saw 6 PV vs 10 AV and had a cursory understanding of these mechanics you might assume (incorrectly) that you'd very rarely get a penetration. This "4" is a magic number chosen by the devs to try and more accurately convey to you, the player, what AV you have a reasonable chance of penetrating.

Now that we have that straight, let's get to how these numbers are calculated. The simple one is AV: it's the sum of the bonuses provided by your equipment (averaged across limb type), plus the permanent AV bonuses from neutron flux, plus 1 if you have Calloused, plus temporary bonuses like when your Shield blocks or you tighten your Carapace, minus any AV penalties (like Cleave stacks). Cleave cannot bring AV lower than 0, but other types of armor to roll other types of penetration against (like MA) have more effects that can reduce it below 0.

PV can be considered with three values: effective PV, maximum PV and actual PV. Your maximum PV is determined by your weapon; each weapon has a "strength bonus cap" that you can find when you look at the weapon. This value is pretty well-named but isn't the whole picture, as we'll come to find out. Without any circumstantial bonuses, your effective PV is your Strength modifier, capped at maximum PV. When displayed to you, both effective PV and maximum PV are raised by 4 like mentioned above. Your actual PV is what your PV would be without any caps and is never displayed to you.

Any circumstantial bonus to PV like the sharp mod, the bonus from a two-handed weapon, critical hits and skills like Charge and Slam (not an exhaustive list) raise all 3 values by the same amount. Let's apply this with an example:

In order to see the detailed PV stats I'll be referencing, make sure to enable it in the options with Show advanced options enabled: UI > display detailed weapon penetration and damage in weapon names.

A one-handed carbide weapon has a Strength bonus cap of 4. Let's say our character has a Strength modifier of 3. In the PV stats, it will read 7/8. Let's now mod this weapon to be sharp. All numbers raise by 1, so our new readout is 8/9. Swapping to a two-handed weapon gives a flat +1 to PV; and let's say this is also modded to be sharp so our new readout is 9/10.

Non-bow ranged weapons work slightly differently; they just have a flat PV determined by the weapon, unaffected by ammunition. Bows have a PV determined by the arrow, the compound bow adds your Strength modifier to this number and the turbow adds 4 and your Strength modifier. The only other thing that affects ranged weapon PV are critical hits.

Vibro weapons will set your effective PV, maximum PV and actual PV to the AV of the target. Note that those are not the displayed values, those are the actual values being set to the target's AV. This occurs before any bonuses that melee weapons get (Charge, sharp, etc).

Penetration Calculation

You might be curious why "actual PV" was relevant at all for me to distinguish as unique. Let's bring back our two-handed carbide weapon, but now let's give our character a Strength modifier of 10. Our readout will be 10/10 but our actual PV will be 12 and our effective PV will be 6. We'll see where this is an important distinction in just a moment, so let's go over how a penetration is calculated.

The algorithm for penetration works like the following:

Insights and Examples

There are a few insights to be gathered from this information:

That last one deserves a bit of explanation since it may not be immediately obvious. If our displayed PV is 6 greater than the enemies' AV, that means our effective PV is 2 greater. The minimum roll (-1) still brings us over the enemies' AV, so it's guaranteed that we succeed all 3 times on the penetration rolls. If our actual PV is greater than our maximum PV by at least 2, when we reduce our actual PV by 2 and cap it; our effective PV hasn't changed so we are guaranteed another penetration.

Let's run some numbers through the algorithm using our carbide weapon: actual PV 12, maximum PV 6, target AV 4 (example: defanged girshling)

Roll 1 - Actual PV: 12, Maximum PV 6, Target AV: 4

Roll 2 - Actual PV: 10, Maximum PV 6, Target AV: 4

Roll 3 - Actual PV: 8, Maximum PV 6, Target AV: 4

... And so on, I think you get the idea.

Visualization

I've prepared for you a tool to help understand these mechanics a bit more. This tool allows you to see how many penetrations you would be expected to get with displayed PV and AV values. This is more interactive than the table on the wiki and will take into account the differences between the actual and displayed numbers so that you don't have to.

Move Speed

References

XRL.World.GameObject.UseEnergy()

XRL.World.GetEnergyCostEvent.GetFor()

Most of you have probably have been told or understood move speed to be the percent efficiency that you take move actions with. This is technically correct, but a bit misleading. Move speed works differently than all the other stats in that its benefit is not linear and works inverted. To set a baseline, we'll consider move speed as three different numbers: visual move speed, actual move speed and move speed modifier. Visual and actual move speed both start at 100 while your move speed modifier starts at 0. Whenever your move speed modifier changes (increases or decreases), your move speed modifier is added to your visual move speed and subtracted from your actual move speed. This means that if you have 150 visual move speed, your actual move speed is 50.

So why is this relevant? Well, when it comes time to calculate the percent efficiency at which you move, the following calculation is used:

P = 100 - ⌊100 / ((100 - Ams) / 100 + 1)⌋

where Ams is your actual move speed

When it comes time to determine how much energy is used for the move action, our efficiency (P) is used in the following equation:

Ef = E0 * (100 - P) / 100

where Ef is the final energy cost and E0 is the unmodified energy cost

Move actions have an unmodified energy cost of 1,000, so if we plug in our numbers we get the following:

So what happened here? With our low move speed, it worked exactly as we expect: 50% move speed makes us move at half speed, everything takes twice as long. With our high move speed, however, we actually get less of a boost than we might expect. This tapers off into diminishing returns; for example we need another 50 added to our move speed modifier to reach a 500 energy cost, and then another 100 to get to 330. The minimum amount of energy a move can cost is 50 energy, which is achieved at 1,600 move speed. In other words, the effect move speed has on actual movement cost reduction is not linear like you might originally expect.

For example, you might have expected that 150 visual move speed means you move 1.5 times each turn, or 3 times every 2 turns but this is not the case. Instead, you move closer to 4 times every 3 turns, which is close but not quite as good.

In order to see the effects for yourself or if all of this went over your head, view this chart of visual move speed to energy per move:

Insights and Applications

So what does this information tell us? Well, the main takeaway is that boosting movement speed past a certain point may just not be worth the tradeoff in comparison to other benefits. At about the 300 visual move speed mark, that's when the difference starts to really taper off. That just so happens to coincide with rank 10 Multiple Legs, and if you rapid advance Multiple Legs and have ironshank, then you sit at 280 visual move speed which is close enough to where a second rapid advancement probably isn't worth it if you have something else good to rapid advance.

Quickness

References

XRL.World.GameObject.UseEnergy()

XRL.World.GetEnergyCostEvent.GetFor()

XRL.World.Combat.PerformMeleeAttack()

If you've ever played a character with higher than base quickness, you're bound to have noticed some strange things occurring with the wait timer and your cooldown timer. You also might have noticed something similar with effects that last a certain number of turns and been rather confused as to how this all works. As far as mechanics go, the "quickness" suite of mechanics working together are perhaps the most complicated.

You may have been told or understood quickness to be the percent efficiency that you perform any action, and this is actually not quite accurate. This is basically how it manifests practically, but it is not what actually goes on. In order to understand all this mess properly we need to define some terms:

Mechanics

The way it works can be described as the following. The game begins to process a segment. When this occurs, a queue of creatures that can act is referenced one-by-one. For the current creature in the queue, they gain an amount of energy equal to their quickness score. If that creatures' energy is still below 1,000, the segment moves on to the next creature. If that creatures' energy is above 1,000, that creature may now perform actions. Every action has an energy cost of at least 0 and as long as it costs at least 10 energy, it will cost +/- 10% for a bit of variance (this ensures that creatures don't always act in the same order). A creature continues to perform actions until they perform an action that lowers their energy to below 1,000. When this occurs, a round occurs for that creature. Basically everything that affects the creature for a duration has its duration reduced when a round occurs, both positive and negative effects.

When the game has processed 10 segments, a tick occurs. At this time, most things that are said to last a certain number of "turns" have their timer decreased. I say "most things" because sometimes "turn" is used where "round" is meant. In fact, really the only thing that happens during a tick is that cooldown timers specifically have their duration reduced. The game continues to process segments, and any energy left over is never removed, so will always carry over to the next segment or tick. This is how you end up getting more actions over time with high quickness.

For example, if you have 110 quickness, over the course of a tick you will gain 1,100 energy. A move action with 100 move speed costs 1,000 energy, so during segment 10 you reach 1,100 energy to bring you over 1,000 for the first time and then use 1,000 energy for your move action. This will leave you with 100 energy, so the next tick you start with 100 energy instead of 0 and actually perform your next action in segment 9 instead of segment 10.

Again, note that there is a random +/- 10% variance in action cost. Over time, this will even itself out so is ignored here for simplicity.

Insights and Consequences

So in other words, quickness doesn't improve the efficiency of your actions it just gives you more energy to work with. In the majority of cases this is the same thing in practicality, but not all cases. You see, there are things that do reduce the energy that certain actions cost; in fact we just looked at one in move speed. Every skill that mentions action cost being reduced do indeed lower the energy that those actions cost: Empty the Clips, Fastest Gun in the Rust, and Short Blade Expertise. Cybernetics like rapid release finger flexors and mutations like Two-headed and Telepathy also reduce certain action costs.

Why would this information be relevant, you might ask? Well, it's the interaction between rounds and actions. You see, a round only occurs when an action brings the amount of energy a creature has below 1,000. This means if you are able to reduce the cost of your action below the energy you gain from quickness, you can potentially get multiple actions within a single round, extending the duration of beneficial effects. I'm sure you can be more creative than me with coming up with some synergies there.

This interaction between rounds and ticks is what causes the discrepancy between your cooldowns at (for example) the number of turns you have to pass in order for them to come off cooldown. Passing your turn is simply a 1,000 energy cost action that does nothing, so with high quickness you do more of these over time than ticks occur.

Additionally, your placement in the queue as the player also causes the observed interaction that when you enter a zone for the first time, you can leave it on the first turn and none of the other creatures will follow after you. However, if you walk back in they will all immediately take their turn. This is because when you load up the zone, all the creatures will be created for the first time and have their energy defaulted to 0. You'll gain energy alongside them, but go first because they will be added to the queue after you. When you re-enter the zone, the creatures will have the energy that they had gained before you left, so they'll likely act before you do.