Also, you might find this article interesting- Greg Costikyan Randomness Talk
To split this off so as to not clog up the question thread.
RNG - the bane of the speed-runner perhaps. From an optimizer's perspective, it's a choice of guaranteed (or improved) success vs. chance of failure. If I really wanted to do the world's quickest run, I would have to do dozens (or hundreds, or thousands) of runs until the randomness worked out in my favour. No sense spending five turns using a training ticket when that +2 RP could be made up for by a couple dozen good die rolls.
Of course, that line of thought is all moot when we’re dealing with a player base this size. Last season we only got two runs in!
I complained a while back that the biggest RNG factor in survivor runs was getting a containment suit - and we’ve advanced a long ways since then. Even just the regular slags guard fight has become a lot more interesting where I’m weighing how many techniques to queue up - too many and you’ll have no suit intact, to few and you’ll lose the fight or at least a lot of HP. The main thrust of that complaint was that we couldn’t get armory tools before getting a suit- which is now possible via doctor suit- though if going for absolute speed, going out of your way to get armory tools would be a waste of time.
So instead, I’m weighing choices against what is a reasonably fast run, which is a much more interesting problem. I’m sure I could still get a 3/8/200 run if I dedicated my entire existence to it with an army of illegal multis, doing nothing but what is strictly required to pass the quest requirements. But the leaderboards reset every month or two, and the game is constantly changing on top of that so this other problem is better. The thrill of barely surviving the odds and winning a fight is awesome, and the feeling of the mastery of the (current) incredibly complex system is even better, all of which couldn't happen without the randomness.
(Thanks for the link Fop)
Disclaimer: rather tipsy when writing this.