Messages

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Builds / Re: First Time Playing - Any tips on Building Pure Psi?

« on: December 05, 2020, 05:56:02 pm »

Hey, started a couple times and remade the character and I've settled on a pure psi build with maybe some throwing mixed in later. I originally went 6 dex but have switched to the 6 agility purely for the movement and sprint ability plus the added bonus of sneaking so I can get access to forbidden doors and rooms easier. Dex really didn't do much at 6 other than help out my lockpicking a little, some initiative (I could actually go before the rathounds lol) and maybe give me access to grenadier, but I thought it would be a waste. Any thoughts on this lil' level 2 build so far in terms of starting stats etc.?
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Looks fine for a pure psi just starting out. Btw, you can ensure you go first if you initiate combat from stealth (by starting combat, not attacking, as this breaks stealth and then you have to roll for initiative).

Regarding stats, 12 will is in my opinion enough for normal difficulty, provided you keep maxing your psi skills and invest in psi-boosting equipment. You will get 6 stat points to spend in total, so you could get both 6 constitution (for the useful fast metabolism feat) and either 12 intelligence or 14 will. As for skills, I'd not bother with too much pickpocketing (maybe 40-45 for stealing in the areas you have access to now) with that low dexterity. Lockpicking is nice to have, on the other hand, while hacking is very useful. You could invest a bit in persuasion, because it synergizes with will and so a little investment will result in a high value anyway. From crafting, electronics is most important, because you need it to craft psi headbands. But crafting can wait for later, focus on stealth & psi skills the first few levels.

There are a few feats that will make the game much easier if you pick them asap: force user at level 4, premeditation at level 6 and thermodynamicity at level 8. Beyond that, experiment with whichever psi abilities you like and pick feats that improve them, and you'll be fine. Psi power is mostly from using abilities with the right combination, and half the fun is figuring them out yourself.

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Development Log / Re: Dev Log #68: The Psi Question

« on: September 29, 2020, 01:27:21 pm »

I'd like to add that not everyone dislikes the changes because it made psi less powerful. I'm fine with psi abilities getting toned down; it's the addition "fiddling around" with having to innvervate abilities, use yet another consumable, rinse & repeat. I've played a psi until core city with the current patch, so I'd say I gave it a fair try, but at this point it's just not enjoyable to play.

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Development Log / Re: Dev Log #68: The Psi Question

« on: September 18, 2020, 10:14:48 am »

Now in terms of adding more management to the psi build, one could argue that this is adding unnecessary tedium, but if look back at the history of Underrail's development you will find that we do tend to add these sort of complexities and restrictions to our mechanics as we flesh them out. Player is intended to have to pay attention and do some busywork in order to keep his character going. There used to be time when we had no weight restrictions, no selling restrictions, and at one point guns didn't even require ammo, though, to be fair, that was before the game was even available to play to the public. So you may not like this part of our design approach, but it is not at all inconsistent with what we did in the past.

I find this argument strange. Tedium decreases attention. Duplicating the psi points bar and adding yet another type of potion didn't add any complexity to combat so far. To compare it with bullets: for me the fun part with pistols was experimenting with different damage types, but I never bothered to count how many my character had, because of their overabundance and ease of crafting. But there are no different types of psi points. It's just micromanagement for the sake of micromanagement. And then you add vancian magic-like memorization s lots on top of that.

Compromising doesn't always work. As I've read once: if you can't decide which shoes to wear, wearing one of each pair is a compromise. Doesn't make it a good solution.

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Development Log / Re: Dev Log #67: Version 1.1.2.0 - Waterways and Psi Update

« on: August 07, 2020, 06:11:35 am »

For me the issue with the new system - which I haven't tested, so this is just by looking at the changelog - is that it looks new player unfriendly. It's easy to discuss the usefulness of schools & abilties when you've played a ful psi at least once. But for a new player? Psi, while not a new sci-fi concept, is not very intuitive, at least compared to weapons.

I'd rather have changes to how abilities work (e.g. being able to destroy force fields is a great idea, because enemies were unable to do anything against it before), and changes in enemy ai and usage of skills (does anyone even use temporal for example?).

Half of the fun with my very first character was experimenting with all the psi schools and abilities. But it looks like the upcoming changes are aimed mostly at experienced players and don't take into account how a first playthrough usually goes.

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Builds / Re: Max Thought Control, with spec/perks/Hoddurform/ make Neural Overload hit hard?

« on: August 05, 2020, 09:49:49 pm »

Question for the old timers like TheAverageGortsby and such:

Has anyone made a build hyper focused on making Neural Overload hit hard? I figured with the cerebral trauma, psi headband module, spec and hoddurform you might be
able to make a Mindflayer build. Just curious if anyone has tried it. I would try to get will to 18 to max damage.

With the Cerebral trauma perk plus specialization it would equal + 40% dmg, with the headband module at max quality would be + 56% dmg, and hoddurform plus 25% dmg,

So a total of +121% damage. And with Hoddurform, your attacks leave a DoT that deals 66% of a Neural Overload hit as acid damage.

If you go for max neural overload damage, nothing that is not immune will survive it (past the initial levels, of course), so you won't get much use out of the acid damage. A normal spirit staff is easy to obtain and works as well, espeicially with psionic mania & trance.

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Builds / Re: Does anyone know how high enemy resolve can go in the game (incl. expedition)?

« on: February 22, 2020, 07:36:36 am »

The void creatures are immune too, from what I remember.

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General / Re: Calling all psionics

« on: February 16, 2020, 07:14:48 pm »

There is a long portion of a game between picking psychosis (lvl 2) and getting LoC/psionic mania/etc. In that portion of the game you have increased psi cost, while your damage output is essentially random.
I have no doubts you can survive that (maybe with a few reloads), but I have some doubts as to how much harder it would be compared to tranq build.

I don't pick psychosis on level 2, though (I also don't play with survival instincts). And I've never said psychosis is easier than a tranq build. It is easy to play, even on dominating, though.

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General / Re: Calling all psionics

« on: February 15, 2020, 06:41:13 pm »

That sounds like psychosis build. I really don't have enough experience with those on dominating to tell how viable they are for the game at large.

Why wouldn't they be viable? Early on you can buff neural overload criticals with trance, but later it grows in power enough that it's not necessary, even on dominating. Or especially on dominating, because resistances, evasion, shields etc. all don't matter. And for the things that are immune you still have psychokinesis and metathermics. (and the nice thing about LoC is that you can target hidden enemies if you know where they are, even if you haven't detected them)

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General / Re: Some general expedition questions

« on: February 15, 2020, 10:47:48 am »

Third, is there any way to avoid the body horror feat without high will? The wiki makes it seem like having low Will guarantees that you get it, and the resolve penalty seems like something I'd want to avoid.

You can just leave that place withoutn killing the doctor, afaik

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General / Re: Calling all psionics

« on: February 15, 2020, 12:18:39 am »

Stasis bating is really not even that fool-proof, as you can get surrounded while in stasis.

Getting surrounded only makes one-shotting a group with LoC mass overload easier.

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General / Re: Calling all psionics

« on: February 14, 2020, 09:36:59 pm »

Tnt baiting works, force field baiting works, stasis baiting works. Both LoC and thermodestabilization are very easy to set up against entire groups because of this. Even if you nerf force field and destabilization, you can achieve the same (except againts robots) with stasis and mass neural overload.

edit: And this works for both full psi and hybrid psi. You can use the same trick with a grenadier, using mkv frag grenades or mkiii plasma, for example.

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Builds / Re: Directions for a SMG/Sniper (+Knife?) Build

« on: February 10, 2020, 06:41:49 pm »

Specialized characters are easier to build if you are new to the game, so my recommendation would be to drop the knife. A sniper rifle will work well with any type of gun, but - as much as I like them - pistols are not as strong as other firearms, so smgs will be easier. A sniper rifle on the other hand is very powerful and doesn't require that many feats to work (aimed shot, snipe, critical power, sharpshooter are the bare minimum). That leaves you plenty of room for smgs and experimenting. Btw, paranoia isn't a trap feat, but you are right in that your high per character won't benefit from it. In general I'd say focus on the offensive feats first, because the ability to dispose enemies quickly is the best defense you can get in Underrail.

As for skills: evasion can be useful if you are new to the game, but you can ignore dodge. A ranged character should never let any melee characters get close (again, offense is the best defense). Crafting can help a lot, but it's not really necessary to craft everything yourself. For a gunner I'd get mechanics, because it lets you craft sniper rifles and smgs (some weapon models are crafting-only and cannot be bought in stores) and electronics to craft goggles & other useful gadgets. Chemistry only enough to craft yourself ammunition. Biology doesn't require a high investment to craft most useful drugs, but initially you won't have access to the ingredients anyway, so you can delay raising it. Tailoring you could skip, not because it's not useful, but because a your character can get by with the armors you can find in the game.

Persuasion is more useful than intimidation, however neither is an important as being good at combat, so make sure you don't sacrifice your offensive skills for diplomacy. Either way you won't be able to discover all content and some quests are a bit complicated, so unless you follow a walkthrough it is easy (diplomacy or not) to screw them up. But that just leaves room for another playthrough.

If however you want to get the most content out of the game in one playthrough, then you need to go full psi (there is a very good guide here on the forums by TheAverageGortsby), because some lore is locked behind psi & will checks.

13

Builds / Re: Sniper with a firearm pistol

« on: February 08, 2020, 11:49:59 am »

You have psi, why not try setting up execute with cyrostasis instead? If you have the cryogenic induction feat, this should be enough to shatter targets.
Btw, for learning psi abilities only the invested number counts. You don't need to put 78 points into temporal, 70 will be enough regardless of what the effective number in the brackets is.

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Builds / Re: Chem/Stealth hybrid possible

« on: January 31, 2020, 06:03:52 pm »

Evasion: depends on the difficulty. On normal it could be worth maxing, because with the right gear (greater siphoner tabi boots have the biggest bonus, I think?) and the jumping bean pill you can get it high enough to provide protection. But on hard I've found it too unreliable with just 6 agility, so I didn't bother. Just throw a flashbang at the end of your turn, or hide behind a corner with sprint. Dodge isn't worth it, immobilize melee enemies with acid blobs & bear traps to keep them away.

In general the biggest advantage of the chemist is the aoe damage, which makes it possible to kill entire groups in one turn. The trick is in getting enemies into one big group. And that is relatively easy, actually, once you get access to tnt (due to how loud it is it makes for a great noise lure). Drop a few bear traps to to create chokepoints, drop a tnt and wait stealthed for the cavalry to arrive. 

Carfting: biology and tailoring are worth it. But I'd say only chemistry needs to be high enough that you can craft ammo, grenades and traps reliably without any bonuses. For everything else, make sure that you utilize the house benches, underpie (buy it at shops whenever you can and stash it, it's not that rare) and hypercerebrix. Pirates should be your group to go for shopping, because with high enough mercantile Katya sells rare biology ingredients and acids.

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Builds / Re: Chem/Stealth hybrid possible

« on: January 31, 2020, 07:59:00 am »

Well, I'd disagree that a chemist is a chemical pistoleer only. To me a chemist (and that's how I've played one) is someone who utilizes all the chemistry crafting can provide. As such I had no problems between chemical pistols, mkv frag grenades and traps.

Now I don't remember the details of that character anymore, but here is what I'd go now with:
str 3, dex 8, agi 6, con 5, per 10, will, int 5 - the non min-maxed verion
or: str 3, dex 10, agi 6, con 3, per 10, will 3, int 5 - if you feel comfortable with playing a 3 con character
The first two level up stat points go into intelligence, so that you can get mad chemist eventually, rest into dexterity. Obviously you will want to pick upn pack rathound at some point, because encumbrance is an issue.
 
Starting feats: aimed shot, sprint, then: opportunist, grenadier, quick tinkering, cooked shot, mad chemist. And that's it for starters. When planning your battles, take into account the fact that grenades and explosive traps are very noisy. Sometimes it's better to drop a poisoned bear trap or two instead. Also, carry a single-target pistol as a back up, because the allied ai isn't very nuanced. Scratching someone for even 1 hp will turn them and their entire faction hostile, which makes using aoe weapons very problematic in some fights. But most of the time my chemist run around gleefully melting people.