Author Topic: Maximising action economy  (Read 2163 times)

Reallyhairydave

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Maximising action economy
« on: August 04, 2019, 08:54:11 am »
So this isn't a build per se but a concept to make any build more efficient. The new psi skill offers some interesting ways of doing this and I realised combining certain feats could further improve it. With abilities like blitz, sprint and items like adrenaline and tabi boots to push the AP pool up while also reducing costs with abilities like tranquility, premeditation, advanced psi empathy and items like rapid reloaders.

Now I've started the calculations on paper specifically for my current character using armour penalties but I thought others might also be interested.

Unfortunately I'm on my mobile and don't even have the notes I made on me right now but I'll post them when I get some time later.

Reallyhairydave

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Re: Maximising action economy
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2019, 04:46:56 pm »
A preliminary build utilising as many of the abilities as I can muster plus Specialisation as best as I can figure out for now. Please feel free to chip in with criticism, changes or additions to the core concept here (or even outside of that tbh)

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgMDCgYDDgcAAAAAAADCoFBpAABpaShGWsKgLcKgwqAAAAArOVA_FCouwodHwoghGQopZHLCt8Km4qK1AuKnlgXip5cD4rGgBd-_

TheAverageGortsby

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Re: Maximising action economy
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2019, 05:01:16 pm »
Well, Hit and Run only triggers off weapon kills, never psi, so you should probably drop that.

I'll always stand by my suggestion that high-Will builds don't benefit substantially from going more than 75 points into Thought Control (unless also picking up Cerebral Trauma + spec, in which case maybe), but Psychokinesis needs to be pumped up to max unless you're only using it for the force field.

If you're wearing tabis, and also want to minimize reloads, you might ought to pick up Paranoia to help offset the crit penalty.  If you plan to be in stealth a lot, you might like Interloper, too.  You can pull up to 25 points back from Mechanics; with crafting bonus + Hypercerebrix + Under Pie, you'll still be able to make whatever you want.

Reallyhairydave

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Re: Maximising action economy
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2019, 05:07:50 pm »
The calculations mentioned before were to do with how many MP, AP and Psi could be attained and then reductions. The base is obviously 50MP 50AP 100Psi. Blitz as standard has 60MP to 20AP conversion so assuming a perfect transition you would have 0MP 70AP 100Psi. Specialisation would allow another 6AP into that conversion so you would need 78MP to 26AP and the perfect conversion would become 0MP 78AP 100Psi. Then you have Adrenaline which adds 20AP for 2 turns with a 0AP cost to use so at the beginning of the turn you would have 70AP again, combining these would yeild a maximum of 98AP for turn 1 in combat (this is getting silly now). Now is a good time to look at boots, Tabi adds somewhere over 15MP whereas boot springs adds up to 46MP, we can probably come to somewhere in the middle for 30MP midgame (although I'm not able to find the info for the tabis quality effect on the movement), this would be a perfect time to use Blitz to it's maximum potential going from 80MP 50AP 100Psi to 0MP 78AP 100Psi and combining with the last step to have 0MP 98AP 100Psi. Next we have Psycho-Temporal Contraction (haste) which as a base gives 30MP and 15AP so as base it would be 80MP 65AP and 15Psi (first Psi cost), adding the feat psycho-temporal acceleration adds another 5 points to each netting 85MP, 70AP 15Psi, further specialisation would allow another 2 points to each for 87MP 72AP 15Psi. Combining all of the above would yield 37MP 120AP 15Psi, this is where Sprint could help as it would make up for the loss of MP from Blitz (30MP or more if you want to specialise, up to 45MP), also Hit and Run would do this job, this would allow for 67MP 120AP 15Psi. The final part I can think of in the first stage would be to expand the Psi pool, there are two abilities that lend to this, Meditation and Neurology for an additional 25 and 15 points respectively (and specialisation could net another 15 points between both as a maximum however I think these are not great value for the points). Assuming just Meditation is used as base that would bring the total Psi pool to 125Psi and after using the ability the total figure would go to 67MP 120AP and 50Psi (although the potential max would be 80Psi). This is nice but cost reductions can further improve this.

This stage would be more focused on what build as the equipment and feats would be dictated by this, as a result it's more complicated than the last. I will focus on psi first because I am currently playing a full psion and I've been looking at the abilities extensively as a result. The most obvious and probably biggest effect comes from reduction of psi points through items and abilities, psi beetle carapace in tac vest or riot gear grants 10% reduction in cost, psi headbands with mufflers tend to give between 10% at the lowish end to 25% at the high end so a maximum of 35% and a early attainable of 20%. I would say based on my current playthrough it's quite attainable to have 25% total between them at level 10 with decent crafting skills. With base stats that would bring the 75Psi cost down to 63.75 and would bring 100Psi to 36Psi or a 125Psi pool to 61Psi points. If we push with the end game stats to 35% which would bring 75Psi down to 56.25Psi and would bring a 100Psi pool down to 43Psi points (pretty decent improvement), a 125Psi pool would be brought to 68Psi points. This then leads into the brand new veteran feat Advanced Psi Empathy which gives yet another 20% reduction to Psi costs, we should probably assume end game stats given it's only available after level 26 so might as well combine the full 35% from the previous part with it bringing it to 45%, this would work out from 75Psi to 41.25Psi cost, with a 100Psi pool it would be 68Psi and with a 125Psi pool to 93Psi points. Using the final stats derived from the first part, the first turn of combat would look like this 67MP 120AP 93Psi. While the Feat Premeditation would further reduce the Psi cost by 50% I would not as it already has a 0AP cost which overlaps with what it does, Tranquillity on the other hand reduces AP across the board albeit with full health.

I have run out of time again, I will continue the calculations later when I have more time but I'm quite happy with the results so far.

*Edit 1* Added tabis and boot springs, changed the order to accomidate them and finished maximising the point pools for the first stage. Started the second stage for cost reductions.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2019, 09:54:46 am by Reallyhairydave »

Reallyhairydave

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Re: Maximising action economy
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2019, 09:57:49 am »
Well, Hit and Run only triggers off weapon kills, never psi, so you should probably drop that.

I'll always stand by my suggestion that high-Will builds don't benefit substantially from going more than 75 points into Thought Control (unless also picking up Cerebral Trauma + spec, in which case maybe), but Psychokinesis needs to be pumped up to max unless you're only using it for the force field.

If you're wearing tabis, and also want to minimize reloads, you might ought to pick up Paranoia to help offset the crit penalty.  If you plan to be in stealth a lot, you might like Interloper, too.  You can pull up to 25 points back from Mechanics; with crafting bonus + Hypercerebrix + Under Pie, you'll still be able to make whatever you want.

Again this is meant to be more of a skeleton build for others but here is a more psi focused version, hopefully the specialisation is decent but I haven't actually played that far:

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgMDCgYDDgcAAAAAAADCoAAAAABpaShGWsKgwqDCoMKgAAAAKzlQPxQqLsKHRx3CiCEKKWRywrfCpuKitQLip5YF4qeXA-KxlgTisaAB378