Messages

31

General / Re: Chemical/energy pistols

« on: October 03, 2017, 10:27:28 am »

As a show of good faith here's the stats on a QL130 incendiary pistol, also; they do compare much more favourably to other weapons than the acid blob pistol.





48.5 average damage per shot, but the on hit effect is much better than the acid blob pistol. It's 247 average damage per shot over three turns when it inflicts burning, and that occurs with basically double the frequency of acid entanglement. Total average is about 217 damage per shot. Between its much higher damage over time and its fear effect, that would almost turn this weapon into the electroshock pistol of the chemical pistol world, except for a couple of things - firstly, fire damage isn't particularly good, with every robotic enemy highly resistant to it and half of them immune to burning, every other human opponent equipped with antithermic armour and likewise immune to burning, etc. Secondly, as mentioned, the game has no handling for the stacking of the burn effect (even acid entanglement handles it by refreshing the effect with the new damage value applied; burning just ignores subsequent applications entirely), which is a huge problem and in my opinion needs fixing - the fear and damage effects of the burning status should be separated into one visible and one invisible effect, and further applications of burning should either increase the damage inflicted in subsequent rounds, extend the number of rounds the target burns, or some combination of the two. As it is, there is no way to focus fire on a single target with chemical pistols, you just lose a tonne of damage by doing so.

It seems that hammerer has less AP per shot. 17 AP per shot for strictly inferior pistol is just...sad. It's like it's teasing you with "almost three shots per round" thing. So, in one round you can squeeze 1 more shot more from a hammerer than you can from acid pistol. How acid pistol can be considered "more flexible" is just beyond me.

Yes, this is a problem I have with energy pistols also. I find it ridiculous that even the most heavy-hitting firearm can still shoot faster than much weaker chemical and energy pistols because there are just no equivalent options for reducing AP cost/firing more shots with non-firearm weapons. Even if you could squeeze every last bit of delayed damage out of every shot from an incendiary pistol, it would still barely match the direct damage of a .44 using Rapid Fire in terms of standard shots (217 times 4 vs 143 times 6).

I should probably say, I am not 'rooting' for firearms to be more awesome than anything else. I don't want them to be, I want everything to be well-balanced. But I don't see how you could look at the way things are now and see them as balanced. (Although in saying that, Styg will probably nerf regular pistols again now )

32

General / Re: Chemical/energy pistols

« on: October 03, 2017, 04:28:52 am »

You guys sure ambush works w/ grenades? The description said ranged weapon and off hand I don't remember nade criting with "Ambush!" sign in my game plays.

It doesn't; the point is that you can use an incendiary grenade to illuminate targets for Ambush, so anyone can make use of the feat, not just people with incendiary pistols.

your point about incendiary grenades is addressed.

Denying the validity of using utilities to set up ambush situations is somewhat absurd, I think you're just withdrawing into a strict weapon vs weapon position to try to make your argument more tenable. Lots of builds use Ambush without access to an item that goes in a weapon slot and can set things on fire, that doesn't make use of Ambush an invalid consideration in the effectiveness of those builds. The question is, which weapon makes better use of Ambush, a chemical pistol or a firearm? You can illuminate multiple targets at once with a utility rather than wasting shots doing it one at a time with an incendiary pistol, and the .44 can deliver much more devastating criticals than any chemical pistol.

the original statement that I replied to said the maximum damage, so my point still stands that the original statement is incorrect counting the on hit effect of chemical pistol.

You should reread that statement. It says that with a chemical pistol you're trading 3-4 times the maximum damage for damage over time. It also says that even with damage over time accounted for, the weapon can't match the average damage that a .44 would have dealt immediately. I'll concede that I was specifically talking about acid blob pistols in that case and didn't specify. Since you're still insisting that acid blob pistols are worthwhile, here's a bit more number crunching, all components QL130:



Here's the acid blob pistol itself, since its on hit effects don't show up in combat stats:



We'll just look at standard shots, no criticals/specials - those would skew the figures way out in favour of the .44. The .44 averages 143 damage per shot. The acid blob pistol averages 63 damage per shot. If the acid blob pistol's on hit effect occurs, and if it is allowed to deliver all of its delayed damage over the subsequent 2 rounds, its average goes up to around 208 damage per shot. Its on hit effect occurs 46% of the time. 46% of 208 plus 54% of 63 equals around 130 damage per shot on average.

In other words if you are willing to juggle enemies to avoid wasted damage from lack of proper effect stacking, and willing to let them die over a period of three rounds rather than immediately, you can squeeze almost as much as the average damage of a .44 out of an acid blob pistol with a standard shot.

So what do you actually get for using the thing? Well, you get acid entanglement, and you get acid damage. You seem to value the latter very highly; I don't, I've found the ability to switch between JHP and W2C rounds much more valuable than the ability to switch between damage types, because I would rather be able to mitigate (or punish a lack of) resistances to my primary weapons's damage type than have to switch to another weapon depending on the target's resistances. The choice ultimately comes down to single-target CC, or higher damage/stronger criticals/stronger special attacks. I can't possibly see a case for the acid blob pistol in those terms, as its on hit chance is always too low; even with a QL150 dispenser it's a coin flip, which is simply not good enough for a single target weapon that is so weak in every other area.

very useful effects like entangle and fear that make some fights trivial compared to 0.44, one fight that I can think of is the carnifex fight.

You don't say?

33

General / Re: Chemical/energy pistols

« on: October 02, 2017, 02:14:43 pm »

not even in the same league! so are you just going to ignore my point about the ambush perk which will put the chemical pistol's critical chance even above that of a hammer's, and using acid pistol's stats when fire pistol's on hit chance is much stronger, with a 85% chance of 350% of the base damage with mad chemist perk with just 100 quality components, never mind the cc from burning and the fact it's fire damage, the number is just not agreeing with both of your facts that 1. chemical pistol don't trigger enough, and 2. the critical chance is higher than that of a chemical pistols. I also would like to point out that as the average damage of hammer is roughly about 2 times that of a acid chemical pistols and 3 times that of a fire pistols ignore both the on hit effect and the enemy armor type, counting the on hit effect the damage per shot is about the same if counting mad chemist. you could argue the addition of a smart module puts the damage per shot of the hammer with special attacks at about 50% more, and that's certainly a valid point, but I'd argue the cc of the chemical pistol and the armor bypassing nature of it makes it worth the 50% less damage part, I'd also like to talk about corrosive acid but that's really nitpicking, it's certainly not leagues below that of a hammer 0.44.

I ignored your point about Ambush because as MirddinEmris noted, anyone can make use of Ambush with incendiary grenades if they wish to. It's not an advantage that chemical pistols have over anything else.

I'll add one more thing to the figures mentioned above, specifically about why the damage over time from a incendiary pistol is inferior to the direct damage of a .44: the former doesn't stack. The damage doesn't get added onto, the effect doesn't last longer or even get reset - the ticks of the initial effect just keep running down with no subsequent shot affecting them in any way at all. That's particularly relevant since you brought up Ambush, because unless you illuminate your targets in some other way before you begin shooting, the situation will typically be that you shoot a target, set it on fire, and then it will take paltry damage over the next two turns from your initial non-critical shot whilst the criticals you inflict on it now that it's burning aren't able to take advantage of the damage over time bonus on the weapon. I almost consider this to be a bug. Though I do understand why it works this way, it's because the fear and damage over time effects of the burning status are rolled into the one thing, and if you could reapply a burning status it could keep an enemy indefinitely feared.

34

General / Re: Chemical/energy pistols

« on: October 02, 2017, 05:55:20 am »

that's where you are wrong my man, in my normal playthrough my chemical pistol build performs way better than my critical pistol build, the damage per shot in average is higher and there's just no comparing the cc potential, as both acid and fire gives me amazing kiting ability, with execute + Taser and the critical chance bonus that one perk gives me because fire in dark places, I encountered almost no difficulty once the build is complete in normal, while my pistol build has huge difficulty fighting large mob and enemy with high armor and robot enemies, I haven't had the chance to make a submachine gun main but I can't see how it outperforms chemical pistol, assault rifle is indeed better but I don't want to admit such brain dead and boring weapon exists, so gun-wise chemical pistol is actually my favorite, it is the only weapon that had a chance to kill Tanner after all.

I'm sorry, but no chemical pistol arrangement can even come close to competing with a .44 Hammerer. The latter accepts a rapid reloader and takes advantage of Gunslinger, meaning its AP cost is lower than a chemical pistol (22.6 vs 25); at the same time it has 3-4 times the maximum damage of any chemical pistol, it has a higher critical chance and higher critical damage, and it can accept a smart module and use Rapid Fire, both of which make it far better at deleting large targets. With a chemical pistol you're trading off all of that for inconsistent single target CC (46% chance to entangle on acid blob pistols with a QL130 dispenser - seriously?), and damage over time that typically won't bring the total damage per shot of the weapon in line with a .44 even if it does take effect.

If you want to argue that chemical pistols are less boring for you to play with than firearms then that's one thing (I would rather use molotovs and flashbangs for CC and use my pistols to kill stuff, personally), but you cannot argue that they're even in the same league when it comes to power, the numbers simply don't agree. If you found otherwise then you were using firearms wrong.

SMGs are as far above .44s as .44s are above chemical pistols. SMG builds have higher damage output than AR builds.

Edit: There is actually one chemical pistol in the game that almost approaches the power of a firearm, which is the XAL-001 unique. It deals 25-35 damage at base 16 AP per shot. It still falls somewhat short of the power of a late-game .44, and it carries a penalty that requires a particular equipment setup to offset, but nonetheless if you're interested in chemical pistols it's a good idea to keep and use it, as unfortunately you will never craft anything anywhere near as good.

35

General / Re: The Future of UnderRail and it's main storyline

« on: October 02, 2017, 05:46:04 am »

They could always do an expansion to Underrail 2 that used the protagonist from the first game rather than from the second. Similar things have been done in some other expansions, like for NWN/2. But I think it more likely that they might get around this problem by using Underrail's underpinning theme of temporal weirdness.

36

General / Re: The Future of UnderRail and it's main storyline

« on: October 01, 2017, 10:07:45 pm »

Huh? Is it not an expansion pack for Ego Draconis?

37

General / Re: The Future of UnderRail and it's main storyline

« on: October 01, 2017, 08:43:02 pm »

Is it so difficult to do Baldur's Gate 2 : ToB or Divinity II : Flames of Vengeance ?

In an expansion? No. In a standalone game? Yes, virtually impossible.

38

General / Re: Mayor of Foundry is annoyed

« on: October 01, 2017, 12:28:29 pm »

Yeah. He's useless. Telling everyone that he's useless is the correct choice.

39

General / Re: The Future of UnderRail and it's main storyline

« on: October 01, 2017, 12:27:14 pm »

I would also like to play my protagonist from Underrail in a sequel. But from a game development standpoint I don't know how they could make it interesting to play if they let you keep your levels and equipment. Will every mugger and jerk in North Underrail be level 20+? Every rathound an ancient? North Underrail is supposed to be LESS dangerous than South Underrail.

40

Bugs / Re: medical fumble in SGS morgue dialogue

« on: September 28, 2017, 12:33:34 am »

On a side note, isn't homeopathy as a whole basically just... placebo?

Many people would probably debate that point with you (I'm not one of them ), but either way, I suppose, there's is a difference between a doctor prescribing a treatment for which no empirical evidence of efficacy exists and prescribing a treatment that is outright ineffective.

However I don't really see how any of this is relevant to Pasquale's situation in Underrail, as he's trying to practice medicine in a difficult environment with limited resources (as one of the other entries on the same terminal makes clear), and the worst thing that could've happened as a consequence of his use of a placebo would've been the patient returning with the same complaint. If he hadn't made any attempt at diagnosis it might've been more questionable.

41

Bugs / Re: Bug or not?

« on: September 28, 2017, 12:04:24 am »

It doesn't really fall under the purview of bug fixing, I guess, but there is a fair bit of dialogue in the game that could stand to change depending on game events. Almost everyone in Junkyard will continue to tell you the same things about the Scrappers and Black Eels even after one faction has been wiped out, for example.

42

Bugs / Minor error: tactical vest/super steel sheet

« on: September 27, 2017, 09:32:53 am »

The description for a tactical vest with a super steel sheet on it says that it has a laminated fabric panel. May also be the case with riot gear.

43

General / Re: Leather overcoat with green goggles

« on: September 27, 2017, 12:57:40 am »

Pretty cool. Thanks for making this available.

44

General / Re: Chemical/energy pistols

« on: September 25, 2017, 12:39:17 am »

Nothing wrong with playing on normal. I rather judge builds by how they perform compared to other builds. By that metric it's pretty difficult to see chemical pistols as anything but the weakest subgroup of an already weak weapon group.

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General / Re: Chemical/energy pistols

« on: September 18, 2017, 07:58:07 pm »

nah man, chemical pistol is very good, way better than the regular pistol for my taste

Why, though?