Underrail Forum
Underrail => General => Topic started by: Tamior on December 01, 2019, 09:28:50 am
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I did some tests recently, and fully specialized (takes 5 specialization points) disassemble seems to work exactly as advertised: you can disassemble items without any quality loss.
Assuming you spec it as your first feat (so get it done as early as level 20), this has some really interesting implications:
1) all repairs for items you can disassemble are now essentially free (this includes repairs just to get max value when selling items)
2) you can adjust your equipment on the fly in the field: turn shield with low dissipation into shield with high capacity, change it's frequency, etc. Swap out mods on a weapon. Adjust psi-headband for different schools and abilities. Etc.
3) you can use high quality components to craft decent gear right away even if you don't have good components for all slots. As better components become available, you just swap them in.
4) even before you've fully spec'ed it, disassemble is really good for getting high value from selling loot (you can repair for free, assemble higher value items, change item types when vendor requires it and sell components when vendor refuses to buy crafted item).
Thoughts?
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Still not worth imo.
1. When you need massive amount of advanced repair kit, you should be able to amass more money than you could ever use (other than waste it on jet-ski or fully refurbished home) so stocking tons of it wouldn't be a problem
2. Its a cool idea, but how often do you wanna reassemble these things without 15% crafting bonus (which also means you'll have to invest more on crafting skill)? For shield, depending on your gear and evasion, you shouldnt even need couple of shields (unless you really want to min-max for it), even then just craft 2 shield and bring both of em (preferably double high and double low)
3. This is a good point, for an extremely unlucky character. After you finished Oligarch (which I assumed a proper end-game prep), you should be able to find Q150+ components. And with the vast amount of shop in underrail, you should be able to find, or stock up ahead of time, all of your end-game mod setup.
4. Imo disassembling and selling each component is the better use for it, although with the amount of money you could get, you'll eventually just sell it dry without repairing it due to massive nerf on recycling.
Also, don't forget that you're essentially wasted 1 feat and 5 whopping specialization. Imo all crafting feat are pretty worthless unless on certain build (Bowyer, SS tincan, Chem, energy pistol)
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>When you need massive amount of advanced repair kit, you should be able to amass more money than you could ever use
Simply not true on dominating.
Even on a character with high mercantile and low ammunition consumption I'm regularly near-broke for the majority of the game.
>Its a cool idea, but how often do you wanna reassemble these things without 15% crafting bonus
It's not unusual to meet the requirements for crafting, for example, psi-bands without +15% bonus after you've raised electronics high enough to craft end-game shield.
>This is a good point, for an extremely unlucky character.
Um, no?
It's completely normal to keep finding better and better components throughout the game. With disassemble you can swap them in as you find them.
>Imo disassembling and selling each component is the better use for it
At which point you are already half-way there as you've already taken the feat
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I have done the same analysis, and like the look of Disassemble.
Sure, it is costly in terms of speciaization, you are, in effect, specializing hard into being a crafting master. This is ok.
This plan is better for characters who use advanced armor, and advanced weaponry, obviously.
You cant disassemple leather armors, and clots becomes dirty rags unfortunately, so you cant reuse your high-quality fabrics in overcoats (unless I have totally forgot, been a whie since I did my tests)
The potential use for a dedicated crafter is great, you can stay on top of the power level curve and can happily use everything you find in DC.
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I never played on Dom so idk how economy over there, and you didn't specify this thread refers to Dom difficulties.
But on that diff, idk what kind of build has enough spare skill, feat and spec point to take it, maybe Tranquility psi, since I assumed that you have to min-max over there.
Also on my 3rd point, what I meant was how easy it is to find and stock weapon mod for future crafting, and I think Styg did buffed chance to spawn "rare" weapon mod like Rapid Reload after CC update, so you don't have to disassemble and swap them. Plus, you don't really need to re-craft that often, especially on end-game setup
And my 4th point is for when you did took them, not a good point to took it, and as said, idk if it's worth a feat for Dom economy
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>what I meant was how easy it is to find and stock weapon mod for future crafting, and I think Styg did buffed chance to spawn "rare" weapon mod like Rapid Reload after CC update
But that's exactly the thing: with perfect disassemble you don't have to wait for "future crafting". You can use rare and good mods right away, and simply take them out once you get better components.
Also, most components still have quality. Even if I find quality 140 components early in the game, I will likely find 145 later on, then 150, then 155, etc. with perfect disassemble you can just swap them in one by one as you find them.
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Could be interesting on a high mercantile genius crafter character. Just call him Gilbert Bates. ;)
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I think it's still a bad choice due to opportunity cost.
There are usually better feat choices than disassemble that would grant firepower and/or utility for any build. The 5 lost specialization points (SP) is especially painful. 5 SP could mean 25 ~ 200% lost critical damage bonus for crit build, major cooldown reduction like psi build, etc that couldn't be compensate by higher quality gears.
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Ok, let's talk actual builds.
This build here:
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMDBwcDEAcAAAAoAABkU2QAADhUADA4S8KHRkYPAE8rDjk_FCodKFAhTcKEwocKEuKdtAPiorUC4qiSBd-_
(Given at level 25, so it has 3 more feats, 5 more SP and loads more skill points to spare.)
What exactly would you replace disassemble with, that has such noticeably "better opportunity cost"?
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Ok, let's talk actual builds.
This build here:
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMDBwcDEAcAAAAoAABkU2QAADhUADA4S8KHRkYPAE8rDjk_FCodKFAhTcKEwocKEuKdtAPiorUC4qiSBd-_
(Given at level 25, so it has 3 more feats, 5 more SP and loads more skill points to spare.)
What exactly would you replace disassemble with, that has such noticeably "better opportunity cost"?
In order of decreasing preference:
Thermodynamicity - Tran psi w/ psi cost reduction gear can spam ice + fire combo wiping everything in one turn.
Pyromaniac - for those sweet fear effect, very effective when combine w/ Thermodynamicity.
Meditation - a tran psi's limiting factor is psi pool, more psi = more psi ability spam.
Neural overclocking - just because you are going Tran psi route doesn't mean your psi won't crit.
Power Management - not as important for psi since you can just CC everything, but a bigger shield is always a plus.
As for the specialization points:
Exposed Weakness is ... questionable in this build. But if you are set on getting it I would get exposed weakness duration +1.
Hemopsychosis cooldown is what I would go for. But I will admit your build as is these two choices isn't *that* much better than 5 SP for disassemble.
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That's some very weird and weak-looking pure psi build. You sure it's viable even on hard? That's said, it does feasible to push disassembly in this case, even with good feat and spec allocated. That's said, I prefer spending my spare points for Force User, since it gives the highest damage bonus out of any psi spec
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I prefer spending my spare points for Force User, since it gives the highest damage bonus out of any psi spec
Well, no. Thermodynamicity spec gives the highest damage increase of any psi spec, if you're just looking at raw numbers. If you assume you have the psi reduction to afford the abilities, then there's no comparison. Thermodynamicity buffs Metathermics output almost (though admittedly not quite) as much as Locus of Control buffs TC output - and the only reason it's a lesser buff is that there are no fights in the game that go long enough for a max-output Thermodynamicity spam to benefit from the large difference in cooldown timers. Even the Faceless invasions, or the Mutant horde down under the Institute, or Fort Apogee/Protectorate Docks in CC, or Grey Army maps, only have enough enemies to last two or three turns in a Metathermics blitz.
Force User spec is pretty nice, no doubt; not trying to suggest otherwise. But it's not even close to close to what Thermodynamicity offers, from a raw damage output perspective.
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In order of decreasing preference:
Thermodynamicity - Tran psi w/ psi cost reduction gear can spam ice + fire combo wiping everything in one turn.
Pyromaniac - for those sweet fear effect, very effective when combine w/ Thermodynamicity.
Meditation - a tran psi's limiting factor is psi pool, more psi = more psi ability spam.
Neural overclocking - just because you are going Tran psi route doesn't mean your psi won't crit.
Power Management - not as important for psi since you can just CC everything, but a bigger shield is always a plus.
As for the specialization points:
Exposed Weakness is ... questionable in this build. But if you are set on getting it I would get exposed weakness duration +1.
Hemopsychosis cooldown is what I would go for. But I will admit your build as is these two choices isn't *that* much better than 5 SP for disassemble.
My problem with Thermodynamicity and Pyromaniac is that both are heavily random.
Pyromaniac is literally 50/50 coin-flip, Thermodynamicity requires some form of fire-based psi, and those either don't combine with ice (Thermo Destab), have intrinsic miss chance (Fireball) or are just plain too situational (Pyro Stream).
On tranquility psion I rarely find it optimal to alternate between fire and ice. 95% of the time I would prefer to either just spam ice, or use something from psychokinesis and/or thought control. Getting a good AP cost reduction on something I don't actually want to do most of the time (alternate between fire and ice, that is) is redundant.
But at any rate, you can just swap Thermodynamicity in instead of doctor (which is already a meme feat in that build).
Pyromaniac is simply not good if you are not willing to reload when it fails to proc at the critical moment.
Meditation with +psi pool feats and equipment from expedition is now 100% redundant.
Neural overclocking gives a tiny increase in actual damage on tranq build (completely unreliable, procs rarely and when it DOES proc it often just overkills, since the target would have died from normal crit just as well).
Power Management for larger shield size is QoL, since 99% of the time you don't actually try to face-tank damage for several turns in a row.
As for Exposed Weakness, that's just a meme feat for insta-kill combo with cryogenic induction and implosion. So duration on it is completely irrelevant, nothing will ever live for more than one turn when exposed.
TL;DR: Thermodynamicity might be ok (even if I don't find it useful for my play-style), but you can swap it in for Doctor. Everything else is either unreliable or redundant.
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That's some very weird and weak-looking pure psi build. You sure it's viable even on hard? That's said, it does feasible to push disassembly in this case, even with good feat and spec allocated. That's said, I prefer spending my spare points for Force User, since it gives the highest damage bonus out of any psi spec
I'm playing with this build on dominating with permadeath (you can go to let's play section (https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=3765.msg27524) for a some videos on that). So it sure works just fine.
Heck, at this point playing with this build on dominating with permadeath without ever using force field, thermo destab or any traps. I.e. I have to literally handicap myself to get some decent tactical challenge out of it.
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Oh, and on a side-note: with 5/5 spec'ed disassemble you can swap damage-boosting components into your psionic headband on demand.
So you can get a flat +40%-ish extra damage to whatever ability you plan to spam in a given fight the most.
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My problem with Thermodynamicity and Pyromaniac is that both are heavily random.
[...]
On tranquility psion I rarely find it optimal to alternate between fire and ice. 95% of the time I would prefer to either just spam ice, or use something from psychokinesis and/or thought control. Getting a good AP cost reduction on something I don't actually want to do most of the time (alternate between fire and ice, that is) is redundant.
Mmm. You don't sequence your abilities well, then. Chill is a fairly weak debuff; burning is one of the strongest debuffs against living enemies - it's the only DoT + fear, I think. So what you'd want to do is open with, say, a premeditated cold ability like Cryo Orb, then use Pyrokinesis, pick off a survivor with Cryokinesis, and if you're dealing with a huge mass of enemies, then place a ThermoD, proxy a TK Punch for the ThermoD kill, Cryokinesis to kill anything that's not yet dead or on fire, and pop a psi booster then throw a grenade. All that in one turn is no problem with Thermodynamicity.
It's even often nice when you're not using Metathermics as your primary output, since it lasts a turn. You can cryo shield yourself one turn, immolate the next, and do all that in the little sliver of AP you leave yourself between double Electrokinesis each turn, or Implosions, or whatever. Industrial Robots are no threat at all - literally zero threat - if you can walk two squares and be immune to fire, so a few fights that could otherwise get hairy become predictable and safe. Crawlers of any sort are loath to get up close when you're surrounded by fire, so you can make some ruckus, start burning, and then have a low-AP Cryo Orb to reveal crawlers in a huge area once you've given them a turn to get close - then with the rest of your AP, and a quick-cast Pyrokinesis, you can manage a room with no risk to yourself.
There's nothing random about Thermodynamicity. It's best against large groups, or extremely tough enemies, and isn't something that you use in every single fight, unlike Premeditation, but it's top-tier if you play to it.
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Meditation with +psi pool feats and equipment from expedition is now 100% redundant.
Well, just want to note expedition spirit staff was nerfed and no longer reduce psi cost.
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Meditation with +psi pool feats and equipment from expedition is now 100% redundant.
Well, just want to note expedition spirit staff was nerfed and no longer reduce psi cost.
Neither does Meditation.
The only thing Meditation is actually good for is giving you enough of an increase to the psi points pool so that when you re-gain 100 points via psi booster nothing is "wasted".
Spirit stuff gives you +10 extra pool size, that almost always gets the job done just as well.
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Mmm. You don't sequence your abilities well, then. Chill is a fairly weak debuff; burning is one of the strongest debuffs against living enemies - it's the only DoT + fear, I think. So what you'd want to do is open with, say, a premeditated cold ability like Cryo Orb, then use Pyrokinesis, pick off a survivor with Cryokinesis, and if you're dealing with a huge mass of enemies, then place a ThermoD, proxy a TK Punch for the ThermoD kill, Cryokinesis to kill anything that's not yet dead or on fire, and pop a psi booster then throw a grenade. All that in one turn is no problem with Thermodynamicity.
OK, one thing at a time:
1) ThermoD into proxi'ed implosion and punch is more that enough to outright kill everything in it's AOE most of the time. No one is actually left alive for DOT's and fear to matter. You don't need Thermodynamicity for it to work any better. You also don't need Pyromaniac for ThermoD to set thing on fire (again, not that's it's relevant, since most things are just DEAD after getting hit by it). It's so insanely overpowered on it's own I literally stopped using it to keep the game more-or-less challenging.
2) Pyrokinesis and Cryo Orb can miss (and hit YOU if you are unlucky enough). Literally nothing else in psionics has THAT problem. And that's a HUGE problem when you limit your reloads.
3) Fear from fire may fail to proc when you need it to. Or it may proc and make the target run away crying for help -- drawing MORE enemies into the fight. Again, pretty major problem when you limit your reloads.
4) Fire-based metathermics abilities are LOUD. Meanwhile with just the TC and PK stuff you can easily kill stuff in a room without anyone in the room next door hearing anything.
It's even often nice when you're not using Metathermics as your primary output, since it lasts a turn. You can cryo shield yourself one turn, immolate the next, and do all that in the little sliver of AP you leave yourself between double Electrokinesis each turn, or Implosions, or whatever. Industrial Robots are no threat at all - literally zero threat - if you can walk two squares and be immune to fire, so a few fights that could otherwise get hairy become predictable and safe. Crawlers of any sort are loath to get up close when you're surrounded by fire, so you can make some ruckus, start burning, and then have a low-AP Cryo Orb to reveal crawlers in a huge area once you've given them a turn to get close - then with the rest of your AP, and a quick-cast Pyrokinesis, you can manage a room with no risk to yourself.
Nothing you described here really explains why I would want to alternate between ice and fire. If I want Exothermic Aura, I just cast that. Neither Thermodynamicity nor Pyromaniac make it any better at what it does. And Cryo-Shield is just a really bad substitute for Pseudo-spatial Projection 95% of the time. Etc, etc.
TL;DR: I can pretty much guarantee that for any fight where alternating between fire and ice with Thermodynamicity seems useful I can come up with a strategy that does not include such heavy use of metathermics that will be even MORE reliable.
There's nothing random about Thermodynamicity. It's best against large groups, or extremely tough enemies, and isn't something that you use in every single fight, unlike Premeditation, but it's top-tier if you play to it.
It's a "solution looking for a problem". Anything it can do, I can do better by not trying to alternate fire and ice. Name a fight where you think Thermodynamicity is good, and I'll show you how it's completely unnecessary.
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just restarted a run with a hybrid psi-pistol, took disassemble myself too, ad just at the second level, because i already understood that i had little money and a single feat with no skill needed could be very very good to get money (thou i picked also a few points in pickpocket, will stop at 40 in this skill as i usually do).
I think you're right in saying this is a very underrated feat and the 5/5 spec makes it even better, and even more now that the repair kits had been nerfed so badly: i didn't made the math for that but i believe atm even in normal difficulty, recycling items to make repair kits and then sell them for a bit more of profit is not viable anymore, and i do want my toon not need to carry around 3-4 repair kits just to be efficient as he should with weapons.
To me, the nerf in repair kits is very bad, as it just leads to a full chain of things not used anymore: why buy recycle blueprint now, since i can sell these items i will recycle and then buy the kits i need?
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To be fair, recycling and repair kits still have their uses:
It still makes sense to recycle dirt cheap normal knives, or the gazillion rathound pelts (you can instantly craft simple leather armor, then recycle it on the spot).
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Indeed you can, but on dominating, many building mats are worth more sold as is than in the new repair kit formula, or at least you will gain very little from the kits, but from my math, you actually loose something.
It may be worth if you have too many items and need money, thou there are plenty of leather or melee weapons buyers, so...
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Average piece of rathound leather has a value of ~200 and weights 5.0
When crafted into armor by itself, that armor has a value of ~500 and weights 5.0
When that armor is recycled, it gives you ~40 scrap fabric, so about half of advanced repair kit with value of 900, so about 450 of value and weight of ~2.0 when in scrap, and half that when crafted into repair kit
Conclusion: selling raw leather is almost never a good idea, selling crafted armor or repair kits is about equally good.
Since you can only sell a few of both at a time, it makes perfect sense to sell as much crafted suits of armor as you can, and recycle the rest into repair kits and sell those.
P.S.
There is a bit of extra complexity coming from the fact you need no skill in tailoring to sell raw leather, ~30 in tailoring to craft armor, and 50 in tailoring to craft advanced repair kits.
Also there are obvious weight considerations. Scrap/repair kits usually give you by far the best value-per-kilogram.
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And that's a HUGE problem when you limit your reloads.
(https://i.imgur.com/NZ6lRHw.jpg)
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i also make gloves with leather and other items like blades and spikes, wich is a very good way to make money easier from them, but yes, leather itself is worth less than the kit, while a knife is often worth more than the scraps you can get from it.
Best part of disassemble: you need to buy just 1 or 2 rapid reloaders, since when you need to craft a new weapon, you just disassemble the old one. Also: weapons crafted with more additional parts are worth more, sometimes a lot more even if you consider the loss of quality, and this works even better on weapons wich need repairs: add a laser sight or a spare magazine to the half broken pistol you got from the ironhead man, and sell it for a LOT more profit :3
In my actual run, for the moment, i don't have such big problems with money, thou beign an hybrid build, the psy abilities was a bit harder to get.
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And that's a HUGE problem when you limit your reloads.
(https://i.imgur.com/NZ6lRHw.jpg)
Sure you do, especially when you try out new stuff. Why restart over and over? I would only restart if there is a situation where I have to save scum to progress at most if I feel like the experiment was a failure.
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No one is really of the opinion you shouldn't reload (on dominating, or any other difficulty, for that matter) if you feel like it.
The argument is that comparing builds without accounting for how "reload-heavy" they are is a bit besides the point, as with enough reloads you basically bypass a huge number of mechanics in the game (initiative rolls, random crits, random misfires, stealth, etc, etc).
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tbh, most players plays by knowing already how many enemies and what kind of them they can find around, so after the first run, you get a great advantage from that. As i said elsewhere, based on the game mechanics, there are areas in wich you simply have either to know the enemy, or you need to reload. Example: i'm doing my first run on dominating, with an hybrid psy/pistol build with riot +shield and use of opportunist and cryo.
First time i got into the psy beetle to save the guy at warehouse, combat started the exact moment when i stepped foot into the external area of the warehouse. One psy win initiative, drops on me a cryo and crit with neural overload, for a total of near 60 damage. Character dead before i could even do anything. The only way i can possibly handle this is by just taking stealth, else i always have chances in wich i cannot scout area or combat starts in advance and i can't do anything but reload.
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tbh, most players plays by knowing already how many enemies and what kind of them they can find around, so after the first run, you get a great advantage from that. As i said elsewhere, based on the game mechanics, there are areas in wich you simply have either to know the enemy, or you need to reload.
You yourself later on point out that going into a new zone in stealth is also a perfectly viable third option.
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Disassemble should be a common blueprint sold for a price or found in the world, like recycle, and not a feat.
Crafting components should have an additional data field that is normally hidden, when you disassemble an item, all the components have that field set to the item's durability.
When those components are put back together their data fields are read and you get an item that has the old durability instead of being magically fixed. If you sell the crafting components their sell value is adjusted according to the data field, so that again you can't magically fix components when selling them.
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tbh, most players plays by knowing already how many enemies and what kind of them they can find around, so after the first run, you get a great advantage from that. As i said elsewhere, based on the game mechanics, there are areas in wich you simply have either to know the enemy, or you need to reload.
You yourself later on point out that going into a new zone in stealth is also a perfectly viable third option.
The point is: if i have to make a build only to beat dominating if i don't want to reload, then there's no more "difficulty" added, it becomes all specific to what you need to do to win, it's like a chess game where you already know all the enemy moves, pretty easy.
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tbh, most players plays by knowing already how many enemies and what kind of them they can find around, so after the first run, you get a great advantage from that. As i said elsewhere, based on the game mechanics, there are areas in wich you simply have either to know the enemy, or you need to reload.
You yourself later on point out that going into a new zone in stealth is also a perfectly viable third option.
The point is: if i have to make a build only to beat dominating if i don't want to reload, then there's no more "difficulty" added, it becomes all specific to what you need to do to win, it's like a chess game where you already know all the enemy moves, pretty easy.
Eh?
1) You can start playing on dominating with limited reloads well before you've "seen every location" in the game. And whenever you go to a location you haven't seen (or don't remember), you know nothing about it ahead of time.
2) Even in locations you have seen before, enemy position, turn order and actual actions they take vary greatly. It is like chess in that you know how pieces can move, sure. But in no way you "know all the enemy moves", not even close.
3) They are plenty of actual random elements in the game (initiative rolls, actual hit and damage rolls, equipment you can find, random encounters, random dungeons, etc, etc).