Messages

16

General / Re: W2C ammo did not need a nerf

« on: February 04, 2022, 04:19:39 pm »

I don't think I made my point clear enough. All other weapons have at least one tool to deal with enemies resistant to their damage type, be that resistance reduction or switching to a different main damage type. W2C ammunition is the only feasible way firearms have to deal with armored NPCs. It's like if Expose Weakness got nerfed and you got told to use the new poison coatings instead. You'd still have no choice but to take EW, despite it being weaker.

Crossbows are the only other ranged weapon that has fixed elemental damage ammunition, and they not only have a feat to double the damage of that ammo, they also have different tiers that deal increasingly more damage. Special bullets have none of that.

This was an overall nerf to firearms, sniper rifles especifically, while leaving other ranged weapons that are just as powerful intact.

17

General / W2C ammo did not need a nerf

« on: February 04, 2022, 02:57:22 am »

Energy pistols: use only one ammo type, batteries, which can easily be bought in bulk at any electronics merchant. Free to ignore resistances as there is only one very rare enemy that actually has high enough energy resistance to be a threat, in which case you just bring a polarized laser pistol, or switch to electroshock which you should already have: it's your best AoE gun.

Chem guns: use only two ammo types/guns for the most part, easily buy components in bulk. Rarely is an enemy immune to all of acid, cold, and heat.

Crossbows: crafting special bolts is straightforward enough outside of Mk3 Incendiary, and Elemental Bolts makes each one count for double so there isn't much scarcity, you only have to juggle which ones are equipped on your belt.

Firearms: graphite is not plentiful unless you use merchant refresh. You never use W2C for regular enemies, as it's expensive to buy in large enough numbers to use exclusively, and it takes time to gather enough graphite to craft a decent quantity; and since you can only deal mechanical damage you can't exactly switch to a different ammo type if an enemy has high mechanical resistance. No, special bullets are a joke and a waste of time considering no merchant sells them and you can still only create the same quantity per craft as old W2C, which used to be a far better alternative; and the damage type depends on which caliber you're crafting the special bullets with. Sniper rifles suffer the most from this as most special bullets are completely useless due to fixed, non-scaling low damage, and they never hit threshold, only resistance.

If the point was to add more ammo management to firearms, why the hell didn't the other three ranged weapon types get touched, which all have an easier time with both ammo scarcity and dealing with resistances? Special bullet buffs are not worth anything when their damage is fixed and so is the caliber each type is attached to. As a firearm build, W2C is the only real option you have for dealing with enemies that have high mechanical damage resistance. The funniest part is that nobody will ever use special bullets outside of meme builds since they can only be obtained from crafting, it's too much hassle for barely any reward over simply buying some W2C at the common merchants. All this nerf did was make certain NPCs require more bullets pumped into them, not incentivize me to use other bullet types.

18

Suggestions / Re: stasis nerf

« on: October 29, 2021, 04:16:19 pm »

I welcome smarter AI outsmarting the player's tactics (like not using Yell/Aimed Shot snipers while you're in Stasis, invulnerable to all that; or casting Distortion), but I think debuffs reducing Stasis duration and even piercing it is too much. Those debuffs won't tick down which means you'll still have a massive disadvantage after it runs out.

Stasis already needs almost 2 levels worth of skill points and a 20% max HP hit for you to be able to use it. The cost is also really high, as is the cooldown. Why punish you further for using the last, most powerful spell in TM? It's not even that good by itself, you need to pair it up with an alpha strike build to take advantage of it because NPCs can't spend all their arsenal within two turns.

19

Suggestions / Re: Survival Instincts nerf

« on: October 29, 2021, 04:05:31 pm »

Ah yes, let's dropkick a good feat into unusable territory for the final patch, because after 2000 hours Underrail just isn't challenging anymore.

You already have to spend 6 stat points (the same amount that you obtain naturally through leveling to 24) and be within <30% HP (a death sentence in Dominating) for it to be active.
When you enter Depot A you can't use Survival Instincts by itself anymore, much less if you're a psi user. You'll simply die to the copious amounts of acid damage, even with full mutated dog leather armor and boots. And this keeps up throughout the game outside of edge cases that already have ways to cheese it without the need for a feat (ie. Arena); SI isn't the game breaking feat you think it to be that instantly makes everything die because you're simply nearly dead.

To be able to walk around with such low HP, you still need to invest into either tanking feats and equipment (Conditioning, Stoicism, Juggernaut, and metal armor) which are part of Constitution; or MP feats and equipment (Fancy Footwork, Hit and Run, Sprint, and tabis/strider boots) so you can abuse line of sight with Agility feats, even more stat points that don't even go towards your health but instead give you adaptability.

Let's look at even more overpowered feat combos (or even single feats) that don't need as much investment, shall we?

Flurry and Fancy Footwork. Psionic Mania and Premeditation. Grenadier and Three Pointer. Ambush. Concentrated Fire. Commando.

Hell, if you're so butthurt about people using feats that synergize together, why don't you suggest to nerf Fight Response too? It's already a Veteran feat that comes near the end of the game and doesn't nearly give as much AP as Contraction which can be obtained right out of Depot A. Let's nerf it even further, people are breaking the game using a Level 26 feat in conjunction with 3 other feats.

I'm not even going to address the changes suggested in this thread which require you to take damage that exceeds your max HP and mechanical damage resistance with metal armor in Dominating for an equal effect to what already exists.

20

Builds / Re: Hammer wizard but with metathermics

« on: September 18, 2021, 12:28:25 am »

Hammer Wizard works because its max strength has a twofold use - Balor's and Corporeal Projection. When you use any other psi school that isn't PK, strength drops in usefulness and it's harder to justify max strength when you could get more mobility or better psi. Hammer also works best as a tank build because Fancy Footwork has minimal utility with only 3 strikes at most on a 50 AP turn, and Hit and Run is affected by Armor Penalty. You're reduced to only a couple of choices for MP: Sprint, Super Steel armor (which makes you more vulnerable to melee compared to Tungsten), Jumping Beans, Contraction, and Escape Artist which needs too much investment for little reward (7 Dex AND specialization points to get MP, not to mention it's on a cooldown and is entirely conditional unlike Sprint). Even if you were to go for SS armor and minmaxed everything, you'd barely scratch the low end of 100 MP for a couple turns, and you'd be giving up a few key things that hammer builds like to go for. Really, just lower Strength a little bit for Wil, stick to a tungsten or TiChrome hammer, and only use Balor's when buffed with Vitality Powder (situational but still useful).

Dexterity should be 3 for hammers unless you're building for crits, but that requires a *very* specific build which leaves your melee capabilities lacking compared to a hammer wizard. Tanks just don't really get much use out of initiative - you're not an alpha striker. Quick Pockets is simply SHIT and should not be taken on most builds. Grenadier makes it so you rely too heavily on grenades instead of using your build to damage shit. Trigger Happy should only be taken if you're challenging yourself with Ironman, otherwise savescumming will do if you really need to go first, and you don't because you're a tank. Staying with the initiative feats, Paranoia is overrated because of the wide availability of Detection boosting buffs and equipment and its only upside is not having any requirements to get 5 extra initiative; and let me tell you, 5 points won't make that much difference by themselves.

Even if you're to go for Super Steel armor, I would still recommend Sprint. It helps so much as a gap closer. The only time I would not get Sprint on a tank is if my stat spread simply does not allow me to get 6 Agi without sacrificing other feats that I consider more important.

9 Con is mandatory, full stop. 10 Con for Thick Skull is optional, I don't consider it as good on a tank as on a dodge evasion build, but even there, Bullheads will cover you for the harder fights. Last Stand just gives you much needed tanking ability that will let you survive those extra turns needed to end a fight. Juggernaut, Conditioning, Stoicism, all these require decent to high Con already. And let's not forget Fast Metabolism, which makes Regeneration Vests go from amazing to god tier, and helps with psi boosters on top of that. Mechanical damage is the most common in this game by far, and anything else is far behind enough that you can prepare for it and switch out for the appropriate equipment.

You DEFINITELY want 7 Wil for Stoicism. Even hammer berserkers get it, it's not to be underestimated. It will also help with damage for MT, which even if you got mostly for Pyromaniac and the non-scaling spells, you will still find yourself using it often for ranged damage. There's no workaround, all builds want a ranged option. And as a certain boar has said, 3 Dex Throwing is still useful, mainly because hammer as a weapon is very low on feat and skill point requirements so they can get a lot of shit as they want. Higher Wil will make your MT stronger, but it will also take away from your other stats which will see higher use.

6 Int is of course needed on a SS tank. It might still be good on a tungsten tank due to Premeditation, but otherwise, 5 Int is the minimum: you absolutely want Expose Weakness.

If you want to wear the Praetorian Lawgiver, it's best on a tungsten tank. It will hamper your mobility too much on a SS tank. Besides, Yell is already good enough with its specialization bringing it to 50% of Intimidation score. Besides, your helmet slot will be better spent on a psi headband.



I'll give you the 101 on Metathermics. Cold spells: SHIT. Thermodinamicity will not justify itself unless you're focusing on psi, in which case just play a pure psi build.

Cryostasis affects ONE target for TWO turns unless you get Cryogenic Induction, but what the hell are you doing specializing in single target CC/damage when Underrail has 6+ enemy NPCs on average every fight? And add a high psi point cost and cooldown on top of that, it's awful. I have never used this spell.
Cryokinesis is "decent" if you're a Psychosis pure psion, but you're not.
Cryo Orb is the only good cold spell, and guess what: it needs Psionic Mania or it just won't be worth a slot compared to a fire spell.
Cryogenic Barrier - I don't think I need to explain why it sucks.
Cryo Shield - why are you relying on a 50% chance to protect you from only MELEE damage when you're a tank?

Now take a look at fire spells.

Pyrokinesis isn't very good for damage unless you're a crit build, but with Pyromaniac, it still kinda works as an AoE fear. I say kinda because it's still only a 50% chance. Good with Premeditation though.
Pyrokinetic Stream is the outlier in fire, being not very good and needing you to specialize in it for it to be any good. It's still an okay last ditch attempt at fear early game if you've got Pyromaniac.
Exothermic Aura is great, giving you fire immunity and screwing with meele NPC AI. And it's budget Escape Artist with its ability to burn a net.
Thermodynamic Destabilization is fucking amazing; when applied from full HP, it will severely injure if not outright kill other NPCs when it goes off. And if you're a tungsten tank, you will resist most of its damage, giving you no reason not to close in for the kill. SS tanks can also resist most of it but only late game. This is the one spell that you want to max Metathermics for if you're still doubting.
Plasma Beam was a great addition to MT, giving you energy damage to deal with those pesky bots. Unfortunately, it won't see much use on a hammer build outside of hoards of bots where you want AoE damage, or Fetid Marsh. It's still a better use of a slot than Cryokinesis or Pyro Stream.

21

Suggestions / Re: New Veteran feat suggestion

« on: September 09, 2021, 01:32:15 am »

I dislike most Veteran feats because they generally come so late and don't offer anything impactful outside of an exception or two (like BWT or Fight Response), but adding a free Adrenaline and a Pain Suppression buff to Last Stand on top of an extra turn duration would make this actually feel like it *deserves* to be a Veteran feat. I personally believe this is about the strength they should have had, since you are limited to at most 3 of them, and each Veteran level takes double the XP of a normal one.
I also think that Feat trees, like the one Aimed Shot has, that expand on one ability or skill are a neat idea.
In short, I wholeheartedly agree with this suggestion.

22

Builds / Re: Help with battlemage build

« on: September 02, 2021, 08:55:35 pm »

You still get a TfB stack by killing an NPC, as far as I know. But yeah, nail bombs and cryo orb synergize with it too

23

Builds / Re: Buck Rogers

« on: September 01, 2021, 03:08:34 pm »

Yes, the great thing about Aimed Shot is that since it's a guaranteed crit, you don't have to build crit chance, just crit damage - and special attack bonus multiplies that even higher. And yes, you can use both CWA and a SM on an energy pistol; that's the set up I had on my plasma pistol for one-shotting bosses. Using seeker goggles is fair though, since the crit chance will help with your chempistol attacks.

Edit: so I loaded up my epistol save real quick which has everything I've mentioned, made one with components around 150Q. Has Opportunist and no Sharpshooter, but you should expect this on a high roll. Did not expect them to be this decent. Unfortunately electroshock pistols have extremely high damage variance, so I saw a couple low rolls of 600 (with Aimed Shot of course).

24

Builds / Re: Help with battlemage build

« on: September 01, 2021, 02:56:07 pm »

Holy shit dude, you are an absolute legend. Its beautiful. I was actually intending on playing classic this time anyways because I did oddity my first time through. But man, holy crap this is awesome. You were super thorough about everything too. I seriously cannot thank you enough for this it truly is what you said: (almost) exactly what im looking for. and honestly you might as well drop the almost, this looks great. Literally the only teeny nitpick I can make is that I did want to go Praetorian security this time around, so I probably will and if finding electronics really becomes a problem ill just use cheat engine to farm restocks from other merchants until I get what I need; even though I dont love doing that usually.

About the two different starting options I have, im not really sure but I suppose Ill go for the second one with 9 con because that will probably make the early game less painful.

Edit: I think ill go with a sort of middle ground between the two start options and get 5 Will and 7 Con

You're welcome man, I've actually made and played a similar build before but with hammers instead of machetes, so I just carried over the ideas from there. I feel yours is considerably stronger simply because Fancy Footwork+Flurry gives so much mobility. Here it is if you're interested:

https://underrail.info/build/?HgwGAwkDBwYAZwDCoAAAAFoAawDCgsKCWWVpAADCoAAAAGkkYi1fEisqLkUIYEsGVFV6fMK2bcKewp1s4p-EAeKitQLio5MF4qeCAuKrkAXfvw

I was thinking that you could replace Taste for Blood with Pyromaniac instead for the Fear effect, and take it earlier in Cheap Shots' slot (you would still take Cheap Shots later at level 18) so you have it at the end of or right after Depot A. Speaking from experience, it's actually really good for this kind of build, because you can toss a Pyrokinesis and get two free turns to do whatever you want.
Another thing, use Jumping Beans, that 10 MP bonus will help a lot to get close before Fancy Footwork is up. As for the belt, Lifting Belt is alright for the 5% mech damage reduction (stacks with Stoicism and Conditioning), but you might want Doctor's Pouch too for using lots of drugs quickly.
As for Praetorian Security, be aware its warehouse mission is among the hardest quests in the game (at least in Dominating but you're not ready for that yet, Hard must not be as ball busting), and only tungsten tincans or minmaxed dodgevasion builds can do it without cheesing. Constantine can offer you almost the same selection as Coretech if you merchant refresh enough, except for energy edges which won't be as high quality (Coretech can go as high as 140Q while Constantine is lower quality, I think 120Q max?).

looks good, I see what your trying to do and it works beautifully.  Taking juggernaut later gives a much more significant boost to hp than it does when you are low level, it works as one of those early game feats you can take later in the game that scale with your level.

Just one question though, why did you take taste for blood?  You were saying that weaponsmith would be a good pick and I agree with you, but why something that relies on bleed when you don't have any bleed equipment?

I was way up past my bedtime then so I probably didn't think it through. The idea was that when you inevitably miss and lose Onslaught stacks, you won't lose as much damage and can still do some stuff thanks to TfB. But there's already MT in the build to do something when Flurry is down, so... Yeah, just take Pyromaniac instead.

Good post but I disagree with a few things:

1. Only 10 strength (and having 8 for most of the game) will mean your flurry wouldn't be too accurate

2. Metathermics is kind of weak with only 7 will without either Psionic Mania for guaranteed critical pyrokinesis or Thermodynamicity for the reduced action point pyrokinetic stream

3. In my opinion Survival Instincts is not as good with swords as other builds since you might kill enemies in one hit making it harder to get flurry stacks, though it does have the pro of letting you demolish any boss that isn't immune to stun or root.

1. That is why I said this:

>Above all, these types of spread-out-stats builds need you to use every option available at times.

Nets, stingball grenades, and anything that can lower or negate dodge will be strong, and Str buffs will also help greatly when those are on cooldown (which there are many of; Adrenaline, food, etc. You can have as much as +9 Str if you have all the best possible buffs, and this kind of build can actually afford to use All In for that late game).

Edit: using All In for combat purposes can be pretty insane though, but even still, the second best food Str buff is +2 from Junkyard Surprise, compared to +3. And there's a couple SSDs to go around if you know where to look.

2. Yes, I am aware. I've played this same concept of MT metal armor and a melee weapon, but it was with hammers instead, and I was comfortably able to have Pyromaniac by level 10. That way, you can use fire spells as soft CC versus organics. Even if you don't take Pyromaniac, psi still has 50% crit chance under SI and Focus Stim. Also, there's the utility of Exothermic Aura, which cannot be overstated because TiChrome armor is very weak versus melee enemies (or rather, high mechanical damage in general, but with the added mobility in Fancy Footwork and other throwables and consumables, that can be softened).

3. Generally, you want the full 3 hits of Flurry twice so you max out the AP reduction, but after that, it's more preferable to one shot enemies so that 5% miss chance only has one third of the rolls per enemy. You can kind of influence that by popping Focus Stim after having Flurry maxed.

Edit: Didn't realize this would also make Fancy Footwork proc less too though. Depends on how much MP is available.

25

Builds / Re: Buck Rogers

« on: September 01, 2021, 07:03:29 am »

>>Also thats not really why I take disassemble, I do it on crafting builds because I love crafting.  Its a quality of life feat that also makes me rich.  Its just personal preference, but if you were going to go in on psi you could swap it out for tranquility or psychosis.

Fair, I've just played Underrail so much that I know how to get rich extremely quickly. I've done a fully specced Disassemble build but that came so late I found it not worth it for how "okay" it was not having to carry around repair kits for my weapons.

>>Stealth's optional, but putting more than 20-40 points in it feels like a waste.  Carrying sneaking boots and a sneaking outfit usually works better, though it can leave you vulnerable.

Since I've only ever played on Dominating I found 60 base is the minimum there; with lower stats and skills on Hard and below, detection should be lower as well, therefore not needing as much stealth. And going first is strictly necessary when you're not high Con.

>>Fast Metabolism is a quality of life feat, its good because it fills your psi completely with one booster, (unless you have neurology or meditation) and helps you heal more health off a single hypo but its not really necessary. Also, taking Con 3 is a trap option.  You'll spend the whole game save scrubbing and reloading, especially on the harder enemies.

Yes, if you're not a (psi) tank then FM is just QoL. Again, I've only ever played on Dominating so 5 Con is just as frail as 3 Con there, might make a bigger difference on lower difficulties.

>>I'm not 100% sure why I took aimed shot, now that I think about it.  I guess for the chemical pistols?  Maybe Plasma Pistols?  At any rate taking reckless and scrutinous quadruples my average crit damage, while taking practical physicist only adds 25%. (though it is multiplicative)  Critical Power does nothing on Electroshock Pistols, because their crit damage bonus is 100 percent, and critical power only adds damage if the crit damage bonus is over 100 percent.  I also have psychostatic electricity, which ups my crit bonus by 5 for each hit of electrokinesis.

If you add a Circular Wave Amplifier addon it can add up to 200% crit damage, and with a Smart Module and smart goggles plus Critical Power and Practical Physicist and High-Technicalities on top, an electroshock pistol Aimed Shot should surely deal a lot of damage which is not hit as hard by the damage reduction per bounce. I'm not very experienced with them though so I couldn't say how much damage exactly and if it would still be able to OHKO most NPCs (only played with laser and plasma when I did an epistol build, but the same components apply).

26

Builds / Re: Help with battlemage build

« on: September 01, 2021, 06:04:52 am »

Worry not king, because I've just made (almost) exactly what you're looking for:

https://underrail.info/build/?HggGBwkDBwYAWgDCoCgAKAAAeABuZEJMRwAAwqAATABNJAgrRcKMEhMqBsKNXzxLVWJ6wrZ84p-EAeKfjgTip4IC4qe-AeKyiAXisokC378


I saw others in this thread went for a more glass cannon-y high Str mindset, so I decided to approach what you want from a tankier perspective. (Yes, you can be much tankier and more mobile than what's been posted while under Survival Instincts and Fight Response; it comes at a cost unfortunately)
There are of course caveats and liberties I had to take because it's impossible to go for everything, so I went for what was strongest out of what you wanted. Because it ends up coming online only later game, you might want to consider playing on Classic instead of Oddity this time around; not that it's impossible on Oddity, but it will be more tedious at some points. Keep in mind it will take more effort to play than the other builds posted.
I'll outline how the playthrough will go and then point out why this builds works and why it might not:

>Starting out, your Strength will be 8, Constitution 5, and Agility 5. Unfortunately due to feat requirements and other factors, I could not make this build start with higher Con. If someone else wishes to, they could modify it, but I don't think it will work as good, or you won't be able to take all these specific feats that synergize.
>Use Mercantile to get two free MT spells from Quinton, and get the two most expensive ones for free. 0 crossbow skill doesn't matter since it's so early on, just savescum and roll the RNG.
>First two stat points into Agi to get Fancy Footwork in time, then all the rest into Con.
>Use stealth and stealth armor to get through Silent Isle without fighting Goliath Azure Beetles (they are probably Dominating only but you can never be too sure, plus you or someone else might want to play it on Dominating later)
>Get TiChrome armor with a regenerating vest (tankier than sturdy vest and no Survival Instincts/Fight Response yet so no need to worry about breaking the thresholds yet) as soon as you can (Blaine from Black Eels questline). It's the only metal armor that stays low enough AP without sacrificing protection. Steel is slightly better for mechanical resistance, but it is higher AP and has no heat resistance, only 5 DT. Exact amount of reinforcing plates is up to you, but keep in mind: having a metal helmet (always soft padding), a single plate armor, and metal boots with striders will give more protection overall and have some extra MPs on top, in comparison to a 3 plated metal armor, which not only is more AP but also worse protection and higher Mechanics required to craft.
>Late game you'll build full Super Steel armor with 4 plates and a sturdy vest (higher max HP means more HP below Fight Response, which means more safety while still kicking ass), SS helmet with soft padding, and SS boots with high density padding and striders, which all in all gives you near 90% or above mechanical resistance (the cap is 95%); and combined with Conditioning and Stoicism will make you nearly impervious to mechanical damage. And all that? Your AP will be only 44% once you have Body Weight Training. BE SURE TO HAVE MAXED ARMOR SLOPING SPECIALIZATION BEFORE CRAFTING THIS! It may only seem like a couple AP points but it adds up and you don't want to waste tens of thousands of charons by mistake before being ready to craft your best armor.
>If you are going to fight your way through Depot A instead of sneaking through (not recommended with lower Con, but feel free to give it a try since you'll have stealth as a backup regardless and it's on Hard difficulty), I recommend sticking with mutated dog leather armor and boots with striders (NOT tabis, you want the acid and mech DT from the leather, 1 DT seems minor but it stacks up extremely quickly) since acid damage is your biggest danger. Try to kill mutants before they can attack you with melee, or kite them (unlikely due to acid entanglement from mutated dogs).
>You have EMP nades, Expose Weakness, and an electroshock generator/energy edge on a sword for dealing with robots.
>Pickpocketing is important since it gives you guaranteed and renewable free access to All In (+3 Int for crafting, stacks with Hypercerebrix for +5 Int total, AND the +15% of crafting benches), but you don't need to max it.
>Late game, the combo of Conditioning + Stoicism + Survival Instincts + Fight Response + near max mechanical resistance is one of the best combinations in Underrail. You get extreme tanking that can only be penetrated by W2C bullets or unconventional damage types (in which case you just down some morphine and a health hypo to offset the damage the morphine gives you when it ends). You get a massive damage bonus in the form of crit chance that applies to nearly all weapons. You have a minor AP bonus that isn't as important as the other things, but since you'll be at low HP anyway, it's nice to have.


Some words of advice:

>Always max your main weapon skill every level no matter what. If you need to sacrifice 5 points on a level to be able to make it for a feat, it won't matter all that much, but 10 points and on that you don't invest into it and it will hurt, especially at such low Strength.
>Focus on stat requirements for feats first, then distribute for what you need. You can't miss out on any feat in this build or you will be forced to sacrifice an ever important feat needed to make it or break it.
>Flashbangs break after one damage hit but last two turns, while stingballs grenades don't break after any amount of hits, but they only last one turn. Stingball grenades are preferable due to Flurry and your mobility with Fancy Footwork.
>Don't sleep on Exothermic Aura, it is extremely effective versus melee NPCs like death stalkers and natives. It can act as a 25 AP cost Escape Artist (unless Premeditated in which case it's 0 AP), but it only works versus nets and not acid entanglements iirc, and it has a high cooldown. Cold spells aside from Cryo Orb are terrible; play around with them if you like but know that they're not good. Cryokinesis can be your long range option early on, but it falls off hard unless you are pure psi. On the other hand, Thermodynamic Destabilization is incredible and one of if not your best AoE damage (just know that it's high damage and hard to tank). Pyrokinetic Stream consumes all your AP and Psi Points until you have no more of either, and it can't crit, so don't use it unless it's a last resort.
>If you are immobilized with no way out, use your ranged options like MT spells or grenades if there is no one in melee range. You will be tanky so it's not the end of the world, just watch out for crossbows and snipers which will be troublesome until you hit your peak with full SS armor.
>Always, always, always go for Coretech, they have the best electronic components in the game. Protectorate or Free Drones doesn't matter since they don't have anything you need specifically in this, but I am always partial to FDs. If you're roleplaying as a knight however, I suppose you'd go for big daddy government.
>Constantine can have some components at higher quality than other specialized vendors if you use Merchant Refresh (Cheat Engine).
>Above all, these types of spread-out-stats builds need you to use every option available at times. I find Underrail a lot more fun like this, because it's easy to make a build that steamrolls the game from the very start and believe grenades, bear traps+gas grenades and TM are the most overpowered things in the game and using them makes you a scrub, but in this way, your actions are more deliberate early on even when knowing what is to come, and you are still very overpowered at high levels to take out your frustration on all that gave you trouble before.
>Once you are on your veteran levels with your best gear, you can walk into a fight with All In active and shrug off all the damage. Save it for tough boss fights you want to steamroll (like Magnar) though since it's not plentiful even if infinite given enough time to restock. I cannot stress enough that you need the SS armor I outlined before for this however, and you might still have to use a morphine.



Addressing possible concerns:

>Escape Artist needs 1 stat point and 1 feat slot that cannot be spared. See Exothermic Aura above.
>Yes, it comes online very late, and it requires the ever-tedious-to-make Super Steel, but at least the latter point can be sped up and savescummed with Cheat Engine's speedhack. As for the former, well, it's hard to combine metal armor, swords, and metathermics all in one build.
>No, Dexterity is actually VERY BAD for swords. Parry and Riposte do not offer anything meaningful and need very high Dex to even begin to come close to reliable, compared to Flurry which only needs 6 Dex and gives you far more attacks than Riposte's limited once-per-turn attack. Strength however, is extremely easy to buff with drugs for extra damage (both from skill and Str bonus) and extra accuracy. Dexterity's only special bonus for swords is critical chance, which is already plentiful from other sources, and is not strictly necessary. Swords aren't a light melee weapon so no AP cost reduction.
>Psychosis is only worth it if you also get Psionic Mania, and if you have both Psionic Mania and Premeditation, you might as well get Hemopsychosis and play a pure psi build.
>Weaponsmith and Recklessness are good if stacked with Survival Instincts but there was simply no space to get them.

Edit: I missed this but you could start with 9 Constitution and 3 Wil instead for way more HP/tanking early on but mediocre psi. Or even Survival Instincts at level 1. Still good with Premeditation since you can cast a spell at 0 AP cost. It should look like this:

https://underrail.info/build/?HggGBwkDBwYAWgDCoCgAKAAAeABuZEJMRwAAwqAATABNYiQrRcKMEhMqBsKNCDxLVV96wrZ84p-EAeKfjgTip4IC4qe-AeKyiAXisokC378

One more thing, use tungsten for your swords, it has higher damage and crit damage. Straight or curved machetes are not that different, curved ones just have way bigger crits (but you get decent crits with straight machetes regardless).

27

Builds / Re: Buck Rogers

« on: September 01, 2021, 03:29:17 am »

I don't know who Buck Rogers is, so I'll just give you advice on the more objective side of build making; feel free to ignore or adjust depending on what you want to roleplay. You have a lot of options to deal with nearly any enemy in the game, so you shouldn't face any trouble if you're not afraid to switch weapons in on occasion.

A few things:

>Mercantile 105 effective skill ALWAYS. Special Merchandise is too good to pass up, and the reduced buy price stops scaling around 100 skill (money is really fucking easy to get in this game though, so it's more about higher quality components).
>You don't need all your crafting skills so high (in fact it's a waste) unless you plan to not use All In or abuse specced Disassemble for free repairs; but even so, dropping crafting points and putting them into Pickpocketing not only lets you not invest as much there, it also nets you a lot of other positives (prevent Prof kidnapping, sometimes steal keycards so you don't have to use hacking, free money and - more importantly - drugs, etc). Mechanics and biology are the biggest sins here since nothing you'll be using needs it so high
>You want some Stealth, somewhere around 60 base. Just stealth gear alone isn't going to cut it until the late game. And your initiative isn't high enough that you can always get the first turn.
>Constitution 5 but not taking Fast Metabolism; I recommend dropping it to 3 and putting into Willpower (bit more psi damage) or Intelligence (less skill points into crafting & mercantile and more High-Technicalities damage) instead.
>Recklessness and Scrutinous aren't very worth it unless you're stacking crit chance (Survival Instincts/Ambush/etc, they require too much investment). Going with the previous point, I'd advice getting Tranquility instead (getting hit as 3 Con usually means instant death on Dominating if you're planning to play on that, so abuse Line of Sight). Tranq comboes with what you're doing since it looks like you want to hybridize a lot instead of maximizing damage for one thing. Scrutinous' feat slot should go to Practical Phycisist.
>Decomissioner not worth it, take Critical Power instead (for Aimed Shot). You will use a electroshock pistol which already deals with mass bots handily, if not switching to a plasma pistol for single targets which outright OHKO's Naga Protectors if you build them right. It also comes so late that it's not very worth it
>Be aware you will rely on your chem pistol a lot. Energy pistols are very limited vs crowds in my experience and you want to use them sparingly/as a one-shotting tool (seems like you're gearing towards that, with incendiary for organics and electroshock for bots). You'll likely switch to acid when facing too many robots
>Cryo Orb costs more AP and Psi Points iirc, so use your Premed on that first THEN Thermodinamicity'd Pyrokinesis if you want to have as much AP as possible. If you want the MP reduction to stick however, do it as you said, since fire removes most or all cold status effects
>Be aware Disassemble only works on certain objects (mostly mechanical/electronic durability) and you can only use it to repair weapons for free if you max the specialization, which is 5 spec points. Future Orientation *might* be worth considering here
>Stasis is great but some consider it too overpowered. It all depends on how much you're struggling; since it basically gives you a second alpha strike turn with no downside

I might have missed some things, but that's about all I can see right now. You only really perfect a build once you've played it at least once.

28

Suggestions / Stabilization Wings should give an accuracy bonus rather than a range bonus

« on: July 01, 2021, 04:56:36 am »

Spear Throw's issue has never truly been damage but rather accuracy. Not only does the attack take into account the target's evasion skill (forcing you to use nets on high evasion NPCs, because no sane Spear build goes higher than 7 Dexterity), it also receives lighting penalties, which means you can't use it effectively in dark areas without a point blank shot or flares/molotovs. I suggest that the fixed +3 range buff be instead changed into a fixed +20% (or more) Spear Throw accuracy. The damage bonuses can remain the same.

29

Bugs / Plasma Beam and Cryogenic Barrier do not work with Thermodinamicity

« on: July 01, 2021, 04:46:28 am »

What it says on the title. All other Metathermics abilities work perfectly with Thermodynamicity for me, but it ignores only those two.

30

Suggestions / Re: Premeditation should work like Special Tactics

« on: February 23, 2021, 06:25:45 am »

Did you put ANY thought into this? All it would do is make Premeditation more tedious and less interesting to use by limiting your options, while not fixing anything and in fact encouraging the issue (break combat by cheesing zones/doors/line of sight to reset cooldowns and heal), much like the Psi changes did for Psi as a whole. There's no easy way to fix this (like adjusting some feats) unless you totally redesign the way Underrail plays or majorly improve NPC AI.