Messages

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General / What does the second set of Mysterious Pillars do?

« on: December 25, 2015, 04:06:27 pm »

The ones in Core City Sewers. I used them with a high Will character (10+) and I don't seem to have gained anything as far as I can tell, no new abilities, no extra psi points. If it's something that only has an effect in the future, then please spoil me on what it does, I'm not sure if Praetorian Security is the questline I want to go with in Core City.

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General / Re: Need help, I keep running into the same wall every game. Am new.

« on: July 19, 2015, 03:43:53 pm »

Oddity is the default XP system that gives you a good amount of XP as long as you're constantly exploring new areas, which happens naturally as you progress through the game. You will get reasonable XP no matter what your approach to clearing those areas is, whether you're a stealth character or a combat character.

On Classic, it's very easy to be behind on levels unless you're taking the violent approach to everything, hence I would only recommend Classic for highly effective combat builds that want to hunt higher-level enemies for XP.
I suspect you would be a few levels higher on Oddity, yes. Classic requires a pretty big commitment to killing and the like if you want to keep up. This is the reason why Oddity is default: it's suitable for all builds, and there's no pressure to play the game any specific way. Even without lockpicking/hacking there's still plenty of oddities to be found.

If you're not enjoying your build, I would probably recommend restarting on Oddity, with a slightly more minmaxed build. The thing about minmaxing in this game is that an effective build also tends to be a more fun build. The more you specialize in order to get the most out of a specific approach to the game, the more effective you are, and the more unique your build is. Various feats and equipment from crafting can come together in a very satisfying manner.

In addition to being underleveled, a partial reason why your gun damage is lacking is probably the combination of low perception, and the fact that you're buying guns. Of all builds, guns benefit perhaps the most from crafting, as you utilize 7 intelligence feats like Gun Nut. And even without those feats, crafted guns tend to be stronger.

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Development Log / Re: Dev Log #40: Quick Update

« on: July 13, 2015, 04:26:11 pm »

A question, Styg. Will the final release feature base ability checks above the starting maximum of 10? Can I safely assume that anything past 10 is just for higher effective skill, or should I have 16 Perception or something similar to make sure I can fully explore the Deep Caverns?

Thanks for the update. I'm looking forward to the full Underrail experience with bated breath.

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General / Re: Fist weapons vs high armor - ran into a bit of a wall

« on: July 02, 2015, 09:44:24 pm »

Your strength/will idea also sounds very appealing. If I can convince myself to drop container opening skills I might just go that route.

Actually, I meant putting points into Will instead of strength --- you'd still have 5 or more int and high dex, so you wouldn't be sacrificing containers or anything like that. What you would be sacrificing is Wrestling and 10% bonus damage to fists from strength, but you'd gain damage from better Force Emission, and you would of course gain all of the other advantages that a high-will PSI build has. The build would work on the principle that you'd use your bare fists with force emission for 4-5 AP attacks versus enemies with low mechanical resistance, and you'd switch to Neural Overload/Electrokinesis/Metathermics for enemies in metal armor.

In my opinion, strength is not a very important attribute for an unarmed build. I would only recommend strength on builds that rely on it for both offense and defense, e.g. Assault Rifle builds that use Metal armor + Full Auto. With Lightning Punches, you won't be wearing Metal Armor, so you only get a bit of extra damage from strength. You get much better gains from Dex/Agi/Will, based on my own experience. For example, something like 5 int, 10 will, 11 dex (4 AP fists with tabi boots + lightning punches), rest into Agi (you could go for 10 agi if you want to, Blitz is 5 extra fist attacks if your fists are 4 AP). Dex could work at 8 too, for 5 AP punches --- which meshes nicely with your 5, 10, 15, 20 AP psi.

I did think about going with a Psi build as well, but I can't quite settle on a build. I don't want to take crafting but apparently you get some pretty crucial items through it (psi vest and such).

The crafting requirements for Psi equipment are pretty low (somewhere in the range of 20-50, I think), and well worth it if you frequently utilize Psi.

Is it generally recommended to focus on all 3 psi abilities since you're already heavily invested into Will stat? What about social, is one enough or should one generally get both persuasion and intimidate if going that route?

Psychokinesis is so good you want to max it on pretty much all psi builds. Thought Control should be a priority if you have 10 Will --- Locus of Control is an amazing feat. Metathermics can be ignored, but it has some nice stuff in it like Cryostasis at 35 points.

Neither Persuasion nor Intimidate are necessary, unless you're playing a non-combat build that relies upon having a silver tongue for survival. You should pick Intimidate if you want to pick dialogue options where you scare someone. Pick Persuasion if you want dialogue options where you convince someone to do something. If you don't want to do either, you can live without them.

The good thing about dex/will/agi/int is they all affect a lot of skills, so you can spread yourself among 10-12 skills without any particular problems: you don't need to max every single skill. Just pick the lowest points you need for psi headbands, psi armor, specific breakpoints in lockpicking/hacking (like 100 effective skill with a huxkey, or whatever the highest lock is these days), and only max the stats you need to.

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General / Re: Fist weapons vs high armor - ran into a bit of a wall

« on: July 02, 2015, 07:45:19 pm »

Expose Weakness would help a lot: if the enemy has 20 mechanical threshold and you hit for 21 damage, expose weakness will up your damage from 1 to 11, which is a pretty significant increase. Everything helps when you're dealing zero damage, so expertise would be very significant as well.

The problem is Expose has a 4 turn cooldown, so you really should have alternative means of dealing damage. The real problem you're running into is that you're relying upon a single damage type: mechanical. It stands to reason you'd have trouble with mechanically resistant enemies.

You have dex, so you could use grenades. Grenadier would allow you to drop heat-damage based grenades every 2 turns, and toxic grenades once every turn.

Alternatively, if you choose to rebuild, you could switch your strength to will. You'd lose damage from strength, but you'd also gain a lot of damage from a much, much stronger Force Emission (if you invested heavily in psychokinesis). Most importantly, you'd have a means of dealing cold/heat/electrical damage through psi. It also gives you more stuns, which disable the enemy's dodge and evasion.

If you choose to stick with your current build, I would also recommend Dirty Kick on top of Expertise and Expose Weakness --- stuns are very valuable if you are having any problems with hit chance at all. Also, an Electroshock Sledgehammer could be a useful addition to your arsenal, even if you plan on mostly using unarmed. You should at least have the option to deal something other than mechanical damage.