Messages

1

General / Re: Low-tech build viability (no crafting / hacking / lockpicking)

« on: January 10, 2016, 05:21:47 pm »

Those builds look stupid as hell. going past the required 6 Int for persuasion and mercantile...WTF.

I ended up using 6 int in my final build (the +2 were essentially leftover points), but thank you for your concern and constructive input, good sir.

If you're referring to the skill choices being stupid, note the central theme: no crafting / traps / lockpicking / hacking allowed! This is definitely not a min-maxing build, I know from experience how useful crafting is for increasing character power for basically anyone. That said: what would you do differently? No stealth is a personal choice, since I just completed a stealth playthrough.

You can leave out crafting completely with a psi build, but you'll miss the excellent psionic armors that you can make with azuridae carapace.

Yup, that's the idea! So far I'm up to about rail crossing and it's doing fine... more than fine, actually, way better than the crossbow build I already completed the game with. Only weakness seems to be trap- and stealther- heavy areas -- but I'll just avoid the Lurker base this time, and Crawlers are trivial to defeat via forcefield without taking any damage other than the initial sting. Mines are easy to manage with blindfired pyrokinesis, too.

e: final build I went with was 3-7-4-7-3-10-6. Taking psi feats as a priority for now. Will eventually get Grenadier, but honestly psi has enough AOE at low levels that grenade spamminess isn't required even for the tougher setpiece encounters. Deflection/Nimble/Yell are in the pipeline, eventually, but I needs me some Locus...

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General / Re: Are gladiator fights supposed to be min-maxed?

« on: January 08, 2016, 09:50:49 pm »

Some builds fare better than others. My stealth crossbow trapper build did very well as long as I didn't die on the first turn, because Quick Tinkering a bear trap in the way of the enemy either completely disables them (if they're melee) or allows you to hit them without being hit yourself (if they're ranged). Pure psi builds should also do quite well due to the huge amount of disables they have at their disposal.

Be sure to turn your shield on before talking to the fight promoter, btw! It does drain a bit during the intro, but should keep you alive on turn 1 at least.

e: also, if you're a tailor, get infused siphoner boots or tabi, that will make you immune to immobilization. You can also use the Escape Artist feat if you have it, though I think it's not worth a feat slot.

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Suggestions / Re: Let's have a chat about the Deep Caverns. (wall of text, and OBVIOUS SPOILERS)

« on: January 07, 2016, 05:49:54 pm »

I've posted lengthy reviews / notes about Deep Caverns on the 'dex, but I'll repost them here for consolidation and whatnot. This is from a stealthy crossbowman perspective, though much of it is universal. I'll put this as a tldr: Crossbow/trap builds are perfectly fine for everything up to the Deep Caverns, but they're very much NOT fine once inside. I'm not sure high-mechanical resistance enemy spam is a good design decision.

- Shrooms: pretty much what's in the OP. It's not only counterintuitive (why would I want to keep getting stacks of a debuff that decreases my max HP?), but you're being mislead by the only "helper" NPC in the entire area.

- Lack of certain items after the point of no return: There are some specific items - not found within the Deep Caverns themselves - that make things significantly easier and allow weaker builds to prevail against some of the HP sponge enemies. The ones relevant for my build were a biohazard suit (the heavy one, not the 2-weight thing that you can find everywhere) and gizzards. Why gizzards? Well... Deep Worms seem to be the only source, but they're borderline-unkillable for crossbowmen (see last  bullet point), so if the player wants any of the high-end meds, they'd better butcher a ton of the little worms at Foundry and gather their gizzards in advance.

- Limited resources: Crossbows are hit particularly hard here, since you need a lot of bolts to kill the super-resistent enemies in the Caverns. The supply of bolts is limited, and - worse yet - the supply of bolt triggers is almost nonexistent, ditto for syringes. With how useless normal bolts get in the endgame, it is necessary to turn as many of them into elemental / poison bolts as possible. NB, I'm not sure what the Tchort quartermaster has since I allied with the faceless and they attacked me on sight (disguise with a robe probably works, but my saves are too far back).

- Extremely resistant enemies: This is a problem for many builds, but especially for crossbows and (to some extent) knives due to the increased threshold. Crossbowmen are probably the worst off here, since knife users can at least bleed and electrocute their enemies with regular attacks plus they don't run the risk of running out of bolts. I'll go from least bad to worst here:

• Most critters including tchort mobs and cuttlesnails are fine. They either die relatively quickly or are vulnerable to attrition (cuttlesnails are basically bladelings v2.0).
• Industrial bots can be barely damaged by bolts, but at least they will eventually die and there's only a limited number of them. They're also not crit/trap immune and don't regenerate, so acid traps and tazers can save the day. The one exception is the IRIS core fight, which is absolutely brutal with the two industrial bots you're forced to kill (I'm lucky I had 5+ acid blob traps with me, is all I'm saying).
• Tchort is a pain... and not just in the 'challenging' or 'hard' way, but also in the 'annoying' and 'tedious' way. Now that the mutagen puzzle is fixed, he's at least theoretically doable by a crossbowman, but it's still obnoxious that normal attacks may as well do nothing against him so that most of the fight will be spent on using and refilling quickslots. HP regen on Tchort himself is a bad idea (it's ok on the tentacles). I'll say that weapon durability actually becomes a major issue here, which may be a problem for non-crafters (tbh I don't think anyone plays a crossbow build without at least Mechanics, though)
• Shroomlings are the definition of tedium. You're immune to everything they do (other than melee, which is easily prevented with control abilities and traps) in a biohazard suit, but they're massive blobs of HP, have high resistances, are immune to crits (!), and in-combat respawns are no fun. Worse yet, the one map you are required to fight them has no way to break LOS on the spitters, so even though they're not immune to traps, it doesn't help you much. At least they aren't immune to crowd control.
• Deep Worms. Holy crap, how are you supposed to kill these as a crossbowman? Of course I know they're sorta vulnerable to fire and can be stunned, even... but the 'right' way to deal with them is just stealth past and never fight them at ll. The problem isn't their offense, acid is nothing new at this point, though constant free teleporting isn't particularly fun to fight against. But the almost-impregnable armor compared with insane HP regen means that killing one of these as a crossbowman either requires a LOT of special bolts (as in, possibly half of the player's stock), or a whole lot of grenades. Ironically, they drop the one item that crossbowmen need to dent the armor of other tough DC enemies (corrosive acid). I'd suggest giving these an attackable weak point they expose after a few turns, maybe... like psi beetles opening their wings.

- Endgame-only immunites without possibility to adapt: Most of the enemies listed above are immune to traps (bots and shroomlings excepted). Quite a few are immune to crits. Some builds depend on this stuff, but there are no pre-DC enemies where this is an issue (spider immunity to bear traps excepted, but that's marginal), so they'll be hitting the player out of nowhere, and if the player's already max level (normal mode) or arrived with only 1-2 xp into the next level (oddity mode) they will not have the necessary level-ups to adapt their build. I have no problems with cuttlesnails because they're basically bladelings++. I DO have a problem with the teleporting regenerating impervious HP buckets known as Deep Worms, the crit-immune unavoidable debuff-stacking enemies known as Shroomling Spitters, and a bit even with the super-tanky Industrial Bots. I'm not saying "put deep worms into lower underrail", but having an optional encounter against an industrial bot at one point in or around the Tchort Institute would be helpful.


BTW, I think the Deep Caverns - as an area - is very well done... my problem is just with some numbers. But yea, those numbers could use a bit of adjusting!

edit: a systemic change I'd make is to have the bleed from Serrated Bolts scale from crossbow skill instead of from damage done. As it is they're not very useful except in a few large-scale fights against soft targets, and this would make them a fine attrition tool against everything except industrial bots (and there's not too many of them in the first place, so having them be a huge pain is OK)

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General / Re: Mysterious Pillars in Silent Isles - Willpower Fail

« on: January 07, 2016, 04:38:32 pm »

I think you also need a certain level of Thought Control (35 or 45?)

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General / Re: Easy way to defeat end boss(mega spolier)

« on: January 06, 2016, 07:41:35 pm »

What about sharpshooter? That's 75% more crit damage with Critical Power.

But the main issue is probably the fact that not only crossbows don't get any armor piercing ammo, they incur 125% mechanical damage resistance, so they are at a double disadvantage.

From my experience they are only good at picking off lone enemies without aggroing others (because silenced guns suck) and have the best synergy with traps, but that's it.

I have sharpshooter, too... and all the relevant crossbow feats except for Snipe (not that useful for my playstyle, and wouldn't help much here either). Crossbows actually work OK until Deep Caverns, and even there they only really fail on industrial bots, deep worms, shroom people, and Tchort. Unfortunately, most of the aforementioned enemies must be dealt with at one point...

My crossbow user is just about able to kill the tentacles faster than they regenerate the damage... in theory. In practice, unless it's just a single tentacle, she'll get killed first. Crossbows aren't exactly great as a primary weapon. Not sure how exactly a crossbow jockey is supposed to win that fight, haha. Many stacks of poison, maybe? If it even affects the eye... I don't know...

It does affect the eye, yeah.

I have a battleplan for this, it'll just need a lot of preparation and grinding. It also only really works if you're a crafter, but a crossbow user pretty much has to be one anyway.

1] Scour the ENTIRE deep caverns to get all materials that could be used to make shock and incendiary bolts as well as gas grenades and cryo grenades, put them in a big pile somewhere
2] Fish for a few hours to get materials for combat buff meds
3] Figure out a way to kill at least one deep worm (this is a blocker for now, but may be optional) for corrosive acid and gizzards required for a lot of medicine
4] Craft tons of high-end incendiary and shock bolts as well as some burrower and cave ear bolts. Gas grenades, cryo grenades and molotovs / magnesium grenades too.
5] Get enough oddities to level up and put 40 points into throwing (it's at 0 currently). I'm not sure this is possible, especially if I can't get oddities from deep worms [assuming they have some].
6] Get all the crafted stuff, do the mutagen puzzle
7] Deep breath
8] Enter, immediately stealth and dash over to left, kill mutagen tank, hide in shack, pop out to kill other mutagen tank as well, preferably with stealth + TNT. Tchort enemies aren't a big deal with traps, just keep tentacles controlled with fire and kill when appropriate.. especially the freaking Bilocation one, that one is pretty much gameover if it gets a single cast off.
9] Trap mouth of tchort with spirit poison trap (to summon bilocation clone, hopefully it'll tie up enemies and beat on them as well) or arrow
10] Kill tentacles, move to other side, kill tank, move to safe spot
11] Drop all the damage-over-time effects of the world on tchort. Gas grenade to stack vulnerability, burrower bolt for armor-ignoring damage, cave ear poison to increase all this damage even more. Only use high-grade incendiary and shock bolts on tchort, normal bolts are for mooks. When special bolts run out, retreat to resupply and repair crossbows (YES, your crossbow will break, multiple times. Proven.)
12] ... profit eventually? Assuming tchort gets 0 regen when all tanks are destroyed, that is.

edit: doing the good old Caltrop Caper (cover the arena with crawler poisoned caltrops and wear steel boots for immunity) may also help, though I suspect the tentacles are going to be immune as they appear in non-walkable tiles to begin with.

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General / Re: Easy way to defeat end boss(mega spolier)

« on: January 06, 2016, 07:19:05 pm »

Sure thing! Get ready, you bloodthirsty maniacs... someone is getting hardcore dominated toni--



... oh. 

Weapon is a top-end zephyr crossbow with AA scope (+175% crit damage bonus total) and super string. Character has 15 PER, 220 effective crossbow skill, and the Critical Power feat. Needless to say, normal crossbow attacks are not your friend in this fight, even if they crit. :p

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General / Re: Easy way to defeat end boss(mega spolier)

« on: January 06, 2016, 04:46:18 pm »

I'm tempted to post what numbers a crossbow build would get using the same tactic...

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General / Re: [Endgame Spoilers] Events at Rail Crossing and how they affect the endgame

« on: January 05, 2016, 06:11:33 am »

So, disabling the walkers/robots at crossing makes you unable to ally with the faceless  -  true or false?

False. The gist of it is as MichaelBurge said. Buzzer's death is also avoidable.

Epeli, you have a very thorough knowledge of the game, can you tell me why I am not able to ally with the Faceless when according to MichaelBurge's investigations I should be able to? Here's an entire history of my interactions with them:

--disabled the plasma sentries, snuck into Buzzer's shop, let them read my mind, convinced them to leave and spare Buzzer
--helped them in Foundry by honestly telling them everything I knew, they left peacefully and thanked me
--saved the guy in Core City, gave him a high quality health hypo
--dude showed up at the Institute to warn me, I attempted to do so but the game doesn't continue unless you go and squeal to Eidein, sigh
--sat there twiddling my thumbs and doing nothing at all while the Faceless and Tchortists fought each other, then bravely ran away on the elevator

In essence I did every single thing possible to help them and nothing to harm them, ever, yet they still tell me I am "not an ally." Unless disabling the plasma sentries or using Persuasion to save Buzzer have some negative effect, there is no way they should be neutral to me. I just can't figure it out, and it's frustrating as hell.

I did the exact same things with the only difference being that I let them kill Buzzer and didn't touch any of the plasma sentries (I did have to kill the kamikaze bots though, thx truesight) and I got a friendly result.

The original steam thread had a guy reporting that he did a replay where the only thing he did differently was let them kill Buzzer and it got him the friendly ending -- I believe that's what got people on the steam forums thinking that saving Buzzer and/or messing with the sentries locks you out of the friendly ending. Not sure if it's a bug or intended, so 'official' word would probably be very welcome.

e: discussion starts here. There are at least 2 other threads on the first page of the steam forums discussing this same question now, I think... so yea, it's a Hot Topic(tm)

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General / Re: Low-tech build viability (no crafting / hacking / lockpicking)

« on: January 04, 2016, 04:46:09 pm »

I made the decision to skip crafting and lockpick/hacking entirely because I'm honestly curious to see how the game plays without them... they seem quite integral to gameplay, especially crafting. Anyway, I'm not very good at build theorycrafting, but I'll post with what I've come up with so far. I invite everyone to poke holes in them!

IMO a psi build has to be it, since not having crafted weapons/armor in endgame could be crippling for other builds, especially crossbows (lack of psi armor and bio consumables will still hurt, but what ya gonna do). The base of the build could be something like this:
STR 3
DEX 3
AGI 3
CON 3
PER 3
WIL 10
INT 6 (for Premeditation and Meditation)
Skills (all max): Thought Control, Psychokinesis, Metathermics, Intimidate (only social skill with a combat benefit)

This leaves 9 stat points and 4 skills.


Tank variant:

STR 3
DEX 3
AGI 3
CON 10
PER 3
WIL 10
INT 8
+ Persuasion, Mercantile, Dodge, Evasion
Feat choices: psi feats, Yell, CON-based survivability feats (Fast Metabolism, Last Stand, Thick Skull)
Medium armor, unarmed with tazers and the occasional EMP/flashbang/molotov for extra control, 0 throwing skill be damned.

This is essentially the same as Nerdcommando's Psion build, trading the craft skills for talk and evasion skills. It's got good survivability on paper even with crap agility, but essentially zero non-psi options, which makes me a bit leery. Full coverage of social skills AND evasive skills could be pretty nice...


Throwing / dodger variant:

STR 3
DEX 6
AGI 3
CON 7
PER 3
WIL 10
INT 8
+ Throwing, Persuasion, Dodge, Evasion (variation: Pickpocket instead of Persuasion)
Feat choices: psi feats, Yell, Grenadier, Fast Metabolism, Deflection (not going to be wielding any mainhand weapons), maybe Nimble. Trading a point in INT for Three-Pointer doesn't sound like a good idea since this build needs to pump WIL.
Light armor, unarmed with grenades and other throwing items (nets?).

Dodge may work to offset the loss of HP and other defensive potential even considering the low agility, and throwing can give a secondary offense option, though throwing knives are going to be weak due to lowish DEX. Needs too many non-psi feats... and it may be too squishy, especially since crafting infused light armor is not an option.


I also thought about a melee and gun variant, but they would be spread way too thin IMO (gun variant needs PER and DEX/STR, melee variant needs STR/DEX and AGI). Still, if anyone can come up with a workable build that uses guns or melee weapons/fists, it'd be quite welcome!

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General / Re: Influences and inspiration other than CRPGs.

« on: January 03, 2016, 07:39:52 am »

Arke Station is a pretty clear homage to System Shock (1).

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General / Re: Low-tech build viability (no crafting / hacking / lockpicking)

« on: January 02, 2016, 08:11:40 pm »

Thanks for the input, all! I'm mostly set on the psion, though lack of perception will hurt. Paranoia is probably not enough by itself, so I'll just have to pray for some blast-proof armor to appear in shops (and do a lot of scouting via pyrokinesis).

And yeah, I'm deliberately ignoring hacking/lockpicking -- want to see what it's like to play without them, since they seem to be such a staple for all builds.

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General / Low-tech build viability (no crafting / hacking / lockpicking)

« on: January 02, 2016, 05:00:19 pm »

Hey all,

So after playing several different builds at different stages of the game (including DC), I've noticed that all of them seem to have something in common: maxed lockpicking/hacking/traps and at least 2 maxed crafting skills as well (usually 3 or even 4 depending on build).

The question is, then: is it possible to create a build that has NONE of these skills? Which archetypes could make a build like this work, considering the implications (no access to a lot of loot containers in the game, inability to disarm traps, can't craft any uber gear and rare consumables...) and remain viable throughout the entire game?

So far my vague concept is a tri-spec psion with throwing for backup... it checks out on paper, and the abundance of skill points could be used well on talky skills thanks to high will. Another option would be a diplomatic gunslinger praying to Tchort daily for good shop inventories, maybe.


Has anyone played around with craft-less / hack-less builds and have any insight / experience to share? Thanks!

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General / Re: Suggestions on pure (or nearly pure) psi build

« on: January 02, 2016, 07:51:49 am »

Hm... anyone tried combining grenades/throwing with psi? EMP grenades and flashbangs in particular seem useful, and on paper having strong AOE attacks that don't need psi power could be handy too. Though the high dex requirement of Grenadier may make that a non-starter...

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General / Re: I've had enough of the Deep Caverns (spoilery help-request)

« on: January 02, 2016, 06:45:46 am »

I've just finished a playthrough where I could ally with the faceless... and yea, killing any of them or hindering them in any way will block you from becoming friendly with them. This is what I did:
- Rail Crossing: stealthed to the mindreader without attacking any of the Faceless or their robots (I don't think the robots matter), let him do this thing, Buzzer ended up dying. Letting him die is important! If you save him with talky skills, they consider it you messing with their plans.
- Foundry: did the quests until the chief asked me to talk to the Faceless, so I did... I couldn't tell them what they were searching for, so I talked to some people in Foundry and eventually tracked down that one guy in the cave nearby who told me about the acid hunters and the cube. Then I told this to the Faceless, they thanked me and packed up / left (they gave me some item, maybe a power core?)
- Core City: saved him and gave him a healing hypo
- Institute: full normal playthrough. Even if you get all buddy-buddy with the Tchortists (including warning them of the invasion), the faceless won't really care about it as long as you don't attack/kill anyone from the invasion force. The quote is something like "your previous allegiance with the Tchortists will not be held against you, since it was necessary to track down the cube"