Messages

1

Builds / Re: Help me fix this Psi build (Level 12)

« on: September 17, 2019, 03:15:21 pm »

I have yet to play a full Psy character. Mine is a SMG build with Temporal psionics. However, What I have learned with this game is maxing your potential is the only way to go. What I mean is, whatever your damage route is, Max it. So if your a psy character who focuses on thought control and psychokinesis then they should be maxed. The to hit potential and often the effects duration or resistance is based on your skill. There are exceptions to the rule but often its the case. Take cryokinesis. It appears to automatically hit. However, its damage is based on effective skill. At 50 your doing Cold: 18-28, Mechanical: 14-20 and at your level you could have a score of 111 or higher based on gear. Rounded to 150 effective your damage would be Cold: 38-66, Mechanical: 28-44 which depending on the gear should be doable.

My point is, keep your wil maxed and whatever damage powers you want to use maxed. Other abilities like technologies, hacking, and lockpicking you don't have to max, but to keep up with the sometimes brutal combat in this game as you level you are going to want those missing points. For temporal manipulation I recommend 55. It will get you to contraction or 70 for stasis. A lot of the temporal powers are utility and not based on your skill level. If you give temporal 1 feat grab Psycho-temporal Acceleration. Well worth it from what I have seen. Of course I really only use contraction and Dilation at the start of the fight and sometimes increment.

Thats just my two cents. I have learned most builds can work if they just don't neglect their combat abilities. Again, I have not played a true psion but I suspect they still want to max what they use for damage and control. If your getting destroyed in combat try a better shield. I found this and it helped a lot.

The frequency of the shield emitter determines that types of attacks they will be effective at guarding against.

Low frequency emitters absorb more damage from slow attacks with melee and crossbows, while high frequency emitters block more damage from high speed attacks like rifles and energy weapons. Each time a shield absorbs damage it drains from your shield energy. This means that if you have high damage absorption stats on your shield, your shield will sustain fewer hits because it is absorbing all the energy of your enemies attacks.

Sometimes you want your shield to do absorb as much damage as possible because you have no natural resistance. Light armor builds with dodge benefit from a high frequency shield because leather armor does not protect well against energy weapons and you want the shield to absorb all the damage because you don't get hit as often and have no natural resistance.

However, with metal armor, you get hit more often and you have more natural resistance. a low threshold shield with a large energy pool will be able to sustain many hits because the damage reduction will max out at a small number, the damage that gets through will be reduced and easily managed by your metal armor threshold/resistance. Metal armor users benefit the most from high capacity low threshold shields because they don't care about the damage that gets through the shield, but benefit immensely from the slight damage reduction and the ability to sustain more hits.

So the best shield for a metal armor user is a high quality core, an high quality efficiency upgrade, and a low quality low frequency modulator.

2

Builds / Re: Psy Hybrid upgrade.

« on: September 15, 2019, 01:28:20 am »

Ok, so a low will still absorb some of the damage from other weapons like the AR? I ask because explosives, snipers, and AR are all considered high shields. Or am I missing something?

3

General / Re: Another crafting question

« on: September 14, 2019, 10:09:51 pm »

They increase your effective score by 15 %.

Ok, thank you. Is there any crafting feats you recommend? Such as the bonus energy one or the sloping for armor? or the one that reduces armor penalty by 10 and increases evasion by some amount if at 0? I'm not sure what end game armor looks like or what would help the most. Other then I doubt I will have the strength for metal armor.

4

General / Re: Another crafting question

« on: September 14, 2019, 09:32:10 pm »

Look for crafting benches(wiki). Also there is one guaranteed portion of Hypercerbrix in Expedition which gives 2 Int and therefore increases crafting. If you're lucky you can also find the bp for it, but don't count on it. You can use that pill to pretty much craft your end-game gear. I'd say you need 150 Mechanics, 160 Electronics, as much as you want in Chemistry for 'nades, as much as you want in Biology for chems/poisons, and maybe 130 Tailoring. All Effective values. 15 % from crafting benches. Do keep an eye on Tailoring because it will vary depending on what armour you want to make.

If you do find a Hypercerbrix BP, then you can be more relaxed with allocating points to crafting.

I checked out the wiki again for workbenches. I realize I need a few more points in mercantile to unlock all of them. Do the workbenches give a higher effective skill of 15% flat, or modify my points by 15%?

5

Builds / Re: Psy Hybrid upgrade.

« on: September 14, 2019, 09:23:17 pm »

Cool, I don't know enough to understand what you mean by the shields yet, but, I am sure I will figure it out as I level. Right now I found my first 'medium' in a shop.

Hopefully with only being normal difficulty I can actually take a sniper rifle round... If not I am scared. I suspect I will stick with the anti bullet overcoats for the rest of my playthrough. I considered riot armor but I like that most low damage pistols and smg's do virtually nothing to me. With flashbangs and later force fields and my other temporal effects I hope to limit how often people spend face time with me. I looked at my build, and tested it at mid and high levels. It looks like after awhile a lot of free points start to show up. Will be able to branch out into electronics and tailoring, and later biology. Here is to hoping your two's advice makes it possible to use my concept and succeed.

6

General / Another crafting question

« on: September 14, 2019, 03:44:12 pm »

I tried doing the search button for this question but either I have not gone back far enough or I missed something everyone else already knew.

Crafting effective level and actually skill points. Which matters? I assume effective level but if I assume that, I am worried that when I get to end game and want to craft a max grenade with chemistry I will find that crafting requires actual skill points and effective level only effects other things like guns max damage or whatever. Any clarification or directing me to the answer (I read a lot on the wiki but never found that exact info.)

Also, What is crafting levels that people recommend for fun stuff? I know that I am aiming for max frag grenades and making my own ammo so a chemistry of 112 (effective?) is all I need for what I want. For guns I need a effective 128 because I read that you can find up to quality level 160 and required numbers are .8 of the quality required of the skill.

But what about biology and electronics. I know I need 30 electronics for guns if I was not a SMG build. SMG builds can only use the smart module but from what I read they nerfed burst and it does not gain bonus damage as a special attack anymore from things that buff special attack damage.

And tailoring... Meh, I don't think I have the points to max everything.

7

Builds / Re: Psy Hybrid upgrade.

« on: September 14, 2019, 02:37:51 pm »

Thanks again! This is a lot of good info. I will have to look up how much biology black dragon extracts cost. And yah, I agree with all of you. I increased my Dex when I hit level 8 last night. I have yet to pick up the psychic abilities, just slowly putting points into it. Waiting for level 10 where I will swallow the red pill, then level up taking a temporal feat, and by then I will have put 60 points into the temporal skill.

**EDIT What shields does everyone use? I was thinking of grabbing a high frequency. Two things tend to hurt the most, melee, and big rifles. Crossbows can be pretty bad but that's mostly the special bolts. And, from what I have read most things negate a lot of the energy shield at the melee level, so I figured focusing on rifles. Anyone agree or have another suggestion?

8

Builds / Re: Psy Hybrid upgrade.

« on: September 13, 2019, 11:07:51 pm »

Also, I plan to have a second SMG that will use the jaguar 5mm with silencer and rapid reloader. Right now I have one with a silencer and front grip till my gun skill is higher.

On throw, it still increases damage as I add more points (or is that just throwing knives I don't use?), and periodically I still have wild throws. As a core feature of the build would you really stop it at 45?

9

Builds / Re: Psy Hybrid upgrade.

« on: September 13, 2019, 09:15:28 pm »

Thank you for your replies. I am playing on normal difficulty with .... non oddity exp. Whatever they called that. To be fair, the only reason I am finding it easy is because I used grenades to kill a guy that none of my guns could scratch even after multiple loads. The armor he had was mechanical 9 thermal 7 cold 3 with 200% vs guns. The real threat right now is what seems to be a standard bad guy group. 2 psy, 1 is a brawler type, 3 dogs and a gunner. The gunner is usually nothing with that armor. Small damage. The dogs are annoying but easy to put down. Its the 2 psy's that give me trouble. Usually its a grenade opener, find a safe place, grenade again and burst them down. I say easy, but, really I just meant Doable with the right tactics. Between high end HE, Frag, Incendiary, and flashbangs, I have a grenade for every situation. This last group I mentioned was a optional area for me to kill off. I cleared them right after I finished the GMS. I fought the burrowers? for awhile but realized it would take so many resources it was not worth staying (and I may have gotten overwhelmed quickly if I stayed). Loaded my earlier save and walked away.

I did consider doing force field but figured I would scrounge up the 25 at some point later. As for not bothering with con, I looked up Dexterity early on and realized that the sweet spots vary based on the SMG. I figured I would get my dex to 8 or 9 based on which SMG i'm using and find that I need for the bonus. And then using the veteran feat to up the dex more to hit the next tier from there. It felt more like a late game tactic due to needing the right mods. Namely the reloader. Right now I have the 7 due to a misreading of the SMG stats when I first started. My current plan is aiming for a steel cat with rapid re loader and muzzle break. If it works that way with full auto its 9 rounds per burst, at a base of 13 AP which at 8 Dex its 11 AP. With the Veteran level goal being a 11 Dex for 10 AP. And only 200% AP cost for a burst from commando.

However, knowing now that effective level does not matter for what I want it to do, then I can still ignore wil. I do feel like perception is great for damage, but, at some point my % to hit will be high enough (on normal) that I don't know if I really need more perception. I am still a bit iffy on whether or not to leave con at 3 even with adding psy. I am at comfortable HP's at the moment but it can go bad fast with a bit of bad RNG. Which is why I considered offsetting the HP loss a little with a point or 2 in con as I level.

Assuming that everything's synergies work, Temporal contraction would be 3 burst fires with a 8.6 steel cat at veteran levels, 9 rounds per burst, And a adrenaline shot would allow up to 4 bursts. Before then I could use the 1 less burst AP leftovers for my grenades.

I would need 1 dex soon for the 11 AP cost. Then the veteran feat plus 1 more Dex for 11 dex total. (I assume veteran levels are only obtainable after beating the game and exporting to start over) Though if there is consumables I can use to take a 8 dex to 11 that would work too.

*** EDIT If any of this is incorrect or you disagree with my reasoning I would love to know. Or if you think I am not focusing enough on some aspect or don't know something about underrail feel free to let me know. This is my first character and I am enjoying the game so far. I have stayed spoiler free other then reading info about how exactly some things work, what feats there are, and some of the builds here. For example I don't know if there is a huge difficulty spike coming, or if I just have a false sense of safety right now just because of that armor.

10

Builds / Psy Hybrid upgrade.

« on: September 13, 2019, 07:14:59 pm »

So right now I am a level 7 SMG build with mechanics maxed, chemistry maxed, and 10 tailoring so that I can make my own weapons, and grenades. Full points in Guns, Throwing, Mechanics, chemistry, mercantile and persuasion. 40 in hacking and lockpicking (stole 5 from each for the 10 tailor) My stats are 7str 7dex 6agi 3con 8per 3wil 7int. Feats are Trigger happy, suppresive fire, gun nut, grenadier, and full auto. I am now at the point where I can take hits and destroy groups of lunatics and dogs.

So, I want to dabble in Psionics from this point forward. Basically getting 60 in temporal manipulation as a utility psionic Hybrid. For Those more experienced in the game, is this do able or would it just fail hard?

My thought was for 2 levels put nothing else in anything except guns and temporal till I get 60 temporal (for the 2 feats for Future Orientation, and Psycho Temporal Acceleration) using a temporal psyband to up my effective level because of the low wil, Then focus on getting my Persuasion back up (gotta keep this near max due to low will) then throwing, mechanic and chemistry up probably in that order. Mercantile hacking and lockpicking would fall a little behind. I planned to only take mercantile to 50 anyways, and I could start taking hacking and lockpicking up shortly after.

At level 8 I plan to grab commando, then 10 psycho temporal acceleration, and 12 future orientation. My goal would be to use Psycho-temporal dilation and contraction along with increment to give me 3 bursts (or 2 for the heavier hitting SMG's) and lessen the AP of my enemies sometimes. Increment would be helpful for health hypo's and for grenades. I know the weakness would be my Psy point regen. But, its really just for first or second round buffing and the odd debuff. The major hurt here will be my Low health with the 3 con. I 'could' offset this by putting my stat points into Con from this point on. Won't be great but would help.

Any comments or suggestions on how to make this work with the level 7 I have? Your welcome to say it will be bad, but ways to make it work would be much appreciated.

If you think this would work, would you recommend waiting till level 9 to start pushing points onto temporal? so that I would get Psycho temporal acceleration and contraction both at level 10?



***EDIT I could also put a point in con to offset the hps lost a little and a point in will so that I would not need a temporal psy headband to offset the loss from willpower. What do you all think?