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1

Builds / Re: Final normal difficulty build question - jack of all trades?

« on: May 10, 2025, 02:23:20 pm »

The biggest problem with jack of all trades build is the lack of attribute points and feat points to invest into everything.

So here I'll give you a list of builds with the lowest attributes and feat requirements, as well as recommendations against some builds with heavy requirements. I suppose you can combine some of these low requirements builds into a working jack of all trades build.

For guns, shotguns actually have the lowest requirements: you can refer my 3 PER shotgun build here: https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=9661.0

However, since you want to pass perception checks, a good candidate will be assault rifles, which only require 8 PER and a few feats. Another candidate will be LMGs, that build has more requirements, but it is possible to weave a sledgehammer into that build, allowing you to both melee and use a gun (LMG). You can refer to my Rambo build here on how to do that: https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=10948.msg43801#msg43801

If you want even higher PER for checks, I suppose sniper rifles is technically doable at 11 PER and just a few crucial feats... but I have not tried any sniper rifle builds yet, and have not seen any guides that proposed any PER lower than 14. So take at your own risk.

As for PSI, if all you need is just utility and support magic such as stuns, immobilizations, and free adrenaline shots, then you can refer to my Paladin build here: https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=10486.msg42465#msg42465. That build has 5 slots for support magic, and requires only 3 WIL. If you need to be occasionally killing mobs with magic, then that requires heavy investment into WIL, the minimum I have seen is 11, from the Bloodpsican build: https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=8588.0

If you go PSI, you will definitely be getting Premeditation, which requires 6 INT to obtain. The 6 INT provides not much, but still decent bonus to your hacking skill.

As for Dex, 7 Dex is the perfect threshold, as it fulfills requirements for skills like Grenadier and Escape Artist, and it adds a decent bonus to lockpicking.

Avoid SMG builds so they require heavy investment into DEX, as well as at least 6 PER.

Avoid pistol builds as they require too many feat points, as well as heavy investment into DEX and PER to work properly. Unless you are talking about my stupid Gluck 17 pistol here: https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=8936.msg39405#msg39405

Avoid knife builds as they require too much DEX and feat points to work properly.

In my opinion, sledgehammers for melee builds have the lightest requirements: I managed to get it working with 11 STR and no feats in my Rambo build.

Personally I will not consider Spears due to my bias for sledgehammers, but spears require investment into many different stats for its feats, that can fit well into a jack of all trades build. But still require many feat points though.

Actually, this can be fun to theorycraft, let me try to make one.

2

Builds / Re: Rambo. Live off the land. Genocide the world.

« on: December 15, 2024, 05:53:30 am »

Playthrough and review
Early game, up to and including Depot A, was a featless sledgehammer run. Was not able to be totally independent from merchants at this early a point in time, so yeah bought a total of 6 MKI frag grenades, 6 molotov cocktails, 2 emp grenades, 1 lifting belt, 15 bear traps, a sledgehammer handle and a quality 44 metal plate to craft a durability 690 sledgehammer, 2 MKII frag grenades, and a pig leather tabi boots from various vendors.

Also bought 3 blueprints, the only 3 blueprints needed for this build: Recycle Item, Repair Kit, and Bear Trap.

After Depot A, immediately headed to finish Buck Nimble quest to get the N60. That was the start of the genocide run, beginning at level 9.

Recount of the massacres:

• Core City gangs
• Got the Mindcracker!
• Random Ironheads
• Rail Crossing
• Random leveling in Lower Underrail
• Panacea Lab
• Marty's scavenger camp
• Gubbins and gang
• Balor's camp
• Lurker base
• Foundry
• Core City: all levels except upper residential floor (where the headquarters of the 3 factions are). In hindsight, should have started the war on Core City from the upper residential floor instead of the lower level. The elevator is the only entrance to the upper residential floor, and it unstealths the character when used. The moment the character steps out of the elevator onto the upper residential floor, he is immediately jumped by Praetorians from the west and Coretech on the east. Coretech has snipers and emp grenades; it took many level ups later to be strong enough to survive the entrance to the upper residential floor.
• Lunatic Mall (cleared with Steyr Auch)
• Joined Aegis Expedition (somehow did not aggro Aegis Sec when the character was at war with the rest of Core City)
• Upon disembarkation, immediately killed everyone in the map (with Steyr Auch) and stole an Aegis Patroller
• Learnt Naval Combat feat from Lance
• Cleared Port Zenith to get N16 assault rifle
• Took N16, 2901 5mm standard rounds, a dozen or more 25mm frag grenades and a randomly looted petard to assault everyone in Expedition
• Cleared Mutie Refuge (excluding underground area) and natives (excluding Magnar), left 716 5mm ammo
• Cleared pirate base, running out of 5mm ammo, looted another 760 5mm rounds from pirate base and pirate patrols
• Cleared Port Crag and the last pirate outpost, 33 5mm rounds remaining
• Cleared Epione Lab with N60
• Cleared Core Ring Protectorate outpost with a randomly looted durability 1410 8.6mm Hornet
• Core City upper residential floor
• Coretech cleared with N60
• JKK cleared with Brno
• Praetorian Security cleared with Brno and a 40mm 4-chamber Mangonel Bipod (40mm HE grenades)
• Gattler and gang cleared with Brno, got GlaShaG-9
• Fort Apogee cleared with GlaShaG-9, used about 800 9mm rounds
• Expedition, spent 1800 8.6mm rounds on:
• West Storage Depot (not including Mutie Refuge)
• Horticulture Center
• Lemurian Health Center
• Nexus of Technology
• Aegis Sec camp cleared with N60
• 3 Naga fight cleared with N60
• Magnar map cleared with N60
• Completed cleared Expedition, got ACORN
• Utility station 6 and 7, cleared with Brno
• University cleared with Brno
• Deep Caverns cleared with MG3-42, total of 767 7.62mm casings obtained at the end of it
• Lunatic area at start of Heavy Duty cleared with NF F2500
• The Compound was too difficult for this character

After completing the game, I must say that the build works as expected. By being able to utilise every ammo type looted in the game, there is enough ammo to clear all content in the game. Except the Compound, which is too hard. In fact, I was more worried about healing items than ammo towards the end of the game. My entire stock of healing salves looted from the native villages (I estimate 300 to 400, couldnt remember) was running out, a rare phenomenon in my runs. So thankful for Fast Metabolism and Doctor feats to increase healing efficiency.

The massive health pool of this build meant that most encounters are a matter of tanking and shooting till enemies are dead, then replenishing it back with the abundance of looted healing items. Only harder encounters are afforded the use of adrenaline shots or shield emitters, since there is relative scarcity of adrenaline shots and batteries in base Underrail.

Vitality Powder is a lot more common though, I find myself abusing Vitality Powder for sledgehammer attacks a lot more after I returned from Expedition.

Expedition represents a net expenditure of ammo instead of gain. Only pirate base and Aegis Sec camp has any ammo to loot. Spiders, strongmen, handmaidens, crabs, hives, locusts, etc. are all a drain on ammo supplies without anything worthwhile to loot. I had made 3 trips to and fro the Black Sea, bringing in thousands of ammo and dozens of repair kits each time, in order to sustain the assault on the Black Sea.

Fully specced Concentrated Fire is a sight behold. The Brno was able to down a strongman in 1 burst despite the Brno having low damage and the strongman being moderately armoured. The Brno was able to down a Recombinant in 2 bursts in the same turn despite the Recombinant being well armoured and having a lot of health. In the 3 Naga fight, each Naga can be downed by 2 bursts of standard 7.62mm ammo by n60 in the same turn (must be near to minimize misses). In Fort Apogee, each Dreadnaught can be downed by 2 bursts of the GlashaG-9 in the same turn. And all these without W2C ammo, just thanks to 1 fully specialized feat.

Despite the power of Concentrated Fire, I am really glad that I took Expose Weakness as it trivialized boss fights even further. E.g. with Expose Weakness, Eldein took just 1 burst with Brno; with Expose Weakness, Tchort took just 1 burst from MG3-42; the MG3-42 merely tickles the Faceless Commander as his armor is too high, but with Expose Weakness the Faceless Commander is also downed in 1 burst. I also recall using Expose Weakness on Recombinants, Cuttlesnails, and any number of enemies in metal armor to make them more vulnerable to hammer strikes.

Was not able to kill Magnar's second stage because I killed Dude.

Build variations
In my build I invested 15 into Con, but it does not really need such high Con to complete the game. The extra attribute points can be invested into other attributes to enable certain feats. E.g.

• 7 will, for Stoicism and Bullet Trance.
• 5 Agi and 5 Dex, for Strafe. LMGs/miniguns have a moderate move to shoot penalty (15% to 20%) that can be removed/reduced by this feat. Given that this build does not rely on heavy armor, and hence needs to move around a lot, this feat could be useful.

Also, the build could have used lockpicking, for accessing typically off limit areas and for stealing jet skis as explained above.

3

Builds / Re: Rambo. Live off the land. Genocide the world.

« on: December 15, 2024, 05:52:13 am »

Choice of weapons and order of acquisition

1. N60 the Warthog
This weapon is the first unique weapon that would be acquired in this build. It can be easily obtained by doing the Buck Nimble quest, right after Depot A. For such an easily obtainable weapon its quality is also great, and can be used into end-game with no problems (even without refurbishment!) (at least, on hard and below difficulty). It is so good that I would recommend this weapon to be used for the rest of the game in this build, provided there is infinite 7.62mm rounds. But alas, ammo supply is finite, so this list of weapon choices do not end here.

Anyway, the N60 has great damage, and its ap cost of 35 is a good number to work with. With 50 ap, you could throw a grenade + burst. With any ap points leftover you could do a burst + 16ap hammer swing to finish off foes. With adrenaline shot, you could burst 2 times in a turn for 3 turns straight.

With a magazine capacity of 65, most fights are finished before a reload is needed. Hence, I typically pair the N60 with a lifting belt and a sledgehammer as a side weapon. This allows the flexibility of using the N60 when the going goes tough, then switching to hammer swings for finishing off wounded foes or trash mobs to conserve ammo.

2. Quake
With 11 strength, the character is well suited to use sledgehammers. Fortunately, there are good unique sledgehammers, which high qualities are atypical of other melee weapons. One such hammer is Quake, my favorite unique hammer. In my past build https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=10521.0 this was my end-game hammer. It does good damage by itself, its shockwave ignores DT and does decent damage too. It costs only 23 ap to swing, reduced to 17 after lifting belt and tabi boots, which is a good number to work with. Its ability to clear rocks is also vastly underrated.

Unfortunately, it is considered an electronic item and requires scarce electronic repair kits to repair. It also requires constant replenishnent via batteries. This alone prevents Quake from being the main sledgehammer used for combat in this build. The reason to obtain it, is solely for its ability to clear rocks, since in this build no merchants are alive to sell TNT charges.

However, Quake is still most likely one of the first uniques to be obtained, as it is quite easy to do so. The encounter with Gubbins is not gatekept behind anything else, it is easily accessible at Upper Metro. Moreover, while Gubbins and his gang are not pushovers, cheese like bear traps and nets can be liberally applied.

3. Mindcracker
With Quake unable to fulfill the role of our main melee weapon, the responsibility falls upon Mindcracker instead. The main draw of it is its relatively high quality, evidenced by a durability of 2220 (no other class of melee weapons have such quality) (Damage is equivalent to a steel sledgehammer (dmg 47 to 73, dura 2130) looted from the final dark area in Expedition DLC) and ap cost equivalent to that of a TiChrome hammer. The legendary 3 hammer swings per turn @ 16 ap per swing can be achieved with the Mindcracker. But most importantly for this build, it can be repaired with mechanical repair kits, which are in extreme abundance for this build.

Unfortunately, Mindcracker is locked behind a hard combat encounter. The encounter is easily accessible though, just a few maps behind Foundry. But the encounter itself involves numerous stealthed Azuridae Golathus, they can snipe from afar with icicles, cause weapon attacks to miss with foggy shadows, etc. I always relied a lot on save scumming and molotovs to push through this encounter. The N60 helps a lot by being able to eat through their pseudo-spatial projection stacks easily.

Despite the difficulty of the combat encounter I pushed to obtain this weapon early in order to have a good secondary weapon to pair with the N60.

Fun fact: it is for this weapon alone that psi is not in this build. Mindcracker wrecks psions when equipped. Originally I intended to incorporate psi into this build to make use of all the spare inhalents looted from psions, but Mindcracker is too good a melee weapon to pass up on for a non crafting build. That, and thanks to a lack of skill points/feat points to invest into psi, although Mindcracker is the majority deciding factor here.

4. Steyr Auch
The Steyr Auch is on Simon Peres, inside one of the Ironhead camps. Apart from being deep inside Ironhead territory, there is not any other obstacles to obtaining it early. I chanced upon it while leveling up around the Ironhead areas, could have gotten it earlier if I had made a targeted run to Simon.

Steyr Auch is a decent receptient for 9mm ammo if the GlaShaG-9 is not obtained yet. Its main advantages are its high damage, its precision, and its slightly longer range than other rifles. This assault rifle is pretty good at killing when bursting over range. However, there are several drawbacks that prevents it from being a top tier assault rifle. The biggest has to be the AP cost. It costs 48 ap to burst, meaning no other action can be taken in a normal turn without adrenaline shot, and that includes reloading with a bullet strap belt (4 ap) too. In fact, I have to save up 2 ap from the previous turn, then couple it with the remaining 2 ap in the current turn to reload. 48 ap to burst meant even using an adrenaline shot or vitality powder would not afford another round of burst.

Also, reloading is especially problematic because the Steyr Auch has a smaller than usual magazine capacity of 25 only. Last but not least, the Steyr Auch does not offer any extra burst shots. It limits its damage on single targets via low concentrated fire stacks, and many a time Commando is not procced because the rifle missed the final shot against an enemy.

All in all, a passable weapon until the others are obtained.

5. N16
This weapon is the natural receptient for 5mm ammo, because no other assault rifle or lmg, no matter looted or crafted, uses 5mm ammo. Note: K&H KH416 is a direct competitor to the N16 for 5mm ammo, but KH416 is only obtainable during Gorsky's questline and this is a genocide build, so no KH416 this run, only the N16 is considered.

On paper, the N16 does not measure up to even the Steyr Auch: low damage, slightly less precision bonus, same magazine capacity. However, in my playthrough I had far more success with the N16 than the Auch. The ap cost to burst is only 36, which still leaves enough ap in a turn to throw a net (10 ap), use medicines (10 ap), or throw grenades (15 ap) if there are any ap saved from the previous turn. The +1 extra burst shots does not seem like much, but it felt like night and day when using the N16 vs the Auch. I had Commando proc more consistently with the N16 than with the Auch. Last but not least, N16's damage is low on paper, but fully specced concentrated fire shreds everything, even armoured targets. I used the N16 to great effect in the Black Sea fighting the natives, pirates and mutie refuge, and I was surprised that it can kill Colossal Crabs in 1 burst using standard rounds. It can even take on plasma turrets, on the condition that the character gets close to minimize misses.

The N16 is a great rifle, but obtaining it is an audacious task. Typically it is obtained as part of Gorsky's questline (along with the KH416 at the end of the questline), but being a genocide build and Gorsky being dead, the way I did was to do a full frontal assault on Port Zenith. I went to Expedition, got an Aegis Patroller, came back to Port Zenith and did hit and runs/guerilla warfare until the dock is cleared, then proceed to clear the inner Port area where the N16 is. The assault on Port Zenith was not easy, which was why rifle was acquired very late in the game. In hindsight, I could have just killed the supervisor, got the shack key, sneaked into Port Zenith and stolen the rifle, but with no pickpocketing that would also trigger a war with Core City.

As with other assault rifles, this has to be paired with Bullet Strap Belt for constant reloads.

6. Brno LMG
The Brno LMG could have been obtained very early, but at first glance, I did not have a good impression at all. In Underrail, the durability of a gear is closely related to its quality, and Brno only has a durability of 840, which is equivalent to early game gear. LMGs are supposed to have higher damage per bullet than ARs, but looking at the Brno, its damage is equivalent to the N16, or the Tommy Gun. Even the NF F2500 assault rifle has higher average damage than the Brno. But alas, the Brno is the only unique gun among ARs/LMGs that can use 8.6mm ammo. When starting the build, I had thought of just giving up on using 8.6mm rounds altogether. But as my stock of 8.6mm rounds accumulate into the thousands, not using this stock meant a huge drain on the stocks on other ammo types. So I experimented. I tried using a randomly looted durability 1590 8.6mm huszar to attack Epione lab. It sucks! Too little bullets per burst. The Huszar was also not accurate enough, very little bullets hit = low stacks of concentrated fire = low damage. It took 2 bursts to kill any guy in Epione lab, 3 bursts if that guy heals with a health hypo. It was a miserable time.

Then, I cleared core ring protectorate outpost with a randomly looted durability 1410 8.6mm Hornet. Hornet is really better than Huskar thanks to its precision bonuses. But the same Hornet, when taken to the Black Sea, still could not kill an Aegis Sec Trooper on a jet ski in a single burst.

Frustrated with the damage output on these looted assault rifles, I went to try the Brno as a last resort, and I was surprised by how capable it was. It can easily kill any mob that is not too armoured/has too much health, thanks to its 11 bullets per burst creating large stacks of concentrated fire. It also costs only 30 ap to fire. This leaves many ap for other actions in the same turn, or, if one saves up 10 ap for the next turn, 60 ap can be used to burst twice during the next turn.

University really showcased the strengths and weaknesses of the Brno. The Brno can kill any mob with 1 burst, except the Recombinants and Eldein (wtf Eldein? How you get so tanky wearing robes). The Brno can kill a Recombinant in 3 bursts in separate turns, 2 bursts in the same turn, and 1 burst if preceded by Expose Weakness. Eldein was downed also by 1 Expose Weakness and 1 Brno burst.

Apart from University, the Brno also performed well in Expedition. It could shoot down a strongman with one burst despite how armored it is. Same goes for a locust hive, down in 1 burst.

A significant weakness of the Brno is that it holds only 30 rounds. The low magazine capacity makes Bullet Strap Belt mandatory for the Brno. Fortunately with the Bullet Strap Belt, it costs only 8 ap to reload, so firing and reloading every turn is possible.

7. GlaShaG-9
The GlaShaG-9 was the one of the last unique weapons that I obtained in the game, but in hindsight could have obtained it much earlier, after all, it is only gatekept behind 3 enemies. This is another weapon that at first glance, I did not have a good impression of: only 6 bullets on the first burst; 40 ap to burst, leaving little ap left to do anything; less accurate than the other ARs and LMGs. I only obtained it and tried it out after I exhausted all other options on the assault on Fort Apogee. And it shone in Fort Apogee. Despite the low precision and 6 bullet burst, the first burst can generally still make kills if made in point blank range, thanks to its high base damage. And after acquiring the maximum of 6 wind up stacks, the GlaShaG-9 was able to spew out 18 bullets for a total 16 ap. That means 3 bursts of 18 bullets in a single turn, it wrecked everything. Even the dreadnoughts; they took just 2 of these 18 round bursts of standard 9mm rounds to kill.

8. MG3-42
Truth be told, I was satisfied with N60 and totally neglected the MG3-42. I got this weapon very late in the game, having completed Expedition and about to go into DC, despite this weapon being very accessible, just locked behind a bit of getting lost in Upper Caves and some Ironheads.

Stat wise, the quality and damage values do not measure up to the N60, but at a durability of 2640 it is still decent. It is considerably less accurate than the N60, with higher spread angle, higher move and shoot penalty and a penalty to burst precision. But the defining feature of this weapon is its 25ap cost to fire, meaning 2 bursts of 5+2+2+5 extra burst shots = 28 bullets per turn without buffs, or 3 bursts totalling 42 bullets per turn with Vitality Powder.

In practice, this gun totally makes up for its lesser accuracy and damage with the biggest volume of fire. 14 bullets per burst, 2 bursts per turn meant 2 reliable kills per turn, as compared to only 1 for the N60. I brought this to DC and it performed admirably well, especially in the assault against the Faceless Commander's base.

With the highest volume of fire, the rate of expenditure of 7.62mm rounds was very noticeable too. I paired this weapon with Lifting Belt and used the Mindcracker to conserve ammo whenever the going is not so tough (e.g. against a single Deep Worm) and paired it with Bullet Strap Belt in anticipation of large battles (e.g. against Faceless Commander's base).

With so many rounds per burst I was able to kill Tchort in 1 burst with this weapon when preceded by Expose Weakness.

9. NF F2500
This is a good weapon. It has good burst precision, and +2 extra burst rounds, so despite its lower damage, it can reliably burst down targets at ranges where LMGs will be missing 80% of their shots. The biggest downside is that it is obtained in one of the last areas of the game, so this weapon did not see much use. I used it to great effect fighting the Lunatics at the start of the Heavy Duty area. That is all the use I had out of it, the rifle is too weak to take on the soldiers in the Compound.


Armor and other gear
Without questing, this build does not have access to powerful unique gear, such as the Bioscrubber, CAU armor, or Vathosphore armor. Have to make do with randomly looted gear.

Headgear
Usually empty. Would wear a Gas Mask when heading into toxic clouds.

Body
Randomly looted tac vests. As mentioned above, keep looting new ones and changing into new ones whenever the current tac vest broke.

Or naked. During the assault on native villages, my current tac vest broke and I did not have spares on hand. Too lazy to go back base to get another one, opted to clear native areas naked, turned out just fine.

Belt
Bullet Strap Belt when equipping ARs or Brno. Lifting Belt with LMGs/Miniguns if encounter is not tough or long, can use sledgehammer attacks to save ammo. Bullet Strap Belt with LMGs/Miniguns if fight is tough and long. Lifting Belt if area/encounter is easy enough to tackle entirely with sledgehammer attacks. Large Waist Pack for looting run.

Footwear
Bought a pig leather tabi boots from Blaine before completion of Depot A, used it for half the game, looted a durability 1500 ninja tabi boots off a pirate in the pirate base.

Shield emitter
Randomly looted Efficient Shield Emitter, totaling about 500 capacity. It's child's play when compared to crafted ones reaching 2k capacity, but it's better than nothing during tough fights.
...continued in next post due to character limit...

4

Builds / Rambo. Live off the land. Genocide the world.

« on: December 15, 2024, 05:47:06 am »

Overview

What you will be doing the entire game:
https://youtu.be/6ulWGiJb1uI?si=WQ8ZOihLxHBhITmP

Do you like to play as Rambo? Do you hate crafting? Did you play the game so many times that you just want to skip all questing? Do you hate replenishing supplies from merchants? Would you like to murder the merchants for always not giving you your desired components when refreshing their stocks? Would you like to measure your worth in Advanced Mechanical Repair Kits instead of charons? Do you want to genocide every single town and not just the natives in the Black Sea? Do you want to be the apocalypse in this post-post-apocalypse world? This build is for you!

Disclaimer: requires both Expedition and Heavy Duty DLC. This build was played through on Hard Classic difficulty. Also, I was not strong enough to win any fights in The Compound, so please do not adopt this build and be disappointed that you cannot clear Heavy Duty content.

Build

https://underrail.info/build/?HgsDAw0IAwXCoMKgwqAAwqDCoMKgwqAAAAAAwocAABkAAAAAAAAAAGMkJjsVw51KEsOhSSdQDgjCsnNP4p2gAeKfhAHip6oD4qe0Ct-8

Knowing the land

After playing through the game many many times, I noticed that enemy mobs drop a lot of supplies, so much so that, for specific builds, it may be possible to sustain the character throughout the entire game. Here, I recount the loot encountered throughout Underrail and their abundance:

Base Underrail:

• Very common:
• ammo
• health items
• health hypos
• advanced health hypos
• bandages
• sources of metal scrap
• guns
• knives
• sledgehammer
• crossbows
• metal armor, helmets and boots
• Still common
• grenades
• flashbangs
• throwing nets
• crossbow bolts (normal bolts)
• psi inhalants and boosters
• energy shield emitters
• sources of fabric scrap
• leather armor
• tactical vests
• Rare
• adrenaline shots
• batteries
• sources of electronic loot
• shock knives
• shock sledgehammers
• energy pistols
• emp grenades
• Almost nonexistent
• w2c ammo
• any other special ammo other than standard
• any special crossbow bolt other than normal bolts
• any other combat enhancing drug apart from adrenaline shot

For ammo, I noticed that 7.62mm was the most common, followed by 5mm, followed by 8.6mm, followed by 9mm, followed by .44. Typically by the time I hit University, I would have acquired perhaps total 7000 ammo of differing types.

Standard ammo is very abundant, but W2C and other special ammo types were almost non-existent. For example, I only had 70+ 7.62mm W2C ammo looted from Terrence's body, and 70+ 9mm W2C ammo from Dreadnaught in Epione lab.

Natives in Black Sea:

• Common
• consumables
• healing salve
• vitality powder
• spirit potion
• crossbow bolts (normal bolts)
• Non-existent
• sources of scrap
• native spears/swords/knives/sledgehammers/crossbows cannot be recycled although considered mechanical

Mutie refuge in Black Sea

• Rare
• ammo
• sources of mechanical scrap

Pirates in Black Sea:
Profile is very similar to base Underrail, except:

• Common
• shotguns and shotgun shells
• morphine
• tabi boots
• i looted my endgame durability 1500 ninja tabi boots here
• Almost non existent
• psi-related items and consumables (only 1 psion in pirate base)

Aegis camp in Black Sea:
Profile is very similar to base Underrail, except:

• Very common
• batteries (every Aegis sec trooper carries shield emitters and batteries)
• shield emitters

Build requirements

This build is a direct successor to my experience with my previous hammer/LMGs/ARs build https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=10521.0. While that build only achieves independence of ammo from merchants, this build goes even further and tries to achieve independence of everything from merchants, including healing and repair kits. My first version of this build designated refurbished guns as the final recipients of all the ammo lying around, but that involved interacting regularly with merchants to check their refreshed stocks, having high mercantile skills to unlock high quality components, and slaving away in the world doing odd jobs to get charons to buy such high quality components when they do finally appear. All in all, too much hassle. This build was crafted without refurbishment in mind; Myles shall die the moment he saw this character.

Having total independence from merchants also includes doctors, that implies looting enough health items to survive through the entire game.

Having total independence from merchants, it is also just too good an opportunity to pass up on doing a genocide run, to depopulate the entire game and see what happens.
Crafting the build

Combat in Underrail in any build involves spending resources of some kind. Psi involves psi reserves, guns involve ammo and mechanical durability, melee weapons involve mechanical durability, crossbows involve bolts and mechanical durability, shock/energy melee weapons and energy pistols involve batteries and electronic durability. (Bare fists (see my Naked Puncher build) and crowbars have infinite durability and does not expend any other resources, but their damage output is so low it is hard to consider them in a normal build).

Surveying the loot landscape, the lack of anything electronic is evident. Batteries are rare, electronic loot that can be turned into electronic scraps to make electronic repair kits are rare. Hence, energy pistols and any shock/energy melee weapons are excluded. On the contrary, there is an overabundance of mechanical loot, that can be recycled into mechanical scrap, to create mechanical repair kits. In fact, my stocks of advanced mechanical repair kits surpassed 200 merely halfway through the game. There is also an abundance of ammo, albeit only the standard kind. Such a loot landscape naturally nurtures a guns build, and as guns go, ARs and heavy guns have the best and most powerful uniques. ARs builds and heavy guns builds are also among the most powerful builds in the game.

ARs and heavy guns builds are great, but this specific build involves a critical weakness: the total lack of W2C ammo. W2C ammo is not craftable in this build, and is almost non-existent as loot. To compensate against the lack of armor penetration, I looked to another feat: Expose Weakness. It is a melee feat, but heavy guns builds naturally require high strength, both for weapon and feat requirements. With investment into the melee skill, this character can become a decent melee fighter too. Coincidentally, the high strength enables the use of sledgehammers, of which there are excellent uniques too. The use of a melee sidearm also solves the problem of ammo inefficency on LMGs. Trash mobs or easy fights can be dealt with using hammer smashes instead of expending full LMG bursts, saving ammo in the process. Sledgehammers also requires no feats to be effective, yet another less impendiment to incorporating melee into this build.

Caveat: due to the abundance of mechanical repair kits and the scarcity of batteries and electronic repair kits, only non shock hammers should be used. This directly impacts the weapon selection, as detailed in a later section of this guide.

Expose Weakness has a 4 turn cooldown and needs to be in melee range to be used, but these are compromises this build has to work with due to the total lack of armor penetration otherwise.
Build explanation: attributes

Strength: 11. Start with 10, +1 at level 4.
11 strength is required for the Brute Aim feat. 11 is also enough strength for the use of all unique guns in the game. I choose to hit 11 strength as soon as possible, because early game (from start of game to end of Depot A) is cleared using sledgehammers.

Dexterity: 3
Dump stat. 3 dexterity causes a penalty to throwing skill, but will have to live with it.

Agility: 3
Could have taken some points from CON, but I was used to playing with 3 agility for many builds. Also could not find spare feat points for the feats that are enabled by having higher agility.

Constuition: 15. Start with 10, +1 at level 16, 20 and 24 each, take Increased Constuition feat for +2 at level 26.
Constuition has always been the stat that I worship. All my builds have 10 CON minimum, for the Thick Skull feat, and for enough health to survive past turn 1 in any encounter in the game. This build has the luxury of extra attribute points, which I invested all into CON for even more extra survivability. For context, in my playthrough I had around 700 hp at level 26 and around 800 hp at level 28. I was surviving sniper crits, sometimes even 2 sniper crits, by the pirates in the Black Sea.

Of course the build could have used less CON and still be viable. I have listed some ideas on where to invest and build around the extra attribute points in the section below.

Perception: 8
8 perception is required for Concentrated Fire, the most broken feat for ARs and LMGs. From previous playthroughs, 8 perception is also enough for ARs and LMGs to clear the game with, since they do not need 100% precision. LMGs also have the Brute Aim feat to help out, so 8 perception is alright.

Will: 3
Dump stat. 5 Wil is required for Bullet Trance, but from my previous playthrough with https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=10521.0, Bullet Trance turned out to be useless. Interweaving hammer attacks and LMG bursts meant the Bullet Trance stacks stay mostly expired. Moreover, half of the time this character (and that character from my previous playthrough) will be using assault rifles, which does not benefit from Bullet Trance at all.

Intelligence: 5. Start with 3, +1 at level 8, +1 at level 12.
5 intelligence solely for Expose Weakness feat. Investment of 2 extra attribute points solely to get a feat, to compensate for the total lack of armor penetration.
Hitting 5 intelligence at level 12 meant Expose Weakness can be taken earliest at level 12.

Build explanation: skills

160 (214) Guns
Max Guns skill for using ARs. You could drop this to 80 for the Commando feat, and rely on synergy with Heavy Guns skill to pump this skill up, but it will only cap at maximum 160 this way.

160 (255) Heavy Guns
Max Heavy Guns skill for using LMGs/miniguns.

160 (143) Throwing
110 effective Throwing skill is enough for me, but invested extra points so that can retain throwing accuracy when yelled at.

160 (255) Melee
Max Melee skill for using sledgehammers.

160 (159) Dodge
160 (159) Evasion
Max defense skills because no reliance on crafting overpowered armors for this build.

An intriguing thing is, Dodge and Evasion are both supposed to be at 143 effective skill thanks to the penalty from having only 3 Agi, but thanks to these 2 skills having synergy with one another, if both of them are levelled up they end up at 159 effective skill, almost equivalent to having no penalty at all.

160 (143) Stealth
Stealth is very important for Underrail. I maxed this, to compensate for the 3 Agi penalty, and because not much points needed for crafting or social skills.

135 (146) Mechanics
Mechanics this high solely for 3 recipes: Recycle Item, Repair Kit and Bear Trap. The higher the quality of the loot, the higher the skill needed to recycle it, hence this high a mechanics skill.

In hindsight, 75 effective mechanics skill is enough to recycle 95% of acquired loot, able to recycle up to durability 1770 items. Only items acquired in the last areas of the game, both the base game and Expedition, have durability higher than 1770.

25 (27) Biology
25 points in Biology to fulfill requirements of Doctor feat.


0 Tailoring
As I played through the game I found myself missing the tailoring skill to recycle leather armor and tac vests for tailoring kits, but I just could not find the points to invest into Tailoring in this build. Maybe if I min-maxed more I could spare the points, but for this run I made do with just stocking up on looted tac vests, and every time the current tac vest gets broken I just dump it and equip a new one.

0 Lockpicking
I chose to drop 0 points into lockpicking to fit the theme of Rambo, who just fights his enemies head on; who cares about subterfuge? But as I played through the game, I realized that lockpicking is needed for sightseeing in parts of civilization that is not possible without aggroing the population; Foundry comes to mind. Many homes have locked doors, never saw what was inside of them in a thousand hours of gameplay, could have finally saw the insides of those houses in this genocide run, but no lockpicking skill. Sigh.

Also, I have always wanted to open a jet ski buffet at Ray's shop for the longest time, to have access to every single jet ski in a single playthrough. I thought after I conquered Core City and put down Ray I could fulfill this dream, but as soon as his life disappeared into the netherworld, the keys to his jet skis appeared to have disappeared along with him. Only option left is to hotwire. Devastator requires 130 lockpicking. Double sigh.

Really have no idea how to squeeze in so much lockpicking in a build with 3 Dex.

Build explanation: feats and feat order

Level 1: Nimble
Level 1: Thick Skull

Standard feats that I stand with at the start of the game. Nimble provides more dodge and evasion, and nullifies any armor penalty smaller or equal to 15%. Thick Skull at level 1 means immunity to stuns for the entirety of the game, necessary because stuns are a guaranteed death sentence in this game.

Level 2: Suppressive Fire
Level 4: Opportunist
Level 6: Full Auto
Level 8: Brute Aim
Level 10: Concentrated Fire

From level 2 onwards, start to prepare the character for using an LMG, particularly the N60 which can be obtained immediately after Depot A. So LMG feats are taken in succession.

Level 12: Expose Weakness

The remaining LMG/AR feats have to be taken at level 14 minimum. Expose Weakness has to be taken sooner or later, so I took it at level 12.

Level 14: Mag Dump

This is the last LMG feat relevant to this build. I took this over Commando at level 14 because the N60 is a mainstay weapon after Depot A, and it is uncertain when a good unique assault rifle will be obtained.

Level 16: Commando

The is the last AR feat relevant to this build. During my playthrough I got my first assault rifle, the Steyr Auch, way past level 16, but it is good to complete the AR build as soon as possible, to be ready to use an AR anytime.

Level 18: Pack Rathound

By this time, after looting half of Underrail the weight limit is severely weighing down on my gameplay. The 50 additional weight limit grants a lot of relief.

Level 20: Fast Metabolism
Level 22: Doctor

As the character levels up, his HP pool grows exponentially due to all the extra investment into CON. These 2 feats are to increase healing efficiency, both to spend less time waiting to heal up between combat encounters, and to spend less of the looted stockpile of health hypos and healing salves to heal the character to full.

Level 24: Conditioning

With a final CON stat of 15, conditioning grants 20% mechanical, heat and cold damage reduction. It is too good to pass up when CON is this high. Also, less damage taken means less health items used, helps with healing efficiency.

Level 26: Increased Constitution
Level 28: Bodybuilding

More health. Flex my 830 hp at level 30.

Level 30: Expertise

In hindsight I might have taken this earlier. The problem with using un-refurbished ARs/LMGs is that the damage on some of them is really low, notably the Brno, sometimes hitting for 60+, 70+ on the first hit. The extra 20 damage from Expertise is not game changing, but it is not insignificant either, especially with so many bullets flying around.

Build explanation: specialization points

Concentrated Fire (10/10)
Full specialization into this feat turns it into one of the most broken feats in the game. This, fully specialized, is the feat that allows end-game bosses to be shot down in 1 turn. Max this first.

Commando (3/3)
On a pure AR build I would recommend maxing Commando out first, the 9 extra AP per turn is really good. But since this is a mixed AR/LMG build, Commando specialization comes after Concentrated Fire.

Expose Weakness: Duration (1/1)
Just 1 more turn just in case 2 turns of Expose Weakness are not enough to shoot down something. After completing the whole game, realized that this is really not needed in Hard difficulty. Maybe for DOMINATING difficulty.

Conditioning: (1/5)
One last specialization point to place into anything. I chose Conditioning.
...continued in next post due to character limit...

5

Builds / Re: High INT energy pistol build. Is my dex and per enough or will I have trouble?

« on: December 11, 2024, 01:38:33 pm »

Gut feeling tells me that 6 dex and 6 per is too low.

Also, since energy pistols rely on crits, the Ambush feat is almost mandatory.

Regarding the balance of dex, per and int, I thought this build here found a nice balance:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9lV0ISSRiBk&pp=ygUWVHJpcGxlIHN0YXQgZ3Vuc2xpbmdlcg%3D%3D

Personally, I had theorycrafted a build that uses The Stunner, that has 11 per, 3 dex and around 15 int? I opted for psi build, because so much int will provide the maximum number of psi slots for the character. The character can innervate many of the control/utility skills, like PTC, Stasis, Force Field, Telekinetic Grounding, Electrokinetic Imprint, etc. All these psi skills for battlefield control, to compensate for the low shots per turn. Havent actually tested the build out though.

You should probably choose either Dex or Per and invest only into 1. If you choose Per (11 per should be enough), you will miss out on the Dex feats like Trigger Happy. If you choose Dex, you will have to get the Versatility feat (Dex does not provide bonuses to Guns skill, only melee), and you will lose out on feats like Aimed Shot and Point Shot, but your accuracy will eventually be around the same as the Per build, but with more shots per turn.

6

Builds / Re: My attempt at a Shotgun + Claymore build

« on: November 26, 2024, 08:51:01 am »

Dismas, I think your post is a reply to the Versatility thread? I'll post the reply to your post here in that thread.

7

Builds / Re: Versattility build, common Questions

« on: November 26, 2024, 08:49:07 am »

Handguns need a lot of feats to work, and those feats have quite high perception requirements, like 10 Per for Sharpshooter or 11 Per for Scrutinous. With perception stat that high, Versatility is not needed at all, perception already provides a big bonus to Guns skill.

SMGs are quite perfect for Versatility, because max. 6 Per is required for the Suppressive Fire feat. The Suppressive Fire feat is usually comboed with the Opportunist feat for a free 15% damage bonus against organic targets for burst builds. Other than that, the only core feats that are required for SMGs is Spec Ops, which require 6 Agi, and Commando, which requires 80 Guns skill. In fact, in my own theorycrafting I would ditch Suppressive Fire as 15% damage is not really game changing (while Spec Ops is), and dump Per all the way to 3, thus saving valuable attribute points for other stats.


Reply to Dismas in the Shotgun + Claymore thread:
Versatility is good for weapons that do not have many feat requirements. For example, I've played sledgehammers too much to know that sledgehammers do not need any supporting feats at all. So a LMG/Miniguns build, which already has the strength required for sledgehammers, can use Versatility to be able to use sledgehammers. (But if your strength is already that high why not just invest skill points into melee and skip the feat point and specialization points) So, SMGs is another candidate, as it only requires 2 core feats, Spec Ops and Commando, of which Commando does not even have attribute requirements. The Stunner is another good candidate for Versatility, foregoing feats like Point Shot, and relying on extreme Dex investment to minimize its ap cost.

8

Builds / Re: Versattility build, common Questions

« on: November 25, 2024, 02:29:14 am »

Agree with Easyprey that Versatility is kind of a trap. First note of importance is that the Versatility feat alone provides only 60% of your highest weapon skill, and is generally not enough to provide a satisfactory experience in combat. Typically you have to equip the Commando Belt (+10%), and/or invest specialization points into Versatility (2% per point, up to 20%) to pump your non-base weapon skill high enough to be effective in combat.

Also, thanks to specialization points and Commando Belt, any versatility build only starts to come online at level 20 onwards. Before that, you would be stuck with your base weapon. For example, if you level Dex and melee skill, and use Versatility to increase your guns skill, you would probably be stuck using melee weapons for a good part of the game.

Also, weapon skill is only part of the equation. Feats and attribute requirements also determine whether your Versatilitied weapon can be effective or not. For example, in one of my past builds I max strength and melee skill, and used Versatility to provide good guns and heavy guns skill to use assault rifles and lmgs. With no investment into perception, I was not able to get powerful AR and LMG feats. Also, even with Versatility, I still had to invest 80 points into Guns and Heavy Guns each to fulfill the requirements for 2 AR/LMG feats that does not need perception.

Currently, the most successful Versatility build that I have seen is knives/SMGs. It involves over investment into Dex and melee skill, and minimizing investment into Per. The high Dex provides melee skill, crit chance and ap reduction for knives, and also ap reduction for SMGs. The only missing piece of the build is the low guns skill caused by low per, which is fixed through Versatility.

Have fun with your builds!

9

Builds / Re: My attempt at a Shotgun + Claymore build

« on: November 25, 2024, 01:50:55 am »

No Leading Shot? That's a must have feat for shotguns, it nullifies mobs with high evasion.

Personally, the build feels at odds with itself. High intelligence and mechanics skill for crafting, but using a unique melee weapon. Massive dex investment and versatility, but using a gun that does not benefit from dexterity. Also both shotgun and sword are short range weapons, seems like they overlap a lot in use cases.

But if it works, it works!

PS: 55 points in TM is just a testament to how strong PTC is, lol.

10

Builds / Re: Are Guns+Heavy guns viable together?

« on: November 19, 2024, 04:04:38 am »

Yes! AR and LMGs/Miniguns go very well together, in fact, I'm currrently writing a guide on a build that utilises the 2 together.

ARs and heavy guns share many feats together:

• Suppressive Fire + Opportunist
• Full Auto
• Concentrated Fire

While all of the above feats are sort of mandatory, Concentrated Fire is the crown jewel. It is THE ability that enables bosses/targets with high health to be taken down in 1 burst. And Concentrated Fire has a PER requirement of 8, so 8 would be the minimum PER for your build.

From my own experience playing AR and LMG builds, 8 PER is also enough to get through the game, so I would spend extra ability points on CON or AGI instead of PER.

Thanks to the sharing of feats between heavy guns and ARs, if you already have an LMG build, all you need to make the build viable for ARs is this one extra feat: Commando. Commando is THE defining AR feat, must have for AR builds. And it costs only 80 skill points and 1 feat point extra for an LMG build.

If you have an AR build and want to tack on heavy guns to it, it would unfortunately be more nauced. First, you have to have enough STR to use the heaviest heavy gun that you intend to use (e.g. 12 for refurbished GlaShaG-9). Then you have the feats exclusive to heavy guns:

• Mag Dump
• Brute Aim
• Heavy Metal
• Bullet Trance
• Gunner's High

Since you are playing a tin can build, Heavy Metal would be the most important feat for you, since it adds huge damage to LMGs/miniguns (but you can't have a LMG in one weapon slot and an AR in another weapon slot, you will have to choose one type to bring to each encounter.)  Mag Dump comes second, Brute Aim would be good if you are putting points into Heavy Guns skill instead of relying on Guns synergy, Bullet Trance I tend to skip if pairing LMGs with other weapons like sledgehammers or ARs, since using other weapons tend to easily break Bullet Trance stacks. Finally, Gunner's High only heals your health and does not help offensively, so I tend to skip as well.

Enjoy your build!

11

Builds / Re: SMG stealth build with Temporal Manipulation

« on: October 21, 2024, 02:44:45 am »

Attributes:

Perception too high, dex too low. SMG builds typically can make use of lesser accuracy and weapon skill, in return for the reduced ap cost to fire, granted by more dex.

Or, for maximum efficiency, drop perception to 6 just to satisfy Suppressive Fire, and pump Dex as high as possible. Then, maximize melee skill, and take the Versatilty feat (fully specced) to attain both high Guns skill and high ap cost reduction to fire.

Feats:
Three-Pointer doesnt pair well with such low dex and throwing skill.

No Increased Dexterity feat? The +2 to Str/Dex/Agi/Con/Per/Wil/Int is too valuable to pass up for any build.

Can drop Agi to 7, since Hit and Run requires only 7 agi. Put the excess ability point into Dex instead.

Otherwise, feats look pretty fitting for an SMG build.

Skills:
70 in Temporal Manipulation is enough for Stasis.

Merchantile also seems too high, cant remember what is the highest check though

12

Builds / Re: Need Advices on uncommon Build

« on: October 18, 2024, 05:19:32 am »

What do you mean Summon Doppelganger?

13

Builds / Re: Brains and brawn

« on: October 10, 2024, 01:55:05 pm »

Yes, but not for the reason that you think it is.

End game sledgehammers are still good against end game enemies (1 or 2 boinks = kill), the problem is the damage potential for sledgehammers have a rather low ceiling, due to the lack of feats and other non-equipment stuff supporting it.

Knives, gloves, and SMGs get AP reduction from dexterity, so as their damage per turn increases with equipment quality, the attacks they can make per turn is also increasing with their level, especially when their level grants ap reducing feats such as Lightning Punches or Spec Ops.

Assault Rifles get the Commando feat, essentially doubling their damage output per turn. LMGs and Miniguns benefit from Concentrated Fire feat, the Heavy Metal feat makes their damage scale with armor. Full Auto and Mag Dump allows assault rifles, lmgs and miniguns to do more attacks per turn.

Psi users have AOE abilities which make the damage scale with the number of enemies hit. Or crit on demand. Or AOE crit on demand, wow.

Grenade launchers' damage also scale with the number of enemies hit.

Compared to all the other weapon types above, sledgehammers don't have anything else to increase the number of attacks per turn. Even when equipping a tichrome hammer, lifting belt and tabi boots, the best you can do is 16ap attacks, which is 3 attacks per turn without adrenaline shot and PTC. Strength does not decrease the AP cost of sledgehammers.

The 2 sledegehammer feats don't add much to its damage potential either. Super Slam adds a not-significant amount, but its not game changing; Pummel costs 0 AP when specced, but does only half of your normal swing damage. But more importantly, both feats are on a 3 turn cooldown. I have made many sledgehammer builds which did not involve any sledgehammer feats, and it turned out just fine.

The problem comes in late game when the game starts to throw more and more enemies per encounter. Sledgehammer builds have a tougher time handling these bigger crowds, because no matter how big the crowds are, sledgehammers still only do 3 attacks per turn. I counter this by always having 10 CON in my builds, and typically Dodge and Evasion too, and also armor in some builds. These extra survivability allows for more turns of "3 attacks per turn", and win encounters through tenacity rather than pure firepower. Disclaimer: this strategy might not work on Dominating, I've always played on typically Hard, sometimes Normal difficulty.

14

Builds / Re: Legionare Build (Throwing Spear Sword Shield Nimble)

« on: May 13, 2024, 02:12:39 am »

Sorry very late reply, just leaving my thoughts for future players to think upon...I have tried to theorycraft such a build for more than one year already, and I kept coming to the same conclusion, that it needs too much ability/feat/spec point investment to work.


Shield Feats:

• Shield Arm
• Boarding Up
• Shield Bash

Spear feat:

• Spear Throw
• Iron Grip

Sword feats:

• Flurry
• Onslaught
• Parry
• Riposte

And since swords are meant for crits, crit feats:

• Recklessness
• Weaponsmith
• Cheap Shots
• Critical Power
• Survival Instincts

And since this build is a melee build, mobility is essential for melee, these feats will be very useful:

• Sprint
• Hit and Run
• Escape Artist
• Nimble - to reduce armor penalty for more movement points
• Body weight training - to reduce armor penalty for more movement points
• Armor sloping - to reduce the armor penalty of the steel plate that goes into the making of the riot gear shield

Other general survivability/QoL feats:

• Thick Skull - this build is stuck with riot gear, which is not the most invincible of armors. Getting stunned is most likely a death sentence.
• Sure feet - the acid from mutants and acid dogs will pool up around the character while fighting them as melee
• Ballistics - 3 DT is not much, but this build is stuck with an armor that can make full use of this feat

The number of feats listed above already number 23, while each character only gets a maximum of 17 feats (16 if you leave 1 feat for increased +2 stat)


Ability requirements:

• 11 strength for Iron Grip
• As much Dex as possible
  
  • For Throwing skill for Spear Throw
  • For crit chance for sword
  • For Melee skill
• 6 Agi for Sprint, 7 Agi for Hit and Run, as much Agi as possible for movement points
• Con - melee build, stuck with an armor that does not offer impenetrable defences, any extra Con is welcome
• 6 Int for Weaponsmith

This build needs ability points all over the place, very hard to build.


These different abilities are all fighting for specialization points:

• Spear Throw - full 15 points to turn it into a low AP nuke
• Shield Bash - full 15 points to turn it into a 0-AP, free nuke every turn
• Critical Power + Cheap Shots: full 15 points into these 2 specializations turn critical hits into instant kills
• Not to mention other feats which could use spec points for further improvement

So all in all, no

15

Builds / Re: No crafting Sledgehammer AR/LMG versatility build – my sidearm is an LMG

« on: February 08, 2024, 09:11:12 am »

Build explanation – Skills

This build has too many skill points thanks to a lack of investment into crafting skills.

Guns 80 (280)	80 base points needed for Commando feat.
Heavy Guns 80 (280)	80 base points needed for Mag Dump feat.
Throwing 140 (125)	110 effective throwing enables throwing grenades with 90% precision.
Melee 160 (350)	Of course, it is a melee build first and foremost. Guns scale skill off this skill thanks to Versatility.
Dodge 160	Good passive defense throughout the game, this little dodge would not drop enemy hit chance to 10%, however, 30% reduction in hit chances is still 30%. Needed since this is a no crafting build, and mechanical defenses from looted/bought armor is underwhelming. Besides, this build has too many skill points, where better to dump them?
Evasion 160	Good passive defense throughout the game, reduces damage from explosions too. Needed since this is a no crafting build, and mechanical defenses from looted/bought armor is underwhelming. Besides, this build has too many skill points; where better to dump them?
Stealth 160	100+ is my personal benchmark to be able to stealth effectively in all areas. However, this build has too many skill points, so stealth is a good place to dump them.
Biology 15 (16)	For Doctor feat.
Intimidation 160 (350)	A skill for dumping all those extra skill points. I paired it up with Yell since this build is also not feat-hungry, but did not use it much.
Mercantile 160 (173)	For unlocking end-game components to refurbish the guns with. 105 effective is enough, but this build has too many skill points. Dumping into Mercantile also allows buying those expensive jet skis at much lower prices. Details below.

Build explanation – Feats

This build is not feat-hungry. Sledgehammers do not need any sledgehammer-specific feats to be good, only Expose Weakness for armored targets. Assault Rifles only need about 5, of which 3 have been excluded due to lack of Perception. LMGs and Miniguns need more feats than Assault Rifles, but a few have been excluded due to a lack of Perception, 1 is common with Assault Rifles, and other feats also excluded for other reasons. This build has a lot of space to fit in QoL feats.

Conditioning	With 10 Con, condition provides 15% mechanical, cold and heat damage reduction. This damage reduction is applied after armor. Not great, but not insignificant either. Many claim this feat is useless, but personally I like this feat a lot, I won many encounters with only a sliver of health left, and would have died if not for this feat. Many feat points available for this build, why not.
Nimble	Used to reduce armor penalty, as movement points are crucial for a melee build.
Pack Rathound	This build already has a lot of carry capacity due to high Strength and Lifting Belt. Why not boost it further, since there are many spare feat points.
Versatility (10/10 spec)	Core of this build. Only with this feat are the guns listed above usable.
Doctor	QoL feat. When combined with Fast Metabolism, provides a lot of healing from healing items.
Fast Metabolism	QoL feat. When combined with Doctor, provides a lot of healing from healing items.
Thick Skull	All of my builds have 10 Con and Thick Skull. Getting stunned in this game is a death sentence, and I don't like using bullheads because my fights typically last longer than 3 turns, and crafting them requires fishing.
Yell	Dump feat. Too much Strength -> Intimidation skill benefits from Strength -> Yell benefits from Intimidation, may as well get it, no idea what else to take.
Dirty Kick	I love this feat on melee builds. Its a very good CC move that uses up no utility slot. Lasts 2 turns on human males, which occurs more often than not, because a huge chunk of enemies in the game are human males. Also, I always use this feat to cheese the arena. The arena consists of only human males for the gladiator fights, and a 2 turn stun is a guaranteed death sentence for all of them.
Expose Weakness (1/1 spec duration)	The only mandatory melee feat in this build. The big weakness for this build is the lack of armor penetration and electricity damage for hammers, and the lack of AP ammo for guns. Expose Weakness helps a lot, even with ranged weapons. In my playthrough I used Expose Weakness against Tchort before unloading on it with the N60 LMG.
Full-Auto (4/5 spec burst damage)	Core Assault Rifle/LMG/Minigun feat. No reason not to take this feat as this build has ample Strength, way higher than the requirement for this feat. Specialization points are invested into burst damage as it benefits both Assault Rlfles and LMGs.
Bullet Trance	One of the core LMG/Minigun feats, increases damage the longer the firefight goes. The 25% damage increase at max stacks is easily achieved for larger fights. In hindsight, maybe this feat is not really needed at all. The only time when this feat was of use in my playthrough was in the Magnar fight, when the N60 was used turn after turn after turn. In most other cases, I would get a kill or two with the LMG, then switch to using the hammer the next turn on some melee enemies, thus dropping the stack. If this feat is omitted, then 2 points into Will can be freed up to be placed into other attributes; a good alternative is to bring 4 Agi up to 6 Agi, qualifying the character for Sprint. The additional Agi can boost Dodge, Evasion, and Stealth further, and Sprint is useful in almost any situation.
Commando	Core Assault Rifle feat. Only 80 Guns skill points needed to unlock this feat, no reason not to.
Mag Dump	Core LMG/Minigun feat. Strength requirements easily satisfied, and only 80 Heavy Guns skill points needed to unlock this feat, no reason not to.
Increased Strength	Used to reach 18 Strength.
Body Weight Training	Used to reduce armor penalty, as movement points are crucial for a melee build.

Excluded Feats

Concentrated Fire, Suppressive Fire	These are great feats, but this build cannot afford to place any points into Perception, and have to exclude them unfortunately.
Heavy Metal	Non-crafted armors have underwhelming defenses when compared to crafted ones, it is not worth to trade all the dodge, evasion, stealth and movement points for heavy non-crafted armor. Without heavy armor, this feat is useless too, hence it is skipped in this build.
Gunner's High	LMGs/Miniguns are not used quite enough in this build to make use of this feat. This build can alternate between sledgehammer strikes and burst fire to save ammo on trash mobs/to tackle enemies that are more evasive and less dodgy. Besides, with Doctor + Fast Metabolism + Bioscrubber + Vathosphore Armor, even an advanced health hypo provides more healing than 10 stacks of Gunner's high, and that healing is instant, and does not succumb to a health threshold too.
Brute Aim	With Versatility, Guns now scale off the Melee skill, which scales off Strength. A higher modified Perception does not increase Guns skill for this build.

Build explanation – Equipment

Weapons – explained above.

Headgear - Tchortist Bioscrubber

Very good Bio protection, bonus health, bonus healing, 0% armor penalty. The bio protection is great against toxic gas clouds and enemies in the Black Sea. This headgear, together with the Tchortist Vathosphore Armor/CAU armor, renders the character almost immune to Locusts, Heartbreaker Serpents, and Giant Weavers in the Black Sea. 

Armor - Tchortist Vathosphore Armor, CAU armor, Galvanic Overcoat

Tchortist Vathosphore Armor is very useful in the Black Sea. Many of its denizens do Bio damage, hence Tchortist Bioscrubber + Tchortist Vathsphore Armor provides enough bio threshold, to be immune against Locusts unless crit, almost immune against Heartbreaker Serpents, almost immune against Giant Weavers too. The 38% mechanical resistance is useful against Strongmen and Handmaidens. The extra healing and health is always welcome, and Exsurge can remove an incapacitation or mental breakdown effect once every 10 turns. In my playthrough, I used this armor very much in the Black Sea.

However, in hindsight, CAU armor is even better than Tchortist Vathosphore Armor. CAU armor has the same bio threshold and even higher bio resistance than Tchortist Vathosphore Armor, it has 80% acid resistance compared to the Vathosphore Armor's 15%. CAU armor only has 25% mechanical resistance, but it is increased by 100% against melee attacks, meaning 50% mechanical resistance against melee attacks from spiders, Strongmen and Handmaidens. For all these extra advantages, CAU armor has 25% less armor penalty than Vathosphore Armor. With Nimble and Bodybuilding, CAU armor offers all these protections while standing at a final armor penalty of 5%. In hindsight, I could have just ignored the Vathosphore Armor completely; CAU armor is THE non-crafted unique armor for general use.

In my playthrough, apart from the two unique armors above, I used a randomly looted 1770 durability Galvanic Overcoat for general use where specific damage type protections, like bio or acid, are not needed. With Nimble, the character has 0% armor penalty when wearing this armor. Galvanic Overcoat is also worn when fighting against coil spiders.

Belt - Lifting Belt for most occasions, Bullet Strap Belt when choosing to use a Assault Rifle frequently. Large Waist Pack when hauling extra loot back to merchants.

Shoes - a durability 2400 ninja tabi boots  bought from Constantine. Appeared as special merchandise, unlocked via Mercantile.

Energy shield emitter - a 1000+ capacity efficient low frequency shield emitter, bought from Constantine. Appeared as special merchandise, unlocked via Mercantile, after refreshing many, many, many times (Constantine sells shield emitter only half the time, and each time, only has 1 in stock as special merchandise. Had to refresh many times until an efficient one comes up).


Pros

• No crafting!
  
  • Many excess skill points due to lack of investment into crafting skills
  • Vast majority of loot can be skipped over, no need to check loot containers for crafting components
• With 18 Strength, Lifting Belt and Pack Rathound feat, this build spots a carry capacity of 360 while in combat gear. While in looting mode, swap equipment out with Rathound Regalia, Power Fist, and Large Waist Pack, and this build can carry up to 400 weight. This character frequently carry whole dungeons' worth of loot back to the merchants. 
• Excellent healing economy. This build has too many bonuses to healing: Doctor, Fast Metabolism, Tchortist Bioscrubbber, and Tchortist Vathosphore Armor. My other characters, playing in Hard difficulty, has to stand around waiting for Health Hypo cooldowns in order to heal up; not this build.
• Healing Salves are perfect for this build, they can even be used in combat, as the Perception and Dexterity drawbacks do not affect this build. The weight (0.20), double that of an advanced health hypo (0.10), is not a concern due to the high carry capacity of this build. Raids of the Black Sea natives also provided so many healing salves that there is no more need to buy health hypos or bandages. In my playthrough, I brought about 200 healing salves into Deep Caverns, could not finish them all. 
• Unlike other melee builds, entanglement does not turn this character into a sitting duck. This character can fire back with an LMG or Assault Rifle when entangled. This is especially important when facing spiders in the Black Sea.

Cons

• No crafting!
  
  • No crafting of overpowered end-game metal armor that makes the character almost impervious to damage. Such a shame, since this build has all the Strength in the world to wear metal armor.
  • No crafting of electroshock hammers. As noted above, the biggest counter to even the most powerful of hammers like Balor's Hammer is mechanical resistance, which enemies in the Compound have an abundance of. It is quite notable that my Paladin character, with an electroshock hammer and super steel armor, had an easier time in The Compound than this character (although it might to due to the difficulty selected, Paladin = Normal, this = Hard).
  • No crafting of AP ammo. This build had an awful time with the N60 in The Compound due to the soldiers' mechanical resistance. The Concentrated Fire feat can overcome it through overwhelming damage, but this feat has to be excluded in this build. AP bullets are another solution, but the inability to craft AP ammo limits the character to using standard rounds. (Unless using Cheat Engine to constantly refresh merchants' stock, Fraser stocks about 30+ 7.62mm AP rounds each time and is good for this strategy.)
• As with versatility builds, the "side" skill that relies on Versatility is only usable from late-game onwards. In this case, the guns mentioned above are only usable from level 20+ onwards. 
• You only have 3 perception, Tchorist bioscrubber reduces it by 2, and then further reduces detection by 50%. You will be stepping on every single trap in the game. Thankfully this build has enough Constitution to survive any trap, and enough bonus healing to quickly heal up the damage from any trap.