Messages

1

Builds / Re: Kenshiro, Fist of the Underground Star

« on: May 02, 2025, 09:29:59 am »

Why lv1 expertise and why no improved unarmed combat/expert unarmed combat?

The build is strapped for choice at level 1: tranquility is weak but only becomes decent with proxy and other spells so it's taken later, other feats are mediocre. What would you choose?

2

Builds / Kenshiro, Fist of the Underground Star

« on: May 01, 2025, 04:22:35 pm »

https://underrail.info/build/?HgsJBwMDBwYAAFUAwqAowqB9ADgAAC9oDEcAAMKgAAAAwqBHK085aRQgBhMSTipEP2gHwrbCucKB4p-EAeKmuAPirKAF4qyqBt-8

An homage to Fist of the North Star. Not the best or the most well-paced anime adaptation but it's worth a watch if you're a 'punching stuff' enjoyer, 1.1-1.2x speed optional

Starting stats are 8 STR 9 DEX 6 AGI 6 WIL 5 INT
Then level stats relevant to the next perk 4 WILL, 8 AGI, 12 STR, 16 INT, 20/24/26 STR

Equipment

Use knives in the early game but immediately ditch them for your bare knuckles once you get force emission. Offhands: Power Fist gives your spells more power but it's ill suited for attacking, Claymore for sweep and occasionally Kukri as a backup EW(all can be unequipped for free if you only need their effect once at the start of each battle). Rathound Regalia and black/antithermic tabis, switch to other light equipment as the situation demands.
Muffled PK headband with either a TK punch neuroscopic filter or psi-extension
Spells: TK punch, Force Emission, Telekinetic Proxy and Implosion, other non-electric abilities as extra psi-slots allow.
All-In buffs 3 damaging stats only on this build, abuse it.

Progression and Gameplay

The feat/skill order is mostly self-explanatory, however the build above is somewhat revisionist. I never got Cheap Shots thinking that onhit effects like force emission would cancel out the incapacitate(which it did not). Those incapacitates would have worked great on this build had I taken that feat, don't be like me and test things before making assumptions.
Just punch away and hope for incapacitates, otherwise a premeditated implosion into TK punch will obliterate most armored enemies. You will suffer in encounters with multiple high-DT enemies, the Compound in it's entirety.

Some alternate ways to build it: Reorder feats to taste. Get evasive maneuvers, bone breaker, dirty kick, melee/thrown weapon feats, while he can use those perfectly in the series he just chooses not to 99% of the time. Undulation spec was really good against the natives and exosoldiers, fancy footwork or sprint specs are good generalist alternatives. Tailoring is optional for crafted tabis. Improved/Expert unarmed may be worth it, but i played without those feats considering half of my damage came from psionics and the procs aren't valuable enough when you have better options like combo.
You could fit in some temporal and use the 'grounding->EW->implosion->recurrence->punch until low HP' combo to mimic Ken's signature technique.

Misc.

A skilled martial artist hit a pressure point on Ken's body, crippling him and wiping his memory, then survives a drop down a one-way chasm to later find himself applying to enter the SGS.
You can fully roleplay the series' continuation as a side story with your bare knuckles and minimal equipment(bandages, psi inhalers, throwing knives, low quality leather armor/boots). Your PK abilities become restricted to melee range(arguably TK punch as an exception) and you're not allowed to do damage by moving proxy. Syringe/pill drugs, tabis, elemental resist armors, traps, electronics and grenades are all prohibited. I couldn't proceed with these limitations on a new dominating game but such a playthrough might be possible on easy/normal or NG+ hard/dominating(throw away all items beforehand).

This build can take out 75-90% with all-in (65-75% with slampipe, 5 ap punches) of the final boss' health with punches and a premeditated TK Punch in a single 85 AP turn at max level(drugs, EW and empowered PK preloaded). An OTK might be possible without implosion/poisons/acid if you get lucky with high rolls and your TK punch crits, 5/5 specced EW is needed.
TK punch: 1017-1619, force emission 92-184, unarmed 82-128 with this hyper mode setup
TK punch: 569-899(holding power fist), force emission 50-101, unarmed 58-83 with BBQ

Some max level punching bag tests with rathound BBQ/regalia, proxy is active and only using 50 AP to punch without drugs: 2200-2500 damage.
I edited my stats to base 10 STR 12 DEX 7 WILL, this variant has 4 AP punches and outputs similar 2200-2500 numbers but struggles even more against armored targets because every individual hit penetrates less.
3 STR 12 DEX 14 WILL lets you save on a feat while maintaining similar or slightly higher earlygame damage, but the mid-lategame is underwhelming due to no direct damage specs or strength boosts from gear/consumables, it could not do above 2000-2300 on the punching bag test and further lags behind if i test with drugs or against some armored target.

A slightly related tangent

I finished watching season 1 and i found some interesting parallels indicating the game got inspired by the series:

MINOR SERIES SPOILERS AHEAD

Bat gets stuffed from food often so there's the food item Stuffed Bat
Breaking civilians out of jail = lurker HQ or camera problems scenario
Several episodes feature mono-visors(unprojector)
A filler enemy uses knives laced with scorpion venom that can paralyze

These can be attributed to random chance or just convergent design in post-apocalyptic settings, but the later ones are more solid proof(especially DLCs)

MAJOR GAME AND SERIES SPOILERS AHEAD

s1e15 Ken and company get attacked by people that are mass-mindcontrolled by a single man, him getting killed drops the mind control. Ken's pacifist approach is the same method to get the compound's secret ending. Both Zaria and the Cognator are bald and look like underfed vampires.
s1e16 A town has a market area in the middle with 2 bandit bases on opposite west/east sides just like junkyard, 2 rival gangs are in a truce but eventually start a gang war, one gang's leader cooperates more with the main character
s1e20 An immobile battleship is being used as a bandit base
Joker=Six: likes to teleport around, gives advice and doesn't fight unless absolutely necessary

3

Builds / Re: First time playing dominating. Survival Instincts sword build. Feedback welcome.

« on: February 18, 2025, 09:30:39 pm »

Swords can't bleed, so why taste for blood?

Use a nail bomb, ripper's glove, or put on bladed metal armor in some fights that don't require mobility.

I'd definitely drop survival insticts for more agi or strength and make a build that's quite different than the one I currently have though.

Those 6 points invested in CON for survival instincts give more total damage rather than if you had invested them into STR, but with the consequences of less melee skill and dying from a stiff breeze. Evasive Maneuvers sounds good in it's place, or Blitz.
Here are some calculations with the claymore, level 25, 11 base STR, rathound regalia, recklessness, focus stim, 7 dex and the base from the sword itself gives me 60% crit with SI, 375% bonus(2 critical power specs) so the total damage if it's a crit is 475%.

45-135 base damage, 90 average on non-crits, 90*4.75=427.5 on crits. (90*0.4+427.5*0.6)=292.5 average damage per hit
Now i'll edit my stats to have 16 base STR but do the same calculation without +30% SI crit
56-169 base, 112.5 avg non-crits, 534.375 crits. (112.5*0.7+534.375*0.3)=239.0625 average damage per hit

That is a 22% damage boost(18% on straight super steel) which might vary depending on your level or other factors(probably more on other high-crit uniques, i don't want to pollute the thread even more with mathematics).
Fighting normally and getting hit just enough to reach the threshold without dying is annoying, better to start 99% of fights while under 30% without getting hit in the first place.

4

General / Re: Psionics and the everyman

« on: February 06, 2025, 11:17:18 pm »

Maximum psi points and psi regen between you, beasts, tchortists and bosses are fun thought experiments between actually sustainable spell-slinging and borderline insanity, Synesthete has overclocked his mind to have 14 more regen compared to Eidein and his long journey.
Your quad-psi character learned all those spells within the span of a few days/weeks possibly from damaged/bootleg psionic mentors whose side effects don't show up immediately(hey that's a build idea:no psi mentors allowed), (s)he WILL go insane within the year at most after the game's events end.

5

Builds / Re: First time playing dominating. Survival Instincts sword build. Feedback welcome.

« on: February 06, 2025, 10:16:28 pm »

https://underrail.info/build/?HgsHBwkDAwYAAF8AwqAowqDCoAROAABubgxMAAAtAEYAwqAAOWIxwowGEyvChxJLTibCgcKNPMK2RHvin4QB4qe-B-KyiAXisokC37w

I went for a nimbler setup rather than conditioning/stoicism, my approach was f9-heavy and I wouldn't recommend Survival Instincts(or any 3 CON) builds for learning dominating in either case.
Fancy footwork and Critical Power must be taken ASAP, Expose Weakness and Escape Artist for the midgame are essential. Future Orientation is neat but isn't mandatory as you cannot use Increment twice for the same 3 turn flurry cooldown, good synergy with grenadier in your case. Tailoring and more PK for psychostatic electricity were things I wish I could get but I overinvested into other skills, rathound regalia and bought tabis are good enough... right?
Flurry AP costs/cooldown are essential, EW duration, critical power spec is the best one for your remaining spec points, yielding the best results for all swords except super steel and black blade who theoretically perform better with a 3/4 split between it and cheap shots(7 and 16% crit damage respectively).
875% damage Red Dragon criticals are a sight to behold, decapitates are funny and can delete bosses but ultimately aren't worth the feat point in my experience.

6

General / Re: Rebalance Psi Empath, to prevent easy splashing for a meagre 20% HP cost.

« on: February 01, 2024, 09:22:17 pm »

This isn't an issue with the core tenets of becoming an empath but more with temporal as a whole.

Let's start with proposed nerfs for PTC: you get it's benefits starting only from your next turn, slightly reduce movement points to 20
Stasis: 30 AP/60 psi and it only lasts 1 enemy turn which gives a barrage of nerfs indirectly. 1 less turn from your cooldowns ticks down, 1 less turn from psi regen, reduced tactical stalling possibility of every enemy on the map stacking on a single doorway/corner.
You can't cast both in the same turn without getting more max psi or a cost reduction from a headband, feat or psi drugs.
LTI: I haven't used it much on LMG can. Stopping at 25 TM could have a niche on a low-cooldown build with Grenadier, Spear Throw or some pistol build.
Psycho-temporal Acceleration is fine for the most part
Future orientation can be rebalanced or a new feat with a 7/10 will and 100 base requirement which reverts the PTC 1st turn and stasis duration nerf(the AP/psi should stay as those are too low for it's effect)

No comment on cryostasis/grounding/imprint i haven't tried those, but i assume they're in a healthy state as they're only single-target and can be mitigated/detected.

But the best idea is to leave it and rebalance temporal accordingly in Infusion taking into account the cover system and new hit registration.

7

Builds / Re: The thumper is pretty interesting

« on: December 30, 2023, 02:36:45 pm »

The reload cost is rounded up so it costs 8 AP, you could potentially do 3 shots with 2 reloads in between if you have a shell loaded beforehand, save 1 ap from the previous turn or use vitality powder opposed to adrenaline
3x25 + 2x8 = 91 AP

8

Bugs / Re: Constantine old world firearms

« on: December 30, 2023, 12:47:21 pm »

It's only really worth buying if you plan to refurbish 3+ weapons in multiple categories on a guns build and especially on a shotgun/sniper/GL, but what are 200 charons extra for a huge power spike on your main gun if you can get access to myles as soon as you get the circuit board(on top of the lost opportunity cost of investing all those charons that early in the playthrough)

Yes, but also more special merchandise items are stocked driving up the chance even more

why is this in the bugs section?

9

Bugs / Re: Report spelling/grammar errors

« on: December 28, 2023, 10:10:22 pm »

If you fail to listen to the instructions while creating the template to get the exoskeletons at the assembler the message says 'Please do not deviate from the instuctions:' on multiple false answers

10

Bugs / N60 The Warthog upgrade materials are false

« on: December 28, 2023, 07:04:25 pm »

To upgrade the N60 you actually need a 130+ quality guardian frame instead of the 120 mentioned, wiki needs to be updated too.