Topics

1

Bugs / Custom portrait system bug

« on: February 03, 2022, 10:06:18 am »

After making a portrait, I make three copies of it: _h, _l and _s versions (200x200, 100x100 and 50x50 size) and placed them in the portrait folder. But when I open the game, the game does not use the _h version at all. I tested it by deleting the _l and _s versions of the placeholder portrait and it no longer showed up when selecting a portrait. I then left the _l version and it was available.
I then made the _l version of my custom portrait 200x200 sized and it was available for selection.

Is this a bug or was I simply doing something incorrectly.

2

Builds / Shiver me timbers - a Shiv build on Dominating

« on: July 28, 2021, 05:33:22 pm »

The Shiv
Canonically the most powerful weapon in the Underrail cinematic universe. The Shiv defies the law of matter conservation and bends reality around itself:

• Why does Lucas, the quartermaster of SGS, sell a blueprint detailing how to craft a prison weapon?
• Why does crafting a shiv require a blueprint in the first place? Why doesn’t the player character know how to wrap a dirty rag on a metal spike?
• Why do high quality metal spikes require high mechanics to craft a shiv from? You’re still just wrapping a spike in a dirty rag and the stats of the shiv do not change.
• You can use mechanical repair kits to fix shivs. But how do you even repair a shiv? Freshen up the dirt on the rag and reapply the rust to the metal spike?
• How does killing a Naga with a shiv even work!?
• A tungsten spike weighs 1.80 and a rag weighs 0.10, but a shiv made from these two components weighs 0.10! Where does the rest of the weight go!?
• Where does the power of the shiv come from? Is it the dirty rag or the rusty metal spike that gives shivs the 200% critical damage bonus?
• Since all shivs have the same stats, does that mean there exists many identical shivs or that there’s one shiv which can simultaneously exist everywhere?
• Is the shiv omnipotent?
• If the Shiv is omnipotent, can the Shiv create a zoner that the Shiv cannot shank?

These questions and more will not be answered in this post.


Contemplating the existence of The Shiv
Anyways, shiv is a knife type weapon - base damage is 1 to 7, critical damage is 200% and it costs 7 AP to attack, plus the damage that gets through DR/DT gets increased by 25%. Component quality and crafting feats will not change the stats of a crafted shiv, so you get what you see. All shivs are created equal.
Oh, and in case you didn’t quite catch that, the difference between the minimum and the maximum damage is 700%! I mean, it doesn’t look like it’s a big deal, but after all the damage bonuses get applied, it’s very significant.
Overall, the build isn’t terribly complex. Enough DEX to get 4 Ap attacks, stacked crit chance and damage, as much MP as I can get my grubby little hands on and a dash of TM to tie it all together.


Critical Shiv infrastructure
The 200% critical damage screams “Survival Instincts!” so that’s what I went for. Grabbed Cheap Shots, Critical Power (10 spec points) and Ripper (5 spec points). With this setup, shiv gets an effective crit damage bonus of over 1000% against enemies under 20% HP and a crit chance of 80%-85%. First crit tickles the enemy, second one wounds them, third one murders them. Well, not really... Crit damage alone isn’t enough, we’re still working with a base damage of 1-7.
Oh and some non-crit attacks deal single digit damage. Not much you can do if you roll a 1. Expertise would have been nice, but meh.


The bleeding edge of Shiv technology
To help with that I use Taste for Blood. Shivs don’t apply bleeding wounds by themselves and using another weapon for wounds is too AP inefficient. A bladed metal armor is also out of the question because the build needs to wear infused rathound leather armor for extra crit chance.
Enter Nail Bombs.
Throw one at the start of a fight, rack up some TfB stacks and refresh them with each kill. If fighting high DT enemies, apply EW to an enemy and then throw the Nail Bomb.
Grenade throw is 15 AP, but more often than not, enemies will have 3 or more bleeding wounds applied to them. Meaning that after three attacks you’ll have full or near full stacks of TfB. That’s +50% melee damage.
This damage bonus is very important. If the stacks are lost, the number 1 priority is to get them back, because without TfB, the overall damage tanks hard.

Lategame I'd sometimes see crits go as high as ~500 against enemies with low HP. Not too shabby for 4ap.


Shivalry is NOT dead - its enemies are
There’s 7 Will for Fight Response.
80 AP without Adrenaline, so that’s 20 attacks per turn. 25 on adrenaline turns.
Fancy Footwork combined with 4 AP attacks, plus Sprint and Contraction allows this build to cross the whole map in a single turn.

And that’s about it for the build. It was ass to play up to level 18. Picked up steam at around level ~20 when the spec points in CP started to add up. At level 26 it had no trouble with anything.
Although, the hordes of bots and crabs in Expedition were annoying, since I had to run around in circles, waiting for EW to come off cooldown, but it wasn’t too bad with LTI.
Did p.much everything except DC, I just couldn't force myself to. But by that point the builds would have no trouble there.
I used fart grenades and bear traps during the beast fight, but otherwise no traps or damage dealing grenades or whatever past Newton, except the Nail Bombs for bleed stacks and Flashbangs and EMPs for CC.


Shiv industrial complex
Also, remember how the shiv weights 0.1? And a repair kit weighs 2? One repair kit weighs as much as 20 shivs, so lugging repair kits around for a 0.1 weapon sounds impractical. What I did was head on over to Foundry, buy all the spikes Leonie was selling and craft myself a bunch of shivs. My game was littered with discarded shivs


The build
Don’t play it unless you know what you’re doing. This build is also not good to use with normal knives.
https://underrail.info/build/?HgMLBwkDBwYARwDCoCgAwqAAAAAAE20PLV4AAABgAABPK2I5JjEGXMKHEks8E8KIKsKFesKzUcOIGuKnvgriqqgF378


Some screens
4naga: https://i.imgur.com/fdD8EYs.jpeg

Black crawler: https://i.imgur.com/7sqIMJM.jpeg
Note the combat log. One of the attacks is for 10 damage and another is for 500!

The Masters in the sewer: https://i.imgur.com/VZXJRGj.jpeg

Zenith: https://i.imgur.com/ZbqKYu8.jpeg


Shiv: The Movie
Grey Army base in one go, no reloads. Barelly. The very last soldier would have killed me if I hadn't won the Initiative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9IQOO7gGZI

Fort Apogee. Also in one go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PScPWiYFnpI

3

Bugs / Hopperdome map bug

« on: May 11, 2021, 05:10:53 pm »

This vent is accessible from both sides of the wall, bot just from the front.

4

Bugs / Sweep/Off-balance bug

« on: May 11, 2021, 05:05:01 pm »

It seems that Off-balance applied by Sweep does not reduce dodge/evasion to 0. Not sure if it's just sweep or if Pummel is the same.

Here is Carnifex with Off-balance applied by Sweep. In the combat log it is indicated that he evades some damage from a grenade explosion.




And to make sure that it's not some rounding error or whatever, I netted him and exploded again. He doesn't evade anything this time.

5

Bugs / Throwing knife tooltip

« on: April 10, 2021, 08:15:37 am »

Mismatch.

6

Bugs / Infused leather scaling

« on: March 03, 2021, 10:34:23 pm »

If the formula on the wiki is correct (https://stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Blueprint:_Infused_Leather), Infused leather should cap at 160q, regardless of the quality of the base leather used. However, if a leather with over 140 quality is used together with 160 quality Super Steel fiber, this results in 1:1 Infused Leather produced (so a 145q leather + 160q SS = 145q Infused leather) and can go well over 160q.

7

Bugs / Bullet Time AP reduction

« on: February 26, 2021, 04:08:28 pm »

Specced Bullet time on a Versatility pistol build with 18 Dexterity and Gunslinger. Using a .44 Hammerer. Seems too good to be true. Doesn't take Gunslinger into account before applying AP reduction, maybe even Dexterity.

Before activating Bullet Time: AP cost is 12.


After Activating Bullet Time: Ap cost is 4.

8

Builds / Porcupine - Throwing knife build on Dominating

« on: February 09, 2021, 06:38:25 pm »

No weapons, no damage grenades, no caltrops, no damage psi, no traps. Just throwing knives.

The build itself is not very complex - 18 DEX plus all the throwing knives related feats sprinkled with some mobility and disables. Playing the build is where the complexity comes from. It’s very fun but weak at the start and slow to get going. Had a terrible time in DC - fuck the Labyrinth.

Only used damage grenades/traps up to Newton, then against the Beast, against Joint Security Headquarters turrets and against the mushroom root.
Snuck past most robot fights, like 4naga and skipped doing Apogee entirely. Any fight with big bots or strongmen was a no-go.

Actually, it’s a flashbang buildThis build survives by controlling its enemies:

• Grenadier and Spec Ops with 2 spec points for flashbang CD reduction.
• Hyper precise throwing nets for single target disable.
• Stuns from either a taser or Crawler Poison.
• Pinning gives every thrown knife a chance to immobilize an enemy for 1 turn. Unreliable, but VERY useful nonetheless.
• Psycho-temporal Dilation for slows.

With LTI this builds can throw a flashbang every two turns, allowing to lock down whole mobs of enemies and create a traffic jam. Enemies in front of the pack are kept permanently incapacitated, while I pelt their friends at the back with throwing knives.
A rotation of net immobilization, taser stun and flashbang incapacitation can keep a single enemy in a doorway or a 1x1 sized chokepoint perpetually disabled. With LTI spam, if one disable fails, there’s usually another one available, so it’s very consistent.

When dealing with bosses, Crawler poison works very well combined with flashbangs or Psycho-temporal Dilation. Apply Crawler poison, then flashbang a boss and wait out the 2-turn poison duration, after which the boss is stunned for 2 turns. If the boss resists the flashbang (which isn’t uncommon), apply Psycho-temporal Dilation for -15 AP and -50 MP and simply keep away until the boss is stunned.

There’s also Pinning, which is unreliable due to RNG proc chance, but removes a targets evasion when it does proc.

Wait, no, it’s a poison buildForget about killing enemies with mechanical damage. At the start of the game, single digit damage is what awaits you. While damage output sloooowly picks up with levels, it’ll will never be “good” due to throwing knives incurring 125% mech DR/DT. Oh, and none of the usual crit chance sources work with t.knives, so forget about SI/Focus Stim/infused rat. Thus, poisons are the name of the game and Hypertoxicity is a lifesaver. Or lifetaker, I guess.

Best poisons are:

• Leper: increases the mechanical damage dealt to organics and deals good bio damage - 8 (16) per stack, stacks 6 times. It increases the target’s mechanical damage reduction modifier, which in turn increases mechanical damage the target receives. Damage reduction is applied last, so you still need to get through mech DR/DT and only the damage which gets past is then increased. 144 bio damage per turn at max stacks and with Hypertoxicity and Cave Ear.
• Burrower: I used it a lot due to its availability from merchants. 7 (14) damage per stack, stacks 5 times. 105 bio damage per turn at max stacks and with Hypertoxicity and Cave Ear.
• Cave Ear: +50% bio damage received. Apply after 2 or 3 stacks of other poison is already applied.
• Blinding: upgrade to burrower poison. Deals the same damage per stack but stacks up to 8 times and lasts shorter. 168 bio damage per turn at max stacks and with Hypertoxicity and Cave Ear.
• Crawler: 2 turn stun after 2 turns. Invaluable.
• Heartbreaker: 675 bio damage after 3 turns with Hypertoxicity and Cave Ear, plus some minor damage each turn before the BIG DMG. Obviously, combine it with other poisons. Btw, wiki is wrong, each new stack applied refreshes the duration.

My mistake, it’s a trader buildThe most reliable way of getting poisonous knives are merchants:

• There's one merchant who sells poisonous throwing knives pre depA - Kendrick. Blaine too, but it’s RNG and he doesn’t sell many. Lucas only starts selling poisonous throwing knives after depA, stingy asshole.
• Once depA was finished, rush Camp Hathor. One of the Freds sells poisonous throwing knives.
• Kevin, the weapons merchant at Foundry sells poisonous throwing knives.
• Free Drones merchant Becket sells poisonous throwing knives (crawler t.knives too!) and some poisons.
• Katia, the pirate healer, sells poisons and crafting materials for poisons.
• Ola, of JKK fame sells poisonous knives.
• Over at the institute, Vuk sells poisons.

In GMS, on the storage level, there’s a freezer with Cave Ears. I used those to make some cave ear throwing knives. Not necessary for depA itself but were invaluable when clearing embassy prison. Later, there are some respawning Cave Ears you can harvest East of Camp Hathor.

Natives are a great source of Expedition poisons.

Screenshots
depA mutant areas. Park a mutant dog in front of a door and keep it under control. Throw knives until everything ded. Neither mutants nor dogs have any mech DR/DT.
https://i.imgur.com/DFELfqT.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/lZUvEiV.jpg

Embassy prison. Parked a tacvest guy in front of the door. Other enemies are either too evasive at that level or have high enough STR to reduce net duration to 1 turn. Didin’t have 3 turn CD flashbangs yet, so a 1 turn net was not helpful.
https://i.imgur.com/Q75phnc.jpg

Free Drones mission. You can see the pattern here.
https://i.imgur.com/vYbK8bq.jpg

King, Rathound. It’s like the scene from Benny Hill, when Yakety Sax starts playing.
https://i.imgur.com/GIMM9Wm.jpg

The things I do to for some Crawler poison. That one Crawler at the front held the line for me like a champ.
https://i.imgur.com/FCMMeeq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/lVE8F19.jpg

Balor. Can you guess where I made my stand?
https://i.imgur.com/ZWD9I5F.jpg

Jookhela. The most trial-and-error fight of the whole run.
https://i.imgur.com/UDtUFQo.jpg

Praetorian Warehouse. Joined the Praetorians for this fight alone, JKK might have had a better merchant for this build, but the Praetorian version of the warehouse fight is my favorite Core City fight.
https://i.imgur.com/J3aTQC3.jpg

Lunatic Mall. Doorway build strikes again. First floor was the longest fight of this run.
https://i.imgur.com/K4B4IPs.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/QPWHgcK.jpg

And the hardest pre-DC fight of this run. No chokepoints, enemies coming from all directions.
https://i.imgur.com/AOz7HBa.jpg


VideosCarnifex. A dance around the Arena pillars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5knwy6cCwM

Magnar. Good fight. Love the fight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJfNr92EGS4

And Tchort. Not as bad as I thought it’d be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_h1brQNnHo

The buildhttps://underrail.info/build/?HgMQBgMDBQoywqAAAAAAwqAAAAAATVcVYk0AAADCiwAAPSs5Ji8WG1g3wodeUVzCiD_CvsKzduKktgLiqLoD4qq8Ct-_
Don't play this unless you know what you are doing. i also made a huge mistake of not getting Pack Rathound.

9

Suggestions / Practice dummy/punching bag with crits

« on: January 22, 2021, 05:13:50 pm »

I'd like to suggest adding a practice dummy/punching bag type object somewhere, maybe the player house in Core city.
It'd have a 1000000 HP, would be susceptible to critical hits and vulnerable to status effects which can be applied to organic targets. It'd be also nice to have an agro switch to go along with it, to be able to stay in combat between turns.

10

Builds / Dragon - Metathermics only psi build on Dominating

« on: January 08, 2021, 04:58:58 pm »

Poor poor Pyrokinetic Stream. It sits abandoned in your Innervation screen, surrounded by the likes of Neurovisual Disruption and Disruptive Field, waiting patiently for you to free up a slot and use it in battle. Give Pyrokinetic Stream a well-deserved second chance. Go and craft yourself a headband with Magnifying Neuroscopic Filter: Pyrokinetic Stream, stack AP cost reductions, pile on psi cost reductions and enhance your psi point regeneration. Together, on Dominating, we will use Pyrokinetic Stream to scorch Underrail with jets of searing flames and set its tunnels ablaze.

Burnt-out
The in-game description of Pyrokinetic Stream states, that it will only stop when you run out of AP or Psi points, but that’s not exactly correct. There’s a hard-coded upper limit to how many additional ticks of damage you can get. A full cast of Pyrokinetic Stream is limited to 14 ticks per cast - 3 initial ones you get from casting the ability and up to 11 additional ones.

• The cost of the initial cast is 20 AP and each additional tick that comes after that costs 10 AP. Unfortunately, Tranquility and Premeditation only apply to the AP cost of the initial cast, not the ticks that come after. A full Pyrokinetic Stream costs 130 AP.
• Pyrokinetic Stream intial psi point cost is 25, plus 5 for each tick. But here’s the kicker – any reductions to Psi cost you get from feats, gear or consumables will not applied to the cost of additional damage ticks. So, 80 psi per full cast.

130 AP and 80 Psi per full cast. That’s not sustainable. At all.

Quick-fire
Okay, let’s work on AP cost first:

• Thermodynamicity reduces the initial cost down to 10 AP and the cost of any additional ticks down to 5 AP. Keep in mind that Thermodynamicity is the only thing which modifies the AP cost of the additional ticks.
• Specializing into Thermodynamicity further reduces the AP cost down to 7 AP for the initial cast and to 3 for additional tick.
• Tranquility is applied after Thermodynamicity and reduces the cost of the initial cast to 2 AP.

We are down to 35 AP per full cast. Not too bad, considering all other Metathermics psi abilities will also get to enjoy the AP cost reduction of Thermodynamicity and Tranquility. You’ll come to appreciate 7 AP Cryokinetic Orbs and 4 AP Cryokinesis.

Firebug
Thermodynamicity is currently bugged with Pyrokinetic Stream:

• Use premeditation and cast Cryokinesis or any other cold based Metathermics psi ability for 0 AP to get Thermodynamicity: Heat status effect (Heat version reduces the cost of heat-based psi abilities).
• Now cast Pyrokinetic Stream. Normally, after casting a heat-based psi ability Thermodynamicity: Heat would be replaced with Thermodynamicity: Cold. However, due to a bug (at least I think it’s a bug), this does not happen. Instead Thermodynamicity: Heat does not get removed unless you run out of psi points.
• Which allows for repeat casts of Pyrokinetic Stream until the duration of Thermodynamicity: Heat runs out. It lasts 2 turns and with Adrenaline, this amounts to 4 casts of Pyrokinetic Stream total over the 2 turns.

Even if the bug gets fixed, you’ll still be able to use Cryokinesis for 4 AP, to get Thermodynamicity: Heat back. That’ll only cost you 1-2 ticks of Pyrokinetic Stream.

Fire at competitive prices
Psi point cost comes next. The main point of stacking psi cost reductions is to allow this build to utilize Pyrokinetic Stream without having to forfeit other Metathermics psi abilities, as psi point reduction does not apply to the additional ticks of Pyrokinetic Stream:

• At endgame qualities, a Psionic Muffler on a single school headband can provide around 35% psi cost reduction.
• Specialized Psycho-neural Optimization adds another 15% reduction.
• Lastly, a tactical vest made with Psi Beetle Carapace is another 10%.

With all that, the psi cost is down to ~40%. Endgame Cryokinetic Orb costs 19 psi points, Pyrokinesis is 15 and Cryokinesis is 6. The psi cost of Pyrokinetic Stream is 10 for initial cast, plus 5 for each tick. ~65 psi points per full cast. Still pricy, but with other psi abilities cheap, the cost isn’t as prohibitive.
There’s also Advanced Psi Empathy and Beetle Brain Soup, but the former comes very late (and I didn’t pick it for this build) while the latter is somewhat rare.

Pools of fire
Without ways to reduce the psi cost any further, it’s time to increase the amount of psi points available. Remember, Pyrokinetic Stream will stop streaming if you run out of psi points so having a large pool of psi will prevent that:

• Base psi point pool is 100.
• Add another 25 from Meditation.
• And another 15 from Neurology.
• And another 15 from Philosophy III.
• And another 10 from Sørmirbæren Staff-spear.

And... and... and that’s it. Total 165 psi points and 825 psi reserves. 1072 reserves with Expanded Psi Capacitance.

Fuel to the fire
Lastly, to make good use of the large psi point pool and reserves, psi point recuperation could use some work:

• 18 Will and 9 Intelligence gives 18 psi point regeneration.
• The Staff-Spear adds another 1.
• At level 28 I got Mantra (although the game is pretty much done at that point).
• Psionic Accelerator increases the psi point regeneration AND increases the psi points gained from using psi boosters by 50%.

We end up with a sweet 36 psi point regeneration per turn. On top of all that, this build also has Fast Metabolism, which makes psi boosters replenish 100 (150 when Psionic Accelerator is active) psi points on use. All in all, it’s very rare to run out of psi points past mid game.
Although Advanced Psi Empathy might have been a better pick for level 28, I wanted to have higher regeneration instead. Also, if you really really wanna, you can also use Hypercerebrix for some extra psi regeneration, but I never bothered.

Flamethrower
Damage of Pyrokinetic Stream scales linearly throughout the game, with some minor jumps as better components become available. The build was smooth to play from the start. By endgame Pyrokinetic Stream deals somewhere around 1400 heat damage per cast to all targets in a straight line. This is without Empowered Metathermics. That’s quite good.
Pyrokinetic Stream isn’t exactly a boss killer but can melt groups exceptionally well. Not many enemies in Underrail can survive being blasted for 1,4k damage to the face, twice a turn. Even enemies which are resistant to heat eventually get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of damage this build can spit out in a turn.
Except big robots. Dreadnaughts are doable but require many many casts and Nagas are out of the question. Expedition bots in general are a pain in the ass.
Oh and Pyrokinetic Stream doesn't crit.

Third degree burns
To top it all off there’s also Pyromaniac. With so many ticks per cast, Pyrokinetic Stream has a near guaranteed proc of Burning. While damage of the DoT is nothing to write home about due to the low-ish damage of each individual tick, the Fear effect that comes along with it is worth a feat point.

Video
Faceless Commander. The only part of DC that I enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R_u8GeNO-4

Screenshots
Fort Apogee. Killed the Dreads last. Good fight:
https://i.imgur.com/T0IqFnE.jpg

Black Crawler, just to see if I could do the whole dungeon without reloads. Turns out I couldn’t, because my own Cryokinetic Orb killed me. Smooth otherwise:
https://i.imgur.com/hWHDcsH.jpg

The build
https://underrail.info/build/?HgMDBgYDEAkAwosAAAAAwqAAAAAAM1wMKkwAAMKgAAAAQSs5UD89Ki7CvGRXHMK-JGYowrfCisK4wp3iorUC4qWyBeK5qAXfvw
No damage grenades, traps past Newton, except for the Beast fight.

11

Suggestions / Keyboard shortcut in the craft window

« on: January 05, 2021, 04:30:20 pm »

Would it be possible to have a bindable keyboard shortcut to craft a selected recipe in the Crafting window?

12

Builds / Rapid Fire Brain Damage - Though Control specialist on Dominating

« on: December 27, 2020, 01:17:51 pm »

I fucking love the new psi system. Previously psi was fun but had like two builds total: SI+Psychosis and some Tranquility build. Both played the same too, lol. Now, each school can be made into a build on its own. Psi is still No.1!

I’ve already made a post about the TM specialist and this here is a Neural Overload focused Tranquility build. It’s not a solo school build, instead it also has TM for Contraction, LTI and Stasis.

Only used grenades against the few fights against robots and the mushroom root. Otherwise, no damage dealing grenades, traps or smoke-bombs used past depA. Not even during the Beast fight. Did all the robot-free optional content.

NO doesn’t mean no
Neural Overload (NO) is an interesting ability. Relatively interesting, that is. If you just grab it on a multi-psi school build - it’s a mediocre, single target, damage dealing spell from a psi school mostly known for its disables and CC. And to use Neural Overload as an AoE you’ll need Locust of Control (LoC), but with a cooldown of a whopping 15 turns, LoC is essentially a once per combat ability.

Brain Power
But if you decide to make build focusing on Neural Overload specialist build, you’ll notice several of its unique features. Namely:

• Lowest base AP cost of all spammable psi abilities - it costs 18 AP to cast NO once. For example, Cryokinesis and Temporal Distortion both cost 20 AP while Electrokinesis costs 35 AP. With Tranquility NO AP cost is down to 13 AP.
• Large amount of damage bonuses. Excluding Critical damage bonus, NO can gain bonus damage from 5 sources:
  
  • Magnifying Neuroscopic Filter: Neural Overload - ~50% damage bonus at 160 quality.
  • Cerebral Trauma - 20% bonus and another 20% from spec points.
  • Høddurform, a unique staff - 25% bonus and a portion of damage dealt is reapplied as a DoT effect.
  • Mental Breakdown - applies a penalty to the targets Resolve and doubles the damage of the next NO cast on the target.
  • Target’s Intelligence - varies greatly. Granted, there’s no way to alter a target’s Intelligence score but it generally provides a bonus to damage against humans.
• Its damage completely ignores Electrical DR and DT, allowing to easily damage heavily armored foes. So unlike for example Cryokinesis, which must go through mechanical and cold DR/DT, NO will not have a portion of its damage removed due to targets resistances.

Low AP cost and lots of non-crit damage bonuses means that it can work really well as a Tranquility buid. Also - no crits, no need to fish for blood for Focus Stims.
Hard to calculate the damage per cast, but you can check out how the build plays in action in the video at the end of the post.

Violent Thoughts
50 Base AP. Another 20 from Contraction. Plus 20 from Adrenaline. And to top it all off, 20 more from Blitz.
110 AP total. Divide it by 13 and you get 8 casts of NO. Plus one more from Premeditation. 9 Casts. Not baaad.

Remember that Metal Breakdown damage bonus? The one that doubles the damage dealt by NO? Use it with LoC on a group of enemies. Now pop them one by one with your double damage NO. And if there are any survivors left, there’s still the DoT from the Høddurform. Irresistible Acid damage which is based off the damage of the NO. Juicy.

Oh, and with the LoC spec, its CD is down to 10 turns. Less with liberal application of LTI.

There’s also an argument for putting 5 points into Tranquility spec. I know, I know, it’s a trash spec, but in this rare case it actually has a use. 5 points would reduce the cost of NO down to 12. With 110 AP this would allow us to cast NO 9 times. Eh, up to you if you want to use LoC more often or cast one more NO on Blitz turns.

Cross Continental Aneurysm Delivery Service
For a psi build, it’s also very mobile. 150 MP by endgame. Sprint with Infused Hopper Tabis and LTI means only ~1 turn will be spent not sprinting.
Contraction and Sprint means that you’ll still have MP to run around after using Blitz. So, not a sitting duck even after Blitz eats up all the MP.

Brain Drain
Robots scare me. Thankfully, there aren’t that many robots that I can't sneak past. The main weakness of this build really.

Video:

Faceless Commander: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhbY-95FwmQ


The build:
https://underrail.info/build/?HgMDCgMDEAgAwosAAAAAwqAAAAAAL2EMLVLCoAAARgAARSQ5Kz8FKsKHwr3CiCFkV8K-I0fCt8Kmwp3inYIK4qGaBd-_
Empowered: Psi-School is trash here and it’s trash everywhere.

13

Builds / Titan - MAX CON, throwing build on Dominating

« on: December 10, 2020, 09:55:51 am »

This build will force you to forget the feeling of the F9 key under your finger.

Become indomitable. Unbreakable and unmovable. Impervious to damage and impossible to kill. Stand tall amidst a sea of enemies and let those fools shatter themselves against the tungsten monolith that is your body. Watch as foes throw everything they have against you, but achieve nothing. You are both the last to act and the last man standing.

Massive health, healing, heavy armor. The three key components that forge this build into a behemoth of survivability.

Shrug off hails of bullets, ignore crossbow bolts and laugh, as enemies, having exhausted all their ammunition, are forced to attack you with their bare fists.
Out of bolts: https://i.imgur.com/RTUpwfG.jpg
Out of bullets: https://i.imgur.com/lmWNXeH.jpg
Out of batteries: https://i.imgur.com/RFgjDez.jpg

Withstand barrages of melee attacks and be the one to deliver the last blow of the fight, every fight.
Gladiator: https://i.imgur.com/nI5PqhA.jpg
Invictus: https://i.imgur.com/rzMxTY0.jpg

Spit in the face of glass cannon builds and embrace attrition battle as your one and only way of waging war against all you face. This is the way of the MAX CON tank build, on Dominating.

IMMORTAL
With 18 Constitution, Juggernaut and Bodybuilding this build has over 1100 HP. Four-digit HP on Dom. Damn.
You can make plenty of mistakes throughout a battle and still come up on top, due to the massive buffer having this much HP provides. Apart from a very small handful of Though Controller bosses, nothing in the game can OTK this build. Plus 18 CON also buffs Conditioning, but more on that later.
 
INDISSOLUBLE
Have you ever specced into Fast Metabolism? Of course you haven't. And neither have I, at least not before I played this build. When specced it provides a +45% bonus to all healing received, not just from the Hypos. And it's multiplicative with the +25% bonus from the Doctor feat. Neat.
So, let's see what keeps this build going throughout the fight:

• A Regenerative Vest at 160 quality regenerates 53 HP every turn when you end a turn below 70% HP. Regardless of quality, the charge will only be enough for 10 turns. Power Management does not prolong the duration of healing. So, with specced Fast Metabolism it heals 77 HP per turn. That's 770 HP over a course of a fight.
• I love multiplicative bonus stacking, regardless what the multiplied bonuses are. With both Fast Metabolism and Doctor, Advanced Health Hypos now heal for 135 HP and Super Health Hypos for 270 HP.
• Marsh Honey is a cute lil' addition. ~4 HP each turn for 10 turns at the start of combat. Is it worth subjecting yourself to Locust swarms for some Marsh Honey? Well, you don't really have a choice - no stealth and all that. 40 HP total. Enjoy the insects.
• There's also regenerative mixture, but it comes very late. There's one dose you can find pre-DC. ~36 HP per turn, for 6 turns. ~217 HP total.

So, with all the consumables and when under 70% health, this heals 117 HP per turn plus an extra 270 HP every 12 turns.
 
INDOMITABLE
In Combat Stats window, under protection tab, you can check out your Damage Resistance (DR), Damage Threshold (DT) and Damage Reduction (the number in parenthesis listed next to DR/DT) for each damage type. In short:

• DR - comes from armor. Higher is better. Mechanical damage DR is capped at 95%. Which means only 5% of mechanical damage will be dealt.
• DT - comes from armor. Higher is better. Subtracts a flat amount from damage dealt.
• Damage Reduction - comes from feats, consumables and gear. Lower is better. This is a multiplier, so a 30% Damage Reduction means that incoming damage will be reduced to 30%.
• When calculating damage dealt, either DR or DT will be used, depending on which offers more protection. Damage Reduction is applied afterwards.
• There are attacks and abilities which partially bypass or ignore DR and DT. For example, W2C ammo ignores 65% of mechanical DR/DT and Neural Overload ignores Electrical DR/DT completely.
• There aren't any attacks that bypass or ignore Damage Reduction. However, Damage Reduction can be modified by some status effects, such as Leper poison, which directly increases mechanical Damage Reduction, thus increases damage received.

So, let's stack the shit out of DR/DT and Damage Reduction to see how it holds up under fire.
 
IMPREVIOUS
I do not like metal armor. It sucks ass. It inflicts high penalties to Movement Points and Stealth, it's heavy and expensive to make. BUT. It does one thing spectacularly - protect against damage. And with no mobility whatsoever, protection we will need.
The primary set of metal armor consists of:

• A triple reinforced, tungsten metal armor with a Regenerative Vest.
• A tungsten metal helmet with a regular, non-shaded visor for extra protection from critical hits.
• Reinforced tungsten metal boots.

Tungsten metal armor easily nets you 95% DR and by lategame, over 60 DT, against mechanical damage. Being highly resistant to mechanical damage makes survival much easier - it is the most common damage type in the game after all. Tungsten also provides great heat DR (+70%) and okay energy DR (~40%).
 
A secondary set of metal armor should be made from either Tichrome or Super Steel and will be used when fighting robot enemies. Tichrome and Super Steel provide excellent protection against damage types commonly dealt by robots at the cost of lower protection against mechanical damage.
 
INDESTRUCTABLE
Now on Damage Reduction and why it's good. Remember how I said that mechanical DR is capped at 95%? Well, those 5% can hurt quite a lot.

When a Naga Protector is clobbering you for 700 damage per hit, twice a turn, that's 70 damage per turn. And if there's 4 Naga Protectors on your ass, then you're getting pounded for 280 damage per turn. That hurts.
In cases such as these, Damage Reduction saves the day. Mushroom brew, Aegis, Heavy lifting belt and specced Conditioning with 18 CON bring mechanical Damage Reduction down to 42%. Thus 280 damage is down to ~120 damage per turn. Now that is a lot more manageable.

Damage Reduction is also godsent when facing Though Controllers. They have a nasty habit of casting Neural Overload and Bilocation, both of which deal electrical damage and ignore DR/DT. Hurt like hell too, especially Bilocation. To help with that, at level 26, pick up Tempered: Electricity for a 30% Reduction against electrical damage. So, the next time you see a Lunatic cast Bilocation, pop a Morphine - together with Aegis and Tempered: Electricity you'll only receive 5% of Bilocation damage. Hard drugs DO protect against your inner demons.
Here's what it looks in practice: https://i.imgur.com/1OSPO2u.jpg
 
IMPOTENT
This build deals shit damage. With all those stat points, feats and skill points going into defense, there's not much left for offense. Can't use melee or ranged weapons due to appropriate stats being so low. Psi is out of the question too, as it reduces HP by 20%. The only things that are left are Grenades, Caltrops and Mines. Neither scale off stats and skills and require minimal feat investment to be effective.

• Grenades. Throwing only raises the accuracy with which you can throw a grenade. Three-Pointer gives grenades a critical chance and raises it depending on effective throwing, but with 7 (6) DEX it's not gonna be much. It's a testament of how powerful grenades are, when they can carry a build with barely any other means of offense.
• Poisonous Caltrops succeed where grenades do not. Evasion reduces grenade AoE damage by up to 85%, but there's no evading Caltrops or Poison. Thus, they're very effective against Evasive enemies. Plus, even if you remain stationary, enemy AI likes to bob in and out of LoS with their spare MP, accumulating poison stacks and suffering mechanical damage.
• Quick Tinkering is the only reason this build uses mines. Grenades on cooldown? Melee enemies closing in? Set a mine next to yourself and walk over it. I'd call that suicidal, if not for the fact that Mk. V frag mine barely tickles this build through all the armor.

By the way, to wear tungsten metal armor without AP penalties, you need to have an effective strength score of 9. With mushroom brew, this build has 8. But since throwing a grenade costs 15 AP and using a consumable is 10 AP, I'm perfectly fine with that.
 
INEVITABLE
How does having high defenses, massive HP and lots of healing, combined with low damage output plays in practice? Slowly, that's how. Nearly every single combat encounter is a drawn-out battle of attrition, in which you win by out-surviving the enemy.

• Heavy armor and stacked Damage Reduction make every point of HP very valuable. With 95% DR and 43% Damage Reduction, enemies must output over 4600 mechanical damage to deal 100 mechanical damage to your HP. Four thousand six hundred points of damage. Just to deal under 10% of your HP.
• Any healing you receive is similarly valuable. Once Regenerative Vest kicks in, it usually takes enemies several turns to deal the damage you've just healed back. Oh, and remember that 120 damage that the 4 Naga Protectors can deal in a turn? You heal back 77 of that each turn. Effectively, that's just 43 damage a turn.
• There's a panic button too - Morphine. Together with all other bonuses to Damage Reduction, you become totally immune to mechanical damage for 3 turns. That's 230 HP from the Regenerative Vest. Plus, the after-effect of Morphine gets cut in half by Damage Reduction, as it's mechanical damage.
• Poison immunity! And immunity to damage from Hypertoxicity. Irongut, Canned Mushrooms and Aegis provides total immunity to bio damage. Not exclusive to this build, but a nice addition when facing certain enemies. Made the fight with Black Crawler interesting as both of us could barely damage each other
• Of the psionic enemies, only Though Controllers and psi crabs pose any danger. The rest don't deal enough damage.
• Thick Skull protects against stuns.
• -10% chance to get crit.

There's more to say about this build and how it dealt with various combat encounters, it's weaknesses and the obstacles it faced at different stages of the game and how I overcame them, but this post is long enough as it is.
 
To sum it all up - it was a very interesting experience. I mostly play glass cannons and glass cannon derivatives and this build sits at the extreme opposite end of the build spectrum. I haven't brought this build to completion yet. DC is tedious enough, without having to go through it with a slow-ass tank. Maybe one day. Tchort will be interesting.
 
Screenshots:
No videos because most battles are just me standing still and lobbing grenades at enemies. Doesn't make for very exciting viewing.

Magnar status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/CLE97RX.jpg
I'd surround myself with weaker enemies which I'd keep alive to prevent Magnar from coming closer while he died of gas, caltrops and molotovs.
 
Ornstein status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/gQ1XMub.jpg
I don't remember his name. The shaman boss. Gas, caltrops and molotovs. If he lands a double Bilocation, it's game over.
 
Fort Apogee status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/fOyRPEY.jpg
The way to tank this is not to kill the soldiers until the Dreadnaughts are destroyed. The soldiers are quicker and form a traffic jam in the corridor, bodyblocking the Dreads. So, I just let the soldiers fire at me turn after turn after turn, while I threw grenades at Dreadnaughts.
 
4 Naga status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/70qmrH6.jpg
Pain.
 
Beach invasion No. 1 status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/RRMCzhr.jpg
Beach invasion No. 2 status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/po40h26.jpg
Beach invasion No. 3 status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/orb3jcF.jpg
Beach invasion No. 4 status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/Mlx1cKI.jpg
Beach invasion No. 5 status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/6lWNSZ0.jpg
Supposedly there are over 60 Natives in the 5-th invasion.
No sec troopers died in any of the invasions. My reward for tanking all the damage for them? This one speech bubble: https://i.imgur.com/esn9lbR.jpg
Fuck Aegis.
 
Black Crawler status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/b2wzizm.jpg
My grenades couldn't damage it as it has very high evasion, so a lot of AoE damage gets resisted and whatever damage I did do was regenerated. However, it can't damage me either - I'm immune to bio damage and outheal his mechanical damage. Molotovs and gas saved the day.
 
Grey Army base status: TANK'D
First area: https://i.imgur.com/xONI85Z.jpg
Second area: https://i.imgur.com/NtbofwX.jpg
The second area was the single longest fight in the game for this build. Holy hell it took a long time.

Every single fight with Burrowers. - https://i.imgur.com/dqdweH7.jpg

Lunatic Mall, first floor status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/rD7dHLb.jpg
Lunatic Mall, second floor status: TANK'D - https://i.imgur.com/OmNx4FN.jpg

The build:
https://underrail.info/build/?HgcHAxADAwcAwqAAAB4AAFhZAEdpbFNTTgAAAAAAAFJQCGMWVT4vDignME4bwoNxwrJz4p2gBeKosArfvw
Don't play this.

14

Builds / Timeless - Temporal Manipulation psi build, with Dodge/Evasion on Dominating

« on: December 07, 2020, 12:51:34 pm »

Imagine a smelly, damp latrine of an army base, deep underground. Chunks of sickly green paint are peeling off walls and its floors are covered with moldy, time stained tiles. One side is lined with toilet booths and there are pissoirs placed next to a couple of sinks on the opposite side.

It’s pitch black _{(penalty to chance to hit with ranged weapons)} and there’s a lanky dude _{(Nimble: +15% bonus to Dodge/Evasion)} in the corner booth. He is high as a kite _{(Jumping Bean and Adrenaline Shot: +25% and +30% bonus to Dodge/Evasion)}, clad in slimy, green gimp suit _{(Infused Greater Siphoner Leather Armor + Tabi Boots: +120 total to Dodge/Evasion)} and armed with a pair of garish red boxing gloves _{(Boxing Gloves: +15% bonus to Dodge).} Like a deranged ballerina, he is dancing on the rims of a toilet seat - evading every shot _{(Evasive Maneuvers)} and dodging every blow _{(Uncanny Dodge)} with uncanny finesse _{(Precognition: chance to dodge/evade increased by ~35%)}. His outline is fuzzy _{(Personal Cloaking Field: bonus to Evasion)}, blending in with the surrounding walls.

Facing him is a contingent of soldiers. Covered in sticky glitter _{(Chemhaze Grenade: reduces chance to hit with ranged attacks by up to 35% and melee attacks by up to 15%)}, they are scared shitless by his autistic screeching _{(Yell: reduces offensive skills by up to 122)}.

The floor here is covered with bodies of dead soldiers, twisted and torn apart by fucky time magic _{(Temporal Distortion)}. And with each kill, it spread further out on its next victims _{(Continuum Ripple)}, seemingly without end.

https://i.imgur.com/6o6Zd22.jpg
This is the end result of a Temporal Manipulation-only psi build, using dodge and evasion, on Dominating.

A Question of Time
That said, Dodge/Evasion are a bit shit tbh. Especially on Dominating. Enemies get a sizable bonus to their offensive skills, which means they’re much more likely to hit. To avoid the “getting hit” part, your Evasion must be twice and Dodge - trice the attackers. Ouch.
Evasion is also soft-capped at minimum of 40% thc. This can be reduced down to the 10% hard-cap by other means. Dodge can reach the 10% hard-cap from skill alone.
Unfortunately, this 10% is THE hard-cap for both Dodge and Evasion. No amount of self-buffs and enemy debuffs will make the thc go lower. This is non-negotiable.
So, no matter how much you invest into fancy gear or raise your effective dodge/evasion scores or throw debufs at enemies, eventually... you’ll get hit.

Saving Time
And this build really, really does not want to get hit. To deal damage it heavily relies on Tranquility AP cost reduction of psi abilities. This only works when at full HP and any damage removes its effect.
So, to avoid that:

• For ranged attacks - a pair of energy shields: High/High for guns and Low/Low for Crossbows.
• For melee attacks - Uncanny Dodge. Activating this ability causes the next 2 + 1 for 30 effective Dodge melee attacks to miss. And this build has a high effective Dodge. It has a cooldown of 5 turns, but with liberal use of limited Temporal Increment can be reduced to 3-ish.
• Flashbangs and a taser for CC.

In the creative writing exercise, to which I subjected you to at the start of this post, you can find gear and consumables which are used to debuff enemies and to enhance your own dodge/evasion.
Mind you, a psi headband with Magnifying Neuroscopic Filter: Temporal Distortion reduces Dodge by 25%. Too bad, but we need the damage.

Untimely Demise
A rundown on using Temporal Manipulation as a source of damage:
The primary damage dealer is Temporal Distortion.

• It deals Mechanical and Energy damage, while ignoring shields and bypassing 50% damage resistances and threshold.
• It cannot crit.
• Damage is increase by 20% for each Temporal Distortion applied on the target.
• The two damage types it deals is not a single roll divided into two. Instead it is two separate rolls. Each damage type can deal significantly different amounts of damage than the other, depending on the roll.
• When multiple stacks of Temporal Manipulation expire, each rolls damage separately.
• Damage comes after two enemy turns. In other words, after Temporal Distortion is cast, the enemy will have two turns to act and at the end of the second turn, Temporal Distortion will expire and deal damage.

Continuum Ripple is a feat which allows to use Temporal Distortion as an AoE of sorts:

• After Temporal Distortion expires, each stack attempts to spread itself to each enemy within range. The chance of this to happen is 25%. Whether it spreads is determined separately for each enemy. So, if there are 10 enemies within range, each has a 25% chance to get a stack of Temporal Distortion.
• This chance can be raised to 45% with spec points into Continuum Ripple.
• After spreading to another target, the damage of Temporal Distortion stack is reset to base (damage shown in Temporal Distortion tooltip), regardless of what it was on the primary target at the time of expiry.
• If more than one stack of Temporal Distortion spreads to an enemy, the 20% damage bonus is applied for each stack.
• These new stacks can then spread further after expiring 2 turns later.

tl;dr: Temporal Distortion has an unpredictable damage spread, needs to be spammed to deal good damage, has a 2-turn damage delay and is unreliable as an AoE. 6 casts at 90 AP.

Time to go
The 2 turn delay of Temporal Distortion means that unlike other glass cannons, this build cannot simply outkill enemies as they appear within LoS. It needs to survive long enough for Temporal Distortion to do its work. Plus, as this is a single psi school specialist, it also lacks the CC abilities usually available to multi-school psi builds.
Thus Dodge/evasion and TM complement each other well. Dodge/Evasion allows the build to stay unharmed while it spams Temporal Distortion. TM has Precognition which enhances dodge/evasion and Limited Temporal Increment which reduces the CD of Uncanny Dodge. There’s also Stasis. I like Stasis very much; she is my psi-waifu.
Temporal Distortion is also very fun to use. Very different from other damage dealing psi abilities too. Requires planning ahead of time and keeping track of turn order.

Did all the content, didn’t use traps or damage dealing grenades etc. etc.

Screenshots:
Fort Apogee that one time when Temporal Distortion was all the rage:
https://i.imgur.com/U2TvLrl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/JlW0xZX.jpg

Faceless Commander ran out of time:
https://i.imgur.com/YinEdH1.jpg

Tchort, after his time:
https://i.imgur.com/3uBB0Pd.jpg

Praetorian Warehouse mission gave me a hard time:
https://i.imgur.com/Fowcqq5.jpg

The timely death of Oyensorm:
https://i.imgur.com/7U1WIjv.jpg

Video:
Magnar. The single hardest fight for this build. It felt good after I beat him after all that time trying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmGwCjNO_oE

The Build:
https://underrail.info/build/?HgMDCgMDEAgAwokAAMKgwqBkAAAAABRhDC1VAAAAwqAAwqBFJDkrP8KGKkEPZClXwrzCiMKHRHLCt8Kd4rGMCuK5qAXfvw
Feat order up to lvl 8 is set in stone. After that, pick what you think you need most at that time.
No Blitz, because while on paper Blitz seems to be perfect for this kind of build, on average all it provides is at best, a 1,33 cast of Temporal Distortion every now and then. Blitz drains ALL the MP to generate the 20 AP, regardless of how many MP you have at the moment. So the feat is too situational and high maintenance, because you need to ration your MP to be ~60 in order not to waste MP, then you need to have means to regenerate the lost MP (in this case it'd be contraction, sprint and jumping beans), but those means may be on CD or just not enough. MP is probably the strongest means of defense in this game. So, in the end, even if you spec into Blitz, the 20 AP are not worth the 60 MP.

15

Builds / Casino Underrail - a .44 Hammerer build

« on: December 04, 2020, 02:01:12 pm »

The Big Dick option of firearm pistols, .44 Hammer has an absurdly wide damage range and high AP cost. Critical hits sometimes deal less damage than regular hits and a single shot can either destroy an enemy or barely tickle them.
If you like gambling, this weapon is right up your alley. The payoff? Two-shotting a Dreadnaught on Dominating difficulty with one of the weakest weapon types in the game.

To prove that I’m not exaggerating, take a gander at this screenshot. In one turn I managed to score a hit for 358 damage and a hit for 1132 damage. That’s a difference of over three times!
https://i.imgur.com/7TgGkg7.jpg

But let’s not leave everything up to luck. If I’m going to gamble, I’ll be using loaded dice.

An Ace Up My Sleeve
Special Attacks and Special Attack damage bonus. This bonus is applied only when a Special Attack is used. It comes from goggles crafted with Smart Lenses (~40%) and from Smart Module (~60%) attachment on a weapon. Regular attacks get none of it.
Firearm pistols have access to 5 Special Attacks:

• Aimed Shot – a guaranteed critical hit (3 turn CD)
• Kneecap Shot - removes enemy MP and inflicts a DoT (5 turn CD, down to 3 with spec)
• Point Shot - a shot at 50% AP cost with reduced accuracy (1 turn CD)
• Rapid Fire - three shots at 150% AP cost with reduced accuracy (3 turn CD)
• Execute - a short range, high damage attack on Stunned/Incapacitated enemies (5 turn CD, down to 3 with spec)

One problem. All of these have cooldowns. So, let’s try and fix that. With Expedition, we get access to Limited Temporal Increment - a psi power which reduces all active cooldowns by one turn. It too has a cooldown of 3 turns, but Future Oriented reduces its cooldown down to 2 turns.

Put My Money Where My Mouth Is
If rolling dice to determine whether an attack hits or misses, and whether it blows heads off or stubs toes isn’t enough, let’s add more random to the mix. Critical hits. But this time, if I want some of that BIG DMG, I’ll have to work for it.
You see, one of the main sources of critical chance for ranged weapons are goggles made with Seeker Lenses. With up to 18%-20% critical chance from goggles alone, by lategame a lot of glass cannons can comfortably reach over 90% crit chance. But this time, I’m using goggles for special attack damage bonus, and end up missing a good chunk of critical chance.
Enter Steadfast Aim. A feat which adds critical chance based on how much it costs to fire a pistol, and it costs a lot to fire a .44 Hammerer. Trouble is, it has a STR requirement of 5 and it’s not a stat mechanical pistols normally need. This build is also a bit strapped for stat points as it needs 14 DEX for attack AP cost reduction, 9 CON for Survival Instincts (another source of critical chance) and 11 PER for Scrutinous (again, more crit chance).
Thus, with a heavy heart and in the name of gambling, I make it a 3 INT build. A 3 INT build which NEEDS crafting. The things I do for BIG DMG.
That gets me ~85% critical chance. Not bad.

Hedging my bets
.44 Hammerer has a base AP cost of 32. To make use of the Special Attack damage bonus, high critical chance and to shoot as many times as I can to offset low damage rolls and misses due to mediocre Guns skill, I need to reduce it as much as possible.
A Rapid Reloader reduces base AP cost to 26. Dexterity further reduces it down to 18 and Gunslinger leaves it a comfortable 15 AP per shot. At 70 AP per turn with Contraction, that’s 4,5 shots. Point Shot costs x0,5 AP of a regular attack and Rapid Fire - x1,5 AP. It all fits quite nicely.

Sweeten up the pot
With that out of the way, I head over to Fort Apogee and pledge myself to the cause of Protectorate in exchange for a can of gun lube (+10% more damage for 50 shots).
Execute requires Opportunist. A very situational +25% damage bonus, as this build has barely any ways to proc it.
And Ambush to top off critical chance, but it is not necessary and pretty much anything else can be taken instead.

High Roller
All in all, the build had garbage early game. 3 INT on a pistol build is not ideal as it delays crafting a good deal. .44 Hammerers NEED Rapid Reloader and it’s rare to find one as loot or for sale.
But past midgame? Each and every attack is like pulling a lever on a slot machine! Will it hit? Will it crit? How much damage will it do!? Let’s find out in Casino Underrail!

Videos of the build:
Fort Apogee. A gambling addict storms the main base of Protectorate in South Underrail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCe3gPw2qOE

Lunatic Mall. All in one go, no reloads. I have to say that I do not appreciate Lunatics using Molotov Cocktails against me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTOC6KoT2M

The Build:
https://underrail.info/build/?HgUOAwkJAwPCoEQAAAAAwqAAAAAAZ8KHETZ1AAAAwqAAAGcrYjEBFx5bwocmSxFZwogCOsK1wqRQ4p67AuKgvQTip74J378
I played it before the Psi patch. This is the updated version. No MT or PK and maxed TM.
With the exception of The Beast, no damage dealing grenades, traps or smoke bombs past Depot A.
Did all the content – Apogee, native bosses, 4naga, Tchort OTK, Faceless Commander etc.