Messages

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Builds / Re: Does anyone have a full grenade launcher build?

« on: January 20, 2024, 08:54:20 am »

I found that GL does so much damage that you kill yourself even with max evasion and cluster nades. Is this not the cas?

I guess I overlooked mentioning armor choice, sorry about that. Each bomblet deals ~75 mechanical damage and ~75 heat damage after the evasion reduction, so you’ll want to use a low frequency energy shield and maximize mechanic and heat resistance to minimize the damage. A low frequency energy shield can absorb the bulk of the impact, since explosives have a fast impact speed, but you need enough damage to get through so that it isn’t blocked by Heat DT. With Aluminized cloth tabis and siphoner/greater siphoner leather armor you can hit 95%+ heat resistance and about 30% mechanical resistance, and when combined with the shield you should only be taking about 50-80 damage from the cluster bomb detonation.

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Builds / Re: Does anyone have a full grenade launcher build?

« on: January 01, 2024, 08:55:16 pm »

https://underrail.info/build/?HgQDCgUQAwXCoAAAAAAAwqAya3QAAF1dW39dAAAARgAAUyskMTkow6MdR8KHS8Oiw6UmPyfCtcKkwqbipYoB4qeXA-KxlgLjgIIF44CDBN-8
This is a demo man build based around using the thumper, although if you eat a str boosting food and use adrenaline you can wield other grenade launchers. Demoman provides a 50% damage boost at max stacks with specialization, so the objective is to take a ton of explosive damage at the start of combat, use evasion to reduce the damage by 85%, and then reap the rewards of the massively increased damage. The 40mm cluster grenade procs one stack of demo man for each cluster bomb that hits you, so start combat by shooting directly at your feet with the thumper to get 3-5 stacks of demo man, and then with blitz, psycho temporal acceleration, and adrenaline/vit powder you can shoot off 3-4 additional grenades. Since each grenade hits multiple times with each shot, crit chance increases are effectively just bonus damage, so use gear that provides extra crit chance for higher damage. You’ve got pretty high survivability since you’re almost immune to explosive damage and have high mobility to avoid melee enemies. Ranged enemies have at most a 40% chance to hit you thanks to the evasion, but enemies usually have closer to a 10-20% chance to hit due to distance penalties, move and shoot penalties, and darkness penalties. Do not take shell shock on this build, as cluster grenades will debuff you with multiple stacks of shell shock when you shoot yourself.

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Builds / Fusion Cannon Build- The Ultimate Weapon

« on: December 24, 2023, 08:10:33 am »

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”- J. Robert Oppenheimer

Do you ever wish you could just turn off your brain while playing on the hardest difficulty? Do you like big damage numbers? Are you tired of enemies surviving more than a single shot from your build? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then the Fusion Cannon is the perfect weapon for you. This build guide aims to show you how to make the most of this fearsome weapon, allowing you to obliterate anything in your path on even the highest difficulty.

https://underrail.info/build/?HgsFBQMIBQk8wqAAAFoAAFBJXgAAX18KX1AAAAB9AAA8KDErO8Odf8Oew59KwprDolpNKcKHwrRLd-K0lAXivrwF4r-GBd-8

What is the Fusion Cannon?

The Fusion Cannon is a unique heavy weapon found in the new DLC area, the compound. It’s relatively easy to acquire if you know what you’re doing, you just need 100 lockpicking to open the vent at the entrance area, enough stealth to sneak past patrols (~130 should be enough), and enough perception to sneak past the laser tripwires protecting the cannon (8 should be enough).

It’s important to know that there are some unique quirks of the weapon that aren’t covered in the description. The cannon works like the Naga energy attack, dealing damage to everything caught in the blast in the same radius as an HE grenade. Enemies directly hit by the cannon take full damage, while enemies at the edge of the blast radius only take 50% damage. Additionally, if you take the Disassemble feat, you can break down the Fusion Cannon into its components and reassemble it, allowing you to replace the fusion emitter and plasma core. This improves the damage and max energy, and additionally allows you to gain the benefits of the Practical Physicist and Power Management feats. The default version of the Fusion Cannon has an ~q115 fusion emitter, but a crafted emitter can realistically go as high as q160. A q159 emitter will net you 272-350 damage, so it's well worth it to disassemble the cannon and replace the fusion emitter.

What’s the damage?

With 11 effective per at max level you’re looking at 758-976 damage, with 125% crit damage from practical physicist. That’s pretty good, but the Fusion Cannon gets a lot better when you look at the feats that it benefits from. Being a heavy weapon, the Fusion Cannon benefits from Heavy Metal, which provides an 130% damage increase with full damage spec and Iron Head/95% Armor/Reinforced Tungsten Boots. On top of that, it also benefits from High Technicalities, which with spec at 13 int provides an additional 80% damage boost. Tricky Trajectory also applies, for a 10% damage boost and 30% evasion ignore. The cherry on top is Bullet Trance, which provides an extra 50% damage when specced once you reach max stacks. With a crit, max damage roll, and all the relevant drugs the highest damage you could get with this build would be 14,675 damage (350 base * 3.72 skill damage modifier *1.5 Crit * 2.3 Heavy Metal *1.8 High Technicalities *1.1 Tricky Trajectory * 1.5 Bullet Trance * 1.1 Serial Killer/Beast Tattoo). Except that number is incorrect. On a test run of this build (15 int version, no serial killer, no bullet trance, q152 cannon) I was able to achieve a damage roll of 25936. I believe that the Fusion Cannon has a hidden damage modifier on attacks, although some theorize that the High Technicalities scaling on the weapon may be broken. Regardless, now that Bullet Trance works with the Fusion Cannon, you should be able to deal upwards of 30k damage crits with high quality parts.

Gear

Gear for this build is somewhat complex, you’ll need to use specific gear to mitigate the fragility of having 3 con/ make the most of Heavy Metal.

Weapons

• Sledgehammer- Only used in the early and midgame before we get the Fusion Cannon, helps mitigate the high ammo costs of using heavy weapons and provides a quieter alternative than a machine gun burst.
• Refurbished N60 The Warthog- We want a 35 ap LMG for when we have fatigue/temporal dilation, and the Warthog is our best option. It has cheap and common ammo, which makes it preferable to crafted LMGs, and will mainly be used when we get cornered/surrounded and can’t safely fire the Fusion Cannon.
• Fusion Cannon- We can get this as early as level 15, once we reach 100 effective lockpicking with the Jackknife and Eel sandwich. The main weakness of the weapon (apart from the crippling vulnerability to EMP grenades) is the close quarters penalty, if the weapon misfires and you get caught in the blast you’re dead. With Strafe and Contraction you can escape melee range and cook your pursuers, so ensure that you don’t get cornered or surrounded. We take 135 ™ to reduce the chance of a backfire, so on the first turn of combat cast Contraction and try to save 10 ap. On the second turn of combat you can pop adrenaline to reach 100 ap, allowing you to fire two Fusion Cannon blasts in a single turn. Also, carry lots of electronic repair kits, durability loss is based on damage, and since you do such massive overkill you usually need 1-2 repair kits after every fight.

Crafting high quality fusion emitters is a real pain in the ass, since quality is determined by the lowest quality component from the five component parts; laser emitter, electroshock generator, circular wave emitter, electromagnetic field stabilizer, and high efficiency energy converter. I recommend hoarding ~q120 parts so you can reassemble the cannon to benefit from power management and practical physicist, and then hoarding ~q150 parts to make an endgame cannon. If you aren’t using merchant refresh, you can’t realistically craft an emitter above ~q152. Don’t bother waiting until the Deep Caverns to craft your cannon, you’ll probably only find 1-2 relevant high quality parts.

Armor

Helmets

• Iron Head- This is the highest armor penalty helmet available, although it’s shit defensively. Not worth it at later levels once you’ve crafted a good helmet unless you really want the highest damage possible.
• Solid Padded Super Steel Helmet- Your best option for headgear, gives flashbang immunity while providing some crit reduction and extra resistances. The penalty loss from Iron Head doesn’t matter, you’ll still deal more than enough damage with Heavy Metal if you wear Metal Armor.

Armor Suit

• Sturdy Super Steel Armor w/ Tichrome Reinforcement- Sturdy vest is by far the best vest here, a high quality vest is an ~75% hp boost at high levels and an even bigger boost at lower levels. To put things in perspective, at level 30 on Dominating a 3 con psi character with a q160 sturdy vest has 376 hp, the same as an 8 con psi character without the vest. You should always use Super Steel as the base material due to the vastly superior mechanical resistance, but that benefit doesn’t matter once you reach the 95% mechanical resistance cap from your helmet/armor/boots. Q170 super steel has the same energy resistance as q150 TiChrome but much worse heat resistance, so once you reach the mechanical resistance cap you should use a combination of TiChrome/ Super Steel Plates to maximize your resistances to heat and energy damage. Tichrome also provides 1% more armor penalty over Super Steel when reinforcing, so if you want a 95% penalty suit you’ll need 3 TiChrome plates for reinforcement. High quality TiChrome is a real pain in the ass to get, since your only options are the Waterway facility and Deep Caverns, so just use the q150 plates Leonie sells sometimes.
• Biohazard Quad Plate Tungsten Armor- This is the best option for some parts of Expedition. It’s high enough mechanical DT to block all damage from leper serpents, and the Bio DT from a good vest makes you immune to Locusts and very resistant to heartbreaker spit when combined with a gas mask and biohazard boots.

Boots

• Reinforced Tungsten Boots w/ Solid Padding- Normally your best option for maximizing penalty on boots, only worth it if you really need the extra damage.
• Undersized Buckle Shoes- Only available from the Saint Patrick’s Day seasonal event, they’ve got 22% more penalty than reinforced Tungsten at the cost of having basically no defensive benefit. Not worth it unless you want the highest damage possible from Heavy Metal.
• Reinforced TiChrome Boots- With high quality plates you can reach 95% mechanical resistance with a combo of super steel and TiChrome gear. Boots provide about twice the resistances as Helmets of the same material, so it’s better to use Ti boots over SS boots. In my playthrough I reached 95% Mechanical DR, 68% Heat DR, and 99% Energy DR with the SS Helmet/ SS/Ti Reinforced Armor/ Ti Boots, although I never got lucky with finding any q150+ Tichrome.

Gameplay

You shoot enemies, they die, they shoot you, you don’t die. Simple as. You play as a featless hammer build in the early game, an LMG build post depot A but before you reach level 15, and then become a walking WMD once you get the Fusion Cannon. The Fusion Cannon produces noise at the center of the explosion, so what will frequently happen is everyone caught in the explosion dies, combat ends due to a lack of enemies, and then everyone else in the zone congregates where the explosion landed, setting you up for another obliteration. At level 25+ nothing can withstand your blasts, but before then there’s a few enemies on Dominating who can give you trouble:

• Sea Wyrms- While submerged they have 50% resistance to all damage and +300 evasion, which makes them evade 67.5% of area damage when accounting for tricky trajectory, giving them an effective hp of ~3785.
• Naga Protector- Boasting an impressive 1.5k hp, 50% electric resistance, and 80% energy resistance, these are the toughest basic enemies to deal with, having an effective hp of ~4286. In the quad Naga fight in particular they can survive blasts if they get clipped by the edge of the explosion.
• Final Boss- The final boss has 8k hp and 65% resistances, giving him an effective hp of ~17,778. Pretty impressive, but fairly easy to oneshot since you can build up Bullet Trance stacks by killing minions.
• Carnifex/Magnar- While under adrenaline Carnifex meets the evasion cap even with Tricky Trajectory, and thanks to his 20% electric resistance his effective hp is ~20534. Magnar is a similar story, although he’s slightly weaker due to his lack of electric resistance. Magnar’s ghost is also quite tanky, he’s got ~60% resistance to the damage on top of high evasion but has significantly less hp than his base form.
• Master Skull Smasher- Probably the only enemy that you’ll have trouble oneshotting. His blast suit and resistances grant him ~90% damage reduction against the Fusion Cannon, and on top of that he’s got ~5% evasion, turning his already impressive base hp of 2360 into an effective hp of ~25813.

Conclusion

The Fusion Cannon is an absolutely insane weapon and has some of the highest damage possible in the game. While a plasma pistol crit execute with the proper special attack damage boosts could potentially deal more single target damage, the Fusion Cannon certainly blows all other weapons out of the water with its overwhelming damage and ease of use. Any build with investment in heavy guns should consider using the Fusion Cannon, as just the base weapon with the Heavy Metal feat is enough to one shot all but the toughest enemies. Despite its drawbacks, I firmly believe that the Fusion Cannon is the best weapon in the game.

Merry Christmas!

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General / Re: High quality Fusion Cannon - stats and couple test shots

« on: November 28, 2023, 07:09:50 pm »

Yeah, the fusion cannon can get some insane damage, I had a q152 fusion cannon with Specced Heavy Metal, Specced Tricky Trajectory, and Specced High Technicalities, and was able to deal 26k damage on a crit once I was buffed up with all the relevant drugs. For some reason the cannon deals more damage than it should, there must be a hidden damage multiplier or a boost may be applying in a weird way. The cannon also seems to have falloff damage the farther away enemies are from the center of the blast, up to 50% at the very edge.

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Builds / Re: Psychosis Cryokinetic/Electrokinetic/Temporal Theorycrafting

« on: November 18, 2023, 05:07:00 am »

I’d recommend going with a metathermics headband and a separate psychokinesis headband over a uni-psi headband, you’ll get greater psi cost reduction that way and you can swap headbands depending on the enemies you are facing. A magnifying filter+ amplifier headband for cryo orb is really nice, using mania and premed to start off combat with a crit cryo orb will generally kill any normal enemy hit by a shard and can obliterate bosses if they don’t have high mechanical and cold resistance. Personally I don’t really like electrokinesis on psychosis builds since it costs 30 ap per cast, so you’ll need an ap boost or ap carryover to cast more than 1 per turn. TK punch may be a better option since it also stuns and only costs 10 ap. Overall the build looks fine, although I’d sink some neural overclocking spec points into stoicism since you can max out damage reduction with Aegis+specced Stoicism+Morphine/Nervosomnifer.

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General / Re: LMG gameplay feels unsatisfying

« on: November 14, 2023, 07:00:41 pm »

...
- Best AP to damage ratio in whole game, bar none. You can get 80+ damage per non-crit bullet at lvl 10, and shoot 11-13 of them at lvl 10. With 80%+ accuracy. For 25 AP. This means you can deal 2K damage per turn, without any AP boosts at lvl 10. No other weapon type can match that. And you scale well from that as well in the end game.
...

This is not true. Best AP to non-crit damage ratio was, and still is, an SMG build (while best AP to crit damage is, of course, crafted energy pistols with their insane crit damage bonus when min-maxed for it).

LMGs have better damage than SMGs. A Muzzled Ratchet cost 25 ap to fire and shoots 15 9mm bullets per burst with Full auto, Mag Dump, and Mag Dump Spec. With Specced Heavy metal you turn 75% of armor penalty into damage, the max armor penalty you can get is 173, so you get a ~130% damage increase for your heavy guns. You will generally kill the majority of enemies in 1-2 bullets with that much damage, but against tanker foes like dreadnoughts or nagas you have concentrated fire for an even larger damage boost. Specced Bullet trance damage gives a 10% damage boost per kill up to a max of a 50% damage boost after 5 kills. You get less bursts and less bullets than an SMG, but in exchange each bullet deals tremendously more damage. You’re both wrong in what the best ap to damage ratio is though, Fusion cannon beats both LMGs and SMGs because it benefits from extremely high base damage, heavy metal, high technicalities, tricky trajectory, and deals damage types that are rarely resisted.

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Builds / Re: General Build Guide for Heavy Duty DLC (Minor Spoilers)

« on: November 14, 2023, 04:20:22 pm »

I've recently finished the DLC story and now am curious, what is the new encounter which is harder than 4 Naga and unbeatable with it's secret version?

Is it tied to a difficulty? So far I haven't found it, maybe I've missed it. Judging from what I've seen, it doesn't look like part of the ending to the DLC (both versions). Same for the return journey. Nor is it the new roaming gang.

In the Compound, only one place resembles a training killhouse arena, which may fit the description, as there is zero cover and it's the only place Stasis makes sense. It's where you can call in a certain amount of enemies, but I've killed Cognator before I got to it, so when I activated the console, zero enemies appeared. I did play on Easy and speedran the DLC, so that may be a factor also.

Yeah, it’s the training room, when activating the console you’ll get 3-4 squads of soldiers depending on the options chosen, activating all quadrants spawns 4 squads of 6 soldiers which include 2 intercessors and 3 technomedics. If you kill all the soldiers in the compound (amount depends on difficulty) they won’t spawn. If you do it before killing cognator all of the soldiers will have 4 stacks of the buff. The secret version is if you kill too many patrols, where all of the enemies in the encounter are replaced with psychophracts, who have extremely high damage psi abilities.

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Bugs / Intercessor Armor Incorrect Resistances

« on: November 04, 2023, 04:24:21 am »

The new Intercessor Armor says it only giver 20% mechanical resistance and 10 threshold in the item description, but when equipped actually gives 50% mechanical resistance and 20 threshold.

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Builds / Re: General Build Guide for Heavy Duty DLC (Minor Spoilers)

« on: November 03, 2023, 02:02:40 am »

I'm thinking of running 10 str, 3 dex/agi, 6 con, 8 per, 5 will, 5 int. So far for skills I got Heavy Guns, Melee, Hacking, Mechanics, Tailoring, TM, Intimidation. Gonna have to do a dummy playthrough to figure this out I suppose, maybe I'm spreading myself too thin. Or maybe I should pick up Psychokinesis. Maybe drop melee? Who knows

That's a good starting point, I'd first go to 11 str for brute aim then sink the rest of the ability score increases into perception. You could also go 3 con instead of 6 con, on Hard or Dominating difficulty you only lose out on 120 hp at max level, which you can mitigate with a high quality sturdy vest. I'd say gunners high is only worth it if you plan on using a stoicism damage reduction build, otherwise you're normally either above the hp threshold or dead. Crafting requirements can go up to 200+ mechanics for high end miniguns, so I recommend 7 int if you plan on crafting them, and you could sink that final remaining stat point into more per.

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Builds / Re: General Build Guide for Heavy Duty DLC (Minor Spoilers)

« on: November 01, 2023, 02:19:55 pm »

I had a gut feeling you'd say 0%, yep.

I love me a challenge. It'd sure take a fairly long while even if possible, ofc. You probably know Tchort was beaten with at least as low as level 6 character on Dominating, which gives some perspective on what can be done given sufficient effort. So, we'll see about that 0%...

This isn’t like Tchort, with Tchort you can blow up the tanks with stealth and TNT, then slowly whittle him down and retreat to the safe room when necessary. This is 24 elite enemies who can each fire off a ~500 damage Telekinetic punch, among other abilities. Each one has 860 hp and a ~350 shield, giving an effective hp of ~29040, not accounting for resistances. They come at you from all sides and automatically track your location even when stealthed. The arena itself has a huge portion inaccessible to the player until the encounter starts, so you can’t really preemptively set traps, and the terrain is constantly shifting so it’s difficult to break line of sight. Something like a Master Demo belt Crit grenade launcher build could probably beat it, but I’m sure that the vast majority of builds don’t have a chance.

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Builds / Re: General Build Guide for Heavy Duty DLC (Minor Spoilers)

« on: November 01, 2023, 02:04:57 pm »

wow thx, looks terrifying,

Do they also all have thick skull or will i be able to use my favorite cut throat build ?

The grunts don’t have thick skull, but the support unit does.

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Builds / Re: General Build Guide for Heavy Duty DLC (Minor Spoilers)

« on: November 01, 2023, 06:35:07 am »

Interesting.

What would be your estimate for chances to beat that secret encounter with a level 15 sniper / energy pistol build on Dominating? Note, level 15 only because intentionally not levelling up any higher - gear and supplies all top notch, DC and Expedition fully completed, etc.

Probably a 0% chance.

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Builds / General Build Guide for Heavy Duty DLC (Minor Spoilers)

« on: November 01, 2023, 12:00:05 am »

Intro

Hey everybody, ShoggothWhisper here. I had the privilege of beta testing this DLC over the last few weeks, and I wanted to share some build advice so people can plan out their builds. I really liked this DLC in general and all of the new content introduced, but it is some of the hardest content in the game by a wide margin, and if you stroll in unprepared you will be in for a wild ride. This guide is intended for Dominating difficulty, but the information inside is relevant for lower difficulties as well. Minor spoilers inside, so consider yourself warned.
 
How much damage should my build deal?

Think about the strongest common enemy in Expedition. Odds are, you think of the Strongman, right? Those guys have 670 hp on dominating and 70% mechanical resistance, so, not accounting for DT, you’ll need to deal ~2333 mechanical damage in order to kill one. Pretty tanky, right? Well, these new enemies are even more durable. The most common grunt has 720 hp, 40% mechanical resistance, a ~350 capacity shield, and usually has a silly little buff that grants a 40% reduction to all damage. He may or may not also have the conditioning feat, but even if he doesn’t you’ll still need to deal ~2350 mechanical damage to kill one. These guys also have 15% heat resistance, 35% energy resistance, and 50% bio resistance from their armor, so keep that in mind. They spawn in packs of 6 guys on Dominating, and if you don’t kill them fast enough additional reinforcements will arrive. The best damage types to use against them are Heat, Cold, Acid, and Electricity, so the best weapons to use against these guys are Hammers, Chem Pistols, Grenade Launchers, LMGs, Miniguns, and TC/MT psionics.

How do I defend against these new enemies?

The new enemies primarily use firearms, energy pistols, and grenades, and offensively could be considered stronger and more interesting versions of the Muties at the Waterway dungeon. The silly little buff that grants 40% damage reduction also grants a 40% increase to all combat skills and a 40% reduction to weapon AP cost, so these goofballs hit harder, better, faster, and stronger than anything else you’ve faced thus far. They are also incredibly fast, having what feels like a base 30MP and the sprint feat, so you can’t really hide behind cover to protect yourself. On top of all that, they have 26 initiative, which is only 3 less than Carnifex. I recommend a Sturdy Kevlar Tac Vest with a super steel sheet, or Sturdy TiChrome/Super Steel metal armor if you can meet the Str requirement. If you don’t have high evasion, I also recommend blast tabis and a blast balaclava since the grenade launcher enemies are extremely dangerous. I don’t recommend going over 50% armor penalty, since there are some TC enemies that can cook you with the classic MB+ Bilocation combo.

Conclusion

This DLC will push you to your absolute limits when it comes to building and crafting. It’s recommended that you start this DLC at level 20, but I actually recommend you wait until level 26 and have all of your best gear crafted/obtained. There's a new encounter that’s harder than the Quad Nagas fight, and a secret version of that fight that’s even harder. I’ve only seen people beat the normal version with Stasis abuse, and as far as I’m aware nobody in the beta test was able to beat the secret version. Best of luck to everyone in the new DLC, I can’t wait to see what builds people cook up with the new content.

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Builds / Re: Ultimate Fishing Build- Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me

« on: October 21, 2023, 05:18:46 am »

Do you remember the early stat distribution and any tips for early combat when you don’t have the glove yet?

The early stat distribution is just starting with 10 dex and putting each stat increase into dex. The tip for early game combat is just to throw knives until enemies die, or throw grenades if an encounter is particularly difficult. The only complicated part of this build is the gearing.

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Builds / Re: Ultimate Fishing Build- Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me

« on: October 16, 2023, 07:31:17 pm »

This build just begs for maxed Temporal Manipulation, not even for usual meta contraction/lti/stasis combo, but for distortions against armored/robotic targets. Paired with distortions headband it will turn exploring NFT ruins into cakewalk.

I’m not a fan of psi for this build due to the health penalty, the -20% can put you into range to get one-shot by enemy snipers. 3 will TM is not worth it to send off some shitty distortions, and the ap boost from contraction is only a 16-21% ap increase overall. The super steel helmet is much more useful than a psi headband due to the resistances and crit reduction. None of the armored organic enemies have high heat resistance, energy resistance, or evasion, so plasma grenades are more than enough to take care of them. EMP MK3 grenades can obliterate every robot short of Nagas if you strap a couple to your demo belt and activate them all at once. I’m not going to waste 160 skill points and wait around 2 turns for temporal distortion to activate when I could just detonate my belt and solve the problem immediately.