Messages

121

General / Re: Does The Claw and Taste for Blood Feat damage bonus stack?

« on: January 11, 2016, 03:59:32 pm »

Yes, the Claw gives you a 35% chance to cause a bleeding wound on hit so it will work for the purpose of Taste for Blood and will stack with any other melee related bleeding source. The second on hit effect is 35% to cause a contamination debuff (10% extra damage - stacks up to 20 (!)times) which is not the same as bleeding and is also not to be confused with infected wound that is related to bleeding caused by the Vile Weaponry feat.

As a good alternative there is the Ripper's glove. It has a 3 times 25% chance to cause a bleeding wound. How much is that? You can calculate like this: there is a 75% chance NOT to cause bleeding and you multiply it by 3:
0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 = 0.42 chance NOT to cause bleeding, or in other way, it's a 58% chance to make a bleeding wound on every hit. That's much better than 35% of the Claw but it doesn't have the contatination chance.

So which one is better depends mostly on how many enemies you're battling and the rest of your gear. If you don't use metal armor with serrated blades or bladed boots for additional chance to cause bleeding and are against thrash mobs that won't last long anyway, than the Ripper's glove is probably better as it will allow you to stack Taste for Blood much faster. In all other cases and against really tough opponents the Claw wins when it comes to total debuffs.

I wouldn't put them in both weapon slots at the same time though. You need one weapon for the debufs, and the other for damage. Works extermly well for hybrids like strength based sledgehammer builds who also have 8-10 dexterity and important unarmed feats like Lightning Punches, Wrestling and Combo. Soften em up with the ripper's glove, possibly stun and cause mayhem with the sledgehammer. I play one right now and it's one of my strongest playthroughs.

122

General / Re: Unknown Insignia

« on: January 10, 2016, 08:39:08 pm »

I'd tell you that, but then I'd have to kill you.

123

General / Re: Critique My Psychokinetic Sniper/SMG Guy

« on: January 08, 2016, 01:13:42 am »

Con 3, no dodge, leather armor, psi (-25% max hp) - a pretty suicidal build if you ask me.
You'd do better to move those +4 points from dex to con, and use AR instead of SMG (yes you can burst twice with a 7.62mm Hornet if you use the rapid reloader mod). You can then replace Spec Ops with Concentrated Fire. You don't need chemistry for 7.62mm micro-shrapnel rounds and your sniper of choice should be 7.62 as well - Spearhead with a rapid reloader for 24 AP per shot.

There is a long way till infused leather and pig would be better than rathound in your case. It would actually be best stop at 8 str (what did you plan 9 for anyway?) and use a metal armor made via Armor Sloping. With a bit of luck you'll get a sturdy vest for lots of extra hitpoints you'll badly need as a psiker.

Interloper is not that bad for ranged stealth builds but you don't really need it as much as a melee fighter would because you want to keep your distance and dont need to worry much about how fast you sneak. Your stealth is mainly for the Snipe and 15 MP recovery doesn't make that much of a difference, Sprint should be enough for you anyway. By replacing Interloper you can also put that one extra point from agility into either con or perception and leave it at 6. Note that Hit and Run is currently bugged and doesn't work for attacks made from stealth.
By the way, every attack that is not standard (meaning it has it own ability in the quick invoker) counts as "special attack" and will be affected by the smart module.

Also I'd drop Psychokinesis all down to 45, just enough to qualify for Electrokinetic Imprint. You figured it out yourself that your psi is for crowd control and not damage dealing. With 3 will investing in max Psychokinesis is not optimal.
Honestly, I'd dump psi here alltogether but that's just me. Dipping into it is more suited for an unarmed or knife fighter IMO. Why? They synergize better with it and your main attacks (burst, sniper shots) are very AP costly. You will not always be able to use Electrokinesis for 25 AP or less (so you can use those attacks afterwards). There is also another problem. The faster your psi attacks (Premeditation, Tranquility, psi tactical vest), the faster will you also deplete your psi points pool. Your psi regeneration is pretty mediocre with 9 points per round. Electrokinesis is not really economical. I would certainly advise you to do some maths on how you could expect your psi points pool to behave after several rounds.

I'd also lower both hacking and lockpicking to effective 100, including Huxkey and the Jackknife. Being a completionist sucks big time if it forces you to give up alot of defense... just to loot a few extra containers here and there. Anyway that would give you enough saved points to max dodge and have an easier time distributing the crafting skills.

124

Suggestions / Re: Touch Typing feat

« on: January 07, 2016, 06:36:01 pm »

Yes please, we don't have enough useless feats in the game already.

125

Bugs / Re: Frame rate issues in Core City

« on: January 07, 2016, 05:31:41 pm »

I have a HD Graphics 4000 and the same issues so I simply play on the dedicated GTX 660m and use Nvidia Inspector to downclock the core from 950 mhz to 500. Laptop stays somewhat cooler than on stock clock and I still have steady 60 fps.

Those integrated cards are so useless. The only game I use it for is Jagged Alliance 2.

126

General / Re: alternative map

« on: January 07, 2016, 06:28:59 am »

Outstanding work, and I'm glad that you placed north to the right. Like in most isometric games the tiles are not angled by 45 degrees but more like 40, which makes north closer to the horizontal than vertical alignment.

127

General / Re: SMG build questions

« on: January 06, 2016, 02:59:04 pm »

Rapid Fire is amazing for SMG builds

It's very good for pistols but it's pretty much a waste for SMGs. 3 shots for 150% AP is mediocre compared to 9 shots bursts for 200% AP. That makes a max burst 2.25 times stronger when it comes to damage per AP point. It also has reduced precission and it's even greater than that of a burst attack if you're more than 3 tiles away from the target. Also the 2 round cooldown makes it too unreliable.

Just look at the math (assuming you have SMGs in both slots and thus don't need to reload in the same round):
16 AP burst can be used 3 times - 2 AP left - no Rapid Fire possible.
14 AP burst can be used 3 times - 8 AP left - no Rapid Fire possible.
12 AP burst can be used 4 times - 2 AP left - no Rapid Fire possible.
10 AP burst can be used 5 times - 0 AP left - no Rapid Fire possible.

It can be useful in situations like when you throw a grenade, have 35 AP left and can't fit 12 AP bursts for 3 times or when you reload and you don't have enough AP to burst once more but IMO that's not good enough.

128

General / Re: Whatever you say, pops

« on: January 06, 2016, 12:09:54 pm »

Yep, one of the funniest scenes. However I would love it if there were various skill checks in conversations, like the two Fallout games had them. In this case a dodge check where you could at least attempt to avoid getting hit. Heck, even if he'd hit you 100% of the time it would be awesome just to have it.

Isn't there such a check when you try to resist the psionic mind invasion when you ask to learn from Ezra? After that there was an option where you could go for your weapon and that would trigger combat... lol.

129

General / Re: SMG build questions

« on: January 06, 2016, 08:33:42 am »

For a Crafted SMG build, Full auto just wastes more AP on reloading, not to mention bullets!

Weather or not it's worth to put extra 4 points into str for Full Auto for SMGs depends on several factors like if you alrady plan to use the muzzle break (5->7 shots is 40% increase compared to 7->9 which is only 28%), as well as clipsize vs bullets in a burst vs total burst attacks, but also if you can afford lower perception and thus less accuracy. That last factor is pretty significant so my favorite SMG build is actually an unarmed brawler hybrid where just like dex, 7 str synergizes very well.

The major weakness of SMGs is their puny base damage. It helps a bit to take a higher caliber but it will make you burst too few times or require a lot of dex. A low caliber like 5mm gives you many rounds to fire but even with expertise it will often only tickle high DT enemies. So it's of a huge advantage if you can overcome enemy DT with melee debuffs and then use the SMG to do the damage.
Expose weakness (-50% DT), Vile Weaponry (up to extra 30% damage), Bone Breaker (up to extra 50% damage) and Opportunist (+25% damage on stunned), and because stun negates evasion the following 2 full burst attacks will all hit and make out any mobile fortress swish cheese. Not to mention the exceptional crowd control and debuffs stacks because of Combo, Cheap Shots, Wrestling (Tackle) and Supressive Fire.

Despite 7 str, in my particular 12 dex build I have enough room for 3 unarmed 5 AP attacks (guaranteed stun from Combo if they all connect), two 9-shot burst attacks (14 AP each) from a 5mm impaler, one additional burst from Commando, reloading the SMG and I can still pick 5 constitution late game or buff perception to 10.

Skill distribution is a bit tricky because I need to invest in both the melee and guns skill but it can be pulled off.

130

General / Re: Please evaluate my Character

« on: January 05, 2016, 05:02:03 pm »

"Dipping" into psi is possible and can pay off but it will cost you 25% of your max hitpoints which can only be compensated with high constitution. I don't recommend less than 7, and it's best with 10 and Juggernaut feat if possible. However such character should raise Psychokinesis and Metathermics (no Thought Control) only high enough to qualify for a few crowd control abilities that can't be resisted such as Electrokinesis, Cryokinesis, Cryostasis and probably the most underestimated psi ability: Force Field which can be of great help to bottleneck crowds, make them start runing around for alternate path (because they don't realise that the shield is temporary), and give you time when you need an extra round or two for the healing hypo or to cool off the negative adrenaline shot debuff.

So to be effective with those skills you don't need to waste any stat points on will. If you can afford the Premeditation feat it's even better for free Electrokinesis stun every 6 rounds.
I'm afraid in your case those 6 will points are mostly wasted. You really should look a bit deeper into game mechanics and restart. You can forget about being the jack of all trades in Underrail but hybrid builds such as psi monk or SMG brawler can be very strong if you know exactly what you're doing which takes some experience with this game.

131

General / Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs

« on: January 04, 2016, 05:42:32 pm »

Gun nut is probably the most overrated feat at this point. People will gladly waste whole 4 stat points on intelligence that could've been used in perception, it's crazy. Also Balistics is not the best choice for metal armors. It's much better suited for tactical vests where you can essentially get +9 damage threshold against bullets. Power Management is also not the best choice if your main weapons are firearms.

Imo the only good reason to invest into int on a metal armor build is to get Armor Sloping which can give you low enough armor penalty to use dodge/evade and stealth.
A most noob friendly build would probably be a stealthy sniper/AR guy which also has solid con.

132

Suggestions / Re: Currency priority when trading

« on: January 04, 2016, 05:06:21 pm »

I pretty sure it's a bug. In the alpha builds it worked the other way around, SGS credits would always get prioritized when you could use them.

133

Suggestions / Re: Various Suggestions

« on: January 04, 2016, 08:59:29 am »

Right now I see crafting only as a way to get rid of all those items you find. I wanted to craft better weapons, but I seem to always find better weapons on dead bodies.

Rest assured that the quality of weapons you can loot doesn't even come close to the ones you can craft yourself, plus you get to choose what to craft and certain mods make more sense than others. Some craftables are also unique, meaning you will not ever loot them anywhere.

134

General / Re: New to the game, need help with stats

« on: January 04, 2016, 06:44:35 am »

In my opinion, if you want it to have a unique experience with the game ,i think you should play it  the way you want yes the game can be unforgiving at the beginning but if you find it too difficult you can always search for a guide.

I respect it when gamers choose to play a new game instinctivly without trying to figure out the mechanics in order to min/max but Underrail is too complicated to start without any idea. The beginning is easy actually but he'll totally get roasted around Core City at the latest. Searching for a guide at that point is too late because the build he posted is already gimped beyond repair and you cant respec in Underrail.

135

General / Re: Rathound king question [SPOILERS]

« on: January 04, 2016, 06:16:12 am »

I just love how the town would attack the Rathound King on sight regardless of agreeing to the peace truce. Makes you think who's the true evil in that story.