Messages

166

General / Re: Is the "friendly NPC" bug completely unfixable?

« on: June 05, 2017, 11:03:09 pm »

How about making it so NPCs turn hostile only if the player takes away a set percentage of their HP? I was thinking 20%-25%.

Most cases of friendly fire involve very little damage, mostly NPCs walking over a tile of flames/puddle of acid or a stray bullet from burst from my experience, so that should prevent NPCs from turning hostile in those cases. It should also prevent the player from murdering NPCs  since they will turn hostile once they take enough damage.

167

General / Re: Ambush and night vision

« on: May 25, 2017, 08:04:26 pm »

Enemies set on fire are count as sufficiently illuminated so yes, incendiary traps and incendiary blob pistol should work.

That said, you don't necessarily need to illuminate enemies yourself to benefit from Ambush- enemies standing right next to a light source with light-free tiles nearby are actually pretty common.

168

General / Re: Are energy pistols as gimp as I think they are?

« on: May 24, 2017, 02:55:45 pm »

Energy weapons are pretty decent overall. That said you absolutely need crafting to get the most out of them.

Plasma pistols play very similarly to sniper rifles in that you can stack their critical damage to ridiculously high numbers with an amplifier, practical physicist and critical power. It's entirely possible to one-shot the final boss with a crit execute, or 2-shot him with 2 standard crits.

Electroshock pistols have decent AoE damage and stun to the primary target on top of that. Their critical damage can reach very high numbers as well. That said they work much better as a secondary weapon than a primary.

Sadly laser pistols are unimpressive. They are very comparable to 9mm Neo Luger pistols but simply worse, yes they can stack critical damage high, but plasma pistols are much better for that.

The real kicker is the feat limitation. Steadfast Aim seems tailor made for Plasma pistols, but it's quite costly to put 6 strength into a pistol build, and you have to make some hard choices if you want this feat, such as forgoing Practical Physicist or Stealth+Interloper, and losing out on Perception points to get your AP cost low enough to fire more than once per turn.  Steadfast Aim is the only reason to tolerate the very high AP cost of Plasma; other than that, with it's secondary damage types it seems pretty "meh".

Steadfast Aim is a strange feat. I feel it is intended to be used for high AP pistols (be it .44 hammerer or plasma) but only together with riot gear with a shield. Since riot gear with shield requires 4-6 STR to be used without penalties, the synergy is pretty obvious.

The problem is riot gear is lackluster compared to other options. I can't think of any situation where I wouldn't rather be using infused pig leather armor that is actually a better anti-melee armor than riot gear is, except maybe if I wanted bio protection from the vest, but that's stretching it.

That said 3 point into STR is not that much of a big deal for plasma builds. You only need 11 DEX to shoot twice with point shot, or 13 DEX if you want to shoot 3 times with point shot and adrenaline, that's not too bad. You would need 17 DEX to reduce their AP cost to 25 and shoot twice with regular attacks. While possible, it's hardly worth it. Steadfast Aim is not an absolute must for plasma anyways.

Not getting Interloper is hardly a big deal. The feat is little more than a convenience. Practical Physicist  is almost mandatory for plasma though.

169

General / Re: Ambush and night vision

« on: May 24, 2017, 02:34:53 pm »

It's still a great feat on any build that stacks critical damage high and puts points into stealth, namely snipers, plasma pistols and possibly crossbows. Situational, but when it works, it works wonders. You can easily reach 100% critical chance by the end of the game.

This video shows this pretty well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hEIzls7qPc

That said sometimes it's hard to determine if the tile you are standing is completly dark and if the enemies are sufficiently illuminated. Generally enemies are sufficiently illuminated if:

1. They are standing right next to a fire barrel or other strong source of light such as wall lamps, etc.
2. They are standing right on top of a flare. Not next to it, the flare has to exactly under them
3. Close to the center of molotov flames
4. Inside very bright rooms

As for the illumination of the tile you are standing in, take a look at your portrait- if you see some flickering lights that means it's not totally dark.

I really feel there should be some sort of a indicator that shows whether the conditions for ambush are met or not. But beyond that, it really does work great.

170

General / Re: Ambush and night vision

« on: May 24, 2017, 01:06:19 pm »

Do activated night vision goggles count as illumination for this feat?

No.

And secondly, must you actually be in complete darkness

Yes. The tile you are standing at must be completly free of any light.

does stealth mode count as "darkness"?

No. Tile illumination is the only factor.

171

General / Re: "firearms" =/= energy weapons?

« on: May 23, 2017, 10:35:50 pm »

Correct. Gunslinger, Rapid Fire etc. will not work with energy/chemical pistols.

172

Bugs / XAL-001 and corrosive acid vials

« on: May 23, 2017, 07:31:55 pm »

After some testing I think I figured out how the "leaking acid" mechanic of XAL-001 works.

It basically copies the attack against the enemy and applies it to you. So if it misses you are not going to suffer any damage either, if it hits you are going to suffer the exact same amount of damage as the enemy (what's more, you are even going to suffer bonus damage from feats like Opportunist if the enemy meets the conditions, even if you don't met the conditions yourself), if the acid entanglement procs you will become entangled yourself, etc.

Sadly I don't have 100% acid resistance to test with, but I think it would also apply corroded debuff to the PC even though he effectively resisted all the damage. That's really bad as corroded is going to lower said resistance.

What's funny is that the combat feed actually shows as if you are attacking the enemy twice instead of attacking yourself, so it's a bit confusing.

On top of that it also spawns an additonial layer of acid puddles all around you regardless of if you hit or miss. The trouble is, it's always a standard acid puddle. So if you shoot corrosive ammo out of it, you end up surrounded with one layer of standard green puddles and one layer of corrosive puddles. Doesn't make much sense, but from what I understand the mechanic was implement long before corrosive ammo was a thing.

Another thing is that the gun doesn't leak at all when used with special attacks such as Aimed Shot, Kneecap Shot and Point Shot, only on regular attacks.

Also, arelated question- I'm wondering why chemical pistols can't be unloaded. It's not like we are pouring pure acid/cryoliquid/incendiary directly into the gun, we are loading it with self-contained vials. Also, reloading an acid blob pistol with corrosive vials while it's loaded with standard vials (or vice versa) gives the standard vials back, so it is possible to get the vials out of a loaded gun. Bit of an inconsistency here.

Also, this one is more of a suggestion, but I can't say I'm a fan of the entire mechanic to begin with. It basically punishes you for improving your damage. There are ways to achieve +/- 95% DR against acid and immunity to immobilization with CAU armor and very high quality infused siphoner tabis, or even 100% with mutated dog leather tabis, but it still doesn't feel right. It also seems prone to many issues in general as stated above.

In my opinion static acid damage dealt to the player with no entanglement/corrosion debuff would work out much better and probably less prone to issues/bugs. The gun would still require highly dedicated gear to resist this damage while top quality crafted acid blob pistols have much bigger chance to proc acid entaglement and will deal more secondary damage, especially with Mad Chemist (44% and 110%/220% damage with 120 quality dispenser, XAL has only 30% and 100%). Not finishing the quest means less XP, too.

I think those things are a good trade-off for higher base damage and 9 AP less to shoot. Chemical pistols really could use some love.

173

General / Re: Chemical Pistol feats questions

« on: May 22, 2017, 11:31:16 pm »

Didn't Styg said something about additional chemical pistol feats in the upcoming expansion to compensate for the Gunslinger nerf?

Yeah, he also mentioned new sprites for chemical and energy pistols.

I didn't actually play the build I posted above for exactly that reason-  I'm itching to try it out but I'd rather wait for the new sprites and feats to enjoy it to the fullest.

I consider chemical pistol build as the second weakest build in Underrail (after throwing build) so I would wait for expansion if I'm you.

True, I would rank them about the same, acid being the strongest and cryoliquid being the weakest.

That said, even though it's among the weakest builds, it's still completely viable and shouldn't have any major problems. I finished the game with a non-crit pistol build that was probably even weaker than a good chem pistol build and didn't have problems at any point, not even during the final boss fight without solving the mutagen puzzle. Well, maybe some problems against burrowers very early on because I had no W2C ammo, but that's on me for trying to fight them early and under-equipped.

174

General / Re: Chemical Pistol feats questions

« on: May 22, 2017, 01:27:13 pm »

Also, the feats you listed are all perfectly fine for chem pistols. Point Shot is especially great to make up for their rather high base AP cost. Opportunist works great with cryoliquid and acid blob pistols. Crit feats are not that important since chem pistols can't stack crit damage and crit chance to very high numbers, but more damage never hurts either.

175

General / Re: Chemical Pistol feats questions

« on: May 22, 2017, 01:17:20 pm »

If you want to use incendiary/cryoliquid pistols, I would say Mad Chemist is pretty much a must since the On Hit effects of chemical pistols are their main selling point.

It increases the duration of freeze to 2 turns instead of 1 for cryliquid pistols and doubles the already high secondary damage over time for incendiary pistols.

If you want to use acid blob Mad Chemist is good as well, but not nearly as mandatory. It doubles the secondary damage just like with incendiary pistols but it's not going to be as high.

Another reason why Mad Chemist is not mandatory for acid blob build is that (at least in my opinion) you should acquire XAL-001 unique acid pistol, Chemical Assault Unit Armor and craft infused siphoner leather tabis as soon as possible.

XAL-001 deals more base damage than any other acid blob pistol you could possibly craft and more importantly it costs mere 16 AP to fire instead of the usual 25. The On Hit effect is slightly worse than that of endgame crafted acid blob pistols, especially with Mad Chemist, but 9 AP less to fire more than makes up to it.

Wearing CAU armor and infused siphoner leather tabis makes you almost immune to acid (about 90%/35 with both) and immune to immobilization so you don't need to worry about the gun leaking acid at you. In fact it's going to be beneficial as you will be spraying acid puddles all around you that can damage enemies.

This build goes very well with toxic gas grenades too, both thematically and thanks to CAU armor 20 bio DT and acidic entanglement. With grenadier the cooldown of gas grenades is only 1 turn, so you can fill up entire rooms with gas very quickly and make enemies stay inside them thanks to acidic entanglement. You can safely stay inside the cloud yourself as long as you don't stay in the tiles with the highest concentration of the gas. I guess you could risk staying even in tiles with high concentration if you wore a gas mask in addition to CAU armor for a total of 37 DT against bio damage.

176

General / Re: Hardmode Iron Man Throwing build!

« on: May 20, 2017, 11:00:09 pm »

Gauntlet just sucks, tiny reward for high risk, I usually skip it.

To me satisfaction from finishing it is a reward in itself. One of the most difficult challenges in the game.

Carnifex is easy: Pig Leather boots, Sturdy Vest, and amplified Energy Shield with two low impact modules.

Infused siphoner tabis are by far the best choice against Carnfiex- a good chunk of his damage comes from him throwing the net and enjoying the Opportunist 25% damage bonus to immobilized enemies. Infused siphoner tabis give you immunity to immobilization, thus preventing him from netting you.

A sturdy tac vest is not the best choice here as the bonus HP is only equal to 50% of the quality (compared to 75% and 100% riot gear and metal armors have) and its DR is really low with no bonuses against melee. That's 60 HP at best if you get lucky and find a 120 sturdy vest.

On the other hand infused pig leather can easily give 90 flat HP in addition to the +1 CON and up to 60% DR against melee I mentioned earlier.

I don't see how an amplified Energy Shield with two low impact modules make any noticeable difference here- a shield crafted with two 140 quality low freq modulators and 140 amplifier still has only 41 threshold against very low speed attacks. Unarmed weapons ignore 80% of the shield, so you are left with 8 damage reduction per hit. Carnifex hits you 2-3 times in the first turn depending on the gloves he has, that's only 16-24 damage reduction in the first turn.  That's rather negligible.

Also, I don't think you are aware of the fact that Carnifex has Cheap Shots feat (it's not listed on the wiki) that gives him a 15% chance to incapacitate you on every hit in addition to Combo that gives him a 20% chance to stun on his 3rd successful hit. Not to mention he can have pneumatic gloves, but that's random and he usually won't be able to score 4 hits in the first turn. You could have lucked out on your first ironman run, but it's possible his last hit will incapacitate/stun you and give him another turn to finish you off.

If you don't have Thick Skull and/or high CON, the gear you listed in often not enough to survive the fight with Carnifex.

Crawlers and Pigs? Heh, trash mobs from the start.

It's very possible to get one-shot by a warthog charge if it crits if your HP isn't high. It's not likely, but possible. Had it happen once, seen it happen to other players.

What I have problems with is hunters. Crossbows are in that speed range that shields usually don't address well, they sometimes can get the jump on you, and can easily kill you in one round if they do.

Unfortunately I don't think any armor that can save you from shock bolts. Evasion could, but it's not very reliable. It's best to prioritize killing them first.

With all my hours played you just made me feel like a noob. For some reason I've been playing all this time believing it was the worst of the two that applied, not the highest. I have no idea why I labored under this misconception..perhaps a forum post.

That would be really counter-intuitive.

Energy Shields are kind of OP imo

Well they are not without drawbacks. Even a crafted low frequency shield will do very little against melee NPCs. Enemies throwing EMPs are extremaly dangerous, but also extremaly rare and depending on your choices you might encounter none of them. I really feel there should be more EMP users in general to make using shields feel more like a gamble rather than a total immunity to guns.

177

General / Re: Hardmode Iron Man Throwing build!

« on: May 20, 2017, 01:50:32 pm »

I've gotten so good at this game that it holds no challenge anymore unless I intentionally gimp myself. I'm going to try a pure Throwing build, no other combat skill.

That's quite a challange.

Have you finished the game with no deaths before? There's quite a few situations that can easily end up in death depending on circumstances/luck throughout the whole game. You need a lot of planning to make sure you can survive absolutely anything the game throws at you.

I did notice there seems to be a lot more Throwing feats than I remember, so perhaps Styg wanted to make this viable?

Throwing is more of a support skill, but yes, throwing only builds are completly viable.

I'm spreading around my skill points quite a bit as well. Trying Stealth with this build, although I suspect it's somewhat wasted with such high Initiative and ranged attacks.

Stealth and initiative complement each other. There are tons of situations where one has the advantage over the other. Stealth won't save you when the combat is initiated after dialogue/cutscene,  initiative doesn't give you as much options and is far less reliable when stealth can be used instead.

By the way, with 10 DEX and 10 AGI, your initiative will be 25. That's hardly a high initative. It's high-ish, but not enough to reliably act first when there are multiple enemies or enemies such as Carnifex or Faceless Gaunts who have high initiative themselves. Reliablity and consistency is really important when trying to finsih the game without deaths.

I would say 11-19 is low, 20-29 is medicore, 30-39 is high and 40+ is extremaly high.

If you wish to rely on initiative, you probably should take Paranoia for the +5 bonus. You might also consider taking Gunslinger and holding a pistol for +7 bonus. If you are going pure throwing then you are not going to use it anyways while 37 initiative is something you can truly rely on.

One of the issues with Underrail is it's toughest at the start, then after Junkyard it becomes far too easy. Wish it was the inverse.

I agree the game gets a little easier after Junkyard, but it still has several difficluty spikes that can easily kill you if you let your guard down. Carnifex, Gautlet, warehouse mercs, snipers in general, stealthed enemies in general, tchortist ambush, gasing the drones, only a few examples of situations that can end up very badly very quickly.

Still thinking about starting over without Stealth, and dropping Pinning. This feat is unpredictable and I prefer Taser/Throwing Net/Flashbang for reliably immobilizing enemies.

I wouldn't drop stealth, but I agree that Pinning is unreliable and not essential considering how many other options you have to immobilize enemies. Over 1/3 chance to immobilize when you are already throwing knives a lot is not bad, but not needed.

I may even drop Dodge

I'm not a fan of dodge/evasion in general, to me they require way too much investment for too little benefit that can be easily substituted with crafting, be it an energy shield or good armor. Crafting has also other benefits beyond defense. The other problem with dodge/evasion is that it drops to 0 when stunned/incapacitated, effectively leaving you defenseless in a situation where you need your defenses the most. I can avoid damage with clever positioning most of the time so I want all the protection when I can't move, not the other way around.

They are also unreliable by nature. This is not that much of a big deal when playing normally because they do work most of the time on average, but on ironman runs reliability is far more important.

Dodge also suffers a 25% penalty when wearing googles and NV goggles are awesome for any ranged build.

Overall, I wouldn't bother with either. You will be much better off with electronics/tailoring and a good energy shield/armor. You may even add 80 biology to craft Bullhead pills which will make you immune to stun/incapacitation for 3 turns.

with very high Init, and the fact that a low number of enemies use Melee in comparison to Guns, it's not hard to root or stun the Melee guy and then Dodge is wasted.

Gun users are not a threat whatsoever with a good energy shield, except for snipers and maybe dreadnoughts. They are simply not capable of going past the threshold (or only getting a really small amount of damage past the threshold) of a good crafted shield, not even a low fequency one and you can get over 1500+ capacity so they are not going to burn through that anytime soon. An amplified high frequency shield together with good armor should save you from being 1-shot by snipers.

On the other hand some melee enemies, while uncommon, are nonetheless a really big threat. In most cases you can stop them before they get near, but stealthy cutthroats/crawlers, Carnfiex, charging pigs, gaunts etc. can easily close in and quickly deal a lot of damage before you can do anything to stop them.

What do you guys think about taking Paranoia on top of 10 Dex/Agi for guaranteed Initiative, as a sort of Stealth substitute?

As I said, 30 initiative instead of 25 in a big difference. It's not a substitute for stealth however, I would go with both.

I could pair it with Recklessness, assuming it really does affect "all weapons", including Throwing Knives and perhaps even Grenades?

Nope, it only applies to weapons that are in weapon slots, not utilities.

Well he's not entirely unarmored, I use Tactical Vest which is good for bullet defense, with only 10% armor penalty.

Tactical vests become almost entirely useless after you craft an energy shield. There is simply not need for the bullet protection at that point because crafted energy shields make you virtually invulnerable to bullets. That said, they are very good before you get the shield, so usually until you finish Junkyard.

The only use for a tac vest I could see after that is against snipers if you craft it with nanocomposite plate that lowers the damage you get from criticals by a huge %. But that's very situational.

I would recommend using a pig leather armor- in my opinion it's the best overall armor with low penalty. It has high DR at the cost of lower DT, but DR is more useful in most cases, especially when enemy is dealing huge amounts of damage per hit. DT is only good when you can stack it to very high numbers.

+1 CON means more HP at that's universally useful, especially against psi and enemies that can potentially one-shot you. Infused pig leather gives a huge flat HP bonus in addition to +1 CON.

Add high density foam padding for added protection aganist melee (and 1-3% extra DR aganist everything in general) and together with shield you have pretty much all bases covered. By the end of the game you can easily have over 120 extra HP on Hard and over  60% DR against melee at only 20% armor penalty while being almost immune to bullets and other ranged attacks, with the exception of snipers and crossbows.

Ancient rathound leather armor is also very good, but I like the added HP from pig leather better. Also hate the persuasion penalty as it's hard enough to keep it high with only 3 WIL, but that's only if you care about persuasion.

178

General / Re: What to look for in weapons?

« on: May 17, 2017, 06:37:22 pm »

It's not a worst-case scenario. Worst-case scenario is sneaking through Faceless block post and bumping into Gaunt and remembering that you last save is about 4-5 hours old.

I finished the game twice being hostile to faceless and actually never had that happen to me. I guess it's because I always switched to motion-tracking goggles when wandering around faceless territory.

Together with Paranoia and medicore/high PER (the first time was with 15 PER, the other with 8 ), it was very easy to detect gaunts long before they detect you. Losing the smart goggles bonus damage was no big deal since it was overkill against gaunts.

But even if I did bump into a gaunt, the initiative would be checked. Gaunts have really high 35 initiative. With gunslinger and 7 DEX/7 AGI my initiative would be 31, so the chance to act first would be slightly less than 25%. Less than perfect but 1 out of 4 times I would act first. Without gunslinger it would be only 24, sligthly less than 3% to act first, very unlikely to happen.

Also I don't really see how SMG gives you that much of an advantage in this situation. If you bump into gaunt and lose the initiative check, he will simply poison you and disappear. When he comes back it will be easy enough to get him out of stealth with a flare/flashbang/grenade and use the sniper rifle at range. I admit it would be much better than a pistol at getting rid of pseudo-spatial projections though.

By the way, 4-5 hours is a long time, I think you would get plenty of area transition autosaves in that period of time.

He is a corner case because you are fighting under conditions that you encounter only once in the game. Basing everything on such fight is not rational.

It's irrelevant how often do you encounter him in the game, the encounter still exists and is probably the most challenging melee enemy in the game. If there is anything you truly need to prepare for it's that fight.

And you will have this advantage quite often anyway. Acting before most is quite sufficient. It's not as good as acting first, but it's still better than limiting your options and effectiveness in the fight itself.

Acting first instead of before most is a huge advantage, both offensive and defensive wise. To me it's well worth losing some of the damage potential of my secondary weapon.

I'd say this tactics is needlessly elaborated. I use Quick Tinkering to trap him and then chip away his health with SMG bursts, either killing him in one round or after his morphine shot expired.

It's only as elaborated as it needs to be.

Quick Tinkering is viable too, even more in fact. That said, I have a personal issue with Quick Tinkering, it's just too good and completly trivalizes melee enemies. It's instant and it's so easy to predict enemy movement it can be set right under them. The worst part is it's cooldowns is only 2 turns, shorter than the duration of bear trap immobilization. You can abuse this to keep an melee enemy immobilized indefinitely, or even worse, keep him in a doorway to make it impossible for all other enemies to reach you or even get a line of sight to shoot you. It's almost cheating if you ask me.

Not saying you shouldn't use it because you can, it's in the game for a reason after all, but it's not for me.

Also i craft low frequency shield specifically for this fight and turn it on before i get into arena. By the time the fight starts it's mostly drained, but still there remains enough for me to survive the round in most cases.

My endgame efficient double low freq shields made from at least 120-130 modulators still ony have 23 threshold against very slow attacks. Carnifex uses gloves which bypass 80% of the shield threshold. I just tested and that leaves you with only 4 damage reduction on each hit. Since Carnifex only hits 2-3 times on the first turn, that saves you 8-12 health. That's definetly not what makes you survive the first turn.

Besides, with your tactics if you had SMG, you could just kill him with bursts after tasing him. And it has a 100% success rate (the killing part, not the taser)

That's correct. But I'm also less likely to win initative, which is really important. I don't think it's mentioned on the wiki but Carnifex has Cheap Shots- he has 15% chance to incapacitate you on every attack and 20% to stun on 3rd hit with combo. He will hit you 2-3 times on the first turn depending on what gloves he gets. If he attack you 3 times, there's a good chance you will be stunned/incapacitated. If that happens, there's a very small chance you will survive the next turn.

You can actually deal quite a bit of damage with a pistol when he's stunned too if you decide to sacrifice the Aimed Shot. Considering he's kneecaped and that the pistol is going ot have a really good precision, it's enough to kill him that way as well. Longer, but just as easy.

Unless you make a mistake. In which case you need to reload, because having 2+ tough melee enemies up close and personal is not something pistol can handle, while i can still manage this situation. Same for burrowers. Double for faceless.

How can you make a mistake when running away from rathounds? At this point in the game only the ancient ones are a threat and those will be dead long before they are close. Alphas and regular ones die like flies and can't even get past the shield.

Same goes for burrowers, only warriors are a threat but they are few and very slow. Regular burrowers can't get past the shields, spawns can't get past the threshold of even the weakest armors.

Faceless Gaunts don't get close and personal, they apply poisons, jump to the other end of the map and repeat the process. The only way to confront them is to get them out of stealth with flares/flashbangs/grenades or bump into them, in both cases you already have the upper hand and can easily use the sniper rifle.

By the way, caltrops are a great way to find out where gaunts are if you know the path they will take. Them taking damage when walking over them is going to show in the feedback window, so as soon as you see this, you know they are inside or slightly ahead of the caltrops.

It's not really an argument. It's still a sniper, just with more options. And it's not just "another damage source", it's a source of a very good damage in situations where you can't use your other source effectively, so i can't see how it's a "replacement". I get flexibility AND utility, like being able to kill enemies silently, which is not really possible with pistols without specializing in them. If i'm spending character resources on something, i at least make sure that this something is a worthwhile investment.

I see your point, but I still would rather have less damage in exchange for initative and more reliable kneecaps. The former being much more important of course.

Btw, i wouldn't say that sniper is a holy grail of damage, unless it's in a most technical sense. True it can do shitload of damage, but this damage is usually to a 1-2 targets. If you compare by kills/round then it looses to a properly built SMG and AR builds, sometimes even to a sledgehammers.

Well when it comes to killing as many enemies per turn as possible, nothing compares to psi monks. Hell, pure psi can actually reach more single target damage, over 3000+.

I thought i gave several examples why. Burst from SMG - 20 AP (or slightly less), which means you can kill melee guy who got too close and then shoot your rifle. You can't do than with AR without adrenaline shot. They are not even close to be "about the same". ARs also can's make stealth kills. Oh, and AR can't use Kneecap Shot. So no, AR is not really awesome secondary for snipers (though sniper rifle can be awesome secondary for AR).

Yeah, I now see the value of 20 AP burst compared to 27 one. On the other hand, ARs require the least amount of investment.

Damage is not the only thing i care, i though that can be quite clear from my posts. Seriously...

It did sound like this to me, but if you say it doesn't then alright.

179

General / Re: What to look for in weapons?

« on: May 17, 2017, 05:33:06 pm »

With 6 DEX and Spec Ops, you can burst a Smart Rapid 7.62mm Jaguar SMG at 18AP, which is a lifesaver as it fits perfectly within the 20AP from adrenaline shot. The fastest possible burst from an AR is 9*3 = 27 AP.

I guess that's a valid point, but I rarely ever use adrenaline shot unless hit by crippling strike or when I want to throw a grenade after 2 shots from a sniper rifle.

By the way I think 7.62 steelcat would be better for that purpose, with 6 DEX and Spec Ops burst will cost 20 AP so still enough but will deal more damage and much more critical damage.

Remember we are talking about melee enemies here, most likely at point blank range, SMG burst is very effective here.

If you are shooting a burst at point blank range you are not likely to miss and therefore not likely to hit other targets within the burst cone.

It seems like your main selling point of a pistol is accuracy and Kneecap Shot which seems pretty weak to me.

I said multiple time that the bonus initiative is the main selling point. SMGs can still have Kneecap Shot and 10% accuracy with laser sight so it would be a no-brainer if not for the initiative bonus.

A pistol might be more accurate per bullet but you only get 1 shot. A burst fires 5 bullets at reduced accuracy but at point blank range it's mathematically impossible for it to be less accurate comparing it to a pistol shot. In fact, I would say SMG is much more effective due to its high chance to crit (5 vs. 1).

I also said that the bonus precision is supposed to make the kneecap shot more likely to hit, not improve the damage. SMG beat pistols by a long shot when it comes to damage but again, it's not a priority to me.






 

180

General / Re: What to look for in weapons?

« on: May 16, 2017, 10:41:06 pm »

Carnifex is a corner case, basing everything around him is not really convincing.

He's not just a corner case, he's the worst-case scenario. Basing everything on a worst-case scenario is absolutely rational.

You don't need to act first, you just need to act before most. Unless you are playing 0 dodge and evasion character of course.

Acting first is a major advantage. As you said yourself, given sufficient degree of optimization, everything is viable. But acting first is definetly better than acting before most.

And i seriously doubt that you can rely on your Kneecap shot to reliably work against Carnifex with his high evasion and yell.

My strategy in case of Carnifex getting the first turn is to tase him first.

If the taser works, the next step is Aimed Shot with the move penalty since he will have no evasion and the hit chance will be 79% (for some reason it drops from 95% to 79% instead of 80%). If it hits, it's over. If it misses, the next step is Kneecap Shot that will have 95% chance to hit. If it hits, I have enough time to keep Carnifex at bay. If it doesn't, I will use a flashbang on the next turn and re-stealth.

If the taser gets resisted, the next step is flashbang. If the flashbang gets resisted, the next step in kneecap shot with about 60-70% chance to hit. If that misses too, I'm pretty much out of options, but that never happened since all those things failing at the same time is mathematically unlikely.

The point here is that Kneecap Shot is just one of the many forms of CC. It's not something I rely solely on against Carnifex, it's one of many failsafes and it works perfectly for that purpose. On the other I would have no use for SMG bursts here.

No, it's not. Unless you spec for pistols, most melee enemies are, in fact, not squishy enough to kill with a pistol in one turn. Besides, even if they were, there is a big difference between killing them in one turn and killing them in 1-2 bursts (with a good chance of damaging every enemy near them) and then being able to fire your main weapon.

I don't need to use my secondary against most melee enemies. In most cases you are given enough room and time to shoot them down with the sniper rifle.

It doesn't assume that. It assumes you are fighting several enemies, some of them melee, some - ranged. With SMG you can still shoot your rifle at ranged enemy after dealing with melee getting in your face. And this situation is like half of the fights in the game. Almost all bandits and military is a mixed group.

If I'm fighting a mixed group, I'm able to kill the melee guys before they even have a chance to get near me.

As I said before, the only cases where I would ever need to use a secondary are: swarms of trash, stealth users and Arena gladiators. This is because those are the only cases where an enemy can get close before getting killed with a sniper rifle. In literally all other cases, I am given enough room and time to deal with melee enemies long before they even have a chance to get near. At best I might use a kneecap shot to slow the fastest one down.

Now you are just contradicting yourself) What about fights you mentioned early? Like Black Crawlers place or fighting Faceless? In all those case, you'll have to deal with enemies that are not easy trash mobs and a lot of them are melee.

I'm not contradicting myself- again, there is no need to use the secondary in those fights whatsoever. A kneecap shot at best.

Pistol is really not enough in these fights, and it can really stop you from advancing in the game.

The pistol is generally not going to be used in those fights because there is no need for it.

Also, even if they are rathounds/burrowers, i remember several places in the DC where you have to deal with a LOT of them, including ancient rathounds and burrowers warriors. And yes, you can get on with stealth, but as you mentioned you can always make a mistake. I don't think that pistol will do you any good, while SMG can carry you.

There are two hordes of rathounds in DC, but both of them can be engaged at distance and thinned before they start getting close or simply kitted.

I'm not using the pistol for burrowers themselves, only spawns because of their high movement speed and low HP. Everything else is slow enough to be  easily killed with a sniper rifle.

In both cases, pistols is more than adequate.

It's a minor point for pistols, but not for SMG. Rapid Fire and Point shot will get a bonus IF you decide to spend another two feats on them. For a secondary weapon that doesn't do much damage.

Which is why they are not necessary feats to take. I might take them if I can afford them, which is usually the case since sniper rifles don't require that many feats to begin with.

Thing with SMG is that it's not really a secondary weapon, it's more like a second main one.

Which I think is the what makes our playstyles different. When I'm playing a sniper, I'm playing a sniper, not a sniper/something hybrid with two main weapons. I'm not looking for another damage source, I'm already holding the holy grail of damage in my first weapon slot. I'm looking for something that will complement it, not replace it.

Because SMG cost less AP (smallest AP cost per shot for all firearms and only 2x for burst) while still doing considerable damage. They require only two feats to be awesome.

Without heavy investment in DEX, the AP cost of SMGs and a rapid Hornet will be about the same. Even with Spec Ops 2x bursts, the overall damage potential of ARs is much greater than that of SMGs. ARs only require one feat to be an awesome secondary. Really, if all you care about is damage, there is no reason whatsoever to use an SMG over AR. ARs are a straight upgrade over SMGs that will also take less investment in this context.

You can make silent SMG and use it when you don't want to fight all the enemies on the map at once and it really benefits usual sniper playstyle.

Silenced weapon is not something you will lbe using regulary though, so you might as well carry both the AR and a silenced SMG.

BTW, you can also take Kneecap shot if you really want. I did when i played sniper, but i found out that i don't use it all that often - most of the time, it's easier to just kill a guy who got too close rather then fire one shot at him and run.

If that's the case, ARs would serve you much better.

With one? Yes. With 2-4? No, it's quite reliable.

It is pretty unreliable regardless. If you expect to kill something with a stray bullet in the burst cone, you might as well just shoot it with a regular shot.

Yes, because unlike pistols SMGs allows you to use at as second main with minimal investment. More flexibility in fighting tactics is never a bad thing.

It's not a bad thing, but the way I play it's redundant. I'd rather start the fight first when it truly matters than get a second damage source that can't accomplish anything the first one couldn't.