Messages

91

Suggestions / Re: Different type of Execute?

« on: February 26, 2018, 03:01:18 pm »

I'd make it something like this - make a shot at close range for 150% damage with cooldown of 2-3 turns, if target is stunned or incapacitated you get additional 100% damage.

92

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 18, 2018, 11:45:55 am »

Not sure what you need 40 points i biology for, though. I mean you'll probably be able to craft Jumping bean, but that's it.

Other than that, the build looks fine. More than viable.

93

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 18, 2018, 11:41:23 am »

In regard to the crafting I am unsure on how high Mechanics, Electronics and Tailoring need to be for sufficient stealth gear so the numbers maybe be not optimal.

Stealth by itself is not really dependent on crafting. The difference in stealth bonuses between gear you can craft and what you can find/buy is not that big to warrant investing in crafting by itself. So if you don't want ot bother with crafting, just make sure those skills reach effective 50 for you to be able to craft repair kits. As a side effect you'll be able to craft Taser with you electronics skill, and that's pretty good

94

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 18, 2018, 11:19:35 am »

Ok, I did some further research and came to the conclusion that I am going to play SMG.

This way I feel I have way more feats open for adjustment to my liking since -- from what I gathered -- I only really need SpecOps, Commando and high dex (which I have anyway).

The cost-benefit relation for pistols seems just terrible. 

Yeah, it's kinda like that, unfortunately.

For SMG i would also consider taking Suppressive Fire + Opportunist. Suppressive fire gives debuffs for everyone in the cone of fire, and that debuff will proc Opportunist damage increase.

Maybe they buff it with the expansion, who knows.

We can hope

95

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 18, 2018, 03:56:34 am »

Sharpshooter, that's it.

Oh, right. Somehow completely forgot about it.

SMGs only really need Spec Ops and Kneecap Shot while pistols need Gunslinger, Kneecap Shot, Rapid Fire and could use taking Point Shot.

I'd say Commando would be very nice for SMG as sidearm. And if i invest into pistol feats i always take both Rapid Fire and Point Shot, since being able to make full 4 shots at the price of 2 is very nice.

I can never afford to take Opportunist and Execute on sniper builds.

Honestly, for a sniper build their usefulness is kinda nonexistent. I'll think of taking QoL feats like Interloper or Burglar before i do about taking those feats.

96

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 17, 2018, 12:33:01 pm »

If you have speedhack, you can zip around back and forth more easily, so less need for inventory management and Pack Rathound, that is why I mentioned it.

You can, but i usually don't do that. I never return for another portion of loot and almost never travel encumbered (the only exception is when i transfer components from SGS locker to house in Core City). I always consider carefully what i take with me, and money showers you in any case, so i never felt the need to walk for additional portion of loot.

I would also prefer SMG as sidearm, of course. It is a lot better than pistol at raw damage, *especially* silenced. But the burst fire feats have little synergy with the sniper, and feats are tight already. The initiative from gunslinger is also very valuable. A glass cannon is pretty screwed if he is caught out of stealth and lose initiative.

What pistol feats have synergy with sniper rifle then? Kneecap Shot, Steadfast Aim, Point Shot, Rapid Fire, Execute - neither of them works with Sniper. The only one i can name is Aimed Shot, but it doesn't really matter, since virtually all sniper builds take it anyway. You might as well just take Gunslinger, keep the pistol that you get from the start of the game and arm it in fights like Arena fights, Black Crawler base fights and so on to get that +7 initiative bonus and rest of the time you put SMG in second weapon slot. Sniper is the only build that can afford to take feats for both sidearms, since he needs just 4 of them for the primary weapon function, so no, feats are not tight on snipers. Also, i'm not sure if sniper could be called glass cannon, unless you purposefully make him so, since you actually have some spare points to put in Con and paired with evasion/dodge he is not that glassy.

97

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 17, 2018, 12:18:44 pm »

Well, similarly I don't want to be too antagonistic, but Hard runs are no measure of success.  Beating Hard once you know the game is probably doable with anything short of intentionally weakened trick builds.

I never tried to put it as a measure of success, just a measure of me knowing pistol builds very well by the virtue of playing them extensively in different ways. And you, by your own admission, didn't. And they can't compare to SMGs, no matter what caliber.

Also, speedhack is not really cheat, since it doesn't make game easier, just quicker. Sometimes it can actually make it harder, since you have less time to react to things.

Now, your Dominating win, that's what makes me take your opinion seriously regarding firearms.

Which is kinda weird since i won Dominating with a sledgehammer build, not a firearm build.

98

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 17, 2018, 07:51:06 am »

Sure, I dont use speedhack. If I did, there would be little use for Interloper or Pack Rathound or Trap Expert of course, the external program will provide the quality of life we want. With the normal game speed, those feats are valuable.

About the sniper, yes, that can double as primary weapon. The pistol is still good, as silenced assassin weapon, at point blank range, moving and firing in/out of cover, and for great initiative.

Correct me if i'm wrong but i can't find where i wrote about dismissing pack rathound because of speedhack. I said - careful inventory management and gear that provides almost same benefit as the feat. Interloper speed boost is not that great that i would sacrifice my combat efficiency even without speedhack. Not on pistols.

So, basically, you have sniper with pistol as a side arm. SMG would be better in this case anyway. Better damage and can deal with more than one enemy in one turn.

99

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 17, 2018, 06:57:18 am »

Heh that is hard core, I love my quality of life. No way I'm ninjaing my way through the majority of Underrail without Interloper. Same thing goes for Pack Rathound btw, 3 STR needs it, trap user or not. And Trap Expert if you are into traps at all, 10 seconds cooldown on disarming your minefields is not cool.

It's not "hard core" it's called optimization. Interloper's effect on your speed while noticeable, is not that substantial, speedhack is way better anyway. Careful inventory management and infused pig leather boots help you with inventory capacity problem and trap expert was never even a consideration for me even on trap heavy characters. In combat you gonna use quick tinkering, or you prepare beforehand in such a way that they can't avoid stepping into trap if they want ot get close to you. Also, new version dropped cooldowns on traps anyway, so there are even less reasons to use this feat.

I happily sacrifice stuff like Kneecap Shot, Sprint, Point Shot if I have to, for those.

Then you are sacrificing your core efficiency for dubious gains. Some weapons can afford that and some not. Pistols are of the later.

But since you have used pistols quite a bit, did you go for a sniper rifle as backup weapon?

If you are using sniper rifles, it's more likely then will become your main weapon, even you wanted to use pistols. Pistols only.

That actually explains easiness in your sacrifice of important feats (except Sprint, which is optional). After all, with the use of SR, you might as well not take any pistol feats at all, except Gunslinger for initiative boost.

100

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 17, 2018, 01:16:51 am »

I see. From what I've read from the Wiki Hammerer can't be silenced because it's not 5mm caliber.
Won't this render my whole stealth approach useless?

Would you therefore recommend to move some points from stealth over to chemistry for grenade crafting or electronics for the EMP stuff?

You will need both guns that i mentioned. Every time you attack someone you break your stealth anyway, silenced or not. Silenced mean that if you have more enemies on the map that are not in line of sight to you, they won't hear you shooting someone. There is a noise mechanics in this game, so that's why sometimes you need silenced pistols so you don't have to fight whole map of enemies. Most of the time though you just gonna shoot stuff with your .44

You don't really need it, i'd say you gonna be ok with what you have. You will find grenades on enemies and stores anyway, it's just you won't find most powerful of them that way, but grenades are plenty powerful already, so it's not THAT important.

Also, stealth is powerful, invest into it. As you noticed, i never said that you should drop stealth and almost no one in his right mind will say that to you about this game) And stealth doesn't really need those feats. The only time i took Interloper was when playing sniper and while it was relatively nice, it wasn't something i really needed or missed in other builds.

Ok, but what would you skip if I am to take Interloper for example. You only crossed out Execute, but suggested two new feats to put in.

Welcome to building a pistol character.

Well, my personal opinion only, but I would drop Sprint. I know some guys swear by it for all circumstances, but I feel the same about Interloper.
Interloper gives you faster stealth, and a few MPs (15) when attacking from stealth. Sprint you can activate on your turn, and get 30 MPs for 2 turns.
I love moving around in stealth all the time, so Interloper is great quality of life.

Quality of life feats are not for pistol builds.

I think you could make a case for a Hammerer.  5mm does so little damage per shot that you're at the mercy of resist/threshold even with W2C, but a Hammerer, especially a crafted one, is going to pump out enough damage that a special attack will blow through even very high resistances in a way that even burst fire from a SMG won't.

Nope, you can't. Sorry, i don't want to be too antagonistic, it's just that i made at least three successful Hard runs with different pistol character (special attack route, critical route, critical route without crafting or OH GOD WHY DID I DO THAT route, as i love to call it) and i'm fully aware about strength and weaknesses of that particular weapon.

 Also, resistances don't care about how strong your attacks is) Thresholds do. If we are talking about resistances, than weapon with higher DPR still gonna be with higher DPR no matter what.

101

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 16, 2018, 03:52:58 pm »

Ok, thanks again.

I feel like I have made my decision then:

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMOCAMKAwXChzIAACjCh8KHeEvChwBfXwAAQQAAAAAAABcBHlsxJlkRKEtOFjkC


To bring this thread to a close, would that build carry me through?

Hm. I would drop Executioner, it is a special attack, but a pretty bad one - first, it only works against stunned or incapacitated targets, second, you need to be pretty close to fire it. You probably should find a way to get Sharpshooter into your build (i would drop either Escape Artist or Execute). To get most of the Critical Power you need decent critical damage bonus and for pistols it's basically the only way to do it. Without it your Hammerer will have 125% crit damage bonus, 162.5% with Critical Power. With it you will have 155% critical damage bonus, 237.5% with Critical Power. Difference is pretty big.

65 points in tailoring will get almost nothing you wouldn't be able to buy/loot even without mercantile. So they should be put somewhere else. Biology is a good choice - with this much you will be able to craft Focus Stim, blueprint of which is always sold in core city, it gives you +15% crit chance for 10 turns. Also stuff like Jumping bean that increases your dodge/evasion and movement.

Also, 135 in pickpocketing? Not sure if you'll ever need this much) Money is almost never an issue except early game. I'd say put some of those point into traps. Like 40 or so.

Oh, and another thing. Besides .44 hammerer, you'll need 5mm Neo Luger with Silencer and Smart module. Not as effective as smart SMG, but you'll still be able to kill one, maybe two enemies on one turn, so it'll still be useful for stealthy kills.

Stack up on W2C ammo with every chance you got. High mech resist is your worst enemy.

102

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 16, 2018, 03:12:01 pm »

- I am going to play normal so do I need dodge/evasion or would you recommend skipping it completely and maybe just invest somewhat into crafting (I consider tailoring for the trenchcoat and tabi boots, maybe mechanics for silencers?)

I would recommend keeping at least evasion full, since you are skipping crafting for the most part anyway. It will increase your survivability. With 7 Agi, Nimble, light armor and tabi boots, you'll be pretty hard to hit eventually. Dodge is tad less useful for ranged build, but you can put some points in there and also take Uncanny Dodge to get those automatic misses when you anticipate someone getting in melee with you. I would say that if you want to just wear stealth tac vest, you can even skip tailoring. 30 or so points in electronics will get you Taser (you'll just need to look for components with low enough quality) that can stun enemy in melee for 10 AP once per 3 turns. Solid investment.

I'd say that on Normal with build like this you can really skip crafting and still be pretty effective. So if you do dislike it like you say, go for it)

- I would really prefer pistol over smg. I'd be ok with throwing as secondary combat skill for the grenades. What feats would you recommend for that route?

I honestly would not recommend pistol without solid investment in crafting. Unfortunately not weapons were created equal, and pistol is much closer to the lower end (and believe me, i'm saying it with bleeding heart, since i love pistols too). And without crafting they are about half as good, which is you can imagine is...not very good at all. So you have to choose between your aversion to crafting and desire to play with pistols.

With pistols you need to take as much special attacks as you can - Aimed Shot, Kneecap Shot, Rapid Fire, Point Shot. They will be you bread and butter. You also should take feats to increase you critical chance and damage - Recklessness, Critical power, Sharpshooter. Don't go for Steadfast Aim, it's a trap. Gunslinger is a must - increase in Intiative and less AP per shot. Paranoia is good since with this and Gunslinger you will almost always shoot first, one of the things that pistols do well and why i love them. As far as crafting goes - you need mechanics and electronics decently high and what you should aim for is .44 Hammerer with Rapid Reloader and Smart Module of as high quality as you can find. You also should wear smart goggles. As far as attribute concerned, they would be almost the same - Dex up to 14 (since you'll be using .44 with RR it's as high as you would need it), Int around 5 or so, so you wouldn't need to overinvest in tech skills, 10 Per and around 7-8 in Agi. I WOULD recommend investing into Evasion and Dodge, especially Evasion

Throwing grenades as secondary is good on almost any build. Grenadier (lower cooldowns) + Three-Pointer (get a grenade chance to crit) are what you need for that and about 50 skill points invested in throwing skill. Grenades come in many aspects - HE against targets with high mech resist, Frag against most things, Flashbangs to incapacitate group of enemies, EMP to damage and stun robots, gas to apply lasting debuffs and damage. They are really cool and effective. Could be incorporated in the pistol build also.

Well, that's about it. Hope i was of any help. Good luck and enjoy the game, it's not a perfect one but pretty good at scratching that "old school" itch)

103

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 16, 2018, 01:40:35 pm »

Yes, you need 11 for several secret places, one of them is much more important than any other secret place in the game.

If you want to know what exactly, look at the Perception page of the wiki, it's a third row from the bottom in the table of secrets. Don't want to spoil it here. I just say that it'll help to avoid VERY nasty encounter.

104

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 16, 2018, 01:23:58 pm »

Since you're using a 5mm, SMGs will almost always be superior to pistols unless you somehow do not have the required skill

Strange, it seems like you are saying that in case of other calibers SMGs are not always superior to pistols. But you can't be saying that. That would be madness.

105

General / Re: Stealth Build w/o crafting viable?

« on: February 16, 2018, 01:21:21 pm »

Also, for all sekkkrets you need 10 Per or 7 Per+Snooping.

11. The most important secret location requires 11 Per. The rest are mostly useless, especially if you are not doing oddity xp.

Normal diff. won't get you experience about combat because there you can make mistakes and still survive, so you don't need to learn.

That's the idea. He doesn't want to get stuck halfway through the game (or even worse, near the end).

I will play on normal but my initial question was not about difficulty level but about a build with stealth which can explore most of the game without having to avoid fighting constantly.

I would recommend playing SMG build, it's close enough to your stat distribution (just remember to pump the dex to the max on lvl ups). It's more powerful than pistol or crossbow builds and doesn't rely heavily on crafting - there are decent unique weapons for that type and smart goggles are sold at the shop, which will allow you to be decently good at killing stuff. I goes well with stealth and Ambush feat, since you can find silenced SMGs allowing you to pick enemies in smaller grounds if you need to. And it has relatively simple build - Spec Ops + Commando. If you take Grenadier and Three-Pointer along with decent throwing skill (as was pointed out - around 80 effective skill) you would be golden. I would also suggest Paranoia for additional boost to initiative and detection. Opportunist + Suppressive Fire are also good combo to boost you damage even further along with applying some debuff to the enemy

Attribute points needed - Dex as high as possible since it affects how AP per shot you are using, Per around 10, Agi 7 for feats. Also, if you don't intend to craft anything 7 points in Int is such a waste. Drop it to 3, you will only need to spend couple more points on hacking and since you don't do crafting, you have them.