Messages

151

Builds / Re: Pure Psi, Pure Noob

« on: April 29, 2020, 06:18:22 am »

Mental Subversion and Hypothermia are extremely weak feats.  Neurology instead of Meditation is strictly the inferior choice.  Psychostatic Electricity and Neural Overclocking are typically better for Psychosis builds than Tranq.

Why not try one of the builds in my guide? https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=4149.0

152

Builds / Re: Shotgun Psi build

« on: April 24, 2020, 10:25:09 pm »

If you want a shotgun as soon as possible, then wait to get your weapon back from Lucas.  You've got psi, so go do Retake the Outposts and Hopper Round-up using just psi.  0-skill Temporal Distortion and TK Punch will be enough to get you through most of that, so even if you didn't plan on taking Psychokinesis or Temporal Manipulation, you'd still be able to sail through those starting quests.  Then, at character level 3 (which might just be after Retaking the Outposts) you should have enough Persuasion (which you'll get by puling 40 points out of Stealth, which that build is overinvested in by a lot) to get the Shoddy Shotty and be ready to go with your shotgun.  You can pick up an AR whenever you want; even at level 1 it's possible if you buy two or three grenades.  Just head down into the Underpassages, manually engage turn-based mode so you can skirt the Lurker pair and run past the sledge dude, then kill the guy with the aluminized tac vest (if you picked up TD, may as well kill those rathounds and get the loot from inside that locked room, too), open the gate, and kill the Lurker with the AR.

Presto, AR and shotgun by the time you're done with Retaking the Outposts, or Hopper Roundup at the latest.

153

Builds / Re: Rate My --Jedi-- Build

« on: April 24, 2020, 10:17:03 pm »

You're about 20 points overinvested in Lockpicking, 15 in Mechanics, and 10 in Tailoring.  I also don't see a reason to go 80 points into a psi discipline; 80 is support-tier, so may as well take back 10 skill points from Temporal Manipulation.  Finally, if you really do intend to use psychokinesis as support, you can pull it back down to 45 or 70.  Since you're not taking Force User, your TK Punch isn't going to be all that impressive, so either just get the electro trap, or pick up Implosion and the Proxy.

That would free up a bunch of skill points so you could improve your overall utility.  A bit more Biology and you could make some nice drugs for when you need a little something extra.  Maybe pick up some world manipulation, like Hacking or Persuasion or Mercantile if you felt like it.

Take Premeditation much earlier, preferably at level 6.  You can either drop Fancy Footwork entirely, or push it forward in the list so you can get your more direct-damage feats like Critical Power on schedule.

154

General / Re: Where can I find different collectors for the blob pistols?

« on: April 22, 2020, 07:17:44 pm »

Both.  You can luck into finding one pre-Depot, but it's just luck.  Getting some Mercantile to unlock merchant inventories will help, post-Depot, since you'll have access to several merchants with extra inventory; also, the world will progress and merchant inventories will improve.  I know I've found them on Fixer, in Junkyard, as well as the merchants in Core City and Foundry; I'm fairly sure you can get them in IoT and Fort Apogee as well.

But basically, the incendiary and cryo collectors are fairly rare, and you'll need a little luck, a little patience, or both in order to find them.

155

Builds / Re: Psi - Trapper seems interesting any thoughts?

« on: April 16, 2020, 04:18:28 pm »

You gotta put a little more effort in, man.  At the time you posted this, Jacquemort's "Psi-Assassin-Trapper" topic was still on the first page of the Builds subforum.  There were also at least five other psi build guides on the first page in addition to the Psi-Assassin-Trapper.

Traps isn't a build.  It's a single skill that's an addition to a build.  It benefits from stealth, so if you want to use traps to their utmost potential, some stealth will help.  Otherwise, just read a few posts, find a psi guide you like, and make room for traps in it if it doesn't already have some points left for the skill.

156

Builds / Re: Pacifist build?

« on: April 14, 2020, 01:12:32 am »

How do you avoid killing humans? You need to kill people in the arena to progress if I'm not mistaken? Same for the faction quests?

You don't have to kill your enemies in the arena if you just hurt them a good bit and let them die from a morphine debilitation.  Is it pedantic? Yes.  But technically you're not killing them, they're dying from a drug "overdose" effect.  Strictly speaking, they're killing themselves with their own tools and by their own actions.  It's been long enough since I played any Arena fights that I'm not sure I remember if they all had morphine, but some of them certainly did.  If any of those necessary first three do not, you'd have to reverse-pickpocket it, which can be a pain during a fight.

For the CoreTech warehouse, at least, you can - with Grenadier and ideally LTI - in fact just stunlock the enemy and let your NPCs kill them.  Again, you're sort of complicit in their death, but you're not killing them.  For the mad scientist, you can kill him with his own traps, which again is maybe not within your definition, but it's pretty arguably him doing it to himself.

You could stretch things even further and decide that player traps don't count either, but in that case it is in fact something you do that kills the human. Whatever.  A pacifist run is by its very nature navel-gazing self-limitation.  Set whatever restrictions you feel are most enjoyable for you, like I do when playing psi.

157

Builds / Re: Pacifist build?

« on: April 13, 2020, 11:17:24 pm »

It is not possible to complete the main plot of the game with a zero-kill, pure pacifist run.  You can however do an "ethical" pacifist run, where you don't kill any humans.  You can also get almost all the way through the game without killing anything at all, I do believe.  Game difficulty won't really be what keeps you from making a complete run; a good while ago a forum user showed that with some significant savescumming you can beat DOMINATING at level 6, so if you're playing Oddity it won't even be all that hard to get enough levels to make it all possible.

158

Builds / Re: Build help for expedition

« on: April 11, 2020, 05:26:24 pm »

There are a few.  If you mean, the Plasma Sentries, then any of those would do fine.  Industrial Bots?  Same.  Strongmen? There I would rule out the sniper, and the spear.  Nagas?  Probably just stick with tin can AR or full psi.  Full psi is - until Styg finishes nerfing it in the next few months - the most powerful build in the game, probably.  It certainly is the most versatile.

So, either go tin can AR if you want to dakkadakkadakka or full psi if you'd prefer to cave wizard FTW.

159

Builds / Re: Build help for expedition

« on: April 11, 2020, 11:37:45 am »

If you want to have a strong, survivable character for direct-force approaches, try a tin can AR. Search the forum, there are plenty of build guides for that.

If you want to have the widest variety of tools available so you can solve whatever problems come your way, try a full psi build with crafting, social skills, and hacking & lockpicking.  Search the forum, there are plenty of build guides for that.

If you want a sneaky or nearly pacifist playthrough, but also want to be able to kill things quickly when you have to, try a stealth sniper.  Search the forum, there are plenty of build guides for that.

If you just want to hit people in the face, try either a metal armor sledge build or a riot gear spear build.  Search the forum, there are plenty of build guides for that.

Without knowing how you like to play the game, I can't really offer a customized suggestion.  Any of those broad archetypes listed above are strong and will easily, easily get you through Normal difficulty.

160

Builds / Re: Is Nerd Commando's "Arbalist" Build still viable for Expedition?

« on: April 08, 2020, 07:17:26 am »

is there anything vital I will get screwed over for not having persuasion?

No.  A few cases of somewhat better quest rewards, and a few situations where an easier - and usually less combat-oriented - solution is available if you can persuade someone/something.  What you miss out on is noticeable, but not vital.

161

Builds / Re: Is Nerd Commando's "Arbalist" Build still viable for Expedition?

« on: April 07, 2020, 09:44:49 pm »

Man I forgot that his voice is basically an acoustic weapon.  Hell is probably just eternity listening to NerdCommando narrate documentaries about flesh-eating swarm insects.

Anyway, that build would work fine.  Probably skip Trap Expert unless you just have nothing else at all you want.  Since you'll have some points to spare, might be worth putting 55 into Temporal Manipulation so you can self-buff, then get Psychotemporal Acceleration instead of TE.

Hacking and Lockpicking aren't necessary to get through the game, but you miss out on a lot of loot if you have neither.  Also, with low Strength scores, if you don't have lockpicking then you may not be able to benefit from all the air vent trickery that you can do so well as a stealthy xbow user.  Since they're in the build you linked to, probably keep at least one of them if not both.  You won't need to max them out - 100 effective skill is enough to pass 95-99% of all the checks in the game, especially once you add gear and food buffs to that.

162

General / Re: Changing DOMINATING economic modifiers?

« on: April 03, 2020, 04:55:27 am »

Or just take mercantile.

In order for Mercantile to even come close to being close to what Disassemble can offer, you have to get to 140 effective, so you can get the extra 20k charons for selling the Reef Glider.  Other than that, it's only worth a few thousand charons in quest reward increases, and then the discount for buying stuff.  Disassemble is easily worth 25k charons, and with some merchant runs, it's closer to 50k.  Since you can't really profit from buying components on DOMINATING (exception: cheap 4th-component items when crafting, like cloth/padding for light/medium armors, or simple muzzle devices/grips for firearms) regardless of Mercantile, it's not really the same.

Of course you're right that Mercantile helps with the economy, but it targets a different section of the profit pathway, and cannot in any way stand as a substitute for Disassemble.

163

General / Re: Changing DOMINATING economic modifiers?

« on: April 03, 2020, 12:12:34 am »

Dumb question regarding the disassemble feat, but I think I'm missing something major - the idea behind it is to disassemble stuff you find and use those components to craft gear to sell, right? But since the components you get from disassembling items only have 90% of their original quality, wouldn't you just make more money by selling the thing made from the components in the first place? Or is there some kind of extra value modifier for things the player crafts or something?

Three things to consider:
1) When you disassemble then reassemble something, it is fully repaired.
2) Some items have a very high value modifier on their components.  Firearms, crossbows, chemical & energy weapons, tasers, metal armor, and riot/tac armors all have high or very high value modifiers, so pieces you can pull off other gear and then use to make those things will be more valuable on high-modifier items than on low-modifier items.
3) Most items have a total value modifier that increases with the number of optional components.  As an abstracted example, a weapon with just frame and barrel would have a 1.0 total value multiplier.  With one optional mod, a 1.1; and with two, 1.2.  That means you get 20% more value from each piece by putting four pieces together to make one gun than you would putting them together minimally.  For the actual numbers, look here: https://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Blueprints#Value_multipliers

It may not be obvious at first, but once you grok the underlying process, you can cheese the everloving hell out of the economy, by using Disassemble.  The tiny 10% item quality hit means nothing when you're just putting things together to maximize value, especially since most of the components you'll use won't have quality values anyway.

164

General / Re: Changing DOMINATING economic modifiers?

« on: April 02, 2020, 11:34:54 am »

Not yet.  The idea of customizing difficulty settings has been brought up before, and the specific example you make here is one of the things Styg has said he would consider implementing at some point.  Maybe we'll see it in the next big patch?  I don't know.  But there doesn't seem to be a way to decouple the economy from the difficulty settings.

You don't need to worry too much about it, though, to be honest.  Even on DOMINATING you have enough money as long as you don't blow it like a pro athlete at a strip club.  Quest rewards and world loot aren't cut by 75%, only things you sell.  If you just can't handle the idea of not buying a nice jet ski and fancying up your house, then roll a crafter with Disassemble.  The amount of money you can pull out of the game thanks to that feat is just bonkers.  It certainly makes it so you don't have to lug everything back, just to afford the stuff you need and want.

165

Builds / Re: The Psi-Juggernaut

« on: March 31, 2020, 07:47:56 am »

Barring the feats you mentioned, the scenario you put here is a rather specific instance, and not really common occurrence, don't you think? What about enemies with <Medium impact weapon damage, like melee and crossbows? What about characters who can't get the most out of heavy armor because being a hybrid of dodge-evasion and medium armor like riot armor/tactical vest/infused leather armors?

Most of the damage you'll take will go to your energy shield and disappear.  Most of the rest will go into your armor, unless you're just terrible at the game, because you'll set yourself up so that you only allow the attacks that your armor will mitigate.  For example, if you're a tac vest wearer, then you'll allow the pistol/SMG characters to live to the very end of the fight because they'll be doing 0s.  Riot gear?  Let the knife-wielders do their thing, it's no big deal.  Leather armor?  You'd better not be letting yourself get hit often or you're playing poorly and need to work on that, because leather armor is for mobile, far-field, or stealthy melee type characters.

No, I don't think it's unusual.  It's a case where enough damage hits you that it breaks through the two main lines of defense.  It shows how feeble that final line really is, but you can mix and match numbers to your choosing, if you feel I cherry-picked too much.

Barely out of Depot A, did the Maura quest, got those very basic shields and metal armors, then followed the rails to Rail Crossing and while exploring, opened that door and let the sniper take his shot?  How's that go?  300 damage again, but your shield only blocks 40, and your armor, basic as it is, is only giving you 30% DR?  Then 300 -> 260 -> 182.  Conditioning stops 36 then!  But you still took almost 150.  Either that was the only hit you took, in which case your Advanced Health Hypo fixed you up, or you took several hits and died anyway.  Either way, Conditioning still didn't make a difference, because it's such a small effect.

Your question about metathermics is exactly what I described in the second-to-last paragraph of the previous post.  It's where Conditioning looks as good as it can, but it still doesn't make a meaningful difference.  Though, of course, there's no reason to take metathermics damage before getting an energy shield, and even a basic energy shield will result in enemy metathermics doing very little damage to you, much like a shield damps the bite from frag grenades and mines.

If I were going to change Conditioning, I'd make it a Per + Agi + Con feat, and reduce its percentage reduced, but have it apply before shields and armor.  The idea would be, you know how to avoid the damage that comes in; you're not necessarily more inherently bulletproof, you're more adept at rolling with the hit, ducking slightly at the last moment, turning your armored shoulder into the bullet.  Such a feat, even if its percentage were small indeed, would act as a magnifier of both your shield and your armor, meaning it would be a defensive power multiplier.  It would let your shield last (slightly) longer, and would give your DT a tiny bit more opportunity to keep you safe.  It would, in that order, then be useful, if not necessarily terribly powerful.  But, your idea of tying it to Tempered obviously makes a lot of sense, too.