Messages

196

Builds / Re: An Average Explanation of Outstanding Psi Builds

« on: February 26, 2020, 08:17:57 am »

Will I ever be in a position to invest in one or two other non-combat skills from crafting/mechanics/mech/electronics/bio/chem etc? Maybe lockpicking/hacking are only useful up to a certain point for example.

Yep.  If you take a look at my suggested build growth links back on the first page, you'll see that you can start branching out fairly early.  By mid-game you'll probably have hit the maximum useful investment for hack/pick/persuade, so even if for some reason you choose to remain hyper-focused on those eight skills, by about level 10 you can stop investing in Persuasion, by about 12 in Mercantile, and by about 16 in Lockpicking and Hacking.  Personally, I'd branch out more and pick up some crafting, and only level up Lockpicking, Hacking, and Mercantile when you see a use for them.

The post following yours copies some info out of a very very useful (but very very spoiler-y) FAQ by destroyor, so feel free to scroll up a bit and see some useful skill thresholds, if you're worried about over-investing.

I may not be the first one to tell this but: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

You basically permitted me to enjoy the game, my first build was a suboptimal smg build I wasn't pleased with and I quickly abandon with the game altogether.
[...]
However, as many before me, I still do not agree with the statement that Tranquility surpasses SI Psychosis. I think it is quite the opposite.

Glad to have been of help.  It's a really good game, so I'm glad you came back to it after bouncing off.  It's not the absolute easiest game to dive in, and it doesn't pretend to be, but as you found, there's a lot of worthwhile stuff once you get going.

Psi is strong enough that whether Tranq or Psych is "the best", either one is absolutely good enough to be considered top-tier if played well.  Sounds like you have Psychosis down pat.

197

Builds / Re: Sniper/Shotgun Build questions

« on: February 17, 2020, 01:32:52 pm »

So, you need the 5 Str for your shotguns, but 4 or 5 is generally a bad number for a stat to be at unless you have a specific reason to do so.  It's better to min/max a bit and pull that Dex and Con down to 3 each and free up 4 more points.  Then you could get 7 Will and still have Blitz, if you wanted.

I wouldn't get Blitz.  If you're willing to pick up psi as a support set, then I'd dump Agi entirely, in fact, because psi haste is so much better than Sprint and Hit and Run and Blitz combined.  Well, I might keep 6 Agi for Sprint if I had nowhere else to spend points, but I'd rather put those points into Int and Will if, like you, I wanted to have a good amount of Persuasion on tap (you want  to be able to buff up to a little over 100 effective skill to hit all the checks in-game).

If you were willing to do a little bit of gear shuffling and were willing to do your crafting back at home where you get your skill bonuses, then I'd think you'd do much better with a setup like this: http://underrail.info/build/?HgUHAwULBwjChyMAAAAAUE9LAEZfXyJHXwAtwqBGRgA8KwEoJFM1KcKwwpYqwod-M0vCnOKitQLfvw

This'll get you all your Mercantile thresholds and all your Persuasion thresholds, while also allowing you to pick up Grenadier and Quick Tinkering, both of which will allow you to control the battle field significantly (through more frequent grenades, obviously, but also through setting down traps mid-combat in case things start to get out of control), while also giving you just enough Psychokinesis to get the electricity trap, which is also really great for chokepoint control.  It also pulls back your overspending in Lockpicking and Hacking so you have a few more points to go around. This is a more min/maxed build than what you made, but it'll do everything if you're willing to juggle a few things here and there.  You can still make all your gear, your Mk IV grenades/traps, your Super Soldier Drug while fully buffed, and can make your everyday consumables without any buffs.  This is, to me, a very workable level of min/maxing.

edit: build link modified for new Character Builder URL

198

Suggestions / Re: Quality of life suggestions

« on: February 17, 2020, 01:16:34 pm »

4. I find there is too much mouse movement when crafting, especially when your doing something repetitious, such as "recycle item": you have to keep moving your mouse from the inventory window to the "Create" button and back. Would love it if the player could bind a key to the "create" button. That is, the player could then stop moving the mouse so far by double-clicking on the item in the inventory then pressing the key bound to the "Create" button.

Not that there would be a reason for you to, but if you had gone back about 14 pages, you'd see I asked that exact same question in 2017, and I wasn't the first to do it then    Styg said he'd add it to the todo list, and I bet he did.  But with such a small dev team it can take a good long while to implement things, especially little QoL stuff.

Anyway, it speeds things up a little to know that you don't have to click from inventory.  If you single-click the empty window in the crafting dialog, it automatically grabs the next eligible item from your inventory, so you only move from the window down to the craft button.  It's a bit faster and less carpal-tunnel-inducing especially when doing bulk crafting or disassembling.

199

General / Re: Calling all psionics

« on: February 14, 2020, 06:24:27 pm »

However, as soon as some enemies are out of LoC AOE, those unaffected still chase the player (even if line if sight was broken), thus preventing player from disengaging. And often also making their enraged buddies chase them instead of killing each other ("instead of" because they use their AP chasing, not attacking).

I know it probably sounds like I'm just arguing with everything you say, but I really do agree with most of where you're coming from.  But I feel like I should add, that sort of situation is exactly the "tiny bit extra" that I was talking about when I said LoC is just as bad without FF as with.  If you've got a group that doesn't all fit in the flashbang/LoC AoE, then maybe you put psi slow on one so they end up running in to the middle of the group, and maybe you fear another so you don't have to worry about them for four turns.  Next turn, when the slowed dude is in the middle of the incapped group, you can stun 'em with a mental breakdown or a tk punch.  Then next turn, they get the LoC Enrage along with all their friends.  If that problem add was a robot, well, you drop an electrotrap at their feet/treads instead, right?

Planning out an ideal AoE does take a slightly grander scope than a single turn, but I've always found it relatively easy to do.  With good setup, almost every fight in the game should be manageable in a single turn once you've placed the pieces on the field where you want them - a group enrage; a ThermoD bomb; a Psionic Mania Cryo Orb followed by a Pyrokinesis to take care of anyone left.  Sticky, tough groups like Balor just require whatever you'd normally do plus an Entropic Recurrence on the boss.  One turn and it's all over but the dying.

200

General / Re: Calling all psionics

« on: February 13, 2020, 03:25:17 pm »

As for LoC + engare, it's not nearly as bad without force field. Simply because enraged enemies might still attack the player, so it's not fool-proof.

It might just be a difference in how we use the term, but I think Enrage is just as bad without FF, it just takes a tiny bit more set-up to be as bad.  An enraged enemy that can see a friend nearby and can't see you is almost never going to come attack you.  At least, in hundreds of times using it, I've never been attacked by an enraged enemy that's out of LOS or at the very edge of LOS while other targets are right near by it.  So you Premeditate for the extra range, LoC+Enrage, then since you're psi anyway you psi haste and GTFO.  It might not be theoretically perfect but in practice it's always going to be safe.

In the few cases where you're right in the scrum, running to the edge and tossing a flashbang to get you your ideal positioning during the incap will almost always do the trick.  If it's a combo of organic and robotic enemy targets, well...flashbang and EMP are on different cooldown timers, anyway 

201

Builds / Re: Pistol build for casual

« on: February 13, 2020, 02:13:55 pm »

Sure, for Normal difficulty, you can play any build and be OK.  You may still die from time to time, of course, but it'll be a case of you make a mistake, die, reload, then don't make that mistake again.  You won't ever be simply unable to progress.

Perception of 10 should be plenty for pistols, but you want a lot of Dex because that'll bring the action point cost down so you can shoot more.  And obviously, more shooting is better.  Since you'll have high Dexterity anyway, you'll want to pick up some Throwing skill and Grenadier.  You may even have enough feat slots available for Three Pointer, which can be kind of nice especially at high effective values for Throwing.

You'll really need 6 Agi for Sprint, if you're not going to pick up psi.  Pistols need good placement because their range is relatively limited, so you'll always be happy to have extra movement points on tap.

I'd start with 10 Dex, 8 Per, 6 Agi and put your first two points into Dex.  If you're still happy with your damage output, then keep your Perception at 8 until you find it hard to do enough damage per shot to be useful (Perception will increase Guns skill, which increases damage).  You'll have a few more stat points to distribute, and they can go wherever.  On Normal you have enough health that you don't really need more Con unless you want it, but it's never bad to have.  Int would also be nice, because you're going to want to craft your own pistols, and it's always best to craft your own shield and armor if you can.  Whatever you think you'd prefer will do just fine.

If you do intend to use chemical pistols, you'll need 25 skill points in Chemistry at a bare minimum (or a lot more if you want to craft your own chem pistol - again, crafting is pretty much always going to give you a superior item than what you can find in the game world) for Cooked Shot, which is a whole lot of utility.

202

General / Re: Calling all psionics

« on: February 12, 2020, 11:29:01 pm »

Also, nerf force field.
Did I mention nerfing force field? (And thermodynamic destab, for that matter.)

Months ago Styg said he was considering giving Force Field blocks a hit point value so they could be destroyed.  If the AI would go after the field, that would be a pretty good nerf.  I'd probably still take Force User though on every psi build for the extra punchiness.  A ThermoD fix would require addressing the big bugbear of psi, in order to be a graceful fix and not just a quick kludge - the fact that psi scales too high with the combination of flat-% results as well as scaled numbers, and can then apply those to multiple targets.  Like, TK Proxy -> Implosion -> TK Punch.  Double percents, then double scaled values on the tiny fraction that remains.  That's just too much.  But if Implosion and TK Punch shared a cooldown?  Or if triggering one put, say, a 2-turn cooldown on the other (so you couldn't just LTI it away)? Well, that might make things more interesting.  Similarly, ThermoD does scaled % damage (and allows you to pick the highest-health target you can subsequently kill, meaning it actually double-scales the percentage) to uncapped targets, meaning its multiplier is whatever number of enemies you can group up - and, as much as I love the game, the AI isn't world-class.  You can group the entire Lunatic Mall in a tight ball with one bear trap and a flashbang.  So you'd probably need to decouple the ThermoD damage potential from its target potential.  If its damage was divided across targets, instead of copied to them, well that might make it more interesting.  If damage fell away with distance from source and then spread, ThermoD might not be any more powerful than a well-placed grenade, while still retaining a uniqueness.  And of course, you could fix all that all day and I could still faceroll the game by dodging robots then LoC+Enraging everything else, everywhere, every time 

Still, I've always been of the opinion that games should have an easymode, and I don't mean an Easy setting.  Psi is way more interesting than tin can AR or sledge juggernaut; it would be a shame to make the easiest option one of the least varied.  I can always limit myself if I want a challenge when playing psi - tuning the game to be relentlessly hard is the best way to drive away a big portion of potential player base.

203

General / Re: Calling all psionics

« on: February 12, 2020, 09:59:43 pm »

INB4, next patch notes:
Fixed a bug with most areas not having active airborne black dragon toxin dispensers.

Why do you give Styg ideas?  You know he is not a merciful Godman.

Notice how he asked about overpowered psi generalists?  My money is on cross-school penalties, like global accruing cooldowns or cumulative cost increases.
Patch notes: Fixed a bug where it was possible to complete the game as a full psi character.

204

General / Re: Calling all psionics

« on: February 12, 2020, 05:57:07 pm »

Hey, guys, I'm doing a little harmless experiment.

205

Builds / Re: DOMINATING Laser Pistol Critical Build: 7 shots/rd., 5+ dead, not a scientist ;)

« on: February 11, 2020, 11:39:17 pm »

I am confused on what Q150-140 means exactly I couldnt really figure it out on my own.

Component quality.  Most pieces required to make gear will have a quality value, that you can see on the information window for the component.  Higher quality is (almost always) better, in that it will have stronger effects; however, higher quality also requires higher skill to craft with.  q150 means quality 150.  Quality is only applicable to components, not to finished gear.  The finished gear has no quality value associated with it.

206

Builds / Re: New player, last build hit a wall, need help with "Blood Mage" build (HARD)

« on: February 07, 2020, 01:22:12 pm »

You're not going to like the answer.

Your build is fine.  The game is hard, and you played badly.  On Hard difficulty, any build can work if played well.

On the bright side, it's easy to fix your problems.  You don't even have to change your build at all.  However, I'd suggest you put two points into Will at some point so you can pick up Locus of Control.

Robots in the GMS compound killing you?  You need to go to the Underpassages (take the entrance just out front of SGS, where the three thugs were waiting for you if you took Jack's delivery quest.  Then, go east one screen) and kill the Lurker who's standing around wearing an aluminized tac vest.  Wear that so you can eat the hits from the robots.  While you're down there, pick up the AR from the lurker behind the locked door that's right in front of that aluminzed fellow.  You may be an SMG build but early on , that AR is straight up money.

Pick up Grenadier around level 6.  Since you aren't specialized, you don't have any huge I WIN buttons, so endless fields of explosive death will healp smooth out the tough patches.

Sprint would help you more than Hit and Run.

If you want to build a blood mage, you should really have 7 CON for Hemopsychosis, but I get why it might be tough to get the points for it with such a scattered build like that.

If you were willing to invest just 25 points in Psychokinesis, you could pick up Force User and that would be an enormous shift in the power balance of that build.

207

General / Re: Merchant inventories

« on: January 29, 2020, 06:59:46 am »

It is.  And, lately, it's also built in to the game so you can speed up time and not have to resort to learning/using Cheat Engine.  But, if you want to, CE does offer that.

208

General / Re: Merchant inventories

« on: January 27, 2020, 10:56:02 pm »

Unless it has changed quite recently, inventory restocks every 90 minutes of real time that you aren't in the same screen with the merchant.  However, with the game speed acceleration ability, you can significantly cut that down, I think - you certainly could using CheatEngine to do the same thing.
As far as savescumming it, I dunno.  Styg has been pretty aggressive in reducing randomness in the game, for the last year or so.  I believe you can, but I also haven't tested it.  You could!  Just check a mechant inventory, then save, leave the screen, speed up the game, and go grocery shopping or cook dinner or take a walk or watch some TV or something.  Come back, see what's there.  Nothing you need?  Take a screenshot, reload your save, and repeat the process.  Take another screenshot, and compare the two.  I believe they'll be different.

209

Builds / Re: Does anyone know how high enemy resolve can go in the game (incl. expedition)?

« on: January 26, 2020, 12:35:38 am »

I am wondering if I should stop leveling thought control.

You should stop levelling Thought Control at 75, because that's the minimum you need to get Locus of Control, and if you're playing a psi character, you should have LoC. Going even one point beyond 75 is generally a waste of points, even on DOMINATING difficulty, because not only will you only very rarely get resisted, but generally because TC abilities are so very short-range, you'll have used Premeditate+LoC to get an AoE effect at a reasonable distance from yourself and will thus have all your AP remaining for the turn to handle anyone who happened to be lucky enough to die by other means rather than by mind melting.

That said, if you want to go higher, by all means do so.  Psi is powerful enough that there's no reason you should worry yourself over min/maxing.

210

General / Re: Padding

« on: January 23, 2020, 08:08:55 pm »

So regarding cold and electric resistance, how much do you really need them? As you said electric resist is fairly rare but is electric damage common late game?

You don't need any of either. You can get through the game with no DR or DT of any kind, in fact, but that would be the sort of thing you'd only want to do as a self-challenge.  There are three or four places in the game for each of cold and electric where having resist can be helpful, but except for the Gauntlet (and maybe that's been fixed?) there are no places where either cold or electric resist in any quantity would make the difference between a situation  where you cannot win and one where you can.  Energy resist can be useful; Bio obviously can; and of course physical.  But cold and electricity are things you're only likely to find frequently when fighting groups of psionic enemies, and your better bet by far is just not to let them attack you in the first place.