Messages

286

Builds / Re: Psi Machete, Thoughts?

« on: September 16, 2019, 10:59:47 am »

Temporal Manipulation (Highest effective I need is 70 to grab Stasis)

Just in case this isn't an accidental typo, I should remind you that you need base scores to learn psi abilities, not effective scores.  Effective scores determine the effect of the ability, if it scales off of skill, but you have to have the base value to learn it in the first place.

287

Builds / Re: Psi Machete, Thoughts?

« on: September 16, 2019, 08:54:14 am »

3 Will + maxed Psychokinesis? That's going to disappoint you. Psychokinesis is a real psi point hog and the only way to get it to do really exceptional damage is to have really high effective scores.  With such a low effective score, your TK Punch will not be landing stuns very often (enemies will successfully make their Resolve checks and resist the stun), so you'll have to rely on Electrokinesis and Electrokinetic Imprint - and they do their stun no matter what your skill is.  So you may as well pull back 115 points from Psychokinesis.  45 will get you the electro trap and the force field.  Now you have 275 points to spare, and that opens up a lot more options for your character.  You can also pull 50 points out of Tailoring if you want, since with housing bonus that'll still give you a high enough effective score to make your highest-quality leather armor and tabis/boots.  325 points.  35 points can come out of Mechanics, since you'll not be wearing metal armor obviously.  360 points.  Now we're talking.  Pick up some more useful skills and even though your stats are still a mess, you'll do just fine.

288

Builds / Re: An Average Explanation of Outstanding Psi Builds

« on: September 16, 2019, 08:24:10 am »

Thanks so much for this, will be following your psychosis build as after scouring the web this is the best guide I found.  Just wondering what gear to go with from the get go?

Psi isn't very gear dependent. You could get by fine all the way to Junkyard just with your starting clothes, barefoot, and weaponless. Still, especially for new players, I do recommend you visit the Underpassages outside of GMS and kill the bad guys lurking there. One of them is wearing an aluminized tac vest, and you should probably grab that for yourself.  It'll do you just fine all the way up to Depot A, where you'll want to change it out for a crafted suit of Mutated Dog or Siphoner leather armor.  Then you'll probably want to craft a Psi Beetle Tac Vest for the psi cost reduction.

Don't rush to the Underpassages at level 1 or you'll die badly.  I usually do it after Hopper Round Up, on the way to GMS.  Having that tac vest is going to be very helpful when you get to the second level of GMS.

In GMS, you'll probably find a unique item, the Jackknife.  That may as well stay in your hand all the way until you go to Expedition content and find one of the tasty psi weapons there.  Maybe carry Kohlmeier's Knife or Boxing Gloves or something like that for the enhanced defense, or a lightweight empty pistol for the initiative bonus if you've decided to go with Gunslinger.  But me, I just use the Jackknife.

289

Builds / Re: Smg, trap and stealth, (maybe throwing) bad or viable, too spread out?

« on: September 15, 2019, 04:26:51 pm »

What makes con "dump-able?"

is it safe to interpret that despite the handicap of having 3 int, this only means that maybe up to the mid-game I'll suffer penalties to the crafting stats which otherwise is negligible in the late game? I'm a little torn on how to invest on my stats at this point

If I'm following you, either dump or pump into a stat and never go for a safety 4 or 5 to off-set penalty, correct?

Yeah, I'm trying not to give you a cookie cutter and just tell you to press it into the dough, but that does mean I may be giving you enough options to be largely unhelpful.

OK.  Con is dumpable when you either have a way to not get hit, or a way to not take dangerous damage when you get hit.  You can not get hit by attacking from range; by alpha striking so hard you murder everything before it can go; by exploiting line-of-sight against ranged enemies and physical space against melee enemies; by reducing the ability of enemies to successfully hit when they attack; by preventing the enemy from seeing you to attack you.  You can take no dangerous damage when you get hit by having excellent armor against whatever damage type is hitting you; by having very high-capacity energy shields; by using Aegis and Morphine; by having such an immense HP pool that damage is largely irrelevant (aka playing on Easy).  You see, there are a lot of options for what sounds like a very simple thing.  If you want to play a stealthy SMG type, you're going to need to leverage stealth (no use against robots and true-sighted enemies), dodge/evasion (not deterministically reliable but useful to limit damage to spikes rather than plateaus), line of sight/physical distance, and energy shields.  Maybe also Aegis/Morphine.  If you can envision a game play concept where you will always be able to do at least two of those things then you can safely dump Con.

As you go through the game, you will eventually be offered a house in Core City.  There will be many options for you, when you have that house - but one set of those options will include moving in workbenches which will provide a +15% buff to your effective crafting skills.  At 3 Int, you can still get high enough effective skills to craft whatever you need, in your house - especially if you have access to Hypercerebrix (brief +2 Int buff).  With low Int, all you really lose access to are crafting feats, but for a gunner, that's not a huge deal since Gun Nut is notoriously underperforming, and Skinner/Clothier/Ballistics are all very modest improvements, at best.  Since you only have three skills that you really need to max out (Guns, Dodge, Evasion), and a few more that need less than half investment to cap their actual usefulness (Hacking, Lockpicking, Traps, Mercantile, Throwing) you'll have enough points that you can spend (skill points) your way to crafting success despite having an effective skill penalty.

Correct.  UnderRail hugely rewards specialization and min/maxing of stats.  Be good at something, or be really, really bad at it.

290

Builds / Re: Smg, trap and stealth, (maybe throwing) bad or viable, too spread out?

« on: September 15, 2019, 02:28:05 pm »

okay thanks for clearing that up. just wondering if you can make a decent smg character without crafting

Ah, sorry, then I misread the question. I was focusing on the 4 Int part >.>

Crafting is so much better than using bought/looted gear that it's really tough to justify not at least picking up Mechanics so you can make a gun. Don't wanna make custom ammo? OK.  Don't wanna make grenades and traps? OK.  Don't wanna make medicines and shield generators and cloaking devices? OK.  But man, getting through the game, as a gunner, without a crafted gun and a taser? That's just making UnderRail a lot harder than it really needs to be.

Yes, you can do it. Yes, you can make a good SMG character with no crafting at all.  But if you can find some points to spare, you can make a better SMG character with a healthy dose of Mechanics and a touch of Electronics.

291

Builds / Re: Smg, trap and stealth, (maybe throwing) bad or viable, too spread out?

« on: September 15, 2019, 01:38:46 pm »

Can you get by without crafting with smg build and just put int to 4 so that you dont get penalised?

Why would you do that?  If you're not going to craft or take Premeditation/Expose Weakness/Versatility, why would you have any Int score other than 3?  Never set a score to 4.  4 is always the wrong value for a stat in UnderRail.

"But you've recommended 4 Perception in builds before!" "4 Str is ideal for snipers relying on Rathound BBQ, scrub!" Sure, there are a couple situations where 4 is OK for a stat, but if you don't know exactly what those situations are, and why they are good situations for a 4, then just assume that 4 is always wrong.  You'll learn better, in time.

How forgiving is underrail if say we partially follow a build but try to be independent and experimental at normal difficulty? I read before that Depot A should test how viable the build you're doing is but some say that it's just challenging and shouldn't be used as a benchmark.

You'll be fine on Normal. Any non-CE* build, no matter how bad, can get through Normal if it's played by someone willing to try to learn from their mistakes.  So you can experiment to your heart's content. Most of the time, most builds will have a good bit of wiggle room anyway.  In the case of Depot A, if you're having a really hard time, just go wander around, pick up a level, and find, buy, or craft a bunch of traps and grenades.  A sufficient quantity of high explosives will resolve almost any problem in UnderRail.

*Yes, if you use Cheat Engine you can probably drop all your stats and skills to 0 and manage to cheat your way into a build that can't succeed, but you've got nobody but yourself to blame for that, if you do it.

292

Builds / Re: Are firearm pistol builds really that bad?

« on: September 15, 2019, 12:19:55 pm »

You never need to spec into psionics, unless obviously you're a psi build

You're going to need some more Int for a chem pistol build, but other than that your stats look good.  If you intend for chem pistols to be your primary weapons, then you really sort of do need Mad Chemist and Cooked Shot.  You can get by with 8 Per, at least early on, if you want to pull points from there for Int.  And yes, you mostly take the same feats for chem/energy pistol builds that you'd use for firearm pistol builds - you still want your Aimed Shot, Execute (good lord, the plasma Execute crits), Point Shot, Kneecap shot.  You just also probably need to make room for Mad Chemist and Cooked Shot.

You're not really going to have a viable chem pistol build without making your own, though. (Yes, I know XAL is good enough to use forever, but getting to XAL without your own crafted pistols will make you want to gouge your own eyes out)  So be prepared to sink some points into Crafting.

If the reason you've got 7 Agi is for Interloper, I'd like to close out by mentioning that if you're crafting your own armor, you'll be able to get enough move speed from Infused Hopper Leather Armor and good tabis that Interloper won't be necessary at all anywhere ever.  If you have it for Hit & Run, though, you probably do need to keep that 7.

293

Builds / Re: Smg, trap and stealth, (maybe throwing) bad or viable, too spread out?

« on: September 15, 2019, 11:58:59 am »

Honestly, if you have yet to see a stealth SMG build guide, you're not looking very hard.  The Spec Ops SMG Commando is a very well-established build in UnderRail.  It's powerful, it's flexible, and it doesn't need more than about six feats to do really well so you've got plenty of room to try other stuff too.  The only real drawback is OMG SO MUCH AMMO COST, meaning it's especially difficult on DOMINATING.

Yes, more DEX than PER. Yes, Dodge and Evasion (and therefore also Nimble).  Yes grenades, all the grenades, so many grenades (and therefore also Grenadier).  5 in a stat is a rookie mistake most of the time - you're not going to succeed at tasks with 5 in a stat that you couldn't succeed at with 3, and those 2 stat points are better off going somewhere more useful.  So I'd suggest either drop Int to 3 and raise Dex or Con, or drop Con and accept that you're going to be very squishy, and put another point or two in Int to free up a lot of skill points (you're going to want Mechanics, Chemistry, Biology, Tailoring, and Mercantile at a bare minimum so there're five skills that scale off of Int - six if you plan to pick up Hacking).  4 is the zero-penalty breakpoint for skills, not 5.

294

Builds / Re: Build Help > Viable?

« on: September 15, 2019, 11:50:44 am »

Maybe that is a little better?

A bit, yeah. But it's still not going to make you very happy.  First of all, if you're deep enough in psi to have 10 Will and psi feats, then you absolutely 100% don't-even-argue-about-this need to get Premeditation at level 6. So pull a point out of Strength and put it in Intelligence so you qualify for Premeditation.  Secondly, if you're going to have 6 Dex anyway and be a melee build, then you'd be doing yourself a great disservice not to find 30 points to spare and get Grenadier fairly early - I think you might want to plan for it by level 12, since at level 14 you'll be taking Locus of Control (or at least you really should).

You don't need to go into crafting so early, either. At level 10, I wouldn't suggest you have any real investment in crafting - if you've been exploring instead of just rushing the main quest, even on Oddity you should be level 10-11 before you finish the Depot, and 12 before you're done in Junkyard and ready to go out into the rest of the world.  You're not going to need much crafting before then, and a few more points in combat skills will really help you.  Try to find 25 points for Psychokinesis.  As a melee-heavy build, your biggest fundamental weakness is getting shot in the face while you try to close to kill things; a Force Field is placeable perfect cover and used well will save your life a lot, even if you don't want the Force User feat.

Also since it's on Equip I could have them both equiped at the same time for even more damage with Neural Overload.

No, it doesn't work like that.

295

Builds / Re: Are firearm pistol builds really that bad?

« on: September 15, 2019, 11:36:31 am »

I wouldn't call them terrible, but they're probably the weakest "real" build in UnderRail.  By this I mean of course you can make a worse build, but you have to deliberately limit yourself - like a throwing-only build, or some sort of just-for-the-laughs joke build.  On the other hand, there aren't many feats for firearm pistols only, so if you can fit it into your build concept, you can add in energy and chemical pistols - all using the same optimizing stats of Perception and Dexterity - and you can come up with a very viable build that way.  It's still a pistol build, just not "firearm pistols only".  Firearm pistols only is going to be pretty tough in some parts, but you can do it.  Enough W2C, and you can kill anything =)

296

Builds / Re: Build Help > Viable?

« on: September 15, 2019, 07:35:52 am »

You'd be fine on Normal. If you're good at UnderRail, you'd be fine on Hard.  But that's not a very good build concept, and it's not well implemented.  That character is going to give you a real hard time in places and unless you're looking for a challenge (and if so, then by all means have at it) you're going to get frustrated.

Bilocation, Enrage, Frighten, Mental Breakdown, and all your TM abilities aren't going to benefit from Psychosis, so you're paying extra psi cost on all your abilities so, what, your crappy Neural Overload can crit a little more often?  Tranq would be probably 3-4 times as effective as Psychosis, just on the raw numbers, for your build concept.

Don't use Thought Control as your primary damage dealer. It's not strong in the first place, and it's useless against robots.  If you absolutely must use TC as your primary psi nuke, then at least put some points into Throwing and pick up Grenadier so you can lob EMPs and HE grenades to your heart's content.

Your stats are a mess. Your feats are all wrong (Recklessness for a psi build? So you can just eat a lot more crits while you try to close, I assume - but if spear is for finishing off, you're not going to get enough use out of it to need a little more melee crit - just make a bunch of Focus Stim instead).  It's not a good build.  But Hard and easier is mechanically simple enough that you absolutely can succeed with bad builds, so if you want to make this character work, it will.  Just barely.

297

Builds / Re: Would like some help regarding an assassin/thief build.

« on: September 14, 2019, 11:34:45 am »

It'd mostly consist of Crossbow, Throwing, Melee, Dodge and Evasion

So, what are you thoughts?

So you're going to need Perception, Dexterity, and Agility in order to do well, and you've got three stats at 4 instead of 3 which would have freed up 3 more points for your more important stats? I mean, that isn't good.  If you really want to do both melee and ranged, maybe you should consider the Versatility feat - you could go deep in Dex, drop Perception to 3, and have a very high effective melee score with very low AP cost for your melee (I'm assuming since you're low strength that you're going knives/gloves) and still have enough Crossbow skill to hit stuff.  Or vice versa if you see crossbow as your main attack - dump Dex, take a high Perception, and use a weapon that doesn't scale AP costs from Dex, like a machete or spear.

Still, if you're playing on Normal, you'll be fine with what you've got.  You might want to try to find two more points of Int.  As a Nimble stealthy Dodge/Evasion character, you're gonna want to be wearing leather armor, which means you're gonna want to be wearing Infused Leather armor, and you may like the +20% bump to effective quality from Skinner when you're making your endgame suits.

298

Builds / Re: Whats wrong with my build? (guns/traps/stealth/temporal)

« on: September 14, 2019, 04:10:26 am »

you listed more skills than I have points to put 5 in at every level, so like what ones are the important ones?

Usually you should max out your main combat skills every level; so in your case, Guns. Early on, you probably want to invest moderately heavily into Hacking, Lockpicking, Stealth, and Traps until you get to whatever maximum you plan to use.  That way, you can hack and unlock mostly everything you find - and Stealth & Traps are checked against enemy detection, so it's best to get those points in early.  If you intend to use Persuasion, you should get to 30 effective skill reasonably quickly if you want the easy quest resolution in Junkyard.  If you're going for Grenadier - and it's a very very powerful feat so if you've got the stats and like using grenades, absolutely go for it - you should put 30 points into Throwing fairly early on, too.

Then, you can pick up some light crafting - some Chemistry and  a touch of Tailoring so you can make grenades and incendiaries, maybe a little Bio so you can whip up your own Advanced Health Hypos/Adrenaline Shots and also reduce those heavy biological tissues like Intestines and Crawler Stingers into their valuable and much lighter refined products.

Finally, somewhere around level 14-16 or so, you should have your world manipulation skills - that is, your hacking, lockpicking, persuasion, intimidation, traps, stealth, and pickpocketing (the skills that let you interact with the world to get more options) - near the max values you intend to have them at.  Now it's time to start going heavily into crafting, and Mercantile if you intend to use that skill.  There's still a lot of game left by the time you get to level 14-16, so you're going to have a lot of merchant inventory restocks to look at to find really good high quality items.  Once you get through Core City and get your very own house and start to really get the basement area set up nicely, you're going to want to be able to craft some good late-game gear.  For your character, pick up Mechanics first so you can make yourself some good guns ASAP once you get through Depot A and start encountering merchants with high-quality parts for sale.

299

Builds / Re: Whats wrong with my build? (guns/traps/stealth/temporal)

« on: September 13, 2019, 10:11:56 pm »

Thank you very much, I will try this.

Whoops, hol' up. I was half on autopilot.  I sort of implied that you should be looking to get your Perception up to like 14 or so - if you're playing Hard or lower, there's no real need to go quite that high. 12 should do you just fine.  10 would really technically be enough, though I hate missing sniper shots and generally go to 11 or 12 myself.  You can afford to put some points in other stats as you see fit, if you like.  The extra damage from the Guns skill bonus of a really high Perception won't be necessary on the lower three difficulty levels, and your hit chance will be just fine with 10-11 Perception.  So you've got a few stat points to spare.

Sorry about that. Hopefully you didn't play a new character to level 20 in the last hour

300

Builds / Re: Whats wrong with my build? (guns/traps/stealth/temporal)

« on: September 13, 2019, 09:40:10 pm »

Well, if you're OK with Sniper + AR, then I'd say

6 Str, 7 Dex, 6 Agi, 3 Con, 9 Per, 3 Wil, 6 Int for starting stats. You're gonna want Sprint if you're not using psi, so you need 6 Agi; you're gonna want Grenadier and maybe Quick Tinkering (those of us who've been here a while cry about the QT nerf but it's still very useful even though it's much less god-tier than it once was) so you need 6 or 7 Dex. Eventually you may want Full Auto which would mean you'd have to put one more point into Str, but otherwise you can put your points into Perception and really get that effective Guns skill way up there.  Gun Nut as a perk is a little underwhelming so I'm not suggesting 7 Int, but if you really want it, you can just slip one point from Per (or Dex if you didn't want QT) into Int.  6 Int, though, lets you get Armor Sloping - if you think you might want to wear metal armor - and/or Ballistics.  You're still going to have to sink a lot of points into crafting, but with housing bonus, Hypercerebrix, and Under Pie, you can make just about everything you could possibly want with 90 Mech, 100 Elec, 38 Chem, 80 Bio, and 85 Tailor (that's real points invested - it'll yield effective scores of 141 Mech which'll make you plated super steel armor, 157 Elec in case you find really really high quality shield generator parts, 69 Chem for mk.IV genades and mines, 131 Bio for Super Soldier, and 132 Tailor for 160+ quality vests).  That'll still leave you enough points for Hacking, Lockpicking, Guns, Evasion, Stealth, Mercantile, Traps, Throwing, and still have a few points left over.  That, to me, seems like a pretty viable build - and I've played builds close to that before, so it's not a total wild guess.