Messages

406

Builds / Re: What will be your first build in Expedition and why?

« on: July 21, 2019, 06:10:36 am »

But wait, there's  more!
Namely: does Entropic Recurrence deal the same TYPE of damage as original damage?
If it does, would it be possible to go implosion-> Entropic Recurrence for 200%+-> Cryostasis with 4/4 CI?
And thus shatter anything with mech resistance of <82%?

Yes, it deals the same damage type.  Yes, if you proxy a capped Implosion you can shatter an opponent with the ER echo, but it will only be doing ~50% of the damage that the *second* Implosion did (per tick), so it doesn't work quite as astoundingly as you seem to be describing if I get your drift.

So, you've got 82% DR and I hit you with a proxied Implosion.
Implosion #1 does (0.75x0.18) or 13.5% of your max health
Implosion #2 does ((0.75.x0.18)x0.865) or ~11.7% of your max health.
If I then place an ER on you it will do ~6.8% of your max health per turn; in terms of current health, that would be roughly (100/(100-13.5-11.7))x0.068 or 9% of your current health with its first tick, breaking Cryostasis with no additional effect.  Clearly the vastly superior course of action here is to ER a proxied (and hopefully crit) TK Punch after the proxied Implosion.

Now, if I also have Expose Weakness, Implosion starts to shine again.
Now you have either 41% DR or, with 5/5 EW spec, 32.8% DR when I land the proxied Implosion.
Implosion #1 does (0.75x0.59) or (0.75x0.672) which is 44% or ~50% of your max health (assuming EWs hit was so paltry that we can for arguments sake round its damage to 0)
Implosion #2 does (0.44x0.56) or (.5x.5) which is  ~24.6% or ~25% of your max health.
ER then does 12.3-12.5% of your max health per tick, but that represents nearly half of your current health in either case, breaking Cryostasis and shattering you.

I tried to sanity check that arithmetic but if it seems incredibly wrong, it could be.

Last edit: I suspect you see it just fine, but I should point out that with Expose Weakness at 5/5, you no longer need the TK Proxy to get ER kills from Implosion on a cryostasised target at <82% mech resist.  In fact, with both EW 5/5 and CI 4/4, it looks like you can get kills on any enemy in the game that can be frozen in the ice, as even at the DR cap of 95% your ER will still do more than 30% of the targets current health.
(0.95x0.4) = 38% effective mech resist.
(0.75x0.62) = 46.5% total health; (.465x.535) = 24.8775% total health.
ER totals for 240% (at ~360 effective TM skill, which is easily attainable even at 16 Will much less 18) will do .248775x.6 or 14.9265% total life per tick which would be just over half of the total life remaining after the second Implosion.

If my napkin math is correct, this means you could with 5/5 and 4/4 even manage a ER shatter on an enemy with as much health as Carnifex and 95% mech resist while also on Morphine if you followed the Implosion with a Punch and ER'ed that.

407

Builds / Re: Dominating Expedition Psi Build > Advice needed

« on: July 21, 2019, 05:52:24 am »

Christ how is your upkeep cost so low? Psi beetle carapace brings it down to about 23, Max quality mufflers would bring it down to 15 or so... Advanced psi empathy?

You could walk around with it permanently on...

And indeed I do 

408

Builds / Re: Dominating Expedition Psi Build > Advice needed

« on: July 21, 2019, 02:47:27 am »

Temporal Manipulation: 300 (max Precognition avoidance)

Precog doesn't cap at 300 skill, AFAIK. The 30% thing I said earlier was just because, with the build as you envisioning it then, 300 was about as high as you'd be able to get your TM, with gear bonuses from a Uni-Psi headband and a psibug Tac Vest.  For example, here's Precog with 368 skill:

409

Builds / Re: What will be your first build in Expedition and why?

« on: July 21, 2019, 02:39:14 am »

Anyway, as far as I understand, if you have fully specced cryogenic induction, target will shatter if you deal 30%+ of remaining health. So a 70% implosion will shatter anyone with mech resistance <58%. Is that correct, or is there anything I'm missing here?

Seems to be the case. Hopped in the game and checked it out; since i don't use CE or any file mods I can't tightly control things but post-DR hits around 33-35% of total target health were shattering the heavily armored Praetorian Enforcers in Core City.  Seems reliable.

I'm not confident it's a trick I'd use all that terribly often. On lower difficulty levels, direct damage will kill most anything; on higher difficulty levels, I suspect I'll continue to find real value in AoE like LoC+ability or fireball/iceball/ThermoD.  But, especially for psi builds that also pick up Expose Weakness, you may have a highly reliable way to handle like Industrial Bots (edit: if they can be cryostasis'ed with CI; I really don't remember) and Balor very quickly, with a 4/4 CI spec.  I don't normally use CI; thanks for making me think about it =)

410

Bugs / Re: Wrong drops at Rathound King lair

« on: July 21, 2019, 01:50:26 am »

Do you mean the alpha rathound leather? I don't remember a plot item of a rathound body; is that a thing, now?  If it's just the oddities and leather, that's just RNG.  Sometimes they drop stuff, sometimes they drop nothing.

411

Builds / Re: What will be your first build in Expedition and why?

« on: July 20, 2019, 12:07:00 pm »

[can you deal 70% of HP via implosion, and then buff it to 200%+ of that via Entropic Recurrence on the spot? So basically anything with mech resistance <60% will just insta-die no-matter-what?

No. ER is an end-of-turn DoT, and the damage is smeared pretty wide (it was originally far too powerful and was brought back into the realm of reason - it *used to be possible* to do as you describe, but no longer).  Still, if you ER a good heavy Implosion/TK Punch you certainly can put a lethal DoT on the target, then just go run away and let them die off on their own.  For one-turn kills, you're still probably better off with a Proxied Implosion on your main target, then maybe a ThermoD from a secondary target or if your main target is alone, use that Proxy again for a TK Punch.

EDIT: Let me make an amendment, here, but leave the original post since I don't hide my mistakes   If you can get a *single* Implosion to do over 50% (second edit: not 40, 50 - typo) of the target health, and you proxy the Implosion, and ER that, then the target should die at the end of their following turn, so if you would call that insta-die then absolutely yes, and I was wrong to say no.

OK, I'm tired enough that I'm confusing myself.  Basically, ER will kill an enemy after they've taken their turn.  It will not apply damage at the end of the turn when you apply it, so if ER is going to kill an enemy they will always get a turn before they die, no matter what.  I'm going to take a nap before I confuse anyone else - myself included - any further 

412

Builds / Re: What will be your first build in Expedition and why?

« on: July 20, 2019, 11:43:45 am »

So, speaking of expedition builds:
Am I the only one who's getting the vibe that temporal manipulation above 70 base skill is really not going anywhere? Few abilities scale with effective temporal manipulation skill, fewer still scale in a way that matters...
With thought control there is, at least, the question of beating target's resolve, so at least in theory higher effective skill is good for practically all abilities. With temporal manipulation most of best abilities are self-buffs, so they literally can't fail...

I think for support purposes on a high-Will, multischool character there's no real need to take TM above 55-70 raw points. Stasis isn't a bad skill but at 60 you max your synergy and get 160 effective, then + gear.  For other builds, even 65 might be overkill - just go to whatever the top-end ability you want is, and stop there.

If you have a lot of points, though, TM still scales usefully up high.  Precog is linear, after all, and highly useful at extreme values.  Entropic Recurrence can be a huge help at high values against enemies that you're having a hard time damaging.  Temporal Distortion is sort of the primary damage dealer for TM.  Even poor, dodgy-looking Temporary Rewind can save you if you're riding Morphine, took a huge hit, and can pull back a big chunk of your health bar for a moment before the buff ends; or will give you back what Morphine took from you and give you one last turn mid-combat to hit cooldowns or LTI to get a hypo back into play.  (Yes, I know you can also use TR on high mech resist to effectively set up an Implosion echo but I never even on DOMINATING was able to keep a boss alive long enough for that to work - not even Balor who's pretty tanky)

413

Builds / Re: Dominating Expedition Psi Build > Advice needed

« on: July 20, 2019, 11:28:21 am »

The feat that replaced Sprint is Power Management. Do you see better options ?
For stats, can you disclose threshold reasons for persuasion and intimidation? How fast should it be reached?
You mentioned +5 int with drugs and food. Are there accessible from late game or earlier?

Absolutely. You don't have Pyromaniac, and you should.  Do you *need* it?  No.  But the burning debuff is one of the most powerful debuffs against living enemies, and it's very nice to get it as an extra proc for your fireball and flamethrower.  ThermoD too, but that usually is just a bomb that leaves no survivors anyway.

You want to get 110 Persuasion for the highest check, and 100 Intimidation for the highest check.  You won't need but half that Persuasion until nearly the end of the game, and you won't need the Intimidation until you've been exploring Black Sea for a while.  So drop some points into Persuasion fairly early if you want a super-easy resolution to a fairly early quest, and pick up Intimidation whenever you just have some spare points laying about.

If I led you to believe that, I'm sorry.  You can't get +5 INT.  You can get a brief +2 INT from a drug, and then additionally +3 to all skills from a food; they do stack.  The food is available early on; the drug usually takes a while but there's some RNG to it.  If you're holding off on crafting for mid to late game, you will probably get access to the drug around the time you reach your intended craft skill maximums.

414

Builds / Re: Please help with shotgun build

« on: July 20, 2019, 04:52:47 am »

Now just awaiting Styg to finish revamping all the firearms sometime in 2021 so Gun Nut can become useful again...

Changelog 18 Mar 2021:
Gun Nut now only applies to guns which are made from nuts.
Nuts have been removed from UnderRail

415

Builds / Re: Dominating Expedition Psi Build > Advice needed

« on: July 20, 2019, 04:33:45 am »

Do you have any advice on leveling skill order/priority beyond what is required for the listed feats?

Crafting last. Put in whatever bare minimums you need along the way, but if you explore and hit up content as you can, you're going to level to at least 16-18 in just practically no time.  You can craft the good stuff near character top-end. Early on, get your combat and world-manipulation skills topped up (things like Persuasion, Mercantile and such.  Hacking doesn't need to top get topped off until you're ready to go to DC but you should rush it to halfway, so you can loot stuff.)

416

Builds / Re: Dominating Expedition Psi Build > Advice needed

« on: July 20, 2019, 02:53:21 am »

Questions:

• According to the wiki, Psycho-temporal Contraction requires 55 skill to use.  Would investing 7 skill points into Temporal Manipulation be worth it in order to use it at that low skill level?
• How difficult will the early- to mid-game be without crafting frag grenades?
• Do you have any suggestions of where to put the remaining 50 skill points?
• Do you have any other min/max suggestions?

Learning skills requires base value, not effective value.  7 points won't get you anything but the basic ability, Temporal Distortion.  But there's no value to going so deep into Thought Control.  With 18 Will, and - one would assume - a Uni-psi headband and Psi Beetle/Psi Crab carapace tac vest, your effective skill in TC is well over 200 with just 75 points in.  That will clear Resolve checks everywhere even on DOMINATING, and the scaling on TC is such that the abilities that are more than just pass/fail (in particular your mirror images and your Neural Overload) are over two thirds as effective at 75 real points as they will be at 160.  And you won't really be using Neural Overload for anything, without Cerebral Trauma, anyway.  Pull those points back.  If you want to min/max, then don't go 76 points into TC, go 75.

You won't miss frag grenades at all. If you don't have *any* molotovs whatsoever, you will miss those.  But if you really don't want to craft your own, you don't have to.  Me, I'd go 21 in Chem and 64 in Bio; that'll let you hit an Under Pie and still craft up stacks of Thermite Grenades (which, at 0.35 apiece, are lighter than either of those other incendiaries.  0.15 isn't much but that's 1.5 for a full stack and with 3Str and no Pack Rathound, carry weight will be at a premium) and Super Health Hypos.  Other than that, your build is really lean.  Snce it looks like you're going to be playing a SI build, you might find it worthwhile to dump all your remaining points into Temporal Manipulation.  Reason is, one of the top-end TM powers is a flat % to dodge and evade.  With all your spare points in TM, plus your gear buffs, you're looking at a 30% reduced hit chance for your enemies.  If you're skating along at low health for that SI crit boost, you might find it worthwhile to further reduce the chance that someone gets a lucky shot in.

I'm not sure Iron Will is really going to help that character.  I'd much rather have Fast Metabolism from an early level, for the +33% to psi booster effectiveness as well as help overcoming the healing malus from Hard+.  I know you want to keep your health low, but since you'll probably be wearing a Sturdy Vest so you don't Regen Vest heal out of optimal SI territory, there's going to be a wide enough window at 9CON to keep a high crit bonus even if you pop a Super Health Hypo when things get dangerous.

That's a very lean build.  Sorry; I don't see much room to min/max it further.  You've cut it down very effectively yourself.

417

Builds / Re: What will be your first build in Expedition and why?

« on: July 20, 2019, 01:35:37 am »

I have played full psi a lot. I still don't find it strong enough.

Well, Temporal Manipulation brings into play a really excellent robot-killer power.  If you pick up the feat for it, you can actually just gather up most of Arke/RAF all at once, layer a dozen+ TDs on one target, then forcefield up and watch everything die in ripples.

418

Builds / Re: Dominating Expedition Psi Build > Advice needed

« on: July 19, 2019, 10:49:46 am »

Eh? Works just fine for keeping yourself out of harm's way in my experience. Just cut a corner or just plain put some distance forcing enemies to run to your instead of attacking.

Well, OK, I'm not going to try to argue because you're objectively correct, but since the OP asked about building for the expansion, I spoke to the expansion.  Since i saw their build had Temporal Manipulation and Psychotemporal Acceleration, I knew that they'd have access to psi haste, which is basically a zero-AP, three-turn Sprint that also gives you bonus AP.  With that in your toolbox, there's no value to stacking Sprint on as well; you'll almost never need 100MP.  60-70 will do just fine.

419

Builds / Re: Dominating Expedition Psi Build > Advice needed

« on: July 19, 2019, 10:35:15 am »

To answer your questions:
Yes, it's DOMINATING-viable
Yes, Mercantile is excellent for crafting builds.  The threshold you want to hit is 105, but keep in mind you'll have +2 Int drugs available and a +3 to all skills food, so factor that in accordingly. Once you touch the threshold, it's perfectly fine not to have your skill be that high when you interact with the merchant every following time.  You just need to unlock the merchandise tier and it stays unlocked.
Sprint is of almost no use whatsoever to a psi build, and Conditioning sounds good but because it applies after all your other DR/DT (and not alongside it) it's not really all that big a deal. It's not worthless, mind, it's just underwhelming.
Yes, dump Agi, drop Sprint, and take Int to 9 so you can craft better
Nope, you shouldn't miss any lore at all in Expedition with that build.  You will however miss a lot of possible avenues to solutions - but you'll be able to take advantage of others. Expedition has truly wonderful permissivity for various character builds, so no matter what your build (OK, *almost* no matter what) you'll miss out on a lot of possibilities but be able to make use of many others.

EDIT: Oh, and some unsolicited , min/maxing advice  that you should feel free to ignore- take all those points out of Throwing, put a few in Mercantile so you can get that 105, put most of the rest in Persuasion until your effective skill is 87,  put 25 in Intimidation, and use the remaining 20 to cap psychokinesis and Metathermics.  You can also safely pull Thought Control down to 75 if you want to free up more points, but you may not need to because your Chemistry is way too high - pull it down to 45 or lower.  All you need is to be able to make Mk IV grenades.  The jump to Mk V will be so late in the game that your psi powers will have come into full form and you won't even remember to use grenades because you'll be too busy destroying the world with your magical cave wizard powers.

If you do pull TC down to 75, you could pick up enough Hacking to get 130 effective and *still* have 25 points left over.

420

Builds / Re: What will be your first build in Expedition and why?

« on: July 19, 2019, 04:09:18 am »

I'm considering a Psi Revamp of my old AR/Tincan/Crafter build, but I'm feeling it might be a little too fragile.

For an Ironman run, probably.  If you're willing to reload here and there on rare occasion, you'll be fine.  You will want to think long and hard about the benefits of putting those 55 points left over into Tailoring (and maybe even pulling 15 out of Mercantile to redirect to Tailoring, too) once you see some of the new tailorable items.  Some of them are very clearly designed as counters for new content, and with 3 CON plus psi health penalty, you may find a need to adjust armor more than you had to in the base game.