Messages

31

General / Re: feedback about my last build

« on: November 01, 2017, 07:28:44 pm »

How the hell do you get 1000 damage per 10 AP with SMGs? Or 1200 with crossbows? But more importantly, SMGs with such a low Dex and no Spec Ops are just... really shitty assault rifles.

Thanks all for the replies,

I find SMGs interesting, as an execution/low-range backup weapon, despite this build not being optimised for them.
My math is probably wrong. Anyway, the idea was to get relative numbers between SMG, Xbow & AR.
This way, given the same errors, I could check if SMG was a waste or not.

I'll post what I used, maybe you can find my mistakes and better check it ("m"=multiplier, "p"=probability):
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Smart Rapid SteelCat7.62mm (~Q150)
Damage: 3*mean(8-24) = 48 (big assumption, I multiplied Q50 dmg by 3 to get Q150 dmg)
Base action points: 13 AP
Critical chance: 5%
Critical damage bonus: 120%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GUNS = 135*(1+0.085*(PER-4)) = 261
mGUNS = 1+(0.5*GUNS/71.5) = 2.83
mCALIB = 3*16 = 48
mAP = 10/30 = 0.33                                      (0.8*13~11, becomes 10 with DEX6, then 3*10 and finally normalise per 10 AP)
mADDS = 1.4*5 = 7                                      (Smart Module +40%, standard 5 bullets)
mOPPOR = 1.25                                            (Opportunist feat)
mCrit = 2+2.5*0.2 = 2.5
pCrit = 0.15+0.15+0.20+0.40+0.05 = 0.95    (SeekersNVG+Stim+PsychostaticElectricity+Ambush+weapon)

DMG_10AP =  mOPPOR*mGUNS*mCALIB*mAP*mADDS*((1-pCrit)+pCrit*mCrit)
DMG_10AP = 1.25       *2.83     *48        *0.33*7         *2.43

DMG_10AP = 959

32

General / Re: feedback about my last build

« on: October 31, 2017, 07:27:11 pm »

Hi again!

Based on your advice I thought of reworking QBit2 a bit. Let's see how it goes...

I dropped STR to 3, losing ARs & FullAuto and metal armors & MetalSloping, and picked SMG and light armor as replacements.
To compensate, I raised PER to 15, picked Opportunist, so SMG gets multiplied by 1'25(Oppor)*1'2(PER11->15)=1'4, similar to previous AR with FullAuto.
This also made crossbow waay better, and also Ambush, mobility and sneaking, since the armor penalty is small now.
Also, I picked Pyromaniac to compensate the lack of incendiary rounds (damn I wish I had another spare feat to pick PowerManagement).
Finally, I dropped traps, and Psychokinesis a bit, to give Crafting 15-20 extra points and make it relevant.

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGloJgVhBmEb3gRhs0B2EzY1DvMIgFnCLIE4IQKZjqMA2GtWY7YandsyOJdrAAcIeqPjFmUZo2QhG8DIrTAUwZsghCgA


Damage-wise, even without high DEX, I reckon the lategame raw damage of the SMG is only 10% inferior to the AR, around 1000/10AP, with crossbows being similar, 1200/10AP, all before reductions (I might be completely wrong, have no clue about the exact formulas ^^).
Heck, with adrenaline & rathound barbeque I could even use ARs (don't think it's worth however)!
Dunno if without metal armor I will survive those high-iniciative grenadiers or pesky psiers tho...

Any comments are appreciated. Was fun!

33

General / Re: feedback about my last build

« on: October 21, 2017, 01:16:51 pm »

edit: don't feel like doubleposting, so here.

-Will I be able to CC enemies with Psi abilities in DC, so that I can neglect their evasion and have a chance at shooting at them?
-Does Special Tactics cooldown start AFTER you fire the 1st bolt (so that by incapacitating everyone you can use it again after 30s), or does it take 30s AFTER you close combat?

- Sure, why not? It's not that different from rest of the game, but there's a lot of enemy variation - some have rather high mechanical resistance (bad particularly for crossbows), some are immune to crits, and your character will be generally less effective in combat under certain effects. Also, depending on your choices you might have to fight enemies that can temporarily inhibit psi, so knowing how to craft psi reinvigorators might be useful.
- Special Tactics cooldown starts as soon as you activate the ability, so it's even better than you expected.

That is good news. Enemy variety sounds like fun. Against high-resistance enemies I could resort to W2C bullets and use bolts/Psi as CC, and getting inhibited shouldn't be catastrophic. Things being inmune to crits is not fun tho...
That makes Special Tactics INSANELY good (in the right circumstances)! I am looking forward to trying it out. Ahhh, I don't want to wait!

Thanks a lot! I'll keep this post updated once I start.

34

General / Re: feedback about my last build

« on: October 20, 2017, 06:55:55 pm »

The second build is perhaps even worse.  That tiny bit of Stealth isn't going to help at all, especially knocked down by your armor penalty, so pull those points back.  If you had a specific reason to put 19 points into Traps, then go ahead, but otherwise pull them back as well; you can use Bear Traps at 0 and nothing you can use at sub-30 effective is going to be much more helpful than bear traps.  Even with +2 INT Junkyard Surprise and the house crafting bonus, your Mechanics and Tailoring are too low to be useful to you in lategame, and thus they're not really worth that much investment; either get to 50 effective skill to make endless improved repair kits (which will essentially fix your personal money woes forever) or else go about 30 more real points into each so you can make truly quality endgame gear.

Just looking at the pros and cons you wrote for each build.
You might want to wait before rolling QBit2, incendiary bullets and psychostatic electricity don't work properly in the current live version. (The bullets don't ignite at all and psychostatic electricity only increases to-get-crit with weapons, not psi.) Will be fixed in the next patch. Soon^tm.

Your builds seem to have a lot going on for them. Assault rifles, crossbows and throwing with full psi complement... Will you ever find enough APs, carry weight, utility slots, weapon slots and opportunities to use all that stuff? Also you seem to have mixed up Zephyr and Cyclon. 25-AP-Scoped-AA? You can't put two scopes on any weapon.

[...]
Still, Gortsby's point is valid in this case; using completely unrelated weapon skills (per/will based) and having both at 10 is a little low. But it shouldn't be too bad, looks like your playstyle is more focused on defense and mitigating damage rather than spiking the enemy down as fast as possible.

For a somewhat relevant example, if lewis_cb is planning on using crossbows for crowd control with special bolts (instead of leveraging psi cc to help crossbow precision) with 10 per, that would probably necessitate the of use standard scopes to keep hit chances at comfortable levels. Especially against particularly evasive enemies and/or without night vision.

Hi again,
Thank you all for the responses. I'll like to add that my idea was to have a build with many approaches to each combat, even if sub-optimal (sure the AR tin build wrecks havoc but it gets repetitive)...so long it can beat the game!

I've decided I'll try the 2nd build (if ever). The general plan was to have stealth gear to glance at the situation from afar, possibly deploying some Crawler bear traps (my trap skill with EelSandwich+Jackknife is 40!), then change to armored gear and likely choose one of 2 weapon pairs:
-Against ranged enemies, use Pneumatic-AA Zephyr special bolts (21AP) supported by Rapid-Smart Hornet 7mm bursts (27AP)
-Against swarms, melees or armored rivals, pick Rapid-AA Chimera 8mm bursts (33AP) with Pneumatic-AA Cyclon special bolts (17AP)

Seekers NVG (+15% crit) are a must since it improves both (Psi can still be relevant for utility, specially for evasive enemies). Luckily with Stim (+15%), Ambush (+20%, hence 40 stealth) and Psiostatic Electricity (+25%) it can get competitive damage.
Regarding crafting skills, I read in Steam forums in Destroyor's FAQ (great work btw) that I would normally need ~120 effective skill, but I'll consider giving up the Crawler traps...ouch. Also, it would be nice to swap into throwing, so that I can throw a flashbang at 4 tiles away with +-2 tiles precision (typically how much throwing you guys use?)

All in all, the focus was to keep as many enemies CC'ed as possible by having many offensive actions and having all do some CC (damn you incendiary bullets...)

I still found 2 key questions in my mind that could impact all the previous thought process:
-Will I be able to CC enemies with Psi abilities in DC, so that I can neglect their evasion and have a chance at shooting at them?
-Does Special Tactics cooldown start AFTER you fire the 1st bolt (so that by incapacitating everyone you can use it again after 30s), or does it take 30s AFTER you close combat?

Vile Weaponry shouldn't work with guns as they're not cold weapons.

Oh no, I got it wrong! You're right, I just tested it, this made the 1st build much less appealing. The Wiki used to say any wound would apply it (even tho in the feat requirements you can guess it). My bad!

My gut feeling is that spreading yourself so thin would make your offensive ability significantly weaker than other builds in the late game, and that the free attacks wouldn't make up for the lack of specialisation, but I'm interested in the idea of a build focused on free attacks, regardless. If you try it, let us know how it goes.

I'll do I'm very curious too to see how far it can get, but I'll have to wait until those 2 bugs are fixed.

35

General / feedback about my last build

« on: October 15, 2017, 01:05:03 pm »

Hi all,

This is my first post in the forum. First, congratulations for the superb game and community.
The game mechanics and diversity of viable strategies and builds got me hooked really hard!
Unwittingly, I already rerolled my character twice to try more powerful or appealing things.
Hopefully, you can help me pick and tweak the last one

I thought about 3 variations of a bowyer+psier, which I find the most fun & strategical route. The idea is getting many free actions (Commando, Special Tactics, Premeditation...). Pics of the 3 can be seen here: https://imgur.com/a/kgDZX

QBit1: http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGloJgVhB2OQGYkgIynSAbGxMN5hHjFFQbCiwwAsNcq2MqhLzhJkjiyi9NEEDWQ0AHCCg4sjLMiw5YyWPVgKAnGmBYgA
(+): This one would wear X3 reinforced super steel armor & boots (trying to keep Tranquility up), adaptive NVG,
       combine cheap psi casts (when full HP, Adrenaline user, Thermodynamicity)
       with double 9-bullet-33AP-bleeding Hornet bursts (Commando, Concentrated Fire, Expertise & Vile Weaponry) (Smart or Compensated?) and
       17-AP-Pneumatic-AA Zephyr critical special bolts (every 6 turns trying to incapacitate all mobs for Special Tactics free bolt with flashbangs,Locus+Breakdown...)
       together with Quick Tinkering & Deadly Snares and best traps.
(-):  low initiative could make Tranquility pointless,
       no mobility (unless easy/kiteable mobs, use tactical vest there) reduces Quick Tinkering utility to melees,
       no lockpicking/hacking,
       low HP.

QBit2: http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGloJgVhB2EYGYTIIypK09WJqXfMYgFnGIIE4QAObANhBI1mVhs0TT06PIhAQMXFCSYCSyKI3oZ6yetVZwYWNMEaoINIA
(+): Very similar. Same armor but now with striders & Armor Sloping for 20 MP/turn,
       Ambush, Psiostatic Electricity, Focus Stim, Seeker NVG & Bowyer for critical shots,
       this time 7-bullet-33AP-incendiary Chimera bursts (to make bursts a CC & Ambush tool)
       and same 17-AP Zephyr special bolts (no trap specialisation).
(-):  low initiative could make Tranquility pointless,
       low mobility,
       no lockpicking/hacking,
       low HP.

Gambit: http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGloJgVhBmEbwJwhQRlAdjDtsbggAcKS2hhRoVIALGiJvDXjKyOxSBMXPLLTo9a8WoKgA2EBIaYYSeUQ7B4GKWghEgA
(+): wearing Infused Ancient Rathound armor, reinforced SSteel boots, Seeker NVG / Critical Psiband,
       high-HP evasive high-resistance (~60% mech) and high-DR (~50% mech,heat,cold @30%HP with Conditioning, Soticism, Lifting Belt, Ancient),
       focus on versatile criticals with Bowyer, Psiostatic Electricity, Focus Stim, critical headgear, Ambush & Survival Instincts,
       no AR but instead can combine 25-AP-Scoped-AA & 17-AP-Pneumatic-AA Zephyr special bolts (no trap specialisation).
(-):  low initiative,
       no lockpicking/hacking.


-Is a playthrough without lockpicking/hacking very lackluster (won't find good crafting materials)?
-How easily can you keep 100% HP for Tranquility with heavy armor & shield?
I thought of using Junkyard Surprise for -1/2 Con (123HP) & best Regenerative Vest (+55HP whenever HP<86) to automatically go 100%HP if 68<HP<86
-Also, how bad is to be a turtle with only 10MP or 20MP?

Sorry for the length of the post. I read very good posts here and thought I could give it a try.
Any feedback is very welcome