Messages

61

General / Re: Thoughts on 5/5 spec'ed disassemble.

« on: December 03, 2019, 08:34:09 pm »

Average piece of rathound leather has a value of ~200 and weights 5.0

When crafted into armor by itself, that armor has a value of ~500 and weights 5.0

When that armor is recycled, it gives you ~40 scrap fabric, so about half of advanced repair kit with value of 900, so about 450 of value and weight of ~2.0 when in scrap, and half that when crafted into repair kit

Conclusion: selling raw leather is almost never a good idea, selling crafted armor or repair kits is about equally good.
Since you can only sell a few of both at a time, it makes perfect sense to sell as much crafted suits of armor as you can, and recycle the rest into repair kits and sell those.



P.S.
There is a bit of extra complexity coming from the fact you need no skill in tailoring to sell raw leather, ~30 in tailoring to craft armor, and 50 in tailoring to craft advanced repair kits.

Also there are obvious weight considerations. Scrap/repair kits usually give you by far the best value-per-kilogram.

62

Let's Plays / Re: Checking out Expedition as permadeath pure psion. [ DOMINATING ]

« on: December 03, 2019, 05:55:10 pm »

Still streaming this build pretty regularly.
Right now, for example.

63

General / Re: Thoughts on 5/5 spec'ed disassemble.

« on: December 03, 2019, 02:09:56 pm »

To be fair, recycling and repair kits still have their uses:
It still makes sense to recycle dirt cheap normal knives, or the gazillion rathound pelts (you can instantly craft simple leather armor, then recycle it on the spot).

64

Suggestions / Re: New Oculus item is OP

« on: December 03, 2019, 12:00:12 pm »

Why does Neurovisual Disruption even exist with this item in the game?

I've got one better:
Why does Neurovisual Disruption even exist with Mental Breakdown in the game?

Indeed. I wasn't particularly suggesting that Neurovisual Disruption is actually good, rather just implying that it's absurd that the highest-level Thought Control ability is completely outclassed by a combat utility that any character can reliably use, and which can be easily obtained at less than one-quarter of the way through the game.

Yea, no argument here.
Agree completely.

65

Suggestions / Re: New Oculus item is OP

« on: December 03, 2019, 11:25:07 am »

Why does Neurovisual Disruption even exist with this item in the game?

I've got one better:
Why does Neurovisual Disruption even exist with Mental Breakdown in the game?

66

Suggestions / Re: New Oculus item is OP

« on: December 03, 2019, 10:08:30 am »

I'd have to agree with harperfan7 here: these smoke bombs are a little too good.
The problem really comes from the fact that they make everyone of the map instantly lose your track (irregardless of line of sight, etc).

It would make much more sense if they worked largely the same (i.e. allow you to enter stealth, converting AP to MP), but only provided an equivalent of one extra turn worth of staying out of sight.
Right now they effectively provide an equivalent of 4(!!!) turns of staying out of sight.

It's as OP as well-placed flashbang imo.

Except it's often technically impossible to incapacitate all enemies with one flashbang in most combats where you'd what to use these smoke bombs (too many enemies and/or some are immune to FB). Not to mention the fact that flashbangs are intrinsically unreliable (miss chance and resist chance) even when they have theoretical chance to work.

P. S.

you get them almost at end-game

Eh..?
You can get access to oculus practically as soon as you finish depot A.
That's early mid-game.

67

General / Re: Jack Quicksilver Issue (Triggering "Meet Azif")

« on: December 03, 2019, 03:19:40 am »

Do you have a safe before you did ANY of the three quests?
P.S. I streamed these quests today: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/516263639?t=03h29m25s Everything worked out fine.

68

General / Re: Thoughts on 5/5 spec'ed disassemble.

« on: December 03, 2019, 03:18:07 am »

Mmm.  You don't sequence your abilities well, then.  Chill is a fairly weak debuff; burning is one of the strongest debuffs against living enemies - it's the only DoT + fear, I think.  So what you'd want to do is open with, say, a premeditated cold ability like Cryo Orb, then use Pyrokinesis, pick off a survivor with Cryokinesis, and if you're dealing with a huge mass of enemies, then place a ThermoD, proxy a TK Punch for the ThermoD kill, Cryokinesis to kill anything that's not yet dead or on fire, and pop a psi booster then throw a grenade.  All that in one turn is no problem with Thermodynamicity.

OK, one thing at a time:
1) ThermoD into proxi'ed implosion and punch is more that enough to outright kill everything in it's AOE most of the time. No one is actually left alive for DOT's and fear to matter. You don't need Thermodynamicity for it to work any better. You also don't need Pyromaniac for ThermoD to set thing on fire (again, not that's it's relevant, since most things are just DEAD after getting hit by it). It's so insanely overpowered on it's own I literally stopped using it to keep the game more-or-less challenging.
2) Pyrokinesis and Cryo Orb can miss (and hit YOU if you are unlucky enough). Literally nothing else in psionics has THAT problem. And that's a HUGE problem when you limit your reloads.
3) Fear from fire may fail to proc when you need it to. Or it may proc and make the target run away crying for help -- drawing MORE enemies into the fight. Again, pretty major problem when you limit your reloads.
4) Fire-based metathermics abilities are LOUD. Meanwhile with just the TC and PK stuff you can easily kill stuff in a room without anyone in the room next door hearing anything.

It's even often nice when you're not using Metathermics as your primary output, since it lasts a turn. You can cryo shield yourself one turn, immolate the next, and do all that in the little sliver of AP you leave yourself between double Electrokinesis each turn, or Implosions, or whatever.  Industrial Robots are no threat at all - literally zero threat - if you can walk two squares and be immune to fire, so a few fights that could otherwise get hairy become predictable and safe.  Crawlers of any sort are loath to get up close when you're surrounded by fire, so you can make some ruckus, start burning, and then have a low-AP Cryo Orb to reveal crawlers in a huge area once you've given them a turn to get close - then with the rest of your AP, and a quick-cast Pyrokinesis, you can manage a room with no risk to yourself.

Nothing you described here really explains why I would want to alternate between ice and fire. If I want Exothermic Aura, I just cast that. Neither  Thermodynamicity nor Pyromaniac make it any better at what it does. And Cryo-Shield is just a really bad substitute for Pseudo-spatial Projection 95% of the time. Etc, etc.
TL;DR: I can pretty much guarantee that for any fight where alternating between fire and ice with Thermodynamicity seems useful I can come up with a strategy that does not include such heavy use of metathermics that will be even MORE reliable.

There's nothing random about Thermodynamicity.  It's best against large groups, or extremely tough enemies, and isn't something that you use in every single fight, unlike Premeditation, but it's top-tier if you play to it.

It's a "solution looking for a problem". Anything it can do, I can do better by not trying to alternate fire and ice. Name a fight where you think Thermodynamicity is good, and I'll show you how it's completely unnecessary.

69

General / Re: Thoughts on 5/5 spec'ed disassemble.

« on: December 03, 2019, 02:25:26 am »

Meditation with +psi pool feats and equipment from expedition is now 100% redundant.

Well, just want to note expedition spirit staff was nerfed and no longer reduce psi cost.

Neither does Meditation.
The only thing Meditation is actually good for is giving you enough of an increase to the psi points pool so that when you re-gain 100 points via psi booster nothing is "wasted".
Spirit stuff gives you +10 extra pool size, that almost always gets the job done just as well.

70

General / Re: Jack Quicksilver Issue (Triggering "Meet Azif")

« on: December 03, 2019, 02:18:44 am »

This issue is pretty much always with how you complete the quests.
Are you 100% certain you did everything "optimally"?
Check this topic, for example: https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=4239.0

71

General / Re: Thoughts on 5/5 spec'ed disassemble.

« on: December 02, 2019, 09:40:01 am »

Oh, and on a side-note: with 5/5 spec'ed disassemble you can swap damage-boosting components into your psionic headband on demand.
So you can get a flat +40%-ish extra damage to whatever ability you plan to spam in a given fight the most.

72

General / Re: Thoughts on 5/5 spec'ed disassemble.

« on: December 02, 2019, 09:29:25 am »

That's some very weird and weak-looking pure psi build. You sure it's viable even on hard? That's said, it does feasible to push disassembly in this case, even with good feat and spec allocated. That's said, I prefer spending my spare points for Force User, since it gives the highest damage bonus out of any psi spec

I'm playing with this build on dominating with permadeath (you can go to let's play section for a some videos on that). So it sure works just fine.
Heck, at this point playing with this build on dominating with permadeath without ever using force field, thermo destab or any traps. I.e. I have to literally handicap myself to get some decent tactical challenge out of it.

73

General / Re: Thoughts on 5/5 spec'ed disassemble.

« on: December 02, 2019, 09:20:54 am »

In order of decreasing preference:
Thermodynamicity - Tran psi w/ psi cost reduction gear can spam ice + fire combo wiping everything in one turn.
Pyromaniac - for those sweet fear effect, very effective when combine w/ Thermodynamicity.
Meditation - a tran psi's limiting factor is psi pool, more psi = more psi ability spam.
Neural overclocking - just because you are going Tran psi route doesn't mean your psi won't crit.
Power Management - not as important for psi since you can just CC everything, but a bigger shield is always a plus.

As for the specialization points:
Exposed Weakness is ... questionable in this build. But if you are set on getting it I would get exposed weakness duration +1.
Hemopsychosis cooldown is what I would go for. But I will admit your build as is these two choices isn't *that* much better than 5 SP for disassemble.

My problem with Thermodynamicity and Pyromaniac is that both are heavily random.
Pyromaniac is literally 50/50 coin-flip, Thermodynamicity requires some form of fire-based psi, and those either don't combine with ice (Thermo Destab), have intrinsic miss chance (Fireball) or are just plain too situational (Pyro Stream).
On tranquility psion I rarely find it optimal to alternate between fire and ice. 95% of the time I would prefer to either just spam ice, or use something from psychokinesis and/or thought control. Getting a good AP cost reduction on something I don't actually want to do most of the time (alternate between fire and ice, that is) is redundant.
But at any rate, you can just swap Thermodynamicity in instead of doctor (which is already a meme feat in that build).
Pyromaniac is simply not good if you are not willing to reload when it fails to proc at the critical moment.
Meditation with +psi pool feats and equipment from expedition is now 100% redundant.
Neural overclocking gives a tiny increase in actual damage on tranq build (completely unreliable, procs rarely and when it DOES proc it often just overkills, since the target would have died from normal crit just as well).
Power Management for larger shield size is QoL, since 99% of the time you don't actually try to face-tank damage for several turns in a row.

As for Exposed Weakness, that's just a meme feat for insta-kill combo with cryogenic induction and implosion. So duration on it is completely irrelevant, nothing will ever live for more than one turn when exposed.
 
TL;DR: Thermodynamicity might be ok (even if I don't find it useful for my play-style), but you can swap it in for Doctor. Everything else is either unreliable or redundant.

74

General / Re: Thoughts on 5/5 spec'ed disassemble.

« on: December 02, 2019, 12:29:56 am »

Ok, let's talk actual builds.

This build here:
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMDBwcDEAcAAAAoAABkU2QAADhUADA4S8KHRkYPAE8rDjk_FCodKFAhTcKEwocKEuKdtAPiorUC4qiSBd-_

(Given at level 25, so it has 3 more feats, 5 more SP and loads more skill points to spare.)
What exactly would you replace disassemble with, that has such noticeably "better opportunity cost"?

75

General / Re: Thoughts on 5/5 spec'ed disassemble.

« on: December 01, 2019, 12:14:29 pm »

>what I meant was how easy it is to find and stock weapon mod for future crafting, and I think Styg did buffed chance to spawn "rare" weapon mod like Rapid Reload after CC update
But that's exactly the thing: with perfect disassemble you don't have to wait for "future crafting". You can use rare and good mods right away, and simply take them out once you get better components.
Also, most components still have quality. Even if I find quality 140 components early in the game, I will likely find 145 later on, then 150, then 155, etc. with perfect disassemble you can just swap them in one by one as you find them.