Messages

46

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

« on: March 18, 2020, 01:05:04 pm »

Yeah, DOMINATING is about cheesing and meta. Think about Newton directly at the beginning, how can you kill all the bugs in a "normal" fight?!

Different builds do different things, so tin cans might not get one-shotted or stunned, but a glass cannon like this build will never deal well with getting hit at all. Shields may later mitigate some damage, a good tac vest, too, but the better strategy is not get hurt at all. Know where the mines are etc.

Same for Crawlers. Once you know where they are, you cheese around it. It's fun to think about these strategies though, even if role-playing immersion is gone, but I think most people have played the game a couple times before they go dominating, so the story is known and the tactical aspects become more interesting.

The closest toxic barrel is in the Core City Sewers (entrance at dock map), once in there, go West once and there's a steaming barrel. Gets enough grenades but there's also more barrels down there.

If you have trouble with the CoreTec missions, I can give you some hints, but you seem to have things covered now

47

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

« on: March 17, 2020, 02:52:05 pm »

Well I'm playing on Dominating because I wanted to go for hardcore experience having played pure psi build only before up to Core City, and on normal so yeah... on normal I wasn't really forced to utilize many tools nor plan ahead that much.

But I'm here to report I finished depot A and got haste and imprint which are massive boost to my fighting capabilities, also got parts for first crafted pistol - only 169% crit but I bet it will be a huge boost also. I'm probably gonna do harold and big bret quests now before heading to rail station.

Congratz! I think the worst is behind you.

With the open world now there is a lot that can be done. Harold and Hathor are a sane choice. On the more insane level, you could also rush Core City now, the electronics dealer can have stuff for the laser pistol. In Core City, CoreTech faction missions are doable but require cheese and open up the best electronics dealer. For that you need mercantile 90 and having access to gas grenades for the third CoreTech warehouse mission, which is amongst the most difficult missions on low level without directly beartrapping the entrance cheesing the crap out of that one. Core City Gorsky preparation missions should also be doable for a shield emitter and good XP. Marty in upper underrail might also sell good stuff. The world is your oyster from now on

48

Builds / Re: Which jetksi to pick

« on: March 16, 2020, 05:36:35 pm »

it boils down to slogging the merchandise to all the traders in order to get their 400 charons then? [...] Well, if now is not the time to stay inside for some extended merchant run, when is

It's not really all that bad if you set it up in advance.  For example, in Core City, why not put al your junk in those barrels by the elevator on the Oligarch level? Quick access.  Every time you come back to CC, grab a few things out of your Barrel Of Fun and go sell it.  You can easily pull 1.5k out of merchants in CC per run.  In Foundry, you can use the barrel at the bar, or just dump the stuff in a pile outside.  Foundry is easily worth 800 charons.  IoT is worth 1k anyway - Hannah alone has something like 700, right? I forget off the top of my head.  Even Junkyard can get you nearly 1k, and that big old dumpster is an awfully inviting place to store your trash.

Anyway, yeah, it takes a good long while.  But if you just get in the habit of checking inventories when you happen to be in town, it comes fairly organically.  I rarely do more than about half a dozen dedicated merchant runs on a character.  Instead, I do small loops, dumping off loot as I explore and clear the world, and just checking merchants when I happen to be in the neighborhood.

As you say, no time like the present for wasting hours on optimizations! 

Fellow OCDs unite for the perfect route using Dude I appreciate the advice, I'll also try and fit the merchant feats in a build to see how that changes things. I think one should have driven the most pimped jetski at least once in life.

Why do you guys recommend the barrels? I've read this multiple times here but I'm always just dumping my stuff on the ground in front of the appropriate shop. I swear no one ever stole stuff from there...  Sorry for the offtopic.

49

Builds / Re: Which jetksi to pick

« on: March 16, 2020, 04:49:29 pm »

On dominating, no matter the build, I always have at best a couple thousand coins.

If you have decent crafting and can get Disassemble, you'll find that especially on DOMINATING that feat makes a world of difference in how much money you have available.  You don't need to pick it up particularly early; I usually wait until I've cleared Rail Crossing, Foundry, and the easy parts of Core City (ie before completing the Oligarch quests).  Until then, just don't sell anything at all that could be disassembled.  Nothing.  When you do finally pick up Disassemble, spend an hour or so of real time turning your stash of gear into parts, then reassemble that giant pile of components into the highest-possible-value stuff you can, and then just reassemble whatever's left as you please.  Now when you go visit those electronics and weapons and armor merchants, you'll have immensely valuable things to sell, and it'll be very easy to pull all their charons off of them.

It's still not infinite money like you have on easier settings, but Disassemble will allow you to afford whatever jetski you want, and still have enough left over to trick out your house and buy a few sheets of super steel.

EDIT: If that's not an option, then at the very least try to find room in your build for enough skill points to get your effective Mechanics to 50, and maybe Tailoring as well.  Tear apart your basic stuff into scrap, make advanced repair kits, and repair your expensive stuff before you sell it.  Metal armor, firearms, energy weapons, and light/medium overcoats can sell very well if at full repair.

Hm, ok, thanks. I've been doing the repair thing liberally, but it boils down to slogging the merchandise to all the traders in order to get their 400 charons then? 105 merchant runs for the most expensive jetskis and assuming I have high quality stuff to sell for 400 charons. Had been hoping there would be some secret trick but this sounds like you need to basically really collect all loot, either for repair kits or for high grade items. Well, if now is not the time to stay inside for some extended merchant run, when is

50

Builds / Re: Which jetksi to pick

« on: March 16, 2020, 11:42:40 am »

Thanks harperfan7, great information, I wasn't even aware some of them could shoot.

Can you answer me one question though: how do you guys manage to afford this? On dominating, no matter the build, I always have at best a couple thousand coins. Do you Al-Fabet to afford these gliders, or is there some sort of strategy to deal with this? Do you have to steal them and turn people hostile? I've played Expedition three or so times and never got past having the stuff the story gave me, so usually the stupid junk jet or an Aegis, I'm really curious how many people actually got to buying one of the cooler jets?!

51

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

« on: March 16, 2020, 11:39:11 am »

Thanks for replies guys.

I left depot A for now to grind some more exp (im on classic exp).
I went for Silent Isle quest first but quickly deserted from there too, need some more on demand punch for that place and when I saw Goliath right at the start I was like "yeaa nope". I went exploring around GMS compound and just cleared a big group of Lunatics using about 10 traps and 6 granades, I put some points into traps because there are a lot of traps around these tunnels than can be recovered.
Anyway most of my money goes into restocking on bear traps and nades atm but it pays off as I get investments back killing big packs of psychos who carry meds, nades and more money.

I think I'm back in tracks for now.
Will report back after Depot A.

Phyriel, that's definitely a good idea, I never thought of these Lurkers, but there is a lot to be found on the maps.

Let me add one other thing (I don't think you wrote what difficulty you are on): Even on dominating, many areas can be also stealthed for better gameplay. If you gone for the build I sketched and maxed stealth, and maybe found some stealth gear, here is what you can also do:

Silent Isle can be completed without killing anyone (or only the rats) and you stealth either west or east (depending a bit on luck) to the the west coast oddity and north west coast quest object plus oddity. You can always come back later to kill the bugs. Or not. Just make a named save before entering the Isle as stealthing can be a bit luck dependent. Grenades can also lure the bugs on one end of the isle and you go the other way.

Depot A can also be stealth without killing anyone (!!!). A guy did it in 15 min or so on youtube and I stealthed it in my pacifist walkthrough. If you don't kill everybody, all of the sudden, Depot A gets much much much less daunting. For instance: The acid dogs on the mine field map (not Wyatt's map) can be ignored. You just sneak into the control room, open the two computer operated doors and leave the map. The mutant and dog map that you access from the gangster's hideout (not the one from the wormhole) by going North twice, is completely optional, too. When you enter that map from the fenced off area, acid dogs and mutants team up and completely destroy most builds, so why bother. (Entering it from below ground in the north gives you a better choke point, but it still sucks as hell and half my builds just ignore that map.) You can even sneak past the acid dogs and mutants on Wyatt's map, but it also takes some luck and practice. The dogs and muties below ground are all that remains and they are much less troublesome.

And you can always come back later, but on oddity, why bother killing them at all?
Hope that also helps.

52

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

« on: March 16, 2020, 11:29:56 am »

Quick tinkering would be missing for me. It is useful at any level and helps to block enemies on a door.
It is also important to have enough hacking for disrupting plasma turret (55-60 needed?).

IIRC correctly all turrets can be attacked with laser pistol and then moved out of their range. Might be a bit grindy if you have to use Electrokinesis to get some more time for that, but hacking would not be strictly necessary. But I think it is hacking 60 that is needed for the console.

I get the point on Quick Tinkering, but this seems QoL, especially now that it costs AP. Conveniently placed bear traps beforehand go a long way.

You are right about turrets, you can do without hacking them. Plasma are very very long to get down. It is QOL definitely, it will save a lot of resources.

For quick tinkering, it is more than QOL. It helped me to CC Depot A enemies with guns or crossbow. It is one of many solutions to clear peacefully some maps. It depends on your playstyle, you can finish the game without using it. I found it very convenient for early stages as your damage output per round is low.

I don't want to diminish QT at all, but for the build it's not necessary and there's not a lot of room for feats. For Xbox, counterintuitively, QT did not a lot for me, as the Shock Bolts are so great at CC, I stopped using traps altogether on that build

53

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

« on: March 15, 2020, 09:34:34 pm »

Quick tinkering would be missing for me. It is useful at any level and helps to block enemies on a door.
It is also important to have enough hacking for disrupting plasma turret (55-60 needed?).

IIRC correctly all turrets can be attacked with laser pistol and then moved out of their range. Might be a bit grindy if you have to use Electrokinesis to get some more time for that, but hacking would not be strictly necessary. But I think it is hacking 60 that is needed for the console.

I get the point on Quick Tinkering, but this seems QoL, especially now that it costs AP. Conveniently placed bear traps beforehand go a long way.

54

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

« on: March 15, 2020, 09:11:52 pm »

Sorry to hear you have a hard time in Depot A with the build. It's the part that annoyed me the most, too, with this specific char, as I wanted to use Laser as much as possible, but it did hurt a bit here.

In general, as all the experienced posters before mentioned: try to get as much done outside to level up. I usually even try for Abram's Maura quest etc. Playing only on experience, not oddity, so I don't really know how much you could do.

Meta helps as well: for instance, the dog maps usually have good choke points (the one with the turrets has the control room door, lure all dogs there, open, force field, wait, grenade, close, repeat; the old trick really takes the edge off). Many other groups also can be put into choke points with doors, where two or three bear traps help with CC.

As said above, with Critical Power LPs become powerful (Sharpshooter, Blindsiding, Opportunist around that level mitigate the fact that you cannot craft the best Amplifiers yet), before you have to rely on nets, traps, nades, and all and finish the trapped enemies off with a far from powerful laser pistol. Things get much chillier after Depot A, but tbh Depot A is really a bit of a spike.

Crafting on this char is the biggest disappointment for people playing higher INT characters (that and lack of Premeditation). You can really wait a bit. To give you a sense: I did level only Electronics below Lv10 on a regular basis. On Lv10 I had Elec 45, Chem 30 and Mech 25. It's not a crafter. Later on, Bio 20 for Gas Grenades, more Electronics, but INT 3 always means you are late to any crafting party and will want to rush the housing bonus.

Hope this helps a bit. I can post more damage numbers on different levels from my OCD excel sheet if that is of interest

EDIT to add: The one thing I always crafted whenever money and parts allowed was a new laser pistol with the best amplifier I could put into. You cannot find laser pistols with higher crit damage bonus than 100.

55

Builds / Re: Dominating XAL-001 chem pistol stealth build

« on: January 01, 2020, 03:32:23 pm »

True, at late levels Opportunist doesn't matter much, but it helps a lot at low levels improving the damage of your few Acid Pistol shots, basically if you want to use normal Acid Guns early on I found it very useful. XAL is usually available earliest around level 18+ I think, depending on how much one rushes the Institute

56

Builds / Re: Dominating XAL-001 chem pistol stealth build

« on: January 01, 2020, 12:53:44 pm »

Nice build! I recently played an Acid Pistol Build on DOMINATING as well, but going CON 9 PER 11 for maximizing critical potential. Damage is quite insane (despite only getting above 100% crit damage with Sharpshooter).

I think Opportunist is too good a feat not to have with Acid Pistols and their acid entanglement. You'll trigger this very often and it really helps make Acid Viable early game. On a INT 3 build you can build a first Acid Pistol not before Junkyard, but from then on, I found them viable throughout the whole game. Few people resist acid and as you write, it's great for robots too. (A INT 6/7 build for Mad Chemist could even craft an Acid Pistol before GMS and thus maximize playtime with the weapon.) I know typical Acid Pistols are inferior to XAL but while higher AP cost, they have higher DOT, so if you entangle someone, you can often focus on the next enemy, if they can't reach you from the entanglement. That makes Acid Pistols very useful despite higher AP cost.

Just some random thoughts adding to your guide for people interested in the weapon type.

57

Bugs / Re: Bogdan can run into his own traps

« on: December 26, 2019, 07:27:26 pm »

Ok, Thanks, I thought I read somewhere on an update that there is a way, but the wiki was silent on it and did not manage either. It would be nice though.

58

Bugs / Re: Bogdan can run into his own traps

« on: December 26, 2019, 08:44:31 am »

Is it possible to keep him alive? I tried to on my pacifist run but I think you cannot hand in the quest if you run from the map. I think it would be great if one could let Bogdan live as this would make the JKK questline bloodless.

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Builds / Re: Advice for my sniper build

« on: December 17, 2019, 06:46:56 pm »

I think Supressive Fire and Opportunist would help for the bursting, alongside Expertise (later on). You could think of replacing Recklessness and Interloper with them. Commando (Free second burst if you kill with the first) is also helpful. I think your killing power with the SMG will depend a bit on the type of SMG, I'm not sure about the silenced ones, but a 8.6 SteelCat sure packs some punch.

When looking at Temporal Manipulation and depending on your preferred sniper rilfe: taking Psycho-Temporal Acceleration feat and speccing it 4 times would allow you to fire a Rapid Spearhead Sniper Rilfe 3 times in your 72 AP round.

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Builds / Re: Sniper with a firearm pistol

« on: December 14, 2019, 10:42:38 am »

I have to agree with Bruno, it seems weird in this build to go Versatility. If you did max DEX you have DEX 18, Melee 160 and Effective Melee 350 at the end, and Effective Guns through Versatility 210. Shooting more often with small arms might mitigate the damage loss, but if you pick Sharpshooter (PER 10) and Scrutinous (PER 11), your Effective Guns just from holding those Feats would be 255. So the two feats alone make picking Versatility obsolete. Unless you want to Spec 10 point for 80% Versatility (which puts Effective Guns at 280), so a bit better than you had with PER 11 anyways. And you wasted a full feat and 10 Spec points for this on a build (sniper) that will want to go Critical Power and 10 Specs into that.

Grenades (especially if you craft them with good investment in chemistry) coupled with Grenadier can trivialize many group encounters. You can see that in two ways: you are constantly tempted making life easy by spamming them, killing a bit the fun of the original play idea (snipers/pistols are prone to this, as it takes a while till they have the crit damage to one-shot enemies, at least on DOMINATING difficulty). Or you can see it as having a panic button, if you retried a difficult fight ten times and got tired, you do it with grenades to progress. I guess it depends on your self-control.