Experience with new feats?

[UnLimiTeD]

So, what are everyone's experiences with the new feats so far?

Is clothier worth the feat slot when going metal armours?
Is non-Psi heavy Melee feasible?
Can Metal Armours be used by evasion characters with sloping now? And with ballistics help non-vest armour types, or is the resistance too high for threshold to matter?
Any deliberate lowlife builds?

And, on a slightly related tangent, is conditioning even still worth it when reaching 90% resistances with armour? Should I pick Juggernaut instead? (Just kidding, I do that anyways.

[Gman]

Crafting feats do wonders, my present build has most of them (have the one for leathers, fabrics, ballistic panel, and guns).  The fabric one is good if you use tabi boot variations or normal, light leather boots.  Sloping does nothing for vests afaik.  The 20% quality boosts is mostly felt with late-game things and the already high-quality things get that extra.  Got up to 40% / 12 mechanical armor stats going on while maintaining 100+ evasion/dodge and 0 encumberance thanks to self-crafted, quality materials.

By lowlife I think he means low constitution builds? Mine is 5 constitution btw, and other than some instances where I have to watch for annoying entangling+critically shot with a bow bullshit, don't usually have to worry about hp.

So far, I find kevlar/blast cloth to never be worth adding as the bonuses from them seem atrocious for the increased weight penalties, so cannot say how those might be effected by Tailor. Thinking on it too, really, the tailor feat might be a waste for non-entire crafter, because feels like fabrics are woefully underused so the feat slot might not be worth it to you.

[Greep]

-Clother is not worth it for metal, but skinner is:  With the dr cap, it makes a whole lot of sense to use tabi boots for high resists in something like acid (mutated) or cold (ancient).  WIthout skinner I got 28% acid using mutated infused dog leather, with skinner I would've gotten over 33, quite an improvement.

Additionally, clothier can probably makes some interesting 95% encumbrance tactical vests with related gear, although it is quite worthless vs energy unfortunately.

-Yup.  Especially unarmed.  Hammer is still "awesome but average"

-Not really, super steel is 50% penalty without any plating at all, pretty sure it's only for tactical vests if it even works on those

-?

[LightningMonk]

Yeah, it's great to hold on to new types of cloth Balaclavas and tabis for their slight bonuses combined with clothier.

[Gman]

I'm a dork and never even struck me to try making tabi boots with the kevlar/blast cloth yet. Doubt will use anyhow as I use high grade ninja tabi boots pretty much solely for the stealth bonus, so wouldn't need to use any others.  Same for balaclava.  Why we can't wear balaclava+goggles is beyond me, too.  It's extremely irritating that the two can't be produced together somehow/worn at the same time. I can understand helmets, but... a cloth mask and goggles? Come on....

As for the stuff sucking against energy, you are right. But that's what a personal crafted energy shield is for, heh.

[UnLimiTeD]

With low life builds I mean deliberately staying at low life to get the enormous crit bonus.
That could allow for some truly memorable first strikes.

[SadBaxter]

Disassemble doesn't really seem that worth it, unless you're really hurting for crafting components without any quality in which case you can take apart old weapons and armor and take them back. Kinda wishing I could swap it out for something more worthwhile.

The ballistic vest feat might be worth it? A laminated ballistic panel gives you 2 DT and the feat gives you 3, so you could either have 5 (potentially 15) extra mechanical damage resistance, or use the extra DT from the feat to offset going with a hybrid ballistic panel or some other insert. It feels like a flat bonus won't have much to offer in the long run.

Gun nut is SUPER worth it though, you can offset the damage loss to most of the low damage frames that have some other bonus that way.

[SadBaxter]

Snipe does need some improvement, as getting huge damage bonuses with aimed shot alone is easily done and doesn't require investment in stealth or stealth-enhancing equipment. Something like it doing a critical hit with damage adjusted by stealth by some degree, or being a 100% chance to hit (meaning you can use it to start combat with a big hit from well outside of an enemy's range), or not using up any action points if you're using it to initiate combat or something.

[hilf]

you get the same from tabis or balaclava much easier, and with no armor penalty to boot.

I see what you did there (:


Edit:
As for Neurology feat, i think it should increase PSI by 20 points. Why?
That would be 20% increase, just like Clothier and Skinner. And it needs 4 more levels than those feats.
It would allow to cast 2 50 PSI skills in one round (without taking PSI booster) with Psychosis. It wouldn't be imba because You can already do this with base PSI pool and no Psychosis.
PSI regens at 20/turn. 20 extra points would just 'fit nicely'.