Boot spring and Imagine Intensifier Tube rarity

[Cmdr. DuctTape]

It's been quite a while since I last played Underrail, but with Expedition out I've been playing the game pretty much non-stop. I really like all the new stuff, especially the shotguns, but one thing that I'm having trouble with is finding these two parts. So far I've seen a single pair NVGs, but I've yet to find any bootsprings or tubes literally anywhere in the game, and I'm already at level 13.

Was the rarity of these items changed in one of the updates, or am I just *that* unlucky?

[Riggs]

Are you skilling into Mercantile to unlock special vendor inventories at all? I routinely see Blaine carry the components you mentioned, as early as level 7. They don't seem super rare otherwise either, gotten them all as random drops from enemies and containers before as well throughout numerous playthroughs. Perhaps you're just having a bit of bad RNG.

[Cmdr. DuctTape]

I actually don't, but that's a great idea! I mostly specced into persuasion and intimidiation, so mercantile was kinda left out.

[Ploluap]

Not super rare but yeah it's RNG related so sometimes you can play a few hours without finding any in shop even though you need it...

[Riggs]

I actually don't, but that's a great idea! I mostly specced into persuasion and intimidiation, so mercantile was kinda left out.

From what I understand, Mercantile is the best "social" skill to invest into if you plan on doing any crafting on your character whatsoever, followed by Persuasion and then Intimidation. The latter two are both useful but in a much more limited/situational fashion than Mercantile which unlocks a huge amount of potential profits and valuable materials consistently throughout the entirety of the game. The max effective level required to access all vendor special inventories is only 105 so depending on how much Int your char has that can come with a relatively small amount of actual points spent, especially if you also invest some into Persuasion as the two are synergistic with each other. That's the reason that Intimidation doesn't provide quite as much value overall especially in builds that are starved for spare points.

[Faeren]

Intimidation is a pretty hard sell, it's a huge point sink unless you have high will, whereas the better synergy bonus on Persuasion makes it usable as long as you take Mercantile. To top it off there seems to be less Intimidation checks and many of them are pointless, e.g. are in parallel to dialogue options without checks that will achieve the same result, or are in parallel to Persuasion/Mercantile checks. Yell can be a decent defensive ability, but it requires a high effective value to get you money's worth, which only Psions can really manage, the other speech skills are fine but I really think Intimidation should scale with the higher of Strength or Will. Sledgehammer (hence Strength) enemies commonly use Intimidation, and furthermore you should be able to intimidate if you're big and strong, pure Psions with 3 Agi, Str, Dex and Per are physically pathetic yet can apparently intimidate people better than a massive dude wielding Balor's Hammer.

[Riggs]

I really think Intimidation should scale with the higher of Strength or Will.

I wholeheartedly agree. Makes perfect sense to me and would add much needed value to Intimidation to bring it more in line with the other two social skills.

[Fenix]

There is simple "fix" for rare items, that requre nothing - buy them on sight whenever you see them.