Author Topic: Buck Rogers  (Read 3660 times)

ringring

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Buck Rogers
« on: August 31, 2021, 06:23:06 am »
Equipment:

Incendiary Chemical Pistol
Electroshock Energy Pistol
Advanced Catalyzing Belt
Energy Shurikens

Optional
Grenades


https://underrail.info/build/?HgMLAwULAwrCoMKgAAAAAAAAAAAAVVVVVVUAwqDCoDcZADIrATFNPcKRwppWKlFew5NYwodnwqTCtXnDg9-_

so anyway, this build is a chemical /energy pistol build that specs into throwing and physical psi. 

So, I see the alpha strike going something like this:

>Adrenaline + Haste
>Premeditate Pyro Orb
>ThermoDynamicism Cryo Orb
>Fatal Throw + Remote Surgeon + Split Spare + Pinning with Energy Shurikens
>Throw Grenade
>Cooked Shot with Pyro Chem Pistol (+20% damage from belt + double effects from Mad Chemist)
>Fire Electro Pistol Once (+40% from High Technicalities) or Pyro Chem Pistol Twice

ringring

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Re: Buck Rogers
« Reply #1 on: August 31, 2021, 06:31:24 am »
I wasn't sure what the crafting skill minimums were, you could probably drop biology and lower crafting all around, but i kept in mind the mercantile and persuasion minimums to get the work benches for your house.  You might want to put some points into the subterfuge skill group, especially stealth or traps.  (or pickpocket if you are on an oddity playthrough)  I picked the coretech tatoo for more skillpoints, but you can replace it with the tchort tatoo or something else. 

I was going to take grenadier and hypertoxicity, but heres why I didn't:

1) They don't fit with the character.  Buck Rogers is a good guy so he doesn't use poison
2) People keep saying we should do more builds without grenadier so it doesn't become a crutch
3) For Poison to take effect, you have to wait at least 2 or 3 turns, and its a safe bet most enemies won't last that long.

Drizzle

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Re: Buck Rogers
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2021, 03:29:17 am »
I don't know who Buck Rogers is, so I'll just give you advice on the more objective side of build making; feel free to ignore or adjust depending on what you want to roleplay. You have a lot of options to deal with nearly any enemy in the game, so you shouldn't face any trouble if you're not afraid to switch weapons in on occasion.

A few things:

>Mercantile 105 effective skill ALWAYS. Special Merchandise is too good to pass up, and the reduced buy price stops scaling around 100 skill (money is really fucking easy to get in this game though, so it's more about higher quality components).
>You don't need all your crafting skills so high (in fact it's a waste) unless you plan to not use All In or abuse specced Disassemble for free repairs; but even so, dropping crafting points and putting them into Pickpocketing not only lets you not invest as much there, it also nets you a lot of other positives (prevent Prof kidnapping, sometimes steal keycards so you don't have to use hacking, free money and - more importantly - drugs, etc). Mechanics and biology are the biggest sins here since nothing you'll be using needs it so high
>You want some Stealth, somewhere around 60 base. Just stealth gear alone isn't going to cut it until the late game. And your initiative isn't high enough that you can always get the first turn.
>Constitution 5 but not taking Fast Metabolism; I recommend dropping it to 3 and putting into Willpower (bit more psi damage) or Intelligence (less skill points into crafting & mercantile and more High-Technicalities damage) instead.
>Recklessness and Scrutinous aren't very worth it unless you're stacking crit chance (Survival Instincts/Ambush/etc, they require too much investment). Going with the previous point, I'd advice getting Tranquility instead (getting hit as 3 Con usually means instant death on Dominating if you're planning to play on that, so abuse Line of Sight). Tranq comboes with what you're doing since it looks like you want to hybridize a lot instead of maximizing damage for one thing. Scrutinous' feat slot should go to Practical Phycisist.
>Decomissioner not worth it, take Critical Power instead (for Aimed Shot). You will use a electroshock pistol which already deals with mass bots handily, if not switching to a plasma pistol for single targets which outright OHKO's Naga Protectors if you build them right. It also comes so late that it's not very worth it
>Be aware you will rely on your chem pistol a lot. Energy pistols are very limited vs crowds in my experience and you want to use them sparingly/as a one-shotting tool (seems like you're gearing towards that, with incendiary for organics and electroshock for bots). You'll likely switch to acid when facing too many robots
>Cryo Orb costs more AP and Psi Points iirc, so use your Premed on that first THEN Thermodinamicity'd Pyrokinesis if you want to have as much AP as possible. If you want the MP reduction to stick however, do it as you said, since fire removes most or all cold status effects
>Be aware Disassemble only works on certain objects (mostly mechanical/electronic durability) and you can only use it to repair weapons for free if you max the specialization, which is 5 spec points. Future Orientation *might* be worth considering here
>Stasis is great but some consider it too overpowered. It all depends on how much you're struggling; since it basically gives you a second alpha strike turn with no downside

I might have missed some things, but that's about all I can see right now. You only really perfect a build once you've played it at least once.

ringring

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Re: Buck Rogers
« Reply #3 on: September 01, 2021, 04:24:37 am »
I don't know if I can find anything by Buck Rogers, but here is the Daffy Duck parody "Duck Dodgers":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukTuKnIZCUU

>Mercantile 105 effective skill ALWAYS. Special Merchandise is too good to pass up, and the reduced buy price stops scaling around 100 skill (money is really fucking easy to get in this game though, so it's more about higher quality components).

Yeah, the Foundry Shop is really good plus it always seems to have napalm c which is hard to find.  Thats why i left some points free and was talking about maybe downgrading some of craft skills to the minimum for 150 quality components with accessories.

>You don't need all your crafting skills so high (in fact it's a waste) unless you plan to not use All In or abuse specced Disassemble for free repairs; but even so, dropping crafting points and putting them into Pickpocketing not only lets you not invest as much there, it also nets you a lot of other positives (prevent Prof kidnapping, sometimes steal keycards so you don't have to use hacking, free money and - more importantly - drugs, etc). Mechanics and biology are the biggest sins here since nothing you'll be using needs it so high

For the crafting, see above

Also thats not really why I take disassemble, I do it on crafting builds because I love crafting.  Its a quality of life feat that also makes me rich.  Its just personal preference, but if you were going to go in on psi you could swap it out for tranquility or psychosis.

>You want some Stealth, somewhere around 60 base. Just stealth gear alone isn't going to cut it until the late game. And your initiative isn't high enough that you can always get the first turn.

Stealth's optional, but putting more than 20-40 points in it feels like a waste.  Carrying sneaking boots and a sneaking outfit usually works better, though it can leave you vulnerable.

>Constitution 5 but not taking Fast Metabolism; I recommend dropping it to 3 and putting into Willpower (bit more psi damage) or Intelligence (less skill points into crafting & mercantile and more High-Technicalities damage) instead.

Fast Metabolism is a quality of life feat, its good because it fills your psi completely with one booster, (unless you have neurology or meditation) and helps you heal more health off a single hypo but its not really necessary.

Also, taking Con 3 is a trap option.  You'll spend the whole game save scrubbing and reloading, especially on the harder enemies.

>Recklessness and Scrutinous aren't very worth it unless you're stacking crit chance (Survival Instincts/Ambush/etc, they require too much investment). Going with the previous point, I'd advice getting Tranquility instead (getting hit as 3 Con usually means instant death on Dominating if you're planning to play on that, so abuse Line of Sight). Tranq comboes with what you're doing since it looks like you want to hybridize a lot instead of maximizing damage for one thing. Scrutinous' feat slot should go to Practical Phycisist.

I don't like cheesing crits because I feel like its a bit of an exploit.  Its also hard to maintain the number of conditions you need to get near guaranteed crits, but a 20% chance or so to crit is fine for crit fishing.  Its generally more important to get crits than it is to increase crit damage.  Plus reckless and scrutinous both fit the character. 

>Decomissioner not worth it, take Critical Power instead (for Aimed Shot). You will use a electroshock pistol which already deals with mass bots handily, if not switching to a plasma pistol for single targets which outright OHKO's Naga Protectors if you build them right. It also comes so late that it's not very worth it

I took Decomissioner because it fit with the theme of him being a science guy and fighting evil robots, plus it helps towards the endgame with all the strongman and naga robots.  I'm not 100% sure why I took aimed shot, now that I think about it.  I guess for the chemical pistols?  Maybe Plasma Pistols?  At any rate taking reckless and scrutinous quadruples my average crit damage, while taking practical physicist only adds 25%. (though it is multiplicative)  Critical Power does nothing on Electroshock Pistols, because their crit damage bonus is 100 percent, and critical power only adds damage if the crit damage bonus is over 100 percent.  I also have psychostatic electricity, which ups my crit bonus by 5 for each hit of electrokinesis. 

>Be aware you will rely on your chem pistol a lot. Energy pistols are very limited vs crowds in my experience and you want to use them sparingly/as a one-shotting tool (seems like you're gearing towards that, with incendiary for organics and electroshock for bots). You'll likely switch to acid when facing too many robots

Switching to acid for robots might not be a bad idea.

>Cryo Orb costs more AP and Psi Points iirc, so use your Premed on that first THEN Thermodinamicity'd Pyrokinesis if you want to have as much AP as possible. If you want the MP reduction to stick however, do it as you said, since fire removes most or all cold status effects

More psi points, but unless i plan on also using electrokinesis or force punch, not a big a deal.

>Be aware Disassemble only works on certain objects (mostly mechanical/electronic durability) and you can only use it to repair weapons for free if you max the specialization, which is 5 spec points. Future Orientation *might* be worth considering here

I don't really use it that way, though it is tempting.

>Stasis is great but some consider it too overpowered. It all depends on how much you're struggling; since it basically gives you a second alpha strike turn with no downside

Yeah, no idea how that works.  Never tried it, the TM is for haste, thats all.

I might have missed some things, but that's about all I can see right now. You only really perfect a build once you've played it at least once.

thanks for the advice!

ringring

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Re: Buck Rogers
« Reply #4 on: September 01, 2021, 04:33:56 am »
I wasn't sure if I should take the last two non veteran feats at level 22 and 24 and was thinking of taking 2 of these instead

>grenadier (could in theory take this much sooner where it will give a better advantage)
>3 pointer (fully specced gives 74% chance to crit!)
>hypertoxicity (this would go great with split spare)

Drizzle

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Re: Buck Rogers
« Reply #5 on: September 01, 2021, 07:03:29 am »
>>Also thats not really why I take disassemble, I do it on crafting builds because I love crafting.  Its a quality of life feat that also makes me rich.  Its just personal preference, but if you were going to go in on psi you could swap it out for tranquility or psychosis.

Fair, I've just played Underrail so much that I know how to get rich extremely quickly. I've done a fully specced Disassemble build but that came so late I found it not worth it for how "okay" it was not having to carry around repair kits for my weapons.

>>Stealth's optional, but putting more than 20-40 points in it feels like a waste.  Carrying sneaking boots and a sneaking outfit usually works better, though it can leave you vulnerable.

Since I've only ever played on Dominating I found 60 base is the minimum there; with lower stats and skills on Hard and below, detection should be lower as well, therefore not needing as much stealth. And going first is strictly necessary when you're not high Con.

>>Fast Metabolism is a quality of life feat, its good because it fills your psi completely with one booster, (unless you have neurology or meditation) and helps you heal more health off a single hypo but its not really necessary. Also, taking Con 3 is a trap option.  You'll spend the whole game save scrubbing and reloading, especially on the harder enemies.

Yes, if you're not a (psi) tank then FM is just QoL. Again, I've only ever played on Dominating so 5 Con is just as frail as 3 Con there, might make a bigger difference on lower difficulties.

>>I'm not 100% sure why I took aimed shot, now that I think about it.  I guess for the chemical pistols?  Maybe Plasma Pistols?  At any rate taking reckless and scrutinous quadruples my average crit damage, while taking practical physicist only adds 25%. (though it is multiplicative)  Critical Power does nothing on Electroshock Pistols, because their crit damage bonus is 100 percent, and critical power only adds damage if the crit damage bonus is over 100 percent.  I also have psychostatic electricity, which ups my crit bonus by 5 for each hit of electrokinesis.

If you add a Circular Wave Amplifier addon it can add up to 200% crit damage, and with a Smart Module and smart goggles plus Critical Power and Practical Physicist and High-Technicalities on top, an electroshock pistol Aimed Shot should surely deal a lot of damage which is not hit as hard by the damage reduction per bounce. I'm not very experienced with them though so I couldn't say how much damage exactly and if it would still be able to OHKO most NPCs (only played with laser and plasma when I did an epistol build, but the same components apply).

ringring

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Re: Buck Rogers
« Reply #6 on: September 01, 2021, 07:38:25 am »
>If you add a Circular Wave Amplifier addon it can add up to 200% crit damage,

thats a good point, i hadn't thought of that

>and with a Smart Module

pretty sure you can only install either a smart module or a wave amplifier, not both.

>and smart goggles

or maybe seeker goggles

>plus Critical Power and Practical Physicist and High-Technicalities on top,

yeah thats a pretty nasty crit bonus.

>an electroshock pistol Aimed Shot

I'm not 100% sure aimed shot works on energy pistols, i think it does but I'm not sure because it says 'single target' which is misleading with an electroshock pistol.

>should surely deal a lot of damage which is not hit as hard by the damage reduction per bounce. I'm not very experienced with them though so I couldn't say how much damage exactly and if it would still be able to OHKO most NPCs (only played with laser and plasma when I did an epistol build, but the same components apply).

yeah, thats not bad.  i didn't start out with crit fishing in mind, only as an afterthought, but it looks like this might work well for that too.

ringring

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Re: Buck Rogers
« Reply #7 on: September 01, 2021, 08:26:08 am »

Drizzle

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Re: Buck Rogers
« Reply #8 on: September 01, 2021, 03:08:34 pm »
Yes, the great thing about Aimed Shot is that since it's a guaranteed crit, you don't have to build crit chance, just crit damage - and special attack bonus multiplies that even higher. And yes, you can use both CWA and a SM on an energy pistol; that's the set up I had on my plasma pistol for one-shotting bosses. Using seeker goggles is fair though, since the crit chance will help with your chempistol attacks.

Edit: so I loaded up my epistol save real quick which has everything I've mentioned, made one with components around 150Q. Has Opportunist and no Sharpshooter, but you should expect this on a high roll. Did not expect them to be this decent. Unfortunately electroshock pistols have extremely high damage variance, so I saw a couple low rolls of 600 (with Aimed Shot of course).
« Last Edit: September 01, 2021, 04:50:16 pm by Drizzle »

ringring

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Re: Buck Rogers
« Reply #9 on: September 02, 2021, 01:31:11 am »
damn bro!  kinna curious what your stats are like.  So do vtubers tend to mod their save files instead of doing another playthrough to experiment with different builds?  Seems kind of tempting to abuse that..

TheSidewalkSLAM

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Re: Buck Rogers
« Reply #10 on: September 06, 2021, 12:50:56 pm »
Strictly from a thematics perspective you could pick up the Phaser; it's a plain and literal Star Trek reference so it fits right in with the classic TV sci-fi vibe of Buck Rogers