A mechanical pistol build, using only 5 mm Hawker pistols. On Dominating.
Except for Newton and The Beast, no traps, damage dealing grenades or smoke bombs were used.
Did all the content – Apogee, Black Crawler, native bosses, 4naga etc. Haven’t done DC yet, but it’ll do fine there.
Check out my tiny BB... gun
Hawker with a 5 mm barrel can achieve 4 AP shots at 18 Dexterity. However, despite the cheap AP cost, the damage it deals over a turn is still abysmal.
Critical Nerf gun
At first, I thought of going the Special Attack damage bonus route that I went with a .44 Hammerer build a while back. But seeing how this build will be able to shoot ~30 times per turn, focusing on a damage bonus which would only apply to ~20% of shots seemed wasteful.
Another way to increase damage were Critical Hits. Dropping all special attacks allowed me to dump Perception, pick up Versatility and get 9 Constitution for Survival Instinct along with 18 Dexterity.
Now for critical chance:
- 7% base, 7% Recklessness, 30% Survival Instincts, 5% Hardcore Chips (20 min duration), 15% Focus Stim (10 turn duration, easy to make, later can be used in practically every fight. Requires fishing tho.), 10% Infused Rathound Leather Armor, 18% Seeker Lens Goggles.
- No Steady Aim because I’d only get 1,5% extra critical chance.
- No Scrutinous because I’m at 3 PER.
- This nets me 92% Critical chance.
Pea shooter? More like pee shooter
Crits don’t mean shit if the base damage is garbage. I learned that lesson after trying to play a shiv build. To fix that, I get every available damage bonus in hopes it’ll be enough.
- I got Gun Nut for 15% upper damage range increase.
- Joined Protectorate for Protectorate Firearm Omnilube consumable, which increases damage dealt by firearms by another 10% for 50 shots.
- There’s Opportunist (with barely any ways to proc it) and Blindsiding, for situational damage bonuses.
- Expertise helps during the time crit chance is still low and later it increases the damage of non crit shots. In DC it’s good against mushrooms.
- 280 effective Guns from specced Versatility (which is what I’d otherwise get with max Guns and 13 Perception).
Playing with knives
Apart from 4 AP shots, 18 Dexterity also allows me to get the most value of specced Fatal Throw. A throwing knife cost is reduced to 10 AP and returns 27 AP on a kill, for a net total of 17 AP once per turn.
Unlike other guns, which often overkill enemies, the measly damage of 5mm Hawkers works very well with Fatal Throw. After bringing two or more enemies down to <25% HP, I’d throw a knife and kill two for the price of one, due to Split Snare feat which throws a knife at two targets within a cone, both of which not only crit, but also deal good damage because of Ripper. Throwing two knives at once also ensures I get at least one kill and get the extra AP.
Poor man’s Commando
After the latest patch, Rapid Reloaders have a 25% chance to restore 50% - 100% of the AP spent, once per turn. The AP it refunds is based on the base AP cost of the weapon, which in this case is 13. And since this build shoots so many times per turn, the proc is nearly guaranteed. Meaning a RR proc can get me up to 3 extra shots each turn.
The Carpal tunnel syndrome build
So with Contraction and Adrenaline, my AP is at 90, another 17 from Fatal throw and up to 13 from Rapid Reloader. Up to 120 AP per turn. 30 shots per turn. I will also be getting Rapid Fire, for two-ish extra shots.
A 5mm Hawker holds 20 bullets in its magazine, so to avoid wasting AP on reloading on my apha strike turn, I use two 5mm Hawkers.
Shots deal up to ~150 damage, for a 4800 damage per turn. Ideally. Unlikely. Which is something similar to what crit ARs can do per burst, 4 times a turn.
In reality, damage spread is wide, I miss shots and heavily armored foes cut down the damage dealt significantly.
Firing the smallest pistol in the world
The build consumes copious amounts of W2C ammo and Focus Stims and needs to have Contraction constantly online, but the end result is quite good. Up to level 20 I had to be extremely picky what encounters to do and which quests to go for, but after that, it got better. After level 26, 5mm pistols have no problems dealing with any encounters in the game.
5mm special ammo isn’t as good here as I thought it’d be. Much like other special ammo, the bonus electrical damage cannot crit. Crafting electrical ammo also consumes 5mm casings, a resource used to make W2C ammo.
An issue with Versatility builds is their poor-ish accuracy due to lagging weapon skill. To counteract that, I craft the 5mm Hawkers with a Laser Sight attachment, which provides a flat +10% bonus to accuracy. Once Versatility was fully specced, my accuracy was quite good.
Funny thing tho, the most times I've died with this build is from click-click-clicking an enemy, killing it and then I keep on clickin' its corpse, run up to it and open the loot, waste MP/AP and die like a bitch.
tl;dr: 5mm pistol not shit. After reaching level 20. Kinda shit before that.
Some videos of the build in action:
4naga fight. Quick and clean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RBAQ1dMHqoFort Zenith. A challenging fight due to lack of ways to break LoS and no chokepoints whatsoever. There are two snipers which shoot from out of player field of view, two enemies who use EMPs, a dreadnaught and a bunch of heavily armored cans:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZxlYi01zEkThe build:
https://underrail.info/build/?HgMQAwkDBQcywqAAwqAAAMKgTioAAE5ZDidaAAAAwosAAEorYsKjFyYxU8KHwohPKsKFUVxewrNyW-KouwPita4K378
