Jin-Roh: Wolf Brigade - Mobile Tin Can LMG Thematic Build

[Vagabond]

Simple build imitating the iconic Kerberos Corp. You can find associated Portraits drawn by me on the Custom Portraits thread.

Full build:
https://underrail.info/build/?HgsDBgcIBQY8wqAyAAAAAMKgVUYAI3hkVV9kAAAAADwAZCY7UMOdFcOeSsOgw6FFAjkkVcKzf3zDl8Ocw5nip7QK4r68A-K_mgLfvA

Please ignore the 60 points in Guns, those are for Concentrated Fire. More on Guns skill later.

Initial Base Ability:        Base Ability Increase per each 4th Lvl:
Str:10                          Str:+1 at Lvl 4.
Dex:3                           Per:+1 at Lvl 8.
Agi:3                            Agi:+3 at Lvl 12, 16, 20 respectively.
Con:6                           Con:+ 1 at Lvl 24
Per:7
Will:5
Int:6

Full Breakdown.

Pros:
At max level you have both mobility and near max resistance against the majority of enemies, including bosses.
Can tackle both single and multiple targets equally efficiently with minimal effort, quickly and within impressive range.
Being caught off guard is rarely a death sentence.
Doesn't require knowing Psi.
Build itself can be adjusted to personal taste easily.
Is efficient from the start, albeit with hiccups due to ammo scarcity.

Cons:
VERY expensive. 18k just for Super Steel Plates + getting all 4 Refined Data, all this on top of Ammo costs.
LMGs are ammo guzzlers. MG3-42 with maxed Mag Dump in particular. 7.62 is pretty common and you still will run out, unless you are very careful and group up a lot of enemies all the time.
Refurbished MG3-42 is relatively hard to get. Rare 100-ammo belts are either found in hard to reach places or from fully unlocked high-tier Merchants (e.g. Fraser).
Heavy. All the ammo, metal armor, medicine and utility leaves little room for loot during exploration. Better plan ahead until you get a full carry weight set (Rathound Regalia, Infused Pig Leather Boots, Large Waist Pack, Power Fist, Pentapus Barbeque/Outwork).
As with all tin cans, even mobile, Thought Control users are a b****. Equal to TC users are Electricity and Acid users.
Low initiative. Root Soda and Twitch help a bit.

Silver Lining: With experience and even a little prep, almost all Cons can be either avoided or downright countered.

~~~

Gear:
Regen Vest Super Steel Armor Suit and Boots. Bullet Strap Belt. Headwear and Second Hand are free slots. MG3-42 as only main weapon. Shield slot to your liking.

I use Seeker Googles and Tchortist Bioscrubber. Also I carry around CAU and Biohazard Boots to counter pesky gas and acid.

Additionally, I've crafted high quality Galvanic Infused Pig Leather Striders for use with Tesla Armor against Coil Spiders and for regular loot strolls. With Expedition DLC, the Abandoned Waterways has a reliable spot in the third region where you can get a quality Galvanic Foam Padding. It's enough for total 100% Electricity Resistance.

For Utility it's Cloaking Device, Taser, Poisoned Caltrops, Napalm Molotovs, Mk3 EMP, Chemhaze and Gas Grenades. Rarely used Mk5 nades.

For Second hand slot I tried out using GLs as backup. Milcore and Punisher are both either hit or miss. Thumper on the other hand fits right in. 40mm ammo is far better than 25mm and the 25AP cost for Thumper works very well with MG's 25AP cost. Punisher is good only for lobbing Incendiary to light up targets for Ambush.

Skills:
The only thing to say is that I've put 20 points into Guns midgame to effectively use Milcore and Punisher sooner for testing purposes. That's it. All other skills are min-maxed for crafting and skill checks, including those in DC (but not in Heavy Duty Compound), leaving only Throwing and Traps.

35 Traps is enough to use all Traps you can craft with Engineer Suit, Trap Belt and Jackknife for an effective 95. Trap Detection is decent, but not quick, so be careful in respective territory. All leftover skill points I dumped into Throwing, imo more useful.

Feats:
Excluding essential feats, I'll address the reason for picking certain ones.

Fast Metabolism + Gunner's High. At first glance 12HP heal isn't much, and that may be true on lower difficulties. On Dom however, that is equal to a bandage heal, and it adds up. With a 140Q Regen vest + Regen Mixture you get: 62+12+25=99HP heal per turn. With a 537HP at 7 Con at Max Level, that's almost 1/5th of the players HP. This heal also works outside combat and can stack with normal bandage, therefore even if you got heavily wounded, you can patch up quickly.

Ambush. At 160 Stealth with Armor Sloping + Nimble + Body Weight Training I got 107 effective Stealth, which equals to 52% crit chance, top that with Cloak Device and Seeker Goggles, pop a flare (or molotov, or 25mm Incendiary) and go brrrrt. Hoddurform helps with shadows too. Also, it helps against evasive enemies. Also, also, Ambush's icon looks way too similar to how Kerberos Corp was shown in the storm sewer, therefore it was a must have.

Sprint is a must have on any mobile tin can, better to have extra movement points than waist AP.

Juggernaut because it fits well with LMG base ability requirements and extra HP is always welcome.

And lastly Strafe to perfectly counter the move and shoot penalty of MG3-42.

Spec wise, maxing Concentrated Fire is a must, after that you have 5 extra points to spend on whatever you like. I chose Mag Dump and Bullet Trance.

~~~

Test Results, Theories and Thoughts:

During tests I was thinking about making a version using Stoicism and Conditioning, but after testing out the current build in action on DOM, albeit in New Game+(Imported Character), the results surprised me. I easily survived all my encounters. And good thing too, as Stoicism's 7 Will requirement would've messed with the whole mobile tin can part, forcing me to ditch Strafe and Sprint. That being said, you can dump Dex and Agi, get rid of Sprint and Strafe and pump all of it into Per up to 11(with Veteran feat), add to that Brute Aim for a 307% damage, but you will be essentially immobile, which goes against the whole theme. To me, it's not worth it, I didn't need the extra damage either, your mileage may vary.

So, main test results (Note, this is the exported max level on DOM, didn't use SSD):

Carnifex: Easily survived attacks from him, as long as I didn't get broken ribs. Bullhead is a must. Taser failed. Fire did the trick (making him panic and run away). Used normal 7.62. Should've brought throwing nets, but my skill is low, didn't want to risk it. Yell reduced hit chance to 10%, survived until it's removed and attempted to kite. Forgot crawler caltrops, would've done the trick. Twitch is useless, so is Root Soda, but only this once. If ideal conditions are met, then it takes about 2-3 bursts to take him down. Worst case is risking 10% hit chance while running away and using drugs.

Arena Masters: After doing a little bit of recon and wasting caltrops (didn't knew they had metal boots) on them, I baited with GL and Gas. Used the building at the south for cover. Went down easy. Should've brought bear traps.

Native Assault: Peppered the beach with bear traps and caltrops, focused on the East side, using the rock near the Plasma Turrets as cover, they barely made a scratch.

Native Genocide: Brought about 3k ammo. 2k normal 7.62, ~800 Micro-Shrapnel, and 300 W2C, also Chemhaze and Gas grenades, 25mm Concussive & Incendiary + Bear traps for Bone Boss. With pre-med of Jumping Bean, Irongut, Focus Stim and Aegis before entering instant combat moments on zone transition I managed to clear three regions. Died once because of my stupidity post combat (forgot to switch to CAU when under Acid Entanglement). Restarted once on Blindfold Boss because of BS angle abuse where Natives can throw a net over you and attack, but you can't in return, which results in everyone pilling on you in one turn (in this case it's better to just stand in the open). That and Acid Entanglement were the biggest threats. All three bosses were respectively easy. Blindfold Boss died from 1-2 bursts. Bone Boss died from W2C and me abusing blue zone transition with bear traps. Lizard Wizard and the gang got baited with C4 before getting mowed down, while the Sea Wyrms were finished off in CAU and Biohazard Boots. By the end of clearing out Lizard Wizard I was out of ammo, aside for ~200 W2C left behind and literally 1 Micro-Shrapnel in chamber. Used up all 10 Advanced Mech Repair Kit and 15 normal ones.

4 Nagas: Swiss cheese. Plopped 3 Mk3 EMP Mines, pre-med, triggered combat start, threw one MK3 EMP nade into 4th Naga and a molotov into middle to activate the mines. Went up close, one-two burst killed one after another. Tested several time to see how well does my Super Steel Armor holds up without shields. A lot less damage. Was very satisfied.

All in all, I love this build. Will do a full pure Dom run with it.

[ben]

Sorry but i don't think this build is very good.
You need an unmodified armor suite of over 50% armor penalty to proc Juggernaut (Total health increased by 25% while wearing armor suit with (unmodified) armor penalty of 50% or higher)
You also have metal boots so thats another 15% armor penalty.

Assuming you take nimbler (reduce penalty by 15%), then you are at 50% armor penalty.
That's a 50% penalty on your stealth, so you are done from 200 to 100 stealth effective.

No PSI in build... a simple 50 points in temporal manipulation and you get Psycho-temporal Contraction (Increases target's action points by 15 and movement points by 30 for 2 turns)
50 points in temporal manipulation and you get stasis...

And lastly, you are heavily reliant on super-steel plates for armor, which in dominating difficulty are virtually impossible to get because they are so expensive.
By the time you save money for super-steel plates, you've basically finished the entire game.

I see that you've managed to synchronize the build so it somehow works well at level 30.. But by level 30 you've already finished the game and it's pointless.
Besides missing out on all PSI schools is a big con.

Overall i would probably not try this build or recommend it to others.

[Kiruha]

I tried this build (this was my first Heavy Guns build) and decided that heavy guns works better if you dump dex and agi to 3 and take some Con feats instead, and I understand that this build was about  mobility.

Also no Temporal Manipulation  - 25 ap LMG's really cool  for Contraction + Adrenalin for 3 burst per round, even for 3 rouns only (usually this will be enough) + Contraction will give you MP even in fou have huge armor penalty

Overall thx for  the build, especially gear selection (Missed crafted 9mm ratchet option - another 25 ap LMG)

Gunners High was kinda useless (especially when you have Fast Metabolism and Regenerative vest)

Heavy metal can boost damage too, but need to have more armor penalty for it work better

Ambush is super useful for any shooting build, even if you have 0 effective stealth, ambush will help with accuracy anyway  because of halfed enemies evasion

[Vagabond]

Sorry but i don't think this build is very good.
You need an unmodified armor suite of over 50% armor penalty to proc Juggernaut (Total health increased by 25% while wearing armor suit with (unmodified) armor penalty of 50% or higher)
You also have metal boots so thats another 15% armor penalty.

Assuming you take nimbler (reduce penalty by 15%), then you are at 50% armor penalty.
That's a 50% penalty on your stealth, so you are done from 200 to 100 stealth effective.

No PSI in build... a simple 50 points in temporal manipulation and you get Psycho-temporal Contraction (Increases target's action points by 15 and movement points by 30 for 2 turns)
50 points in temporal manipulation and you get stasis...

And lastly, you are heavily reliant on super-steel plates for armor, which in dominating difficulty are virtually impossible to get because they are so expensive.
By the time you save money for super-steel plates, you've basically finished the entire game.

I see that you've managed to synchronize the build so it somehow works well at level 30.. But by level 30 you've already finished the game and it's pointless.
Besides missing out on all PSI schools is a big con.

Overall i would probably not try this build or recommend it to others.

1. 4 plate Super Steel Metal Armor with Armor Sloping gives 64% Armor Penalty. Unmodified means just that, it will proc no matter what as long as the armor has 50% or more Armor Penalty, doesn't matter if you can reduce the final Armor Penalty score to 0%.
1.1 107 effective stealth (which is what you'll get with this build) is enough for a 52% crit chance with Ambush. That is before drugs and gear, meaning add another +30% (Focus Stim and 15% Seeker Googles) for 82% crit chance. Cloaking Device also boosts it further.
1.2 You can just swap to Stealth gear when you need to sneak by.

2. If you'd have tried to read carefully, then it's written that the build "Doesn't require knowing psi". Which means it doesn't need psi to be good. Even so, you can easily adjust it to YOUR preference as written right below 'Doesn't require psi.', something you intentionally ignored.

3. First of all, the build isn't reliant on Super Steel Armor. Out of all feats, only Juggernaut requires heavy armor. Super Steel is the mobility option that fits the theme best. You can use ANY armor you want.
Second, it's a thematic build, you can go full butt ass naked for all I care and it will still work, otherwise read the first argument.
Third, Dom is for veterans, so getting 9k for Super Steel Armor isn't hard if you know how. 20k can be acquired as soon as Level 18. 100 mercantile + Jon's Special + Hypercerebrix + Waist Pack give ~140 effective score. If you don't care about the Expedition camp, speedrun Nexus and Health Center to get access to Joint Security, bring a cheap small jet ski battery and engine (stolen from the free jets given), hijack the Reef Glider and sell it to Ray for 20k. Your biggest concern is getting soft locked in Joint Security. Selling expensive Jet Ski parts is a backup option if you don't want to do all that. You're welcome.
Fourth, getting 4 Super Steel Refining Data is more of a hassle than Reef Glider. Depending on whether you joined Protectorate or Free Drones you'd have to gain access to University of Tchort, otherwise you risk visiting Waterway Facility and/or Marshes which themselves will put the camp at risk.
Fifth, this all can be done properly during midgame and you still have content left.
Sixth, the build relies on MG3-42, which you can get immediately after Depot A, there's a reason it's called thematic and Jin-Roh.
Seventh, if I wanted to do a generic Tin-Can LMG Dom build, I'd have done that.

4. One, the build works well the moment you get Concentrated Fire at level 10, almost like any AR/LMG build. Everything after is just amplifying the damage with utility and spec, and giving it additional mobility, also almost like any AR/LMG build.
Two, you can get level 30 on Classic by farming Void Creatures at Abyssal Station Zero with the Ethereal Torch. Since ASZ is opened after Joint Security, having Super Steel armor helps tanking the Energy damage. For Oddity, read argument One.
Three, psi (and TM in particular) is not required at all to win DOM, nor in make builds. Styg gave enough skill points, items, utility and space to finish everything without psi. Deal with it.

[grug man]

Now I seriously wonder what an actually very good tin-can heavy weapons build would look like, because lately it seems there have been many attempts at making one, all falling short for some reason.

[peet]

Now I seriously wonder what an actually very good tin-can heavy weapons build would look like, because lately it seems there have been many attempts at making one, all falling short for some reason.

I can spin one up for ya

[peet]

Now I seriously wonder what an actually very good tin-can heavy weapons build would look like, because lately it seems there have been many attempts at making one, all falling short for some reason.

I can spin one up for ya

Here's one grug man: https://underrail.info/build/?HgsDAwkKBwN4wqAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABGAAAACFBiw50Vw57Dn0rDoMOhMSZfK8KHwrXCpN-8

Disregard the 120 guns, its for the feat builder to show the guns feats that work with heavy guns as well. Abuse heavy armor, regen, crit, insane damage, and go super saiyan at low HP. This trivialized the game once it got up and running. Lmk if u want more deets, i can expand on it.

[scalymanfish]

Peet, would it be possible to flip will and int so I can take advantage of a few feats to make the fusion cannon better? I like the idea of a regenerating heavy weapon freak though, this sounds cool. And spill the extra details if you would playa.

Edit: I've attached a build that I think combines your regenerative idea with my idea of culminating with a custom, beefed up fusion cannon for the end game whilst also always being able to lean on an lmg all game. I had to sacrifice super saiyan and some tank feats, so i'm hoping the regeneration can counter that weakness. Check it out, tell me what you think. Ignore skill points obviously. Not sure if conditioning is better than juggernaut, Not a master at this game and I suck at math.

Starting with 10 Str, 6 con, 6 per, 5 will, 7 int
Obviously, grab 11 str first, then pump per. Throw some points in con for health. Final Stats: 11 Str, 8 con, 11 Per.

https://underrail.info/build/?HgsDAwgJBQfCoMKgAAAAAAAAAAAAAFBQAAAAAAAAAAAAAFA7TcOdFcOew59Kw6DDoQgmKVrCtTHCpN-8