Uhm, the economical and crafting sistems stil need some more loving..

[Mindless]

Strange thing that Elhazzared was so heavily criticized here oO There is some grains of trurth in his words xD

The crafting skills are incredibly useful; even as an average intelligence character, you can max them and craft much better items than anything you could find or buy.

Well, ahem! How about  i don't know... crafting requirements?!!?!

On crafting:
As usual, the problem isn't crafting itself. Like Zephyros already pointed out, you can craft much better stuff (literally over 3 times better in some cases) than shops or quest rewards will ever give you. Not to mention all the crafting-only stuff from weapon models to meds and all the good armor.

No. You can't craft better item cuz of it's requirements (You need 40 tailoring? But you have only 25, how sad! just wait 15 = 3 another levels! 5 INT char)

The effect isn't as huge in early game, but even early on crafting can turn the game completely around: The otherwise very difficult Old Junkyard becomes a piece of cake if you manage to craft a nice suit of siphoner or mutated dog leather armor.

That's the good example but this is exception. =)

So huge problems, too much investment needed right from level 1 to only be really useful at end game for a small part of the content.

That's the point!

2. Mk4-5 grenades can't be bought afaik, so that's also a moot point. On top of that, the new grenades have fairly low crafting requirements and are fun to play with, especially with grenadier feat.

You can buy some MK4, hehe =P


Crafting is NOT useless but has two major problems for now(in my vision):
1. Too much skill points investment. And do not argue! This is real problem. We have 5 main routes and to take all fives you need 25/40 level points what is total nonsense => you'll have to pick only 2(you can even take 3). Chemistry+Biology can be easily merge into one for greater usefulness of it =)
2. Very high(sometimes absurd high!) skill requirements. How shall I craft 160 electronic Amplified Plasma pistol even with high INT!? Without using cheats/bugs you will fall into a very funny situation - every new trader will have higher crafting components than you can use. Every fckng time(if you are not a 10+ INT guy of course).


Usefulness of disciples -
[Rank "A"]. Mechanics: most of Weapons and improvements; Metal Armor, Helmet, Boots(usefulness of this set still questionable but...); Night Googles;
[Rank "A"]. Electronics: Night Googles; Energy ranged weapons; Psionic Headbands; Energy Shields; some weapon improvements(Pneumatic, Electroshock, Laser Sight).
[Rank "B"]. Tailoring: Tabi boots; Leather Combat Gloves; Most Light Armors - Leathers, Vests; most armor improvements(Overcoat fabrics, Paddings, Carrier Vests).
[Rank "C"]. Biology: Psi Beetle Carapace and Psi Booster - need low skill; Psionic Headbands - medium skill; high lvl consumables - luxury).
[Rank "D"]. Chemistry: Mutated Dog Leather - need low skill; Chem Pistol + Chem Ammo - really great luxury (you need heavy investment in nearly useless discipline fpr this).

Grenades, Bolts, Mines - easier to buy. (I'm grenade user and craft 0 grens in all my runs)

Some examples on Builds and their crafting schools requirements:
Any Ranged Light armored build: From zero to big investment into Mechanics; from zero-small(Laser Sight) to big(Night Googles, Galvanic Vest, Energy Shield) investment into Electronics; from zero to big investment into Tailoring. Min - 0 discipline, max - 3.
Pure Psi-Caster: From zero to big investment into Electronics(Psionic Headbands); medium investment into Biology(almost all psionic gadgets need this!); from zero to medium investment into Mechanics(Tactical Vest), from zero to big investment into Tailoring. Min - 1 discipline, max - 4(!!!).

P.S. To tell the truth I highly doubt that something will change because that's the Styg's true vision of crafting system. In many other games you have other ways to craft items or to improve your skills.

[Elhazzared]

I don't see how you can not sacrifice anything with the 5 crafting skills.

If you use a heavy armor build along with high intelligence then you can forgo the stealth. nut with lockpicking + hacking that leaves you only one skill left for whatever attack type you chose and being restricted to one attack type is never a good thing anyway... I cannot see a 5 crafting skills without sacrificing anythin ever being possible in anyway. Then again, the problem still lies with invest from the begining to only be useful at end game and with any luck for a mission or two in the early game.

[Mindless]

You can get 166 crafting skills with 10 int. But in all seriousness, that does sound really damn high. I've never seen crafting requirements much above 140.

150 crafting with 10 INT, and +1 can be achieved with Junkyard Surp. I'v seen 160+ =P

In any case, keep in mind the raw stats of crafted items exceed all shop items much earlier than that. Usually by the time the crafting requirements reach 100.

It's common items that can be looted/finded(no big point in crafting them). Good crafting examples, that can't be looted - Energy Shield(capacity+second modulator), any energy weapon(amplifier 100-160% crit dmg), Siphoner Leather(but... quality of leather is kinda low - max ~65), Metal Armor with many plates, MKV Grenades, Psionic headband + Power Management perk for this for moar profit!

Overall, I would say crafting is worth both the int and skillpoint investment. Well, at least the int investment. The skillpoint investment hurts a lot, especially if you want to craft everything.
You sacrifice something else, you gain the ability to make ridiculously powerful items. I can think of one build that can pick both high int and all 5 crafting skills without sacrificing anything else, but that's not really related to crafting.

INT Investment = weaker battle abilities(this point cab go into the DEX, STR or even CON!)

I don't see how you can not sacrifice anything with the 5 crafting skills.

The Truth is you don't need to take all 5.

[UnLimiTeD]

Playstyles.
I personally very rarely have a char that has both lockpicking and hacking.
Sure, that means sometimes I have to fight when otherwise I would not, but that's a price I'm willing to pay; Few of those chars actually use stealth.
I don't really need all the items in the crates anyways, the same way I don't need all the belongings of everyone unfortunate enough to die around me.
I also don't see how you need multiple Combat skills; Sure, it can help, but *guns* normally does the job.
Have a heavy Pistol and an Energy Pistol and your set, or go Assault/SMG + Sniper.
Heavy Armour? No need for throwing skill, if it hits you if will still not hurt that much.

In the end, really only PSI and some melee builds are starved for points.

[Elhazzared]

True that you can do it that way, but it's far from not sacrificing anything!

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, I never said that. 
However, if you talk about sacrificing those skills to grab crafting, you're also sacrificing crafting to do something else.

[Elhazzared]

Of course. But I feel it's more worth to sacrifice something that is only good for end game in order to get something that is good for the entire game.

[Fenix]

About merchants.
I have idea how to do that the wolves were fed and the sheep were safe.
Lets they buy all stuff (beyond their specification) but at greatly lowered price - first item for 75%, second for 50%, last for 25%. To prevent player's cheating, when the first item will be most valued one, let it be set of a tree, sold at (75%+50%+25%)=150%/3.
Lets this option will be allowed after you make some business with merchant, maybe some minor (or not) quest, or if you have decent Mercantile skill, or Persuasion x1.5 from Mercantile skill.
Maybe not all merchants can make a deal like this - this nice young lady gladly buy from you all scrap/crap you found besides electronics and energo wepon she usualy trade, but THIS old goat will NEVER accept it.

About money. I still think there are too much money in game.
We need cut off at least 1\3 of selling price, and add a sinkhole for money.
Like for to get information - it's most valuable and therefore expensive resource.
Such information does not have to give serious advantages, maybe only minor, but can get more flavour to a game -something about Underrail past, or about past of some NPC characters.
Money to buy unique things (wepon, utility, antique trinkets), money to bribe, money to buy safety, or new hidden pathway.
Maybe someone, the really shady pro watches over us, and carefully calculate all money we accumulated?
And he is going to rob us just a little? Just little script scene with various consequences - robbering, fight, partnership?

About crafting
I can agree with what Mindless said.
Except

Pure Psi-Caster: From zero to big investment into Electronics(Psionic Headbands); medium investment into Biology(almost all psionic gadgets need this!); from zero to medium investment into Mechanics(Tactical Vest), from zero to big investment into Tailoring. Min - 1 discipline, max - 4(!!!).

for pure Psi you'll need only leather - to hide and sneak, and to fight and (can not choose the right rhyme ) and

150 crafting with 10 INT, and +1 can be achieved with Junkyard Surp.

JS can roll +2 stat, so bonus is even bigger.
Btw about JS - I consider it like test item.
I feel like we have strong buff for nothing.
I hope it wiil be deleted from game, and Chemistry+Biology will do the things.
Or at least set new price - min 100 charons, not 10 or 30 like now.

[Elhazzared]

Merchants lowering the price with more stuff they buy won't make the problem go away, it will only agravate it because then people will feel that it's only worth selling one item rather than a few or all.

[Mindless]

for pure Psi you'll need only leather - to hide and sneak, and to fight and (can not choose the right rhyme ) and

For the _best_ you need not leather but Psionic Headband (with Proximal Neuroscopic Filter and Stable Neural Amplifier that you can't find/buy iirc!) and Tactical Vest with Psi Beetle Carapace(-10% psi costs, +x psi skills). And one of the interesting bonuses - Antithermic tactical vest+tabi boots ~ 40-90 fire res.

JS can roll +2 stat, so bonus is even bigger.
Btw about JS - I consider it like test item.
I feel like we have strong buff for nothing.
I hope it wiil be deleted from game, and Chemistry+Biology will do the things.
Or at least set new price - min 100 charons, not 10 or 30 like now.

Oops, forgot about +2. But it's only one good buff(mb even abuse, hehe) for crafting.

[Elhazzared]

Taking into account that you can chose a max of 8 skills (divide starting points by 15) and you stick 5 crafting skills and 3 psionic skills, I don't see where you get enough for lockpicking, hacking and a social skill of your liking. That would requir you to have 45 extra starting skill points and 15 extra skill points per level.

[Eliasfrost]

Taking into account that you can chose a max of 8 skills (divide starting points by 15) and you stick 5 crafting skills and 3 psionic skills, I don't see where you get enough for lockpicking, hacking and a social skill of your liking. That would requir you to have 45 extra starting skill points and 15 extra skill points per level.

But you can put skill points into other skills as you level up. You don't need to max every starter skill every level, especially if you're in a position where that's not required to progress or in need of those skill points. I usually never pick biology when I start out, but I put 20 points into it when I first level up just so that I can get the doctor feat, but that leaves me with not having maxed one or two of my starter skill, but I make sure I sacrifice the skills I don't need to have a high level at the moment, relative to my character level of course.

[Elhazzared]

That isn't exactly right. Combat skills have to alwys be maxed, they are your damage dealers, you need them to work as best as possible. Crafting has lots of requirement, while you can conceivably stop at a certain value, that value is very high so you need to keep it up really high until you hit that sweet spot, then you can start putting it somewhere else. Even then crafting requires skills so absurdly high that by the time you have them on over 150 you're probably close to max level anyway.

And yes you can say you only put 20 points into biology, yes, biology is quite a bit useless in my opinion too. But it's a purely theorical conversation about having 5 crafting skills and not losing anything.

There is always loss in the example given by epeli. Not only you don't have enough for hacking and lockpick as he said, there is also no etra for the social skill as he said. More however if you have a high intelligence and a high will you will not have many points more to allocate elsewhere. If you want to go heavy armor you will not have strenght for it. If you want to go lighter armors you will then need an extra skill which is stealth in order to be able to start the combat in your terms (this is so your CCs will work properly).

[hilf]

Taking into account that you can chose a max of 8 skills (divide starting points by 15) and you stick 5 crafting skills and 3 psionic skills, I don't see where you get enough for lockpicking, hacking and a social skill of your liking. That would requir you to have 45 extra starting skill points and 15 extra skill points per level.

But you can put skill points into other skills as you level up. You don't need to max every starter skill every level, especially if you're in a position where that's not required to progress or in need of those skill points. I usually never pick biology when I start out, but I put 20 points into it when I first level up just so that I can get the doctor feat, but that leaves me with not having maxed one or two of my starter skill, but I make sure I sacrifice the skills I don't need to have a high level at the moment, relative to my character level of course.

I was about to reply with something like this.

Underrail even supports this kind of character progression. You can't do this at the beginning of the game but on higher levels you'll be able to pick more skills. The reason is attribute scores add % to your skills. For example:
With 10 points invested in a skill and +50% attribute bonus your effective skill is 15. Bonus is worth one more character level.
With 100 points invested in a skill and +50% attribute bonus your effective skill is 150. Bonus is worth 10 more character levels.
Your attribute scores will also rise so you're gonna get even more skill point bonus.

Int governs all crafting skills + hacking + mercantile. If you are taking many of those skills Int can be a great skill point saver.

[Elhazzared]

Assuming you get a 50% bonus, you start with 15 points, gain 5 per level that's level 18 when you get 100 base points to get 150 total from bonus. Too much investment.