Playing an assault rifle combatant

[SagaDC]

Well, the Gun skill also adds a small but steady increase to your gun damage as your skill increases, doesn't it? So there wouldn't really be a "max" where it stops being useful, and it would be one of the few skills that's worth perpetually keeping as high as possible. Or am I incorrect in this assumption?

[RailNomad]

Well, the Gun skill also adds a small but steady increase to your gun damage as your skill increases, doesn't it? So there wouldn't really be a "max" where it stops being useful, and it would be one of the few skills that's worth perpetually keeping as high as possible. Or am I incorrect in this assumption?

If this is true, then Wildan is correct indeed and every extra point should be put into Perception and four extra points in perception are worth more than gun nut feat.

At level 25 you can max your base Guns skill at 135, but with 16 Perception the effective Guns skill is 272! Compared to 203 with Perception at level 10 or 180 at level 8.

Wiki says: "The formula for damage gained from Guns skill is Base Damage * (1 + 0.7 * Effective Guns Skill / 100)."

Lets do some maths. If you want to have Co:10 and Int:7 (for gun nut feat) you can raise your perception to 12. This gives maximum Effective guns skill 226
Damage multiplier = 2,582
Effective guns skill 272
Damage multiplier = 2,904

Let's take a weapon, which has a basic damage of 20.
With Gun Nut you can make it 24 and with Guns 226 multiplier added the damage is 61,968

Without Gun Nut, with Guns at 272. The damage is 20*2,904=58,08

Slightly less, but very slightly, since the accuracy bonus from Guns skill make difference at low levels.

So, if this holds true, I guess Wildan is right and all the extra points should indeed be put into Perception.

[RailNomad]

Well. Let's take another calculation. Max damage for Chimera AR is 36 and critical damage bonus is 130%. So with zero skill it deals 79,2.
With Gun Nut, the max damage is 43 and critical damage (with zero skill) 98,9. Now let's add the multipliers
Guns 226 (with Gun Nut)
98.9*2.582=255
Guns 272 (without Gun Nut)
79.2*2.904=230

The difference is about 10% in this example and 7% in the previous with advantage to Gun Nut, but Perception has other benefits, plus Gun Nut takes a feat slot.

So. I guess I'll go with Wildan next time.

[Wildan]

I suppose you could do with 10 points of Perception just fine.

It's not only about damage. If you're using a build focused on mostly single shots or special attacks with no/little aim penalty, then yes - 10 perception will do. If you plan doing a lot of burst attacks and actually hit your target, then you'll want every bit of weapon skill you can possibly grab at any given level. Each stat point above 4 gives you 8,5% bonus to the corresponding skill. Endgame at level 25 when you max your weapon skill (135) you'll have 272 effective points. With 10 perception you'll have only 203 which is about 25% less. At lower levels that difference is smaller and matters less ofcourse, but that's true for every combat stat.

As the game progresses enemies generally brach out in two ways: Those with heavy armor and others with high dodge/evade skill. Chance to hit is calculated with your attack skill vs their defense skill (in case of ranged weapons - evade), but it doesn't stop here. The distance between you and the target gives you a penalty to hit for each tile and on top of that using burst fire significally lowers your chances as well. This is the main reason why I recommend Premeditation paired with Electrokinesis. Free stun in the first round can make a difference between hitting and missing most of the 7-9 burst shots. Stunned enemies have their whatever evade skill reduced to 0 - one major factor canceled out. You kill the enemy with the help of opportunist damage bonus, yay -> free commando burst. Another Electrokinesis for 30 AP --> stun, kill with the free burst, freeze another enemy for 10 AP, reload your gun.

Next round if there are more enemies around they usually try to get closer to hit. There is no need to waste AP for movement (unless one has to deal with psionics). Not only there are no MP but there is also to hit penalty in the same round if the character moves. As a heavy armor combatant you have no evade skill and want to be as far as possible from the enemy, just more the reason to bump up perception as high as possible.
Ofcourse one could take a whole different approach and make a mobile, sneaking, light armored character with both dodge/evade who relies less on perception but that's a completely different build which is better suited for SMGs.

It's actually possible to have an effective mediocre perception ranged character. My favorite pistol build right now uses 7 perception but can only get away with that because of good CC (Electroshock pistol + Electrokinesis/Cryostasis/Tranqility/Premeditation and high mobility.

[RailNomad]

Sounds pretty effective. What is your choice of weapons Wildan? Low calibre Hornet paired with Chimera? Higher crits or more crits with extensions?

[Wildan]

Yes, first slot for high precission and low AP cost: 7.62 Hornet with a scope and rapid reloader. If I have a bad/mediocre chance to hit then I use single shots. If I can burst realiably then it's the second slot Chimera with a smart module, high resolution digital scope (+10% critical chance) until I get the Critical Power feat, then it's an anatomically-aware scope (+50% critical damage bonus).

When there are many melee guys I might put a SMG in the first slot. Having 8 str is not much actually and NPCs love the Crippling Strike which has 1 round cooldown and can stack up to 3 times. 1 cripple stack does a -2 str debuff which gives you 13 AP penalty becase you can't meet the str requrement for the metal armor anymore. 2 stacks and you get AP AND precission penalty because ARs need min 6 str for propper use. As we discussed before, debuffs can't lower your AP below 35 but the aiming penalty seems severe enough even with high weapon skill and point blank range.

2+ stacks will give you a -15 AP penalty because of the armor alone. SMGs have no str requirement so you at least won't get any aim penalty when crippled. A 7.62 mm steelcat SMG with a rapid reloader can burst once despite the 2x crippled debuff, a 8.6 mm can't unless it's only 1 stack.

[RailNomad]

Oh my. Got to test this build now. Rocks! Opportunist + Premeditation + Electrokinesis is a killer. Went to junkyard before gms quest and got some metal armor and huszar assault rifle. Condtioning + Lifting Belt + Metal Armor is great combo. Had to fetch Kohlmeier's knife for the credits. Bear traps did help a lot. I'm still a bit unsure about the optimal feat progression for this character. I did pick up Survival Instincts at level 1 or 2, but with low-level character I find it too dangerous to fight with 30% health, so that feat could have been picked later on. I postponed suppressive fire feat. I guess I'll pick it up once I encounter some smart goggles.
At Level 8 I have (in order): Conditioning, Survival Instincts, Recklessness, Opportunist, Premeditation. I'll pick up Concentrated fire on level 10, opportunist at level 12 and commando at level 14. Critical power at level 16, and maybe full auto at 18. (It's really waste of bullets early on). Thick skull is useful, but if you're not playing permadeth, you can usually practice some saveload scumming to plan your move so that you don't get stunned. But perhaps that's my level 20 feat. Then maybe juggernaut and, I don't know, rapid fire?

EDIT: It seems that Suppressive fire is not required for Smart Goggles to work, any special attack, including ordinary burst will do. I tihnk I'll postpone it a little more.

[RailNomad]

One further point to the Intelligence vs Perception debate: I finally got my hands on a top quality sturdy vest (135) and four super steel plates (145, 117, 93, 79). Skill level required to craft a metal armor from these is Mechanics 138, Tailoring 108. I'm currently at level 22, so I could put one extra point to Int (raising it to 4) when I reach level 24 and thus be able to put this armor together. However, if I stand at Int 3 and use junkyard suprise to rise it to 5, the theoretical maximum for this skill at level 25 is 135, which means the armor is beyond my reach.

I've also noticed that now as I have effective Guns skill at 222, my to-hit percentages are still pretty low. I don't know the formula and I don't know the level where increasing Guns skil doesn't help anymore, but I'd say that the bonus-to-hit from Guns skill is not such a strong argument here, as you in any case will have a high Guns skill.

[Wildan]

You get 8,5% skill bonus for every int point above 4, so with 5 you'd have a maximum of 147 points at level 25. If you can't meet the crafting skill requirements simply use slightly lower quality on additional plates, the loss won't be big. What matters is the quality of the vest and the basic plate you use for the first crafting slot. If armor penalty doesn't matter you can reach 95% mechanical resistance cap easily even without top quality plates with armor, boots and Conditioning alone. High crafting skill matter a lot more for light armored builds.

[RailNomad]

Oh. I thought you get penalties for everything below 5. I have to get some junkyard suprise and see if I can make it happen. It's promised to have 100% mechanical resistance by the way :-)

[Wildan]

I hope not. 
Last I remember Styg actually wanted to nerf heavy armor users who are pretty much invincible these days. I always make  sure to hoard Junkyard Suprise as much as I can. It can take alot of binge eating to actually get +2 int. I don't even try if I don't have 50+ hamstered in my shelf.

Btw. concerning the weapon skill and chance to hit. I did no tests myself but I guess you could simply use +1 perception goggles to check if the chance improves when you aim at any static character from far. You don't need to shoot, just check the numbers with burst. etc. If one has the nerves this test could be done at every level on the same character/gun and aiming from the very same tile and note the numbers. I'm pretty sure that once the NPCs are generated their skills stays the same on that playthrough.

Epeli wrote in the wiki but I don't know how he meant this exactly: "Precision is affected by many different modifiers, especially in ranged combat. Some precision penalties cannot be mitigated with weapon skill alone."

[RailNomad]

I do like it that you don't get super precision because it makes most games very boring. One thing which I overlooked though is the night vision. I only tested it at the very last phase of the game. It does make a difference.

[Styg]

Epeli wrote in the wiki but I don't know how he meant this exactly: "Precision is affected by many different modifiers, especially in ranged combat. Some precision penalties cannot be mitigated with weapon skill alone."

Yeah, there's a myriad of things that can affect precision. At least all the ones listed on that page and probably something more, I haven't looked at it in a while.

Some of those modifiers are applied to the final hit chance, so they can't be countered with weapon skill. I don't remember which ones, but I think it's mostly the precision penalties on weapon stats.

Insufficient strength/skill penalty, melee obstruction, burst precision modifier, and probably others I can't think of right now.

[keats92]

Does steel armors affect dexterity?
If i want to use heavy armors should i ignore dexterity and agility completely?

[Wildan]

No armor will ever lower your stats (apart from perception for helmets and Tchortist armors). However every armor has a derived statistic called armor penalty which decreases your movement points, dodge, evasion and stealth by the same percentage. It's capped at 95% (can be lowered with feats) so if you plan a heavy armor character with armor penalty at, or near that cap you should dump agility and all skills based on it, as they will become (nearly) useless.

There is one exeption to this. 6 agility for characters with 95% armor penalty who need to take sprint feat as the only way to gain mobility, for example heavy sledgehammer users with heavyweight feat. They should still disregard agility skills as mentioned above. Tabi boots also give flat movement points which are unaffected by armor penalty. This is actually a bug because those MP should decrease as from any other source. I think a fix is planned for the next patch.

If you have at least 6 int, in most cases it pays off to invest in armor sloping and nimble feats to significally lower the armor penalty. It's possible to make a super steel armor brawler with capped 95% armor resistance and still low enough armor penalty to be able to use lightning punches feat, hoever not until later in the game where you not only need good quality super steel plates but also high enough crafting skills. Junkyard surprise can give you up to 2 int poins temporarly which is a great help in this matter.

There is no relation between armor and dexterity.