feedback about my last build

[lewis_cb]

Hi all,

This is my first post in the forum. First, congratulations for the superb game and community.
The game mechanics and diversity of viable strategies and builds got me hooked really hard!
Unwittingly, I already rerolled my character twice to try more powerful or appealing things.
Hopefully, you can help me pick and tweak the last one

I thought about 3 variations of a bowyer+psier, which I find the most fun & strategical route. The idea is getting many free actions (Commando, Special Tactics, Premeditation...). Pics of the 3 can be seen here: https://imgur.com/a/kgDZX

QBit1: http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGloJgVhB2OQGYkgIynSAbGxMN5hHjFFQbCiwwAsNcq2MqhLzhJkjiyi9NEEDWQ0AHCCg4sjLMiw5YyWPVgKAnGmBYgA
(+): This one would wear X3 reinforced super steel armor & boots (trying to keep Tranquility up), adaptive NVG,
       combine cheap psi casts (when full HP, Adrenaline user, Thermodynamicity)
       with double 9-bullet-33AP-bleeding Hornet bursts (Commando, Concentrated Fire, Expertise & Vile Weaponry) (Smart or Compensated?) and
       17-AP-Pneumatic-AA Zephyr critical special bolts (every 6 turns trying to incapacitate all mobs for Special Tactics free bolt with flashbangs,Locus+Breakdown...)
       together with Quick Tinkering & Deadly Snares and best traps.
(-):  low initiative could make Tranquility pointless,
       no mobility (unless easy/kiteable mobs, use tactical vest there) reduces Quick Tinkering utility to melees,
       no lockpicking/hacking,
       low HP.

QBit2: http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGloJgVhB2EYGYTIIypK09WJqXfMYgFnGIIE4QAObANhBI1mVhs0TT06PIhAQMXFCSYCSyKI3oZ6yetVZwYWNMEaoINIA
(+): Very similar. Same armor but now with striders & Armor Sloping for 20 MP/turn,
       Ambush, Psiostatic Electricity, Focus Stim, Seeker NVG & Bowyer for critical shots,
       this time 7-bullet-33AP-incendiary Chimera bursts (to make bursts a CC & Ambush tool)
       and same 17-AP Zephyr special bolts (no trap specialisation).
(-):  low initiative could make Tranquility pointless,
       low mobility,
       no lockpicking/hacking,
       low HP.

Gambit: http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGloJgVhBmEbwJwhQRlAdjDtsbggAcKS2hhRoVIALGiJvDXjKyOxSBMXPLLTo9a8WoKgA2EBIaYYSeUQ7B4GKWghEgA
(+): wearing Infused Ancient Rathound armor, reinforced SSteel boots, Seeker NVG / Critical Psiband,
       high-HP evasive high-resistance (~60% mech) and high-DR (~50% mech,heat,cold @30%HP with Conditioning, Soticism, Lifting Belt, Ancient),
       focus on versatile criticals with Bowyer, Psiostatic Electricity, Focus Stim, critical headgear, Ambush & Survival Instincts,
       no AR but instead can combine 25-AP-Scoped-AA & 17-AP-Pneumatic-AA Zephyr special bolts (no trap specialisation).
(-):  low initiative,
       no lockpicking/hacking.


-Is a playthrough without lockpicking/hacking very lackluster (won't find good crafting materials)?
-How easily can you keep 100% HP for Tranquility with heavy armor & shield?
I thought of using Junkyard Surprise for -1/2 Con (123HP) & best Regenerative Vest (+55HP whenever HP<86) to automatically go 100%HP if 68<HP<86
-Also, how bad is to be a turtle with only 10MP or 20MP?

Sorry for the length of the post. I read very good posts here and thought I could give it a try.
Any feedback is very welcome 

[TheAverageGortsby]

Generally speaking a 10 in your base stat for your attacks is going to make the lategame hard.  10 is very low at level 25.  UnderRail rewards specialization.  I would encourage you to specialize more heavily.  Here's my two cents:

That first build is just a mess.  You are going to want to find a few more points for Traps, even if you wear the Trappers Belt and carry Jackknife; you want 95 traps to be able to disarm everything in the base game.  You either need a few more points in Chemistry (if you want to make high-tier grenades) or else pull a few points out and drop some of them into Bio (you'll want to cook Super Soldier, if you're using xbows) and bank the rest.  As mentioned before, splitting into gun+bows as well as heavy psi means you're only moderately good at any of them.  The uncontested nature of Psi attacks means your Psi will be comparatively stronger than your guns and bows at high levels because enemies have reasonably good Dodge&Evasion.

The second build is perhaps even worse.  That tiny bit of Stealth isn't going to help at all, especially knocked down by your armor penalty, so pull those points back.  If you had a specific reason to put 19 points into Traps, then go ahead, but otherwise pull them back as well; you can use Bear Traps at 0 and nothing you can use at sub-30 effective is going to be much more helpful than bear traps.  Even with +2 INT Junkyard Surprise and the house crafting bonus, your Mechanics and Tailoring are too low to be useful to you in lategame, and thus they're not really worth that much investment; either get to 50 effective skill to make endless improved repair kits (which will essentially fix your personal money woes forever) or else go about 30 more real points into each so you can make truly quality endgame gear.

The third build is a wash.  Don't even try it.  With 9 Perception you don't even hit 200 effective skill at level 25 with your bows, and though your stealth will serve you well up to the Institute you'll be hating that investment in Deep Caverns, even if you drop your armor penalty gear in favor of lighter stuff.

None of what I said above matters even a little bit if you're playing on Easy, because on Easy you will absolutely murder anything you find.  Even Normal isn't really hard enough to make your builds bad.  My comments were entirely based on the assumption that you might want to try them on Hard.

To your additional questions in your OP:
Lockpicking/hacking won't really get you much in the way of crafting mats.  If you want crafting mats, get 80 or 110 effective Mercantile and you will have so many mats you won't know what to do with yourself.
Tranq is very easy to keep active for the first turn, and as long as you've got plenty of hypos you'll be fine on subsequent turns as well.  DO NOT spec into low health for the hopes of making Regen Vest godly.  It won't serve you well ^_^
Turtle isn't bad if you're playing high CON, very heavy armor, and Conditioning.  As with other aspects of the game, if you don't specialize for something, it might underwhelm you.

[Fenix]

looks like your playstyle is more focused on defense and mitigating damage rather than spiking the enemy down as fast as possible.

Which is not effective as focusing on damage given nature of games - you are the one, enemies are many, but it doesn't mean it won't work of course.

[Hazard]

Vile Weaponry shouldn't work with guns as they're not cold weapons.

Turtle isn't bad if you're playing high CON, very heavy armor, and Conditioning.  As with other aspects of the game, if you don't specialize for something, it might underwhelm you.

IMHO, unless you want to live dangerously with a Survival Instincts build, even 7 CON is enough for a tin can gunner on Hard provided you can craft high quality armors and energy shields. Conditioning is also kinda meh, since it doesn't stack with armor resistances.

[destroyor]

Consider that for weapon base abilities, even going from 10 to 16 increases your weapon damage only by 20% at level 25 (skill modifier from 242% to 290%) or the other way around, going from 16 to 10 lowers damage by 16%. That difference alone is not worth whopping 6 base points. But:
- Strength also gets you weapon-specific melee damage bonus (12%-60%) on top of that.
- Dexterity gives 18% light weapon AP cost reduction and 6% melee critical chance. Also precision for throwing.
- Perception increases precision. This might not be very useful with psi on the side, as you have many ways to nullify enemy evasion. It also increases detection, but at 10 per it's already good enough.
- Will is different. Instead of skill damage bonus, each psi ability has its own scaling similar to crafting components. Most psi abilities arguably scale better than any of the above stuff, while some don't scale at all.

The problem is not with damage but with accuracy. 10 ability might work for some build but it's just detrimental for others.

[Sanger]

My gut feeling is that spreading yourself so thin would make your offensive ability significantly weaker than other builds in the late game, and that the free attacks wouldn't make up for the lack of specialisation, but I'm interested in the idea of a build focused on free attacks, regardless. If you try it, let us know how it goes.

[Bruno]

Consider that for weapon base abilities, even going from 10 to 16 increases your weapon damage only by 20% at level 25 (skill modifier from 242% to 290%) or the other way around, going from 16 to 10 lowers damage by 16%. That difference alone is not worth whopping 6 base points. But:
- Strength also gets you weapon-specific melee damage bonus (12%-60%) on top of that.
- Dexterity gives 18% light weapon AP cost reduction and 6% melee critical chance. Also precision for throwing.
- Perception increases precision. This might not be very useful with psi on the side, as you have many ways to nullify enemy evasion. It also increases detection, but at 10 per it's already good enough.
- Will is different. Instead of skill damage bonus, each psi ability has its own scaling similar to crafting components. Most psi abilities arguably scale better than any of the above stuff, while some don't scale at all.

The problem is not with damage but with accuracy. 10 ability might work for some build but it's just detrimental for others.

Depends on fighting style I think. If you like stealth/ambush, or high initiative and/or mobile smg burst attacks, where you get into the enemys face before firing, 10 PER should be more than enough.

For ranged sharpshooter/Xbow shooting, a couple more points in PER would not hurt. Still 16 is overkill, stat points are too useful for everything, not only offense.

[lewis_cb]

The second build is perhaps even worse.  That tiny bit of Stealth isn't going to help at all, especially knocked down by your armor penalty, so pull those points back.  If you had a specific reason to put 19 points into Traps, then go ahead, but otherwise pull them back as well; you can use Bear Traps at 0 and nothing you can use at sub-30 effective is going to be much more helpful than bear traps.  Even with +2 INT Junkyard Surprise and the house crafting bonus, your Mechanics and Tailoring are too low to be useful to you in lategame, and thus they're not really worth that much investment; either get to 50 effective skill to make endless improved repair kits (which will essentially fix your personal money woes forever) or else go about 30 more real points into each so you can make truly quality endgame gear.

Just looking at the pros and cons you wrote for each build.
You might want to wait before rolling QBit2, incendiary bullets and psychostatic electricity don't work properly in the current live version. (The bullets don't ignite at all and psychostatic electricity only increases to-get-crit with weapons, not psi.) Will be fixed in the next patch. Soon^tm.

Your builds seem to have a lot going on for them. Assault rifles, crossbows and throwing with full psi complement... Will you ever find enough APs, carry weight, utility slots, weapon slots and opportunities to use all that stuff? Also you seem to have mixed up Zephyr and Cyclon. 25-AP-Scoped-AA? You can't put two scopes on any weapon.

[...]
Still, Gortsby's point is valid in this case; using completely unrelated weapon skills (per/will based) and having both at 10 is a little low. But it shouldn't be too bad, looks like your playstyle is more focused on defense and mitigating damage rather than spiking the enemy down as fast as possible.

For a somewhat relevant example, if lewis_cb is planning on using crossbows for crowd control with special bolts (instead of leveraging psi cc to help crossbow precision) with 10 per, that would probably necessitate the of use standard scopes to keep hit chances at comfortable levels. Especially against particularly evasive enemies and/or without night vision.

Hi again,
Thank you all for the responses. I'll like to add that my idea was to have a build with many approaches to each combat, even if sub-optimal (sure the AR tin build wrecks havoc but it gets repetitive)...so long it can beat the game!

I've decided I'll try the 2nd build (if ever). The general plan was to have stealth gear to glance at the situation from afar, possibly deploying some Crawler bear traps (my trap skill with EelSandwich+Jackknife is 40!), then change to armored gear and likely choose one of 2 weapon pairs:
-Against ranged enemies, use Pneumatic-AA Zephyr special bolts (21AP) supported by Rapid-Smart Hornet 7mm bursts (27AP)
-Against swarms, melees or armored rivals, pick Rapid-AA Chimera 8mm bursts (33AP) with Pneumatic-AA Cyclon special bolts (17AP)

Seekers NVG (+15% crit) are a must since it improves both (Psi can still be relevant for utility, specially for evasive enemies). Luckily with Stim (+15%), Ambush (+20%, hence 40 stealth) and Psiostatic Electricity (+25%) it can get competitive damage.
Regarding crafting skills, I read in Steam forums in Destroyor's FAQ (great work btw) that I would normally need ~120 effective skill, but I'll consider giving up the Crawler traps...ouch. Also, it would be nice to swap into throwing, so that I can throw a flashbang at 4 tiles away with +-2 tiles precision (typically how much throwing you guys use?)

All in all, the focus was to keep as many enemies CC'ed as possible by having many offensive actions and having all do some CC (damn you incendiary bullets...)

I still found 2 key questions in my mind that could impact all the previous thought process:
-Will I be able to CC enemies with Psi abilities in DC, so that I can neglect their evasion and have a chance at shooting at them?
-Does Special Tactics cooldown start AFTER you fire the 1st bolt (so that by incapacitating everyone you can use it again after 30s), or does it take 30s AFTER you close combat?

Vile Weaponry shouldn't work with guns as they're not cold weapons.

Oh no, I got it wrong! You're right, I just tested it, this made the 1st build much less appealing. The Wiki used to say any wound would apply it (even tho in the feat requirements you can guess it). My bad!

My gut feeling is that spreading yourself so thin would make your offensive ability significantly weaker than other builds in the late game, and that the free attacks wouldn't make up for the lack of specialisation, but I'm interested in the idea of a build focused on free attacks, regardless. If you try it, let us know how it goes.

I'll do I'm very curious too to see how far it can get, but I'll have to wait until those 2 bugs are fixed.

[lewis_cb]

edit: don't feel like doubleposting, so here.

-Will I be able to CC enemies with Psi abilities in DC, so that I can neglect their evasion and have a chance at shooting at them?
-Does Special Tactics cooldown start AFTER you fire the 1st bolt (so that by incapacitating everyone you can use it again after 30s), or does it take 30s AFTER you close combat?

- Sure, why not? It's not that different from rest of the game, but there's a lot of enemy variation - some have rather high mechanical resistance (bad particularly for crossbows), some are immune to crits, and your character will be generally less effective in combat under certain effects. Also, depending on your choices you might have to fight enemies that can temporarily inhibit psi, so knowing how to craft psi reinvigorators might be useful.
- Special Tactics cooldown starts as soon as you activate the ability, so it's even better than you expected.

That is good news. Enemy variety sounds like fun. Against high-resistance enemies I could resort to W2C bullets and use bolts/Psi as CC, and getting inhibited shouldn't be catastrophic. Things being inmune to crits is not fun tho...
That makes Special Tactics INSANELY good (in the right circumstances)! I am looking forward to trying it out. Ahhh, I don't want to wait!

Thanks a lot! I'll keep this post updated once I start.

[lewis_cb]

Hi again!

Based on your advice I thought of reworking QBit2 a bit. Let's see how it goes...

I dropped STR to 3, losing ARs & FullAuto and metal armors & MetalSloping, and picked SMG and light armor as replacements.
To compensate, I raised PER to 15, picked Opportunist, so SMG gets multiplied by 1'25(Oppor)*1'2(PER11->15)=1'4, similar to previous AR with FullAuto.
This also made crossbow waay better, and also Ambush, mobility and sneaking, since the armor penalty is small now.
Also, I picked Pyromaniac to compensate the lack of incendiary rounds (damn I wish I had another spare feat to pick PowerManagement).
Finally, I dropped traps, and Psychokinesis a bit, to give Crafting 15-20 extra points and make it relevant.

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGloJgVhBmEb3gRhs0B2EzY1DvMIgFnCLIE4IQKZjqMA2GtWY7YandsyOJdrAAcIeqPjFmUZo2QhG8DIrTAUwZsghCgA


Damage-wise, even without high DEX, I reckon the lategame raw damage of the SMG is only 10% inferior to the AR, around 1000/10AP, with crossbows being similar, 1200/10AP, all before reductions (I might be completely wrong, have no clue about the exact formulas ^^).
Heck, with adrenaline & rathound barbeque I could even use ARs (don't think it's worth however)!
Dunno if without metal armor I will survive those high-iniciative grenadiers or pesky psiers tho...

Any comments are appreciated. Was fun!

[Hazard]

How the hell do you get 1000 damage per 10 AP with SMGs? Or 1200 with crossbows? But more importantly, SMGs with such a low Dex and no Spec Ops are just... really shitty assault rifles.

[Bruno]

Hmmm... maybe an SMG coupled with an Xbow is not such a crazy idea as it sounds. The Xbow is a ranged sniper weapon, and the SMG is move and shoot, in the enemys face, perfect backup weapon. They complement each other well, but skills and feats will be scarce.

[lewis_cb]

How the hell do you get 1000 damage per 10 AP with SMGs? Or 1200 with crossbows? But more importantly, SMGs with such a low Dex and no Spec Ops are just... really shitty assault rifles.

Thanks all for the replies,

I find SMGs interesting, as an execution/low-range backup weapon, despite this build not being optimised for them.
My math is probably wrong. Anyway, the idea was to get relative numbers between SMG, Xbow & AR.
This way, given the same errors, I could check if SMG was a waste or not.

I'll post what I used, maybe you can find my mistakes and better check it ("m"=multiplier, "p"=probability):
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Smart Rapid SteelCat7.62mm (~Q150)
Damage: 3*mean(8-24) = 48 (big assumption, I multiplied Q50 dmg by 3 to get Q150 dmg)
Base action points: 13 AP
Critical chance: 5%
Critical damage bonus: 120%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GUNS = 135*(1+0.085*(PER-4)) = 261
mGUNS = 1+(0.5*GUNS/71.5) = 2.83
mCALIB = 3*16 = 48
mAP = 10/30 = 0.33                                      (0.8*13~11, becomes 10 with DEX6, then 3*10 and finally normalise per 10 AP)
mADDS = 1.4*5 = 7                                      (Smart Module +40%, standard 5 bullets)
mOPPOR = 1.25                                            (Opportunist feat)
mCrit = 2+2.5*0.2 = 2.5
pCrit = 0.15+0.15+0.20+0.40+0.05 = 0.95    (SeekersNVG+Stim+PsychostaticElectricity+Ambush+weapon)

DMG_10AP =  mOPPOR*mGUNS*mCALIB*mAP*mADDS*((1-pCrit)+pCrit*mCrit)
DMG_10AP = 1.25       *2.83     *48        *0.33*7         *2.43

DMG_10AP = 959

[lewis_cb]

Not to mention that having all those stars alligned brings plenty of light for Ambush to trigger. Should respec more points into Stealth

To complete the theorycrafting, could I ask you about typical endgame Cyclon/Zephyr damage?
This formula looks trickier, since I don't know which multipliers applies to the elemental damage. I reckon for the Cyclon:

mXBOW = 1+(0.5*XBOW/71.5)
dmgBASE: is the weapon base damage
dmgELEM: is the special bolt elemental damage

DMG_10AP = 1.25 * mAP   * ((1-pCrit)+pCrit*mCrit) * mXBOW * [dmgBASE + 2*dmgELEM]
DMG_10AP = 1.25 * 10/17 *              4                    * 2.83      * [2*23        + 2*40          ]

DMG_10AP = 1200 1050 lol

[MirddinEmris]

Most dynamic components have quality scaling tables on their wiki pages, at this point only firearms and melee weapons are missing. Gotta get all their formulas and figure out where to put all that info. Maybe on blueprint pages. I'll get to it eventually.

A bit off topic, but i just wanted to say that your work on wiki is highly appreciated. Thanks, man)