[Spoilers for potentially everything] Minimum Level To Complete Dominating?

[SubterminalOptimization]

Hi! I've enjoyed this game very much, approximately 200 hours worth so far.  I'm sure this will strike many players as weird, but I approach this game as a puzzle game in optimization.

So far, I have only ever played variations of one build (assault rifles with core feats commando / suppressive&opportunist / full-auto / concentrated fire) and on one patch (current / 1.0.3.20; not sure if I played on a slightly different version before that).  I have done several full run-throughs (starting with normal difficulty and proceeding to dominating).  For my runs (and purposes of discussion here) no Export/Import of characters, CheatEngine, file editing, bugs**, etc. are involved.

I have just today completed a run at Level 16* on Dominating but was able to confirm that at least 1 (and likely 2) feats are unnecessary, though I'm not sure about how many skill points can be cut.  So far I am not having to save/load an outrageous amount (almost certainly less than 1000 loads throughout the whole run, Deep Caverns from elevator to elevator only took ~2.1 hours real time). Tchort itself only took 3 attempts (no mutagen puzzle).

To be clear though, I am not optimizing for time, only minimizing level for now.  Has anybody else attempted this or theorycrafted on the topic?  I admit I didn't search too much because I believe Dominating is relatively new and I also wasn't sure whether this is the same as a "challenge run" or other terminology.  The only challenge involved should be the optimization and planning. In fact, the execution has gotten extremely easy for the most part as each piece has been figured out in detail (though this will probably change at lower level).

Is there a different build that I should attempt for lower levels?  My goal is probably 14 with stretch goal of 12.  It's actually not even clear to me how exactly I should best proceed below 14 right now, but I believe 14 should definitely be doable with very close to the approach I am using now.  I don't have much evidence but based on my limited experience it is hard to imagine sub-12 being possible even with perfect luck (unless there is some insanely broken item or skill I am unaware of).  Am I wrong here?

Lunatic Mall and Tchort seem to be the two gatekeepers so far, though the IRIS Core Fight is probably going to become non-skippable and might be an issue (I've embarrassingly never tried that fight in any play through).  Though painful and arduous, I can imagine at least the Lunatic Mall being completed at Level 11 with copious traps and patience (including the patience to obtain and craft level-optimal House-buffed gear).  I'm not sure about getting past the other two.

Many thanks in advance for any input or knowledge this forum can share!  I have really appreciated both this site and the wiki for reference during my most recent run especially.

*Level 16 points were the last points spent and my Save Files indicate Level 16 but the Character Sheet will show 17 due to gained experience.
**At least as far as I know, certainly hard to be certain since I don't know exactly how to define a bug, but nothing that clearly trivializes the game or is explicitly indicated as not intended via GUI.  For example (almost certainly not a bug but hopefully this conveys the idea), if Rathound Regalia working in Deep Caverns is a "bug" that could only be confirmed by the developer I think.

[TheAverageGortsby]

You know, I'm actually fiddling around with a minimal build on Dominating - whereas you're optimizing for level, I was curious what the fewest number of feats was that could get through Dominating.  But if you get to take the best feats and optimize for level, I think you're right about 14 being doable.  At the very least, a full 3-school psi build at 14 becomes ridiculous because Locus of Control is frankly outlandish.  Doing it before 14 might be hard, since on Dominating you really need a predictable way to avoid stuns/incaps.  Perhaps building your psi with 10 Will, 10 Constitution and taking Thick Skull would get you the minimum you'd need. 

Regardless of your character focus, though, Grenadier is pretty broken and can be had for the low cost of 30 skill points and 6 Dex.  The fields of flame you sow make handling most non-boss fights pretty simple.  And of course stealth is wildly OP in the game - good stealth plus some traps and Grenadier and you could manage the Lunatic Mall at 12 with a build that had some good Dex to get your effective Traps up near 150 so the Lunatics wouldn't see them too soon. -Come to think of it, 10 would probably be manageable with patience.  Only two or three of the Lunatics upstairs are immune to burning and you'd surely have a stack or two of magnesium/napalm incendiaries so maybe you'd fearbounce half the group while taking out the "bosses"-

Honestly don't know how to give advice for Tchort at such low levels, though, except for Psi.  At 12 you could maybe do it with the classic abuse of Thermodynamic Destabilization, TK Proxy, Premeditation + Implode/TK Punch.  You can't one-shot Tchort with the skill levels you'd have at 12 but you might could two-shot it.

A Psi build that optimizes for combat has everything you need by level 14.  Paranoia, Gunslinger, Tranquility/Psychosis, Force User, Premeditation, Grenadier, Pyromaniac, *, Locus of Control.  Slip in whatever advanced psi feat you want at 12 - Meditation (Tranquility can afford to skip its advanced skill so you could pick up QT instead if you wanted it and were invested in Traps) or Psionic Mania.  If you don't care about initiative for whatever reason, drop Gunslinger in favor of whatever you do want - Fast Metabolism, Thick Skull, or Survival Instincts, perhaps, if you stacked starting Con; or Nimble if you need to max your effective Stealth.  As an added bonus, a Psi build has enough Will that you can still make the IRIS Persuasion check as low as level 11 if you have a Noble Robe with you.

[Tygrende]

I think it might be possible to beat DOMINATING at level 4 with Quick Tinkering and lots of traps. Tedious, but most likely possible. I already did a "pacifist" run on Hard in the past where I had no offensive skills (only traps) and only killed the few enemies required to progress the story.

Lack of sufficently high stealth could be a big issue, especially in the Tchort fight, but bought/looted black cloth gear, cloaking device and maxed AGI might be enough.

[destroyor]

I can see couple roadblocks on dominating for a low level char:
1) w/ the increase of NPC skills (dodge/evasion) you'll probably have a lot of difficulty w/ accuracy late game
2) The vastly increase debuff rate for Eye of Tchort + increase npc skill (detection) = extremely difficult, if not impossible, to avoid fighting Tchortlings in DC
3) Not doing enough damage to Tchort even if you solved mutagen puzzle

On the other hand you can beat the IRIS as long as you have quick tinkering, EMP/HE grenades and Grenadier so I don't see a problem w/ it.

As previously mentioned a tri-schooled Psi char is probably doable. An viable alternate low level char would probably be a throwing only char. You only need 69 chemistry for Frag/HE grenades MKIV which is possible at level 10 w/ 6 INT. This also bypass the problem w/ accuracy + not doing enough damage. Bear traps/throwing net reduce NPC evasion to zero; MKIV grenades + high grade mines pumping out damage. A very rough draft would be something like this: http://underrail.info.tm/build/?CgMHBgoDBwYAPAAAAAAAAAAAGQAAPAAAAAAAAAAACDljMBZfPg

Interesting concept OP, hope you'll report back here if you decided to do it.

[Twiglard]

How do you deal with ten Azuridae at Newton's? My Psi build couldn't throw enough nukes at them.

Also what's the most powerful build right now? I'm using SMGs with 16 Dex now but there's probably something even better.

[SubterminalOptimization]

That was fast, thanks for all of the responses!  I think I've learned a lot already here, and I'm humbled by how much I was not aware of.  I also have many more questions.  I am definitely motivated to try to push further.

TheAverageGortsby: Interesting about Grenadier, I've never gotten it.  I've haven't been using grenades all that much, though I know molotov fire is quite impactful, but it seems I've been missing out.  The Psi build information is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to read.  In all honesty I have zero clue of what you're describing (always did AR builds) but you are convincing me that perhaps I've been really missing out on some overpowered abilities/math. I will definitely want to explore this (if somebody else does not first).

Tygrende: Incredible if true, I had no idea.  Are you really saying it should be possible to kill Tchort on Dominating with traps at Level 4?  I have been using Bear Traps quite liberally but I had no idea such a thing was possible.  I am not even sure where to begin?  I didn't even know traps worked on Tchort? (I've only ever actually set Bear Traps and even then out of combat.)

At level 4, how do you not get one-shot/stunlocked/rooted by anything and everything?  Surely you can't stealth to even approach Tchort so you fight your way there with traps?  How are you not overwhelmed by all of the enemies?

And you have no problem anywhere else, such as Arke?  You simply place as many traps all over the floor as possible with max stealth gear otherwise?

I don't directly doubt you, it's just that off the top of my head it makes me feel like I must really misunderstand some fundamental mechanics of the game if this is possible.  I'm interested to learn more if you're willing to elaborate.

destroyor: Okay cool, I'm happy to hear confirmation on some points and I also feel as though I am more in your corner in terms of concerns (roadblocks).  Other comments here make me think that I've been really overestimating the complexity of beating the game at low level so at least I'm not crazy in thinking some of these things, even if doable, are at least not *obvious*.

First it was traps and now throwing, two things that I just automatically assumed could not possibly be effective in the final fight are heavily recommended in this thread.  Extremely interesting to me.  I have never run a character with more than Throwing 0.  I seem to have really misunderstood the effectiveness of these weapons?

In my mental simulation of a throwing/trap character vs. Tchort, I climb down the ladder, a tentacle pops up, and I instantly die.  If I highroll, I kill one tentacle and then die to the next 3.  Can you point out my misconception here?  It really sounds like I'm grossly misunderstanding how survivability for these builds works.  I am assuming Chemical Assault Unit armor...is there something that is better for this fight that I could have at level 4 or level 10?

sthalik: Buying the best possible early stealth gear plus eating an Agility steak and patience + saveloading will let (I believe) nearly any character build successfully sneak past the Newton Azuridae.  I've never actually fought them on Dominating before.  To be fair though, I've never actually tried 0 points in stealth + low agility builds.  If you are a stealthy build and/or have Interloper you can realistically do it without even saveloading (though it wouldn't be trivially easy).

The most powerful build?  Not sure, it depends on how you define power.  It seems fair to say though that any build that can complete Dominating at levels 16 and below is surely a *very strong/effective* build.  So probably every single build mentioned in this thread is extremely strong.

[TheAverageGortsby]

How do you deal with ten Azuridae at Newton's? My Psi build couldn't throw enough nukes at them.

Psi makes the Azuridae trivial as long as you're level 3+.  It would be very hard at level 2 so if you're playing Oddity it might behoove you to farm Cave Hoppers and the beetles just south of the Cove until you pick up level 3.  Then you get Force Field.  When you walk into the compound, immediately go shut the doors.  Once you've dealt with the lone beetle in the other chamber, just manually start combat, open the doors (25 AP), and then raise Force Field(15 AP) in the doorway. If you picked up Tranquility at 2 then you can open doors (25), throw grenade(15) and still cast FF (10). When the field wears off, since you manually started combat, you'll go next.  There will be beetles stacked up on the edge of your FF, so drop a grenade on them(15) and close the doors(25).  Rinse and repeat until you've just got a stack of bug corpses to loot.  I like to crank up The Prodigy's Firestarter and cackle maniacally while incinerating those stupid beetles, but YMMV.
Incidentally, the music video for Firestarter looks like it was shot in the tunnels of UnderRail

[TheAverageGortsby]

Interesting about Grenadier, I've never gotten it.  I've haven't been using grenades all that much, though I know molotov fire is quite impactful, but it seems I've been missing out.

So, here's the thing about Grenadier (and Psi for that matter) that I'm hesitant to mention for fear that it's unintended and will get nerfed.  When you set someone on fire, they burn for three turns.  If you set them on fire again while they're still burning, the timer refreshes, burn damage stacks, and Aphobia does not proc.  With Pyromaniac and the Psi Flamethrower (Pyrokinetic Stream) you can keep especially dangerous things permanently feared if they're flammable.  I handled Carnifex at 12 by keeping him aflame and panicked for ten or eleven turns on a 3 CON Psi character wearing Cave Hopper leather.  If he had gotten so much as one attack (not even one turn) in, my dude would have been dead.

Grenadier sets the cooldown for incendiaries to 2 turns.

[Tygrende]

Tygrende: Incredible if true, I had no idea.  Are you really saying it should be possible to kill Tchort on Dominating with traps at Level 4?  I have been using Bear Traps quite liberally but I had no idea such a thing was possible.  I am not even sure where to begin?  I didn't even know traps worked on Tchort? (I've only ever actually set Bear Traps and even then out of combat.)

Bear traps don't work on Tchort, but mines do. The way to kill him with traps only is to blow up the 4 tanks with TNT while in stealth first. Then you use Quick Tinkering to put an HE mine near the eye, run back to the saferoom, repeat until there's no more place left for mines to damage him, detonate the mines with a grenade, repeat until dead. You might need to put some bear traps to keep the tchortlings from interfering. If you do the mutagen puzzle (and the mind control tentacle is one of the killed) and find a decent energy shield you should be able to survive enough hits to heal up in the saferoom.

There are 4 main issues I see with this:

1. Stealth is essential. If high AGI+maxed stealth at level 4 and bonus stealth from gear/cloaking device are not enough to get past the detection threshold of tchortlings and the tentacles, I doubt this is possible. You would have to do the math before attempting this.

2. I did this with MK V mines, on a lvl 4 char you would be limited to bought MK III mines. That and the fact that Tchort has 1000 more HP means you would have to bring a lot more mines to DC, so carry weight might be an issue. High STR and/or Pack Rathound might be necessary.

3. That tremor damage Tchort deals to you through the entire fight, it gets bigger with time. Doing this with MK III mines will take a lot of time and a lvl 4 character won't have a lot of HP. It's going to be race.

4. Getting through Emporion might be even harder, considering the ungodly amounts of lunatics on DOMINATING there.

I'm not entirely sure if this is possible, but it might be. I could see it working.

At level 4, how do you not get one-shot/stunlocked/rooted by anything and everything?  Surely you can't stealth to even approach Tchort so you fight your way there with traps?  How are you not overwhelmed by all of the enemies?

Stealth, high initiative were mostly how I survived during my pacifist run. You could reach really high initiative with maxed AGI, 7 DEX and Gunslinger/Paranoia even at lvl 4. It all boils down to how much stealth you can squeeze out of black cloth gear and a cloaking device.

And you have no problem anywhere else, such as Arke?  You simply place as many traps all over the floor as possible with max stealth gear otherwise?

As I said Emporion is the one place I worry about the most. Arke should be doable with tons of EMP traps/grenades, but it would also make bringing enough traps to DC a bigger issue.

I don't directly doubt you, it's just that off the top of my head it makes me feel like I must really misunderstand some fundamental mechanics of the game if this is possible.  I'm interested to learn more if you're willing to elaborate.

Quick Tinkering is ridiculous and in my opinion the single most broken feat in the entire game, that's basically all there is to it and why I think it might be doable.

[destroyor]

How do you deal with ten Azuridae at Newton's? My Psi build couldn't throw enough nukes at them.

Also what's the most powerful build right now? I'm using SMGs with 16 Dex now but there's probably something even better.

Block off the area using doors and try to lure them in one at a time. Use throwing nets, bear traps, caltrops, and incendiary/HE grenades + your class' main damage skill to finish them off (some of them or all of the above depending on your build).

As for the most powerful build right now imho it's still stealth psychosis psi, see this thread: http://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=3264.0 . Assuming we are talking about dominating difficulty, couple changes are: energy pistol + chem pistol both rank up to the bottom of Good Tier; Unarmed builds dropped a tier due to infused leather nerf + dodge/evasion (more on this later); SMG are now weaker due to expertise nerf + npc (evasion) skill buff; the 30% NPC (weapons/dodge/evasion/etc) skill buff significantly reduce the effectiveness of dodge + evasion and I dare say dodge + evasion builds are no longer viable on dominating.

destroyor: Okay cool, I'm happy to hear confirmation on some points and I also feel as though I am more in your corner in terms of concerns (roadblocks).  Other comments here make me think that I've been really overestimating the complexity of beating the game at low level so at least I'm not crazy in thinking some of these things, even if doable, are at least not *obvious*.

First it was traps and now throwing, two things that I just automatically assumed could not possibly be effective in the final fight are heavily recommended in this thread.  Extremely interesting to me.  I have never run a character with more than Throwing 0.  I seem to have really misunderstood the effectiveness of these weapons?

In my mental simulation of a throwing/trap character vs. Tchort, I climb down the ladder, a tentacle pops up, and I instantly die.  If I highroll, I kill one tentacle and then die to the next 3.  Can you point out my misconception here?  It really sounds like I'm grossly misunderstanding how survivability for these builds works.  I am assuming Chemical Assault Unit armor...is there something that is better for this fight that I could have at level 4 or level 10?

I think I missed a roadblock - the mushroom forest heart chamber could be a problem due to those damn spore turrets. I don't know if a low level char (even if psi) could be make good enough to win this one.

The non-critical damage of grenades are based purely by its grade (no damage buff from throwing skills) so they are very effective if you rush crafting. Crawler caltrops are extremely useful and probably essential in stopping Tchortlings when facing Tchort. If you solved the mutagen puzzle and you are lucky the psi tentacle will be out of the game. If not, this is going to be a very difficult, if not impossible, battle. Shield + high CON + hp/regen gear + morphine + aegis will allow you to tank the damage from the rest of them. Quick tinker high grade HE mines + high grade HE nades every 2 turns to damage Tchort, crawler caltrops to stop Tchortlings.

Bear traps don't work on Tchort, but mines do. The way to kill him with traps only is to blow up the 4 tanks with TNT while in stealth first. Then you use Quick Tinkering to put an HE mine near the eye, run back to the saferoom, repeat until there's no more place left for mines to damage him, detonate the mines with a grenade, repeat until dead. You might need to put some bear traps to keep the tchortlings from interfering. If you do the mutagen puzzle (and the mind control tentacle is one of the killed) and find a decent energy shield you should be able to survive enough hits to heal up in the saferoom.

There are 4 main issues I see with this:

1. Stealth is essential. If high AGI+maxed stealth at level 4 and bonus stealth from gear/cloaking device are not enough to get past the detection threshold of tchortlings and the tentacles, I doubt this is possible. You would have to do the math before attempting this.

2. I did this with MK V mines, on a lvl 4 char you would be limited to bought MK III mines. That and the fact that Tchort has 1000 more HP means you would have to bring a lot more mines to DC, so carry weight might be an issue. High STR and/or Pack Rathound might be necessary.

3. That tremor damage Tchort deals to you through the entire fight, it gets bigger with time. Doing this with MK III mines will take a lot of time and a lvl 4 character won't have a lot of HP. It's going to be race.

4. Getting through Emporion might be even harder, considering the ungodly amounts of lunatics on DOMINATING there.

I'm not entirely sure if this is possible, but it might be. I could see it working.

I honestly don't think that'll work fighting Tchort. With the increase Tchortling spawn rate you'll eventually be boxed in somewhere before you blow up all 4 mutagen tanks. At level 4 on dominating I just don't see how you can get effective stealth high enough.

Emporiom could probably be cheese using toxic gas grenades.

[Tygrende]

I honestly don't think that'll work fighting Tchort. With the increase Tchortling spawn rate you'll eventually be boxed in somewhere before you blow up all 4 mutagen tanks.

I did blow up all 4 tanks in stealth during my DOMINATING run. It's fairly easy to do it in one go, all tchortlings go to investigate the previous explosion giving you free access to the next tank while the tentacles stay next to the eye if you enter stealth immediately after you enter the area.

What I worry about is keeping them away once you start the HE mine shenanigans. A bear trap wall could work, but that would take even more time.

At level 4 on dominating I just don't see how you can get effective stealth high enough.

I really don't feel like doing the needed research and math right now, but you can get quite a lot of stealth from 3 pieces of black cloth gear and a cloaking device, possibly around 100. At level 4 with 11 AGI you could have 47 effectve stealth. I don't think tchortling's detection threshold is that high.

Emporiom could probably be cheese using toxic gas grenades.

Good idea, they will be craftable at level 4.

[SubterminalOptimization]

Thank you guys again for all of the detailed feedback.  It seems that there is a lot to investigate from my perspective.  I definitely look forward to having a chance to do some new and interesting playthroughs.

I wanted to add a detailed update even though at this point it seems clear that my run may be far behind the curve of actual optimization.  At least I think the details in this post can be used as a reference point for how actually "easy" Level 14 turned out to be.  I promise I am not disregarding the other strategies, this post is largely for my own reference and to gauge progress, and maybe as a template for a more "competitive" run summary (especially if they get harder/less obvious to reproduce).  I basically still just wanted to confirm my suspicion that my existing general approach, with slight and not even complete optimization, could fairly easily clear the game at my goal level...so in summary:

I have now completed Dominating at Level 14 using:

Str: 7
Dex: 3
Agi: 7
Con: 3
Per: 13
Will: 3
Int: 7

Feats:
Aimed Shot (I made sure not to use it later on because I wanted to confirm it really doesn't do much but help early game)
Echoing Soliloquy (No reason not to get this right?)
Expertise
Gun Nut
Opportunist
Suppressive Fire
Interloper
Full-Auto
Concentrated Fire
Commando (Didn't end up needing/using double bursts vs. Tchort...I didn't see a good way to line things up to take advantage of it anyway.  Obviously if using AR in any future runs this will be irrelevant anyway sub-14...got its most "useful" use during Coretech Warehouse and Mushroom Forest in particular)

Skills:
Guns 80 (141)
Evasion 60 (75) (I don't think this did much, but I wasted even more points here in Lvl16 run and figured worst case these are wasted but shouldn't be a showstopper)
Stealth 80 (with all gear/buffs effective 235..always using Rathound Regalia because 10% movement speed +25 stealth with Interloper seems to me to be worth more like +100 true stealth)
Hacking 75 (94)
Lockpicking 75 (60)
Mechanics 80 (100)
Electronics 77 (96)
Persuasion 65 (67)
Mercantile 48 (73)

I crafted (with House):
9mm Smart Muzzled Hornet 18-59, +40% special attacks
Efficient High Frequency Shield Emitter 1011 Capacity, Conversion Rate 10.9, 12/37/115/168/213
+62 stealth cloaking device
+32% Special Attacks Smart Nightvision goggles

Noncrafted:
Standard +18 stealth balaclava, ChemicalAssaultUnit Armor for Tchort, RathoundRegalia everywhere else except early (before Core City main quests)
18%/23 stealth Ninja Tabis (I am sure I could have wasted fewer points elsewhere and crafted better...also probably could kill Coretech Runners for better, but not even necessary)..I wore these for Tchort fight but probably there are better choices...
Bullet Belt (of course)
W2C bullets for all the "major" fights in Deep Caverns obviously (Faceless +300 is enough for everything)

Notes of interest (at least to me):

Overall

- I barely took any more time in Deep Caverns or Tchort than my Level 16 run except for the Arke fight (which I now know what that looks like, I oneshot it by just running into the back corner and having the robots crowd each other, Commando was useful here)...still just needed 3 reloads on Tchort. ~2.5 hours Deep Caverns.
- I don't believe at any point in this run I needed to saveload more than approximately 10 times to force "super RNG".  So in other words, this seems like very consistent "easy" run and so not as much of an achievement as I thought it might be.

Tchort Fight Consumables

- I don't know how to get focus stims without killing Coretech employees, so right before I take elevator I just "burn that bridge" and killed some for use during Arke and Tchort fights.  I had a third for mushroom forest but didn't actually need it.
- I don't know how to get regenerative mixture except by killing Caerus Residential Vents guy "Guntar Vasilica" so I'm just doing that in lieu of a better way?
- I got lucky and found exactly one Aegis in Junkyard early on (below the final inner gate in that hut locker?).  Is there a way to 100% reliably obtain this?
- I don't know how to get Iron Gut so I just went ahead without it (assuming at least Lvl14 I could scrape by without it and I did...), is there a way to 100% reliably obtain this?
- Since I'm friendly with faceless I have 100% reliable Super Health Hypos to pair with Morphine (although I guess you only could ever really use 1?)
- I saveloaded for +2 Constitution -2 Dex (or something useless) Junkyard Surprise (previously I used a +1Constitution Burger, which seems much less smart).

Tchort Fight Details

- I still didn't need to do Mutagen Puzzle (I didn't actually come that close to dieing at all with a logical Morphine timing, the only problem is Fatigue when my adrenaline wears off..Tchort has got to go right around that time or I lose)
- I stealth down the ladder, drug up in the little hut, then stealth up to the first tentacle (somehow I can do this even with my goggles and CAU armor...why is that even possible with so little stealth?)
- I can still kill tentacles in a single burst so I just kill the front two and start focusing Tchort...only takes 3 bursts if I decently roll. 
- The adds (side spawn enemies) barely don't reach me in time and after Tchort dies they more or less clean themselves up.

Arke Basement

- This was a *noticeably* bigger pain with <120 effective hacking (which I had on Lvl16 run).  I did a probably silly strategy where instead of killing everything with traps, I planted one TNT and lured almost ALL spiders out of big electricity room and into hallway where they had a civil war fighting scorpions and I was able to actually sneak by without fighting (except earlier, the first small room with two spiders for door key to open the big electricity room).
- I wonder if 13 perception is even worth it if doing a Lvl14 run, maybe +11 Per and then +2 higher intelligence makes for better crafting gear and hacking so it's actually even easier overall?  Not sure on the math.

Mushroom Forest

- Is this actually doable without CAU Armor?  These guys do serious damage to me even when wearing that.  It's a good thing I kill those sentries in one burst.  I used adrenaline to run past the second half of room before the heart room.
- Taking the "northern" path to the heart and hiding behind the rock or whatever allows me to alternate between killing the sentry and shooting the heart from relative safety

Tchort Institute
- Without the 120 hacking skill I was worried that I would need to spend a lot of time to get to the elevator (either slogging fighting or questing)...
- But I didn't realize until just yesterday that you can sneak into Eidein's office, kill his guards to trigger "tremors", go down elevator, go BACK UP elevator, and he is there?!
- So I just assassinate him and go back down and done with Institute, within minutes of joining the Institute.
- I do not know if this is a "bug" but it is confusing that some zones "autohostile" you even when stealthed (rest of the Institute) and others don't (elevator area) even when they both have an alert "Eye" to indicate "Controlled Zone"

Lunatic Mall

- I open the door at the entrance without combat, then kill the first two Lunatics in a single burst turn (while patrolling guy is not in line of sight).  This allows ending combat and waiting out the "Noise Alert Movement" (is there a term for this?) of the rest of the floor.  After this happens, I could directly stealth to floor 2 without anymore fighting.  This is definitely 100% reproducible.
- On floor 2 I perform the same quick kill/wait out Noise Alert Movement for the 2 guys on the left-hand-side, then the patrolling guy, then the person inside the bottom left store
- I can destealth, adrenaline, stealth from the bottom left nook to the statue without any more fighting (it's fairly tight but with 235 stealth not too bad, could definitely do with some amount less)
- So in total I completed Lunatic Mall with 2 + 4 kills total.

Coretech Warehouse

- I just like Coretech, it probably makes no sense for me to have joined them
- For the Warehouse fight, I used 30 bear traps on nearly every entrance square and bursted every trio of enemies as soon as they entered within 2 turns.  I was able to exit combat/save after every single triple.  Commando definitely trivializes this fight.



So until somebody posts a more detailed tutorial or beats me to it, I guess I have to ponder: should I try jumping right into a Level 4 tinker run?  Or should I play it "safe" and try Level 12 psionic?  Will update again if/when I am able to find any success (or any failure  ).  Thank you all again for the inspiration and feedback and discussion.

[TheAverageGortsby]

Or should I play it "safe" and try Level 12 psionic?  Will update again if/when I am able to find any success (or any failure  ).  Thank you all again for the inspiration and feedback and discussion.

Thanks for the detailed postmortem of the level 14 run.  It's an interesting read, and to be honest I'll never get an AR run in so it's nice to see how it plays out.  I only suggest that if you do decide to try a psionic run, after you kill Tchort, pick up 14 and go back and hit some of the fights you skipped, just to see how insane Locus of Control really is.  If it's your only experience with Psi, may as well see what Psi looks like when it fully develops, even if you don't get it fully built before you win.

EDIT: Just wanted to say, I was thinking about your challenge to yourself and, silly as this sounds, your optimization makes you such an edge case that your best bet for a Psi build might be a 3 Will build.  It's essentially just Tygrende's "LOL QT I win" but with the added advantage of Thermodynamic Destabilization, which does gross damage if you set it up right - and from the sounds of it, you're willing to reload a few times to set things up right.  You'd have to be level 8 - you can't learn ThermoD before then.  But your best bet for lowest-level psi win may just be http://underrail.info.tm/build/?CAMHCgkDAwcAAAAAAAAyADIAIAwdMDEyAB4yAAAAUCcrHTAq .  That assumes you're holding the Jackknife and wearing Trapper's Belt.  It also assumes you have access to player housing, getting you that magic 69 Chem for mines/grenades, and 70 Bio to cook your own drugs up to and including Trance (also lets you cook Focus Stim so you don't have to murder CoreTech if you don't want, though for this build Focus Stim might not be much help.  You're not doing much direct damage, you're doing shenanigans damage).  Probably the biggest downside is that with 3 Perception, there's a lot of stuff that you're used to seeing (and doing/avoiding) that you won't be able to see, do, or avoid.

With 71 effective Tailoring, you can actually make Infused Cape Hopper leather armor (you'll need Super Steel of 88 or lower quality to make the thread) and possibly black cloth which will give you more movement speed, movement points, and possibly more stealth than the Rathound Regalia, and +Agi instead of +Str which will more than make up for the 5% armor penalty it will impose.  You can also obviously make your own tabis that way too, and even a pair of Infused Pig leather boots to help carry all those mines down into DC.

[Tygrende]

There are 4 main issues I see with this:

2. I did this with MK V mines, on a lvl 4 char you would be limited to bought MK III mines. That and the fact that Tchort has 1000 more HP means you would have to bring a lot more mines to DC, so carry weight might be an issue. High STR and/or Pack Rathound might be necessary.

I just realized this isn't as much of an issue as I thought since the Tchortist trader at Cytosine sells MK III HE mines. If it turns out you don't have enough, you can always reload and get more. He doesn't seel EMP mines as far as I know though.

[SubterminalOptimization]

PART 1 of 2

Hey guys, I'm back with an update.  This time I have quite a lot to say so hopefully I won't go over a post character limit or something like that (20,000 characters, I did go over...).

After my previous success with a Level 14 Assault Rifle character, I decided to try psionics and/or traps based on all of the feedback, and that's the character I started to create.  However, after spending a significant amount of time re-reading your feedback posts, looking at your suggested builds, and sitting at the character creation screeen, I realized I still wanted to try one more AR run.  My reasoning was as follows: I don't have any deep knowledge regarding psionics or trap use but I know a lot about AR and if Level 14 AR isn't actually too tough (which it isn't) then I might end up wasting time heavily optimizing for something that AR can still beat.  So I wanted to find the limit of AR thinking that that would give me much faster feedback as to where I should start targeting optimization for other archetypes.  An additional reason: I really like ARs, Dakka Dakka / Lead Storm for life  !

Having decided to try another AR run, and given that I knew the "minimum" AR Level which had to be well under 14 (since 14 wasn't too bad), I came to what I think is an obvious conclusion/initial guess: target Level 10.
Level 10 seems like a good balance because in comparison to (a fully optimized) Level 14 removes a healthy fraction of crucial gun skill, excludes any sort of extreme top-level crafting possibilities, drops a non-negligible number of maximum Health points, and blocks skill-check-based workarounds for virtually all end-game content/dangers (except stealthing).
At the same time, Level 10 still gives access to Concentrated Fire and that Feat is absolutely core to all Assault Rifle builds and provides crucial damage potential.  Level 9 would be a massive drop in power due to the strict loss of this Feat coupled with even lower Gun skill at a point where every single Gun skill point matters (and weaker everything else as well).

I have now completed Dominating at Level 10 using:

Str: 7
Dex: 3
Agi: 7
Con: 3
Per: 9
Will: 3
Int: 10

Feats:
Echoing Soliloquy (No reason not to get this right?)
Gun Nut
Opportunist
Recklessness
Suppressive Fire
Interloper
Full-Auto
Concentrated Fire

Skills:
Guns 60 (85)
Stealth 60 (149 with just gear and skills, with almost all gear/buffs effective 215...I had been using Adrenaline already but now really begin to appreciate it and ALSO Jumping Bean is really a big deal here, more discussion below..always using Rathound Regalia because 10% movement speed +25 stealth with Interloper seems to me to be worth more like +100 true stealth)
Traps 60 (I used 6 EMP traps during Arke Fight and a couple crawler poison traps for Tchort Fight, but never got too fancy here, used plain old bear traps virtually everywhere else)
Mechanics 60 (90)
Electronics 60 (90)
Chemistry 60 (90)
Biology 60 (90)
Tailoring 60 (90)

I crafted (with House):
- 9mm Smart Muzzled Hornet 17-56, +46% special attacks (and had a second one with +41% for swapping out if durability got low during a single fight...but turns out never needed the backup gun)
- Efficient High Frequency Shield Emitter 1132 Capacity, Conversion Rate 10.7, 7/23/96/141/180
- +61 stealth cloaking device, 97 energy, turn on costs 27, consume 9.32 every 5 seconds
- +31% Special Attacks Smart Night Vision goggles (low 42 energy capacity, turning on costs 9, consumes 3 energy every 5 seconds)

Noncrafted:
- Rathound Regalia (I never ended up crafting Super Steel String but maybe I could have crafted infused SuperSteel XYZ that is better?  probably not possible to craft better at Character levels below 10 though, I'm guessing)
- Chemical Assault Unit Armor (I just kill the CAU members outside of the Free Drones base when it's "Go Time" and I don't care about burning Protectorate bridge)
- Standard +17 stealth balaclava (didn't even bother crafting a better one because I didn't want to waste rare high quality cloth on +1 or +2 stealth), ChemicalAssaultUnit Armor for Tchort and MushroomForest, RathoundRegalia for early Tchort fight and almost everywhere else except early (before Core City main quests)
- +23% movement speed/32 stealth Ninja Tabis (I *know* I could have crafted better here because I had some almost perfect-skilled cloth but I killed Carnifex and he was wearing these and I wanted to see if I could cheap out on the cloth in case I needed it for later and never bothered to upgrade later since stealthing was a minimal concern).
  I wore these Ninja Tabis for the entire Tchort fight again because I'm not actually sure what a better choice would be...maybe infused constitution boots but didn't end up needing to go that deep into crafting
- Bullet Belt (of course)
- W2C bullets for all the "major" fights in Deep Caverns obviously (Faceless +300 is mostly enough, I also brought 300 W2C rounds with me from buying nonstop through the run, I finished Deep Caverns with 250 rounds left)

Final experience bar (before boarding Train to North Underrail): 203427 / 10000

Notes of interest:

Overall

- I needed to save and load a lot more, but not as much as one might think.  I would say that the maximum saveloading was for Carnifex (totally optional) and Tchort Fight.  Versus Carnifex with Agility Steak active I was able to get initiative/first turn once every ~20 loads.  The second time I flashbanged him and that's that (see below).  I personally spent dozens of saveloads on the Tchort Fight but excluding experimentation/learning the "winning strategy" only took ~4 save snapshots and ~30 loads (totaled from ladder to end combat with tchort dead). The fight description/summary this time was very convoluted (see below).
- I took significantly more time in Deep Caverns and on Tchort compared to my Level 14 and Level 16 runs.  The gatekeepers (Mushroom Forest, Arke Fight, Tchort Fight) all took ~3 times as long at least this time around.  To be fair about this comparison though, my Level 16 run was practically a speedrun.
- I don't believe at any point in this run I needed to saveload more than approximately *20 times* to force "super RNG" (Carnifex initiative was definitely the single most-abused saveload, moreso than any Tchort Fight point).  I did end up needing to saveload substantially more, but I would say it is more a question of requiring a few extra saves and load all over the place rather than any single place requiring an absurd number of saves/loads (which is a good thing for reproducibility/consistency).
- The Tchort Fight is absolutely the gatekeeper of the run and it is getting very dangerous/hard even at Level 10.  I don't think I do my next run "blind", which is what I have been doing up until now and including this current run. By not playing "blind" I mean I will probably want to use Cheat Engine and/or character editing and/or at least Export/Import to pre-fabricate a character to test the Tchort Fight before spending ~50 hours to get to that point and possibly fail).
- Based on this run, and in particular the Tchort Fight experience, I no longer believe/accept that a Level 4 run is possible, though of course I will always remain open to video or detailed writeup evidence.  More discussion below.
- Stealth is insane, but stealth with stealth +movement tabis, rathound regalia, plentiful Adrenaline, and also plentiful Jumping Bean is so good that even at Lvl 10 I'm stunned at effectiveness (easier stealthing than my Level 16 run).
- I really put Molatovs, Flashbangs (extremely good for getting burst hits to land...as well as stunning enemies so you don't die), and Toxic Gas Grenades to work
- In addition to toxic gas grenades, this run also really utilized a ton of medical crafting and some fishing so I felt like I was almost playing an expansion pack already (so much new stuff that I never used before).

- I didn't even craft 100% optimal gear (didn't have gear that was crafted using the exact skill requirement that I reached at House with Workbench buffs) and I think that in retrospect at least one point of Intelligence would have been better placed into Perception. 
  The relative gain of one more intelligence point is actually not that much in terms of crafting item/weapon quality, and for weapons I think ~5 skill requirement can be on the order of +1 damage on a 17-56 damage weapon which is basically nothing compared to the bonus of +5 Guns at such low gun skill levels.

- If I did this same run again and anticipated that I would 100% need to make SuperSteel I would probably reallocate SOME points from Chemistry+Biology+Traps to Mercantile because scrounging for money is a pain.
- If I did this same run again and knew that I would 100% not be making SuperSteel, I would spend way more freely and not waste a ton of time walking sometimes instead of taking train (though I didn't do that TOO much, it was more that I was constantly loading after findout out a shop was a bust).

Tchort Fight Consumables

- Focus Stims - This run I learned how to craft them and came prepared with a stack of 6.  Didn't need to do the old killing Coretech employees routine.
- Regenerative Mixture - I still don't know how to get regenerative mixture except by killing Caerus Residential Vents guy "Gunter Vasilica" so I still did that. IMPORTANT NOTE: I almost forgot to bring +1 Perception Goggles for the 10 Perception check in the vent, I got lucky and found some on one of the shelves somewhere in Deep Caverns and avoided a very embarassing load to hours earlier.
- Aegis - This run I learned how to craft them and came prepared with a stack of 6.  Fun fact, I had never fished anything ever before in my ~250 hours of play until this run for medicine crafting.
- Iron Gut - This run I learned how to craft them and came prepared with a stack of 6.
- Jumping Bean - I crafted 9 of these but didn't need all of them.  These things are amazing!
- Super Health Hypos - Since I'm friendly with Faceless I have 100% reliable Super Health Hypos to pair with Morphine (although I guess you only could ever really use 1?)
- I saveloaded for +2 Constitution -2 Dex (or something useless) Junkyard Surprise (this is definitely worth doing instead of just accepting a +1 constitution burger).

- Adrenaline Shot - I didn't end up using these vs. Tchort because the downside is too dangerous/slow (every second counts because of the monotonically increasing Tchort shock damage) and by the time I knew I could win the fight, I was more afraid of the adds killing me without being able to burst than of not having the damage for the Eye.
- Bull Head - I didn't use these or need them, but I crafted a couple anyway just in case.


Tchort Fight Strategy Summary

- Descend ladder in full stealth except for Gas Mask swapout when needed.
- Place two TNT charges on *the left/West side* Mutagen Tanks and blow them.
- Place two TNT charges on the *right/East side* Mutagen Tanks and blow them.
- At this point, *wait for parade* then dodge back to the left side.  I say "wait for parade" because there were 12 (TWELVE !!! I screenshotted and counted) Tchortling/Spitters/Devourers that all grouped up on the right side platform in a nice square ball to investigate the TNT and stayed densely packed on the order of seconds.  I saved/snapshotted upon seeing this, I hope it's consistent that they don't split apart and spread out most of the time as this save is core to my "successful fight" line.
- While walking back the left side, near the center-right choke, I placed two crawler poison traps (not a perfect lockout) for use later (and so tentacles not respawning while trap-laying).

- Mutagen Puzzle was Completed, so now Three tentacles to fight: I got cryo, mind control, and acid. (My Exitus 1 "seed" was: MU L8 DX R1 ET MH AL PZ UP WW KG XT E6 B4).  I've been stealthed 100% of the time until now so Tentacles don't actually have any involvement and the way I kill them I don't think type matters at all.

- The left-side (West side) shack is crucial (maybe central shack can work but not sure) because you can go back there, exit combat and get a save snapshot, switch to full combat and then PICK OFF TENTACLES WHILE DODGING BEHIND SHACK DOOR after each burst.  The Tentacles appear in a perfect formation such that none of them can hit you inside shack but all can easily be hit from right outside shack door.  The Tchort-adds on the other side of the map DO NOT aggro or come over (I think they are too far away for sound).
- I killed two tentacles this way (exited combat) then walked back toward center and third tentacle popped up and since I was able to point-blank it I killed it in one go (plenty of focus stims for all these separate shots).  Again exit combat and get a save/snapshot in.

NOTE: I did lose *some* time up until now but I am clicking/hotkeying fairly efficiently and yet Tchort is hitting me (without Aegis or Morphine) at this point (all three tentacles just killed) for 40-75 electricity damage (he has quite a damage range) NON-critically!!  That's A LOT of damage considering I have 150 HP total *with* my CON buff food.
I believe I dipped into the middle shack on my way from right to left after the final TNT and SUPERStimmed to stay alive and opted to bandage-wait-out the stim cool down at that shack before starting combat at the left shack so I probably advanced the counter 2-3 extra shocks since I don't think the waiting was necessary...but to be clear here the damage gets very high much faster than I think one would expect.

- Key moment: a spitter (and some other Tchortling enemies) are random-walking around toward middle right (where they were all investigating that final TNT) as I am coming back from killing the tentacles on the left.  I initiate combat and run to the northern choke and am able to get the spitter to lock off that choke with Tentacle spawns (especially likely if spitter got caught in trap).
- With tentacle spawns on the ground blocking access to all other Tchort-adds and even keeping them at an out-of-range distance, I have free reign to chug irongut/aegis/focus stim/remaining regen mixture, go to melee range on Eye and unload bursts nonstop.  Although melee range+nightvision is now required, Tchort is still dead in 3 turns (thanks concentrated fire!) and nothing is hitting me the whole time except a couple spitter tentacles.
- There are a LOT of mini-Tchort adds but I chuck a molatov and a toxic gas grenade on the bridge choke and hide at max distance next to the Eye corpse and basically they still mostly take care of themselves with the madness debuff.


Tchort Fight Notes

- I did Mutagen Puzzle because tentacles are very hard to kill now and my HP is just too low (and my current fight approach requires tentacles completely out of the fight for a while).  I can no longer reliably one-burst tentacles though it is still possible to do.  However, not sure if it's possible for ALL tentacles.  Some tentacles I believe it is not possible or virtually not possible unless point blank AND very lucky.  The Cryo Tentacle can only take 1/3 life damage from one of my bursts depending on my luck.
- The Cryo Tentacle basically one-shots me 80% of the time, same with the Mind Control tentacle, so I *had* to use a strategy that involves never taking on more than 1 at a time (in fact, in this case, none of the tentacles ever get a shot on me).  Before (Level 14+ with evasion) I was able to potentially take a shot from one tentacle while killing the other but that's off the table now.
- I can't even 100% kill the adds in a single burst because of misses, but if they are approaching me on a choke/bridge they'll still never get a hit off as I certainly two-burst them superconsistently at any medium/short range.
- I am chugging my consumables before every mini-fight segment and refreshed everything after the Eye died just in case the Tchort-adds got ugly, I'm glad I made a lot.



Arke IRIS Fight

- I placed 6 EMP mines outside surrounding the bottom left (south west) corner console room and thats where I made my stand.  When the south entrance bots initially spawn they will be in a group and you get a good hit/free bursts there.
- I also places ~5 bear traps around the console room for good measure.
- W2C bullets mandatory for the Industrial Bots.
- This was the closest my gun came to breaking (actually just barely got into yellow as I killed last loose bots) and I can imagine that if I were slightly less lucky or lower level that a backup gun would be necessary
- The four center turrets are easy to clean up at the end but I was also able to exit combat and get a save in before killing them
- I did NOT end up needing/using any consumables such as Focus Stim or Aegis.


Arke Basement

- I still very reliably one-burst Greater Coil Spiders.
- Now that I was mentally prepared for this to be a pain, it wasn't so bad.  I refined my silly strategy where instead of killing everything with traps, I planted one TNT and lured almost ALL spiders out of big electricity room and into hallway.  I let them have a civil war fighting scorpions FIRST (just waiting, without TNT) then used TNT further down the hall.  I was able to actually sneak by without fighting (again except for earlier, the first small room with two spiders for door key to open the big electricity room).
- Similar to Caerus Residential, there are two key strategies for Electro Spider killing:
  Need to kill one spider and you are near door?  Burst spider then close door.
  Need to kill two spiders (Wasi Abdul keycard, Arke basement key)?  Burst one spider, adrenaline, flashbang, burst second spider.
  Need to kill three spiders?  You're doing something wrong, there is never a time this is needed.  However, perfect adrenal/flashbang probably works for up to 3. 
- You can always easily just go right to the ladder in the last room of Arke Basement, saveload if the scorpions bump you.  You can obviously trap if you really need to but it's not even necessary.


Mushroom Forest

- Is this actually doable without CAU Armor?  I'm even more convinced it's not.  These guys do *serious* damage to me even when wearing CAU armor unless I ALSO have Iron Gut active.  Even then they can hurt me.
- At lower levels I may need to actually grab the Biohazard Boots and come back here (I have not been wearing those) because the damage is insane (when factoring in that they reduce your HP pool by 10-20%).
- Jumping bean + adrenaline actually makes running past the second half of room before the heart room quite easy (doable in one try).
- Taking the "northern" path to the heart and hiding behind the rock or whatever allows me to alternate between killing the sentry and shooting the heart from relative safety HOWEVER
- I now needed to first aggro and "pull" the northern chompers/spitters and kite back left while killing them from some amount of cover as they are too dangerous to fight in place.  I can't reliably one-burst them.
- I am glad I crafted a bunch of Iron Gut as I am not sure Mushroom Forest is doable at Level 10 (or below) without it.  I also needed to exit combat/heal up before going in for the sentry/heart alternating kill.