An Average Explanation of Outstanding Psi Builds

[TheAverageGortsby]

Any thoughts?

If you're just doing this for the Neural Overload lulz, then you'll get more effect from Neural Overload damage spec than you will from the Tranquility spec.  Of course the Tranquility spec will help with all your other abilities, but I can't help but think that for a typical combat scenario, your better bet still would be to drop five points out of Tranq spec, finish up Future Orientation spec (so your haste/slow/LTI are instant again), and put the last three in Neural Overload psi reduction spec so you peel off 25% of the targets max psi per cast.  Sure, you're only getting eight NOs per turn instead of nine, but you're getting more actions in per turn thanks to instant TM abilities.  Since you'll be spamming so many actions per turn, even with good psi cost reduction you'll need to guzzle psi boosters regularly, so it's good to have 4-6AP per turn not used on abilities.  That lets you really go nuts on the harder fights with double haste, hit Trance+Focus Stim, chain out your NOs, and guzzle a psi booster before tapping LTI and ending the turn.

All that said, Neural Overload is going to be hella disappointing when fighting mindless enemies.  It's why you should only play with TC as your primary nuke if you just want to do it for the keks

[Shady_Individual]

For a Psychosis build, what is the most optimal placement of Specialization points?

Neural Overclocking 10/10
Psychosis: Psi Cost 5/5

How about that? Any better ideas?

[TheAverageGortsby]

For a Psychosis build, what is the most optimal placement of Specialization points?

Neural Overclocking 10/10
Psychosis: Psi Cost 5/5

How about that? Any better ideas?

Forget the psi cost reduction. Go 2/2 into Premeditation cooldown reduction, 5/5 into Future Orientation, and 8/10 into Neural Overclocking.  You premeditate, wait ten seconds or so, then manually start combat.  You've got 2 turns left on the Premeditation cooldown; you use Premed on a powerful opener, LTI that turn, and Premed again in the following turn. There's nothing left at that point.

You'll have plenty of psi cost reduction from gear - and if you need it, psi beetle brain soup.  Don't waste spec points on it.  Psi boosters grow on trees mushrooms in UnderRail, anyway.

[Tomg126]

Thanks so much for this, will be following your psychosis build as after scouring the web this is the best guide I found.  Just wondering what gear to go with from the get go?

[TheAverageGortsby]

Thanks so much for this, will be following your psychosis build as after scouring the web this is the best guide I found.  Just wondering what gear to go with from the get go?

Psi isn't very gear dependent. You could get by fine all the way to Junkyard just with your starting clothes, barefoot, and weaponless. Still, especially for new players, I do recommend you visit the Underpassages outside of GMS and kill the bad guys lurking there. One of them is wearing an aluminized tac vest, and you should probably grab that for yourself.  It'll do you just fine all the way up to Depot A, where you'll want to change it out for a crafted suit of Mutated Dog or Siphoner leather armor.  Then you'll probably want to craft a Psi Beetle Tac Vest for the psi cost reduction.

Don't rush to the Underpassages at level 1 or you'll die badly.  I usually do it after Hopper Round Up, on the way to GMS.  Having that tac vest is going to be very helpful when you get to the second level of GMS.

In GMS, you'll probably find a unique item, the Jackknife.  That may as well stay in your hand all the way until you go to Expedition content and find one of the tasty psi weapons there.  Maybe carry Kohlmeier's Knife or Boxing Gloves or something like that for the enhanced defense, or a lightweight empty pistol for the initiative bonus if you've decided to go with Gunslinger.  But me, I just use the Jackknife.

[Tomg126]

Thanks so much for this, will be following your psychosis build as after scouring the web this is the best guide I found.  Just wondering what gear to go with from the get go?

Psi isn't very gear dependent. You could get by fine all the way to Junkyard just with your starting clothes, barefoot, and weaponless. Still, especially for new players, I do recommend you visit the Underpassages outside of GMS and kill the bad guys lurking there. One of them is wearing an aluminized tac vest, and you should probably grab that for yourself.  It'll do you just fine all the way up to Depot A, where you'll want to change it out for a crafted suit of Mutated Dog or Siphoner leather armor.  Then you'll probably want to craft a Psi Beetle Tac Vest for the psi cost reduction.

Don't rush to the Underpassages at level 1 or you'll die badly.  I usually do it after Hopper Round Up, on the way to GMS.  Having that tac vest is going to be very helpful when you get to the second level of GMS.

In GMS, you'll probably find a unique item, the Jackknife.  That may as well stay in your hand all the way until you go to Expedition content and find one of the tasty psi weapons there.  Maybe carry Kohlmeier's Knife or Boxing Gloves or something like that for the enhanced defense, or a lightweight empty pistol for the initiative bonus if you've decided to go with Gunslinger.  But me, I just use the Jackknife.

Thank you so much, really helped me so far!

[Tomg126]

Just a query, you start with 15 mercantile but then it shows zero in your level 4 and 8 builds etc....do I have to start over already....?

[TheAverageGortsby]

Just a query, you start with 15 mercantile but then it shows zero in your level 4 and 8 builds etc....do I have to start over already....?

Hm. Shouldn't.  I just went back and double-checked those links again and the character progression links all appear to me to keep the Mercantile investment.  I did drop Thought Control in the level 4 links, because I wanted to show that if you needed those points for something else, you can get through the first 4 levels no trouble without investment into TC or TM.

Anyway, to answer your question, no of course you don't need to restart.  Taking Mercantile and Persuasion early on was so that you could take advantage of the nice freebies in SGS, but if for whatever reason you didn't invest in them, that's no problem.  What matters most is that you survive the first 4-6 levels.  They can be tough, especially for new players who are learning the game.  As long as you're investing in skills that you expect to use for the whole game, it isn't extremely important what order you invest in.  My suggestions are only that - suggestions for one good way to try to keep your stats (edit: I meant skills) high enough to have as many options as possible at all stages of the game.  It's really up to you to modify things as you like.  You shouldn't take my builds as ironclad, do-this-or-fail guides.  UnderRail is so full of options and second chances that it would be a shame not to explore your charcater build as you see fit.

[Tomg126]

Thanks so much mate, got it!

[Kiruha]

What about Survival Instincts for a Psychosis route? I tried it before Expedition, but I found it is too tedious for me to run with low health all the time. And it wasn't really helpfull at all, because I used to wipe out crowds with Thermodynamic Destabilization, Force field and critical Telekinetic punch (Mania) with proxy. I am thinking to start again with high CON, but instead of SI take fast metabolism and craft regenerative tactical vest with psi beetle armor carapace  (I think that this one is better than the psi crab one)

Maybe someone has better experience with SI and psychosis route?

[Sat]

I believe that Psychosis and SI are a smoother way for Dominating than Tranquility, for lower difficulties, you do not need to crit that much. End Game, you will be at 80% chance with a focus stim and a good psiband. You do not need to be always below the limit (Hemopsychosis can help to monitor). You can take Fast Metabolism and SI, they synergise well together.

Psi crab could be useful for some hybrid build/fights but the armor penalty........

[Kilgore Trout]

Thanks for the great guide TheAverageGortsby.

I played UnderRail in 2017 and my last playthrough was with Wildan's psi build (https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=2162.0) which I really enjoyed. Recently, I picked up Expedition and am itching to start a new playthrough. Since Expedition added a lot of depth to an already amazing game I wanted to ask if there are any changes you would recommend with regards to the aforementioned build?

Thanks again!

[TheAverageGortsby]

I wanted to ask if there are any changes you would recommend with regards to the aforementioned build?

I wouldn't play that build in Expedition.  You've got psi haste, so you don't really need Blitz; you've got Precognition if you go deep into TM so you don't need Dodge/Evasion or the associated feats and thus the Agility; you've got higher quality components than Wildan could have gotten back in early 2016 and you've got more need for crafting in general so you don't need to invest in stealth, which leads to the next point; Junkyard Surprise no longer can give +2 INT like it could back when Wildan wrote that post so you're going to either have to wait a lot longer to craft stuff (you won't get Hypercerebrix nearly as early as you can get JyS) or else you're going to need to go deeper in INT - which is what you should probably do.

I'd recommend the builds I recommended in this guide, rather than that one.  It's very, very, very out of date.  My recommended builds are designed so players can see the most that Expedition has to offer.  I'm certain you could do just fine with that build as Wildan suggested it  years ago, but you'll do even better with a build designed around how the game is today.

[Rakan]

Snooping: While absolutely not necessary, Snooping is handy for finding hidden things in the world.  While you can - with every possible buff active at once - find all secrets with just 3 Per and no Snooping, you'd have to wait until you were almost done with the entire game to get to secrets that you could have found much earlier.  Consider Snooping if you want to see everything, or if you want to level up quicker when playing Oddity mode.

Can snooping help me with the mines/traps in Depot A if I only have 3 PER?
I bought this game two weeks ago and my first character was a sneaky Psi with just 3 CON and PER.  I don't need to say that those Depot A mines wrecked my ass. 

[TheAverageGortsby]

Can snooping help me with the mines/traps

No. As the feat describes, it only helps you clear Perception thresholds for finding secrets in the game.  If you need additional trap detection, the most effective ways to go, from most to least effective, are:

Wear motion detecting goggles (a significant % of your raw detection score is added to your trap detection score)
Increase your Perception with buffs
Take the Paranoia feat
increase your Traps skill
(edit: though it should be obvious, I was wrong not to include this other option: just level up some.  Your detection also increases with character level)

I've seen a bunch of people talking about how you should put one point per level into Traps to make sure you can detect mines, but that's nonsense.  You can see for yourself either on the wiki or in the Builder tool that such a tiny increase in Traps has almost no effect on your trap detection.  So if you're going to use the Traps skill to increase your safety against mines, be prepared to sink a bunch of skill points, in order to have a noticeable effect.