Noob needs help with Sniper-Traps-Stealth-Crafting

[CaramelChaos]

Hey, I'm super new to this game just bought it on sale and it really butters my biscuit. But I can't seem to make any build that's very effective and I've restart 5 times so far after getting to around level 10. I've been trying to make a character that ambushes enemies while picking them off with a sniper rifle, but I feel like the points are just too few and I can't keep up with the skills I want, like hacking and lockpicking AND my main stats. I need some help with figuring this stuff out, thanks.

[Kiruha]

If you prefer to pick enemies one by one, sniper rifle is not so good, because it is loud. You will kill one enemy, and everyone esle will be alerted. It will be easier to do with crossbows, melee or psi. About skills - usually you don't need to raise stealth, lockpicking and hacking,more than 40-50. If you prefer to be stealthy, you need to raise them to these levels, and then you can switch to other skills, like crafting. Bear traps is a potent option even with 0 traps skills, so every character can use them. Also caltrops and some grenades are useful even if you are not a dedicated throwing specialist. Key to succes is preparing for batlle and thinking outside of box. You will win most battles mostly because of clever usage of terrain and tactics.

[CaramelChaos]

I was thinking more of stealthily laying down a garden of traps and then ringing the dinner bell with the sniper rifle, cause the baddies to run face first into their demise. I've been having some luck with it so far, but I'm afraid it'll fall off the further I go, so I'm trying to keep the damage up, which is what I really need help with.

[kakalbo123]

Like what Kiruha said, sniper rifles are loud, although since I only got passed Depot A as a psi-trap before getting a save wiped idk how a sniper main fights once the the encounter begins; How do you fight? I'm you set traps, delete one and fall back to where your traps are?

I do see your point, I played psi-trapper and I did what you want to do except I don't have a sniper rifle, usually I let them see me and run away to my traps or try to get a spell out.

You need a good amount of stealth to successfully tip an encounter in your favor from what I observed but it's dependent on the room. Either the encounter will be in the next room and blocked by a door, leaving you with all the space to maneuver and plan your deathtrap in the current room or they're patrolling an area 15 tiles away but it's an open area so there's not much room to set traps without getting spotted. Either way, from what I've played with my psi, being a trapper allowed me to burst enemies since I can trigger traps reliably with an aoe ability (pyrokinesis) idk how reliable thrown grenades are at 30-40 points but if you are playing guns I'd assume you'll need a reliable method to trigger them, psi allows you to either trigger traps at your own discretion either by hurling an aoe fireball or funneling them with an impassable psychic wall.

Idk if this really works but if an encounter was difficult (last bit of depot a) I placed an extra mine next to one and maximized the space available so I could trigger at least 3 explosions without one affecting the other (2 mines each). Followed by several bear traps ofc.