Sniper sidearm (why pistols are underrated)

[Vokial]

Yeah, not much surprise here. It's just sounds so nice to try once:) Move and shoot penalty free Spearheads firing 3 times does make it an overall more user friendly weapon that would prove to be significantly reliable in a wider range of scenarios. Gun Nut would rarely benefit any weapon since even if it hits the higher territory, it would still be unlikely to reach it's full potential, the increase would be mostly between 0-15%. Again, IF it happen to score that part.

It's kind of demoralizing to hear about the enemy number increase though considering I plan on playing Oddity this time. Not much to do about it I guess.

Also, taking the high damage output of sniper rifles into account, the 7.62mm Micro-Shrapnel rounds actually seem to be more devastating. Also made up of materials that are perhaps one of the easiest to access. The bleed should be immense after an Aimed Shot. Probably great on AR's too (then again, 8.6mm Incendiary bursts could be pretty much flamethrowers).

[Tygrende]

Also, taking the high damage output of sniper rifles into account, the 7.62mm Micro-Shrapnel rounds does seem more devastating. Also made up of materials that are perhaps one of the easiest to access.

It is quite good for increasing damage with non-crit hits. It may even be worth making before you get your hands on AP ammo blueprint. But once you can actually make AP ammo, you're much better off using your spent cases on that, being able to use AP without worrying about conserving it is much better. You will probably have it much sooner with mercantile, too.

It's kind of demoralizing to hear about the enemy number increase though considering I plan on playing Oddity this time. Not much to do about it I guess.

Oddity is the better system regardless of how many enemies there are. But hey, the more enemies, the sooner you will max out their oddities, so you will level up a bit faster on oddity as well.

[Vokial]

It is quite good for increasing damage with non-crit hits. It may even be worth making before you get your hands on AP ammo blueprint. But once you can actually make AP ammo, you're much better off using your spent cases on that, being able to use AP without worrying about conserving it is much better. You will probably have it much sooner with mercantile, too.

It's a pity that from what I've seen on my previous play, I found bullet casings to be very-very rare. Especially for .44's. Makes sense to always purchase AP rounds from shops as much as possible.

Oddity is the better system regardless of how many enemies there are. But hey, the more enemies, the sooner you will max out their oddities, so you will level up a bit faster on oddity as well.

Guess that's a good way to look at things.

[Tygrende]

It's a pity that from what I've seen on my previous play, I found bullet casings to be very-very rare.

There's a 30% chance to get a spent case in your inventory each time you shoot. You could go as far as buying ammo from traders, then shooting it all at the SGS range to get more cases.

[Vokial]

There's a 30% chance to get a spent case in your inventory each time you shoot. You could go as far as buying ammo from traders, then shooting it all at the SGS range to get more cases.

Totally missed that. I guess it would've been more apparent with higher bullet consumtion. Thanks.

A biohazard vest won't do a damn thing against crawlers, since their bio damage is poison, which bypasses resistances.  A regen vest is much better against them (aside from being 1hko'd) because its healing isn't affected by hyperallergenic.

Also new info. Sad, crawlers were my main reason to ever use them.

I'm happy about this thread, so far got a more out of it than I thought. The addition of Strafe is perhaps the most valuable info for me. I remember easily disregarding it after I first saw it. Now the more I think about it, the more I like it. It just sounds so convenient to completely eliminate the penalty from the build allowing me to confidently move around, kite and make better use of the enviroment.

[harperfan7]

Biohazard vests are good to have in the black sea, since there are so many enemies that like to shoot bio projectiles, not to mention all the gas clouds.  However, the game throws the sec trooper helmets, biohazard boots, and heartbreaker leather at you (not to mention the CAU) so I imagine most people don't bother.

[Vokial]

Biohazard vests are good to have in the black sea, since there are so many enemies that like to shoot bio projectiles, not to mention all the gas clouds.  However, the game throws the sec trooper helmets, biohazard boots, and heartbreaker leather at you (not to mention the CAU) so I imagine most people don't bother.

CAU armor seems nice. I know both sides of that conflict can obtain it one way or another. Possibly the most powerful unique armor solely for those insane resistances, still would prefer a hand crafted tac-vest with less penalty and more stealth if possible. Yet I fear there's probably no way one could have that much Bio DR from a carrier vest. Then again that's just a single aspect of an armor, so we'll see when we get there.

[harperfan7]

A q160 one is just a hair worse at bio protection.

[Vokial]

A q160 one is just a hair worse at bio protection.

That is what I hoped, thanks for confirming.

One question remains, is it worth to consider adding Hit and Run to a sniper build? I don't have any experience with it, but it might not be the worst idea, keeping distance was always important. And the specialisation bonus is immense. Although this would strongly suggest me spending all my MP before scoring at least one (more) sure kill.
Possibly why Sprint seem to be more popular, Hit and Run need to kick in twice in order to get close to what Sprint brings on command, although a not more than a total of 30+30 MP each fight. Basic H&R has slightly less MP bonus and more restricting ways to invoke. Compared to that, the real benefit would only come from the 3rd kill onwards. That leads me to think that it might not prove to be that useful in most battles as even if I recieve the bonus I might not even be able to use it due to the map not being big enough or me not having a reason to change my location that much. But would probably be useful in big areas with many enemies like Balor's camp and might even be pretty spectacular against endless waves of natives.

[Bruno]

One question remains, is it worth to consider adding Hit and Run to a sniper build? I don't have any experience with it, but it might not be the worst idea, keeping distance was always important. And the specialisation bonus is immense. Although this would strongly suggest me spending all my MP before scoring at least one (more) sure kill.
Possibly why Sprint seem to be more popular, Hit and Run need to kick in twice in order to get close to what Sprint brings on command, although a not more than a total of 30+30 MP each fight. Basic H&R has slightly less MP bonus and more restricting ways to invoke. Compared to that, the real benefit would only come from the 3rd kill onwards. That leads me to think that it might not prove to be that useful in most battles as even if I recieve the bonus I might not even be able to use it due to the map not being big enough or me not having a reason to change my location that much. But would probably be useful in big areas with many enemies like Balor's camp and might even be pretty spectacular against endless waves of natives.

To me, the use of mobility feats for a sniper is to run away from a miss, or reposition into cover, mainly in the 1st round of combat when you come out of stealth and lack movement points.

Sprint always works, even if you miss, and this is when you really need it. Hit and Run only works when you have killed an enemy, so its usefulness compared to sprint seems questionable.

Same if you need MPs to get into darkness for the Ambush feat, you need that MP before you fire your rifle, not after.

[Vokial]

To me, the use of mobility feats for a sniper is to run away from a miss, or reposition into cover, mainly in the 1st round of combat when you come out of stealth and lack movement points.

Sprint always works, even if you miss, and this is when you really need it. Hit and Run only works when you have killed an enemy, so its usefulness compared to sprint seems questionable.

Same if you need MPs to get into darkness for the Ambush feat, you need that MP before you fire your rifle, not after.

This was kinda my line of thinking too, but I assumed that once I'm out of stealth with a Snipe, it hopefully dropped an enemy. And there's still enough AP for at least an Aimed Shot. Back away, then start the next round with falling back again, shoot to kill so I can retreat even more if needed. Keeping the distance like this would make me excellent at kiting groups of enemies (taking down the Rat King might not even require traps like this).
Sprint is only 2 times 30 at best. Of course it's much more usable not being restricted to a condition, we can cast it the moment the need arise.

[harperfan7]

About the only build I can think of that would benefit from hit and run is SMGs, since they do a lot of up-close killing with low AP attacks and can't benefit from fancy footwork

[Vokial]

I kinda thought that Hit and Run is just made for snipers above any other build, exactly bacause they do so much damage with each shot. It would allow you to keep your distance like nothing else. It's not even restricted to like, single use per turn. No crowd could ever keep up with you, not even with them using Sprint.
I mean let's say you have like an effective 30 MP. You run back that much, shoot someone for +25, retreat more, second shot result in another +25 MP you can move back, use Psycho-temporal Contraction for +30 MP, gain that much distance, then shoot your third shot thanks to it and recieve your third +25 MP. That's 135 MP in total. Without it, it would be 60. And it was only possible as each of your shot resulted in a kill, which is highly likely for snipers and they are exactly the kind that hit effectively even from so much distance. And that is not something that SMG's can do - despite them being able to attack much more than 3 times, Hit & Run doesn't really help them as they meant to remain close for bursts to be effective.

The only reasoning against it might be the fact that most area simply not feature that long corridors for you to run along on, so that severely limits it's use - excluding places where you can circle around a block of a building or room. But if you fight several melee enemies, like when a pack of 5-6 all rushes at you, then this would allow you to use all of your AP for attacks as you would still generate more than enough MP (as long as you score some kills) to retreat at least as much as they advance, even as they use up their MP + AP (+Sprint) combined. Even to keep yourself out of reach from ranged enemies with other weapons, since those have less range than sniper rifles.

[harperfan7]

I guess I didn't read your 2nd-to-last post; that makes total sense.

[Vokial]

Yeah, it's nice, I mean Sprint is limited to a total of 60 MP that you can only make use of in 2 portions of 30 for 1-1 rounds and that's it. Maintaining distance is important as sniper rifle's have to have a certain range in order to not loose precision.

Another thing, is getting Evasion such a bad idea on Dominating? I mean maxing it will provide you 50% blast resistance, that's yours without any armor penalty. Otherwise in case you might plan to add blast cloth, you would loose about +40 stealth from not having black cloth and the resulting armor penalty would decrease your stealth even further together with your MP. But, your blast resistance would not only be 50 but easily 75%.

However, not having maxed Evasion leaves us with a good amount of skillpoints to spend, so we can really-REALLY optimize the sh*t out of our build. For a proper comparison, please refer to the chart below.



There are 2 skill columns next to each other posing the question of either having maxed Evasion or none but instead be a jack of all trades that's also a total master of all with skillpoints raised to the now max thresholds in...

Hacking: 130 without tools, equipping the Engi-suit and taking Hypercerebrix with Underpie (can we use both at the same time?)
Lockpick: 130 with Eel Sandwitch, Engi-suit and Huxkey
Pickpocket: 140 to steal everything movable in the game
Chemistry: 112 for mk V mines & grenades
Mercantile: 105 with Hypercerebrix
Persuasion: 110 with JKK Jacket

...however, an enemy grenade could prove to be fatal.