Shroomhead alternative?

[ABundleofRibbons]

Now I haven't been playing for a super long time, but every time I start a game I feel like playing a psi character, and on my first level up I get shroomhead because it seems like a no-brainer. Maybe there should be an alternative feat, that is mutually exclusive to Shroomhead as a different method of Psi renewal, so that Shroomhead doesn't seem such an obvious choice?

Maybe there already is and I'm just oblivious, but these are my two cents.

[ABundleofRibbons]

I'm not sure if I care much for that change, but I suppose it's because I've been working off of the infinitely renewable mindshroom system. Otherwise I just plain wouldn't have enough psi to go around, since I'm making those psi skills my primary method of combat (With crossbows on the side). That being said, it is pretty much what I had suggested, though I was more speaking of an alternative feat.

[Elhazzared]

Quite frankly I don't like shroomhead now, it makes the feat quite useless for any focused psi character and makes the psi builds unviable given that psi builds relly on using psi abillities time and time again every single combat which was why I before said that it should just regenerate on it's own, now without a way to get free psi, psi abillities are at best a support abillity to be used used when in a bind. The problem with this is that you can't make a focused psi character because you need to be good at other things rather than psi and when psi isn't focused it often loses it's abillities as it either does less damage or enemies are just able to resist the effects turning psi useless.

The way shroomhead used to work was sub-optimal already because what it meant before was just a go back to the last mushroom and waste time waiting for Psi to refil. The ideal way for it to have worked previously was for mushrooms to restore Psi to 40% instantly in order to have less down time. Even more ideal would be just a feat that would regenerate 2% of psi per second up to a max of 40% when out of combat. This would remove the down time a lot and make psi viable again.

[Sakuragi]

Shroomhead is a waste of feat frankly. Psi booster are plentiful, cheap, eay to get/craft. Right now i have 43 of them and i am a pure psi user with the occasional gun shots. Better get paranoia.

[Elhazzared]

Surely after you get more money than god, but in the beggining you are not going to have enough money to just keep on spending on psi boosters and at the end of the day, drinking psi booster after psi booster is a bit wasteful. This not to mention the changes to the economy which include not only the merchants not buying everything making it a chore just to go around and sell everything, but also the weight limit which for the normal psi focused character is low as the usual build goes on 3 str.

Again I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying it's not viable to do a full psi character especially with the dificulty curve early on where your psi is low and your ways of recovery are virtually non existent.

[Elhazzared]

Melle + heavy armor doesn't goes well with psi, it's uust a grab that specific psi to use mellee at 3 squares distance. That isn't what I'd call a psi build, it has a minimal psi assistence and it isn't even because the abillity is that good, it's mostly flavor as the abillity only gives you a little bit of range in punches but gives you no bonus to damage or anything else. then again wouldn't make sense to give bonus because for that it would be dependent on your psi skill and if you're going heavy str based forget having a high psi bonus.

As for most builds having a limited amount of resources at the start... well true, but here's the thing. If I build a mellee guy, money won't be too much of an issue early on. If I buld a guy that uses guns, money will be an issue early one, but it will allow me to keep up with the expenses on bullets. If I make a psi guy I just will not have enough psi early on to get me through all battles because the boosters are very expensive and the psi reserves are incredibly small and non regenerative. You just hurt a lot in the beggining to make a psi based character because you nearly cannot use psi at all and instead have to use whatever secondary weapon you are okish at. You can still get through it I have no doubt, but you are severelly gimped by comparison to any other kind of build.

[Styg]

Melle + heavy armor doesn't goes well with psi, it's uust a grab that specific psi to use mellee at 3 squares distance. That isn't what I'd call a psi build, it has a minimal psi assistence and it isn't even because the abillity is that good, it's mostly flavor as the abillity only gives you a little bit of range in punches but gives you no bonus to damage or anything else. then again wouldn't make sense to give bonus because for that it would be dependent on your psi skill and if you're going heavy str based forget having a high psi bonus.

As for most builds having a limited amount of resources at the start... well true, but here's the thing. If I build a mellee guy, money won't be too much of an issue early on. If I buld a guy that uses guns, money will be an issue early one, but it will allow me to keep up with the expenses on bullets. If I make a psi guy I just will not have enough psi early on to get me through all battles because the boosters are very expensive and the psi reserves are incredibly small and non regenerative. You just hurt a lot in the beggining to make a psi based character because you nearly cannot use psi at all and instead have to use whatever secondary weapon you are okish at. You can still get through it I have no doubt, but you are severelly gimped by comparison to any other kind of build.

Not really. Matter of fact, during the internal testing I played a psi character that wore a metal armor and used a sledgehammer. It IS a psi build as most of my feats were psi feats and most of my damage came from there. It worked very well. The only problem that I had is low movement points so ultimately I think having a high agility psionic is better.

I had no trouble purchasing psi boosters. I even forced myself to skip biology, which I almost always take, just to see how much of a problems psi boosters are. And they are not, especially in the new economy.

I think what you're having problems with is that you cannot be a 'spell caster' from the get go and just kill everything with psi. This is intended. Psi takes a bit of time to get rolling.

[Elhazzared]

I haven't tested it yet Styg. I'm just taking a conjecture of what psi boosters cost, even if the new economy might not be as hard. Quite frankly the new economy system makes me not want to touch the game least I start hating the weight limits and having to run around for hours trying to sell my stuff because I just can't accept not being able to sell everything or take everything. To me that's only adding busy work that has no reason to be there, much like doing fetch quests in MMOs.

Now I don't assume that I'll do alright being a spellcaster right from level 1 and kill everything with spells. That said I do expect to have to use a spell or two per battle right from the beggining since it will be my best combat skill and whatever else I pick just a back up. Since at the very beggining you cannot afford the psi boosters and probably you won't be able to afford them in suficient numbers until past the GMS (ok I have no clue if the new economy system helps with this but I'm not expecting to be swiming in money, especially with weight limits and limits to what merchants buy). The GMS however requires for a spell caster to go very heavy on spells. The robots need energy damage and that comes in the form of spells and you need 2 to 3 spells per robot in order to kill it. Then you have the lower part where you need at least a spell or two in the starting room against those 3 guys. You need one spell in two 1v1 fights in the corridors. You need a spell or two against the 2 guys by the doors and then you need even more spells to deal with the 3 guys left inside... Now before the shroomhead was changed I could do this by just going back to the room in the middle floor and stand next to the mindshrooms. I'm fairly confident that the new system will not allow you to do this and eliminate the psi user based form of combat early on making full psi users not being worth much... Please assume a full psi user needs all the 3 psi abillities, it needs 10 will to star and normally starts at 3 str cause it's just the easiest way to attain those 10 will and give a few boosts here and there. From there only will is raised up cause it better your psi abillities further.

As for you saying you had a psi user going for heavy armor and a sledgehammer. Quite frankly I dunno how that went but frankly I find that having a low will and low psi skill values (since the will bonus is negligible) will make some spells not work many tames and damage from psi abillities be reduced. I'm not saying it doesn't works but I'm saying the Psi abillities don't work as they should. What helps you is a heavy armor taking the blows for you and well, sledgehammers do tend to deal a lot of damage if needed be... I'd hardly call that a pure psi user.

[Styg]

I never said I went low Will with my character, it was 10. I had enough psi boosters since I returned from retaking the outposts, never ran out. Which was also possible in the old economy.

Please assume a full psi user needs all the 3 psi abillities, it needs 10 will to star

I'm fairly confident that the new system will not allow you to do this and eliminate the psi user based form of combat early on making full psi users not being worth much...

Neither of these are true. Elhazzared, you should actually test something before making these claims of what works and what doesn't.

Anyway, didn't we have this argument about PSI users being unviable before and then Volgair did an actual breakdown of different builds: http://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=694.0

[Elhazzared]

We had one yes because it wasn't so viable to do without regeneration at the beggining. Sure it was possible to do it but it was sub-optimal before because of the huge down time and now I find it even worse. But if you say that you have enough money after the very first mission to pop psi booster like candy before each battle then I'll just have to take your word for it then, though that would seam contrary to what the new economy system would do which is trying to force people to leave less valuable stuff behind and keep them going after merchants everywhere to get rid of the few valuable stuff.

[UnLimiTeD]

... The new economy also cuts the price of all items in half. 

[LazyMonk]

Elhazzared, even if in theory the game has now features you dislike, you should still give it a try.
I am confident that it might surprise you, and that your style of playing wont be very affected.

[Elhazzared]

The problem is that I know myself too well and once I start disliking a game because I'm playing with thiongs I really hate then I just let go of it forever. I'd rather cling to the hope that some of these things are either removed or just become optional in the future and won't wreck my current love for the game.

[Loriac]

Started playing Underrail a few days ago (had tried the alpha a few months ago but didn't really get into it then), and wanted to make a few comments about psionics based on my experiences so far.  Logged about 25hours according to Steam so far, which includes trying several different builds all the way to getting to Junkyard.

First, I have no experience of the old shroomhead feat, but the new one is worthless imo - I would not take this for any character, as ultimately it translates to receiving approx 75 credits per mindshroom picked up (using 700 credits cost of psi booster / 170MP x 15 psi per mindshroom picked up).  I've no issue with the feat being as it is for flavour purposes, but as a selectable feat it looks extremely suboptimal to me.

Having said that, I encountered no difficulties whatsoever with a recent build that was pure psionic - skills were the 3 psionic disciplines, stealth, hacking, lockpicking, dodge and evasion (I wanted to try out a completely pure psionic user, so no other weapon skills whatsoever).  Stats were str 4, dex 4, agi 7, con 6, per 5, wil 10, int 4.  I played on classic xp (purely to test out the difference, as my first playthroughs were all using the oddity system).  By the time I'd finished the outpost quest and the hopper quest, I had enough credits from sold equipment to purchase a galvanic vest(! - if I hadn't bought this, I could have purchased another 15-20psi boosters), 6 or 7 psi boosters plus a few other bits and pieces.  I also found that despite having 0 in guns, I was able to equip 5mm and 7.6mm pistols which provided cheap attacks for when fighting easy or almost dead mobs.

I got through the entire GMS quest by using up all but one of the psi boosters I had, but of course once you've finished that quest you have a lot of loot that can then be sold for more psi boosters.  I had enough credits under the new economy system to pick up all the spells I could learn at that stage, and had a few nice guns and other loot left over to sell at Junkyard when I got there, plus a purchase of another 10 or so psi boosters.

I'm really not seeing any difficulty playing the early game as a pure psionics user, provided you make use of the starting pistol with zero skill invested for very easy fights where you really don't need to burn MP.  I suspect that once you've finished GMS, the cost of buying psi boosters is no longer a real issue, so the fact that it was straightforward to do so tells me that the economy isn't overly unforgiving even for a pure psionic build.

The only caveat to the pure build in my mind is how the early game plays on oddity - I intend to restart under that option to compare the two xp systems, but I don't think this will materially change the difficulty.

[LazyMonk]

Good feedback Loriac, and welcome to the forums.
I look forward on reading more of your posts.