Heavy Duty speculation

[ciox]

There could easily be a feat ability that changes the LMG/minigun's spread angle for the current turn.

[Valor]

That would make it a shotgun basically. I was more hoping for multiple targets selection, where you could (for example) select up to 5 targets in a cone, and each target would get 3-4 bullets at them, with some bullets from the burst lost in transition between targets. This would be more deterministic than shotgun random spread.

[ciox]

That could work. I remember old games like Laser Squad working like this, you could sweep machinegun fire between 2 arbitrary points on the map and fire an arbitrary amount of rounds. Things are rarely as granular these days.

[Vokial]

P.S. And about enjoying playing a Sniper build - man, you and me both! I played quite a few variations, and i think i ended up figuring no less than the most powerful build the game can possibly have. I mean, more powerful than all the Psi, melee, AR, energy pistol and all kinds of hybrids i am aware of. I was thinking to post it - my sniper build - in the "builds" subforum, but so far i saw little welcome for longer posts i do, so now i'm in doubt if i should. What you think? Should i?

Bit off topic about me logging in just for this, but please do. I also have a perfected build myself, but definitely open - actually hoping to see something new that I didn't think of.

[Lestat]

All burst has spread. It doesn't need to be added because its already in. Just shoot at a target in the back.

[Valor]

Cone is quite small for current burst and its very random/unreliable. Works fine for like 5-7 bullets. But if we approach 15-20 teritory you want to spread them out more.

[haze1103]

It could have a high AP cost on the first Burst of the turn, with a very low cost for subsequent Bursts. This way, you can adjust the target mid-turn.
Keep the Burst low on bullet count, but expect 3-5 bursts per turns

[Amannamedsquid]

Anybody else see the high tech soldiers with the armor and the robo-dog?  I wonder who they are and what their deal is...

[Fins]

Probably another remnant of old Biocorp. Robo-dog reminds me of Laser - which is one dog greeting the player upon 1st entry into Free Drones base when doing their quest line, and iirc it's said by Laser's master that the dog was artificially created kind of combat unit of some sort with heightened intelligence (sorry, can't remember exact wording about it). Then there's K2 in Junkyard, too. So we already know breeding / genetically designing dogs for combat is a part of game lore in Underrail. Further enhancing 'em with some cybernetics would thus be quite expected. Besides, the theme is quite staple thing in Fallout games, which, i recon, is one major inspiration to Underrail.

[Lowin Bayrod]

If heavy weapons requires a lot of strength, I hope the skill and feats scale with strength and not perception, that would be a serious faux pas in game design that the new weapons in a new dlc called Heavy Duty requires a lot of strength but only scales with perception. If you did this mistake Styg, you get a couple week to fix it.
Hoping the heavy weapons craft and unique weapons aren't locked to super late stuff and some can be acquired early enough, like around Junkyard (like energy pistol and chemical pistol) if you know where to look ; a skill you can choose to boost starting level 1 and you can't use till level 16+ is stupid, kinda like energy weapons and heavy weapons in the first two Fallout (sure you could cheese some if you knew where to go, but even as a french I can feel tired of cheese).
I guess there's some new additions to all build besides the new weapons types, with new feats and uniques. Please let that dlc be as refreshing as Expedition and see you next month everyone.

[haze1103]

If heavy weapons requires a lot of strength, I hope the skill and feats scale with strength and not perception, that would be a serious faux pas in game design that the new weapons in a new dlc called Heavy Duty requires a lot of strength but only scales with perception. If you did this mistake Styg, you get a couple week to fix it.
[...]

It's nice when there exists builds that are not just about maxing one stat.

I get your point when it comes to High-Technicalities, which always seemed to me like a poor excuse for investing in Int with guns.

But Strength checks are usually like, 10 at most. You can get that at level 1, and still max Perception after that without compromising anything. Your dex, agi, and will are probably gonna be at 3 anyway.

[Fins]

...
I get your point when it comes to High-Technicalities, which always seemed to me like a poor excuse for investing in Int with guns.
...

"Poor"? Math says otherwise. Late-game, High Technicalities beats extra effective Guns skill points from extra Perception, and dramatically so. Here's the numbers.

Consider this probable example: lvl 26 energy pistol build, Guns skill maxed at 140 hard points at the time. 16 perception, 10 Int before taking +2 stat feat. Now let's see which +2 stat gives more damage - Int or Per:

- +2 Per means: before gear / consumales, effective Guns skill gets increased from (140 + 12*8.5% =) 282.8 to (140 + 14*8.5%) = 306.6. The skill increases damage by this calc: 1 + 0.7 * Effective Guns Skill / 100. So, with 282.8 Guns skill, we do 1 + 0.7 * 2.828 = x2.9797 damage over base weapon damage stat. And this is our "100% damage dealt" before taking the feat. With +2 Per, we then do 1 + 0.7 * 3.066 = x3.1462 damage, which means +2 Per increased our damage by 3.1462 / 2.9796 - 100% = +5.591% damage by taking +2 Per. Damage bonus from High Technicalities remain the same, so no need to factor it in. +5.6% damage - is significant, but not oh too big increase, see?

- +2 Int instead - means: with 10 Int we had +40% bonus damage from High Technicalities, meaning our "pre-feat 100%" damage regarding the feat - was 140% of "everything else factored in" dealt. With +2 Int feat taken, this becomes +56%. Meaning, our damage, by taking +2 Int with HT present, increased by 156% / 140% - 100% = +11.428% damage by taking +2 Int. And that's even without any spec points spent into High Technicalities - with full 5/5 specced, it's 170% / 150% - 100% = +13.333% damage.

Conclusion: depending on how high Per and Int are at any given time, whether or not High Technicalities are specced, and whether Guns skill is maxed or not - extra points into Int can provide much higher, at times even more than twice higher, increase to energy pistol damage than same stat points spent into Per.

P.S. This is due to diminishing returns in Guns skill damage calculation: the higher it gets, the smaller and smaller relative gain it gives relative to already-existing level of skill. In fact, if to properly min-max Per / Int for High Technicalities build, significantly higher than 12 Int and much lower than 18 Per are the optimum, as obvious from the above; much depends at which level the player wants to arrive to "optimal" combination of damage bonuses in action, whether to spec High Technicalities, even how often / much +Perception / +Int consumables are being used in combat (so related to how high Biology skill is - whether crafting consumables or not), etc.

[Valor]

STR could lower AP required to shoot, in similar way how light weapons use DEX. That would be interesting. You would still need PER to hit/increase damage. Or go versatility

[Fins]

STR could lower AP required to shoot, in similar way how light weapons use DEX. That would be interesting. You would still need PER to hit/increase damage. Or go versatility

It'd be a bit weird though - minigun's barrels take time to spin up to full, and it be same time no matter how strong the user is. Dex is meant to reduce AP via user's higher speed in aiming and pulling the trigger of small weapons, i guess - but big things like LMGs, you just don't wave around aiming at multiple targets in quick succession...

Say, maybe Str could instead reduce armor penalty (from both armors and, if there's any, from heavy weaponry as well) for each point of Str above item's Str requirement? Higher Strength naturally means that user is less encumbered by all the iron. Ain't saying maxed Str should allow as much mobility as 0 armor pentalty maxed Agility build, but something like 50...60% of it? Could be nice. It also would make heavily armored Str-based melee builds not a pain to play - they could actually chase things somewhat well.

And to me it just feels right if extra-strong guy is able to move around with ease despite wearing half a ton of armor and using some big and bulky gun. He might not be fastest to pull the trigger, but his mobility barely suffers despite wearing / handling lots of weight - for him, these things are "light" alright.

[VidMasterEon]

It seems like a missed opportunity to make an expansion adding big meaty weapons and not add craftable power armor (i know about drill dozer) to improve build variety or maybe they did but didnt advertise it for some reason
combing through the trailer makes it seem like in order to use miniguns or LMGs you need to dump everything into strength perception and constitution to be viable since that example minigun takes a total of 11 strength to wield without I assume obscene accuracy penalties