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Underrail [PRE-RELEASE THREAD, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Alfons

Prophet
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
1,031
1) AR single shots and bursts get pretty accurate at medium range later on.

Pistols are pretty accurate at midrange.

SMG's are always inaccurate, at least if you stay at 7 PER. That's not an issue though because you get quantity over quality. You can reliably decimate groups of enemies at long range even when the actual target your bursting displays an 18% hit chance. Shooting 28-42 rounds a turn will do that.

Most important thing to remember is that darkness lowers accuracy beyond point blank range dramatically. Get night vision goggles as soon as possible, those completely nullify the darkness "debuff".

2) I used snipers on my AR guy for a bit but I found that it's not worth it. Whether the shot hits or misses a 7-9 round burst even with extremely low accuracy is more damaging and more AP efficient. That being said, if you are unsure just keep it. The economy becomes a non-issue past depot A (maybe before depending on how you play). I try to visit all the shops whenever they restock, doing so nets me around 1000-3000 charons and I still have around 50-70 items to sell. Their value ranges from 5k all the way up to 25k.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Sniper Rifles need the right feats like Aimed Shot, Ambush, Sharpshooter and Snipe to show their effectiveness and are more suited for stealth characters as an alternative to Crossbows. Also they need less strength to carry than ARs so they are nice for hybrid builds. ARs are more suited for heavy armor and high Endurance builds with no stealth. The only problem is that ARs have the same effective range as Sniper Rifles. Sniper Rifles should be superior in terms of effective range for balance purposes. Also the AP costs are a bit high.
 

Sjukob

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2015
Messages
2,052
I honestly find non-burst weapons underwhelming , I can miss 3 shots in a row with 85% chance to hit , so burst is much more reliable . I have no idea how people play with sniper rifles and their 40+ ap cost per shot , their accuracy is not that much better than assault rifles is .

So another progress report .
Current status: overburdened by money .
Gang war mission gives enormous amount of loot , I didn't even sell half of it and already have four 999 stacks of charons .
You know , I kinda find it funny . After harsh start , with little money and weak equipment , where enemies were better armed than me , they were higher level ( psi beetles , bandits and mutants ) had special abilities ( acid spray , cryokinesis , acid blob , itimidate <--- fuck this shit ) . Now I fight enemies who's level similar to mine , equipment is mostly similar to mine and they are not so scary already .

I've got another question as well .
Tactical vest seems like a really good armor , with good components might be even better than steel armor , am I wrong ? Should I cover myself with steel or vest is the way to go ?
 

Alfons

Prophet
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
1,031
Light tactical vests give low defense against bullets and low defense against mechanical. They rely on threshold instead of resistance. Their penalty ranges from 15% to...I want to say 35%.

Heavy tactical vests provide significant defense in the form of threshold, the resistance is the same as light I believe. They can have 35 regular threshold which becomes 4X that against bullets, so firearms need to do more than 150 damage to get past your defense. Their burden starts at 60% and goes up to 85%.

Metals armors are more versatile since they provide defenses to 4 types of damage standard. What kind of defenses are higher or lower depends on the metal. The thing that makes them interesting in my opinion is armor sloping. The reduction it gives to the armor penalty is huge. With super steel and armor sloping you can have 83% mechanical resistance with 28% burden. With armor sloping and nimble you can have 95% mechanical resistance and 81% energy resistance +a protection from flashbangs with 27% penalty. If your char has the strength for metal armor I'd use that.
 

Sjukob

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2015
Messages
2,052
Metals armors are more versatile since they provide defenses to 4 types of damage standard. What kind of defenses are higher or lower depends on the metal. The thing that makes them interesting in my opinion is armor sloping. The reduction it gives to the armor penalty is huge. With super steel and armor sloping you can have 83% mechanical resistance with 28% burden. With armor sloping and nimble you can have 95% mechanical resistance and 81% energy resistance +a protection from flashbangs with 27% penalty. If your char has the strength for metal armor I'd use that.
I am afraid I don't understand what is sloping and how metal armor can have such high resistance , the only thing I can think of is high quality materials .
 

Alfons

Prophet
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
1,031
Armor sloping is a crafting feat which lowers the armor penalty added by using metal plates when crafting armor pieces. It doesn't work for every extra plate you add but also for the mandatory metal plate. A 160 quality super steel plate gives 83% resistance a 120 gives around 70%. Super steel has the best resistance for penalty values but the worst threshold. If you don't mind about penalty it is possible to reach 95% rather early, but that would bring you up to 95% penalty which means no movement points.
Simply use multiple plates when crafting metal armor and use metal boots. 2 metal armor pieces is as far as I's go. Helmet and armor for melee and boots and armor for everything else.
 

veevoir

Klytus, I'm bored
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2015
Messages
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Location
Riding the train, high on cocaine
Shadorwun: Hong Kong BattleTech
Alfons - out of your experience - is it worth to go dodge/evade route or just slap the heaviest armor available and tank the damage?

Currently thinking about a psi bulid and dumping those 2 skills would seem very profitable. Then again Metal Armor doesn't accept Psi enhancement..
 

Alfons

Prophet
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
1,031
Depends. I found dodge/evasion to be effective at higher levels combined with infused siphoner armor and tabi boots. The thing to remember about it though is that all it does is lower the chance of enemies to hit, so it's a high low-risk high reward option. I had at least two instances of hail mary sniper aimed shots wiping all of my health. A nice perk about dodge is that it seems to work against bilocation. Evasion also lowers damage from AOE but I can't really comment on that.

What I like about metal armor is the certainty it provides. Shaving off 95% of mechanical damage handles everything I encountered without any issues. Another thing to consider is the fact that metal armor will allow you to use regenerative vests, light tactical vests allow you to do that too, but I think that the infused leather armors are much more powerful.

There is also the mobility issue. At this point I wouldn't use metal armor without at least armor sloping if you take that and nimble then reaching around 45 hit points is rather easy. Leather armors can get to around 80-120. All of these numbers are without using sprint.

In the end it comes down to what you are willing to sacrifice. For me it's the 2 perks to use with metal armor or having to raise 2 more skills indefinitely. Attribute points availability depends on the build.

TLDR: If I can spare the attributes I'd go with metal armor, that is simply a preference and both ways are effective.
 

gestalt11

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
629
Depends. I found dodge/evasion to be effective at higher levels combined with infused siphoner armor and tabi boots. The thing to remember about it though is that all it does is lower the chance of enemies to hit, so it's a high low-risk high reward option. I had at least two instances of hail mary sniper aimed shots wiping all of my health. A nice perk about dodge is that it seems to work against bilocation. Evasion also lowers damage from AOE but I can't really comment on that.

What I like about metal armor is the certainty it provides. Shaving off 95% of mechanical damage handles everything I encountered without any issues. Another thing to consider is the fact that metal armor will allow you to use regenerative vests, light tactical vests allow you to do that too, but I think that the infused leather armors are much more powerful.

There is also the mobility issue. At this point I wouldn't use metal armor without at least armor sloping if you take that and nimble then reaching around 45 hit points is rather easy. Leather armors can get to around 80-120. All of these numbers are without using sprint.

In the end it comes down to what you are willing to sacrifice. For me it's the 2 perks to use with metal armor or having to raise 2 more skills indefinitely. Attribute points availability depends on the build.

TLDR: If I can spare the attributes I'd go with metal armor, that is simply a preference and both ways are effective.

If you go high evasion you pretty much really really want a really good shield built to counter high crit damage. Shields work poorly with metal armor and very well with evasion/dodge. The real problem with dodge is crits are common enough due to feats that you can definitely get hit by one and they hit hard enough to one shot even through high DT (not high res but can get through even DT that would stop a good burst).

A very good shield that stops snipers(high) and energy(very high) can stop multiple crits, or at least mitigate them enough to not get one shotted. The high evasion itself will help to preserve the energy in the shield as well.

In general my conclusion was that if you are relying on evasion a lot good electronics + the extra energy perk is extremely favorable such that not taking that is close to gimping your build. That means you need 7 int, but it is so favorable that you would need something really awesome to trade out the 7 int. Not saying its required for all evasion builds, just that its extremely hard to find an equivalent trade.
 

Eyeball

Arcane
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
2,541
So, as a strict Xbow/stealth dude, I am now pretty stuck in Depot A. I need the key for the inner gate from a chest guarded by 2 autoturrets and 2 robots, but unlike the robots the turrets cannot be stealthed past. I do zero damage to the turrets with my xbow, my grenades don't do much more, I only have 2 emp grenadehs and those only stun for 2 rounds.

How the shit is a Xbow sneaker supposed to get that keycard from the locker behind them? I can't leap from a vent, take the card and then leap back inside since vent-use is forbidden during combat.
 

gestalt11

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
629
So, as a strict Xbow/stealth dude, I am now pretty stuck in Depot A. I need the key for the inner gate from a chest guarded by 2 autoturrets and 2 robots, but unlike the robots the turrets cannot be stealthed past. I do zero damage to the turrets with my xbow, my grenades don't do much more, I only have 2 emp grenadehs and those only stun for 2 rounds.

How the shit is a Xbow sneaker supposed to get that keycard from the locker behind them? I can't leap from a vent, take the card and then leap back inside since vent-use is forbidden during combat.

Its been a while since I played but isn't it the camera that is messing up your stealth and not the turret?
 

Eyeball

Arcane
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
2,541
Nope. Cameras are pretty harmless to my super stealthy sniper, autoturrets see straight through my camo.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
So, as a strict Xbow/stealth dude, I am now pretty stuck in Depot A. I need the key for the inner gate from a chest guarded by 2 autoturrets and 2 robots, but unlike the robots the turrets cannot be stealthed past. I do zero damage to the turrets with my xbow, my grenades don't do much more, I only have 2 emp grenadehs and those only stun for 2 rounds.

How the shit is a Xbow sneaker supposed to get that keycard from the locker behind them? I can't leap from a vent, take the card and then leap back inside since vent-use is forbidden during combat.

I had not many problems with my Stealth/Sniper build. Do you have Sprint and Evasive Maneuvers? Also Great against mechanical units is Premeditation+Electrokinesis.
 

Alfons

Prophet
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
1,031
If you go high evasion you pretty much really really want a really good shield built to counter high crit damage. Shields work poorly with metal armor and very well with evasion/dodge. The real problem with dodge is crits are common enough due to feats that you can definitely get hit by one and they hit hard enough to one shot even through high DT (not high res but can get through even DT that would stop a good burst).

A very good shield that stops snipers(high) and energy(very high) can stop multiple crits, or at least mitigate them enough to not get one shotted. The high evasion itself will help to preserve the energy in the shield as well.

In general my conclusion was that if you are relying on evasion a lot good electronics + the extra energy perk is extremely favorable such that not taking that is close to gimping your build. That means you need 7 int, but it is so favorable that you would need something really awesome to trade out the 7 int. Not saying its required for all evasion builds, just that its extremely hard to find an equivalent trade.
Yeah, that's pretty much how I run. I'd say the 7 int is a huge buff but more for skinner not power management. you can easily have an 800 capacity shield without it. The infused siphoner items I had added almost 160 to my dodge/evasion. The thing that seems to fuck me up most is crossbows. My current high freq shield can block about 300 very high and 200-250 high. Obviously it's shit on the low damage. Thing is, that even with high-quality components getting a low freq shield to block low damage beyond 40 seems fucking impossible, and crossbow aimed shots hurt.

I honestly have no clue what the fuck you mean by shields not working well with metal armor. It's just another layer of protection. None says you need to have it on at all times. It can basically provide you with another 500 undefended HP which enemies need to go through before they even touch you. Not to mention that it's practically required against those piece of shit electric spiders. They're an entirely different topic to bitch about.
 

gestalt11

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
629
Yeah, that's pretty much how I run. I'd say the 7 int is a huge buff but more for skinner not power management. you can easily have an 800 capacity shield without it. The infused siphoner items I had added almost 160 to my dodge/evasion. The thing that seems to fuck me up most is crossbows. My current high freq shield can block about 300 very high and 200-250 high. Obviously it's shit on the low damage. Thing is, that even with high-quality components getting a low freq shield to block low damage beyond 40 seems fucking impossible, and crossbow aimed shots hurt.

I honestly have no clue what the fuck you mean by shields not working well with metal armor. It's just another layer of protection. None says you need to have it on at all times. It can basically provide you with another 500 undefended HP which enemies need to go through before they even touch you. Not to mention that it's practically required against those piece of shit electric spiders. They're an entirely different topic to bitch about.

Yeah Xbow crits can hurt alot, but really you just can't make a low/low shield that will really make a huge difference in the problem vs some combo of med and high so you might as well make sure sniper and energy do as little as possible.

Shield works poorly with metal armor because they are done first and have no benefit from armor. If you are at 95% resistance a shield is almost pointless to bother with. Obviously it will do something but its minscule. Whereas evasion and dodging will happen before the shield. Someone crits you for 300 raw and you have 95% then its only 15 damage on your health but your shield can only take 2.5 of those before its gone. You might as well have a shield and just use it for emergencies to buy you a turn or two but beyond that its pretty poor performance. Metal Armor itself should be able to go many turns without need of a shield at all against most damage types.
 

GarfunkeL

Racism Expert
Joined
Nov 7, 2008
Messages
15,463
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Insert clever insult here
Not going to read 123 pages.

I'm building a PSI character. What combat skills - if any - should I pump as a backup/secondary.

Do I need the crafting skills or can I just buy the gear I need from vendors?

I'm literally at the beginning, just turned lights on in the five little huts, ie did the first mission.
 

Zdzisiu

Arcane
Joined
Dec 3, 2009
Messages
3,489
Not going to read 123 pages.

I'm building a PSI character. What combat skills - if any - should I pump as a backup/secondary.

Do I need the crafting skills or can I just buy the gear I need from vendors?

I'm literally at the beginning, just turned lights on in the five little huts, ie did the first mission.
If you are going all three PSI disciplines then there really is no big need for any other combat skill, maybe some spare points into throwing for better accuracy with grenades, they are quite useful for crowd control etc.
You dont need the crafting skills per se, as PSI, you gain access to all of the gear you will need at vendors, nothing (Well, I believe one minor attachement for armors, the psi beetle carapace is usefull for PSI and only craftable into armor) is really locked behind crafting. Crafting just allows you to get stuff of better quality, and more reliably than counting on vendors stocking the things you need. Crafting is also a nice source of income, but income isnt that much of a problem later on.

Just make sensible choices when it comes to feats and you can make PSI work easily.
 

gestalt11

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
629
Not going to read 123 pages.

I'm building a PSI character. What combat skills - if any - should I pump as a backup/secondary.

Do I need the crafting skills or can I just buy the gear I need from vendors?

I'm literally at the beginning, just turned lights on in the five little huts, ie did the first mission.

Depends on how you run PSI really.

A Triple skill psi caster starts to take up a lot of categories but is doable.

You could do an unarmed PSI with Pyscho as a major and Mind control as a minor.

You could probably do any one or two PSI and go for guns and use pistols.

Crafting is a definitely a major advanrage, whether you can fit them depends on other decisions.

By and large mechanics/tailor/electronics are going to be the ones you are most likely to go for. For PSI specifically the PSI enhancing headsets are electronics and often buyable from doctor type stores.

Tactical Vests are especially attractive to PSI characters due to Psi Bettle carapaces so I would suggest the tailoring/mechanics route with that. This can be quite good with the perk that takes off 15(or is it more) from armor penalty. I would say you will probably want to do all three of those craftings but you don't necessarily have to max them every single level due to the way quality of items caps out in each stage of the game.

If you go tailor you can usually keep stealth pretty low as you can craft stuff with rather high stealth bonus.

I would not skimp on lockpick or hacking on a first playthrough, but around level 12-15 you will often have them high enough with bonuses that you can start spreading points out somewhere else.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Having lots of fun with xbow/stealth, even if I got lost in about 20 different Lower Underrail cave maps. Where the hell are you supposed to find this Blaine dude, and how are you supposed to get decent directions from anybody in-game if you don't persuade Jonas? The Junkyard informers were vague.

Had a very enjoyable fight taking out the Core City tunneler gangsters. Used Quick Tinkering and the AP+ shot to quickly bear-trap the chokepoint then slip away, then kept tactically retreating setting more traps at 2 more chokepoints then firing poison bolts at them. One of the gangsters' high-level grenade could one-shot me to death, so it took a few tries.

So, as a strict Xbow/stealth dude, I am now pretty stuck in Depot A. I need the key for the inner gate from a chest guarded by 2 autoturrets and 2 robots, but unlike the robots the turrets cannot be stealthed past. I do zero damage to the turrets with my xbow, my grenades don't do much more, I only have 2 emp grenadehs and those only stun for 2 rounds.

How the shit is a Xbow sneaker supposed to get that keycard from the locker behind them? I can't leap from a vent, take the card and then leap back inside since vent-use is forbidden during combat.

I did Depot A last night with xbow/stealth, and you don't have to stealth past the turrets at all. You can come up on the North side of that map from underground, and then still find a way to access the surveillance computer:

through a secret passage in the wall
.

Alternatively, you can use that extra AP shot item thing and then run past the turrets' LOS in one turn to get into the surveillance building, do the job, leave the map, and then again use the underground areas to pop back up in the North map (the map with the mutants that you would head towards if you exited Northwest from the turrets map).
 

TwinkieGorilla

does a good job.
Patron
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Oct 19, 2007
Messages
5,480
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pathfinder: Wrath
2nd the notion that if you're building a strong PSI character there's no reason to develop any other combat skills UNLESS you want to be good at throwing shit (which I tend to).
 

Fenix

Arcane
Vatnik
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Jul 18, 2015
Messages
6,458
Location
Russia atchoum!
Where the hell are you supposed to find this Blaine dude, and how are you supposed to get decent directions from anybody in-game if you don't persuade Jonas?

Junkyard, that chick, electronic merchant, name start with K (not sure).
Blaine is behind the door with electronic lock, near place where you was ambushed (Jack Quicksilver quest)
 

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