Underrail Forum
Underrail => General => Topic started by: RailNomad on May 08, 2015, 01:45:49 pm
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I've finished Gorsky's quest and am off to Junkyard now. I started with attributes
St 7
Dex 3
Ag 3
Co 7
Pe 10
Will 3
Int 7
I plan to specialize in Assault Rifles, heavy armor and crafting. I have put little points into Evasion and Dodge because I believe they don't help much when you have armor with penalty of 50%+. Finding or crafting such armor in the beginning seems difficult, so I wonder if I should have bumbed points into them anyway.
I got an extra attribute point at level up and I decided to put in into constitution. Is this a wise choice? Raising constitution up to 10? Again, I thought that if I'm going to walk in heavy armor I will not dodge the bullets anyway. However, at this point smg's seem to work better than assault rifles and I wonder if that extra point in agility would have helped me more than extra point in constitution.
About psionics. Should I try to learn a few tricks even with such low willpower or should I skip it entirely? Should I invest any points into these skills?
Persuasion & Intimidation & Mercantile. Powerfulness of these skills is difficult to determine, because the limit values are not shown. Worth the points or not?
Crafting: Finding gun and armor cases seems to be difficult. I propably just have to keep on looking. Mechanics is apparently the most important skill for my character. Is tailoring any good once I get access to metal armor? I believe Biology is useful for creating health hypos, but should I increase it above that?
And how do I craft ammo? I have lots of empty cases, but can't find blueprint for ammo.
I picked up recklessness feat. I guess it's just maths, but does it hurt more low-armor high evasion players or high-armor low evasion players?
Thanks. Amazing game. :D
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Well firstly my assault rifle build is rather different to yours. I started out with 6 strength, increasing to 7 to pick up full auto (although perhaps not too early, those extra two shots in an already ammo-expensive burst make things difficult...), plus 6 dex and 6 agility to get sprint at level 1 (hugely important, especially if you're using a high armor penalty build), and point shot later on (its damage is increase by smart modules as it counts as a special attack and you can use it every turn). all my other stats were the same apart from 3 Constitution and one less point in perception. Constitution isn't necessary for this build as you'll have options to avoid taking damage like high-quality armor (particularly tactical vests), and bear traps (the skill requirement to use them is super low and they will disable anyone for two turns). You need int 7 so you can pick up gun nut early, say at level 4 or 6, it's an indispensable ability if you're crafting your own guns.
The skills I chose for my assault rifle guy were
-guns (duh)
-hacking + lockpicking (It's the way I play every RPG. I like breaking into places and you'll certainly get your money's worth for these skills
-traps(You could probably leave this skill if all you're going to do is use beartraps but if you'd like to use mines and also disarm landmines for some small exp rewards (and so you don't get blown up) it's worthwhile throwing some points into this most levels.
- Mechanics, electronics, Tailoring (Increase all 3 to their max, but once you're starting to hit level 10 or so you can maybe skip a level and put the points you saved into some other skills to bring them to a useful level. Chemistry is worth taking to ~15 for armor crafting purposes, but that's an occasional thing. You could increase it more if you plan on crafting grenades/mines or special ammo
Feats to look out for are aimed shot, sprint, gun nut, suppressive fire, full auto, rapid fire+point shot, concentrated fire, and commando. Stuff like sharpshooter and critical power go well with any ranged build, and considering that you'll be putting out a large volume of fire expertise and recklessness would be good too.
as for your other questions:
-You don't need to put any points into evasion and dodge if you're using heavier armor, besides you can get some free points from a pair of tabi if you're using them.
-With 3 will psionics will not be worthwhile, don't waste feats or skill points on them when you've got other things you can be investing in.
-Depends, persuasion looks like it's a requirement to take certain quests and also to allow you to take some quests in the direction you'd like, whereas intimidate seems to be more useful to avoid fighting. I've often thought it may have been worth it to shave another point off my perception at character creation to give me 4 will, so I didn't have a penalty to my persuasion score (having 3 in a stat penalizes any relevant skills.)
-Mechanics, electronics, and tailoring are 3 extremely important crafting skills. Biology is more for people going to be crafting psionic equipment, or when combined with chemistry for people using crossbows. Try and end up with 15 chemistry at some point so you can craft using a particular kind of animal leather that's handy later on. Tailoring will be useful the whole game as you can attach overcoats to practically every set of armor and you can also make balaclavas and tabi. With high quality black cloth you can make a full set of stealth armor to keep in your inventory, and have some limited sneaking capabilities even without a single point in the stealth skill.
-The blueprints for gun ammo are rare and hard to find, some merchants stock them but it's extremely uncommon.
-Recklessness hurts low armor players more than high-armor ones. With strong armor crits aren't going to be that dangerous.
lastly even if you're concentrating on assault rifles, take a sniper rifle along with you as well. With some attachments combined with aimed shot you can one-shot a whole bunch of enemies which is very handy, for both opening combat and also for slowly taking out a bunch of strong enemies like sentry robots/turrets
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Thanks a lot! Now I've reached the point where I could craft my own metal armors and was suprised that I need 51 points in tailoring to put it together. The description of Tailoring skill is a bit misleading as it clearly is not just about putting leather and cloth pieces together.
Now that low Constitution high Ag&Dex seems counter intuitive, but guess I'll give it a try next time.
This is so great game in many aspects and offers so many possibilities.
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Let me just say this here:
If you pick Constitution and maybe Conditioning, you can play the game being as mobile as a brick.
Pick a high quality metal armour, or a really good vest, and you can tank most damage while dishing it out.
Mobility is crucial for a melee character, but Assault Rifles work while stationary.
Sad Baxter already mentioned the secondary sniper.
Tailoring is a necessity for basically all armour crafting, true.
You could obviously pick a low quality vest, but better is obviously better at this point.
You don't really need Psionics. Yes, they are useful, especially the non-combat stuff like putting up a temporary wall.
They cost a bunch of points, though.
While we're at points, mercantile is of... questionable utility. Given the current game economy, you just don't have a need for extra money. You already get so much you can literally melt it down.
Persuasion and Intimidation are skillsets that have their uses, and sure offer up additional RP, but you can do fine without.
They rarely have significant consequences.
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Now that I've gotten a grip of how the skill points work, I wonder if there's a way for some cheating and altering your attribute/skill points. I'll propably start a new character soon, but I'd like to test a few things first.
So, any chance for save game editing?
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Now that I've gotten a grip of how the skill points work, I wonder if there's a way for some cheating and altering your attribute/skill points. I'll propably start a new character soon, but I'd like to test a few things first.
So, any chance for save game editing?
Haven't seen any save editors and nothing's stored in plaintext. If you looked through it with a hex reader you might find some interesting stuff but I've never had the patience for it. All you can really do is use stuff like cheatengine to set your skill points on level up to a higher value or fix it in place. You might be able to do the same with feats as you get 1 feat point every 2 levels but searching for any integer with a value of 1 or 0 when you're memory searching is... next to impossible.
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I have yet a different approach when it comes to the assault rifles.
One big advantage AR gunner has is that he can afford to dump more stats than anybody else. He only really needs 8 strength to wear metal armor which is also enough to fire ARs without penalty (beware of Crippling Strike), and highest possible perception for damage and precission. Everything else is optional.
That leaves us with extra 7 stat points. Putting any of those into agility is probably the worst choice. You'll want to have the strongest armor possible and will reach 95% armor penalty anyway. Any points and skill bonuses to dodge/evade/stealth are gone. Same to qualify for the Sprint feat. Unlike a heavy melee or a gunslinger this character doesn't need to get close to his targets. ARs have a good range and if you need more use a sniper rifle as a secondary as already suggested before. In my experience it's still better to carry two differently speced ARs - a fast precise Hornet, and an anatomically aware chimera to hit hard (especially with crits when combined with Critical Power).
At any given time if you have a mediocre chance to hit, the enemy is even worse off as you'll always have higher perception. You don't always have to burst just because you can. With ARs you also get movement penalty so if you use Sprint to get closer your chance to hit won't improve much in that same turn (the enemies will now hit you easier though). When you really need to move it's better to use all your AP for good strategic positioning and shoot in the next turn.
From the free 7 points one could use 4 for intelligence to have crafting feats. Better than agility but still not the best choice. Armor crafting feats are not needed at all. You're a fortress on legs and will reach the capped 95% damage resistance with ease, even if you don't craft but buy all your equipment. Gun Nut is nice indeed but is 20% upper damage range worth 4 stat points? Absolutely not, especially if you have to shed off perception for that.
One single point in perception is better than Gun Nut. Damage wise it's almost the same but you also get a higher chance to hit and are saving a precious feat slot. In my eyes not spending every single level up stat point for perception is the biggest mistake one can make with an AR character. Of all builds I played this one needs the least amount of crafting. You can make best possible (non - Gun Nut) assault rifles with as little as 3 int, just not early in the game.
The best choice for those last 7 stat points is constitution and it fits perfectly into a total of 10 points. You don't only get a much higher HP pool but by taking Conditioning also +15 mechanical, cold and heat damage resistance which will later on be enough to allow you to free your headgear slot for good smart goggles (bonus to special attacks like burst) and bullet strap belt (a must when you are able to burst 3 times per round) which will replace the lifting belt (usefull early on till you get to 95% resistance cap). Constitution also has one of the best feats in the game available - Survival Instincs which gives you +30% critical chance when under 30% health and this is when you need it the most. Heck, together with Juggernaut the HP pool is so strong one could deliberately walk with under 30% HP, crit with 60-70% chance and still have the same if not better survivability than a 3 con build (as a permadeath player I would never take that risk though).
So assuming you'll reach level 24 you'll have:
8 str
3 dex
3 agi
10 con
16 per
3 will
3 int
Big advantage of a heavy armor build is you don't have to put a single point into dodge, evade or stealth. That will make you swim in skillpoints later on. Even when you completely satisfy all your locpicking/crafting, throwing and crafting needs you'll still have enough points left to maximise at least 2 PSI skills, even all of 3 if you don't go overboard with chemistry and biology. There is no need to waste points in social skills. They will do nothing in combat and you'll have enough money anyway, even if you melt tons of Charons.
PSI system is still very broken to the players advantage. besides Locus of Control which is very expensive you can get the best PSI feats like Premeditation and Tranqulity (good for stealth/high initiative builds only) with only 3 will, plus you always have a 100% chance to hit. Both Electrokinesis and Cryostasis are currently bugged and nobody can resist their stun/freeze no matter how low your effective psi skill levels are. With Cryokinesis and those two alone you can keep the enemy in a 1vs1 fight stunlocked with as little as 30+35 skill. No reason to skip that for so little points. Like I said though, this build can afford way more. PSI skills synergize very well between each other. The more you have of one, the more you get out of other two. That helps alot to compensate for the skill penalty you get with 3 will plus Survival Instincts also works with PSI abilities - double win.
Feat-wise I'd progress like this:
L 01 - Conditioning
L 01 - Opportunist
L 02 - Suppressive Fire
L 04 - Thick Skull
L 06 - Full Auto
L 08 - Premeditation
L 10 - Concentrated Fire
L 12 - Recklessness
L 14 - Commando
L 16 - Survival Instincts
L 18 - Critical Power
L 20 - Rapid Fire
L 22 - Aimed Shot
L 24 - Juggernaut
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Great post, Wildan! What's the advantage of 8 Strength instead of 7? You get all the feats with 7... How is the armor and ar penalty calculated?
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Great post, Wildan! What's the advantage of 8 Strength instead of 7? You get all the feats with 7... How is the armor and ar penalty calculated?
You need 8 strength for some metal armors, and it looks like metal armor scales better into lategame than tactical vests.
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How is the armor and ar penalty calculated?
I did some testing with a 8 str character and used Junkyard Surprise as a way to apply the strength debuf. I made sure that the character was not encumbered (which adds AP penalty on it's own).
8 str + tsten armor (9 str min) = 44 AP
7 str + steel armor (8 str min) = 43 AP
7 str + tsten armor (9 str min) = 38 AP
6 str + steel armor (8 str min) = 37 AP
6 str + tsten armor (9 str min) = 35 AP
So we can conclude that the AP penalty equals the same decrease of str exactly, in percent ofcourse. (all values are rounded down):
9 str - 12% = 8 str. ---> 50 AP - 12% = 44 AP
8 str - 13% = 7 str. ---> 50 AP - 13% = 43 AP
9 str - 22% = 7 str. ---> 50 AP - 22% = 38 AP (its actually 22,2222... that's why the penalty is 12 and not 11)
8 str - 25% = 6 str. ---> 50 AP - 25% = 37 AP
9 str - 33% = 6 str. --> 50 AP - 33% = 33 AP (debuff cap reached so it stays at 35)
No matter how low your str is compared to the armor you always retain a minumum of 35 AP, not even when heavily encumbered. It's till a hefty penalty for a single Crippling Strike, very effective against characters with no additional strength buffer, especially when combined with Wrestling. Yes, NPCs use the same dirty little feats like the player does. Armored AR gunners should never underestimate melee opponents and always carry a few adrenaline shots as a "cure".
Oh, I almost forgot: One awesome thing about Junkyard Surprise and crafting. It gives +1/2 and -1/2 to random base abilities, so by eating it you have about 7% chance to increase your intelligence by 2. If it gives you wrong stats just eat another one. It's temporarly ofcourse but thats all we need as a crafting buff. This way a 3 int character who previously had -10% in crafting skills now has +8,5%. Pretty neat for a bit of a food abuse. Just don't throw it up. ;)
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Question about Perception: According to wiki Perception only affects combat skills by increasing Guns skill, but since you have lots of skill points to put into Guns, what's the point of going above 10 with this ability? Or what do you need this stat for besides feats (concentrated fire requires 8 ) if you can increase Guns as much as you please with skill points?
I still consider getting the gun nut feat with int 7 and putting all extra points into constitution.
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Well, it allows you to spend less points in guns, or be even more accuracy against enemies that are tricky to hit.
You will, eventually, reach a level where more points in guns don't help, I suppose, so raising it above 11 or 12 is.... a matter of taste I guess.
Then again, you could just as well say that at some point you really don't need more hitpoints.^^
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Well, it allows you to spend less points in guns, or be even more accuracy against enemies that are tricky to hit.
But this "even more" accuracy is due increased Guns skill, right?
Constituion is an attribute that gives something useful by itself with every level, so having high constitution enables you to safely play with hp constantly at 30% and thus getting the advantage of high criticals from Survival Instincts feat.
Or then you could put those points into Will and get some of the psi feats.
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I wonder what is the useful maximum of Guns skill. Since you want the Commando feat, you have to raise the basic Guns skill to 80. With level 8 perception this gives effective Guns skill value 107. Of course the extra perception helps on lower levels when the skill is capped to a lower limit.
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The problem really is the diminishing returns on skills, but no diminishing influx of skill points.
I suppose you could do with 10 points of Perception just fine.
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Well, the Gun skill also adds a small but steady increase to your gun damage as your skill increases, doesn't it? So there wouldn't really be a "max" where it stops being useful, and it would be one of the few skills that's worth perpetually keeping as high as possible. Or am I incorrect in this assumption?
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Well, the Gun skill also adds a small but steady increase to your gun damage as your skill increases, doesn't it? So there wouldn't really be a "max" where it stops being useful, and it would be one of the few skills that's worth perpetually keeping as high as possible. Or am I incorrect in this assumption?
If this is true, then Wildan is correct indeed and every extra point should be put into Perception and four extra points in perception are worth more than gun nut feat.
At level 25 you can max your base Guns skill at 135, but with 16 Perception the effective Guns skill is 272! Compared to 203 with Perception at level 10 or 180 at level 8.
Wiki says: "The formula for damage gained from Guns skill is Base Damage * (1 + 0.7 * Effective Guns Skill / 100)."
Lets do some maths. If you want to have Co:10 and Int:7 (for gun nut feat) you can raise your perception to 12. This gives maximum Effective guns skill 226
Damage multiplier = 2,582
Effective guns skill 272
Damage multiplier = 2,904
Let's take a weapon, which has a basic damage of 20.
With Gun Nut you can make it 24 and with Guns 226 multiplier added the damage is 61,968
Without Gun Nut, with Guns at 272. The damage is 20*2,904=58,08
Slightly less, but very slightly, since the accuracy bonus from Guns skill make difference at low levels.
So, if this holds true, I guess Wildan is right and all the extra points should indeed be put into Perception.
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Well. Let's take another calculation. Max damage for Chimera AR is 36 and critical damage bonus is 130%. So with zero skill it deals 79,2.
With Gun Nut, the max damage is 43 and critical damage (with zero skill) 98,9. Now let's add the multipliers
Guns 226 (with Gun Nut)
98.9*2.582=255
Guns 272 (without Gun Nut)
79.2*2.904=230
The difference is about 10% in this example and 7% in the previous with advantage to Gun Nut, but Perception has other benefits, plus Gun Nut takes a feat slot.
So. I guess I'll go with Wildan next time.
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I suppose you could do with 10 points of Perception just fine.
It's not only about damage. If you're using a build focused on mostly single shots or special attacks with no/little aim penalty, then yes - 10 perception will do. If you plan doing a lot of burst attacks and actually hit your target, then you'll want every bit of weapon skill you can possibly grab at any given level. Each stat point above 4 gives you 8,5% bonus to the corresponding skill. Endgame at level 25 when you max your weapon skill (135) you'll have 272 effective points. With 10 perception you'll have only 203 which is about 25% less. At lower levels that difference is smaller and matters less ofcourse, but that's true for every combat stat.
As the game progresses enemies generally brach out in two ways: Those with heavy armor and others with high dodge/evade skill. Chance to hit is calculated with your attack skill vs their defense skill (in case of ranged weapons - evade), but it doesn't stop here. The distance between you and the target gives you a penalty to hit for each tile and on top of that using burst fire significally lowers your chances as well. This is the main reason why I recommend Premeditation paired with Electrokinesis. Free stun in the first round can make a difference between hitting and missing most of the 7-9 burst shots. Stunned enemies have their whatever evade skill reduced to 0 - one major factor canceled out. You kill the enemy with the help of opportunist damage bonus, yay -> free commando burst. Another Electrokinesis for 30 AP --> stun, kill with the free burst, freeze another enemy for 10 AP, reload your gun.
Next round if there are more enemies around they usually try to get closer to hit. There is no need to waste AP for movement (unless one has to deal with psionics). Not only there are no MP but there is also to hit penalty in the same round if the character moves. As a heavy armor combatant you have no evade skill and want to be as far as possible from the enemy, just more the reason to bump up perception as high as possible.
Ofcourse one could take a whole different approach and make a mobile, sneaking, light armored character with both dodge/evade who relies less on perception but that's a completely different build which is better suited for SMGs.
It's actually possible to have an effective mediocre perception ranged character. My favorite pistol build right now uses 7 perception but can only get away with that because of good CC (Electroshock pistol + Electrokinesis/Cryostasis/Tranqility/Premeditation and high mobility.
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Sounds pretty effective. What is your choice of weapons Wildan? Low calibre Hornet paired with Chimera? Higher crits or more crits with extensions?
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Yes, first slot for high precission and low AP cost: 7.62 Hornet with a scope and rapid reloader. If I have a bad/mediocre chance to hit then I use single shots. If I can burst realiably then it's the second slot Chimera with a smart module, high resolution digital scope (+10% critical chance) until I get the Critical Power feat, then it's an anatomically-aware scope (+50% critical damage bonus).
When there are many melee guys I might put a SMG in the first slot. Having 8 str is not much actually and NPCs love the Crippling Strike which has 1 round cooldown and can stack up to 3 times. 1 cripple stack does a -2 str debuff which gives you 13 AP penalty becase you can't meet the str requrement for the metal armor anymore. 2 stacks and you get AP AND precission penalty because ARs need min 6 str for propper use. As we discussed before, debuffs can't lower your AP below 35 but the aiming penalty seems severe enough even with high weapon skill and point blank range.
2+ stacks will give you a -15 AP penalty because of the armor alone. SMGs have no str requirement so you at least won't get any aim penalty when crippled. A 7.62 mm steelcat SMG with a rapid reloader can burst once despite the 2x crippled debuff, a 8.6 mm can't unless it's only 1 stack.
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Oh my. Got to test this build now. Rocks! Opportunist + Premeditation + Electrokinesis is a killer. Went to junkyard before gms quest and got some metal armor and huszar assault rifle. Condtioning + Lifting Belt + Metal Armor is great combo. Had to fetch Kohlmeier's knife for the credits. Bear traps did help a lot. I'm still a bit unsure about the optimal feat progression for this character. I did pick up Survival Instincts at level 1 or 2, but with low-level character I find it too dangerous to fight with 30% health, so that feat could have been picked later on. I postponed suppressive fire feat. I guess I'll pick it up once I encounter some smart goggles.
At Level 8 I have (in order): Conditioning, Survival Instincts, Recklessness, Opportunist, Premeditation. I'll pick up Concentrated fire on level 10, opportunist at level 12 and commando at level 14. Critical power at level 16, and maybe full auto at 18. (It's really waste of bullets early on). Thick skull is useful, but if you're not playing permadeth, you can usually practice some saveload scumming to plan your move so that you don't get stunned. But perhaps that's my level 20 feat. Then maybe juggernaut and, I don't know, rapid fire?
EDIT: It seems that Suppressive fire is not required for Smart Goggles to work, any special attack, including ordinary burst will do. I tihnk I'll postpone it a little more.
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One further point to the Intelligence vs Perception debate: I finally got my hands on a top quality sturdy vest (135) and four super steel plates (145, 117, 93, 79). Skill level required to craft a metal armor from these is Mechanics 138, Tailoring 108. I'm currently at level 22, so I could put one extra point to Int (raising it to 4) when I reach level 24 and thus be able to put this armor together. However, if I stand at Int 3 and use junkyard suprise to rise it to 5, the theoretical maximum for this skill at level 25 is 135, which means the armor is beyond my reach.
I've also noticed that now as I have effective Guns skill at 222, my to-hit percentages are still pretty low. I don't know the formula and I don't know the level where increasing Guns skil doesn't help anymore, but I'd say that the bonus-to-hit from Guns skill is not such a strong argument here, as you in any case will have a high Guns skill.
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You get 8,5% skill bonus for every int point above 4, so with 5 you'd have a maximum of 147 points at level 25. If you can't meet the crafting skill requirements simply use slightly lower quality on additional plates, the loss won't be big. What matters is the quality of the vest and the basic plate you use for the first crafting slot. If armor penalty doesn't matter you can reach 95% mechanical resistance cap easily even without top quality plates with armor, boots and Conditioning alone. High crafting skill matter a lot more for light armored builds.
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Oh. I thought you get penalties for everything below 5. I have to get some junkyard suprise and see if I can make it happen. It's promised to have 100% mechanical resistance by the way :-)
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I hope not. ;)
Last I remember Styg actually wanted to nerf heavy armor users who are pretty much invincible these days. I always make sure to hoard Junkyard Suprise as much as I can. It can take alot of binge eating to actually get +2 int. I don't even try if I don't have 50+ hamstered in my shelf.
Btw. concerning the weapon skill and chance to hit. I did no tests myself but I guess you could simply use +1 perception goggles to check if the chance improves when you aim at any static character from far. You don't need to shoot, just check the numbers with burst. etc. If one has the nerves this test could be done at every level on the same character/gun and aiming from the very same tile and note the numbers. I'm pretty sure that once the NPCs are generated their skills stays the same on that playthrough.
Epeli wrote in the wiki but I don't know how he meant this exactly: "Precision is affected by many different modifiers, especially in ranged combat. Some precision penalties cannot be mitigated with weapon skill alone."
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I do like it that you don't get super precision because it makes most games very boring. One thing which I overlooked though is the night vision. I only tested it at the very last phase of the game. It does make a difference.
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Epeli wrote in the wiki but I don't know how he meant this exactly: "Precision is affected by many different modifiers, especially in ranged combat. Some precision penalties cannot be mitigated with weapon skill alone."
Yeah, there's a myriad of things that can affect precision. At least all the ones listed on that page and probably something more, I haven't looked at it in a while.
Some of those modifiers are applied to the final hit chance, so they can't be countered with weapon skill. I don't remember which ones, but I think it's mostly the precision penalties on weapon stats.
Insufficient strength/skill penalty, melee obstruction, burst precision modifier, and probably others I can't think of right now.
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Does steel armors affect dexterity?
If i want to use heavy armors should i ignore dexterity and agility completely?
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No armor will ever lower your stats (apart from perception for helmets and Tchortist armors). However every armor has a derived statistic called armor penalty which decreases your movement points, dodge, evasion and stealth by the same percentage. It's capped at 95% (can be lowered with feats) so if you plan a heavy armor character with armor penalty at, or near that cap you should dump agility and all skills based on it, as they will become (nearly) useless.
There is one exeption to this. 6 agility for characters with 95% armor penalty who need to take sprint feat as the only way to gain mobility, for example heavy sledgehammer users with heavyweight feat. They should still disregard agility skills as mentioned above. Tabi boots also give flat movement points which are unaffected by armor penalty. This is actually a bug because those MP should decrease as from any other source. I think a fix is planned for the next patch.
If you have at least 6 int, in most cases it pays off to invest in armor sloping and nimble feats to significally lower the armor penalty. It's possible to make a super steel armor brawler with capped 95% armor resistance and still low enough armor penalty to be able to use lightning punches feat, hoever not until later in the game where you not only need good quality super steel plates but also high enough crafting skills. Junkyard surprise can give you up to 2 int poins temporarly which is a great help in this matter.
There is no relation between armor and dexterity.
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No armor will ever lower your stats. However every armor has a derived statistic called armor penalty which decreases your movement points, dodge, evasion and stealth by the same percentage. It's capped at 95% (can be lowered with feats) so if you plan a heavy armor character with armor penalty at, or near that cap you should dump agility and all skills based on it, as they will become (nearly) useless.
There is one exeption to this. 6 agility for characters with 95% armor penalty who need to take sprint feat as the only way to gain mobility, for example heavy sledgehammer users with heavyweight feat. They should still disregard agility skills as mentioned above. Tabi boots also give flat movement points which are unaffected by armor penalty. This is actually a bug because those MP should decrease as from any other source. I think a fix is planned for the next patch.
If you have at least 6 int, in most cases it pays off to invest in armor sloping and nimble feats to significally lower the armor penalty. It's possible to make a super steel armor brawler with capped 95% armor resistance and still low enough armor penalty to be able to use lightning punches feat, hoever not until later in the game where you not only need good quality super steel plates but also high enough crafting skills. Junkyard can give you up +2 int poins temporarly which is a great help in this matter.
There is no relation between armor and dexterity.
Thank you for the long answer
I'm gonna make my first character so i want to try out atleast 3 of the craftings skills.
I just have a few offtopic questions hope it's okay
Would you say it's better to have 8 str and use heavy armors or 6 str with riot gear and 5 points in con and conditioning?
I want craft alot and use pistols, smgs, grenades, and AR as offensive so i'm thinking something like this
st 8 or 6
dex 10
ag 3
con 3 or 5
per 8
will 3
int 4
skills:
guns
throw
lockpicking
mechanical
electronics
chemical
biology
tailoring
it's my first character but i still wonder if i have thought out an okay build?
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You're on the right track with your idea. I wouldn't recommend heavy armor for pistol/SMG characters though. I'll explain a little bit further down. Both weapons are considered light, so more dexterity you have, more attacks can you do per round.
This chart is dexxer his best friend: http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dexterity
Another important stat is perception. Guns skill directly corresponds with it and both, your chance to hit and damage increase along with it (no law of diminishing return here). Idealy you will want to start with 10 in both perception and dexterity. The question weather you should focus on dexterity or perception on your level ups depends on your burst weapon choice:
Is it SMG then go for dexterity. If you mainly want to use the assault riffle as the burst weapon then raise perception as all your weapons profit from it, as compared to dexterity which doesnt help ARs at all and I personally prefer those over SMGs which sound great in theory, but in the field you'll start to realize that they are very weak against enemies with high damage threshold. They are ok with gun nut and expertise if used situationally. Not excellent but ok. Another argument against SMGs is, to be really effective with them you need 6 agi for the spec ops feat. You can't afford those here. Only good for a pure SMG build that swaps str with agility.
Commando feat gives you 1 free burst upon killing an enemy with burst, so better to use that with a strong weapon.
In any case that doesn't leave much room for other stats. 6 strength is minimum for the steadfast aim feat which I consider a must for pistol characters. You could actually raise strength to 8 and dump everything else left:
8 str
10 dex
3 agi
3 con
10 per
3 wil
3 int
However there is a problem with this. Heavy armors only make sense if you can reach 95% mechanical resistance cap, or at least be close to it. With 3 con you cant pick conditioning, so with ancient rathound leather tabi boots (+5%) and lifting belt (+10%) you need a heavy armor with at least 80% damage resistance. Possible, but not without a hefty armor penalty and you cant take armor sloping here. Penalty to dodge and evade will be not much of a problem, you're almost immune to mechanical damage at this point, but as a walking can you'll have very few movement points. Sure, your weapons are ranged but it is very limited. Quite so for pistols, even more for energy/chemical ones and if you want to perform execute, you'll need to be almost in melee range.
ARs are not that bad though but it would be waste to focus only on them and use (electro)pistol only if the enemy happens to be near enough.
To get back to the actual build. This is what I would recommend:
(http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/655e/z8o05r2tquv4h4xzg.jpg?size_id=5)
Like I mentioned in the beginning, heavy armor is not the best option here. Better idea would be to set strength to 6 and use tactical vests. I'm not very fond of riot gear for nimble characters. They can be very useful, especially the shield variant but you cant use that with ARs. Besides that, to get the 10% nimble bonus you need an armor with 15% armor penalty or less. Riot armor always has at least 20%.
So stick to light tactical vests made with reinforced fabric ballistic panel which favors resistance. Don't use armor plates. Going after high damage threshold is only really worth it with ballistics feat and kevlar balaclava/tabis. You cant pick that feat here and need the headgear slot for goggles. Conditioning + ancient rathound leather tabis + lifting belt + good vest will give you solid mechanical damage resistance.
Use http://underrail.info.tm to decide how to spred your skills. Go full on guns, dodge and evade, few points in traps. Lockpicking and hacking up to effective 75 (including tools + Jackknife) and then just enough so you can open the locks (you previously failed) after next levelup, psychokinesis 25 for force field (very underestimated psi ability), metathermics 35 for cryostasis (together with electropistol you can keep 1 enemy stunlocked), for crafting you'll only really need mechanics + electronics + tailoring. the rest of crafting skills only if you can afford them (which you probably won't), initially up to 50 into throwing and additonal points only when you dont need them right now for crafting. Make sure to use junkyard suprise for temp int bonus. I usually dont aim for +2 (small chance) until I have hoarded lots of them but instead for +1 (much more likely to get). With +1 you'll have 4 int which will offset your -10% skill penalty you get with 3 int.
A major problem with this build is you use more than 2 different weapons. I always recommend amplified electroshock pistol in one slot. Seriously, that thing is so OP, with crits you often kill 3 enemies that are around your level. With so many burst feats, you also want a fast AR in the other slot, but you also shouldn't miss doing executes with a .44 cal pistol. The issue is you would have to waste full 50 ap points to swap a weapon from the backpack.
So one alternative idea for this build would be to replace either full auto or supressive fire with quick pockets for 25 ap weapon change instead of 50 ap (one extra utility slot is helpful too) and take it earlier in the game. That way you can start battles with a sniper from afar, with lots of grouped enemies burst them with an AR and for vs 1 or vs 2 a .44 cal. I haven't playtested this particular build yet but I'm sure it's not only very versatile but also fun to play. Carry weight limit might be a problem though.
If you're in for min/maxing, the way things work right now with amplified weapons it's best to stick to a max dex build with pistols. Still room for quick pockets and strategical gameplay with a sniper until the enemies are near enough for the pistols. Skillwise only difference is stealth instead of throwing. All in all something like this:
(http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/2523/s4v35dmch3lkza9zg.jpg?size_id=5)
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To get back to the actual build. This is what I would recommend:
(http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/655e/z8o05r2tquv4h4xzg.jpg?size_id=5)
Like I mentioned in the beginning, heavy armor is not the best option here. Better idea would be to set strength to 6 and use tactical vests. I'm not very fond of riot gear for nimble characters. They can be very useful, especially the shield variant but you cant use that with ARs. Besides that, to get the 10% nimble bonus you need an armor with 15% armor penalty or less. Riot armor always has at least 20%.
So stick to light tactical vests made with reinforced fabric ballistic panel which favors resistance. Don't use armor plates. Going after high damage threshold is only really worth it with ballistics feat and kevlar balaclava/tabis. You cant pick that feat here and need the headgear slot for goggles. Conditioning + ancient rathound leather tabis + lifting belt + good vest will give you solid mechanical damage resistance.
Use http://underrail.info.tm to decide how to spred your skills. Go full on guns, dodge and evade, few points in traps. Lockpicking and hacking up to effective 75 (including tools + Jackknife) and then just enough so you can open the locks (you previously failed) after next levelup, psychokinesis 25 for force field (very underestimated psi ability), metathermics 35 for cryostasis (together with electropistol you can keep 1 enemy stunlocked), for crafting you'll only really need mechanics + electronics + tailoring. the rest of crafting skills only if you can afford them (which you probably won't), initially up to 50 into throwing and additonal points only when you dont need them right now for crafting. Make sure to use junkyard suprise for temp int bonus. I usually dont aim for +2 (small chance) until I have hoarded lots of them but instead for +1 (much more likely to get). With +1 you'll have 4 int which will offset your -10% skill penalty you get with 3 int.
A major problem with this build is you use more than 2 different weapons. I always recommend amplified electroshock pistol in one slot. Seriously, that thing is so OP, with crits you often kill 3 enemies that are around your level. With so many burst feats, you also want a fast AR in the other slot, but you also shouldn't miss doing executes with a .44 cal pistol. The issue is you would have to waste full 50 ap points to swap a weapon from the backpack.
So one alternative idea for this build would be to replace either full auto or supressive fire with quick pockets for 25 ap weapon change instead of 50 ap (one extra utility slot is helpful too) and take it earlier in the game. That way you can start battles with a sniper from afar, with lots of grouped enemies burst them with an AR and for vs 1 or vs 2 a .44 cal. I haven't playtested this particular build yet but I'm sure it's not only very versatile but also fun to play. Carry weight limit might be a problem though.
If you're in for min/maxing, the way things work right now with amplified weapons it's best to stick to a max dex build with pistols. Still room for quick pockets and strategical gameplay with a sniper until the enemies are near enough for the pistols. Skillwise only difference is stealth instead of throwing. All in all something like this:
(http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/2523/s4v35dmch3lkza9zg.jpg?size_id=5)
Great answer thank you, i think i will go for a Sniper/AR Pistol Vest build.
What was that you said about agility, that i need it for SMGs or do i need it for pistols aswell?
You also said to max out evade and dodge, is that with or without points in Agility?
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I forgot to put quick pockets in my last chart. Here it is, replacing point shot and moved to level 8:
(http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/525a/mfj73p4rs51e15azg.jpg?size_id=5)
Agility is always good for light armored builds but if you have to sacrifice other important stats for it, it's not worth it. You don't really need it as you don't need any feats requiring agility. Tabi boots give a nice bonus anyway and nimble gives another 15% (raised from 10% in the upcomming patch) so yes it's worth maxing it with only 3 agility, it's mandatory actually.
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Wanted to ask this without making new threads :
What Core City faction shall i choose for my Guns+Throwing+Traps Assault Rifle Combatant who uses Heaviest Metal Armors , and has all the crafting skills at very high level (9Str 7Dex 7INT , Maxed Perception , Rest at 3) ? Is it Coretech ? or Praetorian Security ? I sided with Protectorate before doing Core City quests and finished their quest line already , i am mainly interested in decent Vendor selling decent crafting parts to craft Assault Rifles , Metal Armors , and Electronic Gadgets ( Shield emitters , goggles etc.etc. ) i doubt the rewards written in wiki will matter to me as i can craft some high end gear myself ( not sure if there is any point in having 120+ mechanics and stuff tho ) , also this AR build becomes insane after level 14 with commando you can kill 4 enemies in 1 turn easily and have spare points to move / throw a FB .