So i've read that a poor build can actually fuck you midway through this game, and I was hoping to get some tips.
I'm not trying to minmax and I don't want a build on a plate, I just want to know enough to stop me from fucking myself over.
Aside from that, is stealth viable? Crossbows or guns?
Playing on normal btw. Newish to non-casual CRPGs. Any general tips?
A wizard.
An Uninstall wizard.
The best build for this game.
Triggered niggers in 3...2...1
Pick a form of dealing damage.
Pick a form of avoiding/mitigating damage.
Focus on these two.
Get lockpicking, hacking and something else if you want to.
There, you're golden.
It's seriously such an ugly and clunky game. It's worse than classic RPGs in pretty much every aspect, yet has an extremely vocal fan base.
Do I need both lockpicking and hacking?
Yes, you should go for crafting, lockpicking, hacking and one form of dealing damage. Also either go full dodge/evasion, or just rely on tactical vests/armor and energy sheilds. Riot armor is a joke except for one unique set. Pick feats that benefit your offensive skills or crafting.
>So i've read that a poor build can actually fuck you midway through this game
Nah, a poor build will most likely fuck you by the end of the tutorial. If you finish that and didn't have to sweat blood to do it, you have nothing to worry about.
>Aside from that, is stealth viable?
Very viable, both for sneaking path things and using it for ambush.
>Crossbows or guns?
Crossbow is kind of hard mode for a new player, but you can still give it a go as long as you keep it in mind that crossbow plays best as wizard-lite, relying primarily on special damage bolts instead of dealing raw damage.
Guns depend on the kind of gun you want to use. Pistols are currently the weakest build in the game. Chemical and Energy are alright, can be pretty damn good if built well. SMG and AR are simple and very reliable. Sniper murders absolutely everything, but is a little harder to play.
If you're new, I strongly suggest an assault rifle.
Also, crafting is quite important, especially because most of the armor you find lying around isn't very good. A ballistic vest with burrow plate will make you practically immune to bullets through the early game.
Not if you don't want to. Lockpicking is useful for extra loot (and sometimes really good loot, and there's at least one unique weapon I can recall that requires it), and is needed to open and close air vents conveniently. But even though there will be some buildings and so on that you won't be able to enter without it, you won't actually miss out on any content by not having lockpicking.
Not having hacking on the other hand will lock you out of some things. And really, it's plain fun to hack turrets, gas rooms, and things like that. You shouldn't skip it, unless you are just simply not interested in it.
thanks for the tiperoos guys
Have fun, user. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
Focus on a single combat skill or all the psi skill if you want to be a wizzard
choose a form of damage mitigation (hp/armor, dodge, stealth or high initiative/psi)
take lockpick and hacking, you can win the game without them but its certainly much less enjoyable
take the crafting skills that compliment your build (its not necessary but they are incredibly useful)
forget about the speech skills they are not worth it.
you might want to put some points into throwing or traps once you have some to spare
Don't take the psi pill unless you invested in some psi, it reduces your hp and without some points to learn the skills psi is useless
Play on Oddity
>forget about the speech skills they are not worth it
They can be useful at times, though.
For example making Mordre confess.
can I go full /STEALTH/ in this game? Can I focus on hacking/lockpicking and just avoiding fights like the original Deus Ex?
Not completely, but it's close. The original Deus Ex had some fights you were not meant to skip either (the quest doesn't progress correctly if you don't kill Gunther in the cathedral for example, although it doesn't cause any long term problems), but in Underrail there are a few where you absolutely must kill. Around 5 or so encounters. The rest you can sneak/hack/lockpick by. Although personally I wouldn't go this route on a first playthrough.
Yeah, but a decent build is actually short on points and there is like what 4 situations where you can use it ? they aren't really worth it.
the only real time speech was actually useful was when you need to plat the bug and you can't get enough stealth through items to do it (can only happen if you dumped stealth related stats too much)
There is like 4 or 5 completely unavoidable fights in the entire game, so you will probably need some combat skill still
the game can totally be won only using traps and throwing items along with stealth (but you really need to finish the game before because its really hard to pull of and you need to know exactly what you are doing)
They provide alternative options like bluff Duff into handing over the ICPD, and can get you out of sometimes pretty hard fights like making IRIS BSoD, or get you better outcomes like staying good with the Faceless and still save Buzzer, or just extra information or flavor like convincing Payam to get a grip. You can't make a build around it, but I wouldn't call them useless. Hell, Yell is actually a pretty sweet ability.
But it's true that they are best used with a psyker, since they will only need to invest like 70 points to effectively max them out.
You can save buzzer and get along with the faceless without speech, but yes it isn't useless, its just not worth it in the long run compared to pretty much any other skill, except for mercantile which is by far the most useless skill
I don't know how you manage to have extra points with a wizzard build, last one i did, i barely had enough points between maxing all the psi disciplines, crafting, lockpick and hacking and some other skills
3rd faggot reporting in
My wizard build ignores thermodynamics and uses assault rifles for damage.
The thermo points go into speech and intimidate, which is just barely enough.
Also, premeditation->electrocute for stun stun->burst with opportunist damage bonus->commando proc burst with the 9mm rifle->adrenal->burst is fucking amazing.
I have 2 rifles, one is optimized for speed so I can fire off 2 bursts in one turn and the other for damage so I can wreck armor with my commando bonus burst.
Yeah well, but you are not a wizzard if you do that, assault rifles are pretty chessy even comparing them to sniper rifles
Good luck doing some quests if you don't have lockpicking or stealth.
>I don't know how you manage to have extra points with a wizzard build
Easily enough, I work with 3 dump stats. STR, CON, and DEX all go to 3, PER remains on 5 for acceptably reliable Detection, WILL gets maxed, INT goes to 9, AGI to 7.
I use nothing but WILL/INT/AGI skills, and this allows me to work with 10-11 skills at effectively maxed levels, and 2-3 more as lower but useful level.
It still gets most of the benefits. Telekinesis and psych have most of the control abilities, while thermo is mostly damage, except guns are better at dealing damage.
The only really important thermo spell is fireball because it lets you reveal hidden units for free, and that's only 35 points or something like that.
>STR, CON, and DEX all go to 3, PER remains on 5 for acceptably reliable Detection,
CON is much more important than Perception. All you need for good detection is a pair of motion tracking goggles.
3 psi skills, electronics and tailoring, lockpick and hacking are a must, and you are left with only 1 more skill to pick (assuming you are maxing all the skills every chance you get)
that leaves you with choosing either stealth, traps or dodge/evasion
where the hell are you getting those points
>It's worse than classic RPGs in pretty much every aspect
How delusional can you be? I can understand shitting on the graphics because they're at best serviceable, but the UI (hotbars in particular) is considerably better than "classic RPGs" and the combat is top-notch. It's got one of the only 3 turn-based stealth systems I'd actually consider good.
I don't get all this talk of how lockpicking and hacking are must haves that you can't do without. My first playthrough had neither and I had no problems. My second playthrough took them both and nearing the end of the game all it has gotten me is extra loot, a couple unique oddities, and alternate paths through areas to avoid combat but I kill everything anyways so that part doesn't matter. Hacking at least has some fun little extras like more dialogue/lore and turning turrets against the enemy or locking enemies in a room and gassing them, but I don't see myself bothering with lockpicking again.
Lockpicking is practically mandatory if you want to do the Oculus stuff.
I finished that without it.
not OP but i'm level 5 currently, trying to focus on SMGs and just got the mission to find the drill parts
one thing that i've noticed is compared to fallout 2 you run out of ammo fast as fuck and it's expensive, towards the end of quests i have to stop using bursts and start thinking about how i can kill things in the most ammo efficient way possible
so my question is if i run out of ammo and money by the end of one of these quests would i be pretty much fucked?
Skipping lockpicking and hacking is like finishing planescape with a low wisdom. You might have beaten the game but you missed out on a ton of interesting plot points.
Unless you're going hard on hybridization, you should have a secondary combat skill to fall back on (ideally melee or psi), and you can always find other SMGs that use cheaper ammo. It's really hard to completely run out.
this is a problem you'll only have at lower levels. Just focus on always having enough money to buy plenty of ammo
Throwing is the go to secondary combat skill since it doesn't require many points to be useful and benefits nearly every build.
Stealth focused builds are VERY viable for this game
Here's my assault rifle build that got me through hard mode no problem:
Strength: 8
Dex: 3
Agility: 3
Constitution: 10
Perception: 10
Will: 3
Intelligence: 3
Guns 15, Throwing 15, Hacking 15, Lockpick 15, Traps 5, Mechanics 15, Electronics 15, Biology 10, Tailoring 15
Feats: Conditioning, Suppressive Fire
Note this is hard mode so I geared more for survivability in the beginning, as the beginning of the game can be rough especially on hard mode. So you could swap out the point in Constitution for another point in Intelligence to help with crafting abilities. Thick Skull is an extremely good feat so I would get to 10 Constitution eventually. You'll be focusing on throwing a lot more in the beginning as well because your gun abilities and equipment won't be that great (grenades are godlike anyways in this game)
Focus on the burst feats as time goes on. Put the extra stat points you get into Perception. Get a good energy shield, load up on morphine and adrenaline shots, get a really good assault rifle with great damage and burst precision, and you'll be stomping everything in the game.
Unlike other games I think the speech skills are pretty useless (Persuasion, Intimidate, and Mercantile).
There aren't many great instances of Persuasion or Intimidate really helping you. You can easily do without them. The economy in the game is easily manipulated so Mercantile doesn't really have a big effect either.
Has there ever been a game where the mercantile equivalent is useful?
You have 1080 available to you.
3 of those go to psi.
85 goes to Hacking-Electronics-Tailoring.
135 gets split as 50-85 for Dodge and Evasion each.
60-60 to Persuasion and Intimidation.
20 to Mechanics, 50 to Biology.
45-50 to Stealth and Lockpicking.
Infused Siphoner armor and Infused Cave Hopper Tabi raise Dodge and Evasion significantly, made even higher by Nimble and a high quality Cloaking Device, making up for the mediocre investment. Cloaking Device, Black Cloth on Siphoner armor, and an additional Ninja Tabi takes care of Stealth.
High quality shield, Dodge Evasion, shitloads of Movement Points, Stealth, and Cryo-Shield/Pseudospatial Projection keep me alive, and offer enough options to keep me alive in almost any situation. Siphoner leather protects me reasonably well against grenades and my own fire.
Leveling is inconsistent and situational. Psi skills get leveled every time, but the rest are paced so I always level the few skills that I need at the moment. So at one level 25 points might go into Persuasion, the next level 15 into Hacking, or when I don't need anything in particular I just split them or put it in something I know I'm going to need soon as preparation.
Stealth is very viable.
Dodge and evasion are all-in skills.
Guns are easier and more straightforward than crossbows for the first timer.
Keyword is specialise, pick your build and stick with it.
Not really. Skipping lockpicking won't keep you from anything. And if you skip Hacking, the only thing you'll definitely miss out on is IRIS.
but thats when you get to end game and have points to spare since you maxed craftings and electronics lockpick
spreading them too much early gets you in situations where you don't have enough skill if you need them
also, why capping lockpick in 50 ? and hacking in 85 ? you have things that require between 100-120 skill for end game thats atleast 90 - 100 points needed on them
I pick my battles and always work with what I have at the moment. There are points in the game when I'm good at stealthing, and points when I am not. My psi is always maxed, so I can fight no matter what.
Don't forget that at this point I know the game really well. I might wait with something if I know my WILL is going to get a boost in two levels that will push my Persuasion over the skill requirement. Similarly I don't always need Tailoring, but give it a boost only when it becomes useful to me. So basically before Depot A, and after Foundry.
And my INT is 9 from the start. My three main INT skills all reach 120+ by the end. Lockpicking I care only so I can move enough in the air vents undisturbed.
I like it. It keeps my strategy and gameplay dynamic, I'm always doing something different while keeping the core (psi) constant.
Agreed. This is definitely a game where being a jack of all trades won't work out in your favor. A specialized build will work best.
Especially on hard mode. If you're playing on hard, you pretty much need a cookie cutter build.
I made a heavy metal psi/monk.
Called him Khor.
He uses the Powerfist.
I'm pretty much Thanos.
Honestly can't think of any.
...
I'm sure there are some RPGs where skill advancement requires dosh. Wasn't DnD like that a long time ago? I know at least Geneforge is that way, but that one doesn't have anything similar to Mercantile. But if it had, it would be damn useful.
Yeah, by the time I got to the junkyard I was broken.
Other, taking feats that stop you from being CCed also help due to my high con stat.