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Natives are manageable, if you have good evasion - get netted and you're screwed unless you burned a feat slot to get escape artist. Jet ski combat with melee is crap, absolute crap. You'll miss all the time and when you do hit, you'll hit the jet, not the enemy, and it will do pitiiful damage. Oh, and most enemies on expedition, namely robots that apparently are made of stone, have ridiculously high mech DT. I could reliable damage them with the Balor Hammer most of the time. Can't see a fist/knife build work there.
I don't know if it's easier than / just as good as ranged, but melee Dominating can be made fairly smooth affairs, e.g. with crit builds. Even spears can do it. You could certainly beeline for plasma nades and stock up, and if you have stealth, there's a limited number of places where you have to deal with crabs and robots.
I can imagine a build, e.g. without metaknowledge, that ends up, say, without stealth or hacking, fighting every wave in the Nexus, and perhaps not quite optimised to punch through the defences, just getting bogged down in boring shit.
Natives are manageable, if you have good evasion - get netted and you're screwed unless you burned a feat slot to get escape artist. Jet ski combat with melee is crap, absolute crap. You'll miss all the time and when you do hit, you'll hit the jet, not the enemy, and it will do pitiiful damage. Oh, and most enemies on expedition, namely robots that apparently are made of stone, have ridiculously high mech DT. I could reliable damage them with the Balor Hammer most of the time. Can't see a fist/knife build work there.
A melee build without Expose Expose Weakness and shock do just fine, robots and crabs are annoying but manageable.
The one true problem melee builds have at Black Sea is Fetid Marsh, serpents in particular - a lot of them can decide to stay in the middle of their water pools which makes it literally impossible to hit with melee weapons and wyrms can entagle on top of this. But marsh is completly optional and there's nothing noteworthy there other than a few unique oddities and decent unique shotgun, so it can be safely skipped.
The only problem with melee builds is that expedition is absolute SHIT with them. Expedition was made with ranged combat in mind. It was unenjoyable even with the Balor Hammer build. Fancy Footwork Fist Builds? Won't even try it.
My first post-Expedition playthrough was as a non-stealth, non-psi spearman—Iron Grip, riot armor with shield, a few blocking/armor/survivabilility feats, and of course grenades.
Non-stealth melee is indeed subjected to the maximum amount of suffering in Expedition. Locusts are a huge pain in the ass, jet ski combat is a huge pain in the ass even with relevant feats and a fast jet, and the natives are a huge pain in the ass due to nets as well as certain line-of-sight quirks with the game engine that don't only affect melee and become immediately apparent as early as Junkyard (example: enemies can shoot you, but you can't return fire unless you step a tiny fraction further outside of some doorway; by the time you realize you've been quirked, you're fucked).
Stealth, TNT, traps, and W2C ammo, on the other hand, practically trivialize Expedition, which I must confess is partly why I opted for a Spec Ops Expertise SMG build with both Throwing and Traps. W2C ammo makes short work of all species of sea serpents, all types of crab, all varieties of robotic statues, jet skis, and Serpentborn heavies—in other words, everything but locusts, spiders, and lightly-armored natives.
In fact,
I just killed Magnar's void entity—a fucking ghost—with a few bursts of W2C ammo. Move over, holy water, silver, garlic, and the Ethereal Torch! I've got depleted-uranium ammunition!
Prior to that, I also managed to kill all of his minions before he caught sight of me, hurry down the entranceway and leave the zone, sneak back in as he was moving to stand in front of the entrance, assassinate all his women with a silenced Jag and JHP ammo, then unload into his back. Satisfying.
The only problem with melee builds is that expedition is absolute SHIT with them. Expedition was made with ranged combat in mind. It was unenjoyable even with the Balor Hammer build. Fancy Footwork Fist Builds? Won't even try it.
My first post-Expedition playthrough was as a non-stealth, non-psi spearman—Iron Grip, riot armor with shield, a few blocking/armor/survivabilility feats, and of course grenades.
Non-stealth melee is indeed subjected to the maximum amount of suffering in Expedition. Locusts are a huge pain in the ass, jet ski combat is a huge pain in the ass even with relevant feats and a fast jet, and the natives are a huge pain in the ass due to nets as well as certain line-of-sight quirks with the game engine that don't only affect melee and become immediately apparent as early as Junkyard (example: enemies can shoot you, but you can't return fire unless you step a tiny fraction further outside of some doorway; by the time you realize you've been quirked, you're fucked).
Stealth, TNT, traps, and W2C ammo, on the other hand, practically trivialize Expedition, which I must confess is partly why I opted for a Spec Ops Expertise SMG build with both Throwing and Traps. W2C ammo makes short work of all species of sea serpents, all types of crab, all varieties of robotic statues, jet skis, and Serpentborn heavies—in other words, everything but locusts, spiders, and lightly-armored natives.
In fact,
I just killed Magnar's void entity—a fucking ghost—with a few bursts of W2C ammo. Move over, holy water, silver, garlic, and the Ethereal Torch! I've got depleted-uranium ammunition!
Prior to that, I also managed to kill all of his minions before he caught sight of me, hurry down the entranceway and leave the zone, sneak back in as he was moving to stand in front of the entrance, assassinate all his women with a silenced Jag and JHP ammo, then unload into his back. Satisfying.
Is this still doable? First time i killed him was with W2C ammo back when expedition came out and it was hilarious. No ethereal being can withstand the power of armor piercing tungsten bullets!
Is this still doable? First time i killed him was with W2C ammo back when expedition came out and it was hilarious. No ethereal being can withstand the power of armor piercing tungsten bullets!
It's clearly a side effect of incorporeal entities using the same system of resistances as heavily-armored corporeal enemies. A custom script should probably be added to nullify W2C's bonus when attacking incorporeal entities.
Is this still doable? First time i killed him was with W2C ammo back when expedition came out and it was hilarious. No ethereal being can withstand the power of armor piercing tungsten bullets!
It's clearly a side effect of incorporeal entities using the same system of resistances as heavily-armored corporeal enemies. A custom script should probably be added to nullify W2C's bonus when attacking incorporeal entities.
Is this still doable? First time i killed him was with W2C ammo back when expedition came out and it was hilarious. No ethereal being can withstand the power of armor piercing tungsten bullets!
It's clearly a side effect of incorporeal entities using the same system of resistances as heavily-armored corporeal enemies. A custom script should probably be added to nullify W2C's bonus when attacking incorporeal entities.
So... cleared the tunnel, activated the 5 outposts and trapped the cave hoppers. So far so good, the 3 grown azurites in the mushroom caves caused me a couple reload but I managed to separate them with a bear trap and snipe them one at the time with Cryokinesis.
So far I've invested in Biology (25) and Chemistry (10) for Psi Inhalant (is there any other way to recover Psi reserves?). Thinking about also splashing a bit of mechanics early on for bear traps. Since I'm investing in Biology anyway I should have enough materials to craft poisoned ones. Mechanics is also needed for grenades parts, right?
So far I've bought and traded very little, learned Extract Humor and Process Plant and Fungus and the Inhalant recipe, is there anything I should be on the lookout for when bartering since the beginning?
So far I've invested in Biology (25) and Chemistry (10) for Psi Inhalant (is there any other way to recover Psi reserves?). Thinking about also splashing a bit of mechanics early on for bear traps. Since I'm investing in Biology anyway I should have enough materials to craft poisoned ones. Mechanics is also needed for grenades parts, right?
You can buy bear traps easily, so mechanics is not worth it for traps alone. Electronics is best for psi for item crafting. But with high intelligence you can afford to invest in all crafting skill, since you don't need to spend many points.
Don't focus on crafting too much. My suggestion is to play around with psi abilities, stealth & noise system. Learning how to effectively use that is more important early game, imo.
So far I've invested in Biology (25) and Chemistry (10) for Psi Inhalant (is there any other way to recover Psi reserves?). Thinking about also splashing a bit of mechanics early on for bear traps. Since I'm investing in Biology anyway I should have enough materials to craft poisoned ones. Mechanics is also needed for grenades parts, right?
You can buy bear traps easily, so mechanics is not worth it for traps alone. Electronics is best for psi for item crafting. But with high intelligence you can afford to invest in all crafting skill, since you don't need to spend many points.
Don't focus on crafting too much. My suggestion is to play around with psi abilities, stealth & noise system. Learning how to effectively use that is more important early game, imo.
Is this still doable? First time i killed him was with W2C ammo back when expedition came out and it was hilarious. No ethereal being can withstand the power of armor piercing tungsten bullets!
It's clearly a side effect of incorporeal entities using the same system of resistances as heavily-armored corporeal enemies. A custom script should probably be added to nullify W2C's bonus when attacking incorporeal entities.
I spent two hours last night working out a build that not only had maxed Evasion and Dodge, but even the relevant Evasion and Dodge feats, as well as maxed Throwing and throwing knife feats. I pumped INT a bit and meta-gamed the rest of the skills hard enough to even fit mostly-maxed Melee and Fancy Footwork in there. I had to dump Stealth by about 40 points and Mechanics by quite a bit, but was still able to hit 113 Lockpicking, 125 Pickpocketing, and 110 Mercantile.
Here's my problem, once I sat back to consider: Throwing knives are designed to suck ass against armor. That leaves me with a substantial reliance on grenades to soften up heavies, then (presumably) scratching them just barely enough with poisoned knives to eventually finish them off with damage over time (after they gulp their inevitable health hypo, if human). I strongly doubt poison works fast enough to be viable during tougher fights on Hard+.
Throwing knives are all JHP and no W2C. There is a large expansion filled with crabs, robots, and sea serpents that take shit-all damage from non-armor-piercing materiel. On top of that, knives occupy precious utility slots.
Since I'm currently playing an SMG build, comparing it to a potential throwing knives build makes me feel like I'll be giving up W2C and utility slots for... what, exactly? The novelty of throwing as a primary means of offense? The investment in them (in both skill points and feats) is not that of a secondary weapon.
Just looking for input from people who've been playing around with the updated throwing knives.
Here's my problem, once I sat back to consider: Throwing knives are designed to suck ass against armor. That leaves me with a substantial reliance on grenades to soften up heavies, then (presumably) scratching them just barely enough with poisoned knives to eventually finish them off with damage over time (after they gulp their inevitable health hypo, if human). I strongly doubt poison works fast enough to be viable during tougher fights on Hard+.
Sheepherder did psi throwing knives on dominating and resolved to skip some fights, like multiple nagas one. It was just before update with glove and acid vials
hardest part of playing throwing knives is manually refilling that utility belt slots
please post your build, i rly dunno what to expect when you seem to focused on throwing knives yet got fancy footwork
Yeah, because I'm not dumb enough to think that throwing knives can carry a build without a pigsticker as heavy backup at the very least.
I'll post it, but you're gonna laugh, and there's little point since your comments have already put me off the idea of actually playing this build. A weapon with six attached feats that requires maxing a skill and that occupies not only a hand slot (the glove) but also at least one utility slot is, quite clearly due to the investment it demands, a primary weapon—whether Styg thinks so or not. And, sad to say, all primary weapons must have a means of penetrating heavy armor, or they're quite simply trash. That's the consequence of filling up a huge expansion with heavily-armored enemies. There are explosive, shock, and acid bullets and crossbow bolts; might as well add knives to the list. I imagine that's why shock shurikens were added, but I've heard they're crap at the moment.
throwing knives are for sword or knife Ripper boys with Expose Weakness and Cheap Shots
then it's just 1 feat investment into Fatal Throw (OY VEY IT'S LIKE ANUDDA SHO... I MEAN PRIMARY WEAPON) and whatever skill points you feel necessary investing in it, or just about as much as you need for the feat(s) because you will be collecting your throwing knife crits from incapacitated enemies on their last leg - and you can invest a lot in it when you don't have to compulsively invest in ie mercantile, electronics and lockpicking and hacking, which are the real dump skills
also, either Sprint or Fancy Footwork, don't take both
Fully specced fatal throw gives you 27 AP per turn if you kill someone with your throwing knive. That's around 17 free points without the throwing knife glove. Also, split spare + dragon poison knives allows you to shut annoying psionics.
