Underrail - Serbian pillow talk, turning Tricks, taking tips

[luj1]

Is there a build planner somewhere for Underrail?

 

[chucktooth manbare]

http://underrail.info.tm/build/

 

[agris]

I'm looking for some guidance given that the expansion comes out tomorrow, and it's about time I play a version that isn't 0.91 alpha.

First, what are the general threshold skill values for lockpicking and hacking that make sense? What if I want to access 98% of locked/computer stuff, and don't want to raise both skills to 125 for that last 2%?

Next, is this type of character viable (enough skillpoints mainly)?

• Sneaker
• Thrower (grenades mostly)
• Ranged weapon (non-psi)
• Stabber

What type of ranged weapon category would suit this character best, sniper? pistol? What crafting skills would support this type of playthrough? What crafting skills does it make sense to get to a relatively low level (~50 or 60) vs really specialize in?

This will probably be the only time in the next few years I will play underrail so I want to make sure I have a plan for my character going into it.

Thanks!

 

[Piotrovitz]

I highly advocate glass stealthy SMG/grenadier build, with lockpick/electronics/crafting, and enough chemistry to make MKIV granades.
Extremely fun and rewarding to play.

 

[agris]

I highly advocate glass stealthy SMG/grenadier build, with lockpick/electronics/crafting, and enough chemistry to make MKIV granades.
Extremely fun and rewarding to play.

Can you advise on some general skill point thresholds for LP/hacking/crafting? Is asking for that glass cannon to use melee weapons spreading the available skillpoints/perks too thin?

 

[Piotrovitz]

Never checked the thresholds for those, I just raised everything a bit on each level up and rarely had troubles with any locks. You shouldn't worry much about that.

As for melee, it's completely out of question for this build - you have to pump DEX/PER/AGL at the cost of STR/END. Meaning you will suck at close combat.
If you want to go with ranged + melee type, you can check AR tin can build, but stealth is rather out of questions there.

If you're interested in the glass SMG grenadier check this out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_a08dZB_7E - very similar build to which I've completed the game on hard with.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Is asking for that glass cannon to use melee weapons spreading the available skillpoints/perks too thin?

Melee/ranged hybrid is almost always a bad idea. You don't have enough ability points/feats to be good at both, so if you try to you just end up with a character that's not good at anything. Either go full melee and just be happy beating the shit out of everything or go full ranged and treat point blank burst fire as your melee attack.

 

[Trashos]

All my advice is WiTHOUT THE EXPANSION. I haven't looked into the expansion yet.

So for a pistol build one would go evasion/dodge or tactical vest with anti material plate?

I am not a big fan of Dodge/Evasion. You can't raise your avoidance chances very high even at maximum Dodge/Evasion, so I prefer to invest in other means of defense.

For pistol builds, in particular, I go DEX++/PE(10)/INT(7) and any remainder points go into CON. If you want to use chemical pistols too, 14 is a good number for DEX. Your defense will be your tactical vest, your crafted energy shield (max Electronics), traps with Quick Tinkering, your mediocre stealth, your good PE to see stealth enemies, and whatever CON you have.

If you go a slightly different route and invest in AG, then you can also raise Dodge a little bit in order to get the Uncanny Dodge feat, because that's a good defensive feat. Unfortunately, in my proposed build above there is no room for investing in AG.

Can you advise on some general skill point thresholds for LP/hacking/crafting? Is asking for that glass cannon to use melee weapons spreading the available skillpoints/perks too thin?

You want to reach effective Hacking 130 (without any bonuses from gear, cause gear won't help you when you need the 130). If you want very good lockpicking, I usually go for 103 or 108 efffective; gear with bonus then take those numbers up to 125 or 130. If you are starved for skill points but still want some lockpicking, then smaller values will also do.

For crafting, the maximum needed effective numbers WITHOUT THE EXPANSION ARE:

- Mechanics 118 (135 with house bonus)
- Electronics 118 (>>)
- Chemistry 98 (112 with house bonus) for best grenades. If you want to use chemical pistols, you probably need 118 (135 with house bonus), but I don't really remember. If you don't care about grenades or chemical pistols or special bullets, you can keep it very low (in such cases I go 10-15 effective for Biohazard Tactical Vests)
- Biology Very dependent on what you want to do. 130 effective for supersoldier drug (no house bonus here). If you don't need the drug, I usually stop at 70 effective (80 with house bonus) for Bullhead.
- Tailoring 118 (135 with house bonus)

 

[agris]

Trashos that was exactly the type of info I was looking for, thanks. If I go the smg sneaky grenadier route, do you have any specific advice regarding ability thresholds and perk selection?

 

[Trashos]

I am not the best person to give advice on SMGs, because I haven't used them much and not for a long time, and there have been changes to them. At any rate, here is what I have found in my notes (and yes, I do have a notebook with the builds I have used and their exact progression):

Offense:
SMG (probably Steel Cat 8.6 for maximum havoc, according to my notes)
Grenades (Throwing at least 30 for Grenadier, but I 'd personally shoot for 80 for better accuracy, and that also allows you to get Three-Pointer feat)
Traps (Traps at least 25 for Quick tinkering, more if you want non-animals to not be able to see your traps, and that also allows you to receive the enemy traps you disarm- but there is no reason to go over 115 in Traps afaik)

I also invested in Stealth/Lockp/Hack/Crafting, and I always get Mercantile to at least 10 to unlock the Foundry weapon dealer. You might also want to invest 40 points in Dodge to get Uncanny Dodge.

Abilities: STR 3, DEX 8, AG 8, CON 3, PE 8, WILL 3, INT 7.

Crucial feats: Spec Ops, Commando, Expertise (assuming it still works for SMGs), Grenadier, Quick Tinkering, Sprint.

Additional Ability Points: In my notes, I see that I left DEX at 8, quickly took AG to 10 in order to get Blitz, and invested the rest in CON. But you probably want to check if better DEX gives you additional bursts/turn. A Steel Cat 8.6 burst with Rapid Reloader and Spec Ops costs 26 AP before the DEX bonus. With DEX at 8, it becomes 22 AP. That's enough for 2 bursts/turn or 3 bursts/turn with adrenaline. I don't think you can beat that until DEX 16 (which is not worth it, afaic), but you probably want to check it.

 

[agris]

you would get all the fists if i could Trashos. autism much appreciated.

 

[Maggot]

Thoughts on this build for the expac tomorrow?
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?DwMMBgQIAwdVMgAAAABGRkEAKFA8UABQAAAAAAAAAE85JBYwUyc3Sd-_

 

[Goromorg]

Maggot, so you want an smg build? I can recommend something like that
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgM...wTzdHFj4ZSxIxwoXCs3Z54qOwAuKnlgXip5cD4rWuBd-_

 

[ciox]

Is asking for that glass cannon to use melee weapons spreading the available skillpoints/perks too thin?

Melee/ranged hybrid is almost always a bad idea. You don't have enough ability points/feats to be good at both, so if you try to you just end up with a character that's not good at anything. Either go full melee and just be happy beating the shit out of everything or go full ranged and treat point blank burst fire as your melee attack.

Crossbow+Expose Weakness is godly though.
Elemental bolt spam to annihilate light enemies, and can-opener the armored enemies with a Jackknife.

 

[Sykar]

Is asking for that glass cannon to use melee weapons spreading the available skillpoints/perks too thin?

Melee/ranged hybrid is almost always a bad idea. You don't have enough ability points/feats to be good at both, so if you try to you just end up with a character that's not good at anything. Either go full melee and just be happy beating the shit out of everything or go full ranged and treat point blank burst fire as your melee attack.

Crossbow+Expose Weakness is godly though.
Elemental bolt spam to annihilate light enemies, and can-opener the armored enemies with a Jackknife.

Isn't Expose Weakness a melee ability?

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Crossbow+Expose Weakness is godly though.
Elemental bolt spam to annihilate light enemies, and can-opener the armored enemies with a Jackknife.

That seems weird and I'm not sure it's superior to just spamming shock bolts. Either way it's a very specialised thing. You're not really being a ranged/melee hybrid, you're being a ranged guy who sometimes uses one specific close range attack. I get the impression agris wanted to regularly use melee to kill things, not just sometimes use it to debuff certain enemies.

 

[agris]

Spark Mandriller I was looking for feasibility of the concept- I like the idea of using throwing, a ranged weapon, melee and sneak because that lets me play with a lot of different item types in the course of the build. I'm ok with dropping melee weapons; a sneaky smg-wielding grenade thrower is still very appealing. I think I'll use a chemical/special pistol as a side arm also, so I'll have lots of different item pools to dip into.

If I was going true sneak-thief, crossbow would make thematic sense. But I want sneaking to be how I approach levels and groups of enemies, but I'm still planning to toss grenades at the end of the day. I don't think I can silently do that. Although perhaps there's somewhat silent grenade debuffs, like smoke bombs? It's been too long since I played.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Spark Mandriller I was looking for feasibility of the concept- I like the idea of using throwing, a ranged weapon, melee and sneak because that lets me play with a lot of different item types in the course of the build. I'm ok with dropping melee weapons; a sneaky smg-wielding grenade thrower is still very appealing. I think I'll use a chemical/special pistol as a side arm also, so I'll have lots of different item pools to dip into.

If I was going true sneak-thief, crossbow would make thematic sense. But I want sneaking to be how I approach levels and groups of enemies, but I'm still planning to toss grenades at the end of the day. I don't think I can silently do that. Although perhaps there's somewhat silent grenade debuffs, like smoke bombs? It's been too long since I played.

Gas grenades are silent, but they're mainly something you use before fights start as a way of cutting enemy approaches off. Every other grenade is loud. Stealth on your build is more going to be either a way to avoid fights entirely or a way to get in a good position so you can suddenly jump out and murder everyone. Once the fight is on the subtlety stops.
SMG/chem pistol works fine. They both run off the same stats and chem pistols aren't that feat hungry so there shouldn't be many problems there. You do need a high chemistry skill to make good ones, but you were planning on doing that already, so it's all good. Energy pistols require more of a specialised build to work well but you can still keep a plasma/electro pistol in your offhand and just used aimed shot to do ridiculous crit damage every few turns.

 

[agris]

Trashos I see you recommended Blitz, but it looks very situational and with a 10 turn cool down, we're talking 1 a fight, max. Is it that useful in practice?

Do any of you have recommendations regarding persuasion and intimidation threshold values? I only care about unlocking new content (quests, reward options, etc) not about skipping fights or content. I assume there's some low baseline level these skills should be at, like Mercantile at 10.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I was looking for feasibility of the concept- I like the idea of using throwing, a ranged weapon, melee and sneak because that lets me play with a lot of different item types in the course of the build.

If this is important to you, there's a feat that increases all primary offensive skills to 60% of the value of the highest of those skills. Might make a hybrid feasible without a huge point investment.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

If this is important to you, there's a feat that increases all primary offensive skills to 60% of the value of the highest of those skills. Might make a hybrid feasible without a huge point investment.

But you still don't have the melee feats, and you still have less strength/dexterity than you would on a pure melee build, and 60% isn't that good anyway. That feat seems like a trap to me.

 

[Trashos]

Trashos I see you recommended Blitz, but it looks very situational and with a 10 turn cool down, we're talking 1 a fight, max. Is it that useful in practice?

Do any of you have recommendations regarding persuasion and intimidation threshold values? I only care about unlocking new content (quests, reward options, etc) not about skipping fights or content. I assume there's some low baseline level these skills should be at, like Mercantile at 10.

Yes, Blitz is great. Right, you will only get to use it once per fight (and I usually save it for the 2nd turn, unless I can finish the fight immediately), but it will often be a difference-maker. The problem with Blitz is that it has a very high AG requirement. But since we already have a high AG for a SMG build, it is worth it. Even better if you haven't tried it before, this is a good build to try it with and make up your own mind on it.

I haven't used Persuasion and Intimidation at all. When I did some research on them a loooong time ago (and many things may have changed since), I did not find any really low values that allowed me to do things I was interested in. That's all I remember.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Do any of you have recommendations regarding persuasion and intimidation threshold values? I only care about unlocking new content (quests, reward options, etc) not about skipping fights or content. I assume there's some low baseline level these skills should be at, like Mercantile at 10.

You don't need intimidate for anything.
Persuade goes to either 60 or 75. 75 is only important in a quest for one specific faction which you may not want to join. The quest that wants 60 is always available though.

 

[Sykar]

If this is important to you, there's a feat that increases all primary offensive skills to 60% of the value of the highest of those skills. Might make a hybrid feasible without a huge point investment.

But you still don't have the melee feats, and you still have less strength/dexterity than you would on a pure melee build, and 60% isn't that good anyway. That feat seems like a trap to me.

Versatility is garbage.

 

[agris]

For Goromorg and others, for a sneaky glass cannon SMG/thrower - what's the right amount of points to invest in Guns and Throwing? As much as possible, evenly balanced? Biased towards Throwing? I see a few different philosophies in others' builds.

For traps, do I want enough for QT and that's it? I assume no investment in Dodge/Evasion, as that's the whole "glass" part of this glass cannon.