Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Jasede]

https://underrail.info/build/?HgMQC...AALwDCgic5JhlYPlxRXhZBAjAdwrMlG-KlvAriqqgF378
There, I picked a few feats. It looks like I have room for Versatility, and it will make for a very cheap backup I think, since I heard high Dex is good for Pistols/Fists.

Absolute worst case I hit a wall and restart.

Do I need Perception high for Throwing Knives / Nades? If I want Versatility I have to reduce Perception to 6 from 7.
But I think I would be fine without Versatility because I will be crafting a grenade for all situations.

 

[Goromorg]

Do I need Perception high for Throwing Knives / Nades? If I want Versatility I have to reduce Perception to 6 from 7.

No need to raise perception at all, you'll only need dexterity. If you want to include Versatility, max Melee and (optionally) take Expose weakness.
Important crafting threshholds:
~170 Electronics
~140 Tailoring
30-40 Mechanics for leather armor and knives/grenades/caltrops
150 biology for strongest poisons
0 Chemistry (you can craft powerful Plasma grenades and buy Mk IV frags)
95-105 Mercantile

 

[jackofshadows]

Pack Rathound? Get rid of it, seriously. Just don't pick up trash, you'll have to manage inventory all the time anyway.

Ninja Looter? Forget about it.

I'd consider Blindsiding, Escape Artist or Recklessness instead. Gotta say that I haven't tried throwing-only build myself though.

Wunderbar Versatility doesn't work with throwing.

 

[Jasede]

Ninja Looter was because I had feats to spare, thank you for the suggestions, maybe I will try those!
Goromorg HUGE thanks on the thresholds, I haven't played the game enough yet to take them. Thank you man!

Just one thing, you sure about Chem 0? My last run those MK IVs made every encounter trivial, you sure I will be fine just buying them?

jackofshadows
Man I can't imagine not having Pack Rathound...
THEN AGAIN I won't be lugging around lots of ammo, so maybe it'll be fine.

Hmmm, if I don't need Perception at all, I could dump Perception down to 3 to get higher Int to save points on crafting and maybe get more dialogue options...! BUT as a new player, maybe having 7 Per is good for finding hidden stuff.

 

[jackofshadows]

Man I can't imagine not having Pack Rathound...

Look, I'm a loot whore myself. And seeing 25% sale value on DOM was literally painful to me. But I had to overcome this at least to a degree or I would have spent even more (my run took about 150 hours) time to running back and forth.

 

[Jasede]

Hahaha as if I had spent 10 hours on my first run to Core City running back and forth selling useless loot for a very tiny amount of Charons! Hahaha! Haha...


...

 

[Jasede]

Okay, here's the mostly final build:

It may have more/less hacking/lockpicking depending on how high the skillchecks go, and maybe it won't have as much Pickpocketing depending on how difficult it actually is to pickpocket.
Keep in mind this is for Dominating (or Hard if I fail) and Oddity, so I really want hacking/lockpicking/pickpocketing to get oddities.

https://underrail.info/build/?HgMQC...AALwBZMSYZLxZYPlxRXh1BAjAbwrPCheKlvAriqqgF378

Thank you all for the input!

 

[Sheepherder]

Okay, here's the mostly final build:

It may have more/less hacking/lockpicking depending on how high the skillchecks go, and maybe it won't have as much Pickpocketing depending on how difficult it actually is to pickpocket.
Keep in mind this is for Dominating (or Hard if I fail) and Oddity, so I really want hacking/lockpicking/pickpocketing to get oddities.

https://underrail.info/build/?HgMQC...AALwBZMSYZLxZYPlxRXh1BAjAbwrPCheKlvAriqqgF378

Thank you all for the input!

I really don't recommend playing a throwing knife build as your first character. It's more of a challenge/gimmick option.
Other tips:
Ambush doesn't work with throwing knives/grenades.
Recklesness doesn't work with throwing knives/grenades.
Hit and Run may not work with throwing knives/grenades. Get sprint instead.
Blindsiding doesn't work with throwing knives/grenades and is lackluster overall unless you have ways to enable it mid combat.

Edit: Too much lockpicking, max check is ~130. You'll have Jackknife, Haxxor and lemurian Engineer suit to raise the effective skill score.
Same with hacking. Max check is ~135. It's a dialogue check and for that you won't be able to use Haxxor.
Too much crafting skills. You'll be able to raise all crafting skills with workbenches and +2 INT from drug. For 164 quality shields you need 171 effective electronics. Dunno what armor and weapons you will be crafting, so I can't tell you how much mechanics and tailoring you'll need. If you are going to use grenades, you'll need 112 chemistry. 67 effective persuasion won't get you anything.

 

[jackofshadows]

Hahaha as if I had spent 10 hours on my first run to Core City running back and forth selling useless loot for a very tiny amount of Charons! Hahaha! Haha...


...

By the way, I was so pressed by difficulty at first that I used for a while lower passages for Core City trips and around since they're much shorter section wise.

I would be genuinely suprized if you'd make through the Depot A on DOM with something like this. And yeah, Recklessness/Blindsiding doesn't work with throwing, my bad.

 

[Jasede]

Okay, here's the mostly final build:

It may have more/less hacking/lockpicking depending on how high the skillchecks go, and maybe it won't have as much Pickpocketing depending on how difficult it actually is to pickpocket.
Keep in mind this is for Dominating (or Hard if I fail) and Oddity, so I really want hacking/lockpicking/pickpocketing to get oddities.

https://underrail.info/build/?HgMQC...AALwBZMSYZLxZYPlxRXh1BAjAbwrPCheKlvAriqqgF378

Thank you all for the input!

I really don't recommend playing a throwing knife build as your first character. It's more of a challenge/gimmick option.
Other tips:
Ambush doesn't work with throwing knives/grenades.
Recklesness doesn't work with throwing knives/grenades.
Hit and Run may not work with throwing knives/grenades. Get sprint instead.
Blindsiding doesn't work with throwing knives/grenades and is lackluster overall unless you have ways to enable it mid combat.

Thank you, those are good tips! I didn't know Ambush and those other skills didn't work with them, they looked good on paper.
It's not my 'first' character, though I haven't finished the game. I played a Psi Monk to Depot A 5 years ago on Hard or DOMINATING (I can't remember) and an SMG guy on normal now, just to relearn the ropes, to Core City.
However, now that I have a decent grasp on the early game, I think I should be... okay. I am all about buying/making grenades and ending fights quickly.

 

[Sheepherder]

They were basically one people, especially after generations of living in Lemuria. Definitely the closest thing to actual living lemurians other than Todd.

Didn't they live exclusively underwater in their cities and didn't interact much with the lemurians, other than for research?

 

[Jasede]

I tried it just now and Hit and Run truly didn't work with Throwing Knives. However, I know how to use Sprint, so that's fine.

 

[jackofshadows]

Hmmm, if I don't need Perception at all, I could dump Perception down to 3 to get higher Int to save points on crafting and maybe get more dialogue options...! BUT as a new player, maybe having 7 Per is good for finding hidden stuff.

I'm not sure that 7 Per allows to find hidden stuff at all. But that doesn't matter much. However, trap detection is an important stat if you don't wanna turn your experience into reload-fest. Even Snooping feat doesn't save the day with dumped Per.

 

[Alexios]

The quest with the guy who activates the robots underneath the Tchort institute is pretty absurd. I don't like quests like this that mandate reverting to an earlier save and then stocking up on whatever items you need to complete the quest. The Gray Army base was another one, where you simply could not finish it unless you had enough lockpicking to enter that one door.

 

[ItsChon]

t's not my 'first' character, though I haven't finished the game. I played a Psi Monk to Depot A 5 years ago on Hard or DOMINATING (I can't remember) and an SMG guy on normal now, just to relearn the ropes, to Core City.
However, now that I have a decent grasp on the early game, I think I should be... okay.

It's up to you. Hard is really fun and still a decent challenge but I can understand wanting a little more. The issue with Dominating is that the early game is very frustrating, and there are some walls later on. With a throwing knife build, you will have some hard times my friend. Just thinking of Silent Isle, the Psi Beetles, the Ironheads, and all the other challenges you will face makes me shiver. Good luck though!

 

[Sykar]

t's not my 'first' character, though I haven't finished the game. I played a Psi Monk to Depot A 5 years ago on Hard or DOMINATING (I can't remember) and an SMG guy on normal now, just to relearn the ropes, to Core City.
However, now that I have a decent grasp on the early game, I think I should be... okay.

It's up to you. Hard is really fun and still a decent challenge but I can understand wanting a little more. The issue with Dominating is that the early game is very frustrating, and there are some walls later on. With a throwing knife build, you will have some hard times my friend. Just thinking of Silent Isle, the Psi Beetles, the Ironheads, and all the other challenges you will face makes me shiver. Good luck though!

Yeah you just have to avoid heavy cheese like spamming molotovs.

 

[Stavrophore]

Pack rathound is great for grenadier build, since you will be carrying 100 grenades with ease. I usually carry throwing nets, biogas grenades, MKV frags, some MKV HE, lots of flashbangs/magnesium/caltrops for CC. If you don't play with restock cheats, just make sure to buy TNT/hexogen at every opportunity. And really get that 112 chemistry, since MKV grenades are super duper powerful, if you plan to play dominating you will need it. With critical bonus they can blast through 500-600HP enemies with one grenade. You will also need temporal manipulation school with the future orientation and Limited temporal increment spell. That way you will throw offensive grenade every turn. Coupled with knives for soft targets and you are golden. Remember to craft EMP and have it for robotic encounters, albeit i would stealth these anyway.

It's up to you. Hard is really fun and still a decent challenge but I can understand wanting a little more. The issue with Dominating is that the early game is very frustrating, and there are some walls later on. With a throwing knife build, you will have some hard times my friend. Just thinking of Silent Isle, the Psi Beetles, the Ironheads, and all the other challenges you will face makes me shiver. Good luck though!

That's why he need stealth. There's no point fighting goliathuses with throwing build.

The quest with the guy who activates the robots underneath the Tchort institute is pretty absurd. I don't like quests like this that mandate reverting to an earlier save and then stocking up on whatever items you need to complete the quest. The Gray Army base was another one, where you simply could not finish it unless you had enough lockpicking to enter that one door.

Another case of playing smarter. You can use TNT to lure enemies from their guard posts. You can also use turn based mode to sneak past and not cause hostilities.

Hahaha as if I had spent 10 hours on my first run to Core City running back and forth selling useless loot for a very tiny amount of Charons! Hahaha! Haha...


...

Yes the game is very good with testing your inner Jew.

 

[Alexios]

Another case of playing smarter. You can use TNT to lure enemies from their guard posts. You can also use turn based mode to sneak past and not cause hostilities.

What the fuck are you even talking about? Sentries will immediately spot you from across the map in stealth. Perhaps a cloaking emitter would hide you from them, but this would be something the game expects you to have crafted despite it never having been at all necessary in any previous battle in the entire game. Same story with TNT. I have never once used TNT in battle and I'm at level 27 on dominating. That's just autism to expect the player to somehow expect to have to fight dozens of the hardest bots in the game with no prior warning at all. Most of the hard fights in the game aren't like this. Most can be won through good strategy, not stocking on items that you can never reasonably expect to use.

 

[Stavrophore]

Another case of playing smarter. You can use TNT to lure enemies from their guard posts. You can also use turn based mode to sneak past and not cause hostilities.

What the fuck are you even talking about? Sentries will immediately spot you from across the map in stealth. Perhaps a cloaking emitter would hide you from them, but this would be something the game expects you to have crafted despite it never having been at all necessary in any previous battle in the entire game. Same story with TNT. I have never once used TNT in battle and I'm at level 27 on dominating. That's just autism to expect the player to somehow expect to have to fight dozens of the hardest bots in the game with no prior warning at all. Most of the hard fights in the game aren't like this. Most can be won through good strategy, not stocking on items that you can never reasonably expect to use.

You can easily get a uniform, and then officer uniform in grey army base.

 

[jackofshadows]

You can easily get a uniform, and then officer uniform in grey army base.

Unless you're playing as a woman. There's quite amusing dialogue in that case but it's impossible to proceed with blending in approach.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Unless you're playing as a woman. There's quite amusing dialogue in that case but it's impossible to proceed with blending in approach.

Yeah, and this is kinda stupid. No woman soldiers/officers - in Slavic-like country?

 

[Ol' Willy]

I don't think you understand. The game is already full of deranged, lemurian mutants. They are probably the largest enemy faction at Black Sea.

Tribals? They are descendants of underwater (Danish?) folk. Then Disunion, when they got deranged and went out. Lemurians, though, preferred to live above the water.

 

[Jasede]

Pack rathound is great for grenadier build, since you will be carrying 100 grenades with ease. I usually carry throwing nets, biogas grenades, MKV frags, some MKV HE, lots of flashbangs/magnesium/caltrops for CC. If you don't play with restock cheats, just make sure to buy TNT/hexogen at every opportunity. And really get that 112 chemistry, since MKV grenades are super duper powerful, if you plan to play dominating you will need it. With critical bonus they can blast through 500-600HP enemies with one grenade. You will also need temporal manipulation school with the future orientation and Limited temporal increment spell. That way you will throw offensive grenade every turn. Coupled with knives for soft targets and you are golden. Remember to craft EMP and have it for robotic encounters, albeit i would stealth these anyway.

It's up to you. Hard is really fun and still a decent challenge but I can understand wanting a little more. The issue with Dominating is that the early game is very frustrating, and there are some walls later on. With a throwing knife build, you will have some hard times my friend. Just thinking of Silent Isle, the Psi Beetles, the Ironheads, and all the other challenges you will face makes me shiver. Good luck though!

That's why he need stealth. There's no point fighting goliathuses with throwing build.

The quest with the guy who activates the robots underneath the Tchort institute is pretty absurd. I don't like quests like this that mandate reverting to an earlier save and then stocking up on whatever items you need to complete the quest. The Gray Army base was another one, where you simply could not finish it unless you had enough lockpicking to enter that one door.

Another case of playing smarter. You can use TNT to lure enemies from their guard posts. You can also use turn based mode to sneak past and not cause hostilities.

Hahaha as if I had spent 10 hours on my first run to Core City running back and forth selling useless loot for a very tiny amount of Charons! Hahaha! Haha...


...

Yes the game is very good with testing your inner Jew.

Yo! Thanks for your advice. I read about the Temporal spell and it looks like it would be useful. I also recalculated all my skills to meet the thresholds assuming that I am using +2 Int food and workbenches. This gave me enough skill points to get Chemistry.
Could you do me a favor and look at my revised build?

https://underrail.info/build/?HgMQC...8AABZKzkvJxYwPlxYXsKIGyZRQU7Csx3ipbwK4qqoBd-_

The build is coming together nicely, I think! What would you do with the leftover skillpoints? Traps or Pickpocket, perhaps? Don't want to miss any oddities. Not sure how much I need to pump Traps.
Should I get rid of Pinning + Opportunist? It seems like a fun combo, but it's probably not very good with that 30% chance. However, I was thinking poisons or gas grenades would probably trigger Opportunist.

 

[Alexios]

Another case of playing smarter. You can use TNT to lure enemies from their guard posts. You can also use turn based mode to sneak past and not cause hostilities.

What the fuck are you even talking about? Sentries will immediately spot you from across the map in stealth. Perhaps a cloaking emitter would hide you from them, but this would be something the game expects you to have crafted despite it never having been at all necessary in any previous battle in the entire game. Same story with TNT. I have never once used TNT in battle and I'm at level 27 on dominating. That's just autism to expect the player to somehow expect to have to fight dozens of the hardest bots in the game with no prior warning at all. Most of the hard fights in the game aren't like this. Most can be won through good strategy, not stocking on items that you can never reasonably expect to use.

You can easily get a uniform, and then officer uniform in grey army base.

Oh, the army base. I thought you were referring to the Tchort bots. Yes, that level was fairly easy but I was referring to the fact that you needed to have brought a good enough lockpick to get the key if you couldn't fight all the guards. By the same token it seems you can't kill the Tchort bots unless you have good enough EMP grenades, which is silly because up to this point the game has not required you to fight any difficult robots.

 

[ciox]

The success of the EXOSKELETAL WRETCH experiment (psi user with 3 con, no stealth and 95% metal armor penalty) is pushing me to indulge in further build autism.

What about a metal armor sniper with 95% penalty?
The outfit would be reinforced steel armor, tungsten boots and goggles. Weapons are sniper only once secured.

Problems
- low movement points means a lotta sniper melee penalty will happen, but we still have Commando Spearheads for this problem, and we're immune to our caltrops too
- not every battle will start with us shooting the first shot, given 0 stealth and somewhat low initiative
- 0 effective stealth means Snipe won't go above 225% damage, tho that's already kind of enough

Advantages
- weird satisfaction in surviving the "death knell" of a sniper that's been reached and surrounded by his enemies
- the extreme trolling potential of sniping "from stealth" when you can't hide from even a blind man
- dirty kick is a good option if your hands and utility slots are full, and with STR 8 and metal boots it will be quite stronk

Quick sketch: https://underrail.info/build/?HggDB...zSygORMKoUsK1wqTioqMC4qeMA-KnvgXir7wE4q-9Ad-_