IMP Build

[Stray952]

Is there any reason to give your IMP a skill (leadership, explosives, mechanical, medical) instead of just maxing out their combat skills?

Maxing combat skills seems so boring, but it seems like having one person with the highest skill instead of 3 with 25 medical each is better for how the operations work. And if I'm going to be hiring 3 other people just for those skills... idk, feel kinda pigeon holed by the min/max and tightness of budget.

Random aside, really bummed that infiltrator/tech/etc skills aren't their own thing. Working on cars doesn't mean you can pick locks or build an antenna. Its just like... wildly different things.

[The Great Cornholio]

leadership is incredibly important - helps you move on the map faster, get militia trained faster, train your own team faster

40 strength - train up later

zero med/mech/exp - train up medical a bit later so he can patch himself up

85 everything else

teaching trait and whatever else you want

[Yuri Kossori]

Map travel speed is based on the highest Leadership on the team & dialog options & persuasion checks.

exp, mech, med are optional. if you wanna min max then 0 coz you can get it trained to 20 fast if you wisdom is decent.
while it is recommended to bring at least 1 specialist of each you might need some points to perform some actions
a good amount of explosives to reduce chance of fumbling a grenade, Rocket Launcher, grenade launcher and other explosives.
20 mech & med to repair items & treat wounds
you need some level of mechanical to unjam properly (this rarely happen if you take your time to repair your times but when it happens give your gun to someone who has mech skill to unjam it)
80ish explosives to craft ammo and explosives

my current IMP starts with
hp 85
agi 85
dex dump
str dump
wis 85
leader 85
exp 85
marks 65
med/mech 0
CQC grenadier
dex currently being trained and will train str when i can.

could have made it hp 80. str 70 & remaining on agi (coz str dont naturally increase on my play style) but I dont wanna start over lol
edit: added marks

[Stray952]

I already use Buns and Wolf, Buns has >85 marksmanship.

Only one merc can train another, right? Is there added value in giving teaching to the IMP?

[Yuri Kossori]

Originally posted by Stray952:

I already use Buns and Wolf, Buns has >85 marksmanship.

Only one merc can train another, right? Is there added value in giving teaching to the IMP?

1 teacher. multiple students. teaching trait improves training.

IMP with teaching. its the 10% exp (doesnt stack) faster militia training (+ leadership) and if you want your IMP to train other characters.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by Stray952:

Random aside, really bummed that infiltrator/tech/etc skills aren't their own thing. Working on cars doesn't mean you can pick locks or build an antenna. Its just like... wildly different things.

Yep, the game is amazing, but this point is really weird in my opinion, because the developers could have either used attributes for every task or implemented additional skills for them. I think that the latter solution would have been better.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Stray952:

Is there any reason to give your IMP a skill (leadership, explosives, mechanical, medical) instead of just maxing out their combat skills?

Maxing combat skills seems so boring,

It's boring maxing combat skills and LDR and WIZ because all IMPS are the same with this approach.

You can dump more or less HP/STR/DEX and gradually raise them, but STR requires 55 to gain one extra slot and I quoted that HP 30/40 is a serious risk of bad luck during auto combats to have IMP killed. Moreover, even if probably not, it worth check if it's not slower to train STR.

For me the only reason to have IMP with MECH, EXPLO or MEDIC is have more/different choices for hiring. So it's only for a replay.

I'm playing right now an IMP MECH/EXPLO 85, and for my first MI play, it was playable at first, and never used weeks of training, hardly ever pure training sessions without having another operation to do. And long before mid game it starts be an interesting choice. But you could as well do it with Barry after some focus on training his mechanic.

I won't list attributes of this IMP because honestly I think it had some very questionable aspects.

It's the whole character building that is weak in the game, it's perhaps the too easy/fast training that is a large part of it, it tends leverage all mercs from the high, it's lame. Alas it's a bad design choice in core of the IP and clearly JA3 could not try innovate too much on that.

[The Great Cornholio]

Only one merc can train another, right? Is there added value in giving teaching to the IMP?

Lets say you start with Barry, Livewire, Fox. You teach them to 85 marksmanship before even entering Ernie.

85 leadership IMP plus Fox can train up militia in 1.5 days. Makes a huge difference in being able to move around the map between Legion attacks.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by The Great Cornholio:

85 leadership IMP plus Fox can train up militia in 1.5 days. (and Teacher Trait for IMP)

Fastest militia trainers seems be Wolf+Raider and they can't even make 4 militia training in 1.5 day, probably a bit less than 2 days. If you mean just one training of militia, 1.5 days is very slow.