Astral Aim to extract seeds help

[Chango98]

Hi there

Need some help understanding a mechanic. My understanding is that you need to get precision targeting (body part selection) and the way to achieve that is by landing a crit. I got Astral Aim on my purgator which gaurntees crits, but it only seems to take me into precision targeting sporadically. This means I keep accidentally killing seed carriers. What am I doing wrong?

[Nikas Zekeval]

One of two things might be happening:

One, Astral Aim and Hammer Hands give a +100% Crit Chance bonus, not an Auto-Crit. If the target has some level of resistance to being critted then you might not get a crit even using them.

Two, you do enough damage to outright kill the target. In which case you don't get the precision targeting screen, but AFAIK do still get awarded the seed that target was carrying.

[good morning jimmy]

Originally posted by Bad Brad:

You can't extract seeds with guns at range. You need melee weapons, or better yet get the servo skull extractor researched and you are golden.

lmao u can, just need to do lower dmg than the target health or else it will be killed and the precision page wont pop up

[Eblingus]

good morning jimmy is correct.

[snuggleform]

It's just a weird rule in this game that if you crit with ranged weapons, you only get the targeting screen to remove the seed if the total damage will NOT kill them.

[Nikas Zekeval]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

It's just a weird rule in this game that if you crit with ranged weapons, you only get the targeting screen to remove the seed if the total damage will NOT kill them.

The same thing happens, or rather doesn't if you melee crit, say with Hammer Hands, and your total damage is enough to kill the target. Precision targeting only pops up if the target gets a critical hit, and survives it. OTOH if the target is a chaos seed carrier a lethal critical hit will give you the seed automatically. You'll see a plus seed icon pop up with all the other rewards such as XP for the kill.

[Pieshaman]

As far as I know you need to not kill the target with astral aim, if it does the seed is destroyed as well. dont use astral aim as a finisher, use it as a starter if you want the seed, or remove enemy ability. astral aim also great for getting rid of a boss ability.

[Moffin Bovin]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

It's just a weird rule in this game that if you crit with ranged weapons, you only get the targeting screen to remove the seed if the total damage will NOT kill them.

my guess is that you are not supposed to be able to get seeds with ranged crits, and that it is a bug that happnes due to calling the crit menu that occurs with melee crits, and in doing so it treats your attack exactly as if it is a melee crit. If the target dies outright then the menu isn't called and the attack type isn't accidentally changed.

thats just a guess though, that its a bug (or an oversight) that just never got fixed.

[Pieshaman]

the crit menu is up with astral aim, but the seed dies when it host die from that shot. You can't skewer it out like a hammerhand strike

[HellsBain]

The problem with this is that you get a seed for melee kill with overcrit but get jiped for ranged forceing you to run up and bash them in there fat face. Often triggering toxic explosions that would be disabled if you ranged crit didn't kill them. So you get punished hard for doing well

[John Hadley]

The moral of this story is that you should have someone carry an extractor servo skull that you unlock with research if you really want to make sure that you get a seed. Getting a critical hit on a kill gains a seed with a melee weapon but it does not gain a seed with a ranged weapon. Only using precision targeting on the correct body part will get a seed on a ranged weapon and you don't get the precision targeting screen if the initial blow already does enough damage to kill the enemy before you target a body part.

[HellsBain]

Right but precision targeting is broken for ranged. There are times when getting the crit is more important that killing the bad guy. Its not just the seeds either if the bady explodes and is standing next to you friends your crit can disable the explosion but not if extra crit damage kills them.

They should add crit damage as an option on the precision targeting menu if they dont want you to do both. The whole point of precision targeting is that your such a good shot you can choose where you hit, but suddenly you are only capable of center mass shots if you do one hp to much damage?

This cant be working as intended and I wish they would fix it even if they take away the ability to get seeds at range entirely for balance or whatever the precision targeting wheel should always be an option.

[snuggleform]

Hmm note to self to check if overkilling with those special tier 3 ranged bolters that have precision targeting also gives you no seeds or not. Probably not if it's like astral aim but it's worth checking.

[brynjar]

"There are times when getting the crit is more important that killing the bad guy."

Not if its a suicide bomber. *Bloated poxwalker ed

The suicide bombers are high priority targets. Seed or no seed, kill them before they get to close. The explosion will also hurt cultists (unless mutated).

The only times the seed is important enough to tank damage is when you're missing that exact seed to progress the game after the match, in research or for some weapon.

[HellsBain]

Originally posted by brynjar:

"There are times when getting the crit is more important that killing the bad guy."

Not if its a suicide bomber. *Bloated poxwalker ed

The suicide bombers are high priority targets. Seed or no seed, kill them before they get to close.

That is an example of exactly a time when the crit is more important. If you crit them you can disable there explosion so the team members them are safe.

[HellsBain]

Also I said the extra damage should just be an option on the crit wheel. Like a head shot or something