Thoughts & Observations After NG++ Hardcore [SPOILERS]

[Nakar]

Having recently capped off my character levels again at 100 in NG++ and mostly completing the game once again, I wanted to offer some general thoughts about some of the aspects of the game, mostly balance-related. Overall I think the game's pretty great and I played it a ton, so for the most part these are nitpicky at worst. To be more specific, I'll discuss classes, weapons and armor, and then the corps in the game and my impressions of all those things after playing the game extensively, maxing out every class's skill trees, etc. There will be spoilers.

CLASSES

I'll offer a tier list based on how the classes shook down for me, plus an overview of their skill trees and what I liked and didn't.

"Crushed It" Tier

1. Soldier

Best class in the game, and it isn't close. Excellent passives and fantastic damage with lots of survivability.

TACTICIAN

Combat: Decent, great passives, not that sold on tanking though. Meat Shield's cooldown is too long, Best Defense's damage is too low to take over Frag Grenade, Cry Havoc doesn't last long enough to be worth a slot. As One! and Juggernaut are good but I didn't use them much.

Non-Combat: Almost useless. Rarely ever seems to come up. Would be nice if a Tactician Soldier could spot ambushes and give you a chance to duck them.

DEMOLITION

Combat: Awesome. Frag Grenade/Bouncing Betty/Rocket Strike are as good an early tree as I could hope for. Passives are good; I even found This Is Fine to be very handy, when I figured it'd be worthless. Hellfire Salvo is garbage compared to Magnetronic Bomb and just isn't worth having the dead slot before it charges fully.

Non-Combat: Not that useful that often but that's okay because of its combat benefits. It does have some uses too, so it's not worthless.

SPECIALIST

Combat: Neat, although I kinda wish it didn't require a Ranged Weapon. Good abilities and decent passives but very utility-focused until endgame, where it becomes excellent for damage too. Overwatch with a slow weapon didn't see much dividends for me; Overwatch really could stand to trigger more often to encourage a balls-slow weapon.

Non-Combat: Amazing. Popping cameras and drones (and radiation emitters, ugh) is worth every skill point.

God Tier

2. Force Psyker

Really clunky start, very weird to get into, a lot of abilities that are hard to understand and master. But I think that's alright as it's a class that just gets better and better and eventually becomes amazing at a niche that really no one else excels at.

GUARDIAN

Combat: Pretty good. A "tank" tree but more focused on mitigation than shielding, and its best abilities are incredible. Mirror Prism/Aegis Strike/Purity Prism are all good, Condemn and Manifest Spirit are amazing. My only complaint is that Inner Peace is so hard to trigger lategame!

Non-Combat: Literally never saw this used anywhere. My Force Psyker certainly never did anything to protect the party from poison gas or radiation. Or anything at all except stare at weird crystals in mines.

SENTINEL

Combat: Decent, amazing in combo with Guardian. At first barriers seem like the way to go but in the end I didn't use them all that much really as taking damage is inferior to mitigating it entirely. Barrier Prison is by far the best ability in the tree and one of the best CC abilities in the game, though a Light Melee Warding Blow spam can layer barriers on pretty thick.

Non-Combat: Never saw this used anywhere. Ever.

BERSERKER

Combat: Not as good as it looked but decent, and helpful endgame to sort of fill out the Force Psyker's skillset and add some passives. Mind Bullets and Shattering Blow are awesome and fun, as is Spirit Onslaught. Inner Turmoil should never be active if your Force Psyker is good though and Manifest Rage takes far too long to charge for its value.

Non-Combat: Nothing, but I can't imagine what it would really be that useful for besides maybe forcing open jammed doors.

3. Smuggler

I came in expecting a fragile damage dealer sort of Rogue archetype. Instead I got one of the best CC users and probably the best healer? The damage was still good too though, so no complaints there.

DIRTY MOVES

Combat: Useful, if a bit slow. Good for avoiding damage. Flash Bang is in the running for best opener in the game. After Trap Card I only really used Flash Bang as Timed Mine was slow and Bag of Wonders is garbage (why does it even have a chance to exhaust itself?). Trap Card gives the tree weird and awesome lategame synergy as the traps become just a thing the Smuggler does on his first turn. Flash Bang I kept, the rest were automatic one-offs, but the investment was well worth it.

Non-Combat: Only occasionally useful but I saw it come up plenty. Avoiding trapped hatches, retrieving scrolls, that sort of thing.

GUNSLINGER

Combat: Excellent, though not as good as a lot of people seem to think. Damage is acceptable even with the Pistol requirement thanks to Akimbo, the passives are really great (the Initiative alone is worth it for Shoot First), and it has some utility in Buddy Shield. Using a multishot Pistol and abusing Showdown can be amusing but it was rarely my plan. It's great damage though.

Non-Combat: Where it was useful it was useful (I prefer bribing guards to trying to shoot them), but I'm OK with how many uses it has right now.

CHEAP TRICKS

Combat: Holy cow is this tree underrated. It might be the best one the Smuggler has! Coin Toss is remarkably efficient (though I still have no idea what 7 stacks of Bad Luck actually does), Mug is fun but doesn't scale at all (if I could steal legendary gear in NG++ boy howdy I'd love it), Bounty is hands down one of the best abilities in the game for quick damage, armor erasing, and the instant heal. Roulette is godawful and should never be used. Double Down is OK but I mostly used it for emergency healing and got rid of it when I no longer needed it. Ante Up is so-so since credit expenditure is rarely much of an issue if you use Bounty right.

But Slot Machine... oh baby, I love Slot Machine. It's rigged in your favor and it's so much fun and so useful. Great AoE damage, the potential to do insane damage to every enemy, and it never misses so it can swat those pesky Corpsec Watchers. I'd use it first in every battle if Flash Bang weren't so good, but it is balanced by its cooldown and the fact that it isn't a Weapon Ability so no Akimbo shenanigans.

Non-Combat: I only ever saw a use for it in betting on sportball on terminals, but considering my Smuggler has something like a 95% winrate with that option I can't complain.

High Tier

4. Hacker

Great control class with amazing damage that falls off super hard after trees are filled out. Still very handy and I have nothing against mine and still run him for utility and stuff, he just doesn't murder like he used to because the enemy doesn't take enough turns.

ROOTKIT

Combat: Overheat is amazing and synergistic with the Malware tree. Scramble is situationally awesome (when you want an interrupt, you really really want an interrupt). The rest of the tree I can take or leave. Root Hack is OK but low-synergy, Cripple/Exploit are not worth slots, and Snowcrash is good but not great. The less said about System Shock the better, it's probably the worst skill and definitely the worst passive in the entire game. I suppose it's meant to be used with SMGs or something but short of deliberately engineering a situation where my Hacker is Daze spamming things in a single turn I can't see it being any good.

Non-Combat: Best exploration skill tree, period. Almost all hacking uses Rootkit and the results are always good. Can't complain at all.

MALWARE

Combat: Awesome, and what makes the Hacker so great until after LV60 or so. Mindmelt is the best virus by a mile, Logic Bomb's good (though I don't recall ever seeing it divide by zero kill anything, ever?), Degrade is surprisingly awesome, and Kill Switch is a godly finisher (and with Overheat splashed in, CC as well). Shareware is a godlike passive and really makes the class fun to play in a different way from others. Decay and Black Ice are lackluster but not terrible.

Non-Combat: Everywhere I saw I could use Malware, I could use Rootkit or Optimization instead. Not a big deal since it's the best damage tree for the class, but worth noting.

OPTIMIZATION

Combat: Ehn. I love Hyper Thread as Dodge+CC is king in NG++, but the rest of the tree isn't interesting. Hotlink should be spammable as its lack of cooldown ceases to have much value once Shareware can spread it in a turn. Timed Release is a fantastic little passive though it feels super necessary to use the Optimization buffs at all as without it they don't last long enough to matter.

Non-Combat: Only really opened secret rooms, but that's a great feature.

[Nakar]

5. Cyberninja

Good damage class with some defensive utility, but very awkward. Someone in a thread described this class as "overdesigned," and I think that rings very true. It can't possibly make use of all the abilities it has, especially past LV60 where you have everything unlocked and can pick all the best stuff.

COMBINATION

Combat: Excellent. Combo Strike is great, Ambush is great, Flipkick takes some getting used to but has amazing utility. Cyclone Kick is AoE and has synergy with Void Psykers but I didn't use it that much (still, try it after using Ignite on a Corpsec Rex with full shields). Ricochet and Purging Blow were too situational to see use on my bar but at least they are powerful. Takedown is insane damage and allows for splattering big nasty mobs and bosses, which gives the Cyberninja a unique feel as a true assassin.

Non-Combat: This literally never did anything, ever. It says it has uses for teamwork and helping an ally who failed their own skill check but it doesn't do either of those. Would be cool if it did.

ASSASSINATION

Combat: Not all that great. Combo Point dependent and Death Notes aren't as good as Setup. Marked For Death and Nanite Toxin are wayyyyy too situational to end up being used, cool as they seem. Assassinate is a very solid finisher and useful in different situations to Takedown; I generally used both once I had both so my Cyberninja could splat two big things in quick succession with the combo points built up from Combo Strike and Flipkick.

Non-Combat: Same as Gunslinger Smuggler, I think? And nothing really wrong with that. Seems to be able to kill some things Smugglers can't too.

DECEPTION

Combat: At first I wasn't a fan, but it's a very good utility and defense tree. The Stealth helps the Cyberninja a lot and it provides some CC, and Concealing Mist is an incredible party buff and one of the better openers even if it makes your Cyberninja's next turn pretty slow. Can't argue with 90% Dodge and free healing.

Non-Combat: Never used in anything, as far as I could see. Would be great if it could let you sense and avoid ambushes, security guards, turrets, etc.

6. Void Psyker

I do like this class a lot, especially with its resource mechanic and all that, but it's a little too focused on damage and one or two forms of utility. I wish it were more clear what caused the Void Psyker to lose control; I've lost control going from 15 Void Energy to 40, which seems stupid, while at other times I've gained energy at 100 and been fine. Seeing the percent chance to lose control would be nice.

MANIPULATOR

Combat: Decent by itself, better with Evoker synergy. Damage isn't great but it removes shields and does a lot of status effects and has two heals, one of which works on the other party members (if slowly). Psi Blade is surprisingly decent and it's actually worth using Strike sometimes, but Void Shell so rarely goes off (though it's welcome when it does since it costs nothing). Cannibalize is way too situational, especially once you can spec into Misery at higher levels. Dark Majesty is fun but not as useful as it seems since AoEing most Manipulator abilities isn't that good.

Non-Combat: Rarely saw it used. Basically similar to Gunslinger Smuggler or Assassination Cyberninja? I feel like it could be useful for more things, like concealing the party's presence from office workers or the like.

EVOKER

Combat: Godlike. Shadowbolt is solid, Ignite is easily the best anti-shield ability in the game (plus an insane DoT against beefy Corpsecs), and Torrent/Voidstorm are the best Void Energy dumps you can ask for (Voidstorm's instant kill rate is crazy high too, if the damage doesn't do it). The passives both make Void Energy a thing you don't need to struggle for, giving them synergy with the other trees. Backlash looked awesome but was stupidly weak compared to what I expected from it, and just isn't worth it.

Non-Combat: Doesn't do anything, but I guess that makes sense.

SUMMONER

Combat: Okay on its own, godlike with Evoker. Evoker has the better active abilities but Summoner adds a few things that really help like Miasma (good AoE that doesn't bankrupt you like Voidstorm) and Invocation. Misery and Rifts are amazing passives that turn a lategame Void Psyker into a tentacle-spamming monstrosity; that these passives make Voidstorm of all things even stronger just says it all. Horror is too slow and Cosmic Horror is kind of silly.

Non-Combat: Can I at least force open a jammed door with a tentacle or something?

Low Tier

7. Engineer

I want to love this class so much. I want it to be awesome because I love it conceptually. But it isn't very good. The resource system doesn't really have any impact (there are no cool mechanics playing with Jigawatz honestly) and all of its abilities are godawful slow. When the best thing about the class is the passive boosts it can give from class equipment and the Rigger passives, it says a great deal. Also, why no Heavy Armor? They seem like one of the most armored classes in their class art, and the TU reduction from an Exoskeleton Kit would help them desperately (more on that below).

CONSTRUCTOR

Combat: This skill tree would rule if it weren't so slow. Junker sucks but Thumper and Blasto are good and Sapper offers AoE shield removal which few other classes have. If I had any suggestions it'd be to make Junker/Sapper 30% Weapon Speed and Blasto/Sapper 50-60%. At 100% it just takes too long to get value from them even with the fastest possible weapon. Also make Sapper's shield stealing more consistent; I don't see why it needs to be 2-3 shields at rank 3 when it could just be 3. Special Delivery is ehn (odds are it won't go off before the fight is won) but Twofer is really neat for double Thumpers on crowds and double Blasto on bosses. Master Builder is a solid capstone passive, and I'd have no issues if the constructs themselves were just more user-friendly.

Non-Combat: Never saw this used. Supposedly can fit in small hatches, but it never came up for me.

RIGGER

Combat: Two great passives and a bunch of hot garbage. Pneumato Fist should be 50% Weapon Speed like comparable abilities for other classes, and it shouldn't go on cooldown when it malfunctions. Rumble Pak barely works and is often a massive liability when it malfunctions on top of being insultingly slow. Railgun is cool but I don't see why it even needs to jam, honestly. Just have a malfunction cause an instantly-cleared jam that resets its rolling bonus. Overshield is cool conceptually but WAY too slow and takes forever to charge up to a useful degree; it's also dependent on generating Jigawatz but the Engineer has no build that lets them go all in on building Jigawatz to charge it up faster. Upgrade's OK.

Non-Combat: Whacking open doors is decent, since it works on server rooms. No real complaints.

BOLTY

Combat: I like Bolty conceptually but he isn't very good at his job most of the time. That said, the abilities are pretty neat (especially Shotblocker, the dodge tanking is real) and he can mostly take care of himself, so it's like having a (somewhat lousy but welcome) fifth party member. My main complaint: Autoroboto sucks and there's no reason for this. If I activate Autoroboto and Bolty uses a regular damn attack anyway, it's like the game pissing in my mouth. Bolty has a suite of abilities I unlocked for his use, he should use them! Also there is literally no reason to deactivate Autoroboto, so it just becomes a dead ability once activated. It should also be able to activate Heal Bolty if it remains an active (and perhaps be 1% Speed to make Bolty self-aware?), but I think it'd be better if it were just a passive and a maxed-out Bolty deployed himself and made his own decisions. It would free up the Engineer's time, which they desperately need right now, and Bolty isn't so overpowered that his full automatic autonomy would ruin anything.

Non-Combat: Supposedly useful in similar situations as Constructor, but I never saw a prompt for it.

8. Prototype

Another "I want to love you" thing, but every setup I tried just didn't impress me very much. Which is surprising, as he's a Heavy Armor class, and I love Heavy Armor for TU cost reductions. But that doesn't really save the Prototype, and it doesn't help that he can't use nutrient broths, serums, or drugs. If he can be healed by a medkit I don't see the logic in why he can't take space meth. For god's sakes, he's the second most likely drug addict in your party after the Void Psyker, despite being a robot. If his base stats were noticeably superior to human classes to compensate it'd be fine but they aren't so he's behind the pack from the outset and his abilities don't quite get him up to par (though they're close).

ANNIHILATION

Combat: Decent. Arm Cannon is nice though Thunderclap is way too slow for its effect to really be appreciated (it's a great effect and I would love to get it off before the fight's over). Haiku is a fantastic and quick buff and a great opener. Target Lock just seems conceptually bad; it's a boss killer sort of thing but I don't think it's worth the downside and the slot. Safety Protocol is hilarious and great, as is RAM; RAM would be better if Thunderclap were a little faster though. Hunter Killer is a weird passive but in my experience it was surprisingly good and provided some great bonuses the Prototype really needed; since you often encounter a lot of the same enemy in a mission, he quickly builds stacks of it.

Non-Combat: Robo-diplomacy is pretty nice, and uniquely situational.

TERMINATION

Combat: Mediocre. The passives are the best part and more for their synergy with Mutation. Demean is a weak taunt, Get Down is a terrible trade, and Aegis Mode is pathetic. Reason is fun but very slow. I've never seen a need for Termination Mode.

Non-Combat: Robo-diplomacy here as well, and just as nice.

MUTATION

Combat: Probably the best he has to offer. Chaotic Shot helps a lot with his generally poor speed, and Assault and Kill Cone have their nifty uses (shield stripping etc.). Core Dump is fun but even trying my darndest to get malfunctions on purpose it took too long to charge. Mut.exe is not really needed but there's nothing wrong with it. HAM is... way weaker than I expected. I think most of its impact gets eaten by armor unless you get rid of it, which only certain classes can do easily. I'd probably just use RAM as my malfunction clearer and spam Chaotic Shot to do damage and farm malfunctions. Chaos Model's a cool passive though it's a little tricky to make use of at 5 malfunctions.

Non-Combat: Doesn't appear to have any uses whatsoever. Given the theme of the tree, I'd love to see it used for things where the risk/reward balance is super swingy. Like say the Prototype can analyze the fantasy sportball betting pool and make a big investment on a team, but the chance of actually winning is lower than for Smugglers/Soldiers with a commensurately higher payoff if you're lucky. Also, it'd be nice if the Prototype could fix scrambled terminals that lead to secret rooms with Mutation, essentially because his code is so weird that he perfectly understands the weird glitchy interface.

Overall

My party in NG was Hacker/Soldier/Smuggler/Void Psyker. In NG+ I expanded out and tried every class, but I found I was most frequently using my Force Psyker as the fourth in place of the Void Psyker. By NG++ the Hacker wasn't even really pulling his weight all that much, the Soldier and Force Psyker were doing most of the damage, and the Smuggler was there for CC and healing and utility. At LV100 I'm not sure what I would say the "best party" is, except that it definitely includes Soldier/Force Psyker and probably includes Smuggler. If Engineer were better I'd say that for more party utility, buffs, AoE, and shield stripping, but otherwise I guess Hacker or Void Psyker probably.

[Nakar]

WEAPONS

Just wanted to briefly discuss some issues that came up with weapons throughout the game. First of all, I love the variety and most weapon types have some value (yes, even SMGs). Weapons also scale very well to level and are usually always a big improvement when you can upgrade. However, there are a few complaints that I have about the way the system works.

1. Wayyyyyy too much RNG in baseline weapon stats. I'm fine with RNG upgrade abilities, but there are some absurd variables in terms of what drops. Damage can be arbitrarily much lower or higher than average for no apparent reason. Time Unit costs vary way too much: A Basic Rifle can be anywhere from 170 TU to 210 TU, which is a gigantic difference! This makes the drop system but especially the armories (Dablue Yutaki & FoxKin primarily) insanely wacky. FoxKin might give you a 170 TU Carbine with Hunter Rounds and an awesome elemental setup, or it might give you the same thing but at 210 TU with a lame primary upgrade, basically unusable.

2. TU costs should only be varying between weapon types (e.g. Heavy Pistols should be slower than Pistols, etc.), and should be trending toward the lower end of the current TU scale. Expected average damage should also be somewhat similar, and the "heavy" categories should get a bit of a damage boost as at the moment they tend to always lose in terms of Damage Per TU (which is bad when low TU has advantages already). Alternately, Heavy variants could stand to have better upgrade options or something. SMGs are usable but you desperately need one in the 155 TU range which is the lower bound and thus pretty rare, to say nothing of getting the upgrades on it you might want.

3. It would be nice if there were slightly more logic in weapon names and appearances. I get that it's random loot but it'd be nice if the specific name told me more about things in the same category like the prefix and suffix do. It's fine between subcategories; you'll never confuse a Minigun and a Flamer or an Omnigun and a Carbine. But it'd be nice if "Carbine," "Rifle," and so forth actually meant something more concrete about the specific weapon compared to other weapons in the same category. Would also be nice if the appearance was more consistent (e.g. all "Carbines" use the same model) with mostly the color being random.

4. Would it be possible to slightly tone down the class bonus appearance chance relative to other upgrade options? If I order three Heavy Melee weapons from FoxKin, my Force Psyker really doesn't need two of them. The fact that only certain classes get their bonuses on certain weapon categories also hurts people sometimes; Light Melee is pretty rad for Cyberninjas and Hackers and Void Psykers but not so much Engineers, and in general Hackers/Engineers have way too many weapons where they have a class bonus. Also, some of the class bonuses are way better than others, but I guess they all have their uses (the Engineer's one is poo though because it doesn't transfer the Engineer's stacks to new constructs).

5. I had to order and loot hundreds of weapons to get even the slightest idea what upgrade options are available on which weapon types and what they do. I wish this were in the Codex.

6. In general, you want to be as fast as possible. The tradeoffs for very slow weapons just didn't ever really seem worth it compared to the myriad benefits of going first like faster cooldown cycling and the ability to react to trouble with a CC or defensive move. I don't know what slower stuff needs but once I understood the value of TU I started compromising on damage to get more turns and it basically never did me wrong. Didn't even give up that much damage, honestly.

7. It's a nitpick and it doesn't take that much mental math to figure out, but it'd be nice if an Akimbo Smuggler's damage comparisons on Pistols more accurately gauged their actual expected damage with the Akimbo boost. Most Pistols have a poorer Damage Per TU than other categories but are actually considerably better for Smugglers due to the +50% on every Weapon Ability and it'd be neat if that were better-reflected on the character sheet. Admittedly that doesn't apply to non-Weapon Abilities and the Smuggler has many of those...

Weapons are mostly great, I just wish they were a little less RNG-based. A good, truly good weapon is insane; I had a 170 TU Legendary Heavy Melee drop for my Force Psyker at the end of NG and she used that thing for a good 20 levels into NG+ almost one-shotting things with Condemn. I recently had a Legendary Multishot Pistol drop that I can't really find any use for despite it having two +15% damage boost upgrades and one +25% boost, because it's too slow for my Smuggler and Prototype.

[Nakar]

ARMOR & SHIELDS

So uh, yeah... I found a Legendary Light Armor on the last mission of NG and kept it on my Hacker until he hit LV100. Armor and Shield scaling is just terrible in NG+/NG++. Enemy shields are blocking thousands of points of damage but your party is getting maybe 10 more damage reduction at best every 10-15 levels, while enemy damage is scaling up way faster than that? There's basically no point; if you're not using mitigation abilities like Condemn and CC, then your best defense is definitely just Dodge.

For the most part I just kept fishing for Auroch Light Armor with Exoskeleton and good resistances for everybody but my Heavy Armor users, slapped a Jiyin Armor Implant on there, and called it a day. When my characters do get hit on NG++ they take 500-1500 damage per hit and there's simply no way to soak that much damage. Even my Soldier gets torn apart and the only reason she can stay standing is the Force Psyker and her own self-healing capabilities, which are good enough that I don't need more armor anyway.

Other issues:

1. It's not adequately explained what shields even DO, and they appear to behave differently for you and the enemy. They actually don't, other than by scale; enemy shields are potent enough to absorb entire attacks while player shields only shave a tiny bit of damage and the pips disappear and you shrug. Because of this, I don't see any particular point in the three shield types and just use whatever has the best overall numbers or one of the artifact shields; a Heavy Shield at the moment does not substantially increase your survivability against singular strong attacks, and a Light Shield does not meaningfully help you against numerous small ones. Plus Corpsec robots spam Shieldbreaker like it's going out of style so your shields rarely matter anyway (they do set my Soldier on fire though, which is awesome, thanks for that).

2. Armor does not scale well at all. By LV100 it should be blocking hundreds of points of damage. Maybe it's more adequate at levels lower than Hardcore, but on Hardcore there's basically no point in wearing armor for its actual armor. It wouldn't break the game that much if somebody with Heavy Armor could shave 500 points of damage off a Corpsec Heavy's 1500 damage attack. It's only not an issue at the moment because CC and Dodge are functional enough to prevent enemies from taking too many turns.

3. Why, God, why do armor pieces and shields have random numbers of resistances and wildly variable Armor Block values? Some armor can have half a dozen resistances of 10%+ while others drop with 14% in one stat and a matching upgrade to increase it to 24% while adding no others. Just adds more RNG to armor drops and favor requisitions. This is also why I have trouble finding upgrades; sometimes you find a piece of armor 30 levels higher that got RNG assigned so little Armor Block that the "upgrade" would be +1 and a bunch of worse resistances. Legendary armor seems to have no trouble with this, but good luck finding any.

4. It says something that I haven't upgraded many of my characters' armor or shields throughout [/i]the entirety of NG+ and NG++[/i]. A LV30 weapon does not still cut the mustard at LV100; why should LV30 armor? It's not that I'm not looking; I check every Epic armor drop that I get against what the party's currently wearing. It just rarely, if ever, stacks up. Legendary stuff is always an upgrade but I don't see Legendary armor much.

5. Manufacturer bonuses are kind of weird on armor. Titan's Crit Resist boost seems like massive overkill and not all that useful anyway given how weak armor itself is. Boomslang and Auroch are very solid simple bonuses, and FoxKin's is also good. But then you have Custom Armor, which requires rep with your armor's manufacturer, so a Soldier can't wear Auroch or Zuse if they want the boosts, so basically Boomslang or FoxKin really.

In general, I think armor and shields need to be more meaningful. If player CC needs to see a nerf for that to be the case so be it, since at the moment I can survive just fine on Hardcore by not letting enemies attack me. But armor should be more than just its upgrades and resistances, and it should scale up better so that a piece of armor 30 levels higher is categorically better in an obvious way to something 30 levels lower.

[Nakar]

CORPS & FAVORS

Just a quick review of each corp and their favor options and how good I think they are relative to the trouble of raising them.

THE UFP

Horizon: Probably the best of the three storyline corps, since if nothing else it's free money. Problem is you probably don't want Horizon to like you as it raises your overall UFP favorability.

Agrigen: Awesome, very easy to farm favor for (and you get a buff with the Siphon), Nutrient Broths are a little RNGish but the bonus is insane. Falls off in value once every human party member has all three buffs but that's going to take a while.

Anulap: Mediocre. The favor bonuses are eclipsed by Rhyzohm in the long term and the 10 favor option is not worth it at all considering the cost and the need to have the UFP be at Trusted when you want the exact opposite for better corps.

Boomslang: Poor. The random armor/weapon max out at Rare for too much favor, and the shotgun customization is a novelty. If you could pick what upgrades you got and could pick something other than a Shotgun we'd be talking.

Chimera: Awesome for the serum, but should then be dumpstered for Jiyin.

Emer LT: Garbage. The rifle you can get isn't Epic and isn't customizable, the hireling is so-so, and the weapon attachment seems basically worse than a Triocular Adjuster which is far easier to buy off Talrie. Plus it ONLY works on Rifles. If it lowered TU costs or had a way higher Accuracy/Crit boost it'd be more interesting.

Rhyzohm: One of the best corps for sure. Always worth at least being Trusted for the Server Locators and Com Scramblers, and maxing it out to grab the Skeleton/Master Keys is just good sense (though lowering it later so your UFP rep isn't too high is a good idea). You can do immense work getting the keys and then only running non-UFP missions with server rooms that you beeline for using Server Locators. Throw in Com Scramblers and you won't lose rep either.

Titan: Annoying to raise favor and the Epic Titan Armor is too expensive relative to other armories; for 10 favor it better have top resistances and let me pick the upgrades on it or it just isn't worth it. The DIY Exoskeleton Kit is incredible though and makes them worth it and the favor requirements not that big a deal since you won't upgrade armor much.

THE ACCORD

Aurora: Basically useless. Their rewards only work in story missions and then not even in every story mission. The loot rooms can be hacked into. If random missions could visit the Stella Marin and every such mission had an Aurora loot door it'd be better.

Astrohund: The Ship Surveyor rules and the Terminal Pinger could be a little better (it'd be nice if it showed me the terminals before I walked into the room that has them and could hear them), and I'm not really sure why they can self-destruct except to be annoying. They'd be better as more expensive permanent items or cheaper one-use items like Server Locators. The equipment is useless. The Skeleton Key should be Rhyzohm-tier... but it doesn't work. At all. Top tier for that alone if only it worked.

Dablue Yutaki: Awesome since it's the only way to pull random manufacturer equipment. Do wish I didn't have to order stuff as a suite of gear though, since the armor/shield invariably just end up getting sold. Paladins are a pain to farm too, but at least they're spawnable on command so you can farm as many as you want.

FoxKin: Awesome. The Armor Enhancement is OK, probably worse than Jiyin's, but it's cheap. The equipment is great and you can order only what you want, and it costs little favor and FoxKin favor is easy. Right up there with Rhyzohm and the reason you don't want the UFP to love you.

Jiyin: Pretty decent. The armor enhancement is cheap and worthwhile, especially stacked on Exoskeleton Auroch armor for tons of Dodge. The CyberEyes are neat for a Hacker. The Portable Medbay is also pretty nice, though I rarely need one; if you're at Wanted with Chimera it's also insanely cheap. So cheap you can actually get stuck not being able to buy it despite having the favor, as the contact won't talk to you if you have less than 3 total favor! Annoying to raise but Giga Worms aren't as rare as people say as long as you pick the right missions; one Ship mission with Astral Worms and you should get 6-10 favor.

Kage: Good. The fact that you can run missions against them and not lose reputation is fantastic too, since if you have the Skeleton/Master Keys from Rhyzohm you can also freely make use of the server rooms since Kage isn't UFP. That kind of obviates the need for their items, but those items DO work in UFP territory which is at least something. The beacon is also really cool and a neat capstone reward.

ANARCHISTS

Ragnarok: Amazing. Easy to raise favor, adds some interesting dimensions and choices to the storyline. It's a very deal-with-the-devil sort of thing, where you're getting great rewards to entice you to stick with them. Large Medkits and chems on the cheap, plus the vendor droid that massively increases your income since you're not throwing out half the loot on a map. The Crimson Pact rep thing is a novelty I guess.

GalaxyMart: Too annoying to raise rep for the rather mediocre rewards, but the favor goes up fast and the discount is okay. In my experience the private inventory rarely has much of value, though I did once find a very nice gun in there and it's a source of Medium/Large Medkits. Shame you can only see one vending machine's private inventory per mission.

Gray Solutions: Urgh. Great rewards, but super annoying favor farming. Rather than randomly deciding if there's a vending machine with a package, I'd prefer it if every machine on a map could spawn a package, allowing for the possibility of getting several on a run. Would be nice if vending machines appeared in other map types too. Super anal about your UFP rep: FoxKin is cool with you being Neutral/Respected but Gray won't talk to you at all if your UFP rep isn't negative.

Hollow Earth, Hollow Soul: Adorable and easy to raise, but there isn't a lot to it in terms of reward. It'd be nice if they could do some kind of preemptive raid on the security systems of a lab/facility for you, disabling some of the security systems. In exchange, the mission would always have pwoggle cages and they'd get mad if you didn't rescue them all. Just something to spend that favor on.

Crimson Pact: Lower their rep to -5 and then have Ragnarok increase it to +10 and you can pretend you're friends with pirates. Otherwise just raid them and steal all their stuff and enjoy the random pirate attacks on other missions.

INDEPENDENT

Allure: It's okay. Free bribery stuff.

PAR: Also okay. More fun but more tedious to get favor for, but the rewards are cheap except the salon thing.

Riggo's: I kinda wish the unique brews were better buffs. Riggo's XXX is kind of better than random hooch but not by that much, and the Select Reserve is unimpressive. The hireling is cool but expensive.

Social Stage: #1 corp in the game. Essential to push to Allied as soon as possible. Helps you ally with other corps, gets you out of trouble with people you're trolling, and can transfer favor to corps that are more annoying to raise, letting you get stuff like nutrient broths or equipment faster. Lx is every bit the PR master he claims to be.

TEC: So-so rewards except the ANCH which is pretty neato. My party members don't die and I have auto-rez passives in play but it's well worth holding on to one just in case.

Workers United: The supplies and gear are garbage but disrupting plans is actually pretty nice. Better is to make sure nobody hates you that much, but you can't completely avoid that so Birdie can provide a useful service.

Overall, there is kind of an optimum way to play the corp game: Never upset anyone too much, boost all the Accord/Anarchist/Independent groups to Allied, boost half the UFP and dumpster the rest, and maybe push Chimera to Wanted after getting your fill of Serum X. On every new cycle I rushed Social Stage to 100 as soon as possible and got Rhyzohm to around 40ish for Com Scramblers (which I also bought from Talrie). Run against Kage with their consultant accessory whenever possible.

Inside missions, don't touch things that raise the alarm level except credit crates where it seems you have no choice. Don't steal from anybody, especially your employer (you can end up Suspicious and can't have positive rep with a corp anymore); auctioned stuff is usually crap anyway. The best loot is from random containers and bosses, since that gives you a shot at Epic/Legendary gear.

Everyone will love you except Anulap who won't give you five star auction items, but those aren't that good anyway. And only your story enemies and maybe Chimera will hate you enough to want to send people after you, so fewer nasty surprises on missions. Or you can just screw around with the Crimson Pact, since there's no real penalty for robbing them blind except pirate attacks and even that can technically be mitigated with Ragnarok favor.

Concluding Thoughts

Really enjoy the game, looking forward to seeing what else gets done with it. I played entirely on Hardcore and it's hard to imagine playing on anything lower; as it is, by the end of NG I was running Very Hard/Extreme missions all the time, which made leveling up on new cycles very easy since the enemies were worth tons of experience and there were Intellifoams all over the place. I don't think the game is "too easy" despite that as I've gone to great lengths to min-max my characters and there are still dangers if you get bad initiative rolls.

Also Worm Ooze is the worst debuff in the game and I refuse to even run Mines missions because of it. +50 TU costs for the rest of the mission and it just gets reapplied by the next worm if you clean it?

[Thunderflux]

+1 epic detailed feedback!

[Aranador]

I basically have the same thoughts from my experiences.

[Aggraxis]

That was some fairly badass feedback. Question about your prototype's non-combat interactions. Did you have any interactions between him and the quirky drone? I had something happen that paid off in spades towards the end with figuring out some lore about the prototype and the relationship to the drone. Very rewarding experience. I forget which tree satisfied the encounter checks, but way cool nonetheless.

[Nakar]

If you mean the Housekeeper, I didn't use the Prototype too much, but you can definitely interact with the Housekeeper using the Prototype and that seems to make it possible to get the best possible resolution to that chain of events. I've gotten the best result without that though, so I don't think the Prototype is REQUIRED.

[Teller]

So far enjoying starcrawlers thanks for your review you should post your class info in the guides section.

I feel like this game could easily be controller compatible and I definently see a market for it on console etc. Just the only thing I long for hehe.

[Nakar]

I'd love to post some kind of guide but unfortunately I got the game on GoG so Steam doesn't think I own it and won't let me submit guides. Alas.

[Daddy Firestorm]

lol... Force psycher sentinal "Decent"?
if you boost your FP's critrate, you can just spawm warden's wrath until everything is dead... meanwhile, your whole party had double health.

I'll say OP

[Nakar]

Warden's Wrath is not even remotely the most broken thing Force Psyker has access to, but I did mention that Light Melee barrier spamming can be very effective. I'm not entirely sold on Warden's Wrath actually rolling a sufficiently high crit rate to keep all enemies stunned, but it doesn't really have to since you have three other people who can also control the enemy. Still, you can get similar effects from the Hacker, Engineer, and Smuggler.

The most OP thing about Force Psykers in general is that your party basically can't die with one in the group. Barriers, heals, stuns, three or four instant death saves, and a number of ways to just tell the enemies they don't get to do any damage.

[lordbio]

Void Psycher is currently the best class I've seen in my run throughs. Its damage Output is just too good. Evoker line can get you to 100 Energy in 3-4 turns at the most and then Void Storm will kill almost every enemy. This may seem like a long time but you can save enrgy in battle so every other battle open up with a Void Storm and watch the enemy fry. Best used with a Hackers Overclock to speed along its turns.

[Aranador]

And yet, I would say the soldier is the best, except when the Cyberninja is if you happen to find the specific weapon. Void Psyker is good too of course. Hacker and Smugger both have their moments. Force Psyker is awesome for entirely other reasons. Prototype is fun, but not actually good. And the Engineer is, well, back in early beta they were actually pretty great, but somewhere along the way, they lost their greatness and became meh. It isnt like they're bad, and with care you can get a little use out of them, its just that anything they can do, you could do better, and do it quicker.

[Nakar]

The classes with the highest damage potential tend to either be able to act at very low TUs due to natural 50% or lower skills or TU cost reduction effects, or have a lot of Weapon Abilities so they can exploit multihit weapons. Hacker and Force Psyker (and sorta Prototype) have the former, Smuggler and Cyberninja have the latter. Soldier has both.

Void Psyker has neither, but what it DOES have is enormous base damage and tons of AoE, which is really its niche. Soldier can do absurd damage per TU -- I can solo the NG++ Hardcore final story boss with a Soldier and not take damage -- but they can't instantly win a fight like a 90+ Voidstorm on a 5 enemy fight can. My only complaint about Void Psyker is that they're a bit one-dimensional and a little slow in endgame terms (but pretty fast in NG as they can use 120 TU weapons with no downsides).