Did Zetachrome become impossibly rare?

[Pizzarugi]

I need a zetachrome longsword for spoiler reasons, but I just can't find one anywhere. I've only ever found 3 zetachrome weapons and they were all psychic which I pried from arch dervishes, but none of them were swords.

I've been doing everything I can think of to try and find one, including combing the Moon Stair and cloning an army of Dromad Traders I found in strata 59 of baroque ruins which should be T8, but so far I've come up with nothing.

[Pizzarugi]

Update: Finally found a Zetachrome Longsword.

I had to clone a Dromad Trader found in the Moon Stair 24 times and force them to restock a few times, but they finally sold a sword. The ones I had cloned in strata 59 of the baroque ruins never sold any, so zetachrome is either unbelievably rare or traders must be found in Moon Stair to have a chance of offering it.

[glass zebra]

Tier 7 weapons are rare and tier 8 are super rare. Even if you get the loot table for their tier, they have a big chance to roll for lower stuff. I would not really try to get a specific zetachrome weapon for that stuff.

[Pizzarugi]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Tier 7 weapons are rare and tier 8 are super rare. Even if you get the loot table for their tier, they have a big chance to roll for lower stuff. I would not really try to get a specific zetachrome weapon for that stuff.

I would agree were it not for the fact that your choice of zetachrome weapon impacts the outcome of the quest. I like disarming things, so I strongly desire a sword.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Tier 7 weapons are rare and tier 8 are super rare. Even if you get the loot table for their tier, they have a big chance to roll for lower stuff. I would not really try to get a specific zetachrome weapon for that stuff.

I would agree were it not for the fact that your choice of zetachrome weapon impacts the outcome of the quest. I like disarming things, so I strongly desire a sword.

You can do that without choosing the zetachrome longsword though with learning the skill and using any kind of longsword. Getting disarm at tier 8 is pretty late for some of its utility.

It is nice to get a specific outcome for the quest, but the rareness of the weapons means pretty much that you have to actively farm for them for an unknown amount of time if you want a specific one.

[Pizzarugi]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

I would agree were it not for the fact that your choice of zetachrome weapon impacts the outcome of the quest. I like disarming things, so I strongly desire a sword.

You can do that without choosing the zetachrome longsword though with learning the skill and using any kind of longsword. Getting disarm at tier 8 is pretty late for some of its utility.

It is nice to get a specific outcome for the quest, but the rareness of the weapons means pretty much that you have to actively farm for them for an unknown amount of time if you want a specific one.

The spoiler can't use standard equipment and it must be gigantic. There are ways to teach it how to use long blades, which I'm unsure is even allowed, but the chances of you finding a gigantic long blade for it to then use is even rarer than finding a zetachrome weapon to create the spoiler which is implicitly given all skills of that respective weapon class.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

Originally posted by glass zebra:

You can do that without choosing the zetachrome longsword though with learning the skill and using any kind of longsword. Getting disarm at tier 8 is pretty late for some of its utility.

It is nice to get a specific outcome for the quest, but the rareness of the weapons means pretty much that you have to actively farm for them for an unknown amount of time if you want a specific one.

The spoiler can't use standard equipment and it must be gigantic. There are ways to teach it how to use long blades, which I'm unsure is even allowed, but the chances of you finding a gigantic long blade for it to then use is even rarer than finding a zetachrome weapon.

Gigantic creatures only need gigantic armour pieces, not weapons. Gigantic weapons (and many other gigantic item types) instead have better stats and they can wear gigantic weapons without needing more hands. Edit: not true anymore. I misremembered

I was talking about your character learning long blades though, since that is much easier and more reliably to use than using disarm from that thing. If you are not a melee fighter, long blades are probably the go to weapon for most builds due to utility and passive buff.

[Pizzarugi]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

The spoiler can't use standard equipment and it must be gigantic. There are ways to teach it how to use long blades, which I'm unsure is even allowed, but the chances of you finding a gigantic long blade for it to then use is even rarer than finding a zetachrome weapon.

Gigantic creatures only need gigantic armour pieces, not weapons. Gigantic weapons instead have better stats and they can wear them without needing more hands.

I was talking about your character learning long blades though, since that is much easier and more reliably to use than using disarm from that thing. If you are not a melee fighter, long blades are probably the go to weapon for most builds due to utility and passive buff.

Oh really? Gigantic companions can use standard weapons? I'll have to take a look into that.

And funny enough, I main melee. The only ranged weapons I use is a spaser pistol to make enemies more vulnerable to cold damage on my sword and a longreach grappling gun, because my temporal fugue army refuses to get up close to things otherwise.

I still prefer long blades as a weapon of choice. Long blades is so far the only weapon type that has access to vibro weapons (ex. Ceremonial Vibrokhopesh) so you don't have to feel forced into stacking strength to be an effective fighter against armored opponents, plus you can disarm all manner of enemies including turrets and robots whose weapons would otherwise be destroyed if killed.

Axes may have dismemberment and decapitation, but you can't control what you remove (unlike disarming which is almost always the target's mainhand weapon) and won't help you when you're fighting Chrome Pyramids or the Girsh Nephilim since they have Regeneration 10.

Short blades just have bleed going for it and a ton of free hits. The bleed only deals 0-1 damage per round and stacks up to your agility modifier. I don't see that faring all that well against even Leering Stalkers, let alone a Chrome Pyramid or Girsh Nephilim. It does have the psychic weapon you get upon murdering Tau which is great if you're playing an esper build, but good luck fighting oozes or robots with it.

And finally, cudgels only have a very short duration stun going for them which becomes less effective as you fight higher level opponents who can more easily resist them or just break out of one sooner. The only thing really going for cudgels is perhaps the Prayer Rod if you wanna tinker it into being a full elemental weapon, because pairing it with a spaser weapon or plasma grenade can have hilarious results. There's also Fist of the Ape God, but you'd need to dedicate yourself entirely to strength to get any mileage out of it.

[glass zebra]

Update: It seems gigantic creatures can no longer equip non-gigantic weapons. I've searched in the patch notes for this change but can't find anything. Might be unintended

[I blame Earthshaker]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Update: It seems gigantic creatures can no longer equip non-gigantic weapons. I've searched in the patch notes for this change but can't find anything. Might be unintended

I mean, it makes sense, since the gigantic stuff is implied to be Gundam-sized, not GoT giant-sized... plus, game now also has that specific hidden merchant to handle gigantic items. Although gotta wear like 5 Otherpearls to have a decent chance of the merchant stocking extra-dimensional gigantic items.

I guess the real question is... can normal sized characters mod gigantic items, or do you have to be a gigantic creature with tinkering skills?

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by I blame Earthshaker:

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Update: It seems gigantic creatures can no longer equip non-gigantic weapons. I've searched in the patch notes for this change but can't find anything. Might be unintended

I mean, it makes sense, since the gigantic stuff is implied to be Gundam-sized, not GoT giant-sized... plus, game now also has that specific hidden merchant to handle gigantic items. Although gotta wear like 5 Otherpearls to have a decent chance of the merchant stocking extra-dimensional gigantic items.

I guess the real question is... can normal sized characters mod gigantic items, or do you have to be a gigantic creature with tinkering skills?

Gigantic weapons already have the incentive to be worn due to extra power though. Gigantic armour does not. It is just big and heavy with no upside apart for being needed by gigantic creatures. "Realistically" the armour needs to be big to fit over the creatures, but the weapon does not. I guess it is weird if they just hold it with 1 finger though. It did give you more options to make a build for your golem though.

[I blame Earthshaker]

I dunno, how the game handles colossal creatures is weird in general. Besides the pathfinding issues that are skipped by still making colossal creatures one tile wide, game also doesn't seem to penalize colossal stuff for being underground... one would think that something 30-50 feet tall would have some sort of movespeed penalty underground.

Maybe game needs to add an in between size for stuff that is large, but not colossal. But then why aren't snapjaws then considered "diminutive?"