[Spoilers] Best Outcome for Post-Ruby Event?

[Nameless]

Talking about the confrontation with the Krenel Mercenaries. I've never been able to talk them out of violence, even in my second playthrough where I collected as much evidence as I could and felt like Harry probably could have made a decent argument lying and saying Ruby did it, but the options were not really there.

That being said, I was also well-equipped for violence on my second run. On my first run I had no gun at all and when the talking broke down only 2 of the Hardie Boys survived. On my second run I have 2 bullets and not just my gun from Evrart in my right hand but also Ruby's gun in my left. To my disappointment the game only seems to significantly change the outcome if you have 1 gun and 1 bullet. A second bullet does sort of matter but only in the case you miss the first shot.

From what I can tell, negotiations always break down, even if you know pretty much everything you can know about the crime at that point. They don't seem to listen if you blame it on a person who isn't present nor if you blame it on Ruby even though it seems like you could make a pretty good argument framing her. My first playthrough I arrested Klaasje and on the second I let her go. If you let her go, Garte reveals that she packed up and fled while you were meeting Ruby. From there, you can shoot Raul in the face which winds up eventually killing him in the aftermath. If you don't shoot him, he survives the confrontation and goes back under the protection of the rest of the mercenaries. You can also miss the first shot, but I got a second chance to shoot him because I had a second bullet. It played out the same as if I had just hit him the first time though.

From there Rudd tries to shoot you, Kim tries to shoot Rudd, and DePaul shoots Glenn. I've never been hurt by Rudd - the first time I played through this game I dodged the shot and the second time I had the T500 cuirass. If you fail to dodge but are wearing the cuirass the bullet hits you but does nothing. I don't know what happens if you actually get hit while vulnerable. I imagine there's potential for Kim to do different things here too - I've always given back his gun from shooting the corpse down, but maybe there's a scenario in which he doesn't have a gun? There might be cases where he's not with you either because he went to go deliver Klaasje but I haven't tried those either. Rudd dies to Kim's shot and Glenn dies to DePaul. I've never been able to save Glenn.

At that point, Raul shoots you. There's an option to dodge but I've replayed it a few times now and I can't dodge it even at 97% success so I guess it's a fixed result. On my second playthrough I was hoping having the T500 boots would save you here but you just get shot in the leg all the same. You get the choice to warn Kim of DePaul - if you do successfully, DePaul dies and Kim joins you for the last bit of the game. If you don't, I don't remember what happens to DePaul but Kim is hospitalized and I got Cuno to join me.

Shooting Raul in the face seemed to save a lot more people. Noticeably Titus survived in my second playthrough where he died in the first. I'm not sure if anyone has figured out any better outcomes for this confrontation.

[Sentient_Toaster]

I had one gun, two bullets, a psy/int build that passed the talky checks, a lot of info, and still ended up in all three mercenaries dead, three of Titus's crew dead (but not him), and my being wounded in a leg.

[Chicago Ted]

I am pretty sad that having two bullets didn't do anything, considering if I recall right that the gun's a pepperbox, so you can have multiple rounds loaded.
If you have high Inland Empire and do the right decisions and buy the right items along the way, you can craft a molotov, which you use instead of the gun. Even if you have the gun and ammo in the other hand. Now that's police brutality.

As for dodging the second shot, I'm pretty sure you can't. I passed the check (You can see what you roll by mousing over it in the dialogue box) and still took a shot to the leg.

[sircul2]

Originally posted by Party Eyes Ted:

If you have high Inland Empire and do the right decisions and buy the right items along the way, you can craft a molotov, which you use instead of the gun. Even if you have the gun and ammo in the other hand. Now that's police brutality.

Woah I'd very much like to know how to do this

[Kottery]

Originally posted by sircul2:

Originally posted by Party Eyes Ted:

If you have high Inland Empire and do the right decisions and buy the right items along the way, you can craft a molotov, which you use instead of the gun. Even if you have the gun and ammo in the other hand. Now that's police brutality.

Woah I'd very much like to know how to do this

You need to equip the horrific necktie while approaching the drunk guys and then the necktie will give you a task to get the blue alcohol - which is priced at 300 real but you can get it down to 3 real after some talking. Then after ruby on the way out you need to wear the tie still, it will let you sacrifice the tie to make a firebomb.

[dataseer21]

I figure that you always have to do the violence because if I remember correctly I passed all of the talking checks but it didn't matter. Where do you get the gun? Is it on ruby because I totally blanked out and didn't take is so they just shot the crap out of me. I survived though.

[Timrod]

The T500 boots wouldn't save you. They kind of foreshadow this when you get the quest to find all of the armor pieces - you can ask the person who gives you the quest (I forget who it is) why there aren't T500 leggings and the answer is that they never made any - therefore even if you had all the pieces you'd still get hit in the leg.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Originally posted by dataseer21:

I figure that you always have to do the violence because if I remember correctly I passed all of the talking checks but it didn't matter. Where do you get the gun? Is it on ruby because I totally blanked out and didn't take is so they just shot the crap out of me. I survived though.

If you do enough work for the union boss, he gives you the location and time you can expect to find the person who has your gun; supposedly he helps arrange that, so that person probably won't be there if he doesn't give you this tip. At least one of the ways of resolving this ends up with you getting your gun back, with a single bullet.

Depending on what happened with Ruby, you may be able to take her gun. There's at least one resolution where that isn't possible, AFAICT.