Best area/quest order for Act 3?

[ahsanford]

Just returned from Act 2 (Factory / Habitat / Maintenance Deck) to the Armory and all areas appear unlocked again.

Act 2 was a bit on rails -- one main path in, choices at the hab, and then one main path out.

But Act 3 seems super wide open between new areas and (what appear to be) old areas with new content / developments / quests.

Any suggestions on where to begin? I am trying to avoid stumbling into the really hard battles I need to be more leveled / skilled up for.

Pls try to be spoiler-friendly with your answer if you can. Focus on areas and not the people/things/decisions within them -- thx.

- A

[ahsanford]

And: side question -- is it worth it to use returning to old areas to skill up something I never leveled in the first place?

Sneak has always been an afterthought for my party. It's very hard to do, requires a rather complicated / dedicated build and (critically) I never tagged that skill with my tagged lockpicker (who is also my main -- tagged all the talking skills instead).

So my main has untagged Sneak at L3 -- that's it.

But now that I'm back in old areas, are there opportunities to level Sneak up? I did *everything* before going to the Factory, so I presume Sneak encounters will not be available, but perhaps some training coins from new areas could help me catch up? Or is there a sneak trainer?

Or would all of this be futile as everything in Act 3 with sneak will be so highly challenging that I'd need L8+ sneak *and* sneaking feats to have a fighting chance? If so, I wouldn't even start that climb with this playthrough.

Thx

[Mechalibur]

I'd say there's no real point trying to level up your sneak at this point. Focus on what you're good at - stealth is optional and you've missed out on quite a few opportunities to increase it. For example, if you sneak past the frogs in Hydroponics Green or the Scavs in the first floor of the armory, you get a huge amount of sneak LP. So if you're going to try stealth in a future run, keep those opportunities in mind.

Anyway, Act 3 is a bit awkward in my experience because which zone to tackle first really depends on whether you're taking a purely combat route through the game and what skills you have. For example, if I'm dealing with the biggest threats in Mission Control with computers, I'll usually go there pretty early, but if I'm fighting my way through, I save it for the end due to how difficult the fights are. So not a helpful answer, but it really depends on your capabilities.

[ahsanford]

Originally posted by Mechalibur:

Anyway, Act 3 is a bit awkward in my experience because which zone to tackle first really depends on whether you're taking a purely combat route through the game and what skills you have. For example, if I'm dealing with the biggest threats in Mission Control with computers, I'll usually go there pretty early, but if I'm fighting my way through, I save it for the end due to how difficult the fights are. So not a helpful answer, but it really depends on your capabilities.

Three proper hard fights in MC's inner sanctum that I will lose without burning a lot or Romeo's juice.

I can make one of those fights go away with L8 comp/elec skills, but Evans is only L7 for both right now.

And you can't leave MC's inner sanctum (to skill comp/elec up) once you enter.

(That's the bloody PITA this game is -- the battles are beyond brutal, you can never be geared enough and you're always one step behind the power curve for required skills to bypass hard things. This game is a suffering engine. Talk me down.)

But my takehome is that one should do not Mission Control's inner sanctum until you are properly leveled in Comp/Elec to 8. Then you can deal with Shadow without him cleaning the place out and return anytime you like for the other two battles, presumably when you are strong enough or have more juice to burn with Romeo.

- A

[Mechalibur]

Well I'd also recommend not using Evans for computers/electronics in general. Faythe is better for skill checks since she can qualify for Skill Monkey (or even more so if you take Thief on her instead of Assassin, but then she's worse in combat). I usually either use her or the main character for science checks depending on my build.

[ahsanford]

Originally posted by Mechalibur:

Well I'd also recommend not using Evans for computers/electronics in general. Faythe is better for skill checks since she can qualify for Skill Monkey (or even more so if you take Thief on her instead of Assassin, but then she's worse in combat). I usually either use her or the main character for science checks depending on my build.

In hindsight, 100% agree. Love a game that saddles you with 'thou shalt grab the right rungs of the ladder of the right people or thou shalt not get a chance to peak into every area of the game'.

Really like this game, but parts of it are not just hard -- they seem deliberately punishing. This really knocks down the likelihood I ever replay this.

- A

[thyge]

Originally posted by ahsanford:

Originally posted by Mechalibur:

Well I'd also recommend not using Evans for computers/electronics in general. Faythe is better for skill checks since she can qualify for Skill Monkey (or even more so if you take Thief on her instead of Assassin, but then she's worse in combat). I usually either use her or the main character for science checks depending on my build.

In hindsight, 100% agree. Love a game that saddles you with 'thou shalt grab the right rungs of the ladder of the right people or thou shalt not get a chance to peak into every area of the game'.

Really like this game, but parts of it are not just hard -- they seem deliberately punishing. This really knocks down the likelihood I ever replay this.

- A

+1

[ahsanford]

Just about every battle:

1) You are surrounded.
2) You have no cover.
3) 1-2 of you might get a shot off before they largely get a full round to tee off on you.
4) Expensive ordnance and stimms get consumed.
5) Cover doesn't seem to do s--- for you but it's a huge help for them.
6) The enemy has shockingly high reactions as you run to cover to charge into melee.
7) Save scumming and at least 1 downed party member ensues.

(How do 1+2 happen EVERY time when I have a high INT character that could totally see a fight was coming?! That beggars belief.)

I'm down with a challenge, but this isn't tactically challenging in that sense. It's just a losing position in every battle and how you mitigate it. I get that this is the vibe of the game, and murder hoboing isn't going to pay off, but combat becomes laughably not fun. At all.

If the game was brimming with healing/stim/grenade loot and there wasn't a cumulative downed 'feat' you earn (that keeps progressing!), I suppose this game might resemble a DOS:2 or Wasteland 3 combat proposition where every battle is a meat grinder you just need to fully commit to doing. Focus fire, avoid DOT and expect 1-2 of your people to go down -- but afterwards, you are fine. But that's not the case with that downed feat. I have a talker / high INT main and he's down to 25 HP now!

- A

[William Shakesman]

Act 3 you can really tackle in any order except for, as you learned, Mission Control having a hard lock if you cannot solve the Shadow problem but given the way that guy has acted all game that should be obvious.

Random town sneak options are perfectly fine. It's free loot, so you may as well take them. Sneak options to get around encounters though are risky at this point as you would be passing up combat/talk experience.

Really at this point if you have been diligent in looting you should have enough cells to switch over to energy weapons for really tough fights (Which is almost every single avoidable fight from here to the end). If you have 9 or so stasis grenades you can probably throw them in every fight where you want to remove an enemy from the fight for 3 rounds and have enough to even do the final final boss fight. By act 3 for me the combats were all ridiculous but my team FINALLY seemed to be climbing the stat wall and becoming extremely deadly.

[Commissar Colonel Draco]

For computer checks use the Faith also give her like 5 in bio, I used my main for the talking and electric checks, Evans and Jed were warriors the Jed can be replaced in act three by the Church dude, I did not found all companions to be honest it made no sense to use them from narrative or skill points allocation point of view but they are there.

Faith has high intelligence and can be given implants which can be overclocked to intelligence 10 which means another focus skill point.

And frankly speaking if you don't have good party after leaving habitat you wont do much the chapter 3 its mostly just very hard fights will little side quests, its sadly NOT another Pit from chapter 1, so its best to have a plan and stick to it from beginning. My team was: Main Character talking/pistol, Evans Sniper, Jed the shotgun man/creepers bait - I should make him onto the blunt melee man instead, as shotguns lack the punch late in game when everyone is super duper armored and Faith as my thief/sneak/computers SMG waifu, Do a save before deciding who will rule the Pit - although all of them can be convinced to work with all factions and keep energy cells for fight with Cyborg guy - its only mandatory fight you can't talk or sneak away from, you must win or surrender which is very not satisfying, after this fight you can kill the Old Bob and floaters and this extra fight in Red Zone too.... i used Romeo for some of them too you can get three extra batteries in game so check every corner, i ended up with 93 in fights, 62 in diplomacy and 31 in thievery, and got almost all good loot this way.