Combat style opinions

[dq_177]

Been playing around with the game today, just experimenting in the starting area while its in early access.

When I play for real am mostly planning on a Silver-Wing with mostly balanced stats aiming for 'Renaissance' trait while tagging Speech, Science and one weapon skill.

Was originally thinking either light weapons or energy weapons, but now I'm considering Psychic. Which of these three is most generally helpful across the game so far?
Also in general what styles of combat do others prefer for their Player Character?

[Blackdragon]

Psychic is great because it is not reliant on ammo, damage scales with level, is ranged and covers many damage types. Also has AOE "spells".

Criminal is the "best" support skill because of stealth and lockpicking. Stealth + Psychic = genocide build.

If you don't go stealth, then go melee Servoshell (physical stats + brains, Melee, Piloting). Probably coolest build (Space Marine).

Charisma/Speech builds IMO are least interesting as you'll get less XP and less fun without fights. But if you do go for Charisma, then ramp it to 9 for Mysterious Patronage and if taking Loner, then 10 to get Action Hero.

[dq_177]

Originally posted by Blackdragon:

Criminal is the "best" support skill because of stealth and lockpicking. Stealth + Psychic = genocide build.

Criminal was the third Skilltree I started putting points into after character creation, stealth and lockpicking are indeed extremely important abilities to have.

The tagged Science has been good for hacking when I moved out further into the game though, and its always good to be able to manipulate people in conversation and can do so in every available way.

My character is actually fairly weak in combat, dunno if they should be as inaccurate as they are and feel as if they don't seem to have enough AP. But as a skillmonkey they are first-rate and were able to get through areas without fighting up until I decided to halt progress.

[Batailleuse]

psy + stealth = stealth run murder hobbo.

you can kill absolutely everything if you wish so

you can just run around with all your gauntlet, switch when needed and do absolute ridiculous damage.

chain lightning is fun to get stun in there and damage multiple opponents, frost has an insane aoe that does very high damage and dot.

you can really just pick whatever element fits the fight.

damage is not crazy, but like stated earlier its not reliant on ammo but rather your own fatigue. and you can "leech fatigue" with fire gauntlet anyways.

[AtmaDarkwolf]

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

psy + stealth = stealth run murder hobbo.

you can kill absolutely everything if you wish so

you can just run around with all your gauntlet, switch when needed and do absolute ridiculous damage.

chain lightning is fun to get stun in there and damage multiple opponents, frost has an insane aoe that does very high damage and dot.

you can really just pick whatever element fits the fight.

damage is not crazy, but like stated earlier its not reliant on ammo but rather your own fatigue. and you can "leech fatigue" with fire gauntlet anyways.

Adding to this, if u take vampire at start, u will have infinite source of fatigue, and the stun does not prevent you from fighting like it states it does (at least never did in my playthough)

[dq_177]

Originally posted by AtmaDarkwolf:

Adding to this, if u take vampire at start, u will have infinite source of fatigue, and the stun does not prevent you from fighting like it states it does (at least never did in my playthough)

Ah too bad I'm set on taking Penitent One at start, need all those skill points for my build to properly work.

Like Renaissance Man, more focused on having options when it comes to being able to make skill checks than being a combat beast in the finished game.
All attributes at CharGen will be at 5 except for Charisma 8 (which is then raised to 9 by being silver wing) and Brains 7, which all go up by 1 when I hit level 3 and can take the first perk.

When do you first start getting party members anyway?

[Batailleuse]

Originally posted by dq_177:

Originally posted by AtmaDarkwolf:

Adding to this, if u take vampire at start, u will have infinite source of fatigue, and the stun does not prevent you from fighting like it states it does (at least never did in my playthough)

Ah too bad I'm set on taking Penitent One at start, need all those skill points for my build to properly work.

Like Renaissance Man, more focused on having options when it comes to being able to make skill checks than being a combat beast in the finished game.
All attributes at CharGen will be at 5 except for Charisma 8 (which is then raised to 9 by being silver wing) and Brains 7, which all go up by 1 when I hit level 3 and can take the first perk.

When do you first start getting party members anyway?

penitent is not particularly good, yeah its a total of like 120 points, but objectively you only use 3-4 maxed skill of those, and never really invest in other ones.

picking genius gives +5 brain (and -50% xp) but xp is not an issue you can grind it, and offset a good amount of loss with several passives. like picking knowledge + being sneaky = 35% more xp, so you end up not really losing that much, only early game you need to know what you are doing. OR it lets your put more point in other stats and still staying at 10 brain by investing only 4-5 points (depending on wing) into brains thus giving you between 5-6 points to spend into other stats. brain being not particularly significant with any weapon (except shotgun fatigue shot)

+5 brain means +5 skill point per level compared to what you were planning to do, letting you in turn maximize all the skill you need earlier.

also worth noting, but, the faster you reach 150 naturally, the better, since other bonus add on top of that but you cant add level up point past 150.

so in application that means lets say you can get +50 points from various sources, like perks or books.

you reach maybe 120, get those bonuses you are now at 150 and cant progress.

now say you reached 150 before picking those feat you are now at 200. which in case of fighting skills still increase hit chance. i don't think it influence non combat skill past 150.

[dq_177]

Genius is good but honestly my autism can't be doing with the heavy XP penalty when I need to reach level 3 as soon as possible, and the extra points in each skill is most valuable specifically in the early game when I need it to hit certain thresholds.

Though if I did take Genius would funnel the spare attribute points into Deftness for more AP per turn which is what is bothering me most currently.

[Batailleuse]

Originally posted by dq_177:

Genius is good but honestly my autism can't be doing with the heavy XP penalty when I need to reach level 3 as soon as possible, and the extra points in each skill is most valuable specifically in the early game when I need it to hit certain thresholds.

Though if I did take Genius would funnel the spare attribute points into Deftness for more AP per turn which is what is bothering me most currently.

you don't need ap when you stealth tho, in stealth at 90 if i remember you get +25%xp as long as you are stealthed. you really only struggle on the first levels you need to power game the station like crazy you can even kill the whole final room of the tutorial area before the last relic, tons of xp to do there if you use psy gloves.

you could dump guts and muscle to 1 if you are not going to pick renaissance either.

stealth as is currently implemented is simply broken op.

steal everything from every single npc, except at later level where thing super expensive but you still can steal whatever you need or massive amount of cash.

you get more xp, you open every door.

you can go full psy or full energy weapon with 0 issue. AP cost is irrelevant in stealth.

as long as you are far enough from enemy spot radius its easy. you can use electric psy glove to temporarily stun target to lower their sigh radius if needed.

[dq_177]

Can you deal non-lethal damage with psychic weapons?