Party Weapon Choices

Ramblings of a madman (minor spoilers)

Spoilers/Tips:

Tips to consider when building your party are from prologue pre-alpha play, so much may change...

- You will get a choice to continue with only one of the four characters you create at the beginning of the game. Though you will find others to fill out your team of four (team of three in pre-alpha). So with your original party of four feel free to experiment with different weapon combos and party makeups, consider it a test run to try out the party composition you're thinking of and at the end select the character you enjoy most (some choose the character with Salvage skill points in pre-alpha as currently it cannot be trained and it has a noticable impact on the loot).

- Currently the other characters when found are essentially unleveled, which will let you take different paths with them depending how you built your main character - note the current characters come with minor points in First Aid/Piloting and Hacking/Electronics.

- Your character will level up many times over the course of the game, so while yes to make the early game easier you'll want to be conscious of your weapon and skill choices and to min/mix your character yes every choice matters, but that said you can take a lot of skill detours and still have a playable character that can complete the game, so don't over stress about the early choices. I recommend having a concept for your character but don't feel you need to start over if you decide you want to change your all Rifle party into something else.

- Currently the xp system is based on number of attacks made and there are a finite number of enemies in the prologue. As a result some players focus on weapons that do less damage per attack so they can achieve more attacks per enemy = more skill xp = levels weapon skills more quickly. I would recommend not doing this for the full game release, as I anticipate limitless monsters will at some point be available in the game and I would rather have a diverse party that can better handle a big boss even if it means at some point I have to skip a few turns with my other characters against some easy monsters in order to level up a character that does a lot of damage per attack.

- Currently mining allows you to have unlimited funds, so some players don't worry about having characters use weapons with different ammo types to better manage and conserve ammo. They simply mine up a lot of funds then buy a ton of that particular ammo. While I suspect mining will stay in the full game as 1) a source of crating materials and 2) an in-game economy device to turn time into funds, I personally find it a tad boring and want to limit the time I need to spend doing it. You will find lots of all ammo types over the course of the game but will end up running short of the ammo types you regularly use and will likely run out if you have multiple characters use the same ammo type. Some ammo is more common than others e.g. pistol ammo is more common than rockets, so you can probably get away with two characters using common ammo especially if both use it in a secondary weapon. Melee weapons / melee orientated characters can serve a lot of purposes, not using ammo is a nice perk to makeup for their likely greater use of medkits. So I diversify the ammo types my characters use as it means 1) less selling of ammo I don't use at a discount to buy ammo I do use at premium and 2) less time spent mining for funds. As stated before I think a diversity of weapons also allows your group to better respond to different situations that come up.

Advice on Weapon Choices:

> The first thing to know is you only have two weapon slots and weapons based on their classifcation can only fit into one of the two slots. Currently there is no Action Point penalty for going into your inventory and switching weapons, so some players for example build characters that use things like Sub-Machine Guns (secondary weapon slot) and Single-handed Melee Weapons (secondary weapon slot) by going into their inventory and switching their secondary weapon as needed. For me that feels tedious so I mainly plan my characters to use one primary and one secondary weapon.

I tend to combo my weapons several ways: long range & short range, crowd damage & single target damage, damage types, and large & small AP costs.

Primary Weapons:
Rocket Launchers (long range*)
Plasma Streamers (long-medium range)
Mini-guns (long-medium range)
Flame Throwers (short range)
Two-handed Melee Weapons (short range) 3AP - slash/pierce/blunt options
"Ballistic" Rifles (long-medium range) 3AP Single Shot / 6AP Burst - kinetic damage
Energy Rifles - same as rifles but do thermal or electric damage and use energy ammo
Shotguns (medium-short range) 3AP - supposedly highest critical chance of any weapon

Secondary Weapons:
Sub-Machine Guns (medium-short range) 2AP Single Shot / 4AP Burst - highest range weapon hit chance when close range
Ballistic Pistols (medium-short range) 2AP - kinetic damage
Energy Pistols "" "" same as ballistic pistols but do thermal or electric damage instead
Single-handed Melee Weapons (short range) 2AP - bypasses shields and armor
Stun/EMP/Smoke grenades (medium range*) 6AP - must be standing
Frag/toxic grenades (medium range*) 6AP - must be standing
First Aid / Medical Kits (short range) 3AP
* you can use these short range but not recommended :)

> Fists 2AP are the only weapons than can be used as either a primary or secondary weapon.

> Weapons have 5 quality tiers, in addition to better stats higher tier weapons can also have additional fire modes e.g. gain burst mode or full auto mode. Likewise weapon upgrades can add fire modes

> Many long range weapons can be used at short range but they take penalties to hit, so probably better to switch to something more likely to hit which also helps conserve ammo. Most weapons labeled as Medium-short range tend to have higher chances to hit and do more damage at short range so I recommend moving to use them at that distance, but in situations in which movement may not be possible they can be used to whittle down targets farther away. Some medium-short range weapons take massive penalties at long range to the point your chances of hitting targets is close to 0%.

> You don't always have to diversify your character's range. I had a very successful melee character that I often used to block corridors. Their main was a two handed weapon and seconardy another melee weapon, which I would occasionally switch to med kit. This was nice for several reasons: AP differences between the weapons allowed her to always make use of her available AP if needed, both primary and secondary melee weapons come in three types: blunt, slashing, and piercing which each have different chances for status effects like Stun and Bleed, so switching allows you to stack effects. Note different body parts when hit also have increased chances for things like Cripple and Hobble. In many of my playthroughs I always built my sniper riflemen with their secondary as a short range weapon just in case an enemy snuck past my front line, the better I became at controlling enemy movements though this really stopped coming into play. I think in future playthroughs I will simply leave that character long range with something like Rifle and when needed inventory-switch to Rocket launcher to switch between softening up the crowd to picking off single targets once enemies & friendlies engage in close range.

> My personal playstyle I like having at a minimum one close range character. I learned to stop fighting fights where the battles begin and got a lot better about setting up my range characters strategically facing a doorway or bridge, would run my close range character up ahead to initiate the battle, then would run them back to block the choke point. Many battles contained melee only enemies, and this tactic made those fights too easy. Often times the melee enemies would line up with only the one in front being able to attack. My group on the other hand would focus fire on them one by one.

> Focus fire is an important tactic called Action Advantage used in many strategy games - basically the sooner you focus fire one of the enemies down the sooner that enemy stops taking turns, the opposite of this is to spread the damage evenly (e.g. each of your characters faces off against an enemy) this is usually not recommended because then you have a bunch of low life monsters still all taking turns all the way to the end of the fight. With close range characters be cautious about action advantage being used against you i.e. if that character runs ahead while the rest stay back, all the enemy units may focus on the closest character. Note how the choke point prevents this from happening to the close range character mentioned above. Note a close range character need not be melee.

> Recommendation to the dev on that point is make enemy groups a mix of range and melee, have them flank the players (attack from two sides), AI scripting to not always follow a player character i.e. player kites enemy mob into a kill zone, AI scripting to attack injured characters, melee enemies that teleport to the back ranks of the players. More status conditions mawhaha. That should make some fights tougher :)

> If I’m min/maxing a character I tend not to mix range and melee weapons as I find the character has to focus on too many stats to do range and melee well, and is more powerful if they focus on less. Not that a character wielding a Katana and SMG doesn’t look bad ass, but Strength & Agility for Melee DMG/Defense, Endurance to survive being close range, dex to boost range dmg, and perception for range aim - you can see how that type of character would get spread too thin.

> Players should have at least one character that can stun. Stun makes hard boss fights much more manageable. Blunt weapons to the head I believe have increased chances of stunning, I recommend though either stun grenades or unarmed fists. Stun grenades can be hard to find in loot if you do not have a character with high salvage but they will stun-lock a crowd of enemies if used every few rounds. Fists are nice in that they have low AP and a chance to stun allowing you spam your chances of stunning.

> The developer recommends every character be able to heal themselves. I think this is good as beginner players will see their medic often get knocked unconscious so it’s nice to have a backup plan, likewise many beginners will see their entire party take damage in a fight and that’s a lot of wasted AP moving around getting to everyone with one medic. I would offer though as you become more skilled at managing damage to have one character perform first aid so that character can unlock the first aid skill perks sooner and heal more points and heal status effects when they use heal kits. Still a good idea to have a plan if you’re medic goes down, but played well that should be a rare occurrence.

> Don’t discount the size of the weapon. One of my most powerful characters was a pistol wielder who just took repeated head shots. The low AP of the weapon meant lots of shots and fast skill gain, the high skill meant high chance of hitting heads, hitting a head many times in a turn meant lots of damage. I tried to focus on hitting arms as well sometimes to give the crippled status, but the pistol seems to not have a high chance of inflicting that condition. A task better left to your blunt weapon specialist in my experience.

Recommended Party Weapon Combos for Beginners:

1.Close-Range Combatant: Two-handed Weapon (blunt) & Fist, specializes in First Aid (switch to kit when needed). Little risk in having the character that takes the most damage be your medic, but also means less AP spent on moving trying to get to the injured character potentially putting one of your party's weapons at a non optimal range. If you find this character falls a lot switch First Aid out with the next character and have them throw explosives instead. If you prefer raw damage over status conditions Shotgun & SMG or Flamethrower & SMG also work well.

2.Close/Mid-range Combatant: the game wants you to have another close range combatant as there just isn’t enough long range weapons. In the three party prologue I would forego this character and simply make the next one occasionally use grenades. This is probably my least favorite character when I already have the above in the party. That said Shotgun & Grenade make a nice front-line supporter, especially if you’re new and finding it hard to control enemies with just the first character. Shotgun & SMG are not bad here either but if you go that route expect to need to get up close and personal with enemies. Save grenades for tougher fights, that’ll be when this character goes from zero to hero. If cash and ammo are not a problem for you I recommend making this a second rifleman instead. I do not advise this character using a flamethrower when you have a melee character in the group who may get in their way. Also be careful with those grenades!

3..Mid-range Combatant: Mini-gun & Pistol. Early game the Pistol will work fine, just play a little closer to the front to maximize damage. Later the Mini-gun let’s you introduce a little more range into the party, and partnering it with the pistol makes for nice High AP and Low AP options albeit at different optimal ranges . Consider switching out the mini-gun for the rocket launcher for fights where a boss is surrounded by a lot of clustered low level enemies, and clear them out in the beginning of the fight. Combo’ed with the pistol also gives this character a nice rare ammo / common ammo combo allowing you to conserve rare ammo. Note heavy weapon merhcants are not available until near the end of the prologue.

4.Long-range Combatant: Rifle + Energy Pistol, as this build only needs Perception & Dex you may want to make them your leader character and invest in Charisma or Intelligence. If you have them focus on Dex consider making them your Hacker/Crafter/Repairer. Having one character with Salvage is very important as it greatly increases your loot. I tend to match hacking and salvaging together as a successful hack may mean the crate automatically opens, and I think it’s a player based and not party based buff (could be wrong on that). If I have two high dex characters I make one Hack/Salvage and the other Craft/Repair, high perception also helps the Hack/Salvage character see hidden objects. This was the character that once I got better at controling never used their short range weapon. It was tempting to make this character the medic as they rarely take dmg, but again lots of movement to get to the wounded and sometimes meant moving up to the front-line which isn't optimal for the rifle. Switch between thermal, electric, or kinetic rifles depending on the armor resistances of your enemies, or if two rifleman have one use energy and the other use ballistic to conserve ammo.

I won’t go into which Abilities to take for each weapon combo as other guides do a nice job of explaining which abilities affect what, but I will say as far as chance to hit vs. Damage goes for new players: increase chance to hit first (Agility = Melee aim, Perception = Range aim) as low level characters benefit more from chance to hit. Later by mid-game increase chance to hit and damage to equal levels (Strength = Melee dmg, Dexterity = Range dmg). Dexterity impacts melee dmg as well to a small degree but to a lesser extent than Strength does, and finally when you get to late game and you rarely miss anymore focus more on damage stats.

Well that's it folks. Hopefully at least one helpful tip for you.

Like it, hate it, or something I missed - leave a comment!

[Teacup]

i use only my main char at fights. uses streamer hw. it is crafted legendery so it takes 5 charges. all my stats at int lvl 31 94 at heawy weapon skill. mostly 1 shot anything. dont really care their resists anymore..

[bearhiderug]

Thanks for the rant!
good feedback and things to keep in mind on my next go.

[agravaine264]

well written! I would recommend to make the Melee-Character also the Hacker of the team since its more handy not to switch characters for moving and looting ;-) ( i run with 1 melee 2h/1h, 2 rifle/pistol and 1 Big-Gun/SMG)

[panpiper]

It occurs to me that at least during the prolog, where one might be trying to maximize the number of shots taken by one's main character, boosting dexterity, which will increase the damage done is less than optimum. Stat points might be best spent on just loads of inteligence, and possibly perception to increase hit probabilities ann reduce ammunition wastage.

[uncus2]

Thanks for this! I was wondering why some weapons were primary and others secondary [and I couldn't switch :( so I couldn't have my healer carry a pistol, also]
Perhaps allowing any weapon as a primary and limiting the secondary slot could be an answer to this?

[lordaquarius]

Thank you!!! How do you repair, craft ?? I would like to know how to increase those skills in my team... :)

[Drizzt]

I dont buy your game but I have a friend of mine who let me play to and I gonna buy it but put some weapon or armor we can upgrade or custom with other part find in the game like "pipe , lazer parts , steel plate , ducktape , barel , battery , night gogle, or tripod and maybe more this can be more intresting like the old jagged alliance 2 !

[Diarmuhnd]

nice insights. Kudos on your guide. :)

[Gyerbah]

Nice