I,ve played some of the beta and the biggest issue for me was the small fonts on some of text, i needed to sit up sometimes to read some of the stuff clearly. Don't know how much they've changed in the last couple of months, game is very reminiscent of Fallout Tactics, down to the story it seems, which is unoriginal and derivative at times
a cult worshipping a nuclear missile, really?
. Lots of content, looks like a 50+ hrs game to me. The secondary skills are actually important, make sure to spread around a dozen of them. Sniper rifles are great in the beginning, lose some strength in the mid-game. Assault rifles, Energy Weapons and SMGs are actually great, Heavy Weapons used to be lackluster, hope they fixed that. Intelligence and Strength are good stats to invest some in the beginning, so you can get skill points, hps, carrying capacity and some APs also.
Is it just me or are the displayed percentages in this game just inaccurate? It feels like some things consistently have about 20-30% less or more chance to happen than it says. No way should my gun jam every five shots when the chance is 3%, and double misses at 85% chance to hit should be much more rare than they are. I've been playing RPGs for years and years so I'm not unfamiliar with RNG, this is the first game where I distinctly feel that something is off. I swear there are hidden modifiers affecting the rolls and making the tooltip numbers misleading.
Is it just me or are the displayed percentages in this game just inaccurate? It feels like some things consistently have about 20-30% less or more chance to happen than it says. No way should my gun jam every five shots when the chance is 3%, and double misses at 85% chance to hit should be much more rare than they are. I've been playing RPGs for years and years so I'm not unfamiliar with RNG, this is the first game where I distinctly feel that something is off. I swear there are hidden modifiers affecting the rolls and making the tooltip numbers misleading.
This was something they said they would adjust during the early access, which I guess they didn't get around to. Percents are off in nearly all aspects. 1% chance of critical failure is much higher (so be careful with the lockpicks) and if a gun says 5% chance to jam regard it closer to 40-50%. It is even possible to have unjammed guns, and have them jam from entering an encounter without having tried to fire them first. Anything below 80% chance to hit with guns seems more of a 50/50, perhaps even 40/60 chance in favor of missing.
They did say they were going to patch this though. Months ago.
I think that there is massive selection bias when people play these kind of combat systems. That said game rules, I'm totally loving it, playing through on hard the first time.
Few Tips.
The use of explosives is not governed by a skill. So every party should have a good explosive or two in inventory.
You can "change" into an explosive weapon and fire it the same turn by going into the inventory in combat without an AP cost for the item change.
You cannot swap guns and instantly use them because they require a reload first.
For skill points, Intelligence determines how many you get per level. At 4 int you get 3, at 8 you get 4, and at 10 you get 5. It seems like 4 int has so much value that its hard to argue a different value for the stat unless a character build relies on 1 or 2 skills being super maxed.
Weaponsmithing is quite good for 2 main reasons. When you fail at recovering a weapon mod you get scrap - but the scrap is worthless until you have access to the citadel where the quartermaster will buy the scrap at a solid exchange rate.
Breaking down weapons solves encumbrance issues when encounters drop a lot of guns.
Mods applied to weapons can be removed - based on skill the recovery chance can even be 100%
Basic Weapon mods - are (-4% to jam) -3% to jam +4 ammo. +4 hit rate. Etc - These are reasonably strong bonuses and can effectly half the jam rate of most weapons or outright remove it.
Leadership is a really good skill +hit and stable control over NPCs.
If you can survive the first couple hours will one of your rangers having only 1 point in field medic, the first NPC you can recruit in the story beyond the citadel both have 8+ int and can take the role of healer. Ag Center NPC is a much stronger "medic" to start with than Highpool if you want to create a healerless ranger squad (the 4 you make)
One tip i can give you for party creation is to give all your characters 5 strength. Not only you get a very significant and needed hp bonus from early on, you avoid the nightmare of constant inventory management due to encumberance. That, and 4 Intelligence. Iirc, surgeons needed also a high int to reach the top tiers of the skill, no idea what the benefits are though.
Don't think this one is right. If you reload the gun before combat starts you should be able to use it instantly without reload. You can reload all your weapons OOC.
One tip i can give you for party creation is to give all your characters 5 strength. Not only you get a very significant and needed hp bonus from early on, you avoid the nightmare of constant inventory management due to encumberance. That, and 4 Intelligence. Iirc, surgeons needed also a high int to reach the top tiers of the skill, no idea what the benefits are though.
You'd be taking a couple points away from each character though when they may not need that much life. Would be good for close range characters, either melee or SMG focused, but not so much the sniper.
My tip - I don't use my heavy weapons often due to ammo, but when I do nothing stands a chance.
Don't think this one is right. If you reload the gun before combat starts you should be able to use it instantly without reload. You can reload all your weapons OOC
I wasn't talking about out of combat - you can do anything you want out of combat. In combat you can swap equipped weapons - as long as that weapon doesn't take ammo its usable the turn you swap it (so melee weapons / explosives) If you swap in say a heavy machine gun - it will have zero ammo - the first action must be to reload.
Jesus fucking christ the recruitable NPCs in this game are awful. Worst companions in any game I've ever played. I suspect that's probably intentional, but they're so bad that I'm more inclined to play without them because they get in the way and take up resources. Half the skills are pretty unnecessary anyway, and if you play a 4-man party, you're free of the burden of running a charisma/leadership character.
Also, I had Rose in my party for hours and she was losing control over 50% of the time even though it says it should be 25%. I'd say it was closer to 75%. She was completely useless to me, she just ran around all over the place and got herself in hilarious amounts of danger. You can't run an NPC party without leadership, and the cost of adding charisma+leadership to one of your main characters (since no NPCs can realistically do it) is so high that it almost makes the NPCs not worthwhile at all.
So apparently I missed Vulture's Cry... I freed her but never bothered talking to her at all, thinking it was just one of the tasks to make Highpool vote for the chick. She just hauled ass and I never saw her again..... oops.
I didn't bother putting points into charisma since it only affects exp gain and recruit able NPC checks. I think Rose has 25% chance to go rogue so 5 points in leadership should cover it. She's also one of my best NPCs , with her high INT she levels up skills insanely fast. It's too bad most of the NPCs from chapter one sucks balls. Ralphy can be molded into something half decent, Takayuki is a very good mule and the hobo has some pretty funny dialogue.
I'm a bit into chapter 2 ATM and energy weapons are really begin to shine. High damage against high armor targets, of which there are plenty of now and the energy cell ammo is very cheap. The downside is weight, energy weapons and its ammo is fucking heavy. Kinetic weapons are lighter but 7.62mm ammo is crazy expensive.
