The Outer Worlds

[mandru]

Thanks for that info Art. 

[Dweller_Benthos]

ah, OK so the special gun is only available before you turn the power off. As well, no big I was just curious, as I don't bother using pistols much once I got my hands on an assault rifle lol.

So far I've not used the companion special ability as for the most part I forget about it. I've also remapped all the keys so who knows what they are tied to, luckily they are shown on the screen and I have noticed them, but the icons didn't jump out at me to explain what they did. I think I hit the "go there" key by accident once and Pavarti walked over there and stood there for a while. I also noticed that she sometimes takes the long way around to get to some places. For instance, I went up on the second floor, out the balcony, across the roof, and she followed me the whole way no problem, but once I hopped down on some crates and then to the ground, she balked at that and ran all the way back through the building to come back down the stairs and meet me on the street. Same when I went around some rocks to get a higher vantage above some marauders, I started shooting them and heard her attacking but didn't see her anywhere near, and when I did find her, she had gone back around the rocks, down the hill, and up the main road and attacked from there, and then met me on the other side of the rocks. Wasn't any place she couldn't walk to, so must just be a strange pathfinding option.

[Art Blade]

 

The way I use my companions in combat is as follows. There are several tactical options:

1) "Bottleneck"
When enemies are on one side and we are on the other side of say, a rocky formation with just small path connecting two areas OR enemies are inside a house and we're outside, I tell my companions to stay put next to the bottleneck where enemies have to pass through to get me. Then I trigger the enemies with a loud shot so they come running at me. Now the companions will start to kill everything that wants through and I take potshots at whatever does come through That way I avoid that the companions run into a trap and get overwhelmed.

2) "Surprise!"
In any open area with a group of enemies, like a gang of monsters, I crouch (companions will crouch, too) for stealth, get close enough to be able to trigger the special moves (you need to be in range, like a stone's throw away or you cannot initiate a special move) and then send either one or both in succession with whatever they do as special move. Big enemies get either killed by two special moves or reduced to something I can potshot. The ensuing massacre.. I just stay away and shoot anything that comes for me and if there isn't anything coming for me, I try to take shots and whatever is still alive. It's typically over very quickly.

3) "I'm over here!"
I use long ranged weapons like a sniper, preferably with silencer, and kill single enemies from afar. If they find out what's going on and where from, I let them come at me and that triggers my companions to storm ahead and kill everything in front of me. I take potshots at whatever is still alive.

Whenever I can after the battle started, I try to make them perform their special moves. If you watch those icons closely, you'll notice that after a special move they're kind of pale and start to fill up again. That's their cool-down "timer." When they're bright (full) again, I hit it again if needed. Fun to watch, too

So most of the time I just stay out of trouble and let my companions soak up all the violence for me

[Art Blade]

for those (or should I say, all ) of you who haven't yet progressed far, I don't want to spoil anything so I'll hold back on story-related details.

However, I want to say at least something about stories or the game as such.

I really like the sheer endless amount of side quests that you can start and the fact that some of them aren't obvious. Also that they're never really short. You think you've done it only to find out that there's still more to come which is great. I recommend you keep returning to named people if you're in their vicinity and also listen to what they may say after a mission. Sometimes there's another one waiting for you. And then I like that there are various types of side missions, like for factions, for companions, sometimes "tasks," and for my taste they're never boring.

In all the time I've never had those stupid "go from A to B and pick up stuff and do the same stuff over and over and over again." It has been very diverse, fun, and playing on "normal" difficulty, sometimes even a tad difficult but not insolvable. There's always motivation to keep going and doing. And eventually you'll come across missions that you'll kind of know at some point that it will have an impact on how "your" story will continue.

I also like that while killing named people is an option, it's not an obligation. Or the other way round, if you're so inclined you can kill people even if you're not necessarily supposed to do that. So far, I've avoided killing people even when I had a hit contract. The endless saves allow you to see how it goes if you kill someone or if you don't and either literally save it for later or save and reload to continue the way you like better.

All in all, I haven't come across anything that put me off. Not even those silly % stories or that companions are bloody weak with regard to how "much" damage their weapons do compared to your own damage ratings. But even so, they seem to do a lot better than you'd do with their specs.

I love the dialogues, the conversations, the dialogue options.. so many times they made me chuckle or even laugh when they were particularly over the top or sarcastic.. there's a lot of humour across the game, sometimes plain and blunt, sometimes more refined, sometimes almost slapstick. It's great fun

[Dweller_Benthos]

I'll have to fool around with the companion abilities more, I just plain forget to use them.

I am wondering about how others have done the mission on the Groundbreaker to fix the heat problem. Spoiler below.

Spoiler

So I first tried just gunning in after failing the persuade check because I didn't have the perk up high enough for that. Shooting didn't w0#k out so well, but I think I could have made that w0#k with several tries and getting more tactical, but I didn't want to spend that amount of time and plus I expect that's not the way it's "supposed" to be done.

So I drank some soda to get my persuasion up enough to convince the doofus to let me wander around. Of course, there are places you can't go and that's where you need to go. I did find the engineer and sent her home, so that was good, but any attempt to get the radiator part resulted in a firefight. I could run to the elevator with a good amount of damage but I didn't want that either.

So I went up the ladder and snuck past the two in the control room and grabbed the part and snuck back to the elevator. The last guard I couldn't get past though, he's facing the elevator so it doesn't seem to be possible to get out of there without being noticed. The only thing I should have done is told Pavarti to wait in the elevator that way she would be there ready to go when I got back with the part and needed a fast escape.

So I got out with the part and just took a little damage, which was good enough for me, but I'm sure there's a more subtle way to do that part of the mission.

[Art Blade]

Dweller:

Spoiler

After a mission which ended with that guy down there staying alive, I now realise that I actually did kill someone. That guy, underground leader of thugs. When getting the part to get the heat problem fixed, I couldn't get to the room without causing the rest of the guys there to go full Rambo on me. So I had to wipe everyone out

Which allowed me to steal the miniature drone (decoration for Parvati's room on the Unreliable) down there in a side room.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Oh, so you did another mission first that changed how that mission went for you? Interesting.

I saw that item in the side room but didn't want to take it before I finished the mission, so I might go back there, and it seems I'll have to for another mission, so I'll see about grabbing it then.

Oh so these toy spaceships and other things you see can be used as decoration on the ship? I think I've just been selling them.

[Art Blade]

nope, yours were junk. I was talking about a "quest item." These look like random items, can be a book, a poster, that thingy, a toss ball, a sabre, all kinds of things, really. But on picking them up, they go into your quest items inventory.

[Dweller_Benthos]

ah OK, so the toy spaceships you find in cabinets are just for selling then, good to know.

[Art Blade]

you can actually check what's for selling.. in your inventory, the "junk" tab.

[Art Blade]

another "update" on those %:

I think I can now explain vendor selling/buying prices.

It is dependent on those 20-40-60-80-100-150 dialogue skill levels, with or without boosts. And it doesn't matter whether or not it's persuasion or intimidation, maybe even lie could w0#k but that one I haven't tested.

By chance I visited my "favourite" vendor with the vicar and SAM which, with my chimera jacket (+10 dialogue skills  = +20 for me) and a helmet with +5 intimidation (+10 for me) and with all of that, I had 150+ intimidation and got 60% (!) discount. I also got 30% higher price for selling thanks to a 20% perk and apparently 10% from the high skill level. I then tried the same but with 150+ persuasion using Felix, Parvati, and gear with similar high boosts and again got 60% discount / selling at 30% higher prices. As soon as I lowered either intimidation or persuasion to less than 150 but more than 100, I got 56% and some odd % for selling. Now it makes sense that I sometimes had less % when I didn't visit the vendor with boosting companions, it was just my gear and levelled-up skills.

It shows once more how useful companions are and that you can improve your chances by choosing your team based on their skills suited for the task ahead.

[Art Blade]

A tip regarding repairs of weapons and armour:

If you use a workbench for repairs, you should observe to the right how much improvement to damage or protection those repairs would mean. It's actually not necessary to repair a weapon if it's, say, at 90% in your inventory but the workbench tells you that, say, damage (to targets) would stay the same. However, it's going to cost you anyway. The more degradation, the more weapon/armour parts you'll need to fix it or the more expensive it gets to have it repaired at a vendor's place.

I love to keep my stuff at 100% but that's quite costly. So I tend to equip a random loot weapon for shooting stuff like sprats or baiting enemies so I won't wear down my good guns for nothing. Once that random loot gun is worn down really badly, I scrap it for parts. If I use the good stuff, I try to hold back and wait until the wear and tear is at around 90-ish before I repair it so I don't keep spending parts every few seconds.

Also remember to boost your engineering as high as possible before repairing stuff because it will save you a few precious parts.

[Art Blade]

I was just thinking about statements like "short game" or a speedrun in 12 minutes.. I've sunk in 180+ hours by now and despite being advanced in level (29) I'm still in a very active story environment. I completed the Sublight (faction) story line but everything else is probably far from finished.

I've been avoiding the end of one mission that would force me to branch and I leave it hanging for now. Another mission surprised me because it had three possible outcomes, which is when I tested each one but it's reaching farther than I care to test. So I made a guess at the possible route ahead and decided which one to take. I'll now try to match the pending one when I see fit and I've got an overall idea which direction I want to go. And it is obvious that this game offers several different replay options, maybe even many, and I predict they'll all provide a different outcome.

Cool stuff

[Dweller_Benthos]

Nice, I'll try to keep that in mind. I just forget to check things like that, and go in and just sell stuff, and buy stuff though I rarely have bought anything yet. Even though I had enough to buy one of the quest a items, I didn't and went and got it instead. Might have been then part to fix the radiators, I forget.

I'll have to try to remember to at least glance at the bonus things give you, about the only time I've done it so far was to get my persuasion over 40 to talk to the guy in the back bay to get the radiator part.

[Art Blade]

yeah, it's just making everything easier if you know how to create massive skill boosts with help of gear and companions and actually use it to your advantage. The way you play it is just different but still OK. It's a good thing about this game that it allows you to play any way you want. I wouldn't have been able to get what I've achieved and earned without relying heavily on everything that boosts certain skills that I need for a certain task and that is very closely related to using companions and kitting them out properly as well as running around with assorted armour sets and weapons to change on the fly. Not only for me but my companions, too. My assorted armour sets and weapons cover a broad variety of different skill boosts and damage types so I can adapt quickly.

Simply put: You don't drive a car in 1st gear without ever shifting. Gears are there for a reason. Same with companions and stuff that boosts your skills. Of course you can drive in 1st only but you'll instantly understand what that means. At least the game offers a range of perks for "Lone Wolf" type of players but first you need to level up a lot to get all of them and on your way there.. you're just going to either have a hard time or miss out on a lot if you don't use all your options: you simply won't see the full potential the game has to offer. I intend to see as much of it as possible