The Outer Worlds

[Art Blade]

whoa mandru, there's a lot of ground to cover.. get something to drink before you start reading

I dare say that side missions are not locked away by speech checks. Actually, if you cannot take the shortcut of dialogue speech checks, you're much more likely to get to side missions. For instance, someone got something you need for a mission to progress and now you could whatever, intimidate, that person to hand it over right away OR you'd have to say something like "I can't afford it" which will then open a side mission to make money or to do that person a favour and once you did that, you come back and get the item.

I don't know whether you can see locked speech checks but if you see them then you can guess where they may lead to. I'm pretty sure it's what you can do by enabling dialogue stats in your settings, UI, "Show Dialogue Skill Stats" > choose "always." At least I always see locked options that are greyed-out if I can't pass a check.

Udom for instance only knows one mission and that is if you were to offer to turn in Phineas Welles (who thawed you) which starts a whole lot of missions down the Board path which is kind of like the Institute path of FO4.

Captain Gunnar MacRedd allows you to pass if either you were sent down by Junlei (which then also allows you to take the heater parts unharmed) and that's when you can send that girl back up or if you were sent down by Cmdt. Sonita from security and you may convince him to surrender his lighter instead of his life which also allows you to walk around freely down there except for upstairs where the heater part is. That's how during my first playthrough I first saved him (he gave me his lighter) and then ended up killing him (by trying to investigate the upstairs bit the back bay boys freaked out)

As to reputation: You cannot ever undo good or bad reputation unless you reload a previous save game. Which makes me wonder, sounds as if you didn't consider it in that case. Anyway, you'll see that there are two bars, top is for good and bottom for bad reputation. All you can do is trying to keep the bad rep as low as possible. Depending on your attributes, it's more or less drastic how good and bad rep is being accumulated. Avoid real murders because that will catapult the bad rep to max in no time. You always get an on-screen warning accompanied by an acoustic signal if your reputation got a hit. In my case that demands a reload. I haven't "botched" a single mission so far and I only got quite a hit (bad rep) when deciding which way to divert power in Emerald Valley but that can't be avoided.

And indeed.. I mentioned that after my first playthrough, I now know which missions to play in which order. I wouldn't necessarily agree with what you heard and watched regarding the groundbreaker missions and how to deal with them in which order but you can choose. If you think that one mission is too hard for you then you can always go back and finish other missions first. However, now that I played through a ton of missions twice, including those that you mentioned, I think it doesn't matter regarding difficulty. Some missions appear to be difficult no matter the level you're at because I've been convinced that they are matching your level. I.e. if you play a difficult mission at level 10 then it appears to be like a level 12+ or so mission and if you play that very same mission at level 17 it will appear to be like a level 19+ or so mission. It doesn't matter. I've never come across any mission that was suddenly surprisingly easy after levelling up. Actually, I think that missions are clustered in a way that you can't really progress much until you finished a whole bunch first which will then unlock new missions that allow you to level up more.

Gladys never offers cookies but you keep getting a Purpleberry Bunch candy after missions.

There's this one thing that keeps me thinking, mandru:

I don't have my Lie skill anywhere near being able to access some of the interesting dialog options

That combined with your comment about sort of "higher maths" (combinations of boosts and skills and so on) makes me wonder how to make it easier for you to access stuff currently inaccessible to you.

You see, I don't have a high lie skill, either, yet I managed to pass several tests. I don't even think about "maths" when I play, all I do is swap out stuff from my inventory and select companions whose skills best match my goals.

Nyoka and Ellie are liars. Even if you haven't unlocked Nyoka, you should by now have access to Ellie. Swap out someone for Ellie so she boosts your miserable lie skill to something nice. Boost your and her lie skill by buying and equipping yourself as well as her with a Moonman Helmet from the Spacer's Choice shop on the Groundbreaker. Also, in your character/skills menu you'll find that "lie" is part of the Dialogue section so equipping yourself and her with armour that adds a Dialogue Skill Bonus (of typically +5) will get you a lot closer to or even surpassing the speech check. If you had Nyoka on your team and equipped her as described, you'd get an even bigger boost from your companions.

Spend skill points on Leadership>Inspiration until you reach level 60 (or higher) which not only makes your companions better fighters but especially in our case here, it gives you "Companion Skill Bonus to Player Skills +100%" meaning all their skills and bonuses will be doubled and that adds twice as many bonuses when you use companions to boost your skills. And there is a huge perk around level 20 when tier 3 will be available: Armour Master with 100% Skill Bonus which will double any Skill Bonus of your equipped gear. With all that in mind, it's not so much higher maths and complicated numbers, it's essentially just adding and adding and adding bonuses to the same type of skill in order to pass checks.

Apart from your skill points and perks, it's nothing more than swapping out gear and companions until you see your "adjusted skill value" in brackets shoot up. Just by the way, skill boosts from your companions can ONLY be seen when you're outside the Unreliable because you need to have an active team. Inside, you'll only see your own skill boosts without help of companions. With a base lie skill of 20, it would look somewhat like "Lie 20 (70)" or some such when all your stuff as described above is being added and in this example you'd fail a lie speech check of 40 if you didn't boost it but obviously pass it after boosting. So if you get to a point when you fail, reload a savegame (see how important quick saves are..) from before that speech check, swap out what you can to boost your lie skill and return to the dialogue giver. Now you're likely to pass the test. If not, either level up or respec.

Then you may change everything again.. It's not difficult but it takes a little bit of time and a vast collection of different armour sets. My inventory is LOADED with helmets, glasses, hats and armours, all of them meant for boosting certain skills. Like, I always keep three tech (engineering) bonus armour sets and three dialogue (persuasion) boost armour sets and three stealth (sneak and lockpick) boost armour sets for myself and my companions so with Felix and Parvati I can always get the maximum out out of my skills if needed. Just by the way, when I need a high lockpick skill, I equip all three of us with stealth armour and lockpick helmets. All three of us boost my lockpick skill to a proper amount so after some levelling up, I typically don't have to use Mag-Picks any more (I never bought any and now at level 20, I've still got 98 spare Mag-Picks) and can unlock most locks, now up to 130-ish (adjusted skill) at "only" 50 base skill. I'll spend some more skill points when I get them so I get to 150 lockpick with boosts.

I really hope that this helps you, mandru

[Art Blade]

One more thing just sprang to mind: When you ran into Redd with Parvati.. no mention of Felix.. you should unlock Felix first and take him to Redd with you because he and Redd are old acquaintances. Redd will allow you in (if you do it right) with the words (paraphrasing) "Friends of Felix are my friends."

The fastest way to unlock Felix is to talk to him, set your Unreliable free (Udom) and go back to your ship. Don't fast-travel inside, only to the docks, because Felix will be waiting there for you. That's when you recruit him. Then take him to Redd.

For all I know, I think you should reload a save so you can avoid that bloodbath, the negative rep, and perhaps pass some speech checks Maybe indeed check your skills and respec some, like cranking up some of those dialogue options.

Want to level up for more skill points and perks? Go to monarch, find some high ground and shoot rapts and mantiqueens and such. Yes, they're tough, the tougher the more XP, so you might want to do that. Use your companions (perhaps with the perk that gives you XP when they kill stuff) and perhaps order them to stay put so they won't run into a horde of enemies but instead, let the enemies run towards them.. like shooting fish in a barrel.

When I go to battle, I prefer to wear armour with silver tongue mod (for leadership skills +10) and a Mardet Helmet (with +5 leadership skills) that you can pickpocket from the security guys in their office on the Groundbreaker. Alternatively use the unique "Nice Hat" (+7 persuasion, +5 leadership) that you can find in a church in Stellar Bay Ruins (South) on Monarch. Those items boost your companion's health and damage output.

[Dweller_Benthos]

First time I went to the Back Bays to get the part, I had to sneak around, because as soon as I left the elevator area I was attacked. I had talked to Redd first and he wasn't happy that I was there, but he didn't attack either, but I also couldn't just walk around. Had to sneak. I did the entire thing by sneaking and got the part and sent the other girl back home. So I must have missed a dialog choice here or there, and I didn't have Felix yet at that time. When I went back for the bounty, it was an immediate attack, and I had to kill everyone. Not even a chance of a dialog. I didn't get a reputation hit for killing all of them that I recall. I'd have to check my rep with them and see but I don't think so, if I had, I would have loaded the save game and tried again with something else. Not that there would have been much else to try as I was attacked as soon as the elevator stopped.

I know I did get the side missions from Gladys when I said I couldn't afford the key thing, even though I could at the time, I just didn't want to spend the money and I thought that doing the missions would get me the key for free, which I guess it doesn't. But Roseway wasn't much more difficult than the starting place (ugh I forget all these names) just that there were raptidons around. Those are a little more tough to kill but not a whole lot more than primals.

I think at this point I have only a couple missions to do before I'm forced to do the main mission which I like to leave for last.

[Art Blade]

indeed, you don't lose any rep when killing Redd and his guys.

Dweller, I think you've still got a ton of missions to do until you reach that point.. unless you don't do side missions like those companion missions (all except SAM got quite a series of missions each until their strands finish..) and, did you play the DLC yet? Which is also massive.. It's not over that quickly, Dweller, you're only in for what, 30+ hours now? With reference to the highlighting items mod and perk, if you really search thoroughly every location then you'll spend a lot of additional time for loot alone.. However, to give you an idea of how far you are: when I finished my first playthrough, I had roughly 70 missions in my log. How close are you?

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah going by memory, I have the Pavarti mission to get her some cake or something, then the mission for the preacher to find the dude who reads French. There's a mission to do something somewhere, forget what, but I think it's an alternate way to do something else? Not sure. Then there's the one to find the special weapon on the ship that the dude who defrosted you has. Then there's the main mission or two to get to that place where you need to buy the key thing from Gladys. I know there's probably a lot more for sure, I just haven't unlocked them yet.

But I was saying I like to do all side missions first before doing the main missions, and those couple are all I have to do before I only have the main missions left.

[Art Blade]

ah, got it, I kind of misread "main" mission and took it for "final" mission the way you said it ("nothing more to do than") And you can bet that playing main missions will unlock new side missions.. so.. yeah man, enjoy In my opinion, not a single mission has been boring or stupid, so take as many as you can

[Art Blade]

Today I managed to pass the SubLight "boarst factory" mission on Monarch without killing anyone (not saying without causing any, let alone quite a few, deaths but they didn't count against me) so this time I don't have that faction popping up on my reputation list. I did save before making a decision that would lead to something I don't quite know what.. could have put that faction on my list with a positive rep... I'll check that out some time but not now. The first playthrough was different, I sneaked in, killed one guard for an ID, manipulated the books, and sneaked out again and that whole factory remained a restricted area so I didn't want to start a war there. Now.. not restricted, all doors open, only a few corporate guards dead who got killed by their own security robots for reasons I won't disclose.. I really didn't expect that I could get away with all that and my inventory so packed with looted stuff I could barely walk. Actually, that's exaggerated, I wasn't encumbered but only because I had unloaded most of my inventory on the Unreliable prior to going to the factory so I would have plenty of space in my inventory and boy did I need that space.

Anyway, it was interesting because I was even ALLOWED to loot the whole factory, and I opened every main and side entrance there is. Really cool.

[Art Blade]

I reckon I'll take a break from The Outer Worlds for now, guys.

CyberPunk2077 is about to launch in twenty minutes and I've already downloaded it.

[PZ]

Looking forward to your impressions!  I've not heard of that title.

[Art Blade]

it's been hyped for a year or so, now it's finally released

[Dweller_Benthos]

The Boarst Factory, eh? I'll keep that in mind when I get to that point.

[Art Blade]

Looking forward to your impressions!  I've not heard of that title.

I just have to show you something, PZ.. click on your quote to see where that was taken from..

[PZ]

Man, I need to take some memory pills! 

[Art Blade]

 

[mandru]

Thanks for the info above Art.  I do appreciate the effort you've put into gleaning the subject matter for me. 

Packing three or four sets of  complementary gear for myself and my two companions to meet the various speech and skill checks not to mention combat gear would leave me very little room to grab loot.  Even knowing which two companions to bring when walking into unknown territory is a coin flip at best.

The best I can do is jump in and wallow through.  It's worked somewhat so far.