The Outer Worlds

[Art Blade]

there is something else regarding..

levelled (static) gear and enemies

I'm currently somewhat desperately looking for a combat shotgun Mk3 and an armour mod (gadget) that makes me temporarily invulnerable when my health drops below I think 25%. I got those items but I need more. And I can't for the life of me find any right now.

That leads me to tell you about what I found out instead. Apparently there is some kind of order in which you get sent across the universe and each location seems to be of a higher level than before, both for enemies and for loot. However, even the late/end game stuff isn't necessarily there. I keep finding mid to even low level gear, particularly at vendors and vending machines. It's completely silly for me at level 33 to see level 1-25 items. Tinkering those up five levels would cost probably around 2.5k and it would still be way below my level. There are a few items around level 30(ish) but not exactly plenty.

So I went for a round trip and visited previous places like Monarch. I saw a bunch of rapts and a mega mantiqueen or whatever it was that would have freaked me out at a lower level but now? "Excuse me, Parvati and Felix? Could you please take a look, quickly?" Well, seconds later the area is cleared. And I mean seconds. And those two? Not a scratch. OK, admittedly, they're bloody well geared up and deal a massive amount of damage and they've got fully upgraded and modded power armour. But still.. seconds? Same with a bunch of marauders with a big robot, my guys just wiped them out as if it was nothing. That can only mean that the enemies don't level up but are probably within a certain comparatively small range of levels.

That makes me think that the Gordon DLC is likely scripted to be high level, like for those players who've finished the main story (can we actually continue playing like in FO4?) and were high/max level when the DLC was released. On steam, we got everything at the same time but the game has been out a year already so I reckon the DLC was released with high level loot/enemies.

Anyway, I'll have to wait until "RNG" (random number generator, aka lottery) drops some nice loot at me or refresh some items at some vendors.

[Art Blade]

meanwhile I found a vendor who sold me that Reactive Kinematic Shield Projector mod, and it reads:

"When your health drops too low, this mod makes you temporarily invulnerable, and increases your regeneration for a short time. This effect has a cooldown."

You can imagine that I feel a lot safer with that mod installed.

I've installed one of those mods in each of my combat body armours except one and now I've got it. Phew. Of all things, for my recent and favourite armour (higher level than my old one, both boost my companions) I bloody couldn't get that mod I've got quite a few other armours that I use only for specific tasks like one with +7 hack or one with a big tech boost and so on, they don't need to be high level armour nor do I need that mod for those because I don't use those armours in combat.

However, I'm still trying to find one of those shotguns. They are actually called Tactical Shotgun III and the one I've got is tinkered to level 38, modded with Mag-2-Melt for corrosive damage and to focus the shot (very closely grouped) I use the Sure N' Straight Barrel mod with -25% spray and -80% sway. With my skills set to give me additional damage for corrosive damage, this shotgun deals a whopping 189x8 (1512) damage with a 6 light ammo magazine. It is a proper gun for CQC I want one more with a silencer instead of the spray reduction so I can deal even more damage with sneak attacks.

[Art Blade]

so far, the only thing I don't like about this game is everything related to "level" because it's as if nothing really was related to levels. When you start the game, those stupid primates next to the Unreliable are far too strong for a beginner. Then, when you're levelling up, you keep finding way too low-levelled gear all the way through to your own max level 33. Enemies are quite often not the same level as you are. You cannot see their level but you know what I mean when they're either taken out fairly easily or the opposite, you may die rather quickly if you're not very careful.

Right now I'm back from a "funny" encounter with some different type of primates on Gorgon. They just wiped us out within a minute. One big guy and a couple of his friends, and they were spewing acid and blinding us and whatnot. Here's their leader.. looks pretty harmless when he's flat on his belly but when he's upright and arms up, he's tall like a multi-storey house. To take down him and his friends, I ordered Felix and Parvati to stay put so those monsters would have to come to us and I stayed in the background behind my team. Before I started the attack, I did something for the first time ever (after 250 hours of gaming..) in order to cope with those primates:

I decided to use consumables. Something that boosts sniping with +25% damage, also something that adds +10 armour, and something that added +25% health. Additionally, I used armour with a boost for "long guns" and a helmet that adds +25% damage to creatures. And then I opened with a sneak attack, a silenced hunting rifle with corroding ammo because I got boosts from my own skills (for corroding ammo) and my team (stealth for extra sneak attack damage) and all of that allowed us to reverse the situation: we wiped them out within a minute.

he wiped us out
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

All in all, I really enjoy the DLC. It is FAR bigger than I thought it might be. The whole game, vanilla and DLC, is amazing regarding the depth of the missions. This DLC is essentially a very nice expansion of the game. It's still related and I've been sent back to a location of the vanilla game now. Really good stuff

[mandru]

As always interesting and informative posts Art.

Art your post that included consumables shows that (for me) there is a whole new set of mind breaking numerical based calculations that I had not anticipated.

Hmm...  Consumables.  Silly me.  More and more I am coming to realize it was naive of me to think I could just jump in and play this higher level math concentric game. 

I've been wondering what to do with consumables.  Almost a full third of my carry weight is tied up in an insurmountable albatross in the form of an assortment of grocery and medicinal objects that seemed to be too valuable to sell or throw away.  And until I leave Terra 2 and Emerald Vale I have no access to the storage bins on the Unreliable to store consumables, weapons, and armor.

The introduction of balancing task essential consumables is an entirely additional dimension when it comes to a confounding a set of essential game items that stack together with one another in varying and shifting degrees.  Each combination designed to achieve the desired effect of keeping your character prepared for an up coming conflict or even scraping through and coming out alive.

I play at the level of "This Gun Good, That Gun Better" and I understand that each of the weapon types (i.e. Mass Impact (blades, blunt force, or bullets), N-Ray, Plasma etc...) may or may not be better for the various enemy types and in varying degrees that I will encounter.

I'm not saying the game is broken for me.  Rather it's more of a case that the game has broken me or at least exposed my brokenness to a point that it is pointless to proceed.

I can see no clear path to be able to complete this game if only for its story line in its pristine form.

[PZ]

Being a newbie in virtually every game is mostly what I don't like, especially in replays. That's why I really enjoy the Games+ mode.

it is kind of stupid to be a veteran player of a game only to need to restart with absolutely nothing.

This is also why I modified FC2 so I need not start over as if I didn't have any short term memory regarding gained skills. It would be nice if all games would give you the option of clicking a box to start another game with all your retained skills and equipment.

[Art Blade]

PZ, while game+ has got its merits I don't mind starting over when a game like this one offers such a variety of variables to set your starting point that you cannot revert completely later on. Meaning, here the attributes you choose at the start will determine how some of your skills develop during the course of the game. Choosing different attributes will give you quite a different game.

mandru.. I still think that you worry too much. I did the same as you: "this gun good, that one better." And then I played. When it didn't w0#k any more, at least not as good as before, I changed stuff. The various armour/helmet types with their added skill boosts came later. And it took over 250 hours until I used consumables for just one event so far.

You mentioned storage on the ship, apparently you can't use it yet. Just take ANY loot box that shows "R" (by default) at the bottom of the loot dialogue, meaning you need to look for any box that offers the "TRANSFER" option. One is inside Edgewater close to one of the entrances, a bit in the back, near the wall. There you can stuff your surplus and return any time, it will still be there. It does not despawn if it's a "transfer" box.

As to those consumables, there is one perk that halves the weight of them. What you really need is: none of them except ADRENO which is in the first slot in your inhaler. If it makes you feel better, carry anything that gives +25% base health.

I'm saying that because today I decided to sell everything that continued on page 2 and 3 in my consumables inventory. All I kept are things with positive effects, nothing that might cause addictions like adrena-time, tobacco and alcohol. Of course I loot all of that but then I've kept selling those. Today I sold additionally all kinds of things that had the same effects but didn't last long, like 200% regen for 20 secs: sell. 200% regen for 2 minutes? Keep. Of all those, I kept the ones I had the most of the same type so I didn't cluster my inventory. Better 30 of the same item than 30 different items with the same effect. I kept stuff I might use like sniper damage, remove negative effects, that kind of thing, but only until the consumables inventory filled that one page. Everything that started a 2nd page I sold. Like that, you'll likely gain a lot of spare inventory space (more weight for loot) and if you don't know what to keep: TRANSFER it to a box. Later you can fetch it and stuff it in your ship.

The real question is: how often have you used those items yet? Never? Sell 'em.

And stop worrying, start playing.

It's not as if you didn't have save games to fall back to or even start a new playthrough

It's better to burn 9 cakes before the 10th gets just right than worrying for the same time without ever baking one. Once you bake that first one, it will likely still burn. Might as well start and learn than worry and not learn.

Acquire some courage and unleash yourself, mandru

[mandru]

I hate downloading anything to my rig so I guess I could claim a bit of courage in the fact that I've downloaded and installed a developer unlock for the console access.

Now it's a matter of poking at it until I can get it to function as advertised. 

[Art Blade]

indeed. Well, good luck, then, and once you've got it to w0#k: enjoy the game

[Dweller_Benthos]

Me, I don't worry about it, I just get headshots:



This took me a long time to edit (most of the afternoon) and I realize now I missed a few clips I wanted to keep in there. This is from over two hours of raw video. Of course, in that raw video is a lot of story stuff and a lot of looting and reading terminals. This is just most of the action, and a lot of my headshot skill. Of course, I did not in any way abuse the save game feature to get those perfect kills on video. Well, only a little bit, and left some of those in as a small sequence of killing the same poor sap over and over again until I got the sequence right 

There are no spoilers of any kind in this, just wandering around the Roseway map outdoors areas shooting stuff.

Oh my favorite kill is at 4:20 where the victim goes full double scorpion! Here's a direct link to that moment:

[Art Blade]

I watched it on YT before I found your post here. Since I already commented there, I'll paste that here:

nice shots starting 1:11 you can see a pistol (weapon) icon bottom centre of the screen and starting 5:11 it's even flashing. It means "repair your gun" because the performance is going down the drain. You'll know the difference when your enemies are getting tougher and every missing bit of damage output thanks to completely degraded guns (avoiding to call them "junk" or "scrap metal") will potentially get you killed. But other than that, nice vid Especially the marauder who didn't see you until you shot him in the face. ^^

[mandru]

Cool Vid D_B. 

I too prefer the sniped head shot and bots (both walkers and drones) all have blue glowing areas on them to identify their weakest spots even in the dark.

One feature I like is the ability to drop a thin blue halo around my companions to ID them so I'm not wasting ammo on them when they get into the thick of it with multiple enemies.

I say they but I still only have Parvati actively following me.  Max with no speech options seems to be hanging out on the ship silent as a coffin at least until we dock on the Groundbreaker. 

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah I'll have to repair the weapons next time I get on, thanks for the tip, Art, I was wondering what that icon meant. If they explained that anywhere, I missed it.

Mandru, what is this blue halo you mention? I'd love to highlight my companions, as they have the tendency to get in my way and in the thick of things. I lose track of where they are, mostly because they are wearing the same armor in a lot of cases as the enemies. I once put half a clip into Felix before I realized who it was that I was shooting at.

[Art Blade]

welcome, Dweller. You actually could have guessed what it was if you had checked your inventory once in a while, the weapons bit.. you'll see the wrench symbol and a percentage of wear and tear on weapons but also on armour. After just a few shots, weapons start to degrade. Even with that 25% less degradation perk. Your weapon will w0#k nicely until you hit maybe 60% (40% degradation) when it really starts to show. The longer you wait, the more your stuff degrades, the more expensive it gets fixing it up.

As a reminder:

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.

As to the halo: allow me, just because I got here faster.

It's actually simply an outline. Go to settings, UI, and check the third option from the bottom "Companion Outlines."

[mandru]

Nice catch Art, I would have responded earlier but I was running errands. 

[Art Blade]

I was waiting for you to do that so I could play hero in your stead.