Comments - GEPGUN

If you want to be able to kill Commandos and Grays with the flamethrower, you will need master HW for the damage since they can't be set on fire. The same thing applies if you want to kill them in one shot with the plasma rifle. The Plasma Rifle at max damage is also a superb bot killer.

I always go in from the roof.

Putting all mods into a single weapon is my preferred playstyle. Might want to invest into Muscle Aug so you have an alternative source of damage when ammo gets low.

In 9.0 at level 4 it uses only +10% extra energy per active aug.

GENERAL RULE:

If you don't have grenades, rockets, tnt crate, sabot rounds, spy drone, or a plasma rifle, your best bet is to run like hell away from bots.

There's a tnt crate in the water near the ambrosia dock, a GEP gun in one of the towers, and a LAW in the recreation building. Speed/Silent run can help you maneuver over/between the crates. You can escape them by simply jumping up on top of a crate.

Bots become much easier to deal with later on. They can be avoided entirely with radar trans or thermo camo.

Regarding the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard: Is that zone that's connected to the warehouse zone new? The one with the collapsing elevator and the upgrade canister behind the riddle and math equation? It feels a bit isolated and out of place. It doesn't look like there's any zone connector to the boat area.

Starting a rifles build. Thinking about using the sawed-off instead of the assault shotgun. I take it that the main difference is damage vs rate of fire and clip size?

"-Removed plasma rifle gibbing."

NO!

This game's BFG equivalent must result in gruesome death! It's not right without it!

"-Snipers now take their time to fire on all except hardcore mode."

Might want to include this for hardcore difficulty too. Those guys are the #1 threat in the game. Would be cool if they switched to a sidearm when you got close, or if their accuracy decreased the closer you got to them.

Another Issue:

When you open the vault to Sector 3 at Area 51, all of the troops on the other side are immediately on full alert and can see you even with thermoptic camouflage on.

This makes stealthing the area impossible.

BUG: You can't break doors/containers with the Plasma Rifle even if you surpass the damage threshold.

Keep in mind that the flamethrower canister ammo count was cut in half. Trying to focus on Heavy Weapons but my flamethrower is nearly always out of ammo.

I'm doing a Hardcore Muscle Aug run right now with no weapon skills and it has been pretty easy so far. I just use the spy drone for bots and throwing multitools/medkits for humans.

Haven't been able to breakdown doors with it, however.

Has anyone here tried Muscle Aug + Multitools? I just killed a horde of enemies by rapidly tossing multitools at them. This might be the most overpowered combo in the game.

Regarding #4, I believe the following can become effective door, camera, and turret breakers:

Throwing Knives
Mini-Crossbow
Sniper Rifle
Plasma Rifle

This is ignoring the more obvious stuff like the DTS, GEP, and LAMs.

You just need the right combination of skill mastery, damage mods, and Combat Speed/Targeting Augs.

Throwing Knives and the Mini-Crossbow are probably the best since you can recover the knife/dart.

Some save point location ideas:

Statue of Liberty:

One in the back room connected to the vent. First you have to make it past the lobby, then you have to deal with the NSF in front of Gunther's cell. A save point in between these to sections would be nice.

MJ12 Lab-Robot Maintenance:

This is area is arguably the toughest in the game. You've just broken out of your cell, are wounded, and have a ton of tough enemies in the way to the armory. I recommend placing a save point in the upper office of the robot maintenance area, near the EMP grenade.

My current tactic for this area is to KO the sniper, then run like hell through the lasers, take some turret damage, climb the ladder, jump over the gas, then use the lockpick on the vent to the armory.

Area 51:

Sector 3:

One in the reactor chamber side room with the mechanic (near the grays). There's kind of a long stretch in between Sector 3 and meeting Helios in the Aquinas Hub.

Question regarding armor and ballistic shield.

I've got a ballistic vest equipped and the passive ballistic shield at level 4, so the total damage absorption should be 70%, but the damage absorption is only 57%.

Is there a limit on absorption stacking?

There's a Medicine perk that grants you extra energy when you use a Bio Cell, plus there's a Hacking perk that let's you get extra energy from bots.

On Hardcore I used Speed Enhancement + Balistic Protection (active) + Regeneration + Power Recirculator. My bio cell count pre-Hong Kong was 5-10, while after it was floating between 15-20. Medicine skill was only at trained for most of the game.

But is that as overkill as Regeneration + Power Recirculator?

Electricity attacks -- while powerful -- are still rare and can be healed by regeneration. You can also get an alternative form of electricity resistance in the form of Environmental Training and the Environmental Resistance Aug. There's also the Spy Drone Aug which can cheaply take out spider bots.

To put it simply, you can make Energy Shield mostly obsolete, but you can't do the same for regeneration.

I like the idea of Environmental Resistance vs Energy Shield choice because it is a bit like the Active/Passive Ballistic Shield choice. You can choose between an Active Aug that grants you a larger variety of environmental protection, or you can have a more narrowly focused Passive in the form of Energy Shield.

Regarding the overpowered Regeneration + Power Recirculator combo, what about switching up the augs so we get

Aqua Lung/Synthetic Heart
Environmental Resistance/Energy Shield
Regeneration/Power Recirculator

That way the two can never used together.

You would have to nerf the Synthetic Heart to compensate, but it might be a good, quick solution to a huge problem.

Something's up. I'm at Area 51's sector 3 and 50 damage threshold locks are not being broken by the DTS, even though its damage is 78. Throwing knives break them, but not the DTS.

A bit of a complaint:

I've got max combat speed and max low tech and it has taken me 4 hits to drop a MJ12 Elite with the Dragon's Tooth (hardcore difficulty). I'm assuming this is because I end up accidentally hitting them in the arms or legs, but it's really frustrating when you're trying to cut down multiple enemies and you can't kill them fast enough even though your entire build is dedicated to melee damage.

Perhaps a perk that forces melee damage to the arms and legs to equal torso damage would be a solution?