Intro
- This party DMG should be close to the perfect one - 3 characters with base 20CI at the end game.
- I included as well the target stats for lv40 .
- I am assuming I will not max all the skills and I will also use skill book & trinkets on top of those. Feel free to check and advise on my skill plans ....
- I don’t plan to recruit any CNPCs
- I tried to optimize party’s total STR & INT to maximize Cary Weight & Skill Points using as few Attribute points as possible. Without Carry Weight in the picture, probably I would of give up the STR Guy.
- I am worried by my 3 X 2STR guys .... will they be able to carry 2 weapons and ammo at the end
?- I haven't pass lvl 20 yet (a few restarts
) so I am curios to see if my plan will work 
Full Party HERE - Using this tool
Dozer, The Mule
Hi, I am Dozer! To be continued ...
CLASSIC: (2,1,4,8,8,4,1) -> (2,1,8,8,8,4,1)
DMG Stats: 9AP/13I -> 9AP/17I
Skills (12-129SP)
AR Weapons 3-10
Computer 1-9
Toaster Repair 1-3
Mechanical Repair 1-3
Hard Ass 0-6
Weaponsmithing 0-6
Doc, The Charming Killer
Hi, I am Doc. I have the biggest gun. To be Continued ….
CLASSIC: (2,1,6,2,10,4,3) -> (2,1,6,2,10,4,3)
DMG Stats: 8AP/16CI -> 8AP/20CI
Skills (12-129SP)
Sniper Weapons 3-10
Leadership 2-9
Medic 1-1
Energy Weapons 0-10
Gunny, The Specialist
Hello Boys! Show me the Target!To be Continued ….
CLASSIC: (4,1,6,2,10,4,1) -> (4,1,10,2,10,4,1)
DMG Stats: 9AP/16I -> 9AP/20I
Skills (12-129SP)
AR Weapons 3-10
Perception 1-6
Demolition 1-5
Brute Force 0-3
Medic 0-10
Surgeon 0-1
Silent , Quick Fingers
Hello Boys! Where do we need to slip in? To be Continued ….
CLASSIC: (4,1,6,2,10,4,1) -> (4,1,10,2,10,4,1)
DMG Stats:9AP/16I -> 9AP/20I
Skills (12-129SP)
AR Weapons 3-10
Lockpicking 1-9
Safecracking 1-3
Alarm Disarming 1-3
Surgeon 0-9
...............................................................................................................................................
Specialized Builds.
Charismatic Leader
Lucky Luke
To Be done ....
..............................................................................................................................................
TIPS
General
Press Z to make the loot items visible.
Save before attempting to disarm, unlock, lockpick, safecrack etc. You can make it even with 11% success rate and sometimes from the first or second try.
Once you reach California drop your water capacity trinkets (no need) and start using the nice skill ones.
Batle Tactics
Make sure you reload all your weapons before starting a battle(or just reload all after you finish one)
Options for starting battles (before the enemies engage you):
- Sniper: Setup & spread your team for an ambush (use kneel and cover). Use your Sniper to hit and enemy from range.
- Synchronized Shot: Select your party (use ranged weapons) and hit one enemy. You should be able to score a kill before the battle starts.
- Tanking: Setup & spread your team for an ambush (use kneel and cover). Use your SPD/STR character to go closer to the enemies and provoke the battle start. Run back under the team suppression fire. You may use Ambush quite effective here.
Check who is firing next. Focus that enemy down. ... Or ... is that 1 HP guy not firing soon ? You can let them to your least powerful guy and use the real damage dealer to take 100 HP from a full HP enemy.
Use Ambush rather than firing upon enemies staying in cover. They will jump out next turn and your guys will punish them.
If your enemies use EWW just take down your armor. They will become useless. ... Put back that armor after the fight.
Focus fire on one target. A target with 1 HP (CON) is just as effective as one with full HP.
Don't move without a reason to do so. Conserving AP for the next turn can grant you an extra shot/move when you need to.
AP Management (AR Example for 9 AP): Keep a 5 AP and also a 4 AP AR weapon. At the beginning you wont be able to use the Burst Head-shot (9AP) so you better use 1 X 5AP & 1 X 4 AP shots.
Character Creation/Progression
Every Attribute can be minimum 1. Most of them give you bonuses every 2 points so even if you don’t want to raise one attribute too much, it may be wise to raise it at 2 instead of leaving it at 1. Useful ones to keep at least at 2 are STR, SPD, CON.
For every 4 combined attributes in SPD, STR and INT you gain 1 AP. So plan to have (SPD+STR+INT) = 4Xmultiple
Every 10 levels you get 1 more Attribute point.
- Cap level is 50, but plan on getting 4 attributes only as you may not reach 50.
- AW is the best candidate to raise during leveling as you get 1 CI for each AW
- Don’t raise STR, SPD, INT, CHA during the leveling, but set them up from the start. Otherwise you will lose the lvl bonuses from INT and STR, XP bonus from CHA, or you have to wait for 4 attributes to gain 1 AP (STR, SPD, INT combination).
You don’t need to raise all your skills to 10 even if you need them at that level:
- Use skill books for +1
- Use items (trinkets) for +2/3
Don’t use the same type of weapon for all the members. You will run out of ammo.
Raise your Weapons skills at +3 (or +4) from the start to have an edge over initial enemies
Adding the first 3 levels to a skill cost you only 6 skill points. It may be a good trade-off (instead of adding 1 more level for a skill between 7&9).
STATS
Action Points (AP) ****
How many actions you can perform per turn.
More is better, but you will may get more benefits if you redirect some points to other attributes, depending on the build choice.
So add exactly as you NEED based on the weapon choice.
Ranged Hit Chance (RHC) ****
Chance to hit with ranged weapons.
This adds to the ranged weapon skills, so increasing those will suffice.
Critical Chance (CC) ***
Chance to perform a critical hit.
Don’t’ hunt for it unless you do a specialized build.
Combat Initiative (CI) *****
How fast you react when the battle starts. High enough and you can finish them before they can fire.
How many times you can act during the battle. Imagine you get 2 turns before an enemy gets one.
Aim for 20 and never under 12, unless a specialized build.
Chance to Evade (CE) ***
Great for Defence.
Aim to raise this instead of adding more HP.
CON ****
Total HP.
Combat Speed (CS) ****
Determines how many tiles you can walk for each AP.
Useful for any character, but great for melee and medics.
Skill/LVL ****
How many skill points you get per level.
Aim at least 3 unless you do a specialized build.
Carry Weight ***
How much you can carry.
CON per Level ***
How much more HP you get per level.
Range of View **
How far you can see in the fog
Leadership Radius ***
How big (distance) is your Leadership skill influence.
If you don’t use Leadership is useless.
Non-Combat XP Bonus *
How much more XP% you gain from non-combat skills.
Useful for some specialized builds.
Bonus Melee Crit Mult **
Melee damage multiplier in case of a critical hit.
Great for melee especially for Brawling as this skill will end up with 100% crit chance.
ATTRIBUTES
Coordination (CON): ***
Stats Impact:
+2 Coordination = +1 Action Points (AP)
+1 Coordination = +1% Ranged Hit Chance (RHC)
Summary:
Quite important fighting attribute, but less important than Speed or Awareness.
Aim to have it at least 2, but usually you need builds with higher CON.
Decide from the beginning how many AP you need and set CON in association with SPD, STR and INT to get that AP.
EX: If your weapon of choice is using 3AP you may want 9AP so you can use it 3 times.
Luck (LCK): *
Stats Impact:
+1 Luck = +1% Critical Chance (CC)
+2 Luck = +1% Chance to Evade (CE)
Summary:
Theoretically impacts a lot of game aspects (better lot, % lucky +1 AP per turn), however the only one I really noticed is the fact that the weapons are jamming quite often without Luck. However his is easy to overcome with the weapon mods. Unless you want the Direct Impact features you can safely let it at 1. Or you can create one “Lucky” character...
Awareness (AW): *****
Stats Impact:
+1 Awareness = +1 Combat Initiative (CI)
+2 Awareness = +1% Chance to Evade
Summary:
CI is the “DMG” skill of the game. You should plan to finish (lvl40sh) at 10 AW for a DMG character.
Strength (STR): ****
Stats Impact:
+1 Strength = +12 Carry Weight
+4 (Strength, Speed, Intelligence) = +1 Action Points
+1 Strength = +0.1 Melee Critical Multiplier
+1 Strength = +3 Base CON
+1 Strength = +1 CON per level-up.
Summary:
Very important (at the party level) for Carry Weight. This is the only reason I gave it 4 stars.
Good for melee, but not necessary.
Very important for tanks, but, surprisingly, not as good as Speed.
You need 7 STR to us the best Heavy Armor, but the best Light one is almost as good and without any speed penalties.
Don’t go too low: you may not be able to carry you gun at the end game.
Speed (SPD) *****
Stats Impact:
+2 SPD = +1 AP
+2 SPD = +1 CI
+4 (Speed, Strength, Intelligence) = +1 AP
+1 SPD = +1% Chance to Evade
+1 SPD = +0.1 Combat Speed
Summary:
The best overall offensive & defensive skill.
Impacts both CI & AP, and even more efficient than CO & AW.
Combat Speed determines how many squares you can move per AP: useful for flanking & defense/run.
+1SPD adds 1% Chance to Evade, so is better than STR for defense.
Aim to maximize it if you can.
Intelligence (INT): ****
Stats Impact:
+4 (Intelligence, Speed, Strength) = +1 AP
1 Intelligence = +2 Skill Points/Level
4 Intelligence = +3 Skill Points/Level
8 Intelligence = +4 Skill Points/Level
10 Intelligence = +5 Skill Points/Level
Summary:
Intelligence is the only attribute that affects the number of skills you will have at the end.
You need to decide the INT at the beginning.
Here are the LVL40 stats:
1 INT = ~2.01 maxed skills
4 INT = ~2.93 maxed skills (13.3 SP per each additional INT)
8 INT = ~3.82 maxed skills (10 SP per each additional INT)
10 INT = ~4.70 maxed skills (20 SP per each additional INT)
This suggests INT =1 is the most effective (but this might be to low), and INT=8 being the most ineffective.
The recommendation will be to use INT4 or INT10.
A few combinations(LVL40):
4 X INT1 costs 4 INT and results in ~8.19 maxed skills (360 SP)
4 X INT4 costs 16 INT and results in ~11.73 maxed skills (516 SP)
2 X INT1, 2 X INT8 costs 18 INT and results in ~11.73 maxed skills (516 SP)
1 X INT1, 2 X INT4 , 1 X IN10 costs 19 INT and results in ~12.62 maxed skills (555 SP)
2 X INT1, 2 X IN10 costs 22 INT and results in ~13.05 maxed skills (594 SP)
3 X INT4, 1 X IN10 costs 22 INT and results in ~13.05 maxed skills (594 SP)
Charisma (CHA) **
Stats Impact:
+1 CHA= +2m Leadership Radius
+1 CHA = +5% XP
Summary:
Charisma allows you to recruit the best CNPs, boosts the XP % gain and the Leadership range.
+1 Leadership = +1% Hit Chance for each of the party members in range.
It looks good, but think is the next dump candidate after Luck.
I must admit that a maxed CHA, INT Leader with a lot of non-combat skills (for maximum XP gain) would be an interesting build.
Maybe a leader for 3 brainless ranged DMG guys
? Bear in mind he will fight like a girl J.SKILLS
WEAPONS SKILLS
Assault Rifles (AR) *****
AP Management: 9AP (Headshot Burst) or 10AP (5AP X 2 shots).
Summary:
Best DMG in game at all stages.
Sniper Rifles (SR): ****
AP Management: 7AP (5AP + Headshot), 8AP (6AP + Headshot), 10AP (5AP X 2 shots), 12AP (6AP X 2)
Summary:
Nice for starting the battles from the distance in some situations (see starting battle tips).
Great DMG at the beginning, good for finish targets later on.
Energy Weapons (EW) ****
AP Management: 8 AP (Gamma Ray), 12 AP (2 X Death Ray)
Summary:
Excelent against armored target, extremely bad against non-armored ones.
Because of this they are useless half of the game so plan to take it later as a secondary weapon, therefore ‘only’ 4 stars.
Melee ***
Brawling > Blunt > Blade
Brawling AP management: 9AP (3 X AP Hit). 8AP (2AP Run To target + 2 X 2AP Hit)
Summary:
Brawling is quite bad before lvl 7 and is highly depended on the weapon, but after 7 you will get over 80% crit chance. If your character has a good STR you will get an excellent crit multiplier.
It can become a DMG champion … but melee characters waste a lot of AP moving around to catch up the enemies. (They need SPD to be effective).
TNT,Grenades, Rocket launchers ***
Very good as they are not impacted by skills so they can be used by all characters. If you have a melee that needs a ranged option or a CHA/INT/LUCK Leader without any combat skills they can make up for that gap. However you won’t have too many to use them all the time.
You can also use explosives to open safes.
SMG, Handguns, Shotguns **
All make decent options for a secondary weapon, but secondary weapons are non-really needed.
Heavy weapons *
Just bad if you compare them with ARs.
GENERAL SKILLS
Animal Whisperer **
Can give you +1 Awareness.
Barter **
Depends on your play-style.
If you need money you can easy spare 6 points and make it +3.
If not you can surely find another skill to raise.
Brute Force ***
Some early quests require 2-3 levels here.
You ca use this to open doors by force instead of lock-picking.
Smart/Kiss/Hard Ass skills ***
You will need at least one high for quests and items.
Leadership ***
Nice buff, but shines only if your character have a decent CHA.
Outdoorsman **
If you don’t want to have random fights all the time raise it.
If you prefer getting some more XP and losing some time (& ammo) forget about it.
Perception *****
Detecting traps helps you avoid a lot of damage.
Weaponsmithing ****
Weapon mods are a must. You need +4 this as soon as your ranged weapons pass lvl 6-7.
Money gain is a bonus as well.
Knowledge skills
Alarm **
Deactivate alarms. Nice to have.
Computers ***
Loot & hack enemy robots. Good to have on Melee and/or SPD character.
Demolitions ****
Disable traps. Works great with Perception.
Field Medic *****
Mandatory. You may need 2 characters with this skill.
Lockpicking ***
Loot skill. You can open doors with brute force, but not locks.
Repair *
Used sometimes for non-critical quests.
You can use this skill to fix the things you tried to open by force (Brute Force, Explosives) and try to open it again.
Safecracking:*
Loot skill for 60% of the safes. The rest are using electronic looks (Computers).
Most of them (all ?) can be opened by TNT & grenades so you may forget about this skill.
Surgeon: *****
Mandatory. You may need 2 characters with this skill (lvl7 & lv1 can be a decent tradeoff).
Toaster: ***
Loot skill. You get unique items and a lot of xp and you don’t need to raise it too much.
Useful Skill Combinations:
Perception + Demolitions: An Item will add +3 to both. Also you can see the traps and disable them with the same character.
Weaponsmithing + Toaster + Repair: An Item will add +2 to all
Lockpicking + Safecracking: An item will add +2 to both.
Later Edits
1. Updated and improved mechanical repair, brute force and explosives, based on Gruftlord feedback
2. Updated and improved Sniper rifles, CI, Weaponsmithing & barter details, based on Tyraforce feedback.
3. Added a few INT party combinations at the Intelligence skill level.
4. Changed the party Tank (no melee -> AR) & Leader (less INT -> CHA & SPD) and added a few tips
5. Added a few great tips from NickAragua
6. Changed INT calculation per level (the initial one was faulty)
