Firearms chance to hit problems..

So I decided to try a playthrough of a solo pure gunslinger, my first time ever!

I modded my life to a max of 12 and didn't accept any followers. Gotta have a bit of a challenge, right?

Turns out, too much of one. My plan was to knock stuff out with the tranquilizer gun then kill it with the hand cannon. For tough critters I would lay plastique at my feet, shoot once to draw the enemy near, then run away and blow it up as it charged.

This worked fine until I came to the various rock monsters in the Black Mountain Mines. I have a 0% chance to hit them.

I wasn't entirely sure where chance to hit calculations were checking, but I figured it was something to do with PE/DEX, and firearms skill. So I got 20 dex, 20 PE, and firearms mastery. (modded it to those numbers, because I was curious. Also threw in STR, even tho I didn't think that would matter.)

When I came back my chance to hit had risen to a whopping 0%. I managed to kill them with laying traps and Plastique in a path, but I can't do that all game (ok, I could but thats too tedious even for me). Whats the deal? Are firearms just hopelessly bad, no matter how good your weapons and stats are? Is there something I'm just doing horribly wrong?



On a completely unrelated tangent, this game lags my system. It used to lag my system when I started playing back in like 2001, but at the time I had a mediocre machine so it kinda made sense. Now I'm playing on a custom built gaming rig with 12 gigs of RAM, SLI'd GTX 465's, and an i7 processor. I should be able to have 100 copies of Arcanum running with those specs, I mean... the game is a decade old ffs! This is especially noticable with 8 followers, and in certain locations its much worse. How is this even possible? What's putting so much strain on the system that the Arcanum process eats up multiple gigs of RAM?


If its relevant I'm playing on Arcanum+1074+AWIP6.0. Great mod by the way, you're my hero rroyo ^^

 

Ore Golems are magickal. That's the problem. If you have a huge technological affinity, you can counter-balance the magickal aura of your targets. Or, you can use neutral weapons (arrows, boomarangs etc.) which give no penalty against magick.

Using a technological weapon with a fairly average Tech affinity is nearly useless against very magickal beings and I'm guessing that's your problem here. To hunt magickal critters, a gunslinger really needs 100%+ technological aptitude. Otherwise, even your cheapest boomarang is better than an elephant gun against them.

PS - I have no idea about the bit rate problem you have there. I only know the magick within the game, not the magick that makes it work in the first place.

 

Awesome, that explains everything! Thanks for the explanation, I'd been investing in useful spells in addition to my gunslinging since I figured beyond making the guns in the first place I wouldn't need tech aptitude for anything, so I ended up with a very low tech score. Guess I'll have to start over, and forsake those useful speed spells. (Tempus Fugit is amazing when playing turn based like I do )

On another completely unrelated tangent, I heard there were some Upsy Daisyium Gems somewhere in AWIP. They'd prove very useful for me since I'm playing with no followers I have to lug everything around with me. I really hate being encumbered due to having all my belt slots filled with plot items and spare gearsets.

Sadly, I've no idea where they are, and have yet to come across them by chance. I suppose I should go ask in the AWIP thread...

 

Playing magick + tech is easy and fun. If you don't want to start again, just have a stash of Explosive Grenades for the quite rare encounters with Magickal critters. Throwing gives no penalty even with technological grenades.

 

Yeah sadly my guy is really bad at throwing (no skill in it), so I have to go pretty close... which is kinda dangerous when I'm playing with 12 life. I suppose I could mod in maxed throw and mastery just for those rare situations and it wouldn't be too cheap...

 

You don't need Throwing Mastery for grenades. Expert is more than adequate. If you still want to use a boomerang as a mere Expert, find a way to get the one in the inventory of the Ashbury blacksmith. It has an accuracy bonus.

Hey, taking spells is cheating!

 

Haha, true. I wasn't using any non-buffing spells (nothing that targeted enemies) but I suppose if I shouldn't call it a "pure" gunslinger.

What are you supposed to do with your points if you just use guns tho?

Suppose I could go for the funny things like Repair Mastery and Spot Traps that are kinda cool... but at the same time, not quite good. I've never known what to make of stuff like that.

 

Well, it depends on how "pure" you want your pure gunslinger to be. I would say a pure gunslinger should use only firearms in combat, meaning no spells and no grenades. That still leaves several possibilities. You could be a gunslinger/thief and take lockpicking, prowling, pickpocket, and traps. You could take non-combat tech disciplines like Therapeutics and Herbology. You could also go for Haggle and Persuasion and jack up your Beauty and Charisma.

If all else fails, you could always dump your points directly into health and fatigue.

 

Wasting invaluable character points by putting them directly into heath/fatigue? :shivers: