Technologist Help

I've always beaten the game or play a magician. Or a melee, or a thief, or an archer, a thrower... But I always end up dropping points in magic. None in tech. I once got to level 30 with a Dwarven Gunslinger. I quit when I couldn't do the Firearms Mastery quest though. Not to mention the annoyance of having to pump haggle to be able to afford bullets constantly. But it really is the only thing I have never done... So I'm wanting to now.

So a few questions...

1. What is the best technological melee weapon, and where can it be found? This for I am thinking of making a Dwarf focusing on melee.
2. What are the best tech colleges to focus on?
3. What are the best schematics, and where can they be found?

And lastly, in case it's not a Dwarf. What's the best race/combo you guys would recommend or just best way to go for a tech based char?

Something to note in the character build, high intelligence is already important to me, and CHA is somewhat too... I like eventually maxing out persuade, mostly just to get out of the damn Wheel Clan quest. Ugh.

 

Iron Clan Hammer, found in the Iron Clan (duh). A weapon which is slightly worse but available much much earlier would be the Pyrotechnic Axem which is made from a found schematic. One is in Mr Willougsby's basement (next to his abused daughter), plus it can be found in a smithy's stock (each day: 5% in a Quality Smith's stock, 10% in a Dwarven Smith's one).

There are no tech colleges, sadly. Worry not however, because there is a bunch of tech disciplines.
To answer your question, it depends on so many things. A few general tips:

• A good thing would be to max out Smithy (for the Elite Plate and the Machined Plate in the long run).
• Two points in Electrical are good for the charged rings.
• You could level up Explosives for the Pyro Axe and Mechanical for the Mechanised Plate, but both of those can be replaced with tech manuals, frankly.
• Investing into Herbalism would be a good idea, unless you're planning to have jayna with you and will be satisfied with her healing salves.

Again, the value of a schematic depends on what one plans to do and how he plans to play his game. A few commonplaces:

• Pyrotechnic Axe - already explained,
• Machined Plate - Dredge, at the end of the wolf path, guarded by the Grey King (or something like that) and his bunch of werewolfish bitches.
• Flow Disruptor - 10% of being in an inventor's stock; Sebastian has one.
• Vivifier - Vendigroth Ruins.

A half-elf with technophobia.
:chuckles:
Seriously now, the best tech combo would be a sickly dwarf, buuut a sickly human can do as well if you insist on not playing a midget hermaphrodite. Keep in mind however, that it's a background with large bonuses for large sacrifices.

Oh but you will go there anyway, if only for the Machined Plate schematic. :evil laughter with dramatic organ, thunder and lightning in the background:

 

You can find some pretty cool stuff at the smithy in Tarant.

It's not the best weapon, but I'm quite fond of the charged sword. It's relatively light and the random electrical damage sometimes results in some pretty good attacks.

The charged axe is even better.

Explosives can be really fun to mess around with if you don't want to wait until you can recruit Sebastian. Simply because there's a ton of useful stuff to learn how to make. And being able to make stun grenades makes getting through the Wheel Clan less frustrating.

Also... You can learn how to make bullets out of cheap ingredients if you decide to use guns. A little extra money up front results in savings over the long haul.

I made a gun smith character I had a lot of fun messing around with. There are a ton of schematics to buy and it can be fun to find out which ones are actually worth making. For example, the long range pistol is a pretty decent weapon. And being able to make looking glass rifles before you get a chance to steal one can come in handy.

As far as backgrounds go, Mad Doctor or Miracle Operation are excellent if you want to use mostly ranged attacks. They're not so good if you plan on hitting things with an axe.

 

Guns are worth trying. There are many, many great and fun guns to discover and use.

 

Yes, gunsligners are fun.

Though as cheap as bullets are, you may lose money if you shoot in most random encounters. With less powerful guns you have to shoot more; with more powerful guns they consume more bullets on each shot. Most random encounters have very little to no profit for you; so take some followers and let them handle it.

It is recommended to take followers anyway, because as a techie you will need lots of raw materials, and someone to carry the load. The half-ogre followers are good choice if you decide to take as little as possible.

Make it a habit to clean out the techie shops for healing (herbs and bandages) and saltpeter, and you should have no problem.

If you feel guns are too underpowered, try Krupp's gun all-in-one mod. It reduces the bullet consumption and slightly up the power of some guns.

 

1. I like the Pyrotechnic Axe and the Charged Sword, as mentioned. But since you're a dwarf, you might as well use the Iron Clan Hammer. Charged Axe is also good.

2. It depends on the character:

- If you want to become a gunslinger, firearms is mandatory. Mastering both electric and firearms gives you access to Tesla Gun, which is the strongest gun you can find in the game (unless the target is immune to electricity, in which case you should use a Droch's Warbringer - If you don't have it, use a Looking Glass Rifle, a Hand Cannon or an Elephant Gun). You can also master chemistry for the tranquilizer gun, which auto-faints any non-mechanical non-undead creature (as I know). Taking Smithy can give you a Brotherhood of Steel fell = awesome =)
- For a melee'er, Smithy is mandatory. You "must" take electrical with it for the Charged Ring, Tesla Armor (Charged Armor?) and the Flow Disruptor - at least that's my opinion. Pyrotechnics can have interesting stuff too.
- If you want the crazy professor feel, take up mechanics and some chemistry and herbology. And get yourself an army of automatons first thing. (Needless to say, you want to master the repair skill). You can also get the necromizer and become a tech necromancer.

Of course, you can always create your own combinations for your own enjoyment.

3. I'll leave this to someone else.

P.S. I never get a background that lowers dexterity. This will be my advice to you too.

 

1 tip if you'll go for gunslinger. Take at least 1 or 2 skills points into melee and dodge. You'll need them, belive me.

 

He already said he wants to play melee, because he didn't like his gunslinger playthrough.

I mean he really did say that, people.

Dodge - why not, dodge is good for everyone.
Melee - I had no problem with using nothing but guns with my gunslinger playthrough, so it isn't really that impossible.

What has one to do with the other? It's not Harrow, after all. Unless, of course, you had only role playing values in mind.

Tesla gun the strongest gun? Is it now? And is it the best one, while we're at it? I'll allow myself to make a little comparison.

Droch's Warbringer
Speed Factor: 8 (13 with apprentice training)
Range: 90 feet
Strength Required: One hand - 7, two hands - 5
Damage: 20-40 (on average 30)
Fatigue: 1-10

Tesla Gun
Speed Factor: 1 (6 with apprentice training)
Range: 90 feet
Strength Required: two hands - 11
Damage (Electrical): 10-80 (on average 45)
Fatigue: 0

With apprentice training, the Droch's Warbringer does on average 30 damage for 4 action points, which means it's 7,5 damage per action point, while the Tesla Gun does on average 45 damage for 6 action points, which also equals 7,5 damage per action point. The average damage per action point for these two firearms is identical, so is the range. What's left? The fact, that the Droch's Warbringer:

• Requires much less strenght,
• Does fatigue damage in spite of the Tesla Gun,
• Can be used with one hand (therefore, one can hold a Flow Discruptor in the other one), still requiring much less strenght than the Tesla Gun,
• Requires only a gunsmithy skill to be made (whereas the Tesla Gun needs both gunsmithy and electric),
• Uses common bullets instead of the more scarce charges,
• Is more shots-per-round efficient (with, say, 12 APs one can shoot three times with the Droch's Warbringer while only two times with the Tesla Gun, and shot-per-round efficiency is nothing but good with multiple enemies).

I believe this proves the superiority of the Droch's Warbringer over the Tesla Gun.

Just wanted to make the advice complete: if you'll want to have an army of automatons, you'll have to max out both mechanics and smithy.

 

I helped sidetrack us into talking about guns, so sorry about that.

I haven't messed around with smithy, oddly enough. So I don't have much to add there, other than to say that recruiting Magnus might be a good idea.

The sword he can make when you meet him is both a pretty decent weapon in its own right (good speed, okay damage) and a component for three other swords (charged, envenomed, pyrotechnic). He eventually learns how to make the feather-weight axe (another pretty decent weapon that can be turned into other stuff) and eye gear, which is pretty awesome if your tech aptitude is high enough to get the full bonus.

So... Instead of putting points into smithy, if you want, you can buy technical manuals at the university in Tarant and use them to turn stuff that Magnus makes for you into charged or envenomed swords and so forth.

Of course, you still need smithy to make the armor people have been talking about... but it's something to think about.

Definitely recruit Jayna. The therapeutics stuff she learns how to make give you some nice temporary bonuses, she's a good healer, she makes a decent pack mule and she's not a bad fighter if you give her a good sword.

 

One question... (and I promise I'm not a newb! Just a tech one...)

Where do you get the charged sword? I'm too lazy to open up Arcanum and see if it's in the electrical ones you can learn. But if it is...facepalm.

 

It's a found schematic. I -believe- the schematic is found randomly.

 

It can be pretty rare too. In my last techie game I seen it for the first time after I already have Sebestian's charged axe. And I check all the shops every time I was in town.

 

Was just giving general advice.

Exactly. I always resented the fact that a human could use the most legendary dwarwen weapon. I always give it to Magnus anyways.

- Most creatures have resistance to physical attacks, and most armored foes too. On the other hand, most creatures do not have resistance to electricity, and armor tends to lower electrical resistance as well.
- Of course, you'd need to carry a secondary gun for foes with electrical immunity. However, Tesla Gun should be the main gun.
- Charges are "scarce" only when you try to buy them outright. Creating bullets by carrying around saltpeter and charcoal weighs more than the bullets produced, and you only create 20 bullets. You can always find at least 3 electrolyte solutions and 3 metal plates in Tarant at a single day, which will yield 150 Charges. You need the first rank of Chemistry to make that, but it's totally worth it. Not to mention, carrying around raw materials do get you a weight advantage for the charges.
- Tesla Gun has the "cool factor". Think of a real world weapon which hurled a globular lightning shot which carried the name of Nicola Tesla, greatest genious of all times.

Of course, if your character isn't going to specialize especially in electricity, one should not go for the Tesla Gun. But if you have electricity, it should be the main weapon.

Thanks for the fix.

 

The schematic for it has a 5% chance to appear in the Quality Smith's stock and the Dwarven Smith's stock each day.

• First two ranks of chemistry, to be exact.
• Charges will still be more scarce, since one can buy bullets from the General Store, Quality Smith, Gunsmith and the Black Market and a one day course in Tarant can give several houndred bullets (460 at least, 670 at best), plus the ones he can make from ingredients.
• Also, 3 electrolyte solutions a day? How come? From what I can see in the Prima Official eGuide, one electrolyte solution has a 66% chance of appearing in a herbalist's stock, and, well, that's it. So it's more of 0,66 than 3 daily, unless I'm missing something.
• Carrying ingredients instead of products is good for things such as Restore Life (massive weight saving), while for charges - saving little weight at the cost of losing a lot inventory space? Uneconomical, I'd say.

With electric damage, enemies either have very little immunity to it or are nearly immune/completely immune to it, while with normal damage every foes is more or less vulnerable to it, which means the Living One doesn't have to juggle weapons all the time. It allows the player to comfortably not have to worry about changing weapons, and the possible smaller ammount of damage done is more than repayed by having twice as much ammunition to waste on the enemies.

Think of a masterpiece firearm created by Feramin Droch, the greatest gunsmith of an incredibly advanced civilisation destroyed in ancient times. The said civilisation is gone, but its unique inheritance lays in your very hands, yours only in the whole world of Arcanum. Cool factor, eh?

 

The only problem with Droch's Warbringer is how late in the game you get the schematic if you don't cheat.

Personally, I still think the long range pistol is pretty cool. Sure, you lose the TH bonus from the looking glass rifle you use as a component. But it's slightly faster and it can be equipped in one hand, so it's ideal for Sebastian. He can keep his shield equipped and he'll fire more often in turn-based combat.

The 10-30 damage isn't as awesome as a Droch's Warbringer, but you'll still be getting some one-hit kills with that thing. Plus, the range is pretty good so you can get some sniper action going on.

Also... No love for Bronwyck's Gun? In Vanilla Arcanum with the 1.07.4 patch, it does three different kinds of damage at once, it looks pretty cool when you actually hit somebody with it and it works extremely well against ore golems.

I've been playing lately as a mage thief. I bought some manuals and made a Bronwyck's Gun for Sebastian so he'd have something better than that crappy pistol you get from Doc Roberts. He's pretty effective with that thing. He gets a lot of one or two hit kills (until he runs out of fuel). I need to steal him a better back up gun, but in the mean time he's way more useful to have around than my mage followers.

 

The Bronwyck's Gun uses Fuel, which is like the worst kind of ammunition ever. It could've been a cool weapon otherwise.

Muro, I guess we have differing playstyles. I like to play by killing someone -not if I can find a nice estate- and settling in their house (which should have a container), so usually, I get my hoarded stuff inside that. I also always carry two guns anyways, usually a rifle and a sidearm, like looking glass rifle + fine revolver. Tesla Gun + Warbringer is only an improvement for me. And I'm crazy about electricity in real life, which might be clouding my judgement.

One cool factor for you to consider though - Electro-Armor + Tesla Gun is the closest thing to a BoS Knight you can get in Arcanum. =)

P.S. One thing I wonder - are there no craftable boots in Arcanum? I hated to see my technological crusader have to wear crude metal boots.

 

Playstyles are a different subject, and don't get me wrong - I love the Tesla Gun myself. If guns were people, the Tesla Gun would be the second in command for me. When it comes to roleplaying, I have no problem with playing through the whole game with nothing more as a weapon but a trusty katana (that was a great game, by the way), but I think that the stats prove how Droch's Warbringer is the best gun when it comes to sheer cold efficiency. Having favourite ones is of course a completely different thing. So is the fact, that the Warbringer appears so late in the game that one doesn't really have enough time to enjoy it to the full. The Long Range Pistol and Tesla Gun on the other hand...

Why Electro-Armor? I think a Machined Platemail fits a BoS Knight much better. After all, the Electro-Armor is pretty much just a platemail with an increased resistance to electric damage (how often do enemies do such damage anyway?), while the Mechanised Platemail, having pretty much the same damage resistance, has more AC, a greater resistance against poison and fire damage (much more common than electric), and - most importantly for both roleplay and armor stats - is fully mechanical, providing a strenght boost as a corporeal effect of it. Not that's what I call a steampunk Power Armor.

 

Wait, mechanized plate gives a strength bonus? I don't remember that =(

If it has one, then the comparison with Power Armor is inevitable.

 

The Mechanised Plate was supposed to give the strenght bonus in the vanilla version, after all, it was in the item's description in the schematic and the code to do so was in the game files, but because of a stupid typo in it - or something of that nature - it didn't work. The UAP changelog seems to be down at the moment, but from memory I'm pretty sure Drog made it eventually work how it should in the UAP.

 

Hmm... Must try it sometime.

Preferably after this week's exams and applications are done for though. Thanks for the headsup.

P.S. All this talk makes me want to play Fallout.