Angry Diplomat posted:

Get killed by ANGRY MUTANT PLANTS. Get killed by ANGRY MUTANT ANIMALS. Get killed by ANGRY MUTANT BUGS. Kill a bear and EAT IT, just EAT AN ENTIRE BEAR. KILL EVERYTHING. Descend into the DEPTHS OF THE WORLD and retrieve ANCIENT TECHNOLOGICAL ARTIFACTS. KNIFE-FIGHT a GIANT DRILL ROBOT and WIN. Be a COOL WASTELAND KNIGHT. Be a TWO-FISTED COWBOY. Be a HOMICIDAL NINJA TURTLE with an AXE and a SHOTGUN. SPONTANEOUSLY BURST INTO FLAMES. Get into a GUNFIGHT with a HYENA-MONSTER and accidentally anger a HERD OF MAJESTIC HULKING DEMON HORSES with your crossfire. Fly into the air like a BEAUTIFUL EAGLE and then SWORD-FIGHT a GIANT DRAGONFLY. MIND CONTROL a TWO-HEADED BOAR and MAKE IT WEAR CHAIN MAIL and KILL YOUR ENEMIES. Encounter a LEGENDARY PLANT with an INTIMIDATING SKULL MASK and the ability to THROW FIERY DEATH FROM ITS HANDS. CONTRACT HORRIFYING DISEASES. Go to THE DEATHLANDS and discover that THE DEATHLANDS are called THE DEATHLANDS because they will KILL YOU DEAD. HACK OFF A ROBOT’S HEAD AND EAT IT. Get into a SLEDGEHAMMER DUEL with a ‘ROIDED-OUT SUPERCANNIBAL. Be SO TECHNOLOGICALLY ILLITERATE that you BREAK A BOX OF CRAYONS attempting to figure out what it is. Be SO TECHNOLOGICALLY GIFTED that you can make an ACID GRENADE out of a PLASTIC TREE and a FOLDING CHAIR. Build your own FLAMETHROWER. Build your own LASER GUN. Build your own HANDHELD NUCLEAR BOMB and BLOW YOURSELF UP WITH IT. Collect MAGMA in a CANTEEN. Pour MAGMA into a pool of ACID to see what happens. DRINK MAGMA. TELEPATHICALLY LOCATE an enemy and HATE IT TO DEATH with your TERRIFYING BRAIN SORCERY. Have your LEGS CUT OFF and then REGROW YOUR LEGS and pick up your previous legs and EAT YOUR OWN LEGS. Encounter your EVIL TWIN and then summon six of your own GOOD TWINS to fight your evil twin’s SIX EVIL TWIN TWINS in a FOURTEEN-WAY PSYCHIC LASER DEATH RAVE and then BURN TO DEATH when all of the combined PYROKINETIC MIND FIRE from all of the TIME CLONES causes the ENTIRE MAP TO COMBUST AND MELT.

Helical Nightmares posted:

CoQ was voted one of the top 10 games in 2015 by Popular Mechanics

http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/gaming/g2339/best-rpgs-2015/

Synthbuttrange posted:

Angry Diplomat posted:

Water is really easy to replenish honestly, so don't worry about "wasting" it - I routinely dump some out if I need a little more carry weight for the trip back to town. If you're really running low, scrounge up some random weapons from Snapjaws or whatever (ideally steel or better, maybe iron if you can carry it, don't bother with bronze as it's basically worthless) and sell it all to the nearest non-follower NPC willing to trade with you. They don't even have to be a merchant - if they can put up a trade interface, they can buy things and fill your waterskin. Taking your time is a good thing in this game.

Angry Diplomat posted:

Cybernetics are nowhere near as powerful as mutations in the early game, but very lategame True Kin can become absolutely terrifying cyborg killing machines who see through walls while quad-wielding gatling lasers that draw infinite power from their cybernetic internal reactor, or permanently flying techno-angels who float around dismembering everything with a halo of razorblades.

It's hard to overstate just how bonkers an endgame True Kin can get, but that relies on certain combinations of implants together with lots of cybernetic credits, so you'll spend a ton of time diving ruins and haggling with gutsmongers before you reach that point. Mutants scale up a little more organically but are frankly just as capable of being horrifically powerful, although they do it in slightly different ways.

Some people present True Kin as a sort of "advanced" option for more experienced players, but I honestly feel that they're a superb introduction to some of the habits that will help you win. They get slightly better stats and more skill points, allowing you to spread your skills around more without crippling yourself, and their lack of mutations forces you to get used to using ranged weapons and consumables on a regular basis, which is frankly a super important habit to cultivate either way.

If you're looking to try something different, absolutely give True Kin a shot. I recommend an Artifex with moderate intelligence and good physical stats - you'll probably want to grab a basic ranged skill (rifles or pistols) and a basic melee skill (long blades and short blades both go very nicely with tinkering) for the accuracy bonuses at some point, but aside from that you have lots of room to really spread out and experiment.

Snake Maze posted:

I've been looking for an excuse to talk about this build that I like, so here is what I would argue is possibly the strongest overall build in Qud: A really fast nerd

code:

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The basic concept is a tinker/gunner with extremely high movement speed and electrical generation (which pulls double duty as a powerful melee attack, and a powersource for all the toys you tinker up). The build is very strong at basically every point in the game, and also has enough going on (between the ranged/melee split and tinkering stuff) that both moment to moment combat and broader gearing and itemization stay interesting.

The core mutations are Multiple Legs, Heightened Quickness, and Electrical Generation.

Multiple Legs lets you move faster. Heightened Quickness lets you do everything faster. These two stack together multiplicatively, giving you an almost insurmountable action economy advantage - very few enemies can threaten you when you take 8 steps for every 1 of theirs. Electrical Generation is a great mutation in general - it's a powerful attack that ignores AV and DV - but it's also unique in that it recharges based on your subjective turns, not the global turn counter most cooldowns run off of. That means that moving fast lets you recharge more quickly, and this build can move very fast.

For your fourth mutation you have a lot more flexibility. In the build I pasted above I went with two hearted, which isn't flashy but makes you nearly unkillable, with tons of extra health, a longer sprint duration, and quick access to the endurance skill tree (which you can afford easily, thanks to your high intelligence). That said, the build isn't hurting for survivability, so feel free to play around with something else - burrowing claws, wings, precognition, time dilation, heightened hearing, there's tons of fun options. (Note that phasing doesn't synergize as much as you might think - it's active duration is based off your turns, so no matter how fast or slow you can run, the distance you can travel while phased is the same.) I wouldn't bother learning new mutations after the start, though - your points are better spent pumping up your starting mutations as high as they can go.

Stats are 12 strength, 20 agility, 20 toughness, 20 intelligence, 16 willpower, 14 ego. You're good with guns, you're smart, and you have tons of hp. Strength barely matters at all - you have electrical gen for melee damage and multiple legs for carrying capacity. Ego is a bit more important, since you'll be buying data disks and artifacts, but just pick up snake oiler in Ezra and you'll still be bathing in cash by midgame.

Your general gameplay loop will be running into a room, shooting anything that moves (remember that you can shoot while sprinting!), and zapping anything that gets close or has too much AV/DV for your guns to easily handle. Towards the midgame you'll want to keep an eye out for a jacked data disk - that lets you power devices using your natural electrical generation instead of energy cells. Fire your guns as much as you want! Keep a force bracelet on 24/7! Rocket Skate everywhere! The world is your giant clam. You can easily spare the points for Tinker 3, so as the run goes on you'll be able to make a bunch of fun toys to play with, which you can then use as much as you want thanks to electrical gen serving as an endless battery. Don't forget that making an item sturdy cancels out the break chance from being overloaded - overloaded generally isn't amazing on weapons but a lot of gear with unique effects can be strengthened by it, like making ulnar stimulators give +2 str and agl.

Snake Maze posted:

Alright, here's one of my favorite builds. It started with some idle thoughts about getting a bunch of natural armaments at once, but it ended up coalescing together into a build that fits together really well both thematically and mechanically

Basically just a dragon

code:

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Workshop link

Mutations:

• Horns
  
• Carapace
  
• Burrowing Claws
  
• Wings
  
• Double-muscled
  
• Hooks for feet
  

Custom Sprite! (usage instructions here)



The basic concept is a bulky melee character with lots of natural equipment. Also, a dragon. The pros are that you're incredibly strong, even in the early game - you'll start out at level 1 with 10 penetration on your attacks! That's already mid to lategame levels of penetration, and it's only going up from there. You also don't really care about getting good gear - you'll be growing stuff better than any shop can sell you. All you need is exp and you're set.

The cons are that you're very hungry for mutation points. You definitely can't afford to be learning new mutations midgame. Skillpoints are also pretty tight, so it pays to know where you can use the water ritual to learn good skills.


The heart of the build is the fact that natural weapons have no penetration cap. Penetration rises with your strength, but with normal weapons you'll eventually hit a point where the weapon itself is holding you back, and you just can't hit any harder. With natural weapons, the only limit is yourself. We'll be going all in on strength to make the most of all our natural weapons. Double-muscled is required to hit Maximum Strength. It also adds a chance to daze the enemy on hit, which is pretty effective on this build - we'll be making more attacks per round than you might expect. Horns take up the head slot; high level horns are already one of the best weapons and best helmets in the game, even if you don't focus on strength as hard as we are. As soon as you start the game you should open the equipment screen and use tab to make horns your primary weapon. Burrowing Claws occupies your hands for another pair of natural weapons. Since they're shortblades we can also pick up jab and bloodletter for more attacks and a chance to bleed. Their raw damage isn't amazing without levels, and other mutations will probably get first dibs on mutation points, but your sky-high penetration will help them keep up, and utility of being able to ignore walls can be very nice. Carapace continues the natural equipment theme by filling up our body slot. It's hungry for mutation points, but if you keep it leveled carapace will be stronger than any body armor you could get at pretty much every point in the game. Wings occupy the back. They have a bunch of different benefits, but the biggest one for this build is the extra charge range. Being able to instantly teleport up to 7 tiles while also delivering an even stronger attack than normal is incredibly useful for a dedicated melee build. The reduced chance of getting lost is also a big help, since it makes the various wayfaring lores less necessary.

In order to afford all of those mutations we need to take a 4 point defect. Hooks for feet is the obvious thematic winner - it occupies our feet, for another equipment slot we don't need to care about. It's also another natural weapon. A very bad one, mind you - the hooks have a damage of 1 (one). But with our penetration that's still another 3-6 damage when they hit, and since they're shortblades they can benefit from jab and bloodletter, plus double muscled gives it a chance to stun. Not bad for a defect.

The priority for leveling your mutations should be roughly Carapace > Horns > Wings > Double Muscled > Burrowing Claws. Carapace and horns get priority for your rapid advances, so they can break level 10 in the lategame. Wings I'll normally take to 6 early on for the 0% chance to fall and extra tile of charge range, but stop leveling after that.

The only really necessary skills are charge and jab + bloodletter. Shield and shield slam can be nice, for another good active skill and making your charges even stronger, and jump gets buffed by wings to become a great mobility option. I'll normally start in the wayfaring village, but hold off on buying the individual lores - the wings are normally enough to make up for it until you have more important skills set up. The Dual wield tree is nice, but very expensive. I wouldn't worry about it too much until you're comfortable with your current skills. Heavy weapons are a good fit if you can find any, since you'll have no trouble hitting the strength requirements (but will struggle with the rifle and pistol trees).

We need to pick a starting class that gives + strength, so that narrows it down to marauder and warden. I prefer marauder for instant access to charge, but you can make a good case for warden too, especially if you're planning to use rifles - this build won't have the agility to naturally learn bow & rifle for a while.

Starting stats are 26 strength, 16 agility, 20 toughness, 14 int, 12 willpower, 10 ego. Strength is as high as it can go - we're going all in on natural weapons. Toughness is the next priority, since being a dedicated melee guy without a healthy pool of hp is risky. You can take 4 points away from agi/int/will for 2 more toughness, if you want to specialize even farther. Ego is a pretty safe dump stat, since we rarely need to buy stuff anyway. Willpower hurts more, since we do care about our charge cooldown and mental armor, but we have to spare the points somewhere. You can get away with dropping agility lower than 16, since horns get bonus accuracy as you level them up, but you'll start really feeling the skills with agi requirements - acrobatics, jab, and bloodletter all require 17 agi. 14 int is about as low as you can go while still buying skills somewhat freely. Lower is doable but you'll have to plan your purchases really carefully. On level up, I'll normally dump all stats into strength. The +1 to all stats levels should shore up the rest of your build, so you'll benefit more from focusing on your strengths.

The playstyle is simple but effective: wade into melee and hit stuff really, really hard. If someone is shooting at you, or trying to eat your brain, use charge to close the distance (and probably turn them into a fine mist). You don't have many other tricks, but it turns out a lot of problems can be solved with enough force.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

BGMOOMEMBIBOCBDX older build code, may not work

Start in Joppa or the random town that gives Crocassins.

At the start of the game, talk to the Zealot (the z) and get the quest to go on pilgrimage to the Six-Day Stilt. As a Nomad you can get there very easily without getting lost or spending too much water; arriving will instantly catapult you to level 4 plus you can visit the shrine of Resheph and then share the secret with the priest for another 250 xp, which will get you almost to level 5.

First skill points go into Acrobatics, then Spry, then Long Blades. Find a long sword and switch to defensive stance. Level-up attributes go into Strength. (Later on, when you're more confident with alternative ways of bypassing armor and positioning yourself in combat you can level Agility instead, but focusing on Strength results in an easier early game and is simpler to use.)

Mutation priority is Freezing Hands > Multiple Legs > Teleportation. Don't go into a fight while Teleportation is on cooldown. If anything reduces you to yellow health or below, teleport to the up stairs / opposite edge of the map, get to the safety of the previous floor, and rest up.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Okay, here are some builds, sorted by the all-important quality of APT, Axes Per Turn.

First up is the humble Axe Man: BEQMOOEIBEBNBOCBDN older build code, may not work

Axe Man doesn't believe in fancy psychic-learnin', so his only mental mutation is Mental Mirror to keep those psychics from frying his brain, and he subscribes to the theory that quickness gives you more turns, not more actions in one turn, so he's not taking Adrenal Control. (Don't mistake him for stupid -- his theory is supported by the way the game counts down the duration of buffs like Berserk!)

Instead, Axe Man takes Double-Muscled to get to 30 strength quickly and easily, Multiple Arms so he can attack with more axes, Multiple Legs to compensate for the drawback of Double-Muscled, and Mental Mirror. His starting physical stats are high (22/18/20), and his intelligence is high but not astronomical (20) so he can take a good selection of skills. Ego is at only 14, which is as low as I would ever go; he can still boost Mental Mirror and get cheaper prices by using a Chrome Mantle, a guaranteed drop for +2 Ego that also gives good DV, and/or by wearing the faces of his enemies. He puts his level-up attribute points into Agility to meet dual wielding requirements, except for the very last one at level 21 which can go into Intelligence to give him a little more SP to spread around, or wherever you want really.

When Axe Man spends a turn to attack, he always gets his mainhand attack (1 APT), 75% of the time he gets his offhand attack (.75 APT), and each of his mutant arms attacks 26% of the time (.26 APT x 2). His total APT is 2.27. He can boost this for a single turn by using Flurry, allowing him four axe attacks in one turn, but can only do this every 40 turns.

Axe Man requires the full Dual Wield tree, and will want Cleave, Decapitate, and Berserk from the Axe tree at minimum. He also wants Acrobatics and Spry because everybody should have those. He is well situated to dip into Endurance, Tinkering, Shields, or Bows and Rifles. I chose Endurance and Tinkering and skipped the other two, as Axe Man is really only interested in Axes. (And reinforced compass bracelets, I suppose.)

Next up is The Flaxe: BEQMMMEMBABNBUDNDZED older build code, may not work

The Flaxe was once a mild-mannered forensic scientist named Barry Axxen, until he was hit by a faster-than-light Future Axe and transformed into the superhero The Flaxe. The Flaxe disagrees with Axe Man on the question of whether increasing quickness gives you more turns or more actions per turn: he knows that time is relative, and that therefore all that matters is how many turns you get for each of the other guy's turns.

The Flaxe has a very standard stat spread for anyone familiar with my Qudposting so I won't get too much into it. (It's 22/18/18/18/10/18.) For mutations, he has Adrenal Control, Multiple Arms, Sleep Gas Generation, Mental Mirror, Time Dilation, and Narcolepsy. He maxes out Adrenal Control and Multiple Arms and keeps Time Dilation as high as possible with spare points and Ego-boosting items, which, again, as an Axe-user shouldn't be too hard to find. Sleep Gas Generation negates the drawbacks of both Narcolepsy and Adrenal Control, no MP investment necessary post-character creation.

Skills-wise, he's fairly similar to Axe Man except that that he only goes up to Ambidexterity in the dual wield tree. Before considering his quickness-altering powers, this gives The Flaxe a base APT of (1 + .55 + .26 + .26) 2.07... but wait, there's more.

By flooding his system with adrenaline, The Flaxe can increase his quickness to 200. This means he acts twice for every time a standard enemy acts, which doubles his effective APT to 4.14. BUT WAIT, THERE"S MORE!

With Time Dilation at a sufficiently high level, The Flaxe can additionally act many times for each time an adjacent opponent acts. If he levels up very high and gets, say, a Chrome Mantle (+2 Ego), a +3 Ego face (available from certain rare enemies), a Square Cap or Knollworm Skull (+1 Ego) and, as long as we're theorycrafting, a Stopsvalinn (+1 Ego), he might be able to push Time Dilation to 15 or higher, at which point he freezes adjacent enemies in time and his APT becomes LITERALLY INFINITE -- but only for 15 turns at a time out of every 125. Bummer.

Finally, there's an old Catfish classic that I think can be re-designed for APT purposes.

Infinite Axe Works: BEQMMMEMBABNCBDND1 older build code, may not work

You know what's better than a four-armed, adrenaline-crazed maniac covered in axes?

HALF A DOZEN (OR MORE) FOUR-ARMED ADRENALINE-CRAZED MANIACS COVERED IN AXES.

2.07 base APT from Ambidexterity and maxed Multiple Arms. 4.14 APT from Adrenaline Surge. Multiply by 6-8 or so for high levels of Temporal Fugue, depending on availability of Ego equipment and how you spread your MP around. Result: at least 24 APT. Sadly Time Dilation does not combo well with this setup since your clones will freeze each other (and you) in time if you try it, but there isn't really enough MP to go around anyways.

_{this one is kind of a joke build; for serious play i would recommend teleport and clairvoyance instead of adrenaline surge and multiple arms}

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Pro-tip: Slugsnouts make amazing Beguile / Proselytize targets. Their AI makes at least some small effort to keep itself alive and they just shred trash mobs like you wouldn't believe.

Helical Nightmares posted:

KOGAHAZAN!! posted:

I think this is worth expanding on.



So, here's a map of Qud, which I have attempted to "helpfully" annotate.

Qud's terrain is divided into eleven different biomes, each with their own spawn table. Note there's a one-to-one correspondence here between world map tile and biome- it's not by region, though biome tiles do tend to be clustered into regions. So, I've only marked one area of ruins here, but any tile with a white "crumbling skyscraper" on it is ruins biome.

That's white or grey skyscraper tiles. The magenta skyscraper tiles in the far east are deathlands, which is a similar but infinitely more dangerous region.

If you're ever uncertain as to what biome a particular tile is, you can always use the look command, even on the world map.

In roughly ascending order of difficulty, you have:

• salt marsh - green and blue reeds (or grass?)
  
• desert canyons/hills/mountains - brown, grey or white spikes
  
• salt dunes - wavy grey lines
  
• flower fields - brightly colours speckle, like flowers
  
• ruins/jungle - the aforementioned white skyscrapers, and bushy icons that suggest forest canopy
  
• river - blue water texture
  
• banana grove - kind of noisy, but it's in yellow and I believe it's supposed to resemble the tops of banana trees
  
• DEATHLANDS - skyscrapers in magenta and purple
  

But biome isn't the beginning and the end of assessing danger here. Qud likes to mix more and less dangerous enemies and the question of "am I safe" is less about "where am I" and more about "what is that" and "can I avoid or run from it if I need to".

So a lot of learning Qud is learning the enemy types. This is something I actually forgot, until I saw MonkeyforaHead's post, because I did it years ago. But there was a time where I would regularly say, see an Ogre Ape, think, "ah, an ape. I can take those!", and then get pasted because you do not gently caress with Ogre Apes. Again, the look command is very useful here, while you're learning- it'll tell you not just how hurt a creature is, but also how dangerous it should be, and whether it is currently interested in murdering you.

There's too many enemy types to give a complete guide here, but let's go over some of the ones I've learnt to respect:

(roughly in order of when you're likely to encounter them)

Crocs - These are a problem of all of a level at best, but they're the usually toughest thing between a new character and Red Rock, and they can kill you when you have all of 16hp.
Baboons - Again, weak, but they have a preference for kiting and rock throwing that can be dangerous for a character without a good way to close distance or attack at range. Often found camping the entrance to Red Rock.
Snapjaws - While the humble scavenger is rarely a problem on its own, snapjaws often come in packs, and some of the more advanced types- brutes, warriors, warlords, shotgunners- need to be taken seriously until you have ~6 AV or so. Very occasionally, yes, they will have grenades.
Jilted Lovers - While these are stationary, they have a chance to grab you when you pass close, which will prevent you from escaping if things go sideways. Your best survival strategy in just about any situation is getting the gently caress out of dodge, and you need to be on guard for anything that can gently caress with that- getting surrounded, getting grabbed, getting stuck in webs. Take these guys out from a distance whenever possible.
Beetlebums - Not typically hostile, but if you do manage to piss them off- with a stray bullet, perhaps- they are significantly tougher than anything else in Red Rock.
Slumberlings - Probably the biggest killer of the unwary player, as they've a wonderful habit of hanging out in areas much less dangerous than they are. You might mistake one for a rock, when you see it- they have the general shape, and they're usually asleep. Wake one up, though and they are an absolute terror- fast, strong, tough, and blessed with the ability to charge at anything that gets too close. The trick here is not to make the mistake of assuming you have to fight one when they wake up- keep running away and eventually they'll fall back asleep.
Slugsnouts, Fire Snouts and Dawngliders - These are all early game enemies with powerful ranged attacks, and the latter two can set you on fire with theirs. Not massively dangerous, on their own, but the pork will show up mixed with other types and the dawngliders have a terrible habit of following legendaries around in massive packs. They also fly, but you should have a gun by this point.
Turrets - Turrets come in a wide variety of forms with widely varying threat levels, from the humble musket to the absolutely murderous rocket. Each of them has its own distinct tile and you really need to pay attention to which is which. Like Tuxedo Catfish says, they are supposed to give you a grace round before they let fly, but apparently it's broken? The main thing with turrets is, you never have to fight them. Occasionally you'll find a nest of them guarding some tasty looking chests, but you never have to fight them. They're stationary. You can always walk away. And if there's a chaingun or two among them, that's probably the smart move.
Feral Lah and their Tumbling Pods - Found in the Flower Fields, this is probably the first thing you're going to run into with an explosive attack. The thing about explosives in this game is that you can't dodge them, and they ignore armour. If you want to survive an explosion the number you need is HP, and you need a lot of it. As far as explosive enemies go, the Lah are relatively forgiving- the pods go stationary once they activate and take a turn or two to go off, which gives you a lot of scope to juke out the way. They also have a habit of blowing each other up, and you can take out whole groups of them by shooting one.
Seekers of the Sightless Way - Not that long ago, you could just take mental mirror and laugh as these idiots lobotomised themselves. Alas . They're a lot more dangerous now, maybe a little too dangerous for how early they appear. The main problem, the problem with all psychic enemies, is the same as with explosives: they don't care about the same defenses that the rest of the game does. Psychic attacks care about MA, which is something you're not likely to have a lot of unless you yourself are a brain wizard, and which there aren't many options for boosting. The new sunder mind mechanics and the relative frailty of psychics would seem to suggest that rushing them down as soon as they start on you is the best counter-strategy, but a) that's not really a "strategy" and b) it's not always possible, when they can spot you and hit you across the screen and through walls.
Caravan Guards and Great Saltbacks - These are not typically hostile, being the guards and baggage trains of the dromad caravans you'll find scattered around Qud, but, like the Beetlebum, they are significantly more dangerous than most things around them if you piss them off. Saltbacks in particular are so heavily armoured they're close to invulnerable until very late in the game.
Saw Handers - A type of robot, saw handers are notable for being one of the few enemies in the game with the ability to dismember the player. By which I mean, cut off their extremities. There are a couple of ways to recover from this, but they're all rare and not easily found, which means that even winning a fight with these bastards can be run-ending. The strategy for all of these things is the same: know them by sight, be alert for their presence, do not, ever, under any circumstances, get close enough for them to even attempt to part you from your meaty bits. The saw hander is notable for looking a lot like the drill hander, a much less dangerous sort of robot found in roughly the same areas, but otherwise is easily the least dangerous dismemberer.
Albino and Ogre Apes - After explosives, psychics and dismemberment, the final member of the "bastard poo poo enemies can do" is "stun lock you with cudgel tech", and apes are the absolute kings of this. The albinos are encountered fairly early on, but are neutral to you by default (and often hostile to whatever's attacking you). The ogres, which are much, much more dangerous and appear later, are not, and if you find them together fighting the latter will aggro the former. Again, you just do not want to close to melee range with these guys. Cudgel stuns aren't going to permanently maim you the way dismemberment will, but it's much more likely to lead to a death spiral. More likely to lead to a death spiral that being stripped of all your weapons. The better idea is to just not engage.
Goatfolk - Goatfolk are the snapjaws of the mid-game, insofar as they appear in large groups, have lots of variants and are all over the jungles of Qud. Unlike snapjaws, none of the variants are insignificant and they're going to remain a major threat for a long time. The shamans have mental mutations, the sowers throw grenade-seeds (???), the savages are just tough as nails- ironically, the one with the gun might be the least dangerous (Unormal: add a "jungle rifle" for these guys?). On the plus side, they're worth a lot of XP and they drop carbide by the truckload. I don't typically grind in Qud, but if you wanted to the goats should be your target of choice.
Templars - The faction beloved of the frog men. Early on you're unlikely to stumble across anything except the squire, which can give you a skewed perspective on how tough they are. Templars are tough, and I mean specifically tough. They wear full plate and carry shields, which can make them incredibly durable. Worse, they have shield skills, which means attacking them can stun you. Some of the more dangerous ones can disarm you, and the Wraith-Knights are fully incorporeal- completely impervious to harm. You need to kill their phylactery bearers to get rid of them. Note: as ravening genetic purists, the Putus hate all mutants... but if you're playing a True Kin, they'll be friendly to you, and you can trade with them. Kill them anyway.
Madpoles - The reason we stay the gently caress away from the river. So infamous there's an ingame book about what a bad idea it is to have anything to do with them. Like the saw hander, these guys have the ability to dismember. Unlike the saw hander, they can also latch onto targets and go berserk when they scent blood. Of all the enemies it's a bad idea to get close to, this one may be the worst- they don't so much attack as rip through you. Most terrifying of all: if you decompile the game, you'll find that the berserk state triggers off of the presence of the sequence "blood" in the display strings of things the madpole is sharing a tile with.
Dervishes - These are- I think- unique in being melee psychics. They use specially conjured versions of the standard melee weapons- swords, axes etc.- which use ego rather than strength to determine penetration and are resisted by MA rather than AV. They also have the ability to teleport, which would be bad enough, but the worst thing about them is that they get player skills. Whatever weapon they spawn with, they will have skills for, so the long blade dervishes can disarm you, the cudgel ones stun you, and the axe ones (of course) dismember you. It is vitally important to look and check what these guys are carrying when you see them- though frankly being disarmed is bad enough. Treat like any other bad-touch enemy and kite them.

I think that covers most of the things you'll run into before Bethesda Susa, unless you go to the deathlands. Pro-tip: the deathlands are full of stupid-hard poo poo that's almost impossible to kill. Stay away from the deathlands. If a chrome pyramid spots you, you are already dead.

Another big part of learning the game is knowing what bits of the main questline you should be prepping for in advance, and how:

Golgotha is a horrible pit of misery and slime. There are a lot of enemies in here but the big danger is disease- particularly Glotrot, and Ironshank, neither of which you want to deal with long term.

Mitigation is best, and the best way to do that is to spend as little time in Golgotha as possible. Remember: your objective is to retrieve a waydroid. It is not to kill Slog and loot the place bare. Get in, get to the bottom as fast as you can, avoid wading through black ooze if at all possible, grab a droid and recoil out as soon as the game will let you. If you even see Slog it's a bad run. Note that this means you need to have a recoiler, and to have kept it charged. You'll get one from Argyve but you can also buy them from the Barathrumites (you'll need to talk to the door a second time to access the merchant).

Once you're out, you need to be alert for symptoms of disease. Ironshank will make your legs stiff, Glotrot will make your tongue sore. If you get a message about either of these things, immediately eat yuckwheat or honey. Raw works, cooked is better. If your disease save bonus runs out before your symptoms abate, eat more. Again, these are things you want to have prepared before you enter Golgotha.

If all else fails and your symptoms progress to full-blown cases of the disease, you need to go out and compound the cure, which may be a quest of of its own. The first thing you need to do is figure out what the cure even is- the ingredients will be different every game- which means finding a copy of the Corpus Choliys. You might be able to find one in the Stilt, but if you can't you might consider making an early run to Kyakukya- the mayor there is guaranteed to hold a copy. Again, staying safe isn't all about staying out of dangerous places- knowing what to avoid tangling with is important. It is entirely possible to run through the jungle early. After you have the book, you need the ingredients, which you'll be able to buy off of ichor merchants- I think the Stilt always has at least one. Again, this is helpful to prepare before entering, though less vital than a recoiler and yuckwheat or honey.

Raising Indrix is technically a sidequest, but it's a sidequest I like to try and do every game, to smooth out the transition from Golgotha to Bethesda Susa. It's mostly a straight combat gauntlet, so there's not a huge deal to say about it. First you carve your way through half a dozen or so screens full of angry goats, and then at the end you fight one extremely angry goat. Obviously you want to make sure you're prepared for goat-fighting, but it's more about gearing and timing than anything else.

One thing that may trip you up is that you want to stay off the overworld map when searching for Mamon. The game has been training you pretty hard not to travel overland up to this point but when it tells you to follow the river here it doesn't mean the river you can see on the overworld. Go north one screen from Kyakukya, follow that river east, until you find smoke.

On Mamon himself: he's a powerful psychic, yes, but he's also a serious physical threat, like all goatfolk. I think my best fights against him have all been the ones where I unloaded on him from long range, as fast as possible. There's no enemy you want to kill slowly in Qud but I think with Mamon especially you want to alpha strike him to buggery.

Bethesda Susa is huge! It's an absolutely mammoth dungeon, and a lot of it is going to be straight combat. There's a lot that isn't, though.

First off, on the surface level you're likely to run across cragmensch. These are, basically, rock people, and as you'd expect they have sky-high AV. More AV than you could reasonably expect to penetrate at this point, in fact. Fortunately, they don't have HP to match. Vibro weapons and explosives are good to prep for this, though if you absolutely have to they're not impossible to brute force. Watch out for the brainers, which are psychics.

Below the entrance, you'll find the healing pools, which are inhabited by a trio of bosses. The first of these, Jotun, requires special attention. Apart from being one of the most serious melee threats you'll see in the entire dungeon, he also has throwing axes, with which he can dismember you at range. The other two aren't pushovers, but they're nothing compared to that. The best solution is to use a forcefield to prevent them from reaching you- that means you need the force bubble or force wall mutations, a forcefield bracelet, or Stopsvalinn. The first two are obviously build dependent, and the bracelet isn't always there to find, but you are almost guaranteed to be able to find Stopsvalinn every run. How? It will always be wielded by a snapjaw in the desert canyons, and if you swap secrets with the Barathrumites they should, eventually, tell you where it is.

The middle sections of the dungeon are the wards, and these are full of strange and wonderful enemy types you don't see anywhere else. Some of these are straightforward, some are total dicks, but for the most part it's just normal combat. Early on you'll find an elevator which will allow you to skip most of it. I'm neutral on the wisdom of that- you won't have to fight twinning lampreys, but you'll miss a bunch of good loot (injectors, mostly, and tinkering bits) and XP, as well as the alchemist. Also coming into play in this section is Betheda Susa's environmental hazard: the cold. The deeper you go the colder it gets, and that's going to start impacting your action speed. That is, really, really bad, and you need a way to cope if you want to be able to fight effectively down here. Blaze injectors are a temporary solution, but you really want cold resistance- which means the carapace mutation, or woolly armour.

Below that are the cryobarrios, which have some static content which is neat but not all that dangerous... unless you want to crack open the wrong cryochamber and fight a bonus boss.

Finally, at the very bottom, there's a Mechanimist temple. This can be the hardest part of the whole thing or the easiest, depending entirely on what your rep is with that faction. Above 250 you will be "welcome in their holy places", and they'll be perfectly happy to let you walk in and talk to the Baetyl. Otherwise, you're going to need to cut your way through an army of templar-esque paladins and psychic priests. And their dogs. It's an incredibly satisfying fight, but also an extremely hard one, and unless you feel like rolling the dice this late in the run I'd do it the diplomatic way. You can build rep with them easily enough by throwing artifacts into the hole they have in the Stilt.

A Call to Arms is, I want to say, the largest dick move the game pulls on you? It's an ambush, a surprise attack by the Templars on the Barathrumite compound directly after you turn the Bethesda Susa quest. Just knowing it's going to happen is half the battle, but even then it's going to brutalise you. The templars come in force and you're tasked not just with killing them- which would be hard enough- but doing so with the bears and all their in the way. You want all the usual tools for high-AV enemies here- explosives, vibroweapons, psy attacks, electric damage. Remember that the Wraith-Knights can't be killed directly, you need to kill their phylactery holders.

A while back this quest was changed so that you have a chance to activate some of the Barathrumite's automated defences before the attack begins. This, theoretically, makes the fight easier, but you've a tight power budget to play with and I'm never sure what the best choices are. Overclocking the chromelings and using forcefields to keep the invaders corralled seemed to go alright the last time I tried it.

Finally, on progression: like I said, MonkeyForaHead, I don't find myself needing to grind, as such, but there are some things I do to smooth out the curve a little.

In a typical game I'm looking to do something like:

• Red Rock (side quest)
  
• Waterlogged Tunnel <- At the bottom of Red Rock there'll be an underground river, flowing south; follow that to its end, and the stairs up will lead to Joppa. You can also follow it in the other direction, and I think most people do?
  
• Rust Wells (main quest)
  
• Maybe a historic site, or lair, or two
  
• Rusted Archway (mini dungeon, between Joppa and Grit Gate)
  
• The Six Day Stilt <- In addition to the XP just for showing up, you can turn books in to the librarian here for more XP. If you're lucky enough that a bookbinder spawns in the Stilt, you can effectively buy XP at any point after this.
  
• Grit Gate and Golgotha (main quest)
  
• Maybe another historic site, or lair, if I can find one of the appropriate level.
  
• Maybe the first half of the Asphalt Mines
  
• Maybe a quest from one of the autogenerated villages
  
• Maybe Bey Lah, though those guys don't even want your help. These days I tend to leave them alone.
  
• Kyakukya/Raising Indrix (side quest)
  
• Bethesda Susa (main quest)
  
• Maybe the Asphalt Mines, if I'm feeling a real need for zetachrome before A Call to Arms
  
• A Call to Arms (main quest)
  
• Omonporch (main quest)
  
• Pax Klanq (main quest)
  
• Any remaining historic sites or lairs I feel like doing
  
• Definitely at this point something to get zetachrome, probably the Asphalt Mines
  
• ~~~The Tomb of the Eaters~~~ (main quest)
  

A lot of that list is filler content for XP, but I'm rarely just wandering the overworld killing random mobs.

I should probably add something about what historic sites tend to be like and how you find them but uh this post got kinda long.

quote:

[6] Chimera - You can only manifest physical mutations. The power level of your mutations start at Level 4 instead of Level 1.
[6] Esper - You can only manifest mental mutations. The power level of your mutations is treated as if your Ego were 4 points higher.
[3] Unstable Genome - Whenever you gain a level, you have a 12.5%(/25%/37.5%/50%/62.5%) chance that your genome destabilizes and you gain a random mutation. This mutation can be taken multiple times to increase the chance.

Unormal posted:

*Fixed an issue in autowalk/explore that was causing one extra step to happen on sighting an enemy at the edge of vision/light (including jilted lovers)
*Enemy misses will now stop an autowalk or wait

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Hit spacebar to interact with nearby objects; if you're standing next to a door then you can close it. Looting the chests in Joppa and talking to Tam the dromad trader (in the eastmost house) are things that basically every character is going to want to do. I hear that Tam doesn't care if you steal the stuff in his house, either.

Angry Diplomat posted:

I met a fabulous ape clothing merchant in a cave and gave him water to befriend him. After that my reputation as a friend to apes prevented annoying monkeys from hurling rocks at me. Offer Gift is a really neat and handy skill for just 50 skill points.

Also I found the Warmonger Amongst the True just hanging out with his buds a few screens north of Joppa Since I was a True Kin he was willing to sell me some of his crazy strong armour. Always trade with non-hostile uniques!

RPATDO_LAMD posted:

Just ran into a neutral, legendary Mechanimist in the surface-level rust wells. His pack of buddies killed a "Warden of the Sanctum" who had also spawned, and now my be-carapaced mutant has a shiny new set of carbide platemail to sell.

P.S. What does a prayer rod do?

RPATDO_LAMD posted:

P.S. What does a prayer rod do?

Geight posted:

How easy is this roguelike to pick up and play? Can I just read the controls and have a good time, so long as I'm not particularly concerned with winning/ascending/whatever?

amuayse posted:

Red Rock seems to have gotten shorter

Highblood posted:

Is this game still as hard as it was in its early days? I'm thinking of buying it and I feel like getting my rear end handed to me on an ascii platter.

packetmantis posted:

It's not finished yet, but I believe they've said it's going to be some kind of town. I got the impression that it's a broken space elevator in addition to being some kind of mechanimist holy site.

COOL CORN posted:

Are there any video playthroughs of this floating around (e.g. Youtube) yet?

Humans Among Us posted:

Yeah someone linked a pretty funny guy playing the ascii version, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ndiaem2Nw
I've been watching a bunch of his videos the last couple of days to get a bit of an idea of the game.

He does tend to drag things out quite a lot but his mellow commenting style is fairly relaxing imo.