Wasteland 3 Range-All

Just be careful if you use Poindexter on newly created Rangers. If they're level 10 for example, you'll miss out on the extra 5 skill points as it's not added retroactively. Will only apply from that point forward.

My party for my first playthrough was:

Char 1
Sniper
Sneaky
First Aid
Weird Science

Char 2
Automatic weapons (SMG)
Lockpicking
Nerd Stuff

Char 3
Automatic weapons (assault rifle)
Leadership
Barter
Hard ass

Char 4
Big Guns
Mechanics
Explosives
Armour Modding

Kwon
Automatic weapons (assault rifle)
Kiss ass
Sneaky

Lucia
Small Arms
Survival
Weapon Modding
Barter

So from that I had extra stuff on Kwon (sneaky) and Lucia (barter) that I didn't need but they're companions so not much you can do. It was good. Most people will say you don't need weapon or armour modding unless you get a special character for it back at your base, but it was nice to have that ability as I was just wandering.

Damage was mostly from my Sniper and SMG character. SMG with high crit was just wasting 3-4 people per turn. She faaaaaaaaaar outdamaged everyone else, even my megacrit sniper which was good for solo target big bosses.

Also there was no animal companion nor toaster repair which I'm now including in my second playthrough. My companions this time are Jodie and will switch to Pizepi instead of Kwon once she's available.

I made a Ranger with 5 weapon mod to pick the perk that gives 25% (min 1) ammo per looting Not gonna lie, I'm not comfortable unless I have 5000x bullets of every calibre and 100x of every first aid item. Games that are stingy with consumables drive me nuts in terms of being a scrooge on buying gear.

I read somewhere on Reddit that Barter 7+ destroys the in-game resources system, but I haven't created Marco Polo Ranger just yet, relying on Lucia for now because I don't want to completely break the game

I'm interested to see how the whole energy weapon thing (weird science) compares against ballistics. I noticed laser weapons have 99 penetration which must be useful against armoured foes, robots, (and I assume vehicles).

It's true. Because of it, I had around 25K+ at the end of the game and had more bullets than I could shoot. Plus I bought all the armour and weapons I wanted too!

Bfgp wrote:

I'm interested to see how the whole energy weapon thing (weird science) compares against ballistics. I noticed laser weapons have 99 penetration which must be useful against armoured foes, robots, (and I assume vehicles).

Yep, energy weapons are massively useful against mechanical enemies, but they have a 30% damage penalty against organics, so it if you have decent penetration on another weapon it might be preferable to use standard weapons against armored foes.

I beat the game last night, and it's definitely a much stronger game than Wasteland 2. The weapon skills are better balanced, and it's way more polished. And I really enjoyed how low stakes it is in comparison to its predecessor, and most other rpgs for that matter. It's politics, power, and how to use it, not the end of the world.

Those load times though. I'd go back and try out different builds and choices if it weren't for them.

Congrats on finishing. About how long did it take?

About ~45 hours, playing on normal.

Meanwhile, I'm playing on hard and have spent about 30 hours and haven't even gone after one of Buchanan's kids yet.

Definitely a "use your consumables" game on hard. Turrets, decoys, med kits, all of them should be used and purchased with impunity. No hoarding here!

Just created a flamethrower ranger. Super cool and fun.

I really wish you could respec at least the companions you add. I really want a big gun specced person on my party but just can’t get it to fit.

Anyone know if there will be mods for this game?

Shadout wrote:

Billy and Jean, you will be missed :cry:

Finished the game just now. It ended quite abruptly.
Anyway, looking at the achievements now, apparently one of them is:

Double the Fun
You brought Billy and Jean all the way to the end of the game.

Now I am sad again.

Most of my pets bugged out in the last quest though. They just kept standing at the vehicle, refusing to move, even as I changed areas. Weirdly enough, the last few areas were really easy compared to what came before, so it didn't become a problem.

I’ve had that issue with the pets too where they just watch us getting shot. Wasn’t sure if it’s a bug or just certain fights they don’t participate in. Assuming it’s a bug.

Yeah, had that plenty of times, seems like if they arent close enough to the combat they dont engage.
Hadn't seen this before, where they refuse to move with you, even outside of combat. Also all the pet bonuses on chars were gone, even for the pets that were still following. I think it might be related to something that happens at that point in the game. One of my chars had also unequipped all its items. There might be some some character refresh going on when (end of game spoiler!)

Spoiler:

you have to go through some kind of loyalty check which each of your companions. That was quite confusing too. I started out by teaming up with Deth, which basically meant 3 of 4 named companions in my active party left me. I wonder if that is something you can affect. Kinda had to reload and picked the other side (hey, my ranger is flexible). Then all companions stayed with me, except one I had never used (since he kinda disappeared after he said he would go back to the HQ, only to magically show up again as if he had never been missing). Didn't have many bugs throughout the game, but the last 30 minutes were a bit weird.

Docjoe wrote:

I’ve had that issue with the pets too where they just watch us getting shot. Wasn’t sure if it’s a bug or just certain fights they don’t participate in. Assuming it’s a bug.

Nah, my cat is like this IRL. This behavior is just what the kids call "immersion."

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:
Docjoe wrote:

I’ve had that issue with the pets too where they just watch us getting shot. Wasn’t sure if it’s a bug or just certain fights they don’t participate in. Assuming it’s a bug.

Nah, my cat is like this IRL. This behavior is just what the kids call "immersion."

My cat would be the one pulling the trigger.

Finished up last night. Loved it!

Billy and Jean even got the finishing blow in the final fight.

Something that was a gut punch in endgame:

Spoiler:

I knew that there would be some loyalty test among my companions before the final fight, but wowee not like this!

I was going down Angela Deth's "Topple the Patriarch" path with Lucia Wesson in my team, and she was increasingly unhappy with it. I thought that her finding out about what her Dad did for the Patriarch would swing her to my side. But, alas, she still said she's siding with the Patriarch against me.

Just as I'm worrying about fighting her–her 10 Coordination and 10 Luck is going to give her at least 4 chances to mega crit my Rangers–Angela guns her down on the spot, before we even enter combat. Brutal!

Anyone else having flashbacks to Mattie Ross from True Grit with Lucia Wesson?

I am still loving this game although it is starting to impact my sleep because I can’t shut it down when I should.

One question, do pets level? I have Mr Tomcat or whatever from the beginning of the game and he is an unstoppable beast. But I have a bear that I picked up more recently and he hits like a feather duster. Both party members are similarly specced in animal companion so that’s not the issue.

And don’t get me started on the adorable robot companion. He is great at healing usually the one teammate who doesn’t need to be healed or shooting at enemies who block his shots. He may need to go soon....

Anyone else notice Pvt Bluth doing the chicken dance?

I'm not sure how I feel about combat.

I keep getting mauled in every encounter. I wonder if it's because I play with risks and try to finish battles in the first 2-3 rounds, but I lose a lot of health. And with no camping mechanism I then have to go back to base for free heals, which is really annoying. Well I don't like spending cash on the equivalent of potions.

Also I thought I had no use for money but then random merchants in the overworld were stocking power armour without strength requirements...

I'm getting beat in combat too, but I set it on Hard, and while I've had numerous instances of characters being downed, none of them have actually died on me yet (Major Tom notwithstanding, but silly bugger brought that on himself).

I have a designated combat healer who is melee with maxed speed and strength and healing armor. He runs around the battlefield healing and rezzing when needed. I also have a character with high barter so I load up on all the healing stuff. Works pretty well and he’s a good tank when no heals are needed. I avoid going back to base just for heals.

And I really dig the combat in this game, have 2 tanks, a sniper who rains death and sneaks in to execute someone to initiate combat and various small arms and auto weapons folks.

If I do another run through I’m going dual snipers. Ammo is tough in early game but not an issue later. And battles would be over faster since you’d be raining down twice as much death!

Can confirm that dual snipers are a solid way to go - one of my custom rangers from the beginning and Jodie Bell are both packing sniper rifles. Once you hit the .50 and energy sniper rifles, they go from good to outright terrifying.

Jonman wrote:

I'm getting beat in combat too, but I set it on Hard, and while I've had numerous instances of characters being downed, none of them have actually died on me yet (Major Tom notwithstanding, but silly bugger brought that on himself).

Turrets and consumables need to be used in every fight on the Hard/Supreme Jerk difficulty level is what I'm finding.

Spoiler:

I've never gone through a fight with Toads that didn't almost involve a squad wipe LOL.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Turrets and consumables need to be used in every fight on the Hard/Supreme Jerk difficulty level is what I'm finding.

I'm not that far in, and only just started using my turrets, and boy howdy, there's my tank!

Since I am bad at using consumables, I only used a turret in late game, just to see what happened. It was quite useless at that point Never got around to using other consumables than a huge, yuuuge, amount of healing kits.

Hard is certainly doable without them. Supreme Jerk might not be.
But yeah, basically everything oneshot me for the first 3/4 of the game. Toward the end of the game, things started to change quickly, and the last main quest areas were nearly a walk in the park, all of a sudden.

Weapon scaling is quite wild. Might be possible to go get high lvl weapons early in the game, when you know where to look.

Docjoe wrote:

One question, do pets level? I have Mr Tomcat or whatever from the beginning of the game and he is an unstoppable beast. But I have a bear that I picked up more recently and he hits like a feather duster. Both party members are similarly specced in animal companion so that’s not the issue.

They get more HP at least, so I assume they lvl. Very different how much dmg pets do though.

I've got two tanks (melee and brawling), one sniper, 1one healer/SMG, one tech specialist, and one who just shoots pistols. The tanks rush in and get pretty decent damage off regardless of enemy while the combat medic stays close behind for healing and additional burst damage. Sniper hangs as far back as possible with their energy rifle. Pistols and Techie hang out between the two dealing damage as needed.

Turrets and other deployables are fantastic. Don't sleep on nerd items and skills. Shrink grenades reduce damage by 30% and I've got a unique armour set that allows the ranger to inject themselves with a combat stim once per battle that adds 2 AP for the result of combat.

Playing on hard, I think, and haven't had too much trouble with combat. Just finished with the first of the Patriarch's children.

Does anyone use drugs or smokes? I haven’t tried them, can’t tell if the after penalty only tics during battle or after battle.

Usually I hoard consumables, and finish a game with hundreds of them, but in this game I learned to let go and just use 'em. I steered clear of drugs as the debuffs seemed too harsh, so would sell all my drugs to buy turrets and grenades.

And turrets are just fun, not to mention the slicer bots. They're relatively cheap, too, especially once you get decent points into barter. The various effect grenades are great for CCing a group that's flanking you while you take cover from another group in front.

I mostly used a sniper, melee weapon user, brawler, big gunner, small arms pistolier and a leader/healer/weird science weapon user. Having 2 melee characters helped with conserving ammo.

I found that combat outcomes would vary depend on who went first -- I could do a clean wipe with no damage if we went first, or end up having to revive 4 party members if they went first. The melee characters were tanks, and the sniper could tuck away somewhere, but it was the low-strength, mid-range fighters who could get one-shotted with a crit.

Wow, Hard must be something else.

I'm deploying a high speed SMG main character, sniper, Lucia, melee tank with that stun mace from a random base event (but she doesn't always draw fire), Kwon on assault rifle (I want him on high mobility SMG mode too but picked the wrong perks, and a random 6th who is either a heavy (LMGs tear up armoured targets) , the "Paladin" with conversation choices, toaster repairer or animal whisperer.

Looking at a combo where you go max sneaky sh*t sniper and do maximum multiplier sneak damage without initiating combat for one shot kills. Would be good to pick off soft targets and build up the strike meter before engaging. It's almost available at my level (main is close to 12).

RIP Major Tom, don't know what happened to him.

Oh yes, the turrets are ridiculously OP for a consumable. Tanky AND DPS for a few AP and you can throw them right in their midst.

I really like Lucia (both as a character in the narrative and as a dealer of close-in damage) but it's best to get her strength up to 3 or so to increase her hp. She gets dropped way too easily otherwise, and for some reason, enemies seem to prioritize her over my other team members.