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Re: Your Core guys?[message #359442 is a reply to message #163273] Tue, 07 April 2020 15:22 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
BlobBlobbedy is currently offline BlobBlobbedy

 
Messages:5
Registered:August 2019
I was doing a dead-is-dead game on experienced recently and was really loving my team until unfortunately the savefile got corrupted. I went for mercs cheap for their experience level, with high wisdom:

(on 1.12 by the way)
Starting team was Barry, Stephen, Ira, and my IMP. After the first mine was conquered I also took on Grunty and these 5 made a fantastic team for taking the first couple of towns.

IMP had night ops \ stealthy though I would probably pick up night ops expert in retrospect. The goal was to make a team good at taking over city sectors during night time by stealthily getting to strategic roofs and then barreling down on the enemy; this worked very well for the towns I took over before save was lost. IMP started out with maxed wisdom, nearly maxed health and agility, marksmanship at 50 and EXP, MEC, MED at 35. In the past I've gone the route of lowering secondary skills to 0 and starting with a high marksmanship, but I've decided I like the jack of all trades approach better as the IMP will become a very good shot eventually anyway and can contribute to both doctoring and repair without having to hire more specialized mercs. Ira and the IMP can both improve quickly on the medical end of things and take care of all the doctoring needs. I had Barry doctor a bit too to improve his MED because he is such high wisdom and dexterity anyway.

I always like to have a high level character as a scout to minimize enemy interrupts so I found Stephen to be the ideal candidate to start with: he has night ops for a night ops team, he is extremely cheap for his level (17,000 for 2 weeks, level 5), starts with high marksmanship and will quickly compete with the best marksmen due to his ridiculous WIS (94). He also has a super high leadership AND teaching skill so is excellent for quickly training militia in the early towns, not to mention can quickly catch up a high wisdom IMP and Ira on marksmanship during down time training sessions here and there. Salary of 17,000 for level 5 means he won't level up for a while and won't increase his salary before you have enough of a bankroll to extend his contract for several weeks or months ahead before a pay-increase (I insured him playing dead-is-dead because his insurance is very cheap also).

I loved this team for many reasons, it just felt like they had amazing synergy and everyone had multiple tasks they were getting very good at:
-Stephen was the scout during night operations as I mentioned, but a night ops expert IMP would become an even better scout once high enough level. IMP and Grunty came next \ were toward the front lines or watching any flanks because of night ops, while Barry and Ira hung back at least a tile or two to provide fire support and sniping as needed.
-Barry is a ridiculously good character who can be used loot everything \ get into anything because of his combination of electronics \ lockpicking \ explosives expertise. I can't think of any other Merc who has the same capability of disarming all types of traps and unlocking every place with impunity. Not to mention he has that insane WIS, almost as good as Stephen's, so he soon becomes an expert marksman, excellent mechanic (even has very high dexterity) and is a seasoned explosives expert. All this for a very low price to begin with and no medical deposit...almost too good to be true and overpowered : ) Because of his lack of night ops, and ability to learn marksmanship quickly I used him as a backline sniper \ support when he was not needed for technical tasks; outside combat, he repairs, and I even had him dabble into doctoring because his high DEX aids him there and his high wisdom means he will get better at it very quickly. he is also a good guy to keep all keys on since likely he is the one trying to go through a locked door anyway.
-I think my last run or 2 I learned a lot more about how much potential Ira has. I tried as much as possible when it was safe to give the killing blows to Ira and my IMP to encourage them to improve as quickly as possible, because they both have very respectable Wisdom scores and....who doesn't want mercs without a salary that become killing machines? When my save was corrupted I had the IMP at level 5 and Ira at level 4 closing in on 5 with both of their marksmanship having gone from the mid 50s to the mid-high 80s. To that end, I like to give these 2 characters (followed by Barry) the best and highest range weapons, like the first scopes etc. to encourage them to improve as much as possible, because you really get the most bang for your buck in the long run.
-Grunty is also all around pretty solid, though not as high Wisdom as all these other mercs, he still has an excellent starting cost for a level 3 and pretty decent at a lot of things. Definitely a great addition to a night ops team especially and the natural choice to carry a 40mm grenade launcher because of his heavy weapons. Out of combat he can join Barry and the IMP in repairing while Ira and Stephen train new troops and it just feels like a beautifully synchronized concerto : ) ...and when you need to be a bit more flexible because of people needing doctoring, Grunty can fill the roles of militia training or even an extra doctor comfortably enough because of his jack of all trades skillset.

The only downside of this team is Dimitri disliking Stephen, but I didn't find this to be such a big deal. I'm not too concerned about Dimitri over time because his low Wisdom means he has much less potential of improving over time. Also, the dislike only goes one way so there is no risk of Stephen becoming upset. I just got Dimitri a walkman eventually, he never quit (not sure if he ever does, anyone?) and I figure once you can get Carlos and Miguel, whom are liked by Dimitri, you can just keep him near them if you want to have him around the same sector as Stephen ever.

So yeah, very sad I am not able to continue this savegame likely...I had just picked up Scope Sterling since I had a whole lot of saved funds with all these cheap guys and things were going well...: (

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