I just feel like rambling about a few quick topics, if you don’t mind.
No, I’m not getting Torchlight today — I’m using the precious few remaining hours of gaming time I have this week to squeeze out all the Fallen Earth fun I can get. I don’t think I’ll be in the game much next month, between NaNoWriMo and Dragon Age, and I will certainly miss it.
I did craft (train) a new racing horse the other day, a white stallion I like to call “Shotgun”, so I can truthfully claim that I’m always riding Shotgun in the game. And speaking of which, I totally love my little sawed-off boomstick from the Halloween event — if only I could have gotten two! Even though its DPS is substantially less than my pistols, it’s still more than powerful for whatever Sector 1 can throw at me, and I had about 800 shotgun shells to go through. I’ve started to develop a new philosophy concerning ammunition — conserve, conserve, conserve. Two 10-shot pistols can throw 20 bullets at a mob extremely quickly, to the point where bullets were just flowing out of my inventory for far less gained (in terms of dropped loot or chips). So I’m forcing myself to just use one pistol right now, and to have a few different types of guns — a sawed-off shotgun for shells, a pistol that uses light ammo, and a revolver that uses medium ammo. That way, I can rotate through whatever I find and extend my ammo reserves a bit more.
Massively just posted a Fallen Earth Q&A article with one of the devs that covers a lot of topics including the economy and housing. And I totally agree with this quote:
“I think we all want giant chickens to ride.”
Fallen Earth also posted the results of their Halloween costume contest — some very cool entries indeed!
Moving on to Champions, it looks like they’re handing out their third free full retcon to all players this week, so save your $12 if you were going to drop that in the C-store. It’s too bad people can’t stock up on retcons, but at least I know that when I return, all of my characters will have one waiting for me.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, there is “poopy diaper” wafting through the air that demands my attention.
Syp, you should write your novel about your adventures in post-apocolyptic Grand Canyon. Just have to add in a nemesis and a love interest.
Problem solved. /wipes hands
In FE, have you worked on any melee skill to offset your guns? Another option is to work with a guildie/clannie who is going melee. See if you can buy some of their ammunition drops for reasonable prices.
I’ve been using the rifle to pull and switching to melee which has seemed to work out pretty well so far for me (level 10).
I actually just hit the unsubscribe button this weekend on FE. Not because I dislike, but because Dragon Age is coming out. I know that will eat a lot of my time, so why bother having FE charge me $15/mo when I probably won’t even log in for 2 months.
I’ve been forced to use zip guns due to a shortage of scrap lead and an overabundance of copper. Made the best pair under “Improved Zip Guns”, but I haven’t had a chance to try them yet since I spent the last two days finishing up my Embry Omnibus 😀 8 extra AP, but more importantly 18 inventory slots freed up!
My character’s pathetic weight limit is the only reason why I’m not carrying around ammo/weapons of every type. That and the fact that “efficient” ammo doesn’t stack with regular ammo, so that means more inventory slots taken up.
“Two 10-shot pistols can throw 20 bullets at a mob extremely quickly, to the point where bullets were just flowing out of my inventory for far less gained (in terms of dropped loot or chips).”
I think you’re looking at this the wrong way, Syp.
It’s going to take the same number of bullets to kill a target regardless of how fast you fire (as long as you aren’t missing because of recoil, which with pistols at close range really isn’t an issue). So using one pistol over two doesn’t really save ammo, it just takes longer to kill the target.
If you want to carry different ammo types for conservation, you need to look at the damage that it does compared to what it takes to make. The difference between the GA-8 pistol (Light) and GA-15 revolver is 32.4 DPS vs. 34 – about a 5% difference. But medium ammo requires an extra geologic chemical and one less copper. IMHO, copper is far easier to come by than the geologics, so you’re paying notably more for a relatively minimal increase in DPS, and certainly not gaining anything over just making more light ammo.
All IMHO, of course 🙂
@ Buh – Actually, I don’t think that’s how it happens. Firing two pistols simultaneously is usually overkill — I’ve killed the mob faster than the game can track, so I end up firing extra shots before their health meter drops to 0 and the game marks them as dead. One pistol also seems to be more accurate, at least in terms of a playstyle, as I am more careful to line up shots than just go in guns-a-blazin.
@ Ryver – I actually make craploads of bullets; I’m probably sitting on well over 10,000 rounds right now. I just don’t want to be wasteful.
@Buhallin
I spent about a day farming the chemical deposits outside of Odenville just so I could have enough geologic chemicals for my bullet ammo. Now if only there was a similar place for scrap lead 😦
I hope my new zip guns work out okay. 8 less DPS per pistol, and ammo crafting output will be slower because of the lack of “efficient” zip gun ammo, but the fact that I only need copper is a huge plus.
Your argument is the reason why I switched to medium pistols ASAP at Kingman – more oomph per bullet, but more importantly I went through medium bullets at a much slower rate than light bullets, so I probably used less crafting materials in the long run.
Unfortunately, switching from medium to heavy pistol ammo requires salvaged copper… ugh.
Yeah, I’ve run into the overshot issue too, I just tend to slow down the shots when they’re close to dead, or aim to finish them off with a pistol whip. I haven’t noticed any lack of accuracy with the second pistol, though.
Seems like you have to alternate your pistol shots, since the reticule jerks diagonally after firing (unlike zip guns, where the reticule just gets larger), so the second shot will land over the target’s shoulder unless you wait a bit for the reticule to re-center.
Shotgun, too funny.
Syp!
I am starting the 14-day trial today! I could use some guidance on the attributes system, I don’t want to gimp my dude early and hate the game for that mistake.
Just realize you don’t have to spend AP for a while after you start, until you know what you want. You can play just fine without doing so (one of my clannies got to level 15ish before spending a single AP). Figure out whether you want to be a pistol, rifle or melee fighter, then figure out what faction you want to join, then use their template in the drop-down attributes menu.
When spending AP, the rule of thumb is “skills first, then attributes”. Dodge and armor use are almost universal needs.
Hey Syp,
Do you know if all the retcons they have handed out stack or can you have only one in the till?
Also, think about revolvers when you solo. You use less ammo than a comparable semi automatic since revolvers have a higher max damage and lower rate of fire. And additional bonus that I have seen is that revolvers generally have a longer range. My current hunting revolvers have a range of 50m, longer than any SA pistol I have seen.
Another tactic is to go one handed pistol and one handed melee. In general, I would pull with the pistol if necessary then mix in Smash and Pistol Whip while meleeing. If you feel the need to speed things up, fire the pistol during the entire thing. The extra damage from Smash and Pistol Whip help offset the DPS reduction of not having that second pistol fireing on the pull.
Once you get your mutations, a DPS one is great to have. I pull only with my pistol if necessary but use my mutie DDs/Dots in every combat. Saves alot in ammo since you now have use for your gamma and some of the mutie DDs are nice. Molotov from the Thermal control line starts at 50DD and a 3 damage follow up DoT and scales +25DD per increment (probably +1 DoT per increment).
I carry about 100 rounds only of Heavy Pistol Ammo for emergencies or boss fights. I keep 500 on my horse (more once I get a better horse) and have about 3-4 batches of efficient ammo in the crafing window waiting to be completed so I have some in reserve in virtual storage to pull out incase of emergency.