Wasteland 3 - Aug 28, 2020

[coopasonic]

F9 button should have one of those little covers you have to lift before pressing the button... actually maybe F5 too, because that's the even worse mistake. Maybe quicksave/load are too quick!

I spent most of my weekend on this and am really enjoying it. I;'m starting to wonder how big it will be as I already have some stats/skills maxed out at level 11/12. Of course I am min/maxing outside of a couple mistakes that wasted a handful of skill points.

I've run into a couple of pretty annoying issues. Three times I have had tripwires that I wasn't being prompted to disarm so I had to sacrifice someone to them. Reloading or quitting out completely didn't help. The other was a random zooming in of the camera to the point that I could only see the legs of a couple characters. Reloading fixed that one. Oh one trap that I disarmed went off anyway, luckily I was on the safe side of that one.

Nothing bad enough to keep me from playing, just costing me some time and in game cash for heals.

[Blackhawk]

I've tried to set my quickload/quicksave to ctrl-F5 and ctrl-F9 in a few games, but most don't allow that combination.

It's tempting to just reprogram my keyboard to ignore F5/F9 and to treat the ctrl-version as F5/F9. I don't know how to macro that, though.

[Carpet_pissr]

Last time I mention Wasteland 2 here, and I am bowing out of the thread since I am determined to finish W2 first (and actually doing it, yay for me!). Just wanted to give a heads up I am reviving the W2 thread (assuming there is one) since i know several people in here said they were going to play through W2 as well. Maybe we can do it 'together'. I sure as hell already have tons of things i want to ask about/vent about.

Side note: since I was waffling back and forth between 2 and 3, whatever you think of the interface and UI in 3, it's a definite improvement. They made a lot of little tweaks and subtle changes that really work better IMO. And I don't really have any complaints about 2, I just think 3 is "nicer".

[coopasonic]

Last time I mention Wasteland 2 here, and I am bowing out of the thread since I am determined to finish W2 first (and actually doing it, yay for me!). Just wanted to give a heads up I am reviving the W2 thread (assuming there is one) since i know several people in here said they were going to play through W2 as well. Maybe we can do it 'together'. I sure as hell already have tons of things i want to ask about/vent about.

https://octopusoverlords.com/forum/view ... =2&t=81111

[Carpet_pissr]

Last time I mention Wasteland 2 here, and I am bowing out of the thread since I am determined to finish W2 first (and actually doing it, yay for me!). Just wanted to give a heads up I am reviving the W2 thread (assuming there is one) since i know several people in here said they were going to play through W2 as well. Maybe we can do it 'together'. I sure as hell already have tons of things i want to ask about/vent about.

https://octopusoverlords.com/forum/view ... =2&t=81111

Thankee, sai!

[infinitelurker]

I have a few hours in on this and I’m really enjoying it. I feel like I’m only scratching the surface of content that is in this game. It seems quite a bit bigger than I was expecting.

Also, I’m having difficulty committing to assigning all my skill points. I always end up saving some just in case I need a bump up in something to open that one safe, or disarm that one trap. However, I think I’m getting to the difficulty level where I need to be assigning those points into things that help me clear out the baddies easier.

[NickAragua]

The main annoying thing for me is that I went in thinking it was going to be like Wasteland 2 where I have 4 PCs and 3 NPCs, but it turns out I have 4 PCs and 2 NPCs, and I can swap out my PCs for pre-generated NPCs.

But the pre-generated NPCs are so un-optimized (I can tell even though I haven't even cranked through Colorado Springs yet), it's going to make me tear my heair out. And their skill sets don't complement each other at all, there's all kinds of overlap and other nonsense. So I'm basically trading more storyline and dialogue for sub-optimal party loadout. Now THAT's meaningful decision making, lol.

And ammo is supposed to be limited, but so far I'm swimming in it.

Regardless, I'm still having a good time for my first few hours.

[coopasonic]

I'm a little further in, I think my characters are level 21-22 most with a couple of maxed stats and skills. I had other options but stuck with the first two NPCs you come across because they had minimal points assigned without my supervision and only minor overlap with my PCs.

I have had to buy rounds, generally for the assault rifles and there are certain weapon that use more rare rounds so if you use them a lot you will be buying more ammo.

I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I haven't done any weapon modding at all.... and I have someone with 6 or 7 skill in it. I just keep thinking I will save the mods for when I get better weapons. I don't know when that cycle will ever stop.

At this point my only complaint would be that it's a little on the easy side. I'm playing on normal (wastelander, I think) and sometimes I will have 1 or 2 characters go down in a fight (my melee/tank must have some serious PTSD after the shit she has gone through), but I am never at risk of losing a fight.

[TheMix]

I went with the Russian couple. I found a couple of pre-made recruits that filled out the missing skills nicely. (The mad scientist and the mechanic. At least that's how I think of them.)

The only thing bumming me out was lack of a sniper. I broke down finally and gave one of my characters sniper ability.

The biggest concern I have right now is whether I should have put more points into weapon skills. Seems I'm always stumbling on a lock that is one level above my skill, or a trap I can't quite disarm, or a generator I can almost start.... So the points I save (since I do that too) keep going to non-combat abilities.

So far it hasn't been a big concern, but I keep expecting the shoe to drop.

I was initially going to pass on the 2nd NPC you find. But then I discovered that, unlike W2, Barter is very useful. So for now she's sticking around.

[coopasonic]

Sniper was the very first thing I created. He's a wrecking machine.

My PCs are all handcrafted.

Sniper/Lockpick/Nerd/First Aid
Assault/Leadership/Hard Ass
Pistol/Explosives/Big Guns
Melee/Toaster/Animal Whisperer
===
Assault/Mechanics/Sneaky
Pistol/Barter/Kiss Ass

That is from memory. There is medium Weapon Modding and light Survival in there somewhere, but I don't remember where.

[TheMix]

I thought about making my own. But you do miss out on some dialogue. There have been a few funny exchanges between the Russians so far.

Besides, if I crafted my own, what would I have to look forward to the next time I play?

[TheMix]

Sniper was the very first thing I created. He's a wrecking machine.

My PCs are all handcrafted.

Sniper/Lockpick/Nerd/First Aid
Assault/Leadership/Hard Ass
Pistol/Explosives/Big Guns
Melee/Toaster/Animal Whisperer
===
Assault/Mechanics/Sneaky
Pistol/Barter/Kiss Ass

That is from memory. There is medium Weapon Modding and light Survival in there somewhere, but I don't remember where.

Did you forget Weird Science? Or are you not running with it? I've found a couple of interesting weapons so far that use it. I actually used the mind control one for the first time. And it worked!

[coopasonic]

I might have someone with a couple points of weird science, but I haven't ever equipped anything that has it. I never really looked at the items because there is kind of loot overload in the game and the inventory management in the game kind of sucks (no sorting options with all that loot, really?).

[TheMix]

If it helps, they all seem to have the glowy outline. Makes them stand out. I think I have 3 so far. Though it's possible one doesn't use Weird Science. I have the frozen ferret rocket launcher (not tried yet), the mind control gun (shoots a cone like a shotgun), and ... I think a energy assault rifle. I'd have to look.

Edit: Third glowy one is the Fuser that my mechanic can use to repair robots, turrets, etc. If I start using them. At leas that's what I assume it does.

[DOS=HIGH]

I might have someone with a couple points of weird science, but I haven't ever equipped anything that has it. I never really looked at the items because there is kind of loot overload in the game and the inventory management in the game kind of sucks (no sorting options with all that loot, really?).

There are inventory tabs along the top for weapons, armor, ammo, mods, consumables, quest, and misc. items.

I don't have anyone with weird science or animal whisperer yet, my characters are around lvl 12. Major Tom made it till my characters where level 11ish so I decided to buy the parrot. He died in his first fight. I'll probably start training someone in weird science soon. I created weapon, armor, toaster, and barter specialist at the HQ for when I need them. I didn't care for melee characters in WL2 and I didn't bother with one here either. They're just not as easy to use as ranged, but I also don't have a heavy guns person.

[Madmarcus]

I'm a little further in, I think my characters are level 21-22 most with a couple of maxed stats and skills.

Can I ask roughly how far into the game you think you are? For some reason this game gives me fits in planning characters and as far as I can tell it's because I don't know how many skill points, attribute points, or perk points I should expect to have at "mid game" or the end. Of course this is made worse by the fact that this is one of the few games I can think of where it is actually easy to have one character who gains significantly different amounts of XP than others due to charisma, bookworm, and the wasteland roamer quirk.

[coopasonic]

I'm a little further in, I think my characters are level 21-22 most with a couple of maxed stats and skills.

Can I ask roughly how far into the game you think you are? For some reason this game gives me fits in planning characters and as far as I can tell it's because I don't know how many skill points, attribute points, or perk points I should expect to have at "mid game" or the end. Of course this is made worse by the fact that this is one of the few games I can think of where it is actually easy to have one character who gains significantly different amounts of XP than others due to charisma, bookworm, and the wasteland roamer quirk.

My characters are around level 26 and I am pretty much at the end game now. I read that there is a soft level cap at 30 but it seems like you likely won't hit that unless you scour the map.

I might have someone with a couple points of weird science, but I haven't ever equipped anything that has it. I never really looked at the items because there is kind of loot overload in the game and the inventory management in the game kind of sucks (no sorting options with all that loot, really?).

There are inventory tabs along the top for weapons, armor, ammo, mods, consumables, quest, and misc. items.

Optimally I want to sort by armor points, damage, skill reqs, etc. Also, utility items don't appear in ANY of those filters.

As I am nearing the end (and at risk of losing my weapon mod NPC due to story choices) I went through and did some weapon modding. This is def something you shouldn't put off as it's super easy and reversible. Oops. A +dmg mod on an AR or SMG is pretty nice.

On Animal Whisperer, a little higher up you can get some beastly animals. A doe is way stronger than you might imagine and can take out a regular enemy alone in one turn. Smaller animals are useful for their bonuses. Due to that plus story choices, I have 4 pets running with my crew now and they make a difference.

[TheMix]

Too have multiple pets, don't you have to pick up the Animal Whisperer skill on each person (except for Major Tom)? Granted I haven't really looked into it, but I didn't see any way to transfer a pet.

I also didn't see a way to remove a mod from a weapon. I could overwrite it, but not remove it to reuse it elsewhere. Did I just miss that option?

[coopasonic]

Too have multiple pets, don't you have to pick up the Animal Whisperer skill on each person (except for Major Tom)? Granted I haven't really looked into it, but I didn't see any way to transfer a pet.

I also didn't see a way to remove a mod from a weapon. I could overwrite it, but not remove it to reuse it elsewhere. Did I just miss that option?

1) Animal whisperer will only get you one pet per person with the skill. You can add more through story actions (generally skill checks in interactions, some Animal Whisperer, some not)

2) I made an assumption that apparently was incorrect. Thanks for that.

[TheMix]

In your case, you were fine. Since you waited.

So far I only added a couple of mods. But I'm going to hold back a bit to make sure I am adding the right mods to the right weapons. I do like that you no longer appear to have to transfer the items you want to mod to the person doing the modding. You just select the mod option and the correct person automatically does the modding.

[coopasonic]

Yeah I was very happy to see I could just right click the weapon while the non-modder still had it equipped to add mods. Very convenient.

[coopasonic]

Finished it. Actually lost both NPCs due to my story choices, luckily neither of them was super critical. I was able to replace one and finished it out with a party of 5 (plus the 4 pets)

[$iljanus]

Finished it. Actually lost both NPCs due to my story choices, luckily neither of them was super critical. I was able to replace one and finished it out with a party of 5 (plus the 4 pets)

Damn you really powered through it. Was it da shizzle all the way through or did it fizzle near the end?

[infinitelurker]

Wow, I must be really crawling through it, I only just completed everything having to do with The Bizarre, and I thought I was playing it a lot since release!

[naednek]

I'm having a hard time with each encounter. Im doing secondary mission where you investigate an apartment being accused of making bombs.

I die everytime

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[TheMix]

I'm having a hard time with each encounter. Im doing secondary mission where you investigate an apartment being accused of making bombs.

I die everytime

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

That was a pretty hard fight. Those guys have weapons that are pretty destructive.

Two things that might help:

Spoiler:

1) You can actually run your mechanic down the side the door is on and then cut across to the generator. They don't turn hostile immediately. You have a couple of seconds. So even if the awareness circle clips you, you should be fine. That takes the turret out of the fight.
2) Shooting the barrel between the lower two at the right time to start the fight will allow you to get some damage in right off the bat. Just don't put anyone near the top barrel; since it can take your a$$ out too.

Oh, and I guess it goes without saying, spread your characters out as much as possible.

[NickAragua]

Heh, there's another solution. No spoilers, but you can take care of the situation without fighting.

Spoiler:

Run a guy with 'nerd stuff' skill up to the macine in the far corner of the room. One of the dialogue options in there lets you zap all the clones without a fight.

[naednek]

I'll have to try those out. I don't think I did a good job with my allocation of skills, and it's hurting me.

[TheMix]

I'm finding this one way more difficult than W2. It shames me a bit to admit, but I just dropped the difficulty to Rookie. It was too frustrating to be fun. The enemies had 2 to 3 times the health of my guys and I was generally fighting more than 6 enemies. I just couldn't find a strategy that worked.

Now I feel more like trained badasses.

Not sure what you are supposed to do. Boost strength to 10?

Anyway, enjoying it more now.

[naednek]

I'm finding this one way more difficult than W2. It shames me a bit to admit, but I just dropped the difficulty to Rookie. It was too frustrating to be fun. The enemies had 2 to 3 times the health of my guys and I was generally fighting more than 6 enemies. I just couldn't find a strategy that worked.

Now I feel more like trained badasses.

Not sure what you are supposed to do. Boost strength to 10?

Anyway, enjoying it more now.

Ya, thats what I did. Im never good at these types of games

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[coopasonic]

Finished it. Actually lost both NPCs due to my story choices, luckily neither of them was super critical. I was able to replace one and finished it out with a party of 5 (plus the 4 pets)

Damn you really powered through it. Was it da shizzle all the way through or did it fizzle near the end?

I was having fun with it pretty much the whole way. It got a little repetitive at the end and I was basically ready for it to be over.

I didn't find it particularly difficult, but turn-based tactical squad combat is kind of my jam (see 600+ hours in XCOM2 and Jagged Alliance 2 was my number 1 game before that).

The most important thing in every encounter is getting to attack first. My sniper would often get two kills by himself (using the leadership skill on another character for 2 bonus APs to make two shots and +crit chance gear) and then my melee character would generally get a kill, plus one more from the rest of the squad... makes you wonder why I didn't just make a second sniper. They are OP.

[stimpy]

Anyone else get a bug on the Elf on a Shelf mission?
I tried a couple different ways of ending it, but all result in the graphics hanging and forcing me to alt-tab-delete to quit the game.

[Grifman]

I'm finding this one way more difficult than W2. It shames me a bit to admit, but I just dropped the difficulty to Rookie. It was too frustrating to be fun. The enemies had 2 to 3 times the health of my guys and I was generally fighting more than 6 enemies. I just couldn't find a strategy that worked.

Now I feel more like trained badasses.

Not sure what you are supposed to do. Boost strength to 10?

Anyway, enjoying it more now.

Rockets, grenades, flamethrowers, deployable turrets/decoys, animal friends, vehicle (on missions where you can bring it). Lot's of ways to even the odds.

[TheMix]

Not enough grenades. I did equip a rocket launcher, but it's not a very good one, so the outcome wasn't very exciting.

I've lost all the animals except the wolf that my Animal Whisperer picked up. Wait... lost that in the last fight. Currently have a rabbit since it was the first thing I bumped into.

I've used a few turrets. They help. I'd dropped my flamethrower for the one that freezes, but it's been fairly meh.

However, none of those things help when your characters are one-shotted consistently.

What has helped is putting points into Strength and picking up the base Perk that adds health. Now all my characters are in the 150-200HP. That's made a huge difference. Additionally, I finally sold some stuff and picked up enough money to get some better equipment.

I've bumped the difficulty back up. Took out the cannibals fairly easily. Helped that I was able to run my mechanic around the side and didn't have to try and take out the 600+ HP heavy turret.

[DOS=HIGH]

Anyone else get a bug on the Elf on a Shelf mission?
I tried a couple different ways of ending it, but all result in the graphics hanging and forcing me to alt-tab-delete to quit the game.

I just completed this quest using the Hard Ass option with no problems.

What has helped is putting points into Strength and picking up the base Perk that adds health. Now all my characters are in the 150-200HP. That's made a huge difference. Additionally, I finally sold some stuff and picked up enough money to get some better equipment.

I pumped my characters with Coordination for the extra AP and then Awareness since they are all ranged classes. I think my front line people(pistol, shotgun, & smg) all had 4 strength to start, but the others only 2, maybe 3(Assault guns x2 & a sniper). It wasn't uncommon needing to rez people during a fight, just need to make sure and use injury kits after the fight. I'm generally conservative with my money and saved it for ammo and first aid stuff unless it was a big equipment upgrade. Then I found something classified as Junk that sold for over $30k.

I've bumped the difficulty back up. Took out the cannibals fairly easily. Helped that I was able to run my mechanic around the side and didn't have to try and take out the 600+ HP heavy turret.

Precision shot on the CPU is pretty reliable for flipping them and robots to your side for 3 turns. I also like to use it for destroying the armor on stuff.

All my characters have hit at least level 20 and the fights are pretty trivial now. I'm past Aspen, so almost finished. I might do another play through right after since I know I could of done a better set up. The number of faction decisions I can change should make it somewhat less repetitive.

[$iljanus]

When you swap out party members do you need to strip equipment from them before removing them from the party so the items are returned to the general inventory?

Thanks!

[stimpy]

Does animal whisper work just by clicking on the animal?
I have a guy that is level 5 and nothing seems to happen no matter what animal I try, cat or fox or doe.

[naednek]

I'm having a hard time with each encounter. Im doing secondary mission where you investigate an apartment being accused of making bombs.

I die everytime

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

That was a pretty hard fight. Those guys have weapons that are pretty destructive.

Two things that might help:

Spoiler:

1) You can actually run your mechanic down the side the door is on and then cut across to the generator. They don't turn hostile immediately. You have a couple of seconds. So even if the awareness circle clips you, you should be fine. That takes the turret out of the fight.
2) Shooting the barrel between the lower two at the right time to start the fight will allow you to get some damage in right off the bat. Just don't put anyone near the top barrel; since it can take your a$$ out too.

Oh, and I guess it goes without saying, spread your characters out as much as possible.

So I rerolled, and lowered difficulty, and I'm enjoying the game. I passed Irv's apartment, but when I go back to see Rosie she's shooting at me. I never did anything to her other than charm her named cat which died in the battle. I'm guessing that's what triggered it?

[gbasden]

Does animal whisper work just by clicking on the animal?
I have a guy that is level 5 and nothing seems to happen no matter what animal I try, cat or fox or doe.

No, it's a talent that you have to use from your hotbar.

[Jag]

When you swap out party members do you need to strip equipment from them before removing them from the party so the items are returned to the general inventory?

Thanks!

Yes. They keep everything equipped. You should be able to run the same party the entire game and use skill mules at your base. Basically create new characters with full weapon/armor modding and another with full barter and just pull them out when needed. There is very little need for those 3 in the actual game unless you want it for RP value.

You can also redo your main characters if you didn't like how you specced. You lose some xp, but it's not a big deal. The game really needs a respec and inventory filter badly.

There is also a money trick with Barter if you are interested

Spoiler:

Get your barter mule to skill 10. Get the antique appraisal perk. Take a stack of scrap (the more the better) and buy and sell it repeatedly to the vendor until you get a message that the perk was tripped. At first it may only be a few thousand, but with higher levels of scrap, I got a few hundred thousand dollar ones. Luckily unlimited money doesn't really ruin the game. Just makes ammo and consumables essentially unlimited which shouldn't be an issue by midgame anyway.