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Post by contributor on Jan 10, 2015 10:43:26 GMT -5
Somewhat on a whim this morning, I created my first Hunder, named Grimes. He's playing on Brutal, which might have been a mistake, considering I haven't played in about 6 months. I'll probably take it slow with him. He just bought his first 2 jobber, but hasn't upgraded any weapons or armor yet. He's got 40+ rep with Los V and bits and pieces with others. He's managed to avoid negative rep with anybody so far. He's escaped from every fight he's been in so far. Everybody goes for Attila and he's taken a few rounds, but so far never been below 6 health. Thing is though I'm just sort of at a loss to know how to develop this knight. I have no vision for him, if you know what I mean.
So what do other's like to do with your Hunders? What missions are they ideally suited for? Do you stick with all Hunds or do you throw some other runners in to round it out? Can you really take a pack of Hunds up against a megacorp goon-squad?
Any thoughts are appreciated?
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Post by grävling on Jan 11, 2015 4:51:44 GMT -5
Somewhat on a whim this morning, I created my first Hunder, named Grimes. He's playing on Brutal, which might have been a mistake, considering I haven't played in about 6 months. I'll probably take it slow with him. He just bought his first 2 jobber, but hasn't upgraded any weapons or armor yet. He's got 40+ rep with Los V and bits and pieces with others. He's managed to avoid negative rep with anybody so far. He's escaped from every fight he's been in so far. Everybody goes for Attila and he's taken a few rounds, but so far never been below 6 health. Thing is though I'm just sort of at a loss to know how to develop this knight. I have no vision for him, if you know what I mean. So what do other's like to do with your Hunders? What missions are they ideally suited for? Do you stick with all Hunds or do you throw some other runners in to round it out? Can you really take a pack of Hunds up against a megacorp goon-squad? Any thoughts are appreciated? Get your first human armour from the Los V ladder. Get your knight a cheap dataport and memory from the Back Bay Mission. Courier missions pay very well. Get Atilla some SynthSkin a.s.a.p. (Indeed, when I am playing a hunder, I usually dismiss Atilla until I can buy SynthSkin, which is the second thing I buy, after the dataport and memory.) Get Atilla some Knashers, start saving your yen for a shock maw. Get your Knight a Taser Glove from Harken Pawn Brokers in Copley Square. The 2 job computer may have been a tiny mistake. The thing that hunders are best for, especially early on, is escort missions through gangland. They pay really well. But the upshot of this is that you will not be escaping from battles, as the marks cannot run fast enough for that. The hunder is a combat oriented knight, and hunds are only combat oriented, so this is not that much of a disadvantage. I want the above gear, then a hard armour upgrade for my knight, and sometimes a mk251 bounty (if I am spending a lot of time in KH land, in case we run into any robots) before I upgrade my hunder computer, and I usually go directly for a 4 job one. The escort jobs pay well enough that just taking single jobs across town works out fine financially. But the secret to wealth via the escort business is to not kill too many people while working, so buy the taser glove and the shock maw. Don't forget to check out the Secrets of Steel when trying to find an escort job, as not only do they pay well, but the option to take the chopper across town is even more valuable when you are running lots of escorts as the chopper will take them as passengers. For that you need positive KH rep, and good rep gets you the preferred customer discount. Encounters that want Strength and Intimidate are a great way to make points, so don't neglect strength. When you can, but after buying weapons and armours, get the very best in surveillance equipment. Not only will this let you do well at the surveillance jobs, which pay extra to hunders, but you will make a lot of rep in disarming the bomb encounters. Hard armour is recommended here, for when you miss your saving throw and the bomb goes off. Threatening people is another nice way for a hunder with a pack of dogs to prosper. The Yakuza ladder connector has tons of threatening missions. Hunds excel at taking down corps blue suits. This is what thrash is for. It's actually, I think, easier than with a large human team. My current hunder is pretty much maxed out with a team size of 2. Get good armour before you try this, 'natch. This is the big decision for the hunder. Do you basically want to be you and Atilla, so there is lots of room on your team for escort marks, or do you want to have a large pack of dogs (so the threatening and surveillance missions do better)? For surveillance jobs there is a small team/large team option, but I have found that the large team one works more often -- assuming you have a large team -- than the small team works for a pair. If you decide 'large pack of dogs' get another pup as soon as you can afford synth skin (or better) for him, and keep on doing this until your pack is full. Put your experienced dogs in the Blue Ox hard dog armour, and Synth Skin on the new pups, who won't be good for much until they have at least 6 AP. Until then make them run from battles. Hope this helps, Gräv |
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Post by contributor on Jan 11, 2015 9:01:59 GMT -5
Thanks, that helps a lot.
I'm thinking that I might try to develop something of a pack eventually and focus on surveillance and threaten missions. Yesterday I ended up getting Evo Rigging for my Knight and hund. It wasn't necessarily strategic, it just seemed like what I'm supposed to do with a Hunder. I'm surprised that you didn't mention any implants in your post. Or do you work without them? Do you dual keep raising both Brawling and Firearms skills. I tend to stick with one or the other?
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Post by grävling on Jan 11, 2015 19:37:36 GMT -5
Thanks, that helps a lot. I'm thinking that I might try to develop something of a pack eventually and focus on surveillance and threaten missions. Yesterday I ended up getting Evo Rigging for my Knight and hund. It wasn't necessarily strategic, it just seemed like what I'm supposed to do with a Hunder. I'm surprised that you didn't mention any implants in your post. Or do you work without them? Do you dual keep raising both Brawling and Firearms skills. I tend to stick with one or the other? I like the cheap dataport and memory for courier jobs. I often get dermal armour -- if I am wearing hard dodge armour like the one from Tekkas House of Guns. I've had a small hunder team with evo rigging and without, it sort of seemed a wash. I haven't tried evo rigging and a big team yet. I generally raise brawling to 4 or 5 and then stop until very late game. At this point I am not raising firearms at all. Then I stop raising brawling and only raise firearms. Of course, if playing Male 2, I get a stick to whack robots with, and don't raise firearms at all. |
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Post by contributor on Jan 12, 2015 10:14:50 GMT -5
That implant that give +1 perception for every Evo Rigged Hund on the team could be interesting for surveillance missions. What skills do those test exactly? I'm thinking stealth and perception. It's a pretty cool idea actually, using a pack of hunds as spies.
Also, does the Shock Maw replace any other weapons you've got equipped on your hund or augment them? I noticed that once I got the SM I went up to 3AP for an attack, whereas I had been at 2 with the Knashers. Can I just unequip the knashers now that I've got tingly-teeth?
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Post by fallen on Jan 12, 2015 11:32:45 GMT -5
contributor - the Hunder weapons / implants work like the Knight's weapons and implants. You can unequip them, otherwise they are really annoying. Cyber implants replace weapons.
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Post by dragolord on Jan 12, 2015 13:41:36 GMT -5
Dragolord's guide to Hunders (Brutal Edition)
I've played a lot of Hunders. My usual strategy is:
1. Dump Attilla.
2. Get Mcfly's V-Chip.
3. Go to the Six-Shooter, and get an escort mission or locked-case job.
4. Repeat (3) until you have 4-5000 credits, or until the safe passage time expires.
5. Get a level 2 Dataport and a level 1 Hardware Memory implant.
6. Do file-running and hacking jobs until you have 9000 credits.
7. Buy the best Assault Rifle (still classed as SMG) in the game from Mercury Arms Tower for 7-8400 credits, then repeat (7).
8. Spend ~6000 credits on a two-job computer from Chant's Bar, then get as good armour as is affordable.
9. Boost skills until able to hack, run, punch, shoot, sneak, talk, threaten or out-electronic everything in your path.
10. You tell me! I always die in (9) at most, so have fun finding out!
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Post by contributor on Jan 12, 2015 14:10:21 GMT -5
dragolord, I don't ever see #) Assemble a team of one or more hunds, on there?
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Post by dragolord on Jan 12, 2015 14:43:08 GMT -5
dragolord, I don't ever see #) Assemble a team of one or more hunds, on there? This may well be number 10. I find that the extra XP isn't usually worth it. I suppose staying in gangland until they're all super-hunds might work. |
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Post by contributor on Jan 14, 2015 4:39:51 GMT -5
Yeah, Thrash + Shock Maw is pretty fun. I just did 12MP damage to a ganger in one attack. Never saw that before.
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Post by contributor on Jan 15, 2015 2:23:10 GMT -5
The canine spy-net is not as easy to implement as it would seem because there's something of a skill mismatch going on. Getting 3 evo-rigged hunds and the implant that gives you +1 perception for each one is good, but then on surveillance the option that favors a large team relies on Stealth and Intelligence, whereas the option that doesn't favor a large team relies on Stealth and Perception. So if you want to spy with a pack there's little point in installing that implant. I would be better just to build your knight's Intelligence which is actually in xp point conflict with perception and intimidation. So again it has to be a very specific thing and he won't be good at other things that Hunders are good for. At the moment my thought is that if you want to do surveillance with a big group, a Hunder doesn't offer any real advantage.
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Post by grävling on Jan 15, 2015 3:28:58 GMT -5
The canine spy-net is not as easy to implement as it would seem because there's something of a skill mismatch going on. Getting 3 evo-rigged hunds and the implant that gives you +1 perception for each one is good, but then on surveillance the option that favors a large team relies on Stealth and Intelligence, whereas the option that doesn't favor a large team relies on Stealth and Perception. So if you want to spy with a pack there's little point in installing that implant. I would be better just to build your knight's Intelligence which is actually in xp point conflict with perception and intimidation. So again it has to be a very specific thing and he won't be good at other things that Hunders are good for. At the moment my thought is that if you want to do surveillance with a big group, a Hunder doesn't offer any real advantage. I thihk it would be good to rewrite this encounter type, and also add my suggestion that a pack of dogs is great for surveillance if you have evo rigging installed but useless if you do not -- your pack may see whatever is going on but has no way to report it to you. |
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Post by contributor on Jan 15, 2015 4:12:17 GMT -5
The canine spy-net is not as easy to implement as it would seem because there's something of a skill mismatch going on. Getting 3 evo-rigged hunds and the implant that gives you +1 perception for each one is good, but then on surveillance the option that favors a large team relies on Stealth and Intelligence, whereas the option that doesn't favor a large team relies on Stealth and Perception. So if you want to spy with a pack there's little point in installing that implant. I would be better just to build your knight's Intelligence which is actually in xp point conflict with perception and intimidation. So again it has to be a very specific thing and he won't be good at other things that Hunders are good for. At the moment my thought is that if you want to do surveillance with a big group, a Hunder doesn't offer any real advantage. I thihk it would be good to rewrite this encounter type, and also add my suggestion that a pack of dogs is great for surveillance if you have evo rigging installed but useless if you do not -- your pack may see whatever is going on but has no way to report it to you. ditto. errhhehm... fallen |
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Post by grävling on Jan 15, 2015 10:53:47 GMT -5
Maybe the Connectors should only give a pay bonus for Hunders with Evo Rigging installed when handing out Surveillance Missions, too.
I think that having a pack of dogs and Evo rigging should come in handy when you want to phrack a term but see that it is being watched. ... Ok, wait them out. ... Good, they seem to have left. .... Now pups -- spread out and search. Let me know if they are really gone for good or just hidden, waiting to ambush me ...
I think this encounter option should only be available for Hunders with evo rigging installed.
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Post by fallen on Jan 15, 2015 11:50:38 GMT -5
Really awesome suggestions --
1) Cyberware types that add job bonuses.
2) Special Encounter options by profession, cyberware or other requirements.
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