Serious difficulties

[aaronious]

I have lots of questions:

I know the FaQ deals with dissipating heat, but I can't seem to get my heat down enough to complete my first negotiation mission. (At least, I assume that is the problem.)

My negotiation is 4 (I am not allowed to raise my Per above 2 for some reason, even when I have the 6XP needed,) and every time I even look sideways at the Los Val area, I get attacked by a whole 5-man army! And their initiative and athletics are good enough to keep up with me if I run so my only option is to kill them.

So I have managed a few times now to get my total heat down to just 8 but still failed the negotiation, and instantly lost all my cred with Fennian and had to build it up again by running more missions for them. Because of the closed system (just 3 factions, and only 1 connector in Fennian anyway,) I have to either take a bunch of LV jobs or reduce my Fennian rating further by cancelling the 99% LV jobs that they offer since you can't just say, "no" in the first place - the connector will never offer you a different job.

For some reason I imagined that I would have some chance of accomplishing something by the time I had used 121XP, but I am as useless now as I ever was. How the heck am I supposed to ever get out of the I-93 tunnels?

Current stats:
Body 4

Strength 3
Athletics 6
Brawling 5

Dex 2
Stealth 2
Firearms 4

Mind 2

Intelligence 1
Electronics 2
Hacking 0

Perception 2
Negotiate 4
Intimidate 4

Cash 8K

[fallen]

aaronious - sorry you are stuck in those damn tunnels. What Difficulty are you playing on? I am removing the "five man armies" right now to help, because there is no point in corner characters who are stuck down in the tunnels. So,

1) combat will now be a bit easier (your high XP won't ruin you).
2) 4 Negotiate should be good enough to complete the Negotiate missions if your Heat / Reputation is under control.
3) If Negotiation jobs are not working for you, try taking a job from Flynn and canceling it if you don't think you can successfully do it. Then take another job from him and complete it is you can. Doing this you can gain positive Rep overall, but it will be harder. Also, take a lot of crammers sold by Heaven so you never have to sleep (which will reduce your Fennian Reputation).
4) What difficulty are you playing on? No characters were supposed to get "stuck" in the tunnels, though some have because of nasty Rumors and Conflicts which can occur. We are trying to resolve that bug.

Really sorry that you have gotten stuck! We will work on a few things to try to make this easier!

[fallen]

aaronious - we just found a setting in the Los V area of the tunnels that make Negotiate jobs unfairly hard. We will fix this for the next release!

[Cory Trese]

1) Your heat is not the reason for the failing Negotiation jobs. The Knight's very weak "Mind" of 2 is the main issue.

2) You cannot raise Perception any higher because of the very low Mind score. This is outlined in detail in the Help file -- that may help.

3) The 5-man army is quickly dispatched by my 90XP CyberSword -- but in CK it all depends on how you spend those XP and in what order. By raising Skills like Athletics to twice the Strength attribute, you're essentially getting a bad deal for the XP points you are spending.

4) Take the jobs against the LV, you're Connectors know what they're doing. The Connector has a specific mission and doesn't have an unlimited list of jobs. If you really can't do the job they need done today, go hang out and rest up at a Hotel.

5) The tutorial is trying to keep you in the Tunnels until you're ready to make it in the NBZ. At the point where you have those stats with 121 XP you might have dug yourself into a bit of a hole. You can get out, but it will take some focused XP spending for the next 50 or so points.

Your stat list is a great example of how 121XP can either make a beast of a CyberSword or leave the character out of balance and struggling. I'd try some Implanted Cyberware, spend the 8K on gloves and upgraded armor to help compensate.

[Cory Trese]

aaronious -- also, what difficulty are you playing on? I was doing some testing and noticed that these missions are much more difficult on the higher settings.

If you're playing on Normal then I'm going to agree with Andrew -- we've got something out of balance on our end that needs to be addressed.

Please forgive us these issues -- the story you're playing now is pretty new, it's only been out on the market collecting feedback for a few weeks.

[grävling]

I'm in slight disagreement here -- pushing my Athletics to 5 at 2x the rate is exactly what I do to start the game as well. But there was no need to increase your brawling so much, as the difference between a brawling of 3 and a brawling of 5 is not that significant.

What is significant is -- have you bought a cyan coloured shock glove from Black Row yet? That is the weapon you should be using.

But your real problem is your AP.

Your action points determine how many actions you get in a combat round. You want lots of them. Anything under 7 (unaugmented by stims) is a problem. 5 or below is a severe problem. So how do you get more AP?

The AP Formula is simple: 3 + (dex + int + per)/2 rounded DOWN.
So you have 3 + (2 + 1 + 2)/2 rounded DOWN
or 3 + 5/2 rounded DOWN
or 3 + 2
or 5

Your AP total is so terrible you basically cannot walk across town without help. Which is what you have discovered for yourself. You need to start putting points into dex, int, and per. Which means that you need to raise your Mind so that you can support more int and per. (Your body can support more dex already).

New CKs need to prioritise (more AP) and more ATH in their training, until they have ATH of 5 and AP of 7. You should concentrate on whichever you are poorest at, so while I think that raising your ATH to 5 was a fine idea, AP should have been your first priority.

Let me know if you have any questions. And let me know how it goes.

Also, you should be walking around stimmed to 10 or 11 MP at all times. That way when you end up in combat you will get between 0 and 2 extra AP every round. And you need every edge you can get in this regard, because you are in a very bad way right now.

Grävling

[grävling]

Also -- about your heat problem.

You will generate less heat if you stun your opponents into unconsciousness (defeat them with MP damage) with your shock glove, rather than if you kill them with physical point damage. And -- most important -- never ever press the Normal exit button again while you are in the tunnels. It is 'stealth exit' for you, sir. This generates much less heat. It means that you won't get to loot the corpses. Big deal. You have tons of money anyway. And, in fact, you earn more money by being able to stay out longer before heat drives you to a hotel, using stealth exits, than you get by selling the street drugs and ammo you find when you loot corpses.

When you get out to the NBZ, you may want to loot corpses for a while, as some of them drop interesting V-chips full of interesting information. But since you are complaining of heat, stop looting them now and use the Stealth exit until you are willing to take on some more for the sake of curiosity.

[fallen]

There are also taser guns available for sale in tunnels, so you don't have to be a CyberSword to use the tactic grävling is mentioning.

[Ahab]

In fact, there's a Blasta Gun at Tunnel Guns, so you don't have to wait until you have access to Black Row. Unfortunately, Dickson doesn't mention anything about the difference between lethal and non-lethal weapons.

[grävling]

If you want a non-lethal gun, buy a Blasta gun (in the tunnels) or Ares blaster weapon (in the Black Row). Tasers are for impressing fools in bars with -- blaster guns are much more effective.

But a cyan glove and a brawling of 3 beats a blaster gun and a firearms of 6, so unless you have some compelling reason not to use the glove (i.e. female 2 sandbox cannot use them at all) you will be better off using it.

[aaronious]

Okay, I think I misled you guys - I am having no problem handling the armies. My problem is with the fallout from handling said armies.

I only stun (gamma and shock glove,)

Maybe stealth exit will fix my heat gain, though.

[grävling]

Jan 14, 2013 12:28:32 GMT -5 aaronious said:

Okay, I think I misled you guys - I am having no problem handling the armies. My problem is with the fallout from handling said armies.

I only stun (gamma and shock glove,)

Maybe stealth exit will fix my heat gain, though.

It will make you gain heat more slowly in the future but will not fix the problem you already have. So will only taking message and package missions -- it is the threaten, negotiate and capture/kill missions that really add the heat.

In order to reduce heat you can

a) get killed. As long as you are not playing on Brutal (or Crazy and have 0XP to train), this is a fine way to reduce heat
b)sleep in a hotel where you didn't sleep last time. So alternate between your loft in the Black Row (if you have the latest version of the game), the Gaslight, and the Canal Hotel. The problem with this is that it lowers your good rep with the Fennians as well.
c) spend a day or so in a VIP lounge (not one in a place having a heat wave) drinking Vudka and listening to rumours. This will have to wait until you get to the NBZ.
d)do work for the Los V (or whoever you have a bad rep with). Again, this will have to wait until you get to the NBZ.

So if you are close to being able to leave, then concentrate on getting out of the tunnels fast -- your options for reducing heat are much better in the NBZ. If, on the other hand, you are still midway through your training with Mallor -- he is still around -- then consider whether just sleeping your rep down to 0 with the Los V, even if it makes your rep 0 with the Fennians as well is a better idea. You will be back to the cheap message and package missions, and you really do need to work on your AP.

[fallen]

Dickson will soon add some dialog about non-lethal weapons. Thanks for all the feedback and help everybody!

[aaronious]

A couple of people have asked me what difficulty I am playing on now - it is custom, easy with insta-death.

I will not reduce heat by dying. I WON'T!

I wish there was an option to buy a different car to reduce heat...

[aaronious]

Nope, still not working. My heat is at zero, negotiation is still 6, and I have failed negotiations twice at Dripside.

Can't get out of the tunnels if I can't complete these missions!