Best way to melee in Fallout Tactics?

[phatty]

Greetings all, I tried this in the past and thought I would give it a go again -- specifically 1 person squad melee, insane difficulty, tough guy turned on. Yep, I'm a masochist. Actually though, I couldn't finish the first mission solo hand to hand, I kept dying at the end in that building with the head bandit.

I've got lots of questions, but my main one would have to be: Hand to Hand, or Melee combat?

The powerfist does the most damage, but I think the cattle prod does more on overload. Then there's using pure unarmed, which does fantastic damage at a certain level range (forget which) but then actually goes down at higher levels! I was pretty disappointed by this game glitch, and never leveled up high enough to see if it was corrected at a later level.

The character I decided on was:

Clappa Trap
65 year old female
ST 10
PE 1
EN 3
CH 8
IN 7
AG 10
lek 1
with unarmed, throwing sneak tagged
traits: kamikaze and heavy-handed

She did pretty good, and I managed to finish the first 3 missions. I would have finished Macomb too, but the game crashed after I left the exit grid and I gave up the game in frustration. Does anyone have any tips for having less in-game crashes? They are *quite* annoying with tough guy turned on.

other than that, anyone have any tips for solo hand hand combat? And yes I realize that some missions require more than one squad member, I'll just have them stand at the beginning until they're needed. I also realize that at some point it will probably be too damn hard, but it would be fun to see how far I could get

phatty

 

[alec]

I have yet to finish Fallout Tactics with a melee squad, but I doubt I ever will. I use some recruits that have melee and sneak tagged (like Rage) to do some killing early on in the game, but after the Beastlords missions, I basically stop using it, because it's not very effective against super mutants anymore (especially not in CTB - you get shred to pieces by their big guns before you can get to them). It's good for stealth assassinations (sneak up to the mutant, hit him in one of his legs with a Power Fist and he won't be able to get up anymore), but so is a character with a high sneak skill and a Neostead Combat SG equipped, if you get my drift. Anyway, if you definitely feel like trying it, you should. Maybe you should think about recruiting a Deathclaw into your squad as well - heck, make a Deathclaw squad, recruit all of them and see how far you can get. Get them a nice auxiliary skill, like throwing, so they can lob grenades at the enemy before decapitating them. And consider using a Ripper, I remember Rage being very effective with it.

 

[phatty]

whoop! finished the first mission

Well I managed to finally beat the first mission with a solo melee character on insane with tough guy on. I learned the lesson: you don't have to kill everybody to finish the mission. Also, enemies will fire at you as long as you are in weapons range, no matter what the chances to hit you are. Leads to a few boring minutes of draining someone's weapon of ammo, but then I clean 'em up in hand to hand combat!

Probably the most difficult parts are those dudes with the colt 45s -- those things can do up to 44 points of damage in a single triple shot burst! It makes your stimpack supply dwindle rather quickly.

I decided to modify my character a bit to make use of divine favour a bit more:

ST - 8
PE - 1
EN - 5
CH - 8
IN - 8
AG - 9
LK - 1

This way divine favour not only gets me more perks, but acts like a +1 agility. Strength still gets maxed out a 12 eventually with the power armor, and the points can go to a few more hitpoints and skill points. 8)

Has anyone found any real use for luck? It does increase the chance for criticals, but only to cause broken limbs, blindess, etc. I find it doesn't actually increase your chances to inflict damage. And as for critically missing, it doesn't seem to occur any more often with luck 1 vs. luck 10.

 

[alec]

Re: whoop! finished the first mission

I decided to modify my character a bit to make use of divine favour a bit more:

ST - 8
PE - 1
EN - 5
CH - 8
IN - 8
AG - 9
LK - 1

This way divine favour not only gets me more perks, but acts like a +1 agility. Strength still gets maxed out a 12 eventually with the power armor, and the points can go to a few more hitpoints and skill points.

I doubt whether the Divine Favour perk is worth the stat points you have to put into Charisma. I mean, Divine Favour is a level 14 perk, which means you'll probably take it when you reach level 15. This means, you'll get a perk at level 17, 19, 21 and 23. You'll most likely never reach level 25 in this game (I usually reach level 24 during the last half of the last mission - I don't do much random encounters, though, but still). Without the Divine Favour perk you would get a new perk at level 18, 21 and 24. Bwah, that means one extra perk and one lousy stat point that goes to your highest stat. For that you had to pump your Charisma way up to 8. I usually go for CH 2 and the Loner perk. Works great if you tag Small Guns, Sneak and Throwing, equip yourself with a Neostead Combat SG and take the Silent Running perk.

Has anyone found any real use for luck? It does increase the chance for criticals, but only to cause broken limbs, blindess, etc. I find it doesn't actually increase your chances to inflict damage. And as for critically missing, it doesn't seem to occur any more often with luck 1 vs. luck 10.

Any real use for Luck? Well, my friend, I guess it all depends upon which perks you like. Me, I kind of like More Criticals (level 6, LK 6) and/or Better Criticals (PE 6, AG 4, LK 6). In my case: less charm, more luck.

Most recent character:

Vertigo
Female (Sex does have a game effect: female characters can get past certain obstacles which male characters can't get past: small openings and such)

ST 6 (with APA that will get me a perfect 10)
PE 10 (see all evil, hear all evil, ...)
EN 3 (this can suffer: it's either shooting from a long range or sneaking up on enemies and blasting them away with a shotgun in ONE try - with the Elixir, this will become a bewildering 4))
CH 2 (I don't like nobody and nobody likes me, and that's the way I like it)
IN 10 (da brain, man)
AG 10 (oh yeah, baby)
LK 6 (to get the good perks)

As you can see, that makes a total of 47 stat points, so I got the GIFTED trait. The second trait is more loose, sometimes I pick Small Frame to get the extra stat point (which I then put into Endurance), sometimes I choose Fast Shot (because I play in CTB anyway, and because there's enough recruits that can do targetted shots, anyway). Last time I played, though, I took the Kamikaze trait. Great stuff! Great when you got a high Sneak skill and have a good shotgun.

 

[Lank]

I have found that melee is pretty pointless in the single player missions as soon as you get to your first real fight with super mutants... I believe it's St. Louis, I may be wrong though. It's the one where you're on a huge battlefield, and you get an APC.

Hand to hand can be fairly useful in multi, though. I have made good use of a Divine Favor character that I made level 25. He has a power fist, a bunch of perks that give him extra mobility, and to top it off I made sure he had both Slayer and Silient Death.

It's a damn shame I couldn't also manage to get his perception high enough to get Better Criticals.

 

[[Roe] Snake]

Use a Minigun and throw it to your enemy ;-P

 

[alec]

Re: As far as mele goes I have found that.....

The sneak skill is also fun to use if its high enough to allow you to approach a target while your sentry mode is set to defensive. once you have manuvered close enouth to your enemy switch the sentry mode to agressive

The sneak skill is indeed one of the best auxiliary skills in the game. I always take it for my main character.

i cant testify to this but it seems that the program gives you a little boost when you attack while sneaking.

That's an interesting statement, but I doubt it really gives you an actual boost when you attack. It think it just has to do with the fact that you are the first one to attack while your opponent is still unaware of your presence. Most of the time you can get two shots fired before he can even react, and that of course gives you one hell of an advantage (even more so if you have a high Agility). Also, it might have to do with your traits. Maybe you took Finesse or Kamikaze. Kamikaze rocks big time for stealthy characters (+25% damage), but I wouldn't recommend it for someone who plays the game for the first or second time, since it minimizes your armor class, and stealthy characters shouldn't be wearing much armor in the first place.

 

[alec]

I look to give her 'silent running', 'tunnel rat', and 'flexible'.

Ah, a well-rounded sneaker is a good one. 'Silent running' and 'tunnel rat' are almost obligatory in that case. I don't know about 'flexible', though, but that's probably because I play FOT in CTB mode. It might be useful when playing in individual or squad TB mode. Probably gives you a huge advantage in version 1.13 (no overwatch).

Wouldn't it be neat if there was effective silencer in the game that when used didnt cause you to be instantly detected but rather simply eroded your present sneak skill during the engagement by 20% a pop.

There was a feature like that in Star Trek Away Team. Soundcones. Nice feature. Stupid game.

I wonder if frontal, rear, and flank attacks have the same internal modifiers for combat resolution or does the game use 'points of position' as a + or - modifier, its an ancient gaming concept.

I have no idea. Hell, I wonder if even the programmers know.
My guess? Yes, they have the same modifiers.
Why? Just a hunch.
Maybe someone else has looked into this...