So. Many. Parts.

[Pakuska]

Which is awesome! But also not... Though I do like the customization. I feel really, really. REALLY. Overwhelmed and confused by the many parts and the stats that they have.

Right now its really bumming me out and making me not want to play the game anymore... I keep doubting myself whether I made the right decision, or whether this part is better on that bot. so I spend between every mission 10 to 30 minutes refitting my bots, looking at the store whether there is something better.  for the assault I try to focus on shields and damage, the siege, range, area of effect and damage, the ninja, damage and stealth actions, the science exo hacking and sensor range. and even with this focus, its very... I dont know, confusing and overwhelming I guess.

What do you guys do and how do you deal with it?

[Mick]

I know the feeling. It is very easy to fall into a state of analysis paralysis on that customization screen. It doesn't help that you need to click all over the place to browse between what you have equipped, what is in your inventory, each exo, the shop...

I think the best way to go about it is to have some general idea of what you want to pump up for each exo and just concentrate on those stats only and don't worry so much about what "secondary stats" you are getting.

For example, my assault exo is pretty much the "main" in my team. I concentrate on maxing his shields/mitigation/regen for the most part, while making sure he has solid range and ammo on his weapons. Since he's out the most I need to make sure his damage is "decent".

Siege is all about the big boom, I feed him AoE range and ammo. He pretty much just swaps in to clear out a mess when I don't feel it's safe to pick them off one by one.

Ninja I upgrade traps and sentry. He just gets the hand me downs for anything weapon related. I use him to "lure" into sentries, evade traps I don't want to waste ammo on, and in some cases he will blow up barrels if there is no way to do so w/o being in range.

Science is pretty much hacking only at this point, but he gets hand me down trap and sentry stuff that the ninja doesn't need anymore.

If I reach a point where I'm just fiddling around with secondary/tertiary stats on an exo's equipment with no change to any of the primary stuff I care about.. I leave the customization screen immediately.

[Misery]

I think it depends on what difficulty you're on.  If you're on Normal or so, then you dont have to worry about it all that much.  As Mick says, just pick a couple of important stats, focus on that, ignore the rest.

On the higher ones, you do need to concern yourself with the secondary stats and such to be effective.   But on the lower ones... feel free to just experiment.  Slap parts somewhere, and see how it affects your Exo's performance.

Eventually, you'll get the hang of it overall, and it wont be so overwhelming.

[Pakuska]

I like that word.. analysis paralysis. Try saying that three times in a row. lol. So I need to teach myself to not really care about the other three exo's and just pick a favorite... lol

@Misery Yea, I am jsut on normal, I was thinking about going to the hardest difficulty, I find it fun when they are games like dungeons of dredmor, but this is a whole.. differnt level lol, glad I did normal.

[Tridus]

On normal, every 2 or 3 levels I tend to use the remove equipment button to clear the exo and redo it with what I have now. Easier than trying to figure out if each part has an upgrade.

[Winge]

Mick's approach is the best place to start.  As Misery mentioned, on Normal, and even Hard, you don't really need perfect itemization.  Feel free to experiment some.

Another important tool to use is the 'part picker' (not sure if that's the right name).  In the dropdown box next to "Sort and Filter By," you can not only hide parts you aren't interested in, but also sort the remaining parts by the value of that stat they have.

It also helps to have a defined role for each bot.  Here are  some 'typical' roles I use, with priorities (note that I will add in other stats, but they are gravy--ie, I don't spend a lot of time on them):

Attacker:  offense really is the best offense!
1.  + Range, until my range is on par with the enemy*
2.  + % Damage on a strong weapon
3.  +% all Weapon damage
4.  +% AoE on AoE weapons, +% Ammo on single-target weapons
5.  + Range
Best exos:  Sniper, Brawler, Siege
*The Brawler and Siege can get around this to some extent

Defender:  beat enemies by letting them shoot you until they run out of ammo.  No, I am not kidding.
1.  Regen
2.  Damage Reduction
3.  +% all Shields
4.  + Shields
Best exos:  Assault.

Utility:  who says !!SCIENCE!! isn't fun?
1.  Hacking--a sad necessity
2.  Sentries, Mines, and Virus, as desired.  If using Virus, must be able to Virus at least one strong bot (DoomBot, Command Bot, Leader Bot, Shield Bot, etc)
3.  + Trap Skill Level
4.  +% all Propulsion
5.  +% all Computer
Note:  trap skill doesn't affect Virus, but you'll probably definitely want Sentries and Mines at higher difficulties, and Trap Skill is essential to those.  That is also why I (now) prefer Propulsion to Computer for the utility exo.
Best exos:  Science, Ninja

Warranty Violator:  not recommended for the faint of heart.
1.  Regen >= Overload/4
2.  Overload
3.  Damage Reduction
4.  +% all Propulsion or +% all Shields
5.  +Shields
Best exos:  Assault, Ninja (Ninja may not be able to mitigate enough of the Overload, though)

[Pakuska]

Thanks winged, thats really usefull actually. I had no idea there were multiple exo's I thought there wer eonly the default four lol. Can you really stack damage reduction that high  that they do significant less damage? most I could ahve done was around 30 ish? I have only played like 6 of the 50 days tho lol

And taht overload... Whats the use of that? I mean really, it seems so useless as it hurts you aswell, even if its 25%, I have no idea what range it has. But it seems like a skill that has no use except for clearing out enemies around you just when your best exo dies so your backup exo's dont got a hard time.

[PokerChen]

You can still stack reduction so high so as to make your assault / brawler almost invulnerable to small-arms fire. Most mooks tend to do 20~100 damage, and maximum damage reduction is somewhere around 85~90%.

If you were playing, say, Emma, for her mechanical tweaking skills, you'll get access to higher DRs faster. Having 60 raw and +50% shield stats is usually possible by 10 days. Then you get some regen to repair the rest once the firefight is over. However, I think this is frankly unnecessary at that stage of the game on normal difficulty.

[Rekka]

Yeah you can stack Damage Reduction pretty high. 6 days into the game is not that much. You'll get much better parts as you progress. As everyone said, just focus on a role for each of your exo and determine a couple of important stats to fulfill this role. It'll be much easier to pick your parts.

[Winge]

Thanks winged, thats really usefull actually. I had no idea there were multiple exo's I thought there wer eonly the default four lol. Can you really stack damage reduction that high  that they do significant less damage? most I could ahve done was around 30 ish? I have only played like 6 of the 50 days tho lol

And taht overload... Whats the use of that? I mean really, it seems so useless as it hurts you aswell, even if its 25%, I have no idea what range it has. But it seems like a skill that has no use except for clearing out enemies around you just when your best exo dies so your backup exo's dont got a hard time.

Glad to help.  Remember, those aren't hard and fast rules, just recommendations for newer players.  There are plenty of ways to build Exos to blow up Bots 

Yes, you can stack Damage Reduction.  Note, however, that damage reduction caps at 90% of incoming damage (which is still huge; most games cap at 75%).  So, with 50 DR:
Incoming Damage / Damage Taken
40 / 4
50 / 5
60 / 10
100 / 50
2000 / 1950
Damage reduction provides an excellent bonus against weaker attackers, but will not help you when a Blunder Bot attack actually connects.


Part stats and enemy stats will go up as the days go by.  30 DR by day 6 isn't bad.  By comparison, on around day 30, my Assault Exo had over 200 damage reduction.  Note that +% all Shields stats multiplies your shields stats, including Damage Reduction.  Excellent when paired with Regen.


Overload is ammo-free damage.  You probably won't have much use for it until Hard+, when ammo becomes more of an issue.  Overload provides an active and a passive ability to an Exo:
1.  Active:  Deals the overload damage to all enemy bots within 4 tiles (mousing over the Overload Icon shows the effective range).  Deals 25% of the overload damage to the Exo using the ability, reduced by Damage Reduction.
2.  Passive:  On death, deals overload damage to all enemy bots within 8 tiles.  Sort of like the Final Attack materia, if you like FFVII.

Using overload well requires 3 stats:  Overload (obviously), Damage Reduction (reduce final overload damage), and Regen (make overload damage temporary).  Here is my Assault Exo in my current Expert game:




Using Overload immediately causes 3,174 damage to every enemy bot within range.  That's a LOT of damage without an ammo cost.  Meanwhile, my Assault Exo takes the damage:
(3174 / 4) - 220 = 574*

Since 574 is less than my Regen stat of 868, I can recover all of the damage as long as I don't get hit.  That is 3174 free AoE damage that doesn't require LoS--extremely valueable, albeit somewhat situational.  Since you're on normal, try it out on an Exo you don't feel is essential.  You don't need it for Normal, but it is helping out a lot in my Expert game.


*Note:  I'm assuming the damage rounds up.  It may not; I haven't looked THAT closely.

[Penumbra]

Would it be possible to have an "auto-equip" button like from Final Fantasy? It would just stupidly assign whatever maximizes a certain stat.

Would it be optimal? No. Would it probably work for Normal difficulty? Yeah.

Might smooth over the learning curve for some users.

[BobTheJanitor]

I agree with having a bit of an overloaded feeling when it comes to equipping bots. The gameplay of that part of the game just isn't clicking for me. And normally I do enjoy comparing loot and min-maxing things. But in this case, there's a bit too much to deal with. Most of the times I have decided to stop playing, it is because I am between missions and trying to re-outfit bots with new gear, and just get overwhelmed. I feel like I want to go on to the next mission, because that part of the gameplay is appealing, but I also fear that going in under-equipped is just asking to lose, so I get sort of disheartened and step back from the game entirely.

I would actually appreciate more limitations, or more clearly delineated upgrades. I've seen situations where, because of some of the % based upgrades, a rank I green item might still be better than a rank VII purple item. If I could almost always be sure that higher rank meant generally better, that would ease the process. And there's so much stat overlap between various things that comparing them becomes a real chore. Everything is +this -that. While I do like freedom to customize, I'm finding that I don't like quite so much freedom. Maybe I'd like it better if upgrades were actually class limited. Parts that only work in one or two types of bot? I don't know, I'm just sort of brainstorming. Something equivalent to the fantasy loot tropes of cloth for casters, plate for fighters, etc. Thus giving fewer options to sift through. Or maybe I'd like it better if there were only a single upgrade slot per system and the game were balanced around that. Or maybe if the upgrades were more specific, only one and rarely two stats per item.

I don't know what would help me out here, but I know that while I like trying to pick the best thing for a slot between choices A, B, and occasionally C, I definitely am not as pleased when the choices go A through Y, and I have almost the same number of choices for 20 slots multiplied by 4 bots. It's definitely bringing down the experience for me a tiny bit.

[keith.lamothe]

@Bob: changes are coming on the customization front.  I agree with it feeling overwhelming, and I wrote it   Though a main reason for it feeling overwhelming for me is that I've been on sleep-dep for weeks with a newborn, so I didn't think that was representative, heh.

[BobTheJanitor]

@Bob: changes are coming on the customization front.  I agree with it feeling overwhelming, and I wrote it   Though a main reason for it feeling overwhelming for me is that I've been on sleep-dep for weeks with a newborn, so I didn't think that was representative, heh.

Oh, congratulations and all that! Don't stress out over it then. Focus on raising the next generation, don't worry about whining gamers. We'll always be here! And I mean always.

[keith.lamothe]

Focus on raising the next generation, don't worry about whining gamers. We'll always be here! And I mean always.

Haha, yea.  I guess if there ever were such a thing as the heat death of the universe, we could take comfort that somewhere in that uniform mass of decayed protons (or whatever), there would be certain decayed protons that were still whining about some game or another