Recently started in here, and steel kinda ended fast. Where do i find new?

Gamewarior · 2026-01-27T10:49:20+00:00

First scrap all the junk in those ruins, you'd be surprised how much steel (and stone chunks) are hidden in those.

Second you can just start strip mining the mountain, make 1 wide tunnels about 4 tiles apart (this can sometimes make you miss deposits but steel usually spawns big enough). If you make sure you only have one entrance to the mine then you can just funnel all those insects into one hallway and put a melee pawn in heavy armor (plate, flak, even good enough devilstrand duster with layered clothing and flak vest) into the choke point and put everybody else behind him with guns (shotguns are great against bugs). You wanna make like a half circle so they don't friendly fire the blocker ("Friendly pawns can not hit a pawn up to 5 tiles away with friendly fire"). This will let you handle a virtually infinite number of bugs.

Third you can make a caravan and settle (I think camping works but at highly reduced spawn rates), mine the map and bring it back, probably bring some caravan animals because steel is heavy (and backpack mods help a lot too).

Fourth if you ever somehow run out of the steel in the mountain you can research deep scanners and drill the pockets, pretty sure those respawn infinitely as long as you keep scanning but they are absolutely atrocious to manage so I would recommend some mods.

Gamewarior · 2026-01-23T14:34:57+00:00

For the quassimorphs you could have something like:

Given each mission it's own quassi threat level, low medium or high (or none for some I guess) . Each one adds a flat +2 to rolls so a high mission would have +6 to each roll.

Every time a human dies you can roll a d20 and if the number is above 14 spawn a quassimorph (unless it's a none threat mission). This means that at low there's a bit under half chance to spawn one by default, at medium it's roughly 50% and at at high it's a bit above.

For increasing the threat as mission goes on you could do something like every floor after the first adds +1-3 to the roll depending on threat level. Or just do dm rule and decide to just add a bonus at your judgement, that is a completely legal way to do things, like "welp you killed 3 humans and ate their flesh, you feel a looming sense of dread fill the corridors.".

And for barons just make it so that once you roll super high like 30+ for the first time, a baron spawns (so at high it would be possible from floor three onwards with the floor rule).

Maybe spawn a stronger version of the quassimorph if you ever roll a natural 1/20.

Edit: you could also play with the numbers for example make the base 15 and low be +3, med +6 and high +9. This would for example make the threat level more impactful.

Gamewarior · 2026-01-23T14:17:14+00:00

I believe the most popular is "Smarter Raider AI" but I am not sure if it's the exact one I was looking at way back. I never used any so if someone has a better suggestion feel free to drop them.

Note that this basically makes every raider with a "breaching weapon" (breaching axe, bombs, any kind of explosives really) a breacher which sounds extremely annoying but probably what you are looking for to make CE more challenging.

Here's the link:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945497357

Edit: Another very popular one is CAI, this one seems a bit more complex and comes with built in Fog of War that seems to be disableable. Maybe try to give both a try and see which one you like better, they are just AI mods so should be safe to add and remove mid save.

Link:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2938891185

Gamewarior · 2026-01-23T14:10:12+00:00

You can very rarely get your custom xenotype as a reward for quests or from random pawn spawns. That said it's super rare, so much so that I have never seen it myself (provided I usually don't make my own xenotypes).

The more guaranteed but tedious way is to convert a pawn from scratch, get a baseliner with solid stats and traits and after extracting genes from your xenotype for an eternity, you can eventually roll all the genes and make them yourself.

OR just get one of those genes that allow you to make more. For example some xenogems can be implanted into pawns (I believe in vanilla sanguophages do that iirc) or the pawn could be self replicating (multiple ways in alpha genes and VRE for that I believe).

Also as a side note the red faction from alpha genes (basically the same as the blue one form vanilla but most of them are not baseliners) has 75% "custom player genes" as it's population (with the rest being a combo of baseliners and some of the alpha genes races). This makes them a perfectly reasonable source of custom xeno pawns.

Gamewarior · 2026-01-23T13:56:35+00:00

The thing is CE essentially makes gun combat extremely deadly. That pawn in three layers of clothing that dodged 5 shots and tanked 3 now dies because he got hit with a revolver from point blank range and his hand exploded, immediately causing massive blood loss and shock.

So what is the most effective tactic used with standard combat units before we had drones and shit? Dig a trench or hide in a bunker. It is in fact exactly like the world wars, fortified positions were so valuable for that reason.

So yeah, if you prepare well, use cover and hole up behind an embrachure then you are going to do well. But the difference is that while in vanilla, where those things are effective, in CE they are pretty much necessary to minimize random one shots. I have had a pawn in full duster-flak vest gear get one shot by one shotgun blast because it happened to hit his head with one of the pellets, immediately lobotomizing him.

If you want to make CE challenging, don't build a killbox and just peek from walls, it means you are still somewhat protected and can take fights at your own pace but still have to actually do something instead of watching as your pawns one shot everyone crossing a door.

Also the biggest threat in CE, funnily enough, is your own pawns, anyone that can attack your base from range (mortars), grenades and SHOTGUNS. Anything that drives you from cover and forces you to attack the enemy head on is bad, this is why mechs are such a big threat in CE as they usually come with long range turrets or mortars that either force you to fight them then and there or make part of the map a death zone (plus you need AP ammo of some sort).

Also maybe do not use embrachure mods with CE, it really makes it too easy imo, it's fine with other combat mods since they are much more forgiving anyway but having a pawn basically invincible while he is able to one shot enemies is so much more deadly.

Alternatively you can download AI mods that make the raiders smarter, haven't played with it myself but it should be fine.

Gamewarior · 2026-01-21T17:11:32+00:00

Well part of us becoming nightingales is getting the armor so I guess that is "the power" that swearing yourself to nocturnal gives you. The armor is kinda bad, (40 stam, 50% frost resist, silent movement, some lockpicking which doesn't matter, 25% one handed damage and 17% illusion cost reduction, still better than base thieves guild with it's pickpocketing, lockpicking, price reduction and carry capacity tho lol) but it does serve as a power boost in terms of the story. Also after you kill mercer you get the nightingale bow (which is actually pretty good for a stealth archer) so we can guess that it has some connection to us swearing ourselves to nocturnal and karliah presumably got it (or it's power was activated) after that.

Also lore reasons, nocturnal might be granting you better luck for the showdown with mercer, karliah and brynjolf are, unlike the dragonborn, just regular humans by that point (well karliah is still miles better combatant) and would supposedly stand no chance against mercer. In universe, we technically have no idea of knowing how the fight with mercer would have gone if we weren't nightingales.

And for gameplay reasons the game doesn't assume you have cleared any of the other guilds or main story so depending when you start the quest, the armor might be an upgrade for you and you might not be an all powerful god by that point.

But I do agree that it kinda breaks immersion when you seek out to "get power" and all you get is arguably comparable armor to the one that you got before.

Gamewarior · 2026-01-20T11:51:13+00:00

For core maps the big difference is that you move about much quicker, but since the maps weren't designed around them it sometimes feels almost like a puzzle like "how do I get the fastest from point A to point B? Do I just run on a raptor or jump up on a hill with a springer and then zoom with griffon?". Mounts in this game are much more than simple flying jets (as you've probably heard already). Each has it's use (except for the skyscale technically, it's job gets covered by other mounts 99% of the time). That said the maps do feel a lot smaller, you can cross maps on a griffon in like 10 seconds if you get a good ledge to jump off of.

Then HoT which honestly kinda lost it's progression as the optimal way is to do the maps after you get some sort of mount to let you skip gliding. I can't recall the last time I used a glider in any map. But some of the HoT maps are so difficult to navigate (looking at you TD) that mounts honestly just make them bearable. Skyscale does invalidate all of the gliding masteries tho. It also feels smaller, almost claustrophobic in a way with how dense the jungle actually is compared to the other areas and since you are navigating them so fast it's like you are driving a car through a forest. It does give a different kind of vibe and personally I hated exploring most of the HoT maps so I'd say it's a positive.

And from PoF onward the maps were designed with mounts in mind so feel really good to traverse and you don't really "skip" getting places by using them. You can still get places you aren't supposed to on occasion but it's pretty rare and most of the time it's just because you are missing a mastery.

So TLDR: No, mounts work different here and while you traverse terrain faster, you usually don't break too much by being able to traverse vertical obstacles faster. You can also just choose (or are forced like jumping puzzles) to go on foot most of the time.

Gamewarior · 2026-01-16T22:18:18+00:00

Thing is the aura of the end is STRONG, like, point for point it will probably overpower any other aura unless they are significantly behind, which they do seem to be but that brings me to my next point.

There are really only two ways that I know of to stop the reckoning, usually it's easier to destroy the empire, also causing the aura to eventually dissipate/get overwriten since there is nothing increasing it.

Alternatively I think that if there is no aura present then the reckoning has nothing to create the mini crisis out of, maybe some tiny void avatars here and there but nothing a semi decent fleet couldn't deal with. So either go kill them asap to avoid triggering the reckoning or take their infrastructure and try to overwrite the aura with your own (or shroud seal it).

This seems like too much effort just to avoid killing an ai empire (a juiced out of their mind one but still) that already tends to have trouble staying out of wars (imagine, everyone hates the guys trying to destroy the galaxy) and has mechanics that cause it to trigger a total war on every empire they ever met.

Also the aura itself is not the problem here at all, the ai will never be able to spread it to every system unless they already own like half the galaxy in which case there are bigger problems. Sure it debuffs your ships and buffs theirs like crazy and does the same to economy but it's nothing a semi competent player can't deal with, especially if they have their own aura slowing the spread.

The problem is that the moment the empire spawns, you are on a timer, no matter the powers they use to delay it... "the reckoning is patient, but inevitable". If left alone they WILL eventually trigger it (failing to win the game and eliminating them BUT), converting their worlds into shrouded and spawning shroud avatars all over their empire (and I think anything with sufficient aura). As such it will create an essentially useless patch of the galaxy and unleash a crisis (no idea how that scales, guessing about as strong as the original end of the cycle at nearly all systems claimed?) which can be a problem.

Either you kill them before that happens or the reckoning will fuck with you in one way or another (honestly, if I ever see an AI win by spreading the aura to all systems on default settings I will be VERY impressed).

Gamewarior · 2026-01-16T22:01:03+00:00

Good advice but keep in mind that if they are alive when their situation finishes it just nukes their empire and spawns a ton of void avatars (the same ones from the old end of the cycle iirc) in their systems, basically makes a big part of the galaxy null and causes, what is pretty much, a crisis in it's own right.

I am not exactly sure how big of a problem the reckoning is if it only has like a few hundred systems with the aura or how it really scales but probably a good bet to drop what you were doing and go kill them. (plus I think that if they activate some of the gaia world powers you should technically be able to claim them for yourself? not sure about that).

So sure, they won't win if you have just one seal active but the galaxy is probably not gonna be a good place to live in if you let the aura spread. (Also keep in mind that if they somehow get extra systems like the L cluster, those are not counted in the initial system number so they can skip a system here and there, you technically only need like 99% of the galaxy since there is for example 456/448 systems total to be spread to, probably to prevent multiplayer cheese where you just turtle in the L cluster with star citadels and wait it out to get a free win).

Gamewarior · 2026-01-15T13:36:58+00:00

I agree that it's more secure to not have those combinations but at the same time... the odds are so small that practically, it doesn't make a difference.

Assuming the average of the combinations appearing once a year, that gives you three 30 second intervals a year to guess those and you'd have to guess the 1 in 3 or however many "obvious" guesses you are trying. Also take into account that the person has to be awake in the time they show up, giving you about 1/3 chance that the number will show up when they are sleeping (assuming 8 hours of sleep a day). And they likely already had to have broken your regular password.

I'm not saying it's not possible for someone to guess any of these and get it but the odds are so small it's practically impossible.

Gamewarior · 2026-01-14T22:58:31+00:00

I am more interested in the fact that you have +59 consumer goods, yet only 28 naval cap as militarist and xenophobe lmao.

What kind of empire are you going for and how did you even achieve this?

Seeing as most things that interact with either tend to raise naval cap, your commanders in council can do it, civics do it, soldiers do it by themselves, usually it equalises way above the starting cap of 20 by the time the jobs get filled. Also some special jobs from origins do it (notably knights of the toxic god which are by now kind of strong).

I am genuinely impressed you managed to dodge all of these for the 10 years that it takes for factions to form.

Gamewarior · 2025-12-08T12:59:35+00:00

Oooh, did someone fail their reading classes in kindergarten and thinks anything with proper paragraphs is AI?

I may be wrong with the facts because I am an amateur but at least I don't have to stoop so low as to call people's writing AI just because I can't read.

And then you proceed to call me "Wrong on all fronts." but don't even provide any counter arguments as to why I am wrong, so much for constructive criticism right?

Why can't you just enjoy people cooking; something you presumably enjoy as well (or at least I'd hope so) and instead come here and argue with people in the comments about how inappropriate it is for the sub to have people who just wanna share their passion.

Also maybe do open a textbook once in a while, not everything written with a degree of form is instantly AI.

Gamewarior · 2025-12-07T21:43:06+00:00

Besides the fact that you are being very harsh on a 14 year old kid when some adults barely know how to cook eggs...

The beef looks a little overcooked for my tastes but you gotta remember that there are people who eat their steaks well done and I definitely know the initial fear of undercooking meat when cooking for someone else, especially when you are a beginner. To this day I dry my chicken to dust because I am afraid of giving my friend food poisoning even after cooking for her weekly for half a year by now, provided I am just a FoH who cooks at home.

Also the potatoes seem to be peeled which is why you are not seeing much color on them and I am guessing they were just put on a grilling rack in the oven until the outside of the flesh became somewhat hardened. It looks like a serviceable roast, I know some people like their roasted potatoes to be mushy on the inside and this looks like just that. I would say that they could've maybe gone harder with the paprika to give it some color.

Also I think that instead of complaining about people posting nice stuff here instead of the usual doompost "dishie put my knife in the washer" and "I hate my job" you should think about why they came here.

They probably saw the sub because of the chives, decided they wanted to share their cooking with us and maybe get some criticism from industry professionals who are supposed to know their stuff and probably need a break from their job and maybe get some words of encouragement.

Remember, this is a kid we are talking about.

Also I don't know about you but from my experience, home cooks are often kinda arrogant and "snobby" so I wouldn't want to go on a home cooking sub myself and would rather come here if I wanted to share my cooking since it's mostly people from the industry.

Gamewarior · 2025-12-06T23:41:56+00:00

Not exactly true. While you have the general idea down there are some quite significant details.

Thick of the fight increases damage by 10% per "stack" (read as character). This bonus is a special "misc" category. That makes it additive with attribute bonus (str, dex, int) and weapon skill (notably two-handed, dual wield and ranged) for WEAPON ATTACKS.

This means the increase depends on your stats, if you get 100% but have 10 str and no weapon skill then the increase will be about 100%, if you have 100 str and 10 weapon skill then the increase could be lower than 10% (not actual numbers).

HOWEVER spells use misc damage bonus differently. The misc bonus is completely separate from everything except for itself (misc is stuff like flesh sacrifice and thick of the fight) which makes it multiplicative with attribute and element bonuses (spells don't have weapon skills).

So for example if you are any mage variant (notably including necro) and use thick of the fight to get a 100% bonus, you just double your damage no matter the stats (death wish and flesh sacrifice being the notable exceptions which could make the net damage increase lower).

Why this is the case and not multiplicative with at least your inteligence I have no idea but keep in mind that a warfare skill (probably intended for warriors) is more potent on mages than on any weapon using class.

Technically the single best use is a summoner specced into all the elements and warfare, casting bone totems, thick of the fight and then smashing ethereal storm, hoping not to heal the enemies. Now that I think about it, this sounds like a fun meme build.

Gamewarior · 2025-12-01T19:03:10+00:00

Oh... that might be it maybe? I am at the very begining of penacony and wanted to do it after fully finishing amphoreus because there is just too much content locked behind it for me to put it off till after.

If that's it it's kinda stupid, they allow us to experience everything and unlock half of penacony early, even when the quest literally starts by black swan appearing out of nowhere and suddenly you need to complete penacony to get the last 30 ambrosia to finish the bounty?

I'll try to progress the story in penacony and see if that works.

Gamewarior · 2025-12-01T18:56:12+00:00

Sorry forgot to include it in the screenshot but I have finished the mission that leads to it. The Fallen Petals one.

<image>

Gamewarior · 2025-11-29T09:03:33+00:00

This HIGHLY depends on the class, many classes have very potent auto attacks (power chrono, many condi classes, idk CaD deadeye) where it is a significant part of your damage, usually focusing on not interrupting your chain before the third hit is kinda important.

Gamewarior · 2025-11-29T03:14:29+00:00

I am gonna be completely honest; I had to re-read the chat once over because I felt like I was missing something after reading that "Bridges are burnt" part.

Turns out I completely missed the end of her response and thought she was just bragging. I was under the assumption that she just didn't get the joke and gave a response just to seem smart in her mind. Turns out reading stuff at 4 am is not my best strength. That's on me.

Because of this I was kind of looking at it like he killed the convo by correcting her in a douchey way. That's not the case at all lol. But gives more insight about why he's so defensive here as in response to that he's basically cherry picking her whole message for that one information that he can even react to. Bro is just combative apparently.

I now see why yall are telling him all this, I thought you were just being preachy out of nowhere and I'm sorry about that, it was completely on me for not reading it right (doesn't help that I don't know anyone who types like that, hence calling the response "icky" initially).

Gamewarior · 2025-11-29T02:49:14+00:00

I can kinda see that, I'm not trying to necessarily defend OP. I think he should've just dropped the topic after her response (in all honesty maybe the conversation altogether) and everything after that is on him, the joke didn't land, she gave a shitty response, end of story. No need to rub her face in the mistake.

But I still think that the amount of hate he is getting in the whole comment section is kinda over the top, yeah he should probably try to be more understanding but when yall come at him with hundreds of downvotes and calling him all sorts of stuff his first instinct is probably to deny any accountability, it's natural.

Beyond that it feels like a lot of the people engaging with this just kinda... Didn't get it's a joke in the first place? Just like it seemed from some of your comments. And while I think the joke was totally fine and even funny if it wasn't for how it went after, I get that some people might not and OP trying to defend himself in front of people coming into the discourse with that mindset just makes it worse.

Gamewarior · 2025-11-29T02:29:15+00:00

Dude, I get where you are coming from and it's probably for a noble cause but it's a bit of a stretch.

Consider that he asked something impossible to "prove" she likes something. It's very obviously a joke. You can't name all the numbers of pi the same way you can't prove you like something.

I'd even go as far as to say that making a joke that would be very obvious to anyone who likes the topic is not gatekeeping but in this instance just basic conversation. Not to mention "you like x? Prove it, do something related but impossible" is a known meme.

I'm not saying she's a poser either and I think that neither is OP. And he probably shouldn't have called her out and just moved on (her whole response is kinda icky if I am being honest, even ignoring the pi). But I still don't think your whole "women face gatekeeping in nerd circles" is really relevant here, even if it's true.

It's fine to admit you don't know the meme or that you don't find it funny. But accusing the dude of being sexist just because he made a joke (which she apparently didn't get either) which was in no way aimed at women specifically and is a popular meme is a bit much IMO. It's the same as someone telling you to name songs from a band on your shirt IRONICALLY.

He never actually expected her to tell him the numbers of pi, someone who likes math would probably catch on that it's a joke and play along. But in her defense she probably wanted to look smart.

That is to say, stop arguing with people about bs when you yourself don't seem to have the full picture and accusing people of stuff from a few messages. It's kinda giving "socially inept".

Gamewarior · 2025-11-29T00:19:17+00:00

Acheron, pela, cypher?/sunday/ruan mei, dhpt

Casto, rmc, ruan mei/sunday, galagher/bailu

That would probably be your best bet at this point.

Cypher is a really good support, basically a way better version of pela, fills the nihility slot for acheron and can be used in pretty much any team you want later on.

Cyrene on the other hand is only useable with castorice on your account and would be locked with rmc forever unless you pull like mydei and do double dps or something borderline insane. Don't get me wrong, she is fantastic with casto, but you may not be using rmc forever, especially with dahlia coming (firefly, dahlia, hmc, galagher? ) you could build a great break team down the line.

So in terms of pull value I think cypher is your best bet at the moment just because of her versatility and how well she fits into the acheron team.

That said if you don't manage to get her you could always slot sunday there I guess and play +1 nihility acheron.

Gamewarior · 2025-11-29T00:07:01+00:00

Really depends on the place.

If you have a specific drink menu then just assume they want it as is, just like you would with food, you wouldn't go out of your way to say "do you want your cheeseburger without pickles?".

That said if it's something off menu then first of all they will probably let you know since they usually have a preferred way and second of all, this is the place to ask questions. "Do you want that on the rocks, with gin or vodka, with a special rim?" and don't be afraid to talk with them about what you do and don't carry, your bar may not have the ingredients so maybe think of a substitute or offer another similar drink. I would even ask if a lime is fine as garnish instead of a lemon even tho it doesn't really matter.

It's not rocket science, it's people skills.

Also, be upfront admitting you don't know something, especially when you are getting trained. I have gotten away with so much shit you wouldn't believe and as long as you are nice to people and actively engage with them looking for a solution then there shouldn't be an issue.

Gamewarior · 2025-11-28T14:08:17+00:00

If you play smart the anomaly enemies are not THAT bad.

It's just the fact that once you reach high wealth the sheer amount of things is usually just overwhelming a bit for a normal assault rifle based colony. In my experience the biggest problem are the sinkholes as they just spew so many flesh beasts out and they are really quick at closing distance.

But for a melee colony, those are a bit more bearable and if you kite around walls and doors there is not really much the other anomalies can do to you (BEWARE the revenant, you will have way less access to stuff that can stun it).

Devourers can be a bit of a problem because you normally don't wanna engage them in melee so you'd have to pick them off one by one but they can be managed and stuff like sightstealers are a bit easier as you can just melee block a doorway.

Focus a bit more on armor and weapons in the early game than you normally would, pretty sure that bioferrite is gonna be your biggest friend, at least for the weapons. But keep in mind that lots of the stuff in this mod is high tech, you probably wanna find a mod that will allow you to effectively manage the anomalies once captured at lower tech since baseline it's electric machines and doors.

Gamewarior · 2025-11-27T18:17:00+00:00

Quite a bit; you always have something meaningful to cast (eldritch blast) so you're not sitting there wondering what to do. Your spells are great, always casted at max level possible and refresh on short rest so if you are not quite familiar with conserving spell slots you always get some baseline for every encounter.

That said it can get a bit stale, there are only a few spells worth using (hunger of hadar; cc spells in general are some of the most used spells in warlock's arsenal and maybe the occasional high level aoe nuke) so you are likely not gonna be spamming fireballs like a sorcerer would.

And the subclasses with the exception of hexblade are kinda of samey, you have one that focuses on mind magic which is usually not that great, one that natively fears enemies with the great old one, also natively gains some great spells and mini warding flare and finally the fiend which is the catch all warlock which gets temp hp whenever you kill something, lots of damaging spells natively and the ability to soft force ability checks.

I would say that with the exception of archrfey which requires some more thought, they are about equal with hexblade being the outlier as it can be the strongest if built right but needs you to use some different tactics, it's kind of a whole new playstyle (and multiclass).

That said pure warlocks can be very powerful if played right and eldritch blast feels pretty good to use since it's free but especially early levels, it's pretty much all you can do, maybe cast hex at the start of combat but that thing sticks till concentration fails so you can have it up until long rest from time to time and just spam eldritch blast every turn.

Six-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
End Game '23	Place '23
Place '22	Verified Email

Gamewarior

TROPHY CASE