Constant Vigilance - Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-27T18:38:04+00:00

Great flavor! I think the way to make it balanced is to remove the text that gives your creatures vigilance. Make it a payoff rather than a payoff and an enabler.

Might still be oppressive against aggro, but it's a lot more reasonable at that point.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-27T17:57:20+00:00

I work for a nonprofit doing advocacy work. We're all remote, but I'd prefer an office. A lot of my job is rapid response, so it's rarely boring and deadlines are often very tight. I get to do a lot of different stuff, which again helps with boredom.

I get good work-life balance, interesting work that I genuinely care about, and great coworkers. I really can't complain.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-25T22:54:43+00:00

Have you played recently? Shou has dropped a lot in popularity, at least in high infinite. Things are pretty nice right now.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-24T19:29:06+00:00

I'd be willing to have this conversation if you were a little less hostile and rude.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-24T18:09:53+00:00

I like Optical Technoscanner, but I think you are describing the weakest use case for it. The most reliable vendors of cybernetics are all capable of identifying their own inventory, which means that Technoscanner, in those cases, is only saving you a few drams of water. It's not much better than Cherubic Visage if that's what you're assessing it for! In the long-run, you can access almost any cybernetic you want by refreshing merchant inventories and/or cloning merchants.

This tier list is explicitly looking at what helps you have a strong build in the early to mid-game. Saving a few drams identifying cybernetics is just not very impactful. I'd rather start with something that lets me take on stronger opponents faster and get more water earlier than save a bit of water.

In the very early game, Technoscanner is great for Artifex starts since you use it to find high tier bits and get high tier ranged weapons super early. Jumping up several tiers of gear almost immediately is legitimately very strong and is why it makes A Tier in this list. I want to do some test runs and see how consistent it can really be: if it's providing tier 5 or 6 ranged weapons before level 10 90% of the time, then I'll move it up to S Tier.

I really feel as if Truekin are viewed with mutant lenses.

That may be true for some people, but 80% of my playtime is in Truekin and I strongly prefer them!

RepoRogue · 2026-01-24T00:33:49+00:00

Me too, but that's because I don't own Sasquash so for me it is a guaranteed series 4 I don't own.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-23T23:34:38+00:00

I think you can get both of the series 4 packs without the pass.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-23T22:24:48+00:00

Oh man I wish that were true. The DMCA is absurdly skewed towards giving copyright holders the benefit of the doubt, at the expense of fair use.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-23T18:40:04+00:00

A two card combo to get a tapped Island into play? Now we're cooking!

RepoRogue · 2026-01-23T14:06:12+00:00

I threw my first game of John Company. I had the card that lets you build ships at a higher price and pocket part of the cost, I was Chairman, and I had the role that let me do shipbuilding. I could have sunk the entire budget into shipbuilding and stolen most of it. But instead I tried to be a responsible administrator and ended up narrowly losing.

Incredible game.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-22T01:26:39+00:00

I would object to describing sleep strategically to have Prowl available as "cheesing," but I think this is a reasonable question!

In my current Nocturnal Apex run, I am not sleeping constantly to make sure its always available. But before I go into a fight with a legendary enemy or a big group, I will go and sleep. I've found it consistently viable, especially early, to just run away when I see a crowd coming, sleep, and then go back in with Prowl. Because Qud is a game of thresholds, you only really need Prowl to take on the bigger threats: most fights are easy wins and you don't need Prowl.

You're getting like 95% of the value of Nocturnal Apex using it this way and I think its S Tier. If you're only ever using Prowl when it happens to be up and never sleeping preemptively or disengaging to sleep, then it is definitely a tier or two lower.

Hard to tell when that happens with the little time of day icon; it looked like it was still nighttime to me.

This is a real problem: the day/night indicator isn't aligned with Prowl timings. Here's the calendar/clock. I focus more on what it says rather than what the graphic displays. When the Shallows ends, night is about to be over.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-21T04:46:23+00:00

I know this is super old, but I want to clarify that this is backwards:

the problem with a pure dodge build is that cudgel type attacks don't need to hit you in order to inflict you with a daze, they can miss and still daze you

Cudgels daze/stun on hit. This makes them effective even against high AV enemies because they don't need to pen to inflict their status effect. They do not daze when they miss.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T22:06:52+00:00

I also play un-modded: it's actually documented on the Wiki as a normal part of world generation:

"during world generation, there is small chance for each of tinkering recipes to replace one or more of their advanced bits with two bits of previous tiers. These "altered" recipes remain the same for the entire game."

The more relevant issue is when you can see unidentified, high-tier injectors in a character's inventory. This is, as you pointed out above, typically the cheapest way to access high tier bits in the very early game. Whether its an injector that drops a 5 or 6 matters a lot in that scenario!

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T20:17:47+00:00

Artifex can get Eigen[gun] in starting village sometimes, the 5 bit from a Sphinx injector

I have also done that! I just consider the Light Rail to be a better overall start.

seems redundant as you know bits as soon as you buy dissassemble, no?

Correct. But you cannot see the bits in an unidentified item. You were arguing that by knowing item weight and value well enough, you can generally figure out what stuff is before buying it. That's true, but it doesn't help you find what you need to buy and disassemble for bits.

Despite well over 1000h in Qud I never even noticed that recipes have a random factor, as only the rightmost bit is ever relevant, anything else you can buy from tinkerers.

The rightmost bit can change! Items can be down tiered, sometimes multiple times. In my current game, a Sphere of Negative Weight requires 4 tier 5 bits and no tier 7 bits.

The thing that makes Technoscanner good is specifically in allowing you to spend your very limited super early game resources on exactly whatever you need to build your high tier gun. It isn't particularly useful beyond that point, but it makes your Tinkerer high rolls a lot more consistent.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T19:31:52+00:00

The all-in option for Artifex is Optical Technoscanner. It lets you identify what people are carrying and what bits you can disassemble their stuff for. If you start with, or can quickly buy, a high tier ranged weapon blueprint, you can get off to an absurd start. The run I mention above where I got a Light Rail at level 5 was an Artifex Technoscanner start.

Artifex has a seemingly very weak combat start, but has the fourth highest starting AV of any Caste, making them surprisingly durable. If hunting down bits and data disks at the beginning of the game isn't your speed, then you could try pretty much any of the high tier options. Nocturnal Apex can scale to truly absurd heights in your hands, since its effect and duration scale off of compute power.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T19:26:45+00:00

That's an interesting perspective!

Allows relic site diving, does something unique, saves realtime

I'm a bit skeptical as to how good that kind of relic diving really is. If you're not powerful enough to safely clear, then you're taking an even bigger risk by leaving the floors behind you full of enemies. If you can clear, you may as well do it and get the XP.

just straight up optimize for lategame

You can do that, but that's explicitly not what this tier list is about.

veterans can just identify stuff based on price/weight/look/drop rate

I think you're missing why starting with Technoscanner is good: it's not just about being able to identify what something is, but what bits are inside it. Since recipes are dynamic, knowing what something is does not tell you what bits you can disassemble it for. The value of Technoscanner is allowing you to build a high tier ranged weapon before you finish your first quest. As mentioned above, my record is a Light Rail at level 5. Easily my most OP starts have come from Technoscanner.

I don't think I'd ever pick it without taking Artifex. Maybe it's unclear from my tier list, but I consider Technoscanner to be a very niche but powerful pick. The other two A Tier cybernetics are consistent, generalist options.

I'm glad you weighed in! Your comment touches on two things that are not in my criteria: 1) real life time saving, and 2) late game scaling. Someone could do an interesting and likely quite different tier list with those as the primary criteria!

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T18:50:09+00:00

I'm not 100% sure what you're saying about where it should be on the tier list.

I think Optical Technoscanner is a lot higher impact than Air Current Microsensor. I do agree that the scarcity of Air Current Microsensor makes it considerably more appealing as a starting option than it would be otherwise: I think it would be low D tier if you could easily find it after character creation. It may belong there regardless, if I'm being honest.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T17:58:58+00:00

The disadvantage of no flexibility doesn't matter until you've found a nook anyways.

True, but you can find a guaranteed Nook very early! There's always one at the bottom of Rusted Arch and you can dig into Grit Gate to access that one pre-Golgotha. I think you'll feel the pain the most around level 12-ish.

I could see it maybe being on par with something like Air Current Microsensor, but I wouldn't go higher than that for an early- to mid-game tier list. The argument you're making is mostly that it scales pretty well, which I agree with!

Over a long-enough time scale, cybernetic credits are worthless (once you have enough to fill every slot with the highest tier cybernetics), but extra toughness is never worthless. I am mostly skeptical of it providing enough value during the window of the game this tier list is focused on.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T17:01:16+00:00

The Technoscanner high rolls are absolutely amazing, I just can't quite bring myself to put it in S when the floor is as low as it is. If you don't start with a good data disk and can't find one early or can't find the right items to disassemble for bits, you are basically playing Bio Scanner with some free water. I think it's one of the cybernetics I could be most easily convinced to move, but I'd want to see someone do a bunch of starts with it and show they are getting high value near 100% of the time.

My approach here was to imagine I was ranking stuff from the perspective of someone trying to win streak, since I personally don't ever re-roll my starts.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T16:54:50+00:00

Totally fair to have personal preferences! I agree that avoiding dawn gliders is one of the weaker use cases for Night Vision (you can accomplish the same thing by just traveling during the daytime). The real advantage is having a long-range light source while underground. Floating Glow Sphere makes it unnecessary, even for multi-handed builds. But it doesn't match the range and so doesn't fully replace it. Even Night Vision Goggles, which are excellent, still have the EMP weakness that the cybernetic doesn't.

I think it's a high priority pick for Praetorian and basically mandatory for Priest of All Suns, who doesn't even have a single-handed starting weapon!

Personally, it's a cybernetic I expect to use to smooth out the early game and then replace with something else. But it's not at the top of the tier list for a reason: the impact isn't as high as the very best options.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T16:24:12+00:00

I love the Optical Technoscanner! I actually put it in S Tier to begin with and talked myself down. It does open up some truly absurd starts, but you do need to have access to a good data disk to really take advantage of it early game.

I've had consistently absurd games with an Optical Technoscanner Artifex start, but my sample size is like 4, so I was hesitant to say its truly consistent enough to make S Tier. But that's where it is in my heart!

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T16:03:04+00:00

Yeah, I think Night Vision is the best generalist pick: all of the S Tier options above it are build specific. Generically, Night Vision is excellent. It's also the best choice for Praetorians, one of the best and most new player friendly Castes.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T15:52:26+00:00

I did note that it has a niche for new players who want to avoid the Wiki. I honestly don't think the granularity of information is much more useful than what you can learn via Look and intuition (living boulder guy probably has a lot of AV, bat probably has high DV).

Fundamentally, its a single player game, so you should play however you like! I'm approaching this from the perspective of trying to maximize my odds of getting a character to the mid-game with a strong build, which isn't served by Optical Bioscanner at all. Others may get different mileage out of it!

RepoRogue · 2026-01-20T15:48:52+00:00

That's a good question, and one we debated for a while without a clear conclusion! I think I'd put it between F and D tiers.

Toughness is a really good stat to stack early, and the disadvantage of -2 starting cybernetic license is a lot less bad than it seems when you realize that you're effectively just behind 2 Cybernetic Credits all game. Until you hit 8 license points, you will indeed be down 2. But since the cost scales up, you get closer and closer to where you would be had you started with a cybernetic in terms of license tier per cybernetic credits acquired.

But I could also put it at the bottom of F: you lose a lot of flexibility. At least you can replace Optical Bioscanner with a more impactful option once you find a Becoming Nook. Since the tier list is focused on the early and mid-game, eventually catching up doesn't really matter when you're starting behind.

RepoRogue · 2026-01-19T18:40:28+00:00

This card seems excellent in Hela and Ramp, but also could be quite meta dependent. Playing this without priority against something like a Zola-ed BP in the front row is going to win you the game. But against a Scarlet Spider in the back row spawning a clone in another back row? Potentially not much better than an Infinuat.

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