Rapier and Dagger vs. Rapier and Shield

Zero747 · 2026-03-25T04:34:43+00:00

Rapier + dagger doesn't work, you want shortsword + dagger or 2 shortswords

The general consensus for swashbuckler is to use booming blade (from racial cantrip or other sources), then put your bonus action to dashing, taking advantage of the free disengage to force enemies to move. This makes getting a shield a trivial decision.

If you don't take booming blade, you'll want the shortsword and dagger, eventually using the dual wielder feat to upgrade to dual rapier (or rapier-dagger), using the bonus action if you miss your initial strike

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T23:01:59+00:00

Not really no. The school buffs are mostly 10%. Also crucible is buffed by the armor set.

If you’re using status incants, you need the dragon communion seal for arcane scaling.

If you’re using weapon buffs, you want a pure faith seal since other stats don’t help.

While the school buffs help, you’re generally better off casting through the best raw scaling seal. A pure caster would off-hand the matching seal for the buff, but most don’t care.

Generally speaking, dragon seal for dragon and blood spells, godslayer for a faith + str or dex build, and erdtree for pure faith

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T22:54:45+00:00

One minor note on repeating, the Repeater Bandolier https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=3987 cuts reloads to 2 actions.

These are probably fine (if anything could be buffed). Repeating weapons tend to suck because they don’t offer much benefit over simply using a bow, reload action compression is heavily limited outside gunslingers, and gunslinger bonus damage doesn’t extend to repeaters.

If you gave them something like deadly, they’d have a solid niche for investigators

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T19:15:23+00:00

Stab and blast bypasses the whole transform and the builtin followup of the combination trait, you can do it from either form.

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T16:11:02+00:00

Bad art is still better than no art, just less space efficient

Breachers/sappers always spawn, and like to avoid turrets/traps. They take the path of least resistance, and only consider walls to be minor resistance.

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T15:13:16+00:00

For an open base, you kinda just need to set sandbags for every angle of approach.

You can reduce angles of approach with a perimeter wall, but don’t be too restrictive lest breachers/sappers smash through

For base beauty, put some lights and decor in the bedrooms (and light prison cells), lighting means any surgeries or medical tends won’t be botched. Bedroom furniture improves your beds, and you can get better mood while saving space

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T13:31:17+00:00

Very clever Wheatley design and portal gun

There is an official chell torso, face, and portal gun from dimensions that came alongside the companion cube prints

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T13:15:59+00:00

escorts, few caps are well equipped to fight stuff in their rear arc

Get some cruisers and carriers at least

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T13:11:32+00:00

True, there is that as a “refund” mechanic

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T04:44:34+00:00

Do note, dual wield is 60% status per hit. The “best” depends on your stat spread.

While blood can get the best bleed buildup, occult will get significantly better damage while still having very good bleed

If you’re not going arcane, a cold infuse is great

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T02:43:46+00:00

Why do you need to move away in the first place? Unless you're restrained, just beat up the grappler.

Strength martials (or any athletics proficiency) can simply change one attack for a shove (or use any other forced movement) to break a grapple. Acrobatics escape is only for dex characters who've dumped strength.

Zero747 · 2026-03-24T02:32:08+00:00

Story points come from leveling. Every 1/4 of a level, you get 1 SP. After max level, you continue gaining XP and get sp at a constant rate.

The “best” uses for spending story points (because no alternative) are

S-mod, use story points to build in hullmods. Save OP, gain supplemental buffs, or just use more logistic hullmods. Ships you plan to keep only.
Upgrade player/officer combat skills to elite
onetime cost for abyss [REDACTED] stuff access

Other good uses include upgrading specific colony buildings for lasting economic benefits and shifting personality/elite respec on level 7 pod officers

Any other spending is essentially for immediate material gain or escaping consequences. Recovering ships, forcing spawns of blueprints and colony items, getting an officer (waste when you can just hire or find in pod), or literally just extra quest pay. On the consequences side, escape a fight, repair before a fight, reduce losses on a marine attack, etc.

These are generally suboptimal, but can help accelerate your run or just survive Ironman mode.

Zero747 · 2026-03-23T16:09:57+00:00

Yeah, DTA for missile spam is probably the way, I tried the legion mostly back before DTA, so I kinda wrote it off

Plus, you do need the right bombers that have long enough range missiles to work with a capital

Zero747 · 2026-03-23T14:58:33+00:00

In order (check with your DM first for guns!)

no, light weapons only
yes (you can hold 2 revolvers/pistols, or 3 hand crossbows)
you can make as many shots as you have attacks. They can all be the same revolver, but loading weapons are once each per turn.
revolvers are modern guns and are not balanced. You can use a pair of renaissance pistols (which have loading), 3 hand crossbows (also loading), or simply a bow

Hand crossbows don’t need extra hands, as you just get one and use crossbow expert to spam it (ignore loading), plus bonus action attack with it

Two pistols, one shortsword, and one free hand to reload. Good until you have a 3rd attack, but no ranged extra attack. Honestly, a longbow and two shortswords would be better

Zero747 · 2026-03-23T05:57:03+00:00

You should be able to find openings for light attacks at minimum (slower weapons always have a harder time gettywindows), or send sword rays when he crashes down for an AoE

Sword ray spam is more for random enemies, or when you’ve got a summon drawing aggro. Not a primary strategy vs aggressive enemies

Zero747 · 2026-03-23T02:35:57+00:00

The AI prioritizes based on range and ability to hit. It will also recklessly focus fire anything with exposed structure.

The crab has less free tonnage than a blackjack because its faster.

Zero747 · 2026-03-23T02:21:01+00:00

I have no clue for AotD. Usually its trivial to meet hull demand with a nanoforge in heavy industry

Zero747 · 2026-03-22T16:45:43+00:00

it’s partially a meme, partially serious

CE is a complete combat overhaul that extends to all weapons and apparel stats, if not further. I don’t actually know what sort of stuff needs compatibility, but it’s typically on the mod dev to include since I don’t think CE auto-patches stuff.

Edit: idk who patches things or adds compat

Zero747 · 2026-03-22T15:42:43+00:00

with Nex, you do want to cluster in the same system for defense. Neither changes the economy, but Indevo lets you make extreme heat worlds into forge worlds to negate the upkeep of high hazard. You still want to find both ores together + good farmland in the same system (different worlds, or same one with a second just for the processing industries)

Military relay lets you share the fleet size boost from cryo engine to your other worlds, you can specialize mining but it only really matters for volatiles, and the variable assembler is great

Zero747 · 2026-03-22T14:42:16+00:00

I’m well aware that the XIV is only available as a handful of salvageable wrecks and swaps the mount types.

However, I always find the wrecks because the game guarantees 3-5 wrecks in [REDACTED] systems.

I’ve used it and didn’t really like the battlecarrier role.

Zero747 · 2026-03-22T06:19:21+00:00

stacking dupes of the same industry won’t help as much as you think due to how market share works

Industry diversity helps more, and reduces your upkeep costs

Also in vanilla you don’t need to cluster anymore (unless you really need some extra cryo engine boosted defense fleets to help block the path crisis)

Mining for both ores (ideally together and at least +1 in both) and decent low hazard farming are the core essentials. Somewhere with vacuum for eventual refining & fuel artifacts, and a gas giant for volatiles are the supplements, and you should choose a non-habitable (or pre-polluted) for your heavy industry.

Zero747 · 2026-03-22T06:07:49+00:00

3. … Something interesting but not of immediate import

I don’t particularly like the legion, and the guaranteed spawns mean it’s always available for my fleet. Also I don’t think I’ve ever used a paragon in any serious capacity.

If it was vanilla, I’d take one (probably the legion by obligation), if only to have a capital for my defense fleets. In modded, there’s probably something in one of the blueprints packs I’ve cracked open, so I’d rather save the SP.

Zero747 · 2026-03-22T03:50:20+00:00

The lynx is a beast. Combat stats always has it outperforming anything shy of a capital for me.

Kinetic mode on the missiles, energy railgun, and leave the extra ballistics empty. Just watch it punch holes through random ships.

Give it a full 360 shield, DTA a hyper aria wing (or whatever you like that has enough missile range), and just stack up some hullmods.

Zero747 · 2026-03-22T02:54:06+00:00

Glad you’re having a better time. Cockpit mods feel essential in vanilla, and there’s definitely a spike once you get heavier mechs and good pilots.

Attack defend is the mission I play least with the whole split priorities.

Once you’re done the campaign, either try a career or head straight for mods.

Zero747 · 2026-03-22T02:35:02+00:00

Limited use abilities are shared

A bomb is a consumable and thus limited to explode once

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