KingsGambit
Caldari Knights
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Posted - 2008.10.30 17:12:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Akita T
For instance, you'd expect Science/Hacking to be a regular dice roll against a computer difficulty, but no, you have this whole mini-game which can end badly and NOT give you a second chance unless you're level 18 and picked one of the perks that allows you to do a re-hack. Same thing goes for the lockpick skill, where not only do you have that mini-game, BUT you also have limited consumables that can get destroyed (or you can try to force the lock, which can also fail, and then you have to get the actual key OR again rely on one of those level 18+ perks).
Oh... and the "funny" part ? I hear there's a level cap at 20. Heh. Sure, it's high-ish, but still... damn... if I can get the XP, why the heck stop me at L20 ?
And the last nagging bit is the way the Action Points (AP) are used up. But that deserves an entire new paragraph.
The science and lockpicking minigames I found relatively straightforward. I never once found I ran out of bobby pins (though when I was low, I would exit and start again if I thought it was about to break). The password thing was generally okay, once you notice the patterns in the available words. On the safe side tho, I did always save *at* the unhacked terminal just in case, but I think I only ever locked out 2-3 times in the game. Tip: Pick a good first guess and it makes the whole process easier. Either one that's obvious (eg. ends -ING or -ED) or one that shares letter in common with more other words.
Re: Level cap...the game doesn't scale enemies (thank heavens) like Oblivion did, and though fights can be tough till about lvl 12-13, after that point they just become...easier. By lvl 20 you can stand still in the center of a room, absorbing fire from multiple miniguns and calmly take them all out one by one. You need only use one of your 100+ stimpaks to regain your lost health. (At least I could with toughness and cyborg perks  ).
Originally by: Akita T
You have an AP bar that slowly recharges. I guess it recharges in a couple of seconds or so, it's kind of hard to keep track during combat. ...I don't see it mentioned anywhere exactly how much AP each action uses (as a number, I mean). The AP are used when you queue up shots, so if you queue 4 shots and the first one kills a target, you just WASTED a lot of AP.
THe APs used varies between weapons...as best as I could tell, it varies by the power of the individual shot (eg. a single shotgun blast uses > burst from assault rifle, > 10mm sub, > 10mm pistol). It seemed about 10-15s to fully recharge and I think was reasonably well implemented, and invaluable for playing on the 360 without a mouse. If you kill your enemy on the first blast, it stops there and wastes no more. You can queue one volley on enemy 1, then 2 more on another guy knowing the first will drop. Also, there's a lvl 20 perk that replenishes all your APs if you kill your enemy in VATS mode, which is supremely good. You can kill enemy one on first volley, get 1-3 more shots at enemy 2, exit with full AP and go right b ack in.
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