Arcanium Fast Travel

Is it possible to to get good with guns and still have enough skill points to make and wield some good tech melee weapons?

It might be if you plan it well, depending on your starting stats. I dont know why you'd want to master both though, once you get to the decent guns melee is superfluous. It is mainly helpful in the beginning while your guns have a poor death/bullet ratio.

I'm at level 48 and only expert in melee, and doctor in two tech disciplines (electrical and gunsmithing). By using manuals I could make electro-armour that seems to be the best one I've found due to its huge damage reduction. I can also create the Tesla rod and the Tesla Gun, two awesome weapons. In all I am quite happy with these two disciplines, the few desirable items I cant make would have required extensive study of things like therapeutics and herbology…

I dont really know where I should have skimped on points though. Some cha for an extra follower is useful in the beginning, and one level of explosives and throwing makes molotov cocktails (a true life saver) available. I guess I could have pumped dex instead of strength, but the gear I carry is quite heavy… Maybe I could have ignored gunsmithy as some of the good guns (repeater rifle, elephant gun, and if you choose the right side in a quest the hand cannon) can be found anyway. Mechanical plate or whatever it is called can be found when you train to master of firearms or through the main quest.

You have 64 points to spend in total so you can do the maths if you have time to spare

It is a pain to find good melee weapons for your technological followers though… If you have neutral followers (as most fighters are) it is better to equip them with magical weapons and armour.

The thing that stinks about going tech is that it seems that most of the weapons and armor can just be found. So why put points in those disciplines? Or am I misunderstanding you?

I would be mad if I spent a point to learn a certain schematic, and then found that schematic as part of a quest or sitting in some chest in a cave. Are the schematics you find unique?

Yes, they are. As far as I remember, all of the found/bought schematics are not available otherwise.

There's a spell called Harm. The effect is instant with no duration between the attacks, so if you click really fast you can kill everything in seconds as long as you have the mana for it. After a few levels of that the game got too repetitive for me

You know, this is entirely you fault. One of the best things in the game is that you have countless ways to dispose of enemies.

I do remember hearing that the game was very unbalanced in favor of magic.

Which is exactly why I'm going tech.

………if I ever get around to playing it.

Originally Posted by JDR13
The thing that stinks about going tech is that it seems that most of the weapons and armor can just be found. So why put points in those disciplines? Or am I misunderstanding you?

I would be mad if I spent a point to learn a certain schematic, and then found that schematic as part of a quest or sitting in some chest in a cave. Are the schematics you find unique?

Found schematics are unique. Basically you get a rating for each tech discipline based upon the learned schematic (from 10 for the first schematic to 100 for the "doctorate") and the found schematics usually require ratings in one or two tech disciplines. You can temporarily raise your rating (by your intelligence score) in a discipline by having a manual (bought at the university in Tarant) in your inventory.

To some extent you are right. A tech-user can find a lot of things, but some of the very best pieces of equipment have to be constructed from schematics. Some of the good finished tech stuff that can be found is quite hard to find though (the first suit of mechanized plate, the repeater rifle, and the hand cannon comes to mind), and some of it is only found very late (my second suit of mechanized plate). The superb ones that I made (the finished items MIGHT be available, I havent explored half of the games) are:

Learned:
lvl1 explosives Molotov cocktail. Incredibly useful. Cannot be bought.
lvl2 electrical: Charged ring. Gives 2 dex which helps your melee/dodge skill and increases the speed of attack, also saves points. The only tech ring?
lvl7 electrical: Tesla rod. Does a ton of damage.

Found/bought:
Mechanised gun (requires roughly level 6 gunsmithy). Does the same damage as the hand cannon but is about 3 times as fast (and eats ten times the ammo). Good mid-game weapon.
Tesla gun: Requires a tesla rod as ingredient and high level gunsmithing, so in practice high level in both gunsmithing and electrical..
Ancient gun (not sure about the name of this one) requires high level gunsmithy. Is essentially a better version of the hand cannon. Faster and more damaging than the elephant gun.
Electro-armour: High level electrical + low level mechanical (or was it smithing, the skill level you get from having a manual in your inventory is enough at any rate). This armour is lighter than mechanised plate, has worse AC but MUCH better damage reduction, which in my experience is superior to AC. Strong enemies will hit you anyway… Combine this with the electrical top-hat (or whatever it is called) and you will soak up much of what the enemy throws at you.

Poisoned/pyrotechnical axes, swords, and bows (didnt have enough smithing skill to make those, but they have good stats)…

Then there is some recipe for a drug that increases all your primary stats permanently, but it requires so many points in the otherwise weak therapeutics and herbology techs that I didnt find it worthwhile (and I didnt have enough points left to spend when I found the schematic anyway).

And I think technological aptitutde gives you magic resistance. This is however a mixed blessing, it means your mages wont heal you either

So therapeutics basically just lets you make potions that give you temporary stat boost right? Not really worth it I take it?

Looking at the descriptions in the manual, it looks like Herbology lets you make some pretty powerful potions.