Difference between revisions of "User:Penguinpyro/Penguinpyro's Retcon Walkthrough"

Latest revision as of 15:50, 2 November 2011

Welcome. This is Penguinpyro's guide to getting through Retcon efficiently, step by step, as you level up.

My approach aims to get a decent load of mettle while still doing quests with convenience and speed. Not exactly blazing fast speedruns, but still plenty fast enough so that you don't feel quagmired. And you get a load of shiny goodness.

This is the general Retcon Guide for general tips, which you probably followed this link to.

CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS

Anyway...

Retcon Settings

My suggestion for Retcon selection:
First run: Naturalist, 5 pulls, Diet, No Perm Skills, no sidekick. Mettle: 16.

• The Skill you should perm first is Trample of the Rhino. It can make a hair-pulling-ly frustrating fight against the Mick or the Fusion Octotron turn into a cakewalk. A very very violent cakewalk. But still a cakewalk. The "Tame" ability makes leveling up much faster as well, so it's a good choice for retcon beginners.
• 5 pulls is my favorite, since I only need about 5. 10 is more pulls than I need, and zero makes it maddeningly difficult to get good gear.
  

Your results may vary.

• Diet is statistically more efficient, and it gives more mettle. Which I like.
• No Perm Skills. The only perm skill you can have at this point is Procompletion Pro. If you don't have it, No Perm Skills isn't a loss, if you do have it, you only lose six turns a day, which is well worth the mettle.

Either way, you get a very rewarding +5 mettle.

• No Sidekick. I find the permanent sidekicks to be rather weak at low level, so I prefer the +2 mettle. Again, your results and preferences may vary.

Later runs: Any class, 5 pulls, Diet, Perm Skills but only class skills can level, no sidekick. Mettle: 13

• Since you already have the. I recommend Gadgeteer the most, since its excellent combat stats and easy self-healing make patrolling a breeze, but you should explore all classes to get all perms and certain class-specific items.
• Permed class skills are very valuable if you pick correctly. It's a very small price to pay if you can only dump skill points into class-specific powers, since those permed skills still provide valuable benefits at level 0, and the class powers are usually equally valuable. Only exception is, in my opinion, the Elementalist, who doesn't have very good skills to put points into until level 6.
• Everything else is unchanged from the first run for the same reasons.

Before You Reset Your Life

• Copied from Retcon Guide*

All optional, but these precautions may save you a lot of trouble later.

• If you have positronic computers, swap them with electronic ones. You're going to lose whatever you have installed in your computer labs.
• Obtain as many as you can/want of the "items" to pull (listed below).
• If you don't want extra items cluttering up your Deep Storage screen, clear out your inventory by putting stuff in your Momento case, storing it in Hideout (don't forget it's there), or selling it.
• Make sure your Sidekick has at least the skills Jujitsu expert, Documentarian, Flea market trader and Egyptian knife fighter/Karate expert.
  

Note: I use Jujitsu Expert when fighting bosses, Documentarian for general patrolling and Flea Market Trader for getting quest items.

Right, So Now You're in Pajamas and This All Seems Strangely Familiar To You...

This section is assuming you stayed fairly close to my suggestions in terms of pulls and Food/Items. This guide complements the Retcon_Guide, so, please read that first. Read the Quests guides in this wiki if you need specifics for the quests.

First things first.

Your first pulls should include these, in order of priority. This assumes this is your first retcon. See below for the appropriate sections for later runs.

• Gold coin/blue chip- Very important. They'll give you plenty of cash when sold, so you won't have to grind for chips to level up.
• A Talisman of your choice- I really like the Swedish Navy Wrench and Paradox Naught, but any Talisman you like will do. Just don't stick with any beginning Talisman.
• Lexura Infides X-8 or Paradime Device. Preferably the latter, but the former is more available.
• Any Items of the Month you have and can use.
• Number one fan/Baseball emerald- Very useful for the +3 PP regeneration. You can buff yourself or cast offensive spells a lot with these in hand. Mostly useful if you have a lot of permed buffs which you'd like to stock up on early.
• - On the first few runs, you should recycle your foil equipment by pulling/ignoring them and try to "collect the whole set" over the next few runs. In later runs, you should be pulling Embossed Emblem

• All mettle medal items if you have any- They're free pulls, so use the second dropbox to get them for free. Assemble Supersolid Mettle Medal if you want to.

First day

So, once you get your pulls, this should be your first day.

1. Equip as much of your pulled stuff as you can, including Talisman and transportation. Fill in the rest of the equipment slots from Pliant's shop. Assemble clothing with Gold Foil if you want to.
2. Sell Gold Coins/Blue chips.
3. Beat up people in Neighboring and neighborly neighborhood until you get to level 2. Remember that leveling up refills HP and PP, so you can level up strategically at moments of low HP and PP.
4. Be sure to spend excess PP buffing yourself. It may just save your skin at one point or another.
5. Continue beating up people in the Neighborhood until you get the level 1 quest encounter. Visit the hospital, go back to the Neighborhood, patrol until quest is finished.
6. Then, visit the Galleria Shops. That'll start the level 2 quest. Continue the quest by beating up people in the Tavern, going back to the Galleria shops every time you have a quest encounter. Get the last encounter as well as the Steel Knuckles.
7. Now that you have the Steel Knuckles, wait until 11:00 or after, beat up Big John Steele. Don't forget to visit the Galleria beforehand to hide the knuckles and then retrieve them in the bathroom. It can be easy to forget John Steele while you're having fun in the sewers, so watch out.
8. CAFFEINE! Black Market's Gingerette and Gingerelle is your best choice for now. If they don't it available, University Coffee shop will suffice. (If you feel lucky, you can try to hit level 5 without caffeine or only 6 caffeine used up, then pull/buy an appropriate amount of Mister Teas.)
9. SUGAR! If you picked a sugar run, get some sugar. Only good places to get sugar at the moment are Galleria shops or loot from enemies.
10. When you finish, or in the meantime, explore the sewers. Eventually, you'll get to level 3 and start the sewer quest by visiting Rand.
11. When ready for the Sewer quests, go into the Dank and Rusty Maze in the sewers, and complete the level 3 quest.
12. If you need chips or something else to distract you at level 3, visit the Hint Giver for the appropriate B-Quest. Equip the detector and adventure in the sewers proper (not the Maze) to collect.
13. Hit level 4, at least visit Rand for the lv 4 quest.
14. If you've finished the B-quest, embark on the level four quest. Keep in mind this is a fairly hard environment to be in.
15. Sell unnecessary items. Keep in mind some may come in handy for assembling/welding later, so if in doubt, look them up in the wiki to see what can be assembled out of them.

• If you get beat up, either visit the Hospital, use healing spells (if a Psion or Gadgeteer) or just rest. Don't be afraid to rest often- it can get bumpy if you lack decent dodging.

By this point, you should be level 4 or barely level 5 and done with the level 3 quest, as well as comfortably rich.

Notable Items:

• Flak Helmet, BDU Pants and ballistic vest are available at level 4. These are almost as good as the gold foil clothes under most conditions, and superior if you're having trouble with defense.
• Gas Mask- If you don't have a good level 1 helmet (like the filigreed foil hat), this is an excellent choice.
• Riot Shield- Good for defense and general grinding, available at level 4. If you have Rolled Dahl Doll, use that for quests.
• Skeptic Sandals- I find these preferable to the army boots, since the 20% Intellect bonus also translates to an initiative bonus and spell damage bonus, at the sacrifice of one measly point of defensive power.
• Black Box- Hey, why not? You don't have too much use for offhands at the very start, so you might as well get those IOUs.
• Gloves- there aren't any especially good gloves at this level, so don't worry about it.
• Assembling the Filigreed foil hat or gilded leggings is optional, since the early levels don't need that kind of a combat boost. gold-plated poncho on the other hand, is really useful since the extra PP can be used to stock up on buffs early. Regardless, there are better things to be using your one gold foil for.

Second day:

Pull your choice of these items, in order of recommended priority.

• Mister Tea or Scalpel/Bray Energy Drinks - Caffeine for level 5 or six, which either are or you will be soon. Lots of bonus turns! Get two. If you don't have these, visit the Black Market or University coffee shop again. Don't forget the energy drinks leave room for 2 more caffeine points, which gingerette/gingerelle should be used foor.
• Night cap, deluxe Lux Leather chair, Wiggum wigwam- These enhance resting. Which you may be doing often. Get one of these- I recommend the Wiggum Wigwam most. It's fine if you don't have these.
• Positronic/Electronic Computers-Save yourself time on the level 5 quest. It's likely you won't have one on you at the time, but if so, no big deal.
• Rolled Doll dahl- The Rolled Doll dahl isn't so useful for the first day's quests. Now, it is. Equip it only when you need non-combat encounters, including quests.
• repeating rifle/mighty quill- Very powerful weapons at these levels. Definitely worthy of use.
• Harbor Pearl/Sub-Ma-Car- You might have time left over to start the level 6 quest, which requires one of these items to complete. And Remember: Elementalists do NOT need items to swim.
• Bass-O-Matic 77- It's very unlikely, but in the event you actually manage to approach the end of the level 6 quest, you'll need this. So pull if if you have no other pulls to make.

1. Finish level 3 quest if you already haven't. Finish level 4 quest. Beware- the enemies in the protest are pretty strong, so you will be resting often. Spam offensive spells if you must.
2. Get some better equipment at Bazooko's Bayside shop as it becomes available as you level up.
3. Level up when you're ready for it. Grind in the City of lost robots if you must to get to level 5.
4. Start level 5 quest. You'll need at least one computer. If you don't or can't pull one, buy appropriate items from Aaron's Computer Shop, beat up Lost Robots until you get the items, assemble, install Decrypt software and then either decrypt mangled data plates or create a second computer.
5. Once you're satisfied with your computer situation, adventure in the casino until you beat up counsel Harry. It'll take some time to finish the quest, so be patient. Equip a flashlight if you have trouble finding the locked room key.
6. Go back to Rand and get shouted at by the Mick. Start level 6 quest if you can. If not, adventure wherever you want until the next day. If you want a challenge, go to the Bayside docks and search for a Harbor Pearl if you don't already have underwater abilities. Beware- the docks are hard!

Notable Items:

-Embossed Emblem- Assemble this as soon as possible, if possible. 4 XP and a slight stun chance is too much to pass up. -Work Gloves - No fumbles? Very, very handy. Hard to get at this point though.

Midgame - Meet the Mick

Third day!

Pulls:

• Bass-O-Matic. With one in hand, your mid-level-6-quest reward can be chips instead of a weapon.
• Harbor Pearl. Necessary for level 6 quest.
• Foyal crown/PDA - Bonus XP can speed up leveling and that makes combat easier. If you have a choice between the two, go for the crown.
• Mighty quill/Repeating rifle/Recoil foil rifle/Foil foil- All good weapons to pull.
• Phial of Samuels - Only available to veterans due to limited release, but if you have it, it's going to make patrolling and looting far easier.

1. Start level 6 quest, get a harbor pearl (can be looted from the docks if you can handle it) or Sub-ma-Car to allow you to swim if you aren't an Elementalist. You want to avoid using Bayside Diving Shop items, but if you have no other choice, it's not a great loss.
2. Once you find the Bicycle for Two Fish. You can pull the Bass-o-matic if you have one and select the "loot" for your reward, or if you can't pull it, select the Bass-o-matic. It is *strongly* recommended you face Troutmaster with the Bass-o-matic.
3. Kick Troutmaster's ass. Get bonus skill points. Put them into whatever you want.
4. Grind and level up at your area of convenience if you aren't already level 7.
5. Once level 7, start the Zion-tina Quest. It's very straightforward.
6. Remember to keep your equipment up to date. Scavenge it off your enemies, or buy some at the appropriate stores (Bazooko's, Foundry). Keep in mind chip-bought equipment tends to be inferior to looted/assembled gear of the same level, but still better than most gear of lower level.
7. Once you beat up the demiurge and level up, go back to Rand.
8. Chances are you'll have time to get started on the two level 8 quests. I recommend trying the Unborn Base quest first, as the fights are slightly easier there (unless you rely on psychic damage, in which case you'll have a very hard time with the base). You must buy/pull a level 4/5 transportation for the quest -The Lexura Infinity D-8 is arguably the best, but it's also very expensive.

Notable Equips:

• The Whole Nine Yards- You might be able to get both the Short End of the Stick (Casino) and the Long Arm of the Law (Docks)- if so, you can assemble this baby which is probably one of the more powerful weapons you'll be holding for a few levels.
• Nocturne's Shop items - Get them if you have them. Very powerful for their level.

Fourth Day!

to be completed

Fifth Day!

Finish up the level 10 quest as soon as possible. Grind in the Cube Theater until level 11, since the non-combats there give excellent XP.

NCI Building- Most of the NCI building. Required items include high-jump boots, combat paperclip and swingline stapler. The last two can be looted while in the building, but it's nice to be able to pull a back-up if you don't loot one in time. Some of the fights here can get a little tough, but it shouldn't be anything you can't handle by this point. Remember to keep buffs stocked while fighting. Also remember that you have no permanent sidekick now, so a temporary sidekick may be able to help you out.

1. Defeating the Mick: There are multiple ways to go about this. I usually have an easy time by spamming Charge of the Rhino or Maul of the Cave Bear while equipping +to-hit gear. Mick's resistant to all elemental damage, so non-physical attack spells may not be a good idea. In either case, buffing up won't help you much, since spaded evidence suggests the Mick will compensate for it. If you don't feel too confident, be sure to optimize your gear appropriately. Whatever you do, don't bring a temporary sidekick to the fight unless you don't mind losing it.

Afterwards

After defeating the Mick: Heal yourself, then visit Rand and then Susan. You'll mostly likely have 20-80 turns to waste before your next retcon starts. Don't forget that now you can eat whatever you want and pull all your items from Deep Storage.
There are multiple options open:

• Complete level 11 B-Quest. Good for getting the hint giver gear as well as obtaining the four class-based quadrants (complete quest as each of the classes), which can be fused together to make a handy little off-hand item. Make a second one to unlock a certain transportation item as well.
• Get the Not to Choose Is Not a Choice encounter to get Bonus skill point, which you can pull later.
• Farm the City of Lost Robots so you can make electronic computers to pull in later runs. Or, if you are a gadgeteer or plan to assemble positronic computers later as a gadgeteer, farm the Renegade Robot Hive for Positronic Computer ingredients. As a bonus, Renegade Robot Hive enemies also drop plasteel platings, which can be Metalmorphed by an Elemental to make cavorite, which in turn can make spell-caster-friendly cavorite items.
• Go to the Virtual Reality Gaming Center and play. The XP/stat gains are minor, but you can get Scalpel/Bray energy drinks, which can be pulled for later retcons and give a ton of extra time.
• Inner sanctum of the Unborn Base is notable for abundantly dropping both SQUID disc: How to Win ... and Advanced medkit, both helpful consumables for "all-items" runs. The SQUID Disc stores XP to unleash at level 7, and the advanced medkit provides lots of free healing.

Equipment Guide for looted/bought items only

Basically, this describes the best level-by-level equipment (in my opinion) that can be store bought or looted from common enemies/quests available at the level given. Assembled items are included only if ingredients are handy to come by.
This will be very handy for "no pulls" runs as well as if you don't know what to fill a slot with. Nocturne's items or foil-assembled items are not included, and are more or less superior to anything you can get at their requirement level and two levels up. IotM items are almost always superior.
"N/A" means there are no good common items for this slot.
This refers to the ideal items. A few of these items may take too long to get during speed runs. Use your judgement. Transportation is broken down into two categories, the latter being if you're not made of money. :P
Good luck.

General Procedure for Optimizing Your Stats

Ask yourself three questions at every point.

• What skills/items should I buff myself with? What bonuses do I need from them?
• Is my equipment (including sidekicks/talisman/transport), considering what I have access to, best suited for the task at hand?
• Am I striking a good balance between XP gain/patrol time length/non-combat, and combat ability while still keeping my PP and HP at decent levels?

It's important that you consider what you have access to.
You should constantly explore all options for equipment, including stores, assembly, welding, drops (check the wiki to see what drops in your area) and quest rewards to see what things you may have missed and could really use. That's probably the number one thing you can do. Also, never leave equipment spots empty if you can help it.

Note

Fighting Styles

Different approaches to combat. Dodge, defense, damage absorption and health always come in handy, but everything else varies.

• Melee- Strength, bonus melee damage, to-hit. Melee attacks generally overwhelms enemies through damage, but might have accuracy problems against certain enemies. That can be partially solved with Naturalist physical attack skills and Elementalist/Gadgeteer/item weakening abilities.
• Ranged- Relexes, damage, extra attacks. Ranged attacks generally overwhelms enemies through accuracy, but might have sheer damage problems against certain enemies. This can be remedied with Elementalist/Gadgeteer/item weakening abilities.
• Spellcaster- Intellect, PP regeneration, spell damage, spell cost, dodge, and health, uses elementalist/Psion offensive skills to attack. This style does consistent and excellent damage against opponents if one can keep up a steady stream of PP (pun not intended). If so, it is extremely powerful against patrolling enemies and may even destroy bosses with ease, especially with leveled-up attacks, but can backfire in one of two ways: one, your opponent is resistant to the damage type, two, they can still beat you up before you can drain all their HP. The solution to the first is to attack with your weapon, run away or switch to another spell. The solution to the second is to level up and put more skill into your spells, optimize stats further, or switch your gear to the other styles.

Equipment/skill enchantments

Different bonuses for different people.

Common Enchantments, in very rough order of decreasing usefulness or impact (for their negative versions).

+XP, -Time, +combat/noncombat- No doubt the holy trinity of Retcon. +XP to level up faster (and reduce time needed grinding), -time to, of course, fit in more turns with which to do stuff, and +combat/noncombat to speed up quests and get certain useful events (such as Intermission). When in doubt, go for +XP and +combat/noncombat over -time, though.

+PP/turn, -PP/skill- Both come in handy for stuffing in more buffs per turn and having more PP on hand for emergency healing/desperation moves.

-Fumble chance Fumbles are really annoying, and you benefit a lot by removing them. Having -3/4% fumble chance should be enough.

Extra Ranged Attacks- Very nice. Will give a massive boost to damage and to-hit with ranged weapons, and the reason why Umbra's Shadow Blaster and Repeating rifle are arguably the best non-IotM weapons of their level.

+Reflexes- Reflexes equates to increased hit/dodge/ranged attacks. As you can see, it's just as important as improving those stats themselves.

+dodge, +to-hit- In my experience, these are really important stats to make sure you survive combat.

Weakens enemies- Very effective on all enemies, as long as you make sure your attacks hit them often enough.

+Stun chance, +Critical chance- Both can save your bacon regularly with enough stacking. The more, the merrier.

Damage absorption, +HP/turn- Both take the sting off getting hit in combat, although given the usefulness of healing spells, this is not as important as +PP/turn and reduced skill cost.

+PP/damage- Good for supplementing your PP regeneration.

+Elemental weapon damage- Can be powerful IF you stack it up, otherwise negligible.

Attacker takes damage- Can be powerful IF you stack it up, otherwise negligible. Strike-back damage makes fights where you get hit a lot much easier.

+Initiative, +ranged damage, +melee damage +Offense, +defense- Moderately useful, although not as useful as the combat bonuses listed above.

+item drop, +chip find- Chips are necessary for leveling up and healing (by way of the Hospital), items are necessary for everything. The bonuses given by equipment tend to be rather small, so it's not as useful as it seems.

+HP/damage- Similar to +HP/turn, only conditional. Not too useful.

+Intellect- Intellect gives additional spell damage and initiative. Might come in handy sometimes.

+spell damage- This is only useful if your combat spell of choice isn't one-shotting non-resistant enemies.

+Max PP, +Max HP- While still helpful, these aren't as anywhere as helpful as keeping the level of HP/PP high in the first place.

+Strength- Not useful. There's too little damage bonus involved (+1 damage/5 Strength), and you will find that most melee weapons need to be more accurate rather than deal more damage.

SPECIAL CASE: +toughness- Making your enemies harder seems counterproductive, BUT you do get valuable bonus XP for every 2 points of +FT you have. So, if you find that fights are too easy and you want to make more XP, replace one of your equipments with something that gives +FT! Keep in mind that the normal +XP enchantment is usually better than this, though.

Rarer enchantments, in rough order of decreasing impact:

Take damage every round- Generally very bad, since you'll have to heal constantly and any fights that drag on *will* be taking a huge chunk of HP out of you.

+enemy fumble- Whatever helps your enemies hurt themselves is worth it.

+Aura duration- Generally tiny bonuses in the big scheme, not worth it.

+Sidekick Effectiveness- See above two comments.

Improved Computer Interaction- These are suspected to improve the frequency of bonuses gained from software. Also a very tiny bonus.

+Reputation Effect- Nearly useless. The bonuses from having a reputation are quite small and you lose them upon a retcon. Not worth it.

Soul Gazing (including S.M.A.R.T)- Usually if an enemy is too hard, it's too hard. Occasionally knowing their strength/weakness really can't help you.

My Favorite Items

All equipment, including combat equipment, that I like best. IotMs are not involved. This is based on an "all-items" run, but you may find some of the items here useful for "pulls" runs.

Note: I like to play aggressively and sacrifice combat ability for +FT, +XP, -time, +PP and +/- combat. This may not work for everyone.

I'll separate this into two parts- 1) General Equipment 2) "Challenge" Equipment. The latter are basically for if I feel fights are too easy and I want to hurry it up already.

Any item in a particular slot marked with an asterix (*) is always useful in some way, once available (I'll leave it to you to figure out how) and can be swapped out in place of "newer" items when necessary. All others carry over to the next level until another item of the same slot displaces them.

This does not include items used only because they're necessary for Quests or for Quest shortcuts (see Retcon Guide

{Slots are in order from left to right, top to bottom on the equipment screen)

Level 1- filigreed foil hat, hedge slammer, gold-plated poncho, sticky gloves, Gilded Leggings, (no boots), Rolled Doll Dahl*, digital voice recorder, supersolid mettle medal, Paradime Device*,

Challenge- 'hip'-T shirt, coil of rope*, gingerbread man (sidekick), silver bracelet

Level 2- Ubiquitous chainsaw

Challenge- cat o' five tails*

Level 3- Skeptic Sandals/(normal) sandals

Level 4- foil foil, see-through shirt, riot shield, embossed emblem

Level 5- Zion's helm/Mecha Nist's helmet, repeating rifle, Midnight's Cloak, Flashlight*,

Level 6- hammer time*/Zeno's Bow*, work gloves/datagloves, datapants*/docker's pants, verse of the dodo

Level 7- xentrium boots

Level 8- foyal crown*, ion beamer, sneakiers, dragon earrings, Lexura Infinides D-8/mini fusion octotron

Level 9- xentrium breastplate/Murk's Silk Shirt, Umbra's Shadow Blaster,

Level 10- xentrium Breeches, Sneaky Stilettos of Stealthy Subtlety/relaxing flats, xentrium shield, dainty glasses

Challenge- blue chip socks

Level 11- Chain coif

Sidekick is always Documentarian when perma-sidekick is available, (unless I can get my hands on a clockwork spider).
Software is, whenever possible, Personal Copy of the Internets and iMyself Blog/Garcia's Traffic Avoider software/Gigantofirm Lookout Calendar.
Talisman is always special wooden cup.
Sugar is anything at hand, but budge frownies or peanut butter couplets are best. (Mmm, chocolate...)
Caffeine is Mister Tea, Bray/Scalpel energy drink, or Gingerette/Gingerelle, depending on the level and resources available.

Level 12-15 item farming: Foyal Crown, Hammer Time/Zeno's Bow, Buckskin Coat, Sticky Gloves, Xentrium Breeches, Prefontaine's shoes, attache case/isotope meter, binoculars, Phial of Samuels/goldfish whiskas, Thunder in a Bottle, armored pegasus, flea market trader, personal copy of the internets and Gigantofirm Lookout Calendar

Non-equipment items- Eye podule and Squidopus Player are nice to have on hand for using SQUID discs. Ticketmaster's ticket punch, combat paperclip and Brewmeister's master potion are useful combat aids. Wiggum wigwam is good for resting, as are the consumable RNG swings.