arcanum question

Urizen · Post by **Urizen** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:25 pm

how do i make the machined platemail? i can't seem to find any minute steamworks.

boywoos · Post by **boywoos** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:26 pm

Can't remember but here is probably your best bet to find out. Or PM DarkUndies, he's likely to know.

Koki · Post by **Koki** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:32 pm

IIRC you buy them from that dvarwen clan machine shop where is the King dude in exile.
Or simply in Tarant/Caladon maybe?

Just rest several days and try again.

Or visit Gamebanshee, their walkthrough was quite excellent.

johnnygothisgun · Post by **johnnygothisgun** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:18 pm

I'm almost positive there is a suit in a house in Ashbury, in the basement. Almost positive. That house with the crate in the basement that, when opened, unleashes an automaton that attacks you.

Koki · Post by **Koki** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:43 pm

Yeah but it's the one you have to give to the guy above as a quest.

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:15 pm

No you don't, hack & slash all the way, mang!

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:31 pm

I'm gonna reinstall arcanum, can anyone tell me which is more developed: Magic or tech? And what generally I should raise to get the most out of dialogues and stuff? I like reading and talking in games...

jetbaby · Post by **jetbaby** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:34 pm

Magic is overpowered, don't do it.

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:53 pm

Ok... which is more fun? Like which has more quests and stuff to do... I know tech has shematics to find and so on.

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:20 pm

Also, are there any fan made mods or stuff that are worth installing?

Blargh · Post by **Blargh** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:01 pm

Made a habit of liberating useful quest items from those foolish enough to desire them. It is suggested that one plant common/cheap/useless equipment upon such individuals before facilitating their requests, so that they are unable to equip anything valuable. Why waste time and/or fate points ?

An amusing game.

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:10 pm

If your main character isn't tech, schematics are useless. Generally, if you want more challenging and funnier game, go for technology. Magic is the easy way out - teleportation and offensive magic makes the game too easy.

Koki · Post by **Koki** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:14 pm

The talk system is very much like Fallout's, INT affects how much you can say, CHA affects convincing people etc.
Magic is easy, tech is hard, melee is easy, ranged is hard. Your pick.

Quests are pretty much all the same.

Mods? Modding Arcanum is like chewing on hot broken glass. The non-Blargh way.

Blargh · Post by **Blargh** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:44 pm

While I appreciate that considerable effort went into the likes of Car Arcanum, in my mind it remains dire. The additions were jarringly inconsistent. Too much hack and slash, patchy writing to mention but two. I loathed the tendency for various creatures to either sap mana or spawn friends upon their demise. Made the woeful combat of the original exceedingly tedious. Felt very cheap, also, and from what I recall options governing the behaviour of both such features were disturbingly absent from the otherwise interesting and varied selection of difficulty and gameplay tweaks et al.

I did, however, obtain some joy from disintegrating that daft cultist woman. Lazy fucking harlot, she was.

If you go tech, I recommend ignoring -

High velocity pistol (awful), rifled cannon (shite), all grenades bar the non-lethal (grenaded foes offer no experience, though explosive grenades are a respectable source of revenue), healing jacket (prohibitively expensive), grenade launcher (bollocks), hushed pistol (woeful), therapeutics in general, pyrotechnic axe (grand, too much so), flame thrower (nasty, bar aesthetics).

Probably other stuff, too. Tech is the weaker of the two for many, many reasons. Has been a long time since I last played.

I recommend ignoring magic. Too blah. Though if you must, conveyance, force, fire and temporal are probably the best options. So ignore them.

Keep in mind that as one's tech/magic affinity increases, it may become difficult to accommodate the needs of one's limpets. Play solo, they are, by and large, useless, cumbersome, cardboard wretches.

Urizen · Post by **Urizen** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:42 pm

car arcanum is shit.
if you want a powerfull character with great conversation skills, go tech. keep raising the primaries ch and int all the way, along with their secondary counterparts persuasion and tech skills. get ogre npc's, ditch virgil. for a good dogmeat substitute, get to ashbury before you reach level 12. start hoarding automaton components as soon as possible.

Redeye · Post by **Redeye** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:12 am

Try being a "drugnologist" - not a specialist in chemicals, rather a lazy bastard cheater.

You only need to raise Int to 9 or 10.
Then use an intelligence potion to max it out for short periods.
This way you can spend points on tech schools and advance rapidly.
The schools will dissapear/become greyed out when the potions wear off, but don't worry, thet come back with the next dose.
I hoarded those potions.

It's a bit tricky- you have to use the potions to spend the points and also to use the skills.
If you use books to enhance skills/use cross-skill schematics you have to set them up ahead of time along with your components. (I think the books cannot start in your inventory when you do this, plus the order of using the books is important.)
Then: drink potion, grab books in correct order, grab ingredients, make stuff.
Do it all really fast before the potion wears off.

By pulling this stunt you can start manufacturing dynamite very early in the game.
Place on the other side of walls to assasinate people.
Run away until the police calm down. Loot!

The molotov is an awesome weapon, especially if you take a speed potion.
Stock up on molotovs.
Throw skill helps, but you get to throw so many molotovs it doesn't matter if you miss.

The super fast swinging sword kicks butt, too.
Keep spares.
Pyrotechnic axe is also good, but slow. Save for heavily armored opponents.
Your idiot followers will always switch to the highest damage weapon, so you might have to carry the axes yourself to get them to use the sword.
Or put the pyroaxes on the magical followers.
Also store magic items on the tech characters, to force the magic characters to fight with the "fast swords". I forget what they are called.

Just choose charlatan's appretice.

Max charisma and persuade.

You can get a super good rep and still be insanely evil if you play it right.

I've posted all this shit before, so I won't even get into the incredible hassle of repairing automatons (swapping shit in/out of inventory- park the automaton as close to repair guy as possible then "pick it up" then talk to the smith.)
ok so I did.

And people keep picking up my dynamite, so planting out of sight is essential.

Like anyones gonna read all this rambling.

Stainless · Post by **Stainless** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:29 am

One of the most fun things I did was use a half-ling theif, who later specced up to guns and using the looking glass rifle to 2-3 shot kill everything.

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 5:54 am

How do an explosive expert work? Is it limited to just molotovs in combat or do you like plant dyname on people or time it? It's been awhile since I played arcanum but I have had the urge to play it lately.

Redeye · Post by **Redeye** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:52 am

POOPERSCOOPER wrote:How do an explosive expert work? Is it limited to just molotovs in combat or do you like plant dyname on people or time it? It's been awhile since I played arcanum but I have had the urge to play it lately.

Dynamiite is timed, you can upgrade to a remote detonator.
Much more useful.
Incendiary Barrier is worthless.
Mix explosive with mechanical school to get clockwork explosive- like a metal crab cruise missile.
Cool but damage is a bit sucky.

Frater Perdurabo · Post by **Frater Perdurabo** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:14 pm

Redeye wrote:Try being a "drugnologist" - not a specialist in chemicals, rather a lazy bastard cheater.

You only need to raise Int to 9 or 10.
Then use an intelligence potion to max it out for short periods.
This way you can spend points on tech schools and advance rapidly.
The schools will dissapear/become greyed out when the potions wear off, but don't worry, thet come back with the next dose.
I hoarded those potions.

It's a bit tricky- you have to use the potions to spend the points and also to use the skills.
If you use books to enhance skills/use cross-skill schematics you have to set them up ahead of time along with your components. (I think the books cannot start in your inventory when you do this, plus the order of using the books is important.)
Then: drink potion, grab books in correct order, grab ingredients, make stuff.
Do it all really fast before the potion wears off.

By pulling this stunt you can start manufacturing dynamite very early in the game.
Place on the other side of walls to assasinate people.
Run away until the police calm down. Loot!

The molotov is an awesome weapon, especially if you take a speed potion.
Stock up on molotovs.
Throw skill helps, but you get to throw so many molotovs it doesn't matter if you miss.

The super fast swinging sword kicks butt, too.
Keep spares.
Pyrotechnic axe is also good, but slow. Save for heavily armored opponents.
Your idiot followers will always switch to the highest damage weapon, so you might have to carry the axes yourself to get them to use the sword.
Or put the pyroaxes on the magical followers.
Also store magic items on the tech characters, to force the magic characters to fight with the "fast swords". I forget what they are called.

Just choose charlatan's appretice.

Max charisma and persuade.

You can get a super good rep and still be insanely evil if you play it right.

I've posted all this shit before, so I won't even get into the incredible hassle of repairing automatons (swapping shit in/out of inventory- park the automaton as close to repair guy as possible then "pick it up" then talk to the smith.)
ok so I did.

And people keep picking up my dynamite, so planting out of sight is essential.

Like anyones gonna read all this rambling.

I read all your ramlbing, in fact, could you post me a link for your abovementioned previous ramblings, because it actually inspired me to reinstall Arcanum.