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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1090 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 31, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video Game Thread

What are you playing? Are you having fun or just killing time?

This week I was able to sink quite a few hours into Deus Ex. I'm going to use spoiler tags because there's always someone who has not yet played the game but might want to do so.

I let Lebedev live. I used the LAM trick to kill Anna Navarre when she came for Lebedev, and now I've got an angry mech (Gunther) on my ass.

During the 'Paul's apartment' sequence I managed to electric prod stun one of the Men in Black mechs, to keep him from exploding along with his loot. Picked up the auto-shotgun and applied a couple of recoil mods to it. I let Paul do most of the killing because he seemed invulnerable, while I, being stealth based and playing on Hard difficulty, can only survive a couple of hits to the chest/head.

I surrendered to the arrest squad and let Daedalus get me out of my cell and onwards to the Armory. Most of my grenades were not kept. I think I had 7 LAMs when I was arrested and only recovered 1 or 2 in the Armory. Oh well. My weapons with their mods were intact. I'm still carrying the GEP gun from the start of Liberty Island, because it's so useful against bots (and cameras, in some situations).

Despite having played almost exclusively non-lethal up to this point, I ended up wiping out most of the MJ12 guards and doctors, because, hey, they know what they're doing is wrong. I let the Mechanic who sells you stuff live though, he seemed alright. While it would have been fun to receive the killphrase for Gunther in Paris from doctor Jaime, I elected to tell him to join me in Hong Kong for roleplaying purposes; gotta keep my bros with me. He was relieved.

Manderley got a rocket straight to the face. Walton Simmons, in the hologram, was unmoved by my lethal prejudice.

I'm now in Hong Kong and have picked up the Dragon's Tooth almost immediately, because I found my way to Maggie Chow's apartment, and then went collecting evidence from the police station, and returned to Maggie's place to find her gone and MJ12 guards swarming out of hidden doors. Turns out Miss Chow is a nasty piece of work. I'll hopefully get to chop her into pieces with the Dragon's Tooth at some point.

You are making many of the same choices I do.

Not sure if you want advice on cheesing the skill system, but with high enough skill in rifles, you can shoot out cameras. Also with enough weapons: low-tech skill and combat strength, you can start breaking open doors even before you get the Dragon's Tooth. Both give you quite different playthroughs.

Good advice is always welcome. :)

I think you need Master in rifles to simply shoot down cameras with the sniper rifle. That's a lotta points. I may have spread my skill points too thin.

I've levelled up Computer twice, Pistol twice, and Rifle/Low-tech/lockpicking/electronics/swimming once. I only have 1150 points unspent now despite being around the halfway point in the game. Getting Rifles to Master would require another 8400 points into it or so.

I've noticed I can break open some doors/containers with Combat Strength aug active, but they seem to have to be at 35% strength or less, and sadly the Dragon's Tooth does not do better at this than other melee weapons.

Edit: typo.

I don't think I ever levelled up pistol in many of my playthroughs. One reason is that too many useful weapons use the rifle skill, including the shotguns, and the other is that if you unspend the points on pistol at character creation, the game gives you the skill anyway.

I think both your weapons: low-tech skill and your level of combat strength affect how easily you can break things.

Oof. I didn't know that re: character creation. I leveled up Pistol because the mini-crossbow counts as a pistol. And I was gonna do soo much non-lethal tranq darting l. Until I realized that the game provides very few tranq darts in most maps. And having the enemies running around shooting at you until the poison builds up sufficiently is pretty messy. So the baton became my main tool.

Also if you tranq someone out, they're often considered "dead" with a different label. I knocked everyone out in Castle Clinton in one playthrough, and had the "I cleaned the place out" conversation in the armory, where Sam Carter gets cross with you for using excessive force.

Really? I used lots of tranqs in that mission and Carter was happy with me! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, I was wondering if he didn't throw a grenade afterwards...

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