Hi all. Normally I’m not one to post guides on how to do this, that, or the other thing. My thought process has always been that if thought of it, so did everybody else. My friends however keep telling me that this thought process is BS, lol. So, in light of that, and because I got a supposedly rare achievement in game (Killing 50 enemies in slow time), I’ve decided to post this little primer on how to utilize the Sandevistan effectively in melee. If it helps you, great. If you’re already a master of it, then skip this.
So. What does the Sandevistan do? In short, it enhances your perception of time. There will be differing opinions on this, but given the way it works in game, it’s about the best description of it I can give. It’s not wired reflexes (Shadowrun term), as your rate of attack does not increase. In fact you’ll notice that your attacks seem a lot slower while the Sandevistan is active. This is not the case. Your attacks are proceeding at normal speed, it’s just they seem slow to you.
HOWEVER, even though your attacks are limited to normal speed, your movement is not. When active, the Sandevistan still lets you move in game at a normal pace. This means that to your enemies, you are nothing but a blur. This is very much like Wired Reflexes in Shadowrun. So the Sandevistan gives you the movement bonus, but does not affect your attack speed.
Because of this, it can take a bit to get used to. You’ll find yourself flying across the area of a fight, looking to slash/club/punch anything and everything. And you’ll quickly find yourself getting disoriented, mainly because of the weird visual effect, and the fact you probably blew past the enemies you want to take out. And before you know it, the duration has elapsed, your back in “real time”, and you’re getting riddled with bullets. Did I learn this the hard way? Of course I did! Which is another reason why I figured I’d post this.
So, how do you use the Sandevistan effectively? Well, in one word, patience. Patience is your friend. Keeping a cool head and planning your attacks methodically will get you better results in the long run than just charging in, weapon swinging. 16 seconds in a firefight is an eternity if used properly (trust me on this, in real life I’m an ex Infantry soldier). And that is what the Sandevistan gives you. 16 seconds. This can be modified, but we’ll get to that later.
So, first off. Chose a hotkey (on PC) that you are comfortable with. Being able to activate it at a moment’s notice is crucial.
Next, after activation, look at your mini-map. (No, this isn’t meta-gaming! Your a chromed-up Street Samurai for #@$(&%#$! You have a heads up display! Use it!!). On your mini-map, your enemies will show up as red dots with red visual cones. Use the display to orient yourself to an enemy, and then go after him. The visual cone will show you his facing, and from that you can determine if you need to dodge from one side to the other to avoid any gunfire from said enemy. Pay attention to his buddies as well. They will be shooting too, but you can dodge the bullets because of the speed you’re moving at, as long as you pay attention to their facing and plan your route accordingly.
Ideally, you’ll run behind your target so you can attack from the rear. This is where the patience comes in. Remember I said your attacks are still at normal speed. So don’t get all excited and rage click. Aim your cursor precisely on the body part you want to hack, and click ONCE. Once that attack is done, click again. Once the target is down, move on to the next. Rinse and repeat. It generally won’t take much. You get all sorts of damage bonus from the Sandevistan itself, plus whatever other cool bonuses you may have picked up during gameplay. You’ll find most enemies of your level being one-shots. Higher level enemies can take 2-4 hits depending. Head shots are of course the most devastating. If you do it right, you’ll leave a trail of headless corpses in your wake.
So, what happens if your timer runs out and you shift back to real time with a bunch of baddies left? You can stand there and get ventilated if you choose, but personally I prefer the other option..RUN! No, this is not cowardice. Any good soldier takes note of their environment before going into a fight, and constantly pays attention to where they are during the fight. So you run. Run to cover, heal if necessary, and use cover to your advantage. If you want to switch to a ranged assault at this time, go for it. At this point, all you’re doing is running down the clock until the Sandevistan recharges. Once it does, pick an opportune moment, and then go to town again as a blizzard of blade and chrome! Also, on the note of environment. Pay attention to where you swing. If you hit an explosive tank, or one of those damn humanoid ‘bots, the explosion will flatline you! Been there, done that.
Ok, that’s pretty much it for tactics except a couple of special notes. One is the Mantis Blades. These things were made to work with the Sandevistan, but they have one peculiar gameplay glitch associated with them. If you do a strong attack, they perform this cool lunge maneuver with which you impale your target in the chest and hoist them up, leaving them quite dead. Unfortunately, this awesome graphic snaps you back into real time, robbing you of the rest of your Sandevistan duration, as well as leaving you a sitting duck while you admire your handiwork. Avoid this as much as possible! I’ve noticed this can happen without intending to do so by a fraction of a second to long on a mouse button press (it’s probably more precise with a controller).
Second note. If you also happen to have a Synaptic Accelerator, you’ll have to learn how to coordinate it with the Sandevistan. The Accelerator also enhances your perception, slowing time even further than the Sandevistan, but for a very short duration (2-3 seconds, probably 4 with a Legendary version which I’ve yet to find). You don’t trigger this one however. It triggers itself when an enemy catches sight of you, giving you time to dive behind cover before you are seen. It even reacts to cameras. VERY useful, but it can screw up the Sandevistan. What will happen is if you move in with the Sandevistan active BEFORE the enemy is aware of you, the Synaptic accelerator will kick in. However, once the Accelerator has run it’s course, it chops off you’re remaining Sandevistan time, robbing you of that duration. Not to worry however, the solution is simple! Simply stroll up to the unaware, soon to be dead assholes, and let the Accelerator activate. When it does, go to town just as if you were using the Sandevistan. Once the Accelerator runs it’s course, let real time flow for a second or two, then activate the Sandevistan once you’re sure all the enemies are aware of you, and go nuts again.
Lastly, mods. I have by no means found all of them, but the important thing to note is that the mods stack. I have a legendary Sandevistan with 3 slots. One good mod is the one that reduces the cooldown timer. This starts at a 30 second base. At one point I had both a rare (blue) and common (white) heatsink slotted, which reduced cooldown by 5 seconds. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s noticeable. I also have 2 rare “prototype” chips, each of which increase crit chance by 5% (so 10% if both are slotted). Next is an Epic (purple) Tyger Paw, which restores 15% of your total stamina every time you defeat an enemy while the Sandevistan is active. And last is one I just acquired recently. A Legendary Arasaka software mod. This sucker makes the enemy take 70% longer to notice you when the Sandevistan is active. This is both while you approach unaware enemies (so it’s like having a Synaptic Accelerator if you don’t have one slotted), as well as how quickly they react to you while they are aware (they move even slower). What mods you slot will of course depend on what you have, and personal taste.
Well, that’s it. Below is a link to a short Youtube video of these tactics at work (although because of enemy positioning, I went with frontal attacks). I apologize for the quality. I'm playing on a slightly above min spec computer. Enjoy, and I hope this has helped.
So. What does the Sandevistan do? In short, it enhances your perception of time. There will be differing opinions on this, but given the way it works in game, it’s about the best description of it I can give. It’s not wired reflexes (Shadowrun term), as your rate of attack does not increase. In fact you’ll notice that your attacks seem a lot slower while the Sandevistan is active. This is not the case. Your attacks are proceeding at normal speed, it’s just they seem slow to you.
HOWEVER, even though your attacks are limited to normal speed, your movement is not. When active, the Sandevistan still lets you move in game at a normal pace. This means that to your enemies, you are nothing but a blur. This is very much like Wired Reflexes in Shadowrun. So the Sandevistan gives you the movement bonus, but does not affect your attack speed.
Because of this, it can take a bit to get used to. You’ll find yourself flying across the area of a fight, looking to slash/club/punch anything and everything. And you’ll quickly find yourself getting disoriented, mainly because of the weird visual effect, and the fact you probably blew past the enemies you want to take out. And before you know it, the duration has elapsed, your back in “real time”, and you’re getting riddled with bullets. Did I learn this the hard way? Of course I did! Which is another reason why I figured I’d post this.
So, how do you use the Sandevistan effectively? Well, in one word, patience. Patience is your friend. Keeping a cool head and planning your attacks methodically will get you better results in the long run than just charging in, weapon swinging. 16 seconds in a firefight is an eternity if used properly (trust me on this, in real life I’m an ex Infantry soldier). And that is what the Sandevistan gives you. 16 seconds. This can be modified, but we’ll get to that later.
So, first off. Chose a hotkey (on PC) that you are comfortable with. Being able to activate it at a moment’s notice is crucial.
Next, after activation, look at your mini-map. (No, this isn’t meta-gaming! Your a chromed-up Street Samurai for #@$(&%#$! You have a heads up display! Use it!!). On your mini-map, your enemies will show up as red dots with red visual cones. Use the display to orient yourself to an enemy, and then go after him. The visual cone will show you his facing, and from that you can determine if you need to dodge from one side to the other to avoid any gunfire from said enemy. Pay attention to his buddies as well. They will be shooting too, but you can dodge the bullets because of the speed you’re moving at, as long as you pay attention to their facing and plan your route accordingly.
Ideally, you’ll run behind your target so you can attack from the rear. This is where the patience comes in. Remember I said your attacks are still at normal speed. So don’t get all excited and rage click. Aim your cursor precisely on the body part you want to hack, and click ONCE. Once that attack is done, click again. Once the target is down, move on to the next. Rinse and repeat. It generally won’t take much. You get all sorts of damage bonus from the Sandevistan itself, plus whatever other cool bonuses you may have picked up during gameplay. You’ll find most enemies of your level being one-shots. Higher level enemies can take 2-4 hits depending. Head shots are of course the most devastating. If you do it right, you’ll leave a trail of headless corpses in your wake.
So, what happens if your timer runs out and you shift back to real time with a bunch of baddies left? You can stand there and get ventilated if you choose, but personally I prefer the other option..RUN! No, this is not cowardice. Any good soldier takes note of their environment before going into a fight, and constantly pays attention to where they are during the fight. So you run. Run to cover, heal if necessary, and use cover to your advantage. If you want to switch to a ranged assault at this time, go for it. At this point, all you’re doing is running down the clock until the Sandevistan recharges. Once it does, pick an opportune moment, and then go to town again as a blizzard of blade and chrome! Also, on the note of environment. Pay attention to where you swing. If you hit an explosive tank, or one of those damn humanoid ‘bots, the explosion will flatline you! Been there, done that.
Ok, that’s pretty much it for tactics except a couple of special notes. One is the Mantis Blades. These things were made to work with the Sandevistan, but they have one peculiar gameplay glitch associated with them. If you do a strong attack, they perform this cool lunge maneuver with which you impale your target in the chest and hoist them up, leaving them quite dead. Unfortunately, this awesome graphic snaps you back into real time, robbing you of the rest of your Sandevistan duration, as well as leaving you a sitting duck while you admire your handiwork. Avoid this as much as possible! I’ve noticed this can happen without intending to do so by a fraction of a second to long on a mouse button press (it’s probably more precise with a controller).
Second note. If you also happen to have a Synaptic Accelerator, you’ll have to learn how to coordinate it with the Sandevistan. The Accelerator also enhances your perception, slowing time even further than the Sandevistan, but for a very short duration (2-3 seconds, probably 4 with a Legendary version which I’ve yet to find). You don’t trigger this one however. It triggers itself when an enemy catches sight of you, giving you time to dive behind cover before you are seen. It even reacts to cameras. VERY useful, but it can screw up the Sandevistan. What will happen is if you move in with the Sandevistan active BEFORE the enemy is aware of you, the Synaptic accelerator will kick in. However, once the Accelerator has run it’s course, it chops off you’re remaining Sandevistan time, robbing you of that duration. Not to worry however, the solution is simple! Simply stroll up to the unaware, soon to be dead assholes, and let the Accelerator activate. When it does, go to town just as if you were using the Sandevistan. Once the Accelerator runs it’s course, let real time flow for a second or two, then activate the Sandevistan once you’re sure all the enemies are aware of you, and go nuts again.
Lastly, mods. I have by no means found all of them, but the important thing to note is that the mods stack. I have a legendary Sandevistan with 3 slots. One good mod is the one that reduces the cooldown timer. This starts at a 30 second base. At one point I had both a rare (blue) and common (white) heatsink slotted, which reduced cooldown by 5 seconds. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s noticeable. I also have 2 rare “prototype” chips, each of which increase crit chance by 5% (so 10% if both are slotted). Next is an Epic (purple) Tyger Paw, which restores 15% of your total stamina every time you defeat an enemy while the Sandevistan is active. And last is one I just acquired recently. A Legendary Arasaka software mod. This sucker makes the enemy take 70% longer to notice you when the Sandevistan is active. This is both while you approach unaware enemies (so it’s like having a Synaptic Accelerator if you don’t have one slotted), as well as how quickly they react to you while they are aware (they move even slower). What mods you slot will of course depend on what you have, and personal taste.
Well, that’s it. Below is a link to a short Youtube video of these tactics at work (although because of enemy positioning, I went with frontal attacks). I apologize for the quality. I'm playing on a slightly above min spec computer. Enjoy, and I hope this has helped.
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