Underrail [PRE-RELEASE THREAD, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Atchodas]

If you keep revisiting stores every 90 minutes when they reset , and i mean revisiting all the good ones ( not just those close to you ) you will get all the crafting ingredients you may ever need, just checked this played up to lvl 20 with a crafter character , didnt savescum even once on a store , obviously i had to wait for some items until more shops opened (AR mods especially ) because they didnt spawn in SGS / Junkyard but not a single ingredient was "unobtainable" hardest is to keep track of stuff you need to find and remembering it 90 minutes later , there is no real problem here .
Ofcourse if you need some particular ingredient i dont see a huge trouble just to reload certain shop 10 times until you get it , this is actually good feature for people who dont care about QQ and LARP , but ofcourse some people will cry about that no matter what you do .
Better take care of some shops that are further away from settlements not only they dont sell anything good/unique they dont even buy much so revisiting them is waste of time and i am talking here about Scavenger Shop , Hangin Rat Shop , lost vault trader etc . make them so they are worth revisiting .

 

[gestalt11]

gestalt11 do you have more observations about shops and items that are too rare/common? That can be good feedback. You probably know the traders very well with all that savescumming.

While I may not agree with your (gestalt11's) fundamental grievances with the merchants system, pointing out items that seem too rare or too abundant is indeed very useful feedback so keep it up.

Define "too rare". IMO the shop frequencies need to match the recipes and also account for use.

Gun barrels are not "too rare" in the conventional sense. Its simply pointless to have then be RNG, unless you are considering accumulation of things over time as part of the "fun". Which I would argue is still pointless. Getting a .45 gun barrel is not that hard, but they have no quality either. Its pointless busy work to make them RNG based. People will save scum pointless bus work.

Plasma Cores are also not that "rare", you go around to all electronics shops available at any particular regen time you will probably get one or two with a somewhat mediocre quality. If you get lucky it will be good quality if you get unlucky it could be as poor as the low 20s. You can get Plasma Cores at the same rate you would get a Motion Detectnig Lens, roughly, yet you need plasma core in 10 times as many recipes.

The current system creates a much much greater demand for some components but the supply is basically similar across the board. It is not a matter of "too rare". It is a matter of supply and demand not matching appropriately.

These things can encourage save scums:

1) pointless RNG that gives nothing interestnig
2) needing a lot more of something that would otherwise take many regens
3) wanting an extremely key component that is otherwise RNG based.


The difference between creating smart goggles and creating a gun with a smart module is fairly large. The smart goggles will only change something like 2% every 10 or so quality. A smart module increase skill damage by much more per quality point something on the order of about triple per quality point

A smart lens is something like 1/3 while a gun smart module is something like 1/10 AND of limited available in the first "act" of the game. Anyone with gun crafting skills is HIGHLY incentivzed to save scum the faction vendors in junkyard to get one. Its a huge boost in damage that is not a available otherwise (unless you get super super lucky). Even in the second "act" scumming a high quality one can be like 10% extra damage or more and is quite advantageous. Scumming for the smart googles is a little OCD it would be like a 2% gain on something you might easily have found without ever going to the store.

Now its resonable to say "I want some things to have a high demand and a low supply, that is what makes getting them rewarding". That is fine, that is quite reasonable. What I am saying is the shops currently have all three of the above problems for different items. Some are pointless to RNG, some are common but supply doesn't match overall demand because BP create extra demand that is not accounted for, and some things are just so good that many people will not feel able to pass it up and save scumming it will be RADICALLY advantageous at that particular stage of the game .

What I am saying is supply and demand needs another pass, not make everything easy to get. And additionaly you may want to rethink how certain key elements are actually gotten because they are WAY more powerful than other components.

 

[Atchodas]

There are like 5 shops that sells plasma cores with like 75% chance to appear most of them can spawn 2 Plasma Cores they reset every 90 minutes .... what THE FUCK you are talking about , even more you only need decent plasma core for weapon and shield , items like Taser etc who uses 5 energy can run on worst plasma cores trough whole game and to handhold you even more there is a quest that awards you HIGH quality plasma core as set reward ... Plasma Cores are not rare . Muzzlebrake is .
Edit : forgot to mention the talent that makes plasma cores 35% more effective lol .
and actually there are 7 electronic shops and 1 more if you make correct faction choice in core city all of them selling plasma cores.

 

[Alfons]

Styg a few more bugs.
1. When crafting MKIV frag grenades sometimes it says the requirement is 112 chemistry. Switching the location of TNT and Hexagon "fixes" it.

Spoiler

2. During find Blaine quest I paid Katherine for information. I go to the intercom and choose the option "Ring twice short, once long, twice short", it says "Door unlocks", once you click the door it says "Locked(electronic 80)".

 

[epeli]

1. You should use hexogen as the primary explosive. Read the secondary explosive slot's tooltip and check the skill requirement on your explosives.
2. Did you start your current game in a previous version? If so, here's a workaround to fix that:

Spoiler

1. Leave the area where Blaine's shop is and save your game.
2. Find that save in your Documents\My Games\Underrail\Saves\
3. Go to lmaps folder, delete files starting with LUP-A1 (should be 3 of those)
4. Load the save. Everything should work when you return to the door.

 

[Alfons]

1. You should use hexogen as the primary explosive. Read the secondary explosive slot's tooltip and check the skill requirement on your explosives.
2. Did you start your current game in a previous version? If so, here's a workaround to fix that:

Spoiler

1. Leave the area where Blaine's shop is and save your game.
2. Find that save in your Documents\My Games\Underrail\Saves\
3. Go to lmaps folder, delete files starting with LUP-A1 (should be 3 of those)
4. Load the save. Everything should work when you return to the door.

1. That doesn't add up. The game probably checks that the only explosive that has hexagon in the secondary slot requires 112 chemistry, but it sees the TNT and displays a MKIV nade. Unless my math is wrong TNT with Hexogen secondary should be 78, which I clear. It's a bug or an oversight.
2. It seems like my rolling save got fucked, can't even load it now. Rerolled to a previous save and it works fine.

 

[epeli]

No, hexogen as secondary explosive needs 112 chemistry. Hexogen's base requirement is 50 and the secondary explosive slot adds 125% of itself as composition difficulty. 50 base requirement + 50*1.25 composition difficulty = 112. With Hexogen primary and TNT secondary, it's 50 + 15*1.25 = 69.

 

[agris]

It's that time of the year again. Can we add certain weapon mods to found weapons (laser, extended mag etc) or are we still being heavily encouraged to craft? Are there plans to employ certain NPCs to craft things for us ala Fallout?

 

[ST'Ranger]

...pointing out items that seem too rare or too abundant is indeed very useful feedback so keep it up.

Giving very specific feedback on this subject might be counter-productive, and even if not it would likely be biased by a smaller dataset than required as well a subjective memory. But having gone through a large number of characters and permutations, I can give good general feedback about the issue.

There are two scenarios:

1) Player seeking something for crafting.
2) Player seeking something very specific for crafting.

Scenario 1 ends up just fine. Playing any kind of character, seeking any general kind of crafting material, there are always options available.

Scenario 2 is merely acceptable but takes a fair amount of additional work, which potentially has effects on how the player approaches the game. Scenario 2 encourages a hoarding+waiting mindset. If I'm making an AR character and am only interested in muzzle brakes or specific frames of a high quality, I might be discouraged from actually participating in crafting until very late in the game if I can't find two of them early. This behavior is not, in an objective way, necessarily less desirable, but it is the behavior that is encouraged by the scarcity of specific items. One argument against the desirability of this behavior is that the player is participating less in the game than if they were crafting more actively. Note that complaints surrounding Scenario 2 implicitly assume that the intention is to allow for a high degree of planning in crafting. If the intention is that players should suck it up and use whatever means are available to them (adapt!), then the complaints operate on a non-intersecting sphere of thought from the intentions and should be (to the appropriate degree) roundly ignored.

I wouldn't describe the problems above as common, but with the variance in the availability of goods, it's certainly possible and not negligibly so. If I had to point out one particular pattern I've noticed (and remember that this is from imperfect data sets reviewed with imperfect memory), it's that my psi characters seem to suffer this problem more than other characters. In any case, a simple solution to Scenario 2 is to add a small number of extra items to each shop upon generation, perhaps 4 or 5.

agris Unless I'm unclear about what you mean, this has already been done - and to the point that there is a feat in the game specifically for recovering the mods from those items.

note: It's clear that I did misunderstand you, I had thought you meant Styg adding mods to weapons recovered from enemies.

 

[Alfons]

No, hexogen as secondary explosive needs 112 chemistry. Hexogen's base requirement is 50 and the secondary explosive slot adds 125% of itself as composition difficulty. 50 base requirement + 50*1.25 composition difficulty = 112. With Hexogen primary and TNT secondary, it's 50 + 15*1.25 = 69.

Dude, wtf are you talking about?
I'm talking about the fact that TNT primary and hexogen secondary says that it will craft a MKIV(4) grenade and that it requires 112 chemistry.
Hexogen primary and TNT secondary: 50+15*1.25=69
TNT primary and hexogen secondary: 15+50*1.25=78

To reiterate, I'm talking about MK4 grenades, not MK5.

 

[agris]

ST'Ranger Right, I'm talking about taking a weapon mod in my inventory and adding it to an existing weapon, whether looted, bought or crafted. It's a simple thing, but would go a long way in making those of us who aren't into crafting feel like we can get a piece of the item complexity pie. A lot of 'mods' wouldn't make sense to add after the fact, things like gun frames or barrels (though this could be debated, but I won't). Ever since I played the 0.692 alpha (pretty sure this is it), I felt that the weapon/armour customization system over-encouraged crafting. Simple item mods/attachments like laser sights and extended magazines should be able to be added onto existing items, by either the player (with requisite mechanics skill) or special NPCs. If I'm allowed to dream a bit, there would be NPCs scattered through the world that could construct certain items for the player, out of raw components in the player's inventory, as long as the individual components were below a certain quality rating.

I know those are larges changes, but crafting in games is for a certain type and that type isn't me. I love Underrail (or the ancient version that I played), but crafting ALWAYS producing the best loot is poor mechanic in my opinion. If we can't commission some of it from NPCs, there should at least be a chance that some of it drops in the world. My suggestion is geared towards a happy medium, because I don't expect everyone (including Styg) agrees with me.

 

[epeli]

agris nope, still can't modify existing items - but there's a new feat that allows you to disassemble them into components. The latest version added a bunch of crafting feats and significantly lowered skill requirements of all equipment crafting! Certain NPCs can already craft some components for you, unlike Fallout where they directly improve your equipment. The release version might also have some sort of crafting facilities available through player housing, but that's just my guess. As you can see, crafting's more heavily encouraged than ever.

Alfons the blueprint must first take into account the base requirements of the optional component before adding the difficulty modifier. That's how the crafting system works. edit: yes, it's probably an oversight that you can craft MKIV explosives in two different ways, but the mechanics do work correctly.

 

[Alfons]

epeli not in this case. It should either display a 78 or not show a crafting result at all. It sure as shit shouldn't show a 112.

 

[epeli]

No, you are wrong. I directly quoted Styg on how the system should work, and I know for sure that is precisely how it works in the live version.

Base requirements are the highest requirements from all components (so if you have hexogen anywhere in the recipe, it'll bump the base requirement up to 50), and composition difficulty modifiers of optional slots are added on top of that. That's how all blueprints work.

 

[Alfons]

Ok, I see. I'll just chalk it up to another thing in underrail that isn't explained well.

 

[ST'Ranger]

Ok, I see. I'll just chalk it up to another thing in underrail that isn't explained well.

RPGCodex now is lost. My people have forsaken the doctrine of good RPGs and concern themselves only with superstition and theology. Unending is the bicker: Is grognardism the excellent principle and Sawyer depraved, or is Sawyer the virtuous god, and grognardism the essential evil? These questions are debated with fire and steel, and the memory sickens me; now I leave these labored threads to the decline which must surely come.

I have known the RPGCodex of old; I have seen the towers gleaming with marvellous light, thrusting beams through the night to challenge the sun itself. Then RPGCodex was beautiful - ah my heart pains when I think of the olden site. Incendiary assaults cascaded from a thousand alts of Skyway, Gold Box threads flooded all its valleys. Agents of Incline patrolled its forums, Bethesda haters swarmed the air as thick as bees around a hive - for marvel of marvels, we had devised wefts of spitting fire to spurn the weighty power of popamoles...

But even in my life I saw the leeching of spirit. A surfeit of honey cloys the tongue; a surfeit of wine addles the brain; so a surfeit of modern game design guts a man of strength. Incisive commentary, heartfelt critique, a shared love of true classics, were free to all men, and gained by a minimum of effort. So the people of RPGCodex, released from toil, gave increasing attention to faddishness, perversity, and the popamole.

There lived one, Styg, who worked tirelessly in the background. He knew lore of all ages, secrets of fire and light, gravity and counter-gravity, the knowledge of superphysic game design, metathasm, corolopsis. In spite of his profundity, he was impractical in his method, and blind to the softening of Codexian spirit. Such weakness and lethargy as he saw he ascribed to a lack of education, and in his years he evolved a tremendous undertaking to release men from all ideological concern, and thus permit full leisure for meditation on incline.

While Styg completed his great work, the site dissolved into turbulence - the result of modern game design.

Disheartened but refusing to surrender to decline, Styg completed his Underrail project, installed vestibules throughout the internet, and then took to his throne. He issued one directive to his followers, and when RPGCodex awoke the next morning the people found their GD threads without vigor, the shoutbox quiet, the traffic diverted.

In terror they rushed to Styg, who said: "I have long been blind to your decadence and eccentricities; now I despise you; you have been the death of Incline!"

"But the Codex dies! The race perishes!" they cried.

"You must save yourselves," Styg told them. "You have ignored the ancient wisdom, you have been too indolent to learn, you have sought easy complacence from the popamole, rather than facing manfully to the world. I have resolved to impose a bitter experience upon you, which will be salutary."
...............................................

 

[Alfons]

ST'Ranger

Fuck you.

 

[Fenix]

Combat difficulty borders on unfair to impossible

What the fuck did I just read? Fight in Underrail no more difficult than in Fallout, you just need to think a little.
Humanity is degrading...

 

[Latro]

I don't buy games to think! I buy games to distract me from life!

which is probably what they're feeling, deep deep down

 

[Daedalos]

Man I just started on my 2nd playthrough, eventhough the first wasn't finished. Not sure how much playtime was left. Some quests left in Rail Crossing, Core City and Foundry completely untouched.

I made alot of mistakes on builds and I fumbled around and fucked it up with a ranged sniper evade guy.

Now I'm a melee/psi guy and man, shit just blows up. The game is actually starting to become a little too easy at points, even at this low level. Psi and melee unarmed build seems quite OP ;P

 

[Leningradiensis]

While I may not agree with your (gestalt11's) fundamental grievances with the merchants system, pointing out items that seem too rare or too abundant is indeed very useful feedback so keep it up.

Chimera blueprints are extremely rare and since it's an essential weapon for an AR build, you're really tempted to save scum for it. Potential fix is that the merchant in Core City would sell it 50% or 75% of the time so it will pop up naturally when you return to him.

 

[Fenix]

I don't buy games to think! I buy games to distract me from life!

which is probably what they're feeling, deep deep down

Then they bought what they need, because when you think about builds, strategy and tactic, its the most distracting way\kind of game.
So they are fucked up again.

 

[Latro]

I don't buy games to think! I buy games to distract me from life!

which is probably what they're feeling, deep deep down

Then they bought what they need, because when you think about builds, strategy and tactic, its the most distracting way\kind of game.
So they are fucked up again.

Or they hate all of it and then spend the rest of their time writing reviews and counter-reviews with other people on a particular forum.

 

[Alfons]

Spoiler

I was fucking around in the west wing and I found a secret ventilation vent that leads to where the rejects are. I don't have any stealth so I just proceeded to kill everyone inside. My question to anyone that knows is, does this area work like the protectorate prison in Junkyard i.e. does this only affect tchortists in that area or will it aggro people in other areas as well?

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Just found a toilet with a 'large intestine' in it last night. Styg you sick motherfucker!