Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[ItsChon]

It's not horrible, the question is, is it actually good content? Is it interesting to deal with the Hives and locusts, whether you're just stealthrunning past them or fighting them? Is it interesting to delve into 4-5 identical abandoned research centres, kill a gazillion stone statues using the same one trick for your build, and then reading a bunch of loredumps filled with every scifi trope ever?

Todd is fantastic, the Captain and other Aegis folks are very well written, and Underrail's superb underlying systems will support some fun combat scenarios in any given map/encounter. The specific complaint being raised is that when you look at the map/encounter/ quest design of Expeditions areas specifically, they are not very good or fun.

I agree with your overarching point, I just think that there are more pieces of good content than what you listed.

But yes, I think the encounter design is what really fucked this expansion more so than anything. The hives, strongmen, crabs, they were all ass because of the encounter design associated with them. I thought the native invasion was actually a really cool part of the expansion and gave a lot of different ways to explore the enconuter.

I do wish that there was an evil option to do stuff with the natives. I think that it would have added some more depth to the expansion and could have given us an interesting lense to approach the Leumerian ruins considering what we know about the natives after going through Abyssal station.

Spoiler

How it's hinted that the natives are actually the old Leumerians

 

[Blaine]

Sure, you could be lugging 800 guns and knives back, or sit there recombining them all into repair kits, but then you have over 10k money without doing any of that, so...

You vastly underestimate my desire to have a fully furnished home armed to the teeth with refurbished old-world robotic weaponry, one of each jet ski alongside a full complement of configurable equipment of each size and useful grade, and a pile of super steel large enough to blot out the Sun.

 

[Black Angel]

Luckmann it's a stack of 80 advanced repair kits.

Yeah, although people might see this as a joke, it seems people forgets that meds and repair kits in this game has weight. And with how people had tendency to save consumables "just in case", and they ended up with 999+ consumables at endgame, I wouldn't be surprised people adapted the exact same mindset with this game, and then wondered what the fuck are they carrying. I've been keeping my meds at 20 and put the extras in my house instead.

How are you supposed to infiltrate

Spoiler

the Foundry Prison

after it goes on lockdown? I was there once before, and everything was fine, I checked out the whole area, etc., nothing special, left, and now, much later, I have a quest to go there and infiltrate/exfiltrate, but now the alarm is on and there's guards standing right at the entrance, with no way to avoid them or even attempt to stealth. Everything leading up to the mission suggests it's supposed to be sneaky-breaky, but I show up and it's blaring sirens before I even start.

Did I hit another bug simply for exploring an area before I had a quest to go there?

Like has been pointed out, it seems the lockdown only happens if you used TNT/Jackhammer in the secret tunnel. If you haven't, then my guess is that you've been seen/detected, either by the cameras or by someone. You most likely gets detected by the camera, which explains why you're now outside the prison but have no way to enter. Should've cleared the camera footage, as pointed out by those symbols beneath the Zone Control icon, the prison is also a Security Camera Footage and Leave no Witnesses zone.

Still, you don't really need to go sneaky-breaky here.

Spoiler

I mean, you probably do, but only if you want to speak with Todor in his cells. If you have Persuasion, you can convince the jailor to let you meet with Todor and speak with him. After that, you could go find an abandoned sniper rifle somewhere in the roofs of the Foundry, then present it as a fake evidence to Chief Banner. You need to do some quest for him before he'll trust you, though.

I've just finished Nexus of Technology and Expedition has managed to kill my Underrail enthusiasm.

The first part of the game which ends with Depot A is absolutely great. Then Rail Crossing, Camp Hathor, Foundry and Core City are not bad either.

But the Black Sea area is just a mess filled with unmemorable locations and encounters grind. Yeah, it's not as fucked up as Deep Caverns but it's not far either.

Exploration used to be fun but now it was reduced to a complete slog because:
- The entire Black Sea area is divided in equally tiny regions (with few exceptions) which means that you don't go far without a loading screen,
- Stealth/cloaking device is mandatory because the new mobs aggro like crazy and you never know what hits you next,
- If you manage to enjoy the tediousness then you will be happy to find out that all of your efforts were rewarded with an empty container.

Some other remarks:
- While the previous locations were handcrafted and fun to explore: Nexus is basically the same layout copy-pasted 5 times.
- With max Perception and +76% detection bonus I still cannot see the fucking spiders.
- Water Locusts are cancer.

I don't know but I feel like taking a break from the game. I'm not enjoying it. Imho the vanilla content is better than the expansion's content.

You'll be glad to know that the Health Centre, Joint Security HQ, Burning Shores, and Abyssal Station are basically more copypasta stone statues and boxes and lockers. Seriously, I have no idea how this took 4 years. Maybe it's stuff like the jetski which took a long time - but while the idea of jetsking is cool, it really isn't worth the developer time.

It should be obvious I love Underrail, but this is the crux of the matter. No, it doesn't compare to DC, and yes, replaying Underrail has still been delightful - but mostly for the original content. The new maps are really mostly a downer.

There are, I think, a couple of really nice moments in there though: the conversation with Todd is very well written, and basically manages to outdo the similar things Bethesda Fallouts have tried with all their cutscenes and shit just with a single giant dialogue tree. The initial conversation with the mutie boss, who doesn't sit there as a gullible quest dispenser but has a realistic appraisal of their motivations and yours, is another one. The mechanical additions - despite some new weapons being underwhelming - are very welcome, and the stat-based environment checks (AGI for leaps) work well, too.

I get peoples frustration with the Expansion, but I really think people are exaggerating things. Perhaps I've been spoiled due to my build which allows me so many options to deal with any kind of enemy, but other than the locusts (which did suck), nothing was really that bad. I enjoyed kiting around the statues with caltrops, electrokinetic imprints, and doors so that I can pop into stealth at a far enough distance so that they couldn't take me out of it, and I could utilize Snipe. The conversation with Todd, and Abysall Station Zero as a whole is very interesting. I enjoyed the Mutie Camp and my conversations with the Ferryman, and there were some damn cool locations and items in the new expansion. I feel like people's expectations were just a little too high, and they got let down. There is definitely a lot of room for improvement, but I still enjoyed the expansion overall.

It's not horrible, the question is, is it actually good content? Is it interesting to deal with the Hives and locusts, whether you're just stealthrunning past them or fighting them? Is it interesting to delve into 4-5 identical abandoned research centres, kill a gazillion stone statues using the same one trick for your build, and then reading a bunch of loredumps filled with every scifi trope ever?

Todd is fantastic, the Captain and other Aegis folks are very well written, and Underrail's superb underlying systems will support some fun combat scenarios in any given map/encounter. The specific complaint being raised is that when you look at the map / encounter / quest design of Expeditions areas specifically, they are not very good or fun.

I took a Speardude into Expedition, got really bored with the Black Sea, rerolled as a Sniper, enjoyed it, got bored again with Black Sea, suffered through it. Half of me now wants to reroll, play some other build and just ignore the Black Sea. That tells you something (including how good Underrail is).

I thought it would be clear, but the past several days have been filled with people growing either insanely pissed or insanely bored of the xpack. Just look anywhere around the past 10 pages or maybe more, there it is, wherever you look.

You know, I think I'll agree with ItsChon. People probably had way too high expectation considering this expansion took 4 years. The swarms definitely need to be toned down, but other than that, I don't get people's problems with other aspect of the DLC.

1. The map being the way it is, is due to the geography of the Black Sea. It isn't like the rivers of Underrail, and I imagine if they put bigger individual zones you probably gonna have more swarms trouble, hence the separation of each zones to same sizes. If you haven't noticed it yet, you can actually travel the water zones diagonally, whether it's Black Sea or Underrail rivers, which is useful to quickly get to where you want and to sneak past pirates, natives, and swarms.
2. toro pointed out that stealth is mandatory, and yet Tigranes said he went back to the Black Sea after rerolling as a sniper (which I'd assume would have stealth) and still got bored of it. I personally finished and enjoyed the majority of the Black Sea as a stealth character, but I also had Persuasion and big brain 7-8 INT (and in some cases, Hypercerebrix) which probably helped me enjoy all Black Sea content, including the Deep Lore™. Again, I think this is a matter of expectation. Not sure what you guys expect, I went in expecting whatever and came out enjoying nearly everything the Black Sea had to offer.
3. Once again, the Deep Lore™ stuff are completely optional, I don't get why people even had this problem. It's not like the game forced you to read them, and it's not like it's mandatory to proceed through the expansion. You're only told to collect them and register them to Seeger, that's it. You don't even need to bother interacting with his PC if you don't feel like reading some dead person's ramblings. As for stuff in computer consoles found in the facilities itself, I really don't remember any big reading other than for the music puzzle. There are no Deep Lore™ there.
4. I don't get the thing about the places being identical. I mean, they're constructed by the exact same civilization. It's like complaining that the Hecate Research Outpost is identical to Panacea Lab. Each of the facilities also had its moments.
   Spoiler

   Horticultural Center has those swarms (which is easily the worst part of the DLC), but then you also need to figure out how to get rid of the overgrown vines in that console (which you wouldn't be able to if you fail a [Reading Comprehension] check). The Nexus of Technology has its music puzzle, though it's not for everyone. It also has the crucial information regarding a McGuffin and another coordinates (and that's it, no Deep Lore™). BSRF has the submarine, Health Center has them spooky moments (need to tone down the swarms, though), LEMCO has some unique goodies, though depending on how much you care about exploring abandoned facilities and following the main quest, you either visit this place earlier or as the very last. Joint Security Headquarter has the coordinates to the last dungeon of the DLC, though there's something that needs to be done about the Nagas. And the Abyssal Zero Substation. Oh, God, I don't think I could ever express how much I love that place. It's the last chunk of content of the DLC, and yet it's easily THE best part of the entire DLC, if not the rest of the game.
   
   Fetid Marsh can go fuck itself, though.
5. But yeah, the swarm is a problem, yes. Once again, I feel like the swarms need to be toned down. Or at least made their behavior more clear. Or, make it so TNT and high AoE damage that could instant kill the hive, ALSO instantly kills the swarm. I don't get why can ANY of the locusts jumped out unscathed after their hive got blasted by a TNT charge. Swarms like crabs, creepers, and those statues also needs to be toned down. In moderation, they're challenging enemies like any other and I'm sure anybody wouldn't mind fighting them in great encounter design. But as it is... it's just obnoxious.

I do wish that there was an evil option to do stuff with the natives. I think that it would have added some more depth to the expansion and could have given us an interesting lense to approach the Leumerian ruins considering what we know about the natives after going through Abyssal station.

Spoiler

How it's hinted that the natives are actually the old Leumerians

I think the reason why they don't give you a choice to 'join' the natives is because, that would basically like giving you a choice to join Tchort. It's a no-no because Six will fuck you up before you get to do anything.

Spoiler

Flottsormir is most likely a Leviathan described from interaction with the Mainframe of the Oculus. The Glowing Canine Monolith at the Jaws of the Black Sea is likely a spear hurled by the Godmen to kill Leviathans, which explains why even so much looking at it hurts the natives so badly.

Also,

Spoiler

the natives aren't the old Lemurians. They're actually the Atlanteans, or more precisely as the game put it, the Subislanders. There a discrimination between General R&D department with the Special R&D departments, in which the Lemurians who took refuge in the Substation can't enter the Special R&D and can only occupy a position in General R&D, while the Special R&D was exclusively the Subislanders. It's in Special R&D that the research into the Shadowlith began, and it's with the Special R&D that the corruption began. At one point, after locking themselves for a long time, the Subislanders came out of the Special R&D and began shooting at everyone, INCLUDING the Subislanders who didn't join them. This event became known as the Disunion, and after that they stormed out of the Substation and took the Subsphere, the one you saw at LEMCO full of cobwebs.

Post your save folders:

Scrubs.

(I had to delete save #1 to save #229 to free up some spaces).

Sure, you could be lugging 800 guns and knives back, or sit there recombining them all into repair kits, but then you have over 10k money without doing any of that, so...

You vastly underestimate my desire to have a fully furnished home armed to the teeth with refurbished old-world robotic weaponry, one of each jet ski alongside a full complement of configurable equipment of each size and useful grade, and a pile of super steel large enough to blot out the Sun.

Invest in Mercantile, and join the Merchants Guild™ now.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Made my first three Super Steel; quality 121, 146, and 160.

I have been lead to believe that this is p. good.

Spoiler

I use practically nothing of metal; no melee weapons, no metal armor, no helmets. I have, to the best of my knowledge, no practical use for this.

People who don't normally use metal actually get the most out of super steel. Weapons made out of it suck compared to titanium/tungsten ones, and metal armour is weaker than tungsten too even if it does have much better penalty. It's best used for infusing leather or in tactical vests/riot gear.

 

[ItsChon]

Does anyone have an answer to my game crashing whenver I try to either travel to North Underrail or become consular of SGS?

 

[Blackmill]

I've been thinking about which fights actually posed some difficulty after level 18 or so, and frankly, it was only when I had to fight a bunch of psionics. A good shield and suit of armor is just too much effective health for most enemies to be a threat. Thought control psionics can just go through the armor and shield. That said, just a few tweaks could make non-psionics tough again. As a first step, I say more enemies should have EMP grenades. And maybe rebalance EMPs to only discharge a fixed amount of shield battery, since otherwise, having a shield would either matter a lot or not at all. Or perhaps have EMP grenades simply disable electronic items for a certain number of turns but not drain energy. Adding in some better AI with this would do the trick. Better AI is needed since it's too easy to manipulate the enemy's actions by moving out of line of sight. Doing this a large group can often be fought as a series of smaller groups.* Right now, it seems like the game is balanced for decent builds, so that optimized builds reach a point (shortly after reaching core city, where you have great merchants, and much more income) where everything becomes trivial.

*This is an example scenario. You're fighting a large group of bandits, so you run behind a wall, and wait with your AR. In current Underrail the enemies will run to your location and you probably get to fight the whole group two or three at a time. With better AI, maybe the enemies could at least move as a group, and then instead rushing around the corner, chuck a half dozen toxic gas grenades near where they think you are. Now the situation is reversed and you're forced to rush at them. Then after you leave cover, you get an EMP grenade to the face, just before the snipers attempt their aimed shots.

 

[Black Angel]

Does anyone have an answer to my game crashing whenver I try to either travel to North Underrail or become consular of SGS?

Report to Styg or send him your saves.

 

[Parabalus]

As a first step, I say more enemies should have EMP grenades. And maybe rebalance EMPs to only discharge a fixed amount of shield battery, since otherwise, having a shield would either matter a lot or not at all. Or perhaps have EMP grenades simply disable electronic items for a certain number of turns but not drain energy. Adding in some better AI with this would do the trick. Better AI is needed since it's too easy to manipulate the enemy's actions by moving out of line of sight. Doing this a large group can often be fought as a series of smaller groups.* Right now, it seems like the game is balanced for decent builds, so that optimized builds reach a point (shortly after reaching core city, where you have great merchants, and much more income) where everything becomes trivial.

Not a fan of this, since getting EMPed is instadeath, due to you being damaged by your entire inventory's worth of energy.

 

[Blaine]

Not a fan of this, since getting EMPed is instadeath, due to you being damaged by your entire inventory's worth of energy.

Does it drain everything you're carrying in your pack, or only what you've got equipped? Guess I've yet to be hit by one.

An easy fix would be to cap the damage at a % of maximal health.

 

[Parabalus]

Not a fan of this, since getting EMPed is instadeath, due to you being damaged by your entire inventory's worth of energy.

Does it drain everything you're carrying in your pack, or only what you've got equipped? Guess I've yet to be hit by one.

An easy fix would be to cap the damage at a % of maximal health.

Everything in your pack on >=Hard.

Should just drop the mechanic instead of bandaiding it, if it were more annoying you'd start dropping gear and coming back for it.

 

[Blaine]

Everything in your pack on >Hard.

Should just drop the mechanic instead of bandaiding it, if it were more annoying you'd start dropping gear and coming back for it.

That should be ≥Hard, FYI.

1.0.3 was released in 2017, so that change came after my last playthrough in 2016.

I can't even imagine why something so obnoxious was implemented in the first place, but hey.

 

[hell bovine]

What is really annoying when playing with chemical pistols: "neutrals" running around like panicked lemmings during a fight. My character got accosted by the beggar in the foundry, so of course she cooked shot him in the face. Got the guy entagled, all is going well, and then the foundry cavalry arrives. Do they attack the guy? No, instead they start running around (for whatever reason?) and of course one of them jogs straight through the acid puddle, which turns them and the entire foundry hostile.

Styg
Please improve the ai, acid puddles are not traps, they are well visible on the ground.

 

[Goromorg]

Guys is it worth to invest into pickpocketing?
I know there are some faction oddities and

Spoiler

Ethan's medallion

which you can steal.
How much points to invest into it if it's good?

 

[hell bovine]

If you are not a dexterity character, I'd say don't bother, because you need to keep raising it (40 is enough for junkyard, from what I remember). But with high dex pickpocketing is a nice supply of meds, ammo and a few oddities & quest items.

 

[Parabalus]

Guys is it worth to invest into pickpocketing?
I know there are some faction oddities and

Spoiler

Ethan's medallion

which you can steal.
How much points to invest into it if it's good?

You can get the spoilered with persuade instead.

I use it on my current run and have been surprised at how useful it is, but I'd only invest if you max DEX and can get by with <60 points.

 

[hell bovine]

On the topic of dexterity: after tinkering around with chemical pistols, imo with temporal psi you don't need high dexterity anymore. That magical 90 ap number is easy to get with minimal skill and feat investment. Psychotemporal haste spell is available as soon as

Spoiler

you get to rail crossing, the doc there sells the psychic mentor.

It got me thinking that a laser pistol-wielding scientist should be quite viable, because if you don't need to invest in dex, then you can raise your perception and get good acccuracy even on higher difficulty settings. With stealth, ambush and crafting you should be able to get the critical chance above 100, and with temporal magic and drugs you get 6 shots with the laser pistol... All that is missing is a top hat & monocle.

 

[Elephantman]

nice, got the jetski back that i gave up in negotiations

...

Omaha beach: The Neverending Story

 

[Elephantman]

 

[Fenix]

all your throwing stuff including Spear Throw goes on cooldown

LTI! LTI-LTI-LTI*LtI^ltI(L#t#i!

Some end game loot.

You used ALL this?
Respect.

For some reason the game just crashes after I click an "End Game" option. I don't get a cutscene like I should. Any ideas?

I have one - report it.

How much points to invest into it if it's good?

If you want oddities and some juicy stuff then 100-130 I guess.

 

[ciox]

LTI! LTI-LTI-LTI*LtI^ltI(L#t#i!

LTI also goes on cooldown.

 

[toro]

Given the across the board hate being shown for certain gameplay aspects of the expansion, I wonder how these weren't addressed during the testing phase where community members were giving feedback.

What exactly do you mean?

I thought it would be clear, but the past several days have been filled with people growing either insanely pissed or insanely bored of the xpack. Just look anywhere around the past 10 pages or maybe more, there it is, wherever you look.

Maybe there is some truth in the complains.

Has anyone found blueprints for Hypercerebrix or Third Eye yet?

I think I found both in the Nexus of Technology (K7 area of Black Sea).

 

[Luckmann]

How are you supposed to infiltrate

Spoiler

the Foundry Prison

after it goes on lockdown? I was there once before, and everything was fine, I checked out the whole area, etc., nothing special, left, and now, much later, I have a quest to go there and infiltrate/exfiltrate, but now the alarm is on and there's guards standing right at the entrance, with no way to avoid them or even attempt to stealth. Everything leading up to the mission suggests it's supposed to be sneaky-breaky, but I show up and it's blaring sirens before I even start.

Did I hit another bug simply for exploring an area before I had a quest to go there?

Like has been pointed out, it seems the lockdown only happens if you used TNT/Jackhammer in the secret tunnel. If you haven't, then my guess is that you've been seen/detected, either by the cameras or by someone. You most likely gets detected by the camera, which explains why you're now outside the prison but have no way to enter. Should've cleared the camera footage, as pointed out by those symbols beneath the Zone Control icon, the prison is also a Security Camera Footage and Leave no Witnesses zone.

Still, you don't really need to go sneaky-breaky here.

Spoiler

I mean, you probably do, but only if you want to speak with Todor in his cells. If you have Persuasion, you can convince the jailor to let you meet with Todor and speak with him. After that, you could go find an abandoned sniper rifle somewhere in the roofs of the Foundry, then present it as a fake evidence to Chief Banner. You need to do some quest for him before he'll trust you, though.

Nope. Like I said, I was there earlier, long before I got that quest. At that point, I talked to the warden, got access to the security room, disabled the cameras, etc. And just like last time the game decided to shit itself for seemingly no reason, I was never detected, and nobody ever turned hostile, either.

I ended up having to spoil the entire thing by consulting the wiki, at which point I was able to resolve the whole thing by vigorous cheating and teleporting, although I had to do it in an unplanned and suboptimal fashion, which really pisses me off. There's no excuse for this shit not working properly.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Nope. Like I said, I was there earlier, long before I got that quest. At that point, I talked to the warden, got access to the security room, disabled the cameras, etc. And just like last time the game decided to shit itself for seemingly no reason, I was never detected, and nobody ever turned hostile, either.

I ended up having to spoil the entire thing by consulting the wiki, at which point I was able to resolve the whole thing by vigorous cheating and teleporting, although I had to do it in an unplanned and suboptimal fashion, which really pisses me off. There's no excuse for this shit not working properly.

The prison's on lockdown because some unknown person fucked with their cameras/looked around the cells. They don't know you did it so they're not hostile towards you, but they know someone did, so they're on lockdown while they try to figure it out. It's working as intended, not a bug. Kinda harsh, but not a bug.

 

[Black Angel]

Nope. Like I said, I was there earlier, long before I got that quest. At that point, I talked to the warden, got access to the security room, disabled the cameras, etc. And just like last time the game decided to shit itself for seemingly no reason, I was never detected, and nobody ever turned hostile, either.

You disabled the cameras, but did you re-enabled it?

If not, then why did you even do all that, before you even got any quests involving that place? And why do you think they won't notice someone disabled the cameras, leading them to believe someone either broke in or out of the prison? What do you think they'll do once they came to notice all this? Nothing? Also, since you've read the wiki, it also stated that leaving any cells door open will also cause a lockdown in the prison. That is probably the likely reason why the prison is on a lockdown despite you never getting detected and nobody turned hostile. Or, again, like Spark Mandriller said above, they noticed someone disabled their cameras without you re-enabling it when you leave. The game already has an intricate mechanics of tracing deeds back to the player's character, with an extra like the one in the prison, so making extra sure you don't leave any trail behind is crucial.

 

[Luckmann]

The prison's on lockdown because some unknown person fucked with their cameras/looked around the cells. They don't know you did it so they're not hostile towards you, but they know someone did, so they're on lockdown while they try to figure it out. It's working as intended, not a bug. Kinda harsh, but not a bug.

Is there any indication whatsoever that suggests that this is even remotely true?

You disabled the cameras, but did you re-enabled it?

You can't.

why did you even do all that

Because I was exploring the prison and the cameras were in the way. It's what I do. I explore everything as thoroughly as I can when I get to it. Most of the time, the game even accounts for it - so often, in fact, that I react when it doesn't.

Spoiler

Notably, Gorsky's quests in Core City doesn't - you have to take the quests and then immediately start conversation with him again, rather than just being able to tell him "I've already done that".

Also, since you've read the wiki, it also stated that leaving any cells door open will also cause a lockdown in the prison. That is probably the likely reason why the prison is on a lockdown despite you never getting detected and nobody turned hostile.

That begs the question as to why there's no feedback whatsoever when that actually happens - alarms going off, guards going hostile or trying to keep you in the prison, lockdown happening, etc. Instead, it's ignored completely, only to suddenly become an issue later, without anything indicating that that is the reason? If that's "working as designed", that's just really fucking shitty design.

The game already has an intricate mechanics of tracing deeds back to the player's character

Hahaha, oh wow, the delusion is real. The games have psychic enemies and scripted events, there's nothing intricate about it.