Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Blaine]

A few relatively obscure tips, courtesy YT:

You'll find a lot of crossbows as loot in this game, but precious few merchants to buy them, and most who do will barely have anything of value to offer for them. Lukas in SGS is a major exception to this. Whenever he's buying crossbows, barter his limit's worth for as much ammunition as you can get. The ammo can then be bartered to the obnoxious general goods merchants, who almost never buy anything valuable except ammo, and rarely have anything good for sale. What they do have is plenty of cash money.

If you're overencumbered by a few to twenty pounds or so and happen to be carrying something heavy that will fit into a crafting window slot (metal armor into Recycle Item, etc.), you can put said item into the window and walk around unencumbered, even through zone transitions (but not dialogues).

If you're playing a higher-level spear guy and are holding a spear in each weapon slot, but don't want to waste durability/charges on pissant enemies like rathounds, you can remove one of the spears into your inventory for 0 AP. It only costs AP to swap or drag new things into a slot. (Coming next week, Underrail Expedition 1.0.1.13: It now costs 25 AP to unequip things.)

 

[Blaine]

 

[ciox]

Hey, make up your mind with that rating already.

Btw, some tips and my experience regarding the last quest in the pirate raid series.

Spoiler

It's not immediately obvious but you can destroy the Eels' sonar station with stealth and a TNT charge then sneak out without any combat, and you can do it even if you fail to persuade the Captain into making it a one-man mission, so long as it's destroyed somehow he will congratulate you and the quest will be completed.

Shiz's way more interesting than the main quest so I've been doing that for a while. Unfortunately I had to make a detour to the Nexus eventually to get Hypercerebrix.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Why? You don;t need stealth to release Hopsy.


He gives you secret shortcut for his labirynth lol.

You need lockpick

Enviado de meu SM-G950F usando o Tapatalk

 

[Blaine]

Jesus Christ, no wonder people were warning of spoilers for The Dude. Styg practically added an entire separate game to one character. Is that a spoiler in itself?

Spoiler

As an American, my character being dumped into an army base filled with what I assume to be Slavic/Eastern European (or analogous) soldiers speaking Orcish truly was an alien, disorienting experience. Are they supposed to actually be Serbian? Would I feel any differently if I were to visit an actual Eastern European country in person, come to think of it?

I figured out the disguise mechanic right away, and due to my high Persuade, I just strolled around the base with impunity, taking anything that wasn't nailed down.

 

[Damianus_NT]

Is there anything else to do in the Expedition after the main storyline is finished? I have explored the last area and escaped with certain artefact. Talking to the professor ends the questline.

I'm trying to find out if there is anything more to do:

Spoiler

- discovered every location, except those full of natives and pirates,
- talked to Yngwar and Ferryman, and acquired the Shard from the boneyard (killing some shamans that stood in the way - other natives and every single pirate is still alive) and transformed it into Eternal torch,
- went back to the Abysal Station with the newly acquired weapon, but don't know how to destroy the Monolith; I can only deal with the respawning ghosts,

Any tips?

 

[toro]

Black Sea locations.

Spoiler

I think I've fucked up my game cause I went to L2 area in order to get the mines (sooner than expected) and now I have to go back to that area!?

Spoiler

All the spiders resurrected. This is some shitty quest scripting.

 

[Tweed]

Having wrapped up the whole game, I have to say I liked the expansion well enough, BUT....

Locusts were a real drag, mostly because of the time it takes to kill them, even at full tilt. But they're also obnoxious with their spitting and their parasites, a truly irritating enemy. The overarching story was good, but it still needed some more fleshing out I think. A lot of it just seems to hit you right at the end and at first I didn't make too much sense of it. So like, the Atlantians were the natives and then they kind went all funny in the head yeah? I didn't mind Strongmen so much because they're slow and emps slow them down even further, handmaidens were pretty fragile to my shotgun blasts. It was the Naga's that took some time to whittle down, even with trainshot. As far as the lore goes I was more interested in learning about the overall world, the megacorps, and listening to the exchanges between Ladelmen and Marcus, not only were they funny and well written, they gave me a lot more insight into southern vs northern life in the world.

DC was practically a cakewalk, of course knowing where stuff is and NOT pissing off the faceless helped a lot, but seriously, nowhere near the nightmare it was for me the first time. I almost killed the boss with my first shotgun burst, probably could have finished him off on the second round if I'd been carrying the double barrel in my off hand.

 

[Damianus_NT]

toro

Spoiler

You can use your Jet Ski in order to get there. There is a gap between the pirates' base walls in the G3. If you are careful enough, you can get to the Lemurian Manufactoring Complex without aggroing any pirates. Way faster than going through the swamp.
Respawning Sea Wyrms and serpents are even more annoying than the spiders so it is good that you do not have to deal with them too.

Black Sea Locations - I made a map of the whole area (this one is incomplete):

Spoiler

 

[Fenix]

You need lockpick

Well, 30 is still doable with high mechanics, jackknife and lockpicks.

Is that a spoiler in itself?

Spoiler

They're using made up language, based on real Slavic languages, devs were having fun definitely, just as I am there haha.

 

[hell bovine]

Ok, I have some issues with cooked shot.
epeli Styg
Could someone explain whether what I'm observing is a bug or a feature? Basically, sometimes the cooked shot results in nothing. Now this is an aoe attack, so I'd expect that sometimes my character misses and the acid ends up a few tiles away. But when fighting in narrow corridors (and only in narrow corridors), sometimes the acid doesn't appear anywhere.

 

[Black Angel]

Pretty much everybody agrees that encounter design in the expansion is mediocre-to-poor. Stealth always lessens the pain, it always does in Underrail, but that doesn't change the underlying fact.

Excusing monotonous gameplay because of lore has never ever made sense for any video game in the universe. You make the lore to make the game. Nobody's forcing you to make lore require monotonous content.

You keep arguing that the loredumps can never be a problem if they are not mandatory, and I guess we'll agree to disagree on that.

And I didn't deny that. I've been saying again and again that I agree the swarms and encounters are the lower points of the DLC. My point has been that there are a lot of good stuff in there that's pretty much ignored either because people were irritated/letdown by certain aspects of the DLC, hence my agreement with ItsChon that people in general expected more or something else entirely, and thus exaggerated the worst parts of the DLC to the point where it seems that Styg and co didn't achieve anything meaningful.

And I'm not excusing monotonous gameplay because of the lore. While the gameplay and the lore aren't exactly mutually exclusive, the lore stuff is still pretty much optional in that they aren't needed to progress the expedition. I haven't played any of the PoE games, all this time people keep saying that in PoE, you talk to an NPC and then you get loredumps even though you didn't (choose an option to) ask for it. I don't see any of that kind of loredumps in the DLC, because they're all hidden behind a dialogue option to ask it from NPCs or from interacting with objects like an in-game PC and computer consoles. And so it baffles me when you implied that there are PoE-style-loredumps in the Black Sea, but since you've decided to just agree to disagree then I'll respect your decision here and now.

The bigger issue is you miss out bigly unless do it the diplomatic way.

What's wrong with missing things if we didn't do things the certain way?

I think I've fucked up my game cause I went to L2 area in order to get the mines (sooner than expected) and now I have to go back to that area!?

I'm gonna second Damianus_NT here. Fuck the Marsh, shouldn't be hard to get to L2 as long as you don't get too close to the pirates. And it's not hard if you stick to transition grids because the pirates aren't placed too close to there either.

Also, don't forget to

Spoiler

import docking coordinates from Joint Security Headquarters, release the submarine in Blistering Shore Research Facility, and have it towed by the Ferryman (or someone else if you killed him) to L2

Spoiler

All the spiders resurrected. This is some shitty quest scripting.

Uh.... I think that's just the game's usual respawn mechanic, which presumably can be hastened if you use in-game's out-of-combat speed slider (and even speedhack).

A lot of it just seems to hit you right at the end and at first I didn't make too much sense of it. So like, the Atlantians were the natives and then they kind went all funny in the head yeah?

Spoiler

They didn't just went all funny in the head. They're the ones who discovered and brought the Shadowlith to Special R&D, presumably from the depths of the Black Sea. They conducted research on it, thus 'interacted' with it and slowly, but surely, gets corrupted in the way Chaos corrupt stuff in 40k. All these, as can be inferred from the information gained from the consoles and dialogue with Todd and 'family', happened around the time of Lemurians seeking refuge from genocide committed by Biocorp. They then isolated themselves in Special R&D, and when the corruption spread enough, they showed up and start shooting at everyone, including their fellow Atlanteans, who refused to join them. This event came to be known as the Disunion, and in the aftermath they stormed out of the Substation, seized the subsphere (which you can see at L2, filled with cobwebs), and began settling the Black Sea as the Sormirbaeren.

Flottsormir is also most likely one of the Leviathans, and the Glowing Canine monolith at the Jaws is most likely a spear hurled by the Godmen, like described in the Mainframe of the Oculus. This explains why the natives hurts themselves from just looking at the monolith, and could even die like Yngwar's brother.

 

[Diggfinger]

Yay! Just got my old 2016 (Steam) savegame to work on (GOG) Underrail: Expeditions!

Guess I will completely dominate with my OP'd psy +melee build, after all...once I'm done with the fabulous PoE1, that is

 

[Parabalus]

What's wrong with missing things if we didn't do things the certain way?

This particular case is done very badly.

Who in their right mind would do a quest in a much much harder way and miss out on some of Underrail's best content?

 

[toro]

I just rage quitted.

Look, I understand Styg wants to be hardcore because the game keeps on repeating: hardcore, dominating, blablabla ... however I think there is a huge misunderstanding somewhere: tedious is not hardcore or difficult!

So, I went for the Blistering Shores facility and you have to constantly pause for retarded geysers however:
1) Waving your hand in front of an Electronic Lock means that you get de-stealthed because it makes sense!? Not really.
2) Let's say you are a stealth guy and you want to ghost the location: No no NO!! Fuck you! Even with max stealth crabs will pop-out of the ground and they will start rapping you because the game designer decided you must fight.

This is the most trash encounter design I've encountered since Deep Roads and Deep Caverns. And I use 'trash' as an euphemism because this shit is abysmal.

Styg if you designed these encounters then please go outside of your bubble, try some other games, hire a competent designer or take a vacation because honestly it's unacceptable to release this kind of shit after 4 years of development.

Spoiler alert: GAMES SHOULD BE FUN! I could finish the entire Depot A in like 30 minutes but every fucking encounter in this expansion is a fucking slog and a pointless waste of time. It's insulting.

I don't know what went wrong in your head or what is happening at Stygian Software but please take this harsh criticism as constructive as possible. You just released content which is ruining the vanilla game.

Yeah, there are good parts (Dude's quest, Tone's dialogue and so on) but overall it's the most boring and tedious shit I've played in long time. It hurts.

Honestly, I need to chill and come back another day because I have the worst kind of flashbacks.

/rant

 

[Parabalus]

I just ragequit.

Look, I understand Styg wanted to be hardcore because the game keeps on repeating: hardcore, dominating, blablabla ... however I think there is a huge misunderstanding somewhere: tedious is not hardcore or difficult!

So, I went for the Blistering Shores facility and you have to constantly pause for retarded geysers however:
1) Waving your hand in front of an Electronic Lock means that you get de-stealthed because it makes sense!? Not really.
2) Let's say you are a stealth guy and you want to ghost the location: No no NO!! Fuck you! Even with max stealth crabs will pop-out of the ground and they will start rapping you because the game designer decided you must fight.

This is the most trash encounter design I've encountered since Deep Roads and Deep Caverns. And I use trash as an euphemism because this shit is abysmal.

Styg if you designed these encounters then please go outside of your bubble, try some other games, hire a competent designer or take a vacation because honestly it's unacceptable to release this kind of shit after 4 years of development.

Spoiler alert: GAMES SHOULD BE FUN! I could finish the entire Depot A in like 30 minutes but every fucking encounter in this expansion is a fucking slog and a pointless waste of time. It's insulting.

I don't know what went wrong in your head or what is happening at Stygian Software but please take this harsh criticism as constructive as possible. You just released content which is ruining the vanilla game.

Yeah, there are good parts (Dude's quest, Tone dialogues and so on) but overall it's the most boring and tedious shit I've played in long time. It hurts.

Honestly, I need to chill and come back another day because I have the worst kind of flashbacks.

/rant

You can get to Blistering shores from a native village (look at the map above, the squares are unexplored) instead, skip the cancer.

I didn't play with stealth, but good to know the crabs still spawn. Why not make them like Siphoners?

The encounter design is really "something", mostly because unlike in the main game there are multiple areas of the same critter being spammed, whereas usually in the base it's just 1 area and then you get switched up.

 

[Jezal_k23]

This is the most trash encounter design I've encountered since Deep Roads ...

That was the most blistering review I've read so far. Damn dude, that's heavy.

 

[Marten Broadcloak]

I'm going to reroll as a full psi user, with stealth. All the talk about armor being Superior to dodge/evasion got me curious though, but won't a heavy armor fuck my stealth? I'd like to be able to avoid crabs and locusts, if possible.

 

[Wunderbar]

I've barely scratched the surface of the expansion, but these locust hives and strongmen are already getting under my skin. Being a crossbowman sucks.

 

[Parabalus]

I'm going to reroll as a full psi user, with stealth. All the talk about armor being Superior to dodge/evasion got me curious though, but won't a heavy armor fuck my stealth? I'd like to be able to avoid crabs and locusts, if possible.

As full PSI you will likely have 3 STR, so the heaviest you can go is a tactical vest, which is more than good enough, with possibly a backup leather for stealthing.

You simply kill and CC stuff so it doesn't hit you, especially melees.

 

[toro]

This is the most trash encounter design I've encountered since Deep Roads ...

That was the most blistering review I've read so far. Damn dude, that's heavy.

There are many issues with the expansion:

1) I felt victim to the Controlled Zone mechanic. Basically at the beginning of the expansion after a certain event I was looking for a pirate's squad. Without knowing I've entered an area close to Citadel of Life, I saw pirates, I DIDN'T ATTACK and I left. On return 20 hours later I cannot enter that area without all pirates aggro-ing on my position. Yeah, it doesn't matter that I have permission to travel their areas or that I did not kill any of them. I'm safe as long as I don't enter that particular area.

2) I've went through 4 assaults of natives on my base cause I did not know about the mines. The thing is: the safety of the expedition went from excellent to worse even when I did most of the killing and I did not lose one single Aegis soldier to the natives. Rubbish encounter design which requires you to go get the mines asap. Not to mention that the NPCs AI is braindead.

3) Junkyard was an outstanding and brilliant way to introduce a new mob: the mutants and their dogs. None of the expansion's locations are as memorable as Depot A, in fact they are mostly similar/copy-pasted structures filled with the same mobs. However we are not speaking about one, two or three locations, we are speaking of 6 similar locations! Yeah, I cannot wait to explore them all. No to mention that there are places were the cameras see you through the walls.

Edit: I just realized that they have to be 6 locations and 6 corporations because Six is the answer. Lame joke.

4) I play on Hard but the amount of enemies in encounters is simply unreasonable. I kill 3/2 enemies each round and I do crowd control with grenades however one wrong step and I'm surrounded by 3 crabs with a deathwish. Ok, this doesn't sounds so bad but why they pop-up even when you go stealth!? There is no excuse for such a design decision. Forcing the player to play your content in a certain way (*combat*) is a big No-No.

5) It's no fun! I cannot complain about backtracking as in Deep Caverns but the situation is not much better: the design is so retarded that you are forced to slog through each locations. If you stealth then you get fucked because at some point the enemies will trigger anyway. That's why my solution was to kill every Stone mob on the levels. I cannot imagine playing the expansion with a melee character. It's not challenging, it's tedious.

6) The combat. I did not want to open the discussion but it's bad because the RNG is retarded. I'm level 24 with max Perception, max Guns and lvl 70 Rapid Spearhead. However each time I start combat it's a complete shit show: sometimes Snipe works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes Aimed Shot works, sometimes it doesn't. You cannot count on the percentage displayed by the game: 70%+ hit chance are missed shots. For example do a test: reload the same savegame and start combat. Some times you will hit 3 criticals and other times you will have 3 misses in a row. No joke. RNG makes the difference between these opposites. It should not work like this and the RNG should be toned down considering that I have a weapon with low damage spread.

7) What is the purpose of this expansion? Mindless slaughter of retarded enemies!? Huge lore dumps about Lemurians!? Here is one idea: the vanilla game was in need of some polishing (badly) therefore why don't you spend some effort on that part!? Fix Drones vs Protectorate quest, fix Gorsky's quest, tone down Deep Caverns retardiness, expand Camp Hathor/Lower Underrail in an organic way, add 2-3 secret facilities with personality, add intelligent quests and so on. Underrail has one thing going for it: the combat mechanics are excellent however you cannot base your entire franchise on combat. Yeah, they decided to double down on combat but this doesn't mean the expansion or their future titles will be good. It just shows that the game designer is unwilling to learn from his mistake and it's unwilling to go out of his comfort zone. Do some detective quests for fuck sake. Just do anything not related to combat. And don't get me started on that musical puzzle.

Edit:
8) The expansion setting and the Pirates faction in particular doesn't make sense what so ever. What ships are they actually plundering? The ships of the natives!? I'm not sure the great designer put a lot of thought in the rationale of their existence. This is the same type of thinking that added jetpacks to Elex because ... it's cool.

I love Underrail and I have 350+ hours put into it however I don't like the direction it has taken. I was excited for this expansion. Now, I need 1-2 days to recover.

 

[Jrpgfan]

You need lockpick

Well, 30 is still doable with high mechanics, jackknife and lockpicks.

Is that a spoiler in itself?

Spoiler

They're using made up language, based on real Slavic languages, devs were having fun definitely, just as I am there haha.

Not enough. And I'm not sure it's still 30.

 

[ciox]

expand Camp Hathor/Lower Underrail in an organic way,

Arguably this has already been done with the waterways and the Hathor hunting grounds which you can access via jetski and see where the campers actually go to hunt animals, other than that not a whole lot to disagree with I guess.

 

[ciox]

I've barely scratched the surface of the expansion, but these locust hives and strongmen are already getting under my skin. Being a crossbowman sucks.

Can scarcely imagine doing that shit without a String Lord style build with Expose Weakness and Implosion to prop up the crossbows, NOT GONNA LIE.

 

[Abu Antar]

I did the first two arena fights. That was fun! I can't wait to see what more challenging fights will be like.