Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Ol' Willy]

Only a single trap was left untouched afterwards...

 

[Major_Blackhart]

At first I was excited by that sentence. Then I saw this thread and my excitement faded.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Welp.

(P.S. Styg, Deep Caverns still sucks and the new Psi update is dumb but thanks for all the fish)

 

[Ol' Willy]

Finally, level 20 and I fully specced Disassemble. Damn, that's a dope.

- Free repair. Now I need repair kits only for the stuff that can't be disassembled. And every gun that I sell is in 100% condition.
- Placing something in the Disassemble window shows you the quality of each component.
- Changing components on the go. Now I can juggle components in and out depending on the situation, or upgrade my equipment instead of crafting entirely new.
- And no need to sell random upgrades and guns separately, now I can install them and sell expensive guns.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Ol' Willy]

Also, fun trivia: found some kind of tungsten punching gloves weighting around 1.25 or 1.5, they could disassembled into a set of tungsten plates weighting 20. Magic.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Oh, and thanks for the input guys, my AR build is mulching through the game at an cool pace. Hit a real solid wall with the final Arena Fight though, I'll be saving him as the last bit of main-game sidequesting to do before I head off on Expedition.

 

[Ghulgothas]

A vital discovery I've made is how to have fun with choke-points.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Oh, and thanks for the input guys, my AR build is mulching through the game at an cool pace. Hit a real solid wall with the final Arena Fight though, I'll be saving him as the last bit of main-game sidequesting to do before I head off on Expedition.

What difficulty are you playing? While my tincan bulldozed through any opposition on hard I think it wouldn't work on dominating for the enemy damage and health is buffed.

 

[Parabalus]

A vital discovery I've made is how to have fun with choke-points.

With the current Force Field you can throw that up at a doorway and the entire level would bunch up behind behind it, letting you AoE all of them.
Alternatively you CC one guy at the edge of the doorway, then duck behind LoS until they all gather.

Very boring though.

 

[Ghulgothas]

What difficulty are you playing?

Only Normal for now, just to get my first taste of the game. I will be going through it all again.

While my tincan bulldozed through any opposition on hard I think it wouldn't work on dominating for the enemy damage and health is buffed.

The tactic of 'planting your ass down and waiting for them to exhaust their MP moving into your firing line' is hilarious and hearing the ineffectual plinks of bullets against tungsten never gets old. I don't think I can or want to recycle this one for my Hard or Dominating runs though, I intend to spec a Stealth-Crossbow-Critical Build and a High-PSI Melee Warrior Build for those, but what for which I'm uncertain.

 

[Ol' Willy]

The tactic of 'planting your ass down and waiting for them to exhaust their MP moving into your firing line' is hilarious and hearing the ineffectual plinks of bullets against tungsten never gets old.

Noice. How do you fare against doppelgangers?

 

[Ghulgothas]

Noice. How do you fare against doppelgangers?

By turning the other cheek and taking my beating like a man.

Goddamn am I looking forward to being able to abuse Bilocation with a later character.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Damn, I'm getting good at this.

So I went to explore the Upper Caves. Why? For fun! The first area near the Hanging Rat has six Goliaths and really sucks: no cover, no chokepoints, not enough space. But traps and reloads do help. Next area has only four Goliaths and is much better - with a big rock in the middle, where I played Benny Hill with the two surviving Goliaths: they cast Spatial Bullshit and Distortion, I throw flashbangs and tase them. They can't hit me because I run away, I can't hit them because of their bullshit magicks. But after all, they die. Next area: Death Stalkers. And there, miracle happened! I spotted the bastard first and tased him!

Next, five Lunatics. They die without even making a shot at me. What is it, God of RNG is merciful today? Seems like it, for the next area has three bugs and three Goliaths and they die likewise, without hitting me once.

Going back to Rail Crossing a random beggar tried to mug me. Fool! Though he won the initiative, he was tased and executed right on the spot. A bad idea to rob the man splattered in the blood of dangerous insects.

 

[Sheepherder]

Finished the acid pistol run on Dominating. Killed Tchort, faceless commander, apogee etc. etc.
They're a great weapon when dealing with large groups of enemies, due to builtin CC and are overall very well rounded because of their damage types. Mediocre alpha strike round capabilities though.

Was fun using a build with versatility, but I had to be picky what to fight at midgame due to lagging accuracy, which eventually caught up. However, damage output without crits would be lacking. I played a ~90% crit chance build and had trouble dealing with Nagas. With rusting acid, engame gear and 2 stack of destabilization, which increased acid damage taken by 50%, only dealt 170-200 damage per crit.
Still, a fun weapon type. Definitely recommend it.

Here's a video of all the Sørmirbæren/Native bosses. The big natives with a portrait looking like they're wearing a spiky hoodie spit rusting acid, which can entangle through stasis. They're my main nemesis from the Sørmirbæren faction. Also, cleaning up the natives netted me over 50 focus stims.

 

[Ol' Willy]

only dealt 170-200 damage per crit.

How do you kill anything with that damage?

 

[Sheepherder]

only dealt 170-200 damage per crit.

How do you kill anything with that damage?

It was only against Nagas. Even Dreadnoughts weren't as bad. So with Contraction I could sometimes kill 1 Naga per turn. They have crazy high DR/DT against p. much everything. Main issue is that the big robots are immune to acidic entanglement.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Sheepherder I'm looking for some wicked and gimmicky builds for a new run after I'm done with my current Energy char. Any ideas?

Pure pistols + no PSI seems like a good challenge, but not too wicked per se.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Sheepherder]

How gimmicky do you want them? I suggest a psi tranquility Psychokinesis crit build, focusing on Electrokinesis. Crit% comes from specced Psychostatic Electricity. Haven't tried it personally.

And what kind of pistols? The ballistic ones? They're viable, but take a long time to get going and have a bad early game, as no merchant save for Blaine sells Rapid Reloaders pre depotA. I've finished the game with a crit/special attack Hammerer build and it was very good past midgame. I do recommend getting at least Temporal Manipulation psi for Contraction and LTI to reduce cooldowns.

Throwing builds are gimmicky. Grenade builds, can use t. knives as secondary to finish off enemies. Throwing knife only builds with poison (painful to play). Spear throw builds.

 

[Ol' Willy]

nothing is more challenging than throwing knives

This one is taken by Jasede and, judging by his experience, it's not so much fun.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Ol' Willy]

And what kind of pistols? The ballistic ones? They're viable, but take a long time to get going and have a bad early game, as no merchant save for Blaine sells Rapid Reloaders pre depotA. I've finished the game with a crit/special attack Hammerer build and it was very good past midgame. I do recommend getting at least Temporal Manipulation psi for Contraction and LTI to reduce cooldowns.

Yeah, ballistic ones. I'm playing Energy Pistols (evolved into "death by one EMP grenade jacked-up on electronics" type) build and it's already kinda easy. Those crits truly wreck stuff. Poor Carni died from two laser crits in one turn. From what I've seen, regular pistols kinda suck and it would be a nice challenge.

How gimmicky do you want them?

I have this in mind - inspired by Master Exploder from Arena. Blast Suit as the main armour (yes), offense - heat based PSI, tons of grenades and mines, defense - inflated health pool and shields.

https://underrail.info/build/?HggHA...AAAAMKgAEZLwqArCFUvJy5QPhZAMMK-woNjKMKyc27fvw

Yeah, very lopsided. Especially the need to have 7 DEX while the suit eats 6. Will it work at all?

 

[Sheepherder]

Ol' Willy On dominating?

1. I don't have much experience with HP tanks, but the protection from Blast Suit will not be enough. You'll need more armor.
2. Note that Tempered: Heat gives damage reduction, not resistance. Reduction stacks with things like morphine, conditioning, aegis , foods, etc. It's not a good feat overall. If you are keen on getting a Tampered feat, get Electricity instead, to help you against Mind Controllers.
   
3. At 5 Will your Metathermics damage will be meh.
4. For grenades, you might want to invest into TM for LTI. Moar grenade spam.
5. Trap expert is trash.
6. Consider getting stoicism.
7. Enemy Mind Control psions will hurt badly as their attacks will ignore your armor and shields. With no MP you'll have a lot of trouble with them.
8. For shields you'll need electronics to craft good ones. Nothing the stores sell compare to crafted shields. 171 effective with drug/food/house to craft with 164q components.
9. For MK5 frags you'll need 112 chemistry, you'll also want plasma grenades, so get electronics.
10. Yell is not a bad idea for tanks, as it reduces effective enemy skills, thus reduces the damage they deal. It's not great, just not terrible.
11. Last stand is very good for HP tanks.

 

[Ol' Willy]

On dominating?

Of course. Now I can't play anything below it. Thanks for the input, and I think all your points are absolutely mandatory, but:

Blast Suit is the gimmick. Without it the build loses its point. The idea is to lure enemies into some tight area, set everything on fire and start chugging grenades, ignoring if you are in the blast area. Taser and flashbang if necessary.

The bitch is the DEX and AG penalty. 95% armour penalty is already bad, but -6 to both DEX and AG? And you need 7 DEX for Grenadier and Three-pointer. So that is 4 stat points to waste.

As I said, very gimmicky. I don't know if I will try this. Just speculating.