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Underrail: The Incline Awakens

Twiglard

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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut

CHEMS

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Depot A without subterfuge is hell tier.

Actually stealth with zero skill still works. The enemies won't even start detecting you beyond a certain distance.

Or you could invest on lockpicking and hacking and not even worry about turrets and locked doors.

It's more about starting combat on your own terms than running away from enemies.

You'll almost never need to combat in depot a if you have at least 60 hacking and 50 lockpicking. The only mutie you need to kill is the one holding the key to Wyatt's junkyard section
-

There's an interesting bug/exploit with Gorsky in Core City: if you have enough pickpocketing, you can steal weapons from him. Thing is: every merchant refresh, a new Rifle spawns in his inventory. And they're of good quality too. Ammunition also respawns in his inventory. He must be smuggling guns into Core City :D
 

Ghulgothas

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Currently working through the Mutie questline. Sad to say that Siphoners don't take acid damage when they drain you as a mutie, they must have one hell of a stomach to handle my intravenous acidity.

There's a lot to this actually.
20210406123516-1.jpg
 
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Tygrende

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Depot A without subterfuge is hell tier.

Actually stealth with zero skill still works. The enemies won't even start detecting you beyond a certain distance.

Or you could invest on lockpicking and hacking and not even worry about turrets and locked doors.

It's more about starting combat on your own terms than running away from enemies.

You'll almost never need to combat in depot a if you have at least 60 hacking and 50 lockpicking. The only mutie you need to kill is the one holding the key to Wyatt's junkyard section
-

There's an interesting bug/exploit with Gorsky in Core City: if you have enough pickpocketing, you can steal weapons from him. Thing is: every merchant refresh, a new Rifle spawns in his inventory. And they're of good quality too. Ammunition also respawns in his inventory. He must be smuggling guns into Core City :D
To be fair 60 hacking at Depot A isn't that simple to get - at level 10, it requires maxing it every level and at least 5 INT. More INT if lower level. 11 is max at this point in the game, but extremaly hard to get, 10 or even 8-9 being more likely for most.

Classic babies need not apply, of course.
 

Blaine

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Classic babies need not apply, of course.

Classic may have been tweaked at some point, because I'm level 26 now with a good chunk of Expedition but only the lightest smattering of pre-DC, non-Expedition content remaining to be tackled. It therefore looks like I'm on track to reach level 30 very shortly before DC is the only major remaining content, which in my view is just right. Hitting 30 when you grab an oddity from Tchort's corpse is a little late for my liking.

Depot A is probably the stiffest test of a new build in the game, though, and every level counts at that point, so I agree that Classic makes that crucial test easier.

Aside from Oddity being a bit slow for my taste, it's also very meta-gamey. Rummaging through every trash can and pocket, farming some enemy until you max out its oddities, even euthanizing a faction if you lack a way to obtain a major oddity—or scrounging up every single one you can find to prepare for Depot A, for example—none of these are desirable. The two major upsides of Oddity are that it compels you to take risks in order to obtain them and rewards exploration and searching nooks and crannies, but I'd be doing that anyway.
 
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Tygrende

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Aside from Oddity being a bit slow for my taste, it's also very meta-gamey.
Classic can be way more meta if you want it to. Farming to Level 30 before Depot A? Only thing stopping you is time and good mental health. But even without going into such extremes, it still compels you to kill things more often than not. For example, on oddity I don't particularly care about hunting nagas beyond the 2 I get oddities from. On classic they are huge XP pinatas and it's preferable to seek and kill all of them.
 

Blaine

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Aside from Oddity being a bit slow for my taste, it's also very meta-gamey.
Classic can be way more meta if you want it to. Farming to Level 30 before Depot A? Only thing stopping you is time and good mental health. But even without going into such extremes, it still compels you to kill things more often than not. For example, on oddity I don't particularly care about hunting nagas beyond the 2 I get oddities from. On classic they are huge XP pinatas and it's preferable to seek and kill all of them.

That is true enough, but I personally avoid killing things for XP when playing Classic. Loot can motivate me to kill things, but I no longer clear out every loot pinata just because; you get mountains of generic loot anyway. Exceptions include things like the Protectorate waterway outposts, largely because the skis there contain valuable parts for trading with Ray, circumventing the loss of straight charons when he's got a good part available.

So for me (perhaps the same isn't true for everyone), playing Classic means that I don't worry about XP one way or the other.

The other thing about Oddity is that if you don't have stealth, lockpicking and/or hacking, and pickpocketing, you're either going to get less Oddity XP or you'll be euthanizing a lot of factions. The Oddity playthroughs that I have done were done because I had the skills to access Oddities (as I do this playthrough, but I still prefer Classic).
 

Fenix

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Tell me one thing - as a mutant can you get levels? Also, you can't wear footwear or headwear rigth?

I'm already thinking about abandoning pistols as it is too powerful, and don't require tactical movement in figth.
Pistols are as noob-friendly as AR now.

The other thing about Oddity is that if you don't have stealth, lockpicking and/or hacking, and pickpocketing, you're either going to get less Oddity XP or you'll be euthanizing a lot of factions.

The only oddity you need lockpicking for is in Foundry prison as far as I remember. Pickpocketing - yes, stealth - yes, hacking probably.
 
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Blaine

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A couple random thoughts, then opinions about jet skis:

If you obtain a bundle of cigars under false pretenses from a group within a certain secluded grotto, leave peaceably, then return later, you'll find that they've been killed, presumably by the intended proper recipient(s) of said cigars.

The update I'd most like to see is the option to upgrade unique weapons and armor so that they aren't hopelessly outclassed by crafted gear. Only a few are really viable past the early-mid game. It'd just be nice to see more variety out there.

After some testing, I've decided that the Shark is the best all-around jet, primarily due to its large engine slot. It allows you to cruise around quickly under minimal load on the one hand, as well as carry a substantial amount of loot without crawling around too sluggishly on the other. It's also less affected by the total weight of its own equipment. With a good suspension and basic stability training, you can shoot and throw nearly unimpeded, while the optional Harp-1 rockets are a poor man's cheaper plasma grenades. For those who use Ambush, Ambush isn't negated by lights as with the Glow; and not being lit up makes it harder for enemies to shoot you. The Shark can also be made just as energy-efficient as the Glow by downgrading its engine size.

The Glow is slightly faster under equal load, can fit a large battery for more longevity between recharges, has the laser/plasma pulse ability (which eats battery), and its lights can help your precision at close range (or your enemies' at any range), but turning on NVGs isn't too hard.

I used the Phaser a lot during my last playthrough, and I definitely consider it the overall best of the lightweight jets. I'm not sure why the Blazer exists except for people who like flame decals, or perhaps to be the cheapest premium option among light, fast jets.
 

Ghulgothas

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Tell me one thing - as a mutant can you get levels? Also, you can't wear footwear or headwear rigth?
Ostensibly, though there's a distinct lack of opportunity for battle XP needed once you turn. All of the combat encounters in the Mutie-locked areas are more puzzles than anything. And right and right.
 

normie

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The update I'd most like to see is the option to upgrade unique weapons and armor so that they aren't hopelessly outclassed by crafted gear. Only a few are really viable past the early-mid game. It'd just be nice to see more variety out there.
it would be cool if the barrel was the quality scaled gun component instead of the frame

and like, with disassemble, you could break down unique guns for components and build it back better with a slamming barrel

that would be really cool
 

Ghulgothas

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Oh yeah, and for everyone who doesn't want to go the chore that is cutting a bloody swathe through Core City for all the new written content; here's a Greatest Hits Collection of the Mutie questline.

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20210406131527-1.jpg
 

Blaine

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Classic babies need not apply, of course.
Fuck off trash collector.
Fuck off placeholder enjoyer.

0HKHhtt.png

Indeed, but Styg's decisions aren't above criticism, and the Oddity system has its downsides—all systems have downsides. Styg can claim credit for fantastic shit like Oculus, The Dude, and Gray Army Base, but he's also responsible for locusts and the psi nerf.

Oddity is quite evidently easier for the designer to control, but Classic could be brought roughly in line with Oddity by doing a bit more playtesting and then adjusting the required amount of XP/level accordingly. That way, Classic players could be kept to 10 or below before Depot A, and generally knocked down a level or two after having done nearly all pre-DC content.

Grinders aren't a concern, any more than save-scummers are a concern. If people want to grind and save-scum, let them. That doesn't affect me.

I can deal with not reaching level 30 until one room before Tchort, but I really wouldn't want to play Oddity with a non-stealth, non-subterfuge character, because we both know that in that case one is compelled to slaughter factions whose questlines are done in order scrape up more XP. There are simply too many oddities behind red cursors. That's not the only downside of the Oddity system, but it's one of them.
 
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Mortmal

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Give blaine a few more hundreds hours of playtime and he will come back to tell us all its shit :)
 

Tygrende

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I can deal with not reaching level 30 until one room before Tchort
But that's not the case at all unless you didn't explore a whole lot of the game. With full exploration, you should enter DC at 29, either very far or very close to 30 depending on how thorough you were. In that case you will hit 30 either very early or mid DC. If you are VERY thorough, it's possible to hit 30 before DC on oddity as well, if barely.

but I really wouldn't want to play Oddity with a non-stealth, non-subterfuge character, because we both know that in that case one is compelled to slaughter factions whose questlines are done in order scrape up more XP. There are simply too many oddities behind red cursors.
That is not true and I have no idea where this popular myth came from. There's barely any oddities that cannot be maxed without lockpick/hacking. There are a few that can be maxed earlier with those skills, but you get spare copies eventually. There is a lot more that you can't get without pickpocket, but even those are rare and more of a nice bonus than a necessity. Without stealth you are only really missing stuff like the tri-monitor blueprint and the sword handle and the JKK/Praetorian HQs.

For comparsion, the only way to get ALL oddities is to join JKK and Free Drones, yet I don't see anyone arguing that oddity compells the player to go that route because of it.
 

Blaine

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Nothing wrong with an annoying enemy leading to attrition. Aren't people complaining about the locusts the same people whining about DC being too hard?

Yes, there is something wrong with it—and it's not just annoying, it's tedious and stupid. Stealth-based players have the option to demolish the nests, whereas non-stealth players will have little choice but to crank the combat speed up to 900% and still sit through a shitload of movement and attack animations every turn. Even if you napalm the locusts and their nest into oblivion fairly quickly, it's still obnoxious and an undesirable departure from the tight, tactical combat of the base game.

Stealth is already a heavily rewarded approach in this game. Going a step further and heavily punishing non-stealth approaches with tedious annoyance tactics is setting a foot into the territory of bad game design.

And no, I've never complained about DC. I had a good time with it, as my posts from years ago will prove (and I loved the mutagen puzzle and worm maze), but at the same time I could readily see the reasons why it annoyed some people.

Furthermore, I was against the implementation of a map (haven't changed my mind) and the implementation of a speed hack-type function (I've changed my mind, it's a good feature), and generally speaking have always opposed anything that makes the game easier, friendlier, or even less time-consuming.

Give blaine a few more hundreds hours of playtime and he will come back to tell us all its shit :)

I started this thread, played the game during beta, wrote a preview that was published by the Codex, and have played the game for over 1100 hours. Styg sent me an Underrail t-shirt.

Over that entire period spanning nearly a decade and hundreds upon hundreds of hours, I've always been consistent about both the praiseworthy aspects of this game and its shortcomings and flaws.

Anyone who worships every aspect of this game and refuses to acknowledge the possibility of any flaw is indescribably deep into obsessed fanboy territory, because I love this game and place it on a pedestal. The only other game I've ever played so consistently, for so long, and over so long a period is Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
 
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Blaine

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Tygrende Granted, it's been years since my last Oddity run, so I may be suffering from misconceptions. However, I rummage through every shelf and trash can I see. Black, unexplored portions of any map are anathema to me. I'm even using the spying endoscope just to get a look at hacking-only rooms, since I didn't take Hacking this playthrough.

If your primary reason for thinking that Oddity is superior because it ensures you can't (barring superhuman planning) get past level 10 before Depot A or past 29 before DC—as it seems to be, because ridiculing Classic players for wanting to level too quickly has been your approach—then fine and dandy. There are rocks blocking the way to anything other than a narrow few corridors prior to completing Depot A, so I'd fully support just fucking tweaking the XP necessary to reach level 10.

If someone wants to farm rathounds for 15 hours to get to 12+, then let them suffer!
 

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