Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[lukaszek]

I do wish there were random encounters on the water where the devastator was the most optimal, like some sort of situation of encountering protectorate scum on well armored and armed skiffs, etc.

That would have to be pretty special encounter indeed. Take for example that pirates vs protectorate armored cruiser battle. With ultra light jet, turbo mode on, my stabby guy could board the ship and kill/disable all the defenses for a turn. All so that pirate named npc would survive.

I guess devastator could make some sense in encounter where you are surrounded by weak wildlife and you cant rely on movement to keep out of harm way.
Or some dark entity that can only be harmed by its gun(besides torch)?

 

[random_name]

How much do you have to min-max on normal difficulty? It seems like the game really begs you to stealth but at level 2 I have no points in it.

 

[ItsChon]

How much do you have to min-max on normal difficulty? It seems like the game really begs you to stealth but at level 2 I have no points in it.

You don't need to min-max but you do need a cohesive build. And you don't need stealth. Post your stats/skills?

 

[Blaine]

Thanks Tygrende, great advice.

I was hoping to avoid Strafe in order to sidestep being restricted to one primary weapon type that I'm specialized into to the exclusion of all others, just like (almost) every other primary weapon I've ever used since the beta. Ah, well.

However, I will never use psi again until the game stops receiving regular updates and it becomes feasible to mod the D&D-style Vancian spell slot system (which I've never liked) and all related gear and dialogue out of this science fiction game. Not only is it thematically inappropriate, it makes psi feel much more like a magic spells system, AND it fucks up the actual mechanics of psi powers.

I'm aware that TM is most suited to and especially OP for snipers, which is why I went on a rant about it earlier whilst I was contemplating playing a sniper.

It truly boggles my mind that Styg claims to be happy with the state of psi powers when TM works its way into nearly every min-maxed build and greatly empowers its offense. He nerfed pure psi builds but OP'd so many others, and it's just so annoying.

How much do you have to min-max on normal difficulty? It seems like the game really begs you to stealth but at level 2 I have no points in it.

The lower the difficulty, the less you have to min-max. On Normal, 10 in any important stat is as high as you generally need to go, or 12 if you really want to pump it (or meet a feat prerequisite).

This is partly why I never play above Hard. The inability to make lots of shekels is the other major reason.

 

[roll-a-die]

The difficulty spike at Carnifex's fight is INSANE. Like I went from literally steamrolling to dead first round 9/10 times.

 

[Blaine]

The difficulty spike at Carnifex's fight is INSANE. Like I went from literally steamrolling to dead first round 9/10 times.

I think you meant to say DOMINATING!

 

[jackofshadows]

I was hoping to avoid Strafe in order to sidestep being restricted to one primary weapon type that I'm specialized into to the exclusion of all others, just like (almost) every other primary weapon I've ever used since the beta. Ah, well.

Eh, it's more than possible. I did a DOM run without strafe and have been using shotgun as a side weapon, was all fine except for a few cases when the "left overs" were too far for shotgun to use (with sprint and contraction it's easy to manipulate the distance though).

However, I will never use psi again until the game stops receiving regular updates and it becomes feasible to mod the D&D-style Vancian spell slot system (which I've never liked) and all related gear and dialogue out of this science fiction game. Not only is it thematically inappropriate, it makes psi feel much more like a magic spells system, AND it fucks up the actual mechanics of psi powers.

Untill then (if that ever happens) you do realize that all the psi enemies and the lore is still there, right? To me however it feel much more appropriate on a contrary: to justify how the fuck MC is able to pull off what he's pulling off. And hybrid psi use like TM or say kinesis for imprint don't feel like juggling around "vancian magic" at all as well. Just inhaling "some stuff" occationally.

 

[Blaine]

I was hoping to avoid Strafe in order to sidestep being restricted to one primary weapon type that I'm specialized into to the exclusion of all others, just like (almost) every other primary weapon I've ever used since the beta. Ah, well.

However, I will never use psi again until the game stops receiving regular updates and it becomes feasible to mod the D&D-style Vancian spell slot system (which I've never liked) and all related gear and dialogue out of this science fiction game. Not only is it thematically inappropriate, it makes psi feel much more like a magic spells system, AND it fucks up the actual mechanics of psi powers.

Untill then (if that ever happens) you do realize that all the psi enemies and the lore is still there, right? To me however it feel much more appropriate on a contrary: to justify how the fuck MC is able to pull off what he's pulling off. And hybrid psi use like TM or say kinesis for imprint don't feel like juggling around "vancian magic" at all as well. Just inhaling "some stuff" occationally.

Psi itself I have no issue with. I loved my pre-nerf pure psi build. The dialogue I'm referring to is anything that mentions or refers to innervation slots.

Simply put, once the game is in a stable and finalized state, I will be ecstatic to see innervation, all related feats, and all related dialogue exorcised.

"Vancian magic" is a term that refers to magic styled similarly to that portrayed in the fiction of Jack Vance, as seen in D&D. Specifically, the notion of "spell slots" in the brain or soul filled with discrete memorized spells that are then discharged as they're used, emptying the slots, is very Vancian. The slots aren't emptied in Underrrail, yet there are even fewer of them than in, say, D&D.

Aside from my gripe with how innervation slots make psi powers "feel" to use, I've always hated them in RPGs. Tell me, how am I supposed to prepare for a scenario I haven't even encountered yet? Some psi powers are close to useless in one scenario, but near-mandatory in others. No doubt most players now either only use a few powerful, general-use powers, or else use meta knowledge, reloading, or a sneak peek to enter the scenario with exactly what's needed.

 

[Blaine]

I can already tell I'll be raging hard whenever I'm forced into some scripted gank box while playing this sniper. That's because I already have been: the "you didn't take Intimidation" punishment box beneath GMS Compound, complete with grenade-prohibitive grandpa. You know the one I mean. I swear there's nowhere else in the game across all of my playthroughs spanning >1,000 hours that I've had to reload more times total (couple of times, this time around) than this single, specific encounter. It's always a bit hard on stealth characters wearing pajamas, anyway.

The real punishment, of course, comes if you pass the super-easy persuasion check, because then you get gangbanged for certain.

Nevertheless, I'm determined to persevere. I have finished the game with a sledgehammer, a spear, a (pre-buff!) crossbow, pure psi, an SMG, and an assault rifle. That's six completed playthroughs that I can definitely recall. There have been partial others.

I will finish this game with the RNG rifle, I swear to fucking Christ, and I'm doing it on Hard. I don't think I can ever bring myself to do a sword build, since it's one of the most RNG-dependent weapons in computer RPG history, but someone must have accomplished it, and I truly can't fathom how.

Now to be fair, once I was past the punishment box, this build ran the table with the raiders perhaps more easily than any other, due to being able to deal a truckload of damage from all the way across the screen then vanish into a vent or doorway (when needed).

 

[jackofshadows]

Aside from my gripe with how innervation slots make psi powers "feel" to use, I've always hated them in RPGs. Tell me, how am I supposed to prepare for a scenario I haven't even encountered yet? Some psi powers are close to useless in one scenario, but near-mandatory in others. No doubt most players now either only use a few powerful, general-use powers, or else use meta knowledge, reloading, or a sneak peek to enter the scenario with exactly what's needed.

I wasn't talking about pure psi but about your potential scenario: sniper with a few psi abilities like contraction/increment/stasis/maybe a few others like imprint. Even if you dump int you don't have to bother with innervation.

I will finish this game with the RNG rifle, I swear to fucking Christ

Get NV googles asap in order to bump thc. I wouldn't hassle around with encounters much until then.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Has anyone used the Tommy Gun upgraded now with explosive ammo?

Fuck, I really wish we had an AR that could use .44 rounds. Would have a high strength requirement and would degrade fast as fuck but still be fun.

And a shotgun that could use slugs, making snipe available and burst quite nasty but hit-or-miss at anything other than close range. Fuck Train-Shot.

 

[Parabalus]

How can I be sure my current run spawned the utility tower and the tattoo artist?

 

[Blaine]

I wasn't talking about pure psi but about your potential scenario: sniper with a few psi abilities like contraction/increment/stasis/maybe a few others like imprint. Even if you dump int you don't have to bother with innervation.

I know. Chalk it up to the principle of the thing.

Believe me when I say that I fully and completely understand the benefits offered: more Snipe, more Aimed Shot, more AP, more MP, and Stasis as either a disable or a "wait for my cooldowns" shield. It's extremely powerful. Furthermore, you can wait to get these (and delay the health nerf) until later; and the skill point investment isn't even that high. One need not necessarily even take a feat, although the benefit of the one or two that almost everyone does take is obvious.

I hate it.

The innervation slot restriction has absolutely no effect on TM dippers provided they have at least 2 INT (they will), while being a devastating blow to pure psi.

The raft of "slightly un-nerf the psi nerf" feats that suck away pure psi's feat availability essentially don't touch TM dippers.

Psi point pool availability and "reserves" does effect TM dippers, but nowhere near as much as pure psi.

TM is a gift to everyone else, at the expense of eviscerating and emasculating pure psi. I will not unwrap the gift. Pure went from a little too powerful and versatile to a little too pitiful and restricted. Funny thing, haven't seen too many pure psi builds since the nerf, but I've seen a TM gunslinger mow down a roomful of armored Protectorate troops before they could even act. Pure psi would never have been able to do that.

Get NV googles asap in order to bump thc. I wouldn't hassle around with encounters much until then.

I stripped some nice ones off Vince's corpse. This playthrough I didn't even talk to them, just mowed them all down and took their shit.

 

[Zeem]

How can I be sure my current run spawned the utility tower and the tattoo artist?

Utility tower you can check on your SGS PC. If you have mail about Ice T you've got the tower, if you've got mail about Skull Smasher you've got Arena Masters. There's no sure-fire way to know if you've got the gypsy or Booth unless you meet the former right away at SGS docks. Even if she's not present there she might still appear in one of random bars.

 

[Blaine]

and the tattoo artist?

If you don't meet Coral at the docks or at the Junkyard bar, your chances are fairly good, but not guaranteed. Your only option then is to do without Booth, export/import, or start fresh.

I still can't for the life of me fathom why Styg did this. "So that people don't use the tattoos to min-max" isn't enough of a justification, because Coral has very little to offer beyond being an amusing gypsy analogue. I mean, Booth is in the game as a tribute to an actual tattoo artist, and a new player might never see him. Altering the entire game in direct response to min-maxers who've been playing it for a thousand hours over the course of eight years is the epitome of foolishness.

The good thing is that Underrail will soon be more-or-less complete and stable, so that we can fix it. I plan to personally fix the ugly new ("new" as of years ago) font, revert the psi nerf, tweak the repair kit nerf (which I fully believe I personally caused to come to pass; admittedly they were too good, basically free repairs and money from shitty daggers and hats, but as usual Styg nerfed too hard), and correct any messy writing that isn't addressed.

 

[jackofshadows]

The good thing is that Underrail will soon be more-or-less complete and stable, so that we can fix it.

Not sure what are you talking about. On top of all, the code is obfuscated, as Styg said himself. I mean, it probably still somehow is possible to mode by some captain autismo but I highly doubt that unless you know something that I don't. This game is Styg's baby and he won't let others to fuck with it. Only to play with, a little.

 

[roll-a-die]

The good thing is that Underrail will soon be more-or-less complete and stable, so that we can fix it.

Not sure what are you talking about. On top of all, the code is obfuscated, as Styg said himself. I mean, it probably still somehow is possible to mode by some captain autismo but I highly doubt that unless you know something that I don't. This game is Styg's baby and he won't let others to fuck with it. Only to play with, a little.

Fun fact. Minecrafts code is obfuscated.

The fans for years would go through, run code analysis, and deobfuscate the code and then run it through a tool to repack it into an obfuscated form after they made modifications too it.

This project was and still is called Minecraft Forge. When Microsoft bought out Mojang, they started to release their own unobfuscated decompiles. Forge still doesn't use those though, because the Eula on them is kinda... Trash.

 

[pizza_microwave]

All this obfuscation, hard work, and stubbornness just so players will never make Six killable.

 

[epeli]

until the game stops receiving regular updates and it becomes feasible to mod the D&D-style Vancian spell slot system (which I've never liked) and all related gear and dialogue out of this science fiction game.

The good thing is that Underrail will soon be more-or-less complete and stable, so that we can fix it.

Not sure what are you talking about. On top of all, the code is obfuscated, as Styg said himself. I mean, it probably still somehow is possible to mode by some captain autismo but I highly doubt that unless you know something that I don't. This game is Styg's baby and he won't let others to fuck with it. Only to play with, a little.

Yeah, that's... that's not gonna be feasible without an unobfuscated build of the game. And I'm saying this as the prime Captain UnderAutismo.

But I hope to be proven wrong eventually. Underrail deserves a modding scene. The obfuscation is a huge waste of time, but modding C# games these days without stepping on the dev's legal rights is quite easy with tools like BepInEx.

Fun fact. Minecrafts code is obfuscated.

Fun fact. Minecraft's userbase is slightly bigger than Underrail's. Also, Minecraft modding grew because Notch allowed it to.

 

[roll-a-die]

Fun fact. Minecrafts code is obfuscated.

Fun fact. Minecraft's userbase is slightly bigger than Underrail's. Also, Minecraft modding grew because Notch allowed it to.

This is true. I'm just saying, it's not impossible. As there's been several projects in the past that just needed someone autistic enough to handle the decompilation.

Though I will say, that modding for Minecraft is pretty rapidly swapping to fabric which uses Mixin's which AFAIK doesn't rely too heavily anymore on deobfuscated code, just knowing where the endpoints are.

 

[Blaine]

I actually fully understand why Styg doesn't want modders going whole hog on his code, and in fact, I agree with that (on its own).

Further, I have no quarrel with the vast majority of his decision-making while building Underrail slowly and from scratch over many years. It's a great accomplishment, and it's one of my favorite games of all time. It stands with Alpha Centauri, Jagged Alliance/2, X-COM, Fallout/2, Ultima 7—and Factorio, more recently—as a game that I can't believe even exists, a game so good that I worry about being hit by a bus not because I might die, but because I might not get to have my full enjoyment of the game.

But for God's sake, Styg's perspective seems limited to 1.) himself, the game's creator (no creator can view his own creation objectively—parents, authors, or what-have-you), and 2.) absolute grognards who've finished the game on Dominating with a crowbar. The conclusions he draws from this combination of perspectives are often massively skewed, and he seems to have pitted himself, Styg, as God versus the marauding min-maxers who mock his creation.

I can deal with all of it except the psi nerf. I just can't exist in peace when I think of it. Pure psi was massively nerfed, but TM was added, enabling the creation of Super Saiyan versions of "normal" builds that put pre-nerf pure psi to shame. Fucking absolutely mind-boggling.

 

[ItsChon]

I can deal with all of it except the psi nerf. I just can't exist in peace when I think of it. Pure psi was massively nerfed, but TM was added, enabling the creation of Super Saiyan versions of "normal" builds that put pre-nerf pure psi to shame. Fucking absolutely mind-boggling.

Pure Psi is still insanely strong though. There are tons of pure psi builds that can absolutely trivialize the game, so I don't understand the point that you're making.

 

[Blaine]

Pure Psi is still insanely strong though. There are tons of pure psi builds that can absolutely trivialize the game, so I don't understand the point that you're making.

Finally, he speaks.

I can't know from experience, but I will readily allow that pure psi is still very powerful, to the extent that it can trivialize the game.

What, then, was the point of adding all those constraints, feat sinks, potion inhalers, micromanagement, and assorted fiddly bullshit, if in the end pure psi remains capable of trivializing the game? What you're essentially implying is that Styg loaded psi builds down with obnoxiousness and nerfs, yet in the end, accomplished nothing more than annoying a good chunk of his long-term player base.

Your argument is self-defeating. If psi still trivializes the game, then there was no need for the psi nerf in the first place.

 

[ItsChon]

What, then, was the point of adding all those constraints, feat sinks, potion inhalers, micromanagement, and assorted fiddly bullshit, if in the end pure psi remains capable of trivializing the game? What you're essentially implying is that Styg loaded psi builds down with annoyances and nerfs, yet in the end, accomplished nothing.

Your argument is self-defeating. If psi still trivializes the game, then there was no need for the psi nerf in the first place.

It is the existence of these constraints that create new builds. Before the psi-nerf, literally every single psi build was a psychosis psi build or a tranquility psi build. By adding these constraints and introducing new feats, it promotes the use of previously niche builds while also buffing them to be stronger and more viable.

As for potion inhalers/micromanagement/fiddly bullshit, that can really all be lumped into one big category, since they all just add extra complexity to psi. One of the reason for this is to balance out the early game. If you're playing a gun user, you need to do some basic level of resource managing in the term of ammunition and repair kits. A psi build literally needed none of that, their psi bar regenerated every round after combat. This isn't a "nerf", because once a build is past Depot A, you have more than enough money for all your supply needs, even on dominating with no mercantile skill. It instead actually makes the early game much more interesting as a Psi user, as now I actually have to make meaningful choices in regards to managing my psi reserves and my psi use. That's not even mentioning the fact that it's not even tedious or difficult to deal with. It's literally braindead simple and I've never had any micromanaging/fiddly problems with it.

 

[thesecret1]

How is robbing Ray now possible?

There's a hidden vent in the building next to Ray's that leads straight to his office. His cameras are positioned in such a way that they cannot see you while your rob half his store blind.