Yaz
Learned
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2020
- Messages
- 283
Or playing Underrail without dying.
During the years I've played Underrail I've noticed a lot of people under the impression that one cannot play this game with deterministic 100 % success. There have been folks who've went flawless before the recent Psi changes(and possibly even after upholding now updated Psi builds), although I never was one of them because legacy Psi - as it is called now - never truly appealed to me. Always found it to be fun but ultimately not engaging. After a certain point(roughly after taking Locust of Control) it always plateaued rather quick, i.e., powerful but samey. On a side note - not the point of the thread - I fully support the recent Psi changes.
Rather, after the changes hit, Psi now looked more interesting to me, and since I've always liked Underrail for the possibilities of hybridization I made myself an Ironman build that did exactly that. It did take a while and a few failed attempts, but I got there in the end
.
================================================================================
The Travelling Merchant.
The build starts with 10 Dex and puts every point earned into Dex.
That's the final skill distribution but the build initially didn't have a single point into any of the Psi schools. Rather, I was putting small points into Metathermics until I reached 35(at level 7) and could get both Cryostasis and Cryokinesis. These two skills will always give 5 turns of freeze providing a good cc tool. After that I focused only on Temporal Manipulation until I could get Limited Temporal Increment, which allowed for two consecutive grenades and permanent Cryostasis. Finally I dumped some points into Thought Control only to have a tool for dealing with Tithonus Lab(it's an overinvestment, actually).
From the crafting disciplines I initially heavily prioritized Chemistry allowing for MKIV Frags even before getting the drill parts, i.e., opening the global map. Soon after that MK V were available together with a very good Chemical Blob Gun, but more on that later on. I let Mechanics lag for quite a while. I still had enough into it to make a Tactical Vest for the bots at the GMS compound and the odd Repair Kit.
The Perk Progression:
Since the idea is to be a Travelling Merchant, Pack Rathound is an essential skill. I heavily prioritized Mercantile in the early game and opened up Constantine's highest tier merch as soon as I left for Core City. The point of taking Dirty Kick early is mainly to be able to deal with the Protectorate soldiers in the Junkyard Embassy's prison. The combination of 5 turns freeze with two turns stun allows for stealthy takedowns with Toxic Gas Grenades - one sludge is always available in SGS tunnels; more can be bought from the merchants around. Since you always have highest accuracy on Dirty Kick from stealth it's unlikely that one will miss, but even if one does you just freeze your target and retreat without hassle to try again after cooldowns. Opening Oculus and Constantine's merch on lvl 11 is a huge boon as the weapons available(and Vanishing Powder Grenades) outclass anything one can craft at this stage even if one is a dedicated crafter. Important to note that I deliberately went for a female character in order to make all of that easier/quicker.
Escape Artist isn't necessary to deal with the dogs in Depot A - it's quite possible to use LoS and just bomb them from inside the surveillance room while trapping the exit with Bear Traps. The Plasma Turrets are taken care of with a laser pistol, either looted from Elwood's house or crafted.
40 points of Pickpocket are essential as one can get roughly 20 Oddity XP throughout the game, as well as thousands of charons worth of coins, bullets, meds, ect. Once you hit 40 no more points are needed. A good trick is after solving the very first quest about reclaiming the outposts one can go back there and steal bullets from the SGS sentries. At this stage of the game you can go to Junkyard with 1000 + bullets to sell even before you move in to save Newton.
But all that money from quests and items sold shouldn't be easily wasted. The point of the build is to save as much money as possible to buy the Devastator Jet together with a 30 % Stability Suspension skis early. That will make it so there's no difference between ground and naval combat(if you take the perk available from Ladelman as soon as Expedition starts). More so for this build which wanted to do a Pirate playthrough because of Katya's shop. The Fusion Cannon allows for the easy clearing of many areas of the Black Sea. The native shores should always be approached with care and the serpents avoided unless you have great Bio/Acid/Mechanical resistance, but the rewards are worth it. Not only can you get abundant quantities of Demon Squid, but also various Expedition leathers of decent quality.
This is a set I managed to make fairly early into the game. Together with any metal helmet it provides immunity to the physical portion of any melee attack. The boots together with the Tesla Armour were for Coil Spiders. If one's lucky one can get good Hard Foam Padding and achieve that with just two pieces of equipment; if not you'll have to use a metal helmet for the small additional physical resistance. Full melee physical immunity together with the Aegis and Irongut meds means that the natives can't hurt you. Their psichers can, but those are top priorities regardless of your build; they're are easily taken care of with various grenades. You can always just fight close to exits and even if your grenade throws are wonky, retreat and try again from another side. Or thin the herd with the Devastator.
The build also sports various ranged weapons.
All of these benefit from the build's high Dex and each is useful in a different situation. SMGs powered by high Dex Versatility are a little weak in the beginning but really pick up later on(since they scale both in damage and AP reduction). In the early game I was using only Laser Pistol/Acid Blob Gun. Corrosive Acid Vials were available from Katya's shop as soon as I joined the pirates - easily achieved if you solve the first task for Aegis and then use Jenkins to go back to CC. He'll be alone and an easy target for you to deal with. The Corrosive Acid allows one to deal with stuff like Naga Protectors(75 % resistance reduction). Funny when you can poke them down with a knife. Or one can just sneak around them with a good enough Cloaking Device(for when you want to take the Hypercerebrix blueprint, for example).
Although there are builds that can one shot the last boss several times over this build doesn't do too bad there. It uses the XAL without firing any shots before that to empty a load of Corrosive Acid and then just poke it down with a knife after attempting Expose Weakness. There are various tools that greatly help with that like Bison Milk and Supersoldiers.
Here I deliberately didn't use Expose Weakness(as though I've missed) and Bison Milk, together with an inferior Steel Combat Knife, instead of a Tungsten Steel Knife(more crit damage). The boss still goes down before The Bullhead expires and I didn't have any problems since I was always freezing the brain tentacle. You could probably double that damage if one takes more time preparing and there's the possibility of using some Leper Poison Knives, as well.
Thanks for reading. I hope you've enjoyed it.
During the years I've played Underrail I've noticed a lot of people under the impression that one cannot play this game with deterministic 100 % success. There have been folks who've went flawless before the recent Psi changes(and possibly even after upholding now updated Psi builds), although I never was one of them because legacy Psi - as it is called now - never truly appealed to me. Always found it to be fun but ultimately not engaging. After a certain point(roughly after taking Locust of Control) it always plateaued rather quick, i.e., powerful but samey. On a side note - not the point of the thread - I fully support the recent Psi changes.
Rather, after the changes hit, Psi now looked more interesting to me, and since I've always liked Underrail for the possibilities of hybridization I made myself an Ironman build that did exactly that. It did take a while and a few failed attempts, but I got there in the end
.================================================================================
The Travelling Merchant.
The build starts with 10 Dex and puts every point earned into Dex.
That's the final skill distribution but the build initially didn't have a single point into any of the Psi schools. Rather, I was putting small points into Metathermics until I reached 35(at level 7) and could get both Cryostasis and Cryokinesis. These two skills will always give 5 turns of freeze providing a good cc tool. After that I focused only on Temporal Manipulation until I could get Limited Temporal Increment, which allowed for two consecutive grenades and permanent Cryostasis. Finally I dumped some points into Thought Control only to have a tool for dealing with Tithonus Lab(it's an overinvestment, actually).
From the crafting disciplines I initially heavily prioritized Chemistry allowing for MKIV Frags even before getting the drill parts, i.e., opening the global map. Soon after that MK V were available together with a very good Chemical Blob Gun, but more on that later on. I let Mechanics lag for quite a while. I still had enough into it to make a Tactical Vest for the bots at the GMS compound and the odd Repair Kit.
The Perk Progression:
Since the idea is to be a Travelling Merchant, Pack Rathound is an essential skill. I heavily prioritized Mercantile in the early game and opened up Constantine's highest tier merch as soon as I left for Core City. The point of taking Dirty Kick early is mainly to be able to deal with the Protectorate soldiers in the Junkyard Embassy's prison. The combination of 5 turns freeze with two turns stun allows for stealthy takedowns with Toxic Gas Grenades - one sludge is always available in SGS tunnels; more can be bought from the merchants around. Since you always have highest accuracy on Dirty Kick from stealth it's unlikely that one will miss, but even if one does you just freeze your target and retreat without hassle to try again after cooldowns. Opening Oculus and Constantine's merch on lvl 11 is a huge boon as the weapons available(and Vanishing Powder Grenades) outclass anything one can craft at this stage even if one is a dedicated crafter. Important to note that I deliberately went for a female character in order to make all of that easier/quicker.
Escape Artist isn't necessary to deal with the dogs in Depot A - it's quite possible to use LoS and just bomb them from inside the surveillance room while trapping the exit with Bear Traps. The Plasma Turrets are taken care of with a laser pistol, either looted from Elwood's house or crafted.
40 points of Pickpocket are essential as one can get roughly 20 Oddity XP throughout the game, as well as thousands of charons worth of coins, bullets, meds, ect. Once you hit 40 no more points are needed. A good trick is after solving the very first quest about reclaiming the outposts one can go back there and steal bullets from the SGS sentries. At this stage of the game you can go to Junkyard with 1000 + bullets to sell even before you move in to save Newton.
But all that money from quests and items sold shouldn't be easily wasted. The point of the build is to save as much money as possible to buy the Devastator Jet together with a 30 % Stability Suspension skis early. That will make it so there's no difference between ground and naval combat(if you take the perk available from Ladelman as soon as Expedition starts). More so for this build which wanted to do a Pirate playthrough because of Katya's shop. The Fusion Cannon allows for the easy clearing of many areas of the Black Sea. The native shores should always be approached with care and the serpents avoided unless you have great Bio/Acid/Mechanical resistance, but the rewards are worth it. Not only can you get abundant quantities of Demon Squid, but also various Expedition leathers of decent quality.
This is a set I managed to make fairly early into the game. Together with any metal helmet it provides immunity to the physical portion of any melee attack. The boots together with the Tesla Armour were for Coil Spiders. If one's lucky one can get good Hard Foam Padding and achieve that with just two pieces of equipment; if not you'll have to use a metal helmet for the small additional physical resistance. Full melee physical immunity together with the Aegis and Irongut meds means that the natives can't hurt you. Their psichers can, but those are top priorities regardless of your build; they're are easily taken care of with various grenades. You can always just fight close to exits and even if your grenade throws are wonky, retreat and try again from another side. Or thin the herd with the Devastator.
The build also sports various ranged weapons.
All of these benefit from the build's high Dex and each is useful in a different situation. SMGs powered by high Dex Versatility are a little weak in the beginning but really pick up later on(since they scale both in damage and AP reduction). In the early game I was using only Laser Pistol/Acid Blob Gun. Corrosive Acid Vials were available from Katya's shop as soon as I joined the pirates - easily achieved if you solve the first task for Aegis and then use Jenkins to go back to CC. He'll be alone and an easy target for you to deal with. The Corrosive Acid allows one to deal with stuff like Naga Protectors(75 % resistance reduction). Funny when you can poke them down with a knife. Or one can just sneak around them with a good enough Cloaking Device(for when you want to take the Hypercerebrix blueprint, for example).
Although there are builds that can one shot the last boss several times over this build doesn't do too bad there. It uses the XAL without firing any shots before that to empty a load of Corrosive Acid and then just poke it down with a knife after attempting Expose Weakness. There are various tools that greatly help with that like Bison Milk and Supersoldiers.
Here I deliberately didn't use Expose Weakness(as though I've missed) and Bison Milk, together with an inferior Steel Combat Knife, instead of a Tungsten Steel Knife(more crit damage). The boss still goes down before The Bullhead expires and I didn't have any problems since I was always freezing the brain tentacle. You could probably double that damage if one takes more time preparing and there's the possibility of using some Leper Poison Knives, as well.
Thanks for reading. I hope you've enjoyed it
.
