Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[veevoir]

Maybe they should just put a min. skill requirement on pistols with caliber higher than 5mm and balance them accordingly?

Min skill requirement becomes a joke pretty fast, it's an obstacle for few first levels.

Maybe they just need a slight boost. In ea they did funky stuff, but Styg apparently swinged the nerf hammer too hard. It happens

 

[Excidium II]

I see. I thought they were weak and massively feat dependant because of the lack of skill requirement.

 

[torpid]

"Poor man's sniper" isn't such a damning moniker since you can perform one-shots just like the sniper but unlike the sniper you can fire after moving, you have four shots instead of one and you still have your "poor man's burst fire"™. All in all, a strong and versatile weapon IF you can stomach the lolrandom damage spread. I'll do the math later, but I'm pretty sure the .44 Hammerer has better performance-per-AP against heavily armored targets than a 8.6 Steel Cat of the same quality due to how DT works. Not to mention better synergy with active skills and more effective use of special bullets. Compared to the SMG above I have ZERO doubts that the .44 Hammerer is simply better. But that SMG is 7.62, not 8.6 so one might say I skewed the sample to favor the pistol. If only I had a 99 quality Steel Cat frame to do proper testing...

But going back to the quoted post: YEAH, avoid anything not .44 Hammerer like the plague. Can't say much about energy pistols since I haven't used them yet, but they seem to have obvious synergy with aimed shot.

The lolrandom damage remains a big issue though. You're more RNG-dependent with crit-fishing builds compared to burst damage where you can't really get fucked over, but with the sniper rifle, on top of the narrower damage spread (except for Corsairs, but fuck them), you have snipe before aimed shot. So you get a special attack dealing enormous damage, then a guaranteed critical on the next turn, or on the same turn if using the Dragunov. The .44 only has aimed shot, and then you pray for crits. Even execute doesn't seem like it would help much with its 5-turn cooldown and restrictive conditions. I guess you could go through the game with a very suspenseful gunslinger build that would involve sacrificing a baby before every shot.

 

[Lord Andre]

Second, the psi apparitions.

I'm guessing you haven't made it to the deep caverns yet. Don't forget your vest.

Please don't tell me the eye of tchort debuff I keep hearing about spawns apparitions.

 

[Lhynn]

Ok, finished the game.

 

[ArchAngel]

I got a question about Find Hephaestus Research quest

Spoiler

where is this damn place? Colonel told me to go north from GMS compound and I tried to search the caves north and found nothing. Then I checked the wiki but those instructions only took me to the bunker where you get what you need for the next quest from that Colonel.
Now I got no clue. I even took few different directions with wiki instructions and looked through 15 cave maps but nothing

Anyone knows?

 

[Tigranes]

There's just no real excuse for the settlement areas.

What would you propose instead? Should large cities be made smaller? Should the layout and world building be sabotaged for the sake of convenience, and if so, how and how much?

If I were a bit more petty than I am, then I might suggest that you've been conditioned by console RPGs restricted by low system memory to accept tiny towns comprising a few small areas and with everything packed into a few convenient locations, or that you've perhaps been conditioned by MMOs to expect all the quest-givers and merchants to be located in one small area with a quick travel flying mount master nearby.

I wouldn't do that, though. That would be beyond gauche.

There are many solutions that don't turn settlements into quik-e-mart. Fast travel within settlements, Fallout style, is one. As has been pointed out, Rail Crossing does not need to be split into Town - Empty Crossing - Station. Junkyard Once again, you refuse to honour the discussion, and repeat black or white statements. The way you're posting, a Blaine more Blaine than Blaine could call you a filthy casual shitface for daring to complain about the meaningless walking involved in the player house.

You've been accusing people of worse things left and right this thread, so it's no surprise to me that you'd resort to petty attacks ("I WONT SAY IT BUT I WILL SAY IT LOLOL") instead of actually discussing what the 'right balance' might be, or why Rail Crossing or wherever would be worse off if they were built more conveniently. Given that I'm clearly addicted to this game and love many aspects of it, I'm not sure why you'd prefer to fling shit, but oh well.

Re. Pistols: playing around with the XAL Pistol and a few others, it seems energy/chemical ones can be quite fun, but the high AP cost really seems to kill them right now. I have a 24 AP Sniper rifle... and 30+ AP pistols. Come on.

 

[Old One]

Two verisimilitude thoughts...

1) How are all the people in the game world fed? As I creep around UnderRail I keep wondering why there aren't more farms. If not farms, then what? Maybe they have some advanced form of food production, or they eat Soylent Green or something. I mention it simply because it kept occurring to me every time I entered a new settlement.

2) I dislike the way the different bullet sizes work, with damage potential escalating as the diameter increases. In the real world you can (and do) have a 7.62mm pistol round, a 7.62mm assault rifle round, and a 7.62mm rifle round. They are very different from each other in size, shape, and performance. It's way too oversimplified to have a system in which a rifle and a SMG can both be fitted with the same 8.6mm barrel and then use the same ammunition.

On the other hand (because I don't want this post to seem all negative) I'm a big fan of different currencies. It's a simple touch that adds a lot to the game world. Manipulating money in the UI could be better though. Fallout 2-style type-in-the-number-of-coins-to-pick-up way of doing it gets my vote.

 

[Lhynn]

Two verisimilitude thoughts...

1) How are all the people in the game world fed? As I creep around UnderRail I keep wondering why there aren't more farms. If not farms, then what? Maybe they have some advanced form of food production, or they eat Soylent Green or something. I mention it simply because it kept occurring to me every time I entered a new settlement.

Its addressed in the tutorial, most food comes from fungus or animal breeding.

2) I dislike the way the different bullet sizes work, with damage potential escalating as the diameter increases. In the real world you can (and do) have a 7.62mm pistol round, a 7.62mm assault rifle round, and a 7.62mm rifle round. They are very different from each other in size, shape, and performance. It's way too oversimplified to have a system in which a rifle and a SMG can both be fitted with the same 8.6mm barrel and then use the same ammunition.

Sure, maybe we should also have realistic needs, its been a long time since i could play a character that could defecate. Its not a very simulationist game bro, i dont know why youd get hunged up on the bullets shape.

On the other hand (because I don't want this post to seem all negative) I'm a big fan of different currencies. It's a simple touch that adds a lot to the game world. Manipulating money in the UI could be better though. Fallout 2-style type-in-the-number-of-coins-to-pick-up way of doing it gets my vote.

Yeah, i dont get the need to have several stacks of those, and not being able to just specify the exact amount of currency you want to split via typing the number is really strange, theres no reason for that not the be a thing in the game.

 

[Yoshiyyahu]

I got a question about Find Hephaestus Research quest

Spoiler

where is this damn place? Colonel told me to go north from GMS compound and I tried to search the caves north and found nothing. Then I checked the wiki but those instructions only took me to the bunker where you get what you need for the next quest from that Colonel.
Now I got no clue. I even took few different directions with wiki instructions and looked through 15 cave maps but nothing

Anyone knows?

Spoiler

It's east of the Hanged Rat. Try going east a few cells and then walking around until you find it. You need TNT to open the entrance, though.

 

[FeelTheRads]

What would you propose instead? Should large cities be made smaller? Should the layout and world building be sabotaged for the sake of convenience, and if so, how and how much?

No, Blaine, nothing is proposed. Game is perfect. Any suggestion for change means you want to taint perfection and nobody would want that.

 

[ArchAngel]

I got a question about Find Hephaestus Research quest

Spoiler

where is this damn place? Colonel told me to go north from GMS compound and I tried to search the caves north and found nothing. Then I checked the wiki but those instructions only took me to the bunker where you get what you need for the next quest from that Colonel.
Now I got no clue. I even took few different directions with wiki instructions and looked through 15 cave maps but nothing

Anyone knows?

Spoiler

It's east of the Hanged Rat. Try going east a few cells and then walking around until you find it. You need TNT to open the entrance, though.

That is not the one. That one with the rocks that block doorway I found but that is for the next quest. The one I am looking for is the one where you find

Spoiler

Protectorate Dreadnought

 

[Excidium II]

Is animal damage affected by their strength?

 

[Eyestabber]

"Poor man's sniper" isn't such a damning moniker since you can perform one-shots just like the sniper but unlike the sniper you can fire after moving, you have four shots instead of one and you still have your "poor man's burst fire"™. All in all, a strong and versatile weapon IF you can stomach the lolrandom damage spread. I'll do the math later, but I'm pretty sure the .44 Hammerer has better performance-per-AP against heavily armored targets than a 8.6 Steel Cat of the same quality due to how DT works. Not to mention better synergy with active skills and more effective use of special bullets. Compared to the SMG above I have ZERO doubts that the .44 Hammerer is simply better. But that SMG is 7.62, not 8.6 so one might say I skewed the sample to favor the pistol. If only I had a 99 quality Steel Cat frame to do proper testing...

But going back to the quoted post: YEAH, avoid anything not .44 Hammerer like the plague. Can't say much about energy pistols since I haven't used them yet, but they seem to have obvious synergy with aimed shot.

The lolrandom damage remains a big issue though. You're more RNG-dependent with crit-fishing builds compared to burst damage where you can't really get fucked over, but with the sniper rifle, on top of the narrower damage spread (except for Corsairs, but fuck them), you have snipe before aimed shot. So you get a special attack dealing enormous damage, then a guaranteed critical on the next turn, or on the same turn if using the Dragunov. The .44 only has aimed shot, and then you pray for crits. Even execute doesn't seem like it would help much with its 5-turn cooldown and restrictive conditions. I guess you could go through the game with a very suspenseful gunslinger build that would involve sacrificing a baby before every shot.

Not to mention that execute is NOT gunpowder exclusive. I've seen NPCs in Joe de Pacino's hideout performing execute attacks with their PEW PEW pistols. A energy pistol/sniper character would have access to steadfast aim AND critical power, benefiting from both. You should know that I blame YOU for this re-roll.

 

[Eyestabber]

My turn to ask a question:

Does anyone know whether Psionic Mania works with non-damaging CCs like mental breakdown or the "automatic critical hit" thingie only applies to damage dealing psi power? In other words: can I use Psionic Mania to have a 100% GUARANTEED stun?

Blaine? epeli?

 

[Blaine]

You've been accusing people of worse things left and right this thread, so it's no surprise to me that you'd resort to petty attacks ("I WONT SAY IT BUT I WILL SAY IT LOLOL") instead of actually discussing what the 'right balance' might be, or why Rail Crossing or wherever would be worse off if they were built more conveniently. Given that I'm clearly addicted to this game and love many aspects of it, I'm not sure why you'd prefer to fling shit, but oh well.

Look, here are my own thoughts on this, independent of this thread and any petty squabbling thereof.

It takes time to get places in this game. I know this as well as anyone, and probably better than most: Between my three and one-quarter playthroughs of Underrail, I've been on nearly one hundred merchant runs. I know this because I've made twenty batches of Super Steel since v1.0, I made something like nine batches during my last EA playthrough, and during my earliest complete playthrough (prior to the implementation of Super Steel), I accumulated well over 40,000 Charons. I've also fully upgraded the Core City house, which costs something like 40,000 Charons all told.

Because traveling takes time, you have to plan where you'll go in advance and ration out that time, and this (along with merchant buying limitations) also means that you can't just use a spare moment to dump an enormous pile of loot onto one merchant with infinite money and then go on your way. I'll admit it's difficult to explain exactly why I appreciate this, but it's a sort of roadblock that enhances the game by ensuring that nothing's too quick or easy. Carrying capacity and encumbrance are another such limitation.

In terms of world building, it makes sense to me that not every station has its entrance set three inches away from the metro for the player's convenience. To me, that feels more organic and genuine. Likewise, not every station has a compact and convenient layout. Foundry and Core City are huge and sprawling, while SGS is the epitome of convenience. Foundry and Core City also have a lot of little cubbyholes, rat's nests, and alleyways to explore, and I feel the inconvenience of backtracking through them later is worth the tradeoff for the feeling of immensity and exploration potential they initially offer.

Let me put it this way: If every station layout was convenient, that would come through to me in a negative way. It would eventually be obvious that the world had been designed with the player's needs and conveniences in mind, and that isn't good world building. That applies in many contexts, not just map layout, although map layout is part of it. Good world building causes the player to feel as though he is one entity in a (somewhat) living, breathing world that perhaps is largely indifferent to him, rather than the whole thing being a stage constructed for his benefit. It's an illusion of course, because the game was in fact constructed for his sole benefit, but it's a crucial one.

As an example of how Underrail features good world building, take Foundry's large and slightly inconvenient entrance yard. It's Foundry's train yard, used to transport people and goods. There is a large fenced-off area containing cargo crates, there's a crane to move cargo, there's a depot next door to the cargo yard staffed by a woman who handles some of the incoming cargo (as well as dealing with traveling merchants in search of metal), there's a small shuttered warehouse by the gate where presumably valuable materiel is stored, and there's an entire tier for the guards complete with turrets, a surveillance room, and a guy watching the monitors... none of this has anything to do with a quest. It's there because the game's developer built a city with its own internal logic rather than just a themed set piece for the player.

Yes, backtracking through cavernous areas can be boring and annoying, but again, it's a tradeoff. I feel it's worth it.

 

[Nines]

Has anybody ever found anything unique with perception secret thingy?

If you mean something like unique weapons or armor, then no, but I had a few interesting encounters.

Spoiler

Like hidden shop in Rail Crossing.

 

[Nines]

Another example is the entrance to Rail Crossing, made all the worse because there's a significant amount of backtracking involved in the RC quests. You have a map with the train station itself, but that map isn't directly connected to the settlement: first you have to go through a map south of that one, which only contains the literal rail crossing leading to the town. Couldn't the train station and the rail crossing, both totally empty--no enemies, no guards, no commoners--be a single map?

If you connect all these three maps like the train station, the area to the south of Rail Crossing, and Rail Crossing itself, then you will have a one huge loading screen, and you will have to see it every time you want to go to the south, in the abandoned warehouse, or any other location. It will also drain resources from a PC along with Rail Crossing, while adding nothing to it.

In my opinion, the world building is fine, mostly (although I haven't seen Core City yet). What is not fine are loading / saving times. I think you guys, again, bitching about something that can't and won't be fixed (like cooldowns), thus being impractical, instead of something that can be possible improved. No one will stitch these zones at this point, just because you said so, but I hope Styg will do something to shorten loading / saving times.

 

[Excidium II]

Has anybody ever found anything unique with perception secret thingy?

If you mean something like unique weapons or armor, then no, but I had a few interesting encounters.

Spoiler

Like hidden shop in Rail Crossing.

I see, thanks.

 

[Blaine]

My turn to ask a question:

Does anyone know whether Psionic Mania works with non-damaging CCs like mental breakdown or the "automatic critical hit" thingie only applies to damage dealing psi power? In other words: can I use Psionic Mania to have a 100% GUARANTEED stun?

Blaine? epeli?

Uh... well, I chose the Jedi Master path rather than the Sith Lord path, but my gut feeling (it's a 95% sure feeling) is that the critical hit mechanics are wholly separate from Fortitude and Resolve resistance rolls.

 

[Excidium II]

Critical is just for direct damage from what I've seen so far. Though it's kinda lame since Thought Control has that skill that effectively causes debuffs to "crit" by lasting twice as long, so the mechanic for at least one variant is there in the game.

 

[ArchAngel]

So I found some Lost Vault Traders while looking for that quest where you get to pilot a Dreadnought. Anyone knows what is that about?
I

Spoiler

broke into their house and hacked a panel but nothing happened. I hoped I would be able to enter the Vault there but seems not

, also I still cannot find the damned area Protectorate wants me to find their missing patrol in Lower Underrail. Instead I stumbled on these guys and on the quest for the Institute :D

 

[Blaine]

Excidium II Mental Breakdown not only doubles the effect of the next Thought Control ability used on the victim, but it also incapacitates them for three turns without tripping the Aphobia (anti-fear) or Second Wind debuffs. It's worth noting that any damage dealt to them will snap them out of it, though, which the description doesn't mention.

 

[Blaine]

Since the Free Drones questline is bugged and won't trigger for me, is there a way to work for the Protectorate instead without

Spoiler

having solved the Lost Train quest in their favor?

I'm probably boned until next playthrough, but I figure it's worth asking.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

I got a question about Find Hephaestus Research quest

Spoiler

where is this damn place? Colonel told me to go north from GMS compound and I tried to search the caves north and found nothing. Then I checked the wiki but those instructions only took me to the bunker where you get what you need for the next quest from that Colonel.
Now I got no clue. I even took few different directions with wiki instructions and looked through 15 cave maps but nothing

Anyone knows?

Spoiler

It's east of the Hanged Rat. Try going east a few cells and then walking around until you find it. You need TNT to open the entrance, though.

That is not the one. That one with the rocks that block doorway I found but that is for the next quest. The one I am looking for is the one where you find

Spoiler

Protectorate Dreadnought

Spoiler

It's the one a few screens South? I think of the one with the rocks. There should be a dead guy caught in the door - if you're an idiot like me you'll walk by it 40 times without actually clicking on the door and getting in.