Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[hell bovine]

Just discovered this: thermodynamic destabilization cancels the cryo-shield.

 

[ArchAngel]

Another question about DC (about tunnels south)

Spoiler

Area with Deep Worms and those neutral big Larvae - I hate it. Fighting one Deep Worm uses up way too much of my shock bolts and normal bolts and stealthing through most areas is a pain due to any bumping getting you out of Stealth and you cannot transition further while in combat.
Does this maze of Tunnels hold something important and if it does can anyone tell exactly where to find it?
Because I am qutting Underrail if I have to do this part of DC 1 second longer than I need to (at least qutting until wiki is updated with information on how to make player suffering last shorter).

Spoiler

Yes it holds the shaft that you need to be able to fix the gate. In the room with the monoliths. You can see the worms underground (so as to avoid bumping into them) if you look carefully though the last room has about four of them.

The problem is that the neutral larvae also bump into you. That alone I could suffer if the whole place was not a maze on top of it.

Think of it as a realtime stealth minigame. I'm fairly sure it's doable with minimal stealth, but if you bump, you lose!

Spoiler

Stand still near the entrance, start moving when you see an opening, never go near any of the worms or larvae (they're pretty slow). If you made it to the next room safely, quicksave. Etc etc.

And that I could do if it wasn't also a maze.
Maze +that + cannot brute force it due to Deep Worms bullshit is what makes it rage inducing.

 

[Blaine]

Deep Caverns

Tchort debuff should wear off after 15-20 seconds. This serves no purpose but to force the player to stand around doing nothing in hidden areas; and if not in a hidden area, the stacks will build up the same regardless.

Also, I was so very, very right to bring a jackhammer and biotechnician suit. I've been patting myself on the back for so long for that bit of foresight that I'm starting to cramp.

 

[ArchAngel]

Deep Caverns

Tchort debuff should wear off after 15-20 seconds. This serves no purpose but to force the player to stand around doing nothing in hidden areas; and if not in a hidden area, the stacks will build up the same regardless.

Also, I was so very, very right to bring a jackhammer and biotechnician suit. I've been patting myself on the back for so long for that bit of foresight that I'm starting to cramp.

You can find a jackhammer in multiple places as well as TNT and both suits and masks can be found. Personally I brought the mask and the fire resistant suit(but because I read people recommending those) :D

 

[Blaine]

Guess I'll rely on Exothermic Aura for that.

 

[ST'Ranger]

Can anyone answer me this?

As for my impressions of DC so far

Spoiler

I went west at first and noticed shoorms are hard to skill and respawn within 20 seconds and automatically see stealth characters. So my stealth/crossbow guy without biology or chemistry quit that area and went north.
There I got irritated by 40% penalty to everything and how when you kill an enemy they respawn after 20 second as well. So I just proceeded to stealth through everything. After a while I figured out there are areas where the debuff disappears and I can run through areas while new one is being gathered. Still the "on the clock" feel DC gives me all the time is pretty irritating. I cannot imagine going through it with a non-stealth character, I think I would go berserk. I don't plan to take another character into it until this shit is fixed or stealth is now part of each and every character I make.

DC Spoilers

a) Why why why are you stealthing around the Tchort debuff areas? Don't listen to the internet on this point - Stealth is practically useless in DC except in one particular place - arguably two.

The reality is that these areas are few, and that you are much better off walking at normal or above-normal speed through them so as not to even trigger the Eye effect. Scout out the areas until you have a "map", whether that be in your head or elsewhere. Then when you need to penetrate those areas, walk as swiftly as you can. I can only think of one place where you might be forced to trigger the Eye - and that's if you haven't found a solution to slow down the debuff stacking. I did two entire playthroughs without ever spawning a single Tchortling from the Eye debuff.

b) Your problem with Arke power station is not entirely clear because of some ambiguities. Rest assured that you can get through the entire game front to back without a single point in Hacking or Lockpicking. Arke station is an access puzzle - you're trying to hunt down ways to access areas that will give you access to yet other areas. I'll tell you that what you're looking for is keycards - and it's possible you picked up one without realizing it. Try the various locked doors or comb over areas again for loot.

c) The solution to every single problem in DC is to explore + scout. If you explore around, you'll find an important information source.

d) I highly recommend for the "labyrinth" to manually enter combat and move around the grubs that way.

 

[Blaine]

Yeah, I appreciate how the debuff forces you to find hidey-holes and scout around.

I don't appreciate that it takes 50 seconds to wear off.

 

[Ziem]

yeah i agree waiting for a minute every two minutes is fucking awful. thats actually the only issue i have with dc.

 

[Blaine]

Essentially, you spend well over half of your time either waiting around doing nothing, or backtracking to a hidden location so that you may have the privilege of waiting around doing nothing.

Not even the staunchest of fanbots can defend game design this boring and tedious. It's flat-out stupid, and the wearing off period should be reduced to 15-20 seconds at the most.

 

[ArchAngel]

Spoiler

This is a map I found while looking for the biomass solution

It's a bit of a mess but the labyrinth part is somewhat clear. 14 is obviously where you want to be.

Tnx, this saved my playthrough. I was really ready to quit.

 

[ArchAngel]

Can anyone answer me this?

As for my impressions of DC so far

Spoiler

I went west at first and noticed shoorms are hard to skill and respawn within 20 seconds and automatically see stealth characters. So my stealth/crossbow guy without biology or chemistry quit that area and went north.
There I got irritated by 40% penalty to everything and how when you kill an enemy they respawn after 20 second as well. So I just proceeded to stealth through everything. After a while I figured out there are areas where the debuff disappears and I can run through areas while new one is being gathered. Still the "on the clock" feel DC gives me all the time is pretty irritating. I cannot imagine going through it with a non-stealth character, I think I would go berserk. I don't plan to take another character into it until this shit is fixed or stealth is now part of each and every character I make.

DC Spoilers

a) Why why why are you stealthing around the Tchort debuff areas? Don't listen to the internet on this point - Stealth is practically useless in DC except in one particular place - arguably two.

The reality is that these areas are few, and that you are much better off walking at normal or above-normal speed through them so as not to even trigger the Eye effect. Scout out the areas until you have a "map", whether that be in your head or elsewhere. Then when you need to penetrate those areas, walk as swiftly as you can. I can only think of one place where you might be forced to trigger the Eye - and that's if you haven't found a solution to slow down the debuff stacking. I did two entire playthroughs without ever spawning a single Tchortling from the Eye debuff.

b) Your problem with Arke power station is not entirely clear because of some ambiguities. Rest assured that you can get through the entire game front to back without a single point in Hacking or Lockpicking. Arke station is an access puzzle - you're trying to hunt down ways to access areas that will give you access to yet other areas. I'll tell you that what you're looking for is keycards - and it's possible you picked up one without realizing it. Try the various locked doors or comb over areas again for loot.

c) The solution to every single problem in DC is to explore + scout. If you explore around, you'll find an important information source.

d) I highly recommend for the "labyrinth" to manually enter combat and move around the grubs that way.

Spoiler

a) Because that is how I play my stealth character and because I just arrived into these areas and started exploring. Once I did figure out how the whole thing works I did start running around. But you don't get enough time for that, I cannot imagine doing that with non stealth build. I hate on the clock games, especially when the penalty is as terrible as 20 second between respawning enemies and a serious combat debuff. I makes not not want to play it ever again.
b) I entered Arke, the camera cannot be destroyed (first time for enemy camera) and robots all respawn (again super irritating just as outside; I got no clue why Styg though it would be a good idea to put in super respawn in all areas after we played a game for 100h that had none of that. So terrible.), anyways I was able to enter a few green doors and found that power lever that turns off the circle in the middle of the floor. Lots or red doors that I could not enter. Killed two plasma towers and went west thought red load zone. There entered all green doors, looted everything I could and also switched off power level for the circle on the floor. Had to kill two more plasma towers and found a heavy block that you can click on but I cannot move with my 4 Str. The same room has two red doors as well, one asks for 130 Hacking, other just says locked like all the red doors I found. On console I could only choose Disable Security which is only temporary and brings respawning bots to fight and Open Core or something like that which when I click I always get a HAHAHA response from whoever is there. I thought if I turned off all 3 power levers there I could open this Core but it still didn't work. Since I did everything except that 130 hacking door I quit the area (found 2 keys in total in two areas, Entertainment room and some other).
c) I am trying that but between Eye of Chort areas, Labyrinth and crappy areas like Arke I am not enjoying this like I did before DC
d) I used the map linked by others to find the part and not quit the game, this area is one of the worst parts of any game I ever played, it single handedly removed this game as my 2015 Goty.

 

[agris]

Thanks for using the spoiler tag everyone.

 

[ST'Ranger]

Yeah, I appreciate how the debuff forces you to find hidey-holes and scout around.

I don't appreciate that it takes 50 seconds to wear off.

If that was in response to my post, I'll note that in my giant DC-rundown post many pages back, I had exactly the same suggestion you did about decreasing the wind-down timer. These small posts I'm making are me trying to help others, not justify or glorify or otherwise represent my opinion of any part of the game.

Spoiler

a) Once I did figure out how the whole thing works I did start running around. But you don't get enough time for that, I cannot imagine doing that with non stealth build. I hate on the clock games, especially when the penalty is as terrible as 20 second between respawning enemies and a serious combat debuff. I makes not not want to play it ever again.

b) I entered Arke, the camera cannot be destroyed (first time for enemy camera) and robots all respawn (again super irritating just as outside; I got no clue why Styg though it would be a good idea to put in super respawn in all areas after we played a game for 100h that had none of that. So terrible.), anyways I was able to enter a few green doors and found that power lever that turns off the circle in the middle of the floor. Lots or red doors that I could not enter. Killed two plasma towers and went west thought red load zone. There entered all green doors, looted everything I could and also switched off power level for the circle on the floor. Had to kill two more plasma towers and found a heavy block that you can click on but I cannot move with my 4 Str. The same room has two red doors as well, one asks for 130 Hacking, other just says locked like all the red doors I found. On console I could only choose Disable Security which is only temporary and brings respawning bots to fight and Open Core or something like that which when I click I always get a HAHAHA response from whoever is there. I thought if I turned off all 3 power levers there I could open this Core but it still didn't work. Since I did everything except that 130 hacking door I quit the area (found 2 keys in total in two areas, Entertainment room and some other).

c) I am trying that but between Eye of Chort areas, Labyrinth and crappy areas like Arke I am not enjoying this like I did before DC

d) I used the map linked by others to find the part and not quit the game, this area is one of the worst parts of any game I ever played, it single handedly removed this game as my 2015 Goty.

Spoiler

a) I'm glad you figured it out, and I can appreciate that you are frustrated. But I think a lot of this is your frustration talking.

b) This is little more than an angry rant that's starting to resemble a steam review. "I pushed a button and it did something I didn't like 0/10". The power station is about getting a keycard --> new place --> new keycard --> new place. Since you've already found some of them, I'm confident you'll be able to finish it.

c) Explore the areas that do not have the debuff.

More spoilery

Near the power station.

d) The labyrinth is tedious and awful, especially compared with almost every other part of the game, but I think when you cool down, you'll realize that it's just extremely annoying and boring and nothing worse. I absolutely despised both the labyrinth and the fungus maze.

 

[hell bovine]

Can anyone answer me this?

As for my impressions of DC so far

Spoiler

I went west at first and noticed shoorms are hard to skill and respawn within 20 seconds and automatically see stealth characters. So my stealth/crossbow guy without biology or chemistry quit that area and went north.
There I got irritated by 40% penalty to everything and how when you kill an enemy they respawn after 20 second as well. So I just proceeded to stealth through everything. After a while I figured out there are areas where the debuff disappears and I can run through areas while new one is being gathered. Still the "on the clock" feel DC gives me all the time is pretty irritating. I cannot imagine going through it with a non-stealth character, I think I would go berserk. I don't plan to take another character into it until this shit is fixed or stealth is now part of each and every character I make.

DC Spoilers

a) Why why why are you stealthing around the Tchort debuff areas? Don't listen to the internet on this point - Stealth is practically useless in DC except in one particular place - arguably two.

The reality is that these areas are few, and that you are much better off walking at normal or above-normal speed through them so as not to even trigger the Eye effect. Scout out the areas until you have a "map", whether that be in your head or elsewhere. Then when you need to penetrate those areas, walk as swiftly as you can. I can only think of one place where you might be forced to trigger the Eye - and that's if you haven't found a solution to slow down the debuff stacking. I did two entire playthroughs without ever spawning a single Tchortling from the Eye debuff.

b) Your problem with Arke power station is not entirely clear because of some ambiguities. Rest assured that you can get through the entire game front to back without a single point in Hacking or Lockpicking. Arke station is an access puzzle - you're trying to hunt down ways to access areas that will give you access to yet other areas. I'll tell you that what you're looking for is keycards - and it's possible you picked up one without realizing it. Try the various locked doors or comb over areas again for loot.

c) The solution to every single problem in DC is to explore + scout. If you explore around, you'll find an important information source.

d) I highly recommend for the "labyrinth" to manually enter combat and move around the grubs that way.

Regarding c) - no it doesn't, because the no.1 problem with dc is tediousness. It is plain boring to watch that counter tick down again and again for almost a minute. And what is the alternative? Fighting hordes of respawning creatures. Except even if you hide, you still have to deal with monster respawns in those areas that you have to backtrack to. So you end up fighting hordes of respawning critters anyway. And it's not like those battles are even interesting. There is literally no point to them, besides to annoy players. This could have been all avoided

Spoiler

by instead expanding on the faceless vs tchortist conflict, as both groups are capable of delivering tough but fun battles. Instead they all wait and twiddle their thumbs, while you are left fighting the same group of critters you did last time, because hey, turns out you need to visit that power plant yet again.

 

[Blaine]

If that was in response to my post, I'll note that in my giant DC-rundown post many pages back, I had exactly the same suggestion you did about decreasing the wind-down timer. These small posts I'm making are me trying to help others, not justify or glorify or otherwise represent my opinion of any part of the game.

It was in response to your post, but only the first portion about enjoying having to scout and retreat.

The bit about how the timer should be drastically shortened was simply a caveat, and I think it's pretty self-evident. It literally serves no purpose other than to make the player wait, and for no reason.

As a matter of fact, it should probably vanish within moments of ducking into a safe spot, never mind 15-20 seconds.

 

[Zetor]

Man, playing a tri-spec psion (maxing persuasion/intimidation, even) is freaking insane in comparison to crossbowgimp. It's amusing how EVERYTHING in the arena - including C - dies to the same spell combo... at level 13.


edit: regarding debuff timers in DC, I think just making the safe areas drop the debuff after 5 sec would work. Depending on how the stacking debuff was implemented, maybe all that needs to be done is to change the "every x sec add a debuff stack" logic to "every x sec dispel these two debuffs entirely" logic in safe zones.

 

[ST'Ranger]

Regarding c) - no it doesn't, because the no.1 problem with dc is tediousness. It is plain boring to watch that counter tick down again and again for almost a minute. And what is the alternative? Fighting hordes of respawning creatures. Except even if you hide, you still have to deal with monster respawns in those areas that you have to backtrack to. So you end up fighting hordes of respawning critters anyway. And it's not like those battles are even interesting. There is literally no point to them, besides to annoy players. This could have been all avoided

Spoiler

by instead expanding on the faceless vs tchortist conflict, as both groups are capable of delivering tough but fun battles. Instead they all wait and twiddle their thumbs, while you are left fighting the same group of critters you did last time, because hey, turns out you need to visit that power plant yet again.

Spoiler

If you want my opinions on DC, I recommend you look some pages back where I wrote a giant post about it. You're twisting the meaning of my words here - I'm talking about mechanical/puzzle problems not design or gameplay problems. Every problem related to "solving" DC can be solved by exploration. Design problems and annoyances like HPshrooms, Deep Worms, and everlasting debuffs can only be solved by Styg, of course.

It was in response to your post, but only the first portion about enjoying having to scout and retreat.

The bit about how the timer should be drastically shortened was simply a caveat, and I think it's pretty self-evident. It literally serves no purpose other than to make the player wait, and for no reason.

As a matter of fact, it should probably vanish within moments of ducking into a safe spot, never mind 15-20 seconds.

Spoiler

The fact that my solution to an area is "scout and retreat" doesn't imply that I enjoyed it. Every time I've brought up the topic in this thread, it's been about how to work around it which is neither a "for" nor "against", it's merely a mechanical analysis.

I thought the idea was cool but overdone. It ultimately amounts to twiddling thumbs once figured out, and the biggest problem with it is that it's essentially anti-content - content that exists to be avoided. I understand that many don't like time-pressure or avoid-the-beasty or similar designs. I appreciated it and thought it was a neat idea, but the execution was poor and the ultimate outcome is annoyance. It could have been done significantly better in a variety ways. And yes, the debuff lasting 60 seconds when clear is self-evidently dumb.

 

[Anthedon]

We should probaby make an Underrail Spoiler thread at this point. Lots of DC/endgame discussions going on and all the tagging is getting tedious.

 

[Blackmill]

I've got a few questions about the Power Station:

Spoiler

1. After allocating power to the mutagen tanks, I didn't notice anything different, except there seemed to be eggs near the tanks. Did I miss something? Go to the wrong mutagen tanks?

2. When you first enter the Deep Caverns after the elevator breaks, you can go east, and there's a place with no power. Where should I send power to turn that area on? It seems too far south to be part of Hollowed Earth but I see no other option. I could guess and check but that seems like a waste of time.

3. Is there any way to send power to places like Tartarus which have broken "nodes"?

 

[ArchAngel]

More DC comments

Spoiler

It seems DC is designed to be as irritating as possible to different characters. Shooms cannot be sneaked by and are tough to kill for a standard stealth build (stealth/traps/crossbow), the labyrinth is irritating to most people with so many area and needing to fight DW in every room while endlessly getting lost and hoping it finally ends. Sneakers can have it a bit easier if not for the way too many neutral creatures that make stealthing irritating in those areas (this situation was similar in Foundry Mine but a whole level less irritating due to smaller area and less neutrals bumping into you) And Eye of Tchort areas being endlessly irritating to anyone not using stealth even if the fights are not dangerous. I can only imagine how irritating the area after the door is, I bet it is also designed to be like the rest. I hope I manage to finish DC and after that the second play is going on a pause until this shit is radically fixed. At this point I would be using god mode cheats just to just finish it

 

[Blackmill]

More DC comments

Spoiler

Shooms cannot be sneaked by

Are they immune to Flashbangs?

 

[ArchAngel]

More DC comments

Spoiler

Shooms cannot be sneaked by

Are they immune to Flashbangs?

Who exactly?

 

[Blackmill]

More DC comments

Spoiler

Shooms cannot be sneaked by

Are they immune to Flashbangs?

Who exactly?

The Shroom guys who are hard to sneak by. I'm asking since I will probably have to sneak past them on one of my characters and I relly a lot on flashbangs.

 

[ArchAngel]

More DC comments

Spoiler

Shooms cannot be sneaked by

Are they immune to Flashbangs?

Who exactly?

The Shroom guys who are hard to sneak by. I'm asking since I will probably have to sneak past them on one of my characters and I relly a lot on flashbangs.

Spoiler

I have not tried really. Since they are immobile and I have high Evasion I killed one and then moved through that area forward but when I figured out this area is a maze of sorts I decided to explore other areas and then when I figured out Shooms respawn on way back I decided to not go back there again if it can be helped. But since Styg also decided to change his design from the rest of the game that said "only some areas are critical to progress the story, the rest is for optional exploration" , every fucking area is now critical.
Could it be someone else is responsible for DC, someone that didn't design most of the South Underrail?!

 

[Declinator]

Very late game possibly obvious help for psionics but heavy on spoilers

Tchort fight can be made rather easy if you have the force user feat as that allows for 4 turns of Force Field which means functional immortality for 4 turns right in front of Tchort. In fact I used just Force Field, Neural Overload (which does very nice damage when critting) and Force Emission punches alongside Expose Weakness. I didn't actually have Force User but 2 turns of no damage is already a big help.

Screenshot of Tchort fight (so if you don't want to know what it looks like...)

I've got a few questions about the Power Station:

Spoiler

1. After allocating power to the mutagen tanks, I didn't notice anything different, except there seemed to be eggs near the tanks. Did I miss something? Go to the wrong mutagen tanks?

2. When you first enter the Deep Caverns after the elevator breaks, you can go east, and there's a place with no power. Where should I send power to turn that area on? It seems too far south to be part of Hollowed Earth but I see no other option. I could guess and check but that seems like a waste of time.

3. Is there any way to send power to places like Tartarus which have broken "nodes"?

Spoiler

1. Probably not actually the place that you allocated power to.

2. If you mean the small map with a locked door and a powerless electronic lock then it won't be powered. Simply open the door from the other side when you get there.

3. I wasn't able to do so and it wasn't needed so very unlikely.