Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[ST'Ranger]

The whole of DC is definitely not an "obvious" design decision, but I'm starting to feel its integrity and even an amount of masochistic enjoyment one can get from it. I feel like we're going to look back at it with fondness and anything less will be treated as casual

I sure hope you're right. So far the DC reactions ITT have been incredibly negative, I never expected that from codex. By now anyone reading this thread is conditioned to hate DC no matter what their own opinion might've been.

Many of the enemies are far easier for some combat disciplines and builds than for others with the same investment of skill points and feats, and because this is the ultimate (or penultimate) area of the game, the way in which Deep Caverns shits all over some builds thoroughly sabotages one of Underrail's greatest strengths: the wide range of choice in character progression.

it only shits all over crossbow builds, every other build has a way of dealing with high mechanical resistance either inherently (like energy/chem weapons or psi), by using armor piercing ammo (every firearm) or by picking up a feat which helps with that (knives/unarmed)

Crossbows are the most affected by mechanical resistance, true. But they also have their ways of dealing with high mechanical resistance. And in DC they get a way to debuff all resistances and thresholds by up to 70%.

As far as crossbow viability in DC goes, the only thing I'm worried about is whether they can get that sweet armor-melting corrosive acid. So far every crossbowski who has struggled in DC has skipped the solution to their resistance problems.

As far as DC reactions:
There is a lot of stuff in DC that ranges from Bad to Not as Good as the Rest of Underrail, and my view is that exposure, even indirect, in this thread to that stuff causes people to overlook the good that is in DC.

I personally suffered through a great deal of trial and error and hunting and scouting etc. because I absolutely refused to consult anything for my first playthrough of DC (and as a result that mutagen scanner bug was infuriating). By the time I had everything completed down there, I had been exposed to everything DC had to offer many times over. It was pretty clear to me what parts were just plain bad, what parts could have been better, and what parts were truly good. And my first playthrough was on a crossbow wielder, which is the grimmest build I've taken there so far - a build that runs right up against most of the bad design decisions and feels the maximum pain they can afford. Despite that, I still loved certain parts of Deep Caverns and left feeling overall positive about the experience - a bit like I had enjoyed a good meal at a restaurant but paid far too much for it. That first impression was brutal - in a bad way - and I feel that in combination with thread-primed expectations is going to leave people in a position where they can't/won't appreciate the good parts of DC.

As far as crossbows in DC:
Now if you had crossed the threshold with all the right prerequisites for obtaining certain things, I'd say it still wouldn't matter. I decided after a few attempts that I didn't have the patience to... we'll say harvest certain elements. This is a catch-22 situation, where you need armor-melting capability to get armor-melting capability. I have to voice pretty strong agreement here with Blaine.

DC Spoilers

Obligatory "Burn Serbia to the ground" example image

 

[Goromorg]

Crossbows should be able to fire special shots (snipe, aimed) with special bolts, basic acid bolts should be able to debuff resistances for at least 15% per shot by default and their damage should be increased by 2 times because now it's lackluster, corrosive acid bolt debuff should be twice as strong as well as damage. Pneumatic cyclon's shot should cost 16 AP.
These changes will probably fix crossbows.

 

[Blaine]

About tasks for JQ...

Spoiler

Is there any way to get Hercules drug without buying it (other than stealing)? There is a hint that some of the buyers died outside Core City, but the territory is fairly big.

Is there any way to get information on Patrick Pierce without buying it from Jon and joining Praetorian?

Spoiler

I don't think it's possible to get a sample except directly from the scammer. If you have Pickpocket I presume you can get it for free, and if you have Mercantile I assume you can lower the price. You get 400 Charons for completing the mission, so it's not an immense loss. It's one of the situations I like to call, "Don't have Skill X? Pay X00 Charons."

I agree that some corpse someplace should have a sample to find, but I'm 99% sure none exists as I've searched those areas thoroughly over several playthroughs in which the quest was implemented.

As for Patrick Pierce, I went Praetorian myself, so I was able to find all the clues and solve the mystery without buying info from Jon. I suppose you can't even get to Lieutenant What's-his-name without joining Praetorian. Still, you may only need a certain number of clues to successfully solve the quest, since there are a lot of options for telling the guy the clues you've found. You might try presenting everything you've found even without seeing the Praetorian file.

 

[Cyberarmy]

The crowd is chanting Daka Daka.

The Paralyzer here.

 

[Blaine]

I'm really enjoying the

Spoiler

DC research station full of cryostasis pods. I figured that place out pretty quick, and was able to fulfill my childhood dream of LARPing HAL 9000 and mass murdering people trapped in cryogenic suspension. That'll teach you to kick me, you nasty shits.

Once again though, it aggravates me that on top of the fact that there are 4-5x as many mechanically locked doors and containers than electronically locked ones (including in DC), hack-able locks and devices can more often than not be bypassed with a keycard from some shelf or dead enemy.

The crowd is chanting Daka Daka.

The Paralyzer here.

I was The Weatherman.

 

[Eyestabber]

The crowd is chanting Daka Daka.

The Paralyzer here.

Lead Storm. Makes perfect sense when you're using 3-4 burst fire per fight.

 

[Nines]

And my first playthrough was on a crossbow wielder, which is the grimmest build I've taken there so far - a build that runs right up against most of the bad design decisions and feels the maximum pain they can afford.

I hope Styg will do something before I'll get there, because I can already feel all the pain and suffering I will experience.

Spoiler

Spoiler

As for Patrick Pierce, I went Praetorian myself, so I was able to find all the clues and solve the mystery without buying info from Jon. I suppose you can't even get to Lieutenant What's-his-name without joining Praetorian. Still, you may only need a certain number of clues to successfully solve the quest, since there are a lot of options for telling the guy the clues you've found. You might try presenting everything you've found even without seeing the Praetorian file.

Spoiler

I was wondering if JKK and Coretech have dossier on him. I mean, I'm pretty sure guys spy on each other all the time. I guess there is only one way to find out.
Even if you'll learn how he was killed, there is not a single clue that can tie Patrick and Mordre so far. Without seeing his dossier, you won't be able to see the Spectre list from Oskar.

The crowd is chanting Daka Daka.

The Paralyzer here.

Lead Storm. Makes perfect sense when you're using 3-4 burst fire per fight.

Bolt Thrower! Bolt Thrower!

 

[hell bovine]

The whole of DC is definitely not an "obvious" design decision, but I'm starting to feel its integrity and even an amount of masochistic enjoyment one can get from it. I feel like we're going to look back at it with fondness and anything less will be treated as casual

I sure hope you're right. So far the DC reactions ITT have been incredibly negative, I never expected that from codex. By now anyone reading this thread is conditioned to hate DC no matter what their own opinion might've been.

I doubt it. The vast majority of complaints isn't just about difficulty, but about bad area and encounter design and that's not only on the codex, but also other forums. It's not a matter of deep cavern being to difficult in terms of tough battles or tricky puzzles, because the vast majority of battles are repetitive and exploration is mostly about finding items X, Y and Z. The only parts that I've found interesting so far were:

Spoiler

faceless battle at the main camp (this is how end game battles should be like), power plant battle, information on backstory gained through logs and email, mutagen puzzle (haven't finished this one yet, but it's pretty clear what the solution is),

and that is not much considering how huge deep caverns are. The rest I've found either boring, or annoying, or both.

EDIT: The end area in a game should be designed in a way that keeps you on your toes, wanting to play for "just a few more minutes longer", even though you know you really don't have the time. Deep caverns makes you want to take a break from playing instead.

 

[Blaine]

Spoiler

Even if you'll learn how he was killed, there is not a single clue that can tie Patrick and Mordre so far.

I believe there is, it's just that the list of names you find lists his full name, rather than the nickname by which everyone knows him. Been awhile since I did that quest, though.

 

[Gord]

Spoiler

I have resolved the Faceless situation in RC by letting them read my mind, but couldn't prevent Buzzer dying (it seems Buzzer would give you some info if he were alive?).

Spoiler

He will, actually, reveal very useful information, specifically what to look for and where. I don't know what to do if they'll kill him though.
And still, I feel myself a little bit lost in CC too.

I can't help but think that they dropped the ball with that branch of the MQ. It seems that especially for a first-time player, survival of Buzzer is almost mandatory. Yet there's no hint at how his survival will be important or at the very least convenient to you. Instead you end up with some loose ends and vague pointers towards Core City, where continued progress seems to depend on quest lines that look very much like optional side-quests, again without any clear hints about the interconnections.
I don't need a quest-compass or step-by-step hand-holding by the journal, I just want some hints and/or directions as far as plot-critical stuff goes.

Of course, I could just keep on exploring and hope I'll come across the missing parts by accident - exploration is definitely one of the strongest parts of the game - but I'll always have that nagging doubt in the back of my head that maybe it's a bug after all that broke the MQ and I should better restart, or that I'm just missing something completely obvious.

 

[hell bovine]

Spoiler

Is there any way to get information on Patrick Pierce without buying it from Jon and joining Praetorian?

I am not sure I understand your question about this quest, because

Spoiler

Yes, you need to buy the info from Jon, but you don't have to join Paetorian. I am not 100% sure about the order of events, but after talking with Jon, you need to talk to the merchant lady next to Oscar to learn about his past, and then you can ask Oscar about it. He has some documents, which you need to look at. If you've already done this, then the last info tidbit is in the medical database in SGS, I think.

 

[Blaine]

With access to the Praetorian citadel and Lieutenant Armored Black Man,

Spoiler

there's no need to pay for any information from Jon, and the quest can still be solved optimally. However, I am unsure if you can do this both without being a member of Praetorian, and without talking to Jon, because I joined Praetorian early on and so never needed to experiment.

 

[KazikluBey]

I can't help but think that they dropped the ball with that branch of the MQ.

Spoiler

I saved Buzzer, and you don't get anything specific from him beyond searching for a gangster called Cornell in Core City. Having to become a gladiator or something in the Arena (you don't need to become invictus) before being able to find him tripped me up for a while since it did indeed sound like an optional side quest.

 

[Beastro]

I sure hope you're right. So far the DC reactions ITT have been incredibly negative, I never expected that from codex. By now anyone reading this thread is conditioned to hate DC no matter what their own opinion might've been.

I find it odd given the praise games like Nahlakh have.

Imagine the butthurt here if DC was as hard as the final dungeon of that game?

 

[Gord]

I find it odd given the praise games like Nahlakh have.

Even here, hardly anyone played such games, so you get mostly those few people that don't mind.
Underrail obviously has more mass appeal.

 

[Blaine]

I'm greatly enjoying the exploration opportunities, the challenge, and the grandiose adventure game-style puzzle that's taking shape in DC. My main issue is with the debuff and mega-enemies that are arguably too punishing for certain builds (mine isn't one of those, luckily for me).

Spoiler

It's manageable, it doesn't occur in every location, you can technically fight your way through (at -40% offense vs. HP-bloated homos, however), and I believe someone mentioned there's a way to lessen its onset, but regardless it should wear off within seconds of entering hidden locations.

Spoiler

Arke Power Station is also a lot of fun, and I know it's something a lot of people have bitched about, but then again I have high Stealth with very high movement speed, high Hacking, and can trash robots without too much fuss.

 

[Jack Dandy]

I sure hope you're right. So far the DC reactions ITT have been incredibly negative, I never expected that from codex. By now anyone reading this thread is conditioned to hate DC no matter what their own opinion might've been.

Keeping my head as open as possible.
I heard lots of people bitch about pre-nerf depot A as well, and that shit was relatively simple.

 

[KazikluBey]

I sure hope you're right. So far the DC reactions ITT have been incredibly negative, I never expected that from codex. By now anyone reading this thread is conditioned to hate DC no matter what their own opinion might've been.

I largely stayed away from this thread before hitting the deep caverns in order to avoid spoilers.

Spoiler

I don't think the encounters in DC play to the game's strengths; I've explored pretty much everything outside the locked gates and it's all been one fight vs 1 or 2 monsters, usually of the same type, after another, and they all die to one (sometimes armor penetrating) AR burst if they're near. At best they've acted as a slow resource (healing, batteries and ammo) drain. The really fun fights in the game have been against big varied groups of human(oid)s, of which there haven't been any. I could easily live with the mushroom caves and the deep worm labyrinth though, since once you're done, you're done and as I said they did work as a resource drain. The really annoying bit is the respawning burrowers outside the power station that just works as a time waster. Spawns and burrowers do exactly zero damage, the warriors about 11 plus a small bleed vs my 74%/28 mech DR/DT.

I find it odd given the praise games like Nahlakh have.

Imagine the butthurt here if DC was as hard as the final dungeon of that game?

Oh, I'd love it if the DC was actually difficult for my build, but the problem is exactly that it isn't. The combat just takes time.

 

[Blaine]

DC is nowhere near as bad as the sky-is-falling, woe-is-us trashing it has received and isn't "a mess" by any stretch of the imagination, but there are a few questionable and annoying design decisions, and it very clearly punishes builds that are on the weak side. The game essentially turns into survival horror of sorts once you hit DC, pushing markedly different buttons than the entire rest of the game and overturning many of the expectations and habits players will have developed in the preceding dozens of hours. This is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the player's mindset.

Having massive amounts of movement points (104), high Stealth, powerful psionics, and an immense store of supplies that I brought down with me, it's pretty much been a cakewalk for me so far. Don't expect to get any satisfaction from clearing areas or defeating enemies, though, aside from the occasional Oddity and XP that Classic players likely won't need at that point. Loot really doesn't matter at all, the enemies will be respawned minutes (or moments) later in most cases, and the environmental hazards get turned up to 11.

It's very uncomfortable, in other words. You can find a comfort zone, but it'll be in some tiny room someplace where you can't do anything. I enjoy the scouting and exploration, and look forward to solving the puzzles/mysteries I haven't already solved.

The unnecessary downtime, though, needs to fuck right off.

 

[Nines]

I believe there is, it's just that the list of names you find lists his full name, rather than the nickname by which everyone knows him. Been awhile since I did that quest, though.

Spoiler

You can find out his full name from SGS medical records, since he stole a needle while asking for help with his "pain". At least I think this is the same name from the list.

Spoiler

It seems that especially for a first-time player, survival of Buzzer is almost mandatory.

Spoiler

Personally, I wouldn't let them kill him. Not much of a point in trying to make a truce with guys who just invaded a peaceful station.

I am not sure I understand your question about this quest, because

Spoiler

Yes, you need to buy the info from Jon, but you don't have to join Paetorian. I am not 100% sure about the order of events, but after talking with Jon, you need to talk to the merchant lady next to Oscar to learn about his past, and then you can ask Oscar about it. He has some documents, which you need to look at. If you've already done this, then the last info tidbit is in the medical database in SGS, I think.

Spoiler

I want to join JKK and I don't want to pay Jon. I was wondering if JKK and Coretech also have access to the same information, since they were all parts of the same organization back in the days.

 

[Gord]

Spoiler

Personally, I wouldn't let them kill him. Not much of a point in trying to make a truce with guys who just invaded a peaceful station.

That's true (although I think they only attacked the guy, not the entire station), but I decided to just go with it and see how it turns out.

 

[hell bovine]

DC is nowhere near as bad as the sky-is-falling, woe-is-us trashing it has received and isn't "a mess" by any stretch of the imagination, but there are a few questionable and annoying design decisions, and it very clearly punishes builds that are on the weak side. The game essentially turns into survival horror of sorts once you hit DC, pushing markedly different buttons than the entire rest of the game and overturning many of the expectations and habits players will have developed in the preceding dozens of hours. This is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the player's mindset.

Deep caverns are definitely is tough for certain builds, but I'd disagree about punishing weak builds. My mage's stats, skills and feats are all over the place (she ended with 10 will ) and the majority of encounters weren't difficult, because enemy groups don't vary; she still uses the same fireball/grenade spam as before, only now she needs to pile more damage. It's like KazikluBey wrote: combat takes too much time.

I sure hope you're right. So far the DC reactions ITT have been incredibly negative, I never expected that from codex. By now anyone reading this thread is conditioned to hate DC no matter what their own opinion might've been.

I largely stayed away from this thread before hitting the deep caverns in order to avoid spoilers.

Spoiler

I don't think the encounters in DC play to the game's strengths; I've explored pretty much everything outside the locked gates and it's all been one fight vs 1 or 2 monsters, usually of the same type, after another, and they all die to one (sometimes armor penetrating) AR burst if they're near. At best they've acted as a slow resource (healing, batteries and ammo) drain. The really fun fights in the game have been against big varied groups of human(oid)s, of which there haven't been any. I could easily live with the mushroom caves and the deep worm labyrinth though, since once you're done, you're done and as I said they did work as a resource drain. The really annoying bit is the respawning burrowers outside the power station that just works as a time waster. Spawns and burrowers do exactly zero damage, the warriors about 11 plus a small bleed vs my 74%/28 mech DR/DT.

I find it odd given the praise games like Nahlakh have.

Imagine the butthurt here if DC was as hard as the final dungeon of that game?

Oh, I'd love it if the DC was actually difficult for my build, but the problem is exactly that it isn't. The combat just takes time.

This. I'm not sure if I have the patience to proceed at this point.

 

[AW8]

I've been sneaking around Deep Caverns, searching for stuff for hours now and I've had it. Could someone help me out:

Spoiler

I need to repair the gate and have assembled all necessary components but two canisters of hydralic fluid. I cannot remember where I found the first one, maybe down south past the giant worm tunnels. Where are the three canisters located?

There's a robot factory which I thought would bear fruit, but as far as I saw I've searched all the areas I could unlock at the moment and found nothing.

There's also the issue of the organic growth on the gate. I seem to remember something about the Mushroom Forest in order to remove it, I've been there and aquired a mycokardia from the pulsating roots, I guess its purpose is connected to removing the growth once the gate is repaired. I have no wish to visit that place again if I don't have to. Fuck those living mushrooms up the ass.

 

[ArchAngel]

I've been sneaking around Deep Caverns, searching for stuff for hours now and I've had it. Could someone help me out:

Spoiler

I need to repair the gate and have assembled all necessary components but two canisters of hydralic fluid. I cannot remember where I found the first one, maybe down south past the giant worm tunnels. Where are the three canisters located?

There's a robot factory which I thought would bear fruit, but as far as I saw I've searched all the areas I could unlock at the moment and found nothing.

There's also the issue of the organic growth on the gate. I seem to remember something about the Mushroom Forest in order to remove it, I've been there and aquired a mycokardia from the pulsating roots, I guess its purpose is connected to removing the growth once the gate is repaired. I have no wish to visit that place again if I don't have to. Fuck those living mushrooms up the ass.

Spoiler

a) cannot help you with that fluid, I also only found 1 in some area with burrowers somewhere south. I read from spoilers that you can get another if you ally with Tchortists and save the prisoners from Faceless but I would guess there should be 2 more somewhere for people that don't do that.
b) That is the Arke Power Plant. You need to click on red doors pads after you find keys around two levels you have access at the start. I am not 100% sure if all keys to those doors can be found inside the Plant or some outside. Eventually you should be able to open the door in east part of the Plant that will let you access the ladders to the level below that will eventually take you to more keys that let you open more red doors and get a Power Plant control key that turns off the security systems and lets you control the power around the Deep Caverns
c) Then when you can control the power around the Deep Caverns you need to give power to Hollow Earth main complex and there you can find the rest.
d) Talk to the old man left of storage area and find his dagger, what he teaches you makes travelling around Hollow Earth a bit more bearable. Personally I think this should have been default speed of getting the Debuff stacks on yourself and then his quest in addition lowers the penalty of the debuff

 

[hell bovine]

I've been sneaking around Deep Caverns, searching for stuff for hours now and I've had it. Could someone help me out:

Spoiler

I need to repair the gate and have assembled all necessary components but two canisters of hydralic fluid. I cannot remember where I found the first one, maybe down south past the giant worm tunnels. Where are the three canisters located?

There's a robot factory which I thought would bear fruit, but as far as I saw I've searched all the areas I could unlock at the moment and found nothing.

There's also the issue of the organic growth on the gate. I seem to remember something about the Mushroom Forest in order to remove it, I've been there and aquired a mycokardia from the pulsating roots, I guess its purpose is connected to removing the growth once the gate is repaired. I have no wish to visit that place again if I don't have to. Fuck those living mushrooms up the ass.

I've been sneaking around Deep Caverns, searching for stuff for hours now and I've had it. Could someone help me out:

Spoiler

I need to repair the gate and have assembled all necessary components but two canisters of hydralic fluid. I cannot remember where I found the first one, maybe down south past the giant worm tunnels. Where are the three canisters located?

There's a robot factory which I thought would bear fruit, but as far as I saw I've searched all the areas I could unlock at the moment and found nothing.

There's also the issue of the organic growth on the gate. I seem to remember something about the Mushroom Forest in order to remove it, I've been there and aquired a mycokardia from the pulsating roots, I guess its purpose is connected to removing the growth once the gate is repaired. I have no wish to visit that place again if I don't have to. Fuck those living mushrooms up the ass.

Spoiler

a) cannot help you with that fluid, I also only found 1 in some area with burrowers somewhere south. I read from spoilers that you can get another if you ally with Tchortists and save the prisoners from Faceless but I would guess there should be 2 more somewhere for people that don't do that.
b) That is the Arke Power Plant. You need to click on red doors pads after you find keys around two levels you have access at the start. I am not 100% sure if all keys to those doors can be found inside the Plant or some outside. Eventually you should be able to open the door in east part of the Plant that will let you access the ladders to the level below that will eventually take you to more keys that let you open more red doors and get a Power Plant control key that turns off the security systems and lets you control the power around the Deep Caverns
c) Then when you can control the power around the Deep Caverns you need to give power to Hollow Earth main complex and there you can find the rest.
d) Talk to the old man left of storage area and find his dagger, what he teaches you makes travelling around Hollow Earth a bit more bearable. Personally I think this should have been default speed of getting the Debuff stacks on yourself and then his quest in addition lowers the penalty of the debuff

actually

Spoiler

You get one canister of fluid from tchortist, but you don't have to free the prisoners or fight the faceless for that. Just dress in a tchortist armor, go into the camp and ask the tchortist leader for a quest. He'll tell you to scout the faceless camp and free the prisoners, but: finding the faceless camp is enough. You can report back and tell him you didn't manage to find those prisoners, and he'll be okay with that. The annoying part about this quest is that if you kill all the tchortists instead, you won't get access to the storage with the canister. I think the faceless have another one hidden, so you can kill them instead, but that is a tough battle. I've found them far more challenging than all the dc critters combined.
The other two canisters should be in the same area, I think.

As for those mushroom leftovers, there is a machine next to the mutagen scanner; put the leftovers there and you'll get psimorphic grenades for the gate.

Power plant is just looking for the keys. First one is in the area you enter, second in the east room, I think. (there is so much back-and-forth there that it's easy to forget) Also, once you find the power room, look for the AI room too, because you need an item it has. (that was a mistake I've made with my mage and then spent unnecessary time trying to find that item in various other areas)