Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Abu Antar]

Is Expedition any good? Is it worth starting another build? How many hours for a completionist expansion playthrough?

I haven't completed the expansion yet. I'm in that area now. A lot more wordy than the main campaign and there are some big battles. I've played aproximately 3 hours of Expedition content. I don't mind big battles even if it can feel like a slog at times, but it feels like they went overboard with the wordiness.
My personal opinion is that the expansion is worth it, even at full price. And yes, it is worth another playthrough if you test a new build.

I was playing a psi mon for several hours, but I restarted as a full psi dude. I somewhat regret it, because I want to punch things. The monk was fun but very likely unoptimized. If I ever replay the game for a second full playthrough, I 'll do the psy monk again.

 

[Citizen]

The only game where traps are not gay. I need to finally finish a crossbow + traps playthrough

 

[Wunderbar]

Is Expedition any good?

it's OK. Don't expect interesting quests and c&c, expedition is 100% about combat and dungeon crawling.

Is it worth starting another build?

more underrail is always good, but tbh i've enjoyed my second playthough of main campaign more than i've enjoyed Expedition itself.

How many hours for a completionist expansion playthrough?

depends on your build. I played it with crossbow build, and it was dreadfully hard since most of Black sea enemies are either armored robots, or humans who attack you in waves so you can't just ambush them via stealth.

 

[Sykar]

I have only done some early parts so far so my impression are only for those early few missions. First and foremost, it looks beautiful. Nice new music and the premise is fine as well. I love the new PSI school and went for Timelord arena name on my pure PSI just for the fun of it. Cannot say much about the new weapons. The drawback so far is that combat is long and attrition based purely on the immense numbers of enemies per encounter and also amount of encounters which are hard to circumvent because enemies spawn directly next to you from the ground for example. Either you have really high initiative, are a walking tank or have really good stealth, otherwise you will get eaten alive. You will need loads of consumables as well. Some encounters are plain unfair. Just today I went exploring on my Jet Ski, spawned on the new map and was essentially surrounded by around 15 enemies ALL of which acted before me. I almost survived it but then a 6th sea serpent came and took that last shot. Frustrating to say the least that you can die like that with no way of knowing beforehand.

Edit: Forgot to add a lot of the ambush packs that spawn right next to you also tend to spawn in tight quarters. Have fun having little to no room to kite with Snipers and other ranged characters.

 

[Alexios]

it's OK. Don't expect interesting quests and c&c, expedition is 100% about combat and dungeon crawling.

Have you even played any of it?

 

[ItsChon]

Is Expedition any good? Is it worth starting another build? How many hours for a completionist expansion playthrough?

Shotguns, Spears, and the new Psi school are all great additions, and I'd recommend trying each of them (especially spears). The artwork is beautiful throughout, and exploration is really cranked up to ten. There is the occasional boring or repetitive location (Nexus of Technology and the Horticultural Center), but these are also contrasted with some of the best dungeons in the main game (Joint Security Headquarters, Mutie Island/West Storage Depot, Leumerian Manufacturing Complex, Pirate Base, Abyssal Station Zero, Natives, etc). Expedition is a little wordier, but I consider this to be a good thing. There are a ton of memorable characters, and the overall dichotomy of the expedition versus the pirates is really cool, so I'd recommend a playthrough where you help each side once to see the different content.

The encounter design isn't as good as the main game, but it's not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. The crabs coming out of the ground and the strongmen suddenly turning on can be a bit annoying, but it also forces you to approach each encounter in a specific way to best handle a tough fight. Locusts are aids, but you really only have to fight them in one area and can avoid them the rest of the game after that. Just bring some MK2/3 grenades and bomb them to hell. If you have sneak, sneak up and TNT the hives.

TL;DR: Play it.

 

[Tigranes]

if you loved UR and especially buildfagging and combat then xpack is well worth it

not as good as main game on all areas though

 

[ItsChon]

if you loved UR and especially buildfagging and combat then xpack is well worth it

not as good as main game on all areas though

Personally, my favorite part of the game is directly after Depot A, where you do the quests from Camp Hathor to the Foundry. While Expedition isn't as good as this peak, I'd say it's better than the Institue of Tchort-DC part of the game, and on par with Core City and the Junkyard.

 

[Wunderbar]

Have you even played any of it?

yeah. It's 90% "go to that dungeon and fetch me mcguffin/info".
Core city it isn't.

 

[Alexios]

Have you even played any of it?

yeah. It's 90% "go to that dungeon and fetch me mcguffin/info".
Core city it isn't.

That's a gross exaggeration and doesn't say anything about the content of the "dungeons." The fact that the quests don't have intricate structures doesn't make them uninteresting. They're just more of an exercise in exploration. Also the C&C that Underrail excels at isn't joining this or that faction or making this or that dialogue choice, but giving the player multiple ways to clear a given area, and Expedition excels at that just like the main game.

 

[Wunderbar]

Alexios i found Expedition dungeons boring and much more linear than base game dungeons.

Ventilation shafts are uninteresting - they usually either lead to a room i've already visited, a room i can't crawl in because of some prop, or a room too dangerous to crawl in. There are too many enemies, and said enemies for the most part annoying - crabs spawn right under you even if you was in stealth mode, robots are tanky as fuck and not particularly interesting to fight. And locusts, holy shit that was a bad idea.

The only dungeons I liked were Health center (because i was able to reliably stealth through it) and Blistering shores (because it was short).

 

[ItsChon]

The only dungeons I liked were Health center (because i was able to reliably stealth through it) and Blistering shores (because it was short).

Joint Securit Command Center was great, and the Native Village had some damn good boss fights. The Pirate bases were also damn good too if you raided them to rescue Oldfield, or if you just wanted to massacre them all. West Depot A was also not bad. You've brought up the ventilation shafts like three different times and it's fucking weird bro. They're really not that big of a deal.

EDIT: No one has mentioned Jet Ski's btw, but they're a lot of fun too if you invest and get an expensive one.

 

[Wunderbar]

You've brought up the ventilation shafts like three different times and it's fucking weird bro. They're really not that big of a deal.

i really hated nexus of technology, there were like 6 or 8 copypasted floors with same useless vents.

EDIT: No one has mentioned Jet Ski's btw, but they're a lot of fun too if you invest and get an expensive one.

found them meh. I have also bought a relatively expensive one (Glow).

 

[Alexios]

Alexios i found Expedition dungeons boring and much more linear than base game dungeons.

Ventilation shafts are uninteresting - they usually either lead to a room i've already visited, a room i can't crawl in because of some prop, or a room too dangerous to crawl in. There are too many enemies, and said enemies for the most part annoying - crabs spawn right under you even if you was in stealth mode, robots are tanky as fuck and not particularly interesting to fight. And locusts, holy shit that was a bad idea.

The only dungeons I liked were Health center (because i was able to reliably stealth through it) and Blistering shores (because it was short).

I definitely agree about locusts. As for crabs I only have encountered them on Normal difficulty so I can't give an opinion on them in other difficulties.

Assuming you mean Handmaidens and Strongmen by robots, I never thought they were really meant to be fought, especially for a stealth character. There was almost always another way to deal with them. Same for Naga Protectors.

 

[ItsChon]

i really hated nexus of technology, there were like 6 or 8 copypasted floors with same useless vents.

Nexus was trash, agreed. Still, Health Care Center, Blistering Shores, and Joint Security Center were all really solid. The ruins underneath a Pirate base with like 5 naga protectors and plasma turrets was really good too.

found them meh. I have also bought a relatively expensive one (Glow).

Eh. The Phaser and the Devastator were really good. Phaser makes you zoom and the Devestator's Plasma cannon puts the hurt on people.

 

[Tigranes]

There's a lot to like in Expeditions, it's just that at any given moment you're never free from one of several things that really puts a tiring drag on the xpack.

Some of the ruins areas have some great atmosphere and well-paced revelations about what happened... but you have to fight identical copypasta mobs 18 times all the way through, each time just as excruciatingly slow (but routine) as another.

There are some fantastic chats with the boatmen, truly good writing... but you have to find the dude while plodding your jetski around 20 empty sea zones (and then taking detours if some zones become no-go because pirates/locusts waiting for you at transition)

The base game also had times when it could really be tedious (e.g. drilling for ore & larvae in the Foundry, all of DC), but large chunks of the game could be enjoyed free of them. In Expeditions, the core design principles are an infusion of tedium and excellence.

 

[ItsChon]

n Expeditions, the core design principles are an infusion of tedium and excellence.

That's the gist of it. In that sense, I'm not too worried about the future, as long as Styg actually takes note of the feedback he gets, things should be fine. It makes me wonder though, did the testers not mention these things to Styg? One would think the super annoying Locusts, the copy-pasted levels of the Nexus of Technology, and the very similar Strongmen/Handmaidens would have been super obvious things to point it.

EDIT: I also do wish Styg would have diversified the wildlife a bit. Other than the crabs, there should have been more variety than just the Serpents (also annoying), the Locusts, and the occasional group of Siphoners.

 

[Trashos]

did the testers not mention these things to Styg?

Styg is very headstrong. He does listen to feedback occasionally, but when he likes sth he does not care if everybody else hates it. That is mostly a good thing (when developers are easily shaken, their games usually end up directionless), but not always.

 

[Xeon]

Even tho I beat the base game, I still have no idea what the frequencies in the shield do. I would imagine each frequency is better against either Psi, Mechanical or Bio? But I have no idea which is which if that's the case, so if that's how the shield works, can someone please help.

Edit:
Are there any tricks to dealing with Goliath at low levels? or is it better to delay dealing with them until I am high level, I am playing at dominating if it helps.

 

[Parabalus]

Even tho I beat the base game, I still have no idea what the frequencies in the shield do. I would imagine each frequency is better against either Psi, Mechanical or Bio? But I have no idea which is which if that's the case, so if that's how the shield works, can someone please help.

Basically there are 5 impact speed types and each shield has 5 absorption values, for each speed type, so you can min-max vs various enemy types.

Usually you just take one very low shield vs critters/melee and one medium-high vs everything else.

 

[Egosphere]

Even tho I beat the base game, I still have no idea what the frequencies in the shield do. I would imagine each frequency is better against either Psi, Mechanical or Bio? But I have no idea which is which if that's the case, so if that's how the shield works, can someone please help.

Edit:
Are there any tricks to dealing with Goliath at low levels? or is it better to delay dealing with them until I am high level, I am playing at dominating if it helps.

I think the shield frequencies work better against projectiles that are fired at the same velocity.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Now all we need are cybernetics and power armor.

 

[Trashos]

Even tho I beat the base game, I still have no idea what the frequencies in the shield do. I would imagine each frequency is better against either Psi, Mechanical or Bio? But I have no idea which is which if that's the case, so if that's how the shield works, can someone please help.

It has already been answered above, but here are the full details from the wiki.
https://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Impact_Speed#Shielding

Energy shields can absorb certain amounts of damage based on the damage's impact speed. Slower impact speeds are generally better against energy shields. Shield Capacity is the total amount of damage the shield can absorb when fully charged.

All physical damage sources have an Impact Speed, which is one of the following:

Very Low — Melee attacks
Low — Slow projectiles (considerably slower than bullets, such as crossbow bolts and cryokinesis)
Medium — Pistol and SMG bullets, shrapnel (from frag grenades/mines)
Fast — Explosives, extremely fast projectiles (such as those fired from sniper and assault rifles)
Very Fast — Lasers, plasma, electrical attacks

Additionally, most light melee attacks will ignore certain amount of shield.
60% — Typical knives
80% — Typical fist weapons
100% — Unarmed

Therefore, you ideally want Low/Low against melee, High/High against laser, and various combinations for the in-between. In practice, I do what Parabalus recommended above.

 

[Mikeal]

Seriously wtf are zone transition errors? I never had a bug in Underrail...

 

[Twiglard]

Seriously wtf are zone transition errors? I never had a bug in Underrail...

Game running low on memory.