Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Wunderbar]

Jasede just don't manage loot, leave that shit on the ground. Recycle everything that is heavy and <7000 value.

There are only three money sinks in the game:
- customizing your apartment (most of it is just cosmetic fluff)
- buying and customizing a jetski (only useful in expansion)
- crafting a super-steel armor (but with 3 STR you won't be able to wear it)

 

[Jasede]

I also think I should restart, I am too RPG savy for Normal + Classic experience. But I did hear that the build system is complicated so it makes sense to first learn how the maps look like and where what enemies are and where the quests are and where loot is hidden. I don't know.

 

[Wunderbar]

Jasede why are you even metagaming? Just play the game. What's even the point of harder difficulties if you want to know every build and every encounter beforehand?

 

[Jasede]

Well, there's a big warning that DOMINATING requires intimate familiarity with the game, which one is unlikely to get on the fly.

Considering I read the difficulty adds enemies, I am mostly just looking to find out where the cities, like Core City, are, and where to expect what sort of damage type.

Not to mention literally every source I read said "For God's sake, use a build from the Internet!!!!1"


... or was that just advice meant for normies, not old veterans like us?

 

[Wunderbar]

Not to mention literally every source I read said "For God's sake, use a build from the Internet!!!!1"

i did my first playthrough on normal difficulty without looking up anything on internet.
My build was shit and the game was hard as fuck, but I prevailed and now Underrail is one of my favorite RPGs. Not sure if it had the same effect with some OP build from internet.

 

[Jasede]

Heh, I had a different experience; I played on my own five years ago (Psi Monk) and it was so fucking boring because you just punch things to death without them having much in the way of harming you... This SMG build isn't exactly 'optimized' as in I looked it up; it's optimized as in "I am doing the best I can based on what I learned five years ago and try out crafting (which seems very strong!) for the first time." I also didn't want psi again because I found it boring.

But it might be a little too good, I cleared out those lunatics rather easily. But that wasn't because of the SMG, that was because of Grenades. Are Grenades just OP?

 

[Wunderbar]

Grenades are OP in early game, later on enemies become much stronger so you must invest into chemistry to craft Mk3 and Mk4 grenades.

 

[Ol' Willy]

How do you manage loot? This is gonna drive me nuts.

Make stashes. Grab everything you can carry, store it in some container near the exit grid. Make note on the map as to where the container is. As soon as you clear the area visit these stashes on the way back and pick up the most valuable stuff. Make more stashes near traders for later selling.

 

[Ol' Willy]

buying and customizing a jetski (only useful in expansion)

I got all my upgrades for free from pirates, though

 

[Sheepherder]

The fastest hammer in the south.

Psycho-temporal contraction now has a high chance of causing its opposite (with randomized power) when it expires

So psycho-temporal contraction is just PSI adrenaline shot now.
That's pretty bad.
I'd say for the most part, this actually hurt hybrid PSI builds more than pure PSI.

I'll roll a 4 ap puncher to see if contraction still holds up.

It's still VERY good. The chance to backfire is 60%-30% depending on your effective TM skill. With the backfire down to 30% at 150 effective. So to play around it, I get Future Orientated and use Limited Temporal Increment to reset the cooldown of Contractions and achieve 0 turn downtime. A new cast of Contraction does not remove the debuff, but at the very least it sets the AP to 55.

 

[jackofshadows]

YES PLEASE THANK YOU!

 

[Jasede]

Haha, I read somewhere 185 is the absolute maximum. You madman.

 

[Parabalus]

I also think I should restart, I am too RPG savy for Normal + Classic experience. But I did hear that the build system is complicated so it makes sense to first learn how the maps look like and where what enemies are and where the quests are and where loot is hidden. I don't know.

Play Hard/oddity for first run, don't look up anything, even the wiki or here. The exploration is one of the game's highlights, you can't mess up your build on Hard.

You have DOMINATING afterwards for stuff you missed and minmaxing.

 

[Jasede]

All right. I guess restarting should be a breeze, now that I have done everything up to and including Depot A twice.

About bartering, is there any 'trade' good I can buy? You know how in Fallout 1 and 2, when the merchant is out of caps, you can trade your stuff for Stimpacks/Ammo because it's not too heavy, then later use those as 'money'? Does it work like that here, too?

Also, what's your take on Oddity vs Classic? In Normal I seemed to have gotten to a high level extremely fast due to all the XP from lockpicking, traps and hacking.

 

[compvet24]

Gonna start a play-through of this game now. I've only seen little tidbits of info on here and praise but gonna play without looking at anything on the internet.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Does it work like that here, too?

Check out "I always looking to buy X" in barter window.

 

[Parabalus]

All right. I guess restarting should be a breeze, now that I have done everything up to and including Depot A twice.

About bartering, is there any 'trade' good I can buy? You know how in Fallout 1 and 2, when the merchant is out of caps, you can trade your stuff for Stimpacks/Ammo because it's not too heavy, then later use those as 'money'? Does it work like that here, too?

Also, what's your take on Oddity vs Classic? In Normal I seemed to have gotten to a high level extremely fast due to all the XP from lockpicking, traps and hacking.

They are about equal till clearing Depot A, afterwards Classic gives XP faster, especially on DOM. Oddity is better for a first run since it forces you to explore pmuch everything to hit the cap, while with classic you can skip content and still do it.

You can buy bullets and/or crafting materials to resell to other merchants. Best advice is to just dump excess loot at the feet of merchants, it never disappears.

 

[ciox]

Well, there's a big warning that DOMINATING requires intimate familiarity with the game, which one is unlikely to get on the fly.

Considering I read the difficulty adds enemies, I am mostly just looking to find out where the cities, like Core City, are, and where to expect what sort of damage type.

Not to mention literally every source I read said "For God's sake, use a build from the Internet!!!!1"


... or was that just advice meant for normies, not old veterans like us?

That is way over the top advice, mostly for people that never played a hard game.
Real advice for this game, as commonly seen on the codex, is to literally just make sure your character has an identity, and that the attribute for that identity is always maxed out, e.g PER 10+ for a ranged attacker, WIL 10+ for psi focused... that's all you need.
The minmaxing begins if you are doing a gimmick build or playing on the comedy difficulty.

Also, what's your take on Oddity vs Classic? In Normal I seemed to have gotten to a high level extremely fast due to all the XP from lockpicking, traps and hacking.

I think Oddity is great, but Classic is cool too once you're very familiar with the game and want to go faster, pretty good fit for Dominating too so you get something out of the extra enemy hordes.

The best part about Classic is all those small quests and actions, like checking back with the quest giver on completion, will give you a couple hundreds of XP for the trouble which is nice. That often does not happen in Classic because oddity XP is split in chunks of 1 or more, and 1 would be "too much" for the smaller quests, so you just get nothing on Oddity.
Would have been nice if the game had a way to store and track fractional oddity XP from smaller quests, so that completing these weak tasks will eventually give 1 oddity XP.

 

[Ol' Willy]

you can't mess up your build on Hard.

Disagree. You can fail to make a valid build at all.

My first attempt was completely blind, no info whatsoever. Distributing my stats I kept in the head how the stats and everything works in Fallout, since Underrail is very reminiscent of it. But no, stats in Underrail work with significant differences with their Fallout counterparts, so I gimped my character right at the beginning. Like, Fallout is very generous concerning weapons STR requirements; Underrail requires minimal 6 to use even the lightest assault rifle without penalties. In Fallout, 10 AG is a must; in Underrail you have 50 AP regardless. In Fallout 5 END is OK since healing is unlimited; Underrail has cooldowns so it's either high AG/DEX - Dodge/Evasion, or high STR/CON - heavy armour, or some other defensive setup. 10 INT in Fallout gives you more skillpoints; in Underrail this amount is fixed and you can't overmax any skill at level four. And many more.

Right now, my first valid and effective build on Hard, and while I didn't metagame every aspect of the game mechanics and made a lot of choices myself, at least some familiarity is necessary. You know, the kind of stuff that was written in the manuals back in the day.

 

[Jasede]

THAT's what I am missing, a manual. Does the game have a nice pdf manual?
I know it's a bit old-fashioned but I used to learn about builds and stats from manuals back in the day.

 

[Ol' Willy]

THAT's what I am missing, a manual. Does the game have a nice pdf manual?

AFAIK, nope. There's a Wiki for that. 2020, man.

 

[Parabalus]

Underrail has cooldowns so it's either high AG/DEX - Dodge/Evasion, or high STR/CON - heavy armour, or some other defensive setup

You don't need these defenses, even on DOM - a good amount of builds have no Dodge/Evasion and run 3 CON.

Like, Fallout is very generous concerning weapons STR requirements; Underrail requires minimal 6 to use even the lightest assault rifle without penalties

But you could have swapped to e.g. SMGs or shotguns or pistols without too much trouble when you realised you can't use ARs.

If you just pump the main attribute of your skill to 18 it's hard to screw up enough to make the game unfinishable, which is kinda a super safe choice.

 

[Jasede]

Sheepherder
What were your starting stats? Your build looks fun! Are you using heavy armor?

 

[ciox]

The game still lets you use shield emitters with tons of HP as a crutch if your character isn't specced for other defensive options, as seen in the video linked earlier.

 

[Ol' Willy]

You don't need these defenses, even on DOM - a good amount of builds have no Dodge/Evasion and run 3 CON.

Shields? Abuse of MPs? PSIonic protection? No doubt, this defenses are viable, but how easy is to realize this from the start?

But you could have swapped to e.g. SMGs or shotguns or pistols without too much trouble when you realised you can't use ARs.

I did it the other way. I used SMG, but damage was insufficient, I didn't invest in traps or throwing, I didn't have needed feats, so I tried AR.

Well, I don't say that the game was unplayable, after all, I managed to kill those PSI lunatics east of GSC right after the Depot A, but with proper build game became way more enjoyable.

If you just pump the main attribute of your skill to 18 it's hard to screw up enough to make the game unfinishable.

Is it so easy? My current build is a no brainer one. But it has 9 STR for armour, carry capacity and weapons; 10 CON for Juggernaut, Thick Skull and HP; 14 PER for the actual brr. If I pump PER I will lose all my defenses right away.

Thing is, I don't say that Underrail mechanics are insanely complicated and require vicious metagaming; but some kind of manual with basic information would have been very handy. With info like this article.