Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Blaine]

I've played for about 4-5 hours or so and it does really look like that hack+lockpick are pretty must or you're gonna miss quite a bit of loot.

Yeah, but it really doesn't matter at all if you craft your own stuff. You will find a very high-quality crafting component inside a locked container every once in a great while, but for the most part you'll be buying them from merchants. Pre-Deep Caverns, all of the Lockpicking loot in the game is worth maybe three stacks of Charons, which is certainly nothing to sniff at... except that in general, you'll find more than enough loot on slain enemies to sell up to merchants' limits, Lockpicking or no Lockpicking. I you have high Mercantile also, it might be a different story.

I have nearly 20,000 Charons, there's still excess loot stuffed in my locker at SGS waiting to be sold, and my character's still not quite level 14. I have Hacking, and have been somewhat disgruntled by the comparative lack of hack-able stuff. There are special hacking dialogues, but I'm not sure there are enough of them to justify the disparity, especially since Lockpicking provides access to ventilation systems, which are absolutely everywhere. Meanwhile, there are blocks of houses to rob in many stations that are Lockpicking-only.

All of this is to say that Lockpicking (and Hacking) may seem indispensable, but they really aren't. It's better in the long run to take Lockpicking and Hacking for exploration purposes, and for ventilation access/the occasional special hacking dialogue. Also, Lockpicking > Hacking, from a game-y point of view.

On the other hand, maybe there are a bunch of key hacking dialogs added since Early Access that I'm not yet aware of.

There's an issue with Mercantile, too: As far as I'm aware, it doesn't increase the quantity of Charons merchants have on hand every 90 minutes. This is an issue because even with 0 Mercantile, I still have plenty of items worth far more than any one merchant can buy (without adding some batteries etc. to the trade; they don't always have stuff you want to add), so I see no benefit to either selling loot for more, or to selling more of it.

Note, these issues may sound horrible, but they really aren't. You'll only notice them after sinking way too many hours into this game, or when some grognard comes along to tell you about them.

 

[meeb93]

Daggers feel so worthless to me. I must be doing something wrong. Unless I chance upon a critical, I can hit a guy like 5 times and do nothing to him.

 

[meeb93]

I've played for about 4-5 hours or so and it does really look like that hack+lockpick are pretty must or you're gonna miss quite a bit of loot.

Yeah, but it really doesn't matter at all if you craft your own stuff. You will find a very high-quality crafting component inside a locked container every once in a great while, but for the most part you'll be buying them from merchants. Pre-Deep Caverns, all of the Lockpicking loot in the game is worth maybe three stacks of Charons, which is certainly nothing to sniff at... except that in general, you'll find more than enough loot on slain enemies to sell up to merchants' limits, Lockpicking or no Lockpicking. I you have high Mercantile also, it might be a different story.

I have nearly 20,000 Charons, there's still excess loot stuffed in my locker at SGS waiting to be sold, and my character's still not quite level 14. I have Hacking, and have been somewhat disgruntled by the comparative lack of hack-able stuff. There are special hacking dialogues, but I'm not sure there are enough of them to justify the disparity, especially since Lockpicking provides access to ventilation systems, which are absolutely everywhere. Meanwhile, there are blocks of houses to rob in many stations that are Lockpicking-only.

All of this is to say that Lockpicking (and Hacking) may seem indispensable, but they really aren't. It's better in the long run to take Lockpicking and Hacking for exploration purposes, and for ventilation access/the occasional special hacking dialogue. Also, Lockpiicking > Hacking, from a game-y point of view.

On the other hand, maybe there are a bunch of key hacking dialogs added since Early Access that I'm not yet aware of.

I do think it is great that Lockpicking ends up not being that critical, even with Oddity system (are you playing on Oddity?). However, it certainly feels like you miss out on a ton of content by not taking it. The consequences don't feel quite so balanced. I didn't take Psi, and am still having a blast. I feel like I'd miss out on entire quests by skipping sneak/lockpick/hack.

 

[Agame]

I have nearly 20,000 Charons, there's still excess loot stuffed in my locker at SGS waiting to be sold, and my character's still not quite level 14. I have Hacking, and have been somewhat disgruntled by the comparative lack of hack-able stuff. There are special hacking dialogues, but I'm not sure there are enough of them to justify the disparity, especially since Lockpicking provides access to ventilation systems, which are absolutely everywhere. Meanwhile, there are blocks of houses to rob in many stations that are Lockpicking-only.

So how are people finding the economic side of the game? At the beginning it seemed like the 'limited merchant buying system' would be a great way to keep the player from getting rich to quickly, but aside from the very early game I have had no problems, and by mid game I am now swimming in cash with nothing to spend it on and lockers full of guns and armor to sell.

It seems like you get waaaaaay to much money for selling stuff, its a shame as it would fit the whole scavanging/end of the world thematic to have a really tight economy, but I guess this is a classic problem with all RPGs where the player very quickly becomes stupidly rich.

 

[Lhynn]

Daggers feel so worthless to me. I must be doing something wrong. Unless I chance upon a critical, I can hit a guy like 5 times and do nothing to him.

Daggers are good against lightly armored or unarmored enemies, as the damage that does go tru is increased by 25%, but daggers themselves do less damage than regular knifes.

 

[Lhynn]

So how are people finding the economic side of the game? At the beginning it seemed like the 'limited merchant buying system' would be a great way to keep the player from getting rich to quickly, but aside from the very early game I have had no problems, and by mid game I am now swimming in cash with nothing to spend it on and lockers full of guns and armor to sell.

It seems like you get waaaaaay to much money for selling stuff, its a shame as it would fit the whole scavanging/end of the world thematic to have a really tight economy, but I guess this is a classic problem with all RPGs where the player very quickly becomes stupidly rich.

This is bound to happen when you murder small armies and sell all their shit. There are more than a couple money sinks tho.

 

[Blaine]

So how are people finding the economic side of the game? At the beginning it seemed like the 'limited merchant buying system' would be a great way to keep the player from getting rich to quickly, but aside from the very early game I have had no problems, and by mid game I am now swimming in cash with nothing to spend it on and lockers full of guns and armor to sell.

Don't worry, there are at least two huge sinks.

 

[Agame]

This is bound to happen when you murder small armies and sell all their shit. There are more than a couple money sinks tho.

Fair enough, I have not got far enough to find those money sinks. It still feels like it would be good if the weapons and other assorted shit you sold had a 'used' tag that devalues them alot, I have played mods to other games that do this, it makes the 'survival' aspect a bit more interesting, anyway I should probably finish the game first before I start complaining about mechanics....

 

[Tigranes]

Underrail needs to cut the money you get from selling by half. And I think it's best to play within the constraints of the weight system - I freely leave guns and other loot without a second glance, because do you really need to carry 15 guns? When are you going to sell them all? Are you a Chinese gold bot? What are you even going to do with all that money? After Junkyard at least, you're nearly always going to have the money you need, unless that changes late game.

 

[Fenix]

I'm using 1680x1050, which is a standard resolution nowadays

Nah, standart resolution is 1024x768. Let'sstop talking that bullshit about "standarts", it is no exist.

 

[meeb93]

Daggers feel so worthless to me. I must be doing something wrong. Unless I chance upon a critical, I can hit a guy like 5 times and do nothing to him.

Daggers are good against lightly armored or unarmored enemies, as the damage that does go tru is increased by 25%, but daggers themselves do less damage than regular knifes.

See, that is supposed to be the case. But it isn't happening for me. I'm even using cut-throat and not even taking off a third of a lightly armored dude's health. My build I think must be really awful. Got me fairly far despite that, but like on the mission with Gorsky I had to hide from the entire combat except to lob a flashbang or two.

The only combat I can handle is against a single target, because I have that feat that will incapacitate the dude every now and then on a successful hit. And I can cheese an entire fight with it.

I'm half tempted to restart or something, but I might just hold out until another level up and start investing in dodge/evasion so at least I'm not instadead when combat does come up.

 

[Ellef]

I'm using 1680x1050, which is a standard resolution nowadays

Nah, standart resolution is 1024x768. Let'sstop talking that bullshit about "standarts", it is no exist.

1920x1080 and 1366x768 are by far the most common resolutions when it comes to gamers.

Nobody actually uses 1680x1050. Regardless, it is a very tiring subject, and resolutions have exploded in a short space of time (1024x768 was dominant a few years ago). Also there's a really easy fix to resolution problems, even bigger budget games like ck2 make me use non native resolutions.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Insisting Underrail must take full advantage the latest display technology is bad form, akin to complaining that amazing vinyl played through your modern amp doesn't leverage the 24 bit DAC.

 

[Ellef]

Insisting Underrail must take full advantage the latest display technology is bad form, akin to complaining that amazing vinyl played through your modern amp doesn't leverage the 24 bit DAC.

it's up there with "use emp grenades" "yes, use oddity" "yes, depot A is difficult" in the unofficial underrail FAQ.

 

[Ein Axt]

Am I right in assuming that this game is divided in

Act 1/Prologue: All missions until the end of Depot A
Act 2: All missions around rail crossing/core city/foundry (I assume most of the game is around this part? Theres a lot of content here)
Act 3:All quests on Upper Underrail (tchort, protectorate, etc)
Act 4/Finale: ???

also, whats the average level of people beating carnifex here?

More like

Act 1
Act 2
Act 3

You need a very high level to even touch Carnifex. He's probably the single most deadly enemy in the game.

 

[Lhynn]

Daggers feel so worthless to me. I must be doing something wrong. Unless I chance upon a critical, I can hit a guy like 5 times and do nothing to him.

Daggers are good against lightly armored or unarmored enemies, as the damage that does go tru is increased by 25%, but daggers themselves do less damage than regular knifes.

See, that is supposed to be the case. But it isn't happening for me. I'm even using cut-throat and not even taking off a third of a lightly armored dude's health. My build I think must be really awful. Got me fairly far despite that, but like on the mission with Gorsky I had to hide from the entire combat except to lob a flashbang or two.

The only combat I can handle is against a single target, because I have that feat that will incapacitate the dude every now and then on a successful hit. And I can cheese an entire fight with it.

I'm half tempted to restart or something, but I might just hold out until another level up and start investing in dodge/evasion so at least I'm not instadead when combat does come up.

List your build.

 

[marux]

Well my fun ended with Carnifex. I cannot kill him because ... my turn never comes :D

Keep tapping Enter until you start combat. Problem solved. I did that and like almost always, a camera was accidentally hit by the first burst so my PC got an extra one thanks to the commando feat. Moved away just enough for Carnifex to not have enough APs to do anything and in the second turn, finished by emptying an entire Hornet loaded with micro-shrapnel 7.62mm rounds which are very powerful in the Arena and switched to bursting with a fully loaded 9mm Huszar to finish the job. Carrying two Assault Rifles with muzzle brakes and high resolution digital scopes is no overkill for Dakka Dakka.

Does hitting enter work in arena?
Whatever, i finally got him down, had a bit less initiative than him, so i had to reload like 5 times to get the starting turn.
Hard motherfucker, got him with 2 poisoned beartraps and like 15 stacks of bleed with gloves. Good thing you get 95% to-hit when the enemy is trapped.

Am I right in assuming that this game is divided in

Act 1/Prologue: All missions until the end of Depot A
Act 2: All missions around rail crossing/core city/foundry (I assume most of the game is around this part? Theres a lot of content here)
Act 3:All quests on Upper Underrail (tchort, protectorate, etc)
Act 4/Finale: ???

also, whats the average level of people beating carnifex here?

Killed him at 15 as well.
Haven't enjoyed a game this much since fallout

 

[bati]

Daggers feel so worthless to me. I must be doing something wrong. Unless I chance upon a critical, I can hit a guy like 5 times and do nothing to him.

Daggers are good against lightly armored or unarmored enemies, as the damage that does go tru is increased by 25%, but daggers themselves do less damage than regular knifes.

See, that is supposed to be the case. But it isn't happening for me. I'm even using cut-throat and not even taking off a third of a lightly armored dude's health. My build I think must be really awful. Got me fairly far despite that, but like on the mission with Gorsky I had to hide from the entire combat except to lob a flashbang or two.

The only combat I can handle is against a single target, because I have that feat that will incapacitate the dude every now and then on a successful hit. And I can cheese an entire fight with it.

I'm half tempted to restart or something, but I might just hold out until another level up and start investing in dodge/evasion so at least I'm not instadead when combat does come up.

Do you have expertise, expose weakness? Otherwise hit & run, hide behind a corner and restealth, assuming the level layout allows for such playstyle. I just cleared the gangs between SGS and Foundry that way (with a crossbow though, not dagger) and it was amazing. I love the possibilities this game allows.

Re dodge & evasion - how useful are they now? I had both maxed out in the early access version with ~9 agi and I still got hit so often that I regretted spending points in them every time I had to use med hypos during combat.

 

[duanth123]

Note, these issues may sound horrible, but they really aren't. You'll only notice them after sinking way too many hours into this game, or when some grognard comes along to tell you about them.

Think we've got a candidate for the 'Dex's neutral-positive review.

 

[toro]

Am I right in assuming that this game is divided in

Act 1/Prologue: All missions until the end of Depot A
Act 2: All missions around rail crossing/core city/foundry (I assume most of the game is around this part? Theres a lot of content here)
Act 3:All quests on Upper Underrail (tchort, protectorate, etc)
Act 4/Finale: ???

also, whats the average level of people beating carnifex here?

More like

Act 1
Act 2
Act 3

You need a very high level to even touch Carnifex. He's probably the single most deadly enemy in the game.

Nope. I'm level 14 and I could kill him with a higher initiative. But I need to save scum for the initiative thing and I don't like it. I decided to pass him for now and just explore the other things.

By the way, this game is really special. The atmosphere is not as good as the one from Fallout but it's so close. In some respects is probably better than Fallout ... I never imagined that exploring caves can be so charming

 

[Ein Axt]

See, that is supposed to be the case. But it isn't happening for me. I'm even using cut-throat and not even taking off a third of a lightly armored dude's health. My build I think must be really awful. Got me fairly far despite that, but like on the mission with Gorsky I had to hide from the entire combat except to lob a flashbang or two.

The only combat I can handle is against a single target, because I have that feat that will incapacitate the dude every now and then on a successful hit. And I can cheese an entire fight with it.

I'm half tempted to restart or something, but I might just hold out until another level up and start investing in dodge/evasion so at least I'm not instadead when combat does come up.

I'm playing a knife guy. You need Expose Weakness feat will get you through a lot of battles easier. Also make a taser if you can. Even a low tier one is useful. Instant stun even against bots, bro.
Mid game my usual combat opening would be to Cut Throat someone, activate sprint or adrenaline, Dirty Kick or stun someone with taser.

More like

Act 1
Act 2
Act 3

You need a very high level to even touch Carnifex. He's probably the single most deadly enemy in the game.

I'll rephrase. You need a fairly high level character to beat Carnifex.. If you're not a psi user. If you are you can kill him at level 15.

 

[Smashing Axe]

Are there any torches/flashlights (For Americans) in this game?I have NVG, but I'm hoping for something with a longer battery life at the cost of drawing attention to myself. For some parts of the game I have to set my brightness to maximum.

 

[ST'Ranger]

I have nearly 20,000 Charons, there's still excess loot stuffed in my locker at SGS waiting to be sold, and my character's still not quite level 14. I have Hacking, and have been somewhat disgruntled by the comparative lack of hack-able stuff. There are special hacking dialogues, but I'm not sure there are enough of them to justify the disparity, especially since Lockpicking provides access to ventilation systems, which are absolutely everywhere. Meanwhile, there are blocks of houses to rob in many stations that are Lockpicking-only.

All of this is to say that Lockpicking (and Hacking) may seem indispensable, but they really aren't. It's better in the long run to take Lockpicking and Hacking for exploration purposes, and for ventilation access/the occasional special hacking dialogue. Also, Lockpicking > Hacking, from a game-y point of view.

As a dissenting opinion, I'll propose that Hacking is the better of the two and that Lockpicking could use some improvement. Hacking as a whole gives superior loot despite being far less common on lootables. When seen from a macroscopic perspective, Lockpicking generally only increases the character's access to goods that can be gotten from combat loot. Hacking provides more access to areas and more alternate solutions to problems - and these come up very frequently. The best aspect of Lockpicking can be gotten with ~20 points in it for navigating vents - an expenditure any character can afford no matter how skill-starved.

I still find both skills very helpful and useful - I would just argue that I find Hacking the slightly more useful. It's still perfectly doable to have a character with neither, but I would definitely still recommend both skills to new Underrail players.

 

[SniperHF]

In many games, crafting requirements are defined by the recipe, as the recipe uses fixed ingredients/components. Cleverly, Underrail uses difficulty based on materials used, since blueprints use classes of ingredient/component, each with a wide range of qualities and/or materials.

This is like the second time I've heard this complaint and it confuses the fuck out of me. I generally hate crafting in games - not my thing - but I found it easy and effective and useful in Underrail.

I'll walk you through how this annoyed me and you can tell me how I should have anticipated it having such trivial requirements.

So my build is kinda sucking and needs some spicing up, so I figured hey grenades seem pretty good. And I happen to have all these Chemistry points laying around so why not. So I go to a nice vendor a buy me an incendiary grenade blueprint. Then I go to a nice vendor and buy some gas and a bottle.

So I take the Gas and bottle, + a rag I had in my inventory and place it on to the crafting screen. Only then does it list that it requires more than one skill. Yet when I read the Chemistry skill description it says :

Represents your knowledge of chemistry. This skill is primarily used in crafting various items, such as explosives

Sure it doesn't say that you won't ever need more than Chemistry to craft an explosive item or grenade. But the skill that cock blocked me was Tailoring which says:

Represents your skill in tailoring leather and cloth materials into pieces of armor

So obviously my character with 0 tailoring is too retarded to stick a rag in a bottle. It might very well be a clever system. Unfortunately the game makes no effort at all to explain it until you are ready to actually use it. Having a 10 tailoring requirement on making a Molotov cocktail doesn't make it deeper, just more fiddly. There's already enough fiddly shit in this game.

 

[Ein Axt]

Just finished the game. What a ride. What-a-ride, boys.

Spoiler

Can't wait for an expansion or Underrail 2. There is so much more into the story.