Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Parabalus]

Actually, I do not remember whether the infinitely respawning kamikaze bots used to be there in the shafts or whether they are new.

wtf Styyg?

Pretty sure they were there from the beginning. Arke got nerfed along with DC after release, used to be worse.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Arke is not bad if you have stealth and can dispose of robots quickly. My energy char breezed through the place.

 

[Parabalus]

Everything is easy with stealth, it's a borderline cheat.

 

[Trashos]

All right, I made it out of Arke. It must have been 2 years since I last did this. Although iirc I have to return later to reroute the power again. Anyway, it was not fun then, and it was not fun now.

I have decent stealth, but it was not very dependable, because I could easily get caught up in a position where I had nowhere to go until discovered.

Arke is easily the worst designed location ever in any game that I like. It is clear that it just tries to frustrate the player, and not create some kind of cool gameplay. I mean it has traps, burrowers, crawlers, spiders, robots, cameras, infinitely respawning enemies, bio clouds, they threw everything and its mother into the soup.

Arke got nerfed along with DC after release, used to be worse.

Right, my first UR playthrough was after DC had already been nerfed, so I cannot make that comparison. But surely, it is still a terrible location. I find no fun or sense of accomplishment in it whatsoever. I have to swim in BS for a while so that I can proceed with the game, that's all.

 

[Yaz]

There's a Let's Play forum. Though many Codexers vastly prefer screenshot-and-commentary style; I for one don't ever watch videos, they take far too long and all. But whatever you want to do is fine, obviously.

OBS is common though I haven't ever used it to do an LP.

Wouldn't want to record an entire run. That would be ludicrous. I myself prefer screenshot and text, although the occasional video of this or that encounter is also nice. Underrail is actually quite good in this regard as the combat speed is high, especially opposed to some other RPGs or ''RPGs.''

Anyways... after the whole BSOD fiasco I went through some time ago I haven't updated the stock drivers on the cards and OBS wasn't working. I updated and will be using the GeForce recording software which ain't half bad. Hopefully everything will be ok.

I will think of some build and will post as soon as I am done with Depot A.

 

[Tigranes]

OK, my first Dom/Oddity run has become quite comfortable. Definitely seems like once you get used to it, and get over some early hairy moments like your Silent Isle, the power curve settles down.

Pirate Black Sea run is going smoothly, and I actually think, after the first run with Aegis for lore, pirate runs are recommended, if only because you can totally skip Fetid Marsh by walking through pirate territory. It's also much easier to clean the seas of Aegis influence (or wait for them to die out) and then enjoy the late game jetsking in peace, rather than being randomly instagibbed every once in a while.

I also continue to think that characters with reliable non-mechanical damage output have vastly better QoL. Cycling across laser, plasma, electroshock and acid, most major enemy groups in DLC - crabs, strongmen, natives - become just a quick rinse. Nothing like actively herding all the big native mobs together so you can zap away about 8 of them in a turn. Of course, psi would be even simpler, but I'm a bit bored of psi at this point.

Level 25 & nearly done with both basegame & DLC - might just drop for another run. People were talking about crit swords before...

 

[Trashos]

Hmmm, I was planning to join the pirates to avoid the time limits. I hate time limits. Am I going to miss a lot of lore?

 

[BING XI LAO]

My 2nd Dominating attempt petered out at level 16, unable to get past Coil Spiders in the Core City sewers, or kill Ironheads without massive headache every time, or win that gang fight for Gorsky.
I didn't put enough into crafting skills to upgrade my gear as I needed, instead overinvesting in stuff like pickpocketing and traps. Also didn't have a Temporal Manipulation dip, and didn't take enough damage-centred feats like Aimed Shot.
Additionally I had points in INT and CON instead of minmaxing into AGI and PER (besides max dex ofcourse). I'm now trying that and it's much easier.

 

[Blackmill]

Level 25 & nearly done with both basegame & DLC - might just drop for another run. People were talking about crit swords before...

Melee was my favorite build. And crit swords / hammers could put out some stupid numbers with a little luck. I'm not sure how much the nerf to Critical Power changed things (also, why did Styg ever think melee should be nerfed more than ARs?) but I haven't played since the major overhaul. One warning if you've only played through the DLC as a ranged character

Spoiler

The Aegis base defense is miserable as melee and by far the worst encounter in game.

 

[Scrounger]

Am I going to miss a lot of lore?

Yup! But as a pirate you will also get very good lore and situations as well!

 

[Tigranes]

Hmmm, I was planning to join the pirates to avoid the time limits. I hate time limits. Am I going to miss a lot of lore?

Time limits in RPGs tend to be so preposterously generous that any stress you get from them tends to be imaginary (or you play in an extremely slow way). I believe a patch made it more lenient as well.

Aegis provides the more kosher experience of the story, because you get to talk to the Prof and learn a lot about the backstory of the expedition, you get to decode and read the pip-boys tablet diaries left behind by dead people, and there's a clear structure to the quests with guidance as to where to go next and why.

With pirates it's much more of a freeform "you fucked over the people searching for the macguffin, now you're on your own to see what you can find", though you obviously learn some things this way you didn't with Aegis.

I would recommend Aegis for any first/only-run, and not worry about time limits. I believe timer also stops when you're outside Black Sea though not certain.

 

[Tigranes]

Level 25 & nearly done with both basegame & DLC - might just drop for another run. People were talking about crit swords before...

Melee was my favorite build. And crit swords / hammers could put out some stupid numbers with a little luck. I'm not sure how much the nerf to Critical Power changed things (also, why did Styg ever think melee should be nerfed more than ARs?) but I haven't played since the major overhaul. One warning if you've only played through the DLC as a ranged character

Spoiler

The Aegis base defense is miserable as melee and by far the worst encounter in game.

I think UR is one of those games where "QoL" feats really are worthwhile - e.g. Quick Pockets and Grenadier is probably how I'd try to mitigate the pains of melee life. We'll see. I'm a sucker for crit builds and the current pistolero is obviously a crit farmer as well (~75% crit for 350% dmg with plasma without any 'prebuffs' or fuss) and it's been good enough.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Hmmm, I was planning to join the pirates to avoid the time limits. I hate time limits. Am I going to miss a lot of lore?

There's no time limits if you cull the savages. This is my number one priority every expedition.

 

[Yaz]

Ok, we've started off.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/underrail-dominating-oddity-too-squishy.136457/

That's just the first page but this generally will be the format.

I will take a short break and post another page.

 

[Trashos]

Oooooomph, I just killed Tchort. Took me about 10 tries. The last 2 tries before the successful one were:
- I killed Tchort at exactly the point Last Stand was running out, so some acid I was stepping on killed me during the animation of Tchort dying.
- I killed Tchort, but didn't remember that there were still tchortlings about. So they attacked me and killed me while I was browsing my inventory for hypos.

Breathe in, breathe out, and I got it on the next try. But boy did I feel the urge to throw my laptop out the window.

Setting off for DC. I decided to do the Black Sea afterwards for a first time.

I think you'll be really overlevelled by the time you go to the Black Sea if you do that.

Well, I entered DC lvl23, and I am exiting lvl24. We overestimated what a rewarding location DC is.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Ol' Willy]

I never bother with tentacles, lol. If I can't kill Tchort in one-three turns, then my build is shit.

 

[Trashos]

lukaszek, I am on Hard, not Dominating. I haven't even ironmanned Hard yet. You can all enjoy DC on Dominating without me.

But yes, I went straight for Tchort without doing any of the preparations. I am returning to the game, and took me a bit to get my tactics straight. I eventually got Tchort (2000HP on Hard) by proxied implosion + recurrence + punch + a few neural overloads.

Initially I was trying to do it without Neural Overload (I only have 75 Thought Control), but I was a couple of hundred damage off. Then I wised up and innervated it.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Trashos]

All right, I started the expansion, lvl25. After the advice here, I will be siding with Aegis for this playthrough.

Lost 2 sec troopers during the 1st invasion attempt, hopefully that is acceptable. I am at the Muties currently. A lot of different ways to enter the dungeon there, awesome job.

I am a bit stressed about the potential time limits (and I really do not see why time limits were needed, the situation looks perfect for event-based progression), but other than that everything is fantastic this far. Great atmosphere, mystery, jet skis, fantastic. The only thing I am unsure about is the amount of writing. I think I prefer the brevity of the base game.

I know some fans were a bit disappointed by the expansion. Currently, I do not see why.

 

[Parabalus]

guy, the time limit is barely even there, I played the damn thing on release, took my sweet time exploring and never stressed about it

Really depends on what you do, if you negotiate badly and skip a defense they can get wiped easily.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Agree with that. Also, I've found that on my AR play through, I actually came into a situation that was interesting: everything started running low because I kept allowing native attacks to happen. The last to run dangerously low was medicine. At that point, I basically said fuck it, killed several leaders (won't say which ones for spoilers), and the attacks stopped. It was the first time I ever saw that happen actually though where supplies started dwindling. However, that has more to do with me letting the attacks keep coming.

 

[Tigranes]

Look, I've played the DLC with Aegis several times, and I have always ignored every single radio call for help and did whatever I want.

I tend to be a 'fast' player and I know some people enjoy going a lot slower, in which case they might wanna pop back and help out a bit, but it really, really isn't something to stress about.

Great atmosphere, mystery, jet skis, fantastic. The only thing I am unsure about is the amount of writing. I think I prefer the brevity of the base game.

It's a bit of a trade-off compared to the deliberate sparsity of the original. A lot of it pretty obviously takes from the Recent RPGs Tradition of lots of narration, lots of elaborate characterisations, and it can weigh you down. But where it surprises is that there are a few places where the writing is genuinely good and gripping - most notably with little Todd later. That entire sequence would be insufferable and indulgent, but it becomes incredible due purely to the writing.

 

[BING XI LAO]

There are several places in the game where it feels more influenced by Planescape than Fallout (petitioners outside Tchort Institute for example) and Styg does pull it off.

Also how the fuck do I beat Coil Spiders on Dominating? Greater Coil Spiders see me instantly once I'm in range even with over 100 effective stealth, and a single attack from them one-shots my pistoleer.

 

[Yaz]

There are several places in the game where it feels more influenced by Planescape than Fallout (petitioners outside Tchort Institute for example) and Styg does pull it off.

Also how the fuck do I beat Coil Spiders on Dominating? Greater Coil Spiders see me instantly once I'm in range even with over 100 effective stealth, and a single attack from them one-shots my pistoleer.

Electric Immunity. Or more stealth.