Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[CHEMS]

to barter with

Yessss... to barter....

 

[Tigranes]

to barter with

Yessss... to barter....

Bartering your money for your life is a time honoured deal, sir, just like Adam Smith wrote in his book

 

[CHEMS]

to barter with

Yessss... to barter....

Bartering your money for your life is a time honoured deal, sir, just like Adam Smith wrote in his book

Sold my economics books for ammo

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Spoiler

You can actually agree to help the home-invaders, but regardless it ends up the same way; with them zapped to ash and Kharon there to congratulate you. You're given an option to attack him after that, but I think it's another 6 situation. You're a big dumb mutant and he's powerful Psychic, foregone conclusion.

Spoiler

You can keep most of them alive if you kill him quickly. But then you and the survivors steal his boat and go to the island so the game ends anyway.

 

[Sheepherder]

Biggest downside of oddity system? Completing Gauntlet gives oddity XP, so I wanna do it, but it's the Gauntlet, so I don't do it, and it bugs me.

Is Gauntlet generally unpopular, I wonder? I always avoid it either until late, or entirely, unlike pretty much all of the rest of the content in the game.

Maybe? Hard to tell, because the people who don't mind or even like the Gauntlet don't complain online like I do, so I might just be a vocal minority. It's not a big deal tho, since it's optional, unlike the labyrinth.

Continuing the shiv run, I did Fort Apogee.



I determine how difficult Apogee is for a build, by the position I use in the main area, when fighting the horde of cans and the three Dreadnoughts:

• There's the pillar right at the entrance. This isn't even a chokepoint, but a LoS break location reserved almost exclusively for burst weapon builds, with some exceptions. High DPT builds can just kill everyone as they come, superior damage output carrying them.
• Then there's the store, the shelves in the store and the storeroom. Most builds eventually fall back to the storeroom, due to its doorway chokepoint in order to stall the fight and inability to kill off enemies fast enough.

This Shiv build had to fall back to the storeroom pretty early in the fight. It's poorly suited to fight tincans, but can handle Fort Apogee fairly well. Awful early/mid-game tho.
In hindsight, it's not surprising - Shiv is a knife and knives are among the strongest melee weapons, when used with a glass cannon build.

 

[Blaine]

This is so much more fun than the guided tour. Also, the pirate base is a whole lot more interesting than the Aegis encampment.

These poor bastards just don't stand a chance. It's a shame their VERY IMPRESSIVE SEC-TROOPER ARMOR FROM THE RICH AND EXTREMELY COOL NORTH OF UNDERRAIL is constructed from cardboard toilet paper tubes coated in mushroom paste, conferring them with an unfortunate weakness to Expertise SMG JHP. The only reason there's any wreckage at all is because I was surprised trying to sneak back around the bend to the core waterways one time and sprayed W2C and grenades at them.

Actually, that's when I discovered something peculiar: If you wait at the very corner of a zone transition, Aegis Patrollers will approach you, but then stop a ways off without forcing combat. That might need to be fixed, because it's exploitable.

There's no need to exploit it, though, because much as with siphoners, if you press Enter as soon as you hear ski engines, you'll get to go first. And getting to go first pretty much means that I win.

 

[CHEMS]

Biggest downside of oddity system? Completing Gauntlet gives oddity XP, so I wanna do it, but it's the Gauntlet, so I don't do it, and it bugs me.

Is Gauntlet generally unpopular, I wonder? I always avoid it either until late, or entirely, unlike pretty much all of the rest of the content in the game.

Maybe? Hard to tell, because the people who don't mind or even like the Gauntlet don't complain online like I do, so I might just be a vocal minority. It's not a big deal tho, since it's optional, unlike the labyrinth.

Continuing the shiv run, I did Fort Apogee.



I determine how difficult Apogee is for a build, by the position I use in the main area, when fighting the horde of cans and the three Dreadnoughts:

• There's the pillar right at the entrance. This isn't even a chokepoint, but a LoS break location reserved almost exclusively for burst weapon builds, with some exceptions. High DPT builds can just kill everyone as they come, superior damage output carrying them.
• Then there's the store, the shelves in the store and the storeroom. Most builds eventually fall back to the storeroom, due to its doorway chokepoint in order to stall the fight and inability to kill off enemies fast enough.

This Shiv build had to fall back to the storeroom pretty early in the fight. It's poorly suited to fight tincans, but can handle Fort Apogee fairly well. Awful early/mid-game tho.
In hindsight, it's not surprising - Shiv is a knife and knives are among the strongest melee weapons, when used with a glass cannon build.

The idea of destroying a 5 fully armoured combat mechs with a fucking shiv is hilarious

Fucking love you mate

 

[CHEMS]

This is so much more fun than the guided tour. Also, the pirate base is a whole lot more interesting than the Aegis encampment.

And you get a exclusive pirate-only perk that improves your naval combat.

 

[Fedora Master]

Turns out I was doing the game in the wrong order. Mostly ignored Foundry before going to the big city and was wondering about this sudden spike in difficulty.

 

[CHEMS]

I always did core city first

 

[Fedora Master]

I always did core city first

I can do some real Operator Mode stuff with the Ironheads right now. You know, storming a room, shotgunning a few and vanishing into stealth again. Never were able to do that with, say, the Pacino bandits.

 

[CHEMS]

Pacino is doable with stealth, you can kill at least 3 guys there without actually being seen

The fist one patrolling
A second one when you turn of the lights
The guy on the isolated room

 

[Blaine]

And you get a exclusive pirate-only perk that improves your naval combat.

To be fair, you need it a lot more as a pirate. You can largely ignore jet-to-jet combat otherwise—that was especially true during my first Expedition playthrough when the random encounters and Abandoned Waterways didn't yet exist.

I'm well on my way to not only having one of every jet ski, but also having them all (except junks, and the Freighter, which I run with two 100% consumption mediums and uncommon batteries) equipped with rare and unique parts.

I wish there were some sort of quest to repair or otherwise recover the unique LEMCO parts for use only with the Reef Glider, which would give it an excellent niche as a very efficient light jet, but otherwise outclassed by any other premium jet in nearly every respect. As it is, it's a slightly faster, slightly more maneuverable, just fractionally more durable junk jet.

 

[Tygrende]

Battery drain is completly irrelevant. What else are you going to do with all those 500 energy batteries lying around? If you're not an energy pistol build you will also be using all 200 energy batteries on them as well. Just found batteries are enough to feed the biggest battery hogs for the whole game.

 

[jackofshadows]

Yeah, I love plasma deviator now. Installed the two most voracious powerful engines in it and gliding around like a boss. Who cares about consumption? The game ends waaaay before you run out of them let alone in need to buy more.

 

[Blaine]

Battery drain is completly irrelevant. What else are you going to do with all those 500 energy batteries lying around? If you're not an energy pistol build you will also be using all 200 energy batteries on them as well. Just found batteries are enough to feed the biggest battery hogs for the whole game.

All the more reason to allow the restoration of LEMCO parts for the Reef Glider, since, as you say, battery drain is completely irrelevant. Irrelevancy works both ways, you know.

It wouldn't be much of a niche, but would give it a reason to exist other than as either a collector's item or a cash-in.

Also, as a side note, batteries can be traded to some merchants to whom you may not have anything else to sell at the time (Ray being an example).

 

[toro]

It's a shame their VERY IMPRESSIVE SEC-TROOPER ARMOR FROM THE RICH AND EXTREMELY COOL NORTH OF UNDERRAIL is constructed from cardboard toilet paper tubes coated in mushroom paste...

The entire natives's subplot is a big brainfart: firearms versus spears, shock trooper armor versus shorts made of leaves, modern military versus tribals.

But hey, we got pirates therefore everything is fine.

 

[Blaine]

To be fair, some allowances must be made for primitive weapons (including primitive weapons with lightsabers glued on) because we're in RPG land. Melee combat relegated to a mere vestige of yesteryear is an undesirable level of realism.

Also, those tribals have genuinely psychic shamans according to the game world's lore; and as hackneyed as the "technologically superior military force versus savage natives" concept may be at this point, at least the natives are credibly portrayed as a truly ominous and formidable threat. The Serpentborn can be obnoxious, which in a way is good, and they're definitely badass, which is also good. Furthermore they drop very little of value other than Adrenaline Shot 2: The Sequel (unless you're using a poison crossbow), which is also good, because the incentive to fight them for rewards is minimized.

The pirates and their Australian-esque patois are pretty great. Styg has even managed to do the impossible, which is to include female pirates without making me feel as though I've walked into a post-modern feminist interactive lecture. It still stretches the boundaries of belief somewhat to place women in a position other than sex slave (or just slave) in the context of post-apocalyptic pirates living in a hostile widlerness, but again, it was done as well as it can be done.

 

[CHEMS]

The fact that the expedition camp, with top notch military equipment financed by the UNITED STATIONS FUND can get razed by tribals with bone spears and xbows is just ridiculous lol

 

[Blaine]

The fact that the expedition camp, with top notch military equipment financed by the UNITED STATIONS FUND can get razed by tribals with bone spears and xbows is just ridiculous lol

Ultimately, you're not entirely wrong, but you may be underestimating the logistical difficulties and truly absurd expenditures required to mount a remote expedition in hostile territory. Bear in mind that even in the real world, if not for infectious disease and some unfortunate circumstances (Motecuhzoma being a coward and an idiot, for example), Native Americans and Mesoamericans would have totally obliterated European expeditions, at least in their initial form. Actually, their tolerance of their strange new visitors was one of the factors that did them in—a tolerance that the Serpentborn lack.

The primary cost will be in paying and feeding the personnel, and Sec-Troopers get paid a lot. The researchers probably get paid even more, and the support personnel are nothing to sniff at, either. We're talking tens of thousands of charons per day, no doubt, when you include powering and maintaining the jets, shipping in a steady stream of antidotes and other medical supplies, reinforcing losses, dumping ammo on a regular basis, et cetera and so on. This is still a post-apocalyptic world, after all, and it's a world in Descent from the Center.

_______________________________________
​

Changing tack, I've done a side-by-side comparison of the Aegis Patroller and Protectorate Cruiser with identical parts, and discovered the following:

Cruiser:

• +5% cover
• +10% DR
  
• +10 DT
  
• +100 durability

Patroller:

• +7% speed
• +5% maneuverability

The Patroller needs either +50 durability or more speed and maneuverability in order to be a proper side grade. As it is, the Cruiser is overall superior, which I dislike as that's not really true of any other premium jet... except the Blazer, but even it is an affordable light jet, which can be an important factor.

 

[jackofshadows]

Nah, Blaine is right, we're talking about RPG after all. That vid where dude just shived the entire advanced military fortress would hardly make sence from a storytelling standpoint. The Expedition factions are great whithin context of their purpose and they squeezed into game's setting good enough. Reminder that these are not just some tribals, they're barely humans even. Admittedly, I moaned about bone xbows a bit myself but that was just about game's mechanic, lore wise they're fine.

 

[CHEMS]

The primary cost will be in paying and feeding the personnel, and Sec-Troopers get paid a lot. The researchers probably get paid even more, and the support personnel are nothing to sniff at, either. We're talking tens of thousands of charons per day, no doubt, when you include powering and maintaining the jets, shipping in a steady stream of antidotes and other medical supplies, reinforcing losses, dumping ammo on a regular basis, et cetera and so on. This is still a post-apocalyptic world, after all, and it's a world in Descent from the Center.

You got a point, i agree with that. But would make more sense they undeploy the expedition in that case. Now getting wiped out? I mean, the united station fund has a lot of money and Aegis looks a little understaffed there. Just 29 sec troopers defending the camp.

The Patroller needs either +50 durability or more speed and maneuverability in order to be a proper side grade. As it is, the Cruiser is overall superior, which I dislike as that's not really true of any other premium jet... except the Blazer, but even it is an affordable light jet, which can be an important factor.

The plasma leviator has the 3 size suspension slot, which is a gamechanger: it gives a whooping + 30% stability. It's my favorite one for fights, though i like the torpedo a lot because of the amounts of backtracking you'll do in the black sea and waterways.

Unpopular opinion: i think the devastator is overrated as fuck

 

[Zeem]

Speaking of natives, they have both numeric and home turf advantage. They have everything they need right there in Black Sea, so they're not limited in terms of logistics. They can send swaths of men to slowly cut through Aegis defenses and resources. Ultimately the time is on savages' side unless player intervenes with more permanent solutions.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Aegis vs Natives, colorized

 

[Ghulgothas]

The Natives have two things Aegis doesn't: Unflappable Faith in an Eldritch Deity and an unending bounty of Bison Milk, Blow and Balm.

Behold, the Three Fundamental Food Groups.