Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Blaine]

I had a great moment yesterday when I exterminated the last vestiges of Aegis, took a rift back home to drop off the loot, then returned to find the Serpentborn had already arrived, piled up all the corpses, and lit a big old bonfire. I got two massacres for the price of one!

A bit anachronistic, though. If you kill off Aegis personally, their corpses will naturally persist; yet when the Serpentborn arrive, the graphics of the Aegis encampment automatically change to show bodies penned to tent walls and such—as though the Serpentborn finished them off, and not the player. There should be an alternate script to handle the very possible scenario in which the player personally slaughters Aegis.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

A bit anachronistic, though. If you kill off Aegis personally, their corpses will naturally persist; yet when the Serpentborn arrive, the graphics of the Aegis encampment automatically change to show bodies penned to tent walls and such—as though the Serpentborn finished them off, and not the player. There should be an alternate script to handle the very possible scenario in which the player personally slaughters Aegis.

That one's covered. The ending says the natives show up later and then mess with the corpses.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Serpentborn had already arrived, piled up all the corpses, and lit a big old bonfire

Can someone provide me with a screenshot of that? I culled Aegis a couple of times, never seen that

 

[Fedora Master]

lmau new patch (1.1.3.4) broke the game

can't start new game, can't save, some can't transition zones, can't set up a fishing pole

Werks 4 me

Also I just did the arena. What a tweeeest!

Spoiler

 

[Blaine]

A bit anachronistic, though. If you kill off Aegis personally, their corpses will naturally persist; yet when the Serpentborn arrive, the graphics of the Aegis encampment automatically change to show bodies penned to tent walls and such—as though the Serpentborn finished them off, and not the player. There should be an alternate script to handle the very possible scenario in which the player personally slaughters Aegis.

That one's covered. The ending says the natives show up later and then mess with the corpses.

That's irrelevant. The depiction of the elimination of Aegis during actual play—the script that removes the lighting and power, replaces plain tent wall models with variants that are ripped or have Sec-troopers slumped against them, and that spawns the corpse bonfire and Sec-trooper corpse decals on floor tiles—is anachronistic when the player has already killed all of those Sec-troopers.

The power outage and corpse bonfire are fine, granted. However, there is no need for the Serpentborn to attack the encampment when all of the Aegis personnel are already dead by the player's hand. There should be no ripped tent walls, because there was no unseen battle; nor should there be additional corpses scattered about, because the corpses that the player left behind are still right where the player left them, and there were no more living personnel from whom to create additional corpses.

So, to sum up: If the player kills off Aegis, then the Serpentborn should arrive to cut the power and create the bonfire, but the tent walls shouldn't be replaced and no additional corpse sprites/decals (outside of the bonfire) should be added.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

The power outage and corpse bonfire are fine, granted. However, there is no need for the Serpentborn to attack the encampment when all of the Aegis personnel are already dead by the player's hand. There should be no ripped tent walls, because there was no unseen battle; nor should there be additional corpses scattered about, because the corpses that the player left behind are still right where the player left them, and there were no more living personnel from whom to create additional corpses.

Oh. Yeah, that's weird. I could accept maybe they attacked the tents just because they hate them in general, but extra corpses is pretty dumb.

 

[Blaine]

It also seems that, without either Persuade or Intimidate, you can't interrogate much backstory out of Professor Oldfield. You can extract two answers to the most basic and broad questions by beating him; the third beating kills him.

I have mixed feelings about this. It's generally good to make social skills needful in some way, but I'm not sure that holding the actual game lore hostage is the best approach.

Special merchant inventories and big discounts on expensive items were strokes of genius for Mercantile. I think the special inventories go a bit too far in some cases, because when high-quality components are held hostage to the extent seen on some high-end vendors (including faction vendors), Mercantile in essence becomes the sixth crafting skill—because without it, you can't get the most out of them. It's very meta, too, but then that applies to most skills you don't want to always max.

Being able to rise in the actual ranks of the factions and make some decisions that affect you during the game and at the endings could cement Persuade and Intimidate as being actually important, rather than as a dump for leftover skill points and/or a Yell booster. Fucking you over here and there to punish you for not having them is what I believe is called a negative incentive. Positive incentives are preferable.

Of course, Underrail is quite old at this point (having released six years ago after a very long dev cycle), and Underrail: Pre-Nerfed is in dev, so I doubt a great deal more effort will be expended on it (effort that would be necessary to elevate Persuade and Intimidate in the way I've described).

 

[lukaszek]

go play brutality evasive monkey and you will interrogate him

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[HoboForEternity]

are they still branding infusion as expansion? just brand it as sequel already, better marketing too. expansion will work under the assumption you have to play the base game, even if it's a stand alone story and new cast. it just seem like a bad idea to me.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I think just keeping it as a standalone expansion is fine. The long term Underrail audience seems pretty hardcore.

 

[Ghulgothas]

I think the term "expansion" has gotten muddled in regards to Infusion. It's billed as a standalone campaign, the engine upgrades attest to it being completely removed from OG UnderRail.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

All of Core City hates me now. Is this... fixable?

Tried everything in-game. Resorted to try using a hex editor, make all npcs in CC part of the rathound "team" so they'd be friendly again while wearing the ratking armor. It didn't work. Don't cRPG and drink kids.

 

[CHEMS]

deepest lore

CUTTLESNAIL VS CRAWLER INFIGHTING

>get in the facility
>unlock mutie door
>set up C4
>hides
>everyone infight

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Thats what happens on Dominating son.

Also, I do wish you had other iterations of some of the more singular monsters. Cuttlesnail and Deepworms are the best examples. Like, in some caves or in toxic areas you could see lesser iterations of them, and a boss version of them in deep caverns ala Black Crawler.

 

[Blaine]

go play brutality evasive monkey and you will interrogate him

Am I missing an option that's available in my current playthrough?

 

[Spark Mandriller]

>get in the facility
>unlock mutie door
>set up C4
>hides
>everyone infight

Letting the industrial bot in Panacea Lab out so it can murder everyone is great too. It even comes with kamikaze bots that you can destroy to make noise and lure everyone over.

 

[Sykar]

Feels familiar!

 

[Ol' Willy]

It's actually ironic that even with STR of 3 you still can loot places empty

 

[Blaine]

DEX side benefits: slightly improved fishing, occasionally climb a gate that you can just walk around anyway
STR side benefits: carry more stuff, occasionally force a gate that you can just walk around anyway
PER side benefits: see explosive mines, gigantic venomous arachnids, and lurking murderers before they kill you; spot secret entrances and hidden stashes

 

[Ghulgothas]

DEX AGI side benefits: slightly improved fishing, occasionally climb a gate that you can just walk around anyway and jump over small gaps.

 

[Blaine]

In all fairness, there are quite a few of those gaps (especially in Expedition), reinforcing the concept of Agility being an acrobatic attribute.

However, Agility isn't tied to a primary means of offense, except very indirectly through Stealth-enhanced damaging abilities. It's all about mobility and footwork.

I always forget to list Will, which offers absolutely no side benefits whatsoever, unless you count the ability to have schizophrenic conversations with various large rocks. It has some dialogue checks, but then so do other attributes and skills.

 

[Matalarata]

Greetings men, I come asking advice. I've had this excellent title in my steam library since early access, started playing it back then and I remember enjoying it immensely, for what little time I've invested. Unfortunately, soon after my playthrough began, one of my old parents started having some serious health issues, it completely killed my free (read: gaming) time. Believe it or not, it also left me with a sort of sorrowful melancholy, each time I thought about starting a new game the state of mind and emotion I felt back then overwhelmed me and, In the end, I just kept postponing it over and over.

Years have passed, shiet came and went, life is different now. I think I can handle an Underrail playthrough. I tried accessing some spoiler free resources (I remember almost nothing, this is basiclly a blind one for me) to choose a playstyle and get up-to-date with skill usage and viability and...
In more than one instance I've been given the advice to simply follow some pre-made build as a newb. First time I simply ignored the advice, second time I ask myself if decline is even more widespread than I previously thought but after the 5th opinion I get is again do that, I clearly need to reconsider.

So I ask:

1) Is it possible to tackle Underrail blind and figure out a build on your own? I mean, you obviously need to plan ahead for stats, feats and shit. Mainly I'd like to avoid a build someone else figured out for me, if I need to frontload some homework and plan heavily, so be it. I'd hate falling into some newb trap and having to restart mid game tho...

2) Suggest me a good starter config, stats, what feats I should focus on and be sure to understand... Things like that. No eccessive detail needed. Generally speaking I like fun! characters more than OP one, even if it leads to some frustration. For my first playthrough I'd like to be able to see as much as possible of the world, without having to rely on some specific or unique piece of equipment I'd have to find first to make it work. Heavy reliance on consumable is kosher, I like stressing for resources. I'm not exactly a fan of crafting equimpent but neither I'm against it, if you think it's important to have a fun and satisfying playthrough. Crafting consumables is, once again, something I actually enjoy. I'd prefer to focus on ranged over melee but I have no explicit preferences.



Thanks ahead, gentlemen

 

[Butter]

There's a build calculator here: https://underrail.info/build/

You don't really need to follow someone else's build if you're prepared to sit there a while and play with it. Just keep in mind that offense usually trumps defense. Characters that don't have stealth and don't have psi are not that fun; take at least one of them. I got annoyed by the skill system when I first played UR because it doesn't let you pump up a single skill really hard like Fallout, but a consequence of that is you end up making broader characters. You realize that maybe you can afford a splash of Throwing or Intimidation or Pickpocket, and you end up having more fun.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Pick one weapon type and focus on it. If you try to do assault rifles and shotguns and SMGs at the same time then you suck with all of them and you'll lose. Instead you pick one and focus on it and you're good. The exception is sniper rifles since they need a sidearm for spamming weak enemies or enemies in close range, but they're pretty feat light so you can afford to branch out. If you don't like melee that's fine, never put a single skill point in it and pretend it doesn't exist.
6 dexterity for grenadier is worth it because grenadier is so good.
Take stealth skill, just do it. You don't need that much and you don't need high agility since you can boost it with equipment (sneaky armour is pretty low weight, so you can keep a separate suit in your inventory and switch to it when needed no problem), but take some. It's really useful.
Crafting is pretty important. You need mechanics to make guns, since crafted guns are much better than bought or found guns. You don't absolutely need tailoring or electronics but you probably want them since they're huge upgrades too. Chemistry and biology aren't as good but they're they're still nice.
If you're playing a light armour character then you can invest in evasion, but it's better to try and use cover so you don't get shot at at all. Dodge isn't important unless you're melee, since you can just run away.
Don't feel bad about dumping stats that aren't needed for your skills or feats you want. You might think that maybe you should leave some points in them to avoid being completely terrible, but no, just put them at 3 and raise stats you do care about.
Also while we're talking about stats, you need 5 strength to use sniper rifles and shotguns without a penalty, 6 for assault rifles, 8 for steel or titanium armour, and 9 for tungsten armour. Except don't play metal armour on your first character, it's boring. It's good but it's still boring.