Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Tygrende]

Yeah, of course I'm aware of that. Sometimes though chortlings might stuck a bit near to exit zone so combat will start if you're revisiting one of HE area w/o stealth (maybe it's fixed now, was long time ago). But in any case, stealth allows to wander there a bit longer (sometimes dread stacking too fast), simplifying Arke power station/Labyrinth/Forest and potentially helps with the faceless. Not to mention skipping some mobs here and there even if it's unnecessary (for instance, there're so many goliaphs usually that it's easier to kill them all than to sneak around).

I'm just saying so people don't get the wrong idea. If you ask me, stealth doesn't make DC particularly easier than it does the rest of the game (which still means it helps a lot). Having CAU armor and biohazard boots is the first thing that comes to my mind that does make DC considerably easier for all builds, as it trivializes both the mushroom forest and the labyrinth completly. I think a lot of people default to being total glass cannons too much to even think about wearing those.

Having faceless be hostile does make things harder, but they don't have to be. Even if you kept screwing them over for the whole game, they won't go hostile unitl you actually talk with their commander.

Endlessly respawning enemies is not "difficulty", least of all in an area filled with puzzles and backtracking. It's just tedious bullshit.

But you're not encouraged to fight or deal with endless enemies, quite the opposite. You can go through whole DC and not see even a single tchortling before the final boss. Even on DOM, where the timer is really short.

 

[jackofshadows]

let's face it, it's just a tedious mess. Nothing difficult about it.

It's not difficult with the meta and a fine build - sure, but it's difficult nonetheless generaly speaking. Even Arke station alone on DOM might be quite challenging imo. As for tedium, then you might as well call the whole game tedious.

Having faceless be hostile does make things harder, but they don't have to be. Even if you kept screwing them over for the whole game, they won't go hostile unitl you actually talk with their commander.

If you talk or even walk past in stealth faceless group at the Caerus they turn hostile provided you messed with them too much in the base game. I'm not sure if that's avoidable or not and I don't remember that in my very first playthrough but that what happened to me somewhere around notorious psi patch.

 

[Twiglard]

Did you notice that when bursting toward a close and distant targets, it's always better to target the more distant one? The closer one will die easily due to misses, but not the other way around. That's especially true when the more distant target has very low CTH. Easy to get multiple kills with one burst that really aren't too deserved.

 

[Fenix]

DC with stealth and friendly faceless - a breeze.
DC with stealth and hostile faceless - slightly annoying.
DC w/o stealth and friendly faceless - alright.
DC w/o stealth and hostile faceless - pita.

Btw I want to ask - how many players (someone of you?) completed the game with hostile Faceless? How hard was it? I mean, with stealth there are figths anyway, rigth, I've heard those Gaunts are omnypresent there...

 

[jackofshadows]

Btw I want to ask - how many players (someone of you?) completed the game with hostile Faceless? How hard was it? I mean, with stealth there are figths anyway, rigth, I've heard those Gaunts are omnypresent there...

Couple of times. Yes, Gaunts are quite annoying since it's very hard to out-stealth (and without stealth they're converging to you like death stalkers) them on DOM and they use psy-cognitive interruption. They are also respawn, afaik, at least until the faceless outpost is cleared. What matters the most however is that the big showdown becomes unavoidable: either on the way out of Chort or at their outpost before that.

 

[Razor]

So. Finished first time blind walkthrough. Base game plus expansion. Clocked in 130 hours but I did a restart on the 10th hour from normal to hard.

As a first time blinder some random remarks:

a) recognition where recognition is due. Stealth is very viable and I actually used it to avoid most of the non mandatory combat encounters. Also those dissing Interloper can go fuck themselves. interloper plus full specialization gives you almost the same movement speed as non stealth mode. I combined it with ninja boots and Arans edgelord robes for the extra movement speed. Basically in stealth I walk faster then most regular characters move in normal speed. Without stealth I imagine places like Deep Caverns are absolutely infuriating with Tchorts illusions spawning endlessly. I would compare it to Silent Running perk in the Fallouts comparable to usefulness. Also hack and lockpick are very useful for stealth runs because aside from loot they open up many shortcuts to evade difficult bottle necks.
b) Quick Tinkering with heavy stealth effectively makes you a true assassin. For example on Balor and the Lunatic trio in the mall on the Tchort admission quest I would plant a small legion of frag/HE mines around the targets destination or location. In Balors case I rigged his bedroom shack for explosion and waited him to walk in. In the Lunatic trios case in addition to the mines I planted a TNT pack to detonate the mines. No heavy combat involved, just walked out after removing the targets and looting corpses. Oh and in Magnars encounters used quick tinkering to remove the alts and then planted HE/Frag Mines and let one of Magnars wives walk over the detonator. After he aggrod from getting blown up with his wives at his throne I lured him into a series of various poisonous bear traps that eventually wiggled him down enough for napalm to finish him.
c) In Deep Caverns the shroom mechanic is very obfuscated. I stumbled upon it by pure chance as I was looking around the forest and got loaded by too much spore infection. Amusing though how the shrooming effects were very similar to the Motion hallucinations (OR ARE THEY?!) which I was a fond fan of. Possibly explains the origins of Motion itself.
d) we have a hotkey for recharging shields. It would be really nice to get one for recharging head slot items as its very tedious to change night vision batteries every 20-30 seconds manually. Particularly when you are in the middle of sneaking through a nest of worms or spoderman.
e) crafting is very powerful. For example in first normal difficulty run I didnt craft nades or mines and even when reaching core city I think I saw exactly one Mk IV frag grenade/mine sold by merchants. No Mk V. On hard I took crafting skills instead of pickpocketing and dodge/evasion and I was mass producing mark fours and fives as much as I could get my hands on TNT and Hexogan.

All in all while extremely long game with a weird setting I will be buying the next expansions/sequels at full price.

 

[Zeem]

we have a hotkey for recharging shields. It would be really nice to get one for recharging head slot items as its very tedious to change night vision batteries every 20-30 seconds manually. Particularly when you are in the middle of sneaking through a nest of worms or spoderman.

Bind batteries (recharge inventory item action) and NVG to your hotbar. This way you can recharge your goggles with two button presses without fumbling with inventory itself.

 

[Rewrite]

those dissing Interloper can go fuck themselves

>hiding in the shadows virgin

In Deep Caverns the shroom mechanic is very obfuscated.

random memory that came up:
i actually reloaded when the trigger and fade to black happened because i thought that this is a fail state cause you get lost and die usually in rl...

 

[CHEMS]

i'll insist in saying that interloper is a waste of feat slot

you can replace it intirely by taking a jumping bean and entering stealth mode immediately after, jumping beans are so easy and cheap to make and you can carry loads of it without taking inventory space

 

[jackofshadows]

Regaining 15 MP in combat while stealthed is a nice bonus. You could always just use vanishing powder of course though. Still, as a QoL feat I prefer Interlooper to Pack Rathound for example.

 

[Razor]

i'll insist in saying that interloper is a waste of feat slot

you can replace it entirely by taking a jumping bean and entering stealth mode immediately after, jumping beans are so easy and cheap to make and you can carry loads of it without taking inventory space

Jumping beans duration is 20 secs if I remember correctly.

So you must keep munching beans constantly while on the road?

Having perma stealth mode on while on the road stops you from getting ambushed by all sorts of surprise sex situations- from regular stealth bandit ambushes to reacting fast and moving through randomly wandering tight groups to death stalkers creeping up on you. At least with the latter interloper saved my ass more then once, since I moved faster in stealth mode then the death stalker that was creeping up on me. Including from getting almost soft locked game with one that I initially did not notice, camping a entry way to a map that had only one exit (Rathound Lair).

Also while moving through maps filled with hostiles and consuming a pill takes you out of stealth.

As for feat slots it depends. To be honest at the end I was really running out of quality feats to pick (before veteran feats) and ended up just increasing my carry weight. Pretty pointless as soon as I was still grinding against the limit as it just meant I was carrying more mines, traps and 'nades around. But I was not exactly focused on combat too. I understand though that when you want to dominate every cave schmuck you come across then you need to incorporate good survival and damage and then counting your feat slots and more importantly, specialization points so this becomes a issue. Full fledged interloper aint exactly cheap- feat slot plus ten specialization points.

>hiding in the shadows virgin

>Chad deathstalkers vs virgin cave wizards.

i actually reloaded when the trigger and fade to black happened because i thought that this is a fail state cause you get lost and die usually in rl...

Kek, I know right. I actually waited for the sequence to play out because I noticed its similarities to motion hallucinations with you spinning around the room and funky colors. In Core City those always had entertaining outcomes.

 

[CHEMS]

Jumping beans duration is 20 secs if I remember correctly.

So you must keep munching beans constantly while on the road?

I use this strategy on DOM and it's pretty doable. 20 seconds is more than enough to sneak where you want to be.

 

[jackofshadows]

>Chad deathstalkers vs virgin cave wizards.

Cave wizards might have stealth too, you know. But anyway, as a huge stealth enthusiast I can say that nothing is more satisfactory than clearing out deathstalkers with a proper tincan when they cannot even poison you.

 

[Razor]

I use this strategy on DOM and it's pretty doable. 20 seconds is more than enough to sneak where you want to be.

Fair enough.

If you want a constructive criticism of Interloper then the specialization deserves it. I mean 10 points?! It takes up the majority and together with min-maxing it with move speed gear (light) it firmly puts it in a niche build territory. IMO you could slash it by half confidently to free up points so as to increase build diversity because in specialization i saw many options that could be interesting to use.

But anyway, as a huge stealth enthusiast I can say that nothing is more satisfactory than clearing out deathstalkers with a proper tincan when they cannot even poison you.

Kek. I just threw traps in their path when they were following me with quick tinckering and then blew them up with 'nades when they were melting in the acid buddles. Many such cases.

BTW when is the next xpansion coming up? I also read here there is a sequel in the works.

 

[Ol' Willy]

But what if fully-specced Interloper and Jumping Bean together?

 

[Razor]

The main thing that irks me about the Beans is that consuming a drug takes you out of stealth and puts it on cooldown. If you are in a tight map, lets say one of the badzillion burrowers nest and full interloper spec (light gear) one spawn making whacky moves can pretty much ruin your day.

Also when I am now reading jumping beans description it specifically mentions it does not work on stealth. You guys sure this is not a bug?

Ah who cares. As a temp boost for stealth lights its actually a good idea even if a exploit. Its a Fallout like single player game at the end of the day.

 

[CHEMS]

Jumping Beans cooldown is pretty much non existant... of course, Styg could ruin the party by increasing it

 

[Tigranes]

Doesn't that method mean you're eating like 600 jumping beans a playthrough, and spending all that time gathering materials and crafting them? I mean, you do you, but I'd rather work in an assembly line.

I've never taken interloper, but it is definitely a tradeoff - you're essentially buying yourself out of some reloads, annoyances, and wasted time with it. So if you aren't on your 20th DOM playthrough on 4x speedhack, then I can see it being worthwhile.

 

[CappenVarra]

Jumping Beans cooldown is pretty much non existant... of course, Styg could ruin the party by increasing it

has Styg ever missed an opportunity to ruin a party...?

(the beaned-up stealth thing does seem like an oversight to be honest)

we're talking about a dev that's not in it for the money, but for the bittersalty joy of giving players sweet addictive power and freedom of "you've figured it out, nothing can stop you now, you walk the heavenly paths alongside gods" and then taking it away

 

[CHEMS]

Doesn't that method mean you're eating like 600 jumping beans a playthrough, and spending all that time gathering materials and crafting them? I mean, you do you, but I'd rather work in an assembly line.

Crafting requirements for Jumping Bean are low, and the ingredients are abundant. You need one insectoid saliva, one organic gel eletrolyte and three capsules to make 3 jumping beans. You can literally make dozens of it by the time you first get to Foundry for the blueprint.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Ok, so my pistol fighter crit focused build, using a .44 Hammerer with W2C rounds, just obliterated Tchort in 5 shots. I hadn't played through to completion in a LONG time, so I played on Normal. I didn't bother with mutagen or stat altering drugs like focus.

My critical chance at the end was 69%. I don't know why I thought it would be so hard this time around. I think last time was because I went with a no initiative hammerer which fucked me. Holy fuck, just realized. 69% without fucking focus stim. Below is my loadout.

 

[Whisper]

Ok, so my pistol fighter crit focused build, using a .44 Hammerer with W2C rounds, just obliterated Tchort in 5 shots. I hadn't played through to completion in a LONG time, so I played on Normal.

"Normal" is codeword for Easy.

If for bads and casuals.

Especially in this game where you wont see some enemies or get some fights just because they appear only on higher difficulties.

But gratz.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Tchort is not a boss. It is a fleshy canvas for you to paint red with the build you've minmaxed over the course of an entire playthrough.

 

[Raghar]

Ok, so my pistol fighter crit focused build, using a .44 Hammerer with W2C rounds, just obliterated Tchort in 5 shots. I hadn't played through to completion in a LONG time, so I played on Normal.

"Normal" is codeword for Easy.

If for bads and casuals.

Especially in this game where you wont see some enemies or get some fights just because they appear only on higher difficulties.

No reload blind playtrough?

 

[CHEMS]

Tchort is not a boss. It is a fleshy canvas for you to paint red with the build you've minmaxed over the course of an entire playthrough.

I agree. Tchort fight is so anticlimax its painful. Never ever did mutagen puzzle or bothered to blow up the tanks. Just waltzed in there with my junkie character tooking all the drugs the game has to offered and destroyed the eye in one or two turns. Ironically, the "real" boss fight is the optional one that comes afterwards. Tchort is a surprisingly pushover, especially in a game complex as Underrail