Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[thesecret1]

Where are all the phones into which you can plug the Orange Box in?

Ones I found are in front of Shopping Mall, and the two with quest items in Upper Underrail. Any else?

Yeah, there's one more in upper underrail, I think it was near that bandit fort in the north east?

I bet lower underrail phones can also be used this way, but I haven't tested it yet.

 

[lukaszek]

Where are all the phones into which you can plug the Orange Box in?

Ones I found are in front of Shopping Mall, and the two with quest items in Upper Underrail. Any else?

Yeah, there's one more in upper underrail, I think it was near that bandit fort in the north east?

I bet lower underrail phones can also be used this way, but I haven't tested it yet.

id expect that every phone that doesnt open hidden room with regular phone usage. Curious about items that can be found there. 1 optional by mall that I did had extra electric dmg consumable

 

[thesecret1]

id expect that every phone that doesnt open hidden room with regular phone usage.

Some of them are out of comission and cannot be used

 

[Parabalus]

So after dealing with the boilers, getting access to Coretech and dealing with the Abomination, is now a good time to ice Phreak for his gloves? Does he do anything stuff later?

id expect that every phone that doesnt open hidden room with regular phone usage.

Some of them are out of comission and cannot be used

All the one in LR I found so far didn't do anything, even the working ones were you get a prompt to connect the Orange box, just says it doesn't work.

 

[lukaszek]

does it mean that styg placed phone by the mall just to annoy us further by solving unnecessary puzzles?

 

[thesecret1]

Mad respect to anyone who solved the puzzle without getting the perception clue. I'd probably be tearing my hair out pretty quick, as my musical hearing is pretty garbage. That said, if you have high perception, you just write down what number each button represents and quickly crack any phone you want, to get free goodies, so yay

Not sure why low perception builds are punished even further though. It's already the most useful out of combat ability to have thanks to all the hidden shit you can spot.

 

[thesecret1]

I've gone and tried every single emergency phone across lower underrail and unfortunately, orange box doesn't work on any of them. So it really is only the upper underrail phones that lead to the service areas – I think there's four in total that can be cracked this way

 

[Parabalus]

Mad respect to anyone who solved the puzzle without getting the perception clue. I'd probably be tearing my hair out pretty quick, as my musical hearing is pretty garbage. That said, if you have high perception, you just write down what number each button represents and quickly crack any phone you want, to get free goodies, so yay

Not sure why low perception builds are punished even further though. It's already the most useful out of combat ability to have thanks to all the hidden shit you can spot.

You can record the sound, switch to frequency domain and easily compare them. The tones are pretty distinct, no need to even clean the sequence up.

 

[Blaine]

Not sure why low perception builds are punished even further though. It's already the most useful out of combat ability to have thanks to all the hidden shit you can spot.

I'm puzzled by this as well. Attempts have been made to bring the side benefits of other base ability scores more up to par with Perception's, yet now Perception provides puzzle hints (including the puzzle in Dude's lab, I recently noticed) on top of it all.

I think it's just Styg's nature to be quasi-realistic whenever he wants to add something. The simple fact is that keen senses really are an immense advantage in many aspects of life. Perception is 3-in-1 now since it includes not only vision but also hearing and even the ability to perceive social subtleties and cues, in some cases.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It's inherent that some attributes will be better than others. The spiritual grandfather of underrail handles this not by attempting to hammer them into equality but by adjusting their cost.

 

[Blaine]

It's inherent that some attributes will be better than others. The spiritual grandfather of underrail handles this not by attempting to hammer them into equality but by adjusting their cost.

That's just another way of hammering them into equality—essentially, paying 1.5x points in the point-buy system for an attribute that is 1.5x as useful. Once you reach the threshold of charging 2x the cost for one attribute, you might as well split it into two different attributes.

In reality, of course, there are plenty of guys who have 20/15 vision, are handsome, have a great head of hair, are very fit, sociable, smart, and possibly highly skilled—most of these guys whom I've actually met are retired Navy or Air Force aviators. Usually, they decide to build an entire farm by hand, start a contracting business that rakes in an unholy amount of money, land a cushy job with their shoo-in qualifications and take up oil painting, or who-knows-what. It's good to be very talented and blessed.

Point-buy systems, of course, were invented by standard-issue dweebs. That's us. God is laughing at us right now.

 

[Sam Bixby]

Anyone know if sword is better with strength or dexterity?

 

[Blaine]

Anyone know if sword is better with strength or dexterity?

I wish I could answer this, but I can't. Swords seem very schizophrenic to me and appear to work best with Strength, Dexterity, Agility, and Dexterity all 6-7+ due to the various feats you'll want (possibly even Will 5, if including Ripper)—and bear in mind that if you leave Strength at 5 and receive a Crippling Strike, which you certainly will at some point since absolutely 100% of all knife- and fist-wielding enemies have the feat and your build is nearly guaranteed to be sporting mediocre or even dumped PER (stealthed knifers were a real bitch on my sledgehammer tin can from way back), you're well on your way down the road to fucked.

On top of all this, no matter the sword build (and I'm sure someone has made a good one), they're all extremely RNG-dependent because that is built right into the feats. You can't entirely dump either STR or DEX really, so your base attribute bonus to your melee skill is guaranteed to be slightly mediocre, although accuracy tends to be less of an issue with melee than for ranged.

I had a lot of fun with a spear build using a riot shield and DOMINATED crawlers for the first time I can ever recall (due to the blocking with riot shield and etc.), but whenever I try to make a sword build, I always give up.

 

[Parabalus]

Anyone know if sword is better with strength or dexterity?

I wish I could answer this, but I can't. Swords seem very schizophrenic to me and appear to work best with Strength, Dexterity, Agility, and Dexterity all 6-7+ due to the various feats you'll want (possibly even Will 5, if including Ripper)—and bear in mind that if you leave Strength at 5 and receive a Crippling Strike, which you certainly will at some point since absolutely 100% of all knife- and fist-wielding enemies have the feat and your build is nearly guaranteed to be sporting mediocre or even dumped PER (stealthed knifers were a real bitch on my sledgehammer tin can from way back), you're well on your way down the road to fucked.

On top of all this, no matter the sword build (and I'm sure someone has made a good one), they're all extremely RNG-dependent because that is built right into the feats. You can't entirely dump either STR or DEX really, so your base attribute bonus to your melee skill is guaranteed to be slightly mediocre, although accuracy tends to be less of an issue with melee than for ranged.

I had a lot of fun with a spear build using a riot shield and DOMINATED crawlers for the first time I can ever recall (due to the blocking with riot shield and etc.), but whenever I try to make a sword build, I always give up.

Go with 5 STR, 18 DEX. If you want to use Claymore use food and/or Rathound Regalia. Decapitate isn't worth it. Take Escape Artist and Fancy Footwork.

You won't lack damage, crits go over 2k regularly. Recommend TM for when Flurry misses.

If you want to use metal armor go 1-2 points higher STR, but I don't like tank melee too much.

Something like this

https://underrail.info/build/?HgUQB...AAAAH0AAAATwrNOBsKMwo1cS8KjK8KH4rKIBeKyiQLfvw

as a base, then do whatever with the rest.

 

[Sam Bixby]

Anyone know if sword is better with strength or dexterity?

I wish I could answer this, but I can't. Swords seem very schizophrenic to me and appear to work best with Strength, Dexterity, Agility, and Dexterity all 6-7+ due to the various feats you'll want (possibly even Will 5, if including Ripper)—and bear in mind that if you leave Strength at 5 and receive a Crippling Strike, which you certainly will at some point since absolutely 100% of all knife- and fist-wielding enemies have the feat and your build is nearly guaranteed to be sporting mediocre or even dumped PER (stealthed knifers were a real bitch on my sledgehammer tin can from way back), you're well on your way down the road to fucked.

On top of all this, no matter the sword build (and I'm sure someone has made a good one), they're all extremely RNG-dependent because that is built right into the feats. You can't entirely dump either STR or DEX really, so your base attribute bonus to your melee skill is guaranteed to be slightly mediocre, although accuracy tends to be less of an issue with melee than for ranged.

I had a lot of fun with a spear build using a riot shield and DOMINATED crawlers for the first time I can ever recall (due to the blocking with riot shield and etc.), but whenever I try to make a sword build, I always give up.

Go with 5 STR, 18 DEX. If you want to use Claymore use food and/or Rathound Regalia. Decapitate isn't worth it. Take Escape Artist and Fancy Footwork.

You won't lack damage, crits go over 2k regularly. Recommend TM for when Flurry misses.

If you want to use metal armor go 1-2 points higher STR, but I don't like tank melee too much.

Something like this

https://underrail.info/build/?HgUQB...AAAAH0AAAATwrNOBsKMwo1cS8KjK8KH4rKIBeKyiQLfvw

as a base, then do whatever with the rest.

Is Ripper worth the 2 points in will?

 

[Parabalus]

Anyone know if sword is better with strength or dexterity?

I wish I could answer this, but I can't. Swords seem very schizophrenic to me and appear to work best with Strength, Dexterity, Agility, and Dexterity all 6-7+ due to the various feats you'll want (possibly even Will 5, if including Ripper)—and bear in mind that if you leave Strength at 5 and receive a Crippling Strike, which you certainly will at some point since absolutely 100% of all knife- and fist-wielding enemies have the feat and your build is nearly guaranteed to be sporting mediocre or even dumped PER (stealthed knifers were a real bitch on my sledgehammer tin can from way back), you're well on your way down the road to fucked.

On top of all this, no matter the sword build (and I'm sure someone has made a good one), they're all extremely RNG-dependent because that is built right into the feats. You can't entirely dump either STR or DEX really, so your base attribute bonus to your melee skill is guaranteed to be slightly mediocre, although accuracy tends to be less of an issue with melee than for ranged.

I had a lot of fun with a spear build using a riot shield and DOMINATED crawlers for the first time I can ever recall (due to the blocking with riot shield and etc.), but whenever I try to make a sword build, I always give up.

Go with 5 STR, 18 DEX. If you want to use Claymore use food and/or Rathound Regalia. Decapitate isn't worth it. Take Escape Artist and Fancy Footwork.

You won't lack damage, crits go over 2k regularly. Recommend TM for when Flurry misses.

If you want to use metal armor go 1-2 points higher STR, but I don't like tank melee too much.

Something like this

https://underrail.info/build/?HgUQB...AAAAH0AAAATwrNOBsKMwo1cS8KjK8KH4rKIBeKyiQLfvw

as a base, then do whatever with the rest.

Is Ripper worth the 2 points in will?

Yes, it's a huge damage boost. If you're running PSI the 5 WILL isn't much of a loss, also opens up many WILL checks with consumables.

You could drop for something else, I doubt you'd have much trouble either way.

 

[Blaine]

For ages now, I've wanted to try a melee knife + throwing knife build. The issue is that despite each relying heavily on DEX and both being knives, they are also both massive feat vacuums, and very few crit-related feats (or even Expertise!) apply to throwing knives. The synergy is middling at best, although both can benefit from poisons thanks to the fairly recent addition of applying poisons.

"Hang on, though," I said to myself, recalling Sheepherder's famous Dominating throwing build that utilized poisons and predated the throwing knife buff, "Hypertoxicity also applies to traps!". This is significant mainly in that it reminded me of Traps.

The chief problem with both knives and throwing knives is when you run into an entire expansion filled with heavily-armored automatons that can't be poisoned and aren't human or even living (which fucks up various melee knife feats). However, this ceases to be anything more than a logistics issue if you're able to liberally utilize high-yield explosive mines and high-yield explosive grenades.

I'm finally almost content with a throwing knives build. I believe that grenades + Grenadier and traps + Quick Tinkering are the answer to my concerns. Furthermore, a Hypertoxicity-enhanced poisoned bear trap synergizes perfectly with a Hypertoxicity-enhanced poisoned throwing knife and Opportunist.

https://underrail.info/build/?HgMQB...AbFlHDk15cL1hAKcKzdj7io7EF4qi6BOKouwLivY4E378

Yes, it's a bit daffy as I've currently got it tweaked. I really should at least fit Uncanny Dodge in there with enough points for 3-4 dodges at least, even if only because I have a truckload of extra skill points due to lack of any need for Traps to be pumped to the max. Considering I'm using both traps and grenades, I might be able to get away with omitting Pinning, putting Uncanny Dodge where Grenadier is currently slotted, and dragging Grenadier to Pinning's slot. Does anyone know whether Uncanny Dodge relies on base or effective Dodge?

I've left PER at 5 because, since this build includes traps, I've got at least a vain hope of not bumbling into every trap—and with detection goggles, I might not always be surprised by stealthed enemies.

Yes, I insist on Interloper. Trap Expert is negotiable, Interloper isn't. I'm not trying to be a cock, it's just that Interloper is the obvious choice to replace with a MORE POWER! feat, and although I'm well aware, I'm not going to do it.

 

[oldmanpaco]

It's inherent that some attributes will be better than others. The spiritual grandfather of underrail handles this not by attempting to hammer them into equality but by adjusting their cost.

That's just another way of hammering them into equality—essentially, paying 1.5x points in the point-buy system for an attribute that is 1.5x as useful. Once you reach the threshold of charging 2x the cost for one attribute, you might as well split it into two different attributes.

In reality, of course, there are plenty of guys who have 20/15 vision, are handsome, have a great head of hair, are very fit, sociable, smart, and possibly highly skilled—most of these guys whom I've actually met are retired Navy or Air Force aviators. Usually, they decide to build an entire farm by hand, start a contracting business that rakes in an unholy amount of money, land a cushy job with their shoo-in qualifications and take up oil painting, or who-knows-what. It's good to be very talented and blessed.

Point-buy systems, of course, were invented by standard-issue dweebs. That's us. God is laughing at us right now.

Come on man, I don't need to read this on a Sunday afternoon.

 

[Parabalus]

For ages now, I've wanted to try a melee knife + throwing knife build. The issue is that despite each relying heavily on DEX and both being knives, they are also both massive feat vacuums, and very few crit-related feats (or even Expertise!) apply to throwing knives. The synergy is middling at best, although both can benefit from poisons thanks to the fairly recent addition of applying poisons.

"Hang on, though," I said to myself, recalling Sheepherder's famous Dominating throwing build that utilized poisons and predated the throwing knife buff, "Hypertoxicity also applies to traps!". This is significant mainly in that it reminded me of Traps.

The chief problem with both knives and throwing knives is when you run into an entire expansion filled with heavily-armored automatons that can't be poisoned and aren't human or even living (which fucks up various melee knife feats). However, this ceases to be anything more than a logistics issue if you're able to liberally utilize high-yield explosive mines and high-yield explosive grenades.

I'm finally almost content with a throwing knives build. I believe that grenades + Grenadier and traps + Quick Tinkering are the answer to my concerns. Furthermore, a Hypertoxicity-enhanced poisoned bear trap synergizes perfectly with a Hypertoxicity-enhanced poisoned throwing knife and Opportunist.

https://underrail.info/build/?HgUGC...2sAAAAAAABhATkdMTV_fjMWSwLChUcpwrXCpMKmw4zfvw

Yes, it's a bit daffy as I've currently got it tweaked. I really should at least fit Uncanny Dodge in there with enough points for 3-4 dodges at least, even if only because I have a truckload of extra skill points due to lack of any need for Traps to be pumped to the max. Considering I'm using both traps and grenades, I might be able to get away with omitting Pinning, putting Uncanny Dodge where Grenadier is currently slotted, and dragging Grenadier to Pinning's slot. Does anyone know whether Uncanny Dodge relies on base or effective Dodge?

I've left PER at 5 because, since this build includes traps, I've got at least a vain hope of not bumbling into every trap—and with detection goggles, I might not always be surprised by stealthed enemies.

Yes, I insist on Interloper. Trap Expert is negotiable, Interloper isn't. I'm not trying to be a cock, it's just that Interloper is the obvious choice to replace with a MORE POWER! feat, and although I'm well aware, I'm not going to do it.

Think you linked the wrong one, this is a gun build?

But if you have traps skill you don't need PER, to detect traps either trap detection from trap skill or normal detection is used.

 

[Sam Bixby]

Anyone know if sword is better with strength or dexterity?

I wish I could answer this, but I can't. Swords seem very schizophrenic to me and appear to work best with Strength, Dexterity, Agility, and Dexterity all 6-7+ due to the various feats you'll want (possibly even Will 5, if including Ripper)—and bear in mind that if you leave Strength at 5 and receive a Crippling Strike, which you certainly will at some point since absolutely 100% of all knife- and fist-wielding enemies have the feat and your build is nearly guaranteed to be sporting mediocre or even dumped PER (stealthed knifers were a real bitch on my sledgehammer tin can from way back), you're well on your way down the road to fucked.

On top of all this, no matter the sword build (and I'm sure someone has made a good one), they're all extremely RNG-dependent because that is built right into the feats. You can't entirely dump either STR or DEX really, so your base attribute bonus to your melee skill is guaranteed to be slightly mediocre, although accuracy tends to be less of an issue with melee than for ranged.

I had a lot of fun with a spear build using a riot shield and DOMINATED crawlers for the first time I can ever recall (due to the blocking with riot shield and etc.), but whenever I try to make a sword build, I always give up.

Go with 5 STR, 18 DEX. If you want to use Claymore use food and/or Rathound Regalia. Decapitate isn't worth it. Take Escape Artist and Fancy Footwork.

You won't lack damage, crits go over 2k regularly. Recommend TM for when Flurry misses.

If you want to use metal armor go 1-2 points higher STR, but I don't like tank melee too much.

Something like this

https://underrail.info/build/?HgUQB...AAAAH0AAAATwrNOBsKMwo1cS8KjK8KH4rKIBeKyiQLfvw

as a base, then do whatever with the rest.

Is Ripper worth the 2 points in will?

Yes, it's a huge damage boost. If you're running PSI the 5 WILL isn't much of a loss, also opens up many WILL checks with consumables.

You could drop for something else, I doubt you'd have much trouble either way.

Thanks for the info on this, one other thing do you know what type of leather armor is worth crafting for DEX build?

 

[Parabalus]

Anyone know if sword is better with strength or dexterity?

I wish I could answer this, but I can't. Swords seem very schizophrenic to me and appear to work best with Strength, Dexterity, Agility, and Dexterity all 6-7+ due to the various feats you'll want (possibly even Will 5, if including Ripper)—and bear in mind that if you leave Strength at 5 and receive a Crippling Strike, which you certainly will at some point since absolutely 100% of all knife- and fist-wielding enemies have the feat and your build is nearly guaranteed to be sporting mediocre or even dumped PER (stealthed knifers were a real bitch on my sledgehammer tin can from way back), you're well on your way down the road to fucked.

On top of all this, no matter the sword build (and I'm sure someone has made a good one), they're all extremely RNG-dependent because that is built right into the feats. You can't entirely dump either STR or DEX really, so your base attribute bonus to your melee skill is guaranteed to be slightly mediocre, although accuracy tends to be less of an issue with melee than for ranged.

I had a lot of fun with a spear build using a riot shield and DOMINATED crawlers for the first time I can ever recall (due to the blocking with riot shield and etc.), but whenever I try to make a sword build, I always give up.

Go with 5 STR, 18 DEX. If you want to use Claymore use food and/or Rathound Regalia. Decapitate isn't worth it. Take Escape Artist and Fancy Footwork.

You won't lack damage, crits go over 2k regularly. Recommend TM for when Flurry misses.

If you want to use metal armor go 1-2 points higher STR, but I don't like tank melee too much.

Something like this

https://underrail.info/build/?HgUQB...AAAAH0AAAATwrNOBsKMwo1cS8KjK8KH4rKIBeKyiQLfvw

as a base, then do whatever with the rest.

Is Ripper worth the 2 points in will?

Yes, it's a huge damage boost. If you're running PSI the 5 WILL isn't much of a loss, also opens up many WILL checks with consumables.

You could drop for something else, I doubt you'd have much trouble either way.

Thanks for the info on this, one other thing do you know what type of leather armor is worth crafting?

Mostly Infused Rathound Leather for the crit %, but you can run Rathound Regalia or Ninja without much loss. Other armor is for some stat checks or particular enemies.

For boots you need tabis, usually black cloth, mutated dog when dealing with acid.

 

[Blaine]

Think you linked the wrong one, this is a gun build?

Oops.

https://underrail.info/build/?HgMQB...AbFlHDk15cL1hAKcKzdj7io7EF4qi6BOKouwLivY4E378

But if you have traps skill you don't need PER, to detect traps either trap detection from trap skill or normal detection is used.

You're largely correct, although I seem to recall that if you have high PER, it's slightly hybridized and your Trap Detection will be a bit higher than with Traps alone.

If I were to dump PER entirely, I could drop to 6 INT and go 10 AGI. But then where to fit Blitz and/or Strider?

 

[lukaszek]

Blaine as I was saying recently, there is actually very little synergy between stabbing and knife throwing. Single feat.
Do you know where is a lot of synergy to be had? Like only 1 feat not applying(ripper).

Spear throwing.

Get yourself 3str max dex spear thrower with a knife. Its AMAZING.

 

[Blaine]

Blaine as I was saying recently, there is actually very little synergy between stabbing and knife throwing. Single feat.
Do you know where is a lot of synergy to be had? Like only 1 feat not applying(ripper).

Spear throwing.

Get yourself 3str max dex spear thrower with a knife. Its AMAZING.

I remember you talking this up a few pages ago, but unfortunately, Spear Throw's synergy with high-DEX melee builds came at a steep cost:

Ah, I see that the 1.0.1.12 update contained a massive, across-the-board nerf to Spear Throw.

Worse than the immense damage nerf was the nerf to the AP cost specialization. 25 -> 10 was worth specializing for, but 25 -> 16? For fuck's sake. You are now restricted to using TiChrome spears and adrenaline shots in order to get the most out of it, efficiency-wise, whereas before you could do a throw and two attacks (at full spec) with any spears and without an adrenaline shot.

Also, Spear Throw is one of the aspects of this new weapon that really helps to make spears attractive and cool, so yeah let's fuck it up because it do lot of damage, oh no HELP!

Normally I don't bitch too much about nerfs, but this one is absolutely harebrained.

The feat was originally tuned for a moderate- to low-DEX, medium armor, high-ish STR, medium mobility hoplite build, and worked just fine for that purpose.

It was too amazing for the sort of build you're talking about, so he re-tuned it for that, with zero regard for the effect on a hoplite build. Post-nerf, you need a TiChrome spear and a pair of tabi in order to throw once and attack twice without chugging medication, popping Blitz, etc.

I'm still mad. That being said, I'm interested in your proposition and may try it out.

 

[lukaszek]

It was too amazing for the sort of build you're talking about, so he re-tuned it for that, with zero regard for the effect on a hoplite build. Post-nerf, you need a TiChrome spear and a pair of tabi in order to throw once and attack twice without chugging medication, popping Blitz, etc.

you get me wrong. Im not saying to stab with spear. Im talking 3str and having huge penalties to melee with a stick. But str requirements do not matter when throwing it! Hence there is only 1 viable choice: tungsten winged spear!

In melee you stab with a knife. With fancy footwork you will have plenty of movement points to pick up your spear and run away. Throw triggers footwork as well.
Max dex ups your chance to actually hit enemy at max throw distance

With just 8 tiles distance and mediocre gear and lvl I was able to beat dominating carnifex with just 2 throws. 3 CON. No penalty cloth armor to max those movement pts.