Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Parabalus]

That's my point, if you're already cheating you might as well go all out.

 

[Blaine]

That's my point, if you're already cheating you might as well go all out.

Nah. There's such a thing as "soft cheating" and "hard cheating."

The only cheating I've ever done or would ever do in Underrail involves fixing quest flags, circumventing bugs, making myself whole after being harmed by a bug (contents of a Your House container vanish, etc.), or correcting unfortunate mistakes—such as when I accidentally swapped DEX and AGI when rolling my AR tin can recently. I was unable to fix that easily, so that playthrough was derailed.

Hell, I was opposed to speed hacking initially, although I've since changed my opinion once it became an official feature and I saw that it detracted nothing whilst saving time. I knew that it saved time, of course, but I somehow had the idea a fast-forward feature would detract from the game.

Speeding up merchant refreshes, though I'd never do it, is a soft cheat—a harder soft cheat than the speed hack, but still, essentially a time-saver. You could sit there staring at your screen for 30 (or 120) minutes instead, after all.

As far as the economy goes, I remain annoyed by the overly-harsh nerf to repair kits and recycling. After all, Styg might as well have used my guide as a playbook for the nerf, and he may very well have, because he hit everything I mentioned. The following post is from page 32 of this thread, way back in 2015. If only I'd taken a page from the Oculites' playbook and kept my mouth shut....

Making Mountains of Money: A Merry Merchant's Mini-Manual

For the merry merchant, Mechanics and Tailoring are nigh-indispensable. Not only do they offer a multitude of crafting possibilities and allow you to cheaply repair your equipment, but they also enable you to rake in loads of Stygian coins, all while greatly reducing the burden of loot the average merry merchant is constantly hauling around while exploring the Underrail.

Any merchant worth his salt will have quickly noticed that loot is sometimes valuable, and sometimes not so valuable. He will also have noticed that valuable loot is often at only half durability or even lower. Furthermore, weapons and armor tend to be heavy. It therefore stands to reason that cheap loot should be recycled and turned into lightweight repair kits that can in turn be used to repair expensive loot. Note that it is occasionally more efficient to create two regular repair kits rather than one advanced repair kit in order to touch up two expensive items that are missing only 100-200 durability.

Recycling cheap gear is particularly important in light of the fact that NPC merchants will only purchase a limited quantity of items every couple of hours. If an item is on the verge of being somewhat valuable, but still fairly cheap all things considered, go ahead and break it down anyway.

The repair kits themselves can also be sold to NPC merchants, and as soon as you have a respectable stockpile you should sell as many advanced repair kits as you can, as often as you are able.

Loot isn't the only source of recyclables! Check the cost:durability ratio of non-electronic knives, gloves, and balaclavas being sold by NPC merchants. You'll soon learn which are good deals. Buy these, recycle them, and turn them into even more repair kits.

It hardly needs to be said, but turning cheap leather, cloth, and metals you find into leather armor, balaclavas, and combat gloves in the field and then recycling them into kits is both efficient and profitable. You can turn a dozen rathounds into half a dozen repair kits! Magic!

Finally, stash all of your shit in your quarters at SGS to begin with, categorized in different containers if you like; and feel free to make use of the Merry Merchant's Meandering Trade Route (no doubt there are a couple more significant trade hubs now, but I'm still in the first half of the game):

Spoiler

SGS --(boat)--> Junkyard --(boat)--> Core City --(metro)--> Foundry --(metro)--> Rail Crossing --(metro)--> SGS

You may be wondering, "Why didn't you mention the Mercantile skill?". Well, the Mercantile skill will simply turn a small mountain into an even larger mountain, faster and more conveniently.

 

[lukaszek]

I felt fine not using refresh when it was just about not getting bestest quality components. Its different story after styg introduced unique items that can only be obtained from merchant. With rare chance.

 

[thesecret1]

Also, the Mercantile feats don't do shit except allow you to sell more stuff (to be fair, the skill opens up special inventories, so Mercantile is now close to mandatory for crafting).

Yeah, the special merchandise is probably the only reason to get Mercantile (I mean who cares about better prices when you're swimming in money anyway?).

 

[Blaine]

(I mean who cares about better prices when you're swimming in money anyway?).

Yes... yes, who indeed?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Alright, fuck you all. Gonna play another round.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Yeah, the special merchandise is probably the only reason to get Mercantile (I mean who cares about better prices when you're swimming in money anyway?).

Lower prices are important on dominating when it's much harder to make money.

 

[Blaine]

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the repair kit nerf is symptomatic of Styg's approach to "balancing."

Before the nerf, you could buy up cheap daggers, balaclavas, and psi headbands, recycle them, and eventually amass loads of kits to repair every piece of loot while selling stacks of the kits themselves also. This was a bit too good, I freely admit.

After the nerf, which slashed the scrap value of recyclable items by up to 2/3 in some cases and doubled the quantity of scraps required by the repair kit recipes, it's no longer financially sensible to buy things to scrap, and as a side effect you also receive far less scrap from cheap loot (or expensive loot, for that matter). You thus end up occasionally receiving a bonus kit or two every once in a while from your looted and recycled knives, sledgehammers, skins, and miscellaneous scrap.

It's still very profitable to repair and sell; you just have to buy the repair kits directly now. Meanwhile, merchants still offer to purchase repair kits, even though it makes absolutely no sense to ever sell them since you get very few of them. It will always make more sense to use them to repair valuable loot, which there's tons of.

The system left as it is is broken at best, its workings ripped out, nerfed so hard that it almost might as well have been purged entirely. It's like an airplane chassis that some Russians put wheels onto and hitched to a horse: It still works after a fashion, but clearly not as originally intended and not very well.

It was broken before, but at least it was satisfying to use in that it gave trash loot some real value and provided logistical interest. Now it's broken again, but in the opposite sense. Recycling and repair have become extremely marginal. At least they're still good for breaking sledgehammers down while out in the field to save on weight.

Anyway, this got too long-winded, but I feel there was a better way to handle this than the scorched-earth approach that was used.

 

[Parabalus]

Speeding up merchant refreshes, though I'd never do it, is a soft cheat—a harder soft cheat than the speed hack, but still, essentially a time-saver. You could sit there staring at your screen for 30 (or 120) minutes instead, after all.

If you're gonna merchant refresh until you get the desired items you might as well clone them immediately, drop the money and save yourself time.

I felt fine not using refresh when it was just about not getting bestest quality components. Its different story after styg introduced unique items that can only be obtained from merchant. With rare chance.

Which ones are these?

Yeah, the special merchandise is probably the only reason to get Mercantile (I mean who cares about better prices when you're swimming in money anyway?).

Lower prices are important on dominating when it's much harder to make money.

Depends a lot on the build. Something like craftless melee will never want for money, but if you want several HQ super steel plates you're looking at over 30k.

 

[thesecret1]

I'm playing on dominating right now and made around 70k total by now, on level 21. Granted, I do have mercantile as I want those special inventoeies, but would it really change things money-wise if I did not?

 

[lukaszek]

Which ones are these?

for example https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Cyclop's_Eye
or https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Unprojector

apparently commando belt was like this too until recently

 

[jackofshadows]

Not to mention, many of the more coveted firearm and crossbow attachments are near-invisible in the inventory UI.

It may have to do something with your monitor contrast/overall lightning. I see everything perfectly even with the new inventory background. I love the new UI by the way with scaling and everything, the game look great.

Re merchant refresh: selling stuff was never a problem for me because I've never played really expensive builds so once I've done the initial quest branches I had always more than enough money up untill expedition content at least. And then I picked up only the most expensive stuff to sell, naturally and that was enough for jet/a few supersteel batrches. But getting the right gear w/o refresh was absolutely tiresome, especially before the DC descent. And yes, I'm not talking about the highest possible q materials, just 140+ stuff and all the right components like aforementioned image intensifier tube if you got unlucky. As for item cloning - nah, too much for me, it's... immersion-breaking

 

[epeli]

Which ones are these?

for example https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Cyclop's_Eye
or https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Unprojector

apparently commando belt was like this too until recently

Yeah, those three are indeed the only Global Uniques right now (the double shotty also used to be something like that but there was another way to get it)
But those two only exist in the random loot table... and one of them is literally a build-defining item. What the fuck, StygSoft?

 

[Blaine]

The Unprojector would no doubt be pretty fucking incredible for Expertise SMG builds. My endgame Expertise SMG guy typically only wore a black balaclava, because there was no real need for anything more. Didn't even need +1 PER, because I started the majority of engagements standing right beside my foes for Fallout-style face spraying.

Second only to pre-nerf omni-psi, Spec Ops/Commando/Stealth Expertise SMG was the most powerful-feeling build I've ever played—even more so than pre-"unconditional special attack" ARs, because with stealth, you fully control your terms of engagement, while still mowing down anything that stands in your way.

Also one of the few builds that can kill heavily armored targets silently and at range, the other two three main vectors of this capacity being some pistol and psi builds and possibly Spear Throw. Crossbows and throwing knives are largely incapable of it without a lot of help, like Ambush/Opportunist.

 

[lukaszek]

Spear Throw

on dominating you need 2-3 throws against targets like master boom boom or industrial robot. No longer silent clean dispatch but you can go with acid and expose weakness to help a bit

 

[Blaine]

I don't play Dominating. It requires a level of hyper-optimization, maximum cheesiness, and meta knowledge (though it's inherent to the difficulty that you know the game very well) that simply doesn't interest me.

The most impressive thing I've ever seen was Sheepherder's Dominating Carnifex battle, which he played on maximum speed because it required approximately 120 lbs. of flashbangs, throwing nets, and throwing knives; he spent the entire battle ducking in and out from behind a pillar multiple times per turn to calculate everything just so, and the whole thing must have taken ten to fifteen minutes (or more) real-time. There was more cornerfagging in that one battle than in an entire combined Fallout and Fallout 2 marathon.

Impressive, amazing, a real achievement, and something that I love to watch other people who aren't me accomplish.

 

[Parabalus]

I don't play Dominating. It requires a level of hyper-optimization, maximum cheesiness, and meta knowledge (though it's inherent to the difficulty that you know the game very well) that simply doesn't interest me.

The most impressive thing I've ever seen was Sheepherder's Dominating Carnifex battle, which he played on maximum speed because it required approximately 120 lbs. of flashbangs, throwing nets, and throwing knives; he spent the entire battle ducking in and out from behind a pillar multiple times per turn to calculate everything just so, and the whole thing must have taken ten to fifteen minutes (or more) real-time. There was more cornerfagging in that one battle than in an entire combined Fallout and Fallout 2 marathon.

Impressive, amazing, a real achievement, and something that I love to watch other people who aren't me accomplish.

That's not really representative, Sheepherder has a lot of extra restrictions.
Most builds still kill him in a turn or two, my current run was simple Mental Breakdown - > Cutthroat.

Dominating is really cool because DC creatures are everywhere, makes it much more fun to play. And the boss buff makes them interesting.

The hardest part is usually saving Newton, and Depot A you can always stealth through.

 

[thesecret1]

The hardest part is usually saving Newton

Can confirm. Warehouse full of azuridae packed together at a time when you have fuck all in terms of skills or equipment. I usually resort to cheesing the doors.

 

[Jason Liang]

It's not bad. I just stealthed past the first room, got into the room inside, and picked off the psi-beetles one by one as they passed by. This was also on DOMINATING.

More tedious than challenging, like most of the rest of the game.

 

[Tigranes]

Yeah, every build has access to traps and molotovs at that point, so you can use that initial gate to get rid of all of them - couple traps, make noise, use the door, use the corner with the switch as a last resort.

I thought I was really done after the plasma beam boy, but I am now considering stealth SI/Crit SMG boy, since I've almost never played SMGs. What do you do for mech threshold? Mass produce W2C? Expose weakness? Switch to energy pistol?

 

[Parabalus]

Yeah, every build has access to traps and molotovs at that point, so you can use that initial gate to get rid of all of them - couple traps, make noise, use the door, use the corner with the switch as a last resort.

I thought I was really done after the plasma beam boy, but I am now considering stealth SI/Crit SMG boy, since I've almost never played SMGs. What do you do for mech threshold? Mass produce W2C? Expose weakness? Switch to energy pistol?

Chem pistols too, especially if the target is rootable. Pistols are especially good if you go the Versatility/DEX route, can also melee with energy.

 

[Tigranes]

Well that's the thing, I've played a ton of pistol / energy pistol / chem pistol builds. I consider energy the strongest / most smooth build. But I guess I want to try SMGs.

 

[Parabalus]

It's not bad. I just stealthed past the first room, got into the room inside, and picked off the psi-beetles one by one as they passed by. This was also on DOMINATING.

More tedious than challenging, like most of the rest of the game.

Which non-J RPG's combat do you actually like / find engaging?

Think I asked you once already and answer was select BG2 dragons, mostly for nostalgia reasons.

 

[Jason Liang]

It's not bad. I just stealthed past the first room, got into the room inside, and picked off the psi-beetles one by one as they passed by. This was also on DOMINATING.

More tedious than challenging, like most of the rest of the game.

Which non-J RPG's combat do you actually like / find engaging?

Think I asked you once already and answer was select BG2 dragons, mostly for nostalgia reasons.

I like consistent encounter design quality. Underrail had exactly one area where the gameplay clicked for me, which was Lunatic Mall. The shop that you first enter became an abattoir as waves of Lunatics come to end you, and the fight on the 2nd floor was pure mayhem.

Bringing a knife to a psi-fight.

I'll treasure this moment forever.

Same with Age of Decadence, the sheer grind and scale of Harran's Pass got my heart racing, and I suppose the Monastery fight was pretty intense too. As you know, I found the game fun when I gimped myself, but playing the rest of the game normally with normal character and gear progression and all the cheesey tactics you have access to becomes a bore. The issue with AoD wasn't encounter design, which was superb. It was just the broken cheese that ITS kept in the game.

I've been playing Battletech on and off for the past year, right now I'm about a month into a BEX career run, and it's still engaging. The game occasionally drops me into extremely challenging set ups where even if I survive I'm going to take a real pounding, and it forces me to keep learning how to play smarter. For example, just yesterday, I was dropped into a 2.5 skull mission where I had to take a base on top of a mountain pass, with mechs and turrets guarding the base and no real way to get to the turrets on the far side of the base. So I'm taking a pounding every turn. And once I get past the guards and the front turrets, the game drops a reinforcement lance right behind me. At this point, if I don't want to lose anything irreplacable, I've got to withdraw, I can't even make it to the evacuation point since one of my mechs lost both of its hips and can't move more than 2 clicks per turn. Which sucks since it took a lot of effort just to get to the base in the first place. The balance between the weapon systems available in BEX, plus the pacing derived from the classic Battletech armor system, really holds up. The better your equipment, the more irreplaceable it is - losing even a double heat sink is devastating and probably an instant mission restart. And you have the flexibility to play the game the way you find fun, whether it's iron man mode or slow, grindy progression or whatever.

This fight was also a real 18 turn grinder.

My mechs don't carry enough ammo for 18 turns.

Elsewise, it's mostly Alicesoft games on my docket.

 

[Blaine]

Jason Liang is essentially confirming what I already knew: Dominating combat is almost guaranteed to be tedious. Hard is about as hard as I need the game to be.

When it comes to difficulty in RPGs, it's enough for me that my build has to be fairly thoughtful, that I have to pay attention to my surroundings and plan my engagements, and that I feel an ever-present sense of threat. I don't need Dominating for that. Dominating is a challenge mode along the same mental/emotional vein as speedrunning (in my opinion), and that's never interested me.

What do you do for mech threshold? Mass produce W2C?

Just invest in Mercantile and buy them in large quantities from certain vendors, such as Kevin in Foundry. I was able to purchase enough during my Expertise SMG playthrough that I never had to craft a single one.

Everyone ignores Expertise and always goes for crits, but you see, Expertise just straight-up adds flat damage to every single bullet, including W2C rounds. This is particularly significant when using silenced SMGs with 5mm W2C. Getting the picture?

Meanwhile, if you go the Expertise route, you don't have to spend three thousand feats and fifteen medications per combat on crit chance and bonus. Expertise was designed for SMGs and ARs and almost nothing else.

Of course, W2C has been nerfed now—probably because of that video of someone using TM/Bullet Time and a pistol loaded with W2C, because Styg gonna Styg, and TM is a good boy who was on his way to church and didn't do nothing wrong—but it should still be fine.