Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Raapys]

Awesome.

I could swear there's something up with the randomization though. 80-90% hit chance rage-inducingly often results in two misses in a row, far more so than two hits in a row unless my memory is being selective.

 

[Canus]

Gonna go as either a knife or a unarmed dude, both seem fun. Should i get psi or not? the penalty seems harsh and i got will 3 and 0 on the psi skills either way.

I'm going Psi-Unarmed and I'm just cutting through stuff. I've got a max Dex, Will, high Int build and it is just slicing through.

 

[duanth123]

Do I just keep posting dev log here now...?

Game Released

Hi guys. As most of you are aware by now, we've finally released the 1.0.0.0 version.

Development of this game has been one interesting 7 year adventure for me. First it was a one man part-time (read: night-time) hobby project where the basis for all that is to come was laid out. Then it was a one man full-time mad scientist sort of operation that gave birth to most of the game mechanics seen today. And then lastly, as a three man project during which the amount and quality of the content expanded far beyond my original intentions and even hopes.

But all this would not have been possible if there was not a deep-seeded desire for this kind of gaming experience, still echoing from the void left by the departure of classical western RPGs, present in you, the players. So, personally and on behalf of the team, I thank you for patiently supporting us throughout the years and I hope that the final product is to your liking.

We'll still be here, supporting the game by ironing out any remaining bugs and applying some more polish here and there. As for what happens next, we'll discuss that when the dust settles. Stay tuned.

Mad scientist is probably not an inapt description.

It must have felt at times that you were trying to resurrect something dead.

Although it makes me legitimately curious, then, whether you are in fact quietly insane, and from that insanity sprang the willpower needed to not just start, but complete this project.

 

[Daedalos]

Gonna go as either a knife or a unarmed dude, both seem fun. Should i get psi or not? the penalty seems harsh and i got will 3 and 0 on the psi skills either way.

I'm going Psi-Unarmed and I'm just cutting through stuff. I've got a max Dex, Will, high Int build and it is just slicing through.

Same.

It seems PSI was nerfed, but it's stull super fucking strong. Just plowing through.

 

[Eyestabber]

Oukay, another minute and my notebook still has 17 minutes of battery.

BLACKOUT WON'T STOP ME, NIGGAS

 

[Fry]

Can't play until tomorrow, so had to settle for downloading the soundtrack.

Much better than I expected. Tell the composer he didn't fuck up.

 

[Eyestabber]

Nice. Finished chargen, notebook died :D

 

[Eadan]

Hate it when games want the player to pick skills before they are at least somewhat familiar with the game. What is the ratio of locked doors/containers to hackable computers?, How do the rewards and hidden content behind them compare?, How good is melee versus ranged?, etc.. This pretty much guarantees your character customization will be uninformed in the first playthrough, and the story will be spoiled for potential future playthroughs.

I know what you're saying, but that's just the minmaxer in you that needs to be reined in.

Years of playing RPGs and strategy games are directly responsible for the yearning to optimise and the annoyance of playing blind. There was a period in my gaming 'career' where I wouldn't start a fresh new RPG/strategy without reading up on it a lot or watching decisions pro players make on YT. Where's the dump skills? Which items seem like junk but become useful later? Many RPGs have some weapon classes that are simply inferior to other options, should I go with swords instead of axes? It kinda fuelled a hate for arbitrariness some of the video game design systems have. Invest in the wrong skills, you're gimped. Sold that item? Too bad cause 3 hrs later there's an NPC asking for it. Picked the 3rd choice at a branching moment? Too bad, cause the two others offer rewards that would've been much nicer to have considering your playstyle, etc etc.

At the same time, there's something really off with games that offer ways out (like RPGs with respecs), or are designed around each choice being equally good. There's something very fun and exciting about choices being final, and even about having to make the most out of a poor skillset/item selection/unit roster. Respecs just cheapen the experience and make your choices seem irrelevant since you can do a U-turn at any moment and just completely switch your build around. The 'balanced' approach can be even worse.

In principle, I agree with PoE's design. In practice, I found that I much preferred the BG series' approach of "here's your character, make the most of his skills and deal with his limitations" as opposed to the game being fine with you doing most things with most classes. It rendered most of the choices regarding building characters and decking them out totally void of flavor and excitement.

Seems like you might be on the same path so my suggestion is - leave the optimal build for your 2nd playthrough and enjoy the game blind, and try to make the most out of the resources you limited yourself to with your poor choices. Lots of fun to be had that way! And if you do want to keep on optimising, have you tried playing roguelikes? Cause that's a genre that openly welcomes pursuit of the games' systems best (ab)use.

I find the struggle of min/maxing self destructive. If you are playing the game for the difficulty then you are basically destroying your own fun by making it less difficult. I am not one for speedruns or participating in leagues of ARPG s either.

The reason I assume a min/maxing mindset is the game encouraging it with the amount of customizability it offers even as you start the game. I know a playthrough will answer most of my questions, but it would be sıubpar, and although it doesn't matter much for a single game, the time wasted on several games in this manner add up.

Maybe you should give up gaming than if it is such a struggle for you.

See that's the problem. Many consider these flawed systems as an inseperable component of gaming. I wouldn't even mind if it turns out that way, as long as developers at least try to innovate.

 

[Blaine]

I could swear there's something up with the randomization though. 80-90% hit chance rage-inducingly often results in two misses in a row, far more so than two hits in a row unless my memory is being selective.

Oh yeah, you're experiencing cognitive/selective/confirmation bias galore. So was I this morning, since I missed a 40% chance to hit ten times in a row. I have even more terminological monstrosities for you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insensitivity_to_sample_size

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion

Clustering illusion is probably the best way to quickly demonstrate to people why they often experience seemingly mashed-together hills and valleys of successes and failures.

 

[Lhynn]

Gonna go as either a knife or a unarmed dude, both seem fun. Should i get psi or not? the penalty seems harsh and i got will 3 and 0 on the psi skills either way.

I'm going Psi-Unarmed and I'm just cutting through stuff. I've got a max Dex, Will, high Int build and it is just slicing through.

Same.

It seems PSI was nerfed, but it's stull super fucking strong. Just plowing through.

Yeah but i want to play him low will, is it still worth it? Or is the 25% loss of life too much?

 

[Blaine]

What, you guys aren't taking Psi Empathy even while playing an armored sledgehammer guy with 4 Will and absolutely no Psi skills, just to pile an additional penalty on top of Hard difficulty?

Fuckin' casuals m8, sware on me mum i'll fookin bash yer 'ead in gobshites

 

[Lhynn]

Its not flawed, its perfect, if you knew how to perfectly play the game, thus removing any and all challenge, then why would you play?
Whats flawed is your brain.

 

[Wolfe]

Any tips for fighting or avoiding the 3 bots in the storage area in the GMS compound? My stealth is terrible and I only have a SMG.

 

[ST'Ranger]

"EMP grenades" is probably going to come up a lot in this thread.

 

[Eadan]

Its not flawed, its perfect, if you knew how to perfectly play the game, thus removing any and all challenge, then why would you play?
Whats flawed is your brain.

Way to prove how clueless you are. A game supplying you with enough information to base your decisions on doesn't remove challange, instead it is the only meaningful challange. As opposed to "Oh,no I didn't spec for enough carrying capacity and this game turned out to drop lots of loot, so now I have to go back to town every 10 minutes."

But then again feel free to think winning in a lottery is somehow a sign of superior intelligence.

Oh, and since you reminded me. I had also enough with these arbitraray inventroy space or carrying limitations, that can be overcome simply by wasting time in real life. It may make the game somewhat more realistic, but then again there is a reason we prefer playing games as opposed to going on with our lives.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Any tips for fighting or avoiding the 3 bots in the storage area in the GMS compound? My stealth is terrible and I only have a SMG.

You can also try separating them, they walk a fair distance from each other so you can just attack one and deal with him in private.

Also, you could try getting a .44 Hammerer pistol, maybe youve found one already. They have big one hit damage and that is good when fighting robots as their damage reduction does not make your hits into 2-3 dmg scratches as it would do to SMG burst.

Also, there are two EMP granades in one room on that level, very useful for this fight and I bet Styg put them there just for this very reason.

 

[HotSnack]

Is there a way to add custom portraits? Kinda odd that only females get full gasmask options.

 

[Blaine]

Is there a way to add custom portraits? Kinda odd that only females get full gasmask options.

http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Character_creation#Custom_portraits

Also, males do get full gas mask options.

 

[Wolfe]

Any tips for fighting or avoiding the 3 bots in the storage area in the GMS compound? My stealth is terrible and I only have a SMG.

You can also try separating them, they walk a fair distance from each other so you can just attack one and deal with him in private.

Also, you could try getting a .44 Hammerer pistol, maybe youve found one already. They have big one hit damage and that is good when fighting robots as their damage reduction does not make your hits into 2-3 dmg scratches as it would do to SMG burst.

Also, there are two EMP granades in one room on that level, very useful for this fight and I bet Styg put them there just for this very reason.

Thanks for the ideas. I already had 2 EMP grenades, used the ventilation shafts to get into a good position and somehow managed to pull only 2 of them. With some luck, I downed them all.. hopefully there aren't any more of them on the next level :D

 

[ArchAngel]

Its not flawed, its perfect, if you knew how to perfectly play the game, thus removing any and all challenge, then why would you play?
Whats flawed is your brain.

Way to prove how clueless you are. A game supplying you with enough information to base your decisions on doesn't remove challange, instead it is the only meaningful challange. As opposed to "Oh,no I didn't spec for enough carrying capacity and this game turned out to drop lots of loot, so now I have to go back to town every 10 minutes."

But then again feel free to think winning in a lottery is somehow a sign of superior intelligence.

Oh, and since you reminded me. I had also enough with these arbitraray inventroy space or carrying limitations, that can be overcome simply by wasting time in real life. It may make the game somewhat more realistic, but then again there is a reason we prefer playing games as opposed to going on with our lives.

Can you just go away? You are ruining this glorious topic of glorious

 

[Ein Axt]

Hello everyone. I've been lurking on the Underrail incline thread since a few months ago, though I never posted anything.

I'll be honest: I never liked the modern concept of early access. I gave this one a try due to my friend saying it was like Fallout 2.5. It didn't disappoint and I did a few runs on the last alpha build. I enjoyed the hell out of it but I never believed that Underrail would be released at a really reasonable time. Released at a reasonable time AND wasn't a rushed job unlike the majority of these EA games from steam.

The game is so good. I still cannot believe this was mostly done by a single person with no budget and very little manpower. It baffles me that modern RPGs have hundred-man dev teams with tens to hundreds of millions of dollar budget but they all fall short vs indie games like this. At least as what I perceive as a good RPG game. From what I've heard Styg is from somewhere in eastern Europe? This is interesting because most modern games that I enjoy these days are from that part of the world. I guess my friend was right when he said "Slavs are saving our vidya games."

-

Into the next part of my post. I have a problem with crashes. I just got to the psi-beetle warehouse just north of the hopper nest. I just picked up an oddity that gave me lvl4 and my 4th feat. As I'm playing a crossbow guy, I picked up Concussive Shots feat. For some reason every time I shoot a psi-beetle now my game freezes up and a common crash error pops up in Windows. This already happened 5 times in a row. Any help on this, Styg?


tl;dr- Great game, 10/10. But I keep crashing after picking up Concussive Shots feat while shooting psi-beetles. Pls Halp.

 

[Sykar]

The psi costs are the same. The only nerf is that you take a large hit to your HP if you take Psi.

How much Psi does neural overload cost?

Ah, never mind, you're right. Some of the psi costs were made higher. I was looking at the Action Point cost. I guess the Psionic gear and psi hypos are finally useful.

This is why Premidation is such an important talent imho.

It was always important, but now it's even more so. The feat that gives +maximum Psi with the headbands and the Psi gear that reduces psi cost with a % are far more valuable now as well. I never used any Psi hypos before, either. I guess now you gotta.

Which means it was a good change. Last early access version I used maybe one PSI hypo until Core City. Now I have used already 3-4 and I have just arrived in Junkyard. Also being PSI user is more punishing in terms of survivability. That 25% HP loss on Hard is very noticable. Especially when you are a maniac like me who plays with 3 Con so I started with 39 HP and gaining 3 HP ever level. Anything breathing in my direction is a threat, anything with a Sniper Rifle and Aimed Shot is a deadly threat which must be destroyed or CCed at all times.
Luckily Stealth+full Premeditation PSI abilities +Sniper Rfiles with Aimed Shot makes short work of most enemies. Died twice due to own stupidity and tiredness though and the build doesn't come together until Premediation is available or in other words when I hit 6 but I knew that in advance.

 

[Infinitron]

I enjoyed the hell out of it but I never believed that Underrail would be released at a really reasonable time.

Well, strictly speaking, it wasn't.

 

[Abelian]

Let's shift this bad boy into high gear.

 

[Canus]

Any tips for fighting or avoiding the 3 bots in the storage area in the GMS compound? My stealth is terrible and I only have a SMG.

Use a camera to trigger an alert as far away from the centre as possible, then use the ventilation systems to get around them while they all go to congregate at the camera to check the alarm, pick up key card, back into vents, escape.