Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Zeem]

How does this goddamn rune sketch work? It appears to be just a silly sketch that's doesn't lead me to any particular location! I don't feel bad slaughtering every smelly tribal after trying to workout their annoying graveyard crapola.

You just have to find the grave marked with the same rune. Nothing complicated about it.

 

[.Pixote.]

Found it, my monitor is so dark I couldn't see the runes very well! Cheers

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Where am I supposed to find high level black cloth? I checked with Fraser, I checked with Oculus, I checked with Tchortists and nothing.
Also, I found out that sniper rifle frames use 95% of their quality as opposed to the usual 80%. This might have messed over my calculations to determine how much crafting stats I need, and I just hit level 25 which apparently is the cap in vanilla. So I guess I'm not leveling up stats until I work out how much I actually need to craft high level gear.

For sniper rifles, is it better to go harbinger or reaper? I'm leaning towards reaper because I picked up critical power. Dealing 300% crit damage is pretty funny. Right now I'm hitting something like 700? I want to see if I can get it to 2k.
The problem I found with the reaper is that it doesn't one shot enemies if you don't get your crits off.

I like how the game doesn't scale with your level. I went back to the under passages and I stomped those stalkers who gave me a lot of trouble when I tried exploring down there.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Where do you even get high quality leathers? The highest I've seen drop so far is 64, and I'm doing the institute questline.
The max quality in vanilla is like 130, right?

Do the missions in Foundry and you can upgrade leathers to be super leathers that can be 120+ quality and also get extra bonuses compared to the normal version. Expensive as hell though.

 

[lukaszek]

Where am I supposed to find high level black cloth?

dont think you can without access to secret stock. From my memory drones, oculus and pirates could have it. Otherwise your best bet is waterworks. And DC obviously.

BTW with secret stock, you will likely get better black cloth tabi from oculus than whatever you can craft

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Where am I supposed to find high level black cloth?

dont think you can without access to secret stock. From my memory drones, oculus and pirates could have it. Otherwise your best bet is waterworks. And DC obviously.

BTW with secret stock, you will likely get better black cloth tabi from oculus than whatever you can craft

Don't have the DLC and I'm at war with the Drones, because the self-righteous cunts kept killing me when I told them how they're hurting Rail Crossing and not the protectorate with their bullshit.
Constantine has yet to supply black cloth.
That said, I do have such a high stealth stat now that it probably doesn't matter, but I really want those stealth bonuses for Snipe and Ambush.
Right now I think I have something like 130 stealth + 50 from ninja tabis and a tactical vest overcoat I found.

Where do you even get high quality leathers? The highest I've seen drop so far is 64, and I'm doing the institute questline.
The max quality in vanilla is like 130, right?

Do the missions in Foundry and you can upgrade leathers to be super leathers that can be 120+ quality and also get extra bonuses compared to the normal version. Expensive as hell though.

Oh is that how that works? You can't just find a Q120 leather? Makes sense I guess. I better drag those Q64 leathers out of the to sale locker then.

Still not sure if I want to make leathers or riot armour.
I read the Original Report and it seems that the Deep Caverns have a lot of toxic caverns and critters, so I'm not sure a tac vest would be all that useful. Maybe a hazmat riot armor with black cloak?

 

[lukaszek]

You can't just find a Q120 leather?

check wiki, most base leathers got fairly low max quality. Notable difference is ancient rathound. DLC leathers are better in that regard

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Interesting, it seems that the only leather in the base game that goes up to 120 is ancient rat, which I'm assuming you can only find in the deep caverns.
I'm still not sure about armour though. Tac vest is obviously good against bullets, but why leather over riot, if you don't have good evasion stats to make the lower DR/DT worth while? I have like 22 dodge / evasion which at this point of the game is pretty useless and honestly a waste of points.
Also, is it possible to beat the game without stealth? I'm mulling over a heavy armour build next run, something of a Brotherhood of Steel / Enclave fellow, but I don't see how I can without stealth because it's such a massively useful tool and wearing metal armour tanks your stealth stat.

 

[Parabalus]

Interesting, it seems that the only leather in the base game that goes up to 120 is ancient rat, which I'm assuming you can only find in the deep caverns.
I'm still not sure about armour though. Tac vest is obviously good against bullets, but why leather over riot, if you don't have good evasion stats to make the lower DR/DT worth while? I have like 22 dodge / evasion which at this point of the game is pretty useless and honestly a waste of points.
Also, is it possible to beat the game without stealth? I'm mulling over a heavy armour build next run, something of a Brotherhood of Steel / Enclave fellow, but I don't see how I can without stealth because it's such a massively useful tool and wearing metal armour tanks your stealth stat.

Infused leather gives you bonuses tac vests can't, mostly infused rathound for the crit.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So you trade off defense for utility / offense? Fair enough.
What about boots though? They seem inferior to tabis in everywhere.
Yeah sure, you get a point of DR/DT, but tabis give you a lot of free stats.

 

[Parabalus]

So you trade off defense for utility / offense? Fair enough.

Usually there's very little difference in defense between leather/tac vests, even against guns, since often there's a sniper in packs who will punch through your tac vest DT.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So you trade off defense for utility / offense? Fair enough.

Usually there's very little difference in defense between leather/tac vests, even against guns, since often there's a sniper in packs who will punch through your tac vest DT.

True, which is why you kill the sniper first, leaving only the ones that have weaker weapons.
That said, energy shields do seem to be much better defensive tools.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Constantine has yet to supply black cloth.
I read the Original Report and it seems that the Deep Caverns have a lot of toxic caverns and critters, so I'm not sure a tac vest would be all that useful. Maybe a hazmat riot armor with black cloak?

So you trade off defense for utility / offense? Fair enough.
What about boots though? They seem inferior to tabis in everywhere.
Yeah sure, you get a point of DR/DT, but tabis give you a lot of free stats.

Constantine doesn't sell cloth. He sells nice quality black balaclavas/tabis, but no cloth. High quality black cloth is actually really hard to find, to the point I think it might be a mistake. Your best bet is probably Derica in Core City or engineering guy whose name I forgot in SGS, but neither of them are really very good sources of it.
DC has a lot of bio damage enemies but also a lot of non bio damage enemies. Probably best to bring that riot gear but also infused hopper/pig/rathound as well so you can switch depending on what's appropriate. Hopper gives you a lot of MP. Pig gives you a lot of HP and has actually pretty good DR. Rathound gives you more crit. They're all good general purpose light armours, you choose what seems coolest.
Metal boots are good on tank builds. Quad tungsten metal chest+double tungsten boots make you nearly immune mechanical damage. You have pretty great DT so most attacks do nothing, and 95% DR so even strong ones that can beat your DT are still reduced to nearly nothing. Leather boots are pretty pointless though, yeah. Infused pig increases carry weight by 30 so they're good for hauling loot, but that's it.

 

[lukaszek]

So you trade off defense for utility / offense? Fair enough.
What about boots though? They seem inferior to tabis in everywhere.
Yeah sure, you get a point of DR/DT, but tabis give you a lot of free stats.

you need to understand that movement is valid defense in underrail. Up to the point one can play glass cannon even on dominating and just outrun the danger/break the los.
As such there is another great infused leather: hopper, which gives movement along with AGI which is... even more movement and sneak.
In fact most of my builds would craft both rathound and hopper armors and switch them depending on encounter. To be fair almost 100% combat related scenarios would chose rathound though.

If you were to obtain DLC, there is another interesting choice in infused greater siphoner with blast cloth. It provides great protection against plasma

 

[OSK]

 

[lukaszek]

im missing this underrail excitement.
Up to the point im considereing unspeakable things.
Is there any cave wizardry build that doesnt feel like cave wizardry?

Spoiler

i am considering shiv build of sort. Maybe still do it without cave wizardry. WIth shiv one does not need to max dex, feels weird and I wonder what I can do with it

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

> Invest all of your points in psionics
> Never use psionics all game and just punch crawlers in the face

The true sigma chad build.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Couple of questions about optimal shield builds -
Is going high-high overkill? Like, shields are already pretty good at negation high and very high velocity attacks, would it be a good idea to instead go medium-low or low-low to try to cover the inherent weakness of the shield?
Going efficient of course to get those high capacity values. Right now my shield has 780 and it's ok but I noticed it does get drained quickly by melee attacks and small arms.

Also, refurbished weapons are kind of...meh?
I mean, I guess if you aren't crafting they're great, but why would you not craft? So far I only really liked the Uzi and the MP5.
I wanted to like the Tommy but it's way too inaccurate, even refurbished, and the snipers seem underwhelming compared to what I can make.
I haven't tried the pistols yet though. Well, I tried the Hawk and it's crap. .44 pistols seem pretty rubbish in general because of the AP cost.

 

[lukaszek]

Couple of questions about optimal shield builds -
Is going high-high overkill? Like, shields are already pretty good at negation high and very high velocity attacks, would it be a good idea to instead go medium-low or low-low to try to cover the inherent weakness of the shield?
Going efficient of course to get those high capacity values. Right now my shield has 780 and it's ok but I noticed it does get drained quickly by melee attacks and small arms.

on my usual builds that rarely get hit, low-low is preferable.

I mean, I guess if you aren't crafting they're great, but why would you not craft?

some unique ones offer extra. I like those two for 'melee' gun fu
https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=W&S_.44_Magnum
https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Wasteland_Hawk

I haven't tried the pistols yet though. Well, I tried the Hawk and it's crap. .44 pistols seem pretty rubbish in general because of the AP cost.

max dex versatility with bullet time. Stun/daze can allow execute and cutthroat!

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

What if you get hit all of the time though? My evasion / dodge is pretty rubbish.
I don't have that much issue with ranged enemies because I get the drop on them and snipe / flash bang / burst fire them to death, but death stalkers are still a threat. Even with 350 detection they'll only show up if they are close to me.
Basically if I get the drop on them I tend to win, but if I get caught out it's a problem.

 

[lukaszek]

stalkers are special case, throw flares.
Otherwise if you go versatility, single feat investment of fancy footwork allows you to switch to melee and easily outrun everything

 

[.Pixote.]

Stalkers are pretty fun to fight, if you have a room you can hide in then it's pretty easy, mind you multiple death stalkers attacking you at once is pretty much fatal. One criticism of the game is it's too long. Easily a 200 hour game if you explore the world thoroughly...but at the same time wanting to try a new approach is so tempting. I stuck to a Psi, stealth, hack, dodge, character, didn't get a chance to mess around with crafting, or traps, next time.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, it's really impressive just how big the world is, and apparently it's even bigger with expedition. I can see why oddity is the recommended exp setting because with classic you reach your max level cap really fast. Right now I'm level 25 and I haven't even been to deep caverns. I haven't even spent my points because I'm not sure how much I'm going to need to craft. I found a Q142 reaper frame that needs 138 mechanics so far, and I have yet to upgrade my armour, stealth generator and shields.

Not sure I need to bother with chemistry though. It seems that for a shooting character like mine you just need like 60 to make WC2 rounds. Apparently you need more to make better grenades but I barely use them anyway. I prefer molotovs and you also just need 60 for napalm.
Biology is a little trickier though because you can get some pretty power buffs through chems, but it seems that 45 is a minimum to unlock focus stims.

Is 50 effective throwing skill like the recommended for all characters or something? It seems that if you have anything less your character throws grenades at his feet.

 

[Tigranes]

If you go chem you pump chem early. Mach III grenades against the starting areas Azuridae, for example? Or Mach IV against some of the early-mid game human mobs (e.g. any of the Core City town fights)? Hoo boy.

Grenades in Underrail are a gamechanger, as are molotovs and flashbangs. You don't have to use them of course, but chem has its place for that alone.

Focus Stims are 55.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

If you go chem you pump chem early. Mach III grenades against the starting areas Azuridae, for example? Or Mach IV against some of the early-mid game human mobs (e.g. any of the Core City town fights)? Hoo boy.

Grenades in Underrail are a gamechanger, as are molotovs and flashbangs. You don't have to use them of course, but chem has its place for that alone.

Focus Stims are 55.

Pretty sure they're 45. Intestines are 45 and you need taurine to make them.