Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[CthuluIsSpy]

Maybe I'll go kill Balor and do Rail Crossing first then.
Oddly enough, shotguns are not that bad against armoured enemies. I was dreading fighting bladelings only to discover that I had a much easier time with a Soverign loaded with Boarshot than my previous normal playthrough with base game guns.

Edit : Oof, I forgot how hard Ironheads are. There's that little checkpoint near Foundry and there's like 8 of them. I don't have enough time to throw down caltrops, fire doesn't seem to do much to them (I forgot just how many of them have anti-thermal gear) and they down my shields in about a turn. I think I have to come back with more gas grenades and better explosives. Maybe some AP rounds for my HK, because I can't get close enough to use the shotgun.

Other than some issues, I'm liking my low stealth run. Being able to tank hits and not worry too much about sneaky is a pretty refreshing way to play.

 

[ItsChon]

When should I start expedition content? I'm level 14 right now and just killed the beast. I had to pick up packrat because even with 8 strength lugging around heavy armour, ammo, guns and gear puts me at my weight limit and I wanted to use the shotgun ammo belt instead of the merc belt.

I personally do Expedition after I've completed all of Camp Hathor, Rail Crossing, Foundry, and the O**** quest lines. It makes the most sense narrative wise as the University isn't accepting new applicants and your character could be brainstorming a way to actually infiltrate the university. Plus, it also allows me to focus on the Expedition entirely.

 

[lukaszek]

I was dreading fighting bladelings

worst part of them is not armor, but crit immunity

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How are you supposed to disguise your way past grey army base? I literally cannot get out the Magatzin because the soldiers there have a sight range of like 10 and keep bothering me even though I have officer uniform.
I can't even use the combat mode exploit because if I enter that little room near security they immediately aggro.
Edit : Finally did it. Turns out officer uniforms draw their attention. Switching to a guard uniform made them a lot less annoying.

 

[ItsChon]

I always take Persuasion on my builds so thankfully never had to really deal with Grey Arm Base shenanigans.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah persuasion seems really useful. Mercantile is good too for unlocking better gear.
I'm not really feeling intimidate. Yell does scale with it which is nice, but overall I don't see any reason to invest too much in it. Apparently Expedition have checks going up to 100, so I guess I'll level it up to there.

Anyway, I joined the Praetorians. Their armour is kind of cool, but statwise I could make better. It does have some nice bonuses though.
Their armour also has a massive armour penalty too, which is a problem because I have armour sloping. Maybe I'll do another tin can run, but with assault rifles instead.

 

[ItsChon]

Yeah persuasion seems really useful. Mercantile is good too for unlocking better gear.
I'm not really feeling intimidate. Yell does scale with it which is nice, but overall I don't see any reason to invest too much in it. Apparently Expedition have checks going up to 100, so I guess I'll level it up to there.

Anyway, I joined the Praetorians. Their armour is kind of cool, but statwise I could make better. It does have some nice bonuses though.
Their armour also has a massive armour penalty too, which is a problem because I have armour sloping. Maybe I'll do another tin can run, but with assault rifles instead.

Most people argue that persuasion is useless and never take it, but you need it for the optimal solution in certain Questlines and it's nice for some QoL stuff in game, so I dislike not taking it. There are some builds where you take intimidate because it makes Yell actually really powerful. It's basically more like a combat stat than a social stat at this point. Mercantile is also super useful and I end up taking it a lot too for crafting purposes.

One of Underrail's "big" weaknesses is the lack of use of social skills, and it's something I'm hoping Styg expands in Infusion.

EDIT: You could actually say that about several other stats. While all stats are generally useful for something, it would have been nice to see a lot more skill checks for different skills that had direct effects on quests or certain dungeons. Expedition as well as updates to the base game added a lot more than was in the original, so I do think that the team has it in mind.

 

[Tigranes]

Basically if you really want to take it, no problem, but if you aren't feeling it, you shouldn't feel any FOMO.

I personally like to go Grey base at a bit of a higher level and go Hitman on it, stealthing around popping isolated enemies - you can get maybe a dozen or so kill count without raising the general alarm.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Killed Jookhela. Not a big fan of that encounter. If he traps you in that room there's a good chance that you'll get body blocked by dopplegangers and just die instantly. I had to meta game and trap him on a bridge with poison traps and a frag mine.
What's really bad though is that killing him will not despawn the ghosts; they will continue to attack you until they despawn after 4 turns.
I think I have to just craft galvanic armour. The peacekeeper is nice, but it has no electric defense and 95% armour penalty, making it as heavy as tungsten without the high mechanical dr / dt

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Praetorian chest armour is shit. The only thing it's good for is helping with persuade/intimidate checks in the earlygame before you can get other chest armours that are the same or better at that. The helmet can be useful on some builds, but the chests aren't.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, the peacekeeper is a disappointment. Even without crafting you can probably find much better armour.
The helmet is nice though, as it has a lower detection debuff and comes with bio resist + yell. It has no flashbang resistance though.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Can someone explain to me how a crossbow is dealing 80 damage per hit against him when I have metal armour? I thought crossbows get a malus against DT/DR?
I just did the Praetorian Warehouse mission and those crossbowmen were annoying as hell. Just 2 hits and I die in full armour.
I eventually beat it by throwing down crawler poison caltrops and traps everywhere.

Caltrops actually work really well with tin can builds.
In my previous more sneaky run I had to be careful about where to throw them, but this time I can just toss them anywhere.

 

[Forest Dweller]

How are you supposed to disguise your way past grey army base? I literally cannot get out the Magatzin because the soldiers there have a sight range of like 10 and keep bothering me even though I have officer uniform.
I can't even use the combat mode exploit because if I enter that little room near security they immediately aggro.
Edit : Finally did it. Turns out officer uniforms draw their attention. Switching to a guard uniform made them a lot less annoying.

I didn't even realize you could use a disguise in that place until afterwards. I remember earlier in the game I tried putting on some different uniforms and people didn't react to me any differently, so I assumed disguise wasn't even a mechanic. These instances could have been telegraphed better.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Its a mechanic in certain places. Protectorate Warehouse is one such place.

 

[ItsChon]

Can someone explain to me how a crossbow is dealing 80 damage per hit against him when I have metal armour? I thought crossbows get a malus against DT/DR?
I just did the Praetorian Warehouse mission and those crossbowmen were annoying as hell. Just 2 hits and I die in full armour.
I eventually beat it by throwing down crawler poison caltrops and traps everywhere.

Caltrops actually work really well with tin can builds.
In my previous more sneaky run I had to be careful about where to throw them, but this time I can just toss them anywhere.

Post your armor, chances are it's just dogshit. If you're using the Praetorian chest guard your DT is too low to matter, so it's the DR that is being calculated. Even with the malus (125% penalties against DR/DT from armor), you only have 37.5% resistance. Also, what is your health? With just seven constitution you have over 300 health at level 15-16 which should be 4 hits minimum.

Plus, there are a lot of feats that help you tank damage. If you just added conditioning, you'd have 50% mechanical DR with seven constitution and your shit armor. Stoicism if you can take it gives you even more raw damage resistance. Finally, you should be using drugs and even food. Aegis is literally free damage resistance for eight turns. Aegis + Morphine is 65% less damage from all sources for three turns before even taking into account feats and your armor. If you eat a canned meat, you take 5% less mechanical damage too.

You can use the Last Stand feat after taking a shit ton of damage on drugs so you don't take any damage from the Morphine expiring and you get a few more turns to finish the encounter. Finally, get some high quality crafted armor with plates and you'll be shrugging off the vast majority of mechanical damage even before taking drugs.

Tanking is very viable even on Dominating, you just need to allocate feats and crafting to make it work on the higher difficulties, espeically if you're at a lower constitution.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

They must have been pulling off crits then. I just remember getting one or 2 shot by the snipers and crossbows. Thing is even without a crit they deal quite a bit of damage. Crossbows and snipers are a huge threat to my build, especially the crossbow stun.
I ditched the praetorian armour and went back to the steel reinforced Tichrome armour I had. It provides just as much protection (except better heat and energy) with much lower armour penalty. I could get some supersteel but I want to get all the refinement data first; no point spending 3k charons until they are the best.

 

[ItsChon]

They must have been pulling off crits then. I just remember getting one or 2 shot by the snipers and crossbows. Thing is even without a crit they deal quite a bit of damage. Crossbows and snipers are a huge threat to my build, especially the crossbow stun.

Energy shields are a must. You should be able to pick up Power Management which I'd heavily recommend. It basically gives you 35% extra health when used to create an Energy Shield. A 2k capacity energy shield will nullify much of the threat that comes from said snipers and crossbowmen.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I considered that, but it specifies devices I create. My electronics skill isn't good enough to create high tier shield emitters; I tried and even with the house buff it doesn't quite get there. I'm tempted to get the 3 extra DT from vests though, because that I can make.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So turns out after you get at least 37 DT Crawlers literally do nothing to you. I think after I get it past 40 I'll become immune to Death Stalkers too.
So far the greatest threats have been psykers. Especially the fuckers that cast Doppleganger. Geek the mage indeed.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Is it me, or is supersteel complete rubbish? It provides really poor resistances for a material of that reputation. You'd think that a material called SUPER steel that needs 3k charons per plate + data + questline would offer as much protection as steel at a fraction of the weight and armour pen.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Is it me, or is supersteel complete rubbish? It provides really poor resistances for a material of that reputation. You'd think that a material called SUPER steel that needs 3k charons per plate + data + questline would offer as much protection as steel at a fraction of the weight and armour pen.

It has better DR than steel. The only metal with higher DR is tungsten, and even then just barely. Super steel DT does suck, but it needs to be bad in some way or the other metal types would be pointless.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Is that how that works? Well, as long as I can still get it to around 40DT it should be fine.
I estimate that 40-45 DT is when you can start bullying death stalkers.

Is there a way to get out of Lemco without aggroing the pirates or going through Fetid marsh? I just fought my way through the marsh and I rather not again. I did destroy every locust nest I could see (they don't respawn and it makes it so much less annoying without 10 locusts eating up turns), but those sea wyrms are bullshit and I'm sure they've respawned by now.

Edit : Ok, so I managed to get out without aggroing the pirates. I took that scrap jet in the outskirts and skirted around the borders. I had to go...I think I3? Then up one then one right. Doing so will allow you to avoid the pirate aggro range, even on a shitty overburdened scrap jet.

Also, fuck Fetid Marsh. Only good thing about it is the Super Steel Refining data, Spas 12 and free super steel.

 

[Joseph King]

DR and weight are the motives for using supersteel, while tungsten is the final stop for DT addicts.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Too bad I'm running a metal armour shotgunner then I guess.
I'm not sure what I should take for my level 26 perk. I don't know if I should go for nimble to get even more armour pen reduction and become super mobile with spring boots and super steel, or go full auto and go brrr in Tchort's face with a spas 12 (with max specialized barrel stare). Or get gun nut for that +15% damage. Or Juggernaut for big health.
So far I have Paranoid, Yell, Suppressive fire (not sure about this one), Knee Shot, disassemble, Armour Sloping, Leading Shot (doesn't seem to do much? I still have lot hit chances at times), Sixth Shell (5/5 spec points), fragmented chaos, pack rathound, barrel stare(4/10 spec points. The description is a lie btw, it only works in melee range, not close to melee range), Opportunist (I use a lot of cc and it turns out it synergizes with suppressive fire), power management (big shields) and ballistics (free +3 DT)

I guess I could put 3 points in ballistics to get +6DT, but that means barrel stare will only deal an extra +34% damage instead of +40% and that feels wrong.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Is the body horror feat worth it? Taking it drops my resolve from 142 to 100. Do I get some new dialogue options in DC at least?