Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Jermu]

so domination is pretty much no go for "blind playthrough"?

I played 100% blind except for planning out my build. Was great. There were a few VERY hard parts of course, but in my experience as long as you have stealth, there's nothing you won't be able to overcome, really.

okay domination it is then

 

[lukaszek]

1. how useful pickpocketing is for oddity playthrough?

very. Certain oddities you can get early/without angering faction.

2. how much I gimp myself if I skip all psi related skills? I don't want to check wiki too much to see how useful those skills are

how much you gimp yourself by not using viagra? You will be fine without any blue mushrooms

so domination is pretty much no go for "blind playthrough"? (I don't remember anything anymore) guess I should pick hard then. I did full psi build last time which if I recall correctly was way too strong

i remember playing on normal at first and I did start over at one point not because my build turned out to be meh, but because normal is just too easy. Judge game by hard.
Dominating and blind might work provided you educate yourself on mechanics. Otherwise you will restart a lot. If you want to finish with subpar build then hard is likely better. What dominating changes are bosses, certain enemies are upgraded to higher tier(like crawlers, or meeting plasma sentry in depot a) and traps are harder. Also economy but only poor guys with smgs care about that.
Point is - its not really unfair, most of the times. And its hard for us in here to compare because we run with meta knowledge. I get good gear and xp before I even engage them rats

 

[Andnjord]

was faster than I thought only took 20 minutes

5 str (no idea how much str sniper rifles need but can add 1 or 2 str if needed later), 6dex (traps/grenades still undecided which or both), 6agi (sprint op, not sure about interloper which is 7agi), 3con, 10per, 3will, 7int (7 int seems to be breakpoint for most crafting related feats + gun nut)

start with aimed shot + sprint

Hah, these are exactly the stats I took for my own sneaky sniper, at least I can tell you it can beat the game on normal! 5 str is enough for all the sniper rifles save only one unique that you can do without. Grenades are awesome and I'm sure you've spotted the Grenadier feat. Traps I didn't try but they should synergize well with high sneaking allowing to prepare the battlefield. Interloper is more of a quality of life, Gun Nut might be worth it on hard, on normal I felt like I was already overkilling most stuff without it (but 7 int is already worth it for the large amount of skill points it'll save you on crafting skills).

Good luck and enjoy

 

[Jermu]

already getting filtered here guess I need to go back and buy some consumables
can't rly sneak past these fuckers (managed to sneak past rest of bugs)

 

[lukaszek]

View attachment 50612
already getting filtered here guess I need to go back and buy some consumables
can't rly sneak past these fuckers (managed to sneak past rest of bugs)

yeah sneak wont work. So this is your first dom thing, buy caltrops, bear traps, molotovs and come back.
yes, your build does not matter!
With sneak and those 3 consumables you can get out of depot a on dom

 

[Piotrovitz]

I'd say Hard is the perfect difficulty for going blind - it leaves some room for fuck ups and suboptimal builds but still remains somehow challenging, kind of like POTD in Pillars.

DOM can be too ragequit-inducing, depending on your personal tolerance. I know I wouldn't bear it on my first run myself.

 

[jackofshadows]

View attachment 50612
already getting filtered here guess I need to go back and buy some consumables
can't rly sneak past these fuckers (managed to sneak past rest of bugs)

Spoiler

kinda funny that if your build is strong, this is the hardest part of the entire game

 

[Andnjord]

guess I need to go back and buy some consumables

To add to what the duck said, throwing nets are also pretty handy against them.

 

[CHEMS]

View attachment 50612
already getting filtered here guess I need to go back and buy some consumables
can't rly sneak past these fuckers (managed to sneak past rest of bugs)

Search in this thread for "total azuridae death" and you'll find one post that i've made teaching how to deal with them in DOM

 

[Jermu]

ended up needing 3 bear traps + 4 molotovs
guess the lesson is buy every bear trap + molotov + grenade from now on

cryokinesis was pretty great for early, you can spam it like 30 times before needing to use blue potion

gms compound was decent challenge mainly routing wise, used turret to kill raider leader's gang too
still no sniper rifle (at junkyard now no need to tell location for it) but 44 pistol is pretty decent

 

[lukaszek]

cryokinesis

guess the lesson is buy every bear trap + molotov + grenade from now on

yeah preparing battlefield in advance is my fav part. Another bit about dominating: gas grenades. almost useless in depot a so keep that in mind, but unlocking it should be your priority.

oh and yet another thing to be mindful of: various enemies will fight each other and you SHOULD learn how to use it to your advantage. HINT: explosions to force enemies to investigate

gms compound was decent challenge mainly routing wise, used turret to kill raider leader's gang too

huh, never thought of doing that? Doesnt it kill hostages?

 

[Cyberarmy]

cryokinesis

guess the lesson is buy every bear trap + molotov + grenade from now on

yeah preparing battlefield in advance is my fav part. Another bit about dominating: gas grenades. almost useless in depot a so keep that in mind, but unlocking it should be your priority.

oh and yet another thing to be mindful of: various enemies will fight each other and you SHOULD learn how to use it to your advantage. HINT: explosions to force enemies to investigate

gms compound was decent challenge mainly routing wise, used turret to kill raider leader's gang too

huh, never thought of doing that? Doesnt it kill hostages?

Hostages won't move most of the time, I always use the turret if my character can operate it.

 

[Piotrovitz]

AFAIK the turrent is located in the corridor so it can kill only 2-3 raiders who are wandering there. The leader and his pack in the room with hostages has to be clipped separately. Or can you keep turret on and lure the leader out somehow?

 

[Andnjord]

AFAIK the turrent is located in the corridor so it can kill only 2-3 raiders who are wandering there. The leader and his pack in the room with hostages has to be clipped separately. Or can you keep turret on and lure the leader out somehow?

If you come at them from the kitchen side you can drop a Molotov on that door and hide forcing them to path through the corridor door to reach you, thus passing in front of the turret.

 

[Jermu]

ye I just shot leader to lure + sprint so gang ends up middle of corridor where turret is, then molotov em and fuck off so turret solo's em
hostages survived np

also cryokinesis was free so did not see reason not to get it, still 0 points in psi skills. I probably check psi spells later to see if theres any funky buffs / cc I want

 

[Piotrovitz]

ah, good to know this, never really thought of luring the leader/rest of the room out, since even on DOM they're not that tough anyway.

On psi - never bothered with anything on previous runs, but since I discovered temporal acceleration I can't imagine life without it now.
Requires only 55 pts in TM and it saved my ass many many times.

 

[CHEMS]

huh, never thought of doing that? Doesnt it kill hostages?

You never did this? WTF?

It doesn't kill the hostages. You can lure the raiders, lock yourself in the turret control room, pass a few turns until the combat ends and immediately activate the turret.

 

[CHEMS]

On psi - never bothered with anything on previous runs, but since I discovered temporal acceleration I can't imagine life without it now.
Requires only 55 pts in TM and it saved my ass many many times.

You discovered the nerfed version, but it's still busted as fuck. When TM came out, it had absolutelly no drawbacks. Contraction didn't have any chance of causing dilation, it was free action points with zero risk

 

[Piotrovitz]

Haha that's fucking bonkers. With dilation in play at least you have some pressure to finish the combat fast, same as with adrenaline.

If anything, taser should be toned the fuck down now and it's effectiveness tied to the quality of components used.

 

[lukaszek]

huh, never thought of doing that? Doesnt it kill hostages?

You never did this? WTF?

It doesn't kill the hostages. You can lure the raiders, lock yourself in the turret control room, pass a few turns until the combat ends and immediately activate the turret.

never occurred to me to try since that group is so weak + as I said id expect that turret would kill hostages. I usually just enter from the kitchen, throw grenade, 3 enemies rush to me and stop on my bear traps, game over. Even knife thrower wasnt struggling there lol

 

[Andnjord]

It doesn't kill the hostages. You can lure the raiders, lock yourself in the turret control room, pass a few turns until the combat ends and immediately activate the turret.

That sounds a lot cleaner than my Molotov throwing shenanigans. Wouldn’t they try to open the door though?

 

[None]

It doesn't kill the hostages. You can lure the raiders, lock yourself in the turret control room, pass a few turns until the combat ends and immediately activate the turret.

That sounds a lot cleaner than my Molotov throwing shenanigans. Wouldn’t they try to open the door though?

The turret is enough to keep them occupied, I've rarely had them kill it. Plus you can just lock the door.

 

[Andnjord]

Plus you can just lock the door

Wait!
Wait…
You can lock doors?

 

[None]

Plus you can just lock the door

Wait!
Wait…
You can lock doors?

Yep. Through all the hours played and with time I can't think of many times I've done it though. Maybe in Depot A to let mutants hang out with some mines and fire? Generally not something I've taken advantage once I get to a decent level.

 

[Jermu]

lvl 10 now should probably skip some non important skills (diplomacy, pickpocketing, mercantile) and pump crafting skills more now. also I got 0 points in dodge / evasion should probably dump some points into evasion
sniper rifle feels pretty trash compared to other guns but I see how far that takes me (you rarely get enough distance to take advantage from full range)
burrowers can fuck off
pretty much every enemy 1 turn kills me which is fine but requires a lot of f9 spam sometimes

went to rail crossing first but got filtered by burrowers so getting some upgrades in core city now before I can handle em (don't want to kill faceless gang)