Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Strange Fellow]

Made it to the medical centre. Not sure how to feel about the verbose verbosity of visionary visions, but the automatons are cool and remind me of Serpent Isle. In fact, a lot of this expansion reminds me of Serpent Isle. It's a lot more structured and linear than the main game, with more ambitious storytelling, and of course there's the whole naval expedition theme. It's a fun change of pace. Next playthrough I might actually have to invest in the nerd talky skills. They seem a lot more useful in the expansion.

Anyway, just now I javelined some robotman and the electricity damage ricocheted onto a friendly robotman turning him hostile. Good bye, 40 minutes of progress.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I feel like Heavy Duty has spoiled me. In the original game, you knew tin can ARs were smashing, but it felt reasonably comparable to go for a fast knifer/glover, cave wizard, TC sniper, energy pistol crit boy, power fist boy, and so on.

Now, I think you can build up alpha strike nukers of such strength that you literally one-click entire groups of enemies on Dom with one bang, and it feels much weaker to do anything else.

If you do a Heavy Guns build, for example, you can pick up any crusty LMG near Junkyard and shred everything in Depot A (whereas only certain builds could breeze Depot A without grenades before due to limited resource options); then right after that you pick up Thumper, and you can delete entire groups with one or two thumps; then you can get a Fusion Cannon around lv16 and you've essentially got a Plasma Beam with far better range, damage and AOE that can delete anything and everything up to endgame, including one/two-shotting Naga groups. It felt very underwhelming to play around with shotguns, knives, or psi after that.

This would be a complaint, except Underrail's always been about setting up alpha nukes and the fusion cannon is pretty damn fun

This was me after using The Fusion Cannon

 

[BruceVC]

Made it to the medical centre. Not sure how to feel about the verbose verbosity of visionary visions, but the automatons are cool and remind me of Serpent Isle. In fact, a lot of this expansion reminds me of Serpent Isle. It's a lot more structured and linear than the main game, with more ambitious storytelling, and of course there's the whole naval expedition theme. It's a fun change of pace. Next playthrough I might actually have to invest in the nerd talky skills. They seem a lot more useful in the expansion.

Anyway, just now I javelined some robotman and the electricity damage ricocheted onto a friendly robotman turning him hostile. Good bye, 40 minutes of progress.

Its interesting reading updates from someone playing the same game as me at the same time and having similar experiences

Thats one thing that still causes me to restore, I use PSI electricity and it can harm allies and they turn hostile in the middle of a battle

Its happened to me several times and especially when the AEGIS camp gets attacked

I have just learnt to save before complex battles with allies

 

[Corvid]

I have just learnt to save before complex battles with allies

I appreciate the save system a lot. Actually quick quicksave, keeps one previous quicksave, autosave on area change, keeps one previous autosave. Fast, unobtrusive, all I need in 98% of situations. I only used named saves for when I knew serious shit or a faction fork was about to come up, plus once a day in case of major fuckup.

 

[BruceVC]

I have just learnt to save before complex battles with allies

I appreciate the save system a lot. Actually quick quicksave, keeps one previous quicksave, autosave on area change, keeps one previous autosave. Fast, unobtrusive, all I need in 98% of situations. I only used named saves for when I knew serious shit or a faction fork was about to come up, plus once a day in case of major fuckup.

Agreed, what I have also done a few times is leave the active screen in battle to heal

But the problem with that is the enemies are always waiting for me and the aggro doesnt go away and they always win the combat initiative and attack first when I come back

So in many cases its better not to run away but rather get killed and restore and try something better around combat strategy

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

I love cheese. I think you're not fully enjoying the game if you don't cheese these ridiculous chokepoint swarm encounters for the sake of variety.

 

[Technomancer]

I think you're not fully enjoying the game if you don't cheese these ridiculous chokepoint

Gas grenades in chokepoints is not cheese, its tactics

 

[Strange Fellow]

I've never seen a more razor-thin rationalisation for including a puzzle in a game than the music puzzle in the Nexus.

Fun to solve though, and although I don't have the build for the sonic gun, there were enough other goodies in the vault to make it worthwhile (I think, not sure what those Naga specs can be used for yet).

 

[AdolfSatan]

I hated every single puzzle so far, the music one being the latest I did. They break all immersion while being fairly uninteresting, just time wasters. Every other aspect of the Expeditions DLC has been amazing, nonetheless. Completely hooked on the story and lore.
Felt a bit bad for Yngwar because I travelled the map NE to NW, so by the time I reached and struck a conversation with him, I had terminated his entire village with extreme prejudice.

 

[Litmanen]

Felt a bit bad for Yngwar because I travelled the map NE to NW, so by the time I reached and struck a conversation with him, I had terminated his entire village with extreme prejudice.

I did the same and, after having a nice and long conversation with him, I killed him.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

I don't have the build for the sonic gun

Sonic gun can destroy rocks/breakable walls, so it's always useful for that. It's like a jackhammer but way lighter.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Is this bugged, or am I missing something? In the Fetid Marsh, in a place where you have to jump from rock to rock. Nothing happens when I click either option here.

 

[Litmanen]

Is this bugged, or am I missing something? In the Fetid Marsh, in a place where you have to jump from rock to rock. Nothing happens when I click either option here.

It's not bugged. If you don't have enough agility, you cannot crawl there. You should move in the Marsh and probably be killed several times before you can exit the area.

edit: sorry, I read it as "Agility 11".

 

[Strange Fellow]

I've had enough locusts for a lifetime, thanks. I'm pretty sure my character has higher than 1 Agility though.

 

[Litmanen]

I've had enough locusts for a lifetime, thanks. I'm pretty sure my character has higher than 1 Agility though.

Sorry, I had read "11". It is indeed bizarre you cannot crawl. I remember I did crawl (and then regretting it)

 

[Mauman]

I've had enough locusts for a lifetime, thanks. I'm pretty sure my character has higher than 1 Agility though.

Have that hammer handy yet?

Don't worry....any desire for self-harm is natural after dealing with the locusts.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Is this bugged, or am I missing something? In the Fetid Marsh, in a place where you have to jump from rock to rock. Nothing happens when I click either option here.

It's one way, and you're on the wrong side. Hence why it's jump down and not climb up. There are multiple ways through the swamp.
Sucks going through that way, since you instantly get mobbed by the leper army in there. You didn't miss much.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Don't worry....any desire for self-harm is natural after dealing with the locusts.

This is one of the examples of why I said previously that you need to understand the game to enjoy it fully

100% Acid/Bio turns half of the wildlife in expedition mostly harmless

Getting armor with good dmg threshold and bio res makes locusts hunting a time well spent

 

[Strange Fellow]

The problem with the locusts is not that they're particularly dangerous but that the hives spawn two million of them and they each take their sweet time shuffling about and plinking their shitty little poison at you. Fortunately I'm playing a stealth character. I can only imagine the torture of not being able to sneak through these areas.

 

[Strange Fellow]

"hey captain, I've got the Acorn"
"k, I'll give you a thousand charons to fuck off forever"

And fuck off he did. It is possible I screwed something up, and it's also possible that the pirates are underdeveloped when it comes to the whole gathering antiquated junk exercise (it would even make sense, why would the pirates be interested, after all). But it was an abrupt and unceremonious end to the main questline of the expansion.

I still liked it overall. There are many things not to like about it, like the locust swarms, the copypasta Lemurian facilities and the poor encounter design in general. Only the natives were interesting to fight, the strongmen and crabs were snoozefests. They would have been much worse snoozefests if throwing spears hadn't been in the game and I had had to rely on piddling damage from throwing knives and grenades, but they are, and they twoshot everything - a step down from oneshotting everything like they do in the base game, but that's OK. The fact is that even the less inspired dungeons in Underrail are still extra-concentrated RPG exploration crack injected directly into the eyeballs.

Aegis vs pirates was a cool central conflict, and I enjoyed that the expansion forces you to make a hard choice about them. The pirates require you to demonstrate that you're prepared to fuck over Aegis before they'll let you join. I was also impressed by the unique pirate content. Sure it's not a massive chain of quests, but the raids and the assault on the Rig were fun and a nice segway back into the main game. To be honest I was expecting a much more Heart of Darkness kind of vibe from the expansion than Yarr Matey Shiver me Timbers simulator, but maybe you get that if you stick with Aegis. I'll find out next time.

I've read through some of this thread, and it seems I missed a whole bunch of stuff related to Yngwar, the Ferryman, the native village and the monoliths. I figured as much, but it didn't feel as though I had cut myself off from crucial info. Just running the fuck away from the Abyssal station after grabbing the Acorn was cathartic enough. Leaving anything more as a hidden quest/easter egg was the right move, and I'm glad Styg & co weren't afraid of doing that.

Overall I thought Expedition was a slam dunk in a good sense. There's nothing that reaches the quality of the best the main game has to offer, but mostly it's good solid Underrail action. The main thing that strikes me after doing the expansion (and discovering the waterways and realising how much was added even outside of the Black Sea) is how ridiculously huge this game has become. There's an absolutely comical amount of content, which puts most RPGs ever made to shame - indie or otherwise. On the one hand I love it, on the other my character is already level 25 and hasn't even been to Rail Crossing.

TLDR I rate the expansion 7 strongmen out of 100000000000 locusts, spear OP, psi crabs can kiss my ass.

 

[Corvid]

Does Dude react differently (instead of shitting his guts out) if you give him the kind of oil he wants instead of a five-liter can of brake gate fluid I had in my pants for some reason?

Shoutout to whoever said to add the UR folder to windows security exceptions. Halved (at least) the initial loading time right there.

Also, how good/big is the Heavy Duty content (I'm more exploration oriented, kinda meh on just having more weapon types)? I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of stuff in Expedition.

 

[Mauman]

Also, how good/big is the Heavy Duty content (I'm more exploration oriented, kinda meh on just having more weapon types)? I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of stuff in Expedition.

HD is much, MUCH smaller than Expedition. It'd be like comparing a reasonably decent dlc side adventure to a full on old school expansion pack.

As for the quality, it's pretty good. Nowhere near as good as Expedition, but I enjoyed it. Though if you want to get the most out of it story wise, you're pretty much pigeonholed into a stealth/psi build. Don't know how I feel about that.

 

[lukaszek]

Does Dude react differently (instead of shitting his guts out) if you give him the kind of oil he wants instead of a five-liter can of brake gate fluid I had in my pants for some reason?

https://stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dude's_other_quest

Alternatively, if you happen to have a Hydraulic Fluid Canister in your inventory, you can give it to Dude right away and skip the whole base.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Pictured: my unwitting minions at work. I've genocided the rest of the Insitute but kept these alive for meatshields. They don't even know that's what they are. This is not going to net me any karma points.


Unfortunately I think the option to lead the rejects out of dodge bugged out somehow, and I wasn't able to tell them to leg it. Maybe the genocide option wasn't accounted for? It should be - how are they going to get stopped when there's no one left to stop them, after all. I'm just going to pretend they were all fine

Edit: Never mind, apparently it requires a hefty Per check, and I have 3.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Just went down the elevator myself. Gotta give props to Styg, the game is humongous yet the pacing never falters; as soon as a section starts reaching its natural end, you arrive to something new to spark your interest back up.