Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Agesilaus]

I like concussive shots. deal with it.

 

[CHEMS]

I swear Styg sneaked in some update fucking up my roll chances. 70% chance base to crit, 200+ effective stealth, of 5 ambush hits only one critted. I'm missing a lot of 95% shots too

 

[Piotrovitz]

My experience in current run as well - shitload of 95% THC missed, there's no way rng is fucking me that hard

 

[CHEMS]

Something fucky going on, Styg is rigging my game so he can laugh at me

I have 80% crit chance and i must crit

 

[Piotrovitz]

My guess is that DOM has become beatable with too many wonky builds so Styg has rigged the system - now you're playing not only against the game, but against the dev too

 

[Ol' Willy]

I swear Styg sneaked in some update fucking up my roll chances. 70% chance base to crit, 200+ effective stealth, of 5 ambush hits only one critted. I'm missing a lot of 95% shots too

Ambush may not trigger in case of blinking lighting though

 

[Ol' Willy]

My experience in current run as well - shitload of 95% THC missed, there's no way rng is fucking me that hard

I'll collect some hard statistical data and poast it a bit later. THC is very wrong, but so far we are talking personal fee-fees. With some hard numbers we will have some solid argumentation

 

[CHEMS]

I swear Styg sneaked in some update fucking up my roll chances. 70% chance base to crit, 200+ effective stealth, of 5 ambush hits only one critted. I'm missing a lot of 95% shots too

Ambush may not trigger in case of blinking lighting though

Not really the case... Solid ambush conditions, 80% to crit, should be pratically a guaranteed crit. I don't usually get sore over bad rolls, but this playthrough is just feeling off. Lots of misses, low evasion enemies dodging too much, even immobilized ones, the difference is really noticeable.

 

[Ol' Willy]

So, a bit of testing at SGS shooting range. Targets have 0 defensive skillz obviously, but we can test general roll spread at various range/lighting conditions

The shooting is done with 100 shots at a given setting (range, nvg on/off) in a groups of 5 in rows of 25. Used lazor pistol

Bracketed numbers in heading show hits/100, in rows misses/25, THC in heading after range

5m, 95% (96/100)

4 5 5 4 5 (2/25)
5 5 5 5 4 (1/25)
4 5 5 5 5 (1/25)
5 5 5 5 5 (0/25)

8m, 95% (93/100)

5 5 5 5 4 (1/25)
5 5 4 4 5 (2/25)
5 5 5 4 5 (1/25)
5 5 5 5 2 (3/25)

10m, 95% (93/100)

4 5 5 4 3 (4/25)
5 5 5 5 4 (1/25)
5 5 5 5 5 (0/25)
5 4 5 4 5 (2/25)

5m, 86% (90/100)
5 5 3 5 4 (3/25)
5 4 5 5 4 (2/25)
5 4 5 5 5 (1/25)
5 4 4 3 5 (4/25)

8m, 77% (77/100)

4 5 4 4 4 (4/25)
3 5 3 3 4 (7/25)
3 5 4 4 4 (5/25)
3 4 4 4 3 (7/25)

10m, 77% (78/100)

4 4 5 4 5 (3/25)
3 3 3 5 3 (8/25)
5 3 4 3 4 (6/25)
4 5 3 5 3 (5/25)

The general spread is well within the normal deviation, even reaching 4% in favor of the player at 86% THC.

What is interesting here, in my opinion, are the clusters of misses. Setting 2, the very last cluster has 2/5 hits at 95% THC. Setting 3, the first row has 4 misses/25 shots, which is more than the misses in the rest 75 shots combined. The last setting has the first row with 3 misses/25 shots, which at 77% THC is very generous to the player, while the very next row compensates for it with having 8 misses

The next test is by using native software and is not that detailed, nor as thorough. For laser, 10m:

For electropistol, 5m:

Once again, the overall spread is perfectly normal.

So far, the conclusion is that while the general spread is alright, these clusters of misses (which definitely happen during regular playthroughs) really rustle your jimmies and create the perception of fucked up THC. The fact that I managed to get this 2/5 hits at 95% THC outlier just on a second hundred supports this

 

[ItsChon]

I'm convinced there is some sort of seeding in the game regarding hit chance. There have been times where I'll start a hard fight with a shot that has a 30% THC, expecting to reload several times until I get it. On my first go around, if I hit that shot, I can expect to hit it way more than 30% of the time on subsequent reloads. Similarly, there will be fights where I'll have a 70% THC, and if I miss the first go around, subsequent reloads will lead to me missing way more than the 70% THC would suggest. Sometimes it's helpful while other times it's harmful, and while I've never proven it, I'd swear that this is the case.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I'm convinced there is some sort of seeding in the game regarding hit chance. There have been times where I'll start a hard fight with a shot that has a 30% THC, expecting to reload several times until I get it. On my first go around, if I hit that shot, I can expect to hit it way more than 30% of the time on subsequent reloads. Similarly, there will be fights where I'll have a 70% THC, and if I miss the first go around, subsequent reloads will lead to me missing way more than the 70% THC would suggest. Sometimes it's helpful while other times it's harmful, and while I've never proven it, I'd swear that this is the case.

I can tell you for sure that trader inventory is indeed seeded and is not generated at random at every refresh. Easy to see with trader refresh and reloading, so that's that

 

[jackofshadows]

Not sure about seeding at all guys. To me both thc and traders might be true random. But let's ask our more persistent residents about that? Eidein

 

[normie]

whatever it is, it generates the results in what feel like batches
just like with Battle Brothers, but there it's all over the shop because it's applied in so many places you'll be paying attention to - on top of hit and miss strings, all the shops will be spawning the same type of uniques in a shop update, all over the map you'll have the same distribution of types of recruits down to traits etc etc

but we already know the solution

styg ship a fucking physical random noise number generator that you plug to your computer, because the real grognard RPG fan won't settle for these artificial like nvidia frames rolls. Accept that.

the people want a real physical random noise number generator, make it shaped like mysterious pillars

 

[Ol' Willy]

just like with Battle Brothers, but there it's all over the shop because it's applied in so many places you'll be paying attention to - on top of hit and miss strings, all the shops will be spawning the same type of uniques in a shop update, all over the map you'll have the same distribution of types of recruits down to traits etc etc

The majority of things in Underrail outside of combat are not RNG based. It's trader inventories, random encounters, loot on corpses, possibly container loot (could be generated at the start though), critter movement (people move in deterministic pattern outside of combat). Add to it that the engine calculates only things that happen on the location the player is in, the rest of the gameworld is frozen in time.

Even then, 95% THC means, roughly, that you you roll a D100 dice; 1-5 means miss, 6-100 means hit

As I said, the general spread seems alright, but bad rolls are for some reason clustered together

 

[Spark Mandriller]

I swear Styg sneaked in some update fucking up my roll chances. 70% chance base to crit, 200+ effective stealth, of 5 ambush hits only one critted. I'm missing a lot of 95% shots too

Some enemies have crit resist so it might be that. Same way you can raise/lower your crit resist with helmets or tabis or recklessness or other things.
Sucks fighting industrial robots on a crit build and seeing your 100% crit chance turn into what feels like 10%.

 

[CHEMS]

I swear Styg sneaked in some update fucking up my roll chances. 70% chance base to crit, 200+ effective stealth, of 5 ambush hits only one critted. I'm missing a lot of 95% shots too

Some enemies have crit resist so it might be that. Same way you can raise/lower your crit resist with helmets or tabis or recklessness or other things.
Sucks fighting industrial robots on a crit build and seeing your 100% crit chance turn into what feels like 10%.

I'm telling, they reworked something under the hood. 94% base crit chance and getting ONE crit out of ten shots is not normal even with crit resist enemies. Styg must have cranked up the resists, i'm reaching critical levels of bullshit over here

 

[CHEMS]

I swear Styg sneaked in some update fucking up my roll chances. 70% chance base to crit, 200+ effective stealth, of 5 ambush hits only one critted. I'm missing a lot of 95% shots too

Some enemies have crit resist so it might be that. Same way you can raise/lower your crit resist with helmets or tabis or recklessness or other things.
Sucks fighting industrial robots on a crit build and seeing your 100% crit chance turn into what feels like 10%.

I'm telling, they reworked something under the hood. 94% base crit chance and getting ONE crit out of ten shots is not normal even with crit resist enemies. Styg must have cranked up the resists, i'm reaching critical levels of bullshit over here

 

[Piotrovitz]

I'm running with firearms vers build atm and it is kind of fun but fuck, it comes online pretty late.

Bullet time requires 5/5 spec points to make significant difference, which delays pumping vers and makes you lagging in thc/dmg.
It's also so damn feat hungry that you don't have much room to fiddle with mixing in melee (cutthroat etc).

energy/smgs work pretty good with vers, but with firearms it's better go the PER route imo

 

[lukaszek]

firearms it's better go the PER route imo

firearms are odd as they require more feats and points put into guns skill.
And for that reason my vers runs with them were stopping short, it just felt like im forcing synergy

 

[Piotrovitz]

yeah, that's what I feel too.

Late game, like lvl>22, vers route is probably stronger than PER, but at this stage it doesn't really matter anyway.

If it wasn't for refurbished thumper I'd probably dump this run.

 

[lukaszek]

yeah, that's what I feel too.

Late game, like lvl>22, vers route is probably stronger than PER, but at this stage it doesn't really matter anyway.

If it wasn't for refurbished thumper I'd probably dump this run.

firearms for a long time had a certain niche - no need to get into crafting.
However its no longer alone since we received high end lazor gun in dlc

 

[Ol' Willy]

I'm running with firearms vers build atm and it is kind of fun but fuck, it comes online pretty late.

Bullet time requires 5/5 spec points to make significant difference, which delays pumping vers and makes you lagging in thc/dmg.
It's also so damn feat hungry that you don't have much room to fiddle with mixing in melee (cutthroat etc).

energy/smgs work pretty good with vers, but with firearms it's better go the PER route imo

Interesting, my experience was quite different. I had more knife feats and pistol (.44 Hammerer to be exact) was still dealing enough damage. Obviously, pistol takes time to come online, but this is why you have the knife and throwing (no reason not to invest in it given the maxxed DEX).

Though I was running SI, I think SI fits just perfectly into versatility builds as you can make a three stat build. Start with 10 DEX, 9 CON and the rest into INT

 

[Ol' Willy]

And as a little personal contribution, my smol guide on how to get through Deep Caverns as quickly and painlessly as possible. This would be well known by experienced players, but may be useful to newcomers or people who drop their runs on reaching DC. This presumes not collecting mutagens though.

Crucial gear

CAU armor + biohazard boots + aegis helmet

This gives you 100% acid and bio resistance, making certain enemies completely harmless. Just make sure to keep an eye on its condition lest you lose protection in the most unfortunate moment.

CAU armor could be obtained during respective protectorate/free drones questlines. In case of protectorate, check on Frazer after gassing the drones, he will give you the suit as a gift from Mareth. If siding with drones, it could be obtained during planting explosives mission. Trio of CAU soldiers will appear after alarm gets triggered. They are boss characters and have x4 HP, so to make matters easier you can kill the entire base stealthily and trigger the alarm yourself. Alone, they're not much of a threat.

Biohazard boots could be found on a map just north of crimson meadow entrance in expedition, in hive infested area. No need to kill the hives if you don't want to, just stealth past one hive and pick them from a locked box. Requires high hacking, if you don't have it, Constantine rarely sells a pair. Hard to get them without trader refresh this way though.

Aegis helmet is the easiest to get, just join the aegis and get one. Could be replaced by regular gasmask, but aegis helmet is better as it has more durability.

Tesla armor + electropadded boots.

This gives you 100% electric resistance and makes coil spiders harmless. Just make sure to unload all charged gear before engaging them, no harm, but it's annoying to reload it after getting emp.

Tesla armor sits at lemco in expedition, in spider infested warehouse.

Boots require at least 130q of galvanic padding to reach 15% res. Don't know where to get it reliably, I'm usually lucky with drops and merchant inventories. Leather doesn't matter.

Fursuit/ninja suit + good tabis.

Not strictly necessary, but makes you move faster and minimizes the time spent at Hollow Earth. Fursuit also makes rathounds friendly, and DC has quite a number of rathounds.

Lemurian engineer suit + electroinvestigative belt

Engineer suit sits at nexus of technology, belt is given at the institute if you join electric department. Engineer suit provides good bonuses all around, but in context of DC you may bring this gear to reach 140 electronics, would be needed at Arke. If you already have 140, or can't reach it, not really necessary.

JKK jacket/heartbreaker armor + heartbreaker tapki + white dude cocktail.

Once again not necessary, but bonuses to persuasion improve echoing soliloquy feat. Don't bother if you already have 150 effective persuasion.

The route

After getting to DC and talking with Six, immediately go to mushroom forest. The game wants you to use biohazard suit, don't do this, it's awful. With aforementioned set-up, the chompers would be the only psymorphs capable of damaging you as they deal mechanical damage, kill them first. Styg was merciful and we no longer have to stack spore infestation, the area to the far south has a hole we can jump right down to reach the heart.

Afterwards we are forced to go through the hollow earth. Take on your fast gear (fursuit, tabis), if you have Sprint, spam it and spam combat mode. Dread doesn't stack in combat mode, so, depending on your MPs, you can cross the half of the map without getting a single stack. Don't enter stealth before you get the eye debuff. Hollow Earth is completely devoid of enemies (sans one campy industrial bot), and stealth only slows you down. Enter stealth, obviously, only after getting the eye.

The first area has nothing of interest, there's a bunker right ahead to drop dread stacks. Head down east then.

The next area has Leo's knife on one of the tchortists, pick it up and leave south towards Caerus.

Here's when sucking to Faceless starts paying off. They won't help you much, but at least won't be hostile. Faceless patrols are nothing special, but respawning gaunts could be a major asspain. You can kill Faceless mindreader to save Buzzer and still have them friendly by the way.

Corner around hollow earth and move north until you reach the three-way intersection. To the west is Leo - give him the knife, get the feat, pick one hydraulic fluid canister and leave. Leo sells stuff, but he doesn't accept any money, only pure barter.

To the east is the Faceless outpost. Not necessary to visit at all.

And to the north is Arke. As annoying as it is, it had to be done. If you can kill robots quickly, my advice don't even bother with stealth, it will be much quicker and less annoying.

Spider basement could be circumvented with 11 PER check in toxic room, or spiders could be cheesed with Tesla armor.

140 electronics allows us to power all objects of interest, so we won't have to return here later.

Arke bossfight is necessary only to get red AI core for the repair bot. You can skip it and repair the gate manually if you have 115 mechanics and pick mechanic toolset (plenty of those are scattered around), but I say it's easier to go with an AI core - it doesn't weight anything unlike the toolset.

Once Arke is done we backtrack to Caerus. First stop is toxic warehouse we have already passed by, it has hydropneumatic accumulator and two more hydraulic fluid canisters, easiest to get.

Caerus is infested with spiders, so it's Tesla armor time again. Here we need only hs-89 shaft and Maria Hope's keycard in some of the apartments.

The next stop is for you to choose. Hydraulic valve could be obtained either at the end of labyrinth or at Tithonus lab.

Deep worms are harmless with our 100% acid res (just make sure to keep your distance, they can quickly end you in melee), but it's quite a slog regardless.

Tithonus is closer and quicker, but dealing with ghosts is unpleasant if you are not a TC cave wizard. Ghosts have true sight, but their detection range is short, thus, your effective stealth doesn't matter at all. All in all, pick your poison.

After all is ready, we can finally move in. Start from the east, from Faceless territory towards research complex. Step into Tithonus lab to drop dread stacks (and get the valve if you chose this route), exit, go south to make special gas grenades, return to Tithonus. Exit and continue east into the gassed area, drop into a bunker to drop dread stacks again. From here, we have to be really quick.

Once we reach mutagen tanks A gates, we don't really have to go into its basement, we don't need anything here. But this basement allows us to drop dread stacks. It's your call, you may skip it.

Upon reaching Tchort gates, drop the gas grenade and head to the basement. It will, just like the previous one, allow us to drop dread stacks while bot is repairing the gates. Without mechanic toolset, the total weight of spare parts would be just 35 units.

If you move fast and don't stick around you may avoid engaging a single tchortling, as well as backtracking minimized as much as possible.

 

[Piotrovitz]

firearms for a long time had a certain niche - no need to get into crafting.

you mean W&S or hawk?

W&S comes early but it's quickly outshined by any crafted 44 hammerer with RR/smart, I've used it briefly in offhand for free shot, but eventually swapped it for thumper. I guess you can get by only with W&S if you're into larping.
Hawk otoh comes too late and has too high AP cost.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Interesting, my experience was quite different. I had more knife feats and pistol (.44 Hammerer to be exact) was still dealing enough damage. Obviously, pistol takes time to come online, but this is why you have the knife and throwing (no reason not to invest in it given the maxxed DEX).

Though I was running SI, I think SI fits just perfectly into versatility builds as you can make a three stat build. Start with 10 DEX, 9 CON and the rest into INT

All depends on build and your mileage I guess. I still suck at DOM and am taking deadweight feats like sprint or aimed shot just to have early game easier, which is gimping me in the long run, especially with feat-starved builds.