Underrail [PRE-RELEASE THREAD, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Blaine]

Oh rats, I've fired up Underrail again and hadn't played a psi character before. I didn't realize the psi pool can only be regenerated by consuming solid gold ingots... makes the beginning stages of the game a bit tetchy. Good thing I picked up Guns as well.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Oh fuck that's amazing. I just noticed those in the image.
Styg you're fucking great!

 

[Styg]

Oh fuck that's amazing. I just noticed those in the image.
Styg you're fucking great!

I had nothing to do with that image. It's fan art made by someone from the Codex. I think it's been originally posted in this thread even.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

But seriously though Styg have you seen my father? Middle aged guy?

 

[cherry blossom]

sip

When are these going up? Just downloaded from Steam and not seeing the changes.

I'd like to test the changes/additions while eagerly awaiting the complete game. I've already finished two previous releases and I'm itching to return to it but it's exhausting to start all over for an unfinished game.

Somewhat ironically, out of all Beta/EA releases I've played (including all our favourite high profile games), this is the game that I think needs the least amount of feedback or course-corrections beyond minor suggestions, if any. Especially since the switch to TB *cough*Sawyer*cough*

Going to feel weird to play with portraits after years with the good ol' black silhoette, almost a part of the game's ambience by now.

So true.

How about, instead of full-blown portraits, personalized silhouettes with very subtle bu defining features?

 

[Kem0sabe]

Still needs a map tho

 

[tuluse]

that's gorgeous

also, spot the references, 'have you seen my father... middle aged guy' and TNO face on the right

The dude on the near pillar is wearing a monocle.

 

[Ninjerk]

Should use that painting, it's much better than the default.

 

[SuicideBunny]

The dude on the near pillar is wearing a monocle.

that poster seems eerily familiar....

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Is that the unnamed hero on the right pillar?

 

[Styg]

sip

When are these going up? Just downloaded from Steam and not seeing the changes.

With the next content patch, so not anytime soon.

 

[cherry blossom]

No, sorry. We might add explosive gases later, but don't expect D:OS-level environmental mechanics.

How about simpler things, like barrels that get shot spilling toxic material that hurts to walk over?

 

[agris]

Still needs a map tho

And the ability to add certain weapon mods onto found/bought weapons.

 

[cherry blossom]

That looks pretty cool, cherry blossom. I'm definitively going to do something like that, though I have to figure out how to fit it into the smaller windows. I might reduce the number of categories as you suggested.

Styg, any development on the inventory sort buttons?

And another very minor thing: keycards. Can we get something like a card case to store all the keycards in? They tend to pile up and create such a big useless clutter that can screw with inventory management (I can't be the only one obsessed about trying to strike a certain order with items in inventory).

edit: Another inventory mock-up at lowest resolution, this time without merging categories or sacrificing inventory slots displayed. Mock-up vs. original:

 

[Blaine]

I got the quest to free

Spoiler

Maura from the Protectorate prison, snuck around, disabled two of the security cameras, and finally got the keys after a great deal of annoyance. I was caught by the female guard at the surveillance monitors once, then immediately one-hit by the gamma ray burst pistol she carries. I then tried to confront her later by sneaking in, closing the door, and throwing all of my Psi stuns and big damage abilities at her. She chowed down on a health hypo and one-hit me with the gamma ray burst pistol again. I finally managed to snatch the keys out of the locker behind her, and got out of sight just as all of them started searching. Thanks, security camera. My Stealth is maxed for my level and I'm wearing bonused armor, so I was even able to sneak up the stairs, past two sentries, and walk right out the front door.

...And now the key to the cell appears to be bugged and doesn't work. I tried all sorts of ways of utilizing it. That, or the quest is unsolvable without either 75 Lockpicking or waiting 7+ levels until I can slaughter all of the enemies.

If anyone has any insight into this one, that'd be great. I suspect a bug because I don't see the point in two keys that collectively grant access to one door.

In retrospect, I really should have put points into Lockpicking anyway rather than Persuade, since Persuade's uses so far have been marginal at best... and one or two Persuade successes have then been cockblocked by not also having high levels of Intimidate. I bet there's an absolute fortune locked away behind all those doors I can't open.

Also, I now have 75 Psi Boosters saved up, so in that sense life is good.

 

[Yoshiyyahu]

The easiest and most fun playthrough I had was playing a psi-based character with high INT and maxing all of the crafting skills. I don't think I could play this game again without a character having high INT and at least a few crafting skills maxed.

 

[Blaine]

My next playthrough, I'll probably go with Stealth, Lockpicking, Hacking, Dodge, Evasion, Mechanics, Electronics, and either Crossbows or Guns. I might drop Hacking for Chemistry.

I've found that in general, it's best to constantly max all of my skills. You pick eight, with maybe a sideline or two here and there, and that's about it. Slack on the weapon skill more than once and you're pretty much whiffing, slack on Dodge and Evasion and you're going to get hit quite a lot more, etc.

Speaking of Psi, I just reached the needful area of the Junkyard... and holy cow, no wonder a couple of people mentioned they'd thrown their hands up in frustration upon reaching it on the Shoutbox the other day. I have absolutely no idea how anyone who isn't playing Psi, and preferably Psi and Stealth, could possibly make it through there. Maybe if they're loaded down with grenades? I ended the furry welcome wagon with 9 health left and all my Psi exhausted. Good Lord. I can't fathom how anyone with just Guns or Crossbows and no Stealth or Psi could survive that, not at that point in the game. I can maybe see melee with a fucking amazing sledgehammer and fantastic gear, and at least one +150 health hypos... maybe. I dunno, haven't played melee yet.

 

[Loriac]

If you can craft acid-resistant leather armor that helps a lot at the Junkyard section, but it is a tough area even then.

I really like high-crit pistol builds (with a side of throwing for grenades) with high dexterity - with the AP reduction from high dex, you can put out a lot of damage very quickly. Pistols also tend to have low guns requirements (if any), and with the new pistols recently introduced you even get the kind of utility that is otherwise reserved to special crossbow bolts or psi skills.

I think its great that Underrail allows you to try several, very different, build types and succeed in different ways. The Psi-heavy builds for example seem insanely powerful, but then when you try guns you can get very powerful stealth/sniper builds, high-crit pistol builds, and even heavy-armor/assault weapon builds. Crossbows were the one weapon category that I found a bit underpowered in my playthroughs to date, but its quite possible that this was because I didn't use as many special bolts as I should have done. Still, the crossbow builds have a really nice role-playing aspect, as you can build a survivalist/hunter type who combines stealth, x-bows, crafting (for the special bolts), and possibly dip into one of the psi-skills (metathermics works well to cover AoE with this build).

One thing I found was that dropping hacking didn't feel as painful as dropping lockpicking - and ultimately in both cases you just lose out on a bit of loot all said and done. Its tough not to put points into those skills, but if you want to really use crafting skills I think thats the trade-off.

 

[epeli]

That looks pretty cool, cherry blossom. I'm definitively going to do something like that, though I have to figure out how to fit it into the smaller windows. I might reduce the number of categories as you suggested.

Styg, any development on the inventory sort buttons?

And another very minor thing: keycards. Can we get something like a card case to store all the keycards in? They tend to pile up and create such a big useless clutter that can screw with inventory management (I can't be the only one obsessed about trying to strike a certain order with items in inventory).

edit: Another inventory mock-up at lowest resolution, this time without merging categories or sacrificing inventory slots displayed. Mock-up vs. original:

images

I also like this idea. Some time ago, a keyring was suggested in the Underrail forums, and that gave me a similar idea for inventory filtering - simply adding checkboxes to the inventory filter list.
This would probably be easier to implement, but your button idea seems more user-friendly to me.

mock-up image

I got the quest to free

Spoiler

Maura from the Protectorate prison, snuck around, disabled two of the security cameras, and finally got the keys after a great deal of annoyance. I was caught by the female guard at the surveillance monitors once, then immediately one-hit by the gamma ray burst pistol she carries. I then tried to confront her later by sneaking in, closing the door, and throwing all of my Psi stuns and big damage abilities at her. She chowed down on a health hypo and one-hit me with the gamma ray burst pistol again. I finally managed to snatch the keys out of the locker behind her, and got out of sight just as all of them started searching. Thanks, security camera. My Stealth is maxed for my level and I'm wearing bonused armor, so I was even able to sneak up the stairs, past two sentries, and walk right out the front door.

...And now the key to the cell appears to be bugged and doesn't work. I tried all sorts of ways of utilizing it. That, or the quest is unsolvable without either 75 Lockpicking or waiting 7+ levels until I can slaughter all of the enemies.

If anyone has any insight into this one, that'd be great. I suspect a bug because I don't see the point in two keys that collectively grant access to one door.

Might be a bug. The cell door should need only one key, but:

Spoiler

Do you have the Cell 3 Key? That should be the one that opens Maura's cell. There are keys to the other cells lying around as well. I'm not sure where the keys are, but IIRC a locker in the southeast corner of the surveillance monitor room had the key to Maura's cell. I guess that's the same one you described.

Also, as far as I know, you never need lockpicking (or any other specific skill) for quests, there are always alternative ways.

I've found that in general, it's best to constantly max all of my skills. You pick eight, with maybe a sideline or two here and there, and that's about it. Slack on the weapon skill more than once and you're pretty much whiffing, slack on Dodge and Evasion and you're going to get hit quite a lot more, etc.

Offensive, defenseive and psi skills are indeed ones that you should keep maxed (and preferably supported by good base ability score) since they're checked against the defensive/offensive skills of enemies in combat. Once you get to know all the skills better, gain more levels and know what's needed the most, you can split points into more skills. It's possible to have 14 useful skills on a level 20 char, but that takes some planning with skill synergies and attribute bonuses.

If you find yourself low on skillpoints, consider trying heavy armor builds. They give a good excuse to skip Dodge/Evasion/Stealth, since armor penalty can give up to 95% penalty to those in exchange for massive resistances/tresholds. It also plays completely differently from sneaky glass cannon.

 

[Blaine]

Yeah, it's the Cell 3 Key.

It's bugged. Fantastic. 1,000 Charons would buy a whole lotta Psi Boosters....

 

[Styg]

Spoiler

No, it's the Cell 1 Key.

 

[Blaine]

Spoiler

Right, well, even if I were training Pickpocket, there's absolutely no way to get close for long enough to snatch it until the guards' level-based detection stops being such a huge factor. Nor is there any way to kill her without lots of save-scumming; even if there were, the guy specifically states that if you kill one of them, you have to kill them all, and that is totally impossible.

I just find it odd that the quest triggered when I was level 7. Having to come back later to do a quest or a room is typical RPG fare, but this was specifically solicited to me by the game. Guess those dudes will be standing around the hole expectantly for about fifteen or twenty hours until I'm strong enough to just clear the room.

 

[ghostdog]

So, who of the codexians is Jason Seow, the guy who drew the awesome underrail pic wallpaper ? Frankly Styg you should use that one for the main menu screen. The one you have is good, but that one is even better.

 

[epeli]

Underrail's main menu background is pretty popular target for fanart, here's another one:

edit: source is http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=181448089

 

[Abelian]

Rain? Did the artist not realize UnderRail takes place underground?