Messages

106

Builds / Re: New Player looking for SMG build

« on: January 06, 2017, 04:27:21 pm »

How much of an investment is needed? I assume it's easier to lob a grenade at a tile than a knife at an eye. ;-)

Well, yes and no. Grenades function as AoE weapons, while Throwing Knives are more targeted attacks. This difference, while small, means that they perform very, very differently from each other. When you throw a grenade, you are guaranteed to (in my experience) at least affect the tile you select, but your grenade may veer wildly off course and may only graze your target (or, worst case scenario, may even damage yourself or any friendly characters nearby, thus aggroing them and forcing you to reload your previous save in order to actually finish the game). The higher your Throwing skill, the greater the likelihood that your grenade is actually going to land perfectly on the tile you selected and have the effect you want it to.
Naturally, the precision of your throws drastically decreases the farther away the tile that you select is from yourself. It's... finicky stuff.
If you really intend to use grenades frequently and don't want to have to save-scum every battle you fight, then I suggest you pump Throwing up to 50 and leave it there.

Is Stealth an all-or-nothing skill?

Nope. If you equip gear that boosts stealth, consume food items that boost your Agility, and retain the Agility score of 7 you previously listed, then you can definitely get away with just putting 50 skill points into Stealth as a base. It's very easy to get 135 or more effective stealth even with just an investment of 50 points.
Or you can do none of that and just live with a Stealth stat of 50, which is by itself capable of getting you through the game if you intend to use Stealth Mode rather frequently (albeit with some frustration come the end-game, as is to be expected).

I'm afraid I can't exactly answer your last question about Armor Penalty, as I don't really understand exactly how Armor Penalty works, myself.

I hope this helps!

EDIT: For example, even if you have a base Chemistry stat of 0, the synergies and Intelligence bonus (alongside other items or locations that boost your Intelligence stat) can give you even up to 60+ effective Chemistry skill, allowing you to crafting awesome grenades and decent Mutant Dog Leather Armor.

According to Epeli's character build tool, this is not true. You can only get 13 effective Chemistry if you max Biology, no matter what your Intelligence is.

Ah, shit. I forgot that Chemistry is only synergized with Biology. Damnit.
Guess I was wrong about that part. Sorry!!

107

Builds / Re: New Player looking for SMG build

« on: January 06, 2017, 02:47:34 pm »

Tailoring allows crafting of ballistic vests, right?

http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Blueprint:_Tactical_Vest
Yes. High Tailoring is also important for crafting Leather Armor, Riot Gear, Leather Boots & Tabi Boots, Balaclavas, and gloves for melee builds.

Are Suppresive Fire & Opportunist useful straight away? Won't I run out of ammo?

Yes, definitely. Ammo will be scarce for the first 7-ish hours (or until you get past Depot A), but if you make sure to purchase some from vendors every chance you get, and you complete sidequests and kill all the raiders you meet, you'll have enough to survive. Don't feel bad about purchasing ammo with your hard-earned credits. You will literally be swimming in money by the end of the game, since you're going to be (presumably) crafting almost all of your gear, anyway.

How does INT figure in with crafting? I read you need 6 or 7 for crafting, but never a "why".

You don't need high Intelligence for crafting. All Intelligence does is boost your effective crafting skills beyond what they would be if they were just based on the skill points that you manually invest in them alone. Basically, it gives you a leg up on your crafting and allows you, if you so choose, to put less skill points into all of your crafting disciplines, because your high Intelligence and the synergies between them will boost them up beyond what you invest.
So, it's very important, but not crucial. You can certainly survive as a crafter with 4-5 Intelligence, but your skill point distribution will suffer as a result.

EDIT: OH, and having a high Intelligence stat also unlocks a half dozen or so very useful crafting feats, but none of them are downright crucial, either.

Are the crafting skills usable right away, or do they need more leveling first?

The higher the quality of the components you are using for crafting, the higher the skill requirement. So, it might be a little while before you can actually craft a piece of armor or gear that is better than what you would find in the field, but you can still craft anything so long as you meet the skill requirement of the components. For example, a quality 20 Rathound Leather Hide requires a lot less skill points to be turned into Leather Armor than a quality 50 Hide. This will become more clear once you actually dive into the game.

Also, would I need to keep raising these skills, or can I leave some skills after a while and pick up others?

With a high Intelligence stat and the synergies between all of the crafting disciplines, you can avoid raising one of your crafting stats and so long as you can really beef up all the other disciplines, you can still accrue enough effective skill to produce some decent quality gear. Ultimately, how many skill points you invest into crafting should be a reflection of how high you want the quality of your gear to be.

EDIT: For example, even if you have a base Chemistry stat of 0, the synergies and Intelligence bonus (alongside other items or locations that boost your Intelligence stat) can give you even up to 60+ effective Chemistry skill, allowing you to crafting awesome grenades and decent Mutant Dog Leather Armor. Ignore me, I'm dumb.

And just because a piece of armor doesn't use quality 160 components doesn't mean it's not worth creating. Every little bit of DR helps.
Besides, you can totally make it through the game with zero crafting skill at all, so don't stress about it too much. Focus more on your damage-dealing and defensive skills before you put all your chips on your crafting skills.

Also, how useful/necessary is Stealth?

Stealth is extremely helpful for any build, regardless of player experience or skill, but it is not strictly necessary to put skill points into it to complete the game. Certain quests will be a lot easier if you can stealth, yes, but you can just wear gear that boosts your stealth stat and you can probably complete the quest so long as you don't have a high armor penalty. As of the latest build, Version 1.0.2.2, there are officially no quests which (to my knowledge) strictly require you to stealth (so long as you have high Persuasion and can wear Metal Armor, that is).
Given that you're running 7 Agility, though, I see no reason why you would not want to use Stealth. It is a massive advantage.

108

Builds / Re: New Player looking for SMG build

« on: January 05, 2017, 03:12:05 pm »

I'm thinking about this for a starter build. Is it any good?

http://underrail.info.tm/?build=AwGloRhBmEA4QHYQFYk3RN4wi7yNfHYvbMg3U0BAFmCA

For a first playthrough, that's actually a pretty good build, and I'd probably run it myself. Your selection of Base Ability points seems fair given that you want to take Hacking, Lockpicking, and 3 of the Crafting Disciplines (always good for a first playthrough). Your Skill Points distribution is great, but I would encourage you to trade your 15 points of Chemistry for 15 points of Biology every level-up, so you can get the nice stat bonuses that the meds can provide you. Chemistry is mainly used for things like Mutant Dog Leather (which is pretty unnecessary once you get past Depot A), grenades (which will just get you killed if you have no throwing skill, especially considering you're gonna be up in all your enemies' faces all the time), and special bolts for crossbow builds.
Smart move taking Dodge over Evasion, considering that you're basically wielding a shotgun there.

As for your feats, I would suggest that you switch out both Conditioning and Paranoia for Suppressive Fire and either Opportunist or Gun Nut.*
You could also get Aimed Shot, as well, but for a SMG character that's obviously less important.

tl;dr: Switch your feats for Suppressive Fire and Gun Nut or Opportunist, and switch out Chemistry for Biology (unless you enjoy save-scumming every time you throw a grenade and blow yourself up).

*EDIT: Again, this is just a suggestion. Both Conditioning and Paranoia are actually some pretty good feats, and I can tell from your build that you're putting a focus on Initiative. While that is certainly useful, the fact that you can just initiate combat whenever you want and guarantee yourself the first attack simply by pressing ENTER kinda diminishes the usefulness of Initiative outside of giant group battles and the Arena. If you want to keep one, I would suggest you retain Conditioning and ditch Paranoia, just because you're unlikely to see stealthed targets before they see you unless you already know where they are or you have 10 Perception, which you don't need for a SMG build.

109

General / Re: playermade maps

« on: January 05, 2017, 02:53:07 pm »

Hi there, I've noticed a small part that is uncharted on this map and since I don't really know how to do it myself, I'll say what I've found missing so that hopefully someone can add it and make the map complete.

From platform 1 next to south railroad outpost there is a way west. This area is to be designated as platform (?). This platform then has a connection north and leads to platform 5 (the entrace to kidnaped train, the way isn't open for me but I guess it's because I haven't got the quest or I need to blow the door open with explosves). From there it connects north to platform 4. Now there are 2 more uncharted passages. Through the platform there is a passage north with leads to platform (?) which is a dark area. In here there is a ladder that gives passage to a room within the same map. The place is infested with crawlers. There is a hole in the wall which leads into a cave and inside the cave there is a hole in the ground with a passage down, this is just a small arena with a black crawler. After exploring this the platform has an exit north again leading to platform (?). It is also a dark area and it has 3 crawlers inside a small room as well as some lurkers. This area also has another passage north which connects to Platform 2 which is close to rail crossing.

So it's just those 4 areas. The 3 platforms that connect south railroad outpost to rail crossing and the black crawler arena.

These zones were added with Version 1.0.1.4 to make it easier for players to find the Missing Train during its respective quest by simply following the tracks from SRO (where the train departed from) until you hit Rail Crossing, as opposed to having to do it the other way around like you did in the EA releases.
I know there was a guy on Steam who was creating his own map of Underrail with this new segment included, but I haven't heard from him nor seen an update of the map since he started making it half a year ago, so I guess he must have just abandoned the project.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other areas that were added in 1.0.1.4 or in the newest experimental build (up to Core City, at least), but I did notice that it is now possible to access lu-a6 from lup-a2 without having to use TNT, if it wasn't before.

110

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #50: Experimental Branch with Version 1.0.2.2

« on: December 30, 2016, 11:10:49 pm »

I'm slowly working my way through a new playthrough on this patch and everything is running great so far. I can confirm that killing the Old Citizen in GMS no longer breaks the game (yay, genocide!), and it seems to me like a lot of old areas have been touched up a bit visually since the last patch. Maybe it's just me.

I love that SGS soldiers now show up when you clear out the outposts, and I'm kinda surprised by just how many there are! One of them actually patrols around!
I haven't been upping my Intimidation stat because I'm testing out Mercantile, but I wonder what would've happened if I left M'lan Ratula alive in the last outpost? A peaceful coexistence, perhaps?

Working my way through Junkyard now, and I am really excited to see the changes to the Elwood quest (finally!!).

On another note, I haven't noticed any significant changes to dialogue so far besides improvements to the Feat descriptions, but I did kinda gloss through Old Jonas' text so I may have missed it (unless the option for him to give you directions to Junkyard is new; I did notice that).

All in all, it's working great so far. Thanks, StygSoft! <3

EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention (but found incredibly humorous) is the fact that you can now tell Gorsky about how you helped out the people being held hostage by raiders in GMS even if you totally massacred both the raiders and their hostages, and his response will be the same as if you had just killed the raiders.
Yes, Gorsky, I certainly "helped" those poor souls. xD
Cheers!

111

General / Re: is the loot totally random?

« on: December 30, 2016, 10:55:55 pm »

When it comes to humanoid enemies and NPCs, the items that they carry (weapons, armor, shields, etc.) are static in type but variable in quality. That is, a Lurker Cut-Throat will always carry a knife of some kind (shocksteel or otherwise), but the quality and economic value of that knife varies from playthrough to playthrough (unless you somehow reset the seed that generates the quality, I presume). It seems that the quality of a given weapon/armor drop will vary within a certain range, depending on the particular enemy in question, but this could just be a fluke.
Unique items are a little bit different, in that (IIRC) their quality values are static, as well.
Respawning, wildlife-type enemies obviously don't carry weapons and take their loot randomly from a pool of possible items and qualities specific to the enemy in question.

When it comes to containers like lockers, hack-able boxes, and barrels, I have absolutely no clue how the loot is determined. Sometimes it seems random, sometimes it doesn't; I imagine it's probably dependent on the specific container in question and whether or not it contains an oddity.

112

Bugs / Re: Very first quest broken/bug? *solved*

« on: December 27, 2016, 04:35:11 pm »

As odd as it sounds, I would not rely too heavily on the Notes tab for giving you detailed information on quests, objectives, and criteria. The notes are really only intended to serve as little reminders of quests that need to be completed, and will never provide a detailed list of objectives in step-by-step order.
While it is unconventional, I honestly recommend that you turn to the Underrail Wiki whenever you are stuck, but keep in mind that this naturally gives you access to spoilers and information on future quests and concerns.
Since the Notes tab is rather bare-bones, it is important that you, yourself, have a good note-taking system where you can write down objectives, names, quest information, etc.
Perhaps the Notes tab will be improved with the upcoming expansion, but 'til such a time it should really only be considered a brief To-Do List, or a list of boxes to be checked, if you will.

113

Bugs / Re: Bug during GMS mission

« on: December 14, 2016, 09:35:12 pm »

However, the good news is that this patch could perhaps, maybe - probably arrive quite soon, we hope, so stay tuned.

Ah, yes, the good 'ol Styg answer of "probably this month, almost certainly this year, and definitely in my lifetime."

Kidding aside, I patiently await the next patch and look forward to the day when I won't have to constantly answer this question on the Steam forums.

114

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #49: Temporal Manipulation

« on: November 19, 2016, 08:03:08 pm »

Those with keen eye and sharp wit may already have seen something similar in the game...

Boy, with all the time-related jokes and mechanics in this game, I think I'm developing vertigo! ...Timelapse Vertigo!

...

I'll see myself out.

I regret nothing!

115

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #49: Temporal Manipulation

« on: November 18, 2016, 04:40:13 pm »

Pretty interesting new psi school, Precognition makes me think if will work with characters with massive armor penalty (95%), meaning I will have dodge/evasion like a Nimble character?

If I'm reading the description correctly, it says that Precognition increases your Dodge & Evasion by a percentage of your skill level in those categories, so if we assume the maximum gain is 25% (because I've noticed that Styg likes to make 25% the maximum for all these percentage-based skills/feats ) then your Evasion and Dodge would still be getting reduced by 70% due to your armor penalty (or 55% with Nimble).

116

Bugs / Re: Intricacies - 1.0.1.4

« on: November 13, 2016, 08:59:23 pm »

I have to know: is it possible to kill Six with that gas grenade bug? If I read the text in those images correctly, it looks like it was dealing damage to him.

117

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #48: Veteran Levels

« on: October 26, 2016, 08:11:21 pm »

Like, who cares about Major Supplier at this point? He hasn't yet even talked about the base game improvements they've done to Mercantile!

Improvements to Mercantile?!
"Gentlemen, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention!"
Let's hope it will actually be worth my skill points now!

118

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #48: Veteran Levels

« on: October 26, 2016, 01:18:17 am »

Very interesting! The point that Veterans will not receive any more skill points or base ability points is saddening, but I totally understand why you've made that decision; the player would certainly become even more of a god at that point.
I am a bit concerned that the "significantly more experience" necessary for each level-up after 25 may become a serious problem for Oddity-style players, but I imagine that the (expected) volume of oddities to be added with all the new areas in the expansion will more than help to alleviate this concern.
It also seems to me that Veteran feat examples provided are very... generic, and I can't honestly see myself choosing any of the three examples provided here (I mean, living on half of your base health? Pure psi builds already have to cap constitution to survive as it is!), but you yourself stated that they are liable to change, so I expect that some more interesting feats will be provided as things come together. If not, I suppose that generic upgrades are still always better than no upgrades!
All in all, I'm excited! Keep up the good work!

119

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #47: Announcing Underrail: Expedition

« on: October 11, 2016, 03:27:56 pm »

Words cannot express how beyond ridiculously excited I am about this expansion. I don't care about the price; an Underrail expansion is worth more than gold to me!
Everything looks stellar so far. Bravo, good sirs! Do continue!

120

General / Re: Introducing our new "developer, probably not spambot"

« on: October 07, 2016, 11:37:13 am »

Welcome!!
It makes me happy to know that Stygian Software is (slowly) growing bigger. I hope Styg is treating you well.
I look forward to seeing your work; some of the older models needed a little updating.