Messages

16

Suggestions / Re: Infusion suggestions

« on: September 14, 2021, 08:22:47 pm »

Before I start replying, I have to mention that the thread title sounds like leather armor infusions, so it's a bit misleading. Maybe change to "Assorted gameplay suggestions?"

Paragraph 2(op): Agi 7(imo) check to universal go up and down the Railway Ledges makes sense but awkward to implement the specific squares you can do it on unless it's smeared across all of Underrail (which just might be ok.. I'm not sure.)

Paragraph 3(op): Strength reduction on armor penalty sounds fantastic. Few builds that use Metal Armor S7-8+ are very amazing overall right now, especially when considering scary ranged psionic threats. I think this is a fantastic buff that helps especially the beefy sledgehammer builds(which are in a weak spot overrall for offensive attack-viable capabilities) the most. Strength as an attribute overall only has 2 related skills so far and I think it overall has great room for a specified buff here. I would implement it as a feat, similar to feats like High-Technicalities but implemented for heavy armor builds. Maybe requires Str 7, "Walking Fortress"?, and reduces armor penalty by 5% per point of strength above 4, occurs after other reductions and is multiplicative? It makes a lot of sense from a logical stand point of a beef-man charging in full-plate or something like that. (specialization should multiply off the the multiplication so you don't reach 100% penalty reduction. maybe every spec point separately multiplies armor penalty by 0.9 again each time, for a total of 41% reduced again multiplier after 5 max specialization points?)


Paragraph 9, 4th from bottom(op): A feat for throwing grenades and/or other aoe combat utilities around corners, off walls or just curved throws like in baseball sounds like a great idea. It sounds really hard to mechanically implement in my personal opinion though.

Paragraph 11, 2nd from bottom(op): Temporal Manipulation, you say it needs a nerf and I can see why in some areas. In my personal opinion, I think you could make Psycho-Temporal Contraction lower all of your offensive skills(other than Temporal Manipulation itself) by like 7% multiplicative during the duration. It should always be allowed as a fun I go do more button for any build willing to take the hp-psi penalty. It's not fair to psi builds to make it cost more psi points. It's typically strongest in the hands of a physical attacker like smg or unarmed imho, as they never need to spend those psi points lost and the movement point bonus for those 2 builds is irreplaceably potent. (they also can end combat in 1-2 turns the easiest other than maybe chem-elec-metathermic blaster, but that guy expends useful psi points and slot on casting). Lowering offensive skills is universally diminishing and allows for the core idea and allure of the time manipulator attack guy to still work right.

Also some people in this thread talking about Con being made stronger via medicines and stuff becoming stronger from a high Con stat and stuff? I could personally see something like a "Sequel Feat" to Fast Metabolism that increases the drug duration and decreases drug penalty durations/effects. Maybe requires Con 8; Fast Metabolism, "Grand Metabolism"?, and makes all drug benefits last an additional (player)turn and all drug and poison penalties last one fewer (enemy)turns. Maybe also increases all healing by an additional 10% multiplicative(137.5% healing total including the prereq feat)?

17

Suggestions / Re: More exotic weapons

« on: September 14, 2021, 07:36:13 pm »

I like both of these. The energy pistol being unique is a good idea instead of just making it function too similar to an energy-pistol variant of cooked shot blob pistol attacks. Since it's a unique weapon it's far less of an issue. I would personally make the aoe-blast a special attack, and give it like a 5 turn cooldown that eats a ton of energy but, that's just me.

If we compare the Toxic Blob Pistol to other blob pistols, I think it'd be good to make the main on-hit effect of 1 stack of Contaminate be a 100% chance just like Cryoliquid Pistol's 100% chance to add a chill stack per hit. The Incendiary Blob Pistol's 40% chance to ignite also fears the majority of living enemies when it procs, so the chance (as a disable effect) makes more sense there. 18-30(x2) split damage is a bit high compared to other Blob Pistols. I'd put it to like, 15-22(x2) even split of mechanical/bio.

18

Suggestions / Re: Tranquility should be being above a health percentage instead of full health

« on: September 14, 2021, 07:15:49 pm »

Maybe 85% like the natural regeneration activation range?

19

Suggestions / Clump of Traps update ideas.

« on: September 14, 2021, 07:06:07 pm »

I got 5 ideas.

Electrokinetic Imprint. Detection difficulty scales off of higher of effective Psychokinesis or Traps skill. (from just Psychokinesis).

Trapper's Belt. Traps skill increased by 15%. Carried traps weigh 30% less. (Trappers worry a lot more about weight than the utility slot I think., especially for mines and blob traps which are 2 weight a piece. The weight bonus does nothing for characters that constantly take off the belt without heavily using their traps, unlike Lifting belt for instance.)

Maybe the Trap Expert feat's Specialization: Speed could be a bit softer at 5% per(5 point maximum) to 85%(from 60 base) reduced speed rather than 10 points for 90% maximum? This one is definitely pretty debatable; not sure if trap-set speed is too broken with stealthing near enemies, but 5 spec points is still decently investive imho.

Allow Deadly Snares to work with Cryo-liquid blob traps? (Unless the ice on the body is proposedly blocking the weakpoints of the target? idk, I think this is a good idea.)

Sure Step - Also walk freely over and on traps you can already see yourself. Could make some feat-owning enemies more annoying for Traps builds that don't invest that much into their Trap detection difficulty and skill, which isn't a terrible idea imo. Also allows trap-heavy player builds to not go insane walking into their traps from a missclick to disarm. Specialization could be changed to (0-10 points) 6% chance per point for rooting or slowing effects to not remove or reduce your movement. (Traps are already not too difficutly for high detection players to play around already, so I don't think that part is too broken.)

20

Builds / Re: Are snipers just terrible?

« on: November 05, 2019, 07:37:35 am »

Snipers.. Think of the classic sniper, you kill and reposition so they can't find you. If you can re-stealth completely successfully, probably with traps and flashbang + decent agility and maybe sprint, they are about as good as a crossbow trapper. Problem is arenas don't always allow you to move, snipers in an enclosed environment obviously worse than open environments, just play any shooter vs game like Halo or CoD. If you can have a good environment, you can kill all easily and take zero damage. Snipers need to lose combat state or are inferior to crossbows which do damage just by trapping.

edit: if the Sniper feat used critical hits, then Anatomically Aware Scope + Critical Power could see more damage than Crossbows per shot, but, since sniper rifles can't abuse Deadly Snares + Critical Power like Crossbows can it isn't easily as effective.

21

Builds / Re: Strength and Evasion are underwhelming

« on: November 05, 2019, 07:21:30 am »

Yea, Strength isn't really all that bad. Carry Capacity becomes more and more impactful as you begin to try and carry different armors to suit different types of enemies. With High Con/Higher Str armored builds, having the armor-type edge in a combat can make you near immortal, especially compared to every other enemy and build out there.

I think very high Strength scores should decrease Armor Penalty(after feats like Juggernaut and Heavyweight check ofc). I think like every point of Strength above the required amount to wear the armor should lower the armor penalty by 5%. But that's just my 2 cents. I mean, having Strength 20 makes sense that your armor doesn't even hold you down imo. 95% Armor pen - (5%x12=) 60 = is still 35% not including helmet and boots, it's not too insane actually.

edit: also has anyone else noticed that Juggernaut-like builds are the only ones who can truly abuse leaving an area and coming back, taking only minor penalties from the opponents getting the first turn. Tank damage that would kill anyone else, throw a powerful grenade, a flashbang, leave the area, come back, lather rinse repeat.

edit 2: One more tip for Juggernauts with Sledge. You can flashbang on your feet with your metal, tinted lenses helmet (make heavy padded for -5+% crit for added tanky bonus) to be immune (just Thick Skull works too but you can avoid the daze easily as well too). Now your opponent has no Dodge or Evasion, now Pummel will guarantee hit. If it's just one opponent, wait until next turn so you don't break their incapacitation until you have full ap again. Now you can use adrenaline + pummel and have 3 guaranteed(95%) hits right after your pummel. If pummel misses at 95%, they won't break from incapacitation so you can just leave and come back or just fall back for cooldowns.

22

Builds / Re: Need opinion/criticism on my psi-monk build

« on: November 05, 2019, 07:11:34 am »

Energy Shields (against most damage sources anyways) grants more health than Con can generally speaking, past level 10 at least. The main benefit of high hp, other than attacks that bypass energy shield, is that HP benefits from armor whereas energy shields do not, and can't be recovered during combat at all.

Con is alright, but high con is faarr better for armored/strength builds. If you have the psi for it, Precognition (not Premeditation!), can give a lot of extra dodge and evasion to an agility/dex moving monk build. Throw in Jumping Bean and Nimble and you have some alright dodging. Can't say for sure if dodging or con is more tanky, but agility helping you move more as a monk sounds pretty core to the build..? Also uncanny dodge will probably do more than con will at higher levels of threat, especially with insane dodge values, you can dodge like 5+ melee hits and have high-impact energy shield for more value. On the higher difficulties you basically have to not get attacked by enemies or die instantly for most builds anyways.

23

Suggestions / Re: Balance + Crafting + QoL Suggestions

« on: November 05, 2019, 06:23:42 am »

Everyone says Psi is broken when they fail to realize that the loss of maximum hp is already incredibly significant. As long as you survive a combat you win. Healing after combat is next to free, every time pretty much, the war of attrition is incredibly easy outside of fighting the entire Grey Army Military Base, which sends in those Spec Ops units and like hoards of soldiers hahaha. (Good source of absolutely extreme looting though!). Just look at how cooldowns of Health Hypos work, and Bandages which are non-combat, these items are genuinely quite easy to amass. The brunt is far, far more threatening than the long haul.

This leads into the only big problem one could see with Psi, that they can use Utility to avoid getting hit in certain combat scenarios.

They can do stuff like do high damage when they want, they can put up a real wall for terrain control, they can aoe enrage a large group of enemies. They just have pretty darn good Utility Potential. It's laughable comparing a psi character to a Str++ Con 10~ build with heavy armor. Even with a high-end energy shield, as long as it's not acid damage, the armor character can survive direct damage for like 10 turns haha. The psionic who plays too aggressively can die easily in 1 turn.

If you want to weaken Psionic characters, you must weaken their ability to control combat encounters. If you do that, small changes will propel off of their lowered hp to be more of a loss than possibly expected.

24

Suggestions / Re: Hunger meter

« on: November 05, 2019, 06:12:22 am »

For optional things like this, another game I've been enjoying, Factorio has sliders for optional mechanics. Perhaps under optional settings when choosing things like Difficulty and Exp System, you could have a checkbox with a slider for playing for "Hunger Realism" for example. The slider would be for how long it takes to need food and go to "stage 1 hungriness". Imo it should be about 30 minutes of gameplay at standard resting position of slider. Just more than the food buff lasts and enough time to reasonably keep up with it at the start.

25

Suggestions / Re: Make Intimidation alternatively scale off of Strength

« on: November 05, 2019, 06:04:01 am »

You're right. Intimidation just doesn't have room on any normal build. Maybe add a feat to make intimidation a 1 feat + 1 full-skill requirement for effectiveness outside of Psi-characters? Maybe the feat could look like this:

"Menacing Presence"
Your intimidation skill is now valued off of your Highest Base Ability value instead of normally, which would then be your Will stat. You also gain a multiplicative +15% value to your effective Intimidation skill.

26

Suggestions / Re: Balance + Crafting + QoL Suggestions

« on: November 05, 2019, 05:50:56 am »

You made me think of something good when talking about Utility Belts. Imo, I've played my Int/Dex Throwing/Traps/Crafting build that uses throwing knives a lot to finish off enemies from potent grenades and traps. I think a feat to properly empower Throwing Builds would be one that gives bonus Utility Slots specifically for Throwing Knives(probably 2 of them imo, can have your normal and bonus poisons as well as grenades and throwing nets truly making it the utility build it is) alongside some other small buff, simply because feats are big investments. Here's my attempt:

"Menacing Pockets"
You have 2 additional Utility Slots specifically for any types of Throwing Knives. You also ignore 1/3rd of your target's evasion rating when attacking them for the first time with a Thrown weapon or Utility. Requirements: Throwing 20.

Additionally, some new item for Throwing Darts that cost like half ap of knives (corely for applying poison) but deal less damage and also then pierce armor less reliably would be pretty sweet.

27

Suggestions / Re: Some ideas for feats for firearm pistols

« on: November 05, 2019, 05:35:25 am »

You right about psionics needed for pistol build, it's a sideways solution. When I saw how Dead Eye would/could seem to work(a lot of shots in very small time), I thought it would be so cool to include Temporal Manipulation as they ""realistically"" per say, fit together(like seeing time stopped haha). I didn't mention it as to say pistols should become entirely psionic builds to be more effective, but rather spewed a fun idea I had that could be incorporated for flavor.

You're right about per/dex for pistols, but don't forget every weapon build's requirements first! For starters here, smg to an extent is per/dex too; heavier weapons require high str- Definitely don't forget that str requirement. Also Snipers are stealth(agility-eske) + movement + perception, Crossbows really benefit from Deadly Snares and are arguably definitely Per/Dex as well for the full-leaning, high value crossbow builds. Sledgehammers need high str and really benefit a lot from high con + heavy armor for full stat-synergy and tactical necessity(sitting ontop of enemies? better not die instantly man!).
    Pistols being dual-stat required isn't directly a problem. It's that pistols aren't damage-to-ap efficient, comparatively to other attack strategies. But pistols(irl; peering at the accuracy, or objective look) are weak weapons, an assault rifle is used in military for standard combat use because of it's advantages. The pistol user must have some advantage from skill or it just doesn't fit right imo.

Pistols compared to Smgs, pistols have way more ap-cost than base-smg attacks but also do more damage(which honestly makes sense but makes pistols feel even weaker, even whilst smgs are also weak like pistols though- as they are hurt more by flat-reductions immensely, off-topically?).

- - -

I still do think feats are the right direction for pistol builds to make them "a self-complete build" as otherwise they would be too essential back-up weapons for all gun builds(even though that would be thematically perfect and ok too?).

In my opinion, an alright start for pistol users is a feat that makes Pistols get increased critical chance based off of your dexterity just like melee weapons do, in addition to the already included light-melee and ranged weapon's ap reductions from dexterity.

Another feat could be added I give would be one that builds off of and requires Gunslinger could add some bonus(maybe just +15% flat universal) accuracy for firearm pistols, separating the build from Smgs which are usually close-range, burst-fire. They would then have very accurate, trusty but steady and slow damage. I know this is just a numerical upgrade but it doesn't feel out of place.

- - -

I also feel that Steadfast Aim is very underwhelming. First off you need str 5 on a build that would be assumed to not take much benefit from being above the 3 minimum..(that's what pistols are like, no big requirement right? Not even Plasma Pistol nor Chemical Pistols needs a Strength score). A single extra ap-cost on a weapon is pretty large and significant in Underrail. This feat here then gives HALF a crit chance per ap above 10, which is basically nothing. At 20 ap(most expensive AR shot base is only 16 ap during single-fire...) you have +5% crit. This feat wouldn't be too strong even if it was just giving a flat +5% crit for firearm pistols (ignoring the alright position of chemical-pistols at least for damage potential, energy pistols can scale off of Int too). If this feat was for firearm pistols only, it wouldn't even be insanely broken to give +10% crit per ap above 10. Critting on a pistol shot for a .44 hammerer is nice, but it still isn't as good as just shooting 3 times(not even bursting) with an AR, if considering just damage in a vacuum. The fact that the AR can burst for 7 shots- or maybe 2 bursts for 14 just blows any pistol out of the water, but for higher requirements, of course.
A better course for Steadfast Aim imo, is to just make Aimed Shot available for firearm Pistols once every round, which then still benefits more heavily to the heavier pistols, just like the feat already does.

28

Suggestions / Re: Some ideas for feats for firearm pistols

« on: November 04, 2019, 09:40:30 am »

I also thought of one more cool one(? self-proclaimed cool at least lol).

"Dead-Eye"

You may instantly spend up to 60 bonus AP on restrictively firearm pistol attacks with 10% bonus critical hit-chance. Costs 50 Psi.
Cooldown: 5 turns.

Requirements:
Guns 85(level "13", buddy)
Perception 7
Dexterity 7
Will 7
Temporal Manipulation 42

29

Suggestions / Re: Some ideas for feats for firearm pistols

« on: November 04, 2019, 09:25:04 am »

nosaM, When considering the buff, you have to take your idea of what a pistol-user is like(the literal imagery you can imagine is a good angle of perspective to start; for me it's often a cowboy like Dutch from RedDead 1/2.) and what a pistol-user both "needs" and "deserves" mechanically. If you give buffs just for buffing sake, all of the builds would have little differences and we'd have fallout 3(a game I love though). For example, thematically and classically the idea of a duel between gunslingers who would test their aim and speed in taking their trusty fire-arm out of their holster makes sense for the feat, Gunslinger(which also appropriately due to sense and balance reason!. gives -3 ap to pistols as well, in a world where str-3-ok smgs and crossbows exist it is a both fitting, niche-like and empowering for the inherently weaker weapon of pistols!)

If I would add something for pistols to be better, maybe a feat-line that branches off of Gunslinger not too-unlike the feat line branches of Aimed Shot(Like the "Snipe" feat) for other Guns weapons.

Maybe a feat based on the thought of a cowboy moving between terrain hip-firing like crazy could be incorporated into an improved version of "Point Shot" that needs Point Shot as a requirement to take, as well as like Guns 50. Here's a try by me:

"Point on the Line"
For every 5 movement points spent moving you can make an additional "Point Shot" with firearm pistols at 25% ap instead of 50%, at slightly more of an accuracy penalty compared to Point Shot.
Requirements: Point Shot, Guns 50.

Another option could be a feat that lets you dual wield smgs and pistols for x requirements(single weapon slot is how it would function; shoots both normally as such now) but has a stronger accuracy penalty for smgs than pistols for doing so, especially if they burst-fire the smgs. Here's a quick go at that idea, although I can't say the balance is perfect so quickly.:

"Dual Wielding"
You may wield and fire two Pistols and/or SMG's in as a single weapon slot to fire both as the same instances of ap expenditures. For weapons with different ap requirements, you fire the higher ap weapon if the lower weapon fired expends enough ap in equivalent to the expenditure of the other's natural cost. Dual Wielding lowers the individual weapon's accuracy depending on the ammo type, increased by 50% more for burst-firing. 5mm is 5%, 7.62mm is 10%, 8.66 is 15%, 9mm is 20% and .44 is 25%. Laser Pistols have 5% accuracy loss, Plasma have 25% and Chemical Pistols have 25%.
Requirements: Guns 70, Dexterity 8

30

Suggestions / Query to make Last Stand actually last 2 turns.

« on: November 04, 2019, 08:43:55 am »

(I put this on steam forums but I don't really care tooo much about discussion as I just want dev(s) to see it so also putting here as it seems to garner more traffic.)

I must initiate this by admitting the perspective value of "for use-on-turn" buffs and "for use-on enemy-turn" buffs. Basically, this feat is a defensive ability that irresponsibly ticks for duration during your turn instead of the enemies'(which is the only time Last Stand will absorb ANY damage; it's the only time you can take any damage). What does this mean? You activate Last Stand(end turn and 1 turn duration ticks off), enemies attack you once, (you take second turn and end, 2 turn tick sets off, now your health is set to 1), enemies attack second turn and you have 1 health and can't even use meager health hypo gain to counter-act your losses. This ability should be improved in one of a few ways, either be activatable during enemy turns, be "3 self-player turns" to get 2 turns of Defensive effectiveness, or it should "proc" at the Start of your third round instead of the End of your second or (said above)third rounds. Ending(resetting to 1hp) at the start of the (player's ofc) 3rd round is the most player-friendly and most fits the feat description.

If nothing else please change the wording to be more proper to the genuine-use of the feat. As it is, it is 1 round of help, not the 2 it emptily promises.