Messages

91

General / Re: Stealth character - SMG or Xbow?

« on: December 16, 2016, 04:44:26 am »

I've never played a SMG character. Have plans to sometime after the expansion comes out.

I've played a couple of xbow chars all the way through. I think they're a lot of fun. Don't expect to mow down enemies in groups. You don't need to kill everything on the map (or anything, sometimes).

I agree with epeli that it's all about the special bolts (and the traps, and the stealth).

That said, there is a useful design for 2nd crossbow that spoiled/system savvy people often take. You might notice it for yourself or you can search on crossbow builds and one of them will mention it. Kinda neat but definitely not required--I didn't know about it or figure it out my first playthrough and got along OK.

Re grenades, I might have chucked a couple molotovs in the very early part of the game but traps are the cc alternative for an xbower. Quick Tinkering is what saves you when you screw up.

92

General / Re: What build for hard mode?

« on: December 03, 2016, 04:35:45 pm »

Ok, I'll play along.

The biggest thing wrong IMO is the heavy investment in melee with AGL 3 and no mobility feats, same as before. You are going to be burning up AP all the time trying to get close to things to smack them, which is wasteful and won't be fun. Or you will ignore all your investment in melee and rely on ranged psi instead, wasteful in a different way.

Going triple psi without taking the really good general purpose psi feats doesn't make much sense. This time you did get Locus of Control, which is good, but if you are playing triple psi and don't take Premeditation and don't go down either of Tranquility/Psychosis, something is probably wrong.

You are overinvested in crafting. 180s in crafting skills and . . . five crafting feats? I think this would be overinvestment for anybody--but it is definitely overinvestment for someone who doesn't understand the game mechanics yet.

You have other weird feat choices. Nimble doesn't make sense with 0/0/0 dodge/evasion/stealth. Snooping is of dubious value for anybody, but on a PER 3 character?

Feats are really important. They define your character at least as much as skills do. Choose them wisely. Building your character feat-first (heh) is a good way to design a character.

Your example char doesn't seem to have a clear concept, the pieces don't seem to fit together, and I don't think you'd have much fun playing it, especially not on Hard.

Here's two alternate pieces of advice for you.

1) Let go of designing a character top-down. PLAY ON NORMAL DIFFICULTY. Pick a primary offense type that sounds fun: guns, crossbows, melee, psi. Make sure your stat points make sense for that primary offense skill. Look over the feats for that offense type, take note of the reqs and keep them in mind as you level up, but don't try to plan out every detail of every levelup in advance. Build your character up level by level focusing first on your primary offense skill. Use your other skill points for defense, subterfuge skills, secondary offense, and crafting, whatever seems useful and fun. This is totally workable on Normal and it is fun.

or

2) Look at Underrail build recommendations, either here from Wildan and others, or there is a dude who posted several to YouTube. Pick one of these that sounds fun and just follow that build advice, either to the letter or very nearly. Make sure the guy seems to know what he's doing (read the comments) but this is likely to get you a new build that can do well playing on Hard.

That's what I got for ya, good luck.

93

General / Re: What build for hard mode?

« on: December 03, 2016, 02:47:44 pm »

This build has similar-but-different weirdness as the previous build. Somewhat stronger, but still seems like a build from someone who hasn't played very much.

Dude, the game is fun. GO PLAY THE GAME.

94

General / Re: First time player, need help preping for the Deen Caverens

« on: November 29, 2016, 11:14:44 pm »

I would say save regular, have some perm saves you can rewind to if needed, and try to avoid unnecessary fights. If you're constantly in combat, look for ways to avoid or ask for help here.

Getting caught flat footed without expecting the transition and getting into too many fights is how I think people really get burned in DC. It is not THAT hard. If you're aware of the drop and bringing consumables you'll probably be OK. If you're really uptight about DC (I am) you can waddle your way to DC, although [spoilers redacted], it is doable.

I do not think you need super gear to do well in DC. End game gear yes, absolute top tier no. Sounds like you've been crafting. If you're crafting up in Q100+ territory that's end game quality and should do ya.

I agree that low freq shielding is (probably) better than high in DC. In some cases you might want the high freq but typically low.

95

General / Re: What build for hard mode?

« on: November 29, 2016, 06:32:10 pm »

There's several things that seem awkward about this build to me. It might be winnable on Hard (very likely is) but it does not seem particularly strong.

Have you played the game on Normal yet? If you haven't, I recommend playing on Normal, not using too many spoilers, and learning the systems as you go along. Of course you can play how you like, but I think there's a lot of fun to be had in figuring out the systems for yourself by playing.

96

General / Re: What builds have you completed the game with? (ENDGAME SPOILERS)

« on: November 27, 2016, 11:12:42 pm »

My first char was a crossbows char and managed to beat Tchort. That was a challenging game all the way through (played mostly unspoiled). Lots of fun.

Played a couple other chars that I never finished, a psi build and an unarmed char. Probably both would have been fine through the end game but I lost interest in them.

Recently played a heavy armor/assault rifles character and won with him also. This was one of the easiest builds despite always going last. (Maybe the unarmed character was easier, he was a terror.) I thought Deep Caverns would be horrible without stealth, but it is not if you know how the spawning mechanism works. I tried fighting Tchort without Exitus and without blowing up any mutagen tanks. Yup, burst burst burst and blooey. Very easy end fight.

Currently running through my first game on Hard with another crossbow character. I had thought to quit rather than deal with DC, but I'm probably going to give in and go for the win having gotten this far.

97

General / Re: Is my build hopeless? (minor spoilers)

« on: November 22, 2016, 04:35:00 pm »

Does that mean that there will be situations where I absolutely can't rely on stealth whatsoever?

Definitely. There are places where you must fight and those places expect you to be a fairly capable fighter. You can limp but you cannot stagger.

I'm a little sad that you gave up on crossbows, but guns are easier, and also fun. Here too, plan your feats.

I think persuasion makes more sense on a 2nd playthrough. Social skills are a bit of a newbie trap. Pity the poor souls who thought they'd play diplomats.

Be warned, you can really get sucked into crafting. Underrail is a combat/adventuring game but it can become a shopping/crafting game if you let it. I have done.

98

General / Re: Is my build hopeless? (minor spoilers)

« on: November 22, 2016, 05:12:51 am »

I really like crossbow characters. There are certainly stronger builds out there, but crossbow + traps is a lot of fun. Crossbows was my first UR character, and I just now went back to crossbows for my first character on Hard difficulty.

Your character is kinda in trouble. Underrail is very much a combat game (stealth sometimes an alternative, but not always). At only L8 I might consider restarting, but on the other hand you still have ~2/3 of your levels and feats left to work with. This char is likely still winnable, but you need to turn your build more toward combat, and you're always going to limp a little from some of your early choices.

(I love UR but it can be a bit cruel to new players who make some mistakes in their first build.)

I would love to build an excellent thief with high Dex and high sneaking skill (so decent Agl?) who also has high enough Per for the secret places and trap spotting. I'd also love to have some persuasion and it seems keeping Will at 4 can do that for me. But crafting is also mandatory, no? And I am quite lost how to make a combat-capable character within these stats. Nerd Commando offers some good builds but now I am a little afraid to tweak them to my liking.

Thieving in UR is (IMO) mainly about stealth. You can steal a lot of stuff with stealth, and it's fun to sneak by big fights, too.

Crafting isn't mandatory, but a crossbow build wants it more than most. You really want to be able to craft the shop-ingredient special bolts, at least. You could pick those up from where you are now. (It takes a while to learn all the angles to crafting. I definitely didn't get it all on my first game. Can be pretty powerful, though.)

Persuasion is not a major skill in the game. You can take it for RPing reasons, but don't expect it to have a big effect on your overall char trajectory.

Study the feats available. (Use Show All Feats or whatever that checkbox is from the feats screen.) Picking good feats is always part of a good build, but as you noticed, a crossbows build is more feat-hungry than most.

Good luck. Glad you found this great game.

99

General / Re: Favorite noisemaker?

« on: November 16, 2016, 03:42:05 am »

Well, frag grenades it is then. Thanks.

100

General / Favorite noisemaker?

« on: November 15, 2016, 04:10:45 am »

Thinking about playing another stealthy character.

I wish I could snap off a few rounds from my pistol when I wanted to attract attention from around a corner.

Since there's no way (I think) to do this, what do you guys use for noisemakers? Frag grenades mark I? Flashbangs? What's the sweet spot for effective, light, and economical?

101

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

« on: October 11, 2016, 06:16:04 pm »

Hurray! Looks great. Will be happy to preorder if you guys go there, or D1P otherwise.

102

Suggestions / Assorted suggestions from a new and happy player:

« on: January 05, 2016, 11:15:23 pm »

To begin, wow, this game is amazing. I have enjoyed UnderRail more than any other game since Fallout New Vegas. Thanks so much for making it.

That said, I see you have a place for suggestions, and I do have some, sorted with most important at the top.

Default walking speed should be faster. There's a LOT of walking in UnderRail. If upping the default walk speed means movement enhancers have to be adjusted, go ahead and adjust them, whatever is needed to let you get around at a faster rate out of the box.

Inventory managment could be improved. There's a LOT of inventory management in UnderRail. If the Split command automatically let you type in a number and hit Enter to split to a quantity, that would be very good. Also, could we get a sort by different traits, like stack weight, value, type, and current shopkeeper purchasability? Instead of just "Sort", have "Sort: W V T S". Especially in the early game I really wanted to be able to sort by weight.

Having a toggle that allowed you to hide weightless quest items and get them out of your inv screen would be nice. I'm (guessing) half way through and I have quite a collection of these now. Maybe simplest way to implement this would be to add a new inventory filter "Everything Except Plot Items" and make it the default.

I like the way fast travel is handled in UnderRail. But there should be more of it! Maybe in Core City there are jitneys at the docks and the metro station who will take you to your house or the Arena or [...] for a small fee. Maybe Foundry has an ore cart trolley system that connects different bits of the town.

I think the crafting interface could be improved. I'm not sure what the best route to this is, admittedly. Maybe a sort feature that lets you sort recipes by Alphabetical, Most Recently Used, Carrying Complete Ingredients For (then alpha)?

The quickbar with shift and ctrl for alternate panels works pretty well. I don't really mind it. But I would have found it more intuitive if there was one key that rotated through the different panels. This would allow for more than 3 panels easily, if that was wanted (3 seems enough to me, but maybe it won't be for UnderRail 2).

I agree with the other suggestion that Auto trading within SGS should use up SGS credits first.

Default font could be bigger. Does UnderRail phone home with player behavior stats? How many people took the trouble to adjust the font size. I bet a lot. Probably an artifact of 7 years of dev time starting on smaller monitors...

Again, thanks for the great game. Have bought copies for friends and family and probably will buy more. I hope Stygian Software gets the recognition and $$$$$$$ that it deserves and this is only the beginning.