Messages

1

Bugs / Re: No Six in Deep Caverns

« on: April 03, 2016, 01:26:42 pm »

I'm curious now - how does the cutscene in the elevator at the end go if he's despawned?

2

General / Re: Medallion (End Game Spoilers)

« on: March 02, 2016, 03:17:40 pm »

When I looked at the flags that controlled the ending, it looked like you always get the message that you never figured it out as long as you have the medallion. So I concluded that there's nothing currently in the game that uses or explains it.

3

General / Re: How to reset Abram's quest state if you've messed it up

« on: March 01, 2016, 04:36:47 pm »

Does this still work with recent save format file changes?

Let me check.

I think so, at least for the purposes of changing quest flags. The global.dat file appears superficially to be the same format as before, and the bytes that I'd change are in the same position.

For the rest of the changes, the new files look substantially similar to the old ones. It looks like the focus was on packing the hundreds of different files into 3-4 16MB chunks, rather than changing the format itself.

4

General / Re: Al Fabet

« on: February 19, 2016, 04:16:33 am »

Elhazzared, dude, it seems you've been into this game for a time now. surely you understand there's more to it than collecting loot and selling it to merchants for shiny coins.

Perhaps to you this isn't an important part of the game and as I said rpeviously, this will just make players not want to go explore and do side quests. Basicly, they will ignore a large part of the game because what is the point? You can't sell it anyway!

As for me, there is more to the game than looting, but if the looting aspect of an RPG isn't good then the RPG is dead to me. I tried to play several times during early access after this horrible system was implemented. Almost all times I wouldn't go past taking the outposts because I couldn't even sell that tiny amount of loot. The one time I went further than that and I wasn't enjoying it very much I went as far as the SGS at which point I rage wuited over not even being able to carry the loot that is on SGS. Not to mention I knew even what I had I couldn't sell probably sell half of it.

The game just loses all the fun once you turn loot into trash. It's kinda the same thing neverwinter did. You spend the whole game, beggining to end in shitty green gear and that poor progression killed the game for me.

Now let's compare when I started playing the game before this system was implemented? Aside from providing good feedback, I classified this game as being the best RPG I had played since fallout 2 and fallout 2 is the RPG of RPGs. Nothing even comes close to it. I made a vid that I put on my Youtube channel showing off the game and giving a few tips as to how to deal with the dificult enemies early on (something probably not needed now as the dificulty was lowered early on). I even started a let's play series which I had to stop doing mostly because I stoped having the proper envoirement (read, too much noise around) to do it, however the patch came relatively shortly after I started doing it anyway so I'd have canceled it anyways. I also advised everyone I knew hat if they wanted a good RPG the likes they haven't seen since fallout 2 to give this a try.

So this is how the game changed for me. From best RPG made in the last decade to the most horrible RPG I've ever played, all thanks to a couple changes. Carry weights which are ridiculously low even on 10 str, mostly because things like metal armor and sledge hammers weight a ton which realisticly make sense, but the truth is that from a gamming perspective they should be lowered for a better playabillity. And the merchant changes which was by far the most weighty thing and made the game completly unplayable for me.

In a game like this, looking for that better piece of gear, killing more enemies for XP and you know, if the next awesome piece of gear doesn't drops, what the enemy drops is what you use to buy it. This does not exists anymore. The world isn't fun to interact with because the most important thing in an RPG was made into trash. Loot! Go play any RPG and loot is the major aspect of the game.

It's not too hard to either edit the game to effectively remove the loot weight, or to edit the running game's memory to set every item to have 0 weight. To get around the merchant sell limits, you could again either edit the game or hack yourself some more money and throw the unsellable loot in a dedicated garbage bin. I myself ran through the game with 3 strength and the Pack Rat feat without doing either, but I know someone who used the Cheat Engine[1] tool to override the carry limit.

I feel like it may be more pragmatic to change the one thing that's bothering you, finish the game, and then move onto something else once you've gotten everything you want out of it.

[1] http://forum.cheatengine.org/viewtopic.php?t=586479

5

General / Re: Lora Baker (endgame spoilers!)

« on: February 03, 2016, 03:14:38 pm »

There's one event shortly after Tchort that might piss the Faceless off. I don't know if she's safe if you do it wrong, but you'll know it when you see it and it'll be obvious how to keep the Faceless happy.

6

General / Re: Modding Support - When?

« on: January 31, 2016, 03:33:37 pm »

The game files are mostly serialized versions of the .NET classes in the game executable. The class names change every time the obfuscator is run over it, but they have tags(attributes) that remain constant. I would estimate it's a week's worth of moderately intensive work to map out the meaning of the tags, parse in the game files, maybe do some simple manipulations(like changing dialogs), and writing out the changed game files. It would be limited to whatever the game engine makes easy.

It's mostly useful for dialogs and inventory: There are many many custom .NET classes embedded in the executable that implement behavior. For example, the NPC that tells you that Abram wants you has a custom class embedded in the executable for him. It would be significantly harder to change these or add new NPCs that require custom logic: It's not really a casual modding effort to disassemble the game with ildasm, add in a class for a custom NPC, and then reassemble with ilasm.  I did something similar when I wanted to change the color of my energy shield to orange. With the obfuscated source, you'd have to change the class you inherit from every time a new patch gets released, since I think the obfuscation process isn't deterministic. Or redo your changes against the new names if you edited an existing class. It's doable in a stable manner if you had the unobfuscated binary, but I can see them equating that with giving away the engine source.

I can see that if there isn't a clear separation between the user-facing dialogs, inventories, NPCs, etc.  and the game engine, that Styg might not want to release the tools because any realistic mod that someone would want to make would require custom .NET code that is annoying to support injecting into his obfuscated engine. Any new items or equipment would require this, as an example.

I don't know though: Even without developer intervention, modders could probably distribute mods as a zip containing patch files for the main game and support files for the dialogs and such. You(or a program on your behalf) would disassemble the game, use the associated tags to map the class names in the disassembly to stable equivalents, apply a patch to load in any additional dialogs or other support files, apply the patch files for new classes(such as items), and then reassemble. The patch files could be created by writing a C# class(the language doesn't matter), compiling to an assembly file, and then disassembling the assembly file. This scheme should be resistant to small bug-fix patches breaking the mod. I don't know enough about the engine to know whether it would be resistant to larger changes, such as if some new area were released or something.

7

General / (Spoilers) Extra Part of Oculus Quest

« on: January 29, 2016, 09:54:11 am »

I didn't see this mentioned on the wiki, but I see in the game's dialog files that there's an entire segment where Twitch allows you to plant a burrower spawn in the Talloski Manor to spy on them, and you can bribe the family members and brag about being the invictus to get in.

I'm not sure what the complete flow of this quest is(such as how to initiate it): I just explored the manor because it was there and ended up finding Wit Nosek. It doesn't appear that Wit says anything different if you follow this more complete questline. I thought I'd mention it in case somebody wanted to add it to the wiki or knew more about it, though.

The relevant dialogs are:

Character: "I need some surveillance equipment to spy on the Talloski family in Core City."
Twitch: "Please wait... ::He hastily types something on the keyboard, then turns around to you. You feel like you have his full attention, as strange as it may be.::

I have just the right thing for you. As a matter of fact, I believe you're already familiar with the piece of equipment I'm about to present to you."
Twitch: "Twitch releases a loud whistle. Almost instantly, you hear the sound of something skittering across the metal floor, something tiny. You have heard this sound before, you remember. A burrower spawn reveals itself and comes toward Twitch, proceeding to climb his leg with quick motions of its tiny legs, going all the way up to his shiny bald head, on top of which it finally rests."
Character: "Don't you have something a bit more traditional? "
Twitch: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Whether you like it or not - the spawn is yours to command. As before, you are to release it in a ventilation shaft of your choosing; it will stay there and... do its job.
Once the spawn is in place, return to me. I'll keep a close eye on everything it sends back. Hmmm, I said, I'll keep a close eye on everything it sends back."
Twitch: "The creature climbs down onto his left shoulder. He brings his mouth close to it, just like Abram did before, almost like speaking to it, but no sounds come from either of the two strange creatures. Twitch then extends his arm toward you and touches your shoulder, allowing the little one to walk across to you. Again, it finds home in a comfortable pocket in which it finally comes to a still."
Character: "Thanks Twitch, I'll be on my way now. See you later."
Twitch: "Take care of it, and see you later. I have to return to my monitors; I've probably missed so much inf-- ::He turns around, instantly gluing his eyes one of the monitors."

After you plant it and ask him what he's found:
Twitch: "That sounded so... ominous. Release the spawn! ::Before you even get a chance to process what he said, he repeats it, as if expecting you to have answered it already.:: I said, release the spawn! Anyway, I am aware you released it, because I already had some information sent by it."
Twitch: "Well, so fa-- ::He focuses on one of the monitors for a brief moment.:: --r, the only thing of any interest was a discussion between a man referred to as Vlatko and his son, Maxim. It appears that their big-screen... ::He quickly glances at another monitor.:: big-screen monitor broke."
Character: "::Let him continue.::"
Twitch: "This prevents them from watching ArenaNow. They seem pretty... ::He focuses on one of the monitors.:: pretty distressed by this"
Twitch: "That is all I can tell you at the moment. Hmmm? Hmmm? I said, that's all for now. ::He focuses on one of the monitors."
Character: "I see... Okay, call me if anything new happens. I'll see what I can do with this information."

After you deliver the spawn back to him:
Twitch: "Twitch stops what he was doing and focuses on the matter at hand. You let the spawn cross over to him, after which they again perform the "silent speaking" ritual. Finally, after their communication is over, the spawn climbs down and skitters away into darkness."


There are some more dialogs with Sophie, Maxim, and Vlatko. I think you can pretend to be a TV repairman, to brag about being the gladiator, and to bribe Sophie with one of the worms from Foundry.

8

General / Re: Unitary lore and story discussion thread (obvious spoilers)

« on: January 29, 2016, 06:41:51 am »

Is there a complete script anywhere? I've been fishing it out of the game files, but some of it(such as the ending) is buried in the executable itself so it's not easily searchable. And these make it hard to see the script as a whole.

Who actually stole the mysterious cube? From the description, I had figured it was an Oculite; but Lora said the name was James Steiner. The only mention I can see of a James is that one of the Foundry guards says "I once pushed James, the coroner, into a pit full of corpses during an investigation. Oh boy, was he mad!" Foundry has an Oculus presence, so it might have been him.

I saw Dude mentioned in the residential logs. He knows more than he lets on. He knows about Six:
"Listen, man. Did you know that, like, six is the most common number? Yeah, even more than one... or zero... or seventy-seven. Aaaand, it has a hidden, mysterious meaning... did you know that?"
"Look - flies. How many legs do they have? Six! Go to Foundry, look at the ground. You'll see a lot of sixes! Core City, the pavement... Six! Hexagon, city in North Underrail? Six again! Why is the sixth sense so special? Because six is a special number, therefore... six!"
"Beware of people with six fingers on their hands. They can mess you up real good, man. Yeah..."

He also knows about the creatures that were haunting Foundry, which were associated with Ezra:
"He leans toward you and whispers.:: Ever heard of psychoturners? I thought not. Those creatures are really, really funky. They use their low frequency psi field to absorb any material they find. Then, like, they can turn into anything, using what they absorbed. It's crazy, I'm telling you."

Leo in the DC mentions having a 'brother' who stayed with him. I think Dude was that person, and that he's referring to either Tchort or Iris when he says this:
"I had this annoying neighbor back in, like, the old days, way back when I was a teenager. She lived in the shack close to ours. I never got along, man, never. Every time I'd go near the shack she'd be, like, sitting all fat and ugly like her mother was, and she would start talking so much it felt like a train was trying to pass through my skull. You know, man, like, she rambled about some stuff no one cares about. I felt like her talking was destroying my brain, like it pushed memories out of my head. I couldn't remember things after talking to her, and I often feel like I was, I mean, like I was gonna vomit."

He says he used to live in a cave and next to burrowers, which is consistent with living with Leo:
"A while ago, I drank too many mushroom brews. Yeah, that can happen sometimes. Anyway, I was walking home, when suddenly the ground rose and hit me in the head! I passed out, and when I woke up I noticed I was in an odd looking cave. I don't live in a cave, by the way. Not anymore."
"Did I ever talk about burrowers? They are fascinating, highly social creatures. Dangerous, but still fascinating. I should know, I've lived with them for a month. That's how I got this scar. ::He points at his forehead.::"

He knows the origins of the Faceless. Maybe the Faceless were a cross-breeding experiment with the Godmen 'High Ones' that came down with the mysterious pillars.
"Well, the Faceless are, as a matter of fact, a very sophisticated race of ancient half-men, half-gods, half-rocks. ::He takes another sip of mushroom brew.:: You see, they were created a long time ago in the fiery bowels of the earth."

And he can communicate with higher beings(maybe the "High Ones"):
"Well, I mostly drink mushroom brew, but I also have visions and communicate with higher beings. While we're at it... ::He turns toward the barkeeper and yells.:: Barkeeper! Another one!"

He learned Bilocate by interacting with one of the pillars. This is consistent with the laboratory in DC that had a bunch of bilocations moving about:
"If you see any weird crystals in the caves - don't shoot them, don't touch them, don't lick them, don't kick them, don't punch them, don't feed them, don't jump over them, don't sing to them. It could be disastrous. It could mess up your mind."



Also, Leo mentioned he pictures of some family. Al Fabet mentions his grandad went down to scavenge and never came back. So maybe they're related(or it's Dude):
"I heard there's good stuff there to be found, yeah. My grandad even went there to scavenge, while the elevators were still working. He never came back."

9

General / Re: (Spoilers) Finishing the Game as a Mutant

« on: January 29, 2016, 04:27:25 am »

I did it by waiting until I killed Tchort to finish that quest, so all the hard work was done as a regular character. Then I did the quest, inhaled some mutagen gas, and took a train out to North Underrail.

That's the easy way. The hard way would be to become a mutant as early as possible and complete a full playthrough. You'd be dominating Underrail hardcore if you could actually do that. I don't even know if some of the plot-critical characters like Six would let you talk to them.

Here's your stats as a mutant:
Strength: 22
Dexterity: 7
Agility: 3
Constitution: 12
Perception: 3
Will: 5
Intelligence: 2

You also get 70 melee skill.

Since you're forced to use melee, maybe you could pick up some melee feats and skills? You might want these skills:

Melee: I think you get 70 free melee skill, but I don't know how it interacts with levelups.
Biology to craft more health potions, since you'll be guzzling dozens of them down and vendors will likely all attack you on sight.
Stealth, Lockpicking, Hacking to avoid fighting whenever possible
Traps: To get a slight advantage picking someone off in a fight
Dodge, Evasion: Generally useful

And these might plausibly be useful:
Chemistry: I couldn't think of anything else you could possible use.
Thought Control: So you can get Locus of Control before you mutate.

10

General / Re: (Spoilers) Mysterious Cube

« on: January 29, 2016, 03:25:10 am »

13. What if you kill Six in Oculus beforehand, so that he isn't around to stop you from stealing the Mysterious Orb?

From the wiki, it looks like he's invulnerable to damage:
http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Six

No idea if he has the same bug as The Beast that lets you Expose Weakness him and then kill him, though.

14. He's immune to Electrokinetic Imprint and TNT while walking to the elevator.
15. You can successfully stop his pathing with a force field, molotov, or exothermic aura. But when the map transitions into the DC elevator, he still teleports in.
16. Locus of Control and Exothermic Aura expire during the conversation so you have no chance to kill him or be immune to his stun while in the dialog.
17. Here's a dialog inconsistency: If you drop the artifact at your feet while in the elevator, it will be dragged up with the elevator with you. However, Six will comment that the Faceless picked it up even though it was with you along.

11

General / (Spoilers) Finishing the Game as a Mutant

« on: January 29, 2016, 02:38:20 am »

If you beat the game after turning into a mutant while gassing the Free Drones, the game doesn't make any comment during the ending. It seems like this might be an oversight.

Most people attack on-sight as a mutant, but the people at Hanging Rat Bar don't seem to mind you. Rude Bob still comments on your ugly face, but that actually seems appropriate as a mutant. I half-expected him to compliment me on how much better my face was looking.

I notice that you lose the Psi Empathy feat, but retain all of your other feats. So you can use Locus of Control, Premeditation, and Psionic Mania as a mutant. Only Locus is useful, though.

I also noticed that a gas mask and biohazard suit don't stop you from inhaling the gas in the first place. It must be strong stuff.

Anyone else find anything interesting playing as a mutant?

12

General / (Spoilers) Mysterious Cube

« on: January 28, 2016, 11:54:23 am »

Is there a way to steal the mysterious cube? That is, to leave the DC with it still in your inventory. I've tried:

1. Leaving it in random lockers: The Faceless find it
2. Leaving it on the ground: The Faceless find it
3. Leaving it on the ground with a force field around it: The Faceless find it, and the force field remains around it.
4. Beginning battle with the Faceless, but running past them: Six takes it from you
5. Getting past the Faceless, but leaving it on the ground before you get on the elevator: Six mentions the Faceless find it despite your foolishness.

I haven't yet tried:
6. Killing every last one of the Faceless in DC, but leaving it on the ground before the elevator.
7. Hacking it into my inventory after giving it to the Faceless(to see Six's response)
8. Hacking it into my inventory after leaving the DC
9. Hacking it into Leo's inventory and then buying it from him once you get past Six.
10. Hacking it out of the game completely before talking to the Faceless, so that it no longer exists at all(just to see what happens).
11. Leaving it on the ground after killing Tchort. I'm sure the Faceless will find it, but I saved shortly after picking it up and don't want to redo the Tchort fight.
12. Inspecting the game code to see if there are any missing dialog options.

Anyone have any ideas?

13

General / Re: How to reset Abram's quest state if you've messed it up

« on: January 05, 2016, 02:41:42 am »

Could someone better explain how to get this save editor to work for a noob like me? I've got mainfile, main.cs and the exe in the same folder as my save but the exe crashes when I try to run it.

The instructions and program are a little thin - I stopped working on it as soon as I got the questline to continue, so that post is something of a quick braindump before I forgot everything. Thanks for giving it a try.

It's a command line program, so you'll need to use a command prompt to run it. It does currently crash if you leave off its command line argument. Try these instructions:

1. Open your Windows command prompt
2. Navigate to the directory holding your Underrail save using the 'cd' command. Use 'dir' to confirm that you're in the right place: You should see a file called 'global.dat' is there.
3. Copy the Main.exe into this directory with the 'global.dat' file
4. Run this on your command prompt:

Code: [Select]

Main.exe unpack < global.dat > unpacked.dat
5. Search for Abram-related strings like 'npc_abram_saidHeWantsEmbassyInfo' in the 'unpacked.dat' file. They should be grouped somewhat close together.
6. Using the hex editor on the 'unpacked.dat' file, change the 01 byte immediately to the right of each Abram-related string to a 00. Save the file.
7. Repack the file by running the following on your command prompt:

Code: [Select]

Main.exe pack < unpacked.dat > global.dat
8. Reload your save, and then talk to Abram.

If you still have trouble getting it to work, let me know which step is giving you problems. I could try moving some of these steps into the program.

Could you elaborate on the hex editing part? I'm changing several 01s to 00s but not sure if I've done it correctly. I'm successfully unpacking - repacking, but my edits are corrupting the save file.

I opened up one of my saves and took a screenshot of the bytes that I would change if I were doing this again. The changes should be highlighted in red in the attachment. All of the red 00s were previously 01s. I don't have a save near this area so I'm unable to test it, but I've used a similar trick elsewhere. You'll notice the byte next to 'npc_abram_toldHimEmbassyHasDogs' didn't need to be changed, because this time around I told him there were no dogs(so the byte remained 00).

If you edit outside of these, it does tend to corrupt the save file. Or if you try to change the name of a flag, or remove a flag's section. It's possible to do these, but they take more work.

14

General / Re: [Spoilers] Buzzer and the Faceless

« on: January 03, 2016, 07:39:20 am »

My understanding of the DC Faceless' dialog is as follows:

* Start with 0 attitude points
* Add 1 point if you finished the Faceless recon mission near Foundry, unless the Faceless near Foundry are at war with you
* Add 1 point if you did not kill the Faceless mindreader in Buzzer's shop, unless the Faceless near Buzzer's shop are at war with you
* Add 1 point if you released the captured Faceless in the Black Crawlers' hideout, did not drop him, and did not attack him
* Remove 1 point if the Faceless group in Buzzer's shop are at war with you(for example, if you attacked them)
* Set the points to -5 if you released the Black Crawler Faceless and then attacked him
* Set the points to -5 if you killed the Black Crawler Faceless by dropping him
* Set the points to -5 if the Faceless group near Foundry are at war with you(for example, if you attacked them)

The dialog files themselves are kind of annoying to read by hand, so you should distrust this next part. But I think I see checks for:
* If the attitude points != 3, then something
* If the attitude points > 0, then something
* If the attitude points > 1, then something
* If the attitude points > 3, then something(this might refer to negative numbers? Or there might be one other way to get a +1 point to attitude that I didn't catch)

If you unpack your save file, the bytes immediately to the right of 'loc_dc_flo_attitudeCalculation' should have the value of the attitude points above after you talk to the commander.

In other words, I don't see a direct reference to checking whether Buzzer was allowed to die. It's possible that saving him marks those Faceless as being at war with you, in a manner that escaped my casual inspection, which would have the same effect.

15

General / Re: Frag Grenades overpowered?

« on: January 02, 2016, 03:12:59 am »

You must have some really weak shields if they get drained by a single frag.

It's a stock shield that absorbs 300 damage. Almost all gone with single frag.

That sounds about right - mine is 712 capacity and it can last 2-4 hits depending on close the frag hits. I also get one-shot without my shields up. I wear light armor because I prefer movement speed, so they really hurt. However, I've always been able to manage, even when I had a weaker shield.

Try using very heavy armor(70% penalty or even more) if there's a specific fight that's bothering you. Sometimes I equip one of those galvanic anti-rifle overcoats with a 20 mechanical threshold and 200% increased threshold against bullets to gain bullet immunity in some fights. It might help you last long enough to pick a couple people off in your fight. Morphine could also help.

You can also try using Molotovs - if you set the grenade thrower on fire, then he's disabled for a couple turns. You could also use shock bolts or similar to stun him. Make sure you initiate the battle on them rather than letting them see you first.

I'll say this though: This game doesn't have a ridiculous power curve like many other RPGs. Most fights I come across still end badly if I don't initiate right, and I think I'm getting close to the end. They only seem easier because I'm better at using all of the mechanics available to me. Frag grenades are powerful, but you do get used to them.