Messages

1

Let's Plays / Crowbar Build

« on: August 06, 2021, 07:52:35 am »

After a long and grueling journey, Underrail has been beaten with nothing* but a crowbar on DOMINATING difficulty. I documented fights I deemed most interesting in the playlist below, but rest assured, this is how the whole game was played, from the very start to the very end, no exceptions whatsoever. I want this to be the ultimate proof that there's no such thing as "unviable". Enjoy!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTBWJPIny2Y288L2eM0Mfr-rH8P-dLsOV

*crowbar was the only thing I was allowed to use to interact with enemies. So no dirty kick, no taser, no grenades, no utilities at all, not even blades on metal armor to proc taste for blood, etc. I was however free to buff myself with drugs/psi and to use enviromental hazards.

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Bugs / Re: Ice Tower debuff bug

« on: August 06, 2021, 07:33:01 am »

That's not technically a bug. 100% DR vs. anything also provides immunity to DR lowering effects. This was added a long time ago to prevent killing "unkillable" NPCs (Six, Tanner, Beast, Arke Cameras, etc.) with things like corrosive acid.

3

Bugs / Pneumatic hammer incapacitation doesn't make enemies lose sight

« on: August 06, 2021, 07:26:41 am »

Unlike all other incapacitation sources in the game (pretty sure I checked all) pneumatic hammer doesn't drop detection to empty orange eye. It stays at full red, meaning it's impossible to restealth until it drops to orange after about 2 turns, if the target is still incapacitated. Doesn't seem intended.

4

Bugs / Commando Specialization - negative AP and more!

« on: February 23, 2021, 12:44:01 am »

Commando with 3 specialization points should award 9 AP after killing an enemy with a burst. This is what usually happens, but there's a few weird interactions with other AP sources that make it award less AP or even take AP away from the player. There's only two that I was able to find out and reproduce without fail:

1. If the weapon has a rapid reloader, triggering its AP bonus within the same burst as commando (but before commando, not after it) causes commando to award only (burst AP cost - rapid reloader AP bonus). Example:

The player has an SMG that has a base AP cost of 8 with the rapid reloader equipped. 7 after the DEX reduction. This means their burst AP cost mentioned above is 14.
The SMG also has a 25% chance of giving the player 4 to 8 AP on each shot.
The player uses their 9-shot burst, the rapid reloader gives them, say, 6 AP on the 2nd shot. The enemy is killed on the 6th. The player should be awared 9 AP regardless of what the rapid reloader gave them - but, because of the bug, will only get 8 AP instead, because 14-6=8.

Picture of this actually happening in-game:
https://i.imgur.com/n4uOBBQ.png

Note: This would not happen if the 6th shot killed the enemy, but one of the remaining 3 shots triggered the rapid reloader AP bonus after the kill. In that case, 9 and 6 AP would be awarded.

2. The same will happen if one gets the rapid reloader refund with a sniper rifle (or by using Dragunov) while having the shooting spree active. Since the rapid reloader bonus can easily get over the burst cost of an SMG, this can result in negative AP "bonus" from commando. Example:

The player has the same SMG equipped, but also the Dragunov in the other hand. The player activates Shooting Spree, uses Aimed Shot with the Dragunov, kill the enemy - 30 AP is refunded by Shooting Spree, 15 from rapid reloader. The player then switches to the SMG and gets a kill with one burst - since 15 AP is more than the 14 AP required to burst, the player is awarded -1 AP, which does in fact reduce his total AP by 1.

Picture:
https://i.imgur.com/TSikaRg.png

Note: This doesn't happen without shooting spree active. No idea why.

5

General / Re: Sniper sidearm (why pistols are underrated)

« on: May 14, 2020, 08:06:05 pm »

It's a pity that from what I've seen on my previous play, I found bullet casings to be very-very rare.

There's a 30% chance to get a spent case in your inventory each time you shoot. You could go as far as buying ammo from traders, then shooting it all at the SGS range to get more cases.

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General / Re: Sniper sidearm (why pistols are underrated)

« on: May 14, 2020, 07:42:37 pm »

Also, taking the high damage output of sniper rifles into account, the 7.62mm Micro-Shrapnel rounds does seem more devastating. Also made up of materials that are perhaps one of the easiest to access.

It is quite good for increasing damage with non-crit hits. It may even be worth making before you get your hands on AP ammo blueprint. But once you can actually make AP ammo, you're much better off using your spent cases on that, being able to use AP without worrying about conserving it is much better. You will probably have it much sooner with mercantile, too.

It's kind of demoralizing to hear about the enemy number increase though considering I plan on playing Oddity this time. Not much to do about it I guess.

Oddity is the better system regardless of how many enemies there are. But hey, the more enemies, the sooner you will max out their oddities, so you will level up a bit faster on oddity as well.

7

General / Re: Sniper sidearm (why pistols are underrated)

« on: May 14, 2020, 07:24:45 pm »

As for our rifle, the approach is the exact opposite. We can ditch the Spearhead for a Rapid Smart Corsair 12.7mm with AA scope

Sorry, but that's a terrible idea, unless you are trying to handicap yourself to make the game A LOT harder. The ability to shoot twice with spearhead with base 50 AP and 3 or even 4 times with bonus AP is an overwhelming advantage compared to just once or twice with other sniper rifles. Especially on DOMINATING, which throws really big swarms of enemies at you. Smart A-A spearhead can easily 1-shot almost everything in the game, with the exception of only a few boss enemies on DOMINATING, so you will be essentialy cutting the amount of enemies killed each turn in half. And there will be a lot of them on DOMINATING. Really, a lot.

and boost the whole thing with Gun Nut (which benefits Corsairs the most).

Gun Nut is a pretty bad feat in general. The DPS increase is minimal and unreliable due to only increasing the upper damage range. It's an especially bad feat for sniper rifles, since they are not about sustained DPS, they are about reliable 1-shots. Increasing the upper damage range won't make them more reliable in any meaningful way since the lowest possible damage will stay the same.

With it's much higher move and shoot penalty, Strafe would no longer make a difference and can be switched for further damage overkill with Blindsiding.

But why would you want even more overkill? That's investing into wasted damage that doesn't benefit you at all. The only way it could benefit you is if you wanted to kill all DOMINATING bosses in 1 shot, but that's hardly worth giving up the ability to shoot twice which is much more important 99% of the time. Or if you wanted to see big numbers just for the sake of it, I guess, but it won't make the actual game any easier.

Contaminated rounds seem so good, although I never used them yet.

They're rather bad, actually. 20-60 bonus damage is nothing for a weapon that reaches into thousands and only shoots once per turn. The cloud of toxic gas is also not much help, since you will 1-shoting everything anyways. Contaminated rounds would work much better with any gun OTHER than sniper rifles.

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General / Re: Sniper sidearm (why pistols are underrated)

« on: May 14, 2020, 07:23:11 pm »

As for our rifle, the approach is the exact opposite. We can ditch the Spearhead for a Rapid Smart Corsair 12.7mm with AA scope

Sorry, but that's a terrible idea, unless you are trying to handicap yourself to make the game A LOT harder. The ability to shoot twice with spearhead with base 50 AP and 3 or even 4 times with bonus AP is an overwhelming advantage compared to just once or twice with other sniper rifles. Especially on DOMINATING, which throws really big swarms of enemies at you. Smart A-A spearhead can easily 1-shot almost everything in the game, with the exception of only a few boss enemies on DOMINATING, so you will be essentialy cutting the amount of enemies killed each turn in half. And there will be a lot of them on DOMINATING. Really, a lot.

and boost the whole thing with Gun Nut (which benefits Corsairs the most).

Gun Nut is a pretty bad feat in general. The DPS increase is minimal and unreliable due to only increasing the upper damage range. It's an especially bad feat for sniper rifles, since they are not about sustained DPS, they are about reliable 1-shots. Increasing the upper damage range won't make them more reliable in any meaningful way since the lowest possible damage will stay the same.

With it's much higher move and shoot penalty, Strafe would no longer make a difference and can be switched for further damage overkill with Blindsiding.

But why would you want even more overkill? That's investing into wasted damage that doesn't benefit you at all. The only way it could benefit you is if you wanted to kill all DOMINATING bosses in 1 shot, but that's hardly worth giving up the ability to shoot twice which is much more important 99% of the time. Or if you wanted to see big numbers jst for the sake of it, I guess, but it won't make the actual game any easier.

Contaminated rounds seem so good, although I never used them yet.

They're rather bad, actually. 20-60 bonus damage is nothing for a weapon that reaches into thousands and only shoots once per turn. The cloud of toxic gas is also not much help, since you will 1-shoting everything anyways. Contaminated rounds would work much better with any gun OTHER than sniper rifles.

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General / Re: Sniper sidearm (why pistols are underrated)

« on: May 14, 2020, 04:14:55 pm »

Why overinvest so much in Hacking, Lockpicking, and Persuasion?  Just for ease of play so you don't have to gear swap to hit the thresholds?

Persuasion is just for fun, I like having it and wasn't sure what the highest check in Expedition was at the time. Both hacking and lockpicking are high enough to open absolutely everything in the game and hack IRIS. I may have forgotten to include the huxkey/jackknife in the builder. The build is not starved for points at all, it's not that important. Those skills are anything but set in stone, it all depends on whether I find some really high quality components that would require more investment in a particular crafting skill, if I want open a particular thing at the time, etc.

I'll see if I'll end up missing Blindsiding as much or not.

Snipers really don't need it. Snipe doesn't need a 15% damage increase, the Aimed Shot you will use right after coming out of stealth doesn't need it either, both are overwhelmingly likely to overkill anyways or just not make a difference. It's almost a wasted feat.

I'm also interested in seeing how much difference Mercantile makes.

It's a nice thing to have, can potentially get you best quality components towards the end of the game. That and nice jet skis, some drugs, etc.

Also, what was your armor of choice?

Tac vest until you get an energy shield. Maybe siphoner/mutant dog leather just for Depot A. After you get an energy shield, either keep using a tac vest with a laminated panel and regen vest, or a sturdy riot gear with reinforced panel if you want better anti-melee protection, especially if you want to have a chance of not being killed by a death stalker in 1 turn. After you do the Beast and get high quality supersteel, upgrade to infused leather pig armor with high density padding. Crazy good mech DR, especially vs. melee, with crazy high HP bonus for sufficently light armor penalty.

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General / Re: Sniper sidearm (why pistols are underrated)

« on: May 14, 2020, 03:04:44 pm »

Strafe is extremaly good for sniper rifles, I wouldn't make a sniper build without it. I'd pick it earlier if I was to play again, like in this non-psi version:

11

General / Re: Sniper sidearm (why pistols are underrated)

« on: May 14, 2020, 02:28:53 pm »

It's a waste to use it against random critters, it's not made to fire regular shots like a Falchion. But performs best when doing special attacks.

That's actually a bad thing in the context of being a sidearm for a sniper build. Hammerers, especially .44 ones, perform the best when using Aimed Shot to capitalize on the crit damage. Thing is, Aimed Shot is the bread and butter ability of sniper rifles already, so now you have two weapons competing for being used with it. It's better to save your Aimed Shots for the rifle and go with a secondary that doesn't need it that much. That said, later on, when you start stacking your crit chance, hammerers can still be a decent choice. I beat the game on DOMINATING with the build harperfan posted, by the way.

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General / Re: Sniper sidearm (why pistols are underrated)

« on: May 14, 2020, 12:28:48 pm »

I've been saying that pistols are underrated as a sniper's sidearm since forever, but for somewhat different reasons.

The way I play my sniper builds, the sidearm is only ever used to provide utility and when the sniper rifle cannot be used effectively. The biggest and argueably only selling point of SMGs and shotguns over pistols is the pure DPS advantage, which I do not much care for, since it's the rifle that is supposed to be the actual damage dealer 99% of the time. Pistols on the other hand provide +7 initiative with Gunslinger, which is great for me because I like stacking high initiative on not-so-tanky builds in case the stealth approach failed or isn't possible (arena fights, fights started via dialog, etc.). Both SMGs and pistols can use Kneecap Shot, which is a great ability for snipers to have, but pistols have better range with less precision drop over distance and a Neo Luger frame which has an inherent 5% precision bonus. I only care about Kneecap Shot hitting to slow the enemy down, which pistols will do much more reliably than SMGs will thanks to that precision advantage, especially against high evasion enemies like, say, death stalkers. This is why you will see me recommending a laser sight Neo Luger in the picture above, to maximize that precision bonus. Even the DPS gap between SMGs/Shotguns is smaller than it may look, thanks to Sharpshooter benefiting the latter but not the former. Add rapid fire and you get adequate DPS from pistols, the increase from other options really doesn't make up for initiative loss and less reliable/no kneecap shot for me.

Shotguns are immediately disqualified from being a good sniper sidearm if you ask me, because they have a STR requirement, the same goes for ARs. The main point of a sidearm for a sniper is to have something that can be used when the sniper rifle can't. One of the most common situations where the sniper rifle cannot be used is getting hit with crippling strike, which reduces STR by 2 per stack. Having your STR 2 points below the weapon requirement will completly cripple your precision, usually all the way to the minimum 10% chance to hit. There's no shortage of enemies that use this ability, from various knife-wielding enemies through crabs to Carnifex. One stack you can somewhat deal with by using adrenaline to gain that 2 STR back for 3 turns, but that's only if you can end the fight in those 3 turns. If you can't, or you have 2 or more stacks, having 2 weapons that you pretty much cannot hit anything with is typically a death sentence. The fact that neither shotguns nor ARs can use Kneecap Shot doesn't help, either.

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Development Log / Re: Dev Log #65: Codename Infusion

« on: March 19, 2020, 08:29:59 pm »

went with low expectations (because of an RPS review I had read)

At least now you know better than to trust RPS reviews.

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Development Log / Re: Dev Log #65: Codename Infusion

« on: March 11, 2020, 09:04:47 pm »

Looking good.

15

Suggestions / Re: New Feat: Gunsmith

« on: September 08, 2019, 07:51:01 pm »

Without any kind of penalty it would so ridiculously overpowered that it would be a must-have feat for all gun builds

Not really. There's been some talk in the past to change Gun Nut to give an additional mod slot instead of the underwhelming damage increase. A good change, if you ask me. It would be mostly on par with other weapon-specific crafting feats, just more versatile. Keep in mind the best mods sometimes conflict with each other (like muzzle brake and compensator or various scopes), so your options would still be limited.

It would probably be the most benefical for ARs. I don't know how meta changed since the smart bonus nerf, but I assume it's muzzle brake and either rapid reloader depending on the frame and caliber, A-A/digital scope or smart module for the few special attacks ARs can have. If we assume someone goes with the brake/rapid reloader, that gives him a choice of additional 35% crit damage, 7% crit chance or +/- 50% more damage on Rapid Fire, Point Shot and such. I could see the crit damage/chance being attractive for crit builds, but it's on par with Bowyer and Weaponsmith. On SMGs it would most likely boil down to 10% precision form laser sight/forward grip instead of scopes. Same for pistols. Decent bonus, but not necessarily worth a feat and possibly investing more points in INT. It would actually be hardly worth the effort for sniper rifles (at least smart, rapid A-A spearheads) since your only options would be an extended magazine and barrel retractor. Extended magazine would give you whole 3 more rounds while barrel retractor is mostly irrelevant now thanks to Strafe.