Messages

1

Builds / Re: Fresh Player looking for a melee focused build

« on: November 02, 2021, 04:24:04 am »

I beat the game (most content including expedition) on oddity hard mode with this riposte + riot shield build. Bc I went stealthless I used anthithermic riot sets.
I can tell you right now this iteration of a S+RS build is atrocious. I had no idea how swords worked and I took Flurry last like an idiot. I also came up with the build in the first place by thinking swords counted as a light weapon, i.e. got reduced AP with dex, so I tried to center it around Ripper and compensate for no psi with throwing knives for range. It was still fun at times (I managed to do 3naga without a terrible amount of difficulty, cleared the marsh with grenades and Spoiler Blaster for the Sea Wyrms and heartbreakers: on that tangent, why the hell cant the marsh serpents enter melee range of the path???) but the suffering was pure and unimaginable.
https://underrail.info/build/?HgoKAwkDBQYAXwDCoAApAFJCTDh0dFlgdAAAAABWAFUIUCTCmcKOKAZcSxLCjcKCwqtRwrbCjHzip74K4qqoBd-_

If I were going to do the build over w/o psi I would follow something along these lines. Still works mostly the same just with only grenades/nets instead of knives for throwing, and with intimidation over persuasion to make use of Yell. No need to build dodge at all, on this build you eventually just stop taking almost all melee damage. I might move the intimidation into evasion if you want to wear boots over tabis to use caltrops or w/e. If you dont care about the highest tiers of lockpick or hacking you could also move those into a Mech or Tailoring for better armor. As for crafting swords I got lucky and found a decent energy edge before the expedition and ran that on top of Super Steel. However, no craftable sword is going to outdo the Red Dragon once you can attain it, so just go with what works before that. At the end of the game I had RD and swapped to the Captain's Cutlass at end of turn to stack more Ripostes: you dont have to attack with the cutlass to use those extra stacks so that's up to 3 free attacks with RD *before* flurry.
https://underrail.info/build/?Hg8HAwoDAwUAWgDCoABOAFxPUAB9eFlkfQAAAAAAMV1QCGPCjMKZwo4GEkvCjSZEwoLCqsK2wqt84p2NAuKfhAHip74K4rKJAt-_

If I were to include psi I'd focus mostly on Exothermic Aura and Pyrokinesis with PT Contraction and LTI for support. With Antithermic gear you can toss PK at your feet and stand in EA past the immunity duration taking barely any damage at all, and that's on top of whatever firebombs you have. Also might consider using Psi Crab/Beetle shells for shield.
https://underrail.info/build/?Hg4HAwcDBwUATADCoAAAACM8UAB0dFlkfQAAwqBGAABdK8KDXwjCjAbCmcKOwoJLEsKNLsKHwojCtsKrfOKdjQLin4QB4qe-CuKyiQLfvw

I did Praetorians for access to chemhaze grenades but that or Coretech both work I would think. Industrial bots and crawlers/DSs are both very little threat by midgame, the biggest issue is typically crossbow users since Riot Gear isnt especially great against bolts. I'd recc probably a medium-high, or medium-low shield for beach defense.

2

Builds / Re: Buck Rogers

« on: September 06, 2021, 12:50:56 pm »

Strictly from a thematics perspective you could pick up the Phaser; it's a plain and literal Star Trek reference so it fits right in with the classic TV sci-fi vibe of Buck Rogers

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Builds / Re: Thoughts on a Riot Gear Shield & Sword, pure melee build

« on: June 05, 2021, 09:37:19 pm »

IMO for Normal difficulty youll get much more mileage for your grenades just by crafting Mk IV-Vs and taking grenadier; most times a grenade of that tier (or a nail bomb if youre a Drone) thrown at a group will eliminate most units. Not having to pump throwing for 3P that way will also free up a lot of points; more than enough to get good lockpick and/or pickpocket at 8-10 Dex. I would also use those freed skill points to raise intimidation to 75 after moving 1 ability point from Will to Dex.
With escape artist and the kind of armor penalty you'll be at once youve got a shielded riot set I think the evasion investment is a waste, you can handle ranged attacks with a high-F shield and swap to a low-F shield against crossbows/burrowers/et al. If you arent planning to use caltrops I might swap sure step for a crafting feat to get more use out of 7 Int, probably ballistics or weaponsmith for your machetes before CC/RD. I also dont know how many enemies are valid for decapitate at level 30 in DC so you might take that earlier at the time you expect to get RD just to get more usage out of it.
Looks like a very fun build though, I ought to try this one after my current run.

4

Discussions / Re: How many hours in UnderRail do you have? :D

« on: May 27, 2021, 07:22:40 pm »

Just a touch over 500 across over 5 playthroughs. And there's still so much to explore in terms of content.

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Suggestions / Re: New Weapon Suggestion: Clubs

« on: May 26, 2021, 02:07:10 pm »

Sounds neat, especially as a way to squeeze some more fun out of crowbars. For Hobble specifically why only reduce dodge/evade by half when movement is totally zapped? You might be better off using a throwing net and then attacking. Also, any ideas for a unique with some Psi synergy?

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Suggestions / Re: Grenadier nerf

« on: May 26, 2021, 02:01:16 pm »

If your goal here is to curb grenades' power without directly nerfing their damage then I dont think Grenadier is the place to hit, even without it you can pretty consistently decide fights in just one damage grenade by aggroing -> fleeing to let enemies dogpile after you in a tighter group. I'd take the route of restricting higher-quality grenades to Throwing-centric builds with a skill requirement; this could be strictly gating their use to a certain skill threshold, or treating it like Trap disarming and introducing a 'critical failure' for grenades where they fly behind you, wildly deviate much more often, or just blow up in your face when your skill is too low.

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Builds / Re: Need help with dominating sniper build skill distribution

« on: May 26, 2021, 01:48:31 pm »

I take it combo you have in mind is [stealth in close ->TD Boss -> snipe down boss-> TD zaps adds in immediate area -> pick off stragglers]. I think that works against the strength of a sniper build since activating TD will break stealth (a requirement for activating Snipe) and take you to 10 squares away from the boss at max range- that's half the max range of a sniper, 4 closer than the optimal range, and more than enough distance for the adds to close the gap on you if they survive TD, or are just outside of its range. idk if there's a known synergy between snipers and metathermics abilities that Im unaware of here but Im unsure it's the best choice for a sub-school in combo with snipers; MT is moreso a damage school and snipers rarely want for damage once their setup is in place. I personally prefer TC with sniper since it requires minimal point investment (outside of an Overload build) and provides some great utility even at 3 Will. Throwing is also handy for consistently landing torches and flashbangs/stingballs, so I think extra points not spent in MT would do better in throwing.
As for trimming pickpocketing, youre completely right. ~90 effective is enough to multisteal from everyone who isnt Coretech or Aegis, and for them ~110 should be about enough to grab one from each. You could also trim lockpick a little; the highest modifier items can give to your lockpick is +22, and with certain clothes that becomes +32, so the effective skill doesnt have to go any farther than about 110.
One last thing, about All-in; maybe Im just stupid but I had a run where I was depending on grabbing one to meet an INT check and no matter how many times I checked back at DnD it was never being sold, so I wouldnt depend too heavily on it showing up.

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General / Re: Non-crafted weapons

« on: April 22, 2021, 04:09:42 am »

The game is designed such that the best gear will always be crafted, but crafted gear is better because of the control you have over what's included in the item as much as it is because of the raw stats. More specialized random items are possible but much more rare, to an extent. For example, you'll regularly find, say, 9mm Neo Lugers in shops and carried by NPCs, but you will not so often find LS 9mm Neo Lugers in the same places, and Im not certain you'll ever find LS 9mm Neo Luger XMs; in my experience I cant recall a firearm with 2 attachments appearing in loot or a shop. However, there are some item varieties that seem not to generate randomly at all: smart module guns are one of those, sturdy-vest riot gear/tac vests seem to be another, and unfortunately with electroshock pistols specifically Ive never seen them spawn uncrafted (and because of this I didnt even know they existed for multiple runs).
My guess as to why things are this way is because the components I mentioned are things that werent part of the game in the earliest builds, so integration in random loot was either neglected or purposefully omitted. Regardless, those particular modules are limited to crafting characters in the current patch.

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General / Re: Is it possible to steal a jetski before Expedition on 1.1.3.0?

« on: April 21, 2021, 04:03:57 pm »

Still why stealing it when you can get junk jet after a first native raid?

Because acquiring a jet before starting the expedition lets you access waterways quests and locations (e.g. Drag N Drop) without committing to finishing the expedition, which is a race against time when youre siding with Aegis. Having free reign of the shop pre-expedition also potentially lets you hijack every one of the best jets without having to aggro/kill Ray. As it stands, with the only way to succeed in that is destroying the cameras and thereby aggroing the police at the dock (and the rest of Core City subsequently), a vast majority of characters arent going to do it, as intended.
Personally (and this is getting into suggestion territory) I wish that sequence breaking your way into grand theft jetski were possible w/o becoming Public Enemy No.1 as a way to reward specialized stat investment as well as a way to mix up your playthrough instead of starting the expedition every time and then branching from there. The trouble with this is that it would necessitate a LOT of added conditional script for something that most players will possibly never see: potentially, one could clear out every Lemurian facility and native camp before meeting with the expedition, and the dialogue would need to reflect every degree to which you alter the Black Sea before encountering the expedition for the first time. However, this would open up a lot of great new ways to approach the Black Sea content: taking out native leaders as a qualification for joining Aegis, joining the pirates before Briggs returns and coordinating a strike on the camp while theyre vulnerable before laying an ambush for the returning sec-troopers, (spoiler)handing Oldfield the Acorn the first time you meet him, and so on. Again, these scenarios would require a LOT of additional writing to support them, but if there was some design encouragement backing up getting a jet outside of the expedition, this could become a really fun new way to experience the game.

10

Builds / Re: Haven't played in a while, build suggestions please.

« on: April 19, 2021, 07:13:53 pm »

Here's a sniper/TC build I finished oddity Normal with earlier this month. https://underrail.info/build/?HgUDBwMMCgbCoEMAAAAAwoxGSAA8a2M1XWd4AAAAAENFASgrMSckNX4CSx0zISPChcK1KsKkwq7Dh-KcmgTip74K4q-9Ad-_

I recommend siding with the eels in junkyard so that you can loot a sniper off a body instead of turbo-levelling mechanics before Depot A to build one. Mental Subversion felt like a bit of a waste, I'd replace that with Psycho-Neural Optimization or Hit and Run. My weapon setup was a 7.62 rapid commando spearhead paired with a 8.6 smart bipod reaper, swapping the latter out for the RRCh-42 or some similar smg in tight areas. You could make a harbinger but I never really felt hurt for damage after the mid game, 8.6 w2c's deleted just about everything, final boss included.
Premeditation felt wasted taken as late as it was, you could replace that with Mantra or something. Psi damage wasnt huge but 2xNO+MB->2xNO was great for silent single-target takedowns. Dont know whether the scaling caps out, but points from TC could go into stealth to buff your Snipe even higher.

11

General / Stealth penalties and scaling

« on: April 14, 2021, 07:57:28 pm »

Is the exact formula by which armor penalty impacts stealth known? I searched for some concrete resource on this, but having found none I attempted today to try and figure out how much stealth a piece of armor needs to give to overcome the minuses from its own armor penalty, but the observations I made suggested that the amount of stealth that armor penalizes increases the more effective stealth you have outside of that given by the armor piece (i.e. stealth penalties arent constant with the armor penalty). Before potentially frying my brain trying to discern the exact function from the small amount of information I have, I wanted to check here first to see whether anything about this has been posted before, here or anywhere else.

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Bugs / Re: Report spelling/grammar errors

« on: April 07, 2021, 06:48:40 pm »

For Six: "There is on other option" should be 'no'
For Seeger: missing space between period following "it" and "Part"

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Suggestions / Re: Assorted genius ideas

« on: April 07, 2021, 06:35:32 pm »

Naga Guardian - what if you kept it intact or almost intact in fight with snakepeople, and after you finished Expefition, you can take it to your beloved home? So it can protect you against some sneaky character who could trespass to your house. Or on the countrary - could be hacked and turned against you.

To that point, the defense turrets you invest in from CC Housing ought to actually have some impact on a certain home invader rather than them magically appearing in your basement. (the player ought to be the only one allowed to magically appear in the basement!) The naga specifically I feel would make a better Living Room decoration piece like the beast's head rather than a defense option.

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Builds / Re: Thoughts on a noob-made fist weapons build

« on: April 02, 2021, 10:36:56 pm »

This build for fist weapons/TM got me through most of the content on normal; I blueprinted it using the sheepherder fist build posted prior; the key differences being this will NOT work for totally unarmed and is poorly optimized. https://underrail.info/build/?Hg0LBwMEAwUAPADCoCgKwqAfKB8APHM2QWYAwpsAcAAAVSsmMWkgBkMWB0sDEww8woXCtnzCh-KdjQrinZcC4qe-A9-_
Some takeaways:
-Nimble is likely a better choice than BWT, only took it near the end since I was using Aran's armor and didnt really like any of the other vet feats after In.Str.
-Mechanics is low b/c I relied on The Claw + Power Fist rather than crafted gloves, and didnt use any metal armors or bladed gear (this is also the reason I didnt prioritize TfB). Power fist is crucial in this build for robots and crabs.
-Fist damage scales very well with Str so you'll want to pump that and keep Dex as your second-highest stat
-Pickpocketting was a waste of points here, I'd either redistribute those to the psi schools or to traps
-Blindsiding felt a lot more effective than I imagined it would after I took it, so I'd move that up in priority a little. In contrast, I'm not sure how effective deflection ended up being so I'd swap that out for Escape Artist. Also, fancy footwork should be much earlier, probably swapped with where grenadier currently is.

Hopefully this helps; fist builds are quite a bit of fun in this game once you get your damage on-line.