Messages

76

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #54: Specialization and Veteran Level Changes

« on: August 10, 2017, 01:57:35 pm »

Wow. You are certainly giving the player a lot more power with this change. I fear that these changes will trivialize the game in terms of combat, especially for players going the Classic XP route, but I suspect that you have plans to ensure things remain interesting and balanced. (e.g. stronger enemies, greater waves of enemies, less consumables, etc.)

These changes also seem to directly oppose your goal of making it so that no one player can become a perfect jack-of-all-trades and dominate every aspect of the game world (i.e. have a high amount of skill in combat, subterfuge, crafting, psi, and speechcraft). But, again, I imagine you have plans to get around this.

Regardless, this will certainly make things interesting! Keep up the good work, guys.

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General / Re: Syphoner man?

« on: July 22, 2017, 01:47:42 pm »

Who was it that said Eidein's body was never found again? I agree though, it does strongly imply that they have him in their possession. Why "death" though? Is there something else I have forgotten about?

The ending of the game is told through a lengthy sequences of slides that vary according to which quests you completed (and how you completed them), which factions you joined, which lore you unearthed, etc. etc. You can find a list of all possible endings (to my knowledge) over on the wiki @ http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Endings

The first slide for the Institute details how "Once the Protectorate soldiers managed to crack the heavy gate and enter the Institute, they found none alive among the carnage. All the bodies of the dead Faceless were gone and all the Tchortists lay where they fell."

This is followed by the line, "Except for one. Eidein's body was never found."

I think this line is supposed to go away if you talk to the Faceless Commander about the captives and Eidein, but IIRC it still played for me anyway on my last playthrough.

Lastly, I put death in quotations because I've played enough games to know that the bad guy is never truly dead until you cut off his head, burn everything to a crisp, and then stare menacingly at the writers.

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General / Re: Syphoner man?

« on: July 22, 2017, 02:12:44 am »

As always, caveat lector. This post contains major spoilers.

Could you tell me what the particular conversation branch for this is? I tried to replay a Deep Caverns save after my last post here to talk to the commander, but I couldn't seem to get any information about Eidein from him. Underrail shows as "Underrail [Experimental]" in steam, with the experimental beta being opted into. Is this all that is required? Maybe the save is too old, or shouldn't that matter as long as I am playing the experimental branch?

I'd be happy to help.

The information concerning Eidein's fate is revealed in dialogue by selecting the option "I noticed that you have Tchortist captives in the base." This option only becomes available, naturally, after the player enters the room adjacent to the Commander's where the captives are being held and (I think) initiates dialogue with one of them.

Selecting this options leads to the Faceless Commander telling you that they were captured during the invasion, at which point you can select "Did you read their minds as well?" and then "Can you tell me what you found out?" following that.

This results in the Commander telling you a lot of really neat information about the Institute, Tchortism, ulterior motives, and all that fun stuff. Selecting "What are their motives? Power?" yields more information, this time on Eidein and Tchort specifically. At this point you should select "And why do you think that is what Eidein's goal was?", which results in the following paragraph being relayed.

"His body has yet to be examined, but we have sufficient data to assume that Eidein had underwent multiple mutations over the years, altering his appearance, capabilities and lifespan to a significant degree, and that he had no intention of halting his personal progress. The concealing nature of his as well as all Tchortist clothing exist for that reason -- so that he may work on himself under the mask of secrecy; by sharing it with his subordinates he legitimizes it, makes it appear transparent when it is in fact oblique."

Pretty cool stuff, right? Although, this statement does not directly confirm that the Faceless have obtained Eidein's body, only that it has yet to be examined (but one can assume that it is in their possession, as they would have to be the world's biggest idiots not to claim it immediately after his "death").

Also, may I just say that I think the writing in this game is excellent. Seriously, all the people who say that Underrail has sh*tty writing clearly never made it past Junkyard. The writing is brilliant, and I love you guys for it. Keep it up, StygSoft.

79

General / Re: Syphoner man?

« on: July 20, 2017, 08:48:21 pm »

(I don't feel like covering this entire post in spoiler-text, so here's your spoiler warning for those who haven't beaten the game yet. Caveat lector!)

He has a point though, there is a resemblance. It's very likely Eidein is simply the only successful of the rejects so far. Or maybe rejects are unsuccessful copies of Eidein?

Hmm... a good theory, but that doesn't explain why all of Aiden Traver's memories are retained if he is a Reject himself (unless they transplanted his brain, but that's too easy of an excuse! ). I can definitely see the latter being the case, though it fails to explain why the Mouth of Tchort is where it is.

Instead, perhaps the Mouth of Tchort itself is a Reject who escaped into the Deep Caverns and was subdued by Tchort? It definitely doesn't seem to me like the Mouth is speaking autonomously. Rather, I think the Eye is using the Mouth as a mobile set of vocal cords, so to speak.

Alternatively, it could be that the Mouth of Tchort was sent there deliberately by the Tchortists to speak on their god's behalf, and is therefore itself a successful Reject?

Lastly, perhaps the Rejects were created using the genetic data of the Mouth of Tchort, who predates the Rejects and the Institute entirely?

Or maybe it's none of the above! I suppose only the devs know.

Danm you syphoner man, danm you, being difficult as fuck to find. theirs no reason to believe syphoner man is a hoax or just some meme mystery.

Well, Styg posted a Pepe meme here a while back, so anything's possible.

EDIT: What's more, he posted that meme in the other siphoner man thread, so my bet's still on this all just being a hoax or dev in-joke.
or maybe the real siphoner man was inside us all along *inspiring jingle plays*

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General / Re: Syphoner man?

« on: July 20, 2017, 03:37:36 pm »

Go and have a chat with a particularly talky faceless commander, you know the one. His dialogue had few unreachable branches before the experimental patches earlier this year. You've probably missed those. You might also want to try taking a less antagonistic stance with the institute tchortists someday, just to get a bit wider perspective to what happened there right before your descent.

Ah, perhaps I should have been more specific. I always killed Eidein to get the keycard during the Faceless invasion. For role-play purposes, I would ally with him up until the point when he refuses the player entry into the Deep Caverns while standing right in front of the elevator, and then I would choose the *Attack!* dialogue option and focus on killing Eidein and Samuel while the other Tchortists are distracted by the invading Faceless. This way I can preserve my alliance with the Faceless, too.

As silly as it sounds, I had never considered the possibility that the Faceless had just collected Eidein's body for observation, obvious as it sounds. I really feel like quite an idiot, as that makes by far the most sense! For some reason I always assumed that he somehow got up and walked away. But of course the Faceless would want to take him apart to see how he works.

I had actually already seen that particular bit of dialogue from the commander, too, when I went back to it on the experimental patch. I guess I just totally forgot that I had even read it!

Regardless, thanks for the help, epeli. It is much appreciated.

So maybe this is already explained by the guy you are referring to Epeli, but my last bossfight I noticed how incredibly uncanny a resemblance the Mouth of Tchort had to Eidein.

There is a portait on the wiki of him appearently, just take a look if you want to see what I mean.

Yeah, I definitely see what you mean, but given the info presented by the Faceless Commander (that is: that the Faceless collected his body), I think it's safe to say that they are not the same person. Although, maybe it was the physical appearance of the Mouth of Tchort which inspired Eidein's costume?

Oh, and sorry for derailing this thread so much.

81

General / Re: Syphoner man?

« on: July 19, 2017, 01:25:10 pm »

Important on-topic addendum: As far as I can tell, siphoner men are not particularly fond of mushrooms.

Initializing goose_chase.exe

We can't risk AI Styg overtaking the world, even if it would mean faster Underrail releases.

And more frequent dev logs! don't hurt me plz I have a family


On a more serious note:

- it's explained by someone ingame

So there actually is an in-game explanation for this? I've been looking for info on this for ages, but I've never been able to find anything more than the line "Except for one. Eidein's body was never found." from the ending slides. Could you please give me a hint as to where I should look to find out what happened to Mr. Metal-face in the end?
I've always just killed him to get the keycard--I've never lockpicked the door--so I don't know if that has something to do with why I get that particular ending slide every time.

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General / Re: Syphoner man?

« on: July 18, 2017, 08:03:41 pm »

- Styg's doppelganger in Junkyard

Styg has a doppelganger in Junkyard?

Also, more mysteries of Underrail, ordered arbitrarily:

- Bladelings of Unusual Size (I don't think they exist)
- East and West Underrail
- Brzozplno Nebrechega Skontam (what does it mean??)
- What the trains look like on the inside
- lux-c4 (go home map, you're drunk)
- the door in cv-14 (you know the one)
- that door in the lair of the final boss
  - related: where the heck the Faceless go to after [redacted]
- Maurice (some people call him the Space Cowboy)
- Eidein's ultimate fate
- the meaning of life loot is life. life is loot.

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General / Re: Syphoner man?

« on: July 18, 2017, 02:19:05 pm »

To my knowledge, it's a joke / red herring. I'm pretty sure that guy was just messing with you earlier.

Of course, there's no telling what easter eggs the devs might add in the upcoming expansion or any future updates. Maybe the siphoner man will reveal himself yet?

(But seriously, as far as I know, there's nothing).

84

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #53: Expedition Gameplay Video

« on: July 14, 2017, 01:57:02 pm »

The idea with Hypercerebrix is to replace the use of Junkyard surprise, so the intelligence bonus will be taken off from the latter.

I can get behind that.

On another note, will it be possible to find any of the new items outside of the Black Sea, or will the player have to venture into the expansion in order to find a spear or a shotgun? Sorry if you've already answered this.

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Development Log / Re: Dev Log #53: Expedition Gameplay Video

« on: July 13, 2017, 08:55:48 pm »

Well, numbers are possible to change, the idea was more to show off some stuff we did.

Yeah, I know, and I am very thankful that you guys are even willing to show us this stuff before it has gone through rigorous internal testing.

In retrospect, the +2 INT probably won't make much of a difference for players outside of crafting, as it only affects psi regen otherwise (excluding dialogue and feats because those are determined by base INT).

Crafters will probably get the biggest boon out of the drug, since it will increase the effective value of their crafting skills by 17.0% (8.5% for each bonus point, according to the Wiki) as long as base INT is 4 or higher. In combination with +2 INT Junkyard Surprise (another 17.0%) and the 15.0% crafting bonus of the player crafting benches, this allows for a cumulative effective skill increase of 49.0%. Feel free to check my math in case I screwed something up.

Regardless, I don't expect it to really change the game all that much. I guess you guys should be happy that the only criticism I can produce is a weak one.

Keep up the good work!

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Development Log / Re: Dev Log #53: Expedition Gameplay Video

« on: July 13, 2017, 01:38:11 pm »

This post contains minor spoilers about the expansion from the video. You have been warned!




Everything looks great so far! The new weapons and armor look like a lot of fun to use, the enemies are awesome (that Handmaiden assassin robot thing is giving me System Shock 2 flashbacks), the graphics are stellar, and the new music tracks all seem to fit in perfectly with the atmosphere. My favorite of the new tracks has to be the piece @ 3:54, even though you only let us hear 6 seconds of it.

The one thing that has me a bit concerned is the new Hypercerebrix med. Properly built Psi-users are already OP enough as it is with +2 INT Junkyard Surprise, +1 WILL Tchortist Noble Robes, etc. Do we really need another item that gives +2 INT? Well, at least we won't have to save-scum JS for crafting anymore. On second thought, it's not a problem. I forgot that the only combat stat INT affects is psi regen. Derp!

Also, lovin' the new Twitch drug. Finally, something that buffs Initiative! Take that, Carnifex!

Keep up the good work, you guys!

87

General / Re: OOPS

« on: April 27, 2017, 07:40:22 pm »

Besides loading a previous save, no.

If you kill a member of a faction, that faction and their allies will hunt you down to the death unless you load a previous save from before you killed the guy.

That said, being hostile with the Protectorate doesn't lock you out of completing the game to my knowledge (so long as you didn't aggro any other major factions, like the Core City oligarchs, SGS, the Tchortists, etc.), but it will make certain quests extremely difficult or outright impossible to complete.

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Development Log / Re: Dev Log #52: Jet Skis

« on: April 24, 2017, 10:59:01 pm »

2. There's a big body of water connecting Core City, SGS, Junkyard and Camp Hathor. You'll be able to travel these waters.

I guess that means it's time to bust out epeli's old alpha maps that had the waterways in them!

In all seriousness, I am SUPER excited about this addition to the game, and I cannot wait to see how this mixes things up. Your statement has got me very curious about something, though: does this mean you'll now be able to access places like the Silent & Forsaken Isles without having to convince a boat captain to take you?

Also, will the jet skis only be found in the areas added with the expansion, or will they be accessible in places like the Junkyard Docks, Core City Docks, Camp Hathor, etc? If so, I assume that they won't be available until after the railways get cleared, to prevent sequence-breaking.

Lastly, are we gonna get the chance to have a high-speeds boat race around the waters of the Black Sea? Something like the Gauntlet on jet skis, where entering combat mode is disabled or something to make the race as genuine as possible? Normally I hate racing mini-games, but for some reason I get the feeling it would be awesome in Underrail. IDK, maybe I'm crazy. 

Sorry for all the questions; I'm just so excited!!
No matter how the system ends up working, I greatly look forward to conquering the seas as the Dread Pirate Altos!

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General / Re: (spoilers) Failed one of Jack's quests

« on: March 21, 2017, 11:06:37 am »

I've always felt that this should be considered another way to "optimally" finish the quest. I know violent jailbreak isn't exactly part of the official Oculus Handbook, but at least the jailbreak option doesn't necessitate that the player has already either killed the Beast or developed high enough Persuasion to talk cheese away from a mouse.

Making jailbreak an alternative "optimal" way to finish the quest would save newer players--and those less diplomatically inclined--a lot of frustration and many hours of their life. Also, I think it would make them appreciate the game more, by seeing it as something less strictly linear than it is now.

If the jailbreak option is to remain a red herring of sorts, then please clarify this more to the player. As it is now, I do not feel enough in-game emphasis is put onto the fact that breaking the Agent out of jail will strictly prevent the player from going further with the Oculus questline.

But maybe it's just me.

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Bugs / Re: dirty kick bypassing uncanny dodge (1.0.2.4)

« on: March 14, 2017, 02:31:14 pm »

Alright, I removed the Uncanny Dodge. No sense having a useless feat.

For a moment there I was legitimately shocked, and then I realized you were joking. 
Well played, Styg.