Dev Log #52: Jet Skis

[Styg]

Hi guys. We're all but done with the biggest feature of the expansion and that's the player's ability to ride jet skis.



Since the expansion takes place on Black Sea, naturally you will need a way to travel between all the small islands, bays and between far shores. You will be able to do this on a dozen of different jet skis, ranging from super light racing jet skis to mini-destroyers, which you can further customize under the hood by installing better engines, batteries and suspension systems. The models themselves differ way by the combat cover, durability, stability, speed, damage resistances, as well number of and maximum size of a parts you can install into them; some vehicles can have multiple engines and/or batteries. Also, some jet skis will have special attacks or abilities.



Once you get to the Black Sea it won't take long for you to get a hold of the most basic "junk jet", but to get the quality stuff, both in terms of the jet ski model and the parts, you'll have to spend a fair amount of charons at a specialized shop in Core City. You'll also have to decide what are the most important characteristics of jet ski for you, as no one model will be best at everything.



While riding a jet ski you'll be able to use most of your weapons, abilites and utilities. The most notable exceptions are sledgehammers and sniper rifles, which are not available while driving. Also, short range melee weapons (fist weapons and knives) and unarmed attacks, though still performable, will suffer significant penalties. When an attack is aimed at you, it has a chance of hitting the jet ski instead (or in case of AoE attacks, a percentage of the damage hits the vehicle), depending on the cover it provides, in which case the damage is tested against its resistences and the amount that penetrates those is deducted from the vehicle's durability. If the durability reaches zero, the vehicle is destroyed and you die (you never learned to swim).

That's it for now, guys. Let us know how all this sounds and I hope you're looking forward to some naval battles with pirates and worse things.

[Tygrende]

Awesome doesn't even begin to describe how this sounds. You have really outdone yourselves this time. I have so many questions but I will try to keep them to a minimum.

1. Will we be able to use crafting to create better parts or upgrade the jet skis in any other way?

2. Will they be limited only to the expansion, or will we be able to ride them around base game areas as well? I doubt it since there are not that many places in the game where that could be done, but I could imagine riding them around the cave waters.

3. Was making only sledgehammers and sniper rifles unusable (rather than all two-handed weapons, so assault rifles, crossbows, two-handed shotguns, etc.) a balance issue?

Don't get me wrong I'm probably the last person to complain about having to improvise and adapt. It just seems to me like excluding other two-handed weapons would give a whole new reason to consider using smaller weapons such as pistols, SMGs, etc. and make them much more attractive. Particularly firearm pistols, making them even more worthwhile as a "sidearm" type of weapon. I could understand leaving crossbows usable though since they have no alternatives.

[Wildan]

Can barely wait to try those out. Gotta love that Waterworld pirates flair (minus the bright blue sky).

[Styg]

Awesome doesn't even begin to describe how this sounds. You have really outdone yourselves this time. I have so many questions but I will try to keep them to a minimum.

1. Will we be able to use crafting to create better parts or upgrade the jet skis in any other way?

2. Will they be limited only to the expansion, or will we be able to ride them around base game areas as well? I doubt it since there are not that many places in the game where that could be done, but I could imagine riding them around the cave waters.

3. Was making only sledgehammers and sniper rifles unusable (rather than all two-handed weapons, so assault rifles, crossbows, two-handed shotguns, etc.) a balance issue?

Don't get me wrong I'm probably the last person to complain about having to improvise and adapt. It just seems to me like excluding other two-handed weapons would give a whole new reason to consider using smaller weapons such as pistols, SMGs, etc. and make them much more attractive. Particularly firearm pistols, making them even more worthwhile as a "sidearm" type of weapon. I could understand leaving crossbows usable though since they have no alternatives.

1. For the moment, crafting has no impact on vehicles. All components will be purchased or found. But we might add crafting recipes here in the future.

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

3. For the snipers it kinda made sense. Similarly for the sledgehammers, but there was also an issue of animation, especially in the sitting position.

[TΛPETRVE]

Words can't express how much I love this shite. To reiterate what I said on FB, this game is more 90s than any CRPG back in the day ever was .

[destroyor]

*snip

3. For the snipers it kinda made sense. Similarly for the sledgehammers, but there was also an issue of animation, especially in the sitting position.

Question: does this mean sniper-only and hammer-only characters are non-viable for the expansion?

Looks like psi users are still top dog, while brawler and psi monk got shafted hard.
Still looking forward to everything and planning on day 1 purchase.

[MirddinEmris]

3. Was making only sledgehammers and sniper rifles unusable (rather than all two-handed weapons, so assault rifles, crossbows, two-handed shotguns, etc.) a balance issue?

3. For the snipers it kinda made sense. Similarly for the sledgehammers, but there was also an issue of animation, especially in the sitting position.

If it makes sense for sniper rifles and sledgehammers, it should apply to assault rifles too, no?

[Tygrende]

Question: does this mean sniper-only and hammer-only characters are non-viable for the expansion?

I don't think it's going to be bad to the point of not being viable whatsoever. I'm assuming in some situations snipers will be able to reach enemies on jet skis while standing on the ground thanks to their long range.

As for sledges, If you look closely at the gif and the vehicle window, you can clearly see it's equipped with not one but three rocket launchers.

That said it does sound like sledges will struggle a little bit more. We will see. Kinda wish it at least applied to assault rifles as well for the sake of consistency, but oh well.

[Altos]

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!

[Yonaiker]

Wish there were a bit more info about jet ski weapons, but that triple rocket-launcher already got me. Shame there is no hammerin' time while riding.

[hilf]

Can we meet those huge creatures whose bones we can see on gif? Or learn what they are/were?

Can we fish from jet skis?

[Styg]

Can we meet those huge creatures whose bones we can see on gif? Or learn what they are/were?

Can we fish from jet skis?

Regarding the first two questions, you'll just have to play to find out.

You cannot fish from jet skis.

[Hazard]

Haha, this I didn't expect. Looks really neat.

...Although now I want a customizable dreadnought.

[destroyor]

*snip

3. For the snipers it kinda made sense. Similarly for the sledgehammers, but there was also an issue of animation, especially in the sitting position.

Question: does this mean sniper-only and hammer-only characters are non-viable for the expansion?

Looks like psi users are still top dog, while brawler and psi monk got shafted hard.
Still looking forward to everything and planning on day 1 purchase.

Lol looks like I pissed off Styg for some reason as this is the second time my questions were ignored. Oh well I still love this game. *shrug*

[mytahtmyxa]

Very unexpected. That jet ski animation looks VE-E-ERY choppy. Are you planning to work on improving it? Gives me a headache just by looking at it.
Come to think of it the game seems to be limited to 60FPS, can the limit be removed? maybe that would help with choppiness a bit.