Dev Log #17: Version 0.1.8.0 released

[Styg]

The game is updated to version 0.1.8.0 on Desura and GamersGate, soon to be updated on Groupees as well. You'll find all the new stuff listed here and in the previous dev log.



As promised, I've added a number of new feats and psi abilities. With feats I mostly focused on melee combat and grenades, both of which were sorely lacking in that department.

In regards to new psi abilities you'll notice I've added an extra thought control ability. This means that there's now an equal number of psi abilities across all psi schools. You can learn most of the new psi abilities from the existing teachers (this might change in the future), with the exception of Bilocation for which you must look elsewhere (those who played through the whole game before will have a good idea where to go ).

So without further ado, here's the list of changes since the last dev log:

• New feats
• Heavy Punch - Unarmed attack that deals 200% for 250% AP
  
• Bone Breaker - Critical hits from your blunt melee attacks break ribs if they deal at least 4% of target's maximal health through mechanical damage. Targets with broken ribs receive additional 25% mechanical damage from all sources. This effect stacks up 2 times.
  
• Cheap Shots - Increases critical damage bonus of your melee attacks by 50% and gives your unarmed attacks 15% chance to incapacitate the target for 1 turn.
  
• Paranoia - Detection increased by 20% and chance to get critically hit reduced by 3%. Also your weapon damage is increased by 20% against stealthed targets (will be useful at one point).
  
• Uncanny Dodge - Grants you an ability that when activated will cause you to dodge the next regular or special melee attack targeted against you.
  
• Evasive Maneuvers - Converts all remaining movement points into twice the evasion for 2 turns.
  
• Grenadier - Reduces the cooldown of fragmentation and high explosive greandes by 1 turn and special grenades by 2 turns.
  
• Three-Pointer - Gives your damage dealing grenades 10% chance to critically hit. This chance is increased by 2% for each point in dexterity above 7.
  
• Trap Expert - Reduces time required to arm traps by 70% and increases the detection difficulty of the traps you set by 25%.
• New psi abilities
• Pyrokinetic Stream (metathermics) - Creates a stream of fire towards the targeted location, damaging everything in its path for X heat damage every tick. The stream lasts for three ticks plus an additional tick for every 10 spare action and psi points remaining after the initial invocation.
  
• Electrokinesis (psychokinesis) - Deals X electrical damage to the primary target and stuns it for 1 turn before jumping to a nearby target. It can jump up to four times, but the damage decreases by 15% of the original amount with every jump. It can strike the same target multiple times, but it needs at least two targets to jump between. Only the primary target is stunned.
  
• Bilocation (thought control) - Creates a doppelganger of a human target bent on their destruction. The doppelganger is immune to all physical attacks and deals X mental damage that bypasses all shields and resistances. Last for 4 turns.
  
• Mental Breakdown (thought control) - Incapacitates the target for up to 3 turns and reduces its resolve by 50%. If a detrimental thought control psi ability is invoked against the target during this period it will have double the effect, but will end the mental breakdown.
• Changes
• Game generates a crash log now in Documents\My Games\Underrail folder when it crashes.
• Increased the amount of health hypos, bandages and ammo the player receives at the start of the game. Player can also find a mechanical repair kit in its room at the start.
• Fixes
• No longer possible to place the fishing rod on top of yourself
• Game will no longer crash when attempting to disarm triggered traps
• Game should work properly with windows on-screen keyboard now
• Junkayrd gambling house staff and nearby Black Eels will no longer turn hostile after the attack on Scrappers

Let me know how you liked these changes and the new stuff.

[blackmoor]

Great update!

Thanks for adding an additional psi abilities, they all sound interesting and powerful. In my opinion, if we eventually get some form of mind control or charm ability, I think psi powers would be nearly complete. It would seem to me that the ultimate point of psi power is to dominate the mind of your enemies.

Also, thanks for adding more Feats. They all sound great, especially Paranoia and Uncanny Dodge. Although now I'm tempted to make a melee character and specialize in dealing massive up-close damage. It's going to be fun trying these out for the first time!

[UnLimiTeD]

That looks nasty.
Not sure if I should redo my melee or psi character now, neither got too far before I decided to wait for the next version.
Well, once I get a hard drive fixed.

Paranoia - Detection increased by 20% and chance to get critically hit reduced by 3%. Also your weapon damage is increased by 20% against stealthed targets (will be useful at one point).

Got a question about the above.
Multiple, to be precise:
1.) In game, it shows a 30% damage bonus, as opposed to the 20% you mention here.
2.) With the reduced crit chance add up with metal helmets? Same for detection.
3.) What about unarmed attacks? Are they weapons? Or will they get their own feats?

[Sakuragi]

I made a sort of melee dagger and psychokinesis hybrid. At level 4 you get Electrokinesis just good for the GMS compound. I gotta say it is so awesome against those 4 drones at level 2. Got them come to me and just cast it like three times to destroy all 4 of them.

Maybe you should increase the psi consumption since there is no cooldown and maybe take off the 1 sec stun.

[blackmoor]

I made a sort of melee dagger and psychokinesis hybrid. At level 4 you get Electrokinesis just good for the GMS compound. I gotta say it is so awesome against those 4 drones at level 2. Got them come to me and just cast it like three times to destroy all 4 of them.

Maybe you should increase the psi consumption since there is no cooldown and maybe take off the 1 sec stun.

I don't have a problem with increased consumption, but I think electricity always stuns mechanical hostiles.

[Styg]

I made a sort of melee dagger and psychokinesis hybrid. At level 4 you get Electrokinesis just good for the GMS compound. I gotta say it is so awesome against those 4 drones at level 2. Got them come to me and just cast it like three times to destroy all 4 of them.

Maybe you should increase the psi consumption since there is no cooldown and maybe take off the 1 sec stun.

I might tweak other parameters, such as AP and psi cost and damage, but the stun will stay. It's the trademark of electrical attacks in the game.

[Styg]

That looks nasty.
Not sure if I should redo my melee or psi character now, neither got too far before I decided to wait for the next version.
Well, once I get a hard drive fixed.

Paranoia - Detection increased by 20% and chance to get critically hit reduced by 3%. Also your weapon damage is increased by 20% against stealthed targets (will be useful at one point).

Got a question about the above.
Multiple, to be precise:
1.) In game, it shows a 30% damage bonus, as opposed to the 20% you mention here.
2.) With the reduced crit chance add up with metal helmets? Same for detection.
3.) What about unarmed attacks? Are they weapons? Or will they get their own feats?

1) It's 30%, made a mistake in the dev log.
2) Crit reduction stacks additively, detection stacks multiplicatively.
3) Unarmed attacks are considered weapon attacks, strangely enough

[UnLimiTeD]

Oh. That makes hit and run surprisingly useful for Unarmed characters, I suppose.
Thanks for that piece of info.

[Fenix]

• Pyrokinetic Stream (metathermics) - Creates a stream of fire towards the targeted location, damaging everything in its path for X heat damage every tick. The stream lasts for three ticks plus an additional tick for every 10 spare action and psi points remaining after the initial invocation.

What is "tick" in Underrail's mechanic? Need to know to translate it correctly for update review.

[Styg]

• Pyrokinetic Stream (metathermics) - Creates a stream of fire towards the targeted location, damaging everything in its path for X heat damage every tick. The stream lasts for three ticks plus an additional tick for every 10 spare action and psi points remaining after the initial invocation.

What is "tick" in Underrail's mechanic? Need to know to translate it correctly for update review.

It's just a term used to describe that the stream hits multiple times. It all happens in the invoker's turn during the invocation.

[Fenix]

So "tick" is a number of targets Pyrokinetic Stream can hit?

Btw, Styg did you think about managing with Item Degradation rate in other way than Repaire Kit?
I mean, skill solution - something like Maintenance in System Shock 2?
Or, don't want to rework all skill system, some hidden parameter\formula, based on Intellect\Dexterity\Agility\Mechanics, mix of all this?

[Styg]

So "tick" is a number of targets Pyrokinetic Stream can hit?

Btw, Styg did you think about managing with Item Degradation rate in other way than Repaire Kit?
I mean, skill solution - something like Maintenance in System Shock 2?
Or, don't want to rework all skill system, some hidden parameter\formula, based on Intellect\Dexterity\Agility\Mechanics, mix of all this?

No, the number of ticks is the number of times the streams hits all its targets.

There aren't any changes to repair system planned. It's already skill-based since recycling items and creating repair kits requires mechanics, electronics, or tailoring respectively depending on the type of item/repair kit.

Btw, you also needed maintenance/repair kits in System Shock 2.

[Fenix]

Btw, you also needed maintenance/repair kits in System Shock 2.

I mean, it seems, that this skill discrease the rate of item degradation, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, thanks for answers. )

[Sakuragi]

Ok i am currently at the mutant area and have rerolled into a psychokinesis and thought control full constitution(10) and max will(10+x(where x is the ability point you get )). It is really fun and you use a lot of psi point (only cons for me) since i do not really use any weapons.

Electrokinesis: if there are two opponents (close) it is hands down the best psi ability. On critical i have seen upwards of 195+ for the first shot.

If there are more than 4. I will still use it and with the first ability of thought control you have (forgot the name) supported with the AOE feat.

Now bilocation is kinda tricky. It has restricted use (humans), deals  average damage for the AP cost (that's with the AOE feat, i regret it since electrokinesis would have been better). Well this is for the current game. Since there are not many enemies with electrical resist (bare none i think), maybe bilocation would be better later since it bypass resist and shields.

One question about bilocation, are the clone subjected to the dodge rating of the mob since when attacking?. Because the one time i used it i think i saw him miss quite a few punches.

This is just my point of view and thoughts.

[UnLimiTeD]

After having used it a bit, Electrokinises is definitely too strong.
If it used the player as a potential bounce target after the first hit, with a lower priority than mobs, it might incur a risk.
So far, it has high range, high chance of stun, insane damage...
Against small groups, it's essentially a riskfree, accurate, long ranged grenade replacement.
I suggest a 1 turn cooldown (one use per turn no matter how much AP you have) and toning down the damage a bit.
Say, 10% less and 20% drop per jump, off the top of my head.
It will still be a great damage option, and even if another skill should surpass it, it's a great addition to a kineticists arsenal due to how good it is against machines.