Topics

1

Suggestions / Wording change on Kevlar items

« on: July 17, 2020, 05:23:28 pm »

I've seen a lot of people misunderstand how Kevlar works.  A simple wording change on Kevlar items might be in order to help people understand and avoid frustration.  The same change might be appropriate for tac vests/riot gear/padded leather armor, if it were made, to keep things consistent and avoid confusion.

Currently, the wording is "Mechanical damage threshold increased by X against bullets and shotgun shells" and I must have seen at least two dozen people over the years complain about having 300% or 400% or 500% bullet resist but still taking so much damage.

Maybe it would be clearer if it said "Mechanical damage threshold for this item (or 'this item only') increased by X against bullets and shotgun shells".  Or, still simpler for the user but more complex for the coder, have the protection line on the item show as Mechanical: 20%/8 (20%/24 against bullets and shotgun shells, 40%/16 against melee), or whatever the item in question would offer.

2

Bugs / Traveling Merchant can spawn with TNT in inventory

« on: May 20, 2020, 11:20:58 pm »

This can give the player access to TNT before clearing the Depot.

3

Builds / An Average Explanation of Outstanding Psi Builds

« on: July 25, 2019, 06:50:21 pm »

Heads up to newcomers: psi just got changed a lot.  This guide remains current for folks not playing the experimental branch, but a few posts down I have updated recommendations for this New Psi.

So you're new to UnderRail and you want to know how to make your psi character the best? Or maybe you've played before and don't know why you'd ever want to take one feat over another?  Welcome!  Here I'll try to explain what makes psi builds great, and why.

At a very surface level, I just want to start by saying that full psi might be the most powerful build in UnderRail, but it almost certainly is the build that will allow you to see the most that the game has to offer.  Not only is psi going to give you a whole host of abilities to play with so that in almost any situation you have the best tools for the job, but a full psi build will have heavy investment in both Will and Intelligence, which are the two stats that boost the "soft skills" in UnderRail; Persuasion, Intimidation, Mercantile, Hacking, and all the crafting skills.  So by building into psi, you're also building into the skills that give you so many other options in the game world.

Alright, put on your robe and your cave wizard hat.  Time to build a character.

4

Bugs / One of the Free Drones is confused about loyalties (spoiler for quest)

« on: September 11, 2018, 10:41:59 pm »

Doing the Protectorate quest from Epione Lab to find out what the mysterious forms are, I find that when I go into the hideout, one of the Free Drones seems not to know who signs his paychecks.  However, once dead, his true colors shine through.

5

Suggestions / Make the combat log visible after death

« on: March 10, 2018, 03:46:56 am »

It's nice to be able to learn from dying, instead of just dying.

6

Bugs / Random encounter may be unreachable

« on: March 04, 2018, 07:08:07 pm »

Can't prove a negative of course but I went pixel hunting for the hidden box and could not interact with it.  I've had this random couch appear before in Junkyard, and was able to interact with the box, so if I haven't just missed the exact right spot, it could be that the wall is obscuring the hitbox for the hidden loot.

7

Bugs / Very rapid right-clicking can consume a blueprint without learning it

« on: February 26, 2018, 10:50:16 pm »

Not really much of a problem, but I bought five blueprints in one transaction and right-clicked through them to learn them.  Three of the recipes went into my character's crafting menu, the other two did not.  All five were shown as purchased in the game log, three were shown as learned, and the other two simply disappeared.  Was able to duplicate it one more time in three tries - seems to require very fast clicking (or at least very fast for slower hands that can't play RTS or twitch games ).

8

General / Finally got around to trying Salesman and it's pretty good!

« on: February 21, 2018, 06:18:13 pm »

I mean, obviously it's not an OP game changer but Fixer in particular becomes an awesome medical merchant with Salesman.  Goofing around with a ridiculously limited build which ends up popping chems like a Skyrim character eating cheese wheels, and the ability to go back to Fixer and buy his chem pistol parts, assemble them, and sell 3-4 of them back to him for so much profit that I can also pick up all his medicines and still break even on the trade is really very helpful.  Also clears out a lot of that not-quite-bad-enough-to-scrap, not-quite-good-enough-to-repair gear that might otherwise not get sold.

Anyone got any input on how well Disassemble would go with Salesman?  It *sounds* like Disassemble would be best for low-Mercantile builds, sort of opposite to Salesman.  May give it a shot anyway next time I'm up late not sleeping

9

Bugs / Force Field ends at different points during the turn

« on: February 16, 2018, 07:37:20 pm »

Does Force Field have an initiative now?  It always used to be that when it would go away, it would be right at the beginning of my turn, so I had protection during the enemy turn. But recently, it's been sometimes ending right at the beginning of the enemy turn, which is much less helpful.  It does stay for the correct number of turns, it's just odd that it ends at different points during the turn sequence.

10

Bugs / Problem with "throwing" attacks

« on: February 08, 2018, 07:38:15 am »

A few times since the patch I've had a thrown attack (once with grenades, once with nets, and once with a Pyrokinesis) disappear.  The PC goes through the throwing animation, and any consumable aspect (item, psi, Action Points) is used, but the projectile animation doesn't follow and there's no feedback as to what goes wrong.

I can't predictably duplicate it (because I suspect it requires you to screw up and throw wildly) but each time it has happened I've been standing near a wall and the target I'm throwing to is also near a wall.  Maybe there's a problem with destination checking allowing a projectile to miss into a wall tile, but since there's no actual way to target/attack a wall the projectile animation doesn't trigger?

11

Suggestions / A feat for using carapace in crafting

« on: January 07, 2018, 07:58:30 am »

We've got Skinner and Clothier already, but with the higher quality carapaces from the higher level new enemies, the big armor penalty doesn't seem quite as prohibitive.  Why not a feat for improving carapaces?  I'd take it on a crafter build, for endgame.

Bonesmith  7 Int, 15 mechanics, 15 biology.  The quality of carapaces counts as if 20% higher in all your crafts.

No?

12

Bugs / [1.0.3.13] Newton does not survive being saved

« on: December 09, 2017, 12:13:04 am »

After killing all the psi beetles in the building (and checking all corners twice to make sure), the dialog option "All the beetles are dead.  Let's get you out of here" results in Newton's corpse spawning near the exit door.  No obvious reason (enemies, traps, etc) exists for his demise.
Note: either of the dialog options to get him out have the same result; dead Newton.

13

Suggestions / Improve floor quality value for Super Steel?

« on: June 09, 2017, 02:29:07 pm »

I sure do love some Super Steel.  But the quality spread is pretty punitive.  I dropped 9,000 charons last night for three plates all under 90.  Might it be OK to increase the lowest quality from 70 to say 100?  100 quality is still just good enough to want to use.

Unlike any other crafting material in the game, you can't see the quality of your super steel before you buy it.  Of course you can probably save scum to get high quality.  But if you don't like the quality value of any other crafting material in the game, you just don't buy it.  You come back later when the merchant has restocked.  At 3,000 charons a pop, it's quite expensive to get bad RNG with super steel generation, and this rewards gaming the system.

The scaling for super steel means that any value of super steel plates below 100 will result in an inferior crafted item to the regularly-obtainable 120+ steel, tungsten, or TiChrome.  By roughly 100 quality you have a valid reason to use the super steel instead of a higher-quality, but lesser tier, component.  Similarly, when making sheets, low quality super steel results in items worse than you could get by shopping around for even moderately high quality ballistic panels.

I don't argue that super steel should be so good that it's always the best thing to use.  I do believe that it should always be good enough that there are good reasons to use it in something you'd equip for yourself.  Failing that, if we could recycle three super steel plates into two new ones, that would also allow us to overcome bad RNG, at an additional cost.

14

Suggestions / Make bulk crafting easier?

« on: June 06, 2017, 03:28:57 am »

This would probably be more difficult than I think (like most things, sadly) but could we get something like a hotkey for crafting, or autofill from inventory when making certain things?

For example, say you've just gone on a rathound safari and want to make a bunch of crappy leather armor to turn into fabric patching kits.  Since you're the genocide of rats, you've got like 60 pelts.  Dragging each one into the crafting window, then clicking craft, forces a lot of duplication of action.  Then you have to do it all over again with Recycle Item.  Could you have a hotkey to craft so you can just double-click the pelt/armor, hit the hotkey, and double-click on the next one.  Rinse and repeat.

Suppose you've been storing scrap for the day when you finally learn how to use a screwdriver, and you have ONE MILLION scrap.  Finally, you can make repair kits and buy your way out of the box in a sewer that you've called home.  Alas, you can only make four at a time, because they take 20 and scrap stacks to 99.  Then, when you've made four, you've got 19 scrap taking up the slot in the recipe.  Increasing the stack limit to whatever the credit limit is would of course help and might be easiest, in this case.  But if not, and if you're making things with materials that do not have a quality value, could they autofill from inventory?  Doesn't matter which extended magazine you use if you're just making several pistols to sell.

Incidentally, if there *is* a hotkey for crafting, this will be a delightfully embarrassing post, and a lesson about posting late at night when tired 

15

Bugs / Combat ends when enemies are incapacitated

« on: June 06, 2017, 03:17:12 am »

Most visible when using Cryostasis on en enemy with several stacks of Chilled, for that long freeze duration, but may also work with crawler poison stun or flashbang incapacitation.  Doesn't seem to work on any 1-turn stun, or Electrokinetic Imprint/EMP stun.

Combat ends, and the countdown timer begins for starting combat manually.  Usually, the stun/stasis will wear off and then when the enemy gets free, combat will force start again, with new initiative rolls.  This can be a hassle, since most likely if you're dragging out a stun it's so that you can regen psi, get out of a trap/DoT, or let an item/skill cooldown period expire.  Sucks to have an enemy crack out of stun, roll a 15 on initiative, and throw two crits in your face when all you needed was one...more...turn (and would have gotten that turn under control if the combat didn't auto-end and forbid you from restarting it)

Concerned this may also be a problem with Stasis in the new psi school.