Author Topic: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!  (Read 13781 times)

Styg

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Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« on: July 22, 2019, 04:02:50 pm »

After more than three years of development, it is finally complete.

Whereas the base game began as a one man undertaking and slowly grew from there as people joined the team and steadily settled into their multidisciplinary positions to form the current core team of four, which gives it a recognizable progress of content quality and design; the Expedition is, from start to finish, the work of this, now more experience and skilled team, laid upon a more solid design foundations.

For those who haven't been following the development: Expedition DLC features a huge underground lake on which a secondary campaign takes place. This campaign becomes accessible during the normal course of the play sometime during the mid-game. Here is a more detailed list of features:
  • Around 250 new areas
  • Leveling character past level 25, up to level 30
  • Ability to ride and upgrade many different jet skis that vary by speed, defense, firepower and utility
  • Three new weapon classes - spears, swords, and shotguns; all of these can be crafted and there are also special unique ones
  • New psi school: Temporal Manipulation
  • Just under 80 new feats, some of which are special new veteran feats that get unlocked beginning with level 26
  • Specializations - a new way to improve your character; starting with level 16, a character will gain one specialization point that they can use to improve their feats along one or multiple dimensions
  • New consumables, tools, blueprints, and more

We all put a lot of effort into this huge expansion, and each member of the team really poured his heart out into it, in his own way - through visual, narrative or mechanical aspects, to make sure it's not only big, but also a recognizable labor of love. And because it's often the case that people think that Underrail is till a one man operation, I'll use this opportunity to familiarize you with the Stygian Software core team:
  • Dejan "Styg" Radisic (myself) - lead developer, programming, overrall lore and themes, some writing, a bit of everything
  • Stefan "Phrygian Dominant" Cupovic - level and quest design, writing
  • Mario "Mac" Tovirac - 2d & 3d art, various design work
  • Nikola "Johnny" Petrovic - 3d art, mostly character and creature models
I also want to thank our dedicated fans that helped us thoroughly test the game for bugs and imbalances, as well as build up and maintain useful player resources (wiki, character build tool). Though you come at a price of occasionally having to read through your uncalled for suggestions and complaints, I must admit that all this would be much more difficulty without you.

Once the dust settles, I might do a more detailed piece about my thoughts on the Expedition development - what we did wrong and what we did right. I'll also talk more about our future plans then.

In the meantime, if you enjoyed the base game, please head over to the store page and purchase the Expedition DLC.

 
 

If you are new to the game, you might be interested in the bundle option that allow you to acquire the base game and the expansion together at a small discount (on Steam; on GOG go the the Underrail store page and scroll down untill you find "Buy all series" option).

Also, the release will be pushing the new version of the base game (1.1.0.9) to the live branch as well. For the full list of changes see the previous dev log and add the items below to it:

Mechanics
  • When returning to an area after fleeing it during combat, your initiative penalty will be -1000 (up (or down?) from -10)
  • Cryokentic Orb can now counts towards fulfilling Hypothermia's psi ability requirement
Items
  • Lifting belt now increases carry capacity by 30, but the mechanical damage reduction is changed to 5% (down from 10%)
  • Changed the riot gear mechanical damage resistance and threshold bonuses against melee attacks to 100% (up from 75%). Will be applied retroactively.
  • Riot gear will now receive flat mechanical damage threshold of 2. Will be applied retroactively.
  • Tweaked the description of ballistic panels to better fit their use in different armors (will not be retroactively applied to already crafted items)
UI
  • Listed starting action and movement points in the combat stats window
Bugs
  • Fixed the bug that sometimes caused player to receive fear status effect (though it doesn't affect player in any way)
  • Fixed the bug that caused the item immunity effects to appear as though they are not being applied in the tooltip (darkened label) even if they were
  • Thermodynamic Destabilization no longer ignites targets on explosion when invoker doesn't have the Pyromaniac feat
  • Chill and freeze status effects will now always properly remove burning effects
  • Cryogas will no longer affect characters that are immune to chilling

That's all for now, guys. Cheers.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2019, 05:01:16 pm by Styg »

DMonin

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Re: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2019, 05:16:58 pm »
Steam: 'Downloaded 5.3 Gb / 5.3 Gb, Status installing...'

Me: C'mon, c'mon! Can't wait!

Congrats Styg and all the team members!
Richard Moreau, Vault 8

patata2

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Re: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2019, 05:20:43 pm »
I have registered only to say thanks for the hard work and for such an AMAZING game, hope to see more content in the future.

harperfan7

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Re: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« Reply #3 on: July 22, 2019, 05:33:36 pm »
You're going to love it guys; it almost makes the base game look bad.
*eurobeat intensifies*

Altos

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Re: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« Reply #4 on: July 22, 2019, 06:26:58 pm »
Huzzah! The promised hour is here! Rejoice! :D

But in all seriousness, thank you guys for always pouring your heart and soul into this game. Underrail is one big labor of love and it's an absolute joy to play through. I look forward to checking out Expedition and testing my prowess against the challenges of the Black Sea. I'm also looking forward to seeing how many easter eggs you guys have thrown in there. ;D

I still think it's a shame that this game doesn't get more mainstream attention. But hey, maybe that's a blessing in disguise? After all, the last thing we need is more spambots. ;)

I digress. This game is a masterpiece and you guys are awesome! Thank you so much for everything you do!!

Here's to Underrail! Cheers!  :D

Though you come at a price of occasionally having to read through your uncalled-for suggestions and complaints, I must admit that all this would be much more difficulty without you.

 :P

Benight

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Re: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2019, 07:53:17 pm »
WOOHOO!  :D

I've been lurking the forums, waiting for this for quite a time now!
I haven't played in a long time, just to make this sweeter.

Whelp, there goes my sleep rhythm.

fane

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Re: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2019, 08:05:39 pm »
Thank you Styg and Underrail team for making the best game i ever played.It went to nr.1 spot on all time favourite games since release and as i anxiously wait for expeditions to update i figured i should show my appreciation for your work. Dam i was waiting for a game like this since 2000.Yah i am that old.

Megaost

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Re: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« Reply #7 on: July 22, 2019, 08:25:45 pm »
Wooooooooooooooo! GJGJGJGJ! Time to fire up the rails again!

Fenix

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Re: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« Reply #8 on: July 22, 2019, 10:39:08 pm »
I love you Styg and guys, and infinitely respect you and people like you who doing their work without cutting corners and compromises in general.

UnLimiTeD

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Re: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« Reply #9 on: July 25, 2019, 05:20:29 pm »
Man, it has been quite a road.
Looking forward to seeing the final, polished version, after I didn't have as much time as I'd have liked in the past months.
It was certainly a blast until now, and I'm looking forward to doing this again.  :D
First person to give Styg Karma.

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patata2

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Re: Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
« Reply #10 on: July 26, 2019, 09:01:13 pm »
20 hours in so far and loving every minute, so much  fun, also the +speed removes the pain of backtracking.