Back in October I mentioned that we started working on a new standalone Underrail campaign. This is still true, but we've also decided that we're going to give the engine a major upgrade which will help us create a much better game, both visually and mechanically. The thing is - there are certain design and technical decisions that were made early during the development of Underrail that are very limiting to us now, but are not easy to change just due to the amount of content that would have to be redone. So instead of taking a hammer to our beloved game, we're going to improve upon all these things (that we yearned to do for years) in a fresh stand-alone game that will still be based on the same engine core and gameplay mechanics. We call this game Underrail: Infusion.
I'm not going to list all the things that we intend to change/improve upon in Infusion, but I will say that they include both the visuals, as well as mechanics and world design. I'm going to try to post more frequent dev logs, as I did back in Underrail's alpha days, as to keep you guys in the loop. All that you see in these early days you should consider to be work-in-progress. I don't expect we're going to enter full production any time soon - not this year, for sure, as for now we're just focusing on improving the engine, the toolset and optimizing the content pipelines.
First thing I want to show you are the new environment graphics. Keep in mind that Infusion will be taking place in a completely different part of Underrail, so this is not a rework of any existing tile set, but a new one.
I've done a lot of work on the rendering engine and the way the assets are organized and rendered which allows Mac to more easily produce and organize a bunch of different variations of the same object, and also to easily animate them or give them other visual properties and behaviors without having to go into the gameplay code. Inversely, gameplay stuff can now be easily implemented before the assets themselves are made as they are only loosely coupled. This is going to greatly improve our efficiency when churning out new content. Technically, we're sticking with the same tile size (96x48) but we're going to make the tile relatively smaller in regards to objects, that is, everything is going to get bigger, which will increase the graphical fidelity. This is going to affect various combat mechanics as well, but we're discuss this at a later date.
That's it for now. We have more exciting stuff that we've been working on in the meantime as well, but it's not quite ready to be shown still. Let us know how you guys like the new visuals.
Also, in a few months you can expect the new content update for Underrail. This one is probably going to be released on experimental branch first and will stay there for a while, just due to the nature of the gameplay changes I've made. I'm sure you'll all be very happy with the changes, but just in case you might want to experience psionic characters in their current form before that happens.
Cheers.
Version 1.1.1.0 - Core City Factions Update
Hi guys,
We're rolling out the first content update after the Expedition release and we're doing it directly on the main branch so good luck everyone! But first, a few words regarding our current state and our future plans.
Despite having hardly any mainstream press coverage upon release, Expedition sold decently well in the initial wave and then kept doing well in the following weeks. This is very encouraging because this tells me that during the years we did manage to establish a big and dedicated enough of a fanbase, that is keeping an eye on the game and spreading the word about it, that we are no longer at the mercy of whims of individual mainstream journos of dubious gaming pedigree. Speaking of individual whims, we did in the end get a huge visibility boost (that translated into a financial one) from our friendly Ugandan YouTuber in the form of this video. Much love to Sseth.
Our plans for the future are two-fold. First, we intend to release at least a couple more content updates. These updates will vary in size, but you can probably expect something comparable to this one. They will feature mostly minor quest changes, new items, couple new areas and possibly some moderate mechanical changes. I don't know how frequent these will be, but we'll do our best not to keep you waiting for too long.
Secondly, and this will be our major focus, we'll start working on another expansion for the game. This one will be a standalone campaign in which you'll play as a new character in an area that will not be connected to the main game. We decided to do it this way for two reasons: first, because the base game is big enough as it is and we don't want to add more of the big content chunks either horizontally or through further character scaling (we will be adding some smaller stuff through the content updates, though); and secondly, we want to be able to revisit certain base mechanics and design patterns we used in the base game and improve upon them without either making the game inconsistent or having to redesign major parts of the base game. We'll talk more about what these things are and how we're improving upon them in the future.
That's it regarding our plans. We'll try to keep you guys posted on the development.
* * * * *
Anyway, here's the patch notes for the update (the list includes the changes from 1.1.0.13 and .14 that were not present on the main branch until now):
Tweaks
Cooked shot with incendiary chemical blob pistol will now apply fear effects to the fire-fearing creatures
Fence door made a bit easier to click
Reduced the maximum combat and movement speed up while in turn-based mode to 500% (down from 1000%) to avoid it glitching out some abilities
Kareem and Freddy now also sell fish
Sapke now uses W2C bullets
Loot from Arena matches will now be stored in the loot locker behind Lanista
[Expedition] Locusts will now spawn out of the hive every second turn instead of every turn
[Expedition] The sounds of crabs poping out of the ground will no longer stack in order to burst your eardrums
Creatures
Added Mole Cricket - a puny early game insect
Added Young Psi Beetle - a weaker version on regular psi beetle to be used in the early game on lower difficulties
Added Small Sentry Bot - a weaker version of the regular sentry bot to be used in the early game on lower difficulties
A certain evil robot assistant has been upgraded
Balor and Cornell now have unique models
Core City faction members now have distinctive looks
Crafting
Added a throwing net blueprint. One net requires 50 fabric scraps.
Added a thin and frag grenade and mine case blueprints. Create multiple cases from a metal plate (scales with plate quality).
Added lockpicks blueprint. They can be crafter from any type of metal plate and lockpick level scales with metal quality. Also at very high levels of metal quality you'll create bonus lockpicks. This is a rare blueprint.
Changed the required amount of scraps when creating a repair kit to 40 (up from 20) per stack
When recycling an item, the total weight of the scraps will always be less than the weight of the original item
Items
Added a faction specific armors and item for JKK, Coretech, Praetorian Security, Protectorate, Free Drones, and [REDACTED]
TNT Charge value changed to 800 (up from 350)
Added digital timer and cardboard container as a static merchandise to several traders
Huxkey can now be sold as electronic device
Improved Jawbone crossbow
Added a new unique crossbow somewhere out there
Changed the weight of repair kits to 1 and advanced repair kits to 2 (up from 0.25)
Changed the value of .44 JHP bullet to 52 (up from 20). No idea why it was so cheap before.
Fishing rod made a bit easier to click
Fishing rod's range has also been increased, making it possible to fish from some elevated platforms
Dismantling the fishing rod will now be done by right clicking and choosing that option
Added graphite as static merchandise to couple of stores
[Expedition] By popular demand the certain fancy armor will now sport the hood and mask on the player character also
[Expedition] Added bison milk consumable
[Expedition] Sormirbaren Spirit Staff no longer reduces psi costs
Quests/Areas
Added a couple of mini-dungeons that may randomly appear in the early game
The player can now ask Quinton for another set of putrefying bolts in case they used them up and still haven't managed to finish the quest
Fixed a gate leading to Depot A not being lockpickable
Added an agility check for climbing over the fence near the Protectorate embassy in Junkyard
[Expedition] Added a few extra visual clues to that cool dude's first old home; also lowered safe's required lockpicking skill to 60
[Expedition] Added an agility check for climbing over a wall in JSHQ's barracks
[Expedition] Tweaked the way camp loses supplies over time (slowed down and made a bit more consistent and dependent on more factors)
Feats
Cut-throat action point cost changed to 25 (down from 30) and can now also be performed out of stealth against incapacitated targets
UI
You will now see which targets qualify for Ambush feat proc based on their and your current location. The indicator will be placed left of the target's health bar.
Fixed the small offset of different chemical ammo icons that are show above the XP bar
The log will now write "is destroyed" for non-living targets
[Expedition] Fixed the vehicle weight display bug
Bugs
You will no longer be able to export your character while riding a vehicle
When casting electronic imprint on a "melee" trap, such as bear or blob trap, the trap will no longer jump to your location to trap you, but instead be destroyed in a regular manner; However, in addition to this, the electronic imprint will also automatically backfire in case you attempt to place it on top of any trap and apply its damage and stun to the invoker
Fixed the bug that would sometimes cause the game to crash when fighting t-lings in DC
Fixed the bug that caused the Expose Weakness tooltip to sometimes show the wrong reduction value when specced into it
Fixed transition problems with the rocks gap on the Forsaken Island
Fixed the exploit that allows Forcefield and some other abilities to be used to determine if there are hidden NPCs on targeted tiles
Hyperallergenic will now also trigger when consuming psi boosters
Fixed the bug that caused a certain popular NPC to kill you in the end for no reason
Industrial bots are now immune to immobilization
Fixed the bug that caused knife to be invisible when wearing a riot armor with a shield and a cloak
Fixed the bug that caused chemical destabilization to expire before the damage over time effects (such as acidic entanglement) are applied for that turn; from now on, when resolving a turn, all damage over time effects will be applied before affecting the expiration of any status effect
Fixed the bug that caused the cameras to sometimes not detect your various thieving shenanigans (such as the case sometimes was in Ray's shop).
You can no longer decapitate the last boss
Fixed the bug that caused the keybindings to stop working when the map window is closed (by dialog or opening a container, for example) while you're entering a custom note
Fixed the bug that would cause the crawlers and deathstalkers to subtley hint at their future hiding location when escaping by using the ceiling
Fixed hostilities with Gorksy in CC propagating to SGS even when they shouldn't
Fixed a bug in Foundry prison where erasing security footage didn't prevent hostilities with the rest of the settlement in certain cases
[Expedition] Fixed the bug that allowed the special ability of a certain unique armor to be turned on even when not wearing it
[Expedition] Fixed the bug that caused Razor to become invisible when using the shotgun
[Expedition] Fixed the bug that would cause multiple paranormal entities to spawn from a certain corpse instead of just one
[Expedition] The expedition will now leave the items from the player's locker behind upon undeployment
[Expedition] Fixed Ethan being able to teach the players temporal manipulation abilities without them having psi empathy
[Expedition] Fixed a certain agent not recognizing you gave him Something Important(tm) in certain instances
[Expedition] Fixed some minor ending slides issues
[Expedition] Fixed an instance in which a certain kidnapping event can occur even when it shouldn't
[Expedition] Fixed a scripting bug that in some instances caused a transition error when entering the Arch Island docks map
[Expedition] Fixed being able to get a new mission even after being fired from the expedition
[Expedition] Fixed a group of sec-troopers appearing inside an important building in the camp when they shouldn't
[Expedition] Fixed Seeger sometimes hanging out in front of the Arch Island Keep when he should be in his tent
[Expedition] Fixed an issue with certain attacks occurring even after the defenders have left the Black Sea
[Expedition] Fixed the bug that caused the crash after completing the Crimson Horticultural Center (potentially can be triggered on other points during the course of the main quest)
[Expedition] Fixed being able to kill a certain man hanging out in the Dominating Bar in Core City with gas grenades, traps, etc.
[Expedition] Choosing to destroy a certain robot in Lemurian Health Center no longer breaks the quest
[Expedition] Fixed the bug that prevented the Sormirbaren Ballistas to not be able to detect you fully on their own
[Expedition] Increased the range of Sweep attack to at least match the range of regular spear attacks
[Expedition] Plasma mines will now have the proper explosion radius of 2, instead of 3
[Expedition] Fixed the bug that caused Shield Bash (and possibly some other special melee attacks) to use the current weapon crit chance and bonus stats
[Expedition] Shotgun will no longer trigger Ambush since it's not a single target weapon
[Expedition] Opportunist will no longer trigger on sea snakes
[Expedition] You can no longer mount jet skis while immobilized
[Expedition] Fixed bunch of locust hives that were inaccessible for melee attacks (this will not affect the current playthroughs in which you've already visited the area of the hive)
[Expedition] Fixed the bug that prevented the paranormal phenomena in certain graveyard to chill out if you leave the area for a while
[Expedition] Fixed a bug with a certain kidnapping event which was introduced in 1.0.1.13 experimental
[Expedition] Fixed a certain captain's visitor coexisting in two places at once
[Expedition] Fixed the certain infinite trading profit bug that was available to the master merchants
[Expedition] Psycho-temporal Contraction will no longer be affected by armor penalty on following turns
Various minor dialog and map fixes
Let us know how you like the changes and additions. Cheers!
Dev Log #63: Expedition DLC is Released!
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" Radišić (myself) - lead developer, programming, overral lore and themes, some writing, a bit of everything
Stefan "Phrygian Dominant" Čupović - level and quest design, writing
Mario "Mac" Tovirac - 2d & 3d art, various design work
Nikola "Johnny" Petrović - 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:
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.
Dev Log #62: Experimental Branch with Version 1.1.0.5
Hi guys,
In preparation of the expansion release, we're releasing a new version of the base game (on which the current testing version is running on) to make sure that no major breaking bugs have been introduced.
To play experimental branch on Steam, you right click the game in your library and go to "Betas" tab. To do so on GOG, you select the game and choose More->Settings. Make sure you don't override all your live version saves just in case something goes horribly wrong.
Here are the patch notes:
General
Added the ability to speed up the game while out of combat
Added achievements to the GOG Galaxy version
Feats
Kneecap shot bleeding percentage no longer scales from perception, but base bleeding damage percentage changed to 125% (up from 75%)
Mechanics
Unarmed and fist weapon attacks now incur 140% of target's damage threshold and resistance (up from 125%)
Increased the damage reduction factor of resolve against neural overload
Resolve will now reduce the damage received from doppelgangers
Changed the way the burning damage stacks (in cases when it stacks) - the new burning time left equals either the time left of the existing effect or the duration of the new effect - whichever is longer; the old and the new periodic damage are adjusted so that they produce the same total damage over time; one of the major effects of this change is that you can no longer increase the amount of original damage by constantly resetting the timer
Separated fear effect caused by burning into a separate status effect and limited it to 2 turns regardless of how long the burning lasts (or if it's extinguished early); this will prevent the fear from lasting too long either from a long burning effect or because of the burning effect being refreshed; also this fear only occurs when a non-burning target is ignited and not when burning is being prolonged/refreshed
Items
Throwing nets now last up to 2 turns (down from 3) and have a cooldown of 4 turns (up from 3)
Bullets have new icons
Increased the chance to entangle enemies when firing acid blob pistol
Increased the chance to freeze enemies when firing cryo blob pistols
Reduced the chance to ignite enemies when firing incendiary blob pistol; the total burning damage done from igniting the target will remain the same, but will be spread over more turns (one turn per each
80% of the original damage repeated)
Reduced the weight of chemical ammo
Nice Things
Containers that you opened once will now have darker labels
Organic enemies that die while burning will now be smoking and appear charred
HE grenades and some other explosions will leave temporary marks on the ground
Gas clouds will now fade in/out
New barrels
Bugs
Fixed the bug that would allow player to cancel leveling up without being able to reattempt it
Fixed the problem that caused the items to take up weird positions in the filtered inventory when the player attempted to reorder them manually
Cut Throat no longer bypasses stun immunities
Corporeal Projection feat now has a proper icon (instead of using the one from Fast Metabolism)
Throwing knife will now again properly play impact sounds and effects
Fixed the bug that caused expertise to add the damage bonus for each separate mechanical damage listed for the weapon, instead of just once (you thought I'd never find out, did you?!)
Fixed the hole jump crash in Institute
Heavyweight will now always apply before Critical Power
Certain giant appendages can now be hit by cryokinetic orb
Changed the way the cryokinetic orb shards interact with the orb impact tile so now the creatures occupying the tile can also get hit by some of them
Punching bags will no longer bleed when you punch them
Global entities (those that can travel between maps) will now also have their suspicion meter drain with time
Incendiary chemical pistol burning effect will now stack damage with existing burning effect
Fixed the Nimble bug that would in certain situation give bonus movement points
Various minor map and dialog bugs
That's it. Let us know how you like the changes.
Dev Log #61: Expedition Release Date
Hi guys,
We've been wrapping the DLC up and the development is finished now. We're moving into the final stages of testing. First we'll do some internal testing on the new version before releasing it to our testers (we're accepting additional testers now, so if you're interested apply here) and then finally releasing it for everybody on July 22nd 2019.
Sometime between now and the release, there will also be a new experimental version of the game (that will be pushed to the main branch before release).
Thank you all very much for being patient with us and I hope you'll find it worth the wait.
Cheers.
Dev Log #60: New Experimental Version (1.0.4.15) and Trailer Video
Hi guys,
As a lot of you know, the expansion has been in closed alpha for a while now. This helped us weed out a lot of bugs from the available content (which doesn't include the last dungeon) and we would like to thank our dedicated alpha testers for their time. Without them it would take much much longer to get the DLC to run properly and smoothly and we surely would not have found as many bugs. This is not the end of alpha, though, as it will remain in place (likely) to the very release.
Speaking of release, we have the store page up now with a brand new trailer, so check it out. You can't pre-purchase it, but you can wishlist it.
In preparation for the eventual release (it will happen) I'm pushing the version on the experimental branch. In regards to the original game, this update has a bit of everything, including fixes for some old persistent bugs, but also this is the code that runs the current build of Expedition and I want to make sure it doesn't break anything in the base game before we finally release the DLC. Here is the list of changes:
Engine
Replaced the black window with a cosmetic loading bar when loading up the game
Items
When being sold by the player, items will now be valued at 50% on hard and 25% on dominating difficulty
CAU armor will now also increase the damage of Cooked Shot by 20%
Added brown worker suit as an armor item
Added the previously default model's shirt and pants as an armor item
Cost of food increase by an order of magnitude
Doctor's Coat and Biotechnician Suit can now degrade, be repaired and recycled
AKX is now indestructible (it won't take damage from use) and has been moved from the train hijacker to Kokoschka
Added new foods
Mechanics
Special attack damage bonus no longer works with "unconditional" special attacks, which are special attacks that do not have a cooldown or require special conditions to trigger. So far these are: burst, shotgun burst, heavy punch, and double shot
Immobilizing status effects will now also set your effective dodge stat to 0 (just like evasion)
Damage from standing in fire will now remove incapacitation and also remove "chilled", "frozen" and other cold based status effects
Animals and other low-intelligence enemies can now pass through curtain doors. Good luck.
Cameras will now report on you when you steal stuff
Ground fire percentual burning damage capped to 16-40 (based on fire level).
Net throw will now displace success chance during targeting
Burning and exothermic aura status effects, as well as some other direct fire exposures, will now also remove webbed status effect
Feats
Changed Quick Tinkering: Cooldown changed to 5 turns (up from 2)
Added Versatility: Your effective Guns, Crossbows and Melee skill value is brought up to 60% of the effective value of the highest of those skills.
Tweaks
Players wearing no armor will appear in their underwear instead in the default outfit
Explosive barrels will now ignore 40% of target's resistance and threshold (same as HE grenades)
New models and portraits for Kokoschka and Dude
UI
You can now copy current dialog text to clipboard by pressing Ctrl+C.
Bugs
Fixed the keybinding for the global map
Fixed the bug that caused patrol waypoint delay to end on save/load
Hopefully fixed the bug that caused the window to lose focus when starting the game in full screen mode on some computers
Fixed (or at least) improved the mechanics concerning turn-based combat and area (blue) transitions. Player will now retain his combat turn while transitioning to a different area (section) within the same zone and NPCs will not bug out as much when attempting to follow him
Fixed the bug that caused the crafting UI to swallow up items in some rare instances
Activating exothermic aura will now also remove any burning effects the invoker has
Fixed the weird weapon rules in Fort Apogee Consulate
Fixed the bug that caused certain NPCs to respond to noise in turn-based mode, but not in real-time mode; there might be more instances of this
Commando feat will now properly trigger from kills caused by on-hit damage from special ammo
Using special attacks in real-time mode will no longer automatically be followed by a single regular attack
Hunchback mutants will now use proper yell sound
Bear traps, cryoliquid blob traps and throwing knives will no longer ignore immunity to critical hits
You can no longer add a silencer to a weapon alongside another muzzle device
Fixed the bug that caused the player to receive the strange feeling debuff after saving the game and staying still even though he should be safe from it
Shoot Dreadnought rocket ability now has actual tooltip text
Pseudo-spatial Projection will now work against throwing knives; also throwing knives will report misses in combat log now
Fixed the minor bugs with word emphasis in dialogs through bolding.
Fixed some issues with Grover's quest not being set to completed in the quest notes
Fixed an issue with a trapdoor in a certain bunker in Foundry not being properly unlocked in some instances
Fixed an issue with Azif sometimes not wanting to leave his starting zone
Fixed the Zone Rats not being hostile to mutants
Fixed the wounded man from a certain random event dying even if the player has healed him.
Fixed not being able to finish Gorsky's final mission in certain instances
Fixed an unclickable item in the abandoned sofa random encounter
Fixed invisible attackers during the Core City warehouse invasion
Fixed being able to talk to Daniel Arda in a situation where that shouldn't be possible
Minor dialog/map and scripting fixes
To play experimental branch on Steam, you right click the game in your library and go to "Betas" tab. To do so on GOG, you select the game and choose More->Settings. Make sure you don't override all your live version saves just in case something goes horribly wrong.
And finally, in regards to DLC development, the final dungeon is just about done. Though the dungeon is very small, we developed a lot of custom content for it specifically, so it took longer than expected (per usual). After we're done with the final dungeon we'll need some time to wrap things up and do some final testing and then the game is good to go.
That's it for now. Let us know what you thought of the trailer and the new experimental version. Enjoy the holidays and hopefully take some break from work like we will.
Merry Christmas! Christ is born!
Dev Log #59: In the Halls of the Savage King
Hi guys,
We're basically done with the savage natives. You won't be able to join this faction but you'll be able to explore their territory and their lore, and in any case you'll come in contact with them regularly as they are the primary danger facing the expedition.
Now we're taking a two week break to get some sun. After that we'll be putting the final touches on the rest of the Black Sea and preparing the closed alpha that will probably be available in the second half of September. It will be invite only. We'll be turning to the veterans of our community to help us test the massive amount of content we added so far to help us weed out bugs, handle any glaring imbalances as well as provide general feedback as to how to improve the expansion (within reason).
As the closed alpha is taking place we'll move to the final dungeon and the main quest wrap up.
Let us know how you like the new areas and I hope you guys are as excited for the closed alpha as we are. We really added a lot of things to the DLC over these few years, that, at times, we complete forget about them, and we're really interested to see how you guys use and abuse them to kill our precious NPCs before we nerf everything into the ground.
Cheers.
Dev Log #58: Environments Preview
Hi guys,
Just want to let you know that development is going more or less according to plan. After finishing the Rig and the stuff in the old world, we've moved back to the Black Sea and are now polishing up some of the areas and wrapping up quests and the like. You can see some of the interesting areas in the video below as you relax to the excellent atmospheric music of Josh Culler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbUtbJogXc4
We've also started working on the savage natives and their areas, so expect to see some of that in the next dev log.
That's all - just a short update to let you guys know that the development is going more or less according to plan and that you guys should stay tuned for more dev logs in the coming months.
Let us know how you liked the areas showcased in the video.
Cheers.
Dev Log #57: The Rig
Hi guys, here's a quick update on what we've been up to in the past few months.
In order to wrap up the geographical consistency of the base game, we had to create a number of water maps that connect SGS, Junkyard, Core City, Camp Hathor, and the Black Sea. In the expansion the player will be able to traverse and explore these maps with his jet ski, but he won't be the only one as a number of factions also utilize these waters, such as Protectorate, Black Eels, and Black Sea pirates. Also encounters with random sea bandits are not uncommon.
The most powerful naval faction in the South Underrail is, of course, the Black Eels. Their naval platform The Rig is perfectly positioned to facilitate the trade between different stations as well as their own scrap exporting business. The Rig is also used to control the central body of water of the Lower Caves in order to fend off pirates. This place will be vital for pirate missions that the player will be able to take part in if he chooses to ally with the them in the expansion.
The Rig missions are not 100% complete yet, but will be soon. After that we'll be returning to the Black Sea to wrap up and polish off the maps we made so far and integrate them into the global map. And then we still have two more areas to develop - the villages of the savage natives and the final dungeon.
Let us know how you like the aesthetics of the new areas.
Cheers.
Dev Log #56: Experimental Branch with Version 1.0.3.13
Hi guys, we are releasing a new major update of the base game on the experimental branch. If everything goes as planned, we'll be releasing it to the main branch as well soon.
To play experimental branch on Steam, you right click the game in your library and go to "Betas" tab. To do so on GOG, you select the game and choose More->Settings. Make sure you don't override all your live version saves just in case something goes horribly wrong.
We have new creatures, items and feats.
Here are the full patch notes:
Interface
You can now configure transparency of transitions (also increased the default transparency)
Objects that transition you between areas (transition that requires loading) when you use them should not display the transitioning cursor
Added transparency to NPC health/psi/shield/cast bars on the map
Items
Added new high-energy battery type
Increased the weight of the fishing rod
Removed cooldown for placing fishing rods
Increased the damage and critical damage bonus of Quake
Significantly increased the value of a lot of unique items (mostly weapons)
Nerfed Power Fist
Increased the max stack size of scraps to 999
Trapper's Belt will now increase Traps skill by 15% (up from 10%); it will no longer reduce trap arming cooldown
Added two new belts that augment chemical pistol attacks
Regenerative Mixture will now be affected by game difficulty
Special bolts affected by Elemental Bolts feat will now display the modified damage in the tooltip
Reduced the infused leather quality slightly overall and also added diminishing returns when making infused leather above 100 quality
Infused siphoner tabi boots will now give immunity to slow instead to immobilization
Junkyard surprise can no longer increase perception, will or intelligence
The following items will have their max stacks increase to appropriate amount: .44 Explosive Round, 8.6mm Incendiary Round, 12.7mm Contaminated Round, 7.62mm Micro-shrapnel Round, Corrosive Acid Vial, Incendiary Vial,
Halved the move and shoot and action point cost penalties when attaching bipods to assault rifles (not applied retroactively)
You can now use High Efficiency Energy Converter to reduce the energy cost of firing energy pistols
Energy Pistols now have two enchancement slots when crafted
Plasma pistol damage increased by 25%
Laser pistol base action point cost changed to 15 (down from 22)
Laser pistol usage energy cost reduced by 20%
Changed the base value of psi boosters to 275 (down from 350)
Changed the maximum duration of throwing net entanglement to 3 turns (down from 4)
Increased the amount of EMP dischargers generated as loot/merchandise
Changed the number of unsaturated psionic catalyst required to craft a psi booster to 3 (down from 5)
Fixed the armor description when crafting riot gear and tactical vests from super steel sheets (will not be applied retroactively to the already crafted items)
Changed the psi regen reduction of Mushroom Brew to 30 (up from 1). The previous value was geared towards non-regenerating psi pool of alpha version.
Fixed incorrectly set impact speed of unique assault rifles (raised from medium to high, as should be the value for all assault rifles) and corrected the lack of move and shoot precision penalty for those guns
Fixed Jawbone lacking move and shoot precision penalty (now set to 15%) as well as close quarters precision penalty (now 10%)
Fixed low durability of armor worn by Tchortist rassophores and recombinants; only applies to npc armor (armor in the player's possession will remain unchanged)
Creatures
Increased Coil Spider psi points and psi regeneration
Coil Spiders now have darkvision
Added Greater Coil Spiders
Added a new machinegun turret to replace the regular auto-turret in certain places and on certain difficulties
Increased dodge and evasion of burrower spawns, but also increased their susceptibility to AoE attacks
Dogs will now attempt to bump you out of stealth when the detection gets into ALERTED state, just like human NPCs (on normal difficulty or higher)
Added a stronger version of psi beetle
Increased crawler attack damage a bit; they also regenerate health now (even in combat) and have dark vision
Added a stronger version of crawler
Added stronger version of mutants Hunchback mutants
Mechanics
Added the global map
Added DOMINATING difficulty, mechanically it inherits the modifications of hard difficulty and also increased NPC health by 50% and skill levels by 30%.
Changed the way hit change display handles oscillating lighting or otherwise dynamic lighting. This also should fix some anomalies like the hit chances changing when saving/loading or transitioning.
Removed cooldown for arming traps
Removed cooldowns from lockpicking and hacking
Reduced the time it takes for the game to yield the control back to the combatant after he kills the target; it doesn't wait for scrolling text and sounds to end now
Hostilities will now instantly be triggered when you've been detected lockpicking (instead of at the end of the action)
Increased the damage of chemical pistols by 50% (will be applied retroactively on exisiting items)
Ground fire will now remove cryogas
Starting pickpocketing (opening the pickpocketing window) will now require a certain amount of pickpocketing skill depending on the target's detection so not every character can inspect any NPC's inventory (without killing them!)
Targets will no longer be able to block (in regular way) if stunned, incapacitated or frozen
You can now unload chemical pistols
As long as you haven't been fully detected by a NPC, that NPC's detection will be reduced back to zero when you get back into an area where you've been sneaking
Uncanny Dodge will no longer work while you're stunned or incapacitated in some way
Dirty Kick will now be subject to Uncanny Dodge and other special defense mechanisms
You can now root turrets (which makes them susceptible to acidic entanglement)
On normal difficulty and above, transitioning between areas (red transitions) will now cost action points
Improved NPC pathfinding slightly
Primary non-mechanical damage (not caused by on-hit effect) on melee weapons will now scale with weapon skill (like the bio damage on The Claw), but will no longer scale with strength
On hard difficulty EMP will drain energy (and subsequently deal damage to the holder) from all items in the inventory (not just equipped ones)
Reduced the ranged weapon precision reduction from low light slightly
Antidote will now randomly choose the order of poison removal, instead of going in the order they were applied
Tweaks
Turn-based mode will no longer automatically end at the end of the turn if there are incapacitated enemies near
Reduced the alpha on energy shields
Removed the movement animation reseting when rapidly clicking (there's still a very slight stutter if you click very fast, though)
You cannot change armor suit while in stealth or while stealth is on cooldown on hard difficulty or above
Turrets will now drop aggro faster
Getting additional burning damage will reset the burning debuff remaining time
New combat taunts for military personnel
Psi
You can now cast Cryokinetic Orb on any non-obstructing tile (such as water and other regularly non-traversable tiles)
Improved the shard distribution of Cryokinetic Orb on impact
Changed the range of Frighten psi ability to 5 (up from 3)
Feats
Steadfast Aim strength requirement changed to 5 (down from 6)
Cooked Shot special chemical pistol AoE attack with radius of 1
Three-Pointer Changed Throwing skill requirement to 50 (up from 45); The crit chance will now scale by 1.5% per ten throwing skill points above 50, instead from dexterity
Doctor will now also work with Regenerative Mixture as it should
Expertise changed the max bonus to 20 (down from 25)
High-Technicalities increases damage with energy pistols by 7% for each point of intelligence above 5
Quests/Maps
Because of the global map, some areas had to be added and some had to be reorganized (especially around the starting cave areas) in order to achieve geographical consistency
Added a number of possible random events around the world
Reworked a lot of encounters to scale with game difficulty (from easy to dominating). Normal was mostly kept as it is, but some encounters (typically mid-late and late game ones) were made more difficult on that level.
Reworked the Free Drone's final mission debriefing dialog with Trenton in order to better handle a certain optional outcome
DC mindreading will now take into account the number of killed Faceless, which will have negative effects of varying degrees depending on that number; however, kills during certain story-related events where combat is unavoidable will not be counted
Expanded the Hanging Rat bar and added a base ability check
Bugs
Corrosive acid bolt crits will now multiply the acid damage done just like the regular acid ones
Focus Stim will now properly display duration in the item description
Fixed the Crippling Strike tooltip
Fossilized Egg Oddity max studies changed to 3 as it should have been from the start
Spore Turrets marked as ribles, kneeless and immune to critical hits
Fixed the bug that caused NPCs to not properly react to being alerted (orange eye) to player's presence
Fixed spelling errors in special ammo hit effect descriptions
Fixed the bug that caused Eviscerate to do less damage than stated
Fixed the rounding error with Critical Power feat
Fixed a sneaky bug regarding status effect stacking
Black Dragon poison icon fixed
Fixed the bug that would sometimes cause player to become undead during cutscenes in which he unpredictably dies (this will apply retroactively, RIP)
Fixed the 8.6mm Incendiary Rounds (they weren't igniting)
Jookhela should now be immune to stun and incapacitation like the rest of senior raties (will not update for those who already encountered him)
Removed Gauntlet advertisement from DC
Crawlers and other NPCs should no longer unwittingly bump their own kind/faction out of stealth
Suppressive fire will now only be applied to enemies, as intended
There was a mess up regarding player's increased chance to get critically hit. Contrary to what the game has been saying, there is no universal to-get-crit (TGC) modifier, instead it only applied for weapon and unarmed attacks, which made things like Psychostatic Electricity rather useless. I've now added psi TGC modifier, so recklessness and psychostatic electricity will now apply to psi abilities as well. Everything else will only work for unarmed and weapon attacks. Tooltips have been updated to reflect this.
Thought control psi abilities can now be properly centered onto non-traversable (but penetrable) terrain
Disruptive Field will no longer get bugged out by Locus of Control
You will no longer hear the sound of NPCs stealthing when you enter an area for the first time, unless you can see them already
Swapping between two energy weapons while recharging the current weapon will now properly cancel the action
Fixed the bug with plasma sentry when leaving the area while it's deployed in cannon mode
Fixed an issue with player's house containers (lockers, shelves, etc.) wherein the items from upgraded or changed containers wouldn't transfer to an always-present shelf in the northeastern corner of the ground floor
Fixed certain quest notes not being set as completed/failed properly
Fixed a number of skill checks that used base instead of effective required value or had no value set at all
Fixed Sneaky not registering the death of one important npc
Expanded or reworked certain parts of npc dialogs (some more, some less) and also added a few new skills checks to some
Replaced a few windows in fo_prison with solid walls so that the cameras inside the cell block can't see inside the security room. This was done to prevent the cameras from dispatching all the guards into the room even if the player had been granted access to it
Fixed a minor issue with a certain Hathor Mine-related cutscenes
Various minor map and dialog fixes
Have fun with the new stuff and please stay patient as we continue to work on the Expedition DLC.
Report any bugs you find on the forums and make sure you specify which version you're playing.
