Underrail, formerly known as Timelapse Vertigo

Expanding the Business; Balance Changes

Hey guys, here's an update on what's been happening since the Steam release.

It will be a while longer before a new version is ready, sorry. The reason for that is that I've been somewhat busy with trying to expand the business. The game did well enough on its Steam (pre-)release that I can now afford to hire some people now that will assist with content creation. Unfortunately, this means interviewing, office space hunting, taxes, logistics, and other stuff that's cutting into my development time. So while development is a bit slow until all this settles down, it will pick up pace and go even faster afterwards.

However, I did manage to add some more Lower Underrail areas and I also made a number of balance tweaks, bug fixes and the like:
  • Changes
    • Players will receive better armor at the start
    • Added more meds, ammo and such to the starting areas
    • Reduced explosive barrel health to 1
    • AP cost of using light weapons (knives, pistols, SMGs or fist weapons) or unarmed attacks is reduced by 4% for every dexterity point above 5. This is very much subject to change depending on how it works out. I want to make high dexterity builds feel more rewarding and this is just the first step.
    • Dogs now have 50% chance to apply Tackle effect on hit (down from 100%)
    • Skill requirements for recycling items reduced
    • Item durability increased, particularly for higher level items. This will make it less profitable (hopefully not profitable in most cases) to repair them for sole purpose of selling them. Also, crafters will be able to recycle them for more scraps them previously since the amount of scraps gained is based on current and max durability of an item. Rate of item degradation should remain about the same
    • Mark 2 repair kits now fix 500 durability points (up from 400). Cost increased accordingly; repair kit crafting requirements and components remain the same
    • Durability span of items looted from slain enemies increased to 5%-50% (up from 5%-20%)
    • Bandits in the "package delivery quest" nerfed
    • Minimal stealth requirements (below which player is automatically spotted) reduced
    • Increased the amount of special ammo that can be found as loot
    • Reduced the cost of amuples and syringes
    • Reduced the amount of explosive required to craft traps (it's now same as grenade recipe)
    • Increased chemistry requirements of Hexogen explosive to 50 (up from 22). Secondary explosives difficulty modifier in grenade and mine blueprint increased to 125% (up from 100%). Mark 3 grenades/mines are now crafted from 1 hexogen and mark 2 are crafted from 2 x TNT instead of vice versa. Reasoning behind these changes is that crafting high level explosives was way too easy and allowed you to obtain grenades that were meant to be used against level 20 enemies as soon as level 7 if not earlier.
    • Player character will no longer obscure targets behind them when issuing offensive commands (such as attacking or invoking offensive abilities)
  • Bug fixes
    • Exporting a character while trading window is open will no longer crash the game
    • Save/load window will no longer lose focus after deletion confirmation pop-up
    • Fixed the bug that would cause optional components to give different crafting requirements depending on order they are placed in
    • Galvanic vest added to random loot table (and hence the stores too)
    • Added missing female riot gear spritesheets (sorry ladies)
    • Fixed the bug that would cause the old man in GMS level 3 to repeatedly initiate dialog with you
    • Fixed the bug in Abram's questline where you could give Garren information you didn't actually receive
    • AP should now correctly be deducted when stacking up utility items during combat
  • Other
    • Added transition error log; it will be generated in Documents\My Games\Underrail every time there's a transition error. This should help us pinpoint any remaining transition problems
    • Removed Media Player requirement by popular demand (you will no longer have to have media player windows feature installed in the next version of the game)

That's all for now. Be sure to let me know what you thought of the balance changes so far.
 
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Thanks for the update. Pleased that things are going well for you and looking forward to playing this when it is finished.
 
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Combat Initiative

Hey, guys. We're still hard at work at producing new content for the next version. And while I'm not ready to show the new areas yet (except the attached teaser screenshot), there are a couple of smaller changes I wanted to talk about.

SurpriseAttack.jpg


The most significant change to the combat mechanics is the addition of initiative. Character's base initiative is determined like this: 5 + agility + dexterity. At the start of the combat, each combat participant randomly adds 1-15 points to the base initiative and the modified value is used when sorting the turn order. The only exception is when the player initiates combat manually (by pressing ENTER) or by simply attacking. In this case the player will always act first, but because of this, the AP cost of the opening attack/action will be deducted from his first turn. Additionally, this also applies to some other non-combat action performed just before entering combat, such as opening doors.

Also, player will no longer be able to quickly initiated combat manually when exiting a dialog to get a jump on their enemies, but I will be going through all situations that involve dialog initiated combat to make sure the player receives appropriate initiative bonus depending on the situation. That is, if you are having a dialog with someone who is already wary of you (such as GMS hostage situation) you do not get any initiative bonus (though you still "roll" standard initiative and may in fact play first), while in situation in which you surprise attack someone through a dialog you will get a substantial initiative bonus, effectively granting you first strike.

I think it's pretty clear what the purpose of this change is - I want to remove the ability (and the need) to "cheese" your way into attacking first, while providing a game mechanic that will allow you to do this in a more meaningful way instead using your reflexes. I think these changes will particularly benefit non-stealth characters who are often hard pressed to survive when ambushed by multiple attackers. For now the initiative is only dependent on the start mentioned above, but later on I plan to add feats/abilities/psi that will allow you to increase this base value. I'm also considering adding initiative modifiers to weapons.

In other news:
  • UI
    • Added a confirmation box when changing video settings
    • Added an option to scroll with mouse while holding the right button
    • Added an option to lock the mouse to screen in fullscreen mode (doesn't work perfectly though, sorry)
    • You can double click on your (non-existing) portrait to center back to your character
    • Game window will no longer process input while inactive
  • Tweaks
    • Shroomhead feat now restores 15 psi points each time you pick a mindshroom
    • Reduced base trap arming time to 7 seconds
    • Reduced the range at which the traps trigger when you step into their tile (should be more consistent with visual collision now)
  • Items
    • Added electrical knives (same crafting mechanics like with sledgehammers and gloves)
    • Added more belts (belts have fixed stats and are not craftable)
    • Added bear trap - a cheap early game trap that deals mechanical damage, roots the target and inflicts a bleeding wound; like caltrops, it can be envenomed
    • Added serrated crossbow bolt that deals additional 100% of original damage dealt through a bleeding wound over 3 turns, but incurs even greater damage threshold penalty than a regular bolt
    • Weapons can now have varying base critical damage bonuses (for now only depending on the weapon base type, but in the future modifiable through enhancements)

Let me know what you think about the balance changes and the new mechanics. Sorry that I can't give you guys a date of the next update, but what I can say is that development speed is picking up again and we're planning to release a new town in the next update as well as bunch of new enemy types.
 
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I purchased the game and I must say I'm quite impressed so far. Thanks for the continual updates, if you hadn't kept on posting here I probably would have missed your game :).
 
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Game Economy Changes

The level design is mostly complete for the new areas, but there's still some scripting and lots of dialog to be done, so it'll be a couple more weeks. Alongside working on the new content, I'm also doing major re-balancing of some game mechanics in order to improve the game economy, both in monetary sense and in other aspects. I'm going to talk about the former now and we'll leave the latter for another dev log.

NewTradingSystem.jpg


The first big change I made is I limited the type and amount of goods merchants are willing to buy from you. Merchants will now only buy certain type of goods depending on what their store deals in and they will require only a certain amount of each, with exception of certain goods they will always be looking to buy (such as bullets for example). The type and amount of goods they require at the moment is randomly selected from that merchant's "market demand table" so to speak and it's reset every time the merchant restocks their inventory (typically every 90 minutes). So you will no longed be able to sell all the junk you hauled from your latest raid to the first merchant you see.

And speaking of hauling junk, I've also implemented item weight system. You'll get the progressively higher movement speed and movement point penalties the more you carry above your capacity and if you carry way too much you will actually get rooted into place. This is something I've put off implementing for quite some time because I wasn't sure it'll actually add any value to the game. I dislike these mechanics in most RPGs, especially the party-based ones because more often than not they only result in more inventory management chores without having (or needing to have) much impact on the game economy. But in certain games where exploring and scavenging are the main concepts of the game and where economy actually matters, and I believe Underrail to be such a game, I feel that liming the player inventory in some way (either through weight or space) is beneficial to the overall gameplay experience.

And finally, to go along with these changes, I've reduced the price multiplier when purchasing items. I'ts currently at 175% (down from 350%), but might change further by the time the update is ready depending on how it works out when I get the time to do a real playthrough. I've also reduced the item durability penalty to its cost and have increased the durability range of items looted from corpses (they won't be near broken all the time now).

So why all these changes? Well here's my take on it.

The way the economy works in the live version of the game is like this: loot everything, get every piece of junk. No matter if you need it for crafting or not, no matter the price, just as long as it can be sold - pick it up (basically always hit "loot all" on every container). The more people you kill, more loot you get which directly translates into more wealth so you're always encouraged to handle every situation by killing as many as possible. And if you do not play like this you will get way less loot, and because the merchant prices and item durability penalties are balanced more towards this "optimal playstyle", you can easily run into money problems.

In the new system, you'll only want to hold onto the valuable stuff and the stuff you actually need (for crafting or consumption) because you can carry a limited amount and because can only sell so much in a given time frame. You might wonder won't the weight system just encourage power gamers to make multiple trips to a dungeon to get all the stuff out and store it somewhere to be sold later when the market demand resets? Well, they can do that, yes, and it will work to a degree, but in the time it takes to make multiple trips to the same (possibly remote) place you can do more fun stuff such as exploring new areas, doing new quests, gaining XP and by doing this, you will also get new loot to sell for when the merchants reset.

There will still be more efficient and less efficient ways to make money - it is not my intention to try to prevent that. Accumulating wealth is one form of power gaming and for a lot of people power gaming is one of the major motivations for playing RPGs. I believe this new system will be more fun to play with for everyone. People who want to get as much money as possible will now try to find the most expensive stuff to sell as opposed to as much stuff, while those who take the more casual approach to the economy won't be left hopelessly behind either just as long as they scavenge intelligently.

In any case, let me know how you guys feel about these changes.
 
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Alternative Experience System

The new version is complete and the build is running as I type this. Tomorrow we'll be starting the internal testing so you can expect the new patch to go live sometime next week. In the meantime, I want to present you with an alternative experience system I implemented and the reasoning behind it.

NewGameOptions.jpg


Before we even begin I want to make it clear that, even though I consider the new system to be the "default" way to play the game, the old system is still available for those who prefer it. Upon starting a new game you will be able to choose which experience system you want to use and you can also choose between easy and normal difficulty. On easy difficulty player character will have twice the health and the healing consumables will heal for twice as much and have a lower cooldown.

With this change, I'm only trying to re-balance the experience economy and not anything else regarding the character progression. The experience economy concerns the way the player gain experience and how does that affect his character build and play-style.

Since the early development phase of the game I was set on the game utilizing this old-school linear level/skill progression system. I'm fond of this kind of system and I had a pretty good idea how I would handle various combat calculations within it. What I never liked about it, though, is how the games that implement it handle experience gains. The problem is similar to that presented in the previous dev log in regards to the trading economy. Most of experience you gain by completing quests and killing enemies. So in order to get as much XP as possible and progress through levels as fast as possible, the player is encouraged to resolve most situations by combat. With Underrail being a challenging game as it is, there exists a very real need for the player to maximize their power level at any stage of the game.

One of tweaks I did in the past of ease this up a bit was to increase the XP gain from quests and reduce the XP gain from kills. It did help a bit, but in a game which involves a lot of combat you'd really have to go to the extremes when shifting the XP gains (from kills to quests) before they actually change the nature of level progression. Otherwise, it will still be heavily based on XP from kills, you'll just slow the progression down. You could go to one extreme and say, let's only award XP for quest completion. This is one way to go about it, and certainly some games have utilized this or something similar. I personally I don't like, though. I find it a mostly boring and non-dynamic way to progress and it also encourages you to complete as many quests as possible, instead of just those you want. In my opinion, you should only have to do quests that progress the story (or alter the game world) in the way you want or have other in-game rewards you desire, and not because it's the only way to become more powerful. For me, playing RPGs is about making choices based on preferences. Anything that limits this is bad.

* * * * *

What I wanted to do is reward player with experience for exploring Underrail, fighting new types of creatures (as opposed to farming easy ones) and just generally discovering and experiences more of the game world. Without them having to make optimal combat builds or finish the quest branch that gives the most experience.

ProtectoratePropaganda.jpg


The way the new experience system works is you only get experience from collecting and studying "oddity" items. These items are scattered throughout Underrail, mostly at points of interest. Some of them are gained by killing critters and other specific types of enemies, but since each oddity item can be studied a limited number of times, you can only farm XP from a single creature type to a certain point. Also, there are generally more instances of an oddity item type placed than you need, so you don't have to have 100% exploration score to get them all. Though, some of them will be unique and only awarded for discovering special areas or defeating bosses.

The main purpose of this system is to allow players to level at a similar rate regardless of what their build and play-style is. Going through the world stealthily, guns blazing (or in some cases diplomatically) or anything in between should now earn you similar amount of experience. People who build their characters better to their respective play styles will still naturally have an easier time and be able to venture to more dangerous areas. They will still do better than those who are still getting the hang of the game - the purpose of this is not to make the game easier, just more inclusive for different play-styles.

For those who like to race ahead of the difficulty curve and like to visit higher level areas early to amass experience quickly, let me assure you that the purpose of this system is not to prevent that either. Higher level areas will hold oddity items that give more experience, so skipping ahead to those will still accelerate your leveling, though admittedly not as much as the previous system.

* * * * *

So, in any case, the new update is coming soon and you'll all be able to check out all these major changes and let me know how it's working out for you. Our focus in the months to come will remain on providing more content to the game and less so on new mechanics, but I am still dedicated to making this game as mechanically and economically sound as possible, as I feel this is just as important.
 
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NB: Apologies if this post is incoherent. I'm writing this from work and am constantly interrupted by other things.
What I wanted to do is reward player with experience for exploring Underrail, fighting new types of creatures (as opposed to farming easy ones) and just generally discovering and experiences more of the game world. Without them having to make optimal combat builds or finish the quest branch that gives the most experience.
Interesting. I salute your goals for this new experience system and your courage to innovate! Kudos. However, I'm still a bit unsure how it will actually work out. A lot of it will, naturally, depend on the implementation. I'm generally leery of any "magical XP orbs" and such floating about the world, but gladly you have done a good job of integrating these XP finds as reasonable parts of the world (judging from the example you've shown). Also, the great thing is that you're providing a traditional XP system too, so there is no need to panic for those wanting a more traditional fare. I will definitely try this "Oddity System," as I see it as an interesting new take on XP rewarding and character growth, but I need to slightly critique it (hopefully in a constructive way).

I get it that you want to reward exploration and not force anyone to e.g. do the quests just to get XP, but removing direct XP rewards from quests entirely is a curious decision. Not saying it's a bad decision. But if you still get XP rewards for finding ways to do "quest related" things, like progressing the plot, finding some key item, gaining access to some key area or talking to some NPC, then isn't it just a roundabout way of giving quest XP - by achieving those things you get XP or oddities which give XP. The traditional XP system doesn't have to be like a bad MMO, where you cannot get XP for finding X or killing miniboss Y until you actually have the quest that prompts you to do so in your quest log. You could just as easily, without these "oddities," have a similar system where the action, be that exploration, combat, finding a key item, or whatever to just give XP when it's done for the same result. So, IMO, there is a danger that the "oddity system" can be a lot of inventive work for no real end result. Granted, with the exception of the limited multiple use of one type of oddity, which allows sprinkling these oddities (which I'll insist on calling "XP orbs" because I still have a bad taste in my mouth from Fable 2 which used such things, which I considered stupid, but the bad taste is from the entire game, not due to the orbs alone) with no fear of "XP overdose". ;)

Or let's take kill XP. If the new system basically just boils down to getting "XP as loot" from enemies, it is just kill XP in another form. By having these XP drops be usable only for a set number of times does limit XP farming, but the same could be achieved by e.g. comparing threat levels (low threat enemies reward no XP) or kill numbers (after 10 kills of enemy type X, they award no XP). I guess I'm simplifying this a bit too far, but I'm not seeing a lot of distinction between getting XP from killing enemy X or getting XP from looting oddity Y from enemy X you just killed.

That being said, I am curious of this new system and will definitely give it a go. Don't let my old RPG grognard's suspicion of all things new be an impendiment to you. Still supporting you all the way, Styg. Underrail has the promise of becoming one hell of a post-apoc CRPG. The true Fallout 3 (without being Fallout, of course). :thumbsup:
 
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@Lurking Grue

Thanks for the well thought out post, it was not incoherent at all. :)

Yes, you are right. I could award XP for all those things (advancing the plot, finding key items, discovering specific areas, etc) and limit the amount of kills that grant XP, etc. It's definitively a solution to the problem and I did consider going this route as well.

The disadvantage of that system is that it's kinda all over the place, awarding XP for certain actions while not granting it for other; not certain type of action, e.g. you only want to award XP for accessing a specific area, not for every room player enters. Having a system that can cover all the different actions you want to reward and do so through a singular mechanic is in my opinion superior in a sense that it is easier to maintain through development and I think easier for player to follow (though that might just be me).

Again, there is no fundamental differences between what this system those and what you're suggesting could be in place instead of it. I just find this implementation more elegant.

The reason I decided not to award XP directly for quest completion is as I stated in the dev log:
you should only have to do quests that progress the story (or alter the game world) in the way you want or have other in-game rewards you desire, and not because it's the only way to become more powerful.

Also balancing out XP rewards for different branches of the quest, especially when there's also intertwining and not just branching, is a chore and often not even possible, so the player is often encouraged to follow quest branch that leads to more XP, instead of one that is compelling for other role-play reasons.

I hope I managed to answer some of your questions at least. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Too tired to spell-check, don't judge.
 
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I forgot about this for awhile. What is the most profitable way for me to purchase this game. Profitable for Styg, not crpgnut. Early Access, direct, etc?
 
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I really like this take on an experience system. Any system that doesn't penalize you for not killing is better than 90% of all other RPGs that give you XP for kills.
 
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I forgot about this for awhile. What is the most profitable way for me to purchase this game. Profitable for Styg, not crpgnut. Early Access, direct, etc?

There's not much difference, really. I don't sell it directly, so you can just buy it on the platform you prefer (Steam, Desura, GamersGate). Since the game is still being developed, I'd suggest getting it on one of platforms that have updating capabilities (Desura or Steam) so you don't have to redownload the entire game with each patch.
 
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There's not much difference, really. I don't sell it directly, so you can just buy it on the platform you prefer (Steam, Desura, GamersGate). Since the game is still being developed, I'd suggest getting it on one of platforms that have updating capabilities (Desura or Steam) so you don't have to redownload the entire game with each patch.

Ah! Steam it is, then.
 
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Version 0.1.10.0 released

Hey guys, the new version has been released. It's available now on Steam, soon to be available on Desura, GamersGate and Groupees. For a preview of what's new you can check out this and past four dev logs.

RailCrossing2.jpg


RailCrossing3.jpg


RailCrossing4.jpg


RailCrossingShop.jpg


You will now be able to travel a bit through Lower Underrail, either on foot or by train, and explore the town of Rail Crossing and the surrounding areas and face new types of enemies. The main story of the game starts in earnest with this patch, but I'm not going to spoil anything regarding that in this log :).

I also did a lot of polishing of existing game mechanics and added some new ones, as well as did a fair amount of economical re-balancing. After these couple days of internal testing I feel quite content where we're at now in that regard and while there surely be some more tweaking done in the future, I don't expect to do any major work on the existing mechanics in the future. With the future patches we will mostly be focusing on adding more content at a faster rate, which will as always include more areas, quests, enemies, items, feats, etc.

Anyway, have fun guys and let us know what you thought of the changes and the new stuff. Cheers.
 
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Also balancing out XP rewards for different branches of the quest, especially when there's also intertwining and not just branching, is a chore and often not even possible, so the player is often encouraged to follow quest branch that leads to more XP, instead of one that is compelling for other role-play reasons.

I hope I managed to answer some of your questions at least. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Apologies for my late reply (and I'm writing from work again, so this might be incoherent).

I haven't had the time to test the new version with the Oddity System, so unfortunately I can't speak from actual game experience, but after reading your description of the system again and your reply to my post, I'm convinced. :) I wasn't against the system in the first place, mind you. I was just curious about the decisions and ideas behind the system, and wanted to hear more about the design. With proper use, the Oddity System is sure to be an interesting and, what's more, a very versatile XP awarding scheme, I've no doubts about that. As I said above, a lot depends on the implementation, of course. The oddities need to be carefully placed and their nature/form must fit the game world, but barring any "fumbles" in those departments, it is a solid design - and a totally new design, which is something I really appreciate.

(Small sidenote/ramble: The CRPG scene needs to have innovation, else it stagnates. As any of the bigger developers are usually loathe to experiment and too timid to innovate, it is the burden of the indies to do that. They are the vanguard in CRPG evolution. So, at the risk of repeating myself - kudos, Styg!)

So yes, I'm on board with the oddities (er, that sounds a bit odd, pun not intended ;)). The oddities will achieve what was their design focus, i.e. give the player a lot of freedom in how to go about playing the game, not forcing the player to e.g. take unwanted quests just to advance the character, etc. And that's all good.
 
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Energy Shields

This has been long overdue but I finally got around to implementing energy shields. The main purpose of energy shields is to provide the player with kind of a health buffer, particularly against ranged opponents, so they can get into the fight and survive long enough to establish the control over the battlefield.

EnergyShield1.jpg


So the way the shields work is they block a certain amount of damage from each direct attack based on impact speed (very slow to very fast) rather than on damage type (mechanical, heat, etc). The amount of damage a shield can absorb in total is equal to its max energy times conversion rate. Shields also dissipate over time, so you won't want to keep them running unless they are needed to block damage. They cannot be recharged in combat.

The amount of damage blocked for each impact speed depends on the modulators used to craft/generate the shield emitter, but overall shield emitters are much more effective against higher impact speeds, so melee characters and, to a lesser extent crossbow users, will have an edge when fighting shielded enemies. Additionally, most types of melee weapons will ignore certain amount of shield (and some special attacks ignore it completely) so we can balance out their usefulness against the hard hitting sledgehammers - knives ignore 60% of energy shielding, fist weapons 80% and unarmed attacks 100%.

Concerning what attack has which impact speed - it's displayed for the weapons, but most other stuff (psi, grenades, etc) don't list it. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle this, because I don't want to clutter the descriptions so maybe a better solution would be to list it somewhere else or have an NPC educate the player about it. We'll see, I haven't made up my mind yet. But until the, here's how it works basically:
  • Very low impact speed - Melee attacks
  • Low impact speed - "slow" projectile attacks, that is projectiles considerably slower than bullets, such as crossbow bolts and cryokinesis
  • Medium impact speed - bullets, shrapnel (from frag grenades)
  • Fast impact speed - super fast projectiles, such as those fired from sniper rifles
  • Very fast impact speed - lasers, plasma, electrical attacks

We still haven't done much balance testing regarding how effective shields are right now. I did some number crunching, but until we put it to test in a real playthrough and also have you the players have a go at it, it's hard to balance it out properly.

Also, characters skilled in electronics will be able to craft shield emitters and, with enough skill, they will be able to attach secondary modulators (which run at 50% efficiency) giving them a bit of an edge against character who have to purchase or find their own since those very rarely have the said secondary modulator.

* * * * *

In other news, here's the other stuff I've been working on:
  • Tweaks
    • Increased the block chance of riot gear shields to 30% (up from 20%)
    • Firearm ammo weight now varies depending on caliber
    • Indirect damage no longer removes incapacitation (e.g. poison)
    • Electroshock primary target damage, pneumatic hit damage and force emission hit damage no longer remove incapacitation in order to better synergies with Cheap Shot feat
    • Minimal hit chance for melee and ranged attacks is now 10% (down from 20%)
    • Increased the amount of item categories most merchants will buy per reset, included the missing categories and also changed certain categories to always be included for specialized merchants (not in the unlimited amount though)
    • Added more psi boosters to early areas to ease up the early game for psi characters who need those rather than bullets
    • Telekinetic Punch, tazing and pneumatic strike are now resisted through fortitude, instead of resolve
    • Melee skill now scales up with either Strength or Dexterity, whichever is higher
    • Boot springs now reduce stealth (will add stealth speedy boots later)
    • Aluminized cloth heat resistance increased and crafting requirements changed to 1 per quality (down from 1.5)
  • Bugs
    • Doppelgangers should now properly ignore target's resistances with their attacks
    • Fixed a very serious bug that caused ranged attacks to mostly ignore evasion rating of the target. Evasion should have much the same effect in avoiding ranged attack as dodge has for melee attacks. This will definitively affect the game's balance, both by increasing the difficulty of high evasion enemies and by buffing agility based player characters, so I'll be keeping an eye on it.
  • Items
    • Advanced Health Hypo added
    • Balaclava added (+10% cold resist, +5 intimidate, +stealth when crafted out of black cloth or +hear resist when crafted out of aluminized cloth)[/li]

Also, I re-balanced bunch of feats, mostly buffing those who were in need of a buff and maybe nerfing one or two overpowered ones. I tried to hit all the feats that needed love, but there are still a couple I'm not sure how to fix or just don't have the mechanics in place to do so yet. Anyway, here's the list of changes:
  • Dirty Kick - now works regardless of the current weapon, the damage is equal to 200% of unarmed damage
  • Premeditation - now also reduces AP cost of the next psi ability buy 100%
  • Psychosis - psi cost increment changed to 20% (up from 10%)
  • Tranquility - reworked: now reduces AP cost of all psi abilities by 10 while the invoker is at full health
  • Cerebral Trauma - reworked: now increases Neural Overload damage by 25% (up from 20%) and burns 15% of the target's max psi points when Neural Overload lands
  • Force User - now increases Telekinetic Punch damage by 100% (up from 20%) and Force Field duration by 2 turns (up from 1)
  • Lightning Punches - now works with fist weapons as well
  • Pyromaniac - doubled the chance it will trigger across the board and the exact chance is now shown for each individual psi ability; also the bonus damage has been increased to 100% (up from 80%)
  • Crippling Strike - damage increased to 150% (up from 125%) and it no longer costs additional action points, but has 1 turn cooldown
  • Grenadier - now reduces standard grenade cooldown by 2 turns (up from 1) and special grenade cooldown by 3 turns (up from 2)
  • Hypothermia - now reduces constitution by 1 (down from 2) and stacks up to 5 times (up from 3)
  • Thermodinamicity - instead of psi cost, now reduces action point cost by 50%
  • Evasive Maneuvers - now grants evasion equal to three times your movement points (up from x2)
  • Uncanny Dodge - now allows you to dodge next three melee attacks instead of just one, but cooldown is increased to 3 turns (up from 2)

* * * * *

As far the content is concerned, we're working on new areas, quests and creatures. One of the goals is to add more side quests to SGS (and surrounding areas) and Rail Crossing which we feel are most in need of those. We'll also be adding a major new station with the next update, but more on that in some future dev log (won't be Core City just yet, though). ;)
 
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Apr 28, 2011
Messages
125
Hey guys. We're still working on the new updated and it will be a while longer because some of the new areas require quite a bit of graphical work. Here's a little sneak peek at the new major urban area - the Foundry:

fo1.jpg


fo2.jpg


fo3.jpg


In addition to that we're also adding a new minor quest hub in the cave areas south of Underrail and couple more quests in SGS and Rail Crossing. Also, we reworked the order in which you receive the early game quests to avoid sending people to GMS too early and added some early game oddities.

* * * * *

In other news:

  • Tweaks
    • Reduced electronic crafting requirements for galvanic vests
    • Increased drops rates for all types of carrier vests
    • Boots now require a pair of rubber soles to craft
  • Bugs
    • Fixed the bug that caused the game to crash when attempting to set up the fishing rod on certain spots
    • TNT charges will now go off properly after loading a game in which it's been already set
  • Feats
    • Changes
      • Changed the AP reduction of Tranquility to 5 (down from 10)
    • New
      • Vile Weaponry - Whenever you cause a bleeding wound with a cold weapon, armor enhancement or trap you also apply infected wound which increases the damage taken from all sources by 10% and reduces healing effects by 25%. Stacks 3 times.
      • Expose Weakness - You can preform a special melee attack that deals normal damage and reduces target's mechanical resistance and threshold by 50% if it lands for 2 turns.
      • Steadfast Aim - Increases critical hit chance with a pistol by 1% for each base action point required to fire it above 10.
      • Spec Ops - Reduces action point cost modifier for burst attack from 300% to 200% when using SMGs. Also reduces cooldown of flashbangs by 1 turn.
      • Supressive Fire - Enemies caught in your burst attack cone (regardless of whether they've been shot) have their ranged chance to hit reduced by 10%, action points reduced by 5 and movement points reduced by 10 for 1 turn.
      • Quick Tinkering - Grants you an ability that when activated will allow you to arm your next trap instantly, even in combat in which case it will cost no action points.
      • Fancy Footwork - When you land a melee attack you gain up to 8 movement points, depending on your armor penalty. This can exceed your movement point maximum.
      • Taste for Blood - Whenever you attack a bleeding target with a melee weapon, you increase your melee damage by 5% and reduce action point cost of melee weapons by 0.2 for each bleeding wound the target has. This can stack up to 20 times. Expires after 2 turns if not refreshed.
      • Eviscerate - Grants you a special knife attack that removes all bleeding wounds from the target and deals 100% bonus damage for each bleeding wound removed.
      • Hypertoxicity - Increases damage done by poisons you apply by 100%.
      • Wrestling - When you strike a living target with fist weapon or unarmed attack you have 50% chance to reduce target's movement points by 8, action points by 3 and chance to hit with all ranged weapons by 7%. Stacks 5 times.
      • Combo - If you land three consecutive damage dealing unarmed or fist weapon attacks against a single target in a single turn, the third attack will deal 100% bonus damage and stun the target for 1 turn.
      • Pack Rathound - Increases carry capacity by 50.
      • Last Stand - Grants you an ability that when activated it will temporarily reset your health to your maximum for 2 turns. After the effect expires, your health will be reduced to 1.
      • Salesman - Increases the amount of goods merchants will buy from you by 1% per mercantile skill.
  • Items
    • Tabi Boots - lightweight boots that can be crafted from leather or fabric components
    • Components (these are all crafting only; that is items made of these cannot be found or bought)
      • Siphoner leather
      • Psi Beetle armor plate
      • Burrower armor plate
    • Super secret stuff
 
Last edited:
Joined
Apr 28, 2011
Messages
125
Version 0.1.11.0 released

The new version is here. It took a bit longer to release than planned, but I think you guys will be pleased with the amount of content added. The game now features two more urban areas (one major and one minor) and lot more Lower Underrail and cave areas. We also reworked some of the starting quests to make the early difficulty curve smoother. For the full list of changes see the text below as well as two previous dev logs.

LargeFurnace.jpg


We will initially be releasing the new update only on Steam until the version stabilizes (we fix any glaring issues you guys find that we missed) after which we'll deploy it to other platforms as well. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this might cause to some, but it's just way too much overhead to deploy hotfixes on multiple platforms.
Aside from new areas and quests, we also added the following since the last dev log:
  • Items
    • Added new metal type for crafting
    • Added taser blueprint so electronics experts can protect themselves from hooligans and stalkers
  • Tweaks
    • Throwing nets made more useful now (no longer completely ineffective against opponents with decent or higher strength).
    • Carrier vests made more common as loot/merchandise.
    • Reduced the damage scaling of bilocation, neural overload, cryokinesis and electrokinesis. These abilities should be roughly the same power early game as they were before, but the idea is to prevent them from scaling out of control mid-late game. Also keep in mind that with all the buffs to psi-related feats they might end up even stronger than the last patch so further balancing might be required.
    • Completely most quests in oddity mode now grants some (usually small: 1-3) amount of XP. This should make completing quests feel more rewarding (especially those quests that don't involve exploration) without significantly affecting the XP balance in this mode.
  • Interface
    • Improved item management mechanics by adding sort button to containers and "transfer all" button to player inventory that can be used to transfer all the items to the currently opened container.
  • Bugs
    • Fixed the bug with certain secret monoliths not recognizing character's psi empathy
    • Increased the bear trap triggering radius so characters cannot pass in between two adjacent traps

We put a lot of effort in improving the narrative, quest hub area quality and game world cohesion, which I believe were up to this point the weaker aspects of the game. I hope you guys enjoy the update. Let us know what you think.
 
Joined
Apr 28, 2011
Messages
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You're making some great progress. Looks fantastic!
 
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Having played through 2 earlier Alpha builds I have decided to stop until the game is complete since I don't want to ruin the final experience. I've really enjoyed it so far, so keep up the great work!!
 
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