Underrail News

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dnKxV5tpuM

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.