KickStarter INSOMNIA: The Ark - dieselpunk sci-fi action-RPG set on a decaying space station

[Jenkem]

was going to play this tonight but now you people are saying it is bugged more and now so instead to delete you know?

edit: toro what exactly are those pics supposed to show? i want to play but your posts are making me not want to now

 

[toro]

was going to play this tonight but now you people are saying it is bugged more and now so instead to delete you know?

edit: toro what exactly are those pics supposed to show? i want to play but your posts are making me not want to now

You don't want to know. Just play the game.

 

[ColCol]

e I've found one untranslated quests.

Meh,that is no problem,most true RPG fans know to read Rus.

But must true Russians don't know how to read at all

 

[aweigh]

is the game really unplayable rn? bonus question: is this from the mars: war logs guys? That game sucked.

 

[toro]

is the game really unplayable rn? bonus question: is this from the mars: war logs guys? That game sucked.

The game is playable but it's not polished as some expect.

It's from Mono Studio - small Russian Indie studio - and it is their first game.

 

[Sacred82]

I don't think something can be both post-apocalyptic and dystopean at the same time.

Polack detected

 

[fantadomat]

is the game really unplayable rn? bonus question: is this from the mars: war logs guys? That game sucked.

It is playable and finishable from what i have read,also i didn't have any real problems and i am around level 10. For the bonus question,no it is not from them. They are working on "greedfall" here is a link:
https://www.gamepressure.com/games/greedfall/z04b64

 

[Jenkem]

how to build character in game friends?

 

[Jinn]

Alright, found an easy fix for the resolution and menu problem when I got home. Simple alt-enter to get to windowed mode, then you can change the resolution from there on.

Now that I can see that work is actually being put into this, I can be more patient. Really hope they start nailing the obvious gameplay and UI issues now. Guess I'll wait a little longer to see if anything in that realm starts getting attention.

EDIT: Also, toro since you seem very knowledgeable about the game, you should really try to tell the developers some ways they can even out the gameplay. Things like fucked up world currency, uneven character progression, unbalanced equipment and weapons, obvious AI faults, etc. if you haven't already.

 

[toro]

how to build character in game friends?

This is my build:

Spoiler

This is more like an Engineer/Hacker build with Max learning.

From what I've noticed: there are a couple of checks for level 3 scammer which I could not do.

Also I don't recommend this build because is quite weak in combat.

 

[toro]

EDIT: Also, toro since you seem very knowledgeable about the game, you should really try to tell the developers some ways they can even out the gameplay. Things like fucked up world currency, uneven character progression, unbalanced equipment and weapons, obvious AI faults, etc. if you haven't already.

They fucked up again. Boiling Point quest is broken. It's a main story quest.

I will write more tomorrow.

 

[Modron]

This is more like an Engineer/Hacker build with Max learning.

What does learning do exactly anyways? Is it just an exp multiplier and/or restricted to book xp?

 

[fantadomat]

how to build character in game friends?

This is my build:

Spoiler

This is more like an Engineer/Hacker build with Max learning.

From what I've noticed: there are a couple of checks for level 3 scammer which I could not do.

Also I don't recommend this build because is quite weak in combat.

Well it is pretty optimal,only new fags go for combat skills in this type of games, Always max out your xp gain and utility early on. The Gothic way . My build is the same,also i took the trading and the traits that give you more space to carry useless shit.

 

[Fenix]

This is my build:

Do you really need maintenance and picklocking skill that high? I heard there is consumables that increasing it.

 

[razvedchiki]

Have they altered the hunger/thirst mechanic from being a gimmick to something that adds to the game?

 

[toro]

This is more like an Engineer/Hacker build with Max learning.

What does learning do exactly anyways? Is it just an exp multiplier and/or restricted to book xp?

I assume it does multiply the XP.

This is my build:

Do you really need maintenance and picklocking skill that high? I heard there is consumables that increasing it.

Not really. But I did not want to use consumables which increase Somnia.

Have they altered the hunger/thirst mechanic from being a gimmick to something that adds to the game?

It doesn't add anything to the game. It is just a money sink because loot is always raining.

 

[coldcrow]

Alright, found an easy fix for the resolution and menu problem when I got home. Simple alt-enter to get to windowed mode, then you can change the resolution from there on.

Now that I can see that work is actually being put into this, I can be more patient. Really hope they start nailing the obvious gameplay and UI issues now. Guess I'll wait a little longer to see if anything in that realm starts getting attention.

EDIT: Also, toro since you seem very knowledgeable about the game, you should really try to tell the developers some ways they can even out the gameplay. Things like fucked up world currency, uneven character progression, unbalanced equipment and weapons, obvious AI faults, etc. if you haven't already.

Jinn Delete the folder users\[youruser]\AppData\local\insomnia_v2 on your system drive.

 

[Jinn]

So I got an answer from the community manager about the armor stats.

Vault_13 [developer] 9 hours ago

The general logic behind the Armor parameter is that if you don't see any displayed it means it equals to 0. Basically higher parameter increases the chance to avoid the damage at all while "Defense" can only reduce the damage.

A bit strangely worded, but I felt I had grasped it. Luckily, a user has done some extensive testing and had a more detailed answer for us.

Orangicus

1 hour ago

That is my conclusion.
So armor static numbers (e.g. 14) is a measure of your armor's ability to protect you. It doesn't reduce damage directly; so 14 armor would not reduce incoming damage of 27 to 13. Instead, it gives you a chance to completely avoid damage altogether. It also seems to function somewhat close to a percentage, but just doesn't use that methodology in the stat layout. It's easier to see this with heavier armor (such as the armor you get from 1000-year, which has 69 total).

As for "defense," this is the stat which actually reduces incoming damage. If you have 20% gunshot defense, you only receive 80% of any incoming gunshot damage. This is why damage types are important. If you've got high defense against gunshots, but zero defense against plasma, I could split you right open with even a shitty plasma knife.

Summary:
Armor is functionally a percent chance to dodge (since there's no dodge system in this game).
Defense is damage reduction in the event that your armor does not ignore the damage.

So the base whole-number statistic designated as "Armor" is more like a dodge statistic, whereas the specific damage defense % is a base reduction of that type of incoming damage. A little convoluted, but I actually like it quite a bit as an armor system. Needs some kind of explanation in-game though, clearly.

Glad to see there is actually a little more going on here than I had suspected.

 

[Jenkem]

you should have never doubted the slavs

 

[toro]

Finished the game. Took me 45 hours from which I think I've spent at least 5 hours on reloading and trying workarounds for bugs. I did almost everything except 4 quests from which I believe 2 are broken.

Big spoilers: end game is completely broken. I already wrote on Steam but I will repeat it here: untranslated dialogue, corrupted saves and the good ending cannot be "accessed" therefore all I got was the bad ending.

Truth to be told, I could see 2 variations for the "bad" ending but it sucks because I should have been able to unlock the good ending however the game said "Nyet! Cyka Bleah!".

Spoiler

That being said, I would recommend to everyone to wait for another patch. The game is clearly unfinished and there is another main quest which is broken.

 

[toro]

As I wrote on Steam there is another main quest in v1.3 of the game - Boiling Point - which is broken.

Spoiler

Basically this is a quest given by General Tanaber and once you get it then you have to go directly to Reservation D106 otherwise the quest will get bugged for whatever reason.

I did not test more than this but I know that talking with Riebel will break the quest.

This is what you should see in the Reservation D106:

 

[Owlish]

I have it sitting on my steam but haven't tried it yet. I'll probably play it in about 6 months or something.

 

[toro]

EDIT: Also, toro since you seem very knowledgeable about the game, you should really try to tell the developers some ways they can even out the gameplay. Things like fucked up world currency, uneven character progression, unbalanced equipment and weapons, obvious AI faults, etc. if you haven't already.

Thanks for the trust but I don't think I'm very knowledgeable on the game mainly because it would be misleading to say that I'm knowledgeable about an incomprehensible thing ... because this game is exactly that, an incomprehensible mess at times

As for helping the developers, I'm not sure they want to be helped or can be helped as long as they ignored tons of issues reported on Steam and as you can see, the last part of the game is simply in a unacceptable shape. If you find something you want to share with them then feel free to do it.

But I cannot hate the game even if it robbed me of the proper ending that's why I want to make a mini-review:

- Animations are really bad but I cannot fault the developer for them because they are not easy to fix. They probably know this.
- Text translation from Russian is simply horrific. I cannot say anything about the quality of the original Russian text however the current translation in English is complete garbage. I mean there are entire lines of dialogues/paragraphs which make no sense whatsoever and it drags down the entire experience. They should review the translations asap. This would improve the game significantly and pretty fast.
- Save system is archaic (slots, no quicksave/quickload) and broken. I don't know the engine details but it works something like this: it loads the scene with all the objects and then is sets the state for each object. For example: it will load all the guards and then proceed to kill them in case they were dead in the savegame. Not only that but there are some bugs when objects/NPCs don't spawn or they spawn but they also keep their state between reloads. That's why I had to completely quit the game a couple of times, so that all objects got reset properly after restart/reload. Really annoying. Needless to say a save system should not work like this.
- Inventory system is bad. You have only one option to sort items. In my case, at some point, the items stopped stacking therefore I had to manually arrange them. Complete waste of time.
- Economy is broken but that's not really an issue as there are few RPGs which have a non-retarded economic system. The main issue is that the resources are infinite. The main story loot is hand placed but some quests and all random encounter have randomized loot therefore you will be filled with shit to the brink. By the end of the game I had like 50k tokens which is not insignificant. Still some items were unreasonably expensive (like health syringes).
- Food and Water is a pointless mechanic. I assume that they included them for immersion and as a money sink but like I said above, they fail to make any impact besides annoying the player. There is nothing more stupid than getting Hungry or Thirsty messages during a fight or in Somnia where you cannot do shit about them.
- Combat is mediocre at best. If you played Dark Souls for 5 minutes then you can melee any mob in Insomnia because rolls are IMBA. Boss fights are hilariously easy cause of it. On the other hand pistol, rifle sniper or shotgun are somewhat decent (Risen 2 quality). I do like the aiming mechanic.
- AI is smart and retarded at the same time. Enemies know how to take cover and throw grenades but at the same time they also constantly peeking for bullets to the head. Standard AI issues. Honestly it's quite serviceable and I died many times.
- Sound is good but it was plagued with issues for me.
- Level cap seems to be 15. The game doesn't communicate this too well. It looks like you don't need to upgrade main stats more than level 3. Also you can level up companions.
- Itemization is good. There are no overpowered items and there are named items with background stories.
- Crafting is so and so. It will take a while to learn all the required items. Not really intuitive.
- Encounters are part of the story. At some point they start repeating themselves but a couple of them are interesting.
- Reactivity is quite high. They could not implement reactivity for every quest but the consequences to a couple of quests will blow your mind.
- Quest design is good. Most quests are combat orientated or fedex quests but there are a couple of surprises (like the one inspired by The Raid and Judge Dreed).
- Factions branching is in (as in you can join two different factions).
- Story is good. Although the translations are shit, the overall story is quite good and it reminded me in parts of Underrail.
- Armored suit sections are fucking awesome. The best power armor implementation: you can feel the hydraulics working and the underlying power. Talking about power trips
- Visuals are incredible. They took inspiration from Blade Runner and Dark City, but they managed to create something original ... which is very hard to achieve these days.
- Exploration is satisfying. Rarely do I get so immersed in some virtual world where I want to find all the secrets ... and there are many.
- Atmosphere is top-notch. In the beginning the game it reminded me of System Shock 2 and I loved it. Got chills.

Spoilers about my run:

Spoiler

I've played a Hacker/Engineer build which was not the best fit for combat.

My run was spoiled by the fact that I've found one of the best armor early in the game. From this guy:

Then I've started using one of the best rifles in the game:

Screenshots dump:

Spoiler

Overall: This game is an incomprehensible mess at times but in the end it's just an unpolished gem cause the foundation is really solid and the patches can and will solve the rest.
The design philosophy behind it is very old and the developers are a bunch of rookies which bit too much for they own good. I think they are more artists than game developers.
Nevertheless the game is pure incline and the atmosphere of Insomnia must be experienced by any Fallout, Gothic, Thief, SS2 fan. And not only.

Long live mother Russia! ... but honestly at some point I hope they will start adding QA to their software development process. It's about time.

Now I would love to hear opinions from somebody else. Especially about faction specific stuff.

Spoiler

I've joined Bea Kera and I kept Darat alive. I know this impacted the ending but I don't know exactly how because the text was untranslated

 

[Stainless Veteran]

For some reason it reminded me of that time when I had a buddy working in Russian gamedev, in 00s. He often talked about work, and once IM'd me some of their juiciest QA tickets. One stuck with me to this day: "After ejection pilots are flying upward and then disappearing beyond the firmament".

 

[Fowyr]

For some reason it reminded me of that time when I had a buddy working in Russian gamedev, in 00s. He often talked about work, and once IM'd me some of their juiciest QA tickets. One stuck with me to this day: "After ejection pilots are flying upward and then disappearing beyond the firmament".