Colony Ship update #41: begun the closed beta has

[Vault Dweller]

Repo Men. No, you can recover implants from corpses only (those you kill and some ancient corpses you find in your travels).

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

Conceptually, it's similar to Dungeon Rats. You don't have to spend points on Charisma so your combat stats will be a bit higher and you'll gain feats faster. Early game will be more difficult but once you gain more feats you will be quite a killing machine.

I hope to fuck this is not another Dungeon Rats. i.e. one, long, boring combatfag grind
I need to see some C&C, some roleplay.

 

[StaticSpine]

Who here has access?

AbounI, MRY, Eyestabber, Goral, Daedalos, and hopefully Tigranes who hasn't responded yet.

Wait, what about Sunfire, StaticSpine, Vahha and the elders from the Pioneers of your translators ?

I invited Sunfire; Vaha hasn't been around for a while. As for the rest, we just don't want to be overwhelmed if everyone starts having technical difficulties at once, so this phase is more of perfornance testing. The demo runs fine on our computers but that's too limited a sample. If there are no serious tech issues today and tomorrow, we'll add more people on Sat.

I´ll gladly sign up as beta tester. Where can I apply?

You just did. I hope you don't mind waiting until the weekend.

AbounI thanks for mentioning, bruh!

Vault Dweller congratulations! If you'll need me as a tester, I'm always here.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I hope to fuck this is not another Dungeon Rats. i.e. one, long, boring combatfag grind
I need to see some C&C, some roleplay.

It isn’t, rest assured. It is a full-fledged cRPG with tons of C&C, exploration, etc. You will also have different systems that weren’t properly implemented in AoD, such as stealth.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Conceptually, it's similar to Dungeon Rats. You don't have to spend points on Charisma so your combat stats will be a bit higher and you'll gain feats faster. Early game will be more difficult but once you gain more feats you will be quite a killing machine.

I hope to fuck this is not another Dungeon Rats. i.e. one, long, boring combatfag grind
I need to see some C&C, some roleplay.

I meant that this particular feature works the same way it worked in Dungeon Rats where we tested various party-based mechanics (CHA-driven party size, XP divided among the party members so larger parities gained skills at a slower pace, balance, etc). Dungeon Rats was a quick combat game we put together in 10 months whereas we've already been working on Colony Ship for 3 years and would work for 2 more.

 

[Efe]

were you tempted to dumb down some complex/obtuse mechanic or add romances/popamoleness/etc into the game for mass market appeal at any point during development?

 

[Vault Dweller]

were you tempted to dumb down some complex/obtuse mechanic or add romances/popamoleness/etc into the game for mass market appeal at any point during development?

No, because that's not our niche and because it's a very misguided notion to begin with (I highly doubt that simplifying mechanics and throwing in a romance or two would increase sales, even though that's what some publishers think, apparently).

 

[Viata]

were you tempted to dumb down some complex/obtuse mechanic or add romances/popamoleness/etc into the game for mass market appeal at any point during development?

No, because that's not our niche and because it's a very misguided notion to begin with (I highly doubt that simplifying mechanics and throwing in a romance or two would increase sales, even though that's what some publishers think, apparently).

Based on some beta testers saying they died on the first battle, the fact that game is going to be early access first and that means a lot of dumb people are going to try it and complain about how difficulty the game is. Have you already prepared your speech for when that happens?
I believe putting the combat demo in the steam page will also let people know how hard the game is so you can avoid a lot of crying like what happened with AoD's reviews.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Vault Dweller]

were you tempted to dumb down some complex/obtuse mechanic or add romances/popamoleness/etc into the game for mass market appeal at any point during development?

No, because that's not our niche and because it's a very misguided notion to begin with (I highly doubt that simplifying mechanics and throwing in a romance or two would increase sales, even though that's what some publishers think, apparently).

Based on some beta testers saying they died on the first battle, the fact that game is going to be early access first and that means a lot of dumb people are going to try it and complain about how difficulty the game is.

If they don't like challenging games or games where stats and skills determine what your character can and cannot do (meaning you fail a lot instead of being great at everything) or games with mutually exclusive content or games where your character isn't a great hero, etc then the game isn't for them.

I believe putting the combat demo in the steam page will also let people know how hard the game is so you can avoid a lot of crying like what happened with AoD's reviews.

The demo is already on Steam; as for negative reviews, they are unavoidable. As long as the ratio is 80/20, I'll be happy. I don't expect 95% positive reviews.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Jesus Christ, get a at least a $5 per hour graphic designer 'cuz that UI is horrendous.
The fonts, the ALL CAPS, the alignment of the text, the retarded blue glow around everything, really everything about is... wow.
But removing the blue glow, fixing the text and using a less "IM TRYING HARD TO LOOK SCIFI" font would at least make it passable.
Really, this is worse than anything inXile could come up with.

 

[Parabalus]

How modular is the combat log?
From the screens lots of stuff seems to be spam, would be nice to filter it or mouseover only.

 

[ItsChon]

So just to double check, this is JUST a combat demo right? No story elements, nothing spoiled? If that is the case, Vault Dweller feel free to throw my name into the mix as well for potential testers. I'd love to try and break the game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

How modular is the combat log?
From the screens lots of stuff seems to be spam, would be nice to filter it or mouseover only.

Not modular at all (yet). We'll hide natural DR if it's 0 to shorten it. What else would you hide or remove?

So just to double check, this is JUST a combat demo right? No story elements, nothing spoiled? If that is the case, Vault Dweller feel free to throw my name into the mix as well for potential testers. I'd love to try and break the game.

Just a linear combat demo to test the combat mechanics. No story elements but there's a skippable questionnaire to define your character's beliefs which explains some basic concepts (what the ship is, who launched it, mutiny, factions, etc).

 

[hivemind]

Are you testing mechanics from a purely like technical "is this working?" perspective or also with an eye towards systematic balance and encounter design?

 

[Zer0wing]

Dayum, that looks juicy. And even more Silent Storm-alike than ever.
Wish I had the access to the demo. I heard AMD RX 4xx/5xx have troubles running Unreal Engine 4 games, did it happen to your test group?

 

[ItsChon]

Just a linear combat demo to test the combat mechanics. No story elements but there's a skippable questionnaire to define your character's beliefs which explains some basic concepts (what the ship is, who launched it, mutiny, factions, etc).

In that case, yes please. Would love to help if it's needed.

 

[Efe]

Zer0wing first time i heard of this. which games specifically? I'll check the validity

 

[Zer0wing]

Zer0wing first time i heard of this. which games specifically? I'll check the validity

It didn't happen to me either but my only UE4 game was Borderlands 3 (and it was faster than overhyped GTX 1066 either) so not a huge sample...

 

[Vault Dweller]

Are you testing mechanics from a purely like technical "is this working?" perspective or also with an eye towards systematic balance and encounter design?

I'm pretty sure everything is working as we've been testing it a lot internally. Mainly, we want to get some impressions. Is it good? Is it fun to play? Is it challenging? Etc. And of course balance (full party vs solo, different weapons, feats, etc).

We've been working on the game for 3 years with minimum feedback so this is the first opportunity to get players' input and verdict on the systems and overall design.

Dayum, that looks juicy. And even more Silent Storm-alike than ever.
Wish I had the access to the demo. I heard AMD RX 4xx/5xx have troubles running Unreal Engine 4 games, did it happen to your test group?

So far no technical issues of any kind but it's too early to judge.

 

[luj1]

Jesus Christ, get a at least a $5 per hour graphic designer 'cuz that UI is horrendous.
The fonts, the ALL CAPS, the alignment of the text, the retarded blue glow around everything, really everything about is... wow.
But removing the blue glow, fixing the text and using a less "IM TRYING HARD TO LOOK SCIFI" font would at least make it passable.
Really, this is worse than anything inXile could come up with.

UI needs work IMO

 

[Tigranes]

I've run a couple characters (into their doom), will have more to say after a couple more runs. The title screen is beautiful.

Vault Dweller a question - how does this demo's character system and level progression compare to the full game? Are we expected to go from level 1 to 20ish, for example? Are all skills and feats, etc. implemented fully?

 

[thesecret1]

Small suggestion – make the healthbars of your guys be different colour than that of the enemies. You are using character outline to distinguish friend from foe, but the healthbars are a lot more prominent.

 

[Goral]

I've just finished the demo and won all the fights. I've created a pistolero for my first run but had some problems with 6th or 7th fight (although I didn't know at the time that I can add feats

) so I've made a pure rifle marksman and it was a breeze. There were maybe 3 fights that gave me some real trouble, although it still took me like 5-6 tries max. I don't want to say here that it's an easy game, just that rifles are so strong. With interruption and combining sniper + assault rifle (and earlier tommy gun) everything was pretty easy. I'll try different builds later but the main point is the game (combat) is fun. I'll try to write something more elaborate later.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vault Dweller a question - how does this demo's character system and level progression compare to the full game?

You gain feats much faster otherwise it's the same. Kinda like the old arena demo for AoD where you could max chosen combat skills in the course of the demo. It took much longer in the game.

Are we expected to go from level 1 to 20ish, for example?

Currently it stops at 10, as in you can gain 10 feats. In the demo and full game. If we let the player to go beyond that the progress would be very slow, so maybe level 11 or 12 would be the effective max level that most players would never get to.

Are all skills and feats, etc. implemented fully?

Yes, except for stealth feats.