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Colony Ship update #41: begun the closed beta has

Commissar Draco

Codexia Comrade Colonel Commissar
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Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
I always buy the games I enjoy to play so unless its 60 Dorra priced +DLCs ripped from base game I will spare the shekels. Just hope its as good as ATOM Comrades.
(And no this time no demo or even checking this thread before the release).
P.S. Good to know the game might be released before Chinese bats will kill us all too. :hero:
 

conan_edw

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Pathfinder: Wrath
what about the plans for the open beta? for people like me who don't wanna feel a pressure to give a constructive criticism but still wanna try it? :M
 

VentilatorOfDoom

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what about the plans for the open beta? for people like me who don't wanna feel a pressure to give a constructive criticism but still wanna try it? :M
There are hardly any bugs anyway (really close to bugfree as far as I could tell) and the handful of problems and/or glitches that were there have already been mentioned by now in the ITS forums. So, I assume, open beta might come soon, unless there are reasons other than bugs to not make it open.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
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what about the plans for the open beta? for people like me who don't wanna feel a pressure to give a constructive criticism but still wanna try it? :M
We need to add relatively minor elements that have high visibility: the missing coats (the models are already done), hair and beards (just started), and animations that's been a problem ever since Ivan got ill. I'd say 85% of animations are done, the rest are placeholders (old or work-in-progress animations), female portraits. I'd be surprised if these tasks take less than 4 weeks.
 

AbounI

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Time has come to share my first impressions :

- Of the motherfucking Arts.
What ITS gave the colonists access to is a solid build. Instantly we can see how its still made with love and passion.

The music first. It's simple, first time I launched this combat demo, I stayed on the Main Screen and listen too a strong Main Theme. I would say better than AoD ones, even its own Intro too made by Lind Erebros. I listened to it for about 10min. It fits exactly like it should be : the particularly claustrophobic spatial atmosphere of a colony ship. The Exploration soundtrack fits well the game. Welcome on board Colonists.

The graphics are there too. Forget the old Torque and welcome the new Engine... Assets are great and yet still WIP. With the graphics come the ITS' slide style. I'm feeling at home with this combat demo. More DRish than AoDish, full screen, Mazin's artwork on the right. The death screen is just so fucking brillant. A very good choice of picture. For now, just one text to come with the death since it's not the priority here. The portraits? No reason to change! Still neat and top notch. I once meet a missing portrait bug during a dialog, but a reload fixed that.

The UI : I like it. Good choice of colors IMHO. New design, so got to use to it, although it's almost the same column system as in DR character sheet. Those who are more used to the AoD one may feel confused for a time. I also like a lot the new fonts. I assume less scaling issues with this new engine this time, texts should be readable for any hardware, even the ultramodern resolutions, right? Remember how some texts could be not properly displayed for lowest resolutions users in AoD sheets? As a WIP, all QoL shortcuts are not yet implemented.

The animations. I'm no longer worried. Big up to the new animator and more Ises to Ivan too. Can't say who did what. The finish moves are still missing sadly, but then I don't expect them to be as spectacular as those of AoD when it's mostly about gunfights. Who know, maybe some bloody explosion? Also love how the energy shield is animated and how the 3D models are animated. 3D models are more detailled, better textures. Add a stronger zoom-dezoom so you can even admire your fancy gun in hand or the overall environnement when in need of a tactical point of view.

Considering how everything is still some WIP, your colonist can only be pleased. Can't wait to see the final work.


- Of the Mechanics.
Fun, lots of fun, more lots of fun. Ranged combat is solid, reminds me some DR situations when you have to keep your distance with some ennemies. IMHO, the best improvement is the armor system. It works as AoD/DR should work : for each aimed attack fits a piece of armor, now including legs and arms. In AOD & DR, the Damage Resistance was only calculed from the same armor, weither the arms, the body or the legs are aimed. So now, the DR range is more accurate depending which part of the body the shooter attacks and what piece of armor the defenser wears. And it works in both direction. Well done! That's also why I'm also confident here, the damage range seems respected if you're used to the AoD/DR one. Definitly feels at home.

'Wait' option is no longer available. Replaced by a reaction bonus based on the APs the character still has when he ends his turn, so that it can allow him to shoot an approaching enemy (provided your weapon isn't empty), the new "Interrupt" ability I would say.

Concerning the balance, I didn't go too far, only tried a pistolero build, so I can't speak yet about that point.

No weight system now, so no overloaded malus too. Hope it's planned for later.

That's all for now. Globally, it's a well polished combat demo, very enjoyable. ITS already conquered a niche with AoD. In a near futur, they might conquer a world with their Colony Ship RPG
 
Last edited:

Blaine

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Grab the Codex by the pussy
I recently reconciled with the Catholic Church, went to confession, and took the Eucharist for the first time in nearly two decades.

I can now pray to God every single night, beseeching Him not to send me to my final reward before I play through Colony Ship v1.0.
 

neil501

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LOL!!! billy looks just like IVAR THE BONELESS in the show Vikings! I can't wait to try colony ship! I hope it plays just as good as it looks! Really great job! If your still looking for test players id be happy to help
 

Van-d-all

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Standin' pretty. In this dust that was a city.
No weight system now, so no overloaded malus too. Hope it's planned for later.

We had one, but didn't add to the experience. I'm tempted to limit the inventory via slots, though.
Inventory limits are only reasonable when there's a need to choose. If I can go back and forth N-times just to gather all the trash it's pointless.
 

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
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Inventory limits are only reasonable when there's a need to choose. If I can go back and forth N-times just to gather all the trash it's pointless.

Yeah, that was one of the motivations behind the constraint removal, no need for busywork. But sometimes players are extreme hoarders that won't sell anything and make the inventory screen slow down the performance.
 

Blaine

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Grab the Codex by the pussy
If there is any material reward at all for collecting and/or selling salvaged junk—even a marginal one—then someone out there will pick up just about every last scrap of it. In fact, some will even hoard junk "just in case they need it." That kind of hoarding behavior is strongly encouraged by crafting systems in the vein of New Vegas, wherein a player won't know which random junk items are crafting ingredients until they find/learn the recipe. If hoarding stuff requires 3-5 trips (with optional speed hack, these days) back to a storage location per outing, that's no deterrent to dedicated pack rats.

There's really no point in trying to stop pack ratting, especially during a time when adding crafting and survival elements to cRPGs is all the rage. In the great majority of cRPGs, you're a homeless person/band of homeless people (or, if you're lucky, squatters) who has to jog everywhere, whose primary activity is killing people, and whose primary means of earning currency is robbing the dead and/or stealing everything that isn't nailed down along the way, then selling it to various shopkeepers.

Changing the murder hobo dynamic (WRT hoarding/inventory management) in an innovative way that accomplishes its goal whilst not pissing everyone off is entirely possible, but like everything else in this world requires time and resources to pull off. If it's not a priority, best not to expend too much effort trying to Josh Sawyer your systems.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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Played a bit more with my knife maniac. Billy is utterly worthless as a companion, at most he's a lousy meat shield. However, knife man has made it up through fight seven, no grenades or anything, just a disruptor and running up and flurrying everyone to death. Playing as a knife guy feels pretty lame though, I'm sure a lot of balance goes into positioning and flanking and stuff with a party of shooters, whereas right now I'm just rushing straight in like this is Diablo or something.
 

Goral

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Played a bit more with my knife maniac. Billy is utterly worthless as a companion, at most he's a lousy meat shield. However, knife man has made it up through fight seven, no grenades or anything, just a disruptor and running up and flurrying everyone to death. Playing as a knife guy feels pretty lame though, I'm sure a lot of balance goes into positioning and flanking and stuff with a party of shooters, whereas right now I'm just rushing straight in like this is Diablo or something.
This is what happens when you bring a knife to a gunfight, what else did you expect? Anyway, you either rush straight in or you wait a bit till they are close enough (or you throw a smoke grenade which has been improved after one of the updates). Then you need to choose the right opponent to kill first and that's basically it. I find it fun because it's much more challenging than guns.
 

MRY

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I've found it very challenging thus far, other than that I don't know how to use Billy. In fact, I've found the knife much easier than the gun -- flurry seems absurdly OP, in many cases I can run a good distance, reach a foe, and one-shot him.
 

Goral

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I've found it very challenging thus far, other than that I don't know how to use Billy. In fact, I've found the knife much easier than the gun -- flurry seems absurdly OP, in many cases I can run a good distance, reach a foe, and one-shot him.
Have you noticed that he has unused tag skills? You can develop Billy to be quite useful if you play your cards right, giving him rifle for example will yield good results if you won't let him die.
 

MRY

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Well, he died, alas. And sadly I can't get another follower, even though I was blocked from getting a deputy while I had Billy. And now I have to fight five dudes with just my knife. Gonna be tough...
 

Daedalos

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Take this popamole shit away from good games.

Is voice-overs popamole? oooooookay. I reckon most people would think the voices in fallout 1+2 and similar games were quite fitting, added to the atmosphere and gave the games alot of flavour that it needed.

If done right, VO's can absolutely improve a game immensly imo, the reverse is of course also true.
 

Salvo

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Take this popamole shit away from good games.

Is voice-overs popamole? oooooookay. I reckon most people would think the voices in fallout 1+2 and similar games were quite fitting, added to the atmosphere and gave the games alot of flavour that it needed.

If done right, VO's can absolutely improve a game immensly imo, the reverse is of course also true.

Unfortunately voice acting is one of the most expensive things to add, usually having prohibitive costs for smaller developers. Furthermore, it often tends to limit the amount of text put in the game, as more text = more things to voice out = more expenses.

Among the things that I believe would improve the game, voice acting isn't one of them.
 

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