Colony Ship Early Access Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[The Wall]

RPGs in Early Access are a very hard sell (megahits like BG3 are an exceptions, of course), so we'll wait until release and see what happens.

Professional curiosity - in your experience, is the actual release - for RPGs - bigger than the EA release? I am doing it - EA/full release - for the first time so I have no idea what to expect.

Yes. You can track it with the number of reviews as they correspond to sales.

Vagrus:

King Arthur:

AoD:

Hopefully and almost certainly that should mean graph spike should jump and reach for the stars on Colony Ship's release date
Hey! Will you give juicy discount (25-33%) for AoD+Dungeon Rats to anyone who purchases Colony Ship on release date?
Also ALL Owners of AoD should get additional 10% discount for Colony Ship in first month of release, imo

 

[Sòren]

are there any plans to add another encounter with Morgan in future updates?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Have you ever thought about doing [LIVE] commentary and QA with YouTubers on release date or for every next Major Update?

We're making RPGs for people who like RPGs. We aren't making live shows, events, and documentaries.

Hey! Will you give juicy discount (25-33%) for AoD+Dungeon Rats to anyone who purchases Colony Ship on release date?
Also ALL Owners of AoD should get additional 10% discount for Colony Ship in first month of release, imo

Most likely.

are there any plans to add another encounter with Morgan in future updates?

Yes, once we start working on the Habitat again.

 

[The Wall]

Have you ever thought about doing [LIVE] commentary and QA with YouTubers on release date or for every next Major Update?

We're making RPGs for people who like RPGs. We aren't making live shows, events, and documentaries.

It seems You might be allergic to marketing and $$$ I mean do you seriously expect some fabled game journalist in year 2023, to discover your game and write about it? Is your game about bunch of trannies travelling through space and spreading gayness through Galaxy? No? Then don't expect coverage. I'm not joking. The only way your or any indie game gets talked about in mainstream game news is once it becomes sufficiently popular and impossible to ignore. Not the other way around. You have to do your marketing, because game journalists sure won't, unless there is come juicy controversy. This is not some hyperbolic edgelord post, this is state of game industry in 2023

 

[Kamaz]

Have you ever thought about doing [LIVE] commentary and QA with YouTubers on release date or for every next Major Update?

We're making RPGs for people who like RPGs. We aren't making live shows, events, and documentaries.

It seems You might be allergic to marketing and $$$ I mean do you seriously expect some fabled game journalist in year 2023, to discover your game and write about it? Is your game about bunch of trannies travelling through space and spreading gayness through Galaxy? No? Then don't expect coverage. I'm not joking. The only way your or any indie game gets talked about in mainstream game news is once it becomes sufficiently popular and impossible to ignore. Not the other way around. You have to do your marketing, because game journalists sure won't, unless there is come juicy controversy. This is not some hyperbolic edgelord post, this is state of game industry in 2023

These days midsize publishers (and self-publishing studios) often focus on smaller but more engaged niche audiences rather than overly expensive hit-and-miss mainstream. Especially with hardcore RPGs like this.

 

[norolim]

We're making RPGs for people who like RPGs. We aren't making live shows, events, and documentaries.

These days midsize publishers (and self-publishing studios) often focus on smaller but more engaged niche audiences rather than overly expensive hit-and-miss mainstream. Especially with hardcore RPGs like this.

Sure, but those niche audiences that like RPGs have to know about your game, to buy it. There are hundreds of upcoming RPGs to keep track of, probably close to fifty planned for release in 2023 alone. It's not 2010 anymore and the RPG "niche" market is very saturated today, so some PR work is probably required, if Iron Tower are interested in a wider audience, than the 25 people still active on RPG Codex.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I agree, of course; I just don't think that doing 'live shows' would help us in any way. As mentioned earlier, our focus is on Steam now, especially third-party Steam fest that are becoming more popular: TurnBasedFest, TactiCon, StrategyFest. That's a good way to generate some publicity and awareness.

 

[jackofshadows]

It seems to me that the majority of target audience is already know/heared about CSG. It's the TA that is simply too damn small. Also, trying to bring the wrong kind of audience may result in refunds/negative reviews/bad mouth.

The uncommon si-fi setting, the high bar of entering, no obvious (to a random player) innovations in sight, grim-looking atmosphere etc etc. This shit is doomed.

On the plus side, the graphics are great compared to AoD which is really fucking important and such a game as ATOM RPG which I consider very mediocre and no match for CSG has had success very recently. There's also Sseth who may be still not OD'd by the time of the release and make his decisive review. Who knows. I certanly hope that I'm terribly wrong on this.

 

[Sòren]

i just think that ur product will become successful sooner or later anyway, because it has certain qualities that none other can offer. the ignorant masses always take their time to recognize anything, there are so many examples in entertainment industry, it's too tiresome to list them all.

from a marketing perspective in early access, it would have been better if there was some kind of controversy surrounding this game, because that's the way people need to pay attention. there is no bad publicity etc... look at Baldurs Gate 3 (too many trannies for some) or Kingdome Come (lack of trannies) as examples, or the new Harry Potter game. people just eat that shit up, that's the times we are living in.

 

[Sòren]

what do u think infinitron that u got to roll ur eyes? that the story about black people in medieval ages didn't help Kingdome Come?

i didn't even know that there was a new harry potter game until i heard that someone wants to cancel joanne rowling.

the dynamics in nowadays marketing are obvious. provoke and fuck around, up to a certain point. there is too much potential (like in a battery) between the factions to just leave that without application.

 

[The Wall]

We're making RPGs for people who like RPGs. We aren't making live shows, events, and documentaries.

These days midsize publishers (and self-publishing studios) often focus on smaller but more engaged niche audiences rather than overly expensive hit-and-miss mainstream. Especially with hardcore RPGs like this.

Sure, but those niche audiences that like RPGs have to know about your game, to buy it. There are hundreds of upcoming RPGs to keep track of, probably close to fifty planned for release in 2023 alone. It's not 2010 anymore and the RPG "niche" market is very saturated today, so some PR work is probably required, if Iron Tower are interested in a wider audience, than the 25 people still active on RPG Codex.

Sure, there are indeed hundreds of upcoming indie RPGs, but most are trash design combined with trash 3D assets from asset store, all joined together with glue and duct tape in engine like Unity/Unreal/Godot and shat out at Steam. Colony Ship actually has easily one of the best production qualities in niche genre known as: hardcore cRPGs. There are very few seriously written, seriously looking and seriously challenging cRPGs in the making. Most are cartoony lookin, piss easy bullshit written and made by American WOKE Millenials. You can smell it through the thumbnail, I swear

Colony Ship should focus on its target audience, and there are enough people who wanna play game with graphics from 2023 and game design + story telling from OG Fallouts in 90s. I'd bet such prestigious audience numbers 1.000.000+ gamer gentlemen worldwide for sure today. That's audience that can sustain studio size of Iron Tower. Magic Trick is in reaching them, and we should help create that magic

 

[Technomancer]

Colony Ship should focus on its target audience, and there are enough people who wanna play game with graphics from 2023 and game design + story telling from OG Fallouts in 90s.

Hence the full broadcasting name of the game - A Post-Earth Role Playing Game. A mouthful, but it's supposed to be a beacon for particular eyes.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I think the game will do well...I think the type who buy this game may also be more the type who don't buy early access like me...I am just waiting for it to release. If I had to guess I would say it won't explode out of the gate so much as have long legs via word of mouth, so keeping the high ratings and scores is likely a good strategy in this regard..I don't actually know for sure of course if any of the above is correct, its just a general 'feeling' based on the type of game, the audience etc..

 

[Abu Antar]

Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game
Announcement
Full Demo Available
Now you can try the demo and see for yourself if the design is to your liking.

The demo gives you the entire first chapter and three party members (you'd have to explore the starting town to recruit them; your party size is tied to your main character's Charisma).

Should you choose to buy the game and continue your adventure, you'll be able to keep playing without starting a new game as the demo saves are compatible with the full game.

Some tips for new adventurers:

- Buy and use gadgets like the Distortion Field or the Energy Shield for every fight. You can find them at Cole's Gadgets store in the Pit and activate before a fight.

- Don't neglect the combat feats. If you're playing a fighter, pick the feat related to your primary weapon: Pistolero, Rifleman, etc. To understand how your to-hit chance is calculated, press ALT while hovering over a target to see the full breakdown.

- Use stimulants and grenades: smoke grenades will make you harder to hit (very useful for melee fighters), poison grenades will weaken your enemies, especially those without gas masks, flashbangs will disorient them, etc.

- Heavier armor isn't necessarily better, especially if your character has low Armor skill and no Armor handling feat.

- Don't use the same attack over and over. Aimed: Legs attack can reduce your enemies' Evasion, making them easier to hit, while Aimed: Weak Point will reduce the enemies' Damage Resistance (DR).

- The textbox in the right corner provides a lot of info: your damage, enemies' DR, and even your rolls. It also shows which attacks the enemies are using. The enemies use the same system (stats, skills, feats, inventory) and play by the same rule. Paying attention to what they do will help you figure out the rules faster.

If you have any questions about the mechanics, we'll be happy to answer.

Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game
Announcement
Update notes for May 1, 2023
IMPROVEMENTS

- Heavily improved the performance of the save/load screen, especially when lots of saves are present.
- Added the option to delete all saves related to a character.
- Disabled the possibility of tagging speech skills on party members.

CHANGES

- Tweaked the price of broken and damaged implants.
- Tweaked Zeta's heart and armor implant.

FIXES

- Fixed the save/load screen resetting when a save was deleted.
- Fixed missing or wrong LP gains.
- Fixed 5th Daughter lack of gadget.
- Fixed wrong computers reward in electronics check in Red Zone.
- Fixed wrong reference with Nico's dialogue and Nazar.
- Tweaked code on Shotgunner so it increases only shotgun accuracy.
- Fixed issue with party members remaining invisible if you loaded a savegame in which they were inside the building and the PC outside.

 

[Goral]

Biggest Polish gaming site has written about Colony Ship: https://www.gry-online.pl/newsroom/...allout-2-i-arcanum-sprawdz-demo-na-st/z024e3b
Don't know where they've seen Arcanum vibe but at least they're talking well about your game.

 

[Priest]

Does this game, like Age of Decadence, prevent the player from accessing huge chunks of content simply because you didn't put the points into correct stats during character creation? I mean, the developers literally recommend following a guide for an optimal first time experience in AoD. That's ridiculous if you ask me

 

[Vault Dweller]

First, we literally didn't. For the optimal first time experience we recommended choosing combat or diplomacy and sticking with it, instead of trying to play a jack of all trades. Second, your faction and choices not stats govern the access to content.

 

[Priest]

Second, your faction and choices not stats govern the access to content

I remember there being a well which required a certain amount of constitution to interact with it without dying. I put a lot of points into it but apparently never reached the threshold and deprived myself of boosting something else in order to access some other stuff on top of that. Was there anyway to access the well part without the necessary stats?

Still liked the world and lore though, might be enough of a reason to check out Colony Ship

 

[Elhoim]

Second, your faction and choices not stats govern the access to content

I remember there being a well which required a certain amount of constitution to interact with it without dying. I put a lot of points into it but apparently never reached the threshold and deprived myself of boosting something else in order to access some other stuff on top of that. Was there anyway to access the well part without the necessary stats?

Still liked the world and lore though, might be enough of a reason to check out Colony Ship

Specially since the demo is a big chunck of the game, so you can get a proper feeling of how the game is. In general, checks are more about skills than stats, plus there's a party to fall back to. It doesn't mean there won't be any side content that your character might not access, but it would be more related to tags and skills.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Second, your faction and choices not stats govern the access to content

I remember there being a well which required a certain amount of constitution to interact with it without dying. I put a lot of points into it but apparently never reached the threshold and deprived myself of boosting something else in order to access some other stuff on top of that. Was there anyway to access the well part without the necessary stats?

It can hardly be called a "huge chunk of content" as it's neither a location or a quest. It's a minor event and yes, it favors physically fit individuals to balance events that favor pencil-neck talkers.

 

[Technomancer]

Does this game, like Age of Decadence, prevent the player from accessing huge chunks of content simply because you didn't put the points into correct stats during character creation?

Sadly stats checks suffered quite a lot in CS. Its mostly about charisma, and very few STR or DEX checks early in the game. INT happens once in a blue moon and doesn't unlock anything (in AoD INT unlocked a special Kingmaker plot permutation in Teron and was used to help in solving particularly hard mechanisms or figure out things). Don't even recall a single CON check so far. Finally PER checks are rendered pointless by companions system (which developers realized as a flaw, which in turn means even fewer PER checks going further into the game).

 

[Trithne]

All checks other than CHA are rendered moot by companions - I think there's a couple of checks that actually allow you to combine the stats of companions to pass them too.

Checks are mostly moved to skills, but CHA pops up again here - the "Tech" skills are binary either/or score checks, you either have the score and succeed, or you don't have the score and you fail. In contrast, talk checks have their effectiveness further modified by your CHA.

 

[Agesilaus]

Second, your faction and choices not stats govern the access to content

I remember there being a well which required a certain amount of constitution to interact with it without dying. I put a lot of points into it but apparently never reached the threshold and deprived myself of boosting something else in order to access some other stuff on top of that. Was there anyway to access the well part without the necessary stats?

Still liked the world and lore though, might be enough of a reason to check out Colony Ship

Are you talking about the well in the slums of Maadoran? The way to access it is to visit that location during your next playthrough as someone who can hold their breath for longer than 5 seconds. For now, just pay the guy at the entrance to the slums to show you around and keep you safe, it's a dangerous world out there.

 

[Priest]

Second, your faction and choices not stats govern the access to content

I remember there being a well which required a certain amount of constitution to interact with it without dying. I put a lot of points into it but apparently never reached the threshold and deprived myself of boosting something else in order to access some other stuff on top of that. Was there anyway to access the well part without the necessary stats?

Still liked the world and lore though, might be enough of a reason to check out Colony Ship

Are you talking about the well in the slums of Maadoran? The way to access it is to visit that location during your next playthrough as someone who can hold their breath for longer than 5 seconds. For now, just pay the guy at the entrance to the slums to show you around and keep you safe, it's a dangerous world out there.

Actually I beat the game a few weeks ago. Figuring out where to go and what to do wasn't much of a challenge because at some point you're gonna start getting railroaded due to all the different stat and skill checks that you can't pass. I usually don't feel like replaying a game immediately after completing it but I guess this one encourages it

 

[Latelistener]

This is marketing malpractice. I repeat:

I think Vault Dweller needs to try to aggressively upsell Colony Ship to Age of Decadence owners. That's your surest bet - people who you know have already paid money for that sort of game. Find a way to remind them you exist.

I think I can call myself an AoD veteran (200-300 hours) and I did purchase Colony Ship, but combat was fucking unbearable in the demo and from what I heard all they did was adding "Hero" mode to further mock the players instead of admitting some design issues.

I was trying to tell about those combat issues before the EA release here on Codex, but I wasn't heard. So I thought if people are enjoying it then all is good, but apparently it isn't.

I'll try the game in the near future and will leave a review. Maybe something has changed in the combat department.