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

[Takamori]

It's such a goddamn shame there's nothing happening there. Think Smoldering Corpse Bar, Witcher 1 taverns or VtMB vibes.

Much bigger teams, much bigger budgets. IF the game does well, we can easily expand the content (not talking about DLCs), but right now this is the best we can do.

VD or Elhoim the death animation still on the plans or sadly scrapped due to budget and time constraints?

We did add custom death animations to replace the generic ragdoll ones. If you're asking about over-the-top animations Fallout style, then no, they'd require more time and effort than we can spare.

A little of both, I remember I asked this question back when it was just ragdolls and Elhoim mentioned about working on the custom deaths. Didn't boot the game since then to avoid spoilers.
Custom deaths animations and well placed blood decals should suffice as a nice feedback from combat, hope the game does really well so you guys can hire an entire animation department just for silly deaths ala Rambo movies in Colony Ship 2 the electric Bogaloo

As most of people in Codex we are excited waiting for July

 

[Üstad]

To be honest I don't care about graphics, I'd be fine even if we had The Age of Decadence tier potato graphics, I'd rather see the game being finished first and add C&C material as much as possible. I'll keep being salty about skill point system though.

 

[Elhoim]

To be honest I don't care about graphics, I'd be fine even if we had The Age of Decadence tier potato graphics, I'd rather see the game being finished first and add C&C material as much as possible.

The nice thing about UE is that you can throw any crappy model and the engine rendering just makes it look great. Kinda reminded me when when we switched from TGE to T3D. And yeah, most of our time is spent on quests, C&C and improving gameplay.

I'll keep being salty about skill point system though.

Heh, we wanted to try something different. It's a bit more high level choices, via tagging, tokens/training and general usage. I think it makes the game flow more smoothly compared to AoD's "hoard SP, try something, reload, add SP, pass the check".

 

[LostHisMarbles]

Which brings me to something else i'd been wondering.. no clue about today's "market".

Is it more viable to have a short game with multiple playthroughs/endings or a traditionally longer game sans the flavour of multiple branches/endings?

 

[notpl]

Does anyone else feel as though Stealth is massively overtuned at the moment? It's barely viable unless you have the skill tagged, take every chance you can to increase it, and take every stealth-related feat - and there are enough stealth feats that this means completely specializing your character for a skill that is only applicable in a few scripted opportunities, and leaves you much weaker in actual combat.

Ghost and Prowler feel like feat taxes - without them, you simply can't use stealth to any great effect in the first place - rather than upgrades.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Only reason aod have this is not because system was bad but because your obsession about giving players not enough skill points ...

Not enough to do what? To max every skill?

Here's a random player-submitted endgame build:

Two level 10 skills, one level 8, two level 6, and four level 3-5 skills. How much more do you need?

So in your next game you switch from good system to atrocious use based system and wonder why people are unhappy...

They are?

 

[lukaszek]

So in your next game you switch from good system to atrocious use based system and wonder why people are unhappy...

They are?

im always unhappy

 

[Jaedar]

I don't miss the skill point system at all tbh. I thought I would, but it's a lot smoother without it. Although it has also become a lot easier to cover every skill, especially with party members. But the game is still hard so it's fine.

Does anyone else feel as though Stealth is massively overtuned at the moment? It's barely viable unless you have the skill tagged, take every chance you can to increase it, and take every stealth-related feat - and there are enough stealth feats that this means completely specializing your character for a skill that is only applicable in a few scripted opportunities, and leaves you much weaker in actual combat.

Ghost and Prowler feel like feat taxes - without them, you simply can't use stealth to any great effect in the first place - rather than upgrades.

I pretty much agree with this. 2 feats + cloaking module is basically the minimum tax for any stealth encounters after the tutorial ones (like triple frog sneak or the mercs in the greenhouse). It feels weird compared to something like electronics or computer, where you tag it and that will basically let you pass 90% of the checks as is, although for the last 10% you'll have to try and maximize xp, get some training or similar.
It hurts a bit less since the rewards can be pretty significant (the church tomb has some nice stuff, and if you have sufficient tech skills you can also get some good loot at the end of the factory), but it does stick out.

 

[Vault Dweller]

To have fun playing game. Case in point Fallout 2, game billions times more fun to play than vanilla aod because there is no skill hording in f2, i wonder why...

While Fallout 2 might be billions time more fun to play I'd say it was despite the broken skill system, not because of.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

I don't miss the skill point system at all tbh. I thought I would, but it's a lot smoother without it. Although it has also become a lot easier to cover every skill, especially with party members. But the game is still hard so it's fine.

Does anyone else feel as though Stealth is massively overtuned at the moment? It's barely viable unless you have the skill tagged, take every chance you can to increase it, and take every stealth-related feat - and there are enough stealth feats that this means completely specializing your character for a skill that is only applicable in a few scripted opportunities, and leaves you much weaker in actual combat.

Ghost and Prowler feel like feat taxes - without them, you simply can't use stealth to any great effect in the first place - rather than upgrades.

I pretty much agree with this. 2 feats + cloaking module is basically the minimum tax for any stealth encounters after the tutorial ones (like triple frog sneak or the mercs in the greenhouse). It feels weird compared to something like electronics or computer, where you tag it and that will basically let you pass 90% of the checks as is, although for the last 10% you'll have to try and maximize xp, get some training or similar.
It hurts a bit less since the rewards can be pretty significant (the church tomb has some nice stuff, and if you have sufficient tech skills you can also get some good loot at the end of the factory), but it does stick out.

Tbh i have completely different opinion. Completed every stealth encounter with untagged stealth + only prowler feat. Took some reloading and fine tuning but its doable. Also completely stealth nuked the black hand that way...

 

[Technomancer]

not enough skill points cos "too many skill point would make our game too easy / it would make hybrids viable

High INT is the trick.

 

[notpl]

I really did not have any trouble clearing every optional combat and unlocking all the deepest loremaster secrets of AoD when I first played it. It took a couple of restarts to design the perfect character, but that just made it more fun. I mean, why else would you play RPGs?

 

[agris]

not enough skill points cos "too many skill point would make our game too easy / it would make hybrids viable

High INT is the trick.

Look who you're quoting, I think that ship has sailed.

 

[Serus]

While AoD character system was (very) far from perfect and the hoarding of SP was a real problem* the amount of points available to the player was definitely NOT one of those problems.

*Easily predicted and easily solved. Otoh, it is very easy to predict past events.

 

[LostHisMarbles]

If AoD had an issue regarding SP or acquisition thereof, that was the "straight into the deep end" implementation of it; ie your having literally no clue this would be unlike so many other recent RPGs out there, you were 100% bound for a forced re-start. Emphasis on forced, your time wasted.
Which admittedly did piss me off too.
But that's all the issue it had; zero fucking warning.

Most (here at least) don't mind re-starting a million times over, some actually want to, sure.
But we call it pacing and it's always twofold.
The actual pace as in the mechanics and elements pushing it forward, and your experience of said push thereof.
You either succeed in both, or the pacing's fucked.

Now once you grasped what was going on.. i still can't see the problem, unless you're like that retard on that Steam review, complaining about not being able to do everything at once.

 

[thesecret1]

The only issues with AoD's SP was that some skills were borderline useless compared to others (I mean compare fucking etiquette with lore, for example), and that some of them had literally zero use after a certain point in the game. For example Streetwise. Once you are in the later stages of the game, all the skill checks are too high for lower levels of Streetwise to do anything, meaning you either keep investing in the skills you "main", or all the investment you made up until then is useless. It's the case of virtually all the skills whose only function is to pass checks. Skills that had other uses (for example, Crafting), did not have this issue, as they were very useful even for things other than beating some check. This sort of dynamic then created the "SP hoarding" – indeed, why would I put precious SP into a skill whose only purpose is to beat a check, if I'm not sure such a check is coming up? On the other hand, I frequently put points into crafting or alchemy even without any such checks being present, purely because I wanted the mechanical advantages they brought.

In my opinion, a way to solve the SP-hoarding (if it's serious enough to need solving, anyway) is to do away with skills that only exist to pass a check, and instead connect each one with some manner of a gameplay mechanic. Rather than hoarding SP for the odd skillcheck, the player will spend it to grow his build the way he wants.

 

[thesecret1]

Actually, all the (non-combat) skills in AoD fell into one of three categories:
Mechanical (crafting, alchemy)
Skill-check (lore, persuasion, streetwise, etc.)
Hybrid (definitely stealth, kind of steal and traps)

Mechanical encourage you to spend your points in them as soon as you feel you can afford it, as they immediately significantly increase the power of your build. Skill-check ones encourage you to never ever spend any points in them until you meet a skill-check that you need to beat, because their impact on other parts of the game is zero, so you're better off saving up points for when you see a skill check you really want to beat. Hybrid is kind of like skill-check, BUT it also opens up some mechanical possibilities. Stealth lets you enter places you otherwise couldn't get to, for example, while Steal and Traps lets you grab shit you otherwise wouldn't have access to. While Steal and Traps are, I feel, not worth it after Teron (where they basically pay for themselves from the check-pass 1SP bonus), stealth remains a very useful feature even late into the game, especially since it tends to actually mostly pay for itself. As such, it too is a lucrative skill to invest SP in, even if there isn't a particular check I want to beat, though of course nowhere near the level of crafting or alchemy.

 

[tommy heavenly6]

you were 100% bound for a forced re-start.

Don't you guys make several saves just in case?

 

[LostHisMarbles]

Don't you guys make several saves

You allocated it all expecting something that was never to be, what would a reload help you with?
You literally needed (lessons learned) to make a new char; moot.

 

[Jaedar]

While Steal and Traps are, I feel, not worth it after Teron (where they basically pay for themselves from the check-pass 1SP bonus)

There are trap checks in teron?

 

[Marat]

While Steal and Traps are, I feel, not worth it after Teron (where they basically pay for themselves from the check-pass 1SP bonus)

There are trap checks in teron?

Off the top of my head, one of the chests in the wealthy noble's home has a trap.

 

[lukaszek]

in aod one could put points into a skill as investment. For example you start with lore, gain points back over the course of the game, then put them in something else and backtrack for those checks.
in colonoscopy its all set on char gen. If you dont snowball, skill of yours will become useless.

I didnt mind aod approach at all. Also it allowed branching in single go as repurposing your character was easier

 

[thesecret1]

While Steal and Traps are, I feel, not worth it after Teron (where they basically pay for themselves from the check-pass 1SP bonus)

There are trap checks in teron?

one in the inn, one in a nobleman's house, one in Lord Antidas' palace (you can only get there if you try sneaking in rather than fulfilling Dellar's quests). Inn chest has just some generic loot, nobleman's house contains a blue steel weapon(!) and Antidas' residence contains an ancient scroll. Traps doesn't really pay for itself, but the scroll is a fun find if you don't already know what ít does, and a blue steel weapon this early in the game can be very much worth it if you are specced into it (I think it's a hammer? Not sure)

 

[Jaedar]

While Steal and Traps are, I feel, not worth it after Teron (where they basically pay for themselves from the check-pass 1SP bonus)

There are trap checks in teron?

one in the inn, one in a nobleman's house, one in Lord Antidas' palace (you can only get there if you try sneaking in rather than fulfilling Dellar's quests). Inn chest has just some generic loot, nobleman's house contains a blue steel weapon(!) and Antidas' residence contains an ancient scroll. Traps doesn't really pay for itself, but the scroll is a fun find if you don't already know what ít does, and a blue steel weapon this early in the game can be very much worth it if you are specced into it (I think it's a hammer? Not sure)

Hmm, must have never found that noblemans house. I do recall looting the scroll at some point, but iirc it just lets you skip/reduce a lore check in an optional area waaaaay later. Blue steel is an incredible find in act 1, especially if it has some decent crafting mods.

in aod one could put points into a skill as investment. For example you start with lore, gain points back over the course of the game, then put them in something else and backtrack for those checks.
in colonoscopy its all set on char gen. If you dont snowball, skill of yours will become useless.

As I recall, colony ship does have some lower skill checks even further on in the game, and you get *some* skill points for failing. It's much better to snowball of course (you probably have to if you want to pass ALL checks), but I think you exaggerate how hopeless it is.

 

[thesecret1]

Hmm, must have never found that noblemans house.

It's the one to the left of Antidas' palace, there's a nobleman standing in front of it and letting you chat him up, possibly inviting you inside to see his collection. That house has an open window to the left, which you can enter with a sneaky character and loot. There are two chests in the back, one of them having the hammer, but you need high stealth and traps to get it.

There is actually no reason NOT TO invest into stealth in Teron, regardless of who you play as, since you actually get more SP from all the various stealth checks than it costs to get the stealth level to pass them. I think steal is in that boat too, though only the very low levels. To illustrate, with stealth, you get all the SP for entering rooms at the inn, you get to rob the elderly noblewoman (to the right of antidas residence), you get to rob the nobleman's house, and you get to infiltrate antidas' palace itself (which is worth an assload of SP). That's not to mention sneaking into the blacksmith's house to get some free skill training there (and a steel axe, which is not too shabby in act 1 if you're playing an axe build). I think you also need stealth to sneak into Feng's house undetected, but I'm not sure (and in any case, you can explore it anyway after dealing with Feng's quest, IIRC).

And yes, I did have a lot of fun seeking out every last bit of SP in Teron.