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Incline Colony Ship RELEASE THREAD

Whisper

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
4,357
^Tbh, it's my favorite ITS game.

Dungeon Rats best ITS game.

Combat (it was combat spin-off so focus was on combat) is miles ahead of CS and slightly better than in AoD. And game was developed in only 1 year! To balance with such perfection so fast, impressive.
 

Whisper

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
4,357
If we want another comparison, Space Wreck seems to have 0 current players.:(
id blame loading times

Or woke developer inserting his political views everywhere.

AAA games can get away with it, since they have mass advertisement and paid bloggers to promote, even if it is complete woke decline. But small titles like this one with transgender choices as hero, no, they wont sell.
 

mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
Patron
Joined
Sep 30, 2009
Messages
12,251
Location
Combatfag: Gold box / Pathfinder
Codex 2012 Codex+ Now Streaming! MCA Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
^Tbh, it's my favorite ITS game.

Dungeon Rats best ITS game.

Combat (it was combat spin-off so focus was on combat) is miles ahead of CS and slightly better than in AoD. And game was developed in only 1 year! To balance with such perfection so fast, impressive.

Yeah, that fight against the Ordu army was a highlight.
 

Whisper

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
4,357
This change (3 defence tactics for build down to 1) is not main reason why CS is decline, but it is good example of it.
In Colony Ship you have way more opportunities to mitigate damage versus Dungeon Rats. For starters, you already mentioned the Damage Reduction Juggy build, so that's one point for Colony Ship. You also have Healing Factor Regen build. In Age of Decadence you had this ability to regenerate health but it was very minor and required a sacrifice to increase, even then it didn't really feel all that impactful. In Colony Ship this theme of regenerating health has been expanded upon into an a real choice for build. Healing Factor + Regen Mutation + Synthetic Heart + Regen Stim = an effective ability to immediately recover healths without needing to invest into any defensive stat. You sit there, eat damage, quaff down regen stim, and get all the HPs back. It's as easy as that. So this is a second point towards Colony Ship. Then you have the absurd initiative based builds that can act before the enemy even has a chance to react and completely kill them before you take damage, have AP refunded with Second Wind, repeat. You don't need to deal with damage if the enemy is dead. That's another point towards Colony Ship - we're at three so far. There's also the neat things you can do with Stealth Gadget in combat where you can completely avoid damage. We're at four points now. I can keep going but I tire.

You forgot to add small detail. All this different "builds" of yours rely on DR stacking. None of them will work good enough without it.

While in Dungeon rats were viable unarmored Monk type characters or heavy armored blockers who played completely opposite etc.
Why unarmored Monk type in CS is not viable? "You cant dodge bullets"? Well, you could dodge bolts in DR just fine and noone brought this up. Also you can and should dodge melee just fine. Another excuse "dodgers unbalance game", not really they did not unbalance AoD and DR for sure. But armor stacker do unbalance, because it is optimal foundation on which you add gadgets etc.
 

Rincewind

Magister
Patron
Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
2,542
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down under
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I have played AoD and obviously there is a lot of forced teleportation in that as well, so it's not like I will flat out refuse to play a game because of it, it's just a strong preference to make my own way to my objective.
I actually loved that. Cut the tedious crap, focus on what's important. I found that approach refreshing.
 

Shaki

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 22, 2018
Messages
1,588
Location
Hyperborea
Got the game in my Steam discover queue as a popular one.
86R5hFu.png
It's at #73 on global top sellers list.

Edit: 720 players are currently in-game. Peak in the last 24h was 730 players.
For comparisons sake:
Battle Brothers

1,726
playing 15 min ago
1,900
24-hour peak
8,055
all-time peak
It's a bad comparison, Colony Ship isn't bad, but Battle Brothers is a masterpiece, pretty much the best game I've played in the last decade, maybe ever. Hard to compare anything to it, having numbers this high despite very simple graphics and anti-normie mechanics and difficulty, is a testament to how insanely good it was.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
As someone who broadly supported AOD (& CSG) teleportation, the problem is NOT that you teleport, the problem is that some of the delivery is really awkwardly done, like a speech where the speaker just refuses to stop to take a breath.

The Factory denouement, depending on your choices, can be absolutely farcical:

Hello, I am Kodexer, in exciting stealth mission and SUCCESS!
*fade*
Why am I back in my cell
Hello I am your ally
How the fuck did you get here
We won! The enemy (that you never really got to see) are dead!
Oh OK-
HELLO, I AM MESSENGER THAT JUST ARRIVED ALTHOUGH YOU CANNOT SEE ME ON THE SCREEN, THE OTHER GUY HAS TAKEN OUR HOME BASE!!!
*fade*
Wait I thought we were teleporting to see what happened in the base, instead we teleported to some random courtyard that I have never seen before so I don't even know where the fuck I am
Hello this is still your ally, someone has come to see us and have a chat
*fade*
Oh wow now I am in some other courtyard I've never seen before
HELLO I am guy you have never ever heard of but I was watching everything, anyway we own you now bitch
I am very unhappy about this but OK
Anyway I will immediately teleport you to the Habitat now
*fade*
you are at the habitat. a sea of dead, soulless eyes abound. any one of them would happily slice off your balls in the next alley if it were to their advantage. such is thug life
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Anybody tried solo with SMG / Shotguns? They seem decent, but feels like SMG variability & lack of penetration would lead to some frustration and shotguns seem to be in a weird jack of all trades spot.

Also wondering about Healing Factor, which seems like a nice set of QOL stuff but starting to feel Mastermind or Dodge This are the supreme heroic feats.
 

Hellraiser

Arcane
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
Messages
11,384
Location
Danzig, Potato-Hitman Commonwealth

Nikanuur

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Mar 1, 2021
Messages
1,549
Location
Ngranek
So, the 'bug' with the Fast Draw now:
Evans now has 21/17 AP the first round every time.
Even stranger things have been happening to my own character and Faythe, now. They sometimes had 20/16 and 22/18 respectively. But most of the times 18/16 and 20/18, and once—just once for many fights—my own character had actually 14/16.

All that without changing any piece of armor for me or Faythe, however, I gave Evans the light power armor instead of leaving it with Zed as before.
The only other stuff I changed or replaced were gadgets and weapons.

Guys, I cannot be the only one picking up this feat. +4AP +12 Initiative for the first round seems too good to pass. Am I really the only one experiencing this?

Edit:
I tested with Reinforced Scav Armor now, it's the same. That's third 'no AP penalty' armor that causes -2 AP pentalty to Fast Draw feat and nowhere else.
 
Last edited:

jackofshadows

Magister
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
4,584
With Evasion being useless at the moment Dex is pretty unappetizing as a secondary stat for any build, let alone primary. I realize coming from Fallout everyone's first instinct is to max the stat that gives you AP, but the gain is kind of negligible and it comes with zero ancillary benefits, as opposed to strength and con which make you invincible and perception which dramatically increases your accuracy (and therefore damage)
Except initiative is like, extremely important stat.
Anybody tried solo with SMG / Shotguns?
Acquaintance of mine did a mastermind solo with shotguns although in a pre-release build I beleive. But as far as I remember little has changed on the release balance wise so it's viable.
 

Sòren

Arcane
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
Messages
2,393
there are dozens...well quite a few optional locations you will never see in AoD unless you made the right choices or builds.

On a general level sure, you can miss map locations due to your build, practically though I checked and to get certain locations marked requires a whopping 3 levels in [lore], which IIRC is pretty fucking cheap and not that build dependent, with [lore] IIRC having some other benefits, so it might not be that likely to miss it even if there is a theoretical possibility. The faction-exclusive locations like the Legionaries have (they have 2 IIRC, or is it just 1 and the pass is available also to another guild?) are of course something CS doesn't have and that's a good point to raise as it's another good example of the faction branching being worse than in AoD. The closest CS has to a map location you can miss are the lower levels of mission control, if you get into a situation where you can get there only through the very hard combat route due to lacking skills for the other 2 paths.

But for a lot of cases you mention where it's not a map location but rather a hidden room, secret path in the branching, locked out door, sub-location in a city etc. where you need to pass a skill check to enter, how besides presentation/exploration system (CYOA vs moving around in-game) are they different from a room in CS behind a forcefield tied to electronics/computer skill checks? Or one behind a high lockpick level door? Or a difficult stealth-only section where you are "soft-locked" out of looting some rooms due to lacking sufficient stealth skill/cloaking mods/stealth feats? What I mean to say is that the AoD locations would be hidden rooms like those in mission control, if AoD used the same engine as the (hacked out of UE4 IIRC) one of CS. Or maybe even they would be full-blown stealth encounters.

So CS has this kind of optional "locations" as far as gameplay mechanics are concerned, they're just less in your face due to the presentation/exploration change. Actual gameplay and in-game world interactivity just made them more mundane ;)

There is however room for arguing that the skill checks gating those locations aren't that difficult which makes it a lot easier to get into all this optional content than in AoD, either due to having party members or due to how the character and skill system work in general. Or maybe too many people are making 10 INT characters and tagging tech skills:M

You also have some rooms/stealth sections where you can only enter/loot them when on a specific quest branch as a unique encounter area (ex. Jonas/Braxton branches in the Pit, Mercy's Fort) or as a consequences (the one you can get to for not being greedy regarding the heads with the implants quest). These also would fit as equivalents to the optional locations you mentioned.

i mean, we pretty much agree. just this one:

where you need to pass a skill check to enter, how besides presentation/exploration system (CYOA vs moving around in-game) are they different from a room in CS behind a forcefield tied to electronics/computer skill checks?

because most of those rooms - with the exception of
mission control lander, which opens another ending and eye heist
- do not offer anything of interest besides a few nice trinkets, and most of them aren't unique. besides combat and CYA elements for those who enjoy them, lore and discovery is what made AoD a pretty strong title.

i am not trying to trashtalk the game here, i love it. but after playing a thief-science skill build to get access to every room in the game it's hard not to notice that.
 

Zanzoken

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,596
One thing I want to give major props to the devs on: the death animations are so satisfying. I never get tired of watching dudes ragdoll under a hail of bullets.

 

Hellraiser

Arcane
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
Messages
11,384
Location
Danzig, Potato-Hitman Commonwealth
because most of those rooms - with the exception of
mission control lander, which opens another ending and eye heist
- do not offer anything of interest besides a few nice trinkets, and most of them aren't unique. besides combat and CYA elements for those who enjoy them, lore and discovery is what made AoD a pretty strong title.

I have to agree with this, I guess part of the reason is the setting. You can't really have that much mindblowing forgotten lore on a spaceship ship after a mutiny, the game already seems to have used up all the storytelling potential that had for mystery. Neither can you have ancient artifacts of doom with forgotten powers, so even good rare loot like some implant chips seem more mundane by comparison.
 

Sòren

Arcane
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
Messages
2,393
because most of those rooms - with the exception of
mission control lander, which opens another ending and eye heist
- do not offer anything of interest besides a few nice trinkets, and most of them aren't unique. besides combat and CYA elements for those who enjoy them, lore and discovery is what made AoD a pretty strong title.

I have to agree with this, I guess part of the reason is the setting. You can't really have that much mindblowing forgotten lore on a spaceship ship after a mutiny, the game already seems to have used up all the storytelling potential that had for mystery. Neither can you have ancient artifacts of doom with forgotten powers, so even good rare loot like some implant chips seem more mundane by comparison.

thing is: there is potential there, it just wasn't developed. when talking to the archivists at the Habitat, you discover that Harding (i think that's his name) - one of the leaders of the mutiny - worked for the ship authority before. and one asks the question who he was actually answering to. what was the purpose? what did they want to achieve and why? it is an interesting concept that you could expand upon, but that didn't happen.
 

xuerebx

Erudite
Joined
Aug 20, 2008
Messages
1,005
If we want another comparison, Space Wreck seems to have 0 current players.:(
id blame loading times

Or woke developer inserting his political views everywhere.

AAA games can get away with it, since they have mass advertisement and paid bloggers to promote, even if it is complete woke decline. But small titles like this one with transgender choices as hero, no, they wont sell.

Yeah, that one second choice (apparently, I don't even remember it) breaks the game.
 

Daedalos

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
5,583
Location
Denmark
What's with all the ULTRA fags hating on this game in this thread? This is the RPGCODEX, shit like CS doesn't get any better than any other game release for you.
How about you show some fucking gratitude and appreciation?

It's not a perfect game, but it's damn good in terms of how few people worked on it.

Granted, I've not even played it fully yet, but I'm glad so many people are enjoying it.
I'm kind of saving my 100 % playthrough for the next patch in mid dec.

GG boys
 

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