New Location: The Habitat

[Jaedar]

It's kind of hard to label the factions "evil" when the society is a result of being trapped on a ship, destined to die without a say on the matter.

You and I are trapped on this planet, destined to die without a say on the matter.

Protectors value staying true to the Mission, after all, this sacrifice has to be worth something.

See I was actually gonna go protectors, but seeing how they actually live I can't help but wonder if maybe death ain't preferable. Although admittedly if the brotherhood have a plan for what they would do if they won I missed it. Turning the ship around seems fabulously optimistic.

 

[Pink Eye]

You and I are trapped on this planet, destined to die without a say on the matter.

Hmm. Last I checked Earth is bigger than a ship that's only,"3km long, 500 meters wide". Earth also has fresh oxygen, water that isn't murky or rusty tasty, beaches, real trees, etc.

See I was actually gonna go protectors, but seeing how they actually live I can't help but wonder if maybe death ain't preferable. Although admittedly if the brotherhood have a plan for what they would do if they won I missed it. Turning the ship around seems fabulously optimistic.

Well the society is pretty weird. I like it. Gives me Lord of the Flies vibes.

 

[Tsubutai]

It is very sparse at the moment with little to do. The pit despite being a much smaller "backwater town" had much more things to do and quests and activities like stealing, etc. Hope it gets fleshed out.

First, it will; second, in comparison the Habitat has 89 dialogue files, the Pit has 64, but the Habitat's size dwarfs it. Same goes for Maadoran and Ganezzar (more content, yet many players felt that Teron had way more).

The Habitat certainly has a lot of dialogue, presumably largely because the interlinked Spy/Preacher/Storm/Traitor/Matheson quests that form the core of the area's content are so heavily intertwined and can generate so many different world states. The problem from a player's perspective is that on any given run you're only going to see a tiny fraction of that complexity and running through whatever path you choose will take only a few minutes. In contrast, the Pit has a lot of quests that are comparatively light on dialogue/branching (in the simplest cases, the quests for the power plant guy and the barman who wants his algae are just one-way fetch quests pointing you to the local dungeons) but they add quite a lot in terms of making the area feel lively and rich in content. The Habitat would *really* benefit from half a dozen self-contained quests like that to put some points of interest in the empty spaces of the maps and complement the hyperbranched politicking and scheming.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

I can believe that Ganezzar has more content when you factor in all the mutually exclusive stuff going on. But at least to me it has always felt like Ganezzar had two quests

+1, Ganezzar felt like a giant decoration for the quests that never arrived.

 

[lukaszek]

It is very sparse at the moment with little to do. The pit despite being a much smaller "backwater town" had much more things to do and quests and activities like stealing, etc. Hope it gets fleshed out.

First, it will; second, in comparison the Habitat has 89 dialogue files, the Pit has 64, but the Habitat's size dwarfs it. Same goes for Maadoran and Ganezzar (more content, yet many players felt that Teron had way more).

The Habitat certainly has a lot of dialogue, presumably largely because the interlinked Spy/Preacher/Storm/Traitor/Matheson quests that form the core of the area's content are so heavily intertwined and can generate so many different world states. The problem from a player's perspective is that on any given run you're only going to see a tiny fraction of that complexity and running through whatever path you choose will take only a few minutes. In contrast, the Pit has a lot of quests that are comparatively light on dialogue/branching (in the simplest cases, the quests for the power plant guy and the barman who wants his algae are just one-way fetch quests pointing you to the local dungeons) but they add quite a lot in terms of making the area feel lively and rich in content. The Habitat would *really* benefit from half a dozen self-contained quests like that to put some points of interest in the empty spaces of the maps and complement the hyperbranched politicking and scheming.

wasnt it same in aod? What I found especially funny was that my 1st run was talking drifter that became a prophet. Much later, in different life, ive learnt that there is an actual prophet already in the hold...
aod felt like all of it is opened in 1st act, half remains in 2nd and 3rd is almost linear to finish up your early choices. Then there were builds that wouldnt see anything outside of 3 city walls

 

[Tsubutai]

It is very sparse at the moment with little to do. The pit despite being a much smaller "backwater town" had much more things to do and quests and activities like stealing, etc. Hope it gets fleshed out.

First, it will; second, in comparison the Habitat has 89 dialogue files, the Pit has 64, but the Habitat's size dwarfs it. Same goes for Maadoran and Ganezzar (more content, yet many players felt that Teron had way more).

The Habitat certainly has a lot of dialogue, presumably largely because the interlinked Spy/Preacher/Storm/Traitor/Matheson quests that form the core of the area's content are so heavily intertwined and can generate so many different world states. The problem from a player's perspective is that on any given run you're only going to see a tiny fraction of that complexity and running through whatever path you choose will take only a few minutes. In contrast, the Pit has a lot of quests that are comparatively light on dialogue/branching (in the simplest cases, the quests for the power plant guy and the barman who wants his algae are just one-way fetch quests pointing you to the local dungeons) but they add quite a lot in terms of making the area feel lively and rich in content. The Habitat would *really* benefit from half a dozen self-contained quests like that to put some points of interest in the empty spaces of the maps and complement the hyperbranched politicking and scheming.

Adding to this, the situation is worse if you play a character without good speech skills because in that case not only is your path through the Habitat content short, it's also very linear/railroad-y, with most of the complexity being invisible: you can't persuade the rogue preacher to leave, so you never learn Abraham's plan; you can't convince Storm to relax and hear you out, so you never learn about the possibility to turn her into a secret agent or reinforce her loyalty; you can't make Whatley disclose his supplier's identity, so you never meet Menzel; and you can't convince Sheffield to give up Crowe's identity, so you never learn about the roles she can play. With a talky character, your path is relatively short but it's clear that there's a lot going on and you're making a string of decisions that will presumably have interesting consequences down the line; with a dumb bruiser, you're mostly just running in a straight line failing dialogue checks. I think at the very least a character who fails to convince Sheffield should be offered the assault on F14 quest if they didn't get it by killing the spy (or helping him escape and lying about it). There's also kind of a booby trap for non-talky characters - if you tell Silas what the spy had to say but cannot convince Sheffield, the peacemaking questline slams into a dead end and you also lose the opportunity to do the F14 assault.

 

[lukaszek]

Adding to this, the situation is worse if you play a character without good speech skills because in that case not only is your path through the Habitat content short, it's also very linear/railroad-y, with most of the complexity being invisible: you can't persuade the rogue preacher to leave, so you never learn Abraham's plan; you can't convince Storm to relax and hear you out, so you never learn about the possibility to turn her into a secret agent or reinforce her loyalty; you can't make Whatley disclose his supplier's identity, so you never meet Menzel; and you can't convince Sheffield to give up Crowe's identity, so you never learn about the roles she can play. With a talky character, your path is relatively short but it's clear that there's a lot going on and you're making a string of decisions that will presumably have interesting consequences down the line; with a dumb bruiser, you're mostly just running in a straight line failing dialogue checks. I think at the very least a character who fails to convince Sheffield should be offered the assault on F14 quest if they didn't get it by killing the spy (or helping him escape and lying about it). There's also kind of a booby trap for non-talky characters - if you tell Silas what the spy had to say but cannot convince Sheffield, the peacemaking questline slams into a dead end and you also lose the opportunity to do the F14 assault.

there is also non combat thief/ass who cant progress anything in habitat

 

[Vault Dweller]

Adding to this, the situation is worse if you play a character without good speech skills because in that case not only is your path through the Habitat content short, it's also very linear/railroad-y, with most of the complexity being invisible: you can't persuade the rogue preacher to leave, so you never learn Abraham's plan; you can't convince Storm to relax and hear you out, so you never learn about the possibility to turn her into a secret agent or reinforce her loyalty; you can't make Whatley disclose his supplier's identity, so you never meet Menzel; and you can't convince Sheffield to give up Crowe's identity, so you never learn about the roles she can play. With a talky character, your path is relatively short but it's clear that there's a lot going on and you're making a string of decisions that will presumably have interesting consequences down the line; with a dumb bruiser, you're mostly just running in a straight line failing dialogue checks. I think at the very least a character who fails to convince Sheffield should be offered the assault on F14 quest if they didn't get it by killing the spy (or helping him escape and lying about it). There's also kind of a booby trap for non-talky characters - if you tell Silas what the spy had to say but cannot convince Sheffield, the peacemaking questline slams into a dead end and you also lose the opportunity to do the F14 assault.

there is also non combat thief/ass who cant progress anything in habitat

Can you email us your save in the Habitat, preferably when just arrived?

info@irontowerstudio.com

 

[Ibn Sina]

It is very sparse at the moment with little to do. The pit despite being a much smaller "backwater town" had much more things to do and quests and activities like stealing, etc. Hope it gets fleshed out.

First, it will; second, in comparison the Habitat has 89 dialogue files, the Pit has 64, but the Habitat's size dwarfs it. Same goes for Maadoran and Ganezzar (more content, yet many players felt that Teron had way more).

The Habitat certainly has a lot of dialogue, presumably largely because the interlinked Spy/Preacher/Storm/Traitor/Matheson quests that form the core of the area's content are so heavily intertwined and can generate so many different world states. The problem from a player's perspective is that on any given run you're only going to see a tiny fraction of that complexity and running through whatever path you choose will take only a few minutes. In contrast, the Pit has a lot of quests that are comparatively light on dialogue/branching (in the simplest cases, the quests for the power plant guy and the barman who wants his algae are just one-way fetch quests pointing you to the local dungeons) but they add quite a lot in terms of making the area feel lively and rich in content. The Habitat would *really* benefit from half a dozen self-contained quests like that to put some points of interest in the empty spaces of the maps and complement the hyperbranched politicking and scheming.

Adding to this, the situation is worse if you play a character without good speech skills because in that case not only is your path through the Habitat content short, it's also very linear/railroad-y, with most of the complexity being invisible: you can't persuade the rogue preacher to leave, so you never learn Abraham's plan; you can't convince Storm to relax and hear you out, so you never learn about the possibility to turn her into a secret agent or reinforce her loyalty; you can't make Whatley disclose his supplier's identity, so you never meet Menzel; and you can't convince Sheffield to give up Crowe's identity, so you never learn about the roles she can play. With a talky character, your path is relatively short but it's clear that there's a lot going on and you're making a string of decisions that will presumably have interesting consequences down the line; with a dumb bruiser, you're mostly just running in a straight line failing dialogue checks. I think at the very least a character who fails to convince Sheffield should be offered the assault on F14 quest if they didn't get it by killing the spy (or helping him escape and lying about it). There's also kind of a booby trap for non-talky characters - if you tell Silas what the spy had to say but cannot convince Sheffield, the peacemaking questline slams into a dead end and you also lose the opportunity to do the F14 assault.

What about Hybrids? It is nigh impossible to do anything in the habitat as Hybrid. Enemies become incredibly strong with lots of gadgets while the passing the talking checks becomes impossible due to high prerequistes. It feels like Hybrid builds go to the habitat to die. I thought the main design philosophy of Colony ship was to allow hybrid builds to thrive unlike in AoD where you either have to be a frail smooth talker or a dumb muscle?

 

[Vault Dweller]

What about Hybrids? It is nigh impossible to do anything in the habitat as Hybrid. Enemies become incredibly strong with lots of gadgets while the passing the talking checks becomes impossible due to high prerequistes. It feels like Hybrid builds go to the habitat to die. I thought the main design philosophy of Colony ship was to allow hybrid builds to thrive unlike in AoD where you either have to be a frail smooth talker or a dumb muscle?

Can you post your build?

Overall, this is the initial release (while the game is still in Early Access). Obviously, every effort will be made to ensure that players would be able to progress (unless they go for jacks of all trades who didn't fare all that well in AoD either). Right now we're gathering feedback and different builds to determine the next steps and adjustments.

 

[Sòren]

It is very sparse at the moment with little to do. The pit despite being a much smaller "backwater town" had much more things to do and quests and activities like stealing, etc. Hope it gets fleshed out.

First, it will; second, in comparison the Habitat has 89 dialogue files, the Pit has 64, but the Habitat's size dwarfs it. Same goes for Maadoran and Ganezzar (more content, yet many players felt that Teron had way more).

The Habitat certainly has a lot of dialogue, presumably largely because the interlinked Spy/Preacher/Storm/Traitor/Matheson quests that form the core of the area's content are so heavily intertwined and can generate so many different world states. The problem from a player's perspective is that on any given run you're only going to see a tiny fraction of that complexity and running through whatever path you choose will take only a few minutes. In contrast, the Pit has a lot of quests that are comparatively light on dialogue/branching (in the simplest cases, the quests for the power plant guy and the barman who wants his algae are just one-way fetch quests pointing you to the local dungeons) but they add quite a lot in terms of making the area feel lively and rich in content. The Habitat would *really* benefit from half a dozen self-contained quests like that to put some points of interest in the empty spaces of the maps and complement the hyperbranched politicking and scheming.

Adding to this, the situation is worse if you play a character without good speech skills because in that case not only is your path through the Habitat content short, it's also very linear/railroad-y, with most of the complexity being invisible: you can't persuade the rogue preacher to leave, so you never learn Abraham's plan; you can't convince Storm to relax and hear you out, so you never learn about the possibility to turn her into a secret agent or reinforce her loyalty; you can't make Whatley disclose his supplier's identity, so you never meet Menzel; and you can't convince Sheffield to give up Crowe's identity, so you never learn about the roles she can play. With a talky character, your path is relatively short but it's clear that there's a lot going on and you're making a string of decisions that will presumably have interesting consequences down the line; with a dumb bruiser, you're mostly just running in a straight line failing dialogue checks. I think at the very least a character who fails to convince Sheffield should be offered the assault on F14 quest if they didn't get it by killing the spy (or helping him escape and lying about it). There's also kind of a booby trap for non-talky characters - if you tell Silas what the spy had to say but cannot convince Sheffield, the peacemaking questline slams into a dead end and you also lose the opportunity to do the F14 assault.

What about Hybrids? It is nigh impossible to do anything in the habitat as Hybrid. Enemies become incredibly strong with lots of gadgets while the passing the talking checks becomes impossible due to high prerequistes. It feels like Hybrid builds go to the habitat to die. I thought the main design philosophy of Colony ship was to allow hybrid builds to thrive unlike in AoD where you either have to be a frail smooth talker or a dumb muscle?

i only do hybrid builts and could do anything i wanted in habitat (tagging one social skill - usually streetwise - is enough actually). that combat becomes a little more challenging is just as i like it.

 

[Elhoim]

It is very sparse at the moment with little to do. The pit despite being a much smaller "backwater town" had much more things to do and quests and activities like stealing, etc. Hope it gets fleshed out.

Yes, we are adding quite a few of them. As Vince said, it's a place we'll continue adding more interactions in upcoming updates. We will be doing a minor update before the release of ECLSS with some more interactions, and maintenance/ECLSS will add quite a bit more of content to this "Hub".

While you guys played it before, the Shuttle Bay is part of the "Habitat" just as the side locations and quests pointing to them where in the Pit.

I think at the very least a character who fails to convince Sheffield should be offered the assault on F14 quest if they didn't get it by killing the spy (or helping him escape and lying about it). There's also kind of a booby trap for non-talky characters - if you tell Silas what the spy had to say but cannot convince Sheffield, the peacemaking questline slams into a dead end and you also lose the opportunity to do the F14 assault.

I don't know exactly what you mean by "slams into a dead end". I assume this is what you got:

- Failed, told Hanson.
- Talked with Hanson about Matheson.
- Told Silas what Hanson said, quest ends.

There will be later events tied to this state, it's not a dead end. In any case, we are looking into adding a different way to get the information as well.

 

[Jaedar]

This doesn't look great:

Spoiler

It looks like the building is armored with 5m of almost pure blackness. Is the floor texture missing? It's there for the walkable parts of the corridor, just not the sides.

Cool fight though. The mooks had nice weaknesses and the boss himself was a beast. He wound up running out of ammo before I could kill him.
I think this was the last bit of content in the habit, at least for this character.

i only do hybrid builts and could do anything i wanted in habitat (tagging one social skill - usually streetwise - is enough actually). that combat becomes a little more challenging is just as i like it.

I think you are correct that tagging streetwise is enough to beat almost all speech challenges in the game (as long as you also use it a bit in the pit to get it to level 6).
I managed to do the above spoilered fight without too many issues or consumables (1 med gas, 2 regen, 1 aggro) despite only having 2 combat skills tagged on the entire party. So I think hybrids are viable, but I can see how someone without any speech skills would feel a bit bad about the habitat.

 

[Vault Dweller]

This doesn't look great:

Spoiler

It looks like the building is armored with 5m of almost pure blackness.

'Apartments' inside.

 

[luj1]

Does Colony Ship still have grazing?

Also how is the UI coming along

my main 2 issues with the game

 

[Vault Dweller]

No plans to change the UI or remove grazing. We regret that the game failed to meet your

standards and will try to do better in the future.

 

[Technomancer]

What about Hybrids? It is nigh impossible to do anything in the habitat as Hybrid. Enemies become incredibly strong with lots of gadgets while the passing the talking checks becomes impossible due to high prerequistes. It feels like Hybrid builds go to the habitat to die. I thought the main design philosophy of Colony ship was to allow hybrid builds to thrive unlike in AoD where you either have to be a frail smooth talker or a dumb muscle?

Unfortunate it becomes so rigid very fast. In AoD CHA and skill system had different mechanics and it was possible to convince people even on low CHA builds by investing more in skills.

Here, it's not possible. I took great pains (it was really bad) to level untagged Persuasion, Streetwise and Impersonation to 4 on 4 CHA combat build and despite succeeding all checks I still could not get Mendez fight thanks to -1 deposition hit. So my only hope here is to burn bionic feat and install Squad Leader for disposition bonus. A cost too high for some lousy fight.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Can you post your build? It's hard to process feedback without specifics. Like I said before, if the checks are too rigid, we'll fix them or add alternatives. Lots of stealth and exploration is already planned, like an alternative (tech+stealth) way to get the name of the traitor, etc.

 

[Technomancer]

Can you post your build? It's hard to process feedback without specifics. Like I said before, if the checks are too rigid, we'll fix them or add alternatives. Lots of stealth and exploration is already planned, like an alternative (tech+stealth) way to get the name of the traitor, etc.

I don't necessary feel them too rigid, just think hard gating at habitat is too early. Should start happening after it.

Don't see why you need to see build. I told you important parts, combat oriented, 4 CHA and no speech tags. Through extreme bullshit I managed to reach 4 in my speech stats so naturally I expected some pay off for it because I sacrificed much to get here.

 

[Sòren]

Can you post your build? It's hard to process feedback without specifics. Like I said before, if the checks are too rigid, we'll fix them or add alternatives. Lots of stealth and exploration is already planned, like an alternative (tech+stealth) way to get the name of the traitor, etc.

I don't necessary feel them too rigid, just think hard gating at habitat is too early. Should start happening after it.

Don't see why you need to see build. I told you important parts, combat oriented, 4 CHA and no speech tags. Through extreme bullshit I managed to reach 4 in my speech stats so naturally I expected some pay off for it because I sacrificed much to get here.

unless u get some conversation boni via faction reputation (pretty intelligent design choice btw) i think certain interactions are already impossible to pass with an initial disposition of -1.

 

[Technomancer]

unless u get some conversation boni via faction reputation (pretty intelligent design choice btw) i think certain interactions are already impossible to pass with an initial disposition of -1.

I'm fine with that. But here I get barred from murderhobo oriented fight despite metagaming and preparing to do it in advance.

 

[Tsubutai]

I don't know exactly what you mean by "slams into a dead end". I assume this is what you got:

- Failed, told Hanson.
- Talked with Hanson about Matheson.
- Told Silas what Hanson said, quest ends.

No, what I got when I tried it was failure to convince Sheffield, told Hanson about the failure, then had no option to talk to Hanson about Matheson. However, that was several beta releases ago using a character that I have since scrapped (F in chat for Squad Leader giving +1 companion...). I reloaded the save just now and tried it again, and it worked as you described, so it seems that whatever caused the Matheson quest not to progress after hitting the failure state in Traitor, it's not a problem any more.

 

[Elhoim]

I don't know exactly what you mean by "slams into a dead end". I assume this is what you got:

- Failed, told Hanson.
- Talked with Hanson about Matheson.
- Told Silas what Hanson said, quest ends.

No, what I got when I tried it was failure to convince Sheffield, told Hanson about the failure, then had no option to talk to Hanson about Matheson. However, that was several beta releases ago using a character that I have since scrapped (F in chat for Squad Leader giving +1 companion...). I reloaded the save just now and tried it again, and it worked as you described, so it seems that whatever caused the Matheson quest not to progress after hitting the failure state in Traitor, it's not a problem any more.

Yes, probably it was from an earlier version that didn't have the variables of the quest fully done.

 

[Commissar Draco]

The Habitat does need some more content but on the other hand after being almost executed as spy I wonder how we are all allowed to walk freely while carting around enough weapons, armors and grenades to arm small scale insurrection.

Sure the Brotherhood and Church need more mercs but Protectors? Right after their leader was purged as traior? It would make sense if we were allowed to enter only after showing the token given to us by either Braxton or maybe some Protector agent we had chance to safe in armory, greenhouse or mission control or after finishing brotherhood and church.

 

[Jaedar]

Sure the Brotherhood and Church need more mercs but Protectors? Right after their leader was purged as traior? It would make sense if we were allowed to enter only after showing the token given to us by either Braxton or maybe some Protector agent we had chance to safe in armory, greenhouse or mission control or after finishing brotherhood and church.

Braxton is a regulator, not a protector though, so why would they care about his credentials? Or am I missing something?