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Game News Titan Outpost Released

Butter

Arcane
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8,595
I just got a 78MB patch.
 

MF

The Boar Studio
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Dec 8, 2002
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915
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Amsterdam
I got that. My point was that you need to build another hydroponics and depending on your construction skill it can take ridiculous amounts of time. Since you have a quest right off of the bat in which you need to implement a hydroponics in another location, the player will be lead to believe it is just a matter of quick implementation. It is confusing.

I understand. The hydrokinetic pump that starts at 95% makes this worse. You are supposed to be able to go to Feia Lacus and install that first without doing anything else. Karl explains that it had already been under construction for a while before you arrived. I'll add something to the tutorial that makes it clear that non-table construction usually takes a lot longer than the remaining 5% of that pump. Working on that right now.

I just got a 78MB patch.
Yeah, I just rolled out. 1.03

Edit: Now works with rechargable batteries in the inventory, too.
 
Last edited:

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
I’m still trying to understand what makes the gameplay so opaque. I think is that it is a game heavily influenced by set time narrative events accompanied by an open world you can’t actually explore. I replayed again. After staying inside a couple of days, I start receiving more contacts. Then I decide to go outside to receive a *package* and stuff. The game offers me the ability to go straight to the hoover. I think, why not. The problem is that I can’t go anywhere with the hoover without the batteries running out and I can’t find the package on the world map with it. So I decide to leave the hoover and go around on foot. The problem is that now I can’t leave the hoover because I keep reading this message that there is nothing interesting to do in this area. Now I’m stuck inside the hoover with two locations that mean nothing to me because I have zero technology ready.
 

MF

The Boar Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 8, 2002
Messages
915
Location
Amsterdam
I’m still trying to understand what makes the gameplay so opaque. I think is that it is a game heavily influenced by set time narrative events accompanied by an open world you can’t actually explore. I replayed again. After staying inside a couple of days, I start receiving more contacts. Then I decide to go outside to receive a *package* and stuff. The game offers me the ability to go straight to the hoover. I think, why not. The problem is that I can’t go anywhere with the hoover without the batteries running out and I can’t find the package on the world map with it. So I decide to leave the hoover and go around on foot. The problem is that now I can’t leave the hoover because I keep reading this message that there is nothing interesting to do in this area. Now I’m stuck inside the hoover with two locations that mean nothing to me because I have zero technology ready.

The 'straight to rover' option was added in the last patch as a QoL feature, so you don't have to wait for the Outpost outside environment to load if you just want to go to the Rover to explore the world map. Are you saying that it made the game more confusing? It only works after you've been in the Rover at least once. Maybe the feature should kick in only after hooking up the first pump or something. Or better yet, I'll make a docking airlock a buildable item. In any case, I'll add Rover navigation to the tutorial as well. I think a bit of (optional) handholding will go a long way in making it a bit more transparent. Figuring out what to do is supposed to be part of the charm, but it's no good if everyone dies of starvation on their first run.

You can go from the Outpost to Feia Lacus and back on one charge. That location should mean something by that point, as Karl tells you what you need to do there. Phil tells you exactly where to go look for the package, on the west wide of the Space Elevator platform, not on the world map. I'll turn getting the first shipment inside into a quest with clear directions.

You are right that there is a three-year timeline with about two hundred set events. The endgame will be triggered when the Megiddo arrives, although you can finish the game earlier in other ways. Not all events are pre-determined, many are based on the player's actions. The Herschel Nexus, for example, only arrives a couple of days after you talk to Horst about it. The world map works similarly to the one in Fallout 1. You can go from location to location and you can have random encounters, but the continuous nature of the world is abstracted. Going out on foot in the middle of nowhere is pointless and I didn't waste the player's time. An early build of the game did have a contiguous world map with procedurally generated terrain based on Cassini data, but driving around in a vast empty world wasn't very interesting.
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
Are you saying that it made the game more confusing? It only works after you've been in the Rover at least once. Maybe the feature should kick in only after hooking up the first pump or something. Or better yet, I'll make a docking airlock a buildable item. In any case, I'll add Rover navigation to the tutorial as well. I think a bit of (optional) handholding will go a long way in making it a bit more transparent. Figuring out what to do is supposed to be part of the charm, but it's no good if everyone dies of starvation on their first run.

The problem is that I couldn’t leave the Rover in the outpost. I chose to take a look because I thought it would help me to find the item of my quest in the map using it. It didn’t. So I decided to leave it and walk around near the outpost, but the message “you don’t have anything interesting to see here” is preventing me to do this.

You can go from the Outpost to Feia Lacus and back on one charge. That location should mean something by that point, as Karl tells you what you need to do there. Phil tells you exactly where to go look for the package, on the west wide of the Space Elevator platform, not on the world map. I'll turn getting the first shipment inside into a quest with clear directions.

I thought this wouldn’t work because the base was unfinished and because I didn’t pay attention. My bad. I should still be able to leave the rover though. One thing I find strange is the notion that you have to guide the rover around using arrow symbols. It feels weird. The auto-drive should be standard, not a feature. Now I understand why Age of Decadence made so much use of teleports. A heavy narrative game can easily lead to confusion due to all sorts of irrelevant things and misconceptions.
 

MF

The Boar Studio
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Developer
Joined
Dec 8, 2002
Messages
915
Location
Amsterdam
The problem is that I couldn’t leave the Rover in the outpost.
That's because you had been driving around for a bit. You left the Outpost on the world map, and no matter how close you appear to be to the icon, at the real physical scale you're still a couple of kilometres away, which is not walking distance. You need to drive back to the Outpost, but for that to trigger you need to drive away for a bit, first. That last part isn't very intuitive, I agree. I'm working on a solution for that.

Now I understand why Age of Decadence made so much use of teleports. A heavy narrative game can easily lead to confusion due to all sorts of irrelevant things and misconceptions.

Yeah, I didn't mind the teleportation in Age of Decadence, it worked pretty well. But it doesn't really compare. AoD doesn't have an open world or a worldmap with travel mechanics and exploration isn't really a factor in that game. I'll keep refining the opening and see if that helps.

Also, there is a narrative issue with irrelevant things and misconceptions.
You have probably figured this out by now, but the central premise is a lie.
 

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