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

[HeroMarine]

I've just started playing the game and I have to ask, has the Starfarer escaped from RSA or Nigeria? Because almost every character I meet is a nigger (sometimes a clone or a twin):

This worries me as well and I hope your concerns are unfounded. There's too much non-white representation in video games already, and all types of media, and it's very off-putting. Something like this might drive me away from suspension of disbelief when playing a sci-fi game.

 

[Jaedar]

Dont have much time. I started high dec+int character with all 3 thievery feats and computers. So far there are no computers check and I wish I grabbed electronics instead. Or traded steal for electronics as im not too happy with it and wonder if id be fine without tagging it and raising as there is a trainer and plenty of opportunities?

The usage of steal in the ea amounts to some ammo, two 'potions' and 500 creds + some loot I don't remember. This isn't a terrible haul considering you can get it in like 30 seconds from starting out, but it's not great.

Computers doesn't have a lot of checks early on, but it gates some pretty good loot in a few places and it's hard to raise in general (as opposed to steal). Electronics is pretty much on par with lockpicking, gates a decent amount of good stuff. Imo both computers and electronics are good skills to start with, and computers might be good to tag.

Also where is this science lady who wants frog brains and gives computer skills? Somehow I missed her in both my playthroughs.

 

[Alphons]

Also where is this science lady who wants frog brains and gives computer skills? Somehow I missed her in both my playthroughs.

Second floor- cultivation labs in Camp Reid.

 

[Jaedar]

Also where is this science lady who wants frog brains and gives computer skills? Somehow I missed her in both my playthroughs.

Second floor- cultivation labs in Camp Reid.

Hmm. For me she only has a looping conversation about playing god.

 

[Elhoim]

Hmm. For me she only has a looping conversation about playing god.

You can talk to her about it if you have frog brain in your inventory. But yeah, it's a bit easy to miss, since usually you talk to NPCs once, and there's no indication the frog brain will unlock a conversation option with her.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Finally the money reached my account. Bought the game, supported the cause of incline, but will wait when it's finished to play.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Is there(or is there gonna be in the future) any consequence to the number of people that managed to survive in the fight against the regulators?

I got two guards killed in that fight. I wonder if there's a chance you'll become Jonas right hand if red beard dies? It would be really neat if there was atleast some C&C involved.

By the way, I beat the game and one complaint I have is that some NPCs don't acknowledge some important actions you take. For example, I killed mercy and her men single-handed, got the fucking grenades for Jonas and helped in the fight against Braxton and yet after all that, when I talk to him I get the same line I got when i first talked to him(he doesn't even address my name, like I was some unknown). That's kinda 'immershun' breaker tbh. I remember it was an issue with AoD on early versions too, so I hope it's addressed here aswell.

 

[jackofshadows]

Played a bit and if you don't tag comp skill at start you will miss plenty of loot and occasions to train your skills, on the other hand you can be tought of lock picking and stealing at start so if you have mastermind+10 intelligence you won't miss skill points, but if you have Intelligence around 6 just don't bother with talking, thieving or technical thingies cause you wont raise them to 3 and 4 anyways. So just kill stuff. Maybe it would be easier if you got a sneaky or nerdy companion at start but Evan is almost useless and nigga companion refuses to climb the rope, despite that he has Str 8 which is I think is bug... or Maybe Iron studio getting woke finally.

Comp skill can be raised by a lady in Hydroponics (MC only) and by the token from alpha tower which means w/o tagging and raising at start you could pass all the checks except for the force field in Depot A which is a 3 check therefore require raising the skill at the start and passing few other checks. So far int bonus doesnt mean that much because (I hope others will corect me) these NPC training and token bonuses are locked aside from that token bonuses getting x2 for tagged skills.

EDIT: I've mixed up experience bonus and skill's learning rate bonus. Int gives you bonus general exp which means more feats in the future, nothing more. Mastermind means basically all skills getting half the tag so maybe I was wrong and cvv was right about its high viability. Will definitely try it.

As for talking skills, it's still possible raising them and combat ones simultaniously with 5-6 int in order to be able say convince Mercy while having a huge body count but it require pretty much same AoD metagaming with notes and stuff. Hardly for the first playthrough and hardly for everyone to enjoy.

Regarding checks for companions its indeed quite opaque whether or not companion can be useful, for another example sneaking with Faithe prior to Depot A is impossible which is makes sense but still hard to predict. Yeah, it's no Larian co-op origin chars approach for sure

 

[Elhoim]

I got two guards killed in that fight. I wonder if there's a chance you'll become Jonas right hand if red beard dies? It would be really neat if there was atleast some C&C involved.

Red Beard is not his right hand, but yeah, we'll check if he survives and probably get some interaction when you get back from the Habitat (both for him surviving here, and also for you not killing him as a regulator at Camptown Gate). Probably the same for Martinez.

By the way, I beat the game and one complaint I have is that some NPCs don't acknowledge some important actions you take. For example, I killed mercy and her men single-handed, got the fucking grenades for Jonas and helped in the fight against Braxton and yet after all that, when I talk to him I get the same line I got when i first talked to him(he doesn't even address my name, like I was some unknown). That's kinda 'immershun' breaker tbh. I remember it was an issue with AoD on early versions too, so I hope it's addressed here aswell.

Yeah, it will be adressed.

 

[lukaszek]

how do you raise takedown parameter? Doesnt appear to be affected by sneaking, quality of dagger nor strength?
I do notice on char gen that its affected by critical strike, I guess its mandatory for me then?

 

[jackofshadows]

how do you raise takedown parameter? Doesnt appear to be affected by sneaking, quality of dagger nor strength?
I do notice on char gen that its affected by critical strike, I guess its mandatory for me then?

Crit only, yeah.

Btw maybe its dependance should be divided between crit and blade skill say 75/25? Since takedowns can be only be done with knifes?

 

[Savecummer]

not that different from aod? Except you could use points awarded through stealing towards streetwise for example

metagaming has been dialed up, before you could just hoard your general purpose sp and use as you wanted, combat/universal sp split was still there...
now you hoard checks... .. . and teleport between them, use them as you want in order, split is between companions...
1 step forward? 3 back - in this shitty adventure
steamtards are still complaining about combat and builds lol, fuck ITS

simplicity of a combat playthrough of AOD. There was no skillpoint scumming fuckery, you just pumped one weapon skill, one defence skill and probably crafting and/or alchemy.

bullshit - there would be sp scumming if there was opportunity - but there wasnt!
aod combat playthrough was simple because it was simply hard gated, you did not spend sp on lore because you would have no opportunity to use it anyway,
even if you could pass checks a loremaster could, you would not get the option

but if you have Intelligence around 6 just don't bother with talking, thieving or technical thingies cause you wont raise them to 3 and 4 anyways.

ritart

 

[jackofshadows]

A big step forward regarding dialogue checks lies in the disposition system. You don't have to actually meet all the checks in order to succeed and having a bonus from charisma. New meta-stuff refers mostly to tokens and trainers which isn't a new thing.

 

[Elhoim]

A big step forward regarding dialogue checks lies in the disposition system. You don't have to actually meet all the checks in order to succeed and having a bonus from charisma. New meta-stuff refers mostly to tokens and trainers which isn't a new thing.

There's always going to be metagame in RPGs in terms of order to get some stuff due to quests and what you do. That's not going to go away unless you do a bland extremely linear game in which you make sure that nobody missing anything. For example, once you find a stash by exploring, you'll know where it is and go straight to it in the next run. That's metagame, and some people REALLY enjoy it. Our goal is not to eliminate metagame entirely, but not making it a requirement to continue playing/succeeding in a quest. What we aim is to check for the overall intent of the build and your actions instead of the minutiae of how many points you have in a particular skill in a particular moment. You build a character with 9 charisma, tag speech skils, and use them very often? You are most probably going to succeed if you choose a dialogue path. I don't really see it as an issue if you want to metagame tokens and trainers to open a chest.

 

[Alphons]

I could lockpick the door behind the counter, but it said it would make 10 noise. When I did it, it LOWERED everyone's detection (2 guys had empty bars, guy behind counter had around 25%). Opening and closing the door I picked and the one that was already open raised their detection.

Can't replicate, just opened the lock and it went up correctly... When the bar reaches 75% they move to find the source of the sound, and then reset to 25%, maybe that was it?

Possible. Picked the lock, killed the guy behind counter and started combat in the same turn, so they didn't have time to react.
I'll see how it works with second character.

Checked with a second character- Sneak 3, Prowler and Ghost.
Just like you said- enemies were going to investigate the noise I made. Lockpicking the door raises their awareness like the other actions. Edited my previous post.

 

[Savecummer]

A big step forward regarding dialogue checks lies in the disposition system.

Is it a big step forward? Have you thought about it?
Its a sleight of hand to pacify/shift the fault to the whiners who couldnt pass a check deep in a dialogue tree in AoD - and thought this unfair.
Now its gonna go like this: fail, pass, pass, fail (dispo drops on fails too btw...) -> cumulative dispo not reached -> no luck, try again lol
Streamtard comes to Steam forums to cry. Vince: "you just couldnt reach the dispo threshold, its not my fault, im already giving you points for half wins!"

Aod used to be like this, in a sequence:
SUCCESS
(your_skill >= threshold?)
5 >= 5? ===> pass
3 >= 3? ===> pass
7 >= 7? ===> pass ===> WIN
FAIL
5 >= 5? ===> pass
3 >= 3? ===> FAIL ===> TOTAL FAIL, go to prison, collect shit, dont see 7 check
7 >= 7? ===> ---

Now its like this:
PASSING ALL CHEGGS
(sum_of_cheggs >= dispo_threshold?)
3 + 5 + 7 >= 15? ===> DISPO REACHED, pass
FAILING 3
0 + 5 + 7 >= 15? ===> DISPO FAIL, but you have seen the 7 check/dialogue node lol

The are basically Biowarian choices. They are massively harder to design and write too (to be actually good, and not trivial in difficulty).
And practically they behave like the AOD check (imma gonna show it later on the Sharpface dialogue)
And all YOU get out of it, is the ILLUSION of a chance to win. (if its actually a challenging dialogue and not 1+1+2)

Sharpface dialogue basically boils down to AOD like checks.
Whats worse, there is a path in there that fails you even if you have the stats to win lul!
You remember how in ye olden days, guessing the right dialogue choice to win was fun and choosing the wrong option led to death? Yeah, like that.

 

[Savecummer]

metagame tokens and trainers to open a chest

Its not metagame if its forced and trivial.
ALL the science/steal+lockpick checks in your adventure game are repeatable. You will take them all, in order of difficulty. And succeed at all.
There is no meta-thinking required beyond knowing that the checks exist and returning to them when you can pass them.
You see, in decent ARRPEEGEES you get 10 skillpoints and have to decide, do you increase lockpick OR electronics OR steal OR ...?
In your on-rails adventure, I never decide - you go from one skill dispenser that works to the other that works, etc until the last one.
You are collecting "items" from adventure game scenes.

And this was unavoidable and predictable since the introduction of learn-by-doing...

I even know how this whole clusterfuck will get resolved - and you already told us!
In further chapters, you are just gonna hard gate content based on whom you sided with. Stats and skills (learned by doing or otherwise) are nil.
Its just gonna be 3 (maybe...) adventure game paths lol that you continually and linearly progress-by-doing on.

This whole system of skillchecks is even getting worse with companions...

check for the overall intent of the build and your actions instead of the minutiae of how many points you have in a particular skill in a particular moment

Why check numbers at all? Remember Nox? Go with 3 archetypes and drop the charade lol!

 

[lukaszek]

any reason to keep constitution at 4 during chargen? You could literally save 1 point from every other stat you are increasing in favor of con and use implant instead? Except for stuff like 10int for mastermind ofc.

Not yet sure how implants work but after quick stroll to armory I had a few already. I assume that upgrades do not take your slot?

 

[jackofshadows]

Is it a big step forward? Have you thought about it?
Its a sleight of hand to pacify/shift the fault to the whiners who couldnt pass a check deep in a dialogue tree in AoD - and thought this unfair.
Now its gonna go like this: fail, pass, pass, fail (dispo drops on fails too btw...) -> cumulative dispo not reached -> no luck, try again lol
Streamtard comes to Steam forums to cry. Vince: "you just couldnt reach the dispo threshold, its not my fault, im already giving you points for half wins!"

You of all people who posted the 'sheet' of a dialogue with that guy prior to Depot 2A should know better: it doesn't work exactly like this. Some passed checks may lower the disposition - that's the thing - for example low-brow imply that Brexton is with the Church in Mercy's dialogue. Once player realise this - it can boost experience for sure. Yes, your character's skills matter but what you're picking to say beyond those [skill] tags is also matters. Which is far better than it was in AoD 'umm I cannot pick this option at all obviously because my skill for that isn't high enough'.

any reason to keep constitution at 4 during chargen? You could literally save 1 point from every other stat you are increasing in favor of con and use implant instead? Except for stuff like 10int for mastermind ofc.

Yeah, while it's kinda meta territory I think it's a weakness of the system. Picking anything less than for 4 implants (7 con I beleive?) in the current build feels like gimping your character. What it'll be i the full version makes me wonder...

 

[Agesilaus]

What's in the chest on the second level of the armoury, the one trapped under a sheet of metal? I don't want to make a new character with high strength just to find out the answer. I assume it's just some random gear, but on the off chance that it is some plot-critical item I am asking this question.

 

[Elhoim]

What's in the chest on the second level of the armoury, the one trapped under a sheet of metal? I don't want to make a new character with high strength just to find out the answer. I assume it's just some random gear, but on the off chance that it is some plot-critical item I am asking this question.

You can lift it with a party, BTW, they all add their STR.

 

[Agesilaus]

What's in the chest on the second level of the armoury, the one trapped under a sheet of metal? I don't want to make a new character with high strength just to find out the answer. I assume it's just some random gear, but on the off chance that it is some plot-critical item I am asking this question.

You can lift it with a party, BTW, they all add their STR.

Jed had an unfortunate accident and my current party members are too gimped to do it.

I'm going to have to do another play-through aren't I

 

[thesecret1]

What's in the chest on the second level of the armoury, the one trapped under a sheet of metal? I don't want to make a new character with high strength just to find out the answer. I assume it's just some random gear, but on the off chance that it is some plot-critical item I am asking this question.

It was just some extra gear (I think some energy cells plus something?)

 

[Elhoim]

It was just some extra gear (I think some energy cells plus something?)

A battery for the gadget.

 

[lukaszek]

any reason to keep constitution at 4 during chargen? You could literally save 1 point from every other stat you are increasing in favor of con and use implant instead? Except for stuff like 10int for mastermind ofc.

Yeah, while it's kinda meta territory I think it's a weakness of the system. Picking anything less than for 4 implants (7 con I beleive?) in the current build feels like gimping your character. What it'll be i the full version makes me wonder...

i wouldnt call it meta territory if you learn it within first 30min of the game. Also what... would con implant allow me to slot another implant, basically being 'free'?

1 implant per 1 con sounds just broken.

How good/rare are implant upgrades(since i havent seen them yet)? Do they give another bonus to attribute? Would it mean that con implant is more than free, essentially unlocking another slot? Or perhaps upgrades eat slots too?
Do implants provide other bonuses than just flat attributes? For example celebral int implant - is it essential for techy or is it just flavor text?

On side note takedown kills seem hard as most enemies are out of reach, or maybe im just doing it in wrong order for now. Im at the very beginning after all.