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

[rusty_shackleford]

also his comment about free space in a spaceship isn't correct, it doesn't have to be a premium if it was constructed in space to begin with.

Of course it does. It's a vehicle. Air has mass. Moving that mass takes energy.

depressurize and slowly pressurize after the journey has begun, the difference will be negligible due to the lack of friction in space

also, there's not much reason to have areas not designated for living to actually be pressurized.

Pressurize with what? You can't add mass along the way, you're travelling through a vacuum. Compressed or not, you'd have to be hauling it with you when the journey starts.

The right to own algae is the right to be free.
Also, the quibbling about air is ridiculous when they have megabuildings on board.

and yes, they can add mass along the way. There's plenty of things in space they could harvest.

 

[Parabalus]

This is false. Couple of examples from memory. During a quest to evict a group of squatters from a tower. You can sneak to side, use electronics to open door, then sabotage a certain machine in order to "force" said squatters out. During another quest to assassinate a right hand man of Jonas. You can enter his place from roof. Sneak inside. Then kill them off one by one without much trouble. Lastly, there are two quests within Habitat that give you loads of options. One is about investigating an N-tab illegal seller. If you have the right skills. You can sneak. Sabtaoge air condition with poison. Then start fight with them at low HP and low initiative. Another quest is about rooting out a troublemaker that threatens "social cohesion" of Brotherhood district. Again if you have the skills. You can hack a turret and have it kill the agitators. Lots of options in completing quests.

This isn't it, different paths to complete quests is a different thing from influencing combat, so only sabotaging the air condition counts.

Sneaking for a better starting position for combat happens a few times, but it's mostly vs random mobs.

 

[Vault Dweller]

...I expected something similarly polished...

The game is still in development, at this stage our focus is on adding locations and quests (the main building blocks), not on polishing.

The writing is still good, evocative and interesting but logically inconsistent. The ship is crumbling into a metallic coffin for all those aboard and few people seem to care. Critical systems are going to fail in the next few decades and the most powerful factions are instead fighting for sections of maintenance tunnels and walkways. It all feels very stranded, as if every character in an area has no interest or connection to other areas of the ship.

The critical systems may or may not fail in the next few decades. The situation IS deteriorating but it's been deteriorating since the mutiny. If you need an analogy, see global warming.

The level design is.. a mixed bag, there are quite a few skill checks for exploration that reward the player for having specialized stats or party members but there are almost no interactions for combat that can help you level the playing field.

Incorrect.

Yet free, empty space - which is supposed to be at a premium on any ship, naval or space-faring - is present in almost every area of the ship. Hydroponics, maintenance tunnels, the ships life support system, The Habitat which sprawls above a massive empty chamber in the center of the ship. It doesn't feel like the close confines of a ship, more like some massive cyberpunk hive city.

It's a repurposed ore hauler (cargo ship) not a state-of-the-art colony ship designed for this very purpose. The Habitat, the factory, hydrpopnics, etc are sitting in what used to be giant cargo holds. Cheaper to use the existing vertical space than to rebuild the ship completely, not to mention that without that vertical space people would start going bonkers in 6-12 months.

Combat is cruel, there's really no other way to put it, you will routinely be placed into awful tactical situations where you are outnumbered, outgunned, and acting last despite having the max amount of dexterity unless you've also sunk a point into the initiative perk. Effective weapons and armor are kind of a joke, you might get some decent gear that will help you avoid getting one shot but you're still going down in two or three turns even with the best equipment you can get. It's worse for companions who get zeroed in on by the enemy AI so it's a constant struggle to try and keep them alive because you're completely screwed both in combat and out if they die.

Age of Decadence could be cruel but it was not cruel by default. Most of the fights could be leveraged through skill checks to your favor, most of the fights could be beaten by a well designed combat character. You could craft exceptional weapons and armor, potions and oils, or just use knives, spears and nets. It encouraged players to dive into the combat system and find a build that worked for them.

See the player-submitted builds thread. A well designed combat character, party or solo, can beat every single fight in the game.

 

[Pink Eye]

only sabotaging the air condition counts.

Augh. Fine. Your pulling hairs here, but, in a quest to kill some badies at maintenance incursion for Protectors you can use a machine to inflict initiative penalty on Brotherhood enemies in order to get an upper-hand advantage. Oh yeah. I forgot the easy one. When you first start game there's two thugs outside your apartment. If you have good critical skill you can kill one of them to turn the fight into a 1v1 instead of a 2v1. Also when you do Evan's first quest. There's a dialogue you can choose to have initiative bonus giving you and Evans first turn for free. Lastly, if I remember, besides sneaking to kill Jonas right hand man, you can also use speech to turn his allies against him.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

only sabotaging the air condition counts.

Augh. Fine. Your pulling hairs here, but, in a quest to kill some badies at maintenance incursion for Protectors you can use a machine to inflict initiative penalty on Brotherhood enemies in order to get an upper-hand advantage. Oh yeah. I forgot the easy one. When you first start game there's two thugs outside your apartment. If you have good critical skill you can kill one of them to turn the fight into a 1v1 instead of a 2v1. Also when you do Evan's first quest. There's a dialogue you can choose to have initiative bonus giving you and Evans first turn for free. Lastly, if I remember, besides sneaking to kill Jonas right hand man, you can also use speech to turn his allies against him.

can I pick the parley option?

 

[Parabalus]

only sabotaging the air condition counts.

Augh. Fine. Your pulling hairs here, but, in a quest to kill some badies at maintenance incursion for Protectors you can use a machine to inflict initiative penalty on Brotherhood enemies in order to get an upper-hand advantage. Oh yeah. I forgot the easy one. When you first start game there's two thugs outside your apartment. If you have good critical skill you can kill one of them to turn the fight into a 1v1 instead of a 2v1. Also when you do Evan's first quest. There's a dialogue you can choose to have initiative bonus giving you and Evans first turn for free. Lastly, if I remember, besides sneaking to kill Jonas right hand man, you can also use speech to turn his allies against him.

AoD had way more of these, that's his point.

The initiative bonus one in CS is pretty interesting though, given the trade-offs.

 

[Pink Eye]

can I pick the parley option?

No. Only girly girls do that. REAL men fight their enemies in MORTAL KOMBAT!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

can I pick the parley option?

No. Only girly girls do that. REAL men fight their enemies in MORTAL KOMBAT!

can I use tripwires to rig home-made explosives and lure them into following me into them and blow them up?

 

[Jaedar]

The critical systems may or may not fail in the next few decades. The situation IS deteriorating but it's been deteriorating since the mutiny. If you need an analogy, see global warming.

Based on the stuff we learn from house of ecclesiastes, it seems that the systems have already failed enough that "earth standard" humans would not be capable of functioning on the ship, and that the shipborn are all mutants or are coping through drugs.

It's not a hard sci fi game though(how gravity?), so I don't think the details matter that much.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The critical systems may or may not fail in the next few decades. The situation IS deteriorating but it's been deteriorating since the mutiny. If you need an analogy, see global warming.

so it's just an excuse to mass import refugees from shitholes to western countries?
not quite sure where you're going with this plot hook

 

[Kainan]

Looks awesome, I like the Cathedral of Light reference.

Elhoim Has been doing phenomenal work with what little he has!

The writing is still good, evocative and interesting but logically inconsistent. The ship is crumbling into a metallic coffin for all those aboard and few people seem to care. Critical systems are going to fail in the next few decades and the most powerful factions are instead fighting for sections of maintenance tunnels and walkways. It all feels very stranded, as if every character in an area has no interest or connection to other areas of the ship.

I guess we'll first have to ask what piece of the story does he find inconsistent? What does the story mess up on? What needs to be explained? Then we can go from there, otherwise it's hard to address this particular piece of criticism. However, to give you a broad overview of the story. A while ago there were these dedicated people that wanted to get away from earth in order to find new land. Doesn't really matter why. Maybe there was a zombie apocalypse. Maybe humanity imploded all at once. Again the circumstances which lead to this group leaving earth isn't important. What's important is that a contingent of humanity went on this century-spanning long voyage; guaranteeing future generations to be shackled to the Mission as well. Both of which never to see earth, neither this promised land, and forever to live and die on the ship - ship born as they call it. Some generations later. Other folk didn't share that same fervor of sacrifice. Thus people rebelled, a civil war ensued, people died, ya da da.

Now I suppose what you can call "logically-inconsistent" is why the mutiny happened. Everyone has their own opinion on it. Brotherhood will give you their own version of events. A local citizen will give you his. Protectors will give you theirs. All of which probably contradicts with each other. Yet, that's the point. You have to piece the truth yourself in order to understand the whys and hows. My perspective, old authority was too authoritative: Tyranny at its most simplest form. Mutiny happened because old authority made people's lives way too hard.

Critical systems are going to fail in the next few decades

Regarding this. Game doesn't really explicitly specify the ship born have "decades". It's very vague on this. All we do know is that ship was damaged in some parts during civil war. Some systems are in disrepair; and that scavengers are looting components.

powerful factions are instead fighting for sections of maintenance tunnels and walkways.

Right. To go back to my summary from up above. Mutiny happens. Factions break off. Each having their own ideology as a result of this major event. What's generally accepted among these factions is that: they don't want another mutiny on their hands. However, as I mentioned earlier, everyone has their own interpretation on the whys and hows of which caused the mutiny, therein lies the conflict. Brotherhood believes in freedom from old ways. Protectors believe in old ways. Both of which see each other as a threat, thus fighting ensues. Church is caught somewhere in the middle; it's the most interesting faction to me because originally they didn't participate in the bloodshed. However when gun fire starts and bodies drop. You realize that sermons and prayers isn't going to be enough, and thus the faction had to adapt.

As to why skirmishes are being caused over random "tunnels and walkways"; well, that's war. Enemy wants x, you don't want them to take x, so you fight them over it. War is messy.

character in an area has no interest or connection to other areas of the ship.

Not sure what this is implying since characters do talk about other areas. Everyone and their mother talks about the Habitat. It's just that people who aren't involved in the feud with Brotherhood v Protector are focused on other things; such as survival.

almost no interactions for combat that can help you level the playing field.

This is false. Couple of examples from memory. During a quest to evict a group of squatters from a tower. You can sneak to side, use electronics to open door, then sabotage a certain machine in order to "force" said squatters out. During another quest to assassinate a right hand man of Jonas. You can enter his place from roof. Sneak inside. Then kill them off one by one without much trouble. Lastly, there are two quests within Habitat that give you loads of options. One is about investigating an N-tab illegal seller. If you have the right skills. You can sneak. Sabtaoge air condition with poison. Then start fight with them at low HP and low initiative. Another quest is about rooting out a troublemaker that threatens "social cohesion" of Brotherhood district. Again if you have the skills. You can hack a turret and have it kill the agitators. Lots of options in completing quests.

Moving to the most important bit: Combat. You either hate it or love it. Seems there's no inbetween. No point in discussing it since I believe it's fine. If you need help though. Do be free to ask for it. I do find it cute how combat in Colony Ship is constantly compared to Age of Decadence. Even though it's basically the same system.

Anyways to close off with. Colony Ship isn't interested in answering the question of whether or not interstellar travel is possible or even feasible. Or technicalities of the ship, and so on. It focuses on man. Man's struggle against himself. Man's fight for survival. The different factions, their ideologies, their history. Inter-faction fighting. This is what Iron Tower excels at. These are the kinds of stories it wants to tell. If humanity was forced to live in an isolated box cut off from greater society, what would it look like? How would its society evolve? Its ideals. Its way of living. Its governance over each other. Maybe the authors are a bit too cynical and pessimistic in portraying this. Yet, to me, it's entertaining and fun to read about this messed up society.

Alright i guess i can accept that people on the ship are in such a position to not care much about the ship, considering they don't know about anything before and know they wont live to see the afterwards.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The critical systems may or may not fail in the next few decades. The situation IS deteriorating but it's been deteriorating since the mutiny. If you need an analogy, see global warming.

Based on the stuff we learn from house of ecclesiastes, it seems that the systems have already failed enough that "earth standard" humans would not be capable of functioning on the ship, and that the shipborn are all mutants or are coping through drugs.

It's not a hard sci fi game though(how gravity?), so I don't think the details matter that much.

I meant 'the systems fail and everyone dies'. Ava stating that the the Shipborn are already in an uncharted territory and can handle things the Earthborn wouldn't be able to only reinforces the notion that they aren't dealing with the exact science here. Nobody can predict when the systems fail (might be another 100 years) and there's no easy (or any) way to stop it either.

 

[Pink Eye]

so it's just an excuse to mass import refugees from shitholes to western countries?
not quite sure where you're going with this plot hook

Rusty you make your fellow Americans look bad. Now people are going to think I'm retarded too by proxy of you.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

so it's just an excuse to mass import refugees from shitholes to western countries?
not quite sure where you're going with this plot hook

Rusty you make your fellow Americans look bad. Now people are going to think I'm retarded too by proxy of you.

is there a quest to eat the bugs?

great idea for a quest:
flashback quest where you get told the station won't exist in 30 years, then you flash forward 60 years and it still exists

 

[Salvo]

The only thing that makes little sense to me is how only a few characters have explored outside their home "town", when allegedly the ship's only 3 kms long

 

[Pink Eye]

The only thing that makes little sense to me is how only a few characters have explored outside their home

What makes you think that? Faythe, first companion you have, has been to other places. Most notably she used to scavenge at Mission Control ruins until she got ambushed and lost her father. Now she hangs out at Pit. Both Braxton and Jonas used to be in other places besides Pit. For example, Braxton was an officer for Church doing runs for them. Don't really remember what Jonas used to do but I assume he got sick of Habitat politics and ran away from it. Formed a group. Found comfy place. Then established his little town. Then there's Shadow too, loads of places he's been at. Oh yeah, there's ol' Jed, big time Bounty Hunter he was, now he's retired at Pit. It's also to be assumed that traders and such travel from Habitat to Pit and other places via Factory - since it's the only safe way.

There's loads of characters with backstories such as this. The other thing is that it's kind of dangerous to wander away because of bandits. Remember this is an unstable society. Which is why scavenging is risky.

when allegedly the ship's only 3 kms long

It's a big ship with bandits, mind worms, killer frogs, robots, old security system that can blast you, etc, etc. Would you want to go explore? I wouldn't!

 

[Elhoim]

Abe is from the Habitat:

“Didn't you move here from the Habitat? You can always go back.”​

​

“Back?” laughs Abe. “As bad as the Pit is sometimes, the Habitat is ten times worse.​

​

“The Protectors are all about their Mission and every poor bastard that lives in their enclave has to toe the line whether he likes it or not. They tax you up the wazoo and then expect you to contribute what little you've left to the war effort.”​

​

Zeke as well:

“Where are you from, Zeke?”​

​

“The Habitat, where else? Block D4, the Brotherhood of Liberty,” he raises a fist in a mocking salute.​

​

“Why did you come here?”​

​

“Seemed like a good idea at the time. The Pit was just a camp back then. A community rather than a town, if you know what I mean. A true brotherhood. I wonder if the Brotherhood of Liberty was also like that in the beginning. When it was just a bunch of people who had enough.”​

 

[Pink Eye]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/648410/discussions/0/6406956248962825586/

Development Update: System Changes

We are working on a systems update, to be released in early October. The main goal with this update is to re-arrange the system for the final content, and to adjust it based on your feedback.

We changed how grazes, criticals and evasion work since the previous system worked fine in the early game but once the weapon damage and armor value increased they started to have issues (grazes that did 0 damage, high evasion fully removing grazes, critical bonuses inconsistent with regular damage). The tweaks we implemented makes them more consistent no matter the game stage.

Burst attacks are being adjusted, as they were quite strong and didn't require much investment. In AoD, we balanced the multiattacks by lowering their damage (so that damage per AP was more consistent). Here, lowering the damage of a bullet would be odd, so we end up with attacks that have a very high damage per AP ratio. As grazes are way more viable now, we made the bursts depend more on them, by lowering the chance of full hits. With STR you can counter their hit chance penalty, making STR based ranged builds more viable, and a bit more of a requirement for burst builds.

Regarding melee weapons, we adjusted their AP/DMG ratio, so that faster weapons aren't way better than the higher AP cost ones (that was the main source of "blade better than blunt"). We also tweaked the damage from STR as the current formula was inconsistent in how much damage it gave per STR point, and it went too far at STR 12, creating a big overlap in the AP tiers of melee weapons.

At this point of the game many combat builds "capped out" (reaching very high values in some things), so we are doing lots of small tweaks to keep values within the growth range, like switching the effects from a "base 5" to a "base 4" (meaning something that gave 15 now gives 12). We also tweaked the values of weapons and armors, reducing the spread between early and late equipment. As for feats, we adjusted them based on the feedback we got about their balance, improving many feats that were not used (like Dodge This, Fast Runner and the weapon specializations). We are implementing a few new feats as well.

 

[Jaedar]

Interesting. I mostly found burst to be subpar already except for dealing with low ev+low armor chumps. It cleans up a room full of trash quickly, but there aren't that many trash enemies, nor is it worthwhile to invest in options that are only good for easy fights. Perhaps the buffs to graze will make it better.

 

[Parabalus]

Sounds like another round of upping the difficulty, kinda like what DR and AoD (to a lesser degree) went through after their releases.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

There's plenty of things in space they could harvest.

the density of a space nebula is lower than any void artificially produced on earth.

 

[Pink Eye]

Here's a peek at the changes to rifle progression the devs are doing. There's another tier but so far this the picture they showcased (even though starter bolt rifle is in burst tier it's actually part of another tier, starter):

Spoiler

Also new rifle:

Spoiler

Here's pictures of SMGs (tommy gun has new front handle):

Spoiler

 

[Üstad]

Didn't play for long time pls suggest me a STR based build, melee or hybrid it doesn't matter.

 

[Tigranes]

Critical systems are going to fail in the next few decades and the most powerful factions are instead fighting for sections of maintenance tunnels and walkways.

This seems exceptionally realistic to me. When faced with an existential threat, humanity does not respond by optimising all of its resources towards the threat, but sabotaging itself in a diverse mix of well intentioned efforts, misguided projects and bewildering idiocy.

 

[Pink Eye]

Didn't play for long time pls suggest me a STR based build, melee or hybrid it doesn't matter.

10 Str, Juggernaut, Warrior, Berserker, Heavy Hitter. For other stats. Get Con to 7 or 8. Dex you want high too but with Berserker and a light weight melee weapon which doesn't demand much AP costs you can get away with low AP, not recommended though. I likes having lots of AP. Per you can get away with dumping. Just put one tag in melee skill and get warrior and perception implant - you can purchase from cole's gadgets. Build should see you through the whole game in one peace.