Incline Colony Ship RELEASE THREAD

[Parabalus]

Post the ending screeens pls.

I only got death. There was no way I was winning this:

Screenshot

I killed one of the bastards then died. I reloaded and did the other endings.

Think it's more doable if Azrael is dead. And you can have romeo as well.

 

[Pink Eye]

Think it's more doable if Azrael is dead. And you can have romeo as well.

I'm doing a second run so we'll see. By the way, that Romeo didn't have all his upgrades so he ate dirt pretty easily.

 

[Sibelius]

do you really want to walk down a traintrack for like 3 minutes for immersion?

YES! YES I FUCKING DO!

I also really hate being teleported anywhere in any situation. Understand VD's point about the urgency of the end game situation and free exploration impacting that, maybe having an option to switch off all teleportation would be a good compromise?

I will admit to being a bit of an autitst about this, I never fast travel at all in any game unless there is an in game mechanic that doesn't break my suspension of disbelief, Skyrim carts, Underrail rail system etc. In Ghost of Tsushima I actually swam from the North to the South Island after the overland route is blocked at the end of Act 1 and the game forces you to fast travel via the map. I refused to start playing Starfield until a mod was released that makes it that every time you land it plays the landing animation and you land sitting in your cockpit seat. In the vanilla game after you have landed somewhere once, you just teleport from your ship in space to standing at the spaceport outside your ship or even into a city. Jumping from your spaceship in space straight to whichever location you need to get to is just terrible for me. Yes, I play Starfield and have never fast traveled outside of using the tram system, hyperspace jumps and interplanetary travel.

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.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

This game is making me schizophrenic, I really enjoy the combat but I do not want to be a cunt slaughtering everyone, so I end up doing a lot of talking.
What are the chances of getting something like Dungeon Rats, but on the ship?

Parts of it felt really empty, giant sprawling halls with 4 people standing around, none of which you can talk to.
Habitat was the most disappointing part, I expected Vault City and got... well, not much. All I remember is running from the office of one head honcho to the other. No thanks.

Genuinely enjoyed the locations leading to the ending, though they were over much faster than I would like. Got a pile of endgame gear and then never really used it. Few more encounters would go a long way there.
Same for the ending itself, it was over too soon. Felt somewhat, dunno, rushed? I know Vince will soon show up with his

meme

But it certainly feels that way somehow.
Though the story ended better than I anticipated.

story

I expected the ship to be hopelessly off course.

Overall I liked the mechanics, combat, story, environment... most of the game pretty much. Hope it is successful enough to beget another one.

 

[Technomancer]

What are the chances of getting something like Dungeon Rats, but on the ship?

Zero. Was the plan, but DR performance was clear - it doesn't sell.

 

[Hellraiser]

Same for the ending itself, it was over too soon. Felt somewhat, dunno, rushed? I know Vince will soon show up with his

meme

It wasn't rushed.

Spoiler

It was down-scoped.

Spoiler

 

[Sòren]

Same for the ending itself, it was over too soon. Felt somewhat, dunno, rushed? I know Vince will soon show up with his

meme

It wasn't rushed.

Spoiler

It was down-scoped.

Spoiler

if i remember correctly, the bridge was supposed to be optional during early access and there was supposed to be a third floor of armory as well. so yeah, i believe they had to do some editing in the development process. correct me, anyone, if i am wrong.

i think it's still a great game, i love the mechanics, but it doesn't offer as much exploration and content as AoD did. you can progress in the game no matter how good or bad your build is, and everyone will most probably get access to the same, all, areas. that was a conscious design choice, certainly.

 

[Camel]

Got the game in my Steam discover queue as a popular one.

 

[Abu Antar]

Got the game in my Steam discover queue as a popular one.

It's at #73 on global top sellers list.

Edit: 720 players are currently in-game. Peak in the last 24h was 730 players.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Got the game in my Steam discover queue as a popular one.

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:

1,726
playing 15 min ago
1,900
24-hour peak
8,055
all-time peak

 

[Hellraiser]

i think it's still a great game, i love the mechanics, but it doesn't offer as much exploration and content as AoD did. you can progress in the game no matter how good or bad your build is, and everyone will most probably get access to the same, all, areas. that was a conscious design choice, certainly.

TBH while it has been almost 6 years to the day since I last played AoD according to steam, I have the impression that AoD technically allowed you to get to all these areas but lack of specific skills didn't allow you to loot/explore them fully, so you missed out on gear and skill points. A bigger obstacle to accessing the same areas was needing specific metagaming knowledge on where and how you can learn about some location to have it marked on your map. Both my suboptimal thievan archer (with random points in lore and some other crap, very messy and generalist build) and Optimized Legionaire Murderhobo Terminator aspiring (and eventually succesful) god-slayer, could get to all of them, just not very deep in some cases.

But CS does seem to have more forgiving failure states and no CYOA rollercoaster sequences where you can suddenly end up in a fight or click on a "you died" choice, plus IIRC AoD did not have visible skill difficulty in dialogs. Usually you have full freedom where to go and if a fight or stealth section comes up you have a very clear warning from the game and option to fuck off and come back later. You also get plenty of non-lethal but sub-optimal outcomes if you can't deal with something, such as being able to betray and switch sides before some of the tough end game fights and "easy" fights rather than frontal assaults as an alternatives via a "I'm not much of a fighter" options.

Furthermore regarding progression regardless of how good the build is, I don't recall exactly how the path of least resistance to get to the end looked like in AoD's main quest regarding skill levels needed (and what skills), but that game was also clearly designed with the same "if you do like shit/your character sucks, the ending will suck and be beyond your control" philosophy as CS was. That was my general impression after Vince subverted my expectations with the AoD endgame, my very suboptimal Thief/Archer build had to choose to fuck off as the alternative was to become a slave to an awoken god. In CS the "bad" ending is far less bleak, but it also does boil down to "you were a pawn with no say how things should be, despite all your involvement", leaving you with the same kind of feeling of being powerless.

 

[Abu Antar]

Comparison to AoD and Dungeon Rats regarding All time peak of number of players:
AoD: 703
DR: 278
CS: 1431

 

[agris]

the public’s general rejection of Dungeon Rats was a tragedy.

It could have been ITS’ Icewind Dale. A way to keep their team busy and productive between longer game development projects, while giving the public some meaty combat.

 

[Abu Antar]

^Tbh, it's my favorite ITS game.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

If we want another comparison, Space Wreck seems to have 0 current players.

 

[Tyranicon]

Battle Brothers isn't the best comparison though, since they're not really similar games beyond turn-based combat.

I would probably compare Colony Ship to other small team, low budget cRPGs, like Black Geyser or Encased.

 

[lukaszek]

If we want another comparison, Space Wreck seems to have 0 current players.

id blame loading times

 

[Abu Antar]

Caves of Lore peaked at 103.

Also, those numbers killed the Encased studio.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Caves of Lore peaked at 103.

Also, those numbers killed the Encased studio.

All hope was lost when they said they were going with full VA.

And Battle Brothers is unfair comparison with its superior replayability for a casual campaign.

 

[agris]

Caves of Lore peaked at 103.

Also, those numbers killed the Encased studio.

I think the jury is still out on if they died due to self-inflicted wounds or not.

 

[Tyranicon]

Caves of Lore peaked at 103.

Also, those numbers killed the Encased studio.

For me, Encased's numbers would've paid for all of my future projects and then some, but that's the thing about studio size and budget.

According to their website Dark Crystal had 40 employees + an unknown number of contractors at some point. That's AA territory, and not some dude in a basement.

 

[agris]

Exactly, I think they didn’t know how to run a business (or make compelling game mechanics either, tbh)

 

[Abu Antar]

Caves of Lore peaked at 103.

Also, those numbers killed the Encased studio.

For me, Encased's numbers would've paid for all of my future projects and then some, but that's the thing about studio size and budget.

According to their website Dark Crystal had 40 employees + an unknown number of contractors at some point. That's AA territory, and not some dude in a basement.

Yeah, with that size, you need to sell 375k copies, not 3,75k copies.

 

[notpl]

I have been playing with a Blunt melee character 10/7/7/5/5/6 but now that I've gotten more experience with the combat, I think dumping Dex is actually the way to go on this build. Thinking through the different things that Dex affects...

• AP: At Dex 5 you can do Double Strike + Fast attack with an AP6 weapon. Take Charger to get free movement each turn, or stack Reaction feats (Opportunist + True Grit) for free hits.
• Evasion: Dex does nothing for a pure DR-based defense. Would probably need to take Armored Warfare to avoid AP penalties on heavy armor, and maybe Tough Bastard to add HP and reduce crit damage.
• Initiative: Even at Dex 7 he is usually the last to act, so Dex 4 or 5 makes no difference. Acting later in the turn is fine because it means companions can Cripple opponents to offset penalties from Double Strike and Fast attack.

Thoughts? Thinking I might reroll as 10/7/5/6/6/6 and tag Blunt + Biotech so he can heal and rip out implants.

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)

 

[mediocrepoet]

Exactly, I think they didn’t know how to run a business (or make compelling game mechanics either, tbh)

If any aspiring game developer needs a business consultant and has the budget to pay one, PM me.