Incline Colony Ship RELEASE THREAD

[CoronerZg]

Just finished the game.

Overall it's a great game and I would say it started as a 10/10 for me, but then the Habitat smacked me in the face and now it feels kind of like 8/10.
Combat was fun and hard enough to stay fun, writing was great, characters are believable and the world is very immersive. My minor complaint would be
the itemization, specifically since I played the pistolero build, a lot of pistols have practically no differences between them, or one will have like 1 dmg more,
but then the other one will have 1 bullet more so they end up the feeling completely the same.

And yes, the Habitat was just bad, especially compared to the quality of the game before the Habitat. All 3 factions feel completely the same, they look
the same, have the exact same buildings and the quests don't help a lot, often feeling very chaotic. And then you're forced to give the machine
to one of them and you just don't care about any of them (the whole thing reminded me a bit of the legendary RGB part from the Mass Effect).
And after the Habitat rest of the game feels slightly rushed as well, but still way better than the Habitat itself.

Anyway, I hope ITS will be able to keep adding content and tweaks to the later parts of the game, because at the core,
the game is great (not to mention, there are no games like this anymore) and I feel like it can really become a classic.

And of course, we need a sequel

 

[Jermu]

winter sale

 

[Lord_Potato]

Completed it yesterday on hard difficulty, with full party.

Yup it's very frontloaded. The pit and other areas you can reach from there up to the factory are very good. Factions in Habitat don't have separate enough identities and the locations look samey. The third act has some cool stuff (clearing the contaminated areas, big reveal) but there's too much teleporting and copy-pasted dialogues with all the faction leaders (seriously, you use same dialogue options on all of them, those discussions are almost identical!). It's kind of obvious to me the team ran out of money and time by the end.

Combats can be tough, despite having one skillmonkey (my PC) one silent assassin (Faythe) and two able killers I could not beat some of the fights and had to work around them by following alternative routes. Fortunately there were always options. Even if I got stuck from time to time it never lasted long.

Overall it's a pretty good game with decent production values especially from indie devs. Visuals and music are very atmospheric, most of the writing is solid. Another good release from the Iron Tower. I hope they get to make more of these.

 

[agris]

Combats can be tough, despite having one skillmonkey (my PC) one silent assassin (Faythe) and two able killers I could not beat some of the fights and had to work around them by following alternative routes

if you don't mind my curiosity, which ones?

 

[REhorror]

Had no expectations but greatly enjoy this game.

Pretty much THE CRPG next to Rogue Trader.

 

[Spectral Pontifex]

I tried to enjoy this game but then I found out I am not gay.

 

[REhorror]

I tried to enjoy this game but then I found out I am not gay.

How people finds out yer sexuality just by ONE quote.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Combats can be tough, despite having one skillmonkey (my PC) one silent assassin (Faythe) and two able killers I could not beat some of the fights and had to work around them by following alternative routes

if you don't mind my curiosity, which ones?

Shadow (with turrets)
Ol'bub (didn't really put much efforts into it, I hear there are exploits that can help)
Some of the wildlife in Hydroponics. I could exterminate them with energy weapons but it seemed a waste of resources, so I avoided these fights whenever I could.

 

[Lord_Potato]

I tried to enjoy this game but then I found out I am not gay.

Maybe it's not so bad. Perhaps your last boyfriend simply proved not to be your type? I hear even gays need chemistry.

 

[Spectral Pontifex]

I tried to enjoy this game but then I found out I am not gay.

Maybe it's not so bad. Perhaps your last boyfriend simply proved not to be your type? I hear even gays need chemistry.

I meant gay as in happy. You may be onto something though.

 

[agris]

Combats can be tough, despite having one skillmonkey (my PC) one silent assassin (Faythe) and two able killers I could not beat some of the fights and had to work around them by following alternative routes

if you don't mind my curiosity, which ones?

1. Shadow (with turrets)
2. Ol'bub (didn't really put much efforts into it, I hear there are exploits that can help)
3. Some of the wildlife in Hydroponics. I could exterminate them with energy weapons but it seemed a waste of resources, so I avoided these fights whenever I could.

1. never tried with turrets

2. I tried twice, both with Romeo, and got him on the second. First was a ballistics-only run, and I had not completed the rest of the game prior to delivering the matter converter. I failed quickly. Second run, I had energy weapons equipped and was in end-game gear, it was pretty easy. Crits are the name of the game, headshots / bullseye with energy weaps makes short work of him.

3. If you have a tank to soak hits, its all very doable with ballistics *except* the final red zone fight. I did that one just before ol'bub, with each character equipped with a energy weapon and ballistic weapon. use the energy to take out a creeper and the floater asap, then mop up with ballistics.

Played a hybrid do-everything with 2 companions. my MC wasn't great at combat, but could pop moles with a pistol pretty well. The trick to doing the wildlife in hydro is to have jed tank it, use ballistic weapons with auto firing modes to wear down their health (semi-auto rifles/shotguns/pistols). If you don't have a dedicated tank, I can see it being a lot harder.

if you had melee spec'd characters, the above probably doesn't apply.

edit: having a few cloaking devices to hide the squishy characters at the start of combat makes a big difference.

 

[flushfire]

Anyway, I hope ITS will be able to keep adding content and tweaks to the later parts of the game, because at the core,
the game is great (not to mention, there are no games like this anymore) and I feel like it can really become a classic.

There's a recent thread in Steam discussions about expansions or DLCs and such, it's kind of disappointing that it seems ITS has no plans in doing any. And IDK if they did a huge content update for AoD, but my impression is that they're also not the kind of devs that'd do something like what Atom team did with their Dead City/1.1 update, which was modern-day expansion in size. That's just my impression though, maybe they did exactly that with AoD, I wouldn't have a clue. I'm just disappointed that they don't seem very open to the idea of even putting out a very small expansion or additional content DLC or something, as like you said the game is already pretty polished, the 'base' is good, some areas just need more content, like the Habitat and the near/endgame sequence.

 

[Humanophage]

Evans gets a choice between two very powerful feats if you can survive Eli's quest where you have to get past the two sentry guns and robot. I've done him with rifles and with pistols and think I had slightly better results with the pistols (one of the aforementioned feats makes aimed attacks super cheap what works well with pistol's low AP costs). In either case he was a solid useful party member.

Haven't tried Lone Wolf but I found them all pretty useful. Jed falls off in the late game so I ditch him for Knurl whose a critical beast (and super deadly with energy weapons). Faythe built right can be super deadly as well (though some people like to just make her a skill monkey/sneaker).

I played as a duo with pistol Evans. He was quite strong in the end, very good for the energy pistols as there are three solid options for them. You get the mk2 pistol, which is weaker but still has bullseye, only spends 2x cells, and has a big crit bonus so your bullseye usually knocks the opponent out with a crit. You get the very powerful officer's pistol with bullseye. And you get the heavy pistol without bullseye. Also, people are dumping on Sharpshooter, but I thought the range increase was a solid boost for all those pistols with an extra short range like 2 tiles.

My character was an SMG dexterous build. Generally strong, but stacking penetration is not quite enough for the monks so you still need energy weapons. Interestingly, bursts work as single shots for stealth purposes, so you can stay stealthed for longer. The Detroit gang fight with Smiles was surprisingly easy. No-Romeo Bub was also fine as Evans kept him down with bullseye crits. Should have tagged Lockpick earlier to get a better battery so I wouldn't have to waste a feat on stealth. On the other hand, it was the first time I did that Habitat stealth mission.

 

[lukaszek]

Also, people are dumping on Sharpshooter, but I thought the range increase was a solid boost for all those pistols with an extra short range like 2 tiles.

i consider pistols one of the strongest and all my solo pistoleros had sharpshooter. As you stated its hard hitting some enemies without it and it can double range of some powerful pistols.

 

[REhorror]

Finish my first Monk run with shotguns, the most versatile and varied weapon type.

Thinking to do another run with raifu, I want dakka dakka.

 

[Namutree]

I liked AoD, so I image I'll like this. Will buy it in the future. Very cool that it's been finished and released.

 

[Darth Roxor]

After chewing on it a bit, I finally had a revelation as to what makes this game so grating to me. It's the fact that, at its core, it's essentially rusware.

1. Edgy nihilism where everything is shit and everyone treats you like shit
2. Dumb difficulty that is difficult in dumb ways
3. Fallout worship
4. 'Haha you shouldn't have skipped that one fight/skillcheck 15 hours ago, now you can't win ;^)'

Colony Ship is Planet Alcatraz without the broken rusinglese and whisper would be all over it if not for the ukropolotix. You heard it here first.

 

[Lord_Potato]

After chewing on it a bit, I finally had a revelation as to what makes this game so grating to me. It's the fact that, at its core, it's essentially rusware.

1. Edgy nihilism where everything is shit and everyone treats you like shit

It is kind of understandable giving the harsh conditions and even harsher prospects of the population.

2. Dumb difficulty that is difficult in dumb ways

After completing Dungeon Rats I'd never call CS a truly difficult game. Sure, some combats are challenging, especially for hybrid builds, but there is always alternative to fighting. Also, resources are pretty abundant which allows you to mitigate the difficulty of most encounters.

3. Fallout worship

True, they don't hide their inspirations.

4. 'Haha you shouldn't have skipped that one fight/skillcheck 15 hours ago, now you can't win ;^)'

When exactly does that happen? Missing which encounter makes game unwinnable?

Colony Ship is Planet Alcatraz without the broken rusinglese and whisper would be all over it if not for the ukropolotix. You heard it here first.

Even if true, is it really a bad thing?

 

[Vault Dweller]

'Haha you shouldn't have skipped that one fight/skillcheck 15 hours ago, now you can't win ;^)'

 

[Darth Roxor]

4 is not something that's happened to me, because I ragequit before it could be a thing for me, but I'm pretty sure I saw people here go 'zomg I needed 1 more xp in electronics to pass that one check at the end, if only I picked option_x at one time instead of y'.

It is kind of understandable giving the harsh conditions and even harsher prospects of the population.

sounds like living in russia to me HO HO HO

 

[Lhynn]

After chewing on it a bit, I finally had a revelation as to what makes this game so grating to me. It's the fact that, at its core, it's essentially rusware.

Your hate for russia blinds you.

The problem with the game is that its poorly thought out, the elements simply do not work well together.
Learn by doing on a game thats essentially on rails.
Weapon skills that lock you out of variety, it creates a very samey gameplay experience that gets old about 3 hours into the game.
Bad writing that does nothing to get you engaged in the setting or the characters you encounter.
A main character that just sort of spawned into the game as you did that creates friction with the fact that narratively, hes been there all his life.
An uninteresting story. About the only interesting thing already happened, and everyone is sort of done dealing with the fallout that came from that, and you are coming in to shake up the new status quo. Game should have been during the interesting time, not many years later.
Horribly uninteresting locations, I quit the game at Hydroponics because I couldnt find a reason to keep playing, its one of those games that make me question what am I even doing with my fleeting free time.

 

[lukaszek]

4 is not something that's happened to me, because I ragequit before it could be a thing for me, but I'm pretty sure I saw people here go 'zomg I needed 1 more xp in electronics to pass that one check at the end, if only I picked option_x at one time instead of y'.

its... complicated. Id love to say 'oh but its only the case for hybrids' but then game would be really poor if it was the case for purists no?
In reality its bad for speech skills. Electronics/computers/lockpick is not that hard to keep up through the game and id consider 9+ check out of the question for someone who didnt dedicate their character and playthrough to it.
Speech skills on other hand give big boosts if you finish encounter via them ALL THE WAY. And you must continue to do so as its extremely easy to fall out and never achieve a single check again in your playthrough. Extreme example is my everything hybrid that had to forego most fights and pick nearly 100% speech checks.
There is another question on whether speech really needs 3 distinct skills since a number of people in this thread questioned it with examples.

Combat and sneakery seems fine, especially since sneakery is not that binary and you get options to utilize even low-ish values through whole game

 

[Lord_Potato]

its... complicated. Id love to say 'oh but its only the case for hybrids' but then game would be really poor if it was the case for purists no?
In reality its bad for speech skills. Electronics/computers/lockpick is not that hard to keep up through the game and id consider 9+ check out of the question for someone who didnt dedicate their character and playthrough to it.

My experience was the opposite. In the 2nd part of the game I found myself often behind the curve in electronics, bionics and even lockpicking. But things I missed because of them were mostly side content (e.g. last levels of Mission Control) and additional loot (implants and shit, but my crew was already fully enhanced).

On the other hand my speech skill were always top of the line, I completed the game with 10, while the highest Persuation checks in the engame required 9. My streetwise was 7 , but streetwise and persuation checks are often alternatives, especially in the endgame.

Speech skills on other hand give big boosts if you finish encounter via them ALL THE WAY. And you must continue to do so as its extremely easy to fall out and never achieve a single check again in your playthrough. Extreme example is my everything hybrid that had to forego most fights and pick nearly 100% speech checks.
There is another question on whether speech really needs 3 distinct skills since a number of people in this thread questioned it with examples.

Yes, probably one skill would be enough. But then it would be even more overpowered.

Combat and sneakery seems fine, especially since sneakery is not that binary and you get options to utilize even low-ish values through whole game

Agreed, sneakery in CS is great, with all the feats and items enchancing it.

 

[lukaszek]

Yes, probably one skill would be enough. But then it would be even more overpowered.

already single skill is enough. You tag street/per, focus on it and your other speech skills will auto improve. And they will be high enough when needed.
There is little/no difference between picking proper speech choice

Spoiler

saying little as there are few exceptions, like mercy being easier with low cha or habitat workers opening combat rep option

 

[std::namespace]

deadest of games

xD