COLONY SHIP

[The_Mask]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 0656776409

Thank you
We’d like to thank everyone for the fantastic reception and support. It really is amazing to see so many people enjoying the game we worked on for so long.

What’s next?

Right now we’re working on QoL improvements requested by the players, ETA – mid Dec.
Custom difficulty (you’ll be able to custom-tailor the Hero mode to your liking)
Adjustable font size
Colorblind mode
Walking toggle
Auto-follow camera
Improved help and descriptions

We have several content updates planned for 2024, the first update will roll out in Feb and will be focused on the party members.

We’re listening to your feedback and will continue improving the game.

[Eyestabber]

Finished the game four times by now, one "pacifist" run and three "real" runs. The pacifist run was just as boring as I expected, but I got the cheevos for it + "full human". Only ending I didn't get at this point is the "crash land", as it requires a VERY specific setup. If anyone wants a build for combat without compromising your blood pressure, I suggest a "Dodge This!" shotgunner with 6 CHA. With the +1 follower feat you can get a full party without sacrificing much murder potential, pass ALL the social checks and still have Faythe do the Stealth sections. As close to a "full run" as you can get.

[wndrbr]

Devs put all that effort into creating and fleshing out the three main factions, only to undermine all the work by introducing a fourth faction that's better than the other ones in almost every way.

Why would you give a high-tech mcguffin to USA/commies/christofascists who all openly plan to use it for their own benefit, when you can give it to the cool high-tech cybermonks who are going to use it for the greater good? The monks even have the Terminator on their side.

[revenant]

because fuck the greater good

[gerey]

christofascists

How are these guys not the greater good? Would a genuinely good person let a communist live?

[wndrbr]

christofascists

How are these guys not the greater good? Would a genuinely good person let a communist live?

Vince wrote the Church as a typical manipulative organization that tries to pit the two other factions against each other.

Basically, all three main factions have their disadvantages, and you must pick the lesser evil. The Brotherhood have Chinese social credit system, they ration food, and run a KGB-style secret police. The Protectors are being led by a bunch of corrupt and incompetent hereditary politicians, and they also have an FBI-style secret police. But at least those two plan to call a truce. Meanwhile the Church wants to sabotage this truce so they could snatch the power once the war breaks out.

[Rand]

Unless I can sabotage the main reactor and blow the entire thing to hell as my spiteful revenge for the dead assholes condemning me to live my entire life in service to some goal not my own that I will never see the slightest fruits of, I can't be arsed to play it.

Seriously, if I found myself born into that desperate mess with no hope, I WOULD try to destroy the thing.

[revenant]

There is a big reveal that I could see coming miles away when I was playing the game, as the game gives you hints. Without spoiling too much, not everything that you read one the first text screen is true.

[Eyestabber]

Unless I can sabotage the main reactor and blow the entire thing to hell as my spiteful revenge for the dead assholes condemning me to live my entire life in service to some goal not my own that I will never see the slightest fruits of, I can't be arsed to play it.

Seriously, if I found myself born into that desperate mess with no hope, I WOULD try to destroy the thing.

There is an ending for doing something quite similar. You must go through the hardest fight in the game in order to get it. It's the ultimate murderhobo challenge.

Devs put all that effort into creating and fleshing out the three main factions, only to undermine all the work by introducing a fourth faction that's better than the other ones in almost every way.

Why would you give a high-tech mcguffin to USA/commies/christofascists who all openly plan to use it for their own benefit, when you can give it to the cool high-tech cybermonks who are going to use it for the greater good? The monks even have the Terminator on their side.

Did you actually go all the all through with the "cool cybermonks" plan? It's not as rosy as you seem to think.

[Rand]

There is a big reveal that I could see coming miles away when I was playing the game, as the game gives you hints. Without spoiling too much, not everything that you read one the first text screen is true.

Oh? you mean it's VaultTec all over again?

[wndrbr]

Did you actually go all the all through with the "cool cybermonks" plan? It's not as rosy as you seem to think.

the game is called "Colony Ship", and you're living on a colony ship that heads for a habitable planet that may become your future home. It makes sense to support the only faction that actually cares about the mission and doesn't participate in civil wars.

[agentorange]

Replaying AoD for the 200th time now and it is impossible to ignore the drastic drop in the quality of writing in Colony Ship. It's hard to understand what happened but I wonder if Vince took some bad advice or took to heart the various stupid criticisms of the writing in AoD. A lot could be said about how little depth the characters have in CS compared to AoD, how unmemorable they all are, but I also felt there was a lot of problems with the pacing of the story.

In particular the way the central plot is established in both games and the way in which the narrative is woven around that plot, I vaguely recall reading some criticism of AoD in regards to the fact that you don't encounter the Temple of Thor-Agoth until the last few minutes of the game, despite it being in a way the crux of the story, so some people felt there was no clear central narrative or that the plot was meandering and pointless. It's true that the way the narrative works you find out about this vague temple that is supposedly important early on, only to have it fade into the background as you do more immediately relevant tasks and get drawn into various side-plots, only to have the temple again take center stage in the finale, but that was the exact strength of the narrative; you have all these characters with their own motivations working their own angles, worrying about their own lives, and it feels like you naturally wander into this ongoing mesh of plotlines with the temple being a possible game-changer but not necessarily the be all end all of these character's stories. Not all the characters believe the temple is real, they have different opinions about what should be done with it, some of them don't give a shit, events in the world are proceeding and could continue to proceed towards some conclusion without the intervention of the secrets of the temple. Even the way player first comes into contact with information about the temple is done obliquely, through the player being given a quest where they are supposed to ambush, rob, or protect some trader, no one knows that this trader holds items with fate changing potential. It's great.

In CS it seems like they decided to remedy this supposed vaguery and meandering quality by handing you the device that is central to the story in the first few minutes of the game, and everything sort of works backwards from there. When I first played the game before release and 5 minutes after getting out of bed you are handed a key to the single most important area of the ship with no strings attached I thought "Oh is this something they are doing for the demo to speed up the story? In the real game there will probably be more preamble before you encounter this thing," but no, not even 5 minutes into the game and you are quite literally handed the keys to the future of everything. It feels like time was frozen in place on the ship for 200 years or whatever until your main character wakes up and 5 minutes later finds a doomsday device just down the road.

As far as motivation, why does your character care? Unlike in AoD where you can start off with allegiance to a guild or a Lord, be a mercenary type out for their own gain, or play a character who really does not give a shit and just wants to watch the world burn, your character in CS is some nobody who apparently has no background and despite you starting the game with various beliefs towards the factions your character seems to encounter these factions for the first time after leaving the Pit. Suddenly for no reason you are willing to risk life and limb to get this device to one of the factions, possibly for monetary gain although considering the nature of the device handing it to any faction could spell total war and your likely death, and really how much is money worth on the colony ship? Are you going to buy a better shipping container? Why can't you just destroy the device and deny it to everyone? What is preventing the factions from sending their own armies to claim the device earlier in the game, because unlike the temple in AoD the armory in CS is a well known location that is known to house some of the most precious technology. Are we expected to believe that the factions wouldn't have some constant presence there? (in AoD there were multiple instances of the various Houses patrolling near known locations of interest, fighting over them, securing them and so on, like the mine in the first chapter or the area with the flying ship, or Al-Akia, etc.) When Gaelius in AoD finds out you are snooping around for the temple he sends a bunch of his soldiers to escort you to him, and you can actually choose to fight them in a near unwinnable battle that you can also then win and get a special ending for it.

It would be like if the very first quest in AoD was "Here is an exact map and teleportation route to the Temple," and you go there immediately then afterwards decide who you want to tell the location of the temple to, and the fates of the all the guilds and the various power structures of the world were wholly dependent on it. Of course in AoD if you went and told the Lords, without having any fealty to them, that you had a device that could win any war they would probably throw you in a dungeon and torture the information out of you then kill you. In CS you can sort of just walk into any location and go up to the most important characters on the ship and they suddenly trust you implicitly.

I don't know, the more I think about it the more stupid it all is.

[revenant]

Replaying AoD for the 200th time now and it is impossible to ignore the drastic drop in the quality of writing in Colony Ship. It's hard to understand what happened <...>

Vince got old, that's what happened. He doesn't try much anymore, which is very evident from death screen texts in CS being way less elaborate and numerous than in AoD. While in AoD mostly all text was clearly inspired, in CS it gives more of a feeling of Vince thinking "hmm, what to write here... I guess I'll just come up with something and write it in my edgy style that people expect of me. Yup, that will do". Sad, but I guess all of us lose our edge with time.

It feels like time was frozen in place on the ship for 200 years or whatever until your main character wakes up and 5 minutes later finds a doomsday device just down the road.

AoD faced similar criticism of crucial events in the game world (like the attempt on Gaelius' life) just conveniently happening at the time the protagonist shows up. I guess it's just Vince's style of storytelling, but I agree that the problem is exacerbated in CS compared to AoD.

I don't know, the more I think about it the more stupid it all is.

Yeah the story has a lot of plot holes, like I find it impossible to believe that

► Show Spoiler

the bridge, armory and other locations weren't discovered in 100 years that transpired after the Mutiny

or

► Show Spoiler

nobody, the monks notwithstanding, noticed that the ship has arrived at Proxima years, or even decades ago; if the ship was in orbit around the planet the mutants must have disabled the engines or at least adjusted them to keep in orbit.

Then again, the concept of a generation ship is very ambitious when it comes to writing an RPG story using it so I guess doing a better job was hard. I find the game's nonsensical story more palatable if it was to be understood metaphorically, like just to illustrate possible problems and conundrums people on the generation ship would encounter, Vince's ironic writing style helping with such an interpretation.

[rusty_shackleford]

How are these guys not the greater good?

Vince is a libtard

[Segata]

I loved AoD but I've seen nothing that attracts my attention from this one, and as I'm not a dev loyalist...

[Rand]

Wait, I missed that part.
They were going to Proxima Centauri to start a colony?
Wat?

Proxima Centauri is an M5-class star. It's worthless for habitable planets. The only good thing about it is that it has a very low activity, meaning few (but not no) massive flares.
I could go on about all the things wrong with this star and any planets it might have, but suffice it to say that it's pointless, because:
Just 12000 AU away (practically no distance at all as compared to a light-year) is Alpha Centauri A and B, G and K type stars well suited to terrestrial life.

To an astronomer, this is literal madness.

[gerey]

Proxima Centauri is an M5-class star. It's worthless for habitable planets. The only good thing about it is that it has a very low activity, meaning few (but not no) massive flares.

Reminder that VD thinks women are as strong as men.

[revenant]

Proxima Centauri is an M5-class star. It's worthless for habitable planets.

Proxima Centauri b is an Earth-sized planet and orbits within the habitable zone of its star.

[Rand]

Proxima Centauri is an M5-class star. It's worthless for habitable planets.

Proxima Centauri b is an Earth-sized planet and orbits within the habitable zone of its star.

Proxima Centauri is the third far-orbiting member star of the larger Alpha Centauri system that consists of Alpha Centauri A and B and Proxima Centauri.
There is no Proxima Centauri B, as that would be a star that isn't there.
Additionally, any "human habitable" world found in the narrow, very close "life zone" of Proxima Centauri would almost certainly be tidally locked to the star, and be subject to erratic and intense solar flares projecting both dangerous thermal and ionizing radiation. The atmosphere would almost certainly be thin to very thin.
This would make it marginal at the very best, and far worse than Mars.

Whoever wrote this as a possible viable destination either doesn't know what they're doing, or is taking a ridiculous liberty with possibilities.
Is it possible? Yes, but only barely. Is it probable? No. Go play the lottery for many orders of magnitude better odds.
It's dumb. Very, very dumb.

[revenant]

There is no Proxima Centauri B

Proxima Centauri b is an exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri. The article says it is located within the habitable zone of its star and may not be tidally locked to its sun.

Colony ship is not a hard science fiction video game. If you are upset about the unlikely possibility of the destination planet being inhabitable there are things in the game that will upset you way more. I don't think Vince was aiming for scientific realism when writing the game (otherwise he would have opted for spin gravity inside the Wayfarer instead of artificial one), so I don't see the problem. Proxima Centauri has an Earth-sized exoplanet within the habitable range and that is enough for the purposes of this video game.

[Element]

Having machinery that can outfit you with a synthetic heart and subdermal armour standing around in a bunch of locations is far more 'out there'

[Lhynn]

I didnt terribly mind implants, it did feel like the sort of technology that shouldnt just be everywhere but in the end it does not even rank as a problem.

There are several places where CS just shits the bed, chiefly character system, writing and world building.

World building in general manages to be the dullest shit ever. I cannot believe Vince managed to make traveling on a space ship seem like boring and generic, but he pulls it off masterfully. The whole thing could have taken place in literally any other semi futuristic setting and it would not have mattered.

It feels like they realized they wouldnt have the money to do anything interesting and just sharted this out in the hopes of staying afloat.

[Rand]

There is no Proxima Centauri B

Proxima Centauri b is an exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri. The article says it is located within the habitable zone of its star and may not be tidally locked to its sun.

Colony ship is not a hard science fiction video game. If you are upset about the unlikely possibility of the destination planet being inhabitable there are things in the game that will upset you way more. I don't think Vince was aiming for scientific realism when writing the game (otherwise he would have opted for spin gravity inside the Wayfarer instead of artificial one), so I don't see the problem. Proxima Centauri has an Earth-sized exoplanet within the habitable range and that is enough for the purposes of this video game.

If I can't be autistic about things like this, what am I even doing in the nerd zone?

[Mr.Wonderful]

I wrote a wall of text 3 or 4 times after finishing it, but deleted it every time. Agentorange pretty much addressed all the things in his long post. I stopped playing on my second playthrough by the end game and uninstalled, the more I played it, the worse I felt about the game.

Perfect example of being hyped, searching for something that isn't there and paying insane amount of money for a video game that does not deserve the sum tbh.

My sound like I hated it, but I enjoyed it and would give it 7/10. For some reason I just expected AoD best parts on steroids and DR combat even more improved, instead everything is dumbed down and shallow. This game is pathetic if you want to compare it to previous games. And at the same time it's good enough if you take it as a standalone. Only problem is there no competition, so being good is easy.

False prophet IMHO

[maidenhaver]

So its a Fallout clone?

[gerey]

The whole thing could have taken place in literally any other semi futuristic setting and it would not have mattered.

Back when he had announced it, he mentioned that being on a ship was going to be treated like a big reveal, something the player had to discover. Back then I imagined the game would look like the locales in Druuna, or perhaps something with the same charm as Inosmina (you poor, ambitious, broken piece of shit).

Instead, the whole thing looks painfully generic, to the point I have to wonder if it was deliberate, because I can't imagine anyone setting out to make a game set on a generational ship, and ending up with the assets used in the game.

[Element]

How are these guys not the greater good?

Vince is a libtard

Well, at least we can side with them. Libtards are insufferable in that they take those options away and chide you.

[maidenhaver]

There is no Proxima Centauri B

Proxima Centauri b is an exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri. The article says it is located within the habitable zone of its star and may not be tidally locked to its sun.

Colony ship is not a hard science fiction video game. If you are upset about the unlikely possibility of the destination planet being inhabitable there are things in the game that will upset you way more. I don't think Vince was aiming for scientific realism when writing the game (otherwise he would have opted for spin gravity inside the Wayfarer instead of artificial one), so I don't see the problem. Proxima Centauri has an Earth-sized exoplanet within the habitable range and that is enough for the purposes of this video game.

Yeah, if he was going for scientific realism, he would know that space is fake.

[rusty_shackleford]

[Luckmann]

christofascists

How are these guys not the greater good? Would a genuinely good person let a communist live?

Vince wrote the Church as a typical manipulative organization that tries to pit the two other factions against each other.

Basically, all three main factions have their disadvantages, and you must pick the lesser evil. The Brotherhood have Chinese social credit system, they ration food, and run a KGB-style secret police. The Protectors are being led by a bunch of corrupt and incompetent hereditary politicians, and they also have an FBI-style secret police. But at least those two plan to call a truce. Meanwhile the Church wants to sabotage this truce so they could snatch the power once the war breaks out.

So what I'm reading here is that it's three flavors of Jew.

Truly the most historically correct RPG.