Kickstarter: Sunless Sea -- Steampunk Exploration FTL-like

[Isgrimnur]

But only if you can make it home.

[ydejin]

I can't seem to get off the ground here.

I get to the north and no echos for delivering the mostly dead. So they want wine. I get back and get them wine but they want 10 wine. Yeah that ain't happening and now I need supplied and fuel and have no echoes. My ship is already beat up and I've done nothing, really.

Here's something I wrote up for someone on another forum that was struggling at the start. Hopefully it will be useful:

Any tips on earning money and just generally getting going in the early game? I'm having a lot of trouble breaking even on my expeditions since I often only can get reports from islands, which only barely covers the fuel/supply costs. It doesn't help that I'm getting quests for islands which apparently are on the other end of the map.

The best ways to earn money are 1) the Admiralty special missions which will start after you turn in 3 basic port reports and 2) the Merchant Venturer missions. You can get rather unlucky with the Merchant Venturer missions, they range from fairly doable to not doable without a lot of trips all the way to the far ends of the sea. And if it starts out with the "not very doable" it won't reset until you complete it. The Admiralty missions seem to at least start off close to London, although later they may be all the way out to the far end of the map. You can also do missions for the underworld Bruiser, but I don't recommend those until you've got a lot of the map explored, since those are on a time limit, and bad things can happen if you don't complete them before you come back to London after your next voyage -- this can be problematic if you don't even know where the islands they are referring to are. Also sometimes the Bruiser will give you money, which you think is a thank you, but actually it's money you're supposed to deliver along with some goods he gives you. If you spend it you're screwed.

I usually start out by mapping the nearest 40% of the map. This area of the map is the safest area to be in. It also has the most enemies that you can more-or-less safely take on. Whenever possible if you see a bat flock, go take it down for the supplies. If you see a small crab and you haven't recently fed the crew take it down. You don't need to repair your ship everytime you go to port, but don't let it get too low either. For now, when you repair the ship, use the Admiralty yards -- I don't recommend doing this permanently, since you do want to build up a stash of Admiralty favors*, but it's okay at the start and it's the cheapest way to get the ship repaired. If you're really struggling at the start, you can also use Admiralty Favour to get fuel, but see footnote below.

Once you've mapped out the closer sections of the map, look for ports that can be used to extend your range. For example Mount Palmerston somewhere up north and Port Carnelian in the south both sell Fuel quite cheaply.

Get to know the resources of the local islands. Some of the local islands can be used to always give benefits. Some examples:

• Several islands will always provide free supplies and fuel. For example one of the islands once you've completed its story will give you two free fuel and one free supply every time you go by. Also depending on what you did in the story, it can also repair 20 hull points.
• Another island can be used to gain two Outlandish Artifacts (worth 100 echoes each) every time you go by, if you've figure out the appropriate storyline to do so. As far as I know there's no limit on this, although it could be I just haven't done it enough, and my ability to milk it for cash may end at some point -- that does happen with some of the other freebie islands.
• Another island you can hunt for supplies with about a 66% chance of getting a free supply and a 33% chance of getting 5 terror. This particular activity can be repeated as many times as you want on each visit. You can use this to build up supplies a bit, particularly if you're either planning to stay close to London on your current trip or are on your way home and aren't too worried about terror.
• There's another island that always gives a bundle of supplies -- I've seen the number range from 6 to 11. Although this Island is always far from London.
• Another port always provides a cargo that will fetch you around 120 echoes in London.

My basic flow is 1) get the current mission from the Admiral, 2) get the current mission from the Merchant. Ideally the two are in the same area, or one is on the way to the other. Otherwise pick one of them. Check the map and note which islands are on the way and see what kinds of freebies you can get from them (as in the examples above). Check your notes to see if any of them have any special requirements (for example, some ports you'll only get a report from them if you bring them wine). Estimate if you're going to need to refuel, and if so, pick your refueling point(s). Plot a looping path to the destination and back (looping, because it doubles the number of port reports you'll get to turn in which means both more cash and more free fuel).

Other useful stuff.

• Talk to your officers if you can. Some of them have fairly expensive requirements to advance their storyline, so those may have to wait. But particularly if you had an officer at the start (this is occupation dependent, for example the Soldier starting choice always starts you with a Cook officer) those starting officers often have very low requirements and if you can finish their storyline (which often just means knowing where a particular island is) they can give you some nice resources.
• This next one is kind-of annoying and IMO not a great game design. But don't spread your experience points around. When you die, you'll get an option to pass half of one of your stats and pass it on to your inheritor. If you've managed to sire a Scion and gotten them inspired through your sea stories to go to sea, you'll get a chance to pass on half of two different stats. Since the basic starting stat is 25, unless the stat you've chosen to pass on is at least 50, there's no impact on your inheritor. You really want the stat up to at least 80 to really make a difference for your next character. Also, you probably don't want to make that stat Pages, since passing on Pages means you also pass on your map -- which sound great, but in practice since most of the XP comes from exploring new places, it means your next character won't earn much XP.
• You can save a lot on supplies by traveling with a small crew. A crew of 5 goes very lightly on supplies, which can save big bucks. However, this is dangerous, if your crew level drops below 5, you can only sail at half-speed, and if the crew drops to zero, you're dead.

I can tell you things get much better once you hit the mid-level (basically once you've got enough money to upgrade to a corvette). At that point, you'll be earning upwards of 800-1000 echoes per trip, and you can take on most of the beasties found in the nearest 2/3rds of the map, although their damage to your ship will add up. Thoughts on mid-level characters:

• I was really worried about the fact that bigger ships have more weight and wasn't sure if this meant the corvette at 2000 tons was going to go at half the speed of the 1000 ton tramp steamer unless I did a massive engine upgrade. This turned out to be totally false. It goes almost as fast.
• Bigger engines do gulp down more fuel, but the effect is less than it appears. When you install a new engine it's pretty scary watching how fast the fuel level drops, however although fuel is going down much, much more quickly your ship is also covering much more ground. I'd estimate putting in a 1500 hp engine in place of the original 800 hp engine increases fuel costs for any given trip by only about 15-20%.
• Get to know where different enemies lie and what they drop. For example, if you're low on fuel, and you happen to know there's a place nearby where pirate frigates hangout, that's a great way to get some resupply because pirate frigates always drop at least 1 fuel, often 2 fuel when defeated. This works particularly if the pirate hunting ground is more or less on your way anyway. Similarly if you know you need a Hunting Trophy for something, know which monsters will drop it.

Personally I'm really enjoying Sunless Sea. It's a great game to play both for relatively long sessions or if you've only got a 30-minute break and just want to tool around a bit. I retired my first character after I was cursed which caused a very unfortunate domestic event back in London, and so I decided I wanted to restart. My second character got quite far along. I had bought a townhouse and the corvette ship and had a lot of cash on hand. I was just short of completing the full merchant storyline (except I needed a bigger ship). Unfortunately while we were far from London I ran into pirates in a random shore event and they killed 7 of my crew members! While I was limping back to London, one of my remaining crew members went nuts, I failed a skill check (I probably should have picked a higher percentage option, but that's how my first captain got cursed and I didn't want to get cursed again) and the crew member ended up killing the few remaining crew members. Lost at sea.

My current character seems to be doing well. I've got my corvette again (I managed to pass on about 2500 echoes from a combination of legacy choices and by using the inheritance will options to pass on both my townhouse and an heirloom worth 1000 echoes). I've got 80% of the map explored and 3000 echoes. I'm trying to decide if I want to get the Frigate and keep going, or instead just try to fulfill my victory condition of buying a mansion and then retiring. I want to see more stories, but at the same time, it would be nice to successfully end the game with at least one character.

* As far as Admiralty favors goes, you'll get one for each new port that you explore. That's a limited quantity since there are only so many ports on the map. You'll also get one for each secret mission, which is pretty much endless, but only one per trip. In addition to giving cheap repair and cheap fuel, they can be used to get you out of a customs problem if you're smuggling something in. But at 6 favor points, this is expensive. So it's best not to waste the points on fuel unless you really need to.

[Paingod]

Excellent tips!

I've started this up and felt totally at a loss. It's taken a handful of deaths to learn as much as I have, but I managed to figure out that Admiralty missions were good money. I've managed to take down some things I probably shouldn't have - like a Republic Dreadnaught (it apparently has a blind spot it can't fire at) - but others stymie me, like the Jellyfish (I just can't dodge the attack or outrun it). That left me with the issue of not knowing where everything is and what everything does (monsters, missions, etc).

My best run so far is going well with the Urchin background, and I felt pretty solid. I picked up an Engineer that gets frisky with me, reducing terror at sea by 20+ when we get giggy in a cannon at night.

I feel like this game could go the way of Don't Starve - I'll figure out the pattern required to be successful and then kind of get bored with it - but I'm sure I'll get my money's worth before that happens.

[wonderpug]

For anyone on the fence, this game is pretty fantastic.

[ydejin]

Excellent tips!

I've started this up and felt totally at a loss. It's taken a handful of deaths to learn as much as I have, but I managed to figure out that Admiralty missions were good money. I've managed to take down some things I probably shouldn't have - like a Republic Dreadnaught (it apparently has a blind spot it can't fire at) - but others stymie me, like the Jellyfish (I just can't dodge the attack or outrun it). That left me with the issue of not knowing where everything is and what everything does (monsters, missions, etc).

My best run so far is going well with the Urchin background, and I felt pretty solid. I picked up an Engineer that gets frisky with me, reducing terror at sea by 20+ when we get giggy in a cannon at night.

I feel like this game could go the way of Don't Starve - I'll figure out the pattern required to be successful and then kind of get bored with it - but I'm sure I'll get my money's worth before that happens.

Dang. What's your current ship class. I haven't tried taking on the Dreadnaughts or the Jellyfish. They look to scary I always skedaddle.

I'm still roving around in my Corvette. The toughest thing I've taken on is those sharks. I've taken on some mid-level ships as well, and they've dropped a rather disappointing amount of loot. I took out a Rat Barge and it gave me 1 fuel. I think the Mt Palmerston defenders dropped roughly the same thing. The best ships to take down seem to be the Pirate Frigates which usually give 3 fuel or supplies + a merchandise item.

Right now I'm blowing most of my cash on trying to do the Officer storylines.

One nice thing about the Urchin background is that it starts you off with a high Veils, which makes it pretty easy to turn the lights out and run when necessary. Plus it's really easy to finish the Urchin's starting officer's storyline and she give you a nice bundle of goods you can sell for a nice chunk of change.

[Paingod]

What's your current ship class. I haven't tried taking on the Dreadnaughts or the Jellyfish. They look to scary I always skedaddle.

I'm still in the beginner ship. I've taken on ...

- Bats - Easy kills with high Veils for a first strike.
- Small Crabs - Easy kills with high Veils for a first strike.
- Jellyfish - Need precise timing and movement to dodge attacks, which makes them hard and take a long time to kill
- Pirate Ships (90-120hp)- Easy Kills, get in behind and circle.
- Rat Ships - Same as Pirates
- Civilian Ship - Same as Pirates, lost crew for being a jerk, never again.
- Unfinished Ship (200hp) - Same as pirates.
- Republic Dreadnought (400 health) - Has a narrow blind spot (?) if you circle it just right, between the back cannon and front cannons. Only succeeded once in finding this, died the second time.
- Bound Shark - Nuh-uh, no way. I tried, I lost.
- Large Crab - See Shark.
- Lifeberg - Far too large to kill in a reasonable time with starter equipment, but easy enough to escape

The critters seem to broadcast when they'll attack. There's the initial ! when they see you, then a red !!! when they're planning, and then back to ! just before they strike. The shark feigns, and it seems that every other attack is a fake-out. If you're prepared to dodge (move perpendicular), a lot of things will skip past your back end when they rush you. The speed of the Jellyfish makes this hard to pull off.

[ydejin]

What's your current ship class. I haven't tried taking on the Dreadnaughts or the Jellyfish. They look to scary I always skedaddle.

I'm still in the beginner ship. I've taken on ...

- Bats - Easy kills with high Veils for a first strike.
- Small Crabs - Easy kills with high Veils for a first strike.
- Jellyfish - Need precise timing and movement to dodge attacks, which makes them hard and take a long time to kill
- Pirate Ships (90-120hp)- Easy Kills, get in behind and circle.
- Rat Ships - Same as Pirates
- Civilian Ship - Same as Pirates, lost crew for being a jerk, never again.
- Unfinished Ship (200hp) - Same as pirates.
- Republic Dreadnought (400 health) - Has a narrow blind spot (?) if you circle it just right, between the back cannon and front cannons. Only succeeded once in finding this, died the second time.
- Bound Shark - Nuh-uh, no way. I tried, I lost.
- Large Crab - See Shark.
- Lifeberg - Far too large to kill in a reasonable time with starter equipment, but easy enough to escape

The critters seem to broadcast when they'll attack. There's the initial ! when they see you, then a red !!! when they're planning, and then back to ! just before they strike. The shark feigns, and it seems that every other attack is a fake-out. If you're prepared to dodge (move perpendicular), a lot of things will skip past your back end when they rush you. The speed of the Jellyfish makes this hard to pull off.

Ah, now that you mention it, I have taken on the little Jellyfish. They're a good source of Sea Stories, but as you say, they're extremely hard to avoid taking damage from.

However, there is this giant 600hp Jellyfish that hangs out down south, that I've been running from. Since it's got 3x my hit points it's on my list of critters not to take on until I upgrade to a Frigate. It's unfortunately often blocking my access to several south coast ports that I like to use. I can get around it, but it is a bit of work, particularly now that there are multiple whirlpools in the area -- I haven't quite figured out if the greater variety of monsters I'm running in to are a consequence of Failbetter upgrading the game, or a function of how long my current game has been running, or perhaps even just a matter of luck with the random number generator. But I'm definitely starting to see a larger amount of tough monsters particularly down South. For example I recently started running in to this guy. He's actually a good source of stuff, so I'm generally happy to see him:



I've found the Large Crabs aren't too bad, if you continually back away, they often won't be able to get to you until you take them down. Although that's with a Corvette with an extra front weapon in addition to a deck gun and an upgraded 2000 power engine. The blue 600 hp crabs hanging out on the East side of the map I haven't tried.

[Holman]

Fighting pirates and other ships seems too easy: you can constantly circle behind and kill them without suffering any return fire. The question becomes whether the reward is worth the fuel you'll burn doing it.

I assume there must be baddies with aft-firing weapons later in the game, but I haven't met them yet.

[Paingod]

Frigates, Corvettes, and Dreadnaughts have aft cannons. It's hard, but not impossible, to circle them and stay in the dead zone between their front guns and the aft guns.

I did a substantial circle last night, going up from London to the arctic areas, hitting every port along the way, and then down to about the middle of the map and back in to port at London. I turned in a slew of port reports and came out the other side a little wealthier than I went in. I used the trip as an opportunity to check prices at each port I visited and see what the going rates for goods were.

I did a lot of running dark - which wasn't good for my Terror levels, but saved a lot of fuel and made it possible to do the whole circuit with maybe 15 fuel spent, gaining back some here and there as I went through fighting pirates.

I'm seriously considering getting the Lampad Cutter. I typically favor speed over firepower, and think the lighter frame (300) will let the ship move quite fast with the starter engine. It's not a combat ship, but one used to explore the world and unlock every port - then I move back into fighting ships.

[ydejin]

I'm seriously considering getting the Lampad Cutter. I typically favor speed over firepower, and think the lighter frame (300) will let the ship move quite fast with the starter engine. It's not a combat ship, but one used to explore the world and unlock every port - then I move back into fighting ships.

I've heard that the Cutter is also nice because it's easier to sneak around with its +10 to veils. The thing that would make me nervous though is the 5 crew maximum. That gives you almost no margin if you end up having an unhappy shore event. I once lost around 5 crew members just in a single unhappy shore encounter with Pirates and ended up having my captain lost at sea as I limped back to port at half-speed when I lost my remaining 3 crew members to a random "one of your crew members goes nuts" event.

[Zarathud]

Really liking the game. I spent my first 8 captains just building up Metal and learning about the different starting locations. Now, I'm manually copying the save file every night after playing to make sure I don't lose progress until making a Will. My map is pretty decent with the Salt Lions straight to the East of New London.

[Paingod]

Really liking the game. I spent my first 8 captains just building up Metal and learning about the different starting locations.

Metal? Iron? I've only had one starting location - Fallen London... I didn't think there were others?

Last night I did something terrible...

Spoiler:

... and my crew was delicious.

I likely won't do that again. Now that I'm "A little peckish" I'm feeling rather scarred for life.

I also bought myself a townhouse and made an iron-clad will. I need to start saving up some monies for my next character. I've had two close calls where I barely limped back into port. One was at 3 crew and 4 health, and the second was at 5 crew and 1 health - I was concerned I was going to bump into a wall and kill myself; it was a crazy ride home.

On the plus side, I've mapped out probably 60% of the seascape. I've got access to Khan's Shadow, Mount Palmerston, and Frostfound (not entry, but access). I can gather enough intel now in one trip that I have to either not turn some in or toss fuel overboard. My next goal is to try and close out the Venderbight quest for the Yacht. I could really use a ship like that.

[Paingod]

Doing pretty good with my "2nd" Captain. My first few were simply understanding mechanics and goofing off, and then I started for real and passed down a gun, all I accomplished before dying the first time.

My second captain has the following...

1. The starter ship, still.
2. Completed the story for the (now) Satisifed Magician, (gone) Sigil-Ridden Navigator, and Maybe's (now) Rival.
3. Built a townhouse, iron-clad will, two Heirlooms (captivating stones), and raised a Scion.
4. Explored 80% of the map.
5. Is only Unaccountably Peckish (2), and has explored many island story arcs.

The Serpentine engine is sweet, but burns through fuel at an alarming rate. Coupled with the +150 Engine power from Maybe's Rival and +200(?) from the WE ARE CLAY I picked up, I feel pretty zippy in my starter ship. I'm trying to find the pieces to get the Yacht from Venderbight, but it's slow going.

[RMC]

So what is the overall opinion of this game? Is it worth it at the current price point? I actually watched some Twitch plays of this game and liked what I saw. But it seemed to dry up off of Twitch pretty quick, and not a ton of talk here about it, so I am a little worried it has some flaws...

[AWS260]

Definitely worth the $19 price point, in my opinion, for the various reasons discussed in this thread. Downsides to be aware of: it's deliberately slow-placed; the early-game content can get repetitive; combat is OK but not great; there's a framerate/stuttering bug that's supposed to be fixed in the next major patch.

[RMC]

Definitely worth the $19 price point, in my opinion, for the various reasons discussed in this thread. Downsides to be aware of: it's deliberately slow-placed; the early-game content can get repetitive; combat is OK but not great; there's a framerate/stuttering bug that's supposed to be fixed in the next major patch.

Thanks.

[Holman]

So what is the overall opinion of this game? Is it worth it at the current price point? I actually watched some Twitch plays of this game and liked what I saw. But it seemed to dry up off of Twitch pretty quick, and not a ton of talk here about it, so I am a little worried it has some flaws...

It's definitely worth it if you like tongue-in-cheek Steampunk. The game mechanics (sailing and fighting and trading) are fun but simple, but they're not the real draw. The gameplay is just a vehicle for delivering the next snippet of prose, and there is a ton of well-written text in the game. (Unfortunately, all that text is delivered in a font that is eye-searingly tiny, at least for me.) The writing is fun enough to recall the bygone days of Infocom.

[Zarathud]

Worth it. Sailing around is slow, which makes it so much sweeter when you limp back into port with 1 hull with the fear that everything out there could sink you.

[ydejin]

I really like it, definitely worth the price for me.

[dfs]

Has very much caught my attention.

dominions, ftl, don't starve and this. That pretty much covers the last 3-4 years.

It's got flaws, but then what doesn't.

[Paingod]

I've been doing a little research on ship engines and have the following...

Spoiler:

The data is from launching at Fallen London and heading East until I hit the edge of the map. Each run was following the same route, but there were some slight differences in terror due to fog spawns.

I hope it helps in deciding what works for you. It seems that it ramps up in speed vs. cost to save time - until the final engine, which is just absurd.

[ydejin]

I've been doing a little research on ship engines and have the following...

Spoiler:

The data is from launching at Fallen London and heading East until I hit the edge of the map. Each run was following the same route, but there were some slight differences in terror due to fog spawns.

I hope it helps in deciding what works for you. It seems that it ramps up in speed vs. cost to save time - until the final engine, which is just absurd.

Very nice work Paingod. The other factors that I think add in are that travelling faster actually means fewer supplies are needed, and supplies are generally more expensive than fuel (although it's easier to get additional supplies both by taking on Monsters and also from a variety of shore events).

One big negative on travelling fast though is at some point, you're now fast enough that the minimum travel time between shore events is longer than the amount of time it takes to go from one typical destination to the next. So you either travel around in circles a bit when getting to your destination waiting for the "something awaits you at the next port" bell to go off, or you just put up with not being able to carry out actions at each of your ports of call.

[Paingod]

Yeah - going "Very Fast" I end up simply skipping half the shore events unless I know a place has something I need, and then I park myself outside until the bell tolls.

I often find supplies are the least of my worries. Pirates, Jellyfish, Bats, and Crabs all provide some amount of sustenance on the fly - but being out of fuel is something I've done twice and it wasn't fun to worry about whether or not my supplies would convert to fuel or if I'd simply die seconds from port.

I've discovered a hidden goal to set up my own kingdom and am working towards it instead of one of the starting ones. I'm curious to see how it turns out.

I think I found an (exploitative?) way to make money fairly easily...

Spoiler:

Mangrove College has a repeatable "Candle Run" that ends with one of the following:

• 1 Outlandish Artefact, 1 Solice Fruit (value: ~$150)
• 1 Ambiguous Eolith, 3-4 Solice Fruit (value: ~$200)
• 1 Outlandish Artefact, 1 Longbox, 1 Strategic Info (value: ~$500?)
• 1 Lump of Blue Scintillack (value: $800)
• 1 Searing Enigma, 2 Lamentable Relic (value: $1010)
• 1 Captivating Treasure, 1 Solice Fruit (value: $1050)

I load up 16 Crew, 26 Candles ($1040), 20 Fuel ($200), and 16 Supplies ($320) at Fallen London and head down to run it a few times. It requires a fairly good Mirrors (75 recommended), Iron (100 recommended), and Veils (100 recommended) - but running it a few times can net maybe a Captivating treasure, a Searing Enigma, and a fistful of Solice Fruit for sale. I find that I typically make around $2000 or more per trip. The only thing to watch out for is the Mirrors challenge, which results in a Wound if you fail. Three wounds kills you, so you get wounded twice and have to back out anytime that challenge comes up again.

[NickAragua]

Finally got into this "for real". It took me about three captains dying at sea before I got the hang of how far I can push my fuel/supplies to maximize my time out at sea without starving, running out of fuel or having to eat my crew/toss them into the boiler.

I'm enjoying the writing and the gameplay, and have been fine just dicking around between islands doing miscellaneous side tasks. The only real complaint is that it takes a little too long sometimes to navigate between islands. Also, they could have made the music tracks a little longer than five seconds each, to be honest.

So now I've got most of the map explored. Standard run tends to net me about 500 echos: I'll hit ~10 ports for free fuel and a little cash from the port reports, pick up some golems from Polythreme (120 echoes) and salt blocks from the Salt Lions (300 echoes profit for a full load). Occasionally, the smuggler guys will give me a job too, usually paying ~200 echoes and some fuel/supplies at the end of the run.

I've noticed that it's actually ok to hire officers that you won't be using, because their quest lines still result in a pretty decent reward. Sometimes they'll leave at the end, sometimes they won't and get upgraded instead.

[Smoove_B]

I've been following this game sine the Kickstarter but it more or less slipped off my radar until a generous freebie from stoz appeared in the Give it Away Now thread. Way more detailed than I thought it was going to be - in a good way. I'll need to peruse this thread a bit and see what I've been missing, but by all accounts my limited time playing so far has been quite enjoyable.

[Paingod]

I really enjoyed my time in the game and can see it as something I'll get back into eventually when the memories fade and the horror can be revisited and relearned.

[Zaxxon]

I've been following this game sine the Kickstarter but it more or less slipped off my radar until a generous freebie from stoz appeared in the Give it Away Now thread. Way more detailed than I thought it was going to be - in a good way. I'll need to peruse this thread a bit and see what I've been missing, but by all accounts my limited time playing so far has been quite enjoyable.

Good to hear. I largely stayed away from the hype train on this one other than to be vaguely aware of its existence, but I picked it up as part of the recent Hunble Bundle. Guess I need to give it ye olde college try.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, it just oozes theme and I wasn't expecting all the reading. I figured it was really just about moving around and getting stuff, but there are actual story elements and threads (at least what I've seen so far) to drive the game play. There is a tutorial to help get you going, but there's a lot to take in. Definitely seems like it's going to be a great indie game.

[Holman]

Major expansion coming in October: Zubmariner.

Apparently it will be $11 on Steam, but it's free to KS backers or early-access purchasers.

[LordMortis]

Woot?

Nothing every pulled me back in after early access. Maybe I'll see this bumped in October and try again.

I liked the premise and the feel, I just never got a good foothold in the game and the ship to... combat and controls didn't really work for me. I assume a whole lot has changed.

I actually really need to stop doing early access games. It's become common place for me pick up a game at full price for early access, set it down days or weeks later and never see the final product and give it a chance. I have a lot of early access games I've never touched when they became even remotely close to finished cooking.

I blame tgb.

[NickAragua]

It'll be a good excuse for me to jump in.

My last run I upgraded my ship to the merchant cargo ship. I was doing well doing surface runs to make cash, but then I went to help out the monkey guys and ran out of money somehow. So I limped back to London but had no cash left to make any more cargo runs, and so I decided to retire that captain, which is a first. They usually die out at sea because I push the ship too hard and run out of gas, crew and/or food.

The next guy, though, well, maybe he'll head underwater.

I gotta say that it took me a while to "get" that having the larger crew of the merchant cruiser means they eat a lot of food. To the point where my previous ratio of 2 fuel to 1 food is no good, and it's more like 1:1.

[NickAragua]

So yeah, "Zubmariner" expansion comes out today. Thankfully, since I backed the kickstarter, I get it as part of that. Which is just as well, now I can go buy an extra (hellish, horrifying, tentacled) burrito instead!

[Holman]

I've just reinstalled Sunless Sea, but I haven't hit the zub content yet.

Thankfully, though, the update also includes new options to rescale the UI and the text fonts. For a game with so much reading involved, this has been a long time coming.

[Holman]

I've got a sub (zub?), and I can see that they've added a ton of new content to the game while I've been away. It's fun and very atmospheric.

One problem in Sunless Sea is that information isn't organized well. You don't have the usual RPG journal system that keeps track of where you stand in a quest line. The icon-blurbs usually but don't always tell you where you should go next, and just randomly searching is out of the question.

For example, recently I met someone who told me to get something and bring it to him at Port XYZ, where he'll be waiting. The quest icon in my journal tells me to bring the whatevs to so-and-so but doesn't remind me that he said he'd be in Port XYZ. Apparently I'm just supposed to remember that, and there's no way to revisit the original quest dialogues.

[NickAragua]

I've got a sub (zub?), and I can see that they've added a ton of new content to the game while I've been away. It's fun and very atmospheric.

One problem in Sunless Sea is that information isn't organized well. You don't have the usual RPG journal system that keeps track of where you stand in a quest line. The icon-blurbs usually but don't always tell you where you should go next, and just randomly searching is out of the question.

For example, recently I met someone who told me to get something and bring it to him at Port XYZ, where he'll be waiting. The quest icon in my journal tells me to bring the whatevs to so-and-so but doesn't remind me that he said he'd be in Port XYZ. Apparently I'm just supposed to remember that, and there's no way to revisit the original quest dialogues.

Agreed, it's pretty annoying. At this point, I just alt-tab out of the game real quick and go look the answer up on the wiki.

[Kasey Chang]

Time to necro this topic.

Just started playing. While it's atmospheric as heck, my feeling is... why is this so hard?

This is basically a variation on Rogue, where you explore a "dungeon" and try to go as deep as you can, with foray to the surface to heal, trade, and stock on on potions. But the way to earn money is minimal, or at least, I couldn't find any that I can reliably to "grind". The port info don't pay anything worthwhile, and coal other than in london is prohibitively expensive. Not to mention supplies. And who's heard of bat swarm sinking a ship? I guess I better go look at the wiki. Argh.

Lost like 5-6 captains so far. I know to run with lights OFF and all that. I actually whittled down and killed a Lifeberg with my starter ship, but I ran out of food and crew, then a bat swarm found me while I ran for home. Gah.

[Holman]

why is this so hard?

This is basically a variation on Rogue

[NickAragua]

Time to necro this topic.

Just started playing. While it's atmospheric as heck, my feeling is... why is this so hard?

This is basically a variation on Rogue, where you explore a "dungeon" and try to go as deep as you can, with foray to the surface to heal, trade, and stock on on potions. But the way to earn money is minimal, or at least, I couldn't find any that I can reliably to "grind". The port info don't pay anything worthwhile, and coal other than in london is prohibitively expensive. Not to mention supplies. And who's heard of bat swarm sinking a ship? I guess I better go look at the wiki. Argh.

Lost like 5-6 captains so far. I know to run with lights OFF and all that. I actually whittled down and killed a Lifeberg with my starter ship, but I ran out of food and crew, then a bat swarm found me while I ran for home. Gah.

Running with lights off, IMO, is not that great an idea in general. If you can keep your terror under 50, then there's an option to take it down a good chunk "for free" once you return to London after having been out for a while. If it's over 50, you're going to have problems.

It's been a while since I ran through this game, but here are a few places to reliably earn some money:
- Salt Lions (?). Make sure you've got 20 free space when you hit it, usually at the end of a loop.
- Polythreme. Make sure you've got ~5 free space.

Now, in order to get the free space, you want to do a nice, long, leisurely lap. Fill up on fuel, then plot out a route that makes sure to stop at the above two places. There's an island owned by devils where you can get some nice, cheap fuel for a mid-trip refuel. There's also a city on the east coast, to the south of London, where fuel is super cheap. Also owned by devils. If you've got cash, you can haul wine bottles to the drunk, loud monks (sorry, I forget the name of the island).

By the time you loop back to London, you've visited a bunch of ports and picked up some cargo, as well as unloaded the wine. Do a couple of these runs and you'll be swimming in dough.

Once you get a merchant ship, you can make a good amount of money by hauling wine to the surface. Hit up the Cumaean canals, then up you go. Major profit. Be warned that upgrading your ship will completely screw with your fuel and food consumption. I got used to buying a certain ratio of fuel and food with the starter ship and knew roughly how far out I could push it before having to run back to London like a little bitch, but then I got the merchantman and went bankrupt within two runs because I couldn't get the hang of the new fuel and food consumption rate.

You should also invest in some clay dudes from Polythreme to reduce your max crew size by 3 while giving you an engine boost. Crew eats food, which is expensive. Clay men don't.

[Kasey Chang]

The cheap fuel source is "Iron Empire" to the south. 8 Echoes per "barrel" or whatever the measurement is.

Once I managed to salvage 4 barrels of the mushroom wine, try to sell it at Iron Empire, but the sell price was ZERO when it should be like 21. When I left port I got sunk by "revolutionary ship".

I basically quit the game after that. Went to play VoidExpanse instead.

[NickAragua]

For me, the game's main fault is that each of the storylines progresses extremely slowly (a couple of paragraphs per roundtrip), and there are too many going on at once. I'd encounter like five or six little story bits on a round trip, each of which would require me to remember to bring some widget or bit to a random island. Half the time, I forget who needed what, and the other half, I don't know where the hell to get the needed object. I suppose I could take notes or look it up on wikipedia, but then I'm not playing a game anymore.

The "Zubmariner" expansion did add one major capability which I consider pretty indispensable. If you run into a critter or ship that you know is going to pound you to bits, you can just dive (or surface). Before, there was really no way to escape a fight once it started without taking severe damage (ever get chased down by a giant shark?)

Maybe I'll go back to it again some day. But not any time soon, I've got another HBS:Battletech (with Flashpoint expansion) playthrough on deck. Three more days.

edit: Yeah, the iron empire guys have this "weird" cycling market, where the prices will fluctuate randomly based on how many days have passed in the game or whatever. You can even force it to cycle manually if you've got that lamp thing going ("waiting for..." status when you've been out at sea for a little bit).