Sunless Skies (sequel to Sunless Sea)

[AWS260]

Set in the same world as Sunless Sea and Fallen London, but in outer space. It looks very much like Sunless Sea, except that instead of captaining an underground steamship you are commanding a space locomotive.

Now on Kickstarter. I love the world-building in both of those games, so I'm on board without question.

[NickAragua]

I'd like to be in on this, as I like the original well enough. The main problem I have is that, despite having criss-crossed the unterzee with multiple captains, I've totally wrapped up maybe one or two of the stories. The story telling model is kind of annoying (I can see the dev's origin in the microtransaction web game world) - I get about two paragraphs of story, then I have to spend a buck to buy another ten energy points. I mean, uh, run back to London to get more fuel and food. Then, by the time I get back to whatever corner of the sea I was in, I've forgotten what the hell was going on.

[Sepiche]

I'd like to be in on this, as I like the original well enough. The main problem I have is that, despite having criss-crossed the unterzee with multiple captains, I've totally wrapped up maybe one or two of the stories. The story telling model is kind of annoying (I can see the dev's origin in the microtransaction web game world) - I get about two paragraphs of story, then I have to spend a buck to buy another ten energy points. I mean, uh, run back to London to get more fuel and food. Then, by the time I get back to whatever corner of the sea I was in, I've forgotten what the hell was going on.

Yeah, I really loved the setting and the stories it told, but I never felt like combat, or the resource management portions of the game were properly balanced.

[Holman]

In!

[Holman]

Funded!

[AWS260]

Sunless Skies' release date has been pushed back four months to January 2019.

I haven't tried the Early Access build -- I have more than enough to tide me over until it launches properly. Has anyone here dipped their toes?

[AWS260]

New trailer. Launches January 31.

[Holman]

I kickstarted but haven't touched any of the early builds. I'm waiting for the full version.

I thought Sunless Sea was wonderful, and it really looks like the sequel is trying to address the relative flaws ("where do I go to complete this quest??") of the original.

[Holman]

Looks like it is released today!

I've fooled around very briefly, and it looks like it does a much better job of keeping records for you (quests, locations, trade opportunities).

[NickAragua]

I think I'm going to dive into this at some point in the near future, as I backed it. Took me a few minutes to track down my key. I played a few minutes last night. Seems fun, but, just like my first couple of runs through Sunless Sea, I'm pretty overwhelmed. Graphically speaking, the space you're flying through is very busy, with lots of extraneous stuff that make me feel like there's a lot going on. Kind of breaks the "lonely voyage through the dark" theme they were going for, in my opinion.

Other than that, the quality-of-life features are pretty good. They changed around the fuel/supplies usage ratios so I have no idea how much stuff I should bring along for a non-terminal voyage. Also have no idea how to make money, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to go bankrupt and starve to death on my first run. Oh well.

[GreenGoo]

Haven't even gotten around to playing my copy of Sunless Sea. Should probably do that.

[Paingod]

Sunless Seas was an excellent game that I really enjoyed the flavor and learning curve of.

I'm considering buying Sunless Skies at full retail just to support the developer because I thought the original was so well done.

*Edit: What the hell. Boughtened.

[Paingod]

Having spent a number of hours on this, I can say that while I'm enjoying it, it does have its downsides. In my memory, the first one was a great atmospheric piece with mounting tension and horror. The second iteration in the series treats horror as commonplace and ends up feeling like the most dangerous FedEx simulation ever.

It took me too long to get my footing and figure out how to be profitable, but once I did, it removed a lot of the mystery and tension and a grind emerges.

Please bear in mind that I'm playing on the "Normal" or "Default" difficulty settings, which is Ironman with Permadeath and no saving or loading. If I could save my game and load it from a safe place somewhere before I died, the grind would be minimal as I'd never lose anything.

How to make money:

Spoiler:

• The game starts with two sides opposed to each other, The Company and The Independents. Each has a single station near the first port where you can turn in Port Reports for $100 each. If you prefer one side over another, turn in all your reports to that side and watch their "Strength" rating for the area. If you prefer them to stay balanced, turn in your reports to whomever is the underdog and showing as "Desperate"
• Trade is not trade. Trade is FedEx quests. At the home base, you can acquire "Prospects" - a Port that's looking for 3-5 of a particular good and will pay double normal value for 3-5 of it. From there you have to venture out to your known Ports list and hunt for those particular goods to deliver to the Port, collecting Port Reports as you hunt for goods.
• When you trade in the total number of goods the Prospect wanted, you get a little extra bonus above the double trade values and some experience.

That's it. Rinse, repeat.

What permadeath means:

Spoiler:

The best part is that when you die, you retain your chart of known Ports and Places - but lose most of your cash, cargo, and ship upgrades. Quests you've completed stay completed, and changes in the world stay changed. You only get discovery bonuses once. You, however, are back at square 1 in a junker ship with a new character that gets maybe half as much experience to begin with. This means the curve to catch up keeps stretching out in front of you.

So, armed with little cash and even fewer quests than before, you're left with the only option - grinding for cash to get your ship back up to snuff while gaining experience in combat and scraping up any quests you can as you go. Thankfully, some multi-step quests start over and you can complete those first steps again for a little boost as long as you haven't closed them out completely.

Combat is squirrely, with you trying to line up shots as you slide around trying to hit enemies that are, for the most part, also sliding around. It involves a lot of situational awareness and timing, and it's pretty easy to get hit. Your only real defenses are your own drifting movements and quick "Left" or "Right" dodges of incoming shots - which can be comical when you're fighting inverted and accidentally push to go "Left" and jump "Right" and directly into incoming fire.

Horror isn't so much of an issue as it was in the original - I've never once tried to manage it, and only once has it gotten over 50%. Horrible events aren't as staggeringly grotesque behind the scenes. I remember my first accidental dalliance with cannibalism in the original, and the text was gruesome and repulsive. In the sequel, I was simply informed that we had eaten someone because rations ran out.

That's really it for the bad, though.

The game is beautiful, and the writing is as good as the original. The gameplay itself isn't hugely different, and it's still a fun world to explore.

I think, having committed these words to the page before you, that I should simply begin the game anew without Permadeath. Having it on doesn't mean you're Made of Iron, with chest hairs like Brillo pads. It means you're committing yourself to excessive grinding with each defeat instead of simply enjoying the ride through the abyss.

[AWS260]

As I recall, there isn't a "Normal" difficulty setting, just Legacy (permadeath, as described) and Merciful (you can die or reload from the last port you were docked at). There is also a separate set of difficult options that include aim assist, rate of fuel consumption, etc. I think these more granular difficulty settings can be adjusted each time you die.

I'm playing as Merciful, and I'd recommend it. So far I've chosen to die once -- it just felt right, since it happened after a series of very bad decisions on my part. I'll probably let myself die again after I've bought a better locomotive, since that's one of the things that gets passed on to your next character.

[triggercut]

Trade is definitely trade, because every port (until you've exhausted them for the month) also offers bargains, in addition to the prospects. The game isn't a trading simulator anyway, and I'm so happy I don't have to guess or make notes about a variety of commodities and what they trade for at various ports. The game tells you what the good deals are, and then if you need to buy something else for a variety of possible reasons, well, you can do that, too.

Specific quests also send you on specialized trade runs, and knowing where to find hours or souls or seeds, etc is very helpful.

Frankly, Sunless Skies obsoletes Sunless Seas in almost every way. It's far more approachable, enjoyable, and interesting. The quests and storylines at various ports (there's more than one faction battle going on, for instance) are terrific, and the leveling system is unique and very satisfying. This finally feels like a game about exploration that really wants me to explore.

It's only February, but this feels like a game of the year contender, and certainly one of the best handful of games I've played in the last few years.

[Paingod]

I have got to switch over to Merciful. I've enjoyed the game, but I really haven't enjoyed going back to the beginning every time I make more than 3 mistakes.

[AWS260]

I finally piloted my locomotive out of The Reach into a new realm, Eleutheria.

I should not have come here.

[Paingod]

I switched over to Merciful, and while I didn't find the game to be any easier - all the settings were the same - for some reason I was like Superman. I made it further than ever, quicker than ever. Didn't take me long at all to get over $1,500 - more than I've ever had.

I have to say, too, I really like the Mines. Its super nice to have a weapon that launches as I flee - you just need to be careful with it as the AoE is HUGE. Well beyond the shown circle. Almost killed myself with it just playing around with a single Marauder.

[Asharak]

I indulged and bought this the other day and got a chance to play around with it last night.

I don't really know what I'm doing but I took this thread's advice and started on Merciful, which I think was definitely a good idea: the first time I got into a fight (barely being clear on the controls), my Captain died in about fifteen seconds. Having the option to reload instead of restart was much preferable. Frankly, the "death penalty" on Merciful still seems reasonable: you get reloaded back to you last port and lose any progress you had made since then. The time I died after almost completing a long journey was quite painful enough, thank you.

I bought a mining drill towards the end of my playtime yesterday and did read up a bit on how trade works today, which clarified a few things for me, so I think I'm better set to make some money next time I play.

The writing is certainly superb, as you would expect. I picked up an otherwise nameless passenger who wanted to be delivered somewhere and it turns out there's even backstory there!

The combat seems fairly straightforward, though challenging enough for my brain to master. Mostly, the lateral left/right dodge buttons that don't always work as I expect, when my locomotive is pointing down instead of up. Unintentionally dodging into the enemy fire is quite annoying! Still, I've managed to blow up a few things, and lasted quite a bit longer than my first attempt, so yay progress.

All in all, I'm definitely intrigued. Hopefully, I'll have time to play more of it, although there's the Division beta this weekend, and Anthem's early launch next week, so we'll see.

- Ash

[Paingod]

I think I'm planning to upgrade my first ship to whatever lets me use two "Utility" items. It'd be nice to have both the Drill and the Cargo upgrade. Currently, I run with Cargo because I never seem to have enough space. I've yet to mine anything, but I imagine it's a worthwhile prospect to grab free goods sometimes instead of always trading and turning in port reports.

[Asharak]

Understanding more about how the economy and trading system works definitely made my play time more productive and, thus, fun last night. This stuff was probably obvious to most people but, in case anyone else is new didn't quite get it from the tutorials, this post provides excellent detail.

Basically, the major hub port in each region will always buy anything, while the minor spoke ports will generally only sell.

The "prospects" that you can find in the bazaar in the main hub, where a specific minor port requests a specific quantity of a specific good, are an exception to this, but while those are a great source of profit, they're not your most reliable source of income: they require knowing where to source the requested good and, while the map will tell you which port exports it at the regular price, your best profit would be for buying it as a Bargain, and the available Bargains change over time and aren't tracked on the map for you. So, I do those if I can, but they're often something of a pain.

The steadiest way to make money is to buy whatever "Bargain" (always clearly marked as such) you can find in a minor port (and each port will have a new one every month) and just sell it back at the main hub. Combine most-of-a-cargo-hold full of bargain trade goods with generating Port Reports (which you can do each time you stop at a minor port, and they are repeatable), and even early in the game, I seem to come back to the hub with ~500 sovereigns or so of goods, against only ~100-200 in expenses for fuel, supplies, and repairs.

So, my core gameplay loop is to head out from the hub port in any (ideally unexplored) direction, with a hold empty of anything except 3-4 fuel and supplies each, until I find a minor port. There, I buy as many of their current Bargain good as I can and generate a Port Report. The Mining Drill has also been handy, since mining a rock or two along the way results in a trade good I can sell for 100% profit. If I have enough fuel/supplies left (or the port will sell me more), I can then head out laterally from that minor port to try and find another one, and repeat the process. Two ports is the most my cargo hold can generally handle, at which point I head back to the hub and sell everything, repair and restock. If I have any passengers that I can drop off or other objectives that I can complete on top of the above, then even better.

---

I haven't really tackled much of the plot of the game, yet. I feel like I've sort-of gotten a handle on how to survive and not go broke or starve with the above, which has let me buy some new equipment for my ship (yay, more armor and a high-damage short range gun). Hopefully, once I'm comfortable with that, I can target doing the specific things I'm supposed to do to progress the story.

- Ash

[Paingod]

I think, too, that as money becomes less of a concern, you may want to Bank any Bargain purchases to quickly meet the demands of Prospects. I considered it, but had a hold full of 3 Bronzewood and 3 Nectar - a tidy sum for simply selling.