In Sunless Sea the player could encounter some three or four lightships which could be docked at for emergency fuel and supplies. They were very nice as both gameplay devices and as worldbuilding elements.
In Sunless Skies, a handful of one-island stations are scattered around the circumference of the inner Reach. They have names: Rieckstead, Cantor’s Still, and so forth. What if the player could stop at those places and interact with them in a manner akin to lightships in Sunless Sea? Perhaps four story options at each outpost: purchase emergency fuel (30sv each), purchase emergency supplies (60sv each), swap tales (trade a sky-story for a terror reduction), and drop off an especially nervous crewman to be carried to New Winchester by the next passing locomotive (lose 1 crew and 10 terror, or thereabouts). It would not be a terribly complex addition to the game, but I think it would be very helpful for establishing New Winchester and the nearby space as the safest and most settled part of the Reach.
I’d love if they tied into the “discoveries” system personally. One of the neat things Zubmariner did was have interactable storylets on the Zee floor, so like you’d approach something intresting and get a little mini story about what it was, with some cool rewards and mean punishments for choosing correctly or not.
I hope the discoveries system can do similar, to make the High Wilderness feel more alive (or lonely. Nothing screams isolation more than a deserted house on an island shrouded in spooky space fog)
Anchovies, dropping off a crew member for terror reduction is actually a really great idea. I just imagine the crew waving as the locomotive pulls away, the captain secretly breathing a sigh of relief…
[color=#6666ff]Our planned Discoveries will tie into this. Of course it’ll be different to Sunless Sea mechanics, but it’s along those lines. Chris explains a few things in our latest podcast. Check out the whole thing, but in particular around 40m onwards.[/color] edited by FailbetterFuzz on 10/26/2017