DIAMOND IS HERE!

Sunless Sea
81

Aye, but the blind bruiser was also dangerous: use him too long, and you end up missing a delivery, and that can often get you killed. Personally, I liked the &quotfeel&quot of the bruiser, because some of my captains knew better than to take advantage of him – or how long they should do so – and my few high-iron captains had enough gall to send him packing.

The new content, however, seems only to offer substantial rewards for going one way. Please note: I like the fact that Veils now determines your chances of being a good smuggler. But what if you’re playing a poet or a philosopher? I get that a philosopher probably shouldn’t be as rich as a smuggler, but doing the right thing should get some story – perhaps one that gets you more fragments, or stat opportunities, or other storylets in place of just saying &quotno&quot and having the story end right then and there. Personally, I’d like to see more captain types getting interesting results on the sea rather than just the urchins and veterans. The mangrove college and the principles seem to have the inkling of an adventure or two – hopefully the new system doesn’t make playing a veteran or urchin so necessary.

[li]

82

Where’s your preferred source of sunlight for the boxes?

[li]

83

As a player who is running a legacy captain from a long line of captains I don’t do any smuggling, apart from that one red honey to start the Isle of Cats story.

But I do play in merciful and admit to save scumming sometimes to get a good result from certain events (mostly the riddles and exploring the Wisp Ways if I gain too much terror or lose too many crew).

I also always take Iron and either Mirrors or Veils as my legacy and most of the time choose either veils or mirrors as my past. So I start with three good stats and I have a Horizon Codex to boost my pages
edited by reveurciel on 1/9/2015

84

Go to Aestival and get sunlight there instead of Naples.[li]

85

Where’s your preferred source of sunlight for the boxes?[/quote]
Aestival wasn’t available when I was doing my runs, so I was going to naples. I don’t know much about Aestival, but I hear its pretty close to the isle of cats typically which could be great for high veils characters. My personal preference is to get income at both ends of the zee rather than Feast/Famine method of doing all ones profit gain in london. So I would run sunlight from Naples to Cats then honey from cats to london and I’d always have a pretty stable income of echos without worry of running into an emergency where I’d risk going broke if disaster occurred.

I guess if you like short runs rather than entire zee loops naples > london and aestival > cats is the way to go but again I am not familiar with aestival. Also, not so sure about the bruiser this run. My new map has Mt Plamerston over by Irem and he keeps sending me on quests to it. Its a bit annoying, but I’ll keep the naples going until I can find aestival and the isle of cats.

[quote=SouthSea Rutherby]So my chief concerns are:

  1. balance between stats – is iron really that much better than hearts or veils?

  2. Does the game now significantly favour the more unethical captains? I.E. Smugglers who willing abduct victims for red honey, people who illegally sell sunlight, or engage in cannibalism to complete the curator quest?

And finally, 3) Has this new balance been tested by ANY new players (how have NOT been scions, or new captains controlled by experienced players)? I ask because it’s been eons for some of us and even my &quotfresh start&quot captain had a number of problems that would have been a serious turnoff if I hadn’t the experience (and the CLEAR understanding of how the game works as a rogue-like). Personally, I think the game needs to emphasize that you will get killed at times and your family line will go on – but a lot of people I’ve casually mentioned the game to seem to get far more frustrated than people I live close to who I can literally walk through and explain how dying and restarting can actually be a good thing.
Currently, it appears this game is wonderful for established players but frustrating for new ones; I feel the game needs to &quothype&quot the concept of brazen, unbridled exploration, followed by a few early demises, lucky breaks, and eventually in-depth adventure stories.

edited by SouthSea Rutherby on 1/9/2015
edited by SouthSea Rutherby on 1/9/2015[/quote]
1/3) I started a new captain for the first time since steel_beta over the christmas holidays and for the lulz just put every point of secrets I got into irons. I had the urchin background so my veils was decent too. But basically, with decent iron terror becomes inconsequential, you can just kill it away with no trouble. Before I ended my captain to start a new scion run I had raised my irons to 114 and all I had was the starter ship and the caminus yard deck gun (my pages was in the low 30s by comparison). But even with just that it was no trouble whatsoever to kill lorn flukes by blue scintillac sniping them, that is using scintillac to artificially increase your mirrors by fully loading the gun while out of normal mirrors range then running away. Also by only shooting them when their backs are turned and with your light out. The flukes were a bit tricky as they do have a ranged attack, but I’d take maybe 8 damage tops from that. Not bad, not bad. Note this wasn’t a scion or a legacy captain, this was my starting captain and the starting ship. With good irons, you can kill anything without much trouble (except maybe Mt Nomad). The balance of the game seemed okay, I was always like &quotWELP THAT CASH SOURCE IS GONE, WONT BE LONG UNTIL I DIE&quot but then I’d find something new and live a little longer. And a little longer. And then itd be 20 hours later and haha how am I even still alive???

  1. Crime is so buff. So very very buff. Crime is what saved my first captains life in the end. I started out pretty virtuous, and was always just scraping by. I could complete quests, but not really turn enough of an honest profit to get big upgrades. This is why I was out fighting lorn flukes in the starter ship with a basic gun and irons 114. Yeah, I got that many secrets from that many questlines before I ever figured out how to turn a profit. That’s how challenging it is, but the value of crime is almost instant. I think from now on I will always crime or at least, I will keep criming until I am so rich I don’t need to echos ever again.
    edited by NiteBrite on 1/9/2015
    edited by NiteBrite on 1/9/2015

Being a spy is also pretty decent, although it took me forever to figure out that you can get a new admiralty quest for strategic information without turning in the information. I had no idea how to make a vital intelligence for like 30 hours of play. Its not obvious. But a friend told me and then bam, sweet spy cash :D
edited by NiteBrite on 1/9/2015

86

Has anyone else finished the Maybe’s daughter storyline and found that they don’t have

Maybe’s Rival? The quest ends with &quotyou now have 1x Nobody’s Daughter&quot or &quotyou now have 1 x Maybe’s Rival&quot, but neither shows up as crew, or in misc items in the hold or in journal items.

I ask in case this is a bug that needs to be reported, or just a misleading decription.

87

[quote=Casidy2]Has anyone else finished the Maybe’s daughter storyline and found that they don’t have

Maybe’s Rival? The quest ends with &quotyou now have 1x Nobody’s Daughter&quot or &quotyou now have 1 x Maybe’s Rival&quot, but neither shows up as crew, or in misc items in the hold or in journal items.

I ask in case this is a bug that needs to be reported, or just a misleading decription.[/quote]

http://community.failbettergames.com/topic9863-maybe-youre-not-there.aspx :)

88

HAHAHA oh my goodness. I found aestival… right next to the isle of cats which is next to the khanate. I shall call this the mad profit map, because holy cow. Wow, Aestival is waaay better than the surface for me in this map. I am in awe.

89

Why, what are you doing with the Khanate that’s so profitable? I’ve avoided it except to collect strategic information/brilliant souls, because the suspicion exasperates me.

Regarding your earlier edit, the Vital Intelligence thing was fairly high up in the list of possible Admiral interactions for me, and that has a game note about how to make 'em, but I also didn’t realize that I could get a new commission for the longest time – I was getting the extra piece of SI by luck (which occasionally happens when you’re gathering port reports) or from the Fathomking’s Hold, then combining it with the SI I was assigned to collect. I also didn’t realize the Diplomat apparently pays way better for VI…

But there’s also a note that you can get VI from spy networks – has anyone been taking that route? Judging by the amount of red links on the wiki, it seems like the Supremacy/spy network system was a later addition and hasn’t existed in the game as long as, say, port reports.

90

Building up a spy network and using it to collect VI can be crazy profitable. Particularly if you manage to feed occasional info to the Diplomat without putting the Admiral in danger.

91

I assume if the Diplomat’s “dangerous allies” get too powerful, that’s what endangers the Admiral?

92

I’ve mentioned in another thread before that the Admiral just disappears from the London gazette (along with all his features) once you get the Dawn Machine’s power level to ‘tremendous’.
edited by Bardigan on 1/10/2015

93

Shit, didn’t the Dawn Machine do the other thing too? That I’m not plaintexting because I forget how spoilertags work here? I bet those bastards disappeared the Admiral too.
edited by Fretling on 1/10/2015

94

I was surprised: I carefully kept the two (Diplomat and Admiral) in balance, but that did not seem to matter for the Admiral’s disappearance. And certainly, Maybe’s Daughter’s storyline suggests that the Bazaar itself may be irritated with my efforts, at least according to Penstock

95

Does anyone know if the unlock requirements for officer Lilac have changed?

[spoiler]I’ve driven my crew to terror levels high enough to mutiny like 6 or 7 times now and she’s a no show. I have been tattooed by clathermont (I got the misty wheel tatoo). In my play through before diamond, she’d appear whenever my terror rose to like 85-90+ but that’s not happening anymore and I don’t know why. The irrigo makes her one of my faves and so I miss her :(

My best guess is maybe its because I started the maybe’s daughter storyline. It’s possible that locks you out but who knows.[/spoiler]

Edit: Also I’m starting to find grinding infinite sunlight wealth no where near as fun as my first captain who I was certain would die any moment from lack of cash grinds. Sure I have 77k echos now, but now I still need to go do the story based cash grinds anyways to advance the plot. And I already had the dreadnaught and zeeside mansion. What was even the point (other than 7’s ofc)?

I feel like I was awash in some kind of gold fever, echo for the echo god basically. It’s a bit of a flip flop from my earlier stance, but maybe… maybe crime is too buff.
edited by NiteBrite on 1/10/2015
edited by NiteBrite on 1/10/2015

96

Yeah, I know the feeling. I was already over 100K echoes at one point, and it’s nice not to worry about money, but it does seem that I should let this guy retire and start over…

97

I was wondering if I was the only one who had to worry about finding a place to put his money. I only have 80k but I can reach over 100k quite easily by selling all of my treasures, artifacts and enigmas. I would also retire but I want my guy around to experience all the new content when they pop up. I also would not mind accessing a new legacy trait before then as I gave up on the Horizon Codex when it was offered and turned my back on the machinations of the Dawn Machine.

What we need are more outlets for our money, perhaps endgame investments we can put them into? Maybe the Pirate Princedom around the corner will be a costly venture (I’ll save that for my morally ambiguous Scion however).

On an unrelated note, I would not mind a toggle for &quotIronman Mode&quot for my Legacy Characters. It would certainly undermine the point of Ironman Mode to a certain extent but I see no great harm to the overall game.

edited by Owen Wulf on 1/10/2015

98

After spending a couple hours with the game last night…

I don’t find combat particularly more difficult. Granted, this is with my Maenid and Serpentine but…

Enemy’s perception is better but still very narrow. Monsters and ships can spot your lamp if they are facing directly toward you, and at some distance outside of their range of their own lamp.

But i’ve found that, just like last build, if I flip off my lights as soon as they’ve seen me, I’m fine. I can avoid them, or do the usual line up my guns in the darkness and open fire. Likewise, I’ve been able to shake off pursuing ships who have seen me (!), by simply sailing outside of the arc of their vision with my lights off.

They don’t seem particularly good at spotting you once you’ve fired either, as long as you keep your lights off and keep your distance. Managed to easily hunt several life bergs as well, no damage taken. Basically you just have to keep them at the edge of your weapon range but an appreciable distance off your bow as well and you’re fine. The Terror increase doesn’t seem to have hurt me that bad either. Combat and zailing takes a little more concentration now and the enemies aren’t complete fools, but I’m still finding it relatively straightforward to win combat without taking damage.

99

Ironman Mode? Is that some kind of amusing pop-culture-joke way to refer to the default/unforgiving autosave?

100

Reckon so, my thought on this one would be that there should be no flipping of that whatsoever, you can’t have your Invictus token back when you’ve lost it, it’s one of those things that should be only for those that play that way.

I also think that there should be some quests that required the invictus token to win at them, perhaps a new beginning quest, to defeat the sea, topple the fathomking, sit at Kingeater castle undaunted and hear the lamentations of the drownies…