So, I just had a run of bad luck and lost my first Captain.
I had the Clay Men equipped in my Auxiliary for the Engine Speed and Iron, so my max crew was 7. Maybe that was where I went wrong. I lost one crew member in a fight at Gaider’s Mourn while trying to get a Port Report, had 3 tentacle-events (crew members plucked by tentacles) in a 5-minute span, and then, with my ship at half-speed, started a fire after I boosted the engine to try to get away from a crab on my way back to London. Everybody dies.
In a way, I wish it had happened sooner, because I was about 10+ hours in and JUST about to make it back to London with a full hold of Sphinxstone to finally purchase the Townhouse and go on to make an Ironclad Will. A Scion (my new child) was also going to be waiting for me in port, and I was almost through the Sigil-Ridden Navigator’s and several other quests. sigh
None of my abilities were high enough to provide bonuses, so it ends up being basically a complete wipe of the last ten hours. Given that the game is so incredibly grindy (very slow to make money, very difficult to acquire new Secrets/Fragments past a certain point) and I’m barely carrying over any benefit to this new character, should I keep playing at this point? It feels like I’ll have to ploddingly retrace my steps, doing all the same exact things with the same exact results for another 10 hours to get back to where I was.
At the current state Sunless Sea is mostly lore driven (bah, I didn’t play the last pach 1.0.1.2004 or something like that, I played the one after). If you liked what you zaw there are two options:
1- Die a lot and be less careful. Sunless Sea rewards risks. The difficult curve is not based on skill, it is based on your knowledge of the world. At this point You can gain knowledge by cheating and going to the wiki or zee google, or you can die a lot and grind a lot (There iz people that enjoy that kind of game)
2-You can Wait till the combat and merchant part of the game is more polished (maybe a couple of months, maybe a year) It’s a general opinion that there is a lot of room for improvement on what already is in the game (again, trading and combat balance, maybe ship’s balances) and eventually they will release zee zubmarines.
If they fail in the polishing part, there will be mods (give the moders time :P), the kind of lore that is in this game is not easy to pass up.
Again, Cheating iz easy, But you’ll enjoy the game a LOT less edited by Captain G on 2/27/2015 edited by Captain G on 2/27/2015
I will say there are some risks that are foolish, rather than rewarding. The game rewards risk-taking only in the sense that you need to explore to find rewards, and the best rewards are usually the farthest from London. Fighting everything you see even when your ship is at 5 HP isn’t a risk, it’s just dumb.
Yes, you should venture out further and try to find new lands that grant new opportunities and potential, but just getting insane and taking on all comers or taking really chancy gambles is a sure fire way to lead to a long line of dead captains who failed to get anywhere.
For What It’s Worth Mukuro - I went through 5 captains before I made it to the Townhouse and Will. I was suffering through the "Energy Saver" bug on my laptop and playing at a terrible framerate the whole time, and still trying to persevere through it, and it led to a lot of early death. Once I resolved that and used my experience to get back in the game much more quickly, each subsequent captain has been a stepping stone to wealth and greatness.
The game really has a WALL of a learning curve. But once you get over it, it’s way more manageable.
Don’t worry, you’ll get a feel for how to manage your crew and other resources as you keep playing.
Losing a chunk of your crew through sheer bad luck is really frustrating - you’ll eventually discover a few places where you can pick up new crew, like Demeaux Island. Also, the tentacle-event (surely you didn’t push them. Surely) tends to happen when your Terror is quite high.
I don’t feel like I particularly took many risks…there aren’t really any safe voyages in this game, especially since the Blind Bruiser repeatedly forces you to take long, long voyages into distant waters (Mount Palmerston and the Khanate, the two most frequent requests, are at the complete opposite end of my map). I suppose I could just tell him to feck off, but I assume there’s some benefit from the relationship further into the game.
The other thing you can do to avoid dying that hasn’t been mention is use manual saves. It won’t avoid the repetition this time (assuming you don’t have a save already from before you died), but it can prevent some deaths if that’s what you want.
And you can do some things so that it won’t be all the same (beyond just learning from your mistakes). A different background changes a couple of the beginning stories. Which officers are available in London is random. You can make a point of focusing on or finding ports that you didn’t spend much time in last time. Some stories have different exclusive options to choose between (e.g. rats vs cavies). Some of it will still be the same, but it doesn’t need to be 10 hours of the same.
Yeah, I’d definitely recommend using manual saves for any new player. Your first captain survived for 10+ hours? That’s actually very good, I probably went through 5 captains during that time, even WITH manual saves. So, no reason for feeling discouraged. It’s just a very steep learning curve at the beginning ;)
My first captain lasted about 20 hours, but I was extremely cautious, and never made any significant money. My second barely 3 minutes. My third ended up winning. Using my knowledge from my first captain, I was able to replicate 20 hours of work in about 2, and be back in more or less the same place, with better stuff, and much greater chances to make money. Scion and Mansion before my third trip out to Zee.
Take the expierences you’ve learned, and put them to good practice.
Big Tip for the Blind Bruiser: Unless they changed it in the last patch, the first "errand" for him, where you’re delivering souls instead of picking them up, has no time limit. You can take as long as you’d like to deliver them. Return to London 100 times and He won’t care. Use this to your advantage and get a good chunk of the zee mapped out so the next time you’re ferrying souls for him you’ll know where you’re going.
Nothing game ending will happen if you do screw up a delivery, the worst case is you get into a fight on the docks, lose some crew, maybe get a wound. You’ll be at London anyway so you can immediately replenish your crew.
That said, It’s a good idea to stay on his good side, he’s a steady source of income and he’ll buy sunlight for a good price without stealing your boxes. Once you end your relationship with him, he’s gone for the rest of the game.
I’ll have to say that the Blind Bruiser is probably the biggest cause of death for first time captains. My consequent captains just ignore him till later to avoid such trouble and they all got far. I think that guy needs to be more newbie friendly considering he’s in London.
Randomly losing crew to the zee by random event is a result of bad terror management. Keep it low to keep your crew numbers stable.
And believe me, the game isn’t fun if you start with a fast phase (too much money passed over and such). That slow start has it’s charm. Though it maybe frustrating to keep losing captains early.
First trip, Venderbight w/ tomb colonist and mushroom wine. Come back with ~250 echoes. But lots of fuel and supplies and just go. talk to cynthia at hunter’s keep for salt’s attention. Don’t come back 'til you’ve found your first strategic report and the salt lions. And have at least 10 (and more like 15) port reports. When you find the salt lions, use salt’s attention for an extraordinary implication (extra 250 echoes).
Also, I was lying about the scion. You can’t possibly get a scion off the second trip. But I’d set the kid in motion.
Anyway, I made a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT-RbZR8mtk It might have some useful tips, but gets you 2500 echoes in about 2 hours and 4 trips.
[quote=Rupho Schartenhauer]
Hah. I was rushing, heading north to Venderbight, took on the pirate ship on the way, went a little wrong, and then got mauled by bats and crabs before I could dock. D’oh. edited by SporksAreGoodForYou on 2/28/2015
[quote=Mica]I’ll have to say that the Blind Bruiser is probably the biggest cause of death for first time captains. My consequent captains just ignore him till later to avoid such trouble and they all got far. I think that guy needs to be more newbie friendly considering he’s in London.
Randomly losing crew to the zee by random event is a result of bad terror management. Keep it low to keep your crew numbers stable.
And believe me, the game isn’t fun if you start with a fast phase (too much money passed over and such). That slow start has it’s charm. Though it maybe frustrating to keep losing captains early.[/quote]
Mount Palmerstone is pretty predictable in its spawn, and after that you sohuld be able to find the destination for the soul smuggling pretty easily with what you’ve found (since you’ve got at least four voyages by that point)
If you can’t find the goals by that point you’re not exploring enough, honestly.
[quote=WormApotheote]Mount Palmerstone is pretty predictable in its spawn, and after that you sohuld be able to find the destination for the soul smuggling pretty easily with what you’ve found (since you’ve got at least four voyages by that point)
If you can’t find the goals by that point you’re not exploring enough, honestly.[/quote]
Let’s leave port spawn point prediction to Captains that have at least discovered the ports multiple times in their line of previous captains, not to newbie Captains that have only landed in London a handful of times still. New captains will always meet the Blind Bruiser early and will always get such orders when they’re still inadequately prepared to search for a port they don’t know anything about. [ed]Unless he gets ignored.[/ed] edited by Mica on 2/28/2015
I think you can leave the blind bruiser’s first quest hanging indefinitely, though, right? It’s only when he starts giving you money that it becomes fraught with danger.
That said worst case you should be able to pretty easily talk your way out of a search by invoking Admiralty Business at least a couple times, unless you’re barely exploring at all, in which case you have bigger problems.