Emerald feedback!

Actually, I really like the engine sound. The old one sounded like an idling diesel, which of course would be entirely inappropriate for the setting. I don’t find it jarring at all- and certainly your captain would be able to hear his engines from the bridge of his ship

I’m not so sure that the chugging of the train is actually due to the steam, as much as to the rails’ junctions…

the chugging you hear is the sound of the locomotive’s exhaust. Used steam is vent via the smokestack, creating a strong draft in the firebox. Everytime steam leaves one of the engine’s pistons, the used steam erupts from the blast pipe into the stack, which creates that deep chug sound. The cylinders on a marine steam engine are larger than those on a steam locomotive, so the chug is louder.

[li]steaming from Steam … engine noise:

actually, i’ve found it quite delightful. a little reminiscent of ‘The African Queen’.
definitely keeping in character with the time & the tech.
though admittedly i don’t know what sound one expects to come from a tortured magic snake.

but it would be hilarious if starting the engines produced, say, something along the lines of ‘Hydro Thunder’ or ‘Benny and the Jets.’

but i’d make those optional.

speaking of, there’s a fix upcoming for the locked ‘windowed box’ option issue.[/li][li]
edited by Psst! on 8/4/2014

I’m playing a save from the Ruby update, so I haven’t personally seen this (and it might be more appropriate for a bug report than a forum post), but I’ve been told that with the map shuffling in the game, when the Blind Bruiser or the Dark-Spectacled Admiral send you to a location they can give you totally inaccurate directions (for instance, if your game has placed the Principles of Coral southeast of London instead of northeast like the default, it’ll still tell you it’s to the northeast).

This is the first time I have played a longer run since the early access (May/June) game, and I am really enjoying myself.
For me, the map shuffling is great, and really adds to the exploration aspect of the game. It is really exciting not to know what islands you are going to find sailing out into the dark.
Until now it has had positive and negative effects on my strategy. I have not yet been able to find Mount Palmerson even though I have explored almost half the map, and have been sailing around with the blind bruisers package for hours.
On the other hand, the Sea Lions are right next to Venderbight on my current map, so my cash problems are over for the moment.
It still feels difficult to choose the best strategy between exploring and grinding for better equipment. I am not sure how much my chances of survival would be improved by saving up for a better ship. For the moment, I have chosen to just have fun exploring (and dying a lot). That does mean using the manual save after basically every successful run. I really do not want to risk my hard earned cash…
On smaller things, the new bats and markings on the map are great, but the hints to location of places is not always correct. It will state for example that an island is to the south, when it is actually almost directly east.
The iron republic looks great, but my one short visit was really confusing. Not sure if this a bug, or if it is supposed to be like that…
As comment on the present discussion, I do like the engine sound. It is a lot like the diesel engine of my parents old ship, and gives me quite nostalgic feelings :-)

In the description of the rattus fabers that you can hire at the market in London there’s written that they will have also other uses, in the Emerald update at Nuncio.
Well, I found Nuncio but in my map is still a dark land… has Nuncio been skipped in the emerald update, at the end?

Perhaps. the update log mentioned that some other islands had slipped on the timetable, so Nuncio might be another casualty.

Nuncio is a part of Rattsey, i don’t know if there’s anything else supposed to be there later or what

I like the new sound of the engines, but I do find it a bit loud, and I don’t really care for the weird &quotswooshing&quot sound I get when I engage the engine from idle. That’s a little jarring for me. I kind of liked the softer, empty feeling the game has when the noises are a bit quieter and darker/warmer sounding (and I mean darker/warmer in the audio/tone sense, not so much aesthetics, though I guess in this case it does translate either way equally well)
edited by KhzDonut on 8/9/2014

the swoosh you hear is venting steam

I always thought it was the Serpent cursing my Captain and the Magician.

Makes sense, but I’d like to see the volume and harshness of the sound reduced slightly. I guess I’m nitpicking, but I’m a musician/amateur audio engineer, so those are just things that really stand out to me. Thanks for the explanation though!

I’ll agree, the swoosh can be a bit odd for me, even if it is realistic.

Also, a thought about exploration -

I guess it’s part of the balancing of content that will happen as more gets released, but it can kinda lose the sense of danger when exploring after you’ve found everything there is to see in the build. Not sure if this will change in the future, but to counteract this, what if (rarely) you have an event and lose a section of your map? Not devastating, since you can remember where to go and how to get back to a degree, but enough that you aren’t super secure and able to stare at your map the entire time when going back there.

The sound it’s fine, but, for me to, it’s a bit too loud.

Am I the only one who has problems to make new shops appear at the Iron Republic? Every time I perform the action that should change the available shops nothing happens and I still see always only the fuel seller.

It’s not just you (and I had the same problem in the Khanate) but after several days it seems to have come good for me.

It’s a random bug, the workaround is to go back to main menu, exit and restart the game.

Something very stupid but worthwhile to add: the date on the saved games!

Seconding the vote for a timestamp on saved games. Even if I name my saves, I tend to forget things. A timestamp would be useful.