Ground my way up to the 19,500 gold engine from the basic starter only to find it moves at the same glacial pace across the map. I can find no engine upgrades and it seems the only way to increase the engine speed is to cheat with CheatEngine as suggested here: Upgrade movement speed? :: Sunless Skies General Discussions
I’d like to finish this game (the artwork is superb and the story and writing pretty enjoyable so far), but spending 10’s of minutes traversing from one side of a map to another let alone then having to rinse and repeat in a separate realm to reach my destination, is just too much real time. Please consider boosting the engine’s top speeds - perhaps there could be some sort of long acceleration curve and reduced manoeuvrability to ensure it takes a while to get "up to steam" if there’s a concern about unbalancing the game.
Either way, the shiny gold engine should have a top speed of at least 3x, please consider making it so. edited by moochoo on 2/17/2019
I agree that it can take way too long to travel from place to place after initial exploration. I got to a point where I was ready to retire, but wrapping up the last few loose ends took actual days. I’d like something similar to ‘take 12’ from D&D. Instant travel to a port with the appropriate fuel/supplies deducted and some random hull damage and terror. There’s still plenty of reasons to take the long way, but sometimes you just want to finish a quest before bedtime.
‘‘perhaps there could be some sort of long acceleration curve and reduced manoeuvrability to ensure it takes a while to get “up to steam” if there’s a concern about unbalancing the game.’’ I would agree very much, being able to gain momentum and travel large spaces faster by not turning too much seems like a good idea that does make sense in universe, maybe make it use a little more fuel to go faster like this if it affects game balance.
I tried that, but instead of accelerating my engine, the whole game got sped up (except for the audio)!
I think that’s a very good solution, as it solves the problem without giving the player any kind of advantage. Failbetter should think about incorporating this in the game.
Travel times are definitely an issue. Not really when you’re exploring, but players are bound to be retreading known space for many hours. Dare I say most of each playthrough.
Here’s a suggestion, inspired by a quasi-steampunk bit of media, Back to the Future III.
How about a couple types of special consumable fuel items, which upon use would drastically increase speed for a limited time at the expense of maneuverability? They could also generate heat while in use, thereby adding another quirk.
They’d be best used traversing open/straight (ideally explored) stretches of void, and the locomotive would need to cool off between uses, since maxing out the heat gauge would start draining hull while the effect runs.
Maddened explorers already have something like this, so besides practical and involved, this mechanic would be lore-friendly.
It could be balanced in several ways: through the price of these items, their availability and/or their heat generation. Heat could be rapidly maxed out, expecting you to only (safely) use them when your gauge is completely empty. Furthermore, perhaps the use of these items would require a special auxiliary fitting, depriving you of a slot and therefore another advantage.