I know this setting is steampunk and everything but that just seems like taking the archaism too far. Plus then I’d have to find it again and who could possibly do that on my desk?[/quote]
They have these newfangled eeh-lectrikuhl notepads these days, I believe they involve rubbing amber and silk together to… well I don’t really understand how they do it, but you can keep track of things a lot easier than on paper notes. Or so I’m told.
edited by Olorin on 2/13/2015
To be fair, maybe some people’s computers can’t handle alt-tabbing out of a game, or they find alt-tabbing more immersion-breaking than writing paper notes.
Well,
it’s not really alt-tabbing if you have two monitors and are playing in windowed mode…
but point taken. Could still write them on a tablet or something. With a stylus. A clay tablet, I mean.
Even worse! If you can’t even afford a computer that can handle alt-tabbing, what are the odds that you have that kind of a setup?
Clay isn’t all that expensive… >_>
Regarding the Curator’s quest, I had no idea that I was looking for items of a certain color. I was expecting to literally find a bucket of paint or a colored mote or something. Now that I know it could be any item, that makes it seem a lot more attainable.
This was actually my plan about a day or two ago. I had read in game something about combining information, so I decided to check to see if an exploit existed that would have the admiral give me another mission prior to me turning in the one I had found rather than relying on finding extra information just lying around.
Turns out the exploit does exist, and the game hates me. My next mission is the Chelonate, a location I’ve never seen and is outside of my current range (unless I start submitting to the highway robbery prices and lose what echoes I’ve managed to scrape together, except I need those for another quest entirely).
I am paying attention, but most of what is talked about is gibberish unanchored to anything familiar to me. It’s very hard to remember things when they’re gibberish, and you don’t know what’s important and what’s flavor.
I’ve moused over most of that a good ten times or more now. I’ve already done everything that had any useful information in it that was achievable for me. The only stuff left is stuff that’s vague, contains no information, or is out of my reach because of a lack of range or lack of resources or a lack of knowledge (or where to find that knowledge)
Nope. Serpent Trap isn’t mentioned in my journal. The only place I see it is a greyed out "1 x Serpent Trap" when speaking to the Mechanic for a second time. He’s never mentioned them before, I have no idea what one is, and apparently he needs to be in a box and on drugs to sleep? The hell? Why? With this guy, I honestly feel like he may have bugged out somehow, and skipped some dialog or something, because the game seems to assume I’m "farther along" with him than I am? Or that I know things I don’t?
His other quest requires the mirrorcatch box, which I saw in one of multiple dozens of shops, and looked no more or less trivial than any of the other random assorted trade goods that are scattered around seemingly pointlessly. Since the game (I believe?) at one point flat out suggested trade was a waste of time, I haven’t cared that much about where I can buy items, mostly just where I can sell them (in case I stumble across something for free).
So I don’t remember where I saw the box, so I’m stuck with him until I spend several more hours revisiting every port in the game. Since doing so won’t net me favors, I’ll essentially be spending multiple hours grinding nothing for no advancement, just to relocate an item. So I’m setting that quest aside until I stumble across the box again doing something I can actually achieve as a locatable goal.
Captivating Treasures? Remember those coloured pages from the book? You should really try to figure those out if you want more. In fact you probably already have a few of the items to match them. Maybe after you finish assembling and using the Serpent Trap you should pay a visit to the Curator again, and see if any of the various curiosities you’ve assembled have the right colours.[/quote]
I was virtually certain I had nothing for him, but several of you seem convinced I do, so I went ahead and just sailed up to talk to him.
I had nothing for him. So that was a waste of fuel.
He did have a locked quest requiring a figurehead, which I remembered being in a shop to the north, so I sailed even farther north… only to discover the shop wants to buy the figurehead, not sell it. So that was a waste of fuel.
So no, I have nothing he wants, and double checking put me into a worse position.
(But I did have the distinct pleasure of asking about the Drowned Man, which cost me 100 Echoes to find out something I already knew from experience. Woo!)
The pages themselves are too cryptic to solve. Either the answer for each is a location I haven’t found yet, or the ‘clue’ given fits so many possible locations I’ve already been (and possibly ones I haven’t) that it gives me no actual direction in which to search, short of just visiting a bunch of places and hoping for the best (at which point I might as well be sailing around at random).
Hmm. Perhaps if you tried to catch something out at zee?[/quote]
With what fishing rod? I remember nets for sale in London, but I recall those being for weapons I can’t equip because my boat doesn’t have the available slots, and I’m not even sure a net is what I want.
Uh. I don’t even know what that is. Is that the Wealth ambition?[/quote]
**** if I know. If I knew, I wouldn’t be confused about it.
The Journal (which you say should be helpful) has this to say:
"Ambition: Become London’s most venerated explorer.
How do you want it all to end?
This determines how you win: although you can just retire in London, for a draw."
So unless it means ‘retire in London for a draw’, the Journal says nothing helpful.
(Someone else has said it’s to write the damn poem (fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck), but at least I know a place I can get tales of terror for 2 echoes. Now for the other hundreds of things I need…)
Put your hands on something you shouldn’t have, did you?[/quote]
Officially, I did nothing to cause her death. Unofficially, because the game spoils how things are connected, a stupid sailor was being stupidly superstitious about a stupid moth-bird-thing, and I shot it.
My problem is that I really don’t think I can safely do it. If I had a bigger cargo area, I could buy the affordable fuel and be just great, but I don’t have the cargo area, which means buying extremely expensive fuel and wasting the Echoes I’ve managed to scrape together chasing lost places that might not pan out as being worth it. About the only place I need to visit out there is the Chelonate (for the bugged Surgeon with no initial quest-text and my next Admiralty mission), but considering some of these places end up costing dearly just to visit (like the surface), I’m just as likely to die having reached those locations as I am by not finding them at all. I was hoping that I would have something more reasonable I could reach and do in the massive area I already have explored.
[quote=Gregg Johnson]Depending on how you ended the story in Pitmore, returning there might help increase your range.[/quote] They give me supplies and a little fuel, but not nearly enough to justify going out of my way to visit them. (Unless I just decide to sail in 60 second circles to exploit the SAY timer, I suppose, but that’s a bullshit way of playing the game, and I still have my hold space to worry about.)
There’s my map. That’s what I consider ‘half’ due to all the uncovered black areas scattered throughout the parts I have explored, but as I said I’m fairly certain those areas contain nothing of interest due to the zee-bat not telling me something was there as I sailed past.
…the entire game is blue. And I’ve already been to two places so far related to coral. Nothing there was available for whatever the hell I’m supposed to be doing with these pages.
And for Cosmogne, I actually do remember running across a mention of that once, but I can’t remember if it was during my brief mistake looking at the wiki, or if it was in the Iron Republic or Khanate or something. I do vaguely recall that acquiring it was so ridiculously out of my reach that I wasn’t even going to think about it for a while, then worry about it when I stumbled across it next.
I’ve given plenty to the University guy, and I’m trying to combine Strategic Information (the only problem is my next mission for it is located in the far east where I can’t reach). The Venturer guy wants twenty-one (!!!) bolts of silk or seven books of literature, both from sources far to the east, one which I can’t reach, and one which won’t sell to me. I have one bolt of cloth, and I don’t entirely remember where I found it, but it was free and on a quest, not something I bought. And carrying 21 bolts from the far east only leaves me 19 units of hold space for fuel and food. I won’t make it. The literature is inaccessible to me until I spend vast amounts of wealth acquiring permission to access more shops that may not even be worth it.
Faaaaaaaaahhhk. This game should NOT be this intensely scarily stingy with the damn money if it’s going to limit exploration options and methods of getting money behind expensive costs.
Still, I did notice the cheap fuel at the Iron Republic the last time I was there. At the time I was broke, so I didn’t think much of it. Maybe I can make a loop? But the Iron Republic is south and west, and I want to go east… so I’m not sure I’d be saving money.
He hasn’t mentioned it, and I’ve only talked to him once (not counting purchasing stat increases). Yet it’s required to unlock one of his dialog things.
…Conclusion? Story? Both times I’ve done Sphinxstone, the description/dialog has been identical. I assumed that this meant (like every RPG I’ve ever played) that it was merely a repeatable, depth-less quest that I could do for a little cash and that’s it. If there’s progress to be had, I’dve thought there’d be change to be seen. That’s why I’ve written it off as mostly a waste of time, unless I happen to be passing by it on my way back to London AND have half of my hold empty.
It’s also why I’ve ‘realized’ (perhaps wrongly) that the three sisters are a trap to get you to waste your SAY on your way back to London. They do nothing very useful, have no progress (not in the half dozen or so times I’ve talked to them), and are too close to London for me to successfully recharge the SAY before I slide back in to port, thus causing my terror to remain high and me to miss out on London-based quest events.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. There are far more than 36 little black squares to uncover, so those can’t be tiles, but I don’t see any other demarcation lines, except the vertical ones the game keeps mentioning, but those only separate the map into what looks like six sections, which means they also can’t be tiles.
Apocyan: Something to do with staying awake? The color of the ocean? Coral reefs? I’ve been to at least two places with coral reefs, the ocean is all around, and the only person with a sleep disorder is a guy I can’t progress quests in yet, so… no, not that obvious, except maybe in hindsight.
Cosmogone: Suns? Sunlight? The surface? Something involving children? Offspring? That giant mushroom? Something decaying? Rotten? Dead? Tomb-like? No, not really obvious either, except possibly in hindsight.
And of course, it’s entirely possible they’re pointing at a place I haven’t been yet.
An ancient programming language.
I fully understand SAY. Even figured out it was timer based without someone pointing it out to me. The bonuses at Pigmote are not that good. Supplies, sure, that’s okay, but it’s not stellar and it still means I had to go out of my way to pick them up.
The terrible thing? The last five or so SAY events at random ports I’ve visited? All ended up with me trying to answer riddles, only the easiest of which is available to me. So I get a whole ten fragments. Yay. So worth it.
Christ, seriously? It can literally be any item, and I have items in my hold and still none of them apply? Not fun.
edited by Moleculor on 2/13/2015
It’s not just going to fall into your lap. Several of the items that match the Neathbow pages require actual engagement with their islands of origin, not just a zail-by.
Check your Learning About: the Tireless Mechanic quality. Unless your game is bugged, it literally tells you, flat-out, what you need to do to advance his storyline.
[quote=Fretling]It’s not just going to fall into your lap. Several of the items that match the Neathbow pages require actual engagement with their islands of origin, not just a zail-by.
Check your Learning About: the Tireless Mechanic quality. Unless your game is bugged, it literally tells you, flat-out, what you need to do to advance his storyline.[/quote]
He needs a mirrorcatch box and a clay man. I’ve mentioned it a few times, and mentioned the fact that I don’t remember which one of the multiple dozens of shops sell the box at. This means I now have no goal short of ‘aimlessly wander the zee hoping to run into it again’, at least for him specifically.
I don’t know why he has an option available for a Serpent whatsit.
My next step will most likely be spending 80% of my echoes to advance the Navigator’s quest chain. It’ll probably end in me running out of fuel or something, but I’m less and less enamored with this game every time I have to sit here and stare at a slow-as-molasses boat for hours at a time.
EDIT: Scratch that. My trip up to check if I had things for the dude obsessed with colors cost me more than I could afford. I now can’t afford to sail out and also spend the 1000 Echoes to buy the two live specimens I need to advance his quest. Which means I’m even worse off than I was before, and the one thing I had as a goal is no longer available to me. Damnit, I should have remembered the whole point of this thread was I was pretty sure my next trip out would do precisely this.
edited by Moleculor on 2/13/2015
[quote=Moleculor]
He needs a mirrorcatch box and a clay man. I’ve mentioned it a few times, and mentioned the fact that I don’t remember which one of the multiple dozens of shops sell the box at. This means I now have no goal short of ‘aimlessly wander the zee hoping to run into it again’, at least for him specifically.
I don’t know why he has an option available for a Serpent whatsit.
My next step will most likely be spending 80% of my echoes to advance the Navigator’s quest chain. It’ll probably end in me running out of fuel or something, but I’m less and less enamored with this game every time I have to sit here and stare at a slow-as-molasses boat for hours at a time.[/quote]
Have you tried checking on the wiki? For God’s sake, just look at it on google if you’re that desperate… there you are http://sunlesssea.gamepedia.com/Empty_Mirrorcatch_Box
90% of your questions can be resolved by doing a search on google or, you know, trying things in game (the sea is full of beasts: try killing some of them to gather your strange catch…).
The early part of the game is by far the most difficult. Try playing at merciful mode and gather sphynxtones, complete the merchant venturer’s quests, work for the Cheery Men, buy a decent gun and try taking down pirate ships (NOT the unfinished or the khanate ones). As soon as you get 3.000 echoes buy yourself a corvette and you can farm lifebergs to pay your bills.
edited by Everett on 2/13/2015
In general – you have to buy fuel outside of London. Even with a bigger ship, you can’t get to all the places you need to go without doing that. There are places where fuel costs less than it does in London; use that to your advantage.
You need the mirrorcatch box to build the serpent trap. If you’re seeing the request for the mirrorcatch box, clay men, etc., you’re seeing what he needs. If you can’t remember which shop sells mirrorcatch boxes, check the wiki.
Shoot sea monsters. That’s one way to get a Strange Catch. There are other ways. There’s a shop that sells them in a port you haven’t yet explored, although you got very close. It is reasonably close to one of the places where you can refuel cheaply, so that should help you get there.
It’s generally a bad idea to do things that anger the gods in the game, unless you like being cursed.
Try playing chess in the port where that’s an option. That leads to a quest that is one way to get Apocyan. Be patient; you have to repeat the chess action multiple times before you get the quest hook.
Yeah, that’s a tough combination of requests. I admit to sometimes just buying the silk in London even though that’s a loss in Echoes, because most ways of getting either silk or Romantic Literature are a pain in the ass.
Keep running Sphinxstone (it’s profitable even before you reach the end of the story), and something different will happen. Keep visiting the sisters and something different will happen there, too. Although they’re definitely not useless before that – they’re a cheap way to get the gods’ attention, which is useful in a number of places. But, yes, stop on your way out from London rather than on your way in, unless you’re deliberately trying to dump SAY (so that you won’t be raided while smuggling, for instance.)
It’s not literally any item. It’s any item that’s one of the colors listed. You’ll know from the item description. There are two or three items that will work for each color. None of them can be bought in the regularly-available shops in any port – it’s not that easy.
[quote=Moleculor]Nope. Serpent Trap isn’t mentioned in my journal. The only place I see it is a greyed out "1 x Serpent Trap" when speaking to the Mechanic for a second time. He’s never mentioned them before, I have no idea what one is, and apparently he needs to be in a box and on drugs to sleep? The hell? Why? With this guy, I honestly feel like he may have bugged out somehow, and skipped some dialog or something, because the game seems to assume I’m "farther along" with him than I am? Or that I know things I don’t?
His other quest requires the mirrorcatch box, which I saw in one of multiple dozens of shops, and looked no more or less trivial than any of the other random assorted trade goods that are scattered around seemingly pointlessly. Since the game (I believe?) at one point flat out suggested trade was a waste of time, I haven’t cared that much about where I can buy items, mostly just where I can sell them (in case I stumble across something for free).[/quote]
… He only has the one quest. That should give you some idea of what you need to do to get the Serpent-Trap. Almost certain he told you this when the quest started.
Well, I didn’t say that… in fact I said very specifically to first… well, nevermind that now.
Generally, figureheads are found on ships… That’s not a very useful hint but eh. Keep your eyes open. There’re some easier ways to get this colour, though.
If the Cosmogone and Apocyan hints are too cryptic to solve, then you probably haven’t found the locations they reference yet. Because they are obvious. Painfully so. The others, eh… yeah. Peligin might give you an idea, if you’ve found that location and were paying attention to the description. I don’t have the pages for Irrigo or Virric anymore, so I can’t say whether those give any useful pointers. The remaining colours can be obtained from multiple locations.
That’s… not really an exploit, but okay. And yeah, the Admiral gives harder assignments than the lower office.
The nets in London are for defending against torpedoes, not using them, so your lack of forward slots doesn’t impede their function. That’s not what I’m talking about though. Why bother with a rod or with nets when you have cannons?
In the end, it’s a game. If you’re not enjoying it, remember that you are not obliged to spend your time on it – we’re ephemeral beings, and our limited lives are better used for things that bring us – and the people around us – more happiness. It’s certainly disappointing to end up disliking a game – or any other media – that you had been looking forward to, that you had paid for, that you had expected to like; however, at some point, it may be wise to cut your losses. No media-object is meaningful or enjoyable to every audience.
edited by Fretling on 2/13/2015
Yeah, I think Fretling’s advice may be the best in this thread. It doesn’t sound like you’re really enjoying the style or pace of the game. If you don’t want to use the wiki to give you clues about what to do next, and you’re not having fun learning things by trial and error and are consistently stuck in a way that is making you really frustrated, this might not be the game for you.
edited by penknife on 2/13/2015
The problem with the “if you are not enjoying it you are not obliged to spend time on it” is that Moleculor’s frustration is by far not unique. Eventually, a lot of people will in fact take that advice and not play the game, and others will not buy the game.
The Neath is one of the best settings there is out there and I dearly hope to see more of it, including the speculative dirigible expansion. But that depends on the SS’s financial success, which depends on its ability to pick up new players. And, for all of its many many wonderful qualities, SS is actively newbie hostile - beyond what is required to maintain the game tone and possibly enough to damage its own standing as a commercial venture for FB.
I hope I am wrong. But my intuition, based on a) the amount of frustration from newbie players, b) complete lack of explicit comment from FB as to their views on the matter and c) lack of empathy from many enfranchised players, is more pessimistic.
There are plenty of players who do enjoy the game, though. I’m not sure how much more handholding the game can or should do. If you like working out mysteries and exploring without a lot of very explicit direction, you’ll like this game. If you don’t, you probably won’t. Personally, I think the Curator’s quest is a pretty good litmus test for whether you’ll enjoy the rest of the game – if you don’t enjoy figuring out where to find the color items on your own, AND you’re not willing to use the wiki for help, I think you’re unlikely to enjoy the many other similar storylines in the game.
That said, what do you think would be helpful in providing new players with more information about what to do (without making the game too easy to be challenging)? And do you think there’s a way to make information that’s already explicitly in the game (like what the Tireless Mechanic needs to build the serpent-trap) clearer?
I’m very puzzled by what I assume is your continued use of “enfranchised”. (It doesn’t seem likely that more than one person in a small forum is using it, anyway.) I know about enfranchisement and disenfranchisement from the point of view of suffrage and political rights, and I wondered if perhaps there was another definition of the word that I simply had not learned. So I checked the dictionary:
to enfranchise:
I. To admit to personal freedom.
II. To admit to municipal or political privileges.
I’m afraid I’m still a bit asea here (azee?). Could you explain exactly what you mean by “enfranchised players”?
Mt. Palmerston has cheap fuel, and a quest there that I don’t believe requires anything special to start. With your map, I would go to Hunter’s Keep, optionaly swing through Venderbight, then Demeaux, then Godfall, then Palmerston. Picking up a port report in each area and use your SAY there if possible. If you see any options you cannot click, write down what items you need. Not everything requires expensive items, sometimes it’s just a barrel of mushroom wine.
Once done in Palmerston, buy more fuel and start exploring the east border of the map. Though it can be expensive to get out there, the rewards for quests out there also tend to be higher, as well as the value of port reports. Also, the more new ports you visit, the more favor you get back in London, which can be exchanged for fuel in a pinch.
At some point, you just have to get past paying double price for fuel though. I had a tough time with this, you can see my posts in some of the fuel efficiency threads talking about putting around with the smallest engine on speed 1 with my lights out because I didn’t want to buy expensive fuel. In the end, fuel is as valuable as your need for it, and when you’re out there in the reaches it’s pretty valuable.
edited by Dewar on 2/13/2015
edited by Dewar on 2/13/2015
Since it’s a single-player game there’s no problem with either modding it or cheating. I reduced fuel and supply usage to 1/5th of normal and increased base ship speed. I’ve also considered using a mod that makes trading profitable and modding ships so that the more expensive ships are worth getting. Giving the yacht all item slots and a higher cargo space would actually make it worth getting.
Established players, I think genesis means. And, speaking personally, it’s really not a lack of empathy, it’s … I figured out how to play the game while it was in beta by playing it, dying SO MANY TIMES, learning how something worked and then having it change completely in the next update, dying SO MANY MORE TIMES, checking the forum, checking the wiki, beating my head against the game some more, and eventually reaching a point where I triumphantly had enough money to survive and pretty much knew how to navigate through the game’s major storylines without having to die MORE TIMES.
It wouldn’t have been as fun if it weren’t hard. It’s been harder than it is now. If playing a game that’s very hard at first, where you will die, and die, and be confused, and die, isn’t fun, then you probably shouldn’t do it. Or should use the wiki to make it easier. But I think that’s fundamentally what this game is; I’m not sure you could change that without making it an essentially different game.