Some criticisms

Sunless Sea
1

Hi devs, really enjoying the game…up to a point. I’m really upset about a few things, though.[li]

  1. Engines effect on speed regardless of weight: so I was saving up after some serious grinding to increase engine speed to 1500, AND I have Maybe’s Daughter so that’s 1600 total…and the ship is really not that much faster. So then I decided I wanted to go really fast and risk it all, and downgraded to the Stymphalos, thinking that since it weighs half as much I’ll be able to travel twice as a fast or at least have a huge increase in fuel efficiency. Neither of those things happened, and frankly, I think that is incredibly stupid and frustrating.

  2. Only one equip slot goes into Auxiliary: really? Torpedo nets, that’s it? Suggestion: change the Secure Compartment and Smuggling Compartment to Auxiliary. FFS, apparently you can’t smuggle unless you’re in a cargo ship or larger, which is completely counterintuitive.

  3. Cannot capture other ships: enough said. Give us a weapon (maybe one we could put on AUXILIARY), like a machine gun, that targets crew. Right now it’s impossible to do. Also allow us to strip the enemy ship of some weapons/engines/etc., FTL-style.

  4. Allow player to buy slots to store extra ships: It’s nuts that I can buy a mansion but be unable to hold onto a ship. There should be a trade-in option and a buy-and-hold option. That way I can switch ships based on the particular mission.

  5. Allow us to store items in a warehouse in London: warehouse could cost 3000 or, better yet, charge you a 10% commission on anything you store in it. This would allow a players to store up certain items, say, cheap fuel or extra provisions.

  6. Make certain enemies faster: right now, it’s pretty simple to sail around and have no one catch you. I think that the further out you go, the more dangerous enemies should get: and that means they should be able to catch you unless you are running incredibly fast based on the #1 change (which should also mean you are incredibly flimsy).

  7. Increase profitability of trade: right now, trade is ALMOST pointless. It is a huge grind and I honestly feel like I am playing a Free-to-play because the grind is so bad. There needs to be an increase in the volatility of prices: make Fuel worth 4-12 in the Iron Republic and Mt. Palmerston, and 9-18 in London, 18-30 in Gaider’s Mourn, etc. That way there is some fluctuation but GENERALLY SPEAKING there will more profit to be made than just 1-3 Echoes per item.

This could be a really cool game, but right now it is very grindy, very unbalanced, and not very dangerous. I can’t tell you how disappointing it is for a new player to save up for HOURS in order to upgrade to a cutter, only to find out that it’s NOT faster, NOT more fuel efficient, and will NOT help me make money any faster or any better.

Right now I am telling people not to buy the game; it’s not worth $18. If many of these changes are made the game would become way, way more fun.

Thanks for your time!

2

1: Am I going mad… well, we know I am, but anyway… or was the engine speed/weight thing implemented properly ages ago? I don’t have my old saves immediately to hand, but, did this get reverted, or is the difference just really subtle?

2: There’s also the Pneumatic Ratsender, and the Zong of the Zee.

3: Certainly an issue. My own preferred solution would be nerfing the hull damage done by harpoon-guns, but I’m sure there’s deeper mathematics at work over at FBG.

4 & 5: These have been discussed and debated many a time. I have no strong opinion on either.

6: Stealth and speed is a valid method of gameplay - but, of course, that way, you don’t get much plunder.

7: Trade is deliberately unprofitable to discourage grind and encourage making money through exploration, questing and monster-hunting instead.

3

As far as I can tell, weight/speed remains unimplemented.

Why would trade be deliberately unprofitable? Seems ridiculous since exploration, questing, and monster-hunting is not very profitable. And if it’s not meant to be used, then just take it out, and rebalance the rest of the money-making schemes so that it’s not such a grind.

Perfect example: bring scientist to Empire of Hands – thought that was going to net me a big one…and I got TWO HUNDRED ECHOES. AKA, I LOST money on the trip. That pissed me off so bad…

4

Afternoon Monty, strong first post and while I agree with some of your sentiments, the way in which you’ve delivered them is perhaps not the way to get people on board with your ideas.

In Order
1: Engines do make a difference, not much of one, but if you want to see it in action, try fitting a bigger engine to a smaller ship and watch what happens. If you’re running the same engine on a ship, doesn’t matter what size that ship is, the engine will only take it to a certain speed. Basic laws of motion, if an engine can travel to 100mph, then that’s what it’ll travel to, it’ll take longer to get there hauling two tons and less time hauling half a ton, but it’ll only ever go 100mph…
2: It’s possible to smuggle on smaller ships, but to fit a specialised compartment to hide goods requires enough space on that ship that the compartment doesn’t stick out like a luminous sign indicating “CONTRABAND HERE”
3: The taking of prizes has been well noted, so agreed, but stripping of gear off a ship would require specialised gear and an engineer up to the job, as well as storing it and then refitting it when you got back to port (rather than right there right now), so an option for later, but not the basic game.
4: Agreed and already well noted
5: Agreed and already well noted
6: Faster enemies would make lots more dead things, presently the only chance you’ve got with a lot of the bigger things is that you can outrun them or outfox them, something that could (with deference to Star Trek 2) outrun you and outgun you will only ever lose if it chooses to let you go, and that’s never satisfying.
7: Against luxury items, which are the mainstay of most trade that doesn’t involve hundred thousand ton tankers (such as food and fuel), there are places where reasonable trade can be done, and I’m sure this will be implemented as more people go the trade route, but then a trade ship out on the northern edge encountering one of your faster meaner creatures will be dead in no time and then more complaint ensue.

I have to say that the comments made here seem to indicate that you’re not getting all the goodies immediately, and are annoyed as a result, which is understandable, but as your name suggests, this isn’t a monty haul game, it’s exploration and investigation, with the intention to play it close to the line, not give beginning captains unlimited fuel and easy runs to the far side of the world.

The games gone through a lot of development (I’ve been there for all of it), and it started off as dangerous as you want it to be…

Everyone Died…

No fun, so they changed that, and then found that you could easily get all the money, which had everyone running around in Dreadnoughts…

Everyone got bored at potshotting Lorn Flukes and Mount Nomad…

No fun, so they changed it and made things harder to get all the funds you wanted, little more work required, but it made you work for the things you got, rather than granting easy wins…

If you don’t like working for it, you’ll hate this, sorry…

Your thoughts?

5

  1. Did you read my post? I DID downgrade to smaller ship. No difference in speed, my friend. And I don’t know what your “laws of motion” are, but bigger engine = more speed, smaller mass = more acceleration. Only the first is true right now, and BARELY. How do you go from a 800 to 1600 engine and gain only 10-20% more speed?

  2. …um, I think the opposite: I think it’s much easier to hide 1-5 pieces of cargo than 20 pieces.

  3. How would that not be an option for the original $18 game?!?! lol

  4. Faster but medium-strength enemies that could catch and destroy small ships but not strong ones. Not faster AND more powerful.

My comments are frustrated because the upgrades that I saved for were pointless. I’m fine working for it – but I want to be able to smuggle in a small ship (which is basically what all smuggling has been for thousands of years) and increase my speed and power. Right now, that’s not possible.

6

[quote=deathbymonty]1. Did you read my post? I DID downgrade to smaller ship. No difference in speed, my friend. And I don’t know what your &quotlaws of motion&quot are, but bigger engine = more speed, smaller mass = more acceleration. Only the first is true right now, and BARELY. How do you go from a 800 to 1600 engine and gain only 10-20% more speed?

  1. …um, I think the opposite: I think it’s much easier to hide 1-5 pieces of cargo than 20 pieces.

  2. How would that not be an option for the original $18 game?!?! lol

  3. Faster but medium-strength enemies that could catch and destroy small ships but not strong ones. Not faster AND more powerful.

My comments are frustrated because the upgrades that I saved for were pointless. I’m fine working for it – but I want to be able to smuggle in a small ship (which is basically what all smuggling has been for thousands of years) and increase my speed and power. Right now, that’s not possible.[/quote]

Holy shit. They still haven’t fixed engines? I just got back to Sunless Sea after buying it awhile ago when it was early access and noted the exact same problems with engines.

Going up to that huge frigate at one point, the fuel costs were so extreme the basic ship was a far better option. Most engines barely give any substantial increase in speed and the ones that do make a bad situation worse when it comes to fuel consumption.

7

Fuel consumption, ship speed, and ship weight have all been rebalanced. There are noticeable differences between different engine powers and ship weights, but not big differences. If you pop into the ship upgrades thread, you’ll see that a whole heckuvalot of people are all stanning for the frigate; there’s a reason for that, and it’s not some kind of fuel-hating masochism :P
edited by Fretling on 2/8/2015

8

There are probably way more reasons, but off the side of my head I can think of two:

  1. more powerful engine probably weights more (that might not be very significant compared to how much the ship already weights, but it will contribute)
  2. you are not moving in a vacuum; even air has some resistance to movement, and water has much more significant resistance (just try getting in a pool and making a step). And this resistance scales with square of speed, so the most you can get from doubling engine power is 41%, if nothing else changes.

(what more powerful engine should do, by the laws of physics, is let you reach a given speed in shorter time)

9

Did you read mine? That’s what I said, the engine will go to a certain speed and no faster, it’ll just get there faster when you’re in a smaller ship.

If engine size doubling also doubled maximum speed, all cars would be far faster than they are now, just doesn’t work like that, the more speed you need the greater the power you need to put in, it’s why there’s a bell curve on any cars power cycle, rather than a straight line (and why a Veyron needs 1000hp to get to 250 and a Honda Accord only needs 190 to get to 140…).

Agreed, not what I said, you were talking about it being impossible to smuggle in a smaller ship, it’s not, but putting on a special compartment to help hide things is no good if you have to mount it somewhere that’s easily found, and that’s why the compartment is only available on larger ships (those with an aft compartment), and as for smuggling smaller amounts on larger ships, far more sensible.

Still more things to come, development not yet finished, I’ll be happy when privateering is back on the menu, but there hasn’t been a good way to do it that balances not being able to just wander around with anti personnel weapons to wipe all the crew out. The best way around it would be to have switchable weaponry, but there’s no easy way to do that. In most privateering actions in similar timescales, it was get close and then throw men over the side to overwhelm the other side, but in the basic steamer, even the most basic of enemies has more crew than you, so you’d need something bigger to go pirating, then there’s the question of getting the ship back to claim the prize.

Faster in this game is more powerful, if they can catch and destroy small ships, they can catch anything, making them lethal for small ships and no threat for larger ones (like a bigger megalops), the charge function most of these creatures have (particularly the Albino Morays) is a very dangerous threat for most ships, making them even faster would guarantee a lot of dead small ships…

Corvette works very well for the purpose of smuggling I find, Cutter I’ve never found useful, cheaper, but lacks the facilities to put up a scrap when you need to, there’s a thread on here for all the different ships and their particular pro’s and cons, sorry you’re finding it frustrating, bear with it, it gets easier.

10

Hello folks - I’m appearing to note that tones appear ‘warm’. Please try to ensure they progress no further - I’d hate to see ‘heated’, as I might actually have to do some work.

:-)

11

I think I’m beginning to see your problem. You should be covering your costs from port reports, trade opportunities that you can efficiently incorporate into your route, port stories you find along the way, and rewards from the occasional encounter with ships or monsters. If you are doing all of that then your 200 echo reward should be pure profit. (Unless you are arguing that the adventuress should have paid you enough to cover the full cost of the trip herself since she hired you, in which case you might have a point - but even if she did, you should still be doing all those other things to increase your margins).

On the trade question, if the best you’ve been able to find is 1-3 echoes margin per unit then you need to explore a bit more. 10-20 echoes per unit is quite possible for longer routes, and some specialized items like sphinxstone and clay men. Playing as a smuggler is possible but requires quite a bit of game knowledge, as you need high-margin, cargo-efficient items to make it work. They are out there, but they take a bit of finding. I would suggest prioritizing exploration and knowledge gathering for your first few games - as you go on, possibilities for other play styles will become more obvious.

12

I’m surprised no one has mentioned that the point of bringing the Adventuress to the Empire of Hands wasn’t to get paid. The point of bringing her there was to open up a huge set of new stories, some of which are financially profitable and others whose rewards are less tangible.
edited by Fretling on 2/8/2015

13

I agree on some points, disagree on others. Main point I absolutely agree with is trade. I don’t want it to be a grind perse, but I’d like being able to brave the danger to bring supplies to the far-off colony. Of course I’d have to have a trading ship that was still combat ready (a true merchant ship would mess you up), but that could be part of the fun. I do use reports to keep afloat, don’t get me wrong, but it’d be nice to have that option still.

I agree with points 4 and 5, but they’ve been discussed.

Point 6 I disagree with, as it’s the point that some foes are slow and lumbering. They can still hit you if you’re not careful though.

Point 3 I also agree with, I’d love to be able to capture people’s ships and sell them.

As for the others, I either haven’t encountered the issue or don’t care enough to comment.

14

[quote=Fretling]I’m surprised no one has mentioned that the point of bringing the Adventuress to the Empire of Hands wasn’t to get paid. The point of bringing her there was to open up a huge set of new stories, some of which are financially profitable and others whose rewards are less tangible.
edited by Fretling on 2/8/2015[/quote]

I’m great with opening up new story lines – but I also want decent rewards. Getting out to the Empire of Hands was difficult – getting there twice should have been appropriately rewarded, in my opinion. For goodness sake, the whole point to the storyline was that no one ever goes there, so you are being hired for the totality of the risk. And 200 echoes just doesn’t seem to represent that storyline level of difficulty.

Yes, I made money through port reports and incorporating it into a route – but the point is it did not seem a legitimate and appropriate award. And I think it contributes to the &quotwall&quot others have spoken about during the early game.

[li]

15

I guess that’s where we differ. For me, new storylines are the reward.

16

If he thinks that bringing the adventuress to the empire of hands constitutes a storyline, he hasn’t been playing this game long enough. Sir, that is the miniquest that unlocks the actual storyline on that particular island. You have barely started the storyline, depending on your choices there.

17

Disagree on 1 because I’m already going significantly faster than the base ship with the C&H Manticore engine and the starting ship, more would be kind of absurd, and on the trade one, because there are already extremely profitable trade options (smuggling) and making them easier to get would just make the game grindier.

Agree on 2 (…i’m not actually sure what the point of the auxilliary slot is if everything seems to go in Aft), 3 is an obvious balance problem with flensing attacks, and 6, although I think better ship AI would help more, considering you can basically sail behind them and spin in circles and they can’t even touch you because they don’t think to say, TURN THE OTHER WAY, but more speed would potentially help with that too.

Although too much speed could negate the value of veils entirely, so.

18

Agreed…

19

I don’t mind about the inefficient trade. Perhaps you need a couple of runs to understand how it works, but you can prosper just with quests and encounters in port and using sometimes trade to get some spare extra money. This is even truer now that the Admiralty gives fuel in exchange for port reports.

I don’t see huge problema sabout issue 1. It must be underlined that steam machines are usually quite inefficient, so the progress between power of the engine and weight of the vehicle is absolutely not linear, so it’s quite realistic that you don’t see a huge difference.

I would like to see the 5. It’s also could be nice to see the 3, provided it’s not straightforwardly simple and doesn’t have 100% success. I have no strong opinion about 4. I don’t mind about the current speed of enemies.

20

How steam engines actually work is irrelevant to what the game’s tooltips tell us; it’s completely reasonable to think that speed is a linear function of engine power, or maybe (engine power)/(ship weight) - since that’s NOT the case, Failbetter really should include something (preferably ingame help/manual/tooltips) giving a more realistic picture of how engine power and ship weight (and other factors?) affect acceleration, top speed, and fuel consumption (and other factors? ). Not the explicit formula, sure, but it should be much clearer than it currently is, which is basically pure guesswork.

If i switch from 1000 to 2000 engine power, what will the actual difference in speed/acceleration/fuel consumption be? As is i have NO IDEA other than the (wrong) guess that all would double. Similar for going from a 3000-weight ship to a 5000-weight ship, aside from assuming i’d go/accelerate much slower. Unless I’ve missed something ingame that sheds a LOT more light on this, that is on Failbetter. Money is much too tight for us to just experiment with those sorts of upgrades.