I noticed some oddities occurring with Terror in my game.
- When I started out, my crew would start gaining terror immediately once we left a lit area, and turning the prow light off would make the terror-indicator turn red and increment at double-speed. Even some lit areas would gain terror if I had the prow light off. Now when I play, I can turn the lights off and gain terror slowly or not at all in the process. I’ve begun switching the light off if I’m anywhere near civilization in order to save fuel. This seems to have occurred after a long 95 terror voyage with all hands surviving. (We took a pleasant holiday amidst some beautiful Northern waters.) Once I had them down to serene again, it was like I had hardened them. If this was intended functionality, it’s awesome. I just suspected it might not be.***
- On a related note, I had a close encounter with Mt. Nomad not too long after the above. I didn’t notice its black-on-black presence in the ocean until my spotlight ID’d it right in front of me. This triggered a desperate run-the-boilers-hot flight. This was all really cool. It struck me as bizarre, however, that my hardened crew never wavered off of 8 terror (wary) during this event. Mt. Nomad really needs a terror aura. This is doubly true while it is actively chasing a ship.
- I once had my entire crew abandon me one-by-one while I was doing nothing more threatening than trips to and from Venderbight. Carousing in London was way too expensive for the scant profit margins I was achieving. In fact, it remains too expensive by any profit margins I’ve found in the game. The only way I can keep Terror under control is the (usually) one echo option in Mutton Island. Once my entire crew had jumped overboard, I limped back to London to hire new ones… and lost three more members of my crew before getting out of Home Waters. At that point I declared the game irrecoverable and started again.
- The first time I encountered a Lorn Fluke, the flavor text implied that my crew was bravely standing against an alien power, and indeed that this was a thing they were capable of doing. The Lorn Fluke proved too fast to flee and too clear-sighted to hide from. After a long battle in which I desperately tried to run away, it got Illumination high enough to one-shot me. I have ever since avoided them with the same fervor with which I avoid Mt. Nomad. Lorn Flukes need more warning around them, not least of all being that they ought to have a terror aura about them the same way Mt. Nomad should, albeit less so.
- "Black glass seas" are a common motif in Fallen London’s seafaring portions. I was terribly pleased when I discovered that not only is there a part of the map which looks like black glass, the indefatigably lethal Mt. Nomad stalks that territory as its hunting ground. I was less pleased to discover that it didn’t have any terror-inducing events from the paranoia of the crew ("black glass seas" being one of the legendary warning signs to zailors), and also that it didn’t seem to have any other threats. I suppose it might not need any. Still, this is a missed opportunity for flavorful and dangerous events.
- Everything in the vicinity of Mt. Palmerston appears to be considered to be Unlit for the purposes of terror generation. Given that the music in the vicinity is terrifying and it is a volcano both active and hell-haunted, this may be functioning as intended, but I wanted to check in.
- The Sea of Voices made me shudder in admiration.
edited by Deskairn on 6/8/2014
***UPDATE: 1) looks more like a bug now. Closing and reopening the game reset normal terror behavior. I’m disappointed.
edited by Deskairn on 6/8/2014