I can only ever take one Tomb Colonist to Venderbight now, then go halfway across the zee to retrieve his girlfrend, which should clear the "The Trouble with Tomb-Colonists" Quality and allow me to pick up another, but it never does. I’ve tried both reassuring her and telling her the truth, but the option to ferry colonists remains locked.
The ferry journey is a once-off now, which A: changes depending on your captain’s background, and B: leads into the larger-scale but also more lucrative Last Tour story.
I’d rather see the initial run to Venderbight removed in it’s entirety, replaced by the Last Tour Story from venderbight, possibly have a note in the “All at Sea” section that gives suggestions for how to make money, as all the run seems to do for most beginning players is cause consternation. For those of us that remember when Tomb Colonist runs were a (grindy) source of income that let you get a little further than home waters, they were useful and they gave you a chance to build things up till you were able to go a little further than home waters.
That said, I do like the idea of ferrying the Mangrove passengers and wonder if that option could be extended into the other ports, after all, the movement of passengers with money was a time honoured tradition and could be used to unlock other storylines, such as having a Khaganate “Diplomat” needing to flee London in a hurry, or others looking to go to locations like the Iron Republic or the Grand Geode, such things could easily be tied into the various supremacy storylines, as well as providing reasons for making longer trips out into the black and allowing the game to evolve into an ongoing web of intrigue…
I disagree, actually. Given a choice of leading players in the right direction with design choices like starter quests, or requiring them to read one of dozens of notes in a help file, I’ll go with the starter quest every time. It might be a mite confusing for players who are returning after experiencing an earlier build, but that’s a finite and ever-dwindling group. Plus, it’s simply a fun little quest, with nice customisation for our captains’ varying origins.
A starter quest that invariably ends in failure and trouble with a faction should not inspire others of that faction to seek to use that captain for other endeavours, that’s the part of the last tour I never got. You’d surely use a captain that had no previous troubles with Tomb Colonists. I can see that you’d look at it from the point of view that if you’d had previous troubles, then you might expect some of the things that happen on the last tour, but for the most part, it’s one of the quests I avoid unless it’s late in the game and I’m needing a reasonable pay day for a lot of work.
As for the customisation, it all results in the player getting problems with tomb colonists, and it’s that that causes the problem for me, something that resolves with a fail no matter what you do (for me anyway) is a frustration.
With regards to putting things into the game in a place where things are learned as part of the narrative experience, have it in the Navigators lessons at the beginning of a new game rather than just receiving secrets, or on one of the sidebars, but perhaps a section for the harbourmaster at the docks rather than listing it as a help section, after all, if you’re out on the waves and you’re stuck, the question should be what are you doing out on the waves, the control system is a simple one, docking isn’t a matter of matching Coriolis rotation like it is in Elite, you’ve got to line it up with the circle and press E, and if you’ve managed to go out of the docks without figuring out how to pilot your ship, then really… you should be dead just for being dumb enough to set your ship going forwards without any plan other than “The sea will take care of me…” and to be fair, the sea will take care of them…
Just not perhaps how they saw it :)
edited by Rocket Heeled Jack on 12/28/2014
One problem I’ve been having g with the Tomb Colonies myself is that every time I “explore” I get the same result of having a picnic.
Anyone else having that problem?
How do you mean? Plenty of the possible endings to the ferry trip are entirely successful. All of them are at least profitable.
[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]
How do you mean? Plenty of the possible endings to the ferry trip are entirely successful. All of them are at least profitable.[/quote]
Profitable is not the same as successful, successful would indicate that you could do it again and make money from it as an ongoing endeavour. Maybe I haven’t seen all of the endings, are there any that do not result in you getting "Trouble with Tomb colonists" as a result of whatever you do? I’ve not seen any, but I’m willing to take on board that results I’ve not seen may not result in that, and from a purely business point of view, anything where the client blacklists you for the purpose of doing the same job again cannot be seen as successful.
The problem I’m having could be the phrasing, "Trouble with Tomb Colonists", and the leaving of the option open but blacklisted within the main London options, which suggests that you’ve done something wrong, even when the narrative would suggest that you haven’t. If it’s a one off to introduce you to the Tomb colonies, change it to "Dealings with Tomb colonists," and have that be the trigger to opening up the Last Tour options, it’s the notion that troubles get you further works that cause me problems.
Aha, I see what you mean. I don’t think the intended meaning is “You are in trouble with the Tomb-Colonists; they are cross with you.” Rather, I think it’s “You are having trouble with those wacky Tomb-Colonists and their hijinks.”
Certainly, some of the ends to the ferrying quest are entirely successful (the Poet’s ending, for instance, where you bring them some wine and nobody dies.) Certainly, the option to pick up Tomb-Colonists in London should disappear once we’re past that point - as far as I know, there’s no way to ever get back to that stage, so it’s just narrative detritus.
I totally took the ‘Trouble with Tomb colonists’ the ‘Trouble with tribbles’ way. Think it would be ‘In’ trouble rather than ‘the’, were it meant to imply you’d annoyed them.
edited by babelfishwars on 12/28/2014
And therein lies the problem, As FTC points out, it becomes narrative detritus at the point at which you’ve completed it, so whether it’s “The trouble with” or “Troubles with”, it’s still a dead stick.
Given the coding that’s gone into it in the first instance, I think a simple change to turning it into moving passengers, not just tomb colonists, would be advantageous.
Does the shop that “buys” Tomb Colonists have any use after that initial quest? If not, could it not be removed for clarity/unclutter’s sake?
You’ll occasionally pick up Tomb-Colonists in other places - that gives you a place to drop them off.
As you can get Tomb Colonists as random loot and can’t throw them overboard I wouldn’t want the shop to disappear.
Gotcha. I’ve yet to get any, and I’m up to 30+ hours… then again, I just got Judgments’ Eggs four times in a row at Mutton Island, so, y’know, RNGs.
edited by Fretling on 12/31/2014
edited by Fretling on 12/31/2014
[quote=Fretling]Gotcha. I’ve yet to get any, and I’m up to 30+ hours… then again, I just got Judgments’ Eggs four times in a row at Mutton Island, so, y’know, RNGs.
edited by Fretling on 12/31/2014
edited by Fretling on 12/31/2014[/quote]
The last few times I’ve gotten the storylet in Mutton Island, the option to get the egg has been missing? Is it only available a certain number of times? That’s going to make it more difficult if not impossible to save the campaigner…
[li]
No, it’s just random whether you get it as a Beachcombing option or not, hence my surprise at not only getting Beachcombing four times in a row, but also getting the option for Judgments’ Egg four times in a row. Maybe I stole all your chances – sorry!
A question of fuzzy-minded curiosity, not of skepticism: Does she really need one? I remember the wiki said so, but the one time I followed her storyline, either I already had Judgments’ Egg sitting around in my hold, or starting the storyline via "random" event didn’t require it.
The interesting thing about the campaigners storyline is that if you talk to her early on and give her Mutersalt, she doesn’t seem to fall ill at all, she never develops into the indomitable campaigner, but neither does she die… so there’s win there :)
The Campaigner has always fallen ill when Time reaches 100 or more whether I have talked to her already or not. I don’t think I have played a game where I haven’t managed to upgrade her to Indomitable.
I’ve got a problem… I killed the tomb-colonist the first time I got to venderbight, is there a way to trigger the storyline or am i stuck?