Colony Ship RPG - Early Access - First Impressions

Pladio

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Don't look at attachment if you don't want to know who the companions are

I may be the only one playing this but I'm enjoying it thoroughly.
I think I finished my first run through as a combat focused character - just not sure how to actually end the chapter.

Overall, the game is shaping up very nicely. I did not run into any bugs - only some improvement elements - , which I found to be very surprising. Game is very stable, without any crashes for me either. I find the combat to be a lot of fun and it seems to have taken Dungeon Rats combat and improved on it a lot, with the addition of many new tools, including lots of armour types and gadgets. Compared to Age of Decadence, the most striking difference is the setting. In AoD everyone was out to get you, here it's about different factions vying for their own interests with you and your team mostly helping each of the factions or not…

The Early Access contains only the first chapter of the game. It took me around 8 hours to complete after playing with a test character for 2 hours. I assume that if you were not interested in any dialogue you could cut this down to 6 hours which fits what the devs said the first chapter is about.

I found their skill system implementation a bit confusing at first, but now that I get it, I find it quite innovative and interesting. It's based on skill usage rather than putting points into a skill. When you level up, you simply get more feats which are mostly combat oriented - with some stealth ones thrown in there.

About stealth, this is done very well too for a game that is not focused on stealth. It has a noise-based system including takedowns. But from what I've seen, this is only for a few set pieces. I assume this could be very useful in the long term; in chapter 1 I saw it used 3/4 times, which is quite good for such a short duration of a game.

Obviously I didn't really do well with my mace-wielding crazy guy.

I'll be trying a couple of talking characters next before jumping into a hybrid character.


If you are wondering about difficulty, I found this game much, much more forgiving than AoD. I think the difficult fights can mostly be avoided and if not, then you simply need to use your tools such as grenades (smoke grenades are amazing), gadgets and positioning to win.

The game has plenty of those, so there's no need to hoard them forever. The only finite resource I found were power cells for energy weapons. I used them all up in one of the harder fights.

Anyway my final char sheet is attached if you're interested.
 

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Good to read your first impressions, Pladio! Please, keep us informed :)
 
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Thanks for sharing your impressions @Pladio;! I'm curious to see how much can be done by talking / stealthing.

I started a character like that but for now it's still a game for qwerty keyboards only, so I prefer to wait until they make the EA more international. Maybe that'll become a good argument to sell more consoles to those silly little countries with exotic keyboards :D

They're releasing updates at a furious pace! And they're very active in forums despite being such a small team. If I understood correctly, that was a part-time job when they were developing AoD (Vince even hiding that from his official job's coworkers), but now it's a full-time job. So those who had concerns it could take many years to complete should be reassured somewhat. They showed their planning anyway, it will be easy to see how it goes.
 
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Skipped through most and avoided looking at the screenshot to avoid spoilers, but thanks for checking it out and reporting how you feel about it. This is one game I'm looking forward to very much.
 
Thanks for sharing your impressions @Pladio;! I'm curious to see how much can be done by talking / stealthing.

I started a character like that but for now it's still a game for qwerty keyboards only, so I prefer to wait until they make the EA more international. Maybe that'll become a good argument to sell more consoles to those silly little countries with exotic keyboards :D

They're releasing updates at a furious pace! And they're very active in forums despite being such a small team. If I understood correctly, that was a part-time job when they were developing AoD (Vince even hiding that from his official job's coworkers), but now it's a full-time job. So those who had concerns it could take many years to complete should be reassured somewhat. They showed their planning anyway, it will be easy to see how it goes.

Talking is certainly an option. Maybe a Stealth Talker might be a good idea actually. I'll give that a go. I'm just not sure if I'd be able to do everything I want, but I could probably use one of the companions for the other types of checks (e.g. electronics/computer) ...

Yeah, they're working full time now and the goal is to close out in 18 months I believe. As it's still a game and there will be delays, I would expect it to take 2 years.
 
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Well, @Redglyph;, a talky/sneaker is certainly possible. The talky part is very easy to do. The sneaky part is a bit harder. I actually think it may be easier with lower charisma and fewer party members than with a full party as I would have been a level higher probably and would have been able to sneak around much better.

Essentially a talkytalky would breeze through this game I think. However, adding sneak to it makes it much harder but also much more rewarding (to me). I made a few mistakes as I didn't know what was important for sneaking but I understand it much better now.

In essence, just for sneaking, you'd want Dexterity as your main attribute to walk far, Sneak and Critical Strike as your main skills to get close and assassinate enemies.

Now, I do not think playing solely like this is currently viable, so you then would have to decide if you would want to play with a large party and be able to handle some fights, or be more of a diplomatic person and avoid fights. I doubt doing both would be viable for people who don't know the systems in/out.

Finally, sneaking takes a bit of time to understand as there are a lot of parameters, so if you want to give it a go and can't figure it out, just let me know.
 

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Thanks @Pladio; :) I need to take some quality time to get into the game but I'll definitely experiment, maybe with a smaller party if that's viable. It probably requires some know-how on the game.
 
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Thanks @Pladio; :) I need to take some quality time to get into the game but I'll definitely experiment, maybe with a smaller party if that's viable. It probably requires some know-how on the game.

I recommend just trying out the game for a couple of hours to get a feel for it, then restarting. That's what I did. Essentially, I've created 3 characters and completed Chapter 1 twice.

Also, feel free to PM me or post questions here.
 
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So.... I have just completed my first solo run.
I didn't want to give myself a headache trying to go for a hybrid build since it was myr first time, so I went almost full combat-build based on Dexterity.

Combat is certainly much easier than AoD in most cases, even solo. There are so many items available to change fights, including different types of grenades (e.g. flashbang, smoke, gas, stasis) and different gadgets (e.g. distortion, shield) that the combat has many different ways of being played. There is no 1 way to play combat and I am certain my way is suboptimal.

Going full combat was a lot of fun and since the combat on its own wasn't tremendously difficult, I did try reloading some combats to make them go even better - although certainly not necessary. My goal was to maximise evasion. However, by doing so, I became invincible by the final two fights. I had reached 9 Evasion in Chapter 1.

I believe ITS had said reaching above 8 should be difficult and it probably is if not for my reloading of fights. I was almost untouchable.

Anyway, I still managed to do ALL quests in chapter 1 even with a full combat build because I managed to raise my non-combat skills when I needed to. I made full use of everything I knew was available, and I did not care who I fought for or against.

In a full game playthrough such things are not very good, but since helping someone now for a promise in chapter 2 does not matter :D

Lots of fun anyway.

I'll probably give it a break for a a month or so to see what they add to the game next.
 

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Thanks for the insight and preview. Another game I am keeping watch on.
 
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Nice, thanks!

I've only played a few minutes but I'm looking forward to trying this one.

EDIT: at first I misread what you wrote on old-looking graphics, from the little I saw it didn't seem old, what do you mean by that? The so-called "isometric" view?

Ah, compared to the texture details found in games like Pathfinder, they look old to me. (See attached)
 

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New update is live with several additions to gameplay including a quality of life party management screen and medkits.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/648410/view/3065240830440451446

Party Management:

- Click on the party icon to the left of the inventory icon to open the Party Management screen
- Set designated specialists to handle skill checks when clicking on objects (to avoid switching characters manually)
- Heal your characters with medkits (the amount healed is modified by your biotech skill)
- Set auto-heal after combat (using available medkits).
- Set auto-reload weapons after combat (starting a fight with an empty gun is a thing of the past now)

Improvements

- You can now give implants to your party members based on their preferences
- Added more party banter in the Armory and Hydroponics
- Added new interactions when exploring Hydroponics
- Added an option to steal a badge from the Regulators HQ
- Added a sneaking opportunity in Camp Reid in Hydroponics
- Added some loot in Zeke's backroom, plus a different way in
- Added two extra stashes in the Pit
- You can now train party members (for now the same trainers as before, will consider adding more based on the feedback)
- Can't see beyond the vault door in the Armory before you open it (limited 'fog of war')
- You can now use Streetwise to get a better reward from Abe
- You can now use Persuasion to get a reward for Zeke
- You can now squeeze some money from Braxton and Jonas for helping them
- You can now ask Sarah for a reward because helping someone for free doesn't sit well with some players

And more....
 
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Thanks for sharing your impressions @Pladio;! I'm curious to see how much can be done by talking / stealthing.

I started a character like that but for now it's still a game for qwerty keyboards only, so I prefer to wait until they make the EA more international. Maybe that'll become a good argument to sell more consoles to those silly little countries with exotic keyboards :D

They're releasing updates at a furious pace! And they're very active in forums despite being such a small team. If I understood correctly, that was a part-time job when they were developing AoD (Vince even hiding that from his official job's coworkers), but now it's a full-time job. So those who had concerns it could take many years to complete should be reassured somewhat. They showed their planning anyway, it will be easy to see how it goes.

@Redglyph;, it seems the latest update has keyboard bindings. I've not tried it myself as I've lost access to my broadband, but you may want to try it out now.

Open beta: Factory, the final content update
We think it's ready, so give it a go when you have time (it's on the beta branch now)

- 3 pre-made characters
- improved visuals and level design
- lots of exploration, skill checks, looting, etc
- more party banter and NPC comments (will be expanded in the future, testing it now)
- a proper stealth run when thrown in jail
- a new energy pistol, upgradable in the future
- key rebinding
- tons of fixes (will leave it for a changelog tomorrow)

Let us know what you think, good or bad.
 
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