[Fallen London] et al.: Sunless Skies is out!

MoosehatIV

Wow. Basically never having to ever worry about scouts is a pretty damn good backer reward.

Korror

I'm not sure if it's every mentioned anywhere but scouts cost supplies every time you use them. Most of the time I've been flying without use them and only start using them if I guess there's a port around that I'm trying to find.

Steel Angel

Korror wrote: »

I'm not sure if it's every mentioned anywhere but scouts cost supplies every time you use them. Most of the time I've been flying without use them and only start using them if I guess there's a port around that I'm trying to find.

There are messages about it during the tutorial if nothing else. They're not critical once you've mapped things out but really handy when you haven't. That exploration period tends to be the toughest part of any map.

rattletrap

Sunless Skies is really good. The changes they made from Sea (prospects especially) are really welcome, and I like the fact that there are few, if any, instant-death events (unlike Sea which I feel had many). I’m on my fourth captain and it looks like I will be able to retire this one with the wealth ending.

I also think it’s really smart to have multiple maps. You get to repeat the exploration fun multiple times.

Syngyne

The maps are also semi-random, so if you start a new game you get to explore again.

Jacobkosh

if someone thinks they're a bad enough dude to add a thing about Sunless Skies to the OP, they should do that and start a new thread and then batsignal me so I can close this one.

credeiki

Does anyone have any tips on finding Hostrop Deep? My captain is losing their mind bopping around the clockwork sun in search of some sort of geographical feature described only as "far to the west of london; use your scout when you get there. I am! All it finds are graves and terrible chronological phenomena.

edit: nvm, it has been located at the cost of quite a lot of sanity and uncomfortably low supplies home

Albion is so much more evocative and atmospheric than the Reach; if you're finding the first bit of the game a bit disappointing compared to sunless seas, I think you will be happy to reach the second area

Syngyne

Wait until you get to Eleutheria.

Thirith

I gave up on Sunless Sea; while I liked the writing and the atmosphere, I didn't particularly like it as a game, and I definitely felt that the UI as a whole kept me from enjoying it as much as I would've liked. For instance, I thought it was really bad at helping you manage information that you'd already received, in particular with respect to objectives.

I've heard that Sunless Skies improves on this, though I'm not clear with respect to how and to what extent it manages to do so. How do veterans of the Unterzee zee- I mean, see this?

rattletrap

There’s a journal with a reasonably good quest list. It will pretty much always keep track of where you need to go next for any quest line. It also usually has any critical details (like “bring item X”) but I don’t think it’s 100% on that one. Note that there’s separate tracking for trading prospects (sort of mini fetch quests) in your hold rather than your journal.

Overall, while Skies has several major quality of life improvements over Sea the gameplay is very similar. If you bounced off Seas because of UI stuff I think Skies is worth a try. If, however, the core gameplay mechanics in Seas weren’t something you like (for example, there remains a substantial amount of trudging between ports through empty skies) then steer clear.

Thirith

I don't mind the trudging, as long as there's less of a feeling of me not really knowing what I'm doing. In Sunless Sea I felt too often that I really needed to have the Wiki open to be able to enjoy the game and its many stories, because otherwise I'd just be repeating the same story beats again and again.

rattletrap

That part is improved, and there are less dead ends. There are still some story point where I’ve felt confused (and I haven’t explored everything yet) but it’s rare.

Steel Angel

Thirith wrote: »

I don't mind the trudging, as long as there's less of a feeling of me not really knowing what I'm doing. In Sunless Sea I felt too often that I really needed to have the Wiki open to be able to enjoy the game and its many stories, because otherwise I'd just be repeating the same story beats again and again.

It's generally a better explained game in the beginning. It throws a lot less at you right away just from having four separate maps instead of one huge one. A handful of stories will keep progress between captains and a number will stay done once brought to a conclusion. You also have much less of a reset on a death/retirement too. The map only changes when starting up a new lineage now so future captains will still know where ports to dock are, you keep your train minus one module on death and succession, and about half of your money plus a handful of possessions (the more abstract things like Searing Enigmas or Tales of Terror). There's also now a bank that's quickly made available to you that keeps anything in for new captains.

The ambitions that form your character's main quest still can be pretty freeform though. You'll still need to meander about a bit. But you'll at least see something interesting more quickly and regularly as you explore ports.

Thirith

Cheers. I'm okay with some meandering, as long as there are some more clearly communicated objectives to give some structure to everything, and as long as I don't feel that the journal is secretly against me.

MoosehatIV

Sweet stars below the Blue Kingdom does not fuck around. I also think I might have screwed up a quest line because I don't seem to be able to proceed.

milski

I managed to fuck up on what I assume was the last part of the Displeased storyline. Justifiable, I suppose.

MoosehatIV

I think I am going to skip the Blue Kingdom with this captain. Just going to wrap up the wealth ambition and retire them to their New Winchester manor house for a life of luxury.

Blue Kingdom will be the next captain's problem.

MoosehatIV

Update, the Blue Kingdom is still incredibly hard, but has some exceptional writing in it. If you are on permadeath mode, tread very very carefully.

The part I will definitely steal for a pen and paper game sometime was

to officially declare yourself "not dead" in the underworld you have to prove that you do eventually plan on dying in the future by having an early funeral to show your commitment.

I don't think the skeletons were prepared for my level of commitment. Fuck yes there should be fireworks. And the eulogy should make statues weep for me!

klemming

So this Sunless Skies thing look interesting. Do I need to play Sunless Sea first? Is it heavy on lore?

Veagle

You do not need to play seas first, but the game is very lore heavy. People in the thread can probably help you out getting up to speed though.

klemming

If Seas is good, I'll give it a look.

Phillishere

klemming wrote: »

If Seas is good, I'll give it a look.

Lore works a bit different in that universe. It's the reason you play (especially in Fallen London), and you will never learn all of it. You get rewarded by it directly and symbolically, and it works as a trade good. For example, barely escaping a monster will put an item called Terrifying Tale in your inventory. You can trade your terrifying tales for rewards, bundle them into items called names like Horrifying Revelation, or to pass quest checks in other parts of the game.

If you love lore, it's a universe built around it.

Steel Angel

klemming wrote: »

So this Sunless Skies thing look interesting. Do I need to play Sunless Sea first? Is it heavy on lore?

Only a few minor things tie directly into elements from Seas and those are more callbacks than plot hooks. It's a very different setting in Skies.

As much as I loved Seas, it's not a great game mechanically and some stuff is really annoying until you know what to prioritize first. Skies is a lot more user friendly.

That said, you can always try Seas out for an hour or hour and a half on Steam and then refund it if you can't get into it.

Phillishere

Steel Angel wrote: »

klemming wrote: »

So this Sunless Skies thing look interesting. Do I need to play Sunless Sea first? Is it heavy on lore?

Only a few minor things tie directly into elements from Seas and those are more callbacks than plot hooks. It's a very different setting in Skies.

As much as I loved Seas, it's not a great game mechanically and some stuff is really annoying until you know what to prioritize first. Skies is a lot more user friendly.

That said, you can always try Seas out for an hour or hour and a half on Steam and then refund it if you can't get into it.

One other important thing is that Seas is designed like an old-school RPG. It is punishingly difficult at first, but as you level your ship and character, you eventually become the apex predator in that world.

Skies works on a more linear progression, where every time you get comfortable in a zone, the game points you to a new one where you start over again as struggling prey. I like the game, but I actually think the progression is not as fun. The inability to upgrade your engines so that you can eventually zoom past combat is a big difference from Seas.

Tube

new thread time

geth close the thread

Geth

Affirmative Tube. Closing thread...