News Colony Ship by Iron Tower (Age of Decadence devs) - coming April 6 to Early Acceess

prudis

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Iron Tower Studio

It is the Year of Our Lord 2754…

You will never feel the sun’s warmth under a blue sky, never hear the wind in the branches of a tree, and never swim in the ocean, all because you had the misfortune to be born on the Ship, chained to a fate you didn’t choose. You have never seen Earth and you’ll never see Proxima Centauri either. You’re doomed to live and die on the Ship in the name of the Mission, like your father before you, like his father before him.

The Ship is old. She had already been twenty years in service when she was rechristened Starfarer - a pretty name for a retrofitted interplanetary freighter. No one is certain the Ship will actually reach its destination, and nobody much cares, since no one alive now will live to see it. Might as well get on with your life and try to make the best of it.

Features:

Colony Ship is an isometric, party-based RPG inspired by Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky. Your character's world is a “generation ship,” a massive spacecraft on a centuries long voyage to colonize a distant planet. The Ship's original government has been disbanded following a violent mutiny and you must negotiate a treacherous path among your fellow passengers and the contentious factions striving to dominate the Ship. Your choices alone will determine who your friends and enemies are.
  • Skill-based character system, with feats and biological implants.
  • Tactical turn-based combat, featuring standard as well as targeted attacks and weapon-specific special attacks such as Fanning and Long Burst.
  • Multiple quest solutions, mutually exclusive questlines, and a branching main storyline.
  • 12 recruitable party members with different personalities, agendas, and beliefs.
  • 3 main factions and a score of lesser factions and groups.
  • A large arsenal including melee weapons, firearms, energy pistols, grenades, and fancy electronic gadgets like the Reality Distortion Field.
  • Different environments to explore, from the Engine Room and Hydroponics to the dystopian cities of the Habitat and the Wasteland, the now uncharted corridors and decks that bore the brunt of the fighting during the Mutiny.

The Ship was launched by a neo-Christian conglomerate dedicated to establishing a religious colony on a distant world. The original fifty thousand passengers, the so-called First Generation, were true believers in the Mission. They sacrificed whatever lives they had on Earth and demanded strict obedience to the laws of God and the Ship from their children.

Unfortunately, the generations that followed lacked their forebears’ fervent will to sacrifice. Dissatisfaction led to open revolt against the authorities, called the Mutiny, and the mutiny metastasized into a civil war. While the mutineers dealt a decisive blow to the old order, they did not eradicate it completely. When the fires died and the smoke finally dissipated, three factions emerged from the wreckage of the old order: the Protectors of the Mission, The Brotherhood of Liberty, and the Church of the Elect, each of them promising their own version of the future.











 
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prudis

prudis

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seems like they clarified release plans on Codex

Prepare for the Early Access. The road to get there isn't that long now as we've been working on the starting areas for a while now. Still, implementing quests and scripting fights will take many months, so I'd say 8-10 months of work.

No, it's way too late for full 2020 release now. Our best case scenario is releasing on EA by the end of the year and then managing to do the rest in a year
 

Ibuki

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Thanks for making the thread and posting the video earlier, I didn't even know they were working on a new game!
This game looks extremely up my alley and I'll be watching as it progresses. I'm a slacker and still haven't played Age of Decadence after waiting so long for it to release...
 
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prudis

prudis

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the combatb demo seems to be already up

public release, even if it's only a combat beta, is a big milestone, as it's the foundation on which the rest of the game will be built. All the key features are there: the character system, increase-by-use skills, the combat system and AI, party mechanics, dialogue, inventory, pathfinding, etc. It's a game in itself, which is why it took so long to get to this stage.

I can talk some more about this journey and its emotional impacts, but instead let's talk about something that really matters - how are you going to survive in the demo? I know, I know. Just the other day you killed three dragons and fifty two ogres, so why should you worry about some malnourished humans coveting what little you have? Well, I think you should, so here are some friendly tips:

  • You'll die. A lot. If that's a deal breaker to you, do yourself a favor and walk away. There's plenty of stress in real life, why add more?

  • The tyranny of numbers: stats, skills, derived stats, feats, weapon stats, attack types, armor, range - anything that has some kinda number scribbled next to it - matter a lot, so choose them with care. If you don't like paying attention to numbers, there's a good chance you won't do well in combat.

  • Your enemies use the exact same system, so if you see something that works well for them, it will work well for you too. Learn from your enemies because at this point they understand the system (via the combat AI) better than you do. Then (and only then) can you have your revenge.

  • Different weapons require different tactics, feats, and gear. If your melee fighter blindly charges at five enemies with machine guns, don't be surprised if they promptly turn your character into Swiss cheese. You need high Evasion, boosted by a Distortion Field generator, you need smoke grenades (ranged penalty is much higher than melee penalty) and ideally thermal vision goggles. They can't hit what they can't see. Keep in mind that your rangers might find themselves on the receiving end one day.

  • Even within the same class, different weapons are designed for different things. Long barrel pistols are designed for range and marksmanship. Revolvers for speed and reaction fire. Multi-barrel pistols are for double shots. So using a multi-barrel pistol in single-fire mode over some range would be a mistake whereas using it to deal with people who tend to get in your face would be a perfectly fine choice.

  • Your THC (to-hit chance) will be low at first. We strongly suggest grabbing a specialization feat to raise your to-hit chance by 10 as soon as possible. It's not a mandatory feat but it will make things easier while you're struggling to survive. Pressing ALT while aiming will expand the targeting info and show the THC breakdown. The five main components that make your enemies hard to hit are:
    • their evasion ability (skill modified by feats, implants, and armor)
    • cover (either flank them or flush them out with poison grenades)
    • gadget (distortion field will make them very hard to hit but the effect doesn't last long)
    • your weapon's range (you lose accuracy with each tile beyond the effective range)
    • penalties inflicted upon your character via aimed attacks, smoke or flashbang grenades (better gear will help you reduce these penalties).
  • There are no difficulty modes but there are 3 different ways to generate Random Numbers used to determine if you hit or miss: truly random (anything goes), lightly adjusted (numbers are drawn like cards from a deck, meaning you can't draw the same number twice under the deck is reshuffled), and heavily adjusted (the number of consecutive misses in a row is limited based on your THC, so no more missing 3 times in a row if your THC is 80%). Keep in mind that your enemies will use the same RNG too and would enjoy hitting the target more often.

  • When in doubt about something, check the tooltips. We did a good job explaining the mechanics and values in tooltips, so if you wonder, for example, why your character has only 15 action points instead of 17 he or she is supposed to have, hover your mouse over the stat in question and you'll see that the armor penalty has reduced your AP by 2 points.
 

Phoenix RISING

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I did not like Age of Decadence. Even though I went non-combat, I still could not pass the check at the end of the game that just killed me when I tried.

Felt like a lot of the game's mysteries were locked behind skill rolls and that terrible combat system.