Posted March 17, 2015
I started playing the Linux version on Friday and, after a number of dead captains, did pretty well over the weekend. Great game, 5/5, will buy again.
ADVICE I wish I got (game mechanics clarification, no plot spoilers)
- Register to download fresh story updates. It's free and there's no spam. Yes there are new updates, yes they are awesome.
- Sell the newbie advice book for $50.
- The up and down buttons are used to SWITCH GEARS (-2 full speed backward, -1 backward, 0 stop, 1 ahead, 2 full speed ahead). The ship won't go faster if you hold down UP, and it won't come to an abrupt stop if you hold down, er, DOWN -- it'll go from +2 to +1 (because a held button is a single keypress) and crash. On the other hand, you need to hold down LEFT and RIGHT to turn and might want to hold F for FULL POWER if your ship is suitably equipped. When approaching a port at full speed, watch the bar and prepare to dock asap (E by default) so as not to crash and damage the hull.
- If you're getting messed up at "zee" [sea] (or if you got killed), quit to main menu and continue from the last port (works in 1.0.1.2004, too). On the other hand, don't quit in the middle of storylines at ports, even for legit reasons - your whole lineage might get permastuck. (The new update is supposed to fix the bug, but you never know. The Linux version is the release version, 1.0.0.1957.)
- Don't do gradual upgrades. There are few ship upgrades that are actually all-time useful, and a cargo ship consumes so much fuel (and money) that trading is an additional chore you must do so as not to go broke. Since old ships and equipment is sold back at half price and more powerful ships require similarly powerful engines, maybe you're thinking to buy the bestest engine first, then buy a fitting ship? Lol nope. On a small ship, powerful engines eat fuel like crazy without providing a benefit. Eventually, you'll need cargo space, but you don't want to turn your every mission into a commercial enterprise to possibly have a slim hope to offset the fuel costs of propelling the Cruiser across the zee. Your next (and probably final) ship will be the Frigate, and you will buy an engine for it only if you absolutely have to.
- Explore, explore, explore. Use the zee-bat. Write stuff down. Note which resources can be gathered on a particular island. Note taverns and other opportunities for horror reduction, store inventory (fuel and supplies). To start earning money for a better ship, you need to go relatively far, and to do that with a small ship, you need a network of backup supply depots. Carry some money with you to stock up and/or pay smallish fees. The longer the journey is, the more profitable it is. Travel far and watch your fuel.
- Always be hiring crew (either on a per-zailor basis or en masse). Officers are not crew, but YOU ARE. Your ship will slow down tremendously with too few crewmembers (which means more fuel expenditure to go where you're going), and if none are left, it's game over. (Also see below on Terror.)
- Write down weird hints/keywords/item acquisitions. This is what should've been the main draw of the game -- unfortunately, there's nothing behind the pretty writing; the "puzzles", such as they are, don't hold much water. How's "explore the map and MAYBE you chance upon a specific port for no raisin where you decide to choose a specific action for no raisin that only has a 5% chance of success and a 95% chance of zero feedback"? Nope nope nope.
- Try different things. Very soon, you'll figure out which is the most profitable action in a specific port; however, other actions might bring unexpected benefits depending on circumstances. "Explore [island]" is often (if not always) randomized.
- Before a trip, do stuff in London that drives your Terror down from 50. The investment pays for itself. Party, relax, talk to people, hire zailors. At zee, the darker a spot is, the faster it accumulates Terror. When travelling known waters, try to plan a route through illuminated spots: lights, lighthouses. When exploring the zee, watch the dots around the skull. 10 dots = 1 point of Terror. Green dots = fractional Terror is decreasing, yellow dots = Terror is increasing, red dots = holy shit turn on your prow light unless you want to be eaten. At high terror, monsters start snatching people off the deck like candy, no checks (and your ship will slow down with few people, so you'll be running low on fuel, which you need to keep the light on... this is a death spiral).
- Nightmares aren't particularly scary, though. Granted, they might screw you over at the most inopportune moment (such as when you've completed a huge quest and you're scared shitless as a result).
- Hire Officers, even those for positions you already have filled, and talk to them. (A few items can be used with a right-click.) Sometimes, you can rearrange Officers before a test and increase your chances of success. (Other times, you can't. Such is life.)
- You can camp out per-visit events at a port. Embark (this will set your speed to Forward 1), immedately press Down or S to stop, and wait until the event bell rings switching your lights on and off so as not to accumulate whole points of Terror (watch the fractional dots around the skull).
- Avoid combat for the most part unless you're in an expensive battleship purposefully hunting for rare components. Combat takes too long in in-universe time and consumes supplies and fuel as a result. Use F to get away from particularly troublesome monsters. Avoid warships like the plague before you upgrade, warships can cripple you into a death spiral or kill you outright. Quit to menu and continue if you get hit.
- Menaces are mostly bad. Accomplishments are mostly good. If you did something, got terribly crippled and died soon after but received an accomplishment, what you did was probably good -- you shouldn't avoid doing the same with your next captain, you should prepare so as to survive the consequences.
- Yes, you will probably die. That's unavoidable -- Sunless Sea is a horror game set in a weird world; the main game mechanic is assembling (semantic) puzzle pieces, and trial and error can't help but be part of the gameplay.
Which brings me to the next part:
Legacies is a FUCKING TERRIBLE mechanic. The system works as follows:
Qualities start at 25. (You can pick one quality to get a further +25 bonus and an Officer. You can also pick your past later, during the game.)
Qualities can be raised by 1 at the price of one secret via talking to an appropriate Officer during the game.
When you die as a newbie, you can pick one quality (out of five), and your character will start with half of it or 25, whichever is higher.
Rival: 50% of the deceased captain's Iron and one of their weapons.
Pupil: 50% of the deceased captain's Mirrors and half of their Echoes.
Salvager: 50% of the deceased captain's Veils and half of their Echoes.
Shipmate: 50% of the deceased captain's Hearts and one of their Officers.
Correspondent: 50% of the deceased captain's Pages and the entirety of their discovered chart.
We already know combat as a newbie is a sucker's gambit, so Rival is right out.
(BTW the starting human companions cannot be inherited. Also, the skills they raise do not correspond to the +25 bonus, and they cannot be raised above 50 anyway.)
If you pick a discovered chart, the new captain will be bereft of the biggest source of new Secrets, exploration. Please, whoever designed this, check into rehab asap.
As a newbie, you'll probably die penniless.
Hearts aren't particularly useful for starting quests.
There are no Officers who increase Pages past 50.
The worst about the system is obvious: it requires people (sad newbies whose captains are getting killed again and again and who have to go through the same motions of exploring the home waters) to choose the same past again and again and again to raise the same stat (because if you deviate, it'll exponentially collapse back to 25). Which also means that, of all the available easy newbie challenges, you'll be only doing those which correspond to that very stat.
(What I would do here if I were the designer: I'd figure out the replacement's stats and give the option to distribute them around. So if you died as a priest with 80 Hearts, you can start an urchin with 80/2+25 = 65 Veils.
Alternatively, the exponential collapse is terrible, so I'd have set the new stat minimum at half the highest raw stat ever achieved through the lineage, not the previous captain's. And exploration should provide secrets even if you inherited a revealed map.)
There are ways to break the cycle. Unfortunately, these are VERY obscure and require either a lot of luck and persistence (which only come into effect once you got through the initial hurdles) or looking at the walkthrough -- which defeats the main game mechanic, discovering secrets.
The good news is that when you do actually break the cycle, it'll stick, and starting new games to try new stuff will be immensely easier and faster. And there's a lot of stuff to see and there will be yet more. And the devs take people's nope nope nopes seriously and fix broken and unfun things.
ADVICE I wish I got (game mechanics clarification, no plot spoilers)
- Register to download fresh story updates. It's free and there's no spam. Yes there are new updates, yes they are awesome.
- Sell the newbie advice book for $50.
- The up and down buttons are used to SWITCH GEARS (-2 full speed backward, -1 backward, 0 stop, 1 ahead, 2 full speed ahead). The ship won't go faster if you hold down UP, and it won't come to an abrupt stop if you hold down, er, DOWN -- it'll go from +2 to +1 (because a held button is a single keypress) and crash. On the other hand, you need to hold down LEFT and RIGHT to turn and might want to hold F for FULL POWER if your ship is suitably equipped. When approaching a port at full speed, watch the bar and prepare to dock asap (E by default) so as not to crash and damage the hull.
- If you're getting messed up at "zee" [sea] (or if you got killed), quit to main menu and continue from the last port (works in 1.0.1.2004, too). On the other hand, don't quit in the middle of storylines at ports, even for legit reasons - your whole lineage might get permastuck. (The new update is supposed to fix the bug, but you never know. The Linux version is the release version, 1.0.0.1957.)
- Don't do gradual upgrades. There are few ship upgrades that are actually all-time useful, and a cargo ship consumes so much fuel (and money) that trading is an additional chore you must do so as not to go broke. Since old ships and equipment is sold back at half price and more powerful ships require similarly powerful engines, maybe you're thinking to buy the bestest engine first, then buy a fitting ship? Lol nope. On a small ship, powerful engines eat fuel like crazy without providing a benefit. Eventually, you'll need cargo space, but you don't want to turn your every mission into a commercial enterprise to possibly have a slim hope to offset the fuel costs of propelling the Cruiser across the zee. Your next (and probably final) ship will be the Frigate, and you will buy an engine for it only if you absolutely have to.
- Explore, explore, explore. Use the zee-bat. Write stuff down. Note which resources can be gathered on a particular island. Note taverns and other opportunities for horror reduction, store inventory (fuel and supplies). To start earning money for a better ship, you need to go relatively far, and to do that with a small ship, you need a network of backup supply depots. Carry some money with you to stock up and/or pay smallish fees. The longer the journey is, the more profitable it is. Travel far and watch your fuel.
- Always be hiring crew (either on a per-zailor basis or en masse). Officers are not crew, but YOU ARE. Your ship will slow down tremendously with too few crewmembers (which means more fuel expenditure to go where you're going), and if none are left, it's game over. (Also see below on Terror.)
- Write down weird hints/keywords/item acquisitions. This is what should've been the main draw of the game -- unfortunately, there's nothing behind the pretty writing; the "puzzles", such as they are, don't hold much water. How's "explore the map and MAYBE you chance upon a specific port for no raisin where you decide to choose a specific action for no raisin that only has a 5% chance of success and a 95% chance of zero feedback"? Nope nope nope.
- Try different things. Very soon, you'll figure out which is the most profitable action in a specific port; however, other actions might bring unexpected benefits depending on circumstances. "Explore [island]" is often (if not always) randomized.
- Before a trip, do stuff in London that drives your Terror down from 50. The investment pays for itself. Party, relax, talk to people, hire zailors. At zee, the darker a spot is, the faster it accumulates Terror. When travelling known waters, try to plan a route through illuminated spots: lights, lighthouses. When exploring the zee, watch the dots around the skull. 10 dots = 1 point of Terror. Green dots = fractional Terror is decreasing, yellow dots = Terror is increasing, red dots = holy shit turn on your prow light unless you want to be eaten. At high terror, monsters start snatching people off the deck like candy, no checks (and your ship will slow down with few people, so you'll be running low on fuel, which you need to keep the light on... this is a death spiral).
- Nightmares aren't particularly scary, though. Granted, they might screw you over at the most inopportune moment (such as when you've completed a huge quest and you're scared shitless as a result).
- Hire Officers, even those for positions you already have filled, and talk to them. (A few items can be used with a right-click.) Sometimes, you can rearrange Officers before a test and increase your chances of success. (Other times, you can't. Such is life.)
- You can camp out per-visit events at a port. Embark (this will set your speed to Forward 1), immedately press Down or S to stop, and wait until the event bell rings switching your lights on and off so as not to accumulate whole points of Terror (watch the fractional dots around the skull).
- Avoid combat for the most part unless you're in an expensive battleship purposefully hunting for rare components. Combat takes too long in in-universe time and consumes supplies and fuel as a result. Use F to get away from particularly troublesome monsters. Avoid warships like the plague before you upgrade, warships can cripple you into a death spiral or kill you outright. Quit to menu and continue if you get hit.
- Menaces are mostly bad. Accomplishments are mostly good. If you did something, got terribly crippled and died soon after but received an accomplishment, what you did was probably good -- you shouldn't avoid doing the same with your next captain, you should prepare so as to survive the consequences.
- Yes, you will probably die. That's unavoidable -- Sunless Sea is a horror game set in a weird world; the main game mechanic is assembling (semantic) puzzle pieces, and trial and error can't help but be part of the gameplay.
Which brings me to the next part:
Legacies is a FUCKING TERRIBLE mechanic. The system works as follows:
Qualities start at 25. (You can pick one quality to get a further +25 bonus and an Officer. You can also pick your past later, during the game.)
Qualities can be raised by 1 at the price of one secret via talking to an appropriate Officer during the game.
When you die as a newbie, you can pick one quality (out of five), and your character will start with half of it or 25, whichever is higher.
Rival: 50% of the deceased captain's Iron and one of their weapons.
Pupil: 50% of the deceased captain's Mirrors and half of their Echoes.
Salvager: 50% of the deceased captain's Veils and half of their Echoes.
Shipmate: 50% of the deceased captain's Hearts and one of their Officers.
Correspondent: 50% of the deceased captain's Pages and the entirety of their discovered chart.
We already know combat as a newbie is a sucker's gambit, so Rival is right out.
(BTW the starting human companions cannot be inherited. Also, the skills they raise do not correspond to the +25 bonus, and they cannot be raised above 50 anyway.)
If you pick a discovered chart, the new captain will be bereft of the biggest source of new Secrets, exploration. Please, whoever designed this, check into rehab asap.
As a newbie, you'll probably die penniless.
Hearts aren't particularly useful for starting quests.
There are no Officers who increase Pages past 50.
The worst about the system is obvious: it requires people (sad newbies whose captains are getting killed again and again and who have to go through the same motions of exploring the home waters) to choose the same past again and again and again to raise the same stat (because if you deviate, it'll exponentially collapse back to 25). Which also means that, of all the available easy newbie challenges, you'll be only doing those which correspond to that very stat.
(What I would do here if I were the designer: I'd figure out the replacement's stats and give the option to distribute them around. So if you died as a priest with 80 Hearts, you can start an urchin with 80/2+25 = 65 Veils.
Alternatively, the exponential collapse is terrible, so I'd have set the new stat minimum at half the highest raw stat ever achieved through the lineage, not the previous captain's. And exploration should provide secrets even if you inherited a revealed map.)
There are ways to break the cycle. Unfortunately, these are VERY obscure and require either a lot of luck and persistence (which only come into effect once you got through the initial hurdles) or looking at the walkthrough -- which defeats the main game mechanic, discovering secrets.
The good news is that when you do actually break the cycle, it'll stick, and starting new games to try new stuff will be immensely easier and faster. And there's a lot of stuff to see and there will be yet more. And the devs take people's nope nope nopes seriously and fix broken and unfun things.
Post edited March 17, 2015 by Starmaker
