Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game News

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

Changes:

General

- Improved traveling in Hydroponics
- Added check value to doors and containers.
- Tweaked Explorer reputation
- Sarah's price for healing is tied to how badly you're wounded

Items

- Cloaking field base thermal detection resistance is 10 (from 25)
- Cloaking field base detection chance is 35 (from 25)
- Thermal vision is now properly reduced by thermal detection resistance
- Distortion Field evasion is 30 (from 35). Energy damage is 1-3 (from 2-4)
- Super Soldier stim: removed evasion bonus, AP increased to 5, reaction increased to 15
- Smoke Grenades' (low and mid) ranged penalty is 50/75 (from 60/80)
- Bulldog II is a bit harder to get, but it's a bit more powerful
- Added +1 damage to shotguns
- Reduced melee damage by 1
- Tweaked armor stats
- Tweaked the prices of several items.
- Items now sell for 10% of the price.

Enemies

- Starfish now recovers 10 HP when draining
- Starfish DR is now 10/8/6 (from 6/4/3)
- Tweaked enemies' equipment: they have more weapon variety and extra thermal vision.

Feats

- Changed Faythe's Assassin feat. Bladed THC +10, CS Chance +5, Penetration +10, Takedown +15
- Changed Faythe's Thief feat. Noise -1 and stealth skills' increase
- Gunfighter: added "Grazes do +2 damage"
- Removed Master Trader feat and refunded 1 feat point to characters that had it

System

- Increased weight of misses on defense xp distribution.
- Slightly reduced skill gain from attack and defense XP
- Improved AI attack selection, especially for shotguns when the enemy is engaged in close combat

Fixes

- Fixed a door in the Armory being usable in stealth but not in combat.
- Power Vest properly reduces initiative instead of increasing it
- Fixed issues with the Armory's elevator with a party member selected
- Fixed scav stealth dialogue coming up twice if you clicked repeatedly when interacting with it
- Removed infinite attack XP exploit on turret
- Fixed the character name text field caret bug
- Missed frog attacks now can trigger counter-attacks, reported properly in the textbox
- Fixed some cases when grenades could be thrown through the floor (from the first floor to the second)
- Fixed T-pose animations happening in some rare cases
- Starfish sounds are now affected by volume controls properly
- Fixed Swing attack becoming unusable after spending AP on other combat actions
- Fixed doors incorrectly executing opening/closing scripts on game start
- Gadgets don't stay active after ending/exiting stealth anymore
- Fixed incorrect combat rolls when attacking turrets
- Fixed shots sometimes missing starfish if it's displaced after the 'hug'
- Fixed graze being reduced more than intended when uncapped THC was lower than 5
- Fixed unreplaced tags in energy shield bullet miss message
- Fixed pressing R when grenade is selected replacing hand slot weapon with grenade
- Fixed incorrect items being sold when CC has 0 credits left
- Fixed Caleb's dialogue issues
- Fixed missing sounds on armory doors
- Fixed weapon hand resetting to 0 after spending last grenade in the belt

Colony Ship is a challenging game -- the game's setting and theme wouldn't work otherwise, and we think that, in the long run, players find challenging combat more rewarding than easy combat. Because some players have found combat too hard, however, this post is meant to (1) give fair warning of the game's difficulty; (2) explain our design philosophy; and (3) provide some tips for how to approach combat.

Combat is difficult. You’ll be outnumbered and outgunned, so you’ll have to figure out how to even the odds or avoid fights you can't win. If that's not your idea of having a good time, you should either make a non-combat character or find another game.

Instead of making combat easy, or offering difficulty modes, we have created alternative paths that offer robust, non-combat gameplay: diplomacy, stealth, and science skills. In fact, creating a diplomacy-and-science character is effectively a "Story mode," since you will still be able to explore the world, wheel and deal with factions, and complete the major areas of the game. But if you want to roleplay a fighter in a gritty, deadly world, you'll need to understand and to some extent master the combat system.

With that in mind, here is an introduction to the system and some tips:

There are 3 main factors determining the difficulty of any combat encounter and your character's life expectancy:

1. Accuracy
   
2. Evasion
   
3. Damage (both dealt and taken)
   

To succeed in combat, you must learn to control these factors. To start with, here are the formulas for accuracy and evasion.

Accuracy = 50 + bonuses from (stat + skill + feat + implant + helmet/goggles + weapon). You can easily neglect a couple of items from this list and still be a competent fighter, meaning you don't need to min/max your stats (or play the one true build that works) because it's only 1 item out of 6.

The attacker's accuracy is further modified by the attack type (different attacks have different pros and cons), the weapon's gun's effective range, and inflicted penalties.

Evasion = bonuses from (stat + skill + feat + implant + armor handling – armor penalty).

The defender's evasion is further modifier by cover (the exact bonus depends on the angle), gadget bonus (i.e., using a Disruptor Field), and smoke/spore cloud (smoke grenades and certain critters).

The bottom-line chance to hit is always shown before you attack. More detailed information can be found on the character and inventory screens (which show your accuracy and evasion), and in combat, where you can press ALT when targeting while targeting to learn what is affecting the accuracy of a particular attack.

If a shot hits, the damage it inflicts depends on both the weapon and the target's defense. Incoming damage is reduced by damage resistance (feat + implants + armor) and energy shield (gadget and/or energy armor). Weapons with good penetration and/or aimed attacks can reduce enemy's damage resistance, dealing more damage.





To get a sense of what things you can do in combat to improve your odds, pay attention to the Combat AI controlling the enemies. The enemies use the same system as you. They have similar stats, skills, weapons (which you can loot after the fight), and rolls. The AI doesn't cheat but it knows the system better and uses it more efficiently than the new player.

The combat log on the right will show you all the info you need: attack type, damage rolled and resisted, even to-hit ranges and rolls.

If you're torn on whether this kind of combat sounds appealing to you, try the combat demo first. It's harder than the game due to the narrow focus on combat, but if you can handle the demo, you won't have any problems with anything the game will throw at you. And if you have any questions, we’ll be more than happy to answer them.

Improvements

- Added a "map exit" area, click to call up the map screen

Changes

- Gave Jed more ammo and equipped a blunt weapon
- Increased Critical Thinker feat damage bonus per level to 0.03 from 0.02
- Reduced base critical damage to 1.2x from 1.25x
- Reduced critical damage from aimed: head (1.4x from 1.5x) and bullseye attacks (1.6x from 1.75x).

Fixes

- Fixed missing skills and feats of the Regulators allies in the assault on The Promised Land
- Fixed duplicated characters and missing skills of the Regulators in the assault on the Regulators HQ

Improvements

- Added autosave to game start, and when arriving the first time to a location. More will be added at a later point.

Changes

- Tweaked the amount of combat reputation from some fights (max amount should be lower now).
- Added stealth reputation after 3 times you steal something.
- Tweaked energy rifle stats.
- Tweaked some loot in the armory (new game).
- Rifles can shoot at point blank with snap shots.

Fixes

- Fixed missing frog in the hydro frog nest fight.
- Fixed PC climbing stairs alone after hydro frog fight if the controlled character was a party member.
- Fixed starting weapon not being properly equipped.
- Fixed AI ignoring characters next to it when using pistols or rifles.
- Fixed starfish animation-related AI loop.
- Fixed incorrect floor being shown for some fights inside buildings.
- Added Starfish death messages.

Improvements

- Implemented panel for alternate solution of the frog sneak encounter.
- Added an option to ask a companion to climb the Hydro Elevator shaft.
- The survivors of the first fight against Braxton now move to the staircase after combat.

Fixes

- Fixed Jonas saying you killed the thugs when you didn't.
- Fixed passability issue in the armory.
- Added missing melee weapons to some characters.
- You can now loot Braxton's room when Mercy becomes leader.
- Fixed journal entry not updating when finding override module.
- Fixed an issue if you entered combat with McNeil during stealth.
- Fixed Red Beard not leaving if you convince him with the "turret path".
- Fixed being stuck if cornered by your party members.
- Fixed drag'n'drop incorrect items stacking if dropped from loot inventory to itself.
- Fixed getup from knockdown spending AP when the character is already out of combat.
- Fixed ally portraits sometimes not appearing on game load.
- Fixed animated props affecting navigation and tile generation even if collisions are off.
- Fixed PC overhead phrases if you interact with him while controlling an ally.
- Fixed characters from allied parties targeting your characters during the placement phase instead of selecting.
- Fixed starfish AI loop.