Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game News

Quests and Dialogues

- Maryam's quest can now be completed before going to the Factory (new game needed).
- Added a possibility to tell Jonas and Braxton that you are not a fighter after you accepted the full attack choice (or left to prepare).
- Expanded dialogue with Nico, both when you arrive and reactions from your actions.
- Added trader to hydroponics.
- Added stealing opportunities to Fort Stanton trader, Shuttle Bay store and medic.

Difficulty

- Added tutorials.
- Added easy difficulty.

Psi Rework

- Charisma now adds Neural Resistance. Formula: (CHA-4)x5.
- Damage Reduction: Psi damage is reduced by Neural resistance percentage. Example, if neural resistance is 55, it's reduced by 55%. Min damage is 1. Damage always hits (no misses or grazes).
- Panic: Reduces AP by 10, Reaction and Evasion by 50. Does 5 psi damage per turn. Lasts 3 turns. Neural Resistance reduces these penalties percentually. So a character with 50 neural resistance gets AP -5 and reaction/evasion -25.
- Zen Stim: Neural resistance is increased by 40 for 2 turns. Reduces applied panic penalties (recalculated with new Neural Resistance). -2 PER for the duration of combat when used.

Feats

- New Feat: Slow Metabolism. +1 to stim duration.
- New Feat: Frog Hunter. Against Frogs: +10 Hit Chance, +10 Evasion, +5 Critical Strike. Obtained in hydroponics.
- Three new mutually exclusive Mutation Feats: Available as a reward for Maryam's quest. The effects increase by stim usage.
- Master Trader is available again: 25% discount on buying, +1 initial disposition.
- Quick Fingers cuts belt AP usage in half (rounded up), no longer affects looting.
- Artful dodger now grants +10 evasion when HP is 10 or less (instead of 7).
- Precise Strike increases Flurry, Swing and Double Strike Accuracy +10. Aimed increased to 15.
- Heavy Hitter adds +10 penetration (Knockdown attack accuracy removed).
- Gladiator reaction increased to 25 (from 20).
- Controlled Burst now gives Recoil Control +5.
- Berserker now lowers AP of Double Strike by 2 and Flurry by 3.
- Juggernaut is now graze damage +5 (from 4).
- Fast Runner also adds +2 free movement.
- Dodge This changed to: Ignores 20 points of cover, reaction attacks have Accuracy +25.

Attacks and Effects

- Bursts: No longer adds evasion penalty, but THC penalty on enemies is doubled. Effect on long bursts is increased by 50%.
- Aimed Burst: Penetration increased to 20%.
- Aimed Head: Critical is now stagger for 8 AP, 40% Penetration. No longer knockdowns.
- Knockdown attack: Now aims to the head (Aimed Accuracy bonuses apply to this attack now). Costs 3 AP more to use (from 1).
- Double Shot: Pistols can now use it at point blank.

Gadgets

- Added a new tier of gadget upgrades, rebalanced progression. You can now remove upgrades without having to replace them.
- Energy Shield: Shield DR: 3-5-7-9 / Recharge Rate: 3-4-5-6 / Shield HP: 15-25-35-45
- Distortion Field: Ranged THC Penalty: 30-35-40-45 / Zap Damage: 4-6/6-8/8-10/10-12 / THC Penalty: 5-10-15-20 / Duration: 2-3-4-5
- Cloaking Field: Detection per Turn: 50-40-30-20 / Thermal Defense: 10-30-50-70 / Duration: 2-3-4-5

Implant extraction

- You can now extract implants from enemies. Biotech 3: Eye-Datajack / 4: Motor Cortex-Squad Leader / 5: Spine-Heart / 6: Armor
- If 2 points below the check, you get a ruined implant (can be sold).
- If 1 point below, you get a damaged implant. You can then use electronics and an electronic module to fix it.
- All environment extractions use the same system.

Armor

- Armor skill increased to 4 per level.
- Rebalanced penalties, they are a bit higher overall for high DR armors.
- Vest: Assault, Reinforced Ballistic and Riot Light armor now have much higher DR, but don't allow jackets.
- Arm: Scav and Enforcer armguards have much higher DR, but don't allow jackets.
- Increased DR of helmets and boots, and rebalanced penalties.
- Two new armguards added: Ranger and Diver. They allow jackets, and are "upgrades" to the shield and raider ones.
- Two new leg pieces added: Trooper and Diver. They are similar to the enforcer boots but with different focuses.
- Added damaged and "old" variations of many armors. They have slightly lower DR, and are commonly used by enemies. Finding the regular versions is more uncommon.
- Added variations for armors. Some are cosmetic (face masks or worker jackets of different colors), others have unique stats.
- Safety helmets allow eyewear, and lose optical resistance.

New Weapons

- Added a new shotgun (Sharpface in the armory), new automatic rifle (ambushers in Mission Control), new revolver (dying man in Mission Control).
- Added the Power Saw (Hydroponics), Energy Club (Pit Gang) and Energy Blade (Factory). Might require a new game to obtain.
- Added an energy shotgun (shipmade). Clayton uses it instead of the damaged energy pistol.
- Added an energy SMG. Hargrave finds this weapon instead of the scoped energy rifle.
- Added clawhammer as a blunt weapon.

Weapon Changes

- M16 and M16A damage lowered.
- Increased damage of revolvers by 1.
- Increased max damage of burst only SMGs by 1.
- All knives get +10 penetration, Machete and Chopper +1 damage and +10 graze.
- Tweaked stats of 5 AP SMG, rebalancing damage, reaction, stagger and penetration.
- Tweaked stats of shotguns (lower range and minor damage increases).
- Knockdown: Effect removed from weapons, values moved to stagger (increased).

AI

- AI is less likely to choose very high DR enemies as targets.
- Improved AI grenade usage. If friendlies are in range and they can resist the damage, they'll use it. Same for hitting more enemies than friends.
- Improved AI behavior in close combat, now changes to melee if it can't do enough damage with ballistic snap attacks.
- Attack selection AI now takes into account penetration when checking DR.

Stealth

- Killing someone in stealth removes the cloaking field sneaking bonus until the start of your next turn.
- When an enemy alert level changes and says a phrase, nearby enemies alert level increases a bit as well.
- When an enemy finds a dead body his alert level goes up and generates noise. From now on, his alertness level doesn't go down from 50.
- Improved enemy reaction and memory regarding sounds.
- Now you can see the color of the tile you are on (helpful when standing on yellow tiles).
- Delay added when found on enemy turn, to get better feedback on what happened.

Enemies and looting

- Tweaked the difficulty of several fights.
- Added stims and grenades to several enemies.
- Changed most enemies' armor to worn versions.
- Removed unintended enforcer helmet from regulator.
- Removed some unintended enforcer boots on enemies.
- Changed most of the looted armors to fit the new progression.
- Slightly lowered the amount of stims and grenades that can be looted.
- Increased the level of several grenades that can be bought.
- Added some more armor and weapons to stores.
- Creepers and turrets have a bit more DR.
- Creeper does 2 more damage.

Mindworms

- Now does one attack per turn. Panic if character is not panicked, Mind Rend if it is.
- Mind Rend removes 2 perception, doesn't stack. Damage changed to 8-10 (from 10-15).
- Panic attack does 3-4 damage (from 2-3).
- Zap on melee attack now does 8-10 energy damage (from 6-8).
- AI now focuses on who's doing more damage to them.
- Has more varied HP (20-30-40 instead of 30).
- Ballistic and energy DR now 9-6 (from 8-5).

General

- Jed now has Armored Warfare and Charger instead of Too Close and Controlled Burst. Has slightly higher and more varied skills.
- Super Soldier melee damage reduced to 1-3 (from 2-4) and AP to 4 (from 5).
- Lowered gas grenade area of effect by 1.
- Stasis field expires on turn start, not turn end.
- Stims used from belts auto-equip if one is available. No longer usable from the inventory screen.
- Knockdown now doesn't remove defense granted by cover or gadgets.
- Tweaked arena layout.
- Reduced the impact on the Brotherhood reputation when you kill Clayton.
- Now showing "Talk to..." near the talk cursor.
- Save screen now shows a screenshot, map name, character level and xp.
- Improved lighting and reflections in the paperdoll.
- You can't loot in combat.
- Stims in the belt turn red if you can't use them.

Fixes

- Fixed several instances of missing fades in dialogue.
- Fixed several instances of dialogue skill gains appearing at the wrong time.
- Fixed power vest clipping through jackets.

Welcome to the first system update. The game was released on Early Access in April and until now our focus was on new locations and content. After releasing the Shuttle Bay we took a 3-week 'break' and worked on nothing but the systems.

These changes and improvements reflect the feedback we received over the last 7 months and we'd like to thank everyone who posted suggestions, shared builds, and participated in discussions. That's what Early Access is all about.

Thematically we can split the changes into 7 categories:



Despite our best efforts to keep the difficulty manageable and engage players who struggle, some players find the game frustrating and unplayable rather than challenging. Needless to say, frustrating people was never our goal, so we added Easy difficulty mode and a tutorial explaining key concepts.

Coincidentally, now that we don't have to worry about first-time players, we can make the Hard difficulty a bit more challenging.



Charisma now adds Neural Resistance (see Psi Overhaul below). We added 3 new feats (Master Trader, Frog Hunter, Slow Metabolism) and 3 new mutually exclusive mutation feats as quest rewards. Plus balance changes to the existing feats as suggested by the players.



- Extensive balance changes, added new armguards and leg armor.

- We added Old (-1DR) and Damaged (-3DR) armor sets to boost variety on the visual side. Most enemies will be wearing old and damaged armor. New armor will be sold in stores. Unique (custom-made) – looted from notable enemies.

- New weapons: long requested laser cutter, two energy 'shotguns' (a close range energy gun, Earth-made and Ship-made) and 'SMG' (a rapid-fire energy gun), a Ship-made energy club, a clawhammer for the bashers, and a bunch of firearms: a revolver, shotguns, rifles, etc.



Improved enemies behavior in combat and stealth: target and attack selection, grenade and stim use, reaction to sound and dead bodies, alert levels, etc.



- PSI attacks always hit (as they don't rely on sight), but the effect can be resisted and damage reduced by Neural Resistance (NR).
- You can't be faster than a thought so PSI enemies have a much higher initiative
- Charisma boosts your NR, which can be increased further with implants, helmets, feats, and stims.
- Zen stim increases NR by 40 for 2 turns
- Improved Mindworms' attacks


Some fights were way too easy and we apologize to everyone affected.



- Implants: you can extract them from dead bodies and repair them if they get damaged during extraction due to low skills.
- Gadgets: new tier and rebalance
- Expanded dialogues and quest improvements
- Attack effects' balance changes

To see the full list of changes, click here

* * *

Please note that while your save games will work just fine, it is strongly recommended to start a new game to properly experience the changes.

It wasn't easy to pick the best category as the game easily qualifies for them all, even VR, but it's an undeniable fact that most people play it to relax and unwind after a hard day of work. After all, what do your enemies have that you don't? Sure, they outnumber you five to one, and they're armed to the teeth when all you've got is moxie and a pipe gun, but ... what, you're dead already? Ok, reload.

Yeah, courage, determination, that's what wins fights! Hmm, dead again... That was fast. Up and at 'em, I say! Show them what you're made of! If Keanu can do it, so can you! Death screen again? What in the fucking fuck?

Five against one, how is it even fair? You know what, I need a new character. And guns, lots of guns. And a cool name like Revenger or Terrorizer...

"Terrorizer lies motionless, still living but only barely, as the digestive enzymes that have been pumped down his throat do their agonizing work. Death is too long in coming, and the slurry left of his body can hardly even be called a corpse."

Seriously? This is how you gonna do me? Oh it's on! It's fucking on now. Never been so 'relaxed' in my life!

This update adds another location - the Shuttle Bay. Now you can explore 6 locations out of 12, roughly 40% of the game. The next stop is the Habitat, the home of the three main factions and a major quest hub. It will require twice as much work as any other location and won't be released until Feb. In the meantime we'll focus on the systems and balance, a tutorial, and difficulty modes, so if you find the default mode too overwhelming, wait another month.



The Shuttle Bay survived the Mutiny intact but like everything else it's been looted in the interim, the life support systems and emergency supplies stripped, and the shuttle interiors used by generations of squatters.

Moses Jackson's Riflemen, a small mercenary outfit, claimed the Shuttle Bay a few years ago, cleaning up and doing their best to make it a permanent home. Their efforts quickly drew the attention of discontented folks from the Habitat, and even the Pit. Soon, scores of people were heading for this small island of safety and stability. The Habitat's higher-ups look less favorably on the Shuttle Bay's new status, and have been eyeing the growing numbers on their border with great concern.

Notable characters:



You also get the first glimpse of the Habitat in this update, the rooftop level:



Before the Mutiny, the rooftops of the Habitat's four mega-structures supported a sprawling amusement park. There, the people of the Ship could experience at least a few of the novelties they would never enjoy on Earth or Proxima: walk barefoot on real green grass –courtesy of Hydroponics–  or soft, red-tinted 'Proxima' sand; sit under tall, artificial trees; and watch the sunrise on gigantic screens suspended all around. This last was said to be indistinguishable from the real thing, not that anyone aboard had ever seen it.

Nowadays, the three remaining rooftops are heavily fortified platforms, patrolled by armed guards. The sky-screens went dark long ago, a frivolous luxury in a decaying world. The grass underfoot and simulations of golden fields have likewise vanished, replaced by watchtowers and checkpoints. With enemies on all sides, cheap entertainment is a useless distraction from reality and its harsh demands.

* * *

If you're just discovering the game and would like to know more, here's the features overview:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/648410/view/3019074494734257463

And if you're wondering if the game is for you, read this first:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/648410/view/4461354274028263845

Improvements:

- Game files are now split into several packages, which results in faster download and patching times;
- Added new turret animations;
- Character creation screen design tweaks;
- Localization system is established, several parts of the game are now exposed for translation;
- Implemented energy melee weapons;
- Double-clicking local location in map screen now starts travel;
- AI now uses stims;
- Added a variety of panic animations;
- Implemented skins for inventory items;
- Added new location: The Shuttle Bay.
- Added exploration reputation rewards on the factory.

Changes

- Mastermind extra feats start at level 3.
- Regen stim now reduces stats by 1 instead of 2.
- Tweaked DR of armor pieces.

Fixes:

- Electric shock effect is now displayed on frogs;
- Fixed a rotation bug that could skew characters along the wrong axis;
- Frogs hitbox got smaller, meaning it's not blocking line of fire for characters behind it anymore;
- Fixed zap attack granting energy rifle skill XP;
- Fixed barnacles not staying in death poses after reload;
- Outlines are now red for hostile frogs;
- Fixed usable items consuming the whole stack when used from inventory screen;
- The number of meds in the inventory screen is now properly updated;
- Attack selection buttons now fit all attacks;
- Disabled point-blank for Aimed Burst;
- Gadgets now can't be activated during the interrupted turn;
- Fixed some cases when stealth was not ending properly;
- Fixed bullets sometimes missing target's shield;
- Fixed second double shot bullet using full shield DR even if the first bullet has depleted it;
- Fixed collisions on some doors;
- Frogs now can't open doors;
- Fixed frogs bumping into things mid-jump;
- Fixed a case when gadgets couldn't be enabled in the placement phase;
- Fixed characters not spawning with full HP while having certain implants or feats;
- Fixed cloak visual effect in the inventory screen;
- Fixed turrets spawning with 1HP;
- Fixed NPCs becoming invisible after teleporting from buildings.
- You can no longer ask Sarah to heal you if you are not hurt.
- Fixed issue with party member lockpick check to escape the Black Hand prison.
- Fixed lack of sneak skill gain from Black Hand fort stealth.
- Fixes to Black Hand fort layout.
- Fixed PC getting the skill for a party member opening the trap door.
- Fixed lack of backup weapon on one of Hargrave's thugs.
- Fixed typos.