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Post by daveal on Jul 2, 2018 23:09:05 GMT -5
Having a lot of fun with the storyline, 2 hours into a playthrough focused on that and nothing else. (2 hours includes some time of screenshots and typos and filing reports) 1. Medical rating 16 is required to avoid any contagion. Fortunately I had a million credits lying around so I just repurposed a few bays to achieve this. (Normal difficultly, captain level around 25, fully loaded Broadsword). I am surprised that doctor rating doesn't factor into this? I started the playthrough knowing that a plague was coming from the release note, so I have a couple extra doctors. But seems like if I had a minimum doctor complement, as long as I had these bays I would be fine. Is that correct? 2. In a future playthrough from the same starting point (yay! save games via external backup) I will try catching the plague, but not this one. 3. Not a typo, but I had 16+ medical, and I am not sure what this means. I happened to notice it go by in the event window: 4. So far I have done about 6 missions from the main doctor, Kaera Gouldbern. Each one seems to give between 3-7 percent on the plague meter. That means I need to do about 16 missions. Is that about right or does it get faster? 16 seems like an awful lot. There are only five mission types, as far as I can tell, and I can easily get 2-3 pox jumper missions and 2-3 plague corpse missions in the set of 5 missions she offers. This may get a little repetitious. I like all the missions, but I would rather have fewer missions required, rather than repeating the same mission template 3-4 times. I have found the following templates: prison immunity, pox jumper, plague corpse, and seeking the xyz flora. I assume the research tour mission to visit three plague sectors, and the "expedition astray" are one time missions, so that means I'll be doing the other ones on average 3-4 times each before ticking up to 100%. 5. At this point I have no idea why the hunna are involved, but they keep jumping out at me. I'll learn more. In the immune prisoner mission, it is stated that they are interested because that guy is their hero. In the "expedition astray" mission, I assume they are involved on purpose, but still no idea why. 6. It seems odd that I am trying to solve a plague and the plague meter counts *upwards* from zero. That feels like I am making it worse. If the goal is to get 100 points, would it make sense to have the meter count down? That way I feel like I am decreasing plague instead of increasing it.
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Post by fallen on Jul 3, 2018 9:30:10 GMT -5
Thanks for the feedback!
1. Will consider adding a Doctor Skill requirement as well. Atm, Medical Rating required.
2. Oh, you can't avoid it. It's a matter of mitigation.
3. Can you check Clarice Molmette and see what her Trait set is? Looks like a benign failure to update some text formatters on my part. She had the Pox Infected Trait. You probably were unaware of it, but she picked it up somewhere. There you go, infecting other zones as you travel. Damn spacers.
Clarice should have Plague Scarred, Pox Survivor or Resilient System based on that error.
4. We will keep tuning this. Every mission gives a different potential range to the plague scores. The research tour, for example, gives a high rating. Also, do not ignore bringing medical supplies to First Infection Rumor Zones, as that can net one of the highest plague scores.
5. Interesting.
6. Interesting. Thanks!
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Post by daveal on Jul 3, 2018 9:55:50 GMT -5
The instant I got the first announcement of a mission with a chance of infection and the details of the medical rating, I upgraded to med rating 16. Every mission said "you have no chance of infection due to your medical rating". So, how did anybody get infected? I have several crew with Resilient System, so I guess they got it.
If only medical rating prevents pox, then small ships are straight out of luck. You must dedicate two large bays, or 1 large + 1 med + 1 small, and you must have at least one passenger cabin and prison cabin.
I never saw any rumor like "first infection" in the rumor log, although I do not view it religiously. I did happen to visit planets, which had no rumor displayed in advance, that had "crimson pox infection" which closed the doctor service and mentioned about medical supplies. There was nothing that alerted me of the possibility of raising the plague score by selling medical supplies. I'll definitely try that.
Not quite done yet (93%) but my current feedback is that it's a little tedious in the middle. I would go to one of the doctors; click new mission without reading any till the list was full; pick Medical Maurader first because it requires no travel; then look through the missions to find 2-3 that were in the same destination system. Then go run those, get another 15%, and repeat. It was cool to see each mission the first time; there are about 7 different ones that I found; but after the fifth combo Plague Corpse and Pox Jumper mission pair, it isn't so exciting.
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Post by fallen on Jul 3, 2018 10:32:07 GMT -5
daveal - if you check the Rumor details for First Infections, Plague Blockade or Outbreak -- each has a % chance that a crew will get infected if you land there, regardless of ship's medical rating. Check the rumor details for information about delivering medical supplies. Really gotta read Rumor details to use them well Medical Maurader provides the absolute lowest plague score of any mission. That could definitely contribute to the tediousness! Great place to get medical supplies to drop them off to First Infection locations tho! If you decide you dislike the era, you can just avoid it in the future. We'll keep working to improve.
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Post by daveal on Jul 3, 2018 11:37:34 GMT -5
I definitely love the missions and the storyline, it's just that I found the second half repetitive. I will see how I missed medical supplies, but there definitely needs to be a clear in-game statement that delivering supplies affects plague score. I was trying to optimize "plague score increase per hour of playtime". Since marauder doesn't require travel, and most of the other missions require traveling >3 sectors and then back, marauder gives plague score more rapidly.
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Post by fallen on Jul 3, 2018 13:36:16 GMT -5
In game text reads:
""With the infection only beginning to spread, there is still a chance this faction holding could be spared an outbreak. Any delivery of 10 or more Basic or Advanced Medicines will gain Rep with the local faction and give a chance to stop the disease's spread."
I will add a dialog to the different sets of Chaesin.
I will also add a new mission type to deliver medicines to First Infection zones.
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Post by daveal on Jul 3, 2018 14:42:43 GMT -5
Sorry, but I don't see any evidence that selling medicine advances the plague counter. I found a world which had a crimson pox rumor, filled up with basic medicine, and landed there. I sold a shipment of 12 basic medicine. It was at demand "F" although I was able to sell at a profit (bought for $50/unit, sold for $92/unit). The only thing in the event window was a loss of rep with one of my allied factions because they are in a trade war with the planet I'm at. No rep bonus for selling, and no indication that the plague counter changed. I sold another batch of 12 and another, same (lack of) result.
The only way to see the plague counter is to finish a plague mission. So, I went to a doctor and clicked till I got a medical marauder mission, and beat up the ship. Now I can see the plague counter. It had not advanced. It was at 93 when I stopped last night, and the marauder mission gave me +3 to 96. Are you sure selling supplies to improve the counter is working?
I know it would be a UI change, and very special purpose, but is there a way I could see the plague meter besides the mission completion screen?
Random observation, I happened to pass by Estelle in this playthrough so I thought to stop in and see her reaction to the plague. No conversation topic there.
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Post by fallen on Jul 3, 2018 15:38:17 GMT -5
Yep! Specifically First Infections only.
"With the infection only beginning to spread, there is still a chance this faction holding could be spared an outbreak. Any delivery of 10 or more Basic or Advanced Medicines will gain Rep with the local faction and give a chance to stop the disease's spread."
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Post by fallen on Jul 3, 2018 16:27:08 GMT -5
Any changes to the plague score are now written out to your captain's log.
Improved rumor descriptions --
"There is still a chance this faction holding could be spared an outbreak. Deliveries of 10 or more Basic or Advanced Medicines will have a percentage chance of stopping the disease's spread and removing this Rumor before it becomes an Outbreak. Larger deliveries impart a higher chance and any delivery will gain Rep with the local faction."
"Unless a cure is found or medical deliveries end this Rumor, it is guaranteed to turn into an Pox Outbreak Rumor."
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Post by daveal on Jul 3, 2018 16:38:13 GMT -5
Thanks for writing to the log! I'll try to look for opportunities to sell medicine on my second runthrough, but I completely missed this without your suggestion.
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Post by daveal on Jul 4, 2018 1:20:21 GMT -5
1. I finally found a first infection rumor, and went there with a hold full of medicine. Unfortunately it was law level 10 and even basic medicine is illegal. I think there should be an exception for a first infection planet, so that I can still sell medicine regardless of their regular law level. 2. In this playthrough, I didn't get any medical equipment to see what happens when my crew catches pox. I am not sure this is working as intended. Twice, the following happened after a plague mission. Immediately after the quest completion screen, my event log shows: If this is the way crew catch pox from missions, then it shouldn't say "time aboard ship". I checked the named crew, and sure enough they had "pox infected". But, after some time, these crew had *both* pox infected and one of the consequence traits, resilient system or pox scarred. Isn't the infected trait supposed to go away once they have the consequence trait? I have three crew with this dual status, and a save game if it helps. 3. After a while I did get another first infection rumor. I sold 12 medicine a few times and got this: Evidently they did not celebrate very effectively the first time! Perhaps the minimum reward size can be increased a little. 4. As you said, the plague counter does advance more for first infection sales, plus being able to stop the infection is cool. The number of plague blockade and pox outbreak rumors seems much higher than the number of first infection. To reduce the tedium of running all the plague missions to get the plague counter up, can you add a plague counter bonus to selling on blockade and outbreak planets also? Maybe a smaller one, without a chance of breaking the outbreak, but still better than reading the same pox jumper / plague corpse missions so many times.
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Post by fallen on Jul 4, 2018 10:18:20 GMT -5
Thanks for the feedback!
Fixed trait mutation text.
Added minimum Rep bonus. Delivering 12 is considered very few.
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Post by daveal on Jul 4, 2018 10:25:16 GMT -5
Are crew supposed to have both pox infected and resilient system?
Since you get a rep bonus for "10 or more", it seems reasonable to arrive with 50, and sell in batches of 12. I was going to experiment with selling different size batches, but the second one made the cure, and I find there aren't many first infections to experiment with.
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Post by fallen on Jul 4, 2018 10:50:41 GMT -5
daveal - the Rep bonus is, like most Rep bonuses related to selling, directly related to the price of sale. You are not doing yourself favors by selling small batches. Get a good profit Talent, sell 50.
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Post by daveal on Jul 4, 2018 11:16:39 GMT -5
So for example, one batch of 240 medicine has the same probability to cure, and the same rep bonus, as 20 batches of 12? (I would be surprised if 12 rolls to cure gave the same result.)
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