Spoilers: Thats it? Thats the ending?

[PK_Ultra]

So you either

A: become a bunch of defenseless plant people

or

B: Insist on colonizing an uninhabitable world

And did anyone else think it was kind of sus that going with option A the plant people machine turned 1 to 1 all your crew into waste?

I feel like theres something more sinister going on with option A while option B is there to distract you from the fact that both endings are bad.

Think about it, Option A has a race of people who have no defenses whatsoever and its only a matter of time before something like the final chapter happens again.

It would've been nice if you could have colonized Romulus like option B but armed the Tiqqun instead of crashing it into the Piranisi so you could do a bombing run on the piranisi which is half dead and limping its way to Remus and used the Tiqqun to keep harvesting the solar system to make Romulus viable but I guess the game wants you to choose between false dichotomies to match the philosophy it wants to preach.

[Captain T1]

Originally posted by PK_Ultra:

but I guess the game wants you to choose between false dichotomies to match the philosophy it wants to preach.

Yeah that's the endings and pretty much this

[PK_Ultra]

Originally posted by Captain T1:

Originally posted by PK_Ultra:

but I guess the game wants you to choose between false dichotomies to match the philosophy it wants to preach.

Yeah that's the endings and pretty much this

I shouldve launched the Tiqqun into The Sphere.

[HeathenSW]

The whole last chapter feels rushed to me.

In prologue there was one big event, that's understandable. Good headstart.

In ch1 it's basically one big event after the other (earth, jupiter, outer hope, huge debris field). Everything is fresh and sad.

In ch2 it's again a couple of events (partoragas, first colony, first creepy event). Good continuation of everything established in ch1.

Ch3 is just huge even by itself and my favourite, since Etemenanki is amazing. It heats things up since you see what Piranisi is capable of while still not knowing what it is exactly.

Ch4 is again huge, since Piranisi is creepy as hell and tons of creepy events everywhere. It really feels like a climax when you win there.

Ch5 is... there? Really creepy events are none, with the exception of the spere and very ellusive conclusion for the sphere events chain that I couldn't get for whatever reason. Piranisi being alive basically crosses out the importance and strenght of whatever we were doing in Ch4. Hippie plant people with no defences seem reeeealy improbable, especially if you've taken some experiment on board in Ch3 in medical event and let it play out to it's fullest. If I recall it was exactly a member of Ashi people who met you on Remus, though experimented upon.

Deus ex machina about Romulus even existing seems like it should've been in the next non-existant Ch6 as well as the conclusion of sphere events, as well as the information that Edden lied to you, that you should've gotten in ch5 logically. Basically changing who's the big bad in here after the previous big bad Piranisi is out of the picture and leaving you one chapter to deal with it.

And we just get some slideshows for the ending that are good, but fall short of the opening 3d cutscenes.

It's like in The Lord of the Rings after the ring was gone and Sauron was gone - his armour would come back to life with the motions of an old zombie man and tried to attack Aragorn and co, while people would just toss Frodo into it for a big firework show. Would be anticlimactic as all hell.

[PK_Ultra]

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

The whole last chapter feels rushed to me.

In prologue there was one big event, that's understandable. Good headstart.

In ch1 it's basically one big event after the other (earth, jupiter, outer hope, huge debris field). Everything is fresh and sad.

In ch2 it's again a couple of events (partoragas, first colony, first creepy event). Good continuation of everything established in ch1.

Ch3 is just huge even by itself and my favourite, since Etemenanki is amazing. It heats things up since you see what Piranisi is capable of while still not knowing what it is exactly.

Ch4 is again huge, since Piranisi is creepy as hell and tons of creepy events everywhere. It really feels like a climax when you win there.

Ch5 is... there? Really creepy events are none, with the exception of the spere and very ellusive conclusion for the sphere events chain that I couldn't get for whatever reason. Piranisi being alive basically crosses out the importance and strenght of whatever we were doing in Ch4. Hippie plant people with no defences seem reeeealy improbable, especially if you've taken some experiment on board in Ch3 in medical event and let it play out to it's fullest. If I recall it was exactly a member of Ashi people who met you on Remus, though experimented upon.

Deus ex machina about Romulus even existing seems like it should've been in the next non-existant Ch6 as well as the conclusion of sphere events, as well as the information that Edden lied to you, that you should've gotten in ch5 logically. Basically changing who's the big bad in here after the previous big bad Piranisi is out of the picture and leaving you one chapter to deal with it.

And we just get some slideshows for the ending that are good, but fall short of the opening 3d cutscenes.

It's like in The Lord of the Rings after the ring was gone and Sauron was gone - his armour would come back to life with the motions of an old zombie man and tried to attack Aragorn and co, while people would just toss Frodo into it for a big firework show. Would be anticlimactic as all hell.

You know I think youre right, there needed to be another level before or after the final level.

Reading the lore you really do get this impression that you're one of the bad guys and whoever survived after you might not be so good either for the reasons you mentioned. People threw away their humanity to survive and in the end you get peaceful plant people? And theres the huge mystery of The Sphere built into every chapter. Remember when we found the wreckage of a alternate Tiqqun in the Piranisi level?! The idea of alternate realities is implanted so thoroughly in the story but theres no real payoff except for finding The Sphere in the final level.

Again, I should've just launched the Tiqqun straight into The Sphere.

[Ruffio]

It's not always about the destination, but the journey -)

[PK_Ultra]

Originally posted by Ruffio:

It's not always about the destination, but the journey -)

tell that to the 100+ people who died on my ship. :P

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by PK_Ultra:

Originally posted by Ruffio:

It's not always about the destination, but the journey -)

tell that to the 100+ people who died on my ship. :P

Such a cruel admin... I made it with 35 dead -)

[lily40k]

Originally posted by Captain T1:

Originally posted by PK_Ultra:

but I guess the game wants you to choose between false dichotomies to match the philosophy it wants to preach.

Yeah that's the endings and pretty much this

Its the current thing and everyone must support it : humans = bad for environment, somehow no technology cant help and you must ram priceless ship into something to destroy it.

Originally posted by Ruffio:

Originally posted by PK_Ultra:

tell that to the 100+ people who died on my ship. :P

Such a cruel admin... I made it with 35 dead -)

Thats cruel? i was systematically starving my population sector with non workers to get rid of them...

[SIX]

Where does it say Romulus is a uninhabitable world ?

[Natjur]

Chapter 5 feels rushed, like they did not finish the story in time for release and just cut it earlier.

A dlc that replaces the current chap 5 with a few new chaps would be cool, and a different ending please

[Falkenherz]

Yes, the final choice seems inconsequential and it feels not rewarding at all. I felt similar in the end of Cyberpunkt 2077. What was the point of the story except to try to transform you in to a nihilist?

Also, I was very annoyed that they made the Piranisi re-appear. If it wasn´t thouroughly destroyed by the pulse in the previous chapter, I would have checked and made sure of that by sending it into the pulsar or something. But I did not get an option like this. This sping-back-to-life-villain is a thing comes from bad 80s movies.

And, yes, a lot of things remain unanswered. Why did the green people know of us? From where or who? Why are they defenseless and who thought that to be a good idea after all what apparently happened after the lunaclysm? What about all those weird events on the planets, the grey sphere, those temples, the shadows in the ice, the time-warp-planet, etc. I don´t mind one or two unanswered mysteries, but here, everything remains unanswered.

From a gameplay perspective, what should be my incentive to re-play? I re-started once, after I got a grasp on all those unexplained mechanics and had a near-perfect layout in the end, with plenty of resources in my storage. I can´t play with a different science-combo, different class or different path.

Bottomline, while I liked the aspect of steering a spacearc while at the same time build its infrastructure inside, I liked the solar systems and all those science events, the game offers very little reward and no incentive at all to achieve the end more than once.

[LightManMage]

After finishing it myself, I find that I agree that it feels like the ending was rushed/cut short compared to the rest of the game. I think that's because by the time you get to the end you're kinda done managing the city part of IXION (at least I was) so I think play-testing wise (?) that might be why they didn't make it two chapters but trimmed and crammed things into one.

[Rithrin]

Originally posted by Falkenherz:

And, yes, a lot of things remain unanswered. Why did the green people know of us? From where or who? Why are they defenseless and who thought that to be a good idea after all what apparently happened after the lunaclysm?

Definitely some vagueness with the background of the setting, for sure. But at least for this part, they are the Ashtangites. In the prologue they are all living on the Urshanabi, which is the ship you first interact with to receive food and workers. It is explained that they are a minor player in the space game, but still leagues ahead of most, and one of Dolos' closest partners.

During the struggle between the Dolos, the UN, and the BMS, the Ashtangites managed somehow to keep a low profile and successfully made it to Remus. There's a few science events over the course of the game that show how the Ashtangites were experimentally heavily with modifying human genetics with animals and other organisms. So they had specifically genetically designed themselves to live on Remus instead of terraforming the planet.

When the Tiqqun finally jumps into the system, the Ashtangites recognize Dolos for the partnership they had back in Sol.

Regarding their defenses, my guess is that they were not truly defenseless, in the sense that they had zero means to protect themselves, but that they were defenseless against the Piranesi, which is basically some nearly indestructible horrible eldritch abomination of a living ship. As the Piranesi can apparently consume planets, I don't find it too surprising that they were defenseless against it.

[PK_Ultra]

Originally posted by SIX:

Where does it say Romulus is a uninhabitable world ?

well for one thing Edden says so if you try to shut her down. Second, if you actually visit the planet with the Tiqqun you see that its a giant desert planet with no water. And if you choose to colonize it, everybody has to live in colony stations and wear hazmat suits everywhere. Put the pieces together. Romulus is a dead planet and Edden is right.

[Rithrin]

Originally posted by PK_Ultra:

Originally posted by SIX:

Where does it say Romulus is a uninhabitable world ?

well for one thing Edden says so if you try to shut her down. Second, if you actually visit the planet with the Tiqqun you see that its a giant desert planet with no water. And if you choose to colonize it, everybody has to live in colony stations and wear hazmat suits everywhere. Put the pieces together. Romulus is a dead planet and Edden is right.

Well, they do have to actually colonize the planet first, which assumedly involves some form of terraforming. Edden didn't say anything when we shut them off, just immediately stopped announcing any events, but I certainly wouldn't trust Edden if they were manipulating information that was presented to me in real time, especially after being so interfered with by hacking attempts that they tried to self-destruct the ship.

Other than the planet looking a bit dry, though, I didn't get the impression that it was uninhabitable. I guess it's possible the entire crew was suffering some sort of mass delusion, but I feel like the ending slides and other info would be delivered with a different tone if that were the case. On the ending slide they also were not wearing hazmat suits - just regular uniforms and no helmets. Even Dog is there just breathing away normally on the planet's surface.