What is Icarus? Icarus - First Cohort Game Info/Basics and Lore

[Royal]

https://youtu.be/LT3fr6eWkNY

Seen as people seem to keep asking why the game makes no sense or why you have no tools, this should help answer why.

There's also a pop up to the no rescue trailer which should even further your understanding

I'm editing this post to include what I have also included in the comments of my video 🙂

So it turns out based on the video and reading that I did I had the wrong understanding of the lore at least part of it anyway I'll link a quote from the dev at the bottom of this text post, the video however was not meant to intentionally mislead so sorry about that, the no rescue trailer and what I had read up until today, to me sounded a lot more like expendable labour not intentional death of your own choice.

You are not expendable workforce personnel etc but you are just some poor person who has somehow scraped enough money to buy your way to Icarus, I was not intentionally trying to mislead but based on the no rescue trailer and logic of what was said during it that was the most logical outcome in my opinion and I just thought that was actually the lore because the actual story below makes a lot less sense to me so it wasn't even on my radar as an outcome.

The lore is now in my eyes less believable as a realistic scenario however, as with the devs response it now means this person is now intentionally putting themselves in a massively deadly situation, the reasons this is less believable to me is as follows;

1. Why would you have enough money to travel to a planet 30 trillion miles away but not have enough money to buy and take any tools with you.

2. If you had enough money for space travel, surely you aren't that poor, and if space travel is that cheap surely it's not just poor people that would go? Especially if Icarus was sold as a Paradise planet before people became aware of the storms and predators living on it.

3. People using the weight of the tools for current weight to fuel limits on modern rockets as a limitation, by whatever year Icarus takes place surely they have better fuel and rocket/booster designs considering they made the the multiple light years to the planet considering Mars is a fraction of this and we can barely get a rover to and from it.

4. Why wouldn't the corporation that is paying the prospectors just ship out a container of equipment for them to use, the weight/fuel cost would surely be offset by the money brought in by them as they hand over exotics which were described in the trailer as the most expensive materials in the universe. I just find it hard to believe they wouldn't want to speed up the process to make even more money considering they had the money to attempt to terraform a planet....

Maybe in the future this will make more sense to be but right now it's making less sense than what I thought I understood from the trailer.

"To answer why prospectors have nothing when they land, it's worth noting, prospectors are not wealthy astronauts. They are lower-class, struggling people from earth, who sold everything they had, and gave up every last dime to make the trip to Icarus, for a chance at wealth that would set up their family for generations.

It's almost like a modern-day gold rush!

[Thorack]

Oh, I just thought of a good asnwer to why they dont even bring a pick axe!
Well it is much cheaper not too, not the acctul pick axe cost but the cost in fuel for transporting that extra weight when you can easly craft it on the new planet!

Side note, transporting something to Mars today is roughly 10k usd/kg (when you buy many kg's).

[Shawn]

Messaggio originale di Knife Duck:

Snip

i'll say it again since you clearly miss the point and keep talking about whats more "believable"

"you are spreading misinformation rather or not it makes more sense is irrelevant, the devs say otherwise."

Are you the developer of the game? No? then shesh the devs decided what the lore is not you.

[Royal]

Messaggio originale di Thorack:

Oh, I just thought of a good asnwer to why they dont even bring a pick axe!
Well it is much cheaper not too, not the acctul pick axe cost but the cost in fuel for transporting that extra weight when you can easly craft it on the new planet!

Side note, transporting something to Mars today is roughly 10k usd/kg (when you buy many kg's).

I also thought of this as a reason but, considering they probably have much more efficient fuel and rockets etc maybe it would be possible without it being as expensive as today.

I don't know about that one, just seems odd they can afford to terraform, build multiple ecosystems on a planet, make and ship parts for an orbiting station, design make and ship drills to mine exotics, but the people were either not sent with tools or couldn't afford tools etc.

The lore as a whole is sounding a lot less real to me, corporate greed would have been a lot more simple to sell as an idea. It's real now, it will be real in the future.

[Jayson Phoenix]

Messaggio originale di Knife Duck:

Another part of the trailer that makes no sense if they really are random poor people, how come that Mo the engineer that died, who was clearly wealthy because she helped to terraform the planet, didn't buy that first group of prospectors any gear, or herself any gear lol

The more it's made about individuals who are poor the less it makes sense to me, corporations being greedy as possible and not caring for outsourced workers seems way more realistic and possible than intentionally putting your life on the line where you are definitely more likely to die purely because you didn't buy any tools.

yeah well as shawn said its not about what you think or speculate or whats the plot holes here, we were talking about whats fact and what you made up by yourself. now that thats backed up by sources and we know about why you only speculated or interpreted we can have a seperate conversation about the plotholes or whats realistic or even how you interpreted the trailer for yourself if you wish. ;)

so about that moe part, we dont even know for sure shes really dead btw, so yeah she had the cash but it doesnt state she kept it on her but could aswell have sent most of it back to earth, who knows. and it doesnt say she had no equipment herself, but just because she got money and the others dont doesnt mean she would buy stuff for other random miners, not everybody would just frankly do that sadly. lets say the miners would die and then she joins the next group, should she pay and equip them all with her hard earned money? shes supporting em with knowlage to make their own stuff so thats already an advantage. and by telling from the gameplay, im at iron level in the first day or maybe 2nd, not hard to come by some basic equipment so why even care from moes standpoint, she could even speed that process up with her equipment and knowlage anyway. so not that much of a plothole there imo.

and about the poor guys who sold it all to pay for a ticket part again, read what i said about the gold rush back in the say, it literally was just like that. so not that much of a plot hole here aswell but i agree nobody would do that anymore nowadays (well maybe besides me ^^ if theyd offer me a ticket worth all i have i would go in an instant, no matter the risk if its about a hostile but earth like environment), thats why i advertised the idea of a starter kit. my idea was it should have the most basic things everybody would bring, like iron pickaxe, axe, knife, maybe a pistole with 2 mags, flashlight, medkit, oxygen, rations for some days, and maybe a tent with a sleepingback. so that stuff would get rid of the logic complaints while it wouldnt last long anyway, tools would break after a few days, pistole ammo and medkit and flashlight batteries will be gone after the first day, oxygen and rations after a few days and the tent would be shred to pieces after 1 or 2 storms. so who cares gameplay wise, but logic wise it would help most complainers to not question that part anymore i believe. maybe together with some explaination beforehand, intro video or whatever explaining the gold rush thing again and there you go. would you agree or is that still too much of a plot hole to you?

[Royal]

Messaggio originale di Jayson Phoenix:

if theyd offer me a ticket worth all i have i would go in an instant, no matter the risk if its about a hostile but earth like environment)

This is why I don't think we will ever agree if it's believable, or how or why it's good or bad as a story.

No person with enough property or belongings worth enough for space travel would intentionally go to a planet where the chances are they are going to die there.

People might take that risk if they literally have nothing left, but not if they had enough to sell as they actually do have something.

There is a vast difference between gold rush and this games attempt at lore, a huge, massive difference.

They can compare it to a gold rush but saying the risks were the same is just insane, considering Icarus is quite literally a death trap you can't even breath on.

[Jayson Phoenix]

Messaggio originale di Knife Duck:

Messaggio originale di Thorack:

Oh, I just thought of a good asnwer to why they dont even bring a pick axe!
Well it is much cheaper not too, not the acctul pick axe cost but the cost in fuel for transporting that extra weight when you can easly craft it on the new planet!

Side note, transporting something to Mars today is roughly 10k usd/kg (when you buy many kg's).

I also thought of this as a reason but, considering they probably have much more efficient fuel and rockets etc maybe it would be possible without it being as expensive as today.

I don't know about that one, just seems odd they can afford to terraform, build multiple ecosystems on a planet, make and ship parts for an orbiting station, design make and ship drills to mine exotics, but the people were either not sent with tools or couldn't afford tools etc.

The lore as a whole is sounding a lot less real to me, corporate greed would have been a lot more simple to sell as an idea. It's real now, it will be real in the future.

since i couldnt find a timeline anywhere yet i believe its in a not so distant future so the situation is pretty much the same as in real now, besides we are capable of interstellar travel (which most likely wouldnt use rocket fuel, so the from and to planet transportation could still have the same problems, sure cheaper because re-usable just like with spacex now but still things like more weight more costs would apply) and terraforming which we dont know much about how they did it in this game. i just wouldnt expect the background of the game taking place in a hightech scify society but rather in one like ours with just the differences of interstellar travel and terraforming since we didnt see any hints on other scify stuff yet. and im pretty sure theres corporate greed involved, but that doesnt necessarely be the way you imagined for the how to get there thing. pretty sure the space station and the corporation owning it and the other factions present there would be greedy in just the same way as the town people american gold rush were, we already had the hint in the trailer about worth of a pickaxe at the station and underpriced selling of exotics there, so sure theres greed involved and im sure we will see some conspiracy stuff about that planet is declared inhabitable the moment we found exotics thing, thats a pretty obviouse hint there

[Royal]

Messaggio originale di Jayson Phoenix:

Messaggio originale di Knife Duck:

I also thought of this as a reason but, considering they probably have much more efficient fuel and rockets etc maybe it would be possible without it being as expensive as today.

I don't know about that one, just seems odd they can afford to terraform, build multiple ecosystems on a planet, make and ship parts for an orbiting station, design make and ship drills to mine exotics, but the people were either not sent with tools or couldn't afford tools etc.

The lore as a whole is sounding a lot less real to me, corporate greed would have been a lot more simple to sell as an idea. It's real now, it will be real in the future.

since i couldnt find a timeline anywhere yet i believe its in a not so distant future so the situation is pretty much the same as in real now, besides we are capable of interstellar travel (which most likely wouldnt use rocket fuel, so the from and to planet transportation could still have the same problems, sure cheaper because re-usable just like with spacex now but still things like more weight more costs would apply) and terraforming which we dont know much about how they did it in this game. i just wouldnt expect the background of the game taking place in a hightech scify society but rather in one like ours with just the differences of interstellar travel and terraforming since we didnt see any hints on other scify stuff yet. and im pretty sure theres corporate greed involved, but that doesnt necessarely be the way you imagined for the how to get there thing. pretty sure the space station and the corporation owning it and the other factions present there would be greedy in just the same way as the town people american gold rush were, we already had the hint in the trailer about worth of a pickaxe at the station and underpriced selling of exotics there, so sure theres greed involved and im sure we will see some conspiracy stuff about that planet is declared inhabitable the moment we found exotics thing, thats a pretty obviouse hint there

I mean that's also speculation though, considering we don't really have any terraforming tech right now and we can barely make it to mars and back properly we somehow in a few years jumped to going light years regularly on manned missions?

This must be at least 50 years in the future as we are so far away right now from actually colonising anywhere let alone terraforming it

Granted it's a game but, weird to go with a weirdly realistic story and then bend it to be near modern day when we have basically none of the tech that the game uses

[Jayson Phoenix]

Messaggio originale di Knife Duck:

Messaggio originale di Jayson Phoenix:

if theyd offer me a ticket worth all i have i would go in an instant, no matter the risk if its about a hostile but earth like environment)

This is why I don't think we will ever agree if it's believable, or how or why it's good or bad as a story.

No person with enough property or belongings worth enough for space travel would intentionally go to a planet where the chances are they are going to die there.

People might take that risk if they literally have nothing left, but not if they had enough to sell as they actually do have something.

There is a vast difference between gold rush and this games attempt at lore, a huge, massive difference.

They can compare it to a gold rush but saying the risks were the same is just insane, considering Icarus is quite literally a death trap you can't even breath on.

as shawn quoted "they are lower class struggling people from earth" so the ticket doesnt seem to cost millions and i was saying if i COULD get one for the price worth of all i have i would go in an instant, i bet theres more people who would, and in this game theres not thousands of miners sitting on the space station so obviously its risky and not everybody would go but sure some would. as the 2nd betas intro said "i guess you have your reasons", so yeah, some of us have their reasons and take the risk for the promised reward or the adventure itself or whatever it is for you. just because you or even most wouldnt do it doesnt mean nobody would. and as i said, nobody would go and bring nothing at all nowadays (nobody not meant literally), sure i would try and bring at least some basic stuff, a at least pocketknife or whatever which should be affordable even when i spent my last penny ^^ thats why i advertised that starter kit, but at the same time im sure even if we werent allowed to bring even a pocket knife some of us would still go, i would

[Jayson Phoenix]

Messaggio originale di Knife Duck:

I mean that's also speculation though, considering we don't really have any terraforming tech right now and we can barely make it to mars and back properly we somehow in a few years jumped to going light years regularly on manned missions?

This must be at least 50 years in the future as we are so far away right now from actually colonising anywhere let alone terraforming it

Granted it's a game but, weird to go with a weirdly realistic story and then bend it to be near modern day when we have basically none of the tech that the game uses

actually theres a lot of scify movies and games doing exactly that. it could be in a made up universe where everything is exactly the same including space travel tech but with the difference that we know about interstellar travel and terraforming, its science-fiction ;)
and yes sure thats speculating, i didnt say anything about facts or thats how it is here, i was trying to make the point that theres no hint or reason to think its in a far future with a hightech society until they tell us it is, so till then we can just assume it is just the same as it is in real besides the facts they gave us which is interstellar travel and terraforming. and btw, interstellar travel could be right arround the corner if somebody suddenly came up with a working idea for faster engine technology and/or cryosleep, thats not even that much of science-fiction imo, could take 100 years but aswell could just take 10, depends.

[Royal]

Messaggio originale di Jayson Phoenix:

Messaggio originale di Knife Duck:

I mean that's also speculation though, considering we don't really have any terraforming tech right now and we can barely make it to mars and back properly we somehow in a few years jumped to going light years regularly on manned missions?

This must be at least 50 years in the future as we are so far away right now from actually colonising anywhere let alone terraforming it

Granted it's a game but, weird to go with a weirdly realistic story and then bend it to be near modern day when we have basically none of the tech that the game uses

actually theres a lot of scify movies and games doing exactly that. it could be in a made up universe where everything is exactly the same including space travel tech but with the difference that we know about interstellar travel and terraforming, its science-fiction ;)
and yes sure thats speculating, i didnt say anything about facts or thats how it is here, i was trying to make the point that theres no hint or reason to think its in a far future with a hightech society until they tell us it is, so till then we can just assume it is just the same as it is in real besides the facts they gave us which is interstellar travel and terraforming. and btw, interstellar travel could be right arround the corner if somebody suddenly came up with a working idea for faster engine technology and/or cryosleep, thats not even that much of science-fiction imo, could take 100 years but aswell could just take 10, depends.

I mean lets face facts unless something is profitable nobody will want to make it public, the main reason people patent things that are actually worth money so they make the most out of it lol

I've posted a comment on the video and edited it into this post anyway, I still think it's a worse direction for the lore purely based on logic and the realism they seem to want to go with but now it's not as realistic.

We will just have to see if it gets changed or more explanation is given in the future, though yeah I hope it's not going to have these weird plot holes in it.

[Shawn]

Messaggio originale di Knife Duck:

We will just have to see if it gets changed or more explanation is given in the future, though yeah I hope it's not going to have these weird plot holes in it.

I think we all can agree we hope they "improve" it. what i don't want tho is them see someone else idea and go "hmm that sounds more believable then our stuff lets steal it" cause if they do that i lose all hope for this game on the spot L:ol

oh heres the link to the devs post in question incase someone asked for the source of your quote

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1149460/discussions/1/3035977035327315669/?ctp=2#c3035977035326938137

[Royal]

The best part of a story isn't where it starts though it's where it ends, it just needs to have a solid start or it's doomed to end badly.

That's why the actual dev post about lore is making me worried as it just opened up a bunch of logical plot holes that I don't get.

But yeah, hopefully week by week it trickles in.

[Jayson Phoenix]

Messaggio originale di Knife Duck:

I mean lets face facts unless something is profitable nobody will want to make it public, the main reason people patent things that are actually worth money so they make the most out of it lol

I've posted a comment on the video and edited it into this post anyway, I still think it's a worse direction for the lore purely based on logic and the realism they seem to want to go with but now it's not as realistic.

We will just have to see if it gets changed or more explanation is given in the future, though yeah I hope it's not going to have these weird plot holes in it.

appreciate at least commenting on your video, as i said i didnt wanna make you look like intentionally spreading false information. but since not everybody takes the time to read comments and in some cases like the youtube app on firetv that i use doesnt even have video description and comments section at all, might i suggest you make a popup comment during the relating section of the video where you talk about that part of thge lore? youtubers often correct some small flaws in their videos that way which seems fair enough. because otherwise those who cant see your comment or just dont take the time to look for it will still think its like you said on your video and might spead false info and so on. so hope you could take that extra efford just to make sure your comment or at least the correction part of it reaches every viewer. sorry i had to bother you with all that stuff but for some of us this seperating facts from speculation seems important as you can see, even tho i believe communicating information is not what the devs are best at in this game and they should have made things more clear and more at the first glance so not so many would get confused about a lot of things here. so not even your fault in the first place. ;)

for the lore and logic flaws and future development of that, take your chance to help about that stuff since this is still beta and you might have a chance to influence some of this with your feedback. like in my example with the starter pack, i dont need it but i was looking for a way to deal with all these complaints about the logic flaw with that specific part of the lore and gameplay, so i offered a possible solution for them to tink about it and maybe inspire em for coming up with a solution. theres lots of stuff here that could need a lil work and inspiration on possible solutions, so take your chance on making this game better. sure we cant change what they already came up with but we can still work with what is and inspire.

btw, ive just seen dean talking about it beeing possible to open our visor in the furure, creating massive plot holes in my head about the atmosphere and space suit thing. hopefully in his too so maybe some of what they already posted as facts is still up to change aswell. sadly hes a mistery kind of guy so often we will just have to wait till he reveiles something and only then get to give feedback or inspiration on that then