Travel downtime makes half the game terribly boring

[jpinard]

I really enjoy this style of game, but I actually have to prod (force) myself to play as I kinda dread all the drab downtime while traveling.

I'm not a twitch gamer, I don't like fps's, I'm a strategy gamer through and through. But even I have limits and the long trips to drop stuff off at New Winchester and to go back and are just awful. There's no tension when traveling, there's nothing very interesting to look at. I appreciate the brilliant writing and story, but so much of this game (at least for me right now) is super boring with the trips between ports. I don't remember feeling this way with Sunless Sea. Does it get better?

[jpinard]

Also, sorry for the negativity for this post. I do love Failbetter and have kickstarted all their stuff. I can't quite put my finger one why I'm not enjoying this so far, and think it's because of the above and from reading some others posts I'd guess I'm not alone?

[Fadi Efendi]

What do your travel routes look like? I travel long spirals across the sector; you seem to be returning to the hub port more often.

Imho it gets better - by the time you get to Eleutheria, survival becomes much more difficult. No time for boredom with an undeparted on your heels!

[Taear]

I actually feel like it gets worse. In Eleutheria I'm just wanting to get to the next place and instead I've got to spend forever dodging monsters.

It's not like the totally enormous complete emptyness of Albion but it's annoying in a new way.

[jpinard]

I travel straight to the outer area then straight back to New Winchester. I really don't seem to have a reason to go in spirals.

[Taear]

Spirals also uses a lot of fuel/supplies and in some areas they're not that easy to replenish depending on the layout of your ports.

[Happygamer]

They should add an Engine Module slot to increase your locamotive's speed or decrease the fuel consumption.

[Avloren]

Originally posted by jpinard:

I travel straight to the outer area then straight back to New Winchester. I really don't seem to have a reason to go in spirals.

That isn't very efficient. New Winchester -> [any port] -> New Winchester is a lot of traveling for relatively little profit (port reports, bargains, quest completes, etc.). New Winchester -> Port 1 - > Port 2 -> Port 3 -> etc.. -> New Winchester gives you more of all the good profitable stuff relative to the travel time and fuel/supply use.

Basically look at your quests and trade good deliveries, and plan out a route to hit all of them up at once. Then also hit any other ports that are on the way (or just not too far out of the way), to grab their port reports and check their bazaars for stuff to buy. Carry limited fuel/supplies, grab as many trade goods as you can; replenish food/fuel as you go, grabbing a few more at each port.

Note this works best if you have a lot of cargo space, and a stockpile of trade goods you've bought at discount prices in your bank, so you can reliably complete several deliveries at once. Early game it's harder to pull off, you may be stuck doing single deliveries before heading back to Winchester.

Edit: also if you haven't completed the researcher's quest chain at the nature reserve, do so ASAP. After the chain is done, you unlock the ability to turn in any of the previous quest items repeatedly (there's like 8 or 10 of them). That's one more thing you can collect as you're spiraling around the reach doing bargains and port reports, they take no cargo space and you can turn them in at the reserve for ~300 coins per quest item.

[HappyIguana]

Originally posted by ArchLobster:

Originally posted by HappyIguana:

Honestly, just use Cheat Engine. It has a built-in speedhack. The game is much less tedious at 3x speed and the ship still handles fine...ish. It doesn't speed up sound effects or music so the atmosphere is not completely lost and you can disable it for combat..

Being that I would literally only use it for speed between stations once I have mapped out an area, I wouldn't mind that idea. Does it disable achievements?

It doesn't disable achievements. This game doesn't have anti-cheat (As well it shouldn't considering it's single player)

[Taear]

Originally posted by Avloren:

Originally posted by jpinard:

I travel straight to the outer area then straight back to New Winchester. I really don't seem to have a reason to go in spirals.

That isn't very efficient. New Winchester -> [any port] -> New Winchester is a lot of traveling for relatively little profit (port reports, bargains, quest completes, etc.). New Winchester -> Port 1 - > Port 2 -> Port 3 -> etc.. -> New Winchester gives you more of all the good profitable stuff relative to the travel time and fuel/supply use.

That's good and all but it doesn't stop Albion races or any number of other tedious travelling only quests.

[Nuff Nuff || Shazor]

Originally posted by HappyIguana:

Originally posted by ArchLobster:

Being that I would literally only use it for speed between stations once I have mapped out an area, I wouldn't mind that idea. Does it disable achievements?

It doesn't disable achievements. This game doesn't have anti-cheat (As well it shouldn't considering it's single player)

The most comfortable way for me to speed up the game was to bind the speedhack of cheat engine to two macro key on my mouse (one for normal speed, one for traveling speed) and i could toggle the speed very easily that way

[syrf90]

I double for spiral travels, at least at Reach and Albion (was not further yet). It is more rational fule-and-supply-wise, but it's secondary point. First is time-wise rationality! And even zero-point: it adds a kind of logistics meta in the game when you try to put all the stuff you need in a hub planning where you will resupply.

[trias]

It's mind blowing that they decided to take this element of Sunless Sea, where there was legitimate progression in this area (getting an engine with perma full power or just very fast), and replace it with a system where you just go X speed the entire game.

Why was full power removed in the first place? Why were purchasable upgrades to speed removed? I can't fathom why, but it is has made this game worse than Sunless Sea.

[syrf90]

Originally posted by trias:

Why was full power removed in the first place? Why were purchasable upgrades to speed removed? I can't fathom why, but it is has made this game worse than Sunless Sea.

Omg is it true? I was hoping speed upgrades was made rare and even more valuable and stacked in the final worlds. Sad to know there are no speed power-ups at all. Yet it doesn't make Skies worse than Sea for me at all.

[Mentally Unstable]

As much as I'm enjoying skies, I have to agree that the travelling speed is still an annoyance that detracts from the experience, worse still since there is no way to boost the speed at all unlike seas. I hope if and when they make "Sunless Grounds", they will pay more attention to that aspect.

[trias]

Originally posted by syrf90:

Originally posted by trias:

Why was full power removed in the first place? Why were purchasable upgrades to speed removed? I can't fathom why, but it is has made this game worse than Sunless Sea.

Omg is it true? I was hoping speed upgrades was made rare and even more valuable and stacked in the final worlds. Sad to know there are no speed power-ups at all. Yet it doesn't make Skies worse than Sea for me at all.

I guess I should say I don't know for sure if there are no speed upgrades as I haven't finished all content in the game (nor have I come close). But everything I've read and experienced indicates that there is no way to boost speed in the game.