Technical Support, Feedback and Bug Reports

[failbetterfuzz]

Sunless Skies now has an in-game feedback and bug reporting tool which is accessible by pressing F8, or via the Give Feedback button on the Main Menu (press Esc or click the Cog icon on the HUD).

Once open you should select an appropriate category from the dropdown list (Feedback, Narrative Issue, or Other Issue) before entering a description. The more information you can give us about the steps you took before encountering an issue the better.

If you cannot launch the game in order to access the bug reporter, then please see our official Troubleshooting Guide. This comprehensive guide covers crashes, black screens, and all manner of start-up issues, including details on how to repair your save files if they become corrupt.

[failbetterfuzz]

Our Troubleshooting Guide also features a "Not A Bug" section which is reproduced below. There are a number of things in game which people sometimes think are working incorrectly, but they are deliberate design choices. Please don't report these to us via the in-game reporter because "it's not a bug, it's a feature".

• Mme. Lumière's shop is missing
  
• Full screen mode is not remembered on Linux
  
• Hidden Compartments do not boost hold space
  
• Labels are in the wrong place
  
• The directions to a port has changed in my journal
  
• Pending Prospects cannot be handed in
  
• The Bazaar has a bargain for the same good as a pending prospect
  
• Stovepipes attack me even though I'm aligned with them
  
• I cannot find the transit relay in Albion
  
• Censored words
  
• Something that Glisters
  
• Intentional typos

Mme. Lumière's shop is missing

If you played in Early Access you may remember Mme. Lumière's shop was at New Winchester. This was deliberately removed on launch for balancing reasons. Instead, there are new Storylets at a number of ports which allow you to trade story items for sovereigns and Experience.

• The Midnight Confessional, at the Gentleman's platform at Pan will buy Villainy items (Crimson Promise, Unlicensed Chart, Savage Secret, Tale of Terror)
  
• The Porphyry Font at Titania will buy Bohemian items (Captivating treasure, Moment of Inspiration, Vision of the Heavens, Sky-Story)
  
• The Celestial Exhibition at the Royal Society will buy Academic items (Searing Enigma, Condemned Experiment, Otherwordly Artefact, Uncanny Specimen)
  
• The Silken Salon at London will buy Establishment items (Royal Dispensation, Cryptic Benefactor, Ministry-Stamped Permit, Salon-Stewed Gossip)

Full screen mode is not remembered on Linux

Apologies for this, I know it's annoying. It's actually deliberate at the moment because during Early Access launching the game in full screen on some Linux machines caused the game to crash. With very few Linux players at the time it was hard for us to gather data on what was causing this, so we made it default to windowed mode on launch each time. Our intention is to fix this in the future once we can diagnose the issue properly.

Hidden Compartments do not boost hold space

This is intended. There are several pieces of locomotive equipment in game which grant the Hidden Compartments quality. When you have this quality a new bar will appear on your Hold underneath the Hold capacity bar. This quality does not increase your maximum Hold space, but it does provide secret places in which to stash your illegal goods. If your Contraband quality is higher than your Hidden Compartments quality then you are more likely to have items seized by the Revenue Man. If Contraband is lower than Hidden Compartments then your captain may be particularly savvy at finding ways to sneak things through customs.

Labels are in the wrong place

This is actually not a bug but a deliberate placement of the label. 'Major' labels are usually close to ports, but it's not always the case. For example the Brabazon Workworld major label is closer to the Transit Relay than it is to the Brabazon dock. Similarly the Traitor's Wood major label is placed where you enter the Traitor's Wood itself, rather than near the dock. Some labels such as Magdalene's are fairly close to the port itself but are not necessarily triggered by docking at the port, you'll need to explore the surrounding area a little.

The directions to a port has changed in my journal

If you see the directions from a hub (central) port to a port in an outer segment change in the journal then this is deliberate. This is related to how our procedural generation system works and we'll explain with the use of a diagram of the segments in the Reach:

https://imgur.com/a/gaKzQ8i

New Winchester is obviously the hub port in segment 1. If on a new save you are given a quest to go to Prosper and are told it's due north of New Winchester, then it means the proc gen system has spawned Proper in segment 2. If you find it on that playthrough and dock there, then that segment becomes locked into place for that captain and it will never change. If however you don't find it and turn the game off (or even back out to the title screen while you make a cup of tea), then the next time you load back into the game, any undiscovered segments may have shuffled, so the Proper port could this time be in segment 5 for example. This is then reflected in any directions displayed in the journal.

Pending Prospects cannot be handed in

Some prospects have requirements just like branches on storylets. You may be eligible for a prospect when you claim it at a hub port, but if your circumstances change before you can deliver the goods, then you will be prevented from handing the prospect in. If you no longer meet the prospect’s requirements, the quality requirement icon below it will be greyed out. Mousing over it will give further details.

https://imgur.com/a/HYWqisx

The Bazaar has a bargain for the same good as a pending prospect

We appreciate this looks odd and may feel like a bit of an exploit when it does happen, however we don’t consider this to be a bug. The bargains that appear at non-hub bazaars are randomly selected from an available pool, and sometimes you will get lucky in this way.

Narratively, since they are different merchants it’s plausible that a seller may be trying to offload a good that someone at the same bazaar is trying to acquire, but that doesn’t mean they’ve necessarily stumbled upon each other yet. Consider your Captain as the savvy wheeler-dealer who has jumped in as the middleman in order to make a tidy profit.

Reworking the Prospects and Bargains system to “fix” this issue would be a huge undertaking. Since it’s such a minor issue we’d rather pour our time into adding new content, improving the usability of the game and making quality of life updates. For this reason it’s highly unlikely we will ever change this feature.

Stovepipes attack me even though I'm aligned with them

There are variants of the London vessels internally known as 'tipped-off' Enduring Dreadnoughts/Ministry Monitors. They are indistinguishable from the regular models but one of their wrath provocations looks for the Contraband quality. If you are carrying any contraband items (Firkin of Red Honey, Trunk of Illicit Literature, Hogshead of Starshine) they will attack you even if your Stovepipe reputation is high and you are not “Wanted by the Stovepipes”.

The explanation for this is given in the storylet that introduces them. A snippet from one branch is given in the spoiler below:


"All of them fancy scopes and sounding-equipment? That's for spotting smugglers. The Revenue Men put a lot of money into this."

The bridge is cramped, crammed with state-of-the-art sensory equipment. You put your eye to the main scope, and it flings your sight through the Monitor's precisely-aligned lenses and away to a distant stretch of the sky

I cannot find the transit relay in Albion

After we redesigned Albion in the Wayfarer update (April 2019) it reset the chart/Fog of War for that region. Occasionally people with a save file that was already in Albion at the time of the redesign struggle to find the transit relay to return to the Reach.

The relay is part of the permanent landscape of the Brabazon segment, it's not a random spawn, so if you cannot find it on your map you've just not gotten close enough to uncover it. Below is a screenshot of the chart to show where the relay is in relation to The Bit Between/Brabazon dock.

In this screenshot the Brabazon segment has spawned north of London.

https://imgur.com/a/oINFxhi

Censored words

Occasionally you’ll see words that look as if they’ve been censored.

https://imgur.com/a/zSYTWt9

Our motive here isn't censorship, it's worldbuilding. There is actually no profanity filter on Skies, this is a deliberate, edited choice in our prose. Dashing out the middle of swear-words was an occasional Victorian habit, and is a nice, low-effort way to establish our period and some of its (often hypocritical) habits.

Something that Glisters

Occasionally we are sent bug reports for the chart label Something that Glisters, with the question 'do you mean glistens?'. Nope, we definitely mean glisters. It's a fairly archaic word[www.dictionary.com] that is akin to glisten and we rather like it.

Intentional typos

Some things that have been reported as typos, but are intentional: zailor; zee, eery; words ending in -ise and other British English usages.

Some words and names may be spelled differently in dialogue in order to hint at a character's accent. For example, you may see Wilma as Vilma when German characters are speaking.