Alien on ship

[Chris]

Anybody get the alien on the ship as I've seen in some screenshots? I kinda wanted that to happen last game, I was stocking up on cadavers, but I'm not sure if that is how, or if they ride up on your drone. Go on, ruin it for me...how do you get alien on ship and do you have to deal with that situation somehow, or is it gameover?

[Khallis]

Thanks for putting this in the right section. :)

You are guaranteed that your first couple games (less than three) will be safe of sudden special surprises like this. After that, the gloves come off from then on.

Since you asked for spoilers, I'll say, on some planets they're curious little fellows... if you pick up a module from a ruin near one, it might come over to see what's inside the rover. Pay attention to how many objects you picked up. Watch when you unload that cargo off the rover too...

On some planets, they aren't curious little fellows at all. The rules of different planets are different. They might be totally harmless or they might not. This is roguelike design in action - just because you saw one doesn't mean that is necessarily the potential surprise that time.

Once on board, it can be dealt with, but it can also be game over. There's two ways that I know of to deal with it, and if you do, you'll get bonus points and a callout in your epilogue about how you did it. There are also a few ways to fail to deal with it, with various levels of consequences, some of which have a LOT of negative points and entertaining epilogues too.

It's also not the only thing like this that can happen to you. A couple others haven't been leaked yet.

You can play a lot of games without encountering the surprises. They're intended to keep the game fresh when you think you know all the rules.

[Enkidu]

Originally posted by Khallis:

Thanks for putting this in the right section. :)


Once on board, it can be dealt with, but it can also be game over. There's two ways that I know of to deal with it, and if you do, you'll get bonus points and a callout in your epilogue about how you did it. There are also a few ways to fail to deal with it, with various levels of consequences, some of which have a LOT of negative points and entertaining epilogues too.

Well, exactly that happened to me. Got some Artifact from a lagre Ziggurat sorrouned by wierd but harmless creatures. One of these "Artifacts" simply floated into my Storage system on unloading to do god-knows-what in there. Props to this game, it really surprised me (on my third game so far) Its quite awesome, glad I bought itr ight away:

But now my question: are there any hints at these solutions? The only thing I could think of so far is to jump into EVA and vent the entire ship in hopes that it gets sucked into space, but I'm really not sure about that....

[Chris]

Thanks for the response. I'm really enjoying this game. It's a great concept.

[Khallis]

Originally posted by K98:

But now my question: are there any hints at these solutions? The only thing I could think of so far is to jump into EVA and vent the entire ship in hopes that it gets sucked into space, but I'm really not sure about that....

It seems like there are hints about things you could try, then.

In desiging these solutions, I wanted to avoid the solution making the existence of the puzzle obvious before it happens. For example, if you found a pistol in your bunk and you could aim it, you'd say, "That's weird. Huh, I must have to get in a fight later. Ok."

On the other hand, if pirates boarded your ship, and suddenly a panel that's always been closed opens to reveal a pistol, that's bad too - how were you supposed to know to go there to get it, that's never even been open before.

To try to make it fair, I want the solution to have been there all along, but you didn't necessarily realize when you saw it why you'd need it. It's a tightrope.

Originally posted by Chris:

Thanks for the response. I'm really enjoying this game. It's a great concept.

Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Thanks for taking a gamble on it.

[PuppetPal Mitch]

When it happened to me I was running around the ship after seeing it pop out of my drone during unloading. I sent the drone out and lost sight of it. Heard thumping and thought it was outside, so I hopped into my eva suit and went to have a look. Found nothing. Went back in but as I entered the airlock found the thing on the glass on the inside of the ship! So since it was on the glass looking at me I hit the button and let it get blasted into vaccuum. Running around without a plan in a panic happened to pay off. I assume it must have been in the cargo system but since I had all the doors open it just wandered around while I was out doing my pointless eva exercise :D

[Enkidu]

So I finally got around to booting up this game again and dealt with it by blowing it out the Cargo Airlock. Following what Khallis told me, I went to Engineering and found that these Systems worked as I thought:
1. The Cargo System in engineering will show you the Alien as an "Obstruction" as long as its floating through the Cargo system. That way you can see where it is going and where it's gonna pop up.
2. After reaching its destination, the alien will only get out once you do a cargo operation from/to that room. Well at least that's what I think - this game has managed to convince me that this kind of thing isn't certain.

I'm really curious what the second solution might be though - I suspect it somehow involves taking the alien with you without getting killed by it on the voyage home. I'll check out the ship again in regards to what other logical options I have in dealing with a situation like this.

Oh yeah, and while I got rid of it I'm scared as hell by open doors and feel like my safe little ship is now a scary place. Like an apartment that has been burglarized... and a reminder that this Game is about screwing with things better left alone. Props to the dev!

[Scrundle]

I've been experimenting with a couple of aliens that I deliberately brought aboard my ship in order to find out more about them. By venting the atmosphere from a controlled room environment and then trapping the aliens in there I was able to monitor them at my leisure. Thus far I have determined that they do not need air to survive, nor are they harmed by vacuum conditions. I can however confirm that they do not need the cargo system to be activated in order to enter a room, they can force the flaps open eventually of their own accord.
In attempting to follow one out of an airlock it seems that they simply vanish when they leave the ship so I was not able to examine one freely floating outside to see what it would do when faced with this scenario but I did learn that they are capable of motive force within a vacuum somehow, an individual alien is able to overcome the force of atmosphere escaping the ship to a considerable degree, venting a room outside with less than 45% atmosphere will likely not provide enough force to eject the alien, they are dragged towards the exit but somehow they fight against it without needing physical contact with any surfaces and eventually head back into the room, against the weakening flow of gasses. I was able to recreate this effect on demand using the atmospherics systems to pressurise the room to a specific amount.

Overall I am no closer to figuring out the other ways of "dealing" with an alien which is aboard your ship.

(No aliens were harmed in the process of my experiments, despite best efforts to the contrary)

[stgwi]

Can the aliens open doors or just the cargo system flaps?

[Khallis]

It will take them a long time to figure out how door buttons work, but I wouldn't put it *entirely* past them.