Considering how much activity we have here I don’t think anyone is going to mind talking about VN adjacent titles (I sure don’t). As long as game has a decent ratio of VN elements it should be fine.

I’m about to start Narcissu 1st & 2nd. It’s a game I got at random when mindlessly browsing Steam two or so years ago but never really touched, leaving it for “a better time”.

I don’t have much to say about it yet, for obvious reasons, but based on the store description and user impressions I expect some sadness and ninja cutting onions throughout.
I hope to get back to writing impression posts again so I’ll make sure I’ll finish it in a reasonable amount of time and take notes - something I completely failed to do when reading The Villainess Just Wants to Eat!!.

This will be my second step in my preparations for “big boy” (in terms of length) stories like STEINS;GATE. My hope is to slowly get back into the rhythm of reading VNs instead of just longingly looking at them sitting in my library.

Will it work? Dunno, I’ll give it a shot and hope for the best. That’s all I can do after all.

I finally caught up with Kowloon Generic Romance. After leisurely paced early parts and mysterious middle chapters things are really picking up. We have some pretty big personal changes, more details about the core secrets and another good look at the past of Kujirai B. We also got hints about potential end game the story might be going for.

It’s been a while since we had an update for the series but I can safely say it was worth the wait. I just hope it won’t take as long for the next one.

They could also disable loot spawning until doors are opened the indended way.

Man, the festival of entitlement on Spectrum sparked by this and adding Idris to Wikelo is kinda crazy. I knew some people assigned a lot of importance to the “exclusivity” of certain items but seeing the scale of people disappointed about losing their “special status” goes beyond my expectations.

It’s virtual assets in a video game not an exotic sports car or an 18th century painting! Sometimes I really don’t understand SC players.

It’s a completely understandable question, especially since its been 6 years since the movie released and 4 since season 2 was announced. But yeah, this should be after the movie.

It is done. I’m free!

Guests:

• John Crewe, Lead Vehicle Director
• Ben Curtis, Vehicle Art Director
• Mark Gibbson, Lead Vehicle Content Designer

TL;DW:

• 27 vehicles released this year.
• Current content release cadence has partially to do with expansion of the vehicle team.
• Some production processes have been changing but there are still things to work on.
• Era of selling JPEGs is done, no more concept ships in the future (except for previously mentioned Battlecruiser).
• Backlog of ships that can be produced right now, i.e. don’t require additional features that might block it from release right at the end of the process, is slim. That’s why we’re seeing more new vehicles (well, that and new stuff sells).
• Preparing ships for engineering required different approach and amount of work depending on when the ship was released.
• Content team is still reworking some of the engineering features planned for 4.5 based on what they’ve seen on the test channel.
• The old pipe system has been replaced with resource network over the course of the last 2 years.
• Initial release of engineering will be supported by all vehicles, just not to the same degree.
  • Single seaters with no physical access to components will have a single-use fix option through the MFD.
• Armour wasn’t available in the tech preview but will be present in 4.5 and upcoming PTU. This isn’t the full Maelstorm implementation, just a temporary V1.
• Next week ISC will touch more on the upcoming armour implementation.
• There are working on a design doc explaining this system to release alongside 4.5.
• Gold standard explanation - making sure all of the features available in the game today are supported by the new/reworked vehicle. Stuff like the relay system, correct metrics etc. It has nothing to do with style/visual changes but smaller changes (improved materials, changes to lighting) can happen to bring things up to the current standard.
• Gold standard vs rework vs Mk. 2:
  • If the initial design no longer fits the current direction of the game and wouldn’t fit its original purpose (600i) it needs to be reworked.
  • If a vehicle works but needs stuff like addition of missing suit lockers, fixing weapon racks and other features that don’t require any fundamental changes - that’s gold standard update.
  • Mk. 2 is for ships that work fine but they have ideas on how to make them “bigger and better” without removing the original.
• Gold standard ships planned for 2026:
  • RSI Aurora (weapon rack, more walking space, fire extinguisher, kickstarter paints).
  • RSI Aurora Mk. 2 (they don’t want to remove the existing iconic design but they want a version with upgraded visuals, possible but not confirmed Scorpius like extendable wings).
  • MISC Hull B (slightly reworked due to increased cargo capacity, can still land on planets while loaded thanks to change from + to X shape of the spindles).
  • Gatac Railen
  • Drake Ironclads
  • Kruger Stingray
  • RSI Galaxy
  • Unnamed Anvil ship(s?)
  • Unnamed Drake ship(s?)
  • Unnamed MISC ship(s?)
  • Unnamed Grays ship(s?)
  • Unnamed Origin ship(s?)
  • Unnamed Gatac ship(s?)
  • Unnamed Argo ship(s?)
• Cargo capacity changes:
  • 32 SCU will be the largest containers available in the game.
  • Hull B: 384 SCU -> 512 SCU
  • Hull D: 20,736 SCU -> 6,912 SCU
  • Hull E: 98,304 SCU -> 12,288 SCU
  • Ironclad: 1,536 SCU -> 2,204 SCU
  • Ironclad Assault: 1,152 SCU -> 1,440 SCU
  • Railen: 320 SCU -> 640 SCU (will stick to the concept as close as possible but needs a rework of the cargo section to support the standarised approach)
• No ship silhouettes this years. The missing ones from last years are:
  • Greycat MSC (small crafting ground vehicle).
  • Anvil Auxilia (Atlas platform based ground vehicle with crafting station and T2 medbed).
  • Consolidated Outland The Forge (small-medium crafting and refinery ship with ground extractors/miners, name might change).
• No plans for grav plates for the exterior walkway of the Perseus. They are intended purely for planet-side use but this might change if they implement some new way of doing it.
• Pilot control of torpedoes on Perseus vs Polaris:
  • In 4.5 one of the bridge consoles on the Polaris will have control of torpedoes but with some disadvantages (no 360 camera, shorter torpedo queue).
  • Why not the pilot? Balance reasons (Polaris torps are larger).
  • Why does Idris pilot get control of the gun then? Because it’s fixed and requiring to coordinate between two people to make it useful would be impossible. They still want to rebalance it in the future.
• Lack of signage inside the Polaris was a design choice pushed by Ben, not a mistake. Feedback about this and other things was later used when creating the Perseus. They will go back and make changes to the Polaris - quality of life soon(ish), bigger ones at a later date.
• Initial plan was for the Polaris to be a reference point for RSI’a military ships and Zeus for civilian ones. Perseus found more of a balance between the two.
• Shark mouth skin for Perseus - maybe.
• StarKitten skin for Perseus - “not right now”.
• Ben doesn’t hate SK, just want assets related to it to be deliberate and “feel right”. He also wants to expand the brand with other characters.
• Ammunition replenishment:
  • Short term - you’ll be able to rearm from few selected ships if they have ammo in their cargo hold. Same with refuelling.
  • Long term (for large ships) - dedicated space next to turrets to put ammo in.
• Material boxes should keep auto-ejecting in the back of the RSI Salvation when toggled, might be a bug if that doesn’t happen. Question about possibility of adding a button at the back of the ship.
• Salvation will fit inside the rear hangar of the Galaxy, material can be then transported to Galaxy’s refinery from there.
• No option to swap salvage modules on the Salvation comes from them wanting it to be just an entry ship into the career. It’s suppose to be easy and forgiving but not something for people who want to stick with that gameplay. Same with the Drake Golem.
• Drake Clipper is designed to craft FPS and small ship items.
• Decision to give Clipper 2 S1 shields comes down to balancing. “Jack of all trades, master of none.” You’ll be able to craft them yourself at least.
• Clipper speed capped at 999m/s because balancing.
• Wolf weapon kits will be available in-game “eventually”. They are no different than Idris-K, Heartseeker turret and other kits which took a while to show up - means to finance the game.
• “We never said things will go to UEC shops, they will be attainable in-game.” Expect more loot, Wikelo and crafting as the only (?) ways to get certain items.
• More generalist ships coming, at least one of them coming in 2026.
• Bug with category display in ASOP terminals led to them reworking and realigning vehicle categories in general.
• Web store is undergoing audit to align it with the current game design, direction, terms etc.
• More video content next year, probably not as much as in the past.
• Caterpillar and Ironclad command modules are moving along. First playable version of the “parasite” functionality (controlling ship from other ship) will be coming online internally soon. Planned to be available with the release of Ironclad.
• LAMP - light amplification for ship canopies is coming. Similar to already available scopes with that functionality. Currently in early, no release date.
• Crafting stations will be coming to other ships (Carrack, not Aquilla unless someone has hard evidence to prove it was planned).
• Ship naming:
  • Mechanically it’s already set up for all of the ships.
  • Art side of things needs work due to static size regardless of name length, doesn’t work well with paints, no lights illuminating the text.
  • On-site naming process needs to be reworked as it currently requires a lot of manual labour - setting up waves, manual approval of names etc.
• Battlecruiser to be revealed during Invictus Launch Week (2026?).
• No limit on when SC will have “enough ships”. There’s still plenty of possible addition to existing manufacturers, sizes and career paths.
• They also want separation of docking and hangar requests, might talk to the team responsible for the command module work to look into it since the two are somewhat related.
  • Apollo’s back entrance isn’t set up as a docking collar at the moment because otherwise it would be sent to station docking instead of hangars. It will be activated once docking is properly implemented.
• AI blades still intended (PDTs are functionally this already). Need more work before they can be properly implemented.
• Even current flight blades aren’t exactly properly set up, more of a hack job using what’s available.
• Scalable rewards pushing for use of multi-crew ships are dependant on Missions 2.0 system (should be out in 2026).
• They scaled the shows back partially due to changes to Jared’s position in the company and partially to “not spoil the future content”.
• “General quarters” alarm in ships will be a thing.
• Different types of ballistic ammo are still planned.
• They’re aware turrets still need more work.
• There’s a strike team that has been working on freight elevator issues since “Race for Stanton”, still going hard on that.

It should be set after since movie was a direct continuation of the first season. It’s difficult to say based on the teaser alone as it doesn’t seem to have any new scenes (most look like they’re from the first season but I don’t remember the movie enough to say whether parts of it were present as well).

It also wouldn’t make sense to reanimate parts of the story already released in the movie.

Hmm, makes sense. Still better than being left with nothing.

Thanks for clarification!

Do we know if it’s a similar scheme idol Corp used some time ago, i.e. income sharing for x amount of time? Or did they have to fork the money outright?

Yup, something like this or simple sliders would be an ideal solution for what I’m talking about - preferably both, depending on whether the setting is a numerical one or not. It doesn’t have to be a completely granular access to every value, I just want enough control to adjust the experience when things are close but not exactly right.

It’s almost 2 hours long so I’ll post the usual TL;DW tomorrow, unless someone beats me to it.

I’m not really familiar with the company outside their name but the IP hand-over is always a win these situations. Good for them!

I’m suggesting the drivers because there are widely reported issues, I can understand if you don’t want to downgrade though. I’m on rx580 and had no such problems beyond what was caused by my own mistake at the start of the patch.

Otherwise yeah, trying again at a later date is the most sensible option. It shouldn’t be player’s responsibility to figure out such basic things like crashes, especially on a hardware capable of playing everything else.

At least you found out about the issues without spending money - silver linings, eh?

Yeah, that really shouldn’t be happening. SC is jank but not to this extreme.

Dunno what version are you on but I’ve seen people talk about having issues with newer AMD drivers (in general, not just in SC) and reporting that 25.8.1 seem to be working better. Also, you could try switching to the Vulkan renderer in graphics options - even this pretty old version can work better than DirectX for some people.

Yeah, the game is not optimised by any means. It’s playable, sure, but for from what you’d expect in a released product. The upcoming renderer update should help a bit but it’ll be a constant process until the 1.0 release.

Hope, the current settings work out for you.

Jose Pavli, composer for Project Wingman, (re)created music for this project. It’s available on his Bandcamp page.

I’d be down with that. Or at the very least give us modifiers like skulls in Halo games - dunno if that’s just Master Chief Collection addition or if they became a thing after 1 but it’s better than nothing.

Laggy gameplay and crashing doesn’t sound right. I’m play on a vastly underpowered system and my games is surprisingly stable (sans low framerate most of the time). The main things that come to mind are playing with options (how high are your clouds for example? they are pretty performance heavy) and setting up a page file if you don’t have one. While your RAM should be more than enough there are times when SC can get a bit greedy with memory so it can help even with solid machines.

I completely agree that accessibility/assist modes are more important and if I had to choose I’d go with that. Since we’re in a fantasy land however I’m still going to advocate for customisation because, let’s be honest, most of the difficulties (besides “the main one”) are usually not that great.

I’m speaking from a perspective of someone who tends to go for the higher difficulty options which extremely often go with the laziest possible decisions like turning enemies into damage sponge and increasing their attack power. That’s it. Stuff like improved enemy awareness, faster reaction times, smarter tactics aren’t exactly common and that’s my main pain point when selecting difficulty. There are also other things like ammo/loot scarcity, need drain in survival games etc.

Having an option to tweak at least some of these things could help folks like me who often end up in a situation when one difficulty is piss easy and the other feels like a drag. Peoples skills and expectations vary way too and there’s simply no way few basic difficulty settings will be right for everyone. And if someone damages their experience? Oh well, let people make mistakes and take responsibility for their choices. Inform them that changing this stuff will affect their experience and leave them to their decisions. We can’t (and shouldn’t) baby-proof everything, in my opinion.