I totally misread the situation with Trish. I'd assumed that option on Iannan's dialogue was how all of her submission content started. That losing your free will to her would result in your mind being replaced with that of Trish and that all of Iannan's sub content focused on bimbofication, which in turn was how she made the PC into merely being a method of her accessing her inner functions and extending her will. I glanced again at the dialogue for her again and I still get that distinct impression. I've seen now that raising her submission comes from running out of nerve (or panicking). That option about the inner voice constantly sitting in her menu unless you start the dom path is odd as there's no way to make it clear you aren't into that.
I'd missed Lara on my first run. Initially I was extremely confused about her as she seemed to be random in her appearances. After further play it looks like she has a schedule of sorts? It would be helpful to know that as near as I can tell no one else seems to have them and that's the first time the time of day has actually meant something. It looks like her content is a couple hate sex scenes at the moment? Probably a rival character then? Her note in the safe seems to imply as much.
This run I did completely fill my hold with fuel before departing, which allowed me to explore far more deep than before. In the early game, scrap is definitely the most important resource you're collecting. However once you get your stats up, data is far more readily available and I can quickly earn hundreds of it without firing a shot. So the balance is such that I don't actually care about leaving space for scrap anymore. I made it to Mehra's Fall, then did a second run after that to try and intentionally increase submission to see the event behind it. I was surprised to find that I'd still missed a few events, as I saw the reecher pod swarm only on that second long trip. Also got a chance to see the Chimera sequence if you've got enough deception to avoid an immediate battle and go into the orgy (I'd bought up all my stats by that point off of the 2k data I'd found). By the time I returned from this second trip I had found another 2k data.
I still think that having a fuel timer on your trip undermines the, 'press your luck' aspect of going into the cloud, since you already know exactly how deep you're going in before you even leave. With the ship's hull if you get damaged, there's no choice, you're just going home. Nerve on the other hand does work as a good, 'press your luck' mechanic. It's something that really makes you consider whether or not you should keep going, go back, or attempt a given event. It neither passively decays or recovers and as long as you still have some you can still take your chances and press on. The penalty for running out isn't that big at the moment and the best way to improve it is to just do whatever sex scene you can, but a player actively trying to maintain it on a long trip does have something to seriously worry about and consider their strategy for.
The initial submission event for Iannan is quite dramatic, especially for something that triggers after running out of nerve twice. Since the player cannot reduce submission before returning to the port, this also means that it's very easy to accidentally make her your mistress. You can get out of it by reducing submission and the scene is a bit awkward if done immediately. Perhaps something where the player can instantly spend favor upon returning to reject her? Maybe there should be at least one step that comes before one of you is the master and the mistress? It's very quick and abrupt at the moment. I'm glad I at least looked at the scene to see what was on offer and my original fears of Trish and that dialogue seems to have been unfounded. It doesn't look like there's any scenes for pure submission in this version.
That said, I'm inclined to suggest changing the way that submission is gained and applying a different penalty for nerve running out or some different mechanics in general on them. There isn't a conscious choice here on what you're willing to sacrifice. Instead you're choosing to undo the bonuses you gain from failing by spending favor that you might have gained from the sex scenes that actually drained that nerve in the first place. Rather than having submission be a punishment for failure and domination gained for throwing away resources for no gameplay benefit, I think it would be better if there were key moments in the story that allowed the player to determine which path they go down.
Perhaps points where the player locates ancient tech from Iannan's creators? There can be choices on how to use it that then lead to different rewards on top of the sexual content of your given path. Simply turning it over to Iannan at her demand to finally be able to integrate the player (in this proposal, she lacked the capacity to before then and her control over the player is more limited) will make the PC more pliant and under her control, strongly hinting that the PC is moving towards being locked into the submission path and they will declare her their mistress if they give her complete control of their findings again. An equal partner will use the tech to first create a lock out function on their suit, allowing them at any time to completely cut Iannan off from them (trust goes two ways) and on the second tech cache can give themselves full control of their own suit and body again. Finally a dom PC would use the tech to hack into Iannan and start reprogramming her directives to serve them instead, again after doing so twice locks the path and forces Iannan to become an extension of the PC's will. On the submission path, the AI reign's supreme and your benefits reflect how both the ship and player are highly specialized entities now. On the dominant path, the NI reigns supreme and your benefits are a more jack of all trades with emphasis on adaptability and creativity. If you pursue an equal relationship, the result is something between the two, where AI and NI use their own unique abilities to shore up the other's weaknesses.
This idea isn't intended as a literal suggestion for changing the game, but a way to illustrate how you might make all paths something that you achieve from progress and actually working with Iannan rather than from arbitrary interactions with her or randomly/intentionally losing.
Report:
I'd missed Lara on my first run. Initially I was extremely confused about her as she seemed to be random in her appearances. After further play it looks like she has a schedule of sorts? It would be helpful to know that as near as I can tell no one else seems to have them and that's the first time the time of day has actually meant something. It looks like her content is a couple hate sex scenes at the moment? Probably a rival character then? Her note in the safe seems to imply as much.
This run I did completely fill my hold with fuel before departing, which allowed me to explore far more deep than before. In the early game, scrap is definitely the most important resource you're collecting. However once you get your stats up, data is far more readily available and I can quickly earn hundreds of it without firing a shot. So the balance is such that I don't actually care about leaving space for scrap anymore. I made it to Mehra's Fall, then did a second run after that to try and intentionally increase submission to see the event behind it. I was surprised to find that I'd still missed a few events, as I saw the reecher pod swarm only on that second long trip. Also got a chance to see the Chimera sequence if you've got enough deception to avoid an immediate battle and go into the orgy (I'd bought up all my stats by that point off of the 2k data I'd found). By the time I returned from this second trip I had found another 2k data.
I still think that having a fuel timer on your trip undermines the, 'press your luck' aspect of going into the cloud, since you already know exactly how deep you're going in before you even leave. With the ship's hull if you get damaged, there's no choice, you're just going home. Nerve on the other hand does work as a good, 'press your luck' mechanic. It's something that really makes you consider whether or not you should keep going, go back, or attempt a given event. It neither passively decays or recovers and as long as you still have some you can still take your chances and press on. The penalty for running out isn't that big at the moment and the best way to improve it is to just do whatever sex scene you can, but a player actively trying to maintain it on a long trip does have something to seriously worry about and consider their strategy for.
The initial submission event for Iannan is quite dramatic, especially for something that triggers after running out of nerve twice. Since the player cannot reduce submission before returning to the port, this also means that it's very easy to accidentally make her your mistress. You can get out of it by reducing submission and the scene is a bit awkward if done immediately. Perhaps something where the player can instantly spend favor upon returning to reject her? Maybe there should be at least one step that comes before one of you is the master and the mistress? It's very quick and abrupt at the moment. I'm glad I at least looked at the scene to see what was on offer and my original fears of Trish and that dialogue seems to have been unfounded. It doesn't look like there's any scenes for pure submission in this version.
That said, I'm inclined to suggest changing the way that submission is gained and applying a different penalty for nerve running out or some different mechanics in general on them. There isn't a conscious choice here on what you're willing to sacrifice. Instead you're choosing to undo the bonuses you gain from failing by spending favor that you might have gained from the sex scenes that actually drained that nerve in the first place. Rather than having submission be a punishment for failure and domination gained for throwing away resources for no gameplay benefit, I think it would be better if there were key moments in the story that allowed the player to determine which path they go down.
Perhaps points where the player locates ancient tech from Iannan's creators? There can be choices on how to use it that then lead to different rewards on top of the sexual content of your given path. Simply turning it over to Iannan at her demand to finally be able to integrate the player (in this proposal, she lacked the capacity to before then and her control over the player is more limited) will make the PC more pliant and under her control, strongly hinting that the PC is moving towards being locked into the submission path and they will declare her their mistress if they give her complete control of their findings again. An equal partner will use the tech to first create a lock out function on their suit, allowing them at any time to completely cut Iannan off from them (trust goes two ways) and on the second tech cache can give themselves full control of their own suit and body again. Finally a dom PC would use the tech to hack into Iannan and start reprogramming her directives to serve them instead, again after doing so twice locks the path and forces Iannan to become an extension of the PC's will. On the submission path, the AI reign's supreme and your benefits reflect how both the ship and player are highly specialized entities now. On the dominant path, the NI reigns supreme and your benefits are a more jack of all trades with emphasis on adaptability and creativity. If you pursue an equal relationship, the result is something between the two, where AI and NI use their own unique abilities to shore up the other's weaknesses.
This idea isn't intended as a literal suggestion for changing the game, but a way to illustrate how you might make all paths something that you achieve from progress and actually working with Iannan rather than from arbitrary interactions with her or randomly/intentionally losing.
Report:
- The tooltips for actions/tests do not come up if your mouse is over the same button as the previous screen, such as when you're clicking continue after jumping forwards. I just noticed that some events have a skill check immediately with only one option. To see them, you have to move the mouse off and back on.
- I used a laser cutter on an event about a safe in space, but didn't actually consume the charge. However I later realized I might have just got a single extra charge from another event without noticing.
- You can repeatedly fail the tests on Mehra's Fall over and over again to grind up your stats until you either complete them by chance or meet the required skill level. You will get the nerve penalty only after you leave.
- The 'make love not war' option isn't signposted well, I only suspected it would lead to an orgy because I'd already lost a fight to the chimera ship before. This is available after encountering the chimera with sufficiently high deception to avoid an immediate fight and opening comms.
- Reducing your submission level does not seem to reset the submission score: "Submission: 0 / 40 Submission Level: 0"
- Reducing submission does not trigger the reduced submission event immediately, only after you fully back out of your conversation with Iannan.
- You keep any improvements you get from submission after reducing it to a lower level.
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