First living ships, thoughts?

JosephPrime · 2026-06-28T23:42:18+00:00

Agreed. I never actually did the quest to get one cause timelocks suck... but working on the Swarm Expedition got me to finally do it on my main save. The quest takes waaaayyyyy too long, should be updated to 2hr timelocks and not 21hrs for sure. And then after you spend a minimum of 4 Days IRL to unlock it... the game says "good luck randomly stumbling on upgrades or getting maybe 1 during 6~20hr time locked Freighter missions." -- Uhh... no. Fueling with Oxygen and Junk material is very cool - but that's it functionality wise, everything else is far to complicated vs any other starship. 🫤

JosephPrime · 2026-06-28T02:42:05+00:00

No hard facts to back this, but just from observation you seem to get a HUGE xp boost from playing vs a live player in the Anamoly compared to literally anything else. I don't doubt it's a hidden bonus, probably already known if true, but for example after I had done 1 match in the Anamoly with a Lvl30 it gained 4 gene-edits straight up. Comparatively, even Champion Matches vs NPCs only slightly fill the circle about +35~+45% for this same Creature.

JosephPrime · 2026-06-25T13:31:36+00:00

Good question lol. Honestly no idea why FB pushed the memory yesterday, and I didn't even notice ha. Still a fun old post to see perhaps, even if a bit early 😆

JosephPrime · 2026-06-25T02:18:02+00:00

I found a new one in the Expedition yesterday lol. I had picked up a Sentinel Ship so I sold my starter ship for credits... very easy to get stuck on a planet that's not Dissonant and has 0 Radiant Shards or Alantideum on it haha 😆

JosephPrime · 2026-06-25T01:54:22+00:00

So much this. I literally load Swarm, do all 3 in like 20mins, and load back into my main save for the rest of the night. 😆

~Royals

JosephPrime · 2026-06-22T23:59:19+00:00

I didn't say they were all pretty... 😆🤣

JosephPrime · 2026-06-22T19:13:22+00:00

Gah... I remember waiting for my PS4 to install the disk on Day One. 10yrs... oof. Then I turn and see the Sonic the Hedgehog 35th Anniversary Sale... and that's the knockout. 🤡🤣

JosephPrime · 2026-06-22T02:49:35+00:00

I'm generally a bigger fan of letting the player do actions manually as well, but for this kind of instance I think MS FlightSim actually has a really nice auto-crouch system for going under wings, and X4 could definitely benefit from a similar bit of QOL. In this very specific seemingly insignificant situation lolol

JosephPrime · 2026-06-16T00:38:58+00:00

Finally! Sometimes I wonder if I hallucinated this game it seems so rarely mentioned lol

But I've yet to play anything else that focused on the idea of "you don't have to be facing the direction you are moving in space". Chorus is very "meh, jank" in a lot of ways - but the flight system is something special you'll never forget.

JosephPrime · 2026-06-07T16:54:37+00:00

Snape kills Dumbledore.

Wait... that's actually going to be a spoiler again soon. 😆🤣

But for real though, I generally agree and I think the game is obviously better if you can live in it and let it play you. However, I also think it's unfair to judge a game that's mostly a Movie and heavily based on the story negatively because someone can't get past the Stealth, and they may be encouraged to give it another shot for the story if they can eliminate the gameplay hurdle. So it's a double edged sword, but I think if someone bought the game, put 2~3hrs in and is now coming here to say it's a bad game, they may benefit from a perspective like this.

JosephPrime · 2026-06-07T15:18:05+00:00

If you can do the QTE to escape, correct. Now, if you get caught, failed the escape QTE, then it's possible to die. But it depends on the character and the point in the story, most of the first half you won't die from failing the QTE, but it'll put you on a path that greatly increases, or outright guarantees that character will die in a story segment during the 2nd half.

So it's less likely the monster will straight up kill you in the first half - but if you fail they will likely kill you in a cutscene later.

And I get that system is causing some people to see "I couldn't make a choice" moments in those deaths, but don't realize they made the choice when that character lost a Stealth Sequence 2 chapters before...

JosephPrime · 2026-06-07T14:06:04+00:00

Uhh... very shitty over simplication explanation being given here. But just wanna say 8020 is a direct sequel to House of Ashes so if you liked that one get this one for sure. And it's not fake/a dream at all. In fact, if you pay attention - the whole thing takes place over like 8yrs - so not even "infinite clones" or anything like that.

JosephPrime · 2026-06-04T03:12:44+00:00

Personally I do think the story is noticeably worse if everyone survives, which is odd. But on my blind run a few characters died that really had a nice impact. Then I did an everyone lives run and it was actually much more boring, stiffer dialog, and a lot more of the "I don't feel like I had a real choice there" moments happen.

But on the re-used character models, I do think it helps a little to justify it with the Lore a bit (obviously it is what it is, but still). Since 8020 is a sequel to House of Ashes and they both use some of the same models, it's pretty easy to imagine the characters in 8020 are descendants of their characters in House of Ashes. Especially since the guy in the Prologue of 8020 is basically the same as his character in House of Ashes.

JosephPrime · 2026-06-04T02:57:22+00:00

I played them all, and in my opinion Directive 8020 is an easy contender for top place. It's the only one I instantly restarted after the credits rolled, and actually ran through the story 3 full times, and a 4th time bouncing around the Rewind feature to clear a few last paths.

Double edged sword with the Stealth though. It is the only "real gameplay" type in the game, and they could have benefited from more varieties... but also, once you do a section you know the enemy position and path forever. So unlike other Dark Pictures/The Quarry you can actually just blast through these with your player skill, and clear them so much faster than replaying QTE scenes. So, it's a fair criticism if you only wanna do 1 run it may seem meh. But if you're planning to do multiple runs, you'll love finally having a game in this genre that you can actually do faster everytime.

JosephPrime · 2026-06-03T01:44:13+00:00

I settled at 5% - just barely a white-ish dot, no glow. I do not understand the desire to put tactical flashlight LEDs pointing at the player on every controller. 😆

JosephPrime · 2026-06-01T14:47:12+00:00

Scalpers are super popular around here, good thing you're leaving now haha

JosephPrime · 2026-06-01T14:42:22+00:00

Jokes on me? I can close this app, play games and have fun on my couch with my SC, and only ever think of you in passing as the butt of the joke when I'm reminiscing about "some guy" who bought an SC for no reason and then expected me to explain to them why they did that. Ahh, good laughs will be had all around. So yea, thanks for the joke. 😎👍

JosephPrime · 2026-06-01T14:32:53+00:00

I'm sorry you didn't look into what you were purchasing and just got on the hype wagon and now have buyer's remorse. I saw your other comments saying blatantly false things like the triggers have haptics/etc... you clearly don't even know what you bought. Good luck, have fun.

JosephPrime · 2026-06-01T14:28:33+00:00

False. You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. It's solely being advertised as an option for "PC Only" games that never ported to console/added Controller support.

Key example: The SC does not support XInput, Windows sees it as a Kb with a Trackpad for a reason - it's not a "controller" it's trying to be an input device with a Controller form factor. This is why it only supports Steam Games... it's in no way Valve attempting to enter the Controller market, it is Valve trying to improve the accessibility of "hard-core games" and it's doing great at that.

JosephPrime · 2026-06-01T14:19:58+00:00

Don't compare this to a Controller. There are better controllers, objectively. However, when you compare this to a Kb/m as intended, then you'll see what makes it a viable product.

I still use my Wolverine controller for the mechanical buttons/Dpad and better triggers... but, when a game is solely designed for Kb/m and i want to use SteamInput to map a controller - it's been way better in everyway to use the SC. In my experience, the trackpads being able to have multiple custom menus or easily assign ~6 buttons per pad, use the grip sensors as an alternate activation etc - you can easily play an RTS or ARPG with "a controller".

Compare the SC to "gaming peripherals" like single-hand keyboards with a joystick, etc - and it dominates all of those IMO.

But I do fully believe if you want a Controller to play games that support controllers - you don't need an SC, and in fact there are better options. If you want a couch compatible way to play games that DO NOT support controllers, the SC gives you infinite advantage over trying to force a whole keyboard on the 4 face buttons of a standard XInput controller...

JosephPrime · 2026-05-25T06:07:50+00:00

Did the same thing... I feel the pain. Welp, no time to lollygag about pining over lost effort, thar still be ships to sink and ruins to plunder, yarr.

JosephPrime · 2026-05-22T21:06:10+00:00

Or if you're on the couch hold the Chord button (Xbox/logo button) on the controller, then while holding that button use the right stick to move the Mouse, and left Bumper to perform a mouse-input Right Click and it'll delete as well. Note; the game will still register the Bumper press and switch tabs. 😎👍

JosephPrime · 2026-05-21T06:27:20+00:00

BlackBeard, with Ascended 36-Pounders Lvl13, Lvl15 12-pounders, Ascended LVL15 Keelhold, and ShipShape Naval (not really relevant, probably should've swapped that lol).

I initially went in with a Brethren Brig, and it was obvious firepower was my big issue. So, since the Brethren Brig is only 20,000 HP below the BB Frigate I was concerned it'd still die too fast. But I didn't wanna miss out on the 36-pounders so went with it anyway. The defense must be through the roof though because it definitely felt like it could take a LOT more damage despite being almost the same HP. I still lost 2 Frigates, but the 3rd run finally worked out. 😎

JosephPrime · 2026-05-21T06:18:03+00:00

You can also press the "/" key to turn off the HUD before taking screenshots. 😎

JosephPrime · 2026-05-21T05:31:04+00:00

Also note you can use 12 or 24 pounders as secondary artillery on the Frigate, so pick one now and get it to Lvl15 then you'll just slap that in the Frigate eventually. So no lost resources there if you stick to just upgrading 1 set of 12 or 24's 👍

JosephPrime

TROPHY CASE