Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role-playing Game Update – Multiple Quest Solutions

According to the latest development update, Iron Tower Studio’s Colony Ship RPG should be going into beta in a month or two, which should then be followed by an early access launch around March 2021. Beyond that, the update shares a number of screenshots showcasing the game’s shiny new turrets and its branching approach to quest design.

Here’s the text intro:

We continue working on quests and mechanics, aiming to start beta-testing the first 3 locations in Dec and release on Early Access in March next year.

Now the AI can ‘see’ and open doors, which will make the game of hide n seek more fun, at least for the AI. We added the first non-human enemy – a turret. You probably saw one in the combat demo, but that was a lifeless 3D model. Now they have stats (for different types), animations (rotate and fire, take damage, etc), and combat behavior. The turrets use proper ammo (not the magical unlimited ammo), so the faster you kill one, the more ammo you’d loot. If it’s a friendly turret, you can share your own ammo with it to make sure it won’t run out of bullets too soon.

Since you’re here for some screens, let’s illustrate multiple solutions in combat-heavy scenarios and show our new turret. As you probably know, the starting town’s conflict is between Jonas representing freedom, Deadwood-style, that some might call lawlessness and Braxton representing law & order that some might call gubment telling folks what to do and – to add insult to injury – charging tax for the privilege.

It won’t be much of a spoiler to tell you that the conflict ends up in a shootout, but what if open assault isn’t your style? Then (upon request) you’ll be tasked with preventing the locals from coming to Jonas’ aid while Braxton’s forces do all the heavy lifting. So that’s two very different options already but the design miracles don’t stop there.

Once you go down that path you get 3 new options: diplomacy (which in turn branches into relying on Impersonate to con the local yokels and Persuasion to convince them that resistance is futile), combat (in case you change your mind and decide to fight after all), and a mix of thievery and jury-rigging. There’s an old turret there that’s been stripped for parts. You can explore the nearby area while you have time (Lockpick will help a lot here), find the parts and some ammo, and use your Computer skill to fix the targeting module.