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[StuffyEvil]

The early sketches are pretty neat, I presume the crane in the early sketch for Mazalot can be considered "Heavy Machinery"?

I suppose it could!

I see, I will now assume that my salvor crew straps a bunch of rockets to a crane, rig it up with basic controls, then fly out of the shuttle bay to perform salvor duty each time I salvage something.

[BregFlr]

I absolutely loved this quest chain, it really gave the feel of being a space captain adventuring, between galas and shoot outs. Specially love how sort of

Spoiler

anticlimactic it feels when you get the mole, how she just sort rolls in the grass and what not

[close]

that's just fun.

And the Church is really not the sort of faction that I would feel so compelled by, but between the pilgrimage and this mission, they do feel more nuanced and fleshed than a lot of it's counterparts in other games. The artwork also just really good too!

What I'd want more out of this is just, more! more faction missions and adventures.

[Xedoh]

Hi. Long time lurker here, finally deciding to make an account for this because I just love the story aspects of the game. When I started playing, the only real "story missions" were the red planet and the alpha-core scientist, which were rather simplistic, but now it has become so much more and I love every second of it. The best part about a new update to me are always the new story beads, with now this quest, [THREAT] and [LUDD'S PERSONAL NIGHMARES]. Honestly, the main reason I cannot wait for the final release is that I want to see all the story threads coming to their conclusion. Will we be able to follow up on the (last of the) list of names at the end of the Ursurpers? Will Baird call me back to finish the work with the gates even after I basically told her "well, you kinda did that to yourself"? Will sending an alpha core to a random scientist (or keeping it) have any sort of consequences?

I do agree with a previous poster that I didn't see Jethro as anything special before the new parts of the quest. I did notice that he was observant from the hints you gave (noticing the stealth suits, discovering the pather), but I did not see him as a "professional detective" until I read the blog. That however may be due to me having quite a lot on my mind when I did the quest, so I sometimes ended up skimming the texts and may have skipped some important info. I still reloaded a lot just to see how every possible choice plays out - I cannot just not do that. That Ironman button will forever remain unchecked for me, sorry.

That being said, I do like some decisions (leaving Jethro to his own ends) having severe consequences. It makes choices overall seem way more meaningful. I do, however, understand those who dislike that sort of thing and it can screw you over if you don't know and want to do a full run of the game only to find out that you locked yourself out of a plot 8 hours later.

Also, I 100% support terrible aristocrats (although I do think there should be competent ones as well, else it risks being a bit too slapstick). One of my favourite NPCs in a 40k Pen and Paper was the cliche incompentent and corrupt imperial governour "Aschmadeus Ischmir Bartholomeus Maledarius VII" - I remember repating that name until I could flawlessly pronounce it in the most high-pitched, nasal voice I could muster, with him repeating his full name on every possible occasion. The players loved hating him (and were ever more satisfied when executing him at the end of the plot).

Aside from that, I really enjoyed Ayo Tanaica's character. I wish there was an option to offer her a job on one of your colonies, perhaps by dangling the opportunity of working with a pristine nanoforge in front of her. It just feels like something my captain would do given she seems competent and clearly doesn't quite enjoy her current position. It wouldn't even need any tangible benefits, but it would be a cool flavor event.

Speaking of flavor events, as a last tangent regarding the church and [ABYSSAL SPOILERS] :

Spoiler

Some story aspects - selling cores to Tritach, meeting the High Hegemon - appear in the faction reputation descriptions. Would a note like that make sense for the church/path when they see and denounce you for messing with "demonic" technology?

[close]

All in all: Thank you for the awesome story! The writing of the Starsector story is superb and I can't wait for more. Till then, I will continue soaking up every blog post you guys put out.

[Aerolfos]

Yeah, story-wise, I see why you went the way you did there; give us a character to interact with rather than having to be generic about where/who they are... but on the other hand, there wasn't anything in that interaction that made it feel like yes, we really needed to be talking to this specific technician. Maybe play up secrecy/security a bit more or something? I dunno.

Edit: Oh, hm. That's a bunch of words complaining about a relatively minor thing in what was, overall, a good set of missions. And I do appreciate getting to see some of the progress that went into this; will have to replay and see what other ways things can play out.

Haha, all good. I'm pretty sure there's a line in there about "being trusted by the Knights" or something like that, but it's not made a huge point. It feels like sometimes you can just assert the next step without really explaining why, specifically, it's important if there's enough momentum. It's a slow moment, so maybe there isn't - regardless, it seems to work well enough!

Maybe this is being too "meta" about it, but to me it immediately sprung out as "oh it's one of these moments where you get a bunch of approaches based on what you did in the campaign layer previously" (there's multiple examples of that in the quest already, like when you discuss talking to Mene, with the included option of Horus being one of those campaign layer things). So I flew over to my colony with a nanoforge, expecting an option to pop up in the docking dialogue even if characters didn't explicitly mention it ahead of time - but no, not this time.

In hindsight, yeah the trusted operator and her character make sense, but I just want to mention I did expect the flowchart with options laid out in the blog post when actually playing the mission.

I did initially think that it had to do with me "only" operating a corrupted nanoforge at that colony, in fact I have 6 of the damn things, but not a single pristine one, and that you needed a pristine forge for the proper analysis. But well, Asher is also a corrupted nanoforge. Maybe if you did the analysis with a Church contact at a pristine forge it would explain why the players' doesn't work?

Anyway, the quest was good, great even.

The blog mentioned the danger of the world feeling small, but I was really happy with Sedge showing up (or, uh, not showing up). It's a good moment for choice consequences to play out, but also I think it really helps that there's more than one relatively important Pather you can meet earlier (and shoot). It's a great character moment that it wasn't the guy I shot earlier, but one of them. Now if only we could take out the contact at the Pather base too (without exploding the whole thing and making Jeff sad)...

Also I see you: "Bornanew Superstar: Jeff visits Westernesse"

[FooF]

My first time going through both the Knight Errant had me going down the path of Jethro being Somebody™ but I wasn't sure what the game was setting him up for. I get he was a failed Knight and theologically torn, but I wasn't sure if he was supposed to be a reluctant messiah (I actually picked up The Last Temptation of Christ vibes right off the bat).

Once False Idols came, I still had the "reluctant messiah" picture in my head so color me surprised when Detective Bornanew comes out. It actually clashed a little with who I thought Knight Errant was making him out to be and all the while I'm doing False Idols, I kept waiting for a hint that he's Ludd Born Anew (PRAISE JEFF!)... It wasn't that I was disappointed with False Idols, it was fantastically written and I did it all in one sitting because I wanted to know where it went, it's just that I came into it with a false presumption so it didn't mesh with my head canon. I wasn't looking for a detective so I didn't really pick up that he was one. I came at it from the viewpoint that Jethro was "clearing the temple of the money changers" so to speak, or rooting out the whitewashed tombs of the elites. It was part and parcel with his higher calling. Maybe the False Idol was Jethro all along! (Dun dun DUNNN)

If anything, it holds up a mirror to my own biases while reading into a story. I guess I want Jethro to be the modest, albeit troubled, savior of the Church and if I, as the PC, want to align or frustrate that, that's my choice.

[David]

Just wanted to chime in and say that one of my favourite moments in this quest was on the bus ride over to the cathedral of holy exodus, where Bornanew talks about the differences between the Ineffablists and the Mundanians within the church. It was wonderful.

Thank you! It just isn't right unless there are esoteric theological disagreements. (This was vaguely inspired by a scene in The Name of the Rose where the Pope's delegates some representatives of the monastic order(s) break out into a fistfight over doctrine while shouting insults at each other.)

Excellent quest, blessings of Ludd upon you. I really enjoyed all of the space metaphors and all of the nitty-gritty of the church.
Also, I know you probably didn't mean for anyone to see this, but in the logs for Starsector (rules.csv) there's a note next to one of Jethro's lines that says "look, i'm not trying to write flirty dialog, but." and it made me have a little chuckle.

If I wanted no one to ever see it, it wouldn't be there.

And the Church is really not the sort of faction that I would feel so compelled by, but between the pilgrimage and this mission, they do feel more nuanced and fleshed than a lot of it's counterparts in other games. The artwork also just really good too!

Thank you! I'm very glad it hit.

Hi. Long time lurker here, finally deciding to make an account for this because I just love the story aspects of the game.
...
Also, I 100% support terrible aristocrats (although I do think there should be competent ones as well, else it risks being a bit too slapstick).

Thank you!

I do think there are a few competent aristocrats - Orcus and Neriene Rao, Horus Yaribay. Reynard Hannan is extraordinarily arrogant but probably fairly competent. Likewise, Magnus Cardona is cold and cruel, but good at fighting. A few can be nice but not especially successful - Imoinu Kato, for instance. And maybe Dardan if you're not Luddic and you're a member of the League. And I'd say even Menes is a good host even if his political judgement and economic sense is truly awful.

But don't worry, there'll be more of 'em I'm sure.

I remember repating that name until I could flawlessly pronounce it in the most high-pitched, nasal voice I could muster, with him repeating his full name on every possible occasion. The players loved hating him (and were ever more satisfied when executing him at the end of the plot).

Haha, I admire and approve of your methods!

Speaking of flavor events, as a last tangent regarding the church and [ABYSSAL SPOILERS] :

Spoiler

Some story aspects - selling cores to Tritach, meeting the High Hegemon - appear in the faction reputation descriptions. Would a note like that make sense for the church/path when they see and denounce you for messing with "demonic" technology?

[close]

A fair point - I'll make a note to look into it.

In hindsight, yeah the trusted operator and her character make sense, but I just want to mention I did expect the flowchart with options laid out in the blog post when actually playing the mission.

(Yeah, I sat down and started thinking about how to implement this, like: get a list of possibly multiple player colonies with nanoforges - do they have to be pristine? or maybe just allow corrupted if no pristine exist? - and assembling them into a list alongside with good-relations faction-forges - or maybe just commercial contacts on worlds with forges? - and thinking about how to make sure it wouldn't overflow the options, or feel like it was arbitrarily cut down, and then... I concluded with "I ain't doing all that."

It happens from time to time that I propose some ridiculously complex thing and Alex is like "let's just do X" and it'll avoid 10 hours of dev time. Or, more realistically, several frustrating hours that make me decide to simplify it anyway. I've gotten much better at recognizing these situations over the years!)

Anyway, the quest was good, great even.
...
Also I see you: "Bornanew Superstar: Jeff visits Westernesse"

Thank you!
And

If anything, it holds up a mirror to my own biases while reading into a story. I guess I want Jethro to be the modest, albeit troubled, savior of the Church and if I, as the PC, want to align or frustrate that, that's my choice.

Fascinating and rewarding that you picked all of that up! I'll just say that his story is not yet done, though we must also acknowledge that the game is not called "Jeffsector".
And now I can imagine Alex over there making lip-zipping motions at me, so I'll leave it at that.

[Doctorhealsgood]

The luddic church questline overall made me care more about it and i would say i think its one of my favorites so far.
And that's pretty amusing to think about considering i have a bit of a soft spot for AI so now i have to reconcile both points of view.

[SCC]

Re: aristocrats are useful as quest givers:
It would appear that you and Alex are sheltered from the community, or else you'd know that if you wanted an unhinged, capricious, ambitious and powerful figure to give people ridiculous and awesome orders, you'd simply take a player character. Well, you would call that a captain of some sort (or admiral at some point, I suppose? I don't know how it works), but the point is this is an organic archetype, even if it's kind of boring (since the player is probably well aware of who the player character is).

Daaaaaavid please give us the luddic AI core I don't care if it's a sort-of-cliche I just love that thematic you can't just off hand mention it as a random idea you had in the blog post_{(in fact, you very much can.)}.

I would prefer an explorarium core that would help you out on the basis that you're a human and the core was made to serve humans, or that if threamegaroud kills everyone, there will be no one to read all the exploration data it painstakingly collected and that's just no good.

[nathan67003]

Hell yeah, LORE

As usual, exquisitely cheeky selection of tags lol

[Ragnarok101]

My first time going through both the Knight Errant had me going down the path of Jethro being Somebody™ but I wasn't sure what the game was setting him up for. I get he was a failed Knight and theologically torn, but I wasn't sure if he was supposed to be a reluctant messiah (I actually picked up The Last Temptation of Christ vibes right off the bat).

Once False Idols came, I still had the "reluctant messiah" picture in my head so color me surprised when Detective Bornanew comes out. It actually clashed a little with who I thought Knight Errant was making him out to be and all the while I'm doing False Idols, I kept waiting for a hint that he's Ludd Born Anew (PRAISE JEFF!)... It wasn't that I was disappointed with False Idols, it was fantastically written and I did it all in one sitting because I wanted to know where it went, it's just that I came into it with a false presumption so it didn't mesh with my head canon. I wasn't looking for a detective so I didn't really pick up that he was one. I came at it from the viewpoint that Jethro was "clearing the temple of the money changers" so to speak, or rooting out the whitewashed tombs of the elites. It was part and parcel with his higher calling. Maybe the False Idol was Jethro all along! (Dun dun DUNNN)

If anything, it holds up a mirror to my own biases while reading into a story. I guess I want Jethro to be the modest, albeit troubled, savior of the Church and if I, as the PC, want to align or frustrate that, that's my choice.

Then again, that last confrontation at the end with

Spoiler

Jeff standing perfectly within the light and convincing a Luddic knight to stand down without lifting a finger

[close]

really did imply him going down that route.

[Wyvern]

In hindsight, yeah the trusted operator and her character make sense, but I just want to mention I did expect the flowchart with options laid out in the blog post when actually playing the mission.

(Yeah, I sat down and started thinking about how to implement this, like: get a list of possibly multiple player colonies with nanoforges - do they have to be pristine? or maybe just allow corrupted if no pristine exist? - and assembling them into a list alongside with good-relations faction-forges - or maybe just commercial contacts on worlds with forges? - and thinking about how to make sure it wouldn't overflow the options, or feel like it was arbitrarily cut down, and then... I concluded with "I ain't doing all that."

It happens from time to time that I propose some ridiculously complex thing and Alex is like "let's just do X" and it'll avoid 10 hours of dev time. Or, more realistically, several frustrating hours that make me decide to simplify it anyway. I've gotten much better at recognizing these situations over the years!)

So, thinking over this some more...
• This felt bad to me because the missions right before it acknowledged the player colonies existing, and then this one just... didn't. Much like Aerolfos, I headed over to my colony first just to see if something would trigger even if the mission said "go to place X".
• On further consideration, all the pieces are there to explain why it has to be that specific site, they just aren't brought up at the right times or in the right contexts.
 1: Discretion is required. This means player colonies or the Luddic Church site; can't go to other factions even if the player has a commission.
 2: A library of forge signatures is required. This is something that needs to be built up over years or decades, and means that the required site must be one that's been in continual operation for a very long time - i.e., you have to do this at an established faction, not the player's colonies.

My suggestion for a quick fix: Add a "visit a forge technician" option to any player-owned colony with any quality of nanoforge installed. When selected, you get a quick dialog with the tech explaining that, sorry, they can't actually do that here: they simply don't have the library of forge signatures needed. "It hasn't been a priority. We've been making things, not taking them apart." Once it's been selected once at one player colony, the option disappears, never to resurface.

Aside from that, I really enjoyed Ayo Tanaica's character. I wish there was an option to offer her a job on one of your colonies, perhaps by dangling the opportunity of working with a pristine nanoforge in front of her. It just feels like something my captain would do given she seems competent and clearly doesn't quite enjoy her current position. It wouldn't even need any tangible benefits, but it would be a cool flavor event.

This would be cool. Honestly, in the moment, I just wanted a "Here, take 20,000 credits, and put some work into expanding your forge signature library", since she'd just been complaining about that being a low priority for the Church. But actually hiring her would be neat, too.

[FunnyScope]

It's funny that doing this quest, and reading this blogpost, comes at a time in my life where I'm actually reading a lot of theology from the time of the Reformation. I honestly feel like you've captured the nature of certain incidents that happened prior to the Reformation quite well, or at least their vibe.

[David]

And that's pretty amusing to think about considering i have a bit of a soft spot for AI so now i have to reconcile both points of view.

You and me both, buddy.

Re: aristocrats are useful as quest givers:
It would appear that you and Alex are sheltered from the community,

??

...or else you'd know that if you wanted an unhinged, capricious, ambitious and powerful figure to give people ridiculous and awesome orders, you'd simply take a player character. Well, you would call that a captain of some sort (or admiral at some point, I suppose? I don't know how it works), but the point is this is an organic archetype, even if it's kind of boring (since the player is probably well aware of who the player character is).

If I'm picking up what you're putting down, I'd say there are a number of characters that could fit into retired "player character" archetype: Orcus Rao for a merc/military, Callisto Ibrahim for the trade/explorer, Philip Andrada for military/conquerer.

But perhaps you mean active and doing player-like things - that's a bit more of a question, because (obviously) we haven't populated the world with player-equivalents. Maybe the scavengers, maybe the bounties, though neither is simulated with great depth. Anyway, it'd suggest that they ought to compete with the player in doing player-like activities. And while that'd be really interesting, it'd be a huge can of worms in terms of design which would shift the foundation of the game a bit. (Could make for a neat mod, but it's probably an awful lot of work.)

As usual, exquisitely cheeky selection of tags lol

• On further consideration, all the pieces are there to explain why it has to be that specific site, they just aren't brought up at the right times or in the right contexts.
 1: Discretion is required. This means player colonies or the Luddic Church site; can't go to other factions even if the player has a commission.
 2: A library of forge signatures is required. This is something that needs to be built up over years or decades, and means that the required site must be one that's been in continual operation for a very long time - i.e., you have to do this at an established faction, not the player's colonies.

TBH 1. there is probably the best reason. The point is repeatedly made that the whole situation is an embarrassment and could open rifts in the Church, so keeping the investigation "internal" makes a ton of sense.

(The forge signature library is indeed a very good reason as well, and makes a lot of sense, but from a story-telling perspective it'd require info-dumping that concept before the scene where the player is watching the reason for doing it being carried out. I think it hits better to show the concept in action, basically, and we need to have the player character at a nanoforge site to do that!)

It's funny that doing this quest, and reading this blogpost, comes at a time in my life where I'm actually reading a lot of theology from the time of the Reformation. I honestly feel like you've captured the nature of certain incidents that happened prior to the Reformation quite well, or at least their vibe.

Nice! And you reminded me, I was listening to some podcasts about the Reformation around when I was writing some of these. There's a nook of dialog where Sedge tries to justify himself in theological terms inspired by some of that, as I recall.

Alas, no defenestrations... yet?

[Killer of Fate]

What sparked this one?

False Idols is IMO the best so far in the questing stuff. I found Usurpers a little too much 'promise' versus 'reality' considering it's essentially just talking to various Diktat personalities for the moment, with a lot of hanging threads, but FI really manages to wrap itself up neatly.

huh...

Interesting

That's one thing that has always scared me off from playing the quests. I knew that they weren't finished. Hearing that this quest has an actual concluded line inclines me further to try it out

[Blue_Bear]

I wanted to write that I absolutely adored these quests, I was hooked with the Luddic Church questline ever since the moment I could justify shooting a man because he drank my tea, and it's just gotten better. I feel genuinely drawn to the Luddic faith now, they get some stuff wrong, but they have a point. If you approach the game with their teachings in mind, after seeing the bones of the domain, the technology that could consume entire planets in centuries, you feel that yeah, maybe this stuff should be forgotten.

The Characters are also great. Thanks to seeing more of Gideon and "Jeff", I decided to take the

Spoiler

planet killer

[close]

to the Knights, as an alternative to spacing the damn thing, and it just felt... Right. Every other faction would abuse this thing, the Church is wise enough to destroy it.

Another interesting thing that I really like is how you almost feel persecuted outside the Church if you're a believer. Between Macrio assuming that anyone of your skill can't possibly be a "mush brained" Luddic if you've got a Church commission, to the point of thinking you're pulling a long con, and The Tri Tach director of special operations all but openly mocking your faith, and a thousand little needles in the form of complaints about "Luddies", you genuinely get a sense of persecution.

It's great, I love it, and I can't wait to see more.