Saturnine [WIP] [482K words] (Updated 30/08/2024)

I mean, as a result you receive:

You aim your pistol downwards and shoot. You bring the thunder, blasting Crystal with electricity from above. For once, the discharge looks like actual lightning, forming high in the air and striking the largest target in the distance. [...]

when your MC isn’t carrying any weapon, so i would say that is the issue. Granted, it can be fixed in other and more extensive ways, like reworking these ifs into if/elseif and placing the one for lack of weapon earlier.

edit

On unrelated note, something re: the system used to track interactions with the ROs. As it is, with the current and backup variables it is very easy for characters to regularly suffer bouts of amnesia and completely forget they were ever flirted with – all it takes is to flirt with the same character twice, and they get recorded as both “current” and “backup” ro, with everyone else who might’ve been there getting purged from the records. Or to flirt with more than two people.

It might be better to perform a check first and only update the variables if the person who is currently flirted with isn’t already recorded as the current_ro Better yet would be separate counters tracking instances of flirting with each character individually, if just because it opens up possibility for dysfunctional MC who flirts with everyone, Persona style, to get some comedic (or not) comeuppance for it down the road.

To be frank, I don’t feel like doing comedic scenes where the MC gets punished for their lack of fidelity. The one-on-one romance scenes took me long enough to write, and they all come at pretty serious points in the story. I might implement the check thing once I have nothing better to do, but I’d need another reason to revamp the whole system.

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Another reason is what i’ve mentioned – characters losing track they’ve had active romance ongoing because MC has flirted with someone else and their name got pushed out of the variable, and potentially acting like they’re initiating something with MC with nothing going between them before.

I’ve only mentioned the reactions to lack of fidelity because the game does this already in the early chapters, with relationship drops for characters who either were flirted with and see MC do that with someone else, or who get flirted with while MC did that previously with someone else. With the way the tracking of such actions is currently hit or miss, so is this whole mechanic, with characters sometimes being capable of observing conflicting actions, and sometimes being completely oblivious MC has hit on them just yesterday.

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On a different note, couple of small errors in saturn module:

      #I'll wrestle the rifle out of his hands, then shoot him with it.
        *if Build > 45
          For anyone else your size, wrestling against a Marauder would be a ridiculous idea. But you [i]are[/i] an android, and a pretty damn tough one at that.
          
          You surprise the abhuman by grabbing his rifle, then surprise him further by pulling it out of his grasp and aiming it at him. Whether he's surprised 

and

      #I'll beat him unconscious in hand-to-hand combat.
        *if Build > 55
          For anyone else your size, throwing hands with a Marauder would be a ridiculous idea. But you [i]are[/i] an android, and a pretty damn tough one at that.
          
          The pirate appears unaware of that fact, or perhaps having forgotten it. He's surprised when you slam your fist into his jaw, more surprised still 

both produce paragraphs which just cut off mid-sentence. The game then jumps to hostage_fight so there isn’t any shared wrap-up or anything like that.

edit: minor logic error in interlude_2:

    *label lisa_rej
    *if current_ro = "lisa"
      *set current_ro ""
    *if backup_ro = "lisa"
      *set backup_ro ""
    "Oh." If Lisa is not reluctant to look at you anymore. Her eyes are simply glued to the floor. "More the fool me. Forgive the dog in heat for getting too excited, too hopeful for a moment."
    
    "Don't talk about yourself like that," you demand, trying to mitigate the damage. 
    *if ((current_ro = "lisa") or (backup_ro = "lisa"))
      "It's my fault, I shouldn't have-"
    *else
      "Really, it was brave for you to just come forward and-"

Because Lisa’s name gets removed from _ro variables it’ll never be found by the check performed right afterwards.

edit2: in telesto:

  *if weapon != ""
    *disable_reuse #Swim into Crystal's mouth and start @{(weapon = "knife") slashing|blasting} away. Suicide attack.

if MC lacks a weapon the weapon variable has value none meaning this option is also enabled for unarmed MP.

  *if weapon = "knife"
    *selectable_if (weapon_av) #Shoot Crystal.

This should probably be checking for pistol especially since there’s a separate check/option to actually stab with a knife.

edit3: not a bug, but…

The binary treatment of the Crystal hunt outcome in Consequence is a bit disappointing – i feel like there’s significant difference between full-health Crystal smashing the opposition and going to hide for a bit, vs Crystal at 0 or less health and crippled to the point where they’ll likely never be able to take flight again, promising to stay holed up forever and only getting to crawl away because they get spared at the very end. Also in terms of how that could be spun both by the Trio to their superiors and the military to the public (as the latter outcome effectively fulfills the goal of removing Crystal as active threat)

But the game (including MC) seems to just roll those outcomes into equivalent of the former, with all that entails. Which can create a dissonance between the narrative and the player’s experience of what actually happened in their playthrough.

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Minor bug. MC’s owner is referred to as “she” and “her” despite being male.

just finished playing the update.

holy shit.

5 Likes

I’ll take that as a compliment.

Also, sorry for slow replies. I’ve been taking care of a certain issue I’ve encountered when playing WotR. Luckily, I’ve managed to rectify it in a satisfactory manner.

Screenshot_335

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Will there be an option to separate the cases where you are forced to leave after failing the mission? In my case Sheila first suggested exiling me, and I took offense to that. Then I had to finagle my way to the option of leaving, but first it suggested leaving as a group, and afterwards it just skipped over the consequences.

Could there be an addition where MC leaves the group, but by their own volition? Where you don’t stay, but you don’t agree to Sheila’s reasoning for it? Because I did gun her down, and everyone just… somewhat skipped over the fact.

Another minor addition: what affects MC’s ability to kill humans? I picked the most human-hating options and constantly stated that MC would gladly airlock every member of human race she comes across - she also joined Pazuzu and urged androids to wage extermination war in War of Heaven flashback. But it just seemed to… kind of go away, weirdly enough? The options became much more comedic in nature and felt like they lessened overtime, despite the human group providing many reasons for the hate to grow. I also could not kill a child for some reason. Narrative called my human-hating ways misantropy, so I know it sets something, but how could I affect it more?

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