Starways Saga (WIP) ~300k words (Updated 4/9/2025)

I only had 1 option 4 Vince in dialogue option for flirting and it was confident in ch1?

The Vince romance is framed very confident and flirtatious. He’s your superior and he doesn’t really want to risk his reputation by sleeping with a subordinate. So his romance is really about seduction, unfortunately shyness doesn’t really play. If you don’t take initiate, he’s not going to.

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Just one more update to go for the Navy path now? My mc is excited to serve on a big ship but he also misses Devin already. Maybe a certain dashing adventurous scientist will actually have mission for mc once we get our own little ship, eh? :sweat_smile: :persevering_face: Will the corpo path be next after the Navy one is finished? Cause it is the other of the teased origins I am looking forward to exploring.

Well you already know I am most interested in the deck officer path but in the last update I also found myself liking the marine segment more than I thought I would, never thought my brainiac boy would actually be the one to make the difference there.

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Yep, just one last update. It should be pretty big though. And I can’t estimate yet when it will be done. I think it’s certainly possible, Devin and other characters from the paths will appear in the final act. In terms of what’s next after the Navy path is completed, I think we can hold another vote on what’s next. But we’ll hold off on that till the Navy path is done.

The deck officer path is obviously more focused on ship combat. I obviously mean ship vs ship not combat inside of a ship. While the marine path is more focused on ground combat. Much more up close and personal. The deck officer atmosphere is much more strict and professional. Meanwhile the marine path takes place in a backwater in the Far Reaches, you might be the one adding an air of professionalism to the chaos, or you want to join in on it. With all three paths, you’ll be in a position of command and direct control of how things play out. No path has you sitting on the sidelines. This may be more self explanatory for the marine path, but I promise as a deck officer, you’re not going to be sitting in front of a computer display and pressing the fire missile button during the climax of the path. Any more specifics you’re interested in, please let me know!

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So does each one give you a unique skill based on it? I hope the other paths get the same amount of love or we’ll see a lot of navy recruits lol.

Every path will offer different unique advantages. I will try my best to make every path balanced and not have one be overpowered with too many skill perks. It should always be about roleplaying and creating a character that best suits you. The game is deliberately not punishing to help the player do that without having to worry about min-maxing stats.

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What 's next?
I hope you enjoyed the latest update. Let me know your thoughts if you haven’t already. Today’s the first day of spring warm enough for me to write outside. I’ve missed it, it’s great. I’ve started working on the last navy update. Since the paths are independent, I could release them one, by one as I complete them, but I have instead decided just to release them all together as I intended as one large, concluding update to the Navy path. Arriving at new locations and meeting new characters will of course be part of it. But I really want to get down to the action and wrap this all up. But I don’t want to rush things either. When I complete the first specialization path I’ll have a better idea of how long each should be and how long it will take to complete. I’ll update you when I have more information. As always comment any, question, feedback or criticism you have.
Cheers!

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I saw this and decided to go in blind and give my first impressions because it looks cool. I didn’t look through the rest of the thread, though, so if I miss something obvious because of it, my bad.

We moved into this house when I was 11. Being the youngest, I had no choice in what room I ended up with. The oldest, my sister Tracy chose the spare bedroom on the second floor with a spacious closet. My brother Kenny, the middle child, was pumped to take up residence in the damp basement and odors and strange sounds have been drifting up to curse us ever since.

Nice intro, I normally prefer the 2nd person POV in IF but it fits here. Also the humans invading the alien civil war is an interesting twist, though I don’t know how it’ll turn out.

To borrow a phrase from someone long dead, today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today will be the first step of my journey. Well, maybe not today exactly. I’m graduating from secondary school today. After the ceremony they’ll be cake and my parents will pretend like they don’t see my friends and I stealing a twelve pack. Then, I have to pack. Then I have to finish my paperwork for my job. After that nothing will stand in my way of leaving this rock.

While the MC clearly isn’t the blank inserts I prefer for IF. I generally choose them to not be close with their family for example and then try and make “the right choices” I do like his demienor however, and young farm boys going out into the stars is a trope older than Star Wars so I do appreciate the chance to go through that. I also like the “They used to be interesting.” Also the world building with Borneo. Though it makes me sad to know that Orangatans, Gibbons, and a bunch of cool monkeys are probably extinct. Poor primates a lot of them were probably smarter than the zoo guests who saw them.

Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like he’s killing cats down there anymore.

Man all the animals are going extinct…

Raymundo

Well I’m still gonna go with Fredrick but I do like that name. Sounds like some comic relief guy giving terrible one liners.

I’ve signed up as crew on a colony ship bound for the Far Reaches. (NOT PLAYABLE)

I know it’s not done, but considering how the MC acts this does seem like the most logical choice for him. (Stealing a 12 pack seems like a very bandit thing to do.) Though I’m not sure if the uninformed feeling choice is purposeful? Because normally you’d get introduced to the factions see what they’re about and then choose at the end? I’m going into it blind but it seems like I’m picking on relatively little information. I do wish you’d lean into that a bit more though so that the MC would also feel the unsuredness.

“My baby brother all grown up and spreading his wings. Be safe out there. Don’t forget to message me and take a lot of pictures. Don’t forget about us here on boring old Verdant Bright,” She says with tears in her eyes. “I could never,” I say. She kisses my cheek and enters the taxi.

I do like how human this feels. Very human and timeless. The only thing is that if this is supposed to be the equivalent to a small town wouldn’t the family probably just take you to the airport with their own truck? Which is quite minor and I still appreciate how this feels. I’ve left home like this and had similar conversations, except then I was leaving a less happy family in a glorified hiveslum. Still I do appreciate how things are with this.

I can’t expect my own cabin, it’s probably gonna be a bunk in crew quarters with a locker and a cubby. Not much space.

Wouldn’t companies with staff housing (even if it’s a bit more extraordinary than camp counciling, or resort portering.) Normally say where they’ll be living and provide a packing list? That’s how it was for me atleast. It doesn’t seem to be purposefully sketchy?

They’re very popular for porn, but always a little too short.

I like the memory shards they’re a neat concept. Though this line while funny kinda messed with the “ooh, cool!” tone the rest of the page had. Also the fact plantations exists we managed to preserve tobacco but not the rain forests. Which really says a lot about something…

You have earned the Fighter perk. You’re tough and reliable in any fight, you can use this perk to your benefit in future conversations and scenarios.

I think this is a neat system, though I do hope it’s atleast somewhat flexible.

I grab a couple of energy bars and fill up a thermos with…

Knowing the people who signed up to do blue collar work at Yellowstone for example (probably the closest there is to going to be a colonist in the 2020s.) I suggest adding in this universes equivalent of strong but easily hidden alchohol (Voldka, Whisky, etc.) Monster Energy, Diet Dr. Pepper, Sports drinks or pre workouts like Ghost/Aloha (my preferred poisons) would be common choices. I know it doesn’t change all that much, but the point of this choice is seemingly flavor so I’d like to help with said flavor choicess as hese were seemingly more common choices than hot chocolate and beer atleast. Though I understand this isn’t modern earth the way the family works makes it seem like this they work in a relatively similar manner to modern earth.

We park in the massive underground garage and take the shuttle up to the spaceport. The spaceport is a buzz of activity. Vendors hawk everything from kebabs to life insurance. There’s ships of all size, from single person crafts, to massive alliance navy fortresses and giant colony ships. It’s the size of a small city, complete with all the amenities. There’s bright neon advertisements for the hotels, bars and nightclubs. There’s not so coy advertisements for adult entertainment.

Man these peoples gooning is gonna make the Fall of the Eldar look like a sunday morning in Utah… But I do like the space terminal. I can imagine there’s a reason to sell shady life insurance.

“Let’s catch a shuttle,” Mom says.

So wait mom brought you to the space port but didn’t take her car which people on a garden world would most likely have? Again that’s a cinema sins style nitpick but somewhat obvious to people who’ve been in these situations.

Well this was short but I knew what I was getting into. I’ll probably check in on the next update, Most of (though not all of what I listed is either stuff I’m not sure of, prefresnces, things someone whose been in a similar situation would know and suggest for flavor, or cinema sin style plot holes the size of an ant that was cut in half compared to the prose and neat ideas like perks. Perhaps I’d have more on a longer route, but I do like what I saw even if personal preference doesn’t make it my number one IF piece of all time I could see that being the case for someone else. If nothing else, it was a good excuse to listen to The Outer Worlds soundtrack.

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Thanks for reading! I’m glad you enjoyed what you read so far. But it seems you only read the intro chapter. I understand the colony path may have been your preference, but if you choose merchant or navy there’s a great deal more to read.

You did drive to the spaceport in a car. But the space port is like a huge airport, there’s no roads or cars, inside. By shuttle I meant like one of the trains you see inside large airports to get you to other terminals.

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Oh, I thought that was how you became a bandit.

I also thought that each had their own intro, sorry.

Stealing some beer at a graduation party was more teenage mischief than banditry. There isn’t an outlaw path in this game. The outlaw, bandits or pirates, what ever you want to call them in this game aren’t exactly dashing rogues. They’re cold blooded killers. They murder and enslave people with no hesitation. I can understand, maybe some players would prefer to have the total freedom of choice to go down that dark path if they want, but it would contradict the goal of the game to become a heroic star pilot. I think there’s definitely room for roguish behavior and working for a corp on the Ship Builder path will likely involve doing morally questionable things, but going full outlaw just isn’t going to happen in this game.

No need to apologize. There’s definitely different dialogue in the intro chapter per path, most of it at the end in the spaceport, but it isn’t an entirely unique intro per path. Once the intro chapter ends the four unique paths begin, of which right now only merchant and navy are playable.

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