Fan Mission: Away 1 - Air Pocket, by Geep (2020/02/07)

[shadowsedge]

Regarding the gold bar "feature", I'd just remove it. Game studios drop months of story lines if they don't fit, no shame in that and only makes the game better.

My two cents: realistically if a person grabs heavy loot, they can just drop it, pick it up later, use your arms to "climb out" instead of swimming, and the gold bar doesn't weigh as much in the water. So there is no way a gold bar would insta-kill me. Plus I'd only read the objectives when I'm in a safe spot outside, keeping all objectives in-mind while digging in dark murky water is not the place for a player, especially in panic.

Awesome atmosphere otherwise! 

[Petike the Taffer]

Hello, @Geep.

Your FM finally has a wiki article now, with all the bells and whistles:

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Away_1:_Air_Pocket_(FM)

Sorry I didn't make it sooner.

Edited February 17, 2021 by Petike the Taffer

[Gerberox]

A 10 cm object on a rope prevents me to reach the deck of the another ship.

Not good.

[Dragofer]

2 hours ago, Gerberox said:

A 10 cm object on a rope prevents me to reach the deck of the another ship.

Not good.

That object actually has the purpose to stop rats from climbing onto the ship via the mooring ropes. Seems it also works against thieves. (there's nothing to find on that ship anyway)

[datiswous]

Just finished this mission. I was expecting a somewhat larger mission after having played Away 0. Interesting setting.

What becomes of the horse? Will it just die from starvation on that ship?

Spoiler

Reminds me of that children song my pony is over the ocean. Well, I thought it was about a pony as a kid..

[gluon1]

I thoroughly enjoyed this FM, even though negotiating the capsized ship drove me batty and I spent far too much time trying to climb up onto things onto which I couldn't climb. I certainly wished this were a bigger mission but I will take whatever @Geep will give me when the bits are this fun.

FWIW, I agree with @shadowsedgethat the handling of the gold bar isn't exactly realistic but it seems a sensible objective -- even though I failed it the first time and lost some health staying long enough to survive it in the future -- and I don't know that there's a better way to handle it within the game mechanics. Being able to quicksave and quickload isn't realistic, either.

Small apparent bug:

Spoiler

I go into the trailer ship before finding Emily and got an "Objective Completed" message before I had the objective, which was a trifle confusing.

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by gluon1

[Geep]

@datiswous, @gluon1. Yep, Away 1 is a short "appetizer" mission, my first real FM, done before Away 0. Glad you got to taste it.

As for the objectives bug, oh well. I went overboard (ha!) with inter-dependent objectives, so too many ways for things to go wrong. Part of the learning curve.

The horse? Maybe a Mage arrives on a hot air balloon and transforms it into a sea horse... or unicorn/narwhal!

[shadowsedge]

On 12/9/2020 at 4:33 AM, shadowsedge said:

Plus I'd only read the objectives when I'm in a safe spot outside

Oh, is it possible to do emergent objectives like in Thief missions? I think you can read about heavy gold bar in a safe spot, you get a new objective to find it, and then start looking for it unburdened/safe. 

[thebigh]

I liked this short and simple level. The use of emergent objectives was really effective, especially for such a short mission. I finished with all the loot and a stealth score of 0 (2 suspicious).

I see you ran into the same problem I have with tilted doors not opening correctly, but at a weird skewy angle.

If you ever update the mission can I suggest making the Captain non-frobbable, because if you do touch him by accident he starts thumping around endlessly under the debris.

The mountains in the background were nice. What did you use to make them, terragen or something like that?

On 1/31/2022 at 8:44 AM, shadowsedge said:

Oh, is it possible to do emergent objectives like in Thief missions?

Absolutely. The objectives system in TDM is pretty sophisticated, much more so than in the original Thief duology.

[Geep]

6 hours ago, thebigh said:

I see you ran into the same problem I have with tilted doors not opening correctly, but at a weird skewy angle.

If you ever update the mission can I suggest making the Captain non-frobbable, because if you do touch him by accident he starts thumping around endlessly under the debris.

The mountains in the background were nice. What did you use to make them, terragen or something like that?

The skewed doors took a vast amount of numeric tweaking to end up at close to desired angles when open. Fortunately, I imagine any remaining skew could be passed off as wreck damage.

That is a good idea, a non-frobbable Capt. No promise on a future update at the moment. I'm still working my way through the Away 0 update, which I did promise (at least myself).

I didn't make the mountains. That was a third-party public-domain skybox (credits for that in the game & docs). I thought they were pretty nice too.

[datiswous]

Hey what about an upgrade with real fish someday?

Edited November 11, 2022 by datiswous

[covert_caedes]

I know it's not necessary to finish this mission, but

Spoiler

where is the Sword? Does it even exist?

 

[Geep]

On 6/26/2025 at 2:07 AM, covert_caedes said:

I know it's not necessary to finish this mission, but

Spoiler

Yes, the sword exists. In easy difficulty, it's in your sea trunk, unpilfered. In the other settings, it's either under a pillow/corpse in the disrupted crew bunk, or, in that same area, in the air pocket where the potions are (on the shelf but below water).

 

[covert_caedes]

Ah, now I found it, thanks!