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DarkAvenger211
Jun 29, 2011

Damnit Steve, you know I'm a sucker for Back to the Future references.
So I played through this again with a group of friends this weekend who hadn't before. I mostly just helped get them unstuck and gave them hints at certain spots. We were getting strapped for time near the end since someone was leaving for the week but we did end up finishing it. We definitely missed quite a few bits of writing that I remember wasn't particularly important (although added more personality to the Nomai), like stuff near the bottom of the settlement that gets buried by sand if you don't get their fast enough, as well as the black hole forge. Specifically I can't remember what you learn at the black hole forge but we were able to hit all the important beats without getting there at all. What were you supposed to find out when you get there? That the only warp core left is in the Ash Twin project?

Other than that we had a pretty good time. I did end up showing them the fun alternate Kazoo ending with the high energy lab and breaking space time by sending a probe in and pulling the core out before it goes through

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Sailor Dave
Sep 19, 2013

The Cheshire Cat posted:

Yeah, it's this. A very key piece of evidence is that if you never went to the quantum moon, Solanum won't be there in the ending, because you never met her.

I prefer to think of it as them being quantumly alive through your conscious observation at the end rather than not being real, the same way that Solanum is alive in the sixth location. It feels more fitting that way, like they're really there with you in the end.

The Cheshire Cat
Jun 10, 2008

Fun Shoe

Sailor Dave posted:

I prefer to think of it as them being quantumly alive through your conscious observation at the end rather than not being real, the same way that Solanum is alive in the sixth location. It feels more fitting that way, like they're really there with you in the end.

I think an interesting thing to think about is how the distinction doesn't matter.

Whether or not it's "real" or not is immaterial because you are the only conscious being left in the universe to observe it - your reality *is* reality, as far as it can be understood. The game has a lot of themes around this already with the quantum stuff and how things only exist while they are being observed, but an additional thing to think about is how the time travel in the game is purely experiential time travel. Information is being sent back in time, not the actual physical body of the protagonist, so the time "loop" itself is entirely in their head. That doesn't make it any less "real" and is in fact the key to them being able to reach the eye of the universe in the first place.

Khanstant
Apr 5, 2007

Phssthpok posted:

It would be pretty cool to be able to operate the Black Hole Forge and High Energy Lab for their original purposes. There is some kind of manipulator at the front of the Forge that looks broken. I tried putting empty warp cores into it and then lowering it into the black hole.

Did you ever do the thing there to get the secret/easter egg?

Phssthpok
Nov 7, 2004

fingers like strings of walnuts
In the Forge? No, I'll have to keep exploring. Is it possible to lower it while you're inside?

Teledahn
May 14, 2009

What is that bear doing there?


Phssthpok posted:

Maybe if you start a new game and use the jetpack in the zero-g cave to [omitted]

They thought of that. Using the elevator to leave that area removes your practice suit.

I somewhat wish maintaining and interacting with your ship had a bigger role. I know the gameplay incentivises quick actions but most often damage to your ship just doesn't matter as it's all strikes to hull plates at the cockpit, which are extremely durable. I read in patch reports recently that the air and fuel gauges on your ship dashboard are functional but even they typically don't actually matter. When I learned that I purposely tried to run my ship out of fuel by repeatedly flying to Brittle Hollow from the WH station. After about ten minutes of sustained thrust I had only used about 1/4" of the tank. Taking damage to the fuel tank helped, presumably increased fuel usage by a factor of 4 or 5. A further five-eight minutes of continued sustained thrust was sufficient to deplete my ship's fuel, after which the thrusters stop responding, although I could still use the autopilot to match velocity with selected objects.

I like the idea of having something to do when travelling between planets (which admittedly isn't very long at all) and would often go read the ship's log while underway. Having a button or controls to interact with ship systems from inside (restart the reactor, view damage report, vent your atmosphere, deploy the scout at an intercept vector to planet X etc) would be neat, probably unwarranted, but neat.

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

Phssthpok posted:

In the Forge? No, I'll have to keep exploring. Is it possible to lower it while you're inside?

There is an easter egg in the high energy lab. If you understand the concepts the game talks about, it's pretty easy to figure out what to do.

Talorat
Sep 18, 2007

Hahaha! Aw come on, I can't tell you everything right away! That would make for a boring story, don't you think?
Just finished this, absolutely fantastic. Music, storytelling, world building, all top notch. I've rarely ever seen a game stuff as full of great ideas as this one. Every planet is unique and has some unique twist to it, and so many emergent experiences come from learning the game and just observing the phenomena in the world. I was surprised that at no point do you get any upgrades or new tools or anything other than knowledge to help you on your journey. I was expecting something more along the lines of Majora's Mask, but I do think they way they did it is better and more clever, with only information making the jump with you. I would however have liked a wrist watch at some point as some of the timing of certain events can be kind of difficult. The puzzles are difficult, but usually not impossible, I regret looking up some of the solutions, as in many cases the solution was staring me in the face and I should have already known. In some cases right as I was about to give up the solution presented itself, like when I couldn't figure out how to get into the tower of Quantum Knowledge, and while putzing around in there it broke free and fell into the black hole with me inside. I was so disoriented at first I didn't realize that I suddenly had access until about a minute before the sun exploded and frantically started scanning all the text I could find.

Absolutely genius game, I can't wait to see what this team makes next.

saltylopez
Mar 30, 2010

Talorat posted:

I couldn't figure out how to get into the tower of Quantum Knowledge, and while putzing around in there it broke free and fell into the black hole with me inside. I was so disoriented at first I didn't realize that I suddenly had access until about a minute before the sun exploded and frantically started scanning all the text I could find.

That feeling when you finally make it to a pivotal destination with lots to explore and the music starts playing is awesome. Unironically, some of the most immersive moments for me where I really felt desperation that presumably the main character would also be feeling.

AndrewP
Apr 21, 2010

Talorat posted:

that at no point do you get any upgrades or new tools or anything other than knowledge to help you on your journey. I was expecting something more along the lines of Majora's Mask, but I do think they way they did it is better and more clever, with only information making the jump with you.

It's so great. I unfortunately died on my first attempt at the end mission and got the "You have died" screen, which was loving BIZARRE after 30 hours of death = restart. But I knew that even if it was true permadeath, I really lost nothing and could literally just get the launch codes and beat the game on my first loop.


Talorat posted:

I couldn't figure out how to get into the tower of Quantum Knowledge, and while putzing around in there it broke free and fell into the black hole with me inside. I was so disoriented at first I didn't realize that I suddenly had access until about a minute before the sun exploded and frantically started scanning all the text I could find.

I "figured this out" by accident. I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to get in, and finally just decided to sit there at the base of the tower until the sun exploded and see if anything happened. It did!

haveblue
Aug 15, 2005



Toilet Rascal
I solved that in the legitimate intended way (realize it would eventually fall into the hole and waited for that to happen) and it was v. satisfying

Arrhythmia
Jul 22, 2011
I did some pro-tier piloting to hurtle myself into the thing then felt like a drat fool when it fell in while I was exploring.

Khanstant
Apr 5, 2007
I did the whole thing backwards. My first trip around the galaxy, that thing wound up being one of the things I first explored I was sure the white-hole thing would kill me if I got close, but it was passing by a planet or moon I was on and got so close I couldn't help myself. I flew to it, and I think the quantumn tower had just arrived because I blinded myself trying to bloop into the white hole, and when I turned around this big fancy structure was there. Went inside, discovered a bunch of stuff that was all news to me, noted to keep any eye out for quantum stuff and then I took off and died in a mysterious rash of ghost matter (took me several loops to figure out the sun exploding thing, just kept thinking I got unlucky).

The best part of doing this backwards is, much later in the game, when I had already solved it but was just hunting errant computer logs, I spent almost a whole loop on Brittle Hollow trying to figure out how to get up there past the broken gravity walls. I forgot I had already explored the place properly but was convinced the log I needed was in there somewheres somehow! Turns out the last log I needed is actually something I keep meaning to do and go back to, black hole forge! Never been inside it, always slip off when I try to manually jump in, but I know I just gotta do a teleport thing instead. OR clever ship stuff but thats a one-way ticket to white hole station.

Fwoderwick
Jul 14, 2004

AndrewP posted:

I "figured this out" by accident. I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to get in, and finally just decided to sit there at the base of the tower until the sun exploded and see if anything happened. It did!

So I'd already sort of figured this out by happening to be at the white hole station late in the cycle and spotting the tower was now there.

At the time I had done some frantic reading but was stumped by being unable to drop a scroll in space so I could slot another in to the wall reader. I thought this was a puzzle to solve, that I had to find another way to get there sooner to get the Full Lore.

Much wasted time later, batting against the tower with the ship and parkouring around the tower walls I eventually came to the conclusion that it had to be done in space at the end. So I next moved on to the idea I had to first empty the wall reader on the quantum rock on the surface to make a scroll space and then sat patiently in the tower... only to be insta-gibbed when we fell in.

Finally, I just flew there at the end of the cycle and immediately found the very obvious second wall reader in the tower. :doh:



And unrelated but I was super surprised when the final way to solve the cycle didn't involve going to all of the planets via the ash twin teleporters. I was convinced it was going to be a mad dash between them all as they were unearthed one at a time and having to do something at each location.

In the end, sitting on your hands for 5 minutes (or snoozing at the camp fire for the first 4-5) was a bit anti-climactic, but things sure do escalate from there .

Phssthpok
Nov 7, 2004

fingers like strings of walnuts
What do you think is the rationale for not letting you drop items in your ship? Is there some puzzle that would be trivialized by carrying too many objects at once?

cock hero flux
Apr 17, 2011



Phssthpok posted:

What do you think is the rationale for not letting you drop items in your ship? Is there some puzzle that would be trivialized by carrying too many objects at once?

minimizing physics jank

AndrewP
Apr 21, 2010

speaking of physics jank, parking your ship in any kind of place with a lot of quantum fuckery leads to one very broken ship

Khanstant
Apr 5, 2007
I went unda da sea once, and when I came back up, my ship was nowhere to be seen, so I slowly got back to the surface, saw that my ship seemed to be in the atmosphere, waited for it to come back down, and then had my favourite death of the game: Crushed to death by floating island.

Parking ship the ash of Ash Twin is also a sure bet for some funky ship action. Shout outs to the more-than-once my final runs aborted because I parked my ship too close or in a weird spot and it ended up flung into space or crashed on Ember twin

Fwoderwick posted:

And unrelated but I was super surprised when the final way to solve the cycle didn't involve going to all of the planets via the ash twin teleporters. I was convinced it was going to be a mad dash between them all as they were unearthed one at a time and having to do something at each location.

In the end, sitting on your hands for 5 minutes (or snoozing at the camp fire for the first 4-5) was a bit anti-climactic, but things sure do escalate from there .


I had a similar though at one point, but I also figured that it would involve gathering/rallying all the astronaut pals. Actually for quite a while I thought part of the game loop would be discovering places and clues while checking back in to them. I think I noticed new dialogue options opening up as I found new messages and stuff and extrapolated too far. It is still worth talking to them as you uncover more though!

Khanstant fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jul 20, 2020

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

Phssthpok posted:

What do you think is the rationale for not letting you drop items in your ship? Is there some puzzle that would be trivialized by carrying too many objects at once?


cock hero flux posted:

minimizing physics jank

Probably this. The physics of everything is the star system is running all the time because your ship could be on one planet, while you are on a different planet, and then your probe is on a third planet. Physics has to be enabled for all of those things. So while you're in Dark Bramble, your probe might be on a floating island on Giant's Deep and it's hurled into space.

1stGear
Jan 16, 2010

Here's to the new us.

Cojawfee posted:

Probably this. The physics of everything is the star system is running all the time because your ship could be on one planet, while you are on a different planet, and then your probe is on a third planet. Physics has to be enabled for all of those things. So while you're in Dark Bramble, your probe might be on a floating island on Giant's Deep and it's hurled into space.

And apparently, the game engine gets very mad if you do this. The developers considered making doing this into an achievement but Annapurna nixed it on the grounds that having an achievement that crashes the game is, uh, bad.

Phssthpok
Nov 7, 2004

fingers like strings of walnuts

Cojawfee posted:

Probably this. The physics of everything is the star system is running all the time because your ship could be on one planet, while you are on a different planet, and then your probe is on a third planet. Physics has to be enabled for all of those things. So while you're in Dark Bramble, your probe might be on a floating island on Giant's Deep and it's hurled into space.

I tried leaving my probe in the Black Hole Forge to watch the alignment diagram on the wall, while I went to Ash Twin to see if it synchronized with any towers. The camera showed me the room without the alignment diagram. Intriguing.

The Cheshire Cat
Jun 10, 2008

Fun Shoe

Talorat posted:

I would however have liked a wrist watch at some point as some of the timing of certain events can be kind of difficult.

You kind of do have one, actually!

You can use the twins like an hourglass. The map will show an accurate picture of them so you know roughly how much time you have left based on how much sand there is on ash twin

Sininu
Jan 8, 2014

I have a trouble with the endgame...

I'm trying to get the warp core from the Ash Twin Project but I can't get out! The warp pad doesn't work!

AndrewP
Apr 21, 2010

The Cheshire Cat posted:

The map will show an accurate picture of them

Daaamn I didn't realize that. That's awesome.

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




Sininu posted:

I have a trouble with the endgame...

I'm trying to get the warp core from the Ash Twin Project but I can't get out! The warp pad doesn't work!

I think there's a thing where if you shoot your Scout onto the pad it uses up the exit charge, did you do that?

The Cheshire Cat posted:

You kind of do have one, actually!

except when I wanted it most, when I was drifting slowly through the Bramble..

K8.0
Feb 26, 2004

Her Majesty's 56th Regiment of Foot

cock hero flux posted:

minimizing physics jank

Quite certain it's not this. They don't have to be physics objects and probably aren't, they're always attached to a particular spot. Having your ship be the thing they're currently attached to wouldn't affect anything as long as they aren't physics objects.

My suspicion is that they deliberately decided to not design puzzles around moving multiple things over long distances, and disabled putting things down in your ship as a way to discourage you from trying "solutions" based on that.

The Cheshire Cat
Jun 10, 2008

Fun Shoe

K8.0 posted:

Quite certain it's not this. They don't have to be physics objects and probably aren't, they're always attached to a particular spot. Having your ship be the thing they're currently attached to wouldn't affect anything as long as they aren't physics objects.

My suspicion is that they deliberately decided to not design puzzles around moving multiple things over long distances, and disabled putting things down in your ship as a way to discourage you from trying "solutions" based on that.

The thing is that everything in the game is a physics object. The devs deliberately built it that way (they talk about it in some behind the scenes stuff - the NoClip documentary is worth checking out).

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




I like the fact that their solution to certain errors was just too make it so that everything moves but you. When you jump, instead of applying an upward force to you, it applies a downward force to every single physics object in the game and they all independently leap downwards and fall back up.

It's common to invert the reference points like that in graphics calculating but I've never heard of it done to a physics sim with forces and momentum and the like.

The Cheshire Cat posted:

The thing is that everything in the game is a physics object. The devs deliberately built it that way (they talk about it in some behind the scenes stuff - the NoClip documentary is worth checking out).

Eh, though, it would have been trivial to abstract an an object placed into your ship out of existence in the physics sim and just have it locked onto you ship object until it's picked up. I'm sure it's a design decision.

MikeJF fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Jul 20, 2020

Sininu
Jan 8, 2014

MikeJF posted:

I think there's a thing where if you shoot your Scout onto the pad it uses up the exit charge, did you do that?


except when I wanted it most, when I was drifting slowly through the Bramble..

That was it, thanks a bunch! Had no idea about that mechanic.

double nine
Aug 8, 2013

MikeJF posted:

I like the fact that their solution to certain errors was just too make it so that everything moves but you. When you jump, instead of applying an upward force to you, it applies a downward force to every single physics object in the game and they all independently leap downwards and fall back up.

It's common to invert the reference points like that in graphics calculating but I've never heard of it done to a physics sim with forces and momentum and the like.


Eh, though, it would have been trivial to abstract an an object placed into your ship out of existence in the physics sim and just have it locked onto you ship object until it's picked up. I'm sure it's a design decision.

what the hell? how is it easier for the game to make calculations for 8 or so entities instead of for one entity (the player)?

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




The nature of the game means it's always stimulating every physics object every tick anyway, because the whole solar system is a dynamic physical system. So the overall number of calculations is unchanged.

Dulkor
Feb 28, 2009

Because of the nature of how the game engine works, the player is technically the only static object in the entire simulation. You have to be the 0,0,0 coordinate to avoid all kinds of bizarre problems, so everything else has to move around you instead as appropriate for your inputs and the pre-existing force calculations.

Chev
Jul 19, 2010
Switchblade Switcharoo

double nine posted:

what the hell? how is it easier for the game to make calculations for 8 or so entities instead of for one entity (the player)?

First, the number of things that move is still the same. It's not about what's moving and what isn't. The thing about applying the reverse forces is a misrepresentation, that's not how it's actually done. All forces are always the same, regardless of the reference point. Speeds and positions get changed when you move the reference point, though, it's all relative and is one of the reasons why for our physics purposes, something moving at 0m/s is still moving.

But unless we go into some weird areas of physics the reference point doesn't matter, you can choose whatever. Certainly not for celestial mechanics, although it's handy to have it in the middle of whatever system you're considering, like the sun in a solar system, just so you can better picture it. Really, it'd only matter if you were using a very special, super lovely version of math that breaks down all the time for stupid reasons. Which is exactly the main version of math physics simulations have to use on computers, known as "floating point math" because that's a classier name than "very special, super lovely version of math that breaks down all the time for stupid reasons". But boy does it run faster than solid math!

To measure things in the universe, you need nice, strong, big rulers, and instead floating point math forces you to use rubber bands with gradations on them (you may have heard about 64 bit FP math, well, they've got more gradations, but they're still rubber bands). The more you stretch the rubber band, the less accurate the reading is. Or, in math terms, the further a number is from zero, the less accurate it is. And you need to measure a lot of things for physic calculations so if any of those rubber bands is stretched too far those calculations become lovely, the more stretched numbers the shittier. Position, speed, acceleration, momentum, torque, you name it. How far? A lot closer than you'd think, for physics calculations. Guess what uses big distances, big speeds, big numbers? Space.

However, you don't really mind if calculations are inaccurate for things that are far away because they're far away and look very small. So if an orbit is off by many kilometers but it looks like less than a pixel on screen, it's doesn't really matter, right? So you need to shuffle your calculations around so that all numbers are smaller near the observer. You do that by having the origin, the coordinate zero of your simulation, be close to the player.

How close kinda depends on the game. In Kerbal, it's realigned with you whenever you get more than 6 kilometers away from the current origin. That can be true for many values, like in kerbal once your speed goes above a certain threshold the threshold speed is substracted to yours and the reverse is put in the universe (or, in physics terms, your inertial reference frame has changed). The forces are still the same though!

In Outer wilds, the origin's realigned with the player on each frame, which is what they're really talking about except their way of saying it is simpler for one sentence in a documentary.

Chev fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Jul 20, 2020

Talorat
Sep 18, 2007

Hahaha! Aw come on, I can't tell you everything right away! That would make for a boring story, don't you think?

AndrewP posted:

It's so great. I unfortunately died on my first attempt at the end mission and got the "You have died" screen, which was loving BIZARRE after 30 hours of death = restart. But I knew that even if it was true permadeath, I really lost nothing and could literally just get the launch codes and beat the game on my first loop.

I did the same, and was a bit glum because I feel like that being the final timeline means that's the canon ending for my story. That being said, after that I made sure to practice getting past the angler fish a BUNCH before eventually trying it again a second time with the warp core.

By the way the music that plays when you get the warp core at the end and are taking it to the vessel :chefskiss:

Devils Affricate
Jan 22, 2010

Khanstant posted:

Wow, this question and logic actually made me realize that the weird timing requirements of the Big Event are probably explicitly done so you can't have time to attempt what you were thinking here.

Can't? I feel tempted to take on this challenge...

Talorat
Sep 18, 2007

Hahaha! Aw come on, I can't tell you everything right away! That would make for a boring story, don't you think?
If you want to do that, probably you will have to Visit the high energy lab first, open the door to the outside, THEN go to the dark bramble, as I think otherwise the path will become covered in sand before you can possibly get there.

I am additionally curious as to what will happen if you try to slot the working warp core into the high energy lab, although I suspect the answer is nothing

ymgve
Jan 2, 2004


:dukedog:
Offensive Clock

Talorat posted:

If you want to do that, probably you will have to Visit the high energy lab first, open the door to the outside, THEN go to the dark bramble, as I think otherwise the path will become covered in sand before you can possibly get there.

I am additionally curious as to what will happen if you try to slot the working warp core into the high energy lab, although I suspect the answer is nothing

I don't think it fits, the shape is different iirc

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
The receptacle is meant to hold two separate things. It would have been cool if taking the dead core to the black hole forge could have been an option

Devils Affricate
Jan 22, 2010

Talorat posted:

If you want to do that, probably you will have to Visit the high energy lab first, open the door to the outside, THEN go to the dark bramble, as I think otherwise the path will become covered in sand before you can possibly get there.

I am additionally curious as to what will happen if you try to slot the working warp core into the high energy lab, although I suspect the answer is nothing

Yep, that would be the plan.

And yeah, I'm 99.9% sure there's absolutely nothing you can do with the advanced warp core in the High Energy Lab.

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haveblue
Aug 15, 2005



Toilet Rascal

Cojawfee posted:

The receptacle is meant to hold two separate things. It would have been cool if taking the dead core to the black hole forge could have been an option

I did think this would be part of the solution for a while, it's the shame the Black Hole Forge has no functional mechanisms in it

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