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[frostshotgg]

Yep, figured it out. It helps once you know what is and isn't a part of the background.

Turns out what I was trying to figure out was that I had drones that I could deploy in engineering, and that they take fucking ages to run.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

This reminds me of two words that I have in the back of my mind. I've had them there since I was a kid, but I was NEVER able to figure out what the hell they were from. Ballistic Barrage.

I fixated on the shock rifle in Unreal Tournament until the word "RIFLES!" is occasionally mentally invoked with the sort of melodramatic voice of an officer calling for bayonets. I have no fucking idea why this is an internal meme to me and it struck me while vaccuuming the floor ten minutes ago. I'd try using some sort of counter-meme but that might turn into escalation. Fortunately its been toning down since my more daydreamy youth.

To this day whenever I make a list the very first thing that pops into my mind, irresistibly and persistently, is OLIVES. Writing it down doesn't help. Not writing it down doesn't help. Thinking about something else before I think about making a list is impractical.

Also I frequently find myself calculating THAC0 while peeing.

I suspect I somehow did all this to myself. If it's this bad now, imagine how broken and full of errors my brain will be at 80.

[rpc0618]

Hello Everyone!!!,

I just started playing this yesterday afternoon. I got hooked, and haven't stopped until now.

I'm pretty far and I'm stuck.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The year is 14.5k, and these are my characters:


I've also got this potentially awesome but completely useless ability to scan stars like I scan planets (returning exactly zero "anomalies" ever):


I've gone through the warp gate, used a buggy "phase drive" engine, visited the "Icon", and now I have to unite the Kendar (or sympathizing races) to defeat the scavengers once and for all (so that hopefully I can find a sexy alien wife, settle down, and build a modest home planet of my own).

In my search, I've visited:

• the Guild (they're uninterested in anything but commerce);
• the Quai Pa'loi (I don't think they're coming along, but they're cryptic. I think they just wanna sit back and have already watched everything in 4D);
• the Sengzhac (They don't trust me, and won't come along.);
• the D'pahk (I think they want me to find something in a star, but they're all empty... until then I'm not sure if they're coming along -- which is what is implied in the ship logs -- or if i have to do something else first);
• the Ermigen (Ermuhgerrrd, my only buddieeees. the fish-face "fist"-people will join me in my quest! Yippiee!);

But to no avail, when I go back to visit the Icon, he says nothing in the way of suggesting that I'm complete.

Has anyone else gotten this far, and can anyone help me?

Without this website, I wouldn't have understood the game very well, as the main site used to have a wiki or board, but that's down and not even present on the wayback machine.

Thanks!

 - rpc0618

[Il Palazzo]

Spoiler: For D'phak (click to show/hide)

Fly around until you meet either Void Dwellers or Tritarians(sp?) - I can't remember which ones. They'll give you coordinates for finding some thermoplast(to make sun-proof probes).

I'm not sure if it'll help at all. I remember sorting out the D'phak before I even heard of any alliances and final battles, so it seems perfectly possible to do the quest not in the intended order. You might have simply missed some important bit. Nothing some more scanning of the mind-numbingly bland planets wouldn't solve, I reckon.

[rpc0618]

Nice! Thanks! I think I may have accidentally found that I can now make that. I think it required studying something that I got along the way, (perhaps the phaze drive artifact or some other found artifact from a second dead ship - i forget what it was!) and didn't notice until now that I can already make those now! Yes!

problem is my manufactories and minebots keep disappearing after a while! Now I'm short by a ton of heavy elements/ions and something else heavy-metal-sounding.

time to grind.

thanks!

[Sergius]

problem is my manufactories and minebots keep disappearing after a while! Now I'm short by a ton of heavy elements/ions and something else heavy-metal-sounding.

I'm pretty sure that either stars and/or planets had a lifetime and they expired (some cataclysm made them dead planets or somesuch). Any probes harvesting said planets when it occurs are destroyed. I think an indicator was that the planet becomes "unstable"?)

EDIT: Damn it, now you've made me install this game again. From what I remember, the PSY screen was a bit bugged, and the BLUE and RED button/vertical bars were reversed... also, SKILL was the most important secondary stat, followed by SANITY, because failing at stuff stressed people and therefore costed sanity. Also using the UP arrows was bad because the psychometrist guy had a skill check to raise stats, but lowering with the DOWN arrow didn't cause a check (failing that check doesn't only stress the PSYguy, it also caused stat loss in the victim). I wonder how much of this is still true?

(Oh yeah and the arrows are also reversed, so UP lowers a stat and DOWN raises it. They also dont move the secondary stat on the left of the button, but the little vertical bars on the lower right of screen). Also, it's in the Science guy planet screen that it says DYING when the world is about to go "derp" and become dead, that you lose your bots.

[memodump]

Hey guys,

I've been wondering how things work inside IronSeed too, so after all I've looked into the source code (hate doing that, but since I can't seem to figure it out other way)...

Fair warning: this may spoil your fun playing the game! Read on your own risk.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The grey bar (forth one) at the very right of the char portrait on the PsyEval screen is actually called "status". This measures the stress or fatigue of the crew member. In general, they are stressed when you make them work. Each action has it's difficulty, each member has his skill level, and the stress is determined as the difference between the task difficulty and the skill.

However, there are exceptions. First of them is the Psychometrist. Her job is to ease the other crew members stress. So when you work with, say, science too much, the first thing you will notice is not the scientist stats dropping, but the psychometrist instead.

Always pay attention to your psychometrist grey bar! If it rises even a little, check every crew member. Or you will loose your psychometrist, and all crew members will follow soon. Psychometrist will work herself out until other crew members stress is gone, and if by that time her stats will drop, EVERY action in the game will be a terrible pain.

It might look like the psychometrist is the most important member of the crew, but actually she is not. It's only that her reaction is deferred. The amount of stress she gets is always less than the member you are dealing with, but it tends to stack unnoticed. Also, there are probabilities everywhere. That means she may or may not relieve other member stress, and she may or may not get stressed herself doing that.

Another exception is Medic. She actually don't have much work and there is no screen for her. However, every time the crew stats are changed, she has to re-estimate them. When you click the buttons on the PsyEval screen, or encode a crew member you actually stress medic!

Her task difficulty depends on the estimated parameter value. So having unskilled medic estimate skillful engineer is also more stressful. But generally, her workflow is pretty balanced, because crew stats are chaging gradually. Anyway, Nina looks like she can clench her teeth and endure almost everything with that brick face of hers. She's probably russian, haha.

I'd say psychometrist and medic roles are misplaced. To me, the task to heal the crew from stress is the medic job. And psychometrist is also a communications engineer. But we have what we have.

Next thing to mention is the research. I've heard people here believe research stresses crew members. On the contrary, on every increase of the knowledge base it has the chance to reduce the crew member stress, if his performance is high enough. We're talking about scientists here, they are practically married to science, haha! The less you meddle with their research, the better they feel.

[Retropunch]

Guys, seriously, stop it. I'm already confused enough with Emperor of the Fading Suns and NOW THIS COMES ALONG.

Thanks for having a poke around memodump! Whilst I do enjoy stuff non-spoiled, this needed a little bit of spoiling I think to make sense of it.

[MasterNC]

Hey guys, I've just managed to finish the game. I used to play it many many years ago but finally learned how to do it right just now.
This game had been exciting me for a long time but without any documentation or guides I didn't see how to finish or even play it. Now I came up with walkthrough so if you still want to play it - just let me know and I'll answer your questions and provide the guide.

Some quick hints - the goal of the game as said in intro - is to re-unite Kendar and defeat Scavengers. To do that you need to complete quests for reach race. The Scavengers do have their "homeworld" - it is Yned (1.9,127.1,88.1). This is your final destination after re-uniting Kendar but do not try to go there before that - you'll be overwhelmed by endless wings of Scav's battleships.

List of Kendar races is - Icon (who start it), Ermigen, Quai Pa'loi, Sengzhac, Titarian, The Guild, D'pahk (or D'phak?) and Aard. The others like Phaedor Moch and Void Dwellers are useless for Kendar but play important role in the quests. Ermigen will be destroyed in the process but fear not - victory scenario does not require them to finish the game.

There are several important locations that must be visited during the game:
Sigonib (location may be random)
Igua (108.5,110.1,245.6)
Oetus (238.9,169.5,131.4)
Papesia (107.3,117.8,194.3)
Tyr (247.4,123.3,163.5)
Dubofang (4.3,227.8,240.6)
Suenyo (134.6,122.2,131.2)

You will find there either important information (right upon arrival) or items (may require full scan of planets) that will be needed to complete quests.

Communication - it is not important what you say to an alien race - it will not change anything so it seems that the dialogs exist just for better understanding the game/races/history/etc. The quests are either taken or completed by contacting an alien - you'll see it in the first statement of communication sequence. All the rest does not change gameplay except two cases when you can help to repair alien ship - you'll receive a gift for that but it still is not required to win.

the combat - I advise to install a mix of psion and energy guns that are most power-effective, like gyroid cannons and kyn-pox ichors. Ichors are particularly effective against scav's battleships an gyroids against for smaller ships. They are very long range weapons and can take down armadas without taking a single hit. Sometimes it is more effective against smaller ships to use heavy weapons like Wrath of Shiva or Shadow Kiss but you'll need to come closer to open fire. The most of available weapons is useless - too short-ranged, you'll be dead long before making your first shot.

the crew - I suggest to choose encodes with most wide biorhythms  or with 'unknown background' - they are most stress-proof ones and will not go mad. Keep them researching all the time and let them rest from time to time and you'll be OK. You can increase their skills/performance by using mind enhancers.  They do not do research during traveling between stars or planets so you'll need to hit time bursts many, many, maaaaany times to reach 20 lvl for all of them.

Upgrades - you will be able to increase ship's hitpoints, fuel/cargo capacity, speed and gun nodes during the game so it is not so important what ship you chose at beginning. Believe me, when you'll be about traveling to Yned to fight Scavengers armada, your ship will be just a mass destruction weapon no other ship can match.

The final scene is impressive - really worth to play the whole game although there won't be much action. Say hello to Monks

[MasterFancyPants]

Is this really a game Bay12 has been working to figure out since June 2011?

I might have to try it out...

[Aklyon]

This is an interesting thread.

[Majestic7]

Iron Seed was one of those games that just stuck a chord and left a memory that won't rub off. It is weird since, let's face it, the game is pretty crappy. It doesn't give up enough information and the interface is shit. Despite this, the atmosphere is so solid I don't think any other game has given a feeling equal to it before.

[Chiefwaffles]

From the gameplay video I've found, it looks like the atmosphere Iron Seed invokes is pretty similar to Star Control 2. I think it's mainly the music, but the settings are vaguely similar in some ways.
Also, anyone mind sharing the plot (if there is one)? I'm curious but I really don't feel like playing a game this obfuscated.

[Majestic7]

You are playing a crew of mind-states - incorporeal copies of human personalities - in a space ship. You were originally part of a rebellion against a tyranny back in the Sol system. In order to escape the grip of this horrible tyranny, a colony ship was launched. Something went wrong and you have been drifting in space for thousands, if not millions of years, before an alien contact suddenly wakes you up. 

The melancholy feeling of being lost in space and time (perhaps being the last humans left in the universe) while your crew are incorporeal human minds slowly going insane from their lack of bodies is just...unique.

[RTiger]

Figured out a few things in this game, regarding ships.

Each part of a ship gives a modifier, as shown below. Speeds work a little differently using the scale shown below.

All ships have base stats of: 7 guns, 600 fuel, 100 cargo, 202 speed, 850 hull

Speeds: 162, 179, 202, 230, 269, 323. +/- speed shifts on this table accordingly.

Light: -1 gun, +50 cargo, +1 speed
Heavy: +50 hull, -50 fuel, +1 speed
Strategic: +1 gun, -50 fuel, -50 hull

Shuttle: -1 gun, +1 speed, +100 hull
Assault: +50 cargo
Storm: +1 gun, -1 speed

Transport: -1 gun, +50 cargo, +1 speed, +100 hull
Frigate: +100 hull
Cruiser: +1 gun, -1 speed

When choosing crew, you want to look for those that have consistently wide biorhythms. The larger these are, the more stable the encode is. Your going to need to balance your crew members. Use Encode/Decode frequently. Encode before doing any task that isn't research and decode after your done. Losing life support will destroy any saved encodes.

Scan every planet in a system entirely unless your being pressed by enemy forces. Traveling between planets uses no fuel. If you can only do one scan, scan for anomaly. You can pick these up while doing other scans. You need to find a planet with heavy elements in your first two systems. If you don't, start over.

It is unwise to leave a minebot/manufactuary on a planet that isn't Gaseous, Active, Stable, or Dead. Dead planets with low radiation you can leave a bot on indefinitely.

If a planet looks like it has a good amount of green/blue, try to hail the planet before scanning it. Planets with advanced races on them can wreck your probes.


Its getting harder to find info on this game these days.