Part 6: Update #5 Parallax
Thankfully this option won because the other options are terrible.
Tom: Off we go.
Visitor's Guide posted:
Parallax
Here the spirit of the "Old West" is still very much alive. The newest of the completed Titanian cities, Parallax, is still expanding. As it is the current "frontier" of Titan. there is a certain danger in living here. Paramount Mining is beefing up the police and military forces in this area to make it secure for families.
nomads purchase illegal food and arms here!
I'm busy, what do you want? Tom: Bounties?Sergeant posted:
Wanted dead or alive: Cybil Graves: former owner and operator of the Primus Munitions store. Suspected of aiding the outlaw nomads by running guns and ammunition. Cybil was identified attempting to release a toxic gas into the Parallax air ducts. Her reason for the mass murder attempt is unknown. 3,000 credit reward.
Tom: WELLLLL, isn't that interesting?
Tom: Oh hey we just murdered your friends back in Progeny.
Tom: Yeah that's what I thought.
Tom: Are you guys as gossipy as the Progeny Clerks?
Tom: Yup, you are.Clerk posted:
The terminals are the key to many things, if you are skilled.
Clerk posted:
You can find Able's sibling in the University.
Clerk posted:
Cybil needs armor for her friends.
Tom: Jackpot.
Tom: Filcher and friends? *snigger*
Tom: Another jerk.
Tom: Double jerk.
Tom: I didn't know you could tell someone was a murderer just by looking at them.
TMF: He's covered in fresh blood. Like you are most of the time Tom.
Tom: Gecko sent me.
Tom: Oh great, we can train in golum armor.
Tom: And... done.
Tom: Let's see if Cybil is still here.
Tom: She sounds familiar.
Tom: Now about Natasha...
Tom: Yeah that wasn't creepy at all.
Tom: Oh, well shit.
Tom: Back we go...
Tom: A 9mm hardly seems dangerous given our experiences in Primus.
Tom: Haha... wait... it's ticking?
Tom: Well here we go...
Tom: That poor man.
Tom: Hahahaha, just kidding.
Tom: Well that settles that.
Tom: And that.
Tom: While we're here...quote:
You walk to the back of the computer room to a small door labeled "Sysop's Office, the Sysop is in."
The door opens to a rat's nest of optical fibers and electronic components. There is a small, partially obscured path leading into darkness.
quote:
You follow the path past buzzing circuitry and through canyons of databacks to a small operations center. The room looks as if ten people should be working at the center. There is only one. A spiral of CRT's and fibers winds its way out of the hub and into the surrounding databacks. A man with a nasally voice shouts, "Tell me what you want or get out! I'm very busy!"
Tom: Yoink!Choosing the other options results in him telling you to get lost
Tom: And since we already pissed him off we can't make it worse by hacking now can we?
Tom: Back to Progeny...
Tom: Thanks for this... thing.
Tom: We've now got the Remote terminal, whatever that is.
Tom: And off we go again. Tom: But first some training...
code:
XX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXX
XXXX
XXXX
XXX
X
X
X
X
X
HK 790 MASTER PISTOL
Round: .85 megajoule pulse
Barrel Length: 6"
Overall Length: 7.3"
Weight: 28 oz.
Tom: We should fix this.
Tom: This should be better. Tom: Let's check the mines briefly as well.
Tom: Oh dear.
Tom: Some loot!
TMF: Look Tom it's a box of you! 
Tom: Serves you right.
Tom: Those medkits are really handy.
Tom: More lo-
Tom: Oh 
Tom: Fuck this place.
Tom: Well at least we maxed your agility.
Tom: And you have enough education to be a useful medic.
Tom: Back again...
Tom: Let's check the caves.
Tom: These things are starting to piss me off.
Tom: In we go!
Tom: Oh christ not this interface again, wait this seems even worse than the mine one.
Tom: Oh look at the cute litte thing!
<one rewind later>
Tom: Fuck the caves let's go back to Parallax.
Tom: Hitmen are serious motherfuckers, Particle Beams!?
Tom: We can't even carry all this shit.
Tom: Oh god Molotovs
Tom: Merchants seem like easy pickings.
Tom: But they apparently consort with burglars.---
That ends this update, below is some bitching by me about the inconsistent interface.
The interface in Mines of Titan, and presumably Mars Saga, is frustratingly inconsistent.
The wargames room was definately tacked on, the title bar just says "Characters" and we have no option to transfer items. Compare to the gym's interface, "Health Conscious Persons" and transfer items.
Oh god then we come to the armory and weapon shop. You have to pick the active character to buy/sell, presumably due to some programming laziness related to limiting weapon purchases to only those the character has the skills to use.
This is proven to be the case when you look at the hospital interface, there's no active character selection, heal wounds and train in medical gives us a choice of who to heal/train, and charges credits from that character. Though it never states the cost of healing, you have to infer that yourself.
Buying medical supplies works the way the other two shops should have worked, it lets you choose the character and only lets them buy items they have the skill to use.
Also we have "Impatient patients" versus just "Current shopper".
The bar interface is pretty straight forward, no complaints here (though no colorful title bar).
Casino is fine.
Same for university, it even lists the price in the menu (unlike medical). Study a specific area gives us a nicely presented list of skills and their prices.
I also like the pawn shop (though just "Shoppers"), letting you pawn an item from any character.
Something that does annoy me is it hides items that can't be pawned, like golum armor, though I suppose the alternative would be MORE annoying.
Then we come to the computer terminal. Everytime you login you get asked who's account shall be charged, something like 30 credits.
And everytime you hack you get asked who does it.
Which brings us to some of the most confusing things about this game.
City maps seem to be saved per install not per savegame
Remembering the last option used is not reset by resuming savegame
Combat is the best example of the second one.
Let's say we use option 5 (next character) on every character except the last (who starts combat).
We get killed and decide to load a savegame.
We get into another battle and every character but the last has option 5 preselected.
To round this off here's a map of primus and a vote.
Voting time
- A - Explore the Primus caves.
- B - Recruit/Train some more characters
- C - Replace some of our shitter characters with better ones (specify which)
- D - Try and generate a map of the surface (I'll be trying to do this later anyway)
E - Fuck the mines they're a big pile of nothing
F - Proscenium, we have no fucking clue how to get there.