Welcome to The Expanse
The Expanse is the game that the pod was developed for. It is the first time in history that the console was made for the game and not the other way around. The Expanse is set in a science fiction universe, and that’s about all anyone knows of it. At least, when it comes to lore.
Please Choose Your Starting Option (special)
Regular: You start like any other player
Extreme: An option for those testing long term immersion, or those who bought pod time after testing. Unlike other players you start alone in a small craft in an unexplored system. Survival is not guaranteed, nor common
This was something they informed us of before the test began. Basically they put a player in a test craft for an experimental warp drive. The test failed, but luckily you survived re-entry. Unluckily, most of the ship components are broken, and you are barely able to keep up thrusters and life support, and the drive has totally melted down. Meaning you are alone, in an unknown system, an unknown distance from civilization. At least, civilization that you know of. Of course the one thing guaranteed is that you are in a system with at least one asteroid belt, with the basic resources. Getting to it would be another matter.
Death in the game is not forgiving at all. First off, you ‘spawn’ in the nearest cloning facility. Luckily your ship has one, although due to malfunctions, it has a limited usage, and you don’t know how many it has left.
Then there are the death penalties themselves. First, you lose everything you had on you, including cybernetics. You can have the cybernetics added to your clone for an added cost, or with insurance that you pay a fee for. Secondly, you lose skill progress. 5% for every light year, rounded up. Considering that the nearest star to earth is around 5 lys, that means you’ll lose at least 25% of any skill experience gained if you can no longer spawn in your ship or system. Luckily, the most experience you can lose is 199.99%. You see, you cannot lose skill levels, just skill experience. However you can go below 0%. Which means if you lose 100% more then your 0% you’ll need to earn two times the experience to level the skill again. This may not sound like much, but it is for EVERY skill, and the higher the skill level, the more experience is needed to level it up again. I imagine some of the higher level skills would take months to raise in level, doubling that time would be a huge loss.
Now you may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned loss in levels, but there is a reason for that. There are none. There are stats, however, there are only 2 ways to gain stats. The first and least practical after a little bit is by training them. The second, and most likely where most will come from, is from skills. Each skill gives a certain amount of stats per level. The higher the level of the skill the more stats you get from it.
There are 6 stats. These are STR, VIT, AGI, DEX, PRC, INT.
Strength is simple enough, the more you have, the more weight you can lift, carry, or drag.
Vitality is a little more complex. Vitality decides your ability to resist poisons, or other things such as paralysis from electricity, and stunning blows, as well as how fast you heal from wounds after battle, and your stamina.
Agility basically includes things such as balance, coordination, and the ability to move your body in the manner you intended it to.
Dexterity is like agility, but it focuses on the hands. Things such as grip, hand-eye coordination, and the ability to do complex actions with your hands at fast speeds. The reasoning for dexterity to not be included in agility, is that it has to deal with the concentration of the improvement. It is the difference between 1 stat point distributed throughout your body, and one point concentrated in your hands. Basically put, your hands need much more agility to do complex tasks, then the rest of your body, and therefore is given a stat for that.
Perception is basically your ability to spot details. Clearer vision, better hearing, smelling, taste, more delicate sense of touch, and some system assistance in spotting points of interest, or incongruities.
Last is Intuition. Intelligence is not something that can be raised in the game, because what is the point? You can’t suddenly make someone smarter, at least not without messing around with genetics, and that’s impossible with today’s technology, and would be something you would have to do OUTSIDE the game anyways. Intuition is basically the system’s ability to inform you of information. For example if you are trying to create a laser pistol from scratch, and are making the schematics, if you have a high int, the system would give you more information on what you are trying to do then someone with a low int. However, the system only ever provides hints, and directions towards an answer, and never directly provides the answer, unless you have a skill of the appropriate level, that would have involved that answer. An example being if you have laser construction at master level, then you should know the answer already anyways, and just haven’t thought of it yet, and therefore the system would provide the answer.
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Another thing is that you are limited to a total of 8 main skills. However you can have as many sub-skills as you want, but sub-skills don’t give any stats.
Of course, I researched most of this on the main website. The only thing the staff here explained was our extra starting option.
“Extreme”
Extreme Selected, are you sure? Yes/No
“Yes”
Entering Character Creation
Please select your race:
Human
Beastman
There are currently only 2 races at the moment. The generic humans, and the beast men, who are humans who added beast genes to their genetic makeup. Though most the differences are cosmetic, beastmen have better base PRC, STR, and VIT, but have lower base DEX, and INT.
Since I am going to be alone, I can’t specialize, and therefore a generalized human is better for me.
“Human”
Human Selected: Please Customize Character Appearance
I don’t change much here. First off, I add an inch. I then change my hair color to black, and my eye color to deep blue. I change my face just enough that it can’t be recognized as my face. I shorten all the hair on my body, so it is a little fuz at most.
“Done”
Avatar Saved: Please select your 5 starting skills (Bonus 2 for difficulty level)
Combat Skills:
Laser Pistol
Laser Rifle
Laser Blade
Kinetic Pistol
Kinetic Rifle
Kinetic Blade
Unarmed
Explosives
Scouting
Stealth
Sniping
Suppresion
General Skills:
Weapon Maintenance
Armor Maintenance
Heavy Armor
Basic Armor
Light Armor
Acrobatics
Bargaining
Appraisal
Tool Proficiency
Technical:
Electronic Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Theoretical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Invention
Research
Piloting:
Small Craft Pilot
Fighter Pilot
These are of course all Main skills. Which means they come with several sub-skills that are involved with each process.
I take a little while to look through the options and choose the following:
Electronic Engineering M-INT m-DEX
Mechanical Engineering M-DEX m-INT
Electrical Engineering M-INT m-DEX
Tool Proficiency M-DEX m-PRC
Appraisal M-PRC m-INT
When it comes to the stats that skills grant, they aren’t displayed in numbers, but rather in growth per level. There are two growth types, Major, and minor. Most skills have 1 Major, and 1 minor, however there are some that have three minors.
Of course there is a simple reason I chose these 5 skills. First is that I am going to need to fix everything that is broken in order to survive. Second is that I am not going to have anyone to teach me what I need to know, so I need something that can tell me what something is. The third reason is that you can learn skills just through practice. Luckily there isn’t much to hit in space, so I can practice small craft pilot until i get it. Of course, there is one more reason. The possibility of my entering combat is extremely low, but even if I were to get into combat, I won’t have any weapons to use those masteries for anyways, not to mention I would most likely be outnumbered anyways.
And with that I have finished my character.
“Load Game”
Skills Selected: Game Initiating...