The Outer Worlds: New Vegas, but it's Firefly and also Capitalism is Evil

[Eldan]

My problem isn't whether the quest is over or not, though. It's about how they apparently have a weeks long romance in the time it takes me to walk across two rooms. And then don't even speak to one another when they meet again in person or recognize each other in any way.

[factotum]

I think the problem there is that they needed to have you leave and then return to Groundbreaker to trigger the second part, and they simply didn't do that. Parvati pipes up as soon as you come back onto the ship after meeting Junlei, and because she's usually standing right there in the cargo bay, you're likely to hear it and go to speak to her as soon as you come aboard--if she was upstairs in her room like all the other companions you probably wouldn't do that.

[Rodin]

It's an artifact of how they've mashed two game designs together. The world exploration is Bethesda, but the companions are modeled after Bioware. Specifically, the ship is clearly inspired by the Normandy with the visual aesthetic of the Serenity.

In Mass Effect, the system works fairly well because there is no free roaming. You do a mission, that ticks an "advance plotlines" flag", and by the time you return people have new stuff to say to you. In Outer Worlds there is no easy way to tell when you've been away for a while to advance the personal stories, so they just set it to be whenever you return to the ship.

If you're on and off the ship like many people are, then the stories get told very quickly and then sit around doing nothing until you hit a major story flag (like unlocking Byzantium) to allow accessing the next set of companion quests.

This shows itself in other ways as well - your companions can have scenes with each other when you return to the ship. But since they don't know where in the story you'll be, they just play them at random and even let them repeat.

[Giggling Ghast]

Just downloaded this game the other night, haven't started playing yet. Any beginner tips to share, folks? I was kind of thinking of making an Asian lab assistant with slightly higher intelligence and temperament and strictly average strength and dexterity.