Ren'Py Desert Stalker [v0.16c] [Zetan]

[GetOutOfMyLab]

Public version has been released.

 

[Fairlight0306]

If anything, this story diminishes Shani. She has the best super power in the world, and that's the ability to have kids. In an apocalyptic setting, women who can have children are worth more than their weight in platinum. Dudes being Stalkers makes sense, men are stronger, faster and more expendable.

But let's not bring too much common sense into the setting.

In an apocalyptic setting maybe, in this apocalytic setting not much sorry: cool super power indeed to have very special since priestess, palace guards, prostitutes, restaurant waitresses, slaves, even queens can be pregnant, how many stalkers besides Zaton and his ex master you saw? If you want to see Shany preggo for your kink say it don't try to find silly reasons.

 

[Yngling]

The funny thing about the first muskets was that their accuracy was shit, also recharging after one shot is a pain in the ass. At that point a blade can be the better option for a fight. Now some good old cannon can make a big difference during sieges.

The accuracy of the musket was shit compared to a rifle. Compared to massed bows, massed muskets are obviously superior and nations like Zeta would have enough manpower to make use of massed musket formations. A musket must be accompanied by a blade (bayonet or sword) for close quarters combat but the musket would still be the main weapon.

Perhaps Desert Stalker Egypt lacks some raw materials to make gunpowder?

 

[SonsOfLiberty]

Desert Stalker [v0.16b Public] [Zetan]


0.16b:

Minor changes / Bugfixes:
- Fixed Lirah's quest not starting under certain conditions (for real this time, I hope)
- Fixed an old corner case where playthroughs that started in version 0.12b didn't have subsequent save compatibility fixes applied.
- Fixed grammar errors and typos that were reported
Translations:
- Updated the Italian translation to 0.16 (courtesy of Eagle1900)


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[kosoyey]

I'm afraid he probably expected something other than just a meeting between husband and wife

Could you please tell me what game is in your signature? The picture to the right (with the mask)? Thanks.

 

[Rehwyn]

In an apocalyptic setting maybe, in this apocalytic setting not much sorry: cool super power indeed to have very special since priestess, palace guards, prostitutes, restaurant waitresses, slaves, even queens can be pregnant, how many stalkers besides Zaton and his ex master you saw? If you want to see Shany preggo for your kink say it don't try to find silly reasons.

This 100%. In this setting, a person with the skills, knowledge, and temperament to be a Stalker is a far rarer and more valuable commodity than a fertile woman to have children. Having one more woman birthing children isn't going to significantly affect society, but having one more Stalker out there exploring Zones very well might.

 

[alex13_zen]

Desert Stalker [v0.16b Public] [Zetan]


0.16b:

Minor changes / Bugfixes:
- Fixed Lirah's quest not starting under certain conditions (for real this time, I hope)
- Fixed an old corner case where playthroughs that started in version 0.12b didn't have subsequent save compatibility fixes applied.
- Fixed grammar errors and typos that were reported
Translations:
- Updated the Italian translation to 0.16 (courtesy of Eagle1900)


Win/Linux/Mac/Android:

You must be registered to see the links

Still doesn't want to start Lirah's quest, no matter how many days I skip.

 

[Cynicaladm]

A few considerations and thoughts to put out there, as I have read some wild speculations, some guesses, some good ones and also some things that put simply are not in the game.
This will not be comprehensive or exhaustive in any way and be based on me skimming through a bunch of comments.
Facts: Things that are clearly stated in the game or that are background elements to the game but may have remained not expressed.

Headcanon: my own speculations, interpretations, preferences, that are NOT to be considered Gospel even though I am involved in the making of this game. Any and all of this might be entirely subverted or negated in future developments. it IS true that some of my headcanons might become one day actual canon if it is a direction that the boss likes as well, but there is neither a guarantee nor an obligation in that direction.

Rabiah has had Nadia sometimes after MC became involved with Zahra. Was he still the father? it is unclear and remains not expressed nor insinuated. you can make up your own mind about this until the game tells you otherwise. for now, any opinion is valid.
The twins: Rabiah is not one of the twins.. the twins are her babies.. they are still nursing and will not appear on screen or anywhere else. It is not explicitly stated, but there is a heavy implication that Omar is the father and that Rabiah has settled for him several years ago and has become a bit more "boring" until moving back to Zeta.
Nadia has the biggest "you're not my dad" energy towards Omar and it is explicitly stated that she knows he is in fact not.
My personal take is that Rabiah probably was married to someone else before Omar, and that person would be the father. Rabiah has missed the babymaking train with MC when he went after her sister. I am personally not bothered either way, but I would think that MC would have been too busy enjoying his new wife and building his career to have time for the ex with the bad attitude.

MC and Zahra's finances: the compound they live in has been developed over time and is still susceptible to changes. this is to simplify the job for the boss and the narrative for everybody. At present, MC is rich and renowned. He is part of the 1%, so to speak. This is the result of 3 decades of work. Their approximate ages are: late forties to early fifties for him, around 40 for her. there's some discretion for you to give them whatever age works best in your mind.
MC had started going on explorations already, by the time he tied the knot with Zahra, and he might have gotten lucky a few times and struck gold. In other words, monetary concerns are background noise to the life of the MC, and even early on they were not hurting.
It should be noted that the spouses of Zetans who were in service of the city, specifically in the military, on missions and, one could argue, also Stalkers on official business, are awarded protection by the Palace.
So "if" Zahra had been financially unstable during the early years, as long as MC was doing jobs for the Queen of the day, she would have been provided for, granting some measure of stability.

Zahra's fertility over the last 18 years is an interesting topic. I would submit that they might just have decided that 2 girls was enough for them.. and that they took measures to ensure that things would stay that way. you may make up your own reasons or methods.
My personal take is that maybe the pregnancy with Ain was complicated and dangerous, and that Zahra, in agreement with MC, decided to use a fantasy version of the pill to stop it from happening again. maybe now she's reached an age where pregnancy is just extremely unlikely so she has stopped taking the pill.. maybe she's become barren in time.. maybe she will pop out a surprise baby. it is not particularly interesting to me, but there are dozens of ways or reasons for this to be perfectly justifiable.
likewise, maybe the multiple experiences in various Zones have left the MC able to procreate only in special situations, or maybe on command... or maybe the reason that they haven't had any more kids or that he hasn't inseminated every girl presently in the game, is that it's a game and if there's a pregnancy kink to explore, it probably should be done with active participation and choice in the matter on the part of the players.
these are all thoughts of right now, do not hold me to any of this.

The hit and miss realistic approach to historical impossibilities or scientific inaccuracies or technological implausibilities is due to the nature of the game, the limited resources when it comes to show things (there are only so many ways you can portray post-apocalyptic reality without getting lost in the weeds of what can't be, especially this limitation is true if we consider the existing library of 3D models and tools. none of us are actually 3D artists who draw objects from scratch).
What we do toss in is to reflect the movies and games and other forms of artistic expressions that are inspiration to the game.. and yes, sometimes people who have even only surface level knowledge of a specific topic will be pulled out of the narrative because of such an inconsistency.

Having been around horses a lot, I experience the same when I look at the charge of the Rohirrim at the siege of Helm's Deep. those horses should have rolled all over each other, on such a steep incline... and yet I am perfectly fine with Elves, Ents, Nazguls and so on.
A solid amount of handwaving is demanded to be able to enjoy this game. we try our best to make things somewhat believable and my personal interest goes into making this as coherent and logical as possible, but it will never work if you look too closely...
I believe that our best shot is to make believable characters have believable and meaningful relationships and reactions to one another (within the logic of occasionally going all porny for the sake of porn).

P.S. don't come at me for technical issues. I know less than you about them.

 

[GetOutOfMyLab]

Still doesn't want to start Lirah's quest, no matter how many days I skip.

Strange. It worked for me. Did you load a the 0.16a or 0.16b save file? Do you have a 0.15 save you can try?

 

[alex13_zen]

Strange. It worked for me. Did you load a the 0.16a or 0.16b save file? Do you have a 0.15 save you can try?

I tried with a 0.16a save and also an older 0.14c. I guess this fix just doesn't cover all scenarios either

 

[GetOutOfMyLab]

I tried with a 0.16a save and also an older 0.14c. I guess this fix just doesn't cover all scenarios either

If you're willing to provide the saves, I can pass it on.

 

[SonsOfLiberty]

Desert Stalker [v0.16b Public] [Zetan]

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There is a BUGFIX posted here if that one quest still won't start for you.

 

[xapican]

I tried with a 0.16a save and also an older 0.14c. I guess this fix just doesn't cover all scenarios either

Here try this one, I never had that bug, and it is from 15c
check for virus to be on the save side hope that helps

 

[Ummmh]

100%. Steel doesn't just go bad, if it is kept dry so it doesn't rust it will literally last thousands of years. The desert is the perfect place for it, in the middle-east it's still fairly common to see guns left over from the mid 1800s still in use a hundred and fifty years later. And you're even overestimating the problem of barrel wear, it isn't typically dangerous, the barrel doesn't crack, the rifling just wears out eventually so your accuracy suffers. The main problem is the ammunition, which would definitely not be good after 400 years. Hell, ammo left over from WWII is likely to have gone bad, and that was less than one century ago. And you can't easily replace smokeless powder with black powder in most gun designs, it would work OK for single-shot or bolt-action guns, but nothing semi or fully automatic, plus it's a lot weaker too. That isn't really an issue though since smokeless powder is actually easier to make than black powder. Take a mix of nitric and sulphuric acid and dip cotton in it, boom, gunpowder. (Don't actually do this, because... well... boom)
I have no doubt that there would be a big pile of perfectly serviceable weapons in the bunker, they just don't have the ammunition for them. They in particular want nothing to do with the decayed who could make new ammo for them, since the decayed specifically target mutants to kill and eat.

Thank you for the clarification! I didn't realize the barrels would survive that long. I've seen enough barrel failure vids that I assumed metal fatigue was relatively rapid. My suspicion, then, in light of what you said, is those have more to do with idiots ignoring squibs.

I didn't realize smokeless was easier. I would say that although Egypt was a land of cotton Once Upon a Time to our heroes, it's likely the supply of it would be pretty low after End of Days.

Yeah I can't imagine wanting to cozy up to get ammo from the very people who are trying to use that ammo against you, either at range or via a shotgun collar once they get you close and decided it's easier for their meat to walk along rather than be carried.

That said, if you consider that the Decayed would have all the tech, including guns and likely **mil spec radios and possibly organized comm networks** yeah they would be a pretty nasty fighting force, compared to everyone else.

And yeah, if you can keep a car running you can damn well keep a gun running.

 

[Ummmh]

Well no matter how many times I do the sleep with Zarah tab to get to next day the game always puts me in Ain's room with her either a BJ wake up, or just some random scenes. It was funny at first but not every time you go to sleep with wife only to be shown Ain's scenes when you never even slept with her at night. I have tried deleting saves and starting new games, only to get same repeating issue. I am just starting to think Dev likes Ain's new scenes so much that wife got dumped for Ain. I know there are some random scenes for after going to bed with wife, and Ain that happen but as with dinner scenes nothing working right. I get 3 options in Dining room 1. Waiting on dinner, 2. tell family to join with options of eating, or having Maid service you while eating, and 3rd option is I am fine which ends dinner scene no interaction with anyone. Kat never shows up even though the ! is on dining room all the time. Sadly it was funny first souple times but, not every time you visit same scenes nver advancing story line. As far as the Zarah Ain issue I recall a few random scenes supposed to occur story related Like Ivy randomly showing up and talking to MC, but with buggy sleeping scenes she never shows up. Shani and zone talk shows up in list, but I have not even done any of the prerequisites to even get to that point. Oddly enough I played 15c again from start without mods and I got all the random scenes, ending up in right bed for whom I slept with, and story advanced with talks to wife as intended not out of context before doing anything to actually get them to show to advance story lines. Is anyone else having same issue, or similar with newest game update? Thanks in advance for reading my rant. "Ranting off now"

Zarah has actively been encouraging Ain to eventually take her place, in their dialogue together, so her behavior tracks.
Ain is consistently being TRAINED by her to please you.
Pretty likely thus was dev intent.

 

[GetOutOfMyLab]

Zarah has actively been encouraging Ain to eventually take her place, in their dialogue together, so her behavior tracks.
Ain is consistently being TRAINED by her to please you.
Pretty likely thus was dev intent.

omg... the shortest post you've done. I actually read it to completion. Good job!

 

[Machete]

One example of this is the Adeptus Mechanicus from WH40k universe. They have tech priests using incense and prayers on machines all the time, because most of their tech comes from the dark age of technology and the knowledge to make the best machines is gone.

The 40k machines cult is actually (as much of the 40k setting) a rip off of Asimov's Foundation. The machine cult there was the answer to (if i recall it correctly) the second Seldon Crisys, but it was a lot less dumb then 40k. In 40k basically they can still build some machinery and equipments, while other literally runs on prayers and luck. In the Foundation the Anacreonians engeneers where indoctrinated to the machines cult to keep them from really understand the science behind the Foundation's technology (Asimov was quite biased against religions) but they where formed and supervised by Foundation's engeneers to properly operate, maintain and produce it.

The funny thing about the first muskets was that their accuracy was shit, also recharging after one shot is a pain in the ass. At that point a blade can be the better option for a fight. Now some good old cannon can make a big difference during sieges.

Yet muskets killed the era of medieval and ancient weaponry. In one of the battles of Napoleon's campain of Egypt a few hundreds french infantrymen, due to superior tattics, high training and of course, firepower, massacred over 2thousand expert arab raiders (berbers i think) suffering barely any casualty. While muskeets might have sucked as weapon, lines of gunmen made the difference when warfare drastically changed between the 16th and the 19th century.

 

[Ummmh]

omg... the shortest post you've done. I actually read it to completion. Good job!

Don't encourage me..

 

[Ummmh]

Fascinating reading and some of it might even be the dev's intentions but regarding father daughter incest it's stated plainly that it's a cultural norm. Ain even talks about other girls doing stuff with their fathers even one girl who sucked hers off in front of everybody at the school.
Zahra talks about it being normal and how Zaton restraining himself when it comes to Shani is what's highly unusual.
Forget every moral norm you know of in the past and current present. DS is set in a very different epoch with very different morals to our own.
If you wanna speculate it's likely incest became normal among the survivors after the apocalyptic war centuries ago because initially there were so few humans left it was literally necessary to propagate the species and stave off extinction.
Any genetic dead ends that resulted from these unions would've been weeded out and died off in the harsh post-apocalyptic world.
Hell it's likely most harmful recessive genes that incest tends to bring out were largely purged through nature's own eugenics program called the barren wasteland.
Incest isn't new or rare in our own ancient history either. People that are mapping the genome and studying DNA have proven this. Humanity once came close to extinction in real life and from a population of around 1000 we now have billions.
Look it up it's interesting reading.

***HOLY SPIT!***

I **DEFINITELY** missed that dialogue from Ain abt others doing the same. ..

Do you recall where/when Ain spoke of it? Or where Zahra said MC restraint was unusual?..

Your point abt survival stands up to scrutiny: when you have few options, you take what ya got. That's like how Kateryna's homeland (apparently Czechs, going by her dialogue) goes in for gangbanging to ensure pregnancy.

 

[GeneralJo]

I can't seem to get Lirah's questline to start still....I tried loading an old save and re-playing through a lot of content and it still won't seem to happen?