QSP Abandoned Jack-o-Nine-Tails [v2.2.3] [Old Huntsman + Community development]

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Add more unique traits and have each girl spawn with at least a few.

Are you using the latest 2.2.3? Trait chance was increased.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Hi guys, there's some guide to help with the game mechanics? Even doing the tutorial I completely suck on this game...

I wrote this a while back, might help: https://f95zone.to/threads/jack-o-n...ntsman-community-development.390/post-7571347

The information you need can all be found in the tutorial lectures and other in-game text.

 

[Warboss]

Is there any actual incest in this game or is it just alluded to in one of the characters backstories?

 

[StJesuz]

Is there any actual incest in this game or is it just alluded to in one of the characters backstories?

Other than an encounter in the brothel there is a post-patrician quest for the character Johny (or a custom start using his portrait).

 

[qwertyu12359]

I only have an issue with fictional works that have blatant issues with them.
When you use terms like, "suspension of disbelief ", it means you have plot holes and you know it you just refuse to fix them or don't know how.
You also seem to think there is some massive change needed to fix this. Suggest you read the part on how I would have done it at the bottom.

Every writer has to deal with criticism. Good writers look at a choice before they put it in and consider what issue is this going to create and then how can they will be dealt with. You have social issues, economics, logistics and so on. All have to be thought of.
My criticism is based on those aspect. We have enough historical accounts of recorded human history to know how people act and will react under all sorts of societies. We know stuff like what triggers unrest and other issues. Those things include stuff like social unbalance, perceived injustice, economics, logistical problems and so on.
Those issues are massively in your game and it seems the only answer you managed to come up with it is because I said so.
What lore? Lore has to have a foundation that gives it a solid base or the rest crumbles. What you have amounts to a hodgepodge ideas thrown together, not lore.

The way to think of it is when you build a world for a story you have to think of it as pieces to a puzzle. If you put one shape piece here will it prevent other pieces from fitting in next to it. Most good stories put in one major issue a culture or society has to deal with. War, cultural, logistics, weather, ... You put literally all of the top major issues into one story. So that makes it hard to deal with. Couple that with fantasy issues that don't exist in the RL which makes things much worse.

Fantasy issues make things difficult for a lot of writers.
Stuff like magic systems have to operate with a set or rules. The rules can differ from one story or world to another but in the same world they have to be the same. Otherwise things like spell casting would produce unpredictable results and then people wouldn't rely on it. That's hard enough for most writers to wrap their brains around.
Couple it with social behavioral issues of how other species of sentient beings would act. We can judge some base on real life and what we seen when various groups and cultures have taken on certain roles. But we also have hints from nature as to how various creatures react instinctively.
Now add all that together and still make people act like people! There is the clicker. A story in which humans don't act human is a total disconnect. We can excuse other cultures or even a villain from acting a certain way but when there is no good reason for a person to act like they should that's called a plot hole. People see and fill the disconnect.

We can understand a human eating brains because they became a zombie.
Drink blood because they are a vampire.
If you said person doesn't have feeling such as a sociopath that would explain the disconnect their lack of compassion for others. Sociopaths still care what happens to them though.

Here you have an entire society of humans that has no empathy towards one another to the point they serve up each other as food. Not just that they clearly aren't thinking the long term issue of how this going to play out for them as well.

Your city could never be perfectly stable but at least you could get it to were the issues are at a level they are maintainable.
Whether you choose to change it or not is up to you. I simply pointed out an issue with what you do have.
Arguing there isn't an issue is just ignoring the fact there is one.

Shanghai wasn't a point of your world won't work. It was to invalidate your claim men were harder to catch than women.

*********************************************************************
What is written below is only scratching the surface of what is wrong. Call it a generalization.
*********************************************************************

Your city as it stands current has ZERO possibility of surviving.
a. It would never have survived the founding.
b. The social imbalances would tear the city apart from the inside out.
c. Even if you managed to fix those issues the excessive drain on resources coupled with nearly ZERO influx of resources. Would cause the city to crumble in just a few years.


How about the city founding!
The entire city of Rome would had to have been suddenly engulfed in the mist for any of it to been built.
Other wise you have a individuals meeting in the middle of the mist and them trying to figure out how to survive and push back the mist before they are killed. Not going to happen.
How did they deal with the mist?
1. We know they have had time to figure out magic while fighting to survive in the mist.
2. They were gifted magic and the knowledge to use the right spell to hold it back.
3. The mist is a large vortex like a tornado or hurricane. No actual magic is needed to hold it back the citizens are lied to.
You could also use that to have counter rotations which would also explain why gates/portal in the mist move.
Where did the material come from to build the wall:
1. You can't say they scrapped the lower class housing to make it because those homes aren't made of stone. So it would have needed to been the upper class homes.
2. I know maybe everyone coming through the mist just happens to be carrying a large stone with them or timber.
Water and food during the founding:
What did they do for water and food during that time. Let me guess they drank the blood of the dead and ate them.
How did they survive the diseases they would have gotten from doing that. How about the malnutrition and jaundice?
I can solve some of these issues:
Magic existed before Rome became stuck in this location. In fact it was magic cataclysm that caused it.
In fact the walls and barrier were erected before the event. The walls were to protect from invaders and barrier spell was initially to protect from weather.
That still doesn't solve:
Building decay and the need to make repairs and the resources needed to do it.
It doesn't cover the need for fresh water. Light and fresh produce. (Did we forget plants are living things). Not to mention you are going to need a hell of a lot of space for growing trees to replace the lumber needs of up keep. How about the weapons you fight the monsters with. I know you pull that iron or metal out of thing air.

I know maybe you are using magic to prevent everything from decaying. You know out of that limited number of sparks you get from the Vatican killing babies.

If you say something like a river or aqueduct flows into the city. Anyone large enough to supply the city would be large enough to use a boat on. Which means there would be no city because most people would use it to leave. You can run the waste water into the mist since you say it will get rid of most everything.
If there is some force moving around sucking stuff up and getting rid of it completely in the way you described why isn't the mist itself affected by it?
Besides you already eliminated the ability of this working when you said a tunnel wouldn't survive even. Thus no aqueducts or river wouldn't. This also means wells aren't likely to work because a well relies on under ground aquifers. Given the area isn't stable enough for a tunnel the walls of an aquifer wouldn't stand a chance. So no well water.
We can assume water isn't just magically conjured up otherwise food could also be easily conjured up.

If you say rain fall. You are going to need a huge rain water collection system, retention ponds and water purification.
So you either need a lot of rain fall or lots of space to be used for water retention to store what rain comes when it does.
You already made it clear space is limited. So now you have water you still need to clean and filter it. Boiling and filtering.

We can make the assumption the city isn't designed for this because until the city existed in the current state it is in it didn't need such. Given it wouldn't have expected to be put into something like this it wouldn't have been built for it to be this way before hand.

You boil the water from the corpses before they disposed of (Sort of a Dune type thing). You would need vastly more people coming in. Pretty much the entire slum area of the city would need to be converted to areas to line people up to be slaughtered to get the water from them. Just to make enough water. A human needs about 64 fl oz a day of clean water for eating and drinking to stay healthy. The human body is about 60% water by mass. A gallon of water weighs 8.3lbs.
Your still going to need to filter that water after boiling it out of them so charcoal and sand. You are going to need a massive supply of it. You have creatures living in the city who are larger and have greater needs of water. Lets say you have 10,000 citizens. the average woman 120lbs *.6 = 72 / 8.3 = 8.6 gallons of water one slave would make enough water for 17 people.
That means you would need to kill 588 women a day for water to create enough water for the 10,000 people. Not accounting for losses. If they were all human. Then you need to look at how much fuel it will take to do that. Just because you get water to 212 f or 100 c it doesn't all instantly evaporate that temp has to be maintained for the duration. It takes 8092 BTUs of energy to evaporate a single gallon of water. Luckily that works out to just to about 1 lbs of wood. meaning you would need 8.6 lbs of wood to evaporate the water out of each person. * 581 = 4997lbs of wood each day. That's if your system is 100% efficient. You probably can count on about as much as 30 to 45%. So figure 15000lbs of wood.

If you want to use magic consider the amount of energy that is being used when it comes to wood. That would be a massive amount of sparks. It's enough to not just kill but evaporate 581 people.

Even then that doesn't give you water for washing and cleaning to the extent you would need.
The city is going to loose water from people perspiring /sweat and any other water left out evaporation. Food that is cooked with water looses some in steam and evaporation.

I know this because of the work I have done in my life and the 4 backgrounds of science my education covers.
However, there are changes that could be made that are minor over all then the cities survival goes up massively.
Take the hanging gardens of Babylon, aquaponics has existed in various forms since then at least. Mayan's had floating gardens. Granted that's a lot later period.
Along with that work history also comes the fact I'm x-military with a good bit of survival knowledge and time spent traveling and living around the world.

Humans as a primary source of meat:
If you wanted humans as the primary source for meat you should have made them all slaves to the rest of the races. That includes men. That would have precluded the issue of them having any rights to compare themselves against the rest of the populace.
Currently in your game:
Think of the difference from a slaves perspective. Obey and stay in servitude. Which means you'll be used up and die eventually or be eaten. Option two run into the mist maybe get eaten maybe end up in a portal that gets you to any other place which would be better than this hell hole. (Both you have the chance of being eaten, One you are guaranteed to spend your life in servitude and be used up, the other you have a chance at freedom.) What slave isn't going to run but the most cowardly and feeble.

Social issues:

Humans as primary source of meat:
You don't think that massive of a social imbalance isn't going to create unrest and contention and disdain the populace of the city.
Especially when there are other races that you don't need to use magic to make them taste better or more nutritious.
Even if those are included in the food supply there will still be issues.
All the races that are in the food supply will have an issue with races that can't be used as food. Vampire, lich and other undead.
You think some of the free people are never going to take pity on the enslaved? If that was the case slavery would never have ended today. We got something better than food from slaves in our world money. Which we could use to buy what we want.

You would have issues such as other races looking down on humans and comments like why is my food talking to me. Human slavers would get questions like how does it feel to sell your own kind as food? Eventually that would lead to self imposed segregation and the talking shit about each other, then plotting and riots, and war.

In RL we've had slave revolts, class revolts, religious up risings, riots over injustice, riots over racial tension, war over racial tension, You have all those issues in spades.


The Vatican and sparks:
The way sparks are created per you was the Vatican sacrificing babies. This is done when a slaver turns a pregnant woman over to them. So do they get some sort of massive amount of pay from the Vatican for it or just get the woman back.
It would be more economical for them if they just got rid of all the female fertility on the slavers part. Then they don't have an issue.
That however would fuck everything all up because then the Vatican would have no source of babies unless it started keeping its own slaves just for that purpose to impregnate then kill the child. Of course that would cost them shit loads to maintain. Which means they would have to make use of these women in some way to get afford them. My guess they put them in brothels and lend them out to certain people who could require skills the Vatican could provide them. So they would fill up pretty much every job from whores to secretaries and assistants there is. That would pretty much put an end to the slavers guild and people needing it. Why would they go to them when the Vatican would ultimately provide them with one they need.

If it was me writing this story:
The first thing I would have done is figured out the size of the city and time period.
Referenced a few history books to get an idea of the technology we would be bringing across.
The size and needs of the population including those non-human.

Then decided how they became trapped there.
Then looked at what logistical issues there are going to come from it all.
Then went back and made changes on that level to prevent any conflicts.
You have people coming from all these different time periods including future and yet you don't make use of them to near the extent you could frankly the futuristic one's could lead to the end of the story easily. Example lab grown meat and blood. No need to kill slaves for it. Humans get hold of laser blasters and light sabers. No, no longer do they need to listen to other races.
So I'd probably limited them to people coming in from the past. That said even that can be a matter of perspective. This Rome may not be our Rome from this universe it could have existed during our current time. Thus if it could only draw from current back it could draw people from our time frame. Same goes with the future version.
Which is why it would be important to decide what time frame it exists in for the reader in some way. Say your character is from modern day earth. This Rome was shifted into the current state 500 years ago. So now you have a solid foundation for when stuff is in relation to one another.

Then I'd have came up with a system such as the Vatican bestows citizen ship and they are the only one's that can remove it.
That way citizens are protected from the slavery system being abused.

Then create a system by which one human might not see another human as being "As Human" as they are. Such as if they don't posses any ability for magic at all. Then one class of human might not see them as being any more than animals to them.
That would give you the reason needed for the disconnect. You could even back it up with a law created by the Vatican only animals or people who posses no magic can be eaten.

Why don't animals wonder through the gates just people other sentient and monsters?
Well that could be easily explained. Australia. People are tossed through the gates in other worlds as a form of punishment. Consider this area sort of a prison colony with little chance of escape. It's a way of banishing people without directly killing them. Of course the people on the other side don't realize what is going on here in general maybe a few do but they keep it a secret.

It might not have started off as a magical cataclysm but over time as others in out side worlds began to use it for banishing people. They might not be criminal even maybe a competitor, or one other family members or political ... So basically anyone and everyone could end up coming through the gates even those who seek to explore.

Where a gate ends up in another world could be relatively random. Such as maybe the land mass in that world was destroyed or sunk and it ends up in the ocean or a lake or river.

Lets say as long as something is passing through a gate it only can go in the one direction and stops for the time there is something moving through it so as not to cut it in half. Like if a person goes through you don't want them split in two or no one would make it to the city. Now you have potential constant water sources and the gate only works in one direction at a time. That makes it possible that stuff can come through those gates but can't be used to escape.

Occasionally rocks and boulders are washed down into these areas and end up in the water and those are harvested for maintaining the walls. You might also find some ores and wood even coming through. Probably not enough would to do much more than act as kindling. It also gives you potential fish both fresh and salt water and access to water type monsters.

I'd move the wall of mist about a 0.5 to 1 mile from the wall. Currently you have slums so that's going to take up some room and then you have going from the slums down to the mist. Id use the extra land to farm vegetables and trees timber needed to maintain and upkeep the city.

So far that explains why humans will sell other humans as food to a greater extent.
It also provides sustainability for the city.

Next we need to solve the social economic issues between various races and classes.
You have multiple class systems at work in this city so far.
Economic, Ruling vs non-ruling, religious based, cultural class distinction.

The biggest issues will be if any class or race feels it is the one getting the continued short end of the stick.
If others perceive it that way and start to voice it that would also cause issues.
If one race is subject to something the other races would need to also be subject to it.

Races with special requirements of another race would need to give something up in turn to equal out the playing field.
Example:Vampires drink blood of humans. They might be limited to those who posses no magic. Even so humans would eventually see some issues of mistrust there. If a device or spell was put in place to prevent them from drinking of anyone with magic that would help reduce that. However, that isn't the only benefit the vampires get from this. No other race has a live food supply. Vampire need not kill those they drink from. So they could use the same group of slaves for many years so long as they keep feeding them. Everyone else is forced to pay for food.
Alternatively, vampires could be forced to only use willing participants and pay compensation for them. Thus equaling the food cost and so on.
Vampires and the undead aren't edible by humans so the demand for them as food would be lower only those creatures that can eat them

I'd make a list of the races in the city then work out what the trade offs and so on are for them would and that is only if they preferred the taste or cost of them. Do dead vampires for example even retain a body when they die or do they turn to dust.

While that won't get rid of every single issue in a city like this it would get rid of the bigger one's and allow it to function more than a year or two.

More importantly it solves the plot holes.

You seem to have a very precise idea of what you want for the game. Since it's open source, why not create your own branch on the Git? You'd be able to control both the ideas and their executions. At first, it'll be downloadable as a "mod", but after that, we'll check every new lines of dialogue and description you added, and if it's awesome we'll definitely put it in the master branch

 

[Diconica]

You seem to have a very precise idea of what you want for the game. Since it's open source, why not create your own branch on the Git? You'd be able to control both the ideas and their executions. At first, it'll be downloadable as a "mod", but after that, we'll check every new lines of dialogue and description you added, and if it's awesome we'll definitely put it in the master branch

Actually not. I just have a method when it comes to writing I do for stuff I am working on be it for myself or other people's projects.
What I provided was no more than a rough sample of a process I use to avoid ending up with the plot holes this game has.

There is an old saying,"you can lead a horse to water you can't make it drink." I did my part. I voiced what I found wrong.

What do you have for reference besides the game itself?

1. Have you determined the approximate population size?
2. Do you have at the least a general map of the layout of the city. You know one showing the streets, residential area, housing,type and size, the walls, distance to fog ...
3. Do you have a general resource accounting of what they do and do have access to water, food, building material for repairs or anything else ...
4. Division of labor, politics, list of races, numbers of each approx, their needs, ... Any special cases for your world vs common perceptions on them.
5. Basic laws that will be crucial in forming the society. Type of government and make up. Other political forces at work.
6. The mist does the effects go below the ground, how high does it reach
7. Climate and seasonal changes
8. Equivalent in power of spark to power such as jewels (efficiency comparison)
8. The responses already made it clear there wasn't a means in place for identifying citizens vs non-citizens.


What you have is a hodgepodge of ideas strewn together with no regard on how they would affect the society and the combined impact of them.

1. There is a wall of mist surrounding city
2. In wall of mist there are randomly moving gates to other worlds and universes
3. No live births
4. Women are slaves, and are meat supply
5. Vatican is bunch of baby killing soul destroyers to make sparks
6. Slavers only people able to create slaves
7. All sorts of races live in city
8. City has different sections with different groups and in charge and different groups living in them.
9. Chariot races with pony girls, and gladiator fights.
10. Brothels ...
11. market ...
12. training system

There is no glue or anything of substance to bind it together. Without those concepts or interconnections all you have is a bunch of words and sentences that doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

What you have besides that is a crap load of contradiction created by the statements you gave to my previous questions.
1. It was said in a reply to me the Vatican spends most the magic to keep the mist at bay.
2. To costly import a cow.
3. If you think bringing a few cows in is expensive try building material to repair buildings.
Conclusion City will deteriorate in time and end of city.
4. Unequal treatment across races.
Like that has ever ended well with humans involved.
5. Most people who participate in slavery attempted to justify it in some manor, either claims they were beneath them, they were bettering the slaves lives and countless other excuses to sooth the conscience ... Those that don't worry about such issues generally were evil fucks.
There is a commonality among societies that have a general disregard for others rights and lives(no justification types). Eventually they feed upon themselves self destructing from the inside if not taken down by some outside force. It is the nature of the beast. Eventually the same nature or means they use to justify one groups abuse is eventually turned inwards to others in the group.

You've already made it clear there is an unwillingness to change what you call "lore".

No one is going to come in and fix this if somethings can't be changed. It is literally impossible.
You have to many things that create too large of conflicts with one another.

Just the logistics alone you would have to change the stuff that has been said and in lore for this city to get over the 0 on survivability index. Even if women were made the most nutritious meal in the entire universe. That's 1 among hundreds of issues.

 

[TankH04]

I downloaded the game but every time I try to play it it says, "Incorrect argument count" and then half of the stuff just won't load. I don't know what to do; it says

location: Main_Menu
Area: On visit
Line: 37
Code: 120
Desc: Incorrect arguments' count!

Please help

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

I downloaded the game but every time I try to play it it says, "Incorrect argument count" and then half of the stuff just won't load. I don't know what to do; it says

location: Main_Menu
Area: On visit
Line: 37
Code: 120
Desc: Incorrect arguments' count!

Please help

That's new. No clue, beyond the obvious which is that your installation is broken. Suggest you grab a fresh copy of the "code" package from the wiki (get the latest dev build).

 

[NevranAu]

Thank you for maintaining and improving this game! I got into it in the hongfire days. One thing that I've always had problems with is understanding what methods could improve what stats, specifically thinks like pride and temperament and nature seemed impossible to raise so I always end up with sanity broken slaves. Is there any documentation on what actions improve what? Or some kind of advice/tricks/tips that veteran players use.
I used to just cheat my way through the game, but now many years later I'm determined to do this the 'legitimate' way. But I do not mind knowing the ins and outs of all the mechanics for it.

 

[coledrmd]

Thank you for maintaining and improving this game! I got into it in the hongfire days. One thing that I've always had problems with is understanding what methods could improve what stats, specifically thinks like pride and temperament and nature seemed impossible to raise so I always end up with sanity broken slaves. Is there any documentation on what actions improve what? Or some kind of advice/tricks/tips that veteran players use.
I used to just cheat my way through the game, but now many years later I'm determined to do this the 'legitimate' way. But I do not mind knowing the ins and outs of all the mechanics for it.

It's mostly explained in game. Look at the tutorial and the help boxes that show up when you click on stuff. The wiki can also provide some help and a general overview, but it's out of date so prioritize in game help. When you hover over a stat it'll show where she's currnetly at and were she needs to go to get to the next level so you can use that to see how each action changes things. A lot is common sense though. Cheating can help you last long enough in a play through to get a feel for it all.

 

[Mirarara]

Did the formula for obedience changed greatly? I felt that its much harder to raise obedience now as compared to 2.0.0. What was the change?

 

[DunkieDawg]

Is this the best place to post bug reports?

Running v2.2.3 dev (clean install. did not overwrite any older version). Bought a slave at the market, trained her and then sold her to the Guild to immediately complete a new contract. Took the new slave provided by the Guild, trained her up to C+ rank, but no one will buy her (not even the cook) due to "You have no branded slave to offer" even though she has a "Stranger Brand" from the Guild. This is a bug, right?

I mean, I could sell her to the Guild to immediately complete another contract with her skillset, but then I'm stuck with another "Stranger Brand" slave from the Guild that I can't offload anywhere.

 

[NevranAu]

Is this the best place to post bug reports?

Running v2.2.3 dev (clean install. did not overwrite any older version). Bought a slave at the market, trained her and then sold her to the Guild to immediately complete a new contract. Took the new slave provided by the Guild, trained her up to C+ rank, but no one will buy her (not even the cook) due to "You have no branded slave to offer" even though she has a "Stranger Brand" from the Guild. This is a bug, right?

I mean, I could sell her to the Guild to immediately complete another contract with her skillset, but then I'm stuck with another "Stranger Brand" slave from the Guild that I can't offload anywhere.

I'm pretty sure the contract slaves aren't yours to sell, rather they belong to someone else and you're hired to train them up to a desired state and then return them in order to complete the contract.
You'd have to obtain your own slave either via auction or other means and brand them as your own in order to sell them to whoever you like.

Basically you're selling your skills as a slave trainer to people who own slaves but aren't trainers themselves. That's the idea behind the contract. You don't own the slave.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

I'm stuck with another "Stranger Brand" slave from the Guild that I can't offload anywhere.

It's been this way for a long time. You can't sell guild contract brand slaves to "repeat buyers" (the shops etc.) but you can sell them through auctions or direct sales to district residents.

 

[DunkieDawg]

It's been this way for a long time. You can't sell guild contract brand slaves to "repeat buyers" (the shops etc.) but you can sell them through auctions or direct sales to district residents.

Good to know. I just offloaded her to the Guild auction. However, I wasn't able to sell her to an Outcast district resident (Bullhorn), as I got the same "no branded slave to offer" message. At least there's the Guild auction as an option. Thanks!

 

[highsis]

Playing 2.2.3 dev version, the hardest difficulty (no stat, feeble strength, 200 sparks) seems impossible. Unarmed slaves come with wooping 30 HP. Which means my mental strength of 0 gives in unless I one-shot her and it's impossible even with 200 sparks-weapon. If I can't train my strength as a slaver, I can never grow stronger than the weakest slave I can get. Any tips?

 

[StJesuz]

Did the formula for obedience changed greatly? I felt that its much harder to raise obedience now as compared to 2.0.0. What was the change?

There have been a good number of changes since v2. Things were changed around a bit to be not necessarily (but probably) harder. For example I used to use leather shackles on the slave's hands and feet for easy taming gain, that doesn't work anymore.

The standard model works pretty much the same now as ever. Fear first -> awareness, taming, habit -> devotion.

It's hard to give a precise answer because slaves were changed to behave differently, these changes have been a focus of work post v2, in my opinion. For example, it's harder to get lazy, fat slobs to do gymnastics than it used to be. A slave with low temperament/nature and high empathy will resist combat training.

Playing 2.2.3 dev version, the hardest difficulty (no stat, feeble strength, 200 sparks) seems impossible. Unarmed slaves come with wooping 30 HP. Which means my mental strength of 0 gives in unless I one-shot her and it's impossible even with 200 sparks-weapon. If I can't train my strength as a slaver, I can never grow stronger than the weakest slave I can get. Any tips?

I think it's supposed to be nearly impossible. Success requires almost perfect play, certainly avoiding combat and a decent amount of luck. Augustus tested it and you can read about some of his strategies starting around here.

I got my butt kicked many times with one of the hard starts before succeeding. I was also having trouble with strength, if it lowers to F level, your slaver dies. You can gain strength in three ways; sparring, eating good food (restaurant), and sex. It's still quite tough and you will probably need to take drugs (resin) to have enough energy to do those things.

I highly recommend learning all locations and items as well as how to get a slave to comply without fighting her with an easier start before trying hard mode.

 

[highsis]

On day 45 I finally managed to upgrade my strength from frail to weak but it's basically a game-over for me, with 60 sparks left and no slave.

The strength keeps deteriorating due to poor food and I only regenerate 0.5 points of strength a day, which means not spending money on food and drug is out of questions since I am forced to clean the room which leads to game over if my energy level is negative. If I don't quickly reach 'weak' strength (which took me 45 days due to strength waning automatically everyday due to poor condition and the poor psychic state), the rate at which I lose health is faster than the amount I can train.

Has anyone succeeded in absolutely zero-start run hardcore? How cat I get to weak strength fast without taking this long and spending this much spark?

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Playing 2.2.3 dev version, the hardest difficulty (no stat, feeble strength, 200 sparks) seems impossible. Unarmed slaves come with wooping 30 HP. Which means my mental strength of 0 gives in unless I one-shot her and it's impossible even with 200 sparks-weapon. If I can't train my strength as a slaver, I can never grow stronger than the weakest slave I can get. Any tips?

I suggest searching this thread for my posts. Try searching for "zero start" also.

For example, see the spoiler here: https://f95zone.to/threads/jack-o-n...ntsman-community-development.390/post-7878777

https://f95zone.to/threads/jack-o-n...ntsman-community-development.390/post-7898420
https://f95zone.to/threads/jack-o-n...ntsman-community-development.390/post-7900641

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

How cat I get to weak strength fast?

If you click on the master's strength characteristic in-game, the help text gives you several hints about how to raise it.