Mounts as companions
Taekwandean asked: “You can raise horses in that game? Can you raise faster/otherwise better ones or is it just raising normal ones for sale?”
You craft / raise horses, yes. Interface-wise it’s no different from any other crafting, although I do think of the different lines of horses as breeds. Nazrin (Sakkara’s Fallen Earth character) is currently working on the first line of horses which improve in the chain:
Untrained Horse -> Horse -> Riding Horse -> Improved Riding Horse -> Advanced Riding Horse.
Once any Mount has been used (think soulbound), it can’t be improved further, so there’s a compromise, you have to decide if that’s good enough or if the mats to improve further are worth it.
I haven’t looked in detail at the other lines / breeds, but some seem suited more towards combat. Yes you can shoot from your horse, but so far the angle is quite limiting and makes it a challenge to actually kill any mobs without a lot of manoeuvring.
The horses I’ve seen so far are all the same speed, but they differ on other important attributes. They have different amounts of Stamina and drain it at different rates, which equates to a fuel gauge and fuel economy. Mounts are also used for extra storage, kinda like a mobile bank or a pack mule. My improved horse has 16 slots and can carry a whopping 114kg, so I use it to lug my Copper, Iron and Lead around (Ballistics crafting uses a lot of metals).
As well as horses there are ATVs, Motorcycles, Dune Buggies and Interceptors (like Mad Max’s notorious police car). The vehicles do vary in speed and consume gas, which is expensive to buy or craft. I’ve heard they don’t climb slopes as well as horses do either, plus they need repairs now and then. Still, I really want a Motorcycle. =)
The Companion Aspect
When you use your horse / vehicle item, it becomes yours (again, soulbound) and disappears from your pack. After this point, the horse is in the world for good. The only time it’s put away is when you’re switching mounts at a stable / garage.
If you get off your horse and leave it somewhere, it’s there. It will stand there until you return. Other players will see it, even if you are not in range. It does disappear if you log out, reappearing where you left it when you log back in. Getting back to retrieve your horse is basically the penalty for dying. If your horse is seriously far away, you can have it “towed” to the nearest stable / garage.
No matter what I’m doing, I’m conscious of where I parked. It’s not an item in my bags, or a spell, it’s as persistent as my character in the world.
This persistence with vehicles makes a huge impact on the game for me. When I see a horse at the side of a road, I know someone has stopped for something of interest, either a quest or maybe some scavenging (crafting is also integrated into much of the game, but that’s another subject). I’ve seen guilds ride by on Motorcycles as if they were bike gangs and at every town I can spot the important buildings from the vehicles parked outside.
I did not realize the companion aspect, I like that. I will be installing and patching the game tonight so hopefully I can spend some decent time playing tomorrow.
This seems like a pretty cool system, but there is at least one thing that I think it would be cool to change. It would enhance the companion aspect of the mount if you could upgrade it over time. For instance, if you could slowly change one sort of horse (say the slower stamina drain one) into another (say the extra storage capacity one). Or, perhaps more importantly, from the Untrained Horse into the Advanced Riding Horse.
Is it possible to change motorcycles after you have built them? What is the build process like for that kind of item? Is it different from the horse creation process, or basically the same thing with different words?
Building Motorcycles is a bit more involved. I just built my first a couple days ago.
First you have to complete the ATV quest line for the basics of vehicle crafting (Science profession, whereas horses are Nature). Then you barter an ATV plus other mats for the Motorcycle recipe. The vehicles are built in stages as separate parts for Transmission, Frame, Engine and Wheels. Each of those parts takes between 3-6 hours (so far, probably longer on better vehicles) to craft. Crafting works as a background process, so you can continue questing, but you may be carrying around some heavy mats.
The upgrade process for horses and vehicles is the same, basically once you use it, you cannot upgrade it any further. I would prefer what you’re suggesting actually, that you train horses (and upgrade motorcycles) as you use them.
The vehicles drive much differently than riding a horse. They also take a lot of gas, which is expensive to buy and (so far) somewhat rare to craft. I’m currently swapping back and forth between my bike and my horse.
I’m looking forward to crafting more advanced motorcycles (Cargo Motorcycle for storage, Biodiesel Motorcycle, etc.), but the barter mats for the books are pretty insane: Stuff like, turn in 3 Motorcycles and 2 ATVs plus more mats. I figure just in straight crafting time it’d take something like two weeks between all the books for each part.
More / less it’s all crafting, horses feel more like built than raised. It’s definitely a grind, but not a bad one IMHO, or at least it feels pretty fulfilling so far.