Ooookay ignoring most of the vitriol in this thread, can someone elaborate on those arcs that were scrapped and why they weren't used as a bit more of meat for LD? I mean it seems that they weren't put in MoA due to time/budget constraints, surely they could be fitted in somewhere in LD? That Icari one seems really promising, and Claude as a XO would have been a good foreshadow before the reveal of her powers... (I see her having a flawless performance and blaming it all on dumb luck lol).

Ah I understood that from the previous posts, what I was looking for is if someone who is part of development can go into more depth into what is actually on those scrapped arcs and some reason for why they didn't use it in LD if the cause for them not showing up in MoA was time/budget constrain. I mean, that Icari subplot would work great during LD too now that PACT was on a truce with the Alliance, Icari killing a PACT commander out of revenge might spark an incident and put the truce in jeopardy (kinda the reverse situation of Versta where you are killing the diplomats on purpose to start a war), and that Claude taking over as XO would work in the beginning too by using Ava's condition after the Legion battle as an excuse for her to be absent.

I dont have time to write it atm (am pretty slow on that anyway) but if you or others wanted to, I could handle the scripting. The only issue is it wouldent have VOs (not that it would bother most people on here)

Well, if you need any visuals like, say, scenes or ships or whatnot done for it, send a PM my way.
Might as well do some work pro bono.
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Speaking as someone who just powered through MoA and LD in a couple days, the biggest story gripes I had weren't actually with the whole Chigara romance part, but I do agree it was handled poorly as LD as a whole tried to stuff too much into a short time span.

My biggest problem is that in all of MoA (And First Arrival I suppose though I've only played the combined version) The Alliance fleet is hyped up to be bigger than the PACT fleet. Every time it's mentioned the Alliance has military numerical superiority. Then suddenly in LD the PACT fleet is three times the size of the Alliance fleet? Maybe I missed something somewhere but the sudden shift from numerical superiority to nerve and tactics being the main cause for victory just struck me as odd. The whole thing with Fontana and the reserve fleet was a bit off as well. I have no problem with them being loyal to Fontana, but him actually being there and the prototype's not knowing somehow also struck me as an issue.

Yeah, but remember it's a visual novel. Sure it's a video game which is why there is gameplay, but just one look at the genre explains what it's meant to be: a novel with visuals. So I don't understand why people are getting riled up over the fact its got a static ending or because it's too much like a book when the genre shows that an interactive novel is exactly what the games trying to be. I can see why people want choices, but if LiS want the story to go a certain way, it's up to them. 

Its not a popular personal opinion but as I have previously mentioned in the Steam community forum for Liberation Day around character choices:

Romance Choices

Not every visual novel is going to be focused around this and LD feels to me more like a narrative VN in which it is not ready to branch out. If you have an on going series and include character branches in every edition you can end up with a distorted story line as for each character route you then have to do another sub branch to the common route before branching off again (what if the player chooses Asaga in one game but then wants Sola in the next one for example? These variables start multiplying rather quickly) or you would have to write several visual novels in one (sort of like what Labyrinth of Grisaia does with its character arcs/main arc) which was not how Sunrider was designed. This is not saying it is impossible or cannot be done but rather it was not done in this occurrence. This is why I would see it being more realistic to expect a main story's conclusion having those character routes if included, that way you have the intended story at the heart but then there are multiple ways in which that conclusion can be told.

Generally I'm not really sure why people bash Chigara as hard as they do, I can understand the frustrations but the trend appears to be more 'because I did not choose it' above all else. Going by the 2.00 content you can already see the branch in regards to Chigara with the label 'chigaradidntbetray' which shows two possible personalities for Kayto:

- (A) Where he continues to believe in Chigara and wants to reunite with her.
- (B) Where he no longer trusts Chigara and rejects the comfort of his relationship with her.

A true forced romance would leave the story in line with a fixed logic '(A)' where the player left in a position where they can no longer consider other crew members as active candidates. If anything the current ending is very much a 'anything could happen from here' scenario which for me leaves me optimistic with what the series could do next.

Anyway I won't stir this up any further, in regards to Liberation Day we have been monitoring feedback and we will be taking this into account with our future projects.

Thanks for your continued support and enthusiasm.

I suppose it's my turn to revive the old thread, now that the series has been effectively put on the backburner for Shining Nova. Also, on a more personal note, I figure anyone else looking at these relative fossils, as Rellek did, may as well get a contrasting opinion as well... even though I think plainguy summed things up pretty well XD

Word of warning though; I don't consider myself too eloquent a speaker - detailed, perhaps, but not delicate. I'm well aware people get thoroughly sick of how much I talk. Even more recently, upon being diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Syndrome/OCD, I learned that a lot of how I write is... well, in a word, tone-deaf, in that I tend to speak so bluntly that it often looks like I'm browbeating others. So I'm sorry in advance if I end up ticking anyone off - one of which will most likely be Magpie, since his arguments are the ones I'm directly referencing and arguing against to make a case off of ^^;

== Character Relationships ==

Anyway, building off of what plainguy said, the biggest issue with trying to compare LD with other non-optional romance games is the fact that many of these games have one of two distinct advantages; they're stand-alone self-contained stories within a single installment that offer definitive conclusion in one single package, or they're purely story-driven series that simply never show any such romantic resolution and leaves it up to the player's imagination what happens after the end. The big reason why trying to compare Sunrider to these other VN's as a justification fails is because Sunrider is BOTH a series and a confirmed romance story; the luxury of just forcing an outcome is simply not there - you have to flesh it out better. 

In that regard, the path taken taken by games like Majikoi to Majikoi S or (to a lesser extent) Grisaia no Kaijitsu to Grisaia no Meiykuu is this; don't have every single choice or path be in one single game - have one set of routes in one game, than another set of routs plus after-stories for the first set in the last game. However, I list this last one as optional because it basically revolves there being just two games - three at max, if said final game was just all concluding bits as opposed to starting any new romances - so this system could only be implemented if Sunrider was in it's final stretch. Point being that it's not really as much of an issue to do, so long as you take the time to think out how you want it to work. 

Another issue I have in the argument Magpie presents... is that it feels somewhat contradicting. Because honestly speaking, accommodating choices like this was exactly how Sunrider was supposed to be designed - in large part because choices like this do not really necessitate an entire rewrite of the script to accommodate it. The best example I can think to bring up is the Mass Effect series, in which the choice of who you had a relationship with did jack-all to impact or change the main plot and yet this was not seen as detrimental for either the story or the romances by the players. Whether or not you choose one girl over the other does not mean the entire game needs to be rewritten to accommodate it - practically every single RPG with a romance choice in it could and would not exist if that were the case. Saying it could not be done in this occurrence doesn't feel accurate to say, because it ignores the fact that the character's love-life and the main plot can - and arguably should, for more story-driven experiences - exist as two separate entities, one being interchangeable while the other isn't. And again, this is without the aforementioned premises of not having every romance option be in the same game at once, which would be more realistic in that some human might be more open to a relationship sooner than others - and in turn that others who could have/would have been open to one in the past are no longer ready and willing to do so later on. 

Additionally, there are games like Persona 4 - specifically the Golden Edition - in which when the main character gets with a girl... it doesn't mean their bond can or must become a relationship. This, in turn, is the crux of my argument and possibly the biggest issue I and many others have with Magpie's views on this; specifically that spending time being close to a girl and building a relationship in the game does not mean it has to become definitively romantic right than and there, nor that they absolutely must be locked in at that exact point. For example; say we do choose Asaga in one game to be with - does it HAVE to become romantic and/or a commitment than and there? Would't just leaving the implication of possible feelings be enough - if nothing else, wouldn't it be a better option than effectively destroying the girl's characterization in a throwaway-scripted romance. Magpie's argument feels like it revolves around it being one extreme or the other - that giving the option to pick a girl at any point automatically means that choice must always be the level of a commitment. In Persona 4 & 5 (and maybe the others - I wouldn't know, since 4-5 are the only ones I've gone through XD), you could go through almost the entire relationship chain and form a close bond with them, but it didn't have to become boyfriend/girlfriend until the very end of the respective stories their chains were telling. So in turn... why couldn't Sunrider do the same? If it was such an issue to try and have so many options, why not just keep everything ambiguous until the very end? 

In that context, saying "it is not ready to branch out"... well, honestly, it doesn't feel like it sticks because it ignores the simple option of just not having any romance take place at this juncture. Rather than railroad it down one certain path, it could have just been kept ambiguous, or made a platonic bond that may or may not have been turning into love up until Chigara's "death" - that way, it would have been far easier for the player/Kayto to pursue or turn away from anything with Chigara without it feeling so comparatively forced in either instance. It also would have made it more gratifying to the player and any pro-Chigara players to pursue, in my personal opinion. 


== Chigara's Relationship == 

In my mind, the fact that the relationship with Chigara was forced/that it wasn't an optional choice caused so much issue... is not because it was the only path to take. Rather, it is because said single path was, in my opinion at least, very poorly executed. 

As Magpie himself has done in the past, compare what happens in Liberation Day to Princess Evangile; another game in which the character gets into a pre-determined romance before branching out into whether or not they stay in/commit to that, or kindle/rekindle a love with the other characters. Unlike Sunrider, Princess Evangile, line with what I mentioned above, has the advantage of being a single self-contained game - the complete story and conclusion are all there in one package, so it doesn't feel like player agency is being reduced to stretch things out. But what truly separates the two is that, unlike Sunrider, Princess Evangile took it's time with the scripted romance - we were given a clear-cut build to how they got so close, and than how they felt their way through to a relationship that is both a first for them and muddied by uncertainties. By contrast, Sunrider feels like it completely skips through the second half - the first part (the setup for closeness) was done in MoA in how Chigara was the only girl going straight to the Captain out of concern for him and his problems, while the rest got so used to relying on him going to them and solving their problems. However, LD feels like it fails to pick up on this, because the relationship in no way feels natural - they kiss, they get sappy, they sleep together, she's a spy, the end. It doesn't feel like an actual relationship - it feels like a caricature of one, to the point that some people actually call it degrading to the characters.

Adding to that, I also have a bit of an issue in Magpie's simplification of the Chigara issue - specifically that I don't see how or why he does or doesn't believe in Chigara anymore would, let alone should, equate to why he should or shouldn't love her. Does there have to be such a distinction? Are you telling me that after the whole spiel about family and trust that he has with the rest of the Sunrider crew, Kayto unquestioningly has to still love Chigara to believe in her and want to save her? Are you telling me that after illustrating he'd do anything to protect his crew, even at great cost to himself, Kayto unquestioningly cannot still love Chigara to not trust her and see her as too big a danger? Can't he have faith in her without being head-over-heels for her, or be wary of ever even if does have deep-reaching feelings for her? How does whether or not Kayto does or doesn't trust her require him to love her or not? In turn, arguing a "true forced romance" feels moot - if there is no choice in the matter but to go down that route, it is forced; whether or not you can choose how it ends does not in any way change the fact that it happens. Even just saying feels disingenuous towards Chigara as a character - like she and her feelings can/should be just written off like they never happened if you decide against continuing a relationship, and makes what happened in LD feel even more shallow an affair by comparison and contrast. It really does not translate into an "anything can happen from here" scenario, because by all rights, NOTHING should realistically be able to happen since most people would not feel comfortable about getting into a relationship with someone who can just shrug all that off like it's nothing - and on the opposite end, anyone recovering from the fallout of what Kayto went though likewise realistically shouldn't feel like they even deserve to pursue a new romance, let alone like they can. Like plainguy said, any romance after this would have to carry the shadow and baggage of what happened there - and because of how badly the Chigara romance seemed to be executed, that's not something a lot of people feel optimistic about.

In my personal opinion, a lot of this could have fixed if if LD had simply devoted more time to developing the relationship - if you're going through a scripted relationship as part of the "common route", than, as Princess Evangile illustrated so well, you cannot simply toss it in or rush through it; you've got to take your time with it as much as you would any of the actual branched routes. If it hadn't skipped through the process of them getting used to having a relationship together, the scripted romance would have worked. If it had bothered to show them having doubts to work through or reassuring each-other of whether or not they were going too fast, the relationship it would have worked. If there were points to show them acknowledging how their uncertainties and anxieties were making them punch-drunk at times (Kayto giving an inner monologe of 'is she serious?!' or 'I laugh and smile because I don't know what else to say/don't want to hurt her feelings' when Chigara suggests marriage and kids after just a month of dating), the relationship would have worked. If there was an option where Chigara and Kayto addressed whether or not they were actually in love or if it was just lust and stress-relief for both of them (and in turn emphasize the saint-like characterization Chigara had by having her say she doesn't care if Kayto's using her; so long as she's helping him, she's "happy" - which is a barefaced lie on her part but just would make people feel all that much more for her), the relationship would have worked. If there was a point where Kayto's conflicting "Prince and Moralist" mindsets could have illustrated whether it's emotional love or physical need and tie into the previous elements/motif of how a cold man and good man can both make the same exact choices for different reasons, the relationship would have worked. Hell, even if there was just a choice between whether or not Kayto and Chigara have sex before the final battle or want to wait until after everything's over, the relationship would have worked - not as well as if the above were added in, but certainly better than the so-called "f*ck and chuck" treatment I've seen some people say the story gave Chigara. There are so many things that could have been done to make it work, but instead it felt like the romance was forced and rushed just for the sake of a shock-value element to the plot.

In that regard, equating the reason so many people disliked the Chigara relationship as being "because I did not choose it"... well, simply put, it feels completely tone-deaf. It honestly isn't that people didn't have a choice but to take a Chigara romance that got them so mad - it's that they didn't have a choice but to take a poorly-done Chigara romance that angered them. That they weren't given any other choice is definitely a part of it, of that I have no doubt, but what honestly sunk it for so many people is the way this single forced romance played out - the biggest complaints were not that they were forced into a single romance, but rather that they were forced into an ill-executed one that made the characters feel like insensitive idiots, seemingly ignored aspects of their character-development in some cases, and did so little to get across why what happened was happening that LiS had to make [RE]Turn in an attempt to explain it away from an alternate/outside point of view - and in some cases, it only made things worse because it seemed to highlight how much even Kayto himself should have seen what was happening. So much so that some people don't think the next game can manage a work around - hell, some actually think LD should STILL be getting more work done to compensate for it; an expansion pack or the like that fits in-between leaving Hellion and arriving at Cera, that shows the two having an actual relationship. Personally, it doesn't feel hard for me to understand why Magpie said his opinion got a lot of resistance on places like the Steam form, because it feels like all the feedback for the next game wasn't actually examined if LiS doesn't understand the real reason why the last one's key romance aspect had so much flak. 

In conclusion, I'm sorry if this comes across like starting anything up after so long. I understand that this kind of thing is a dead horse by this point. But personally speaking, that's simply how much I and many others love Sunrider - the fact that people still have such strong feelings about it even after this long goes to show how engaging a story and setting was created by LiS. I understand if this comes across as being argumentative or the like, but at the end of the day, my running a commentary to this extent is really just because I fell in love with this series - and because of that, I feel compelled to give this kind of feedback as my own attempt to try and support it. I get not everyone will agree with me; I get others will debate against me. But my debating or arguing these views comes down to the fact that I want this series to continue and improve - and if those making it aren't able to understand their community, it will lead to the game's support falling regardless of what they do. And that, in no uncertain terms, is the last thing I want to happen.

Thank you for your time.

Personally this echos what I want to see, after all that had happened a period of reflection is needed and this is where characterisation can shine. Obviously the plot will still need to move along in some way so that the main narrative can come to a close but this should be something that is easily done considering pieces have already fallen into place - eg. Crow, Pact/Alliance, the prototypes.

I wouldn't be surprised if a new Sunrider enters development that it chooses to focus on a variety of separate character sub plots to show the aftermath while the narrative becomes about reuniting the crew and eventually having a method of re entering this now formed aftermath.

Eg (as rough scenarios):

- Sola and Asaga back at Ryuvia involved in skirmish tactics against PACT.

- Kryska imprisoned with the Alliance as she faces punishment for her behaviour in the last game and therefore is demoted plus kept on a short leash in some form of reform plan.

- Claude and looking back on how she has meddled in the timeline and how it progressing her objectives.

In regards to Chigara I see it less about ('choosing to have a relationship with her' or 'rejecting her') and more ('choosing to reunite with her' (then either 'romantically' or 'non romantically') and then 'or rejecting her'). This comes back to what I was hoping to promote before about branching and how it (at least in my mind) is similar to what higurashi does with its 'questions' and 'answers' arcs. You have 'questions' where main events occur and the impact established and then 'answers' which go fully into the details and provides an additional dimension to the previous events.

I will say though in terms of conversations and feedback I have dealt with so far there has been a far greater number of people voicing frustration at the lack of romance options (which tends to be the trend when it comes to visual novels as a format) in the main plot of LD over people who were frustration with elements of characterisation, this is a fact and not me been tone deaf to feedback. This is also not about me saying that feedback not related to character routes in the story are any less valid but rather wanting to be pragmatic so in the event of a new Sunrider I can make focused proposals on what people would want to read more about to expand on what is previously established, eg. From Kayto's perspective how did Chigara's company empower him into behaving as he did.

At the end of the day Liberation Day isn't getting re written/re made and it is very unlikely to get anymore additional content (outside of fixes). People may disagree with elements in the story but they've now happened and things have moved on, in that sense this is established as what Samu wanted to portray in his writing for this part. In this sense I'm not looking to make a case or justify for what has been written before, I'm just musing on the moment as an observer.

Finally you are going to get more discussions leading into improvements if you are looking to the future rather than walking the same ground again and again.

Apologies for a bit of a stinker in terms of a post but genuinely I've noted some useful points over the duration of this thread and I hope we're able to shape them into something at a later date.  

I don't think the expectation of romance options can be attributed solely to preconceived expectations of the genre. In the OP of Mask of Arcadius, it suggestively shows most of the girls in individual states of partial undress, strongly implying that they will be possible love interests. Given that this wasn't at all the case in said game and still hasn't happened within the main timeline, it comes across as false advertising, and it's something players see before so much as clicking "New Game."

Incidentally, I'd dislike those parts of the OP even if that wasn't the case. I find them tasteless and immature; they do their best to give an initial impression of the series being little more than smut, with the girls existing first and foremost as sex objects, and Sunrider deserves so, so much better than that. Liberation Day's OP was a vast improvement in that regard, even though it ironically showed more skin due to the glimpse of the mindstream.

Anyway, while I don't think a new DLC for Liberation Day is a particularly viable avenue for Love in Space itself to pursue, particularly one set in the middle of the game that requires players to start over and doesn't introduce new plot elements, a story mod that fleshes out the Chigara romance certainly sounds within the realm of possibility for the community. Have you considered creating something like that, Sharr? I know it wouldn't offer the satisfaction of being official or canon, but it'd still be something. If it became a general community project that had a fair amount of group input, you could even potentially suggest that Magpie show Samu a concise, recorded version of the new content, perhaps along with notes justifying the changes. I'm generally wary of fans telling creators "No, this is how you do it!", but the Chigara romance was the subject of wide enough criticism that it might be warranted here, if not for the sake of officially improving Liberation Day, then for the sake of improving the depiction of romance in subsequent installments, and a proof of concept implemented within the actual source material has the potential to make for a much better argument than forum posts. Even ignoring that possibility, a mod would still let you play a version of the game that's that much closer to your ideal version.

In the event that something like this did indeed become a community collaboration, I'd definitely be onboard, though there'd be a bit of a learning curve involved. I've never modded Liberation Day, only Mask of Arcadius, and even those segments lack player choices and aren't hooked into the main game. But then, that's what tutorials are for, I suppose. It's stuff I'll get around to learning at some point anyway.

If it is just text drop, the coding in RenPy is not complicated:


   cos "Aren't you forgetting about someone--!?"
   kay "(Now of all times? We don't have time for this!)"
   kay "All units, scratch your previous orders. Regroup and engage the pirates on the double."
   asa "Copy that, Sunrider!"
   cos "You agaainn!?"
   cos "Hahahaha...!!!"
   cos "This is where it all ends!"
   asa "You're too late! PACT's defeated! We've got Arcadius!"

Of course there are other things involved as well, like setting the background image, make charater sprites appear, change and disappear, play sounds and music and so on, but most of these are easy to understand, especially since you have the script of the game available as a blueprint. I think there is also a RenPy tool available which offers an interface for this stuff, so you do not need to directly script yourself, but I am not too sure about that, since I am more used to direct scripting.

I had absolutely no experience coding when I started, I just poked through the files. A while ago I wrote what I learned here, it's for MoA rather than LD but it covers the basics. The major change is choices no longer work as they did, this is covered in the framework post on the mod section and copied here for helpfulness.


I will at some point wright an updated tutorial for LD because a lot of things have been improved, but the only real change as far as it matters for scripts is the way menus are displayed. When I do the tutorial I'll include a small tweak to choices that allow options to be shown/hidden. If you want anything clarified/coded feel free to ask.

As bigfoot said, we all suck at this at the start, we just need get going. Just give it a try and start with small things, like changing a line of text here or there (after having made backups of course). It is just a very special feeling to see for the first time that you can bend an existing game to your will (at least to a certain degree and hopefully without making it throw errors left and right). While I came to Sunrider with some previous experiences, I certainly was a beginner as well when I did my first modifications for Civilization 4, coding-wise and especially 3D modelling-wise, but it is a lot of fun (and a bit frustrating inbetween) to get into this stuff and noticing how ones abilities improve over time.

Anyhow, even if you do not want to get into the scripting yourself, it would be at least a good idea to get to know how to prepare your story script in a way that your cooperation partners can insert the script into the code easily. Like the code snipped I posted before, it should be created in the format of a stage play: 'Actor' followed by 'Sentence to be spoken', at times interrupted with 'How certain actor should feel/express itself'. And of course at the start the scene needs to be set and music and/or sound bits to be played needs to be defined.


For the character sprites, certain combinations are already defined in the init_characters.rpy file in the form of 'posture', 'mouth', 'eyes' and 'eyebrows'. For your example, the code line should be:

   $dshow("sola armhold smile closed neutral",xpos=0.8)

(This is Sola in uniform holding one arm by the way, the other available posture is her showing you her back. There are no flexible plugsuit sprites in LD)

If you want to code directly without the RenPy tool, I would highly recommend to use the cost-free Notepad++ by the way (at least if you are a Windows user).

But that's precisely the point; I don't want an attempted addition to the story to be my "start" at coding - something like that, I don't want to be feeling my way through it. In regards to special feelings, the only thing I ever felt was anxiety over potentially screwing up the games I have - hell, I got that way even just installing mods from other people on games, let alone trying to make my own. 

When it comes to trying to work at aspects of the story I find negative, that's something I feel a lot more confident in... but working on actual hard-code? Not confident XD. Respectfully, it could win an award for the simplest task out there and it still wouldn't matter if I personally didn't have the confidence to approach it - how complicated it is or isn't is moot if I don't feel like I have the chops to do it. Story-writing is one thing I'm comfortable with; modding isn't 

Anyway, still wondering on that response; do I bother to put my ideas on how I'd have added or expanded to LibDay's original story here, or should I start another thread for it since it'd be detailing what the events of something close to an expansion would be like?