A few thoughts on existing issues and how to solve them

I'm going to list a few issues that I see on issues and my thoughts on fixing them. I do appreciate your thoughts on matters, but if you're going to argue a system isn't broken please list your reasons, and if you don't like my solutions please give alternatives. Let's all try to be constructive:

A. Bugs ( I won't list suggested fixes in this section since it's just lists of bugs):

1. Poison ocean's don't seem to have bottoms. I can get past the parallax shift, but then I sink to the next parallax shift and just float at the bottom of the world.
2. If you take an antidote and then go swimming in a poison ocean the game gets really laggy and occasionally crashes. You also occasionally take poison damage (assuming you gain the poisoned status, take damage from it, and then the antidote removes it)
3. in the Floran dungeon when the poison comes down it can break some of the torches and other items even though they're set as protected

4. Certain items needed for quests and crafting aren't currently obtainable to my knowledge such wire for crafting wiring station stuff and dyes for the kennel quest.
5. Shops that sell weapons have a random weapon of that type each time you click the weapon. I like it since it feels like I'm saying "Hmm... I don't like that one! Show me another!" but it's quite obviously a bug.

B. Progression issues:

1. The 02 suit is useless like 2 minutes after you get it once you get the freezing suit. · see [2]
2. Changing suits serves no point other than as an annoyance. The only time changing suits benefits you is before you warp down to a planet at which point you NEED a given suit on to explore that planet · Continued from [1]: Either
   • remove the annoyance by having them as flat upgrades. Once you have the upgrades you have the benefits of the suit. No switching suits.
   or
   • Have them provide a resistance to a certain type of hazard. O2 suit gives you a double length oxygen bar and can be refilled with craftable oxygen tanks, Radiation suit protects you from radiation but prevents the use of other techs, Heat suit protects you from high heat worlds but needs to be powered with coal, cold suit halves cold related damage but only slows down heat loss on cold planets, you still need some other items that generate warmth. All of which halve damage from a given source(liquids/radiation/heat/cold) as well, and can be upgraded to remove their restriction (unlimited oxygen and 100% protection from liquid damage/tech use/no fuel needed/ total protection on cold worlds)
   I prefer the second one.
3. With the new energy system, guns have too slow of combat. The reason you gave for the change in the system was that before you just bashed on them, waited till they came back and bashed on them again. Now with guns you have essentially the same thing. Shoot them three times, run away for 20 seconds while your energy regens and then shoot them 3 times again. · Feeding into [4] here: I think the best option is to give a slow energy regen (in the older style) to at least the later tier marksman and mage armors (in addition to the new energy system). Or do that for the mage tree and replace the marksman's energy use with firing blocks! Machine guns could have cobblestone. Would help me get rid of some of these 30,000 cobblestone blocks I have in chests. Each bullet would cost a certain number of blocks of a given type depending on the gun.
   
4. Some bosses make certain trees useless · While I'm on this topic I don't mean for this to dissolve into another "the second boss is totally easy" thread so please keep it to this topic. At this point, with the way the boss is closed in, a pure staff-type build is worth less against him than a sword build. Honestly I think that the easiest solution is to add a staff-type with a weaker but either faster or larger AOE. [Edit] I just went through and beat him with only stuff from the mage tree. I'll post my results in a different thread but long story short is was still WAY easier with the sword tree.
   
5. I thought there was going to be a farming and world building tree for progression separate from the three combat trees? What ever happened to that? · no suggestion here. Just a question.

C. Gameplay issues:

1. Hunger. Before everyone jumps on the "hunger sucked" bandwagon or the "food supply isn't limited anyways" bandwagon I've seen plenty of people who really liked it. · Adding it back as an option would comply with the wishes of both sides of the argument. Enough said.
2. building off of [1] survival aspects.Al of the survival aspects in the game are gone. More and more the game is turning into "terraria in space" · I'd love to see the survival aspects or at least some of them return as options so the players who disliked them aren't forced with them
   
3. Metroidvania upgrades: This is sort of an extension of [B2] For any of the people out there who say " the old system wasn't metroidvania like the new system is" have any of you actually played metroid or castlevania? There were no superfluous upgrades that went "The only purpose of this upgrade is to let you into new area X" (with the arguable exception of stuff like the hyper beam at the end of the game). All of the upgrades not only unlocked new areas but also gave access to new places in the areas you had already been, and unlocked new gameplay mechanics for your character · Either give a purpose to the suits, or just stick them on your character as flat upgrades. Mixing and matching your cold armor, oxygen systems. ect. in the old method was more metroidvania than the new system, contrary to what other people keep claiming...
4. I thought I saw a post that said that a lot of the stuff in the world was being made craftable? As it is there are a ton of things that are neither craftable or scannable. · I'd really love to see more stuff made either craftable or printable, or at least have an option for duplicating an existing item. There are a lot of increadibly rare items that would be wonderful for base building but which aren't available in anywhere near the quanitity that would be needed. If you added an item duplicator it could also provide a way to give players access to dungeon items without allowing them access to modifying the dungeon.
5. Matter manipulator and pickaxes. The matter manipulator is stupidly slow at mining even when fully upgraded. On the other hand pickaxes and drills are really fast but a constant annoyance when you have to stop and make more of them. Also trees are now an annoyance since the only way to mine them is with the super slow matter manipulator. ·Again see two ways to fix this. Either way there also needs to be a system so you can can change it's size level. Having only the option of either 5x5 or 1x1 is really annoying and makes it so I need at least 3 characters, one with each level of size for building purposes. The two options are either:
   • Remove pickaxes entirely. Make the Matter manipulator increase more with each progression and make the power upgrades affect how fast it mines trees.
   or
   • Keep the matter manipulator as is, but add back in the repairing tools system since it's orders of magnitude less annoying than the current system. Also add back in axes. Finally have two end-game unlock upgrades for the matter manipulator. A chainsaw tool and a mining laser tool as the final progression which makes the matter manipulator better than the axe and pickaxe/drill respectively.
   Again, I prefer the second. It makes it so that while the matter manipulator is a jack of all trades master of none. And for those of you saying "But it's a future space tool! How is it inferior to the pickaxe?" I have a simple answer. Energy constraints. The energy system in the matter manipulator is limited and it has to split it between storing all your matter, placing it, mining it, and all the other things it does. Therefore it's less efficient than even a lowly earth tool. However as you upgrade it you're not only upgrading what it can do, but also the amount of power it can work with to do those things!

Again, I welcome your thoughts and opinions on the matter, but please try to keep things constructive. Also, rather than quoting huge checks feel free to use reference codes such as [A1] to refer to the first item in the bugs section. Any new entries or edits will be added below others to keep any existing references intact.

[edit] added C5 since I forgot it in the initial post

 

Some good points. Wire can drop from some robotic type enemies.. I had a few pieces of it and destroyed it.

Matter Manipulator seems to work fine for me when breaking through 80% of the block types. It's still stupid slow on obsidian/magmarock/blaststone block, but drills are only about three times as fast and only mine a 2x2 area in my game. Once I find some bombs, hopefully cracking the shell of volcanic planets will get easier.

 

Here's what I think about some of the issues you mentioned:

[A1] Thanks for exploring the poison ocean's depths; I was always curious if there was anything down there but never got around to do doing it.

[A4] Through a search I found someone who suggested using the 3D printer to get the kennel. Not excusing the fact that the required dye is missing, just noting that there's at least a way to finish that quest.

[B2] I mentioned in another feedback thread that I'm in favor of suits providing resistance rather than complete immunity to planetary hazards (the latter of which can take more forms than currently present, such as radiation bursts; I won't go into detail here). I like some of your suggestions here as well, though my preference is that even the highest level upgrades cannot provide 100% immunity (which I'm sure would be an unpopular opinion), and that I would rather not have need for coal to power a cold suit.

I'd prefer a single suit with its protective qualities against various hazards upgraded individually in an RPG-like manner through the use of subsystem chips and materials. To illustrate, my character starts off with a normal suit. He gains an O2 subsystem chip and, together with some materials, upgrades his suit. He later gains a chip to install radiation shielding and does the same, allowing him to spend some time on irradiated planets. Over time (through quests and adventuring) he acquires improved subsystem efficiency chips and uses materials to upgrade his suit into having O2 Recycling Efficiency Level 2 (+20% air), Radiation Shielding Level 3 (+30% time limit before failing, negates % amount of damage from heavy radiation bursts and to maximum energy) and Heat Resistance Level 5 (+50% time limit before overheating, limited resistance to fire attacks).

He no longer needs to switch suits; the suit itself adapts to the environment he lands in, but the amount of protection given is based on what he managed to acquire and install/upgrade during his adventures (something like an adaptation of Diablo III's skill system might additionally allow for interchangeable specific upgrades to a particular protection subsystem to address specific needs, like +100% radiation resistance duration on top of the existing +50% but -15% energy). It allows for more varied hazards on planets, such as magma planets with high radiation, or an alien planet with no air and freezing temperatures. We could even have planets with different hazard levels, meaning that you'd barely last long enough with a Level 6 Heat Resistance system on an utterly hellish pressure cooker planet. Having limits to protection also raises the importance of bases, outposts, natural shelters, oxygen cylinders and other survival equipment (addressing C2).

[B5] Patience; the developers have done quite a bit of work but we're not at 1.0 yet. They've chosen to focus on developing one path first so it's natural that the others are currently unavailable.

[C1] People have been telling me that this may be included later at higher difficulties. Frankly, I prefer it as an option that is not tied to difficulty; I want to play Casual but with this on.

[C4] Probably best to refer to [B5].

[C5] To be honest I almost entirely forgot the pickaxe even exists; it was only when I found the first copper one that I was corrected in thinking that they were removed from the game. As a result I used the MM for most of my playthrough and I've found it very convenient to have multiple functions built into it. Fully upgraded it's sufficient for my mining and tunneling needs. I might be missing on even greater speeds with higher tier pickaxes but I don't really miss them. I do agree however that some way of repairing used pickaxes should be included if the system persists.

 

I agree on everything and want to add something on the ranged weapon problem. I suggest the smae thing I suggested a year ago, AMMUNITION.

 

@Arylin

[A1] No problem. You can get down there pretty easy with antidotes but it's increadibly buggy atm. I crashed almost every time I came up and couldnt get the bottom to load no matter what. I don't think they're intended as explorable other than the surface via boat.

[A4] Yeah. The printer can print the kennel, and you can get wire from some robotic enemies but not in enough quantity to make any decent electronics. Just mentioned it because I'm sure it's a bug.

[B2] Yeah, that's the kind of thing I meant with the first option. Flat upgrades. Just more detailed. I don't disagree with you here, that would definitely be a fun system, I'm just saying they should either be flat upgrades or they should have some sort of benefits and drawbacks other than unlocking planets. Otherwise you wind up with buttons that just unlock certain planets where you can only press one at a time but it's free to switch them anyways so it doesn't matter..

[B5/C4] Just wanted to double check. I know for a fact the development team mentioned "There won't be any more updates until we finish the progression updates and hit 1.0 stable" So the fact that some progression is still missing threw me for a loop.

[C1] Yeah, it may be, but it may not be. There's been no official word on the matter, just rumor. I know it's been mentioned 1000 times, just figured if we say it enough it'll be more likely to come back, right?

[C5] On the lower tier planets the matter manipulator is fine, but how do you mine obsidian and dire stone on the heat-tier planets with it? I can get a quarter of the way to the core with a diamond drill drilling 4x4 in the time it takes to mine 10 layers down with the matter manipulator (I think that's 4x4 too now... or is it 5x5?). And don;t get me wrong, they're stupidly cheap now (2 bars/diamonds for pickaxes and 6 for drills) but constantly making more is an annoyance more than anything since by the time you're using a certain tier of pickaxe/drill the precious metal of that type is so stupidly common that even if they cost twice that much you'd never run out.

 

[A1] I do hope they expand on that sometime; poison ocean planets are nearly as boring as magma ones when so much of the surface is hostile to exploration.

[C5] It can be slower, but then again I didn't go out of my way to mine those two or any other especially hard rock unless I was forced to. In my current game I stayed mostly on dead planets (which aren't quite as dead as I expected) and skimmed the surface of the other two planet types. I tended to dig through weaker stone and soil whenever I could (either that or I was more patient than I remember ; these days I'm rarely on the highest tier planets), aiming towards any caverns the MM uncovers (a rather neat feature) to speed up the trip. In that situation the lack of drills didn't bother me at all. I guess it depends on whether you aim to dig directly through all of that rock quickly towards the core or prefer to take the indirect path of less resistance towards it and explore while doing so.

 

Regarding [A1], all the radioactive oceanias that I have encountered so far have had a bottom, here's one example . I would guess that the function that generates the depth of the sea got bugged and made you a bottomless sea (assuming you only checked one).

 

Yeah, no. For me there's no bottom and the game gets really buggy , won't let me ascend past the parallax shift, and usually crashes when I warp back to my ship. Doesn't matter if I do it on Windows DirectX, Windows OpenGL or Linux OpenGL, and affects both of my computers (with different universe saves). Are you on nightly or unstable?

 

Oh I'm only on unstable, so that may be the difference.

On a side note, anyone here with the problem that they crash when they try to start a single player session but not when starting multiplayer?

 

[C5] On the lower tier planets the matter manipulator is fine, but how do you mine obsidian and dire stone on the heat-tier planets with it? I can get a quarter of the way to the core with a diamond drill drilling 4x4 in the time it takes to mine 10 layers down with the matter manipulator (I think that's 4x4 too now... or is it 5x5?). And don;t get me wrong, they're stupidly cheap now (2 bars/diamonds for pickaxes and 6 for drills) but constantly making more is an annoyance more than anything since by the time you're using a certain tier of pickaxe/drill the precious metal of that type is so stupidly common that even if they cost twice that much you'd never run out.

My diamond drills cost 6 diamonds, and mine a 2x2 area max, like the original matter manipulator. They chew threw obsidian like it's hardly anything, but they break quickly and the area mined is incredibly small. Just went and tested again, and its a 2x2 square, not 3x3 or 4x4... They still are faster than the matter manipulator, but it feels awful weak. Are you on nightly or unstable?