i'll introduce myself later, but for now i have a few things burning on my mind and the cusp of a large patch roll-out seems as good a time as any to get them out. the game is good, shows fantastic potential, but suffers from a few core issues. most of which are small scale things expected in a beta. Balance i'll start out with something you may not like, but i feel like it needs to be said: you guys are shooting yourselves in the feet with how you're balancing weapon scaling against threat level. i admit your new system seems like a big improvement, however it still has the same problems; the gaps are just smaller. if you suddenly find yourselves working back up to threat level 30 or so, then it will be the same show all over again. the Armor Penetration system that has been in place is a dead end and obfuscates actual weapon quality. i've worked on a couple of PnP systems and i know what sort of sticky mess splitting your damage values up creates. i get what you're going for and i'll reserve much of my suggestions on this until after i see what you're trying next in action, but i will at least say: threat level is fine. i like it. it works well and has flavor to it. and that instead of giving flat damage reductions based on level: you'd be better off settling on number ranges which correspond to threat level. i know it lends it's self to getting back up to bajillionty digit numbers, but if you stick to the ranges you give yourself: it does work out really neatly in the end. conventions like the best Tier2 weapon should deal no more than 33% of the toughest Tier3 basic mob's HP. or that the weakest Tier1 armor should block no more than 25% of the weakest Tier2 basic mob's damage. once you have the general scaling curves down setting it to script is pretty straight forward. Control hot key for switching between active tech slot.(shift+1-4? ctrl+mouse scroll?) custom bindings (my gut says this is soon anyway), Space simple low-priority suggestion: mid-warp events. things like being pulled out of warp by raiders, encountering merchant/military/derelict vessels, picking up distress beacons, etc. space stations. it's an easy roll so i'll cut it there. possible events while in orbit (eg: goblin invasion[raiders/pirates]) Events solar system events: per habitable planet circling a sun: give around a 20% chance for there to be a single solar event in that particular system. or, if you prefer, a single 20% roll per planet and start the event at the first planet to successfully roll one. have these be quests which span that system and potentially have a large impact on them. maybe a mad Apex scientist freezes the sun (perma night + frigid temperatures throughout the whole system) and you have to bust up his freeze ray and thaw the sun for the Florian in the system. maybe you take that same freeze ray to your friend's home system, hide it somewhere, and freeze their sun for the lulz. maybe the sun goes supernova and blasts every planet in the system into a moon (reroll worlds as moon. maybe add a destroyed world to the planet table and use that +-moons.) maybe there's a Human missile base carpet bombing the Avian planets in the system (persistent meteorites minus the loots and with more happy time stomping) system wide effects would go a long way towards adding more layers of personality to a particular system. maybe high threat level systems have multiple stacked events. the Humans and Apex are at it again; only this time an insect infestation breaks out on one planet and begins spreading to others: you find the Humans before dealing with the Apex: only to find out that once you unfreeze the sun and get back to your ship: it starts to nova (oh noes: they were saving us). so now you're faced with the choice of letting the sun nova to take out the insects, or, turning the freeze ray back on to hold off the nova until the insects are dealt with. only to find out that the remaining Humans have taken over the Apex facility. then maybe find a way to stop the sun from going nova to restore order to the system. have a substantial reward for restoring order to a system. maybe have this then reduce the threat level to 1. then you would have hooks to maybe raise the threat level of a system and could have various pros and cons of high Vs low threat levels, maybe low threat level planets are easy targets for raiders, but they would never think of raiding a planet with a missile base on it. this is higher level sandbox play that could be particularly interesting depending on what you'd like to do with multiplayer. giving players eventual control over that threat as part of their reward for overcoming it; also giving them choices on how to use it. that's a handful of simple code hooks that you've already written or are about 3 hours away from strung together into a sci-fi epic generating machine. some of the font-end will take a bit, but most of the back-end on a lot of that stuff is already there. i think it would do the game well if you thought of threat level in respect to the amount of chaos in a system rather than in respect to how much damage it's monsters deal. Philosophy considering some of your design choices i think you might agree that experience levels feel like a very artificial way of curving difficulty and game life. it's fine if the local fauna only does between 1-30 damage throughout the entire game. and it's also fine if that stinky poo demon always poisons you to death in 3 seconds unless you have an antidote or can resist it. a rattlesnake's venom does just as much damage to Chuck Norris as it does to you or i. monsters that are inherently threatening for one reason or another are memorable. how many monsters in MMO's can you recall being memorable once you moved out of level range? would you remember the Cyber Demon if you were 50 levels ahead of him and could eat his rockets for breakfast? i think that overly threatening fauna should be rare. maybe bind hit points and abilities to body parts and have a second table for Super Fauna rolls that contain different body parts. on a threat level 10 planet, dogs are still dogs, but maybe that super monster roll is 5% higher and suddenly you realize that this unassuming little planet is inhabited by vicious Meat Stalker Yeti, prized for the chameleon-like qualities of their fur (Super Fauna drops based on rolled body parts). or maybe you run into some Regenerator Hulks are just SOL until you find something to roast them with. this sort of approach lends it's self to the player having to contextually assess their environments each time they travel to a new world. you can't just say to yourself "oh, this is threat level 4. i'm good no matter what". you might run into a situation you might not be quipped to handle, but the draw of that challenge and potential reward would have you write down the coordinates for later. you have some seeds for this planted already. i really like having to figure out which species are hostile each time i visit a new world. in an exploration centric game: uncertainty works hugely in the games favor. and even more so if there is an element of emergent chaos. Other i'll make additional edits as i watch the game unfold. i know you have a lot to do yet, and that quest systems and more texture are coming. i appreciate it, whoever took the time to read this. feel free to discuss and critique my dissection.
