Pleased Giraffe

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Alright! Pleased Giraffe!

Welcome to another "omg this is a ridiculous amount of feedback" thread. Or, depending on your opinion, another "omg Izzabelle shut up" thread.

I'm really excited to dive into this, but first; some general thoughts. The Colony Update (Pleased Giraffe) leaves me sitting 50/50. On one hand, I'm LOVING some of the changes. But on the other hand, I'm feeling very perplexed and disappointed. So I'm kind of riding a middle-of-the-road sort of opinion on this patch. Also, don't forget to check out my Upbeat Giraffe Feedback Thread -- which will round out some of the opinions I share here too. That being said -- let's get into the details...

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1. Surface/Biomes
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OOOOH MYYYYY GODDDD



The attention to detail here is so great. All the planet/biome specific housing. The ruins. The varied parallaxes. The critters, the lightning bugs, the native peoples, and the biome-specific vines?!

The surface feels done. It truly does. This is highly representative of the planets I have always hoped to explore and play on in this game. But I have 3 nit picking things for improvement...

#1: Critters

I can't capture these adorable things and house them in my buildings/ship!? Are you insane? Chucklefish PLS. I need all teh critters!​

#2: Dungeons/Villages

So uh. It doesn't matter if you're on an Arid planet or a Forest planet. The Floran dungeon/village is going to be the same (slightly varied layout) on each planet. Now that the planets/biomes have such fleshed out detail in the structures... I almost feel like dungeons/villages should be planet/biome appropriate.

So for example... if a Floran village exists on a jungle planet -- perhaps their roofing is made from sod instead of thatch.
This: instead of This:

Along with some other block changes... maybe a few new decoratives... the old villages/dungeons will be better brought into the fold. I mean... how cool would it be to see a Floran village that's adapted to live on the Ice planet?​

#3: No Space For Building?

With all the new ruins... and the current dungeons/villages. I almost feel as though there's not really a lot of space in which to build your own colony. A lot of time is spent clearing out areas, that would have otherwise been unoccupied.

Perhaps the planets need to spawn as larger planets more often than before. Or maybe we just need an easier way to clear larger areas (bulldozer?!)

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2. Underground
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I'm not feeling this at all. Surface and Underground are pretty much night and day now as far as quality goes. The same level of attention, love, and detail that went into the surface -- needs to be given to the underground as well. So let's talk about some of that...

#1: Background Ores!?

Seriously. Background ores. Well done. This is probably one of the few things I can sit here and say "Why doesn't Terraria have this?". I think it's because of this that Pleased Giraffe feels like the first patch I don't have to ride the struggle bus in order to find any ore. Thank you for this.​

#2: Spikes

You guys think you might have gone overboard here? Dangerous spikes absolutely litter the underground. Which is ok if they're the only danger in exploring. But when you're dodging hostiles in an enclosed space... that's littered with death spikes. It becomes one of the most infuriating things currently existing underground.

How about some other environment based things for the underground. That won't damage or kill you. Like rocks. Or weird moss plants and fungus. Or damaged and destroyed Glitch bodies?​

#3: Underground Micro-Dungeons

How about a little consistency? I've run into worlds where there's a glitch, apex, floran, and avian micro-dungeon all within a screen of each other underground. It looks hella goofy. Again -- the underground could use some attention to detail. Perhaps there are Forest underground structures, Arid underground structures. Or perhaps just straight underground-centric/thematic micro-dungeons (mining ones are a good example of this).​

#4: Challenge Rooms

I'll admit, I was pretty stoked to test these out... and then I entered one.

Actually. I've entered several. I think I'm currently 1/20. A lot of these I walked into, and my reaction was



Imagine my dismay when I realized all (all?) of the challenge rooms are platform based. I'm a terrible platformer. Upon finally getting to the end of one challenge room -- the rewards were completely lackluster. I believe it was just some pixels and a really terrible pistol weapon.

I was even more upset with the challenge rooms that I failed; they disappear? I can't re-enter the room and try again? Wow. That's pretty upsetting #feelsbadman.

Here's my wishlists for challenge rooms

1. Rooms only disappear after they have been completed
2. Rooms actually have brief instructions as to what to do
   
3. Rooms also consist of Puzzle challenges. Not just Platform challenges. (possibly already a thing?)
   
4. Rewards are substantially greater than they are currently
5. (is there still a penalty for dying in a challenge room? if so...) there should be no penalty for death while in the challenge room.
6. Upon dying, you are immediately placed outside of the challenge room near the door. You can reenter, or you can go about your Starbounding.

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Underground isn't quite there yet. I still believe it could also use some additional underground noises/music too -- also consider that dying is still the easiest way to get back to the surface... But I can see the efforts starting to come together. It just needs a couple more pushes from the team.

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3. Combat (Weapons/Armor)
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Firstly -- the new sprite are awesome. I'm enjoying them immensely.

They really help round out the feeling that I'm playing a MUCH more polished game. Kudos.

#1: Melee

For some reason. Melee weapons feel really weak this patch. I know everything was tweaked, but melee -- especially 1-handed melee -- feels a little pointless. The damage simply isn't there. And using 1-handers feels even worse. The ability to use a shield or to hold another 1-handed something barely compensates for the loss in performance. There's another reason why melee feels bad, but I'll cover that in Combat (Hostile NPCs/Monsters).
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#2: Ranged

Ranged feels great. If this is what we can expect as we move further into combat tweaks -- then I am pretty happy with the path we're on. They feel much more easily used and seemingly have better utility than the last patch. 1-handed ranged weapons, like their melee counterparts, feel a little on the weak side as far as damage is concerned though.
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#3: Weapon Delay

Switching weapons is a pain. Even if you're not going from weapon to weapon -- there's this really annoying delay. The delay seems to be based on the weapon's use time. So if you switch to a really damaging, but really slow axe -- it's as though you've already swung it. You have to wait to use that weapon. Why? Even if players need to wait -- they certainly shouldn't have to wait as long as it takes currently. I've gone from flashlight to 2-H Sword straight into a fight I couldn't participate in for at least a few more seconds. It screws up my timing, more than likely has me take damage, and puts me on the defense immediately. It's a really jarring combat annoyance. Fixing or adjusting it allows for a more streamlined experience
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#4: Armor

I really feel like armor doesn't provide enough defense or health (or any real bonuses for that matter). Despite always being up-to-date with my equipment, I always feel like I'm simply taking way too much damage. Last patch, I felt this way when it came to bosses. This patch, I feel this way when it comes to any monster. Armor needs a small buff across the board. Or monsters need a small nerf...
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#5: Period of Immunity

Just noticed this in this patch. There's not really a good window after being struck to be immune to damage inflicted on you. This is very troublesome because quite often you find yourself taking damage from multiple sources. Land on a death spike, while being smacked by a monster, and being machine-gunned by an NPC? Congrats on winning the damage lottery -- your armor won't save you, and you're likely already dead. It'd be nice to see a period of immunity that allows us to react to incoming damage in a meaningful way. Cause right now, a lot of fights simply feel like "oh shit oh shit oh shit damn". I'm not asking for a Mario Star after every damaging thing, but the window needs to be tweaked ever so slightly to help players out.
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4. Combat (Hostile NPCs/Monsters)
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Remember when NPCs got a huge buff?

I thought this was a good thing...

#1: Pathing/AI

Turns out. Making NPCs smart enough to hunt you down given any environment is a huge buff to enemies, and an incredible annoyance to deal with. Consider this:

• NPCs are better at aiming than you. They are almost sure to hit you.
• NPCs are better at pathing than you. They will almost never get caught on blocks running away.
• NPCs are often times faster than you. They will catch you, especially if you try to backwards walk your way out of the situation.

Congrats on making NPCs Liam Neeson



Combine this with weaker weapons, lackluster armor, and a shield that is hopefully up to par -- and what you get is having to stay on the very edge of an NPC's chase threshold to deal with them 1 by 1. I've often found myself using something like a grenade launcher to lob damage up and over a safe place to hit NPCs that couldn't possibly run up to attack me. This is not fun. This is very tedious. I outright avoid dungeons this patch. It's not worth the tedium to slog through them.

My suggestion? Smart NPCs are welcome -- especially for allied guards -- but how about NOT ALL hostile NPCs are this smart. This is the kind of AI I would save for elite guards, allied guards, and mini-boss mobs.​

#2 Monster AI

Pathing aside. Why are monsters the same? If they're different -- I can't spot the difference. They might use a special attack, it might be ranged, but they'll always rush you -- they'll always try to stick to the player in melee range. This is also why monsters are more difficult for melee. They're fast! And they only seem to want to get into your hitbox. NO MEANS NO, MONSTERS. Even with Energy Dash, staying out of reach of some of these monsters (especially the melee-centric ones) is quite the task.

There should be a slew of different AI's and different speeds. Where are the slow-but-dangerous mobs? Where are the support mobs that might heal other hostiles in the area? More varied mob AI please -- the "stick to your face pew pew" mob is tiresome and every mob seems to have it's AI.​

#3 Monster Interrupts

This is another thing I didn't notice until this patch -- but I can't really do anything to interrupt monsters (other than try to kill them ASAP). I can't really stun them. I can't knock them back. Once they're on the warpath -- that's pretty much it. My ability to interact with monsters outside of damage is really really limited. And player defense suffers for it. If the monsters existed in Terraria, their knockback resistance would be something like 95% across the board while most weapons have a knockback power of 0. It makes the monster rush AI even more bothersome -- cause I can't really do much to stop the monster at all. I have to take the hit or dodge it outright.
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#4 Hostile AI / Friendly AI (NPCs)

I can't spot a difference until they begin attacking me. Needs looking into. Players should be able to know who their enemies are, without putting themselves at immediate risk.
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#5 Unique Enemies

Random monsters made from random parts that share a color with the environment isn't very immersive or engaging. Every biome should have a handful of unique, static monsters. Like... Frozen planets will always let you encounter Space Yeti's who throw ice balls at you. This would be in addition to the random monsters. That way you have monsters who are unique and interesting, specifically for Starbound -- AND you can still have the toy-box filler rando-monsters.
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5. Farming/Hunger
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I can't say much about this right now. I love having a more active role in farming -- watering fulfills just that. But without hunger -- the activity is as moot as growing the food. I do have 1 qualm about things though...

Why does heavy rain uproot some crops?



I made a mega farm in which the rain didn't drain fast enough. Not making that mistake again. Seems pretty silly though.

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6. Inventory
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Yes! You did it! More inventory tabs!



I am glad you did this. It goes a long way in alleviating many of the inventory woes the player base has been having. However...

#1: Pick Up?

If the decoration tab fills up, and the other tabs are empty -- I can't pick up any more decorations. Seems really goofy. In a weird way, it makes the inventory -- even with the new tabs -- feel more limiting than ever. Now I can of course manually move things around, but it just seems blatantly unnecessary.​

#2: Auto-sort?

How exactly does this work? It seems to me like it just organizes things by tab category while pushing everything into the first numerical slots. But there doesn't seem to be an order to the items themselves. For example, syringes aren't grouped together -- even though, as items, they should probably be ordered by type and be right next to each other when auto-sort is clicked. Auto-sort should:

1. group items by tab
2. group items by type
3. group items by name
4. group items by numerical slot
5. group items by first empty slot

In that order all at once. It probably is a pretty heavy suggestion. I'm not even sure if you have anything on the back end that would allow this sort of organization easily. But if you want a cleaner inventory (I know I do) then this would be a good place to start.​

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7. Crafting/Items
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Now this is where I'm starting to feel like the game actually lacks a lot of depth and organization. There are a lot of items to craft -- but the items lack substance.

#1: Crafting Should Be Organized

I covered a little of this in my last feedback thread. But take the crafting tables for example. Things that are tier 1 wood recipes -- are scattered throughout the list. Why? Put those tier 1 wood recipes at the top, copper recipes after that, and so on and so forth! Organize the lists please. It should feel like similar organization to the auto-sort, something like;

1. Item by tier
2. Item by type
3. Item by material
4. Item by name

In that order priority. The filters are nice to have for convenience when there tends to be 1000 items in the list, but I should be able to just instinctively know where something like wood blinds are in the list.​

#2: Organize Crafting Stations

This I think is not only going to be a little difficult to explain, but might be harder to fix.
Does anyone else find it odd that so many similar recipes are divided among so many different crafting stations? Instead of helping the player identify the tiers, it actually blends them. Which just makes for some confusing crafting. I think as of right now, there are something like 15 crafting stations, directly related to progression, in the game. I feel like a lot of this can be condensed. A couple of things might help alleviate this, here's some ideas

• Crafting stations become more specific; This 1 for blocks, this 1 for ores/bars, this 1 for biome furniture. (wiring station is a good example)
• All crafting stations upgrade by tier; wooden crafting table is required to craft iron crafting table, iron for robotic.

It just feels sloppy right now. Too many similar things divided among too many redundant crafting stations.​

#3: Bland Crafting

Organization aside. Why is crafting so bland in Starbound? There's plenty to craft -- but it's just very soulless. Here's what I mean...

Right now, you can craft a sword.

And that's pretty much it. But why? Why can't we do something like
+ + =

Too much emphasis is placed on needing to find special stuff through RNG and exploration. Crafting does not serve as a suitable placeholder for equipment at all currently. It requires it's own unique items. Unique recipes. You could even give monsters/bosses their own loot tables so crafting really good stuff becomes it's own effort and reward. More in depth crafting please.
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#4: Upgrade Modules

• MM upgrade pieces are way too common
• Tech upgrade pieces are way too common
• Teleporter cores are way too common
• Upgrade components are super rare -- usually leaves me 2-3 upgrade tiers behind all the time
• Autochip components I haven't even seen yet.

(100% based on experience and subject to RNG. Opinions of availability may vary)

Also -- with the upgrade component pieces now occupying chests -- I feel as though I can't as readily find vanity items. It makes finding already difficult vanity pieces just that much more infuriating.
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#5: Crafting Blocks

I see you've added a few more block types. Some of them are even craftable! Thanks for that. But we still need A LOT of blocks to be craftable. More than ever, I feel like I simply can't get a hold of the cooler blocks. I already brought this up...

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8. Navigation/UI
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The game's polish is improving pretty drastically, and bookmarks are 100% spot on awesome. Unfortunately, the navigation and UI still feel very... *sigh* Alpha.

#1. Navigational View

With all the bells and whistles -- Starbound houses a tremendous amount of just absolutely gorgeous artwork. Pat yourself on the backs, spriters, you done good. I mean -- you gave us this:

Wow.
So gorgeous. But before you pat yourself on the back again -- let's talk about navigation view.

Um...


Now I feel like you guys are holding back on us. What's the deal? I mentioned this before in my last thread. The current navigation looks like the alpha placeholder for the system you would eventually establish.

I already know you guys have the talent. I want to have as much fun picking my destination as going there!


image is for inspirational purposes only -- you can do it, Chucklefish!
#StarboundersForBetterNavigation​

#2: UI Icons

Guys. I have no clue what any of these icons mean. Tool tips or a key please. I mean -- I can look at an icon with a cloud and some green rain, and I can figure out that it's Acid Rain. But not all of your icons are this readable or legible. This goes for both planet view AND character buffs/debuffs. Also, why are the icons for these things so large? The UI needs to be readable and appropriate, and it currently needs some important tweaks.​

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9. Colonization
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Ok. Here's the big one. The colonization system, I feel, is still very very rough. I hope there are some major addresses coming down the pipeline soon.

#1: NPC Race Tied To Furniture Type

Ick. Why? If I'm playing a Floran and I want to live in a castle with other Florans -- too bad. I have to settle for a Glitch populace. Can't I just purchase a "Floran Colonist Deed" instead of being forced into building the house/castle out of Floran items? I see how this made sense initially on paper, but in practice, it's actually pretty restricting.
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#2: NPC Type Tied To Furniture

This is much better. Filling an area with crates to bring in a merchant makes more sense than restricting the system to racial components. I just don't want this to be the only way I'm able to dictate who moves in.
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#3: NPC Types

Merchant, Colonist, Guard. More please. My heart has a hole that can never be filled, yet constantly demands more NPC colonist types. Deliver them
But seriously. I hope more are incoming. I would love to have an NPC that helps with farming, or who goes out of their way to actively heal me or other NPCs in the colony.
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#4: Deeds

Why just 1 deed? Why not special deeds? Deeds that can only be found in those special biome chests? Deeds from mobs? Deeds from Bosses? Seems like a cool way to start inserting some really cool stuff across the game.

"I have to take down the spider boss because it might drop the spider-hunter deed. A deed that gives me a powerful Floran badass with nightmarish whirlwind death attacks and cool spider trophy armor."

Or something.

On the subject of deeds

I wish the rent rewards were a little more interesting or a little more consistent. One of my colonists seemingly gives me random junk and occasionally pixels
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#5: Unique NPCs

One of the bigger disappointments with the Colony system -- is that there are no unique characters to move in. Everyone is a standard character sprite with seemingly random vanity objects. That's cool when you need filler and extras. But if you want a connection or a more interesting colonist -- they would have to be unique. As in, uniquely sprited.


Nuru is a good example of a uniquely sprited Floran. I wish more colonists could be like Nuru. Just standalone badasses in their own right. Not just generic fillers.
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10. Bosses
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Real quick -- I think the bosses are much more closer to being balanced than the last patch. I was actually able to defeat the Horror this time with relative ease. Always a good sign when trying to get past the tutorial section of the game. I found the spider boss to be pretty exciting, but not overly easy or difficult. I think some things still need adjusting... Dreadwing and Shock Hopper feel unfinished -- ranging from overly difficult to disappointingly easy.

#1: Sandbox Bosses

I wish there were still some bosses reserved for the open world. As fun as the bosses are, I would additionally like to have a handful of bosses in which I can fight on MY turf. Step into my arena Mr. BossManDude. NOW DIE
Part of the fun in building is being able to create home field advantages. I really miss that aspect of building.​

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11. Miscellaneous
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You made it this far? What's wrong with you?

Rapid fire round!

• Music is always "vast, slow, and epic". Needs more actiony or busy-bee tunes.
  
• My darling can't dye dye dye
  
• Pixel cost adjustments!
• New chests!
• Selling stuff!
  
• Agaran houses. Yick. Hire an architect. You need more mushroom stuff.
• I can't change my ship pet? Booooo
• No one gets a pet frog?!
  
• No surface/space events?
• Alpaca & Frog colonists?
• No penguin colonists? GET OUT.

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12. Conclusion
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I am pretty stoked. Starbound seemingly has a lot of systems in place that allow cool stuff to be done, or to happen. The only problem now, is filling the game up with the cool stuff. This patch wasn't everything I had hoped it would be -- but, regardless, I am so happy to see the progress. I can tell great things are coming.

Glad I got to share my feedback with all of you. Sorry that your eyes are now bleeding.

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???. TLDR
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Chucklefish. Add things. Patch OK.

 

Interesting post, I'm going to compose my thoughts over time as I read and respond to things you've said. Thanks for such a post!

Here you go:

While I certainly agree with you on how good the makeovers are, I can't help but hope that the old parallaxes are still included in random worlds. They weren't too bad, and it would really help to vary the worlds if they were still included rather than disregarded. Also, Asteroid/Moon Biomes needs an overhaul, perhaps a boss there? A 'Dr Evil' style boss, or a huge space monster. Or a space pirate base/station.

Defintely one of the best things to happen, I'm just hoping that we an auto-sort storage boxes of all kinds too, not just our inventory

This would really bode well if the Temperature mechanic is re-done. Have them wear monster fur armour, or have a fair amount of decent heating in their dungeons. Or their behaviour changes during blizzards/environmental hazards in other planets. Something like that. On the subject of 'cold' it would also be good to have NPCs offer quests to kill monsters for fur so they can stay warmer. Or on the other end of the scale, perhaps NPCs on a hot/arid planet need a big supply of water for a quest, so you can help them out with that.

I found this, and ran around it a bit, I have my own conspiracies on this, but so does everyone else. Here's to hoping unlocking this is influenced by progress, boss defeats, challenge room completions, and some other various tasks/achievements around the galaxy - This could potentially be the cusp of the true end-game. I'm looking forward to finding out what this is..

The first 4/6, I've found to be about the same as what you described. I just find it absolutely weird that I have so many Tech upgrade components but no techs to upgrade. I've only found "Air/Radioactive/Cold' protection, as examples. And 3 of each other tab. Am I still going to find more to learn?

Tooltips that could be turned on/off via the menu seems logical to me. On that note, I find it quite annoying that I can't change the size of Item tooltips (Or scale/zoom them), it's hard because the item tooltips outstretches beyond the limit of the screen resolution and isn't to scale at all, so I can't see more detail about the item I'm trying to look at, and am forced to have to place it in my action bar just to look at it. It's a minor inconvenience, but this definitely needs fixing.

I'm reserving my own judgment until after the next patch is out which addresses combat. I will say TWO things though:
(1) I like how there are 3 seperate crafting styles focusing on 3 different stats. This is nice, and it really helps us to boost a dominant stat (Offered by each crafting table) that suits our playstyle, and we can mix and match if we want to. Not such a bad thing to be honest. I do hope that the named weapons which are offered via each table can have upgrade paths too.
(2)Right now Shields are worth nothing to vendors, and I've only ever found one decent shield. I tend to stick with my iAxe, instead of my 'Annoyance of the Gods' + Shield combo.

I guess I can say "As Above" here, assuming that the combat system won't just focus on (a) damage, but also on (b) crafting using various ingredients. I really hope the former and the latter are both part of the update.

We think alike on this, which is good. Perhaps you've seen my post on monsters (Which touches on mostly similar subjects as yours) as well? http://community.playstarbound.com/...sters-too-samey-common-or-out-of-place.99925/

There are times where I definitely agree with you on this, however one of the things that annoyed me the most about Terraria was the music in certain locations (But some people can say the same about Starbound). I love Starbound's music. but in saying that, if anything, I think there's plenty of room to improve music in both games.

If such music you're suggesting is to be implemented, it needs to not take away from the immersion of the game, as the music itself is very immersive. I think the devs will figure it out though.

In saying that though..... Musical Instruments in the game are massively underutilized. I'd LOVE to see Chucklefish implement a travelling galactical band (of sorts) who pop up at certain places and at certain times around the galaxy and perform live music. Perhaps call them "Artisans of the Galaxy"? Remember when Blizzard did this in World of Warcraft, with some employees? It was pretty cool. I think this would be a great idea, even if to perhaps do a competition for people to write and perform songs which suit the themes of this game kind of like the book story competition, and then the best of the bunch will get included in the game as part of this travelling performing group? Would anyone else find this to be a neat little touch?

In my own opinion, I think the random NPCs I come across in the game when I explore planets (Or make colonies for people to move in) just helps to improve the scenery and make things seem alive. I never particularly wanted to get to know them, to me they're just "There" and I'm okay with that. I personally think that these types of NPCs (As you describe) should be part of the games narrative, otherwise they'd feel like wasted opportunity.

So before you may think I am disagreeing with you, it's best to point out that I don't disagree with you, I reckon perhaps we could have special NPCs (In a way that you described) which pop up from time to time in our Deeds (Think like special character cards in Fallout Shelter) but who are both narratively important, and can serve a greater more improved purpose compared to the good ol' faceless NPC. We won't be guaranteed to get them, but when we do - It's great!

Yes, agreed. I reckon this is still a 'room for improvement' which will be reviewed next patch (Probably) to coincide with balanced combat. I think we could probably do with more bosses in general.

I've recently been building a Bioshock 'Rapture' style base within an Ocean planet, and I wished I could see a GIANT Monster Shark 'world boss' sort of thing swimming around the entire ocean. Would be cool to see something like this on occasion. Maybe sandbox bosses that dwell in dungeons/microdungeons.

 

Everything! This is spot on and I hope they take your advice. I don't disagree with any of it.

 

I've brought up the navigation menu before. I'd love for it to be redone with some consistancy., especially the planet view... Overlapping satellites is annoying. Give them orbitals like planets.

 

I've never seen an Izzabelle feedback thread. I'm rather impressed. Got a thought on Steel requiring Iron and Copper instead of, say, Iron and Coal?

 

Sure, we get a lot of features, but we also lose a tonne of mods worth as well.. and that can be a heavy blow, setting that aside, it was a good update, "Pleased" indeed, you pointed out everything that was there and it felt blank, I agree 100%

Colony should have more life, notso tied to stereotypes, and why bother even colonizing? OMG PLAYER ya gave me da best castle in da whole galaxy, how can I evars repay thee? I KNOWS IT, her'e take dis 3 pearlpeas, it should be more than decent for da generous likes of u! right?



I know its pretty early in the season and a lots gonna change, but I saw a guy making a post about colonization that actually made sense! You recieve requests at your S.A.I.L on proposals and quests, you get rewarded for creating colonies, you get quests to expand these colonies further, it actually makes sense! not just randomly going about ploping deeds on stuff

here's:

Sir, we've recevied a proposal from the Galatic Science Commitee to create a Scientific Commune on this toxic planet, they need us to explore the planet, find a nice plot of land, and make this x square x with a number of x rooms and x equipments, once that's done we'll recieve our pay in pixels and scientific devices and any discoveries made in the site will be transfered to us in the future, and as time goes, the commune will offer us more assignments for expansion. <-- These being completely optional portion of the game.

You could also get to create other kinds of settlements, such as farming, military bases, merchant cities that will flow with tourists from the galaxy, perhaps it could even be expanded from there to create entertaining enterprises where you'll be able to attract all kinds of tourists to explore your settlement and spend their pixels on your avenues/buildings, or get mercenary contracts from military bases.. a plethora of things can be worked upon this. But this is just scratching the surface of a infinite possibilities.

I wish they'd also pay more attention to the modding community, mods like "Gardenbot/Bees!/Pet Chickens/ISN_Science/Fracking-Universe Planets and features" should be part of the normal unmodded game, but it's just my opinion.

About Farming, it just became business, plant this x, sell this x, why bother preparing food if you're not even going to eat anymore? AKA "Hunger"

Did you people see the amount of unused buildings they added just begging for us to plop a deed on it? pretty lame/lazy, but.. to each, their own

Noyce post

 

After a couple of runs -- I haven't noticed a significant change. The pacing of the game is a tad faster, but not by too much. I'd say the new recipe saves you up to an hour worth of play (grind) time. I was perfectly fine with it -- because it allowed me to test more things faster. I don't particularly see it as a bad or a good thing though.

 

I think it makes sense in terms of how they adjusted progression. Copper > Silver > Gold, a classic trio of metals ytou see in many games.

Tier 1 - Iron
Tier 2 - Tier 1 + Copper
Tier 3 - Titanium
Tier 4 - Tier 3 + Silver
Tier 5 - Rubium, Volium, Agisalt
Tier 6 -Tier 5 + Gold

My complaint with this is, however, given the distribution of ores and the instant learning of tier 6 armors once you craft tier 5, you can immediately skip Tier 5 all together. The early tier armors are at least crafted on different stations that require you to advance through. Tier 5 and 6 is lumped together. Tier 5 armor and weapons serve absolutely no purpose at that point.

Im not necessarily opposed to the idea of over-tiering, but I don't think it should be THAT easy.

 

@Izzabelle
See Izzabelle, I am a guy that normally goes through a lot of text to find some things to pick on to start a serious disussion. But in your case all I can do is to fully agree with you! No matter if it's the good things or the bad things you're talking about. So, this only leaves me to shout out to the CF devs to listen carefully to you, too.

Btw, I also brought forth some concerns about the current colonisation system and how it could be improved (from my point of view, of course)

 

this is.....the single greatest thing i have ever read please do more.

 

Im not happy about hunger, because i totally liked playing this game, without it a longest time.

 

@Izzabelle - I think this might be of some interest to you: http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/a-better-starting-plot.100338/#post-2655744

The post details my irritation that an upcoming 'feature' is that every vanilla race will be given the exact same starter quest on Earth, detailing how they're all a part of the Terran Protectorate on Earth. Even the 'civilized', barely literate, stab-happy Floran PC who's starter ship is an obviously looted Apex Miniknog ship. I likened the idea of all races sharing the same opening quest with that of Skyrim's vanilla, non-modded opening: fun the first time, boring on subsequent playthroughs where race only affects two lines of dialogue and little to nothing else. It's like, why bother writing up these potentially wonderful backstories mentioned in the quests and journals for each race on creation as it is now to just retcon the crap out of it and make them all bland to fit one starter quest?

Also, I was not aware of the challenge rooms until this thread and in the linked thread, I expanded on my super-old idea of Uber Bosses at the core of a planet and realized simply creating a beacon of sorts (twice as tall as the challenge room doors, shielded, and on the surface or near the core, whichever fits) would allow you to interact with it to decide to leave it alone or summon a very nasty boss, Dreadwing-style (the old Dreadwing, via Distress Beacon). Killing such a boss would actually give you a very nice reward of armor, weapons, consumables, etc because of how nasty it would be to fight those things, the idea of risk vs reward is very important to me. I hate going against some super-strong boss or mini-boss and getting some lame pistol or shield as a reward. That would probably be fitting for your idea of an open world boss, maybe.

One idea for later is to change the values of Armor to have several multipliers on combat: You'd have a damage multiplier for ranged weapons, melee weapons, and staves, along with energy consumption values for each. That way Aegisalt and Ferozium could have high multipliers for ranged damage with decreased energy usage for guns, middling melee and stave usage while allowing Violium and Impervium to possess staggering protection, health, and melee damage modifiers while ensuring that ranged combat in those would be for a couple hits to soften up an enemy NPC or one non-charged staff use before energy has to recharge, meaning energy would be reserved for techs to close distance. As it stands, Impervium and Violium have a much lower multipliers than Rubium and Cerulium because the latter deal with staves.

I do agree that NPCs need to be nerfed a little as right now they have too much going for them. It's still immersion-breaking to be in Impervium armor with an Impervium hammer and stumble across a USMC prison on a high threat world and watch some convict in a shirt and pair of joggers run up and smack a giant chunk of my health off with a folding chair, that just doesn't fly with me in the slightest.

CF needs to take a page from the Your Starbound Crew mod for tenants in colonies, allowing you to purchase specific tenants, like Floran guards, chefs, Hytlotl doctors, etc. As you said, they shouldn't be tied to racial furniture either, that makes no sense (aside from the Hytlotl maybe).

For crops, I would love to be able to craft a sprinkler of some kind and just let it water the crops for me so I don't need to keep toying around with a water bucket in a game that has FTL-capable ships and ancient gateways that connect to the same outpost no matter where you are in the universe.

 

@Zuvaii, you can always download Gardenbots and have robots take care of your garden, they water the ground, cut the crops, place them in a chest nearby, replant, repeat.

 

I knew there was a mod I forgot to download after returning to Starbound, thanks.

Hmm, I wouldn't mind CF use a form of progression for farming, start off with the bucket, progress to an irrigation thing you can craft with some water being replicated 1-2 tiles beneath the crops to keep them wet, gradually progressing to something like the Garden Bot, provided CF gets permission from the mod maker. Something to hope for, I suppose.

 

It will be optional, so no worries for you.

Moving on, I think surface boss battles would be a great addition along with the ability to 3D print blocks.

 

Agreed. I'm fine with some overlap, but some effort between 5 and 6 would be welcome.

 

I looked at the wiki's page on armor and frankly I ain't too happy. Cerulium offers better weapon modifier numbers than Impervium. http://starbounder.org/Armor It's like there's next to no reason to go Violium/Impervium over the others aside from some extra points of PV and health. Hell, using Violium/Impervium makes your weapons barely stronger than Durasteel, which is not what you want in the higher tier planets and such.

They should adhere to the concept of Aegisalt/Ferozium being a balance of defense and energy of Rubium/Cerulium and Violium/Impervium but add additional multipliers for ranged and staff damage/energy usage, and the Aegisalt/Ferozium armors would offer the best multipliers for using ranged weapons. Rubium/Cerulium would offer ideal numbers on using staves, but struggle in melee and even with guns. Violium/Impervium should offer the best protection and health values by a good mile, same for melee weapon mulitpliers, but using staves shouldn't be an option, something like +350% energy usage on staves when in full Impervium, with only 50% total damage and a mere 150% damage for ranged weapons, coupled with a 225% extra energy use for guns, solidifying the Violium/Impervium armor sets as what a melee centric character would use.

Instead of just a weapon power multiplier that affects everything, they should try to eventually branch it out to three categories: Ranged damage, Staff damage, and Melee damage, with energy usage multipliers for ranged and staves. Aegisalt and Ferozium would use less than 100% energy, something like 50% and 25% energy consumption per shot, and higher numbers would obviously mean more energy per shot.

The system before just encouraged having strong weapons, but the current one is a damn mess that either needs to be addressed by fleshing it out (Impervium Hammers should hit like a freight train considering they swing slowly and are melee only with no other options when wielding them) to actually encourage using the recipes from each table together (Ferozium guns with Ferozium armor, Impervium melee with Impervium armor, etc).

 

i agree w/ p much everything here
personally it feels like high-ROF low damage per hit guns are still too weak. i don't think i've found anything on extreme-threat planets that made me want to ditch Based Alien Laser Gun
speaking of extreme-threat planets i understand how dead planets were pretty much everyone's go-to due to the lack of lava literally everywhere but the sandstorm status effect is ridiculous. i'd honestly take dodging pools of lava every 2 seconds over slogging across the planet surface at 0.5 miles per hour and jumping to maximum heights of 2 inches while darude plays in the distance. and the downtime between sandstorms is like, 20 or 30 seconds and then like 5 more minutes of DUDUDUDUDU
on a related note. can there please be breaks in the acid rain on toxic ocean planets. because it gets tiring holding down rmb to keep my shield up and eating a bandage every ten seconds because some drops get through as i'm in my boat

 

As Mech pointed out -- Hunger is returning, but it will be limited to certain difficulties. Also, food will be affected too. This is why I didn't bother to write much when it came to farming and hunger -- it's just too bare bones at the moment.

 

I lost all my gold in a tragic shmelting accident (actually died while carrying all my gold ore), so I'm still using T5, and I've been able to do most anything competently. They're most likely going to spread things out a bit once more of the later planet structures are out. Essentially it's possible to skip radioactive stars entirely with the new system. You can definitely get the cold skin without setting foot on an alien/poison/radioactive planet.