Feedback What's the point of Teleporters when I can use flags?

Oooh, I can mark "misused 'straw man'" off the Argument Losing Bingo Card!

And it takes more than one second to merely select a warp point from the menu if you've done any degree of networking, let alone warp twice.

And for all the whinging you do about the UG build "taking away things", this is... well, I'm not SHOCKED in any capacity that you'd turn around and advocate a truly pointless removal of options.

 

Nice thing about redundant gear/items, don't have to use it if you don't want to. So it makes all the arguing about it moot.

Flags are still nice early on until you get enough pixels and cores to make a few teleporters. Even in vanilla. They are kinda nice to mark a planet just in case you forgot to book mark it. Or change the warp down point for towns/dungeons.

 

Yeah, like I said, I'd just mod them out if I found it too easy.

It's not misused at all. You totally did a straw man about removing different chair aesthetics somehow being directly related to asking for more mechanical differences between flags and teleporters and then knocked it down as if that proved anything.


Also, when did I say anything about removing flags in vanillabound? Sure, I might mod them out if they overlap like they do now, but I just want flags to have respectable drawbacks for their price and have been pushing for bigger differences in this thread.

 

I don't even count it as a drawback. It would only give flags a different purpose and use. In my mind it would make flags more usable, not less.

 

Attaching such high penalties to using the flags (the proposed "only if in the same system") makes them basically worthless beyond the first couple planets. You are pretty much removing them by making them too much of a hassle to even use.

 

I've been arguing the exact opposite. I could use a short term nav point tool, keeping my teleport list uncluttered as I move through the galaxy. It can also be used alongside system bookmarks for more long term, but still not important enough for a full teleporter purposes. One bookmark in my list until I get there, then all those flag locations open up again, while flags in other systems are hidden. If I need access to those locations while my ship stats is in a different system, I would create a small base in that system with a teleporter, then I could access all those flags from that teleporter in the system.

I feel like flags would be more useful to me this way than they are now. Right now to me they are already useless beyond the initial planets. After regular play, I find enough cores to satisfy all my main teleporter needs, i tend to have pixels enough to build teleporters as I find cores without much hassle. Flags are just not needed past that point. They simply become obsolete.

I tend to use teleporters in bases near mining resources, so I don't need too many of them. Besides that, I run across planets to get where I need, because it's less annoying than having a cluttered teleporter list that needs cleaning out.

 

I think that to fix the clutter, the best option would be to improve the UI so that you can filter destinations according of type (flag, teleport), planet, system, and even add the option to create groups.

About the flags, my opinion is heavily influenced by the fact that I've been playing exclusively survival in the nightly version. When you can't beam up to your ship while being underground, flags aren't that useful. If I have to walk all they way up, I might as well mine all the stuff I want on one go, so I minimize the amount of trips I have to make. Flags are still useful for quick travel on the surface, or when I'm building in a place that's hard to reach on foot, but for underground works, teleporter will be the better option.

 

So I added a teleporter in my lab and it looks su-weet!

This is why I use teleporters in my bases, because they look way better than flags.

EDIT: ...where'd the water come from? Grrr, I hate that. I wish rain was not able to spawn inside of your buildings if they are big enough that the ceiling is off-screen. Luckily, I can just hide some drains in the walls; they're thick enough to almost completely cover the drains up.

 

Flags are intended to be temporary markers anyway, so... yeah. Naturally teleporters are better, but flags are cheaper and get the job done for the time being.

 

If we could make one of these end-tier weapons that need an ore only found on dangerous planets, out of plant fiber early on, would you be fine with that? Because only if we could do that would you have an argument here. But from the looks of it, you'd love a game-breaking cheap weapon. It's okay to want such a thing, that's what mods are for. You sound really selfish and all I see is you attacking people that actually give real arguments and suggestions for this game. The flags are completely broken as they are.

Also 290 hours logged for Starbound. I never knew flags could be used this way. The rage I feel right now is exactly why it needs to be nerfed. By playing the game properly, I was making things so much harder on myself. I should never feel this way over playing the game the right way.

 

There is no wrong way to play a sandbox game. Sure, it has progression, but you go about it in your own way. That's how these games are.

 

The rage you feel right now because you never made a flag? Because you made the choice (as I did) to not craft a flag and try it out to see what it does.

And then to expand on that, you claim that no one else should be able to use flags that way because you have been missing out? If I am to understand you corectly. You are the one acting selfish and childish now. How does that logic make any sense to you?

Im in the same boat, I had no idea that flags could be used that way until this thread either. While this makes me feel kind of stupid it does not send me into a "rage" as you put it.

Since I dont like the idea of using flags this way... im not going to use them. Its that simple. Im not going to come on the forums bitching and moaning about something that really doesnt effect me all that much. And try and get them removed because of "muh feelins".

Or we could all grow up a little, and realize there might be other people in the world, and their tastes might be different. This is okay.

What is NOT okay. Is discoverong you dont like mexican food. And then going and trying to remove mexico, because no one else must like this food either.
Its spicyness sends me into a RAGE AND I CANT TAKE IT!!!

Which is honestly about what you just sounded like.

Take a moment, and think about the real reasons why you want them removed, when no one NOT ONE PERSON EVER forced you to use flags. Or to eat that spicy mexican food.

 

What? How... did you come up with THAT out of what I said?

No, seriously, I'm scratching my head here in utter confusion.

Take a steel dagger. Compare it to a steel 1h sword. Notice how they both do almost the same thing? That was the analogy I made.

Now you're saying "Flags are too cheap for what they do", but yet CF appears to think that marking a Teleport-To destination SHOULD be cheap (material-wise) and easy-to-do in their vision of the game.

Teleporters, however, are capable of circumventing (or help circumvent) several Survival mechanics, so it is a bit more expensive (but not hugely so; 3k pixels and a core that you can find nearly anywhere).

I really really don't see the problem with this. Teleport-To (but not From) appears to be something they want players to do easily and quickly and inexpensively. Teleport-FROM is something that should only be able to be done in Casual. In Survival, you can't do it underground. In Casual, well... the gameplay is... CASUAL. Derp.

Oh, and challenge modes will be variable and custom (unless they changed their minds on that). You could play Casual without the Teleport-out-of-Underground if you wanted. That would make Teleporters more valuable.

Not our fault you didn't read up on the flags or at least make one to discover what their purpose is. And what exactly is "playing the game properly", again? Not experimenting/exploring the options that are displayed right in front of your face? I bet if you had known the flags work like that much sooner, you wouldn't even be here protesting them.

 

If I recall correctly the added function of the flags was added about the time teleporters were. So not knowing that flags were teleport points before that is no big deal.

As far as what is the right or wrong way to play the game, there is none. It's a sandbox, play it how you want.

Ooh, thought, make flags have their own separate section in the bookmarks menu.

 

Until we get a separate tab for flags in the teleport menu, I just add (Flag) at the end of a location name if I plan to place a teleporter there later on (like when I mark towns/villages, airships, and castles).

 

Personally.... I think the issue(as I discussed in the new thread I made) with flags could be very easy to fix: Make flags a purely decoration item agan, and replace their functionality with a rebalanced "teleportation beacon" that "burn out" as soon as you teleport to them.
By making them such, you'd basically make the expensive Teleporters into the "waypoint portals" of your game, while you "new" Teleportation Beacon basically become the game's equivalent of a "town portal scroll": A temporary teleportation bookmark that might even allow you to teleport back to your ship multiple times, but burn out once teleported to.

With weapons using randomized stats already driving almost a bit of a "loot gathering gameplay", it would just be yet another fitting page to take

That way it would even be a good way of making them work underground because they burn out once teleported to.

Costs wise they should be cheap but still a "limited" amount of involvement work so people just don't stack 300 of them: Something like a mix of either copper and iron, or of tungsten and iron/copper, depending on where you want them to show in game progression(iron+copper though sound like a good mix if you mean them to be an early game item). Meaning you'd still have to mine out a bit for them, but the effort shouldn't be too much and someone lazy could still just buy the ore from Ursa Miner in the late game(if still bothering with such material).

On a random note.... it would be nice if (some) of the NPC villages came pre-generated with Teleporters already in, like the Outpost having it's own teleport station at the 2-way Teleshop. Not all of them, but it could be a way to bookmark some NPC villages early for when one wishes to return. It is a thought I found myself having as I encoutered recently an Apex Insurgent base in nightly and realized it already came with a flag allowing me to bookmark it. In a flag-as-decoration-again model this wouldn't be as possible, but would be easily fixed by giving (again, some, perhaps only the more "developed" town variants) them existing teleporters.

 

Eh, no thanks. I'd rather keep Flags and Teleporters the way they are now. Again, CF seems to think (and I agree) that Teleport Beacons should be inexpensive and easy to get. It encourages more planet exploration.

Suggestions like these will make players not care about planets and every planet will be a throw-away planet 'cept for 1 for a base/farm/range/whatever.

We SHOULD be trying to get players to actually care about planets they've been to, and adding MORE hassle and restriction to teleports is only going to make the problem worse, not better.

 

I think you completely missed the point of his post. Like 100%

If you reread the first couple of sentences, I think you'll get it.

 

Like other people said, you can travel from teleporter to teleporter; but cannot use flags as teleporters.

 

This post seems to be older than the 1.0 release. But pretty much describes out my reaction. So I'll revive this

First of all, this is a 1.0 release first impression feedback!

• The use of a simple flag waving in the wind, isn't intuitive at all. It was because of my habit to leave a flag behind on every planet I've landed on that I discovered this.
• This feels more of a "cheat" tool from a mod or beta release than something that belongs in a post-early-access vanilla version. (If I got it right from this topic, it is a cheat tool from a mod forced on everyone.)
• Makes the teleports and the NPC shop you acquire them from completely redundant. Sorry! The whole "you skip the extra ship load" argument just doesn't justify the cost difference (resources and placement space). And usually when you are on the surface, clicking the "warp to ship" detour button is quicker than running all the way back to your shortcut teleport.
  
• Kills the suspense of disbelief. Why do my character even have a spaceship? When (s)he can just zip about space with no fuel costs with the help of 1x teleport, interstellar communications and a bunch of cheap regular flags.

I agree with the OP that a nerf is needed. Please make it a requirement for a Flag Bookmark to show up as destination, that the player have to have bookmarked a functional teleport on (or in orbit of) the planet.
This will ..

• .. make the destination list less cluttered when the player have been a bit too generous with the flags.
• .. adds the flags as an extension to the existing teleport network rather than replacing as a cheap redundancy.

Since there is so many FU mod fans that goes all protective about this redundant feature. At least make it an optional, a setting on the world that determines the flag teleporting behavior.