Dev Blog 13th January – My backpack is augmented

really hope hunger will continue to be worked on, rather than stay completely identical to the previous hunger system. because right now...it's just a health bar that constantly decreases, and there's no real reason to keep it topped off.
Reward players for staying well fed! Death shouldn't be the only punishment for not eating, and it shouldn't occur after only a day or so/when you aren't even moving.

If food rots, putting it into a fridge or some other cooled container to slow down the rot would also be great. Having some food (like jerky, or certain canned foods) not rot or rot incredibly slowly would also be good, but those foods shouldn't replenish a lot of health.

I like the backpack augment system - it'll be quite interesting. I do kinda hope temperature comes back in some form (Maybe in a "You need the pack to go here, but it doesn't totally mitigate the dangers of the planet" way.) and comes back better than before.

aside from that, I am looking forwards to what comes next. It seems very, very interesting...and I'm glad that hunger is an optional mechanic for those who don't want it back.

 

Do note that it's a side optio

I know right!

 

Spoilage? Dont starve!

 

Oh my god you've got to be shitting me I can't stop laughing. I make one stupid little joke about people preferring the old system over this one, and only two posts after

 

I approve very much of Survival mode. I know it's in dev currently, so moaning that hunger depletes FAR too fast is just a needless assault, however, I do want to make a slight suggestion. I feel that the whole "oh, you're hungry, now you're dying" thing is a bit silly. It's used loads for simplistic hunger/survival aspects in many games, but I feel it's wrong. Personally, I think it would be far better to have the "Starving" debuff instead just be a debuff that grows over time (time since turned Starving) and compounds effects. Sort of like a negative hunger bar that slowly builds inversely to alert you to how you stand on food.

Say you've just hit starving, the debuff could consist of "bandages now take longer to apply their healing factor" and maybe "slowed by 5%". Then 10% along the bar the debuff upgrades to "bandages are less effective while taking longer to apply the heal" and "slowed by 10%, jump height lowered". 20% could be "bandages no longer give health and you now require First Aid Kits to heal", "slowed by 15%, jump height lowered further", "damage taken increased by 10%". Etcetera, etcetera. Until 100% is outright death. I feel that's a more interesting way to tackle hunger instead of just "hunger gone, using health bar now". Food for thought. Pun not intended.

 

I do like that Idea! Because if the hunger only slowly depleted health over time, you could just live off bandages first aid kits and nano wrap bandages, till you got food supply's again.

 

I'm just wondering how the heck Tim Peake got steak, a cave and a campfire on the ISS...

 

Wow. Hunger is back! That will push some people to a great challenge! Especially when you put rotting mechanics in food!

I'll be Bear Grylls looking for space grubs in every corner. Cuz protein!

And oh! good job and keep it up!

 

That was always a problem, ever since it was first implemented. They'll fix it sooner or later.

That's not as realistic. I see what you mean, but since you're playing the character, it should be your responsibility to keep eating. Instead of the automatically eating food, there could be some way to let you know that your character is starving without the work being done for you. And let's not make it like Subnautica, where the AI keeps reminding you over and over. We need some subtle hint.

Well, food already does give off buffs, but having your character getting weaker is a splendid idea. That way, it feels less as a chore and more of something you need to make sure you can adventure as a healthy player. But what I want to make clear is hunger, thrist, and temperature are being made as a hardmode, per se. So with that in mind, let's have eating properly give you an advantage, but not keeping track of it giving you a disadvantage. And also, food and water should work together in controlling this system. I don't want players to eat food forever and give up on water (unless it's a hydrating dish). You should have to control both separately.

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Great!
I'm very happy that the hunger is back.
But when you do, please allow easier ways to obtain food. Monsters rarely ever drop any form of meat, and farming takes a while. With the way the progression has been slowed down, by the time you're able to obtain food it will already be too late.
So my thoughts are to make farming something you need to work towards first, with farming still being an early function in progression. I want to see the AI first teach you, the character, how to obtain simple food (such as meat, plants (maybe some trees can drop a form of fruit, with also catching small critters and eating them?)), and when you get far enough, you'll be able to switch to advanced forms of obtaining food, of which will be much more plentiful in the long run. I still definitely want farming to be hard, but I want it to give much better food, in also large quantities. With the simple food in my head, I'm thinking easy food to obtain just about anywhere, but it will not replenish much. For example, berries, small creatures such as mice and insects, maybe some monsters. Simple food should be JUST ENOUGH to get you by. But instead of living off of these simple foods all of the time, the character will want to use farming. Farming WILL be harder than simple food, but will replenish much more hunger and can be used to make more complex foods.
And even further in progression, you could finally be able to access animal farms. These will require a lot of work, will take a long time, but are the best food and give off many other advantages. Cows can give milk, meat, leather. Chickens can give feathers, meat, eggs. Kind of like how Minecraft does it. But instead, you'll have to feed these animals. And when they get large enough, you can breed and then kill. Obviously, this isn't a farming game like Minecraft of Harvest Moon, but since the player is stranded and has nothing, this still needs to be an option. Obviously, Starbound is supposed to be futuristic and such, but this will be a good way to get on the path of using tech and other Starbound-ish forms of awesomeness.

Let me know what you think, thanks for reading!

 

That sounds super cool! I can't wait for survival. You guys put so much work into the food and farming system, I almost feel bad for not using it much

Will there be other aspects to make Survival more difficult as well? Sometimes it feels like the game is just a little bit too easy once you get a few good weapons and armor. I'd love an option (or a mod) that increases enemy damage or spawn rate. (The most fun I've ever had with Starbound's combat system was when some sort of event made the enemy spawn rate super high. I'd hate for it to be constant, but every now and then, getting swarmed is a lot of fun.)

 

THE PENGUIN KING DEMANDS A PACK THAT PROTECTS AGAINST ACID AND POISON.

No, seriously... It was nice having the skins and all, but I quickly noticed that there were none that protected against acid rain and oceans.

...

Building that underwater base on an acid planet was not a fun time.

 

Getting rid of the implant system in favor of backpacks you might forget to equip before going down there, and also rendering my Xenon pack unusable by doing so? Adding another bar to keep full? Making my food rot? Oh, joy!

I'm so glad I got this on sale.

 

I don't know... somehow I am not really happy with the way that is going right now.

Hunger is back, but food will rott - enemies make damage on contact, sometimes weapon special functions damages the hero (like the blinking) - backpack is now obligatory (sucks for those, who find these... unfashionable).
Somehow I think a newborn hero will see the "rebirth chamber" (way) more often than a real bed... That many enemies right now... chop a tree, kill a horde, chop another tree (while engaged by the next horde)...

I am glad for all who wait for such challenges - and I am curious how it fits together in the end - but I fear I'll be too clumsy for the game to enjoy by then.

 

If a player is too clumsy, can you -- should you blame the game?

 

Is survival going to bring back the cold thing where you had to have fires? I liked that, it made exploring cold planets feel more like a trek across an Arctic climate, as opposed to being basically the same.
Or has that already come back in, its been absolutely ages since I last played admittedly.

If it's not around though, I'd enjoy seeing it feature in survival as another thing to manage.

 

A bomb's a bad choice for close range combat.

 

I think he hints that food will only rot in player inventories and food in containers should be fine.

 

That's very short. It would a lot of sense, given the short timeframe, if getting hungry did not outright kill the player. What if it applied debuffs, instead? Minus speed, minus jump height, minus damage, etc. And after a while, it could start to damage the player as well, but not outright. This would make the hunger system feel more interesting than a simple egg timer.

 

If you plan to add fridges, I can see Frackin Universe add it's own fridge that requires power to run.
I mean if you think about it real fridges needs power to even keep food fresh[until they sour over time].
Well now that I think about it wonder how large the inventory of the fridges are going to be?

I'd say have the hunger deplete shorter than normal cause a person can survive longer without food than without water.
Just saying.