Core Fragment Quest: bad design

EDIT: Changed crystals to Core Fragments to avoid confusion.

I'm not in the game because I am a little fed up with an early quest that was just plain aggravating...
If I got the name of the item wrong I apologize but hopefully most of the community knows what I am referring to.

So you have to collect 20 core fragments early in the game to boot up your ship and the fragments are located near the planet's core... Being a Terrarian player and having played Starbound about a year ago I am familiar with making what is well known as a Hellevator. It is basically a singular shaft that goes straight down and is usually not meant to be used a second time so early in a character's life.

First off this is very time consuming and I feel like it could potentially put off a lot of players where one of their first experiences is to mind-numbingly dig to the center of the planet... and I had help when I found one of those campsite/base... but I knew the routine & got my 20 fragments no problem but that was the start of it... I followed the quests easily enough but I noticed a rather bad pitfall... if you don't have the items in question the quest won't complete. Make sense except for when some of these quests you have already done and are forced to do over... mine was to collect 20 more fragments.

I faced two options... spend a lot of time mind-numbingly making a new Hellevator or drop down the first one to my death while scattering dirt to use as footholds for my 3rd trip down. I chose the latter and I moved at an ok speed but definitely was not fun making this trip again.

I slipped a couple of times robbing me of my money and when I got just under 500 credits for the fuel I was one-shotted by a sniper on a "Mostly Harmless" planet... that was the last straw that made me close the game for the night & probably for awhile... It was the worst start I ever experience in Starbound and it stemmed from a quest system that is inherently flawed...

I know I ended up ranting my frustration but with all the improvements to Starbound the past year I want to see this game thrive but having an awful starting experience like that can't be good for the game... Even if you must keep this quest in at least recognize that the ship is up and running & don't punish players for not immediately following your quests in a sandbox game...

 

There are going to be two other ways to progress later, that should help considerably.
Personally I am completely sold on the idea of renting out houses to NPCs for income, allowing you to use Pixels directly to progress.

The second quest that has you searching for crystals simply gives them to you after a very Metroid-esque mission-dungeon. Which you get the quest for at the outpost, then you use SAIL to go to the instanced mission.

 

Assuming it wasn't done in some bizarre fashion that has everyone scratching their heads that sounds soooo much better...

 

after several quests you can use a nano suit tech to go to moons and harvest fuel for free, no need to purchase it

 

I did not know that but I don't see how that fixes the actual problem since the fuel is part of the questline... <.< Also the problem isn't getting the fuel it is the way the game punishes it's players for doing things too early.

 

Pretty sure the bouncy tech will let you survive a straight drop down a hellevator shaft.

 

you need the core fragments to fix the ship first before getting techs

also, the bouncy tech is glitchy as hell and randomly activates/deactivates while attempting to mash the input

overall, "do this thing that you did in minecraft and terraria" is a terrible quest and there's no real reason why it's in there

 

Your problem is that you are approaching the game from a mine craft perspective. Hellevators on not useful on this game... mazing shafts is much better, and safer, and finds you more ores. The quests are sometimes difficult because it is trying to teach you a new method to be successful at the game... not just "terraria in space".

Adapt, Learn, Prosper.

 

The dig is exceptionally long. Way way longer doing the proper mineshaft thing. They really want you to love this mediocre ball of dirt you ... crashed... above.
Would rather have a loot chest at the end of the mine shaft dungeon that has the coordinates for a core drill or some such. A much better place for a first mission. Specially one without a boss.
Then you can go explore the depths of something far more worth your time, like the desert planet.

 

Just a note, you can use 'climbing rope' to descend down slowly...

 

This is very true. Hellevators were very useful in Terraria, but for various reasons they aren't as useful in Starbound. I think it's largely because caves aren't as common, so if you just choose a random spot and start digging there's a very good chance you won't find any caves and you'll just spend an incredibly long time digging in a boring way.

Besides all the other benefits, it's also just faster to actually try to find caves instead of doing a Hellevator. You'll probably run into a dead end or two while caving, but you'll be in a better set-up to try to find another tunnel to continue your dig, and in the end it'll save you time.

 

Run caves.... I've hit cores of planets several times without really meaning to. And yea you were wrong about it wanting you to go down again.... If you read the mission text it says "I need 20 crystals BUT I CAN'T FIND ANY HERE, try going to the outpost."

 

It'll do the job about... 70% the time? Even with a 4-block wide shaft it'll spaz out and speed you along the shaft until it hits open space and then it deploys, flinging you in a seemingly random direction at HIGH SPEED.

That's only if you were careful with your mining though. If you hit a 1-block snag from an ore you missed? Poof.

Otherwise I rather like the hellevator approach. You just sit there with your mining square underneath you and see what you barrel into. Bore into a cave and branch out from there.

 

Okay, once you get your thrusters fixed, you can actually go to a moon and harvest fuel within the solar system because travels within the solar system cost no fuel, and from what I've seen, there's a moon in every system. So you can totally avoid spending pixels to complete that quest. Buying the fuel is simply an option.

^^^Exactly what I was thinking reading the original post. We play a game using previous methods from a different game, and get upset when those methods no longer apply? If you're bored with digging a hole straight down, maybe you should just stop digging straight down. I'd rather just enjoy the game. And I notice, when I'm just going about my merry business, I hit the core in no time.

I see a lot of people who are always in a hurry to get to the next part of the game, because they feel like that's where the pay-off is. "To hell with this noob planet". But once they get to the next stage of the game, they're just in a hurry to get to the one after that. Then they get to end-game, and feel like they didn't get any enjoyment out of the game, which is their fault because they never just appreciated the adventure. And, unsurprisingly, it doesn't stop them from blaming the game for their lack of enjoyment. And I see this attitude present in all kinds of games, not just Starbound.

 

Odd, there was a mine shaft on my starting planet that went most of the way down by itself...

 

The problem is that with enough bad luck, players can end up on planets with caves generated 10 minutes away from spawn, forcing you to walk in pitch black darkness to reach a cave. You're better off saving time and digging hellivators to the core since a good 500 blocks of the top layer will have zero ores. Once you find an ore deposit, then you can start mazing around. To a point, sure you can blame the players for being uninterested in the planet they were spawned on, but with the way cave generation is, I just find it like I'm punished to dig for ores. Cave generation is one of the improvements from Enraged Koala, but that was counter balanced with the lack of surface ores, bringing us back to square naught one.

 

I didn't find it that bad. I spent about 30 minutes digging for any metals I could find. I made a bunch of copper pick axes and went to town. I made sure to pick up extra crystals incase. I did however run in to some glitch on a mostly harmless planet right on warp in. Was at 1 bar of health and managed to tele out. Kinda made me laugh when I went back and looked at the planet difficulty.

 

This is objectively untrue. Every starting planet has a mineshaft dungeon that goes down quite deep, it's mandatory that it will spawn in.

 

(also, starter worlds are small, if you spend 10 minutes walking you will likely circumvent it twice, unless you stop to fight/loot everything).

 

my Hellevator took my 6minutes to build for that quest. Boring? I just finished of my breakfast while doing it