Instead of just having the matter manipulator be upgraded in a linear progression, why not have customizable upgrades and adjustable stats like adjustable radius for slower manipulation speed upgrade or increased ranged in expense of giving up the light the MM gives. Maybe even race specific upgrades like humans to have a damaging MM while hylotl would have a healing one or novakids would have a flashlight attached to their MM while glitch has a unique MM that has increased radius and automatically stores all ores it gathered in inventory and so on. it could be the "talent" system that alot of rpg fans ask for. I think this will add customizability to different characters (it would also make it more "dead spacie")
i like this a lot , it would be way more useful for the matter manipulator is more customizable in that it had different parts to upgrade
I like the idea of it being nonlinear, but it should just have costs for each upgrade, not trade-offs.
The tradeoff is for balancing and the whole point of customizability is that each player has his own unique playstyle. I for one could use speed and have no light on MM, but thats just me. And I would definitly trade the light on MM for range or speed or radius. You on the other hand would probably take the flashlight upgrade or increase the light on cursor but trade it for range because thats just how you like to play.
I'm going ahead and assume the above text is for me. I want it all on the MM actually. Radius, range and mining speed. See, without range it's light becomes as useful as setting a torch in place or using any item that makes you glow (less so, even, as the MM light is very small in comparison). And without mining power I'll eventually start to constantly swap between the MM/mining tools, adding another step to mining, not to mention having to manually select a weapon in case of danger (X to swap between previously used object) And it will occupy a slot in the quickbar. I'm currently in need of another quickbar without any mining items there. The light the MM emmited was always there. I just didn't realize it was so useful until I pulled it out while underground and casually skimmed around with the mouse cursor. Because, frankly, who did that previously? If your idea is to add a tech tree on top of what the MM currently offers, then I'm on board. Like after maxing it out to the current capacity, you then had a few other exclusive options, like welding torch as a very short range but powerful cutter that breaks through obsidian with ease, or amplifty the light's radius even more without affecting mining radius. Stuff lile that. And although it is exclusive, have it so you can install another tree branch by removing the previous one and paying the upgrade cost each time you wish to do so. Not giving up any feature, just making it better than the standard tool at a particular function..
I was aiming for the tech tree on the MM, yes, but right now the main issue is that the MM is kinda useless in comparison to axe and pickaxe. My idea is that you start with the MM and quickly switch to pickaxe in the early game, and as you progress you unlock techs to upgrade your MM so that in certain cases it would be better than the pickaxe but not always. As you progress and unlock new techs (by either buying, crafting or finding ancient, long forgotten tech) it would be better than most pickaxes. So i purpose a sort of "experience" system via the pixels, most upgrades for MM cost alot of pixels to unlock in the tech tree, but worth it if you have nothing to spend your pixels on, but finding techs could yield stronger upgrades, making exploration a viable choice. This is what I had in mind: Either Buying<Crafting<Finding the techs (not always but usually) and equipping it in the MM like the powernode system in the first Dead Space. OR Spending pixels and other materials to unlock a sort of "talent" tree on the MM. For example: first tier talents cost 500 pixels each and would have either light or speed with a number of ranks to each talent, increasing it by 5%,10%,15% and so on like the old WoW talent system. Id preffer the first option to make it less RPG and more Starbound, but again thats just my opinion. As for the tradeoff, maybe have the higher, unique techs have no tradeoffs but the early to midgame techs have the tradeoffs? so the bonuses could be noticeable but not make you too overpowered in the begining.
