Early-Game too Slow?

This is just my opinion, of course, but in playing the current nightlies, it's a chore beyond comprehension to actually make any progress at first. I've just used admin commands to blast through it. Here are my thoughts as to why that is.

Over my several characters I've created since getting back into nightlies, I haven't really seen any copper or iron ore on the surface, or even relatively close to the surface. To elaborate, on two of my characters, I had over 400 coal before I even had enough iron to make an Iron Anvil.

Prior to this, in the stable update, there is quite a bit of copper or iron rather close to the surface. I don't have to waste time digging down too far, or drowning in darkness and wasting all my coal on torches just to find my way around, but in the nightlies, that feels much more necessary, which goes against the statement that was made awhile back, declaring that there would be many different ways to play the game, based on how you'd like to progress through the game (The same discussion about being able to rent out space to villagers for pixels, etc.)

Furthermore, the Matter Manipulator may eventually evolve into a useful tool, but as of the beginning of the game, it's much slower than the stable pickaxes that are available from early on. Sure I could get a few copper pickaxes and use those, but that requires, once again, digging deep enough to actually get the copper required to make the pickaxes. (Not to mention, copper pickaxes, while speedy and convenient, are far too inefficient for me to actually want to use, they break in ~60 seconds.)

I'm not sure if this was an intended change. Perhaps the Garden that my universe spawned was just lacking in resources, perhaps this was all intentional and while I don't like the direction it's gone in, others do. I guess I'm just asking for other opinions on the matter, what are your thoughts or experiences with low tier gameplay? I haven't really gotten to experience high tier gameplay either, since using admin commands makes me feel a bit lost, and then I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing anymore since I'm not used to the new progression path.

 

Word of advice. Go UNDER GROUND. in less than half an hour I had 200 iron and about 40 copper bars >_>

 

It's intentional. The availability of ore deposits on the surface was changed due to a large amount of feedback claiming that players didn't really have any particular reason to dig further down than the surface.

 

I suppose it's inevitable, then. I figured that would indeed yield ore, but considering how.. bland underground is, it's a bit disappointing. I know they do plan on adding more dungeons and whatnot underground, but as it is, it's just dangerous, dark, and slow to navigate through.

 

You'll be happy to know that more things are coming to the underground

http://playstarbound.com/dig-a-little-deeper/

 

Packrats like myself though would mine down anyways just to get plenty for the future.
Yeah, it's a bit empty down there most of the time

 

400 coal before about 20 iron?

Gotta agree, go and dig, Sweet Emperahr of da Spess Mahrines, dude.

My advice regarding torches, is just deflorest the surface, 400 coal can give you more than enough torches if you just get some wood.

Just dig, it sint that bad, and they ae workin on making some realy cool stuff underground, just give it a shot.

 

MY TORCH IS MY SHIELD,MY PICKAXE IS MY SWORD

 

At this point I'd throw in a "I thought I was playing Starbound, not Earthbound" joke, but fair enough, you all do have a point. One of the things I originally liked about Starbound was that it was pretty challenging, so asking for them to basically make progression free and effortless does indeed seem a bit unreasonable. My only other complaint would be that, at least for my garden, it feels like it's night more than it's day. Maybe they're actually equal but since I enjoy the day more, it passes faster, but just an observation. I'm making my way underground at the moment and haven't really found anything notable but here's to hoping I will.

 

sry for my dumb question... but how can i craft a pickaxe? oO i dont see this in the craftingtable. (sry for my little english ^^)

 

not again yclatious...

 

I personally like the fact that ores are more scarce, if you look at the stable version you can get the next tier gear within minutes. Finding valuable resources feels like more of an accomplishment in those scenarios. I like that I have to search and work more to move on, but that's just my opinion I know others prefer to move through game progression more quickly. If I am remembering this correctly I believe the reason we had such an abundance to begin with was so players could progress quickly and then they would have access to all the games features and thus be able to give feedback on bugs and such from all parts of the game. If they had made it scarce to begin with then most of the feedback would have been centered around early game content and easily accessible features.

 

Even in death I surf

 

Except they went the exact opposite route and made it mandatory to explore the boring, bland undergrounds to make any meaningful progress. This just shows that CF needs to find a happy medium of the two extremes by having some copper and iron on the surface with there being much more the deeper you go.

Perhaps you'd like to dig for Copper and Iron in the Cave of the Past? Just watch out for the boss at the core, I hear he's pure evil.

 

I would agree that digging is still a bit tedious especially now that the matter manipulator's size/power cannot be upgraded until after you have repaired the ship's FTL drive, which is after you have crafted your 2nd tier of armor. Tier one felt ok because you really don't need a whole lot of iron for the anvil and iron T1 gear, but crafting the alloy furnace, metalworks station, and the 3 pieces of steel armor all in succession really starts to feel grindy. It would be fine if there were other things to occupy your time along the way, but there's not very many meaningful things to do pre-steel.

 

It is a bit grindy, but after 1 1/2 hours of underground digging.... I had my 20 core fragments, ~200 copper, ~300 iron, ~150 silver, ~100 gold, ~100 platinum, ~20 diamonds, and ~200 coal. Not a bad haul.

The trick? Don't stop until there is at least a good clump of ores. Just push through, and keep going down. I found a few good weapons and vanity items in chests down there too. Try to cover as much ground as you can, only dig down when you need to.

 

I'ts better to surf for the emperor than surf for yourself.