Lantern Stick Nerf

Er... why are you carrying around that much wood and coal, and why is this impacting your inventory? Are you not dropping things off in the ship, or in any of the storage devices available to place in the ship?

Cuz... I find my torch supply (almost always in the triple-digits) takes up a whopping one slot in my hotkey bar. And I always make sure I've got a lot before I even begin to dig. I don't carry "spare" coal or wood; that's in a crate in the ship. Pretty much any planet I hit, my inventory is restricted to the essentials in my hotkey bar, leaving lots of room for as much loot as I could hope to carry. (I also take care to frequently trash the dirt/cobblestoine/etc tiles as they start filling up.)

 

Between monster drops, chest loot, the chests themselves, blocks I've mined, ores I've mined, furniture from the mini buildings underground, drops from slain guards from dungeons/settlement, my collection of Ores, Bars, and Materials I carry in the material bag at all times, I usually come out of a planet with maybe one slot open.
Maybe.

 

Can we keep on topic please instead of questioning why people don't have same play styles as you.

Lantern on a Stick not useful.
Directional light tech not useful.

I think these two need to be amended to bring them more in line with how mining picks were discarded in favor of the futuristic tool upgrades you get. I don't know why people would continue to use torches after they have upgraded their technology from chopping trees and making sticks of fire to replicators and exotic plasma weapons.

If anyone has any other suggestions for items regarding lighting that need review please feel free to add.

 

I was tempted to get the directional light tech today because I thought that it surely had to be better than the Lantern on a Stick.
I'm glad I opted for something else instead after reading this thread.

 

Lantern on a stick is useful to spot immediate threats in darkness. But people just remember how they used to use it for mining and complain about having to adapt and use the MM instead. I unlocked directional lighting but it doesn't even seem to work for me so I won't comment. If I need a bright light source, I use my flashlight.

 

Win.

Coal isn't a fuel source for ships anymore. What do we do to use up all the coal? Make torches. Even with modern technology it's cheaper to burn a rag on a stick than manufacture a modern light. Torches will always make sense and be the "go to" lighting option. Unless we get to carry around a pixel printer and pop out lights out of nothing, which would work in s sci-fi game I guess. You could always turn that coal into pixels and then use the printer on your ship to buy a bunch of cheap lights to use when mining instead of torches.

There's LOTS of options.

The Lantern Stick could still use a range boost though maybe.

Edit: LoL just noticed we Can't refine coal into pixels. Torches it is then.

 

Floran not even need lantern ssstick now. Jussst ussse manipulator.

 

Go grab the Your Starbound Crew. The first crew member you rescue can give you a very powerful flashlight and an easily obtainable and upgradable Wall-scanner that when fully upgraded, highlights like, well, I think at least a 20x20 amount or so. It's absolutely huge and it lights up whatever it's placed over, making finding ore deposits and massive drops from digging down much easier.

 

Look up the Portable Pixel Printer. It's craftable at the Research Station after upgrading your ship. Once you craft it and use it, you will get a bunch of new recipes that only costs pixels in your basic crafting window. A light costs 100px, so yes, you can make light out of practically nothing. It's still cheaper to make torches though.

 

Personally, I would love to see some upgrades to the back lantern as you progress through the tiers. Right now I just use Yellow Stims (yay, getting toxic waste from radioactive trees!) + the lantern on a stick (I feel that they amplify each other to some degree) while digging, using absolutely no torches because I don't want to spend more time mining than I have to. That's really the whole point of upgrading anything digging-related in this game; the upgraded MM lessens the time needed to mine the ore you need. More convenient light sources (brighter torches/lanterns-on-sticks, etc) would be achieving much the same goal. I feel like torches should be necessary at first but become obsolete later in the game.

 

Better question would be why there is no more items that can give you light?
Mining helmets - nah.
Some other light items that can be used in back slot - nah.
Alone in the dark or torches. GG.

 

As long as Starbound doesn't become Doom 3, I think players will find ways to enjoy it. That being said, I think their current iteration could be improved, even if I will find ways to get through it.

 

Hm. That last part has me chin-scratching. I can't say I've ever come across a situation where I felt I needed to be carrying a supply of crafting materials on-hand, just the stuff I found on the trip.

And chest loot, well, I'm fairly selective in a few key areas that helps me manage personal inventory... particularly weapons. I'll throw away just about anything white-bordered, and green had jolly well better be above a certain DPS or else it goes bye-bye. Most common enviro-dirt gets tossed, since I can easily replace that with a dedicated trip.

I also tend to save my "take everything in the town/dungeon" sprees for dedicated instances where I've completely cleared out my inventory as much as possible in anticipation for that.

I dunno. I guess I just decided that torches were a permanent addition to my hotkey bar and something I'd be constantly adding to as I go, so it's not been a big issue for me, inventory-wise.

 

One thing I hate about the Lantern Stick is that when your digging straight down with a low-tier MM and your back is against the wal, the light works even less. I wish there was an easier way to light up the area without having to hold anything.

 

Here is a tip for underground if you only want to use Lantern stick, and not torches. Just use the MM's square it will show you a blue light where you have it selected. This method normally finds ores outta reach of even a torches light. That said monsters will still be an issue. So watch out!

 

I've personally always found the lantern stick and flashlight to be... insufficient. Useful, but far from all you need to identify ores. Thankfully, my mining playstyle is actually easier now, since flamethrower pistols are now more common. Best light source in the game, in my opinion.

independent of the flashlight, because I could only ever find the things in assault rifle form:

Combined with both the lantern stick (I just throw the santa bag over it in the social slot) and the flashlight, since I'm always drowning in flamethrowing machine pistols these days.

...and I also use that MM trick once it's fully upgraded, to look far deeper into the rock than I otherwise could.

Still, I find the lantern stick useful for basic navigation (seeing myself and the floor I'm on beats seeing nothing), and I find the flashlight useful for spotting terrain features and hostiles... so long as they're not hiding behind said terrain features :\

 

The plasma pistol is better, white light, pretty much whole screen, infinite range.

The problem is, considering how they are nerfing containers left right and centre. The light projected by those weapons will be next on the list unless we point out our opinions with the lack of lighting in the game you will soon be left in the dark with your flame and plasma pistol as well.

 

...what? No, really, what?

Aside from the fact that more containers GAINED storage space, and significantly so, I cannot even begin to fathom the logic leap here from containers to light sources.

 

Well, I came home to an 800MB update and when I logged back in my 60 slot lockers turned into 32 slot lockers. My 16 slot lockers turned into 9 slot ones. All my hoarded items in those lockers got thrown out and were deleted while I panicked to save my items. The only containers I had that didn't change in size were chests, which aren't stackable.

 

I would like to see some kind of new craftable back armor/suit,
like a light source as seen in several movies, where the people have some light sources on their backs of their space suits.
Maybe they could drain energy a little bit and you could turn them off and on.