New Patch: Fuel

I agree, a creative mode is sorely lacking from this game.

 

The star maps exist to serve that purpose.

 

Luckily it's a planned feature, and people who don't like the game part of the game can head on over to it.

 

That too.

Multiple mechanics for multiple playstyles, I always say.

 

It's a pacing mechanic.
It's also not the only pacing mechanic.

Terraria lasts a long time because of content available.
Starbound lasts a long time because the game forces you to grind.

There's other, better ways to increase the longevity of the game. I used this point in another thread, 1980's titles were long because of their difficulty, not because of the actual content available.

Let's assume there is no fuel. You still have to scramble from planet to planet hoping to find a gunstore. You can make this easier on yourself by using internet guides, or you could do it the hard, long way. But doing it "legitimately", it still takes a ton of time, regardless of fueling up or not.

The people who say "the game doesn't last long enough" probably also "cheat" at it.

Pretentious. Though it doesn't shock me in the slightest.

 

Grognards tend to be.

 

The developers of the game seem to think that it shouldn't be "EASY", since there IS a fuel requirement to travel to different planets.

The problem here is balance, it should take you a bit of time to get the resources to travel to a new planet. This adds to gameplay and immersion. But I agree it shouldn't take a crazy long time to get enough fuel to explore a few local planets and systems. Give the developers some time to balance this the way they seem fit, they're obviously still experimenting with the system. I am personally fine with the removal of wood as a fuel source, maybe it will be more of a problem to find coal when they fix the ore generation (insane amounts of ores in this version) but it seemed fine to me prior to last night's patch.

 

I did find myself missing that digging sound of the worms from Terraria. I know that even in Terraria those worms became a non-threat, but it did always cause me to stop and ready my weapon.

Once the underground becomes truly interesting, complete with underground civilizations and ruins and all that, maybe it'll be more bearable. I still think there needs to be more fuel options, though. Especially if we're exploring ancient underground ruins or sprawling anthill-like underground cities, maybe there could be a new ore about as common as coal (only impossible to find on the very surface of a planet) that can power the ship at twice the efficiency or something. I just feel like I need something more potent that I need less of, something that I can get without the grind and provides an adventure in the process, giving me stories to tell as I travel back to the surface.

 

A bloo bloo, someone's being mean. Anyway, trivializing a mechanic out of necessity is the same as removing it from the game. T-1 fuel is supposed to somewhat difficult to get.

I'm more of an RPG kind of guy, but TT wargames can be fun sometimes.

 

Educate yourself.

 

Before the wipe i had about 1500 coal stashed, all gathered in about 5 planets from the starting solar system. I just circled them and explored the caves, digging out only exposed veins, no extensive mining. During the course of that i also dug about 600 copper ore and only about 250 iron ore.

IMO

 

People who don't like the trial or progression part of the game can ship off to creative mode then.

 

I agree, in a way. I had far too much wood very very quickly in last patch. Also, finding coal on some alpha planets was really really hard and it never gave enough fuel. I just always used wood. A happy median needs to be found.

 

IMO, I think that putting coal into your ship should be an afterthought. I do not believe it should impede your adventure. At the same time it should not be 100% ignored. Just once in a blue moon coal should be placed into ship so you may travel to multiple planets. I do not believe the game should be made into a coal scavenger hunt every time you go from planet to planet while managing your torches and campfires. It needs a bigger ratio and the cost to travel overall should be reduced.

This is, of course, assuming Terraria has no grind to begin with....which it has. I am also certain it lasts a long time due to the years of content already put into the game. We should see in a year or so if Starbound reaches that amount of patches as well....

 

For a game called STARBOUND, I do a lot more mining than I do exploring other planets... Might as well just call this game MINEBOUND

 

Which is only 15 interstellar jumps, assuming you do not ever want to make anything made of steel, durasteel, the refined aegisalt, etc. etc.

 

:]

Yeah, wood probably isn't the best choice, especially with the realization that it's probably going to become renewable.

The heart of the problem is finding fuel to get to a new planet is a chore, when it needs to be part of the adventure. Making the underground more exciting would help, and is something no one can really argue with, but increasing the ways to get fuel would help more. I don't want to feel like I HAVE to go adventure underground just because I need more fuel. I need to do it because I want to freakin' adventure.

Using Minecraft as an example again, you could burn anything so long as it was wooden in order to cook or smelt materials. Some things burned quicker, others burned longer. Starbound could do something similar. There could be a crafting station (as that would require the player to build up to it first) that allows you to synthesize new fuel. Maybe you have to craft it with the metalworking bench, using relatively common materials, so you're at least past the first boss. I'd personally like to see it happen sooner, but it might make more sense to introduce it at this point as tier 2 (at the beginning) feels a lot like tier 1. It would sorta be this breath of fresh air as the shackles of your limited fuel supply feel less constricting.

But there are probably other solutions to this too. As it stands, though, the system is far from perfect.

 

I see a lot of people who are essentially saying "I like the new change, so the rest of you are wrong". I see another group of people who say the opposite. The best way to satisfy both parties is to implement the Mr. Fusion idea that someone suggested. If the "hardcore" types want to mine for coal only to power their ship they can, and if the other group wants to destroy all the vegetation to fuel their ship they can.

It would be really interesting if there were environmental repercussions for both actions, especially if the other life forms on the planet objected to you destroying their planet's ecosystem or poisoning them with mining related pollution.

-Matt

 

Maybe 4 flight tiers instead of 3, 1 from planet to moons, 10 from planet to planet,, 50 between systems, and 200 between alpha beta gamma sectors. 5 coal to go to another planet sounds fair. Also I had max fuel with max slots of wood, took maybe 2-3 hours to do just because I could. I only had about 1k coal with fairly consistant coal mining.

 

The problems with using wood as fuel is that currently trees do not regrow, and many people were just flying to random forests and ruining the ecosystem with deforestation