[Nightly] Protection pack upgrades?

Since one of the most recent Nightly updates, protection packs now work much like bioimplant techs worked in the past - meaning, instead of creating new protection packs, you just upgrade your breathing EPP to protect you from radiation, then cold and then heat - keeping all the protection the previous ones had.

Personally, I feel it kind of takes away from protection pack's usefulness in the first place... I mean, I did prefer having each protection pack for each hazard - so that I have to prepare adequately before beaming down. Now? Isn't it both weird and boring that I can survive everywhere with just a cooling EPP, and nothing else? That's how I felt about it, at least. Then again, I understand it's meant for progression purposes? It still feels weird, to have a specific protection pack as a clearly endgame item.

 

I was a bit confused with the protection pack upgrades at first, thinking that I need to have multiple of them for the sake of each environmental hazard.

I think it would make more sense if you need separate protection packs, like from breathing EPP, you can upgrade it to either of the three upgraded EPPs.

 

The EPPs and the bioskin things have always been a bit odd in their progression. I can understand a little bit of gated progression for the planets, but after a point having to swap packs and such based on planets did get a bit tedious and annoying, as I do recall at one point them not overlapping on what they provide. And without the overlap, often ended up just sticking to planets that either didn't need an EPP and whatever ones my current tiered pack supported. So while a Fiery star often needs a cooling pack and what would be using, I'd start skipping over Jungle planets that need radiation protection and might be orbiting it just because I really didn't want to be swapping packs not to mention not as likely to find useful items on it.

 

I personally think that they should work the way they did, only protecting against one thing (and oxygen, because COME ON), but there should be augments to add extra functionality. For example, a Cooling EPP with an anti-radiation augment. If one protects from everything, then it's basically a cheat item. Might as well turn admin mode on instead, you know?

 

I like that suggestion.

Plus, it adds even more to the levity and importants of how to choose what type of augments to fit in your EPP. Especially if you find yourself wandering in various types of environment.

 

It'll be good if the backpack have augments slot that can carry like 2 or 3 slot that can be filled with different environment protection or support function like light and combat+.

Keep changing backpack is a bit annoying when you've to travel to several houses/villages build in several different environment

 

I feel that it should be a bit tiered with the top being an all in one pack... Which is how it is now. A fully upgraded EPP will allow access to any planet as is, but you really have to work for it. It's not like cheating where you don't work for it at all. But rather you earn it with hard work. The path to a fully upgraded EPP requires a lot of exploring as well as fully upgrading your inventor's table.

With that said, I would love it if you get more augment slots for each tier you craft. Like one slot for the Breathing EPP, two for Radiation, three for Heating, and four slots for the Cooling EPP. As you expand what the pack can protect against, it makes sense that the utility of the pack grows as well.

 

Yeah. I honestly don't like how the EPP upgrades work now - but mostly it's because of how it's handled.

If you really want it to be tiered, where you can only access one place after another, make it so that there's a single EPP, and then you get to upgrade it with "rad protection", "heating" and "cooling" upgrades, more in the form of cartridges and extra details on the sprite, rather than making new EEPs models entirely - although that would require a more 'generic' sprites for the EPP itself.


Here's an example of the idea. If the cooling upgrade makes it so that you have all the immunities, there's no point in making it look like a purely cooling EPP - instead make it clear that it's just an EPP with all the upgrades instead. So I can have the feel that I'm wearing a 'fully upgraded EPP' rather than a 'cooling EPP that protects me everywhere for some reason'.

 

Personally though I wouldn't be sure what to think of such a system.
I wouldn't mind "upgrades", but they would have to be "slotted" at the cost of being unable to slot something else.
Otherwise we're just doing the equivalent of going back to the old universal "I can get anywhere without any ever needed to give it any thoughts" nanoskins.

The new system is such that you now have stuff like an "Healing III" Augment you can slot in an EPP but now you need to think about -which- EPP you're going to slot that into, Because if you slot it in a breathing EPP... that means being unable to get that healing buff if you go on a radioactive planet. Meanwhile, slotting it into your radioactive EPP means not having access to that buff whenever you may need to go dive deeps into an ocean planet.

 

Perfect.....that's exactly how it should be.....upgrade to total immunity. Now to mod it so it also fully and totally covers ALL the status effects of the Fracking Universe mod and it will be beyond perfect.

 

I don't like it - I much prefer what Ludovic talked about, where you need to equip them seperately.

That being said, I think I could take the upgrade to immunity, if it was more clear that you're upgrading an EPP to have additional protection, rather than just magically turning a heating EPP into a cooling one that someone also works against cold, like it is now - it's the point I wanted to demonstrate here.

 

I was thinking they could bring it back under the new tech umbrella.
You would do a quest for that scientist which unlocks the tech and they all have the air protection.
And instead of using tech modules to upgrade it, he could just have more quests to give you the other ones.
This would also give a reason to buy the tech panel off of him to put in your ship so you can change quickly.

 

Personally I think more diversification is better. I'm a strategy nut so, I don't really care for the bland sort of tier system it's using now... Besides... All of it's already gated through what metals you can acquire... The EPP currently is just doing the exact same thing, that the crafting stations are doing... My suggestion is moving up the tiers for the EPP opens more expansions slots. Maybe all the expansion slots are for any expansion, maybe some for environmental protection and some for augments. High tier planets should have the potential to have mixed environmental conditions... Like no oxygen/radioactive. Or radioactive/firey. Etc, etc. Maybe make the augmentations removable, maybe you don't. But make it so people have to adjust, or build a pack to prepare for situations. Makes it all feel more meaningful than, "Once I have the Cooling EPP and a Regenerative III Augment, I never have to think about that ever again."

 

If things went this way, where the higher tiered planets were much more varied in what kind of effects they had, I could get behind the end tier of the EPP not protecting against everything. As things currently, the EPP is essentially just a progression gate, and as long as that is its sole reason for existing, making needing multiple tiers of it for no real reason seems silly to me.

 

Oh! I just thought of something. What if we can upgrade it like you do the Matter Manipulator? The base item grants unlimited air. From there you have to get... something that unlocks the other forms of protection as well as bonuses and augment slots. Instead of the linear upgrade path of "Collect water, then paint tool, and lastly wire tool" of the Matter Manipulator's expansion slot, each type of protection has it's own spot and upgrade tree. I'm thinking that after you get Heat protection, you can get an upgrade that reduces damage from fire, or maybe reduces time of the "Burning" or "Melting" status effects and so on. If i was good at making pictures, I would make a general mock-up, but each upgrade path would have the Heat/Cold/Radiation Protection base and branch outward from there. With each upgrade granting extra bonuses, and costing more, as you go. Other upgrade options could be increased extra augment slots, slight increases(+1%, +2%, etc.) in health, damage, energy, and armor, and other bonuses that I have not thought of.

 

This would be a great idea along with returning the temperature bar. If you didn't have the EPP augment for a certain environment, there would be a temperature bar instead of your health simply decreasing, that way, you can still survive in such a harsh condition even without the environment augment.

Like back then, to survive on extreme cold planets, you'd need to occasionally be near a campfire or else you would die.

 

For as long as environmental hazards are strictly a binary gating feature (I.E. "Do you have _____ Protection y/n? If yes then nothing happens. If no then you die"), then they absolutely should stack. I agree that this is boring, but I put it to you that just swapping one piece of gear before beaming down is no less boring.

Ideally, environmental hazards would affect gameplay in some way and total immunity would not be required to survive them but would instead be a way to side-step a challenge you don't care for. If that were the case, I'd support being able to protect from only one or two at a time, at the cost of missing out on other benefits that could be equipped.

Right now, the only of these particular environmental hazards that can be interacted with in any way is the threat of drowning in liquids, which is sadly obviated first and permanently.