Request: Remove previous tier equipment from recipes...

Hey there, absolutely loving the game so far and it's already getting better by the day with patches

The biggest problem I have at the moment is with the crafting system. To be fair to Chucklefish, they've already patched the largest issue (requiring inordinate amounts of pixels in recipes) out of the game, so firstly, thank you for that.

My only gripe now is that you require the previous tier of equipment to craft the next one up. For example , to craft a silver pick axe, the recipe requires a copper one...or when crafting the first racial armour, you already need the copper chest/grieves for it.
This just seems a bit odd to me; if I have all the required mats I'd need to make a pick, I shouldn't really have to sacrifice more materials to craft up to that point . I shouldn't have to burn all that copper, silver and gold ore if I already have enough diamonds to make a diamond pick.

What makes this even more frustrating is that it bleeds into my multiplayer game. Whilst I could live with this in single player, destroying an older piece of equipment means I cannot give it to a friend to use. If I crafted a diamond pick, I would have given my lower tier, gold one to a friend to help them out, or a piece of cool looking armour they wanted because I just got something better.

I know it's only a little thing, but (for me personally) it's turned into a big bummer. It seems to me (as wholly uneducated in game design as I am) that it's not a difficult thing to remove from the game, especially with balancing ore distribution and costs all over the shop at the moment.

Thank you everyone if you read this, and any input would be greatly appreciate. Hope the devs see this and see what they can do

 

Yeah, it seems a bit illogically for me.
Maybe, you can try to scan every tool and armor and then print it if needed.

 

Having this gives the game a little more longevity, it stops huge item leaps, take Terraria for example, once you have an obsidian skull thing you can basically hellavator down and jump straight to molten given some good dodging skills.

Requiring the lower tiered items stops the rush, it encourages people to actually upgrade tier by tier, which given the difficulty jumps in this game is by no means a bad thing.

 

Tell that to the platinum tier, there is nearly no platinum in this game

 

That doesn't really take into account that once on a multiplayer server, once one person gets the better pick, all the others will just bunch up on him whilst he tunnels his way to victory. At least if they could get a better one they're more likely to branch off and find their own thing. It just seems sill to destroy a perfectly good pick when the material costs are so high.

 

I think it helps to dwindle down your lower end resources that are sitting there stockpiling, item creation is more technical this way.

 

I like using the previous tier armor. My only complaint about it is how the Floran's Scout armor (I assume it has iron armor) has to be made from copper, but silver must also be made from copper. You have to skip the entire iron level if you want to get decent armor for your amount of resources. It was more efficient for me to make a silver pick and pants, than upgrade to iron. I just think it's a bit of a waste. Since I was given extra iron armor, I'm not having to create a new copper set for my silver, but I can see how it would be annoying to go from copper to iron, then copper to silver. But I do like the idea behind it.

 

While I can see it being a burden if it's in the case of sharing hand-me-downs, I also see the benefit of it. For those who don't share, they'll have a useful way of getting rid of old gear. It also makes sense to take your previous item and "upgrade it" to the next level rather than flat out making a higher tier armor right off the bat. It also makes it so people take steps rather than leaps, which I feel was a huge problem in other sandbox crafting games where one could just skip equipment. This makes it so that all sets can't be skipped, they have a use, and it's more logical to upgrade rather than flat out create. So while it's very unfriendly to people who like to share, there is a reason it exists.

Regarding multiplayer and people following one person who gets the goods...Well that person can always leave the planet and go elsewhere while they fight over each other. I would like to see player spawns be randomized within a small fixed location so people don't bunch up on one quickly dying planet, but are also still close by.

Until you hit gold in tier 2, it's not that bad. After you get into tier 3, gold gets much more common.
Don't even get me started on Platinum...

Dig down to where you're above the core of the planet (about a screen off) and you'll come across a good range of ores and vein sizes.