So... things that should change...

Immediately off the bat, this game is annoying with how long it takes to harvest simple things like trees and stone for not much return. I think that needs to be sped up ever so slightly, because right now it just feels way too long.

I'm hungry... that's cool... except the only way to get food is to use some crappy bow that's difficult to aim when the creature is charging at me left and right... or there's two of them... and then I do it and the creature didn't even drop any meat. Is that the kind of game this is going to be? Realistic, and then not so realistic?

Every creature should drop ingredients for food in some form or another (main ingredients, cooking components like fat?) for some multi ingredient foods. Other crafting items can still drop irregularly (like leather) since there isn't some ridiculous limitation on what weapons you can use to get it.

If not, then the length of time it takes to become hungry needs to be tweaked, because if I'm not getting food from every drop, it's likely I'm going to be spending the majority of my time at the start of the game trying to farm food, getting hungry, and dying because I don't have any. It also doesn't heal me either.

Mouse-wheel when the little raygun placer thing is active should adjust the size of the area I'm working with (4 blocks, 1 block, 2 blocks, etc...)

 

Make a pickaxe, or an axe. This will GREATLY speed up your mining.

 

I can help! You can craft specialized tools(pickaxe/axe etc) that does stuff like chopping trees and such faster. Pretty neat actually.

Also, holding shift with the matter gun(or any tool really) will make it only affect/place one block at a time.

I agree the hunger stuff needs work. I would suggest making a tower to snipe monsters safely. I would also like an easy to see bar to tell me what my hunger is at rather than something that pops up every so often.

 

1) Makes some tools
2) Make a cooking table
3) Do some farming

 

What do you expect, gathering everything in 4 ticks? Be happy that atleast it lets you dig 3 x 3 squares and not each individual block seperately.

Get better at the game man, food is so easy to get, build yourself a home, place a door, charge up your bow, open the door, fire it and then close it again. Repeat that and you will get a lot of meat in no time.

Agreed with the mousewheel option though.

 

Simple trick for food.
Get seeds. The seeds can be input into the 3D printer on your ship and synthesized with Pixels.
A small farm goes a looong way.

If you desire meat, hit the enemies with your sword and finish with bow.

 

Could you go a little more in depth into farming? I've collected a few seeds, planted them into tilled soil, and they grow but... when I break them I only get a seed again. How am I supposed to expand my farm or collect grown crops to eat? Thanks!

 

Don't break them, press e

 

I want it all.. And I want it instantly!1!1!"! one one !! exclamationmark

I'm not sure why you would pick a "survival" game if you don't like the tedious tasks of harvesting / gathering slowly in the beginning.. It's just how it is, and should be.. before long you'll have better tools =)

 

Yes, you are all video game gods and we should bow to your glory. Especially shooting then hiding behind a door. That takes skill and sounds like a blast.

Anyhoo, I haven't played yet but I have been watching my girlfriend play for awhile and there is definitely a problem with the meat drop rate.

She managed to get a stack of nearly 20 leather without a single drop of meat. If that sounds right to you than you don't know shit about hunting. There is always meat.

Also, the screen gets really white during a frost. I watched her freeze to death, not really knowing what the hell was going on due to a lack of being able to see anything.

And she was pretty pissed when she killed the bandit shooting at her, and he didn't drop his gun. For balancing purposes I can understand this, but it does kinda suck.

Lastly, no intro was played when she created her character. She made an avian, if that makes any difference.

 

I hope we will eventually get a upgraded manipulator, because the starting item is sloooow. I don't mind the slowness, because of the special tools, but Id love to have a better multitool at some point to save space and feel awesome.

I disagree on the bow being hard to use. Once you know how your enemeis are moving, it becomes easy to hit with it. There are some enemies that are not good to hunt with it, because they are super quick, but on my planet9/10 of creatures can be killed ok with the bow.

Regarding meat, I agree that this drops too infrequently. 100% chance on one meat per creature would be appreciated. Regarding leather: is there even a use for it right now? I have not found a recipe that uses it.

THe game also needs better feedback about hunger and cold, those things do blindside you easily.

 

I actually haven't noticed to much issue with the hunger bar (in the couple of hours I have played it so far, the bar actually decreases incredibly slowly). Though, I do wish it at least showed the bar pop up again when you ate food just to acknowledge that it did something.

And on harvesting speed of blocks, as others have said, use specialized tools. They make things go a whole lot quicker. The first axe you can make will cut down trees insanely quicker than trying to use the quantum manipulator... tool thing you start off with.

 

The better version is called a pickaxe, you can make it within 10 minutes.
As for frost, it's clearly showed in bottom middle, the sun icon means warmth, which some clothing provides. When you start freezing, drop down a campfire.

 

Gee, thank you for that. Here, have a condecention cookie, you seem to need it.

What I meant was a upgraded version of that specific tool. With the same look as the tool and upgraded fuctionality. So able to chop trees, items and blocks and quicker then a pick/(axe/whatever. It is a space game and while I enjoy the idea of fighting my way up the technology tree, I hope that at the top I am greeted by a more futuristic item then a pickaxe made of diamond or neutronium ir whatever.

The frost bar shows a sun icon and people who are new to the game have been confused by it. You can see this in the totalbisquit episodes for example. I personlly knew what it was sicne I have followed the game for a while, but that does not mean that the implementation right now is perfect.

The food bar, wich I also mentioned but you chose to not talk about, seems to only come out when the stars are right. It should show up when I have food in hand at the very least, so I can know if eating the food wouldbe a good idea or not.

 

I think a lot of people need to chill out when it comes to people having an issue with pacing. Remember, some of us don't plan on playing this on ROFLCopter God Mode later and what a more casual experience even in a survival game. Right now the beginning really is a slog, especially if you are used to games like Terraria or new to survival games all together. It shouldn't be instantaneous, I haven't seen a single person suggest that. But I've been playing for three hours and have had issues with the pacing. Remember, we are super excited for this game, so we are all blazing through, but the first ten minutes is really going to define this game for others and if it isn't engaging (and I don't think it is) they will never pick it up for real.

I will back up that the beginning is very slow, for me there are very few ores within regular walking distance and it took me an hour to get two iron. I have plenty of copper but had to spend most of it on a cooking table. Some enemies drop nothing, not even pixels and given most can kill me in a few hits, it gives little incentive to explore. Now that I have a tent and an extra camp fire I might head out resting and recooping every so often. The sun icon, though it makes sense once figured out can be confusing. I first thought it was referring to light and my character was going mad in the dark (ala Don't Starve). Maybe a little camp fire instead is a good idea?

Perhaps enemies should drop fewer pixels, but also drop meat/leather regardless of weapon. That defines the bow not as a hunting instrument but rather simply as a ranged weapon. I don't really get why this distinction is in there, the bow is practically useless from a combat perspective. Get a few ranged popshots, enemy charges into melee and then you either switch to a melee weapon and lose the meat drop chance or start doing the dull routine of back-peddling.

 

Well, it appears you do only get leather from killing things with a bow. Oh well. Like TheUnArtist said, getting leather doesn't really seem to be that difficult. It's meat that's crazy rare for some reason.

You all were right about the pickaxe. I was able to make one and that makes things go a lot faster... but still, I have a spaceship, and this cool lasergun, and yet I have to make stone tools to do anything? Come on... =/

Like DasRav suggested, I would think pickaxes, axes and the like should be vanity tools if you want to "live the part" of someone without this magical sci-fi tool that does everything. It should be upgradable or have tiers, like you insert ore into it and that upgrades it, or whatever. Maybe even have some upgrades you can spend pixels on to add different effects to it, like larger, toggleable, mining area, or farther mining distance, etc etc.

And speaking of pixels, I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind that. Maybe a currency, sure, but the fact that I have to spend pixels to upgrade my items? What? Is that a mechanic to force me in to doing something I would already be doing anyway? Doesn't make any sense to me, and seems like a useless limitation. Pixels should be used to buy expensive things on some space station or whatever when you find some super advanced alien race. I dunno, just throwing out ideas.

Anywho, the game is a lot easier now that I've figured out a lot more about it, but that start is still pretty rough. I guess that's just the way it goes.

Also, check out my mountain of copper.

**Ooo, and a mountain of this mysterious coal. I love finding these.

 

I'm having problems everywhere. I made a post earlier about my awesome purple planet with it's cloud trees & night fog. Now I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's killing me.. I've quit the game quite a bit so I haven't exactly made it through one night yet. I'm easily distracted.

Anyways, the past couple of times I've returned to my save it's night, it's normal, & I either hang out in my hut, or go out hunting, probably not so smart.

Eventually this thick awesome add to the reason of naming this planet Purple Haze fog rolls in & my player starts coughing, shortly thereafter I start being poisoned out the wazoo & my health drops me dead in less then three seconds. I saw a bunker earlier so I thought I might need shelter but no such luck, I died there too so I start looking around for protective gear, on the planet, my ship, etc nothing.

Is it normal in the beginning for your ENTIRE PLANET to try & kill you in dead of night?

 

So, what you're saying is it's a good idea to have pixels (that you lose on death) be used for important early game items?

 

I could have sworn pixels were also used for the 3d printer on the spaceship.... can't quite remember on that part. But aside from that so far the pixels seem like they are used as a currency, and also used when crafting weapons.

 

hmmm I have not ran into this before, my starter planet had green slime with pools of acid midway to the core