The New Cold/Heat/Radiation Protection System.

I like the inclusion of nano-suit tech, that means that I'm still able to wear the combat-protective gear that I wear while exploring extreme environments. However I don't really like the complete removal of the temperature system, and the linear upwards progression that it follows.

From what I've seen so far:
- O2 = Harmless to moderate
- Rad = Risky
- Cold = Dangerous
- Heat = Extreme

It feels like the O2 suit acquisition should unlock the quests for the other three. However I feel like the other three should be unlocked as mid-long term perks down the line; i.e. starting from a basic rad-suit, to fallout armor, to nanosuit, which with each tier of environmental protection, allows you to stay longer and longer on each "extreme". Would be fairly interesting if later tier suits end up making use of the extremes instead of protecting against them "high-tech rad suits give you near infinite energy in a radioactive planet" comes to mind.

On another note, since each suit has O2, why not just have it as a permanent tech in which the other suit-types go over it?

 

Fires very much limited fighting, building tall structures, and digging straight down.

Perhaps a compromise. Maybe at the beginning of the game, you need clothing and stuff. But nearing the endgame, you have the option to unlock the techs using blank tech cards?

 

Things are getting confusing here. What I meant to type was that because they were in the game, that was a selling point toward survivalism. I think you're getting wound up over nothing and at this point, we're arguing semantics when the fact remains that the earlier updates had survival aspects in them that were core to the game experience and have since been nerfed. That was my point. You're not even arguing about the game now... you're arguing with my posts. You can't argue that the earlier builds of the game had more robust survival mechanics because they did. It's fact, it doesn't matter who said what. You're dragging this argument out wayyyy past what we were originally talking about just to try to make me look bad because you disagree with my posts. I really think that if you're being driven 'insane' over minor forum discussion that you should probably just take a deep breath and realize that nobody is out to get you, I'm trying to talk about the game here. You even have agreed with me that they should be in the game but still continue to shadow my posts so it has become completely inane at this point.

To have released the game last year with those features and talk openly about how the game would have hunger and protective suits means we all thought that was going to just be how it worked. Revoking those things is a huge change and I can't understand why you feel it necessary to argue with that. Removing them was a huge blow to immersion. The only point that I was trying to make was that we all got used to those systems because they were pretty big parts of the gameplay experience and they have almost completely been removed from the game. I wasn't angry, I wasn't offended, I didn't insult the devs or anyone here, so I can't see how you think you've got good reason to continue to argue with me.

 

People keep referring to the old temperature system as challenging and the new one as easy. There was nothing challenging about it. It was cumbersome. To me anything that promotes having to wait is bad gameplay. Craft various types of gear that you have to swap just so you can explore different planets, stay by a fire for X seconds each Y seconds. Even on paper it sounds terrible to me.

If it was something like, you have to run from lit point A to lit point B before you freeze on the way, that's nice gameplay, but it's not the case, so no. New system is better.

I will agree the game is currently too easy though, but that's just because the enemies aren't challenging.

 

Well, old system sounds OK to me. I guess it could get better with some tweaking - low temperature with the right protection on player side should be a threat after long exposure in the open. But it still should be a threat IMO. Tech protection is fine, but is all-or-nothing only good approach? I'd gladly see tech with several upgrades per hazard (which would give much more incentive to pursue upgrades and would provide variety of experiance).

 

Meh.

I just waited until T8+ and used that armor.

Cold? I walked around on Ice Planets with no cold meter. At night without a care in the world.

Basically, the old way of doing it, people simply avoided the content altogether until their T8+ armor protected them, THEN they went and did it.....if they were that interested in seeing the sights.

We want people to experience the content, not skip it until the game offers powerful equipment that gives you an easy way to overcome it.

Did I stick leather gear on and get my butt horribly murdered in 2 hits by the fauna? Nope! I skipped Snow/Ice Worlds altogether.

 

I don't disagree with your posts at all.. That was my point from the very beginning which you don't seem to grasp. I agree with everything you're saying, just not how you're saying it. I said that right in my first reply to you...

It wasn't good because it was challenging. I don't think anybody's saying that. It' not *hard* to place 18 bajillion torches, it's *immersive*. We didn't like it for the challenge (wait mechanics for difficulty are bad programming, you're right), we liked it for the immersion.

I along with quite a few of my friends went to cold planets ahead of time because we found them enjoyable. If you want to wait until you hit end-game, then good on you. End-game should turn true sandbox with practically unrestricted movement anyways to facilitate the sandbox aspects, but building up to it there should be different environments with different ways of pulling a reader into the world. If you want to skip them that's up to you, you hit them later. It's not as if you lose access to them just because you decide to hold out until you don't have to work within the immersive content.

 

"Immersive", I liked it.

I would like to add that nowadays the possibilities in games are huge and what problem to innovate? I mean, we grew up playing awesome games where certain things made no sense at all:

- A world where ALL monsters born from eggs (cows, whales, mouses? EGG), has powers that can't be explained by science but still never rebel against the humanity;
- A land full of dinosaurs and turtles where Italian plumbers (made in Japan) has the mission to save a princess, a human princess from a MUSHROOM kingdom;
- A world where a single blue (and naked) hedgehog is the fastest living creature and is accompanied by a yellow fox (also naked) that keeps spinning his two tails to fly (but never has a KNOT). And all for what? To save slow animals!

You see, even the name "Nanosuit" makes no sense.

Nano = Extremely small.

And if these suits have nanorobots to explain this, so anything is possible for them! (Including a single suit that would receive upgrades to become immune to everything as I mentioned earlier.)

... Why one or two things can't make sense at least once? /insaneragequit

 

I don't necessarily need things to make sense. Campfires on the moon. That being said, having some things there to help you identify with your character would be nice. As of now with the new changes I feel totally disconnected from the character and the game world. It's just mine, build armor, do dungeon, upgrade ship, go to new world I couldn't go to before, rinse and repeat. There's absolutely no variation and nothing to draw me into the world to enjoy it.

Also, on a naughty/punny note, as a canine boy I'm sure Tails gets a knot plenty often especially with cuties like Cream around.

 

C'mon... I'm not saying that ALL needs to make sense. That would make the game ridiculously unbalanced judging each race aspects.

I'm a robot. I don't need food, bathroom and why do I keep suffering with severe temperatures? On the other hand I'm immune to water and hackers, lol.

Still, I support the temperature & hunger meters as "immersive features" (I really liked this word).

 

I was afraid of the dumbing down early on....SEE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE casuals....see it......ruining games......

 

The biggest problem with the survival features is that, unlike games built around it entirely, like Don't Starve, The Long Dark, and perhaps the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, hunger and temperature only had an impact in the beginning of Starbound. Once you got higher armor tiers, temperature was no longer an issue, the Survival System back-piece gave you oxygen, and you could have super farms growing all the ingredients you could want. It's just not easy to balance a survival system in a sandbox game like Starbound. In order to be meaningful, they would have to continue to be relevant the entire time a character is being played, but you can't make hunger rise too fast, that just screws with exploration for new characters, as established characters will have their mega farms to handle it.

 

I've always thought it was just Sandbox Elements, which is slightly different. Not every thing needs to hold throughout the game. The beginning is to get setup and the like so later you would not have to worry about such things later. So with hunger being not a problem later on just means you have built enough to sustain yourself +. There doesn't need to be end game for hunger being more prominent, as it is just something one has to take heed to early on.

As for the notion of hazards/weather/environment that too eventually should be accomplished to be nullified or greatly reduced in the end. This one is probably more tricky to do than hunger, since it relies on various possible hazards. Hunger is only 1 in essence. So by end game it does stand to reason that people should have the best protection by that time or close to it, as they have already gone through the hazards set forth. As it is now there is no such premises of it due to 100% or none with the way techs work with it at this instance.

Overall I see this game as an adventure exploration game. Adventure is different for everyone, however the only thing of adventure that is even in is long drops and combat; at least how it feels to me, especially with the hazards/suits being as they are. It makes it almost non-existant in that respects. Anyway this is just how I see it so far...

 

You see it as a problem, but I'd say it is the opposite. It fits perfectly with metroidvania style of gameplay: there are areas that are dangerous at first, but you get motivation to progress from the will to develop your hero so that once deadly grounds transit to just unfriendly, and in late game to become harmless. It's great and it's intended. Futhermore this approach is present in the game at this very moment. But in the current form environmental hazards are just too binary and take something important away from the gameplay... at least for me and several other people that wish old system returned in some form.

 

People have been requesting these features be brought back since the dev blog announcement months ago, not just since the unstable (I have better things to do than go track the post down and cite it for you, if you're interested read through the blog and find it, and check out the ensuing discussion and forum posts around that time). My feedback was constructive, as i wasn't calling anyone out personally, just conveying that I was disappointed that, after all the feedback regarding the disappearance of the hunger/heat system in nightly, these mechanics were still gone in the unstable.

 

There were people that used the challenge arguement. I can understand the immersive one. Still I personally hold little interest for feeling cold when it consumes more of my time when I want to explore snow biomes.

 

When I found out that the radiation suit also provided O2 I lost interest in obtaining them as they're just another means to an end. I mean yes, I continued to obtain them, I just was not excited, nor did I care.

 

Easy fix. Allow armor modification. Use Tech Chips to modify individual pieces of armor to have differentiated resistances, buffs, etc. Up to and including environmental protection. The more pieces affected, the longer you can survive on hostile death worlds before taking damage.

 

Aye. This made them feel like placeholders. It would be nice if the effects from these deadly stars were toned down so that something like

would work instead. An example being radiation now filling up a meter that makes you gradually weaker/slower, with your armour resistances slowing the gain.

I suppose this might be too stressful for some, though. The bar pretty much limits how long you can spend on the planet unless some kind of radiation-purging consumable is used in combination. This seems to be the kind of "difficulty" that many people don't seem to like. That said, it almost reminds me of MotherLoad... which was a tonne of fun.

 

I'd say that kitting out an entire set of armor with a single resistance type would grant immunity. Although I personally wouldn't mind consuming some Rad-Away every so often.