Thoughts on Indignant Koala

Having played a fair bit of the Indignant Koala update now, these are my thoughts on the experience. Both the good and the bad.

First off, I find that I loath coal.

Not for any particular fault on coals sake mind, other than perhaps that it is surprisingly scarce to make up for what is required. The problem with coal, I feel, is that you require coal for most everything. Coal is simultaneously starship fuel, lighting for digging and used for producing alloyed metals. With only mining, and then mostly small-to-moderate amounts in scattered veins, and charcoaling wood at a 10-to-1 ratio it becomes more of a chore than anything else.

I never did explore either the Alpha or Beta sectors with this character due to coal. For Alpha all the coal I found was used to produce torches so I could continue to mine coal, with copper, iron and precious metals being more a bonus than anything else. I could only start building up a fuel stockpile after I both defeated the first boss and produced the lantern on a stick and caved in and deforested my planet and used the horrible conversion rate of wood to charcoal.

There really need to be other options for starship fuel. I do not ask for fueling starships to be dumbed down mind you, but to be more engaging than ‘take pick, go mine’. The idea of building multi-part biofuel refineries on planets come to mind for example, with power supplies and farming feeding into refineries for fuel. What about setups for more efficient coal production from wood, and the ability to cultivate trees?

Not easier, neither replacing the current method. Just expanding upon it in a different fashion, producing it’s own gameplay mechanics and it’s own form of engagement. Leave it up to players to decide between nomadic travels and scouring planets for resources as they wish, or set down firm roots on a world and develop it to support their forays into the wild stars yonder.

Also.

I’m much pleased by the balance tweaks for Indignant Koala, at least in the areas of melee weapons, armor and shields. It feel rewarding and like you have options on your fighting style, having run everything from two-handed swords, spears, sword-and-board as well as dual-wielding blades. Gun balance is still rather off, with energy cost and firing rate being all over the place and often rendering most weapons but sniper rifles unfit for purpose, while the sniper becomes a rather comfortable marksmanship rifle.

Tuning the first three bosses upwards in difficulty would also not go amiss, though including the ability to craft firearms might be required to assist in fighting airborne bosses like the UFO and the Dragon. Me and a friend engaged the dragon, and found it suitably difficult, though we were restricted to titanium armor and steel bows not having found any merchant or gun drop at that point.

All things considered, I rather liked this update. It feels like it is going in the right direction.

 

3/4th's of the game is/will be below the surface of planets, and they want players to explore there. They made a conscious decision to avoid allowing wood as cheap and easy fuel to avoid planet hopping/surface trawling.

edit: But the coal amounts could use tweaking for sure.

 

I mean that 'Anyone got good coordinates they'd like to share?' thread is the most popular thread on the board for a reason: It's a lazy guide to getting the best gear immediately. No exploration necessary, other players have done it for you. Just go to this spot and there'll be a chest with X in it, then go to this spot and there'll be a chest with Y. Planet hopping wears out the interest in the game quickly.

If I were the designers I'd apply the procedural generation element to chests as well, make the content random. That would end that issue quick.

 

Coal is the most annoying thing. After I defeated the T1 boss I had enough silver from just my starting planet to make a full set of armor. It took forever to make the next set of upgrades because of coal being required for steel. The problem is I also need coal for fuel and torches. There needs to be a better balance.

 

Well I do like the ability to progress all the way to impervium on the armor tree.

What I don't like, is the voxel pixels where dying kills 30% of your pixels and compressing kills 40%. I don't understand why the cost to compress your pixels is more then dying. It's not like you get charged 40% of your deposited amount when you deposit at a bank because you're going to head into a mugger/pick pocket/area of a big city, why would 40% of the pixels be lost in "compressing"? It's almost like, "Well you deposited some money so 40% of that money is now useless. Sorry sir, please come bank with us again! "

bout the only things that are 100% missing is the ability to extend your ship, plant trees, and the quest line but those things will come.

 

I understand your sentiment completely, and I agree on not having wood as a direct powersource. I still belive that the option should be given for alternate fuels to coal, though their production/aquisition should not be trivial. To take the biofuel example above it could be balanced several different ways to make it a fuel source that requires a simmilar investment to coal. And that is in addition to simply growing the produce needed to make fuel.

Fuel production could be balanced around requirments to craft a variety of chemical compounds from a variety of plants to craft biofuel, requiring some investment in finding and growing different plants, or merely in time for processing the fuel, requiring sizable space and resource investment in building more biofuel refineries.

Exactly my feeling on the topic of coal. There needs to be a better balance both in the amounts you gather and where and how you spend it, as well as options to fullfill one or many of these distinct areas of use.

 

I haven't gotten out of the stages were coal is my only source of star ship fuel. That said I think coal should give you a bit more fuel than it does per piece. that way you don't have to dump quite so much in your ship or give us some kind of way to gather fuel. Let me can lava or store solar energy in batteries. Some other way to fuel my ship other than coal and turning ten trees into coal.

 

Compressing (40%) only costs more than dying once (30%), dying twice will cost you 41% meaning it's worth banking if you're going to be risking your life on dangerous ventures, otherwise you should keep your pixels on you and stay safe.

EDIT: Or think of it this way, if you compress you guarantee 60% of your pixels are safe, you can go out and die as many times as you want and only loose 40% max.

 

I think starship fuel should be some kind of fisable material you find deep underground.