RELEASED United Systems Expansion v4.2 "Final Woes"

soldierfast90 updated United Systems Expansion with a new update entry:

Version 3.25-B

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Hey man, hope you dont mind, but I snooped in on the files and found a framework for ammunition... If what I am thinking is correct, you're going for it! Hehe. I was gonna try to add in the guns and ammo resource for my own use coz I wanted to test it myself.

 

I also think that since you added a lot of content it would be difficult to go thru each gun to modify to have that resource. Would you need help on that? Sorry for snooping around

 

Add zombies and aliens missions

 

ComradePierre, you should've atleast asked to unpack my files but since you haven't done any "redistributing" I'm fine with you snooping around. You can study my mod if you want and generally take a look at how some parts of my mod works but as long as you don't y'know, redistribute my stuff I'm perfectly fine with it. Although if you are snooping the files you'll end up removing any surprises or reveals the mod will offer (like the missions and enemies). Personally I don't like too many people snooping my files so don't go encouraging people to do the same.

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johnbas16, you shouldn't make suggestions that already exist. A "zombies/Aliens" mission is hidden in Sector-1945-XU somewhere underground. There's a "contractor" there.

 

Hey, thanks! I won't be editing and redistributing your files dont worry. I'm a beginner modder (just really recently started learning LUA and stuff), and this is an interesting mod right here.

 

soldierfast90 updated United Systems Expansion with a new update entry:

Version 3.25-CH

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Also Comradepierre, I'm not actually adding an ammunition system. Those are old files that I did implement once on the USM-16 but I was unable to change the code so that it would run alongside other mods that used the exact same ammunition system (as it's a freely sourced code from an old Halo 3 weapons mod). In the end I decided to abandon the concept of ammunition as I have explained before with my giant wall of text.

I do plan in the future however to make a separate large mission pack that replaces the intro and essentially turns the game into a singleplayer Cry Of Fear-esque 2d shooter.

 

Sorry if this question is silly, but how do I start the 'main quest' of this mod? I'm guessing it'll start kind of like Fracking Universe, where the player meet a NPC while exploring different planets that triggers the quest to go to the mod's hub world although I haven't find anyone to start the quest for me yet (although to be fair I haven't been to that many new planet since I started using this mod).

So far I really like the new space encounters. The space mall really make the canon starbound's lore about human being space nomad (despite this mod supposedly added a new major human settlement, which I honestly think make much MUCH more sense than canon) believability. I also like the fact there are hostile enemies in the mall behind doors player shouldn't be able to access, since one would assume a huge trade hub ship would have some security to keep out the unsavory.

Although my favorite so far is the 'space bomber'. An actual WWII era looking bomber in space would be extremely silly in any other game, but it fits Starbound's aesthetic so well (considering we already have space pyramid and space pagoda).

One minor critique (or pointless personal gripe), I forgot which hostile ship it was (one of the 'low' threat ones) lacks a sleeping quarter inside, which feels a little immersion breaking since a long distance FTL capable ship that has a decent sized crew feels like it should have some kind of resting arrangement.

Overall I think this is a great addition to Starbound's human race, despite I haven't actually seen much it has to offer yet.

 

@quinlongfei

The threat level of ship doesn't affect their structural spawns. It's just a fancy way of tiering. When it comes to dungeons as of right now there aren't any "spawning priorities" so the game will just spawn random pieces onto a ship instead of spawning basic facilities first. I should probably implement spawning prioritisation next update.

The rec-facility is just as it is, a mobile space mall as a government cooperative plan between Redya and Isiga. 2 human factions/countries.

This mod does add human settlements. Just not the planet of Eve-4 which will eventually play a role in the questline.

On the topics of questline, you can craft an aid map in the Military Replicator which is in a lvl 3 Inventors Table. Place down the aid map and the first mission before the hub world will unlock.

Be noted however that all of these missions are designed for tier 6 and tier 6 only. I'm disappointed in tier 7 and above for how garbage it is and how it breaks the vanilla game flow of "endgame". You can play it in tier 900 or whatever but any challenge value will be lost.

Also the space bomber is an "Auto-Bomber" and you should probably read the codex in the cockpit (if the cockpit isn't already blasted open that is).

 

I confess I didn't even realize the dungeons are sewed with random pieces like a puzzle. I honestly thought all the dungeons (or at least the ships) are premade structure.

It'll be nice to see some actual human settlement (not the camp from vanilla). I always thought that was the stupidest thing Starbound did. Human is one of the first spacefaring race in Starbound (unless they changed that part while I wasn't paying attention) yet nobody thought it'll be a good idea to colonize other planets? What three years old slow thinking neanderthal who got repeatedly dropped on the head wrote that part of the lore?

Personally I don't play Starbound for challenge (or any video game for that matter, I feel my real life is challenging enough so I like to play games for relaxing experience), and honestly Starbound's difficulties often feel unfair when I'm playing it. Its shallow character progression system coupled with control issue (especially the jump feels sluggish as hell) and performance issues (might just be me since I use a huge number of mods and my computer isn't very powerful) I lost count how many times I died by dashing off a cliff because of game lag.

That being said, I did /admin to get the quest map and played the first main quest (Still in admin mode). I can see the mission would be challenging for a maxed tier 6 character. But even for me who is cheating it through all the way, I still find the experience of the mission extremely enjoyable (Definitely tops all the Starbound main quest). I like how you more or less recreated CoD (although it's kind of funny when the enemy artillery pounded their soldiers into pixels) like action set piece from the start before slowly expand the map outwards to make it feel more like a surviving horror game. If I do have one minor critique (or personal gripe), I feel the enemy HQ after climbing out of the tunnel could be slightly bigger. After a good long and tense experience in the cave, having the last area just be a medium sized room (at least compare to the boss rooms for vanilla Starbound quest) feels like an exclamation mark is missing in an otherwise great sentence. But as I said, it's a very minor issue if anything at all.

Definitely looking forward to see the other quest you made.

 

I already hate you for using admin mode the entire first mission. I can't stop you however, even if I personally hate people that skip challenges. Most of the mod's experience comes from the challenge aspect. Without ingame death, there is no challenge. Without the challenge, it's not even a mission anymore. Without the mission, you just removed the main "selling" point of this mod. By the 3rd campaign you'll end up breaking scripted sequences because of admin mode. On another note, the missions were made in chronological process, so the further you delve into the questline, the general quality of the maps will increase. One day I'll go back and improve the first mission but right now the wiring and triggers are very finnicky and increasing the boss arena size will break some wiring.

On the note of your sluggish performance, the easiest fix would be to just get rid of all the mods you genuinely don't need or play around with much.

I do agree with starbound's shallow progression (at the same time, Frackin' also has an incredibly shallow "lol tier 8 op weps" attitude it gives off) but I don't agree with the "sluggish" jump heights. Being able to jump 2.5x your own body height is impressive enough as it is. Also spike sphere solves all of your "accidentally dashing off cliffs and dying" problems.

Also did some comparing of the boss rooms. Sure most of the boss arenas are large but said bosses are usually 5x larger than a regular person. Also why are you playing Starbound AND this mod for a relaxing experience? This mod is intended for the opposite of relaxing. Constantly having to worry about dodging and constantly having to memorize the unique enemy weapons in order to counter them properly is NOT relaxing. Heh.

 

The reason on why I like Starbound while at the same time enjoy relaxing experience is because I like Starbound's colony building system and play it like a limitless Lego set. I find Starbound's unique tenant tied to furniture to be a more unique system compare to other block building game like Minecraft, and slowly building a human city on the starter planet gives me a more genuine feeling of accomplishment than overcoming a challenge boss. I play through the main quest of Starbound to unlock the outpost (and to get a feel what the main quest is like before I write a Steam Review) even though I mainly just get some uber armor from other mod to tank through the damage, but I digress.

As for why I'm trying this mod, I'm trying it out for the added lore (Kind of like I like watching Dark Souls' lore videos but think its gameplay can shove it up its @$$). The thing I'm disappoint most about Chucklefish is how I feel they didn't flesh out the lore of Starbound and I feel each race could have its own racial mission in addition to the main mission. So far I'm really impressed on how well I think your added things fit Starbound, although that's mainly due to Chucklefish's minimalist approach.

While I can understand your problem with me cheating through the first mission, I personally don't agree with your opinion (once again, don't mean any offense, just my personal opinion) about the challenge is the main strength of your mod. Or even the main strength of your mission, for that matter. Not saying you are wrong with challenge should be the main draw of a game. But speaking for the mission I played alone, even with the challenge removed from the first mission I still find it to be the most enjoyable mission in Starbound vanilla or modded (Sunset Raider from Extra Dungeon comes close, but I still likes your mission better) it still has a great atmosphere as much as Starbound's 8 bit graphic can provide, and like I said in my previous comment I find the atmosphere to be exquisite (you might take this as an offense, but I originally mean it as a compliment) in creating the impression of a war using Starbound's resource. But yeah, the reason I jumped the gun and /admin through the first mission is because I'm eager to see what your mission feel like. If it bothers you so much, now that I got a feeling on what should expect I'll play the other missions legit and give some feedback afterwards. When I do get around to do some more intergalactic exploring and get properly geared up for your mission, of course.

Once again you probably disagree with me, which is okay, but I think it's an impressive feat for you to make a mission with one specific idea in mind, but others who look at it from a different angle still enjoyed it.

I think you mistaken my point about the boss room, although that's likely me not expressing it clear enough since as you probably figured out by now English isn't my first language. I don't have a problem with the size of the boss room in the end. I just feel like the final section could use a few more rooms or corridors before getting to the boss room. Once again, that's just my personal opinion but I feel like after going over survival horror like dark tunnel with alien monsters, a few more room fighting human enemies before the final boss room would be a smoother transition rather than going straight into boss room. But that's just my own opinion of course, so take it with a grain of salt considering we already established the 2 of us have wildly different taste (Where you see a mission for the challenge, I see it for the overall feeling/experience it provoke).

Out of curiousity, have you tried 'RPG Growth'? I think it's a welcome addition to extend out Starbound's problem with its 6 tier equipment progression.

My main problem with Starbound's control comes from the jump's horizontal movement, as it start out very slow but then suddenly release the momentum, which makes it very easy for me to either overshot or undershot my jump. Not a huge problem since the main game doesn't have too much tricky platforming, but goddamn does it makes playing Extra Dungeon (which add a bunch of disappearing blocks) a complete pain. And speaking of Spike Sphere, it's great for pure platform section but it doesn't help my falling off cliff problem since it happens during hectic combat most of the time when I get a performance lag. And go into spike sphere mode when I'm defenseless is the last thing I want to do when fighting with 3+ enemies.

 

You make some good points on some stuff.

I can see where you're coming from when you look at Starbound for its building aspect as the tenants require specific furniture to spawn and the futuristic theme of the game might add to that building flavour.

As for the lore of this mod, I guess that's some part of this mod. I just wanted to create an atmosphere opposite of what Vanilla Starbound or hell even Frackin' throws out. There's too much safety everywhere and not enough of people breathing down other people's backs. Many have called this a pessimistic outlook on a somewhat cheerful space game but eh. Hell I had another mod that threw in pentagrams all over the Hylotl Mission and people had their [EXPLETIVE] flipped instead of realising as to exactly (hint: codexes) why said pentagrams existed.

Onto the dungeons, I'm noting down to improve the transition from Underground to Surface. You're right on it being a bit too blunt in the transmission. Hell suddenly the player goes through a battlefield then ends up underground because he couldn't just walk around the bridge and just pry open the Rebel Outpost door. But G A M E P L A Y. Later missions will have less of this. First Assault was my first mission as you know so it's rough around some edges.

Well also y'know, starbound doesn't have much in the way of momentum. The player immediately is able to accelerate to max speed after breaking their legs. But the whole performance issues with npcs is something to be expected of (and expect it much more in later US.E missions).

On a final note because I still honestly myself can't structure sentences properly: No I haven't tried RPG Growth but I've looked and what it does and it's a "recommended" addition to Realismbound.

 

soldierfast90 updated United Systems Expansion with a new update entry:

Version 3.28 "Space FBI"

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soldierfast90 updated United Systems Expansion with a new update entry:

Version 3.28 "STAY SAFE"

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Hey Sayter, why not use GitHub?

 

Wrong thread bro

 

soldierfast90 updated United Systems Expansion with a new update entry:

Version 3.28-B "OLD BLOOD"

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I meant soldierfast90, sorry. Github is easier to use compared to Dropbox for big projects, but I don't know. Awesome update, tho. Can't wait to kill space nazis.