Feedback What do you expect to see in SURVIVAL MODE or want?

I am just waiting for survival mode.

 

I'm hoping to see the protective suits require items from their respective planets to keep them running. I hate the complete immunity they provide that means lava and poison are the only threat. I'd like to see all planets have a temperature displayed on a slider. The higher the temp, the more water and thirst is an issue, the lower the temp the more food and hunger are. I'd like finding certain resources being a necessary part of continued survival, and not just for item upgrades.

 

Temperature. And not just a global environmental effect, but pockets of hot or cold. IE getting hot in the lower depths of planets and cold in higher elevations. But things like you go to a normal ocean planet, use your O2 pack to get to the ocean floor and tunnel in, then you come across a frozen micro biome and need to put on your cold protection pack. Etc.

 

First off, I think environmental threats need to be defined, then we need to have ways to mitigate threats.

Planets need to have specific hazards, not simply receiving damage if you're not properly equipped. Each planet, depending on the main biome could have a standard hazard you could expect from any similar planet, and could also have randomly selected secondary hazards. Secondary hazards could be dangerous weather, things falling from space, an especially dangerous kind of monster that spawns regularly, or something else like that to give planets a little variety.

I've talked about specific planet hazards before.

• Radioactive biomes need to have a source for it's radiation. It could be a placable block, or radioactive ores can be brought back. It needs to be something players can avoid if they can find a way around. Maybe the deeper down players dig, the more you run into these radioactive sources, making it more difficult to get around unprotected. Getting near a source of radiation causes radiation poisoning which could have several effects from damaging health over time, lowering max energy, makes you unable to eat food while in effect (nauseous,) or other things like that.
• Cold biomes could work as they used to. I enjoyed the cold temperature mechanic from older koala versions. Players being exposed to cold biomes could see their body heat decrease, and need to find a source of heat to raise it again. Being cold could affect the player's movement speed, attack speed, and jumping height. If the player uses guns, maybe it could increase the grouping spread (shivering,) and if left cold for too long damage over time.
• Hot planets already have lava, which is pretty dangerous, but extreme heat should be a factor too. Being on or near the surface of a hot planet while the sun is also beating down on you will cause a dehydrated status effect. The hunger bar should drain quickly, unless hunger and thirst are separated in the future, then use that one. Any added benefits of eating (drinking,) while dehydrated will be diminished or negated. Being too hot too long can also cause damage over time.
• Midnight planets could not only be dark, but oppressively dark. The dark is so think that any light source on these planets are half as effective than normal. Monsters could blend into the dark so well they are practically invisible without light.

These threats make planets dangerous for players, but not impossible to survive. All these threats can be avoided by careful players. On radioactive planets, players simply need to avoid getting near radioactive sources. On cold planets, players need to use heat sources to raise their body temperature. On hot planets, players need to avoid being near the surface during the day (or possibly be inside an enclosed player-made structure,) requiring any surface exploration be done at night. Midnight planets need some sort of light source to see monsters. Any placable light, backpack based, or flashlight would work, even if they work at half their strength.

Many backpacks should be available. The survival backpacks should nullify environmental hazards. Putting on the radiation pack will fight off radiation poisoning for the player, personal heaters or air conditioners will keep players body temperature in safe levels, and midnight planets could use some sort of night vision pack, or light amplification technology. Other backpacks could provide extra storage (one extra tab in inventory,) spherical or directional light (I don't like those as an augment for some reason,) a personal automated back turret that drains your energy as it shoots, refrigeration (like storage, but keeps food fresh,) jump jetpacks letting you fly for a limited time, steroid injector packs you can insert your injector items into that keeps injecting them until it runs out (make sure you have a huge stash,) an augment pack letting you use 2 or 3 augments instead of 1, and more if people can come up with ideas. Using the survival backpacks would make planetary exploration easier, but you miss out on the more interesting ideas.

Augments should be limited to modifying what the player can already do, while equipment or tech offer new abilities. Augments would let the player move, swim, or attack faster, jump higher, do more damage, take more damage, boost energy, and things like that. I'd understand if people would want each backpack to have at least one augment slot, but I'd personally have lowest quality backpacks without any augment slot.

Hunger should have an effect on how players play, but hunger clocks such as those in rogue-like games are for encouraging the player to keep moving toward the goal instead of staying in one area trying to grind experience or equipment out of spawning monsters. I don't see that being a goal of this game, so I'm not a fan of a hunger clock to the point of killing the character at the end of it. I'm a fan of the idea that being hungry applies increasing debuffs as it gets more severe, even damaging the player in the most severe stages, but I'd hope that damage stops at a current point. I know real people can die of hunger, but we're playing a game, and I want it to still feel fun without being too punishing. Foods satisfy hunger with varying amounts, more filling type foods satisfying more. More filling foods should also offer more benefits in the form of buffs. Food buffs would probably go the same route as augments, but temporary (15-45 minutes or so,) I don't mind food spoiling, as long as they don't spoil quickly. Being well fed should have it's own small buff separate from any food buffs, but overeating should nullify any food buffs, and gray out the hunger bar until under half full (like overusing energy does, only half way.)

 

For hunger, I'd like to see more depth than the previous iteration. I've brainstormed a list of ideas on how to do this:

• Various debuffs that worsen as hunger increases.
• Dynamic timer that decreases at different rates depending on what the player is doing (running/jumping = faster, standing/sleeping = slower).
• Hunger meter stops decreasing for a small period of time immediately after eating something. You still have to fully digest the food after all.
• Saturation buff as a reward for keeping your character full.
• The inability to eat when full/saturated. This way, the player has to decide what they think is the best food to eat in a certain situation and what buffs they need the most at that time.
• More unique properties for food. Food that stays fresh for a long time, but relieves less hunger. Foods that aren't filling, but offer a nice short buff like a speed/energy boost from coffee and chocolate.
• Thirst, which would increase faster than hunger. Think about it. If you can't eat because you're full, but want that speed/energy buff, coffee or punch could fill that gap if you're character is still a little thirsty. Fresh water should be a valuable resource in survival. Oceans would need to have salt water that you can't drink.
• Food that relieves a small amount of thirst like soup or a juicy piece of fruit. Dry and high fat foods that make you more thirsty like cooked meats.
• A buff for keeping your character's hunger and thirst meter topped off simultaneously.

For temperature (if it comes to fruition), there's a couple of things I'd like to see.

• The return of the old thermometer, but instead of it just being cold vs warm, it would have two sides, with the optimal temperature being in the middle. Too low and you'll get cold, too high and you'll get hot.
• Not immediately taking damage from environmental hazards. If it's very cold or very hot, you should at least be able to see that thermometer start dropping or increasing before taking damage.
• A Geiger counter for radioactive environments that would harm your character much more as it increases, with ways to reduce it as well.
• Craftable clothes as an early alternative to the EPPs so experienced players can risk going to dangerous worlds earlier than intended.
• Objects that produce heat, air conditioning and filter the air of radiation. This way, the player can build structures on more dangerous planets without having to worry about the environmental hazards inside their safe haven.
• Extreme weather that poses a huge threat. Temperatures should spike during events like blizzards and firestorms that are dangerous even to someone with an EPP. Take cover!

This isn't related to hunger or temperature, but for survival, I wouldn't mind seeing a sleep deprivation mechanic. You would become well rested for getting enough sleep, but would lose its positive effects once it wore off . It could eventually lead to restlessness, which gives you debuffs like being more susceptible to negative status effects. I don't think death would be a necessary penalty for this since hunger and thirst would already cover that. Perhaps being well rested could increase the drop rate of items from enemies and improve the chances of finding something good in containers as a way to encourage players to sleep without making it mandatory.

One last note. I think it would be cool if we had a pressure system as well. Air and water pressure should be a threat that the player can get around with the right gear. Having heat and pressure deep underground would make sense, as would higher pressure and cooler water for ocean floors.

 

From the sound of it I will probably be fine with the hunger mechanics.

That aside, temp on the other hand... I liked how the old system worked to a degree. What I liked of the old system was that it impossed an actual environmental hazard and overall feeling to the atmosphere of the planet. Granted the system was probably a bit lacking or almost too simple with not much variation to be added onto it.

The thing I don't like in the current system is the insta damage part of suits, if not worn. That seems off and doesn't really make each planet different; at least where environmental hazards are concerned. It is just raw damage.

I am glad they have added to the environment that could somewhat constitute a hazard. High winds, sandstorm, and the like... However that only helps in the correct direction, but doesn't really feel the same. Temp management would be nice, but that system had its' flaws as well. Even if I did enjoy hugging the campfire or torches I laided down to keep warm. Makes you feel part of the environment, but was a bit on the extreme side of things. In other words, too much tedium. Tedium in moderation would be ideal, but when going from one extreme to the opposite; it feels about the same with too much emphasis on extreme ends of the spectrum without touching the middle ground.

It is a balancing act for sure, but that is the way to get the systems to work well together. To be feasible to mix them and feel right, or generally seem like it belongs. About all I can muster to say at the moment at this waking hour...

 

If things get hotter as you go deeper, then CF will have to ditch the whole Core Fragments stuff in the beginning and make it so ores and even diamonds can be found closer to the surface. I'd hate to have to go deep on the starter planet just for starting ores and to actually leave the planet and deal with heat from the core all the while.

 

Yeah, I thought of that. Perhaps they could just not have the heat effect on the starting planet. Or they could do away with the core fragments being needed for that part and use them for something else.

 

Mostly the hunger and temperature... thirst and sleep maybe?

 

Oh god, you're serious aren't you? You actually expect CF to be competent enough to pull that off in a good way? This is the team that put Contact Damage back in to try and make combat more varied while rendering combat even more of a chore.

If you guys want good survival elements, you should just go play a game that actually pulls them off well, like The Long Dark.

 

This topic is to discuss the upcoming survival mode and its environment / survival mechanics. We already have plenty of topics discussing the contact damage and combat mechanics. Keep the topic subject.

 

My thoughts about survival mode?

Hunger (which can be paused by sleeping in bed/tent/sleeping bag)
Thirst (bottled water!)
Temperature and "liquid air" of "Cold air", "Warm air" and "Searing hot air" (they probably have to make air into a liquid, technically air behaves like a liquid although it's a very thin one, as in warm air and cold air, cold planets would constantly create cold air, while heat sources create warm air. Cold air should be unable to penetrate blocks and doors, allowing us to construct house with heating, cold air would be able to enter the sealed structure when doors are open. Against searing hot air, air conditioning would create warm air and so on)
Back pieces with set functionality (Like air supply, heat protection, cold protection, radiation protection and light source, higher quality ones could be combo of 2, or back light with one protection)
Nanoskins/implants would have more limited functions, instead of being very universal (Screw the current ones, they suck plain and simple)
Well, digging deeper would clearly pose threat of low oxygen and rising temperatures (air conditioning, like the "Bunker vents" would have important function in preventing that)
Toxic gas and flammable materials (I find it sad that oil cannot be set on fire with flame throwers, but gas pockets underground are very real threat)
Clothing with specific functions and clear defensive bonuses, and with proper progression (some gear offer higher armor and HP that same lvl, and might grant extra abilities like air supply, radiation protection, cold protection and heat protection, but are cumbersome on planets, but are designed for use in vacuum of asteroid fields or space ship/station wreckage. also the progression would prevent some gear types for having only 1 sets, like it was before in the very old versions. Probably also have to make it so that gear sets are required to gain the benefit)

 

Hunger, Thirst, Tiredness, Disease, Sanity, Rot/Depletion, Implant-Fuel, Tower Defense.
Survival mode is about having a game that won't let you sit still forever. There is a lot to keep track of, and there are direct consequences for not doing so properly. It should not, necessarily, result in constant player death - just a difficult and different style of play.

Hunger: Eat solid foods over time. If your character is starving then your maximum health goes down (in the UI, part of the health bar is blacked out). This means there are different levels of starvation:
---Famished - health cap 90%
---Hungry - health cap 75%
---Starving - health cap 55%
---Withered - health cap 30%
Visually, this is what I think of: Hunger bar is green and counting down - you are fine. Green bar reaches zero, you are now famished, and the hunger bar turns yellow and starts counting down. Yellow bar reaches zero, you are now hungry, the hunger bar turns orange and starts counting down. Orange bar reaches zero, you are now starving, hunger bar is red. Red bar reaches zero, you are now withered, hunger bar is empty. To recover fully, you need to eat a lot of food.
Having multiple stages with different levels of consequence means the hunger bar can deplete quickly (or at different speeds for each stage). This makes it a pressing issue without making it take center stage.

Thirst: Drink liquids over time. If your character is dehydrated, then they need to sleep more often and have their energy capped at lower levels. Thirst levels match the hunger levels, but applied to energy instead. Parched, Thirsty, Dehydrated, Withered.

Tiredness: You have to sleep periodically. The sleep cycle of a character is not tied to the day/night cycle of the planet. Characters need only sleep for a few seconds to remove the "tired" debuff. Characters that are tired move slower, do a lot less damage in melee, and slightly less damage with ranged. Would it be possible to make ranged weapons less accurate?

Disease: If your character is exposed to certain environments that their race are not accustomed to, (glitch in ocean, floran in desert) then they are more likely to catch a disease. Alien planets and fleshy biomes also carry diseases. Having lower hunger/thirst/tiredness increases your chance of getting a disease. Exposure to weather events (dust storms, heavy rain) also carry risk of disease. Some diseases (like fin-rot or beak-blister) are race specific. Some diseases may cause one stat to go up and another to go down - melee characters may want to contract Callous Coat (increased defense, decreased speed).
Diseases are debuffs that affect a combination of stats. Different diseases stack - you can have rust-butt and a cog-rot at the same time. Diseases need medicine (either a generic medicine for all diseases, or a specific medicine for some less common diseases) to be cured. Diseases have different stages:
Incubation: The player gets a debuff icon, but the disease is not yet affecting stats. This is a warning to players to apply medicine quickly or to start looking for ingredients. This stage is easiest to recover from - needing generic medicine, food, and/or sleep.
Propagation: The player now has the disease. They have stage-1 (weak) debuffs applied and need strong medicine or treatment specific to the disease.
Infection: The player has progressed to the worst level of the disease. The debuffs are at their strongest, and the treatment required is now more difficult to find.
Recovery: The player has applied medicine to the disease. The player still has the disease and weak debuffs, but will soon recover.
Remission: The player has not applied medicine, but is naturally recovering from the disease. The player still has minor debuffs from the disease. This state lasts longer than the recovery state.

It would also be neat if plants could get sick. This doesn't have to be as in-depth as player disease, but a way to make farms a bit less infinite.

Sanity: Sanity is a measure of how stressed the character is. Dying and respawning, being hungry/thirsty/sick, or seeing a colonist or party member die can all add to stress. Sleeping at home, talking with colonists, eating high-quality meals, and turning in quests are how stress is managed. This has two key purposes:
1) Sanity going down through quest completion keeps the player going through the storyline in survival mode, rather than just bunking down and surviving.
2) Players with lots of diseases and low hunger/thirst may decide to kill themselves and respawn (after dumping items in a chest). Sanity depletion because of respawning discourages this.

Rot/Depletion: Survival games all hinge upon having a non-infinite supply of items. Tools break, foot rots, and armor wears out. The player must continuously repair or replace items - the more they favor one weapon the more resources they must put into the weapon to keep it functioning. Growing crops for food is easy enough - but what if the crops only produced so many harvests before dying? What if soil looses fertility and must be fertilized? What if aliens ate the plants? When colonists die, they shouldn't respawn so quickly. Places where people die often soon develop a bad reputation...

Implant Fuel: It's neat that the implants create gates and story progression before players can get to the high-level planets, but what if the implants (which I understand are changing anyway) had a battery/fuel cell component? You only have 10 minutes on the planet before you have to change batteries, and if you are out of batteries you have to leave or die.
This would make extreme planets unlivable, so there would need to be some sort of furniture that creates a livable atmosphere for colonies.

Tower Defense: Building a grand colony with hospitals and farms is the end-all of survival mode. But what if an army of bandits sweeps in for those precious provissions? What if a herd of rampaging alien creatures happens to come through? You don't want all that hard work to go to waste - so defend it. If you don't, then survival mode effectively starts over as you rebuild and re-recruit colonists.

-----
Of course, all this needs to have some sort of in-game explanation so that players don't have to go to the wiki. If SAIL, or a colonist, could answer questions like:
I feel sick. What should I do about Fin Rot?
I'm really stressed. What do you suggest?
My crops keep dying. How can I prevent that?

 

I like the hunger and disease suggestions, though I'd say if you want diseases to modify stats up and down, to keep diseases from being sought and seen as advantageous, it can't be a 0 sum swap. The disadvantage should be greater than the advantage. Diseases shouldn't be something you hope to get.

I think sanity might be a bit to much. I personally don't see that working out in this game.

I like the tower defense idea on planets where colonies are set up.

 

I highly doubt CF would implement even half of this stuff in a bare bones state. All that's left is the story update and optimization update. I'd be surprised if CF did any major overhauls after 1.0 hit.

 

I like everything your saying and would like it to be implemented into the game no matter how unrealistic it is for Chucklefish to implement your ideas. I can only hope lord Tiy and the Devs are listening to your ideas.
P.S. I would change the time to change the batteries for implants or augmented backpacks to 20 minutes so it doesn't feel like their is so much grind.

 

Lol "Sanity" are you planning to insert don't starve in the game? not a good idea
I mean like half of the npc you've met in starboard is mostly cannibals, lunatics, racist, and Psychopaths.

But same with you i've got huge hope on the returning of hunger

 

After playing 7 Days to Die, I really don't want a temperature system in Starbound. I think hunger and thirst would be cool, though.