All mining problems are solved at level 12, when you can make your first Autominer. By that level you will probably have 5 to 8 of them, and its a simple matter to put them out and reap the rewards. Hand or HV mining is an early game pain, and a minor pain at that. I keep my T2 drill only in case I fall down some hole. Hand miner - only used to level 12. HV miner - useful for meteorites Auto-miner - all of everything else.
It's a logical progression in the sense that HV drills are [and should be] superior, but it doesn't follow from this that the T2 drill is fine. At the very least, it needs to toggle on/off instead of firing like a weapon, even if we were to agree it should be slow (which we don't).
Simply no, due to the new planet sizes. This was somewhat alleviated when Eleon reduced the size of starter worlds, but autominers have been largely neutered by transit times. It's more efficient to clear deposits when you find them, even with only the sad T2 drill.
It is hard to express the depth of my disagreement. I had T3 miners, about 20 of them, spread out over several worlds to get the ores I want. I use a pair of large tweezers to hold down the key I mapped as "W" so flying is not really all that painful (try it you'll like it). My last trip out I took up the AMs, because I have so much ore I am just getting tired of storing it. Auto miners are just the bomb.
Autominers are "the bomb," because you mitigated the annoyance of atmospheric flight with tweezers? I've taken similar measures, usually a game controller or my phone placed on the W key. At best, it's a workaround. You're still spending absurd amounts of time in transit, but I suppose you can go make a sandwich en route. Maybe this is a positive for some players? Just don't make a sandwich every trip. That calorie count would be astronomical. I've tried the autominer shotgun approach on Atis. Meh. It's still faster to just hit the deposits with drills as you find them — "faster" being relative.
The planets were way too small before. Like stupid small. They are sufficiently big now. Some of them perhaps too big. So simple solution: if you don't like big planets, don't play on them. If you don't like mining then use your console. If you don't like how fast a drill or something is, then use your config file. Stop suggesting that Eleon REVERSE the improvements in the game for stupid "I'm lazy" reasons.
Yes I did. I have been beating the drum trying to rally the troops on the topic of improved flight controls. In the mean time I will do what I can to reduce the (literal) pain of flying with the keyboard and the "W" key.
I'm not going to go fanboy or hate on the devs, I'm in the middle of the road and chose to sit Alpha 8 out and play other games since I 100% agree with you on every point you mentioned. I just want some basic npc commands, ability to script conversations, working computer terminals for lore, some automation, and a working economy. That seems like an easy thing right! I have been waiting over a year for that to be added to the game. I understand everything takes time, so to keep calm and sane, it is best if I take a back seat for awhile. God knows @piddlefoot @Kassonnade and others have been in the trenches to try to get some original features added into the mix. Eleon is doing a great job and are by no means ignoring players input. I think sometimes we just have to play the waiting game. After all the game in still in Development, so I will just keep hoping and wishing for this features to be added and what you mentioned to be ironed out.
This game is an alpha build that features late 1990s FPS mechanics and still uses stock Unity assets in places. What you call an "improvement" isn't necessarily an improvement in any objective sense. I'm not even sure Eleon knows what they're doing some of the time. In fact, enough people are currently complaining about enough things, in more or less reasonable fashion, that it's probably safe to say some of the dev's decisions haven't been the best. Characterizing criticism of an alpha game mechanic as player laziness is just another variant of "git gud," as far as I can tell.
Absolutely, yes, and it's true for T1 and T2 drilling as well. In that sense, as the game stands, maybe you're right about autominers for that reason alone.
I agree with most of what the OP is stating. And this is only out of love for the game. It needs some pushing to keep things moving in the right direction. I'll throw my hat in the ring for a couple concepts mentioned in this thread. Keep in mind these are my opinions, not objective statements. Wall of text and heavy images incoming! Mining/Automining: I am on the side that mining can feel just a big too dull and grindy. Very early game it can be somewhat exciting since you are struggling to find what you need and braving the elements to get it done. This feels survival-esque and puts it in perspective how weak you are at that time. As you get further with building and crafting it is only natural to transition to either a better drill, which is still relatively sloow and weak, or push for a HV miner. HV mining is still quite tricky to pull off effectively and should probably be expanded upon, but it can do the task much better than anything handheld. HV mining should become stronger with better range. Perhaps a new style of drill turret that is more accessible and has a better range-of-motion to allow more fluid and intuitive mining. Imagine having a single drill turret mounted on a "crane" style of arm extending out in from of the craft. When you control the turret you should be able to move it freely in a 180 degree arc, 360 degrees around by using a ball-turret type of system. Why can't we shoot straight up yet? If the turret is placed upside-down to face the ground then it's impossible to mine what is directly below the turret. Autominers are complicated because they were created out of gameplay/grind necessity. Due to this however, they feel like a placeholder for a real system. It's like if someone noticed a part of their car beginning to rust and instead of scrubbing, painting, and coating it to get a real result they just slapped a bumper sticker overtop and called it a day. Autominers add no real gameplay value to Empyrion besides removing a particular game feature (that being resource collecting, aka mining). If they really want to remove that feature for mid to end-game players then it should be done in a nicer way that is more manageable. In the first trailers for the game they hinted at the task of creating your own drilling rig to excavate/mine the planet. These were player made structures, just like a BA, that were set in place. I think Bases would be an amazing solution to the shallow system of placing autominers. It would function somewhat like an autominer and how plants have certain height requirements. For instance, the drilling rig could look however the builder wants as long as the drilling beam/collector is placed 4 blocks high from the bottom of the structure then it could effectively work just like an autominer. The difference would be that more preparation, time, and care would be put into setting up the rig but the payoff would be much better than our current autominers. It would be inefficient to dismantle the rig once set down, just like in the real world, but it can be done if needed. Our current autominers feel like a joke, floating there for no reason collecting for us until we feel like picking it up and putting in our pockets until we get to the next ore deposit. Make automining feel more impactful and worth it. More setup time in trade for a faster and better payout. This can be extended even further by adding another turret just for Bases with a matching console. The player needs to interact with the console to access the turret and is then able to blast away at sections of the deposit, kind of like an artillery shell but for mining. Perhaps this could be collected ore, or it could simply break apart the node into "smaller chunks" for the automatic drilling beam to collect even faster. If you want to get even more convenient with the system, allow all the rig consoles to sync up so if you access one of them on the planet you can see the status of all the others on that same planet. It could show you what percentage each respective node is at, how full the mining containers are, and the fuel levels. You may even be able to collect the ores from all the harvesting containers on that same planet from one console with a little magic. It wouldn't be too out of place compared to what we have now. Boosters: Boosters are a very outdated feature and not very immersive in my personal experience. The player is either constantly chasing a type that they cannot find, or they are stockpiled with 100 of the same ones that they don't need. It feels like a cheap way to add more lootable content to the game. What I would rather see is a whole new take on the equipment system. This can get extremely in-depth but I will keep it basic for this post as many people have suggested complex systems in the past. We need more outfits, armors, specialized backpacks, and attachments in a new crafting system. A fabrication machine should be implemented that can handle all of our new equipment needs. Think of it like a 3d printer in combination with a fancy stitching/sewing machine so it is able to make clothing, hard armor suits, and weapons. Obviously it would require certain materials to create certain pieces, and those pieces would need blueprints to craft. The blueprints could be acquired through various means: looting, exploring, killing, trade or purchase, or hacking to name a few. Now instead of simply plopping a square in my armor suit and still finding frustration, prepping for a mission, excursion, or an adventure would require more care. Check the external temperatures and possible weather events during your projected time being exposed to the elements and pick a suit that is most appropriate without all the drama of boosters and endless booster combinations. No more running around in the same outfit your whole play-through, some thought will be required for proper adventuring. For a dry desert planet with breathable atmosphere, pick a light and airy rig with a simple helmet on your belt as a backup oxygen supply in case you want to enter a gaseous cave. This rig would keep you light on your feet and prevent you from overheating. A heavy armor suit would sink you into the sand and make you move slower. A dense radiated bog would require a larger and bulkier suit to fend off radiation and a large oxygen supply. We can even have flight suits to improve vessel readouts as we are flying or driving but are fragile and unable to carry backpacks. Outfits and armors would take care of most of the guesswork with predefined stats made to counter certain types of planets and biomes. For additional customization, backpacks and accessories would be present. Neither would be absolutely necessary for exploration but would aid you in what you want to specialize, even just for that particular outing. Backpacks could include portable medical stations, increased oxygen supply, industrial-level jetpacks, radar and scanning packs, additional carrying storage, or enhanced drone capabilities. Accessories could either be attached to the player themself or to weapons. This could include improved helmet flashlights, thermal vision, night vision (get that out of the inventory, it's sloppy), detection systems like faster target recognition and monitoring on the HUD, larger specialized magazines for weapons, and suppressors for weapons to decrease attention. Combat: This still needs a ton of work, particularly when "boots on the ground". Aerial combat isn't too bad but could always be improved, but the ground combat portion is still fairly unenjoyable. Granted Eleon has made some strides in that department lately by adding in new AI behaviors and reactions to player presence and noise. Even Zirax kneeling or repositioning while in a firefight is a large improvement over what we used to have. But we need more scripting, pathing, weapons like grenades, and coordinated movement between enemies. I would love if Eleon could consider some of these changes. The game feels a little shallow and hollow right now in some places. My intent is simply to inspire and help push things in a good direction.
Cleff, that's an amazing post and really deserves its own thread (if there's not one already). Your points on armor and accessories are great. I've hated boosters since A6, and the whole equipment area of the game sorely needs something ... better.
If you want to "throw out the bathwater," I'm with ya. Just don't throw out the baby with it. Arguing that big planets are "too big" WAAHH! is just another variant of carebear whining as far as I can tell. Is there tedium in the game? Yes. Are some of the activities in the game perhaps slightly too dilatory? Perhaps. Are there "not enough things to do" or else "not enough motivation" to make getting through the tedious parts "fun," yes, and here is where the real matter lies: presently, there is no story, no narrative, no theme, no campaign, no goals, other than "survive" and "do whatever you want." Are planets too big? Absolutely NOT. The problem is not that "planets are too big" the problem is that the GAME is too skeletal. Vast expanses of nothingness (which the scale of these planets doesn't really even approach) is tolerable if not FUN, if there is a general excitement and motivation to traversing that vast nothingness. Contrast this game with Fallout 1 or Fallout 2, even to some extent Fallout 3: Fallout 1 had a large map which was largely devoid of things, and for a brand new player unaware of where anything was located, exploring it might seem tedious or frustrating. But the game started with a simple quest: go find the water chip or your family and friends in the vault are goners. Was it Shakespearean brilliance? No, but it was damn well good enough for 1990s video games, which BTW, were the BEST video games: you can have your extreme high-resolution 3d sweat beads rolling between the cleavage modern day nonsense: it adds only marginally more to the game experience relative to the level of "1990s graphics" we have in EGS. In fact, veritable CLIP ART is sufficient if the GAME is good enough! (Rimworld, Distant Worlds Universe). ADDIT: in sum, good graphics do not make good games. Good graphics can ENHANCE good games. Improving graphics in this game is not going to make up for its present deficiencies. Shifting the central value in the range of variation in planet sizes toward the smaller end of the continuum is ALSO not going to make up for this game's present deficiencies. You are suggesting that Eleon throw out the baby, and leave the bathwater in the tub!
In his defense, we aren't talking about graphics. We are talking about the 90's doom or quake style combat. I can pick up a old Nintendo 64 game, Genesis, or a Xbox game with no concern for graphics and have an amazing time. As long as it doesn't look like minecraft, I'm onboard. I like Starmade, however I get tired of pixelation in newer games.
I have to mostly disagree here. Sure, we could use the ability to equip various pieces of equipment to our characters besides via booster slots, but the idea of boosters as an abstract way to customize one's armor should definitely be kept. Also, we really don't need a specialized crafting device for clothing; the existing constructors are more than capable of handling it. In my mind, there are a few things hampering the booster system right now: most basic useful boosters aren't craftable, suits don't have built-in power or compute systems, and the benefits of most boosters right now are questionable at best. Fix those three issues, and suddenly boosters become an extremely useful system for tailoring your suit to particular conditions.
What you mention is definitely a viable solution to the problem. It may even be able to work in tandem with some of my suggestions. The things you listed are the biggest reasons why I am trying to inspire a different approach, but either option would work for me. The power system is something that has been discussed before and I didn't want to get into it during my original post here due to complexity or explanatory reasons but is something I do fully support. That would add a whole new level of interaction and involvement with the current booster system that I believe it needs to become something greater.
Ignoring the fact that arguing against big planets isn't "carebear whining" just because you hold a different position, I never argued that planets are too big. My OP actually lists bigger planets as one of the things I love about A8. It's odd that the points you bring up here almost exactly mirror points I've already made. I'm a bit baffled as to what exactly I've written that you disagree with so strongly (after claiming to agree with 95% of my OP). I specifically mentioned "1990s FPS mechanics." At no point did I mention "1990s graphics" or graphics at all, except to praise Eleon's visual improvements to the game in a completely different post. And again, I love the bigger planets. It's one of the first things I wrote in this thread. Where exactly is our disagreement here?
