A9 - Revised Game Start Tutorial

Tried arid start+tutorial on Large planet:

1. Distances are too great to do tutorial without suffocating (just ore hunting alone takes enough running, running to mission's wreck without setting up oxygen production reduces chances of survival which is contradictory to tutorial's goal)
2. There is no tutorial part about producing oxygen (it is useful even for temperate since there is water to swim in and oxygen is vital for arid)
3. Tutorial doesn't cover environmental conditions, so player can wander to somewhere hot and die during tutorial - ruins for me were in desert, and got a heat stroke half way through.
4. Tutorial should have covered three basic resources and where to find them

It would be nice for tutorial to cover:
1. Base constructor and setting up constructor connection to containers
2. Vessel/base turrets and that they draw ammo from ammo boxes
3. Same for harvesting
4. Drone defense (I know that there is no longer need for BA turrets at all in SP, but hopefully it is temporary)

P.S. Large Arid at Hard difficulty is brutal - I suffocated twice while gathering for lvl3 and first bottle (probably could have avoided second death if I had made couple juices and went hunting)
Also sleeping is really helpful when you have some fuel in condenser.

 

I tried it on random with a start on temperate planet with a planet size of 3.

What i didn't like:
- The quests sometimes need about about 30 seconds till they show the next step, after completing the previous one.
- The distance to the first wreckage (about 1.6 km) feels a bit long if you have to run, and the way with the motorcycle to the first Alien POI was also very boring (nothing to do, just driving around, no enemys etc.)
- In that first alien POI i got 95 Alien-Base-Blocks and 5 Auto-Miner-Cores. I think that is very heavy for a first POI. Also i had about 12.000 / 500 volume after looting the first POI, but didn't see any penaltys.

Even if this has nothing to do with the tutorial directly, but the new start feels super safe (like you are never in real danger) and also feels to slow for me.

 

For a planet completely covered with sand, it's sure hard to find silicon on the Arid planet at the start (even knowing where to find the silicon rocks). Just saying.

 

I think the mechanic for farming terrain for resources is already in place, since you can farm snowy terrain for water. It would be an interesting extension of this functionality to be able to farm sandy terrain for silicon, anywhere there is sand, and likewise other planets which should have a ubiquitous surface material for that material.

 

Actually in the last few restarts on both arid and temperate random start planets my bases were attacked by drones right after putting up an unpowered generator, or a storage capacitor (without fuel tanks or solar panels). Lost a core and some wood blocks related to the tutorial each time, though I did shoot them down on a couple games when drone came into shotgun range...lol got some parts back.

 

You guys clearly didn't test this with default hard settings enabled.

Start off 1.5km away from wreckage, not ideal but not the end of the world. Finally arrive at the wreckage and there's spiders everywhere. Not too difficult for someone with some experience but a new player isn't going to have much fun, especially as you decided it would be a good idea to have us start with low health. Open the cargo box (are you sure making this blend in with everything else is a good idea?) and now I'm told to build a survival constructor. There's just one small problem, I'm still level 2. Another gang of spiders later and I'm level 3. The constructor is built and the tutorial abruptly ends. After placing the constructor I have a look in the pda because I wasn't sure if it had bugged or not. Not quite sure why you couldn't have a pop up asking if we want to proceed to part two of the tutorials but I have to select the next tutorial stage manually. Tutorial 2 starts, now I have to pick up the constructor and put it back down again. Now it wants me to make a drill, but there's a hitch. I don't have enough silicon to do that so I either have to wait until daylight or start looking around in the pitch black for some silicon.

This isn't a very good start.

 

Perhaps, but it's not there now on Arid, so.... silicon is a bit of an issue.

 

Yeah, new players really aren't going to stick this out.
Also, if you're going to insist on creating empyrion into a galactic walking simulator, at least give us an autorun button.

 

I am not convinced...it is most often a SEED Issue... as there are (now) so many places to find Silicon. And the difficulty Level has no influence on how many Ore Rocks are spread out over the Planet.

 

That would be a short "Auto-Run".... or many very short ones...Your Stamina won't love you

 

I think the new tutorial is quite an improvement over the old tutorial, but it still needs a little fixing.

I ran through the tutorial 6 times, and 4 times I wasn't able to unlock the constructor when the tutorial asked me to. I was only at level 2--and I needed to be at level 3 to unlock the constructor. The game assumes I'm at level 3 by that point in the tutorial, but I'm usually at level 2.

I think the tutorial should tell the player to unlock the constructor as soon as they reach level 3. Don't just say "unlock the constructor".

 

I tried large hard arid and did succeed without dieing. My takeaway from it and even from the vids of let's players is that most do a b line for water forgetting that water is generally low and thus a higher temp area. By the time I got to water outside was 200degrees. Basically making it so I couldn't go anywhere till late night. Oddly enough my issue was copper of all things. People seem to make there way to water for silicon but in my experience that might be the worset place to head if you just get stuck till night. That said I suppose I don't view the arid as something that should be done as easy as akua. If your going to start on a planet with no o2 I think it's only fair to think that the player knows they need o2.

 

I imagine your dad didn't send you to war as soon as you were born? New players should stay out of hard settings, which are meant for experienced players ONLY. Otherwise we end up with whiners spamming every thread with complaints that this is too slow, too hard, or too complicated. Then Eleon would have to accommodate bigmouthed pricks with no real reason.
Oh wait, isn't this what Eleon has been doing lately?

 

200 degrees?? on what Lava starter did you spawn precisely?
Running for water is actually the best thing you can do, since it's at a constant 20-ish temperature, saves you both from cold and from heat. Plus you can usually get more than enough protein from the bottom or the shore, even on arid or desert planets.
The high temps at low altitudes are only dangerous near the equator, and in general you burn more energy climbing a mountain there, than running to a hill up north

 

... you mean I'm the only person who does NOT run for water on Arid start?

I usually start on hard (no O2 condenser) and look for silicon right away. Yes, you can get this in water, but it's also in the Sand biome, which is often somewhere next to the Crash Site.

Once I have silicon, iron and copper are usually abundant in the crash area, and it's usually temperature-steady. I run around picking plants and grabbing ores and logs from trees until I get level 3, and make my O2 condenser, and the PC at level 3 (this is such an awkward mechanic!), and then get O2 going in at least 1 generator (preferably 2).

Once I have O2 going, and enough stockpiled, along with logs/fiber and food, and have a portable temperature control unit (heater/AC) made, I head for the Wreckage...

I don't head for water until I'm ready to setup a base, unless it just happens to be close to the crash site, for the silicon...

 

It is, but you would think I could pick up a handful of sand and get what I need....

I usually find it in the "Sand" biome, and now in the water, if it happens to be nearby, but I had a seed where there wasn't much sand nor water near the crash site. First time in a while I've died from asphyxiation from lack of silicon, but still....

 

I am sure he talks about 200° F not actual °C