I am really frustrated with the Play fields around Starter Planets While new stuff steadily flows in, older ones get reduced to...empty space. Talking about the Pol Mine field. I started 7 times now on the Dead Planet. Time after time I ventured to the orbiting Mine Field and each time I noticed a reduction in the amount of wrecks. The current one has only ONE large Vessel(3 Thruster), half a Vessel(NO Truster with NOTHING salvageable) and the SV. No I am stranded in Space as no Truster or other "better" stuff can be constructed without Neodymium. Its pretty close for me to give up on the scenario AND the Game.
The starter planets (except the Snow Dwarf) still use the default starter orbits. Nevertheless, there are planets within SV warp range of all starter planets that have neodymium and sathium ore deposits.
Not so fast... the ONLY reachable Planet for me is the Starter Planet Snow Dwarf..the other is across the map on the other side...
yeah, I know...anyone talks about the boring status of mining...to actually getting started/settled somewhere I have to crisscross the Star Systeme. Not to mention to being able to build a decent CV...took me 6 trips with my SV to move the valuable Mats to a save location in Space only to find nothing of use in the former STARSHIP GRAVEYARD. You can see the ONLY CV in the background.
Yeah you just warp to the Snow Starter, then you'll have 2 planets you can warp to, one with Sathium, and one with Neodymium, all within SV warp range.
As long as you found a way! Remember, every starter planet has planets with neodymium and sathium ore deposits within sv warp range, regardless of seed. There's also crashed CVs on the moons that have a ton of salvagable stuff, if you don't want to mine. You will never be trapped without a way to build a CV.
I play mostly with an IronMan mindset, where death is a defeat (some seeds are doomed to fail on first try, unless got lucky). Still do not like cargo mass & volume. As long as can mine (deposits/rocks) for starter materials for a starter (hover) vessel, with sufficient O2 and food during the process that also give XP, then it is a relative easy start, even if it takes a while due to "hard" settings. Dead planet (currently the 8th start) you have to scavenge for most resources while coping with radiation and other survival issues, but can get a HV and/or SV up running fairly quickly. Then more than enough resources when go to orbit and moon, to get CV and/or warp. Lock of BluePrint spawning forces the need and thought of XP, with construction/building knowledge.
This is something I really enjoyed about the dead planet start. I have to say though that once you're able to get an HV or SV the planet became a lot easier, there's just so much to explore.
Logged out this morning while parking my SV in the Hangar of a Trade Station. Hope I am still there when logging in again Don't want to lose this stuff
Tried Cold Start (7th) on hard. Since no suit, I aimed towards a green area. Landed a bit away and just made it by using hot beverage, warm day too. Were enough plants around to level up and unlock the heater. Not many ore rocks around, so just made a heater before using a tent for the night. Second day used on leveling and getting a portable constructor, for turning rocks into ore. Got a bike so save some time moving around. Used 2 more days to collect resources so could get a starter HV (same as in Dead planet start since pretty cheap) and fuel, were a large green area. The POI (Aln)Lost Colony were close, so went there to check it out for first time. Were lucky and found heavy armor and night goggles straight away. Could now make an armor locker for the HV, along with a shotgun and 90 shells, and a core . Then explored the POI, nice job making it, no spoilers. Further on are regular exploring and resource gathering.
My "Brick" ahem... I meant my Bridge Section...of the future CV which I intend to build around it. Landed on a Snow Planet in which orbit I have found to Neodynium Asteroids.
Now I'm at the jump-capable CV stage with plenty of supplies I'm torn between exploring more - I'm only at my third planet - and restarting with the "Snow Dwarf" option. I tend to be totally hooked during the early-game when I have set goals, the main long-term one being to obtain a CV. Once I have a CV though and feel fairly safe, I find my self being a bit less hooked on the game. I don't really know how the game could perhaps feel like the survival element is still there once I have a CV. Sure, I can leverage it to take me, and my other assets, to other planets to mine resources - taking a mining HV used to be a HUGE boon, but the hand-held laser drill is so good now it doesn't feel essential like it once did. Plus, even if I mine all the resources and have loads of stacks of everything, what do I do with it. What can I build that makes things better? This is a vanilla issue of course. Sure, I can set personal goals to do things, indeed, that's what I do, but the survival element has gone for me - other than keeping the CV Fuelled, as I used a salvaged CV that's really heavy lol. Can I ask, how do others play once they have their first CV? What further challanges do you face or set yourself? In vanilla I'd often start off with a light planetary CV, a small mobile base I could land near resources, deploy a mining HV and collect Ores. The CV would have Sentries to fend off hostile critters and perhaps a single turret to shoot down wandering Drones, but that was it. I'd then be slowing building from scratch a "proper" interplanetary CV able to carry ALL my HV's and SV built during the early-game. I'd regularly keep obsolete vessels just as reminders of my progress, so would need space for lots of stuff. Here's the thing, Eleon changes the resource deposits so the player could no longer get everything on one planet. This was an attempt to encourage players to explore. Good ideal. However, it's perfectly possibly to salvage everything you need to build a decent enough interplanetary CV without leaving the starter planet - or even going into orbit - in vanilla. Sure, orbital resources help - especially the CV wrecks - but you can manage without it. Project Eden - for the Dead Planet start at least - removes the CV wrecks from the planets surface, but still adds a lot of loot. However, I felt I still needed to go into orbit - I didn't realise there would be CV wrecks like vanilla - to see what was there and ended up salvaging two CV's to recover and claim a third one. I love the whole Salvage gameplay, really enjoyed it, but I'm still not sure where to go next now I have a decent salvaged CV. I could do my usual resource gathering exercise so I have lots of everything, but what do I do with all those materials? I have a decent CV and I can build a decent base wherever I might go - I have loads of salvaged BA/CV blocks and devices. I used to just colonise all vanilla planets, clearing out all hostiles, just for fun, but I'm not driven to do that so much any more, I need different goals now that I can survive. Scoob.
Welcome to the club... I would have thought that someone like you spending so much time here on the forums would have noticed how often this was mentioned. It is the "wall" we all hit in the game, and that's why many suggestions were made for more "late game" content via missions/ contracts. There is also the new "Lore, Story & Factions" section that will get "expanded" in the "next weeks/ months" so I guess we'll get some pointers there regarding the "later game content". I think most of the remaining community members here spend time building stuff and/or go multiplayer... And some like to speculate endlessly on future game features expecting some feedback from the devs... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heh, yes, I'm well aware and have joined in a few times myself. It think in many ways Project Eden, particularly the Dead Planet start, highlights this disparity even more due to the early game being a true struggle to simply survive. The thing that impressed me is how the threats are purely environmental, so cold and rads, but there's not a hostile critter in sight. Once I had an HV I still needed to get out of it, so the threat remained, yet I could shower back at base to remove any rads and the HV cockpit was warm of course. Once I returned to the planet having found Medium armour and some boosts I could concentrate on other things, but I still had goals. It would have been fairly easy for me to build a CV from scratch at that point, but I chose to go the salvage and restore route instead, which was fun. I guess I just can't think of things that could be implemented to challenge a player in a CV other than more enemies, which is a bit of an easy option. I wonder if further natural type hazards could be implemented, something a player isn't totally shielded from when in a vessel? Perhaps environments where the vessel MUST be shielded otherwise take slow but steady block damage? Or types of radiation that interfere with ship system if not shielded etc. I'd quite like that! There might be a sweet resource asteroid in a region that I'd need a shielded vessel to traverse and getting out to mine - or sending the Drone - would not be an option, forcing the player to "tech up" some more. Currently, if you're in a vessel of any kind there are no Environmental threats - well, unless you submerge in water or lava and drown / cook to death - but I assume that's just an incomplete feature at this time lol. Having Lava damage vessels though would be pretty cool in my book. Sure, critter were enabled to attack HV's and the like some time back, but I've not really encountered any issues with that..so some changes could be make there...GIANT predators that can carry off a small HV or SV - yes please! Basically, there are ways to expand on the environmental threats to extend them to those in vessels. Scoob.
Enemies are just a more "dynamic" kind of "natural hazard" in my view. I remember having all my stuff "removed" after reaching a solid advancement in several games, where events put the player in enemy control for a mid-game restart (player ambushed, then has to escape to recover his belongings). That has been used many times in games to "refresh" the player to his first moments in the game where he had nothing. Or simply having our ship stolen! Player gets on a specific playfield for some shady fetchquest given by a apparently ordinary trader in a crowded system. When the player is at some distance from the ship, it gets "despawned" (or simply flies away in plain view). Player has to find it to get it back. Lots of scenario possibilities here... hehe... ------------------ Another "later game" mechanic could be similar to what Mad Max had as "sidequests" to give purpose to all the scrap the player collects during all the game : building stuff for "communities" (factions or other groups). Given as simple tasks, the player would be required to build all kinds of ships/ structures to allow people to protect themselves/ escape from a dying planet/ get reliable power/water/O2 supplies for base or settlement, etc. This would make the gathering more focused and less "general" (oh! I need this specific material to build that device for X group and finish that mission). ------------------ It would help a lot if the NPCs were a bit more "dynamic". They don't need to have lots of animations like Mass Effect or Witcher characters; they could be like the NPCs in Borderlands, for example: sitting behind a desk with some basic hand/ upper body movements, hand waves, etc, or standing leaning on a wall arms crossed. They could also "update" the player's tasks via messages, and I proposed a more "immersive" way of communication than the square windows that pop up in our face during play : a simple notification, and by pressing corresponding key the player just raises a tablet-device in front of him, where the messages are displayed - this could be as simple as a weapon handling animation.
Heh, that is my plan actually as PE is a little larger than Vanilla I'd expect there to be more. While exploring can be its own reward though of course, I would like there to be more reason to need a CV and for it to be challenged by the environments a little more. Just debating going in-game for a bit, even though it's almost midnight... Scoob.
