Feedback Required EXP 1.8 - New Game Start: MASPERON (Alien Swamp Starter Moon)

I went through all the planets and this one felt a bit bland to me. I really enjoyed the portions with the high cliffs and gorges, but it felt like there was a lot of just flat open space. I was hoping there would be a little bit more water on the planet. It felt a bit too similar to Akua. Survival wise, I haven't tested it yet, but I will be soon.

 

yeah, i'm trying this one now. found geysers! are we going to have thermal energy generators?


didn't find any carbon so far that is really weird since it's a swamp and it's one huge carbon trap covered with more carbon in the form of trees and grass. feels so weird and helpless to stand on carbon and having no carbon.

i wanted to scrap a wooden wall but it was actually made of steel and only textured as wood. why?


well, it also looks too sunny and hot for a swamp, i'd expect it to be more cold and cloudy, but actually why not.

 

i've got fever there and had nothing else to do but to die. peacefully at home near my clone chamber. but i was clonned on the opposite side of it between the chamber and the wall, so had to cheat myself out of it. this never happened to me before.

also i once fell through the swamp and broke a bone by falling on the moon's core. it happened when i landed my ship on its side to mount some devices on its belly and i exit it into the ground.

the game crushed when i used the teleporter on the damaged station, but it saved the game with me on the planet, so i can continue. somehow it teleported me not to a teleporter but into a forest. is it even possible in the lore? i'd love to be able to teleport myself to any location of my choice form a teleporter.

 

Yep.. No agro happening.
Akua.. Masperon here ( I just used this one pic of ol' boi here just taken ) Every place I visit I get no agro or some random one agro's and nobody else says boo.
I cant even have a Raptor get upset with me unless I pick a fight.
SETTINGS ALL DEFAULT on new start ( x2 new games since 1.8 )

 

Trying this one too while waiting on EXP3.

I got aggro Swamp Trolls. One even tried to sneak up on me, unsuccessfully due to their booming footsteps and my recently constructed shotgun.

It was the first time I'd had high body heat be an actual environment challenge (rather than by accidentally standing next to a thruster) so I actually got to use the cooling effect of berry juice for once. It wasn't a very long-term issue though because of the newly locker-free-equipability of the light armour.

Finding copper bearing rocks was a unique challenge because of them being nearly invisible in the tall grass. More than once I'd take a birds eye view with my drone to re-locate a boulder I'd seen from a distance and I was standing right next to it.

Eluvial neodymium and prometheum are novel (although I'd never been to an alien planet in earlier versions of the game).

I'd noticed on other playthroughs but this is the first time I remember to mention it: When salvaging windows, the shattered glass texture remains hanging in the air (and sometimes the frame as well), but is removed when a replaced with a new window. Hard to capture in a single screenshot but I could clip a video if you need.

The first time I came across a radiation hotspot I went digging for a source. It would be nice if there was something to justify them.

pix

 

Hi The aggro issue seems to have been corrected in EXP2, it was a big hassle in 1. :-/
The windows is indeed know. I had reported that in bugs to find... it had been It's on the actual list it seems.
YES. The ' survival ' in heat / cold / radiation is much better for the gameplay with more need to pay attention to counter measures.

Radiation can be caused simply by planet ozone too. IE On Skillon ( DESERT ) there being no atmosphere to speak of the radiation is very deadly if not taken into account, it's simply caused by the sun. There is often a justification in consideration ( tho' not perfected yet in all the various of cause affect ) on environment issues. But radiation is generally pretty much environment or generated by some tangible item.
But environmental, well it's going to be invisible.
Other locations can justify other ways. I forget the cause on SWAMP..

 

A few bit of feedback after a few hours of play
==================================

version v1.8 3823 starter seed 666666666 (well all the sixes)

1. general (opinion)
i found the wildlife ok at night - but thought the moon very empty of wildlife during the day
leading to very little Daytime challenge and world feels empty.
Also no wildlife protecting deposits -- i felt it was too easy (would put me off as a first time user)

2. Aggressive dinosaurs
Uhh you can go straight up to them and shoot, they dont care (did you forget to turn their AI on)

3. Damaged shuttle (near obelisk)
Is regenerating POI so cant modify for use (i wasnt following the story)

4. Crashed CV (the one straight head first in the ground)
Something fishy with switch logic, as i trapped myself in the pilots cabin and had to gm to get out
(that was after switching the security switch in the room above that)
otherwise i felt it did give a good level of beginner challenge

5. Talon plantations didnt seem to generate a territory (may be intentional)


i did like the lush world though did have a few world tear problems.
i did like the wildlife fighting each other (though the assasins did 1-shot the pangolins)

 

Can I ask what the intended gameplay surrounding the "Nest" POI's are? From what I can tell, they're only good for Steel and Sathium Plates and Xeno Substrate. No critters of any sort have spawned at any I've visited, and there are lots on the planet. I find myself at the stage where I see the marker for an unknown POI and am disappointed when it's just another nest. Am I missing something here?

Further to tony's post above, the "Agressive Dinosaur" critters appear to have an AI issue. They're usually stationary, though I did encounter one wandering out of a group of three, but they're all unreactive to the player's presence and being shot. Easy prey. Other critters so far appear to be behaving properly.

 

1. Base build keepout distance of about 450m from any deposit on masperon moon
seems high - way more so than before... has this changed?


2. Quest items -- version 3831 - probably quest chain not finalised yet

i seem to be able to get quest items for items below Without Actually getting the quests for them yet
Raptor skin
Telluopod (forgot what)
Wild corn

The wild corn is annoying cause without 8 ish of the things in your backpack
you cant pick up corn till you can find the quest. (they dont stack)

Problem is i cant get the quest on masperon i think
the plantation talon warriors suggest to find chief
before they will give any quests (and no chief quest marker -
i suspect the chief is probably on different moon)

 

I also ask myself that, what's the point in these nests, and most of the wrecks in the starter planets to be honest, thus far the only thing they do is clutter the UI and game saves, the more POIs the bigger and clunkier the save game gets

The wrecks can provide some steel but by the time the player has a multitool and chargers to use it and make it worthwhile, that is basically junk

2 or 3 of each should be more than enough

 

nests i agree on -- i think theyre meant to anchor soemthing (that doesnt exists)

however on my playthrough (v3823 seed all the 6s)
i had
1 x crashed ship stuck in ground (reasonable start challenge) - and some engines (well salvaged parts anyway)
1 x Abandoned drone base
a few clustered talon plantations
1 x shack
1 x crashed cockpit
1 x damaged hover vessel
and the activators / teleport things

which isnt much on the planet - and annoyingly all are regenerable so i cant put a core in them and
use as a base if i wanted to (this must be an oversight) for a solo game


so aside from the empty nests there isnt much --- maybe theres a lot of variance
(i would expect soem structures to show a new player what can be built and torn down and a couple with 'mild peril' challenges)

 

While initially quite fun with some hostile critter encounters, the Masperon start has failed to keep me interested so I've not played for a couple of days. Once I got to the settled (good base and resources) stage and was beginning to explore more, the constant "Nest" POIs - really, there are way too many of them - and total lack interesting POI's, sorta put me off.

Now, sure, maybe that's the game telling me it's time for a warp-capable SV and to go and explore off-planet and that's valid. However, it's a bit of a wasted opportunity to make Masperon interesting.

Masperon so far:

- Environment = very easy, breathable, no temperature issue and minimal radiation issues.
- Food Resources = very easy, food plants plentiful, trivial to keep fed / craft bandages.
- Ore Resources = easy, plentiful deposits and surface rocks - took me a while to find Copper Rocks though as none near start for me.
- Critter Threat = medium. Some very dangerous critters out there, but a moderately equipped player (suit, AR) is in littler danger. Note: Raptors broken currently, so I'm excluding them.
- Adventure = low. I didn't really feel challenged at any point and there were no "ooh, fun POI" moments.

The scattered Wreckage POI's can be good for a little flavour / deco, and they might have something useful in a cargo box. I'd suggest these wrecks should not have regular low-level loot, but rather a chance to get a decent weapon or tool early-game. That would feel like a worthwhile POI.

Nests, well, I've already shared my thoughts on those. They don't even spawn critters to fight for Experience (levels) meat and ingredients for meds.

I'd like to see more interesting POI's - though I understand the Seed may well impact what I personally have encountered - so I have stuff to experience before I leave the planet forever.

Masperon was once upon a time THE hard game start. Hostile environment, lots of dangerous critters, Zirax presence etc. It's now a little too easy. Barren has proven the most challenging thus far for me.

The planet is very easy, which may well be as intended, but other than a few critters there's not much challenge here. By the time I was exploring more and encountering larger groups of critter - which would have been scary on foot - I was already zooming around in an HV (with options to build an SV if I wished) so I could just ignore them. There's also little incentive to explore, knowing that (for me at least) that unknown POI I just detected is likely just another Nest.

 

Good points by Scoob. I think for me this start should be one where you feel harrased and under threat from wildlife continuously. Once you can build an HV you can outrun everything.

One thought is perhaps have some creature focused POIs - infested wrecks or potentially caves accessible by foot (like small versions of the Xmas one, or the cave POIs in Project Eden)

Also in resources, perhaps have those POIs be main source of ores / resources, so much harder to just chuck out an HV, then mine and away you go!

In terms of NPCs, it might help to have something with ranged attacks that can threaten starter HVs as well (like the fire breathing things on the old arid start - got a nasty shock when it fireballed my SV once!)

Final rhin that occurs, and I know this isn't on the roadmap for this year) is for a beast base attack - where viscious wildlife attacks your base.

Just some thoughts on making it more dangerous and thematic!

 

Love the Beast tide idea - very Xianxia

 

I've been hoping for that for years. I want a rush of nasty critters to follow me back to my base - something we'd have to be mindful of - before trying to break in. We could even have real "nests" from which such attacks are spawned. Go near the nest, get too close, get followed back to your base and potentially attacked. Proximity / base size would influence things. Proposed this idea literally years ago now, still hopeful We could even have burrowing critters...now that'd be nasty lol.

I do like how the new starters are more oriented to not being all about that first base attack. There's more gameplay to be had before the Zirax and Drone waves become a thing, so I'm quite pleased by this. Just need to keep up with the direct environment threats - Skillon has this pretty much perfect in my view - and add in more dangerous critters and critter-related events (said base attack) to keep things interesting.

Seeing the player leave that first somewhat more tricky planet having had to fight Heat / Cold / Rads / scarce resources / nasty critters will make the players acquisition of technology be that much more significant as they rise above such things.

That said, I'd quite like to see some uber / giant critters as sorta local (nest?) bosses.... Something basic had weapons can't quite cut it with...

 

Yes some 'boss' monsters / NPCs would be cool. Gives an extra challenge for the FPS bit of the game!