EXP 1.7 - Mission: Murky Christmas

Okay, this mission made me chuckle.... I really liked the big cavern underneath, very cool. It was nice seeing what you could do with the new gun models as well. And water blocks? Even if they don't work properly yet? Nice little easter eggs - 4 months early!

 

When I figured out that the enemies endlessly respawned, it got easier as I just ran to the cages, there was still some fighting though! Tough but doable with good epic armour / weapons.

I think if the enemies did not respawn, it would give people the option of either fighting through - really good design for sneaking and sniping I thought - or doing the run and save option.

 

So, not sure if you still want feedback 7 months later, but here it is anyway:

Coming across this mission in mid summer, the somewhat over-the-top Christmas theme felt weirdly out of place for a story mission following the prison bust.

I would suggest giving the sleigh-ship some fuel, oxygen and (optionally) pentaxide in the tanks so you don't have to ferry it back and forth from your vessel. Also it has a shield but not enough power to use it, so I'd suggest either adding power or removing the shield.

The cave played very poorly on my somewhat dated setup. I usually get 40-60 frames, but in the cave I got ~10 after a lot of creatures spawned.
Fighting turned out to be pointless especially with the endless spawn. So after I died quite far in, I spent about 20 minutes and 5 deaths to get my stuff back, then dumped everything in one of the boxes and just ran in with nothing but my quickbar and died my way to "rescuing" the remaining workers.

The resolution was a bit of a reconciliation, especially as it at least admitted the elephant in the room: if the Legacy is so super infectious for both life and machine, how come neither me nor my ship have been infected yet, and more so: ho come *anybody* is willing to let me on their ship or station after they know I've been in contact with the stuff

 

I have a 1080Ti with 11GB but the caverns sucked me down from an average 70~80 fps to around 15~20 fps once the various creatures spawned. I've never had a fps issue until this event.
Also is that it?? I was expecting much more storyline than this. 'Fly back to orbit and report to GLaD' but nothing happens so I assume there's no more at the moment. Would have been nice if you had a pop-up that told us that it is to be continued instead of leaving us wondering.

 

I added another generator on the sleigh, shield problem solved. Not sure why I bothered, it's not needed.
Part of the new story add-on is the realisation that our hero is somehow immune. I get it about the ships, we're not seeing it with other ships and planets around the galaxy, just special POI's. The game would probably get annoying pretty quickly if we had to constantly deal with it, like most games they'll draw a line between 'logical/reality' and 'best gameplay'.

 

Yes, a massive drop in FPS almost to the non-playable level. Also, any mission where devs have to create endless hordes of mobs is usually -- poorly designed/thought through. And the "saved" captives left behind swarmed by those mobs are... well... too unrealistic by any standard.

 

Nailed it Lucidlook. Infinite enemy horde frame rate slideshow. "We do' need no stinking level design, just more (infinite spawning) enemies!"

 

Saving Santa!? ... Really? April 2023!? This is the final chapter of the main mission story line?? Infinite respawns? Framerates 10-15 fps?
What a terrible joke... Ho ho ho
Lose the Santa references and the infinite respawns... And this would actually be a pretty cool mission.
Lucidbook said it well ^^