This is a feedback concerning the Random Starting locations offered by Reforged Eden 2 Beta. ***SPOILERS FOLLOW**** First, very cool feature I did not know was there. I did part ways with the game for a bit and my usage is inconsistent at the moment, but I found it by accident today when cycling through the various starting planets. I think it helped that I got starting option C as my first option so I will begin there: C: Very, very awesome dead planet 5. Started 3 - 500m from one of the anti-aircraft towers and had two drones buzzing around it that seemed to ignore me. I then went and scrounged for what was necessary for a hover bike which then rapidly accelerated to finding ruins and shelter. Was hard, but very doable. The experience was so great it quickly became one of my favorite starts ever; the amount of loot I was showered with and the dense concentrations of drones was paired well with the challenging planet and the difficult task of trying to generate XP gain. E: Starts you on the crystalline moon in one the two or three random starter systems(same as C.) Was fucking BRUTAL. Somehow, I survived to the point where I found an iron deposit, a cave(and got rich,) and a silicon deposit. I got a desperate bit of copper from one of the desert golems and built a bike but that was it. I know you go out of your way to communicate that some of the starting options my be futile, but, it was ACTUALLY futile. Because of the clear communication I will not be too critical, but it bears worth mentioning. I ended up using the console to find what was on the planet(ents -all) and then used Godmode to see if I could have found copper anywhere, and it turns out that with a specific tactic(rushing the door) I could have bum-rushed the cultist temple and fought my way through the enemies to get to the inner chamber with 4 alien containers 2 of which had around 150 - 200 copper? Ish? But that presence is random so no guarantees the next time. I dunno, came away feeling less excited. Still, I wanted to try another so... L: Gorgeous, neat, weird canyon moon? I quickly figured out that the only sources of the base 3 resources came from resource rocks that changed with the terrain. Then I found a crashed CV nestled in one of the canyons. Decided not to continue because I wanted to try another Random, but with patience a SV could have been cobbled together. N: A desert Oasis! Very.... well ****. One drone from the outset of my arrival was set on some kind of persistence? It stuck to me no matter where I went. Then another with the same behavior followed. Very much the opposite from the behavior of the drones on the dead planet 5. So, had to try another. Not sure if it was a quirk or the planet but that will not work. B: Irradiated. Cold, lonely planet. Also the largest I have ever been to in this game. Started out at the very northern most latitude. I did eventually find some resource rocks and got a hoverbike. I was so interested in trying another random that the size sent me scurrying but with time and patience that should be doable. It would have been a near thing as the temperature can be managed with dips in the water, but that radiation is tuned to be just rigorous enough that it might have been too much. P: Temperate rainforest! But! Holy ****! The game "drops" you in a crashed ship that was right next to a Zirax fortification and there was a patrol right outside! To make matters worse the "dropping" broke my leg and I was trying to fight with a "fracture." Wow! I fought off the patrol, salvaged what I could from the interior, built a bike and zoomed away from the fortification. Very neat start. The density of the trees caused my older graphics card to barely function but possibly doable. The planet was missing one of the big three base resources so not guaranteed, but maybe. As an aside: the feel of the planet is very much what I first envisioned for the Abyssal Zirax as a home planet. I departed from that idea, but I did like the atmosphere.
Thank you! So far the feedback on it has been very positive. People seem to really enjoy it. This should have been fixed as of one of the recent RE2 updates. That planet was missing its portal so people were being placed into a random POI instead. Oops! Abyssal are still on my list... Somewhere. It's a very long list and it's just two of us working on this. I still have the research lab on the plasma planet that is mostly good to go, probably needs some updates for RE2 though. All the other POIs will need to be heavily updated or remade for the scenario which would just mean setting aside a few months to work specifically on the Abyssal faction. So I have not forgotten them, but it will probably be awhile. People have actually done this one without deaths. But random is random, so not only are you sent to a random planet or moon, but those planets or moons can be highly randomized themselves too. The idea is that I wasn't going to include any planet that would literally be impossible to survive on without getting stuck in a death loop, so I didn't include things like lava planets or the Venus like barren planet. That doesn't mean there won't be times you're going to get stuck though, but it should be more from bad luck/making mistakes/etc than because the planet type itself is literally impossible. Thanks for the feedback! Glad you're (mostly) enjoying it so far! I honestly did not expect that it would be very popular but even I found myself playing through the start of some of these planets.
Nope, but now that it has been moved public I will place the ***SPOILER*** for those who might be concerned about such things. Yeah, figured. I just noted things as I was zooming by on my hover bike trying desperately to dodge trees that were moving slowly due to my graphics card getting mauled. If this is an "oops" I appreciate that you need to fix it, buuuuut, it was also kinda awesome. I would not mind one or two of those starts having something brutal like that. I so completely enjoyed my start on "C" that I kinda wish it was a standard starting option. Any chance you would want to add another "IMPOSSIBLE" start in one of the starter systems exactly like "C?"
Okay maybe not exactly like it, but make it better and add: - Not completely dark like the dead planets(keep them the way they are, because sweet dang are they excellent) but maybe like 40 - 50% dimmer. - Then, add even more wreck/junk/broken down POI's but have them with like 1 or 2 drones. Make sure to keep some areas without, but have a touch more of a junkyard or ruinous theme; like dead planet 5 plus. I loved that I found the huge rocket ship(that exists on several of the dead planet templates) but one of the things I REALLY enjoyed was finding the broken down carcass of an SV that had... I believe 4 railguns and 2 CV fixed weapons? Players, at that point in their game could never use such things due to CPU cost, but what they can do and what I did was get pushed to unlock the deconstructer and then get a bonanza of loot. That juxtaposition of fantastic loot and challenging planet is just so great. Really feeds the gatherer of the scavenger-gather nature of the Terran race(us). Or maybe it is just me. - "C" already had some of the abandoned structures soooooo, maybe a nightmare or two out and about in the wastes? Not too many though; just a sprinkle. - Ooh ooh, and make sure the player starts with the submachine gun not the pistol and maybe a touch more ammo. SMG are tricky because while strong in the right hands, they are hard to use. - Also, and I know this might be a bit crazy, but, any chance you could merge whatever template is used on that gorgeous canyon moon except in dead planet form? Wouldn't that be nuts? I think that would be nuts. Either that or go the opposite route and flatten it a bit more. @Escarli you are very handy with planet creation so if you could think of some templates to try that could be fun. I would try but I have attempted planet creation before but got re-routed back into POI building, so, best to address the interested/experts. I also might be getting ahead of myself and maybe just keep the planet the way it is but with the other changes.
Potentially possible, but I wanted to keep the setup as easy as possible so it's easy for me to convert planets into random starts. So I used the same destination POI for all of them. More starter planets are planned but not for awhile. RE2 already has 14 unique starting planets, plus 21 random starting planets. It usually takes several weeks to make a proper, unique starting planet. Potentially longer if unique POIs and missions are needed. That's a lot of time to spend so I haven't prioritized them. A random start takes maybe an hour to add, as it's just taking an existing planet, removing some of the POI entries, and updating the sectors file and random start hub blueprint. Oh yeah making planets is a whole other beast compared to making POIs. Plus the new deco system allows even more customization possible, which means you'll be spending five times as long setting up the deco for a biome than you used to (but it's worth it). You might like the new volcanic planet I'm working on (yes it will be added to the random starter options too): You'll notice some custom effects too in some of these screenshots. Click to view screenshots: Spoiler: Screenshots of new Volcanic planet
