DISCLAIMER When you play Alpha 8.0 the first time, please note that it is now possibly a reasonably DIFFERENT experience than back in 7.6! The distances are bigger, the drops are different, the mechanics got changed, new possibilities added and a lot of stuff got moved around. We absolutely RECOMMEND to first read through ALL of the feedback threads postet in this forum to get yourself up to date on the new and changed game mechanics BEFORE starting any new game! ----- Startup: - Build the Survival Tool at first - Collect fiber and ore - Craft a survival tent (SP only) - Collect former Corn Dog plants (now dropping Plant Protein); the red plant parts are visible from further away in the grassland. - To maintain a better overview, use 3rd Person mode when moving around (you might spot collectibles, ore and plants better!) Important: - Survival Constructor: built in your suit - Portable Constructor: formerly known as Survival Constructor Tips: - The Silicon you need for building a Portable Constructor can be found in the biomes next to the Starter Area (f.ex. in the Forest). Search for small "Silicon Resource Rocks". - The large(r) rocks that formerly used to drop a lot of ores are now dedicated to provide (more) Crushed Stone, as we added three distinct Resource Rocks for Iron, Copper and Silicon. - You can also reprocess Iron, Copper and Silicon from Crushed Stone in the Survival Constructor now! ----- - Survival Constructor - Q: What can I do with the Suit Constructor? A: Create some basic items and devices that should you get started until you can afford a Survival Constructor or if you are around without any other support. Q: Which items are currently available in the Suit Constructor? A: (See screenshot above; from top-left to bottom right) - Survival Tent: At night you can sleep 8h until the next morning (to overcome cold night temperatures, f.ex); See Question about Sleeping below. - Survival Tool: Rock-drilling, Deconstruct, Defense (See Question below) - Antibiotic Ointment: Heals Open Wound (See thread about new Status Effects for more info) - AntiToxic Ointment: Heals Poison Bit and other Stage 1 effects (See thread about new Status Effects for more info) - Bandages: Fixes broken bones (See thread about new Status Effects for more info) - Plant Protein (Converter Template): Creates Plantprotein from vegetables - Power Bar: Made from Plant Protein / basic food item - Hot Beverage: Increases Body Temperature - Energy Drink: Restores Stamina - Berry Juice: Basic health-restoring food item; Will reduce Bodytemperature - Vegetable Juice: Basic health-restoring food item; Will reduce Bodytemperature, Cures Hangover and Bad Trip - Emergency Generator: Can create Respirator Charges (O2) and Water Bottles, but needs energy sourc (like BioFuel) - Mobile Air Conditioner: Will level temperature in a 1-2 blocks radius to 25°C. Maximum of temperature change is +/-30°. Eg. if you in an environment with -10° the Air Conditioner will max it up to +20°. - Portable Constructor: Improves your possibilities of creating better tools, weapons and blocks to start a Hover Vessel or a small base Q: What is the Survival Tool? A: This is a little helper that can be produced free of cost in your Suit Constructor. You can break some stones for ore, slowly deconstruct blocks and it has a low-power defense mode to scare away animals, but it is not suitable for a real fight. The Survival Tool is meant to be used in the very early game and situations where you have lost all your stuff and need to start over. It is not a replacement for proper weapons or drills. A: Note: using the Survival Tool DRAINS STAMINA as an 'Energy Resource' Q: Does the Suit Constructor drain energy? A: Most likely not - at least not in the Alpha 8.0. This is pretty much subject to change in the future when the overall topic of 'Suit energy consumption' will be addressed (also relates to Light, NV, Boosters etc). - Sleeping - Q: Are there limitations, like not being able to sleep when I am followed by enemies? A: Currently you can only sleep at night (subject to change possibly) as long as there are no enemies in a 50m radius. Q: Does sleeping add or remove any Status Effects? A: Sleeping currently removes Hangover and BadTrip by sleeping; and increases or decreases body temperature (depending on which status the player has: Too Cold, Freezing, etc.) Q: How does sleeping work and where can I sleep? A: You can use the Escape Pod, Survival Tent and any Bed by pressing F (default USE key) Q: Does sleeping work in Multiplayer or Coop as well? A: No, this will remain an exclusive feature for single player in the near future. As a side note: To make this feature work in Multiplayer, ALL player would need to go to "bed" at the same time, as we cannot advance time if a player is still "active". We might possibly find a solution for this in the future, maybe for small-groups MP like Coop, but until then, this will remain a single player only feature Q: When forwarding time aka 'sleeping' in MP does not work, what about having a 'save logoff' instead? A: Yes, we already considered 'saving' your re-entry by using a Clone Chamber or similar. This is already on the list for future updates, but not in the scope for the initial Alpha 8.0 as a lot of side-effects that result from this need to be taken into account (like what happens if the ship is destroyed or captured or the device is removed and so on...).
The moment step nr. 1 fails...^^ I tried several multiplayer servers and encountered the simple problem that some resource rocks are just not there to build the basic stuff. Other players have reported the same issue. Silicon, Iron - one was always lacking. Which brings me to the flaws of the current system: - IF there are probs with getting even 3 iron ores you can't progress and help yourself. I don't know where the issue is but on several servers eg graslands has no iron / or nobody is to see the iron. - Other players trying to help, talking about landscapes which leads to no help because the map is black thx to the fog of war setting. Basic solution: - crushed stone to ore MUST be in the suit mechanics OR rocks need to drop random basic ores like it was some versions ago - nice to have: auto pickup and auto walk for emergency tool! Worth mentioning: - put basic energy cartriges in the suit so you have always smth to power your tools. Put away the stamina use... If you keep that (imo unecessary) emergency tool, then pls make it possible to mine deposits too. Currently its unnecessary complicated without adding complexity to the game.
The survival tool does not cost any materials and no energy (stamina recharges and can be boosted) The lack of rock ores > yes, but that’s basically a MP,issue as rocks do not respawn. We are working on a solution for this, but for now server owners should keep,starter planets managed (admins can regenerate terrain) and make players move off the starter planets so wipes can happen. To be honest this is not a new challenge and server owners do this since ever .. at least most of those I know. In Sp this is not a Problem.
Admins should but since a8 just launched you have to wait 7-14 days usually for initial wipe. And if you have a lot of returning players again every wipe day... it's not a fail safe system. So good to hear you're working on a solution. I think it was on 3 different servers i had these issues right at start so you can't progress. With the new larger worlds it is an issue because you just run for miles. So the current entry level is more like not having a fast sense of achievement. @survival tool: yep but i don't get the connection between stamina and energy usage... i also had more often than not starts where i tried to mine stuff and had to run because of that nice spider pack. Then its even useless to defend your self. While running around i got the impression someone plays the Benny Hill theme. In such situations there is an over use of stamina + the logic error what stamina has to do with powering a tool. The survival tool would be helpful if it's main purpose would be to have a "fail safe" ability: a) producing basic ores out of mere dirt b) helps you always to get out of holes on multiplayer starter worlds^^ Currently it doesnt provide these things and if everything went well you swith to T2 soon anyway. Some servers provide the old T1 drill start and i never had a use for the survival tool. I also don't get why its been constructed out of thin air. And if it's for free, why not already put it in the capsule? By the way, one of the main reasons ppl switch from T1 to T2 as fast as possible is the annoying sound. It is really tiresome aka good simulation of real world tools but not good for gaming. I know you have your darlings in this game... but i advocate for more sense and usefulness of these mechanics eg the idea of failsafe. I'd also argue - if you have to go the survival route - make the suit constructor be able to let you start on the fly when loosing gear or your backpack. Don't make things out of thin air. The suit needs power eg. charges during daylight / has a rundown at night or smth like that. So no artificial stamina use is needed.And to avaid the basic material issue - let it drill shallow terrain for pebbles which are converted into basic ores at a low rate - well thats what i would expect for a survival suit. Beside that boosting of stamina and all other parameters are too arcady imo. In extreme situations its like activating them stackwise click-click-orgy style. That doesn't feel right to me because i'm focused on the mini game eg. bring health level up a bit and switch back to weapon. I'd rather like to see smth like in mmo's where i get a 30-50 min boost and i can focus on the situation instead of micromanaging myself. I want to solve a situation through combat skills or tactical choices. eg. luring a predator group into another instead of boosting and running with 2 packs on my back. Using decoys and the enemy of my enemy i have to use my skills to solve a situation like this which is more interesting for me than defence with the tool and boosing it - if a booster is available. And i miss a lot of such creative solution ingame these days.
The essential problem here is that the suit doesn't have its own power system; until that's implemented, not much can be improved about the suit with respect to powering tools, weapons and boosters. As far as the Survival Tool being free to construct, well, one way to look at it is that the tool is built into the suit (the code for having it always available simply doesn't exist right now, hence the hopefully stopgap measure of being able to construct it for free).
i know, it would help to overlook this if it had basic features i'd find useful in an always available emergency tool (eg escaping holes, recover from item loss). You have also strange stuff like it picks up wood but no ore. And we begged for getting rid of click orgies with the other drills, so why they always put something in to make a step back in design? Still, i don't see the need of that many tools - like having T1 drill and chainsaw extra while the multi tool evolved nicely with a radial menu and all the important features. Mayb for roleplayers... but i tend to go straight T2 drill and ladybug because nothing else is appealing in supporting my playstyle or in terms of sounddesign As Sandbox builder and empire pvp player i want to care about the bigger picture anyway and not the treadmill of micromanagement some of you cherish so much.
I agree with others that the survival tool needs a way to help get out of a hole you may have fallen in. If this isnt a digging from the survival tool then maybe a survival ladder or even just a /stuck command, you should not have to kill yourself with a console command or wait to starve in MP because you fell in a hole someone dug. If the rocks and trees respawned then MP would be fine, but most servers do not do the terrain wipe daily and that is what would be needed at this stage for people to start out after 40 people went through one planets start. I might suggest giving the portable constructor ability to convert rock into ore to the survival constructor, even if just as a stop gap it would help with the MP and resourced rock missing issue. Along with that if no rocks respawn currently allow basic terrain to give crushed rock again Like others I dont like the survival tool using stamina, it makes no sense and makes things needlessly harder when trying to use for defense. Late game once you get armor I have a few issues with survival there as well. Currently the temperature booster gives +5 to both types of temperature, and -15 armor, this is not nearly enough. EVA booster gives +190 to cold temp at -150 armor lets you survive on any cold planet with medium or heavy armor. The lava planets you cant get high enough protection from even with heavy armor and 5 temp boosters. The temp boosters should be more like +50 temp resistance -50 armor not +5/-15 you get a much better ratio from the eva booster. Also the weather doesnt seem to have much affect once you get armor, your suit protects you from all the affects, I dont even have to strip out other boosters for rad ones to go out in a radiation storm even on light or medium armor. Multi boost are nearly as good as rad boosters in radiation +2 vs +3 and also give temp boost. I would like to see multi boost be +2 rads +20 temp resistance, and rad boosters be +4 or +5 rads resistance.
Something is not quite right with the flow of survival progression. It's not a single massive thing, but more of an overlapping area of mechanics or holes in them, that add up to a meh experience. Deposits are too far between and the biome locking on resources is jagged. I would suggest that each Biome area contains 3-5 levels of spawn items and npc/animals, where each biome is a concentric set of circular leveled areas. For example, the starter area should be a medium to large size area with lots of small low yield deposits of Stone, Copper, Silicon and Iron, in addition to surface rocks. It should have a variant of all of the basic resources needed to " stay alive" and to progress to the next area. The starter area should encompass the area where the first wrecked CV is located (not the titan) and shouldn't have any aggressive spawns nearby. my saves have a spider spawn and a dino spawn right there. The starter area should be located in a spot where you have 2-4 adjacent biome areas giving a survival start an extended level one area. Higher level biome areas should have tougher creatures with better drops and slightly deeper and higher yield deposits. Biome level areas would be a concentric progression of more difficult levels of the same or an adjacent overlapping Biome blended in. There should be some sort of "boss" or alpha spawn in the level 3, 4, and 5 areas of a biome that guards and/or drops a resource from a higher level biome (or a completely different biome). That would incentivise players to move out of the starter area toward higher level and higher quantity resources. This doesn't mean that a level 1 Irradiated/Alien biome should be = to a starter area, only that within that biome there is a gradient of difficulty and risk vs. reward. Fuel Gaps Another issue that pops up is small vehicles. By the time you can make an SV/HV, you can't fuel it. You need it to get to promethium spawns, but you need to get to the distant prometheum spawns first to power it. This to me is a result of too few types and little overlap of energy resources. Out-Of -Order Tech Unlocks It is possible for players to start taking CV/SV unlocks immediately which places them in a position where they can't continue playing because they are at a so high of a level that it is super grindy to go back and fix a misallocated unlock by getting more levels when they can't make better weapons/ammo because they spent unlocks ignorantly. Here is how I would address the Leveling/Survival Progression issues above: 1. Split XP into activity based pools. Instead of getting XP for digging ore and harvesting fiber to unlock a sniper rifle or thrusters: Give XP for "Foraging" tasks then unlock items related to Foraging. Drills, Saws, fridge, food processor blocks, etc. Leveling up in "Foraging" allows you to get more and better resources from foraging. Ex: At level 0, a plant may yield 1 protein, but at level 5 it may yield 2 protein, 1 water, 2 fiber, and a sugar or starch. Unlocking foraging items may also improve the % healed from med packs or reduce effects from poisoning, eating raw foods, etc. Give XP for "Combat" tasks. Killing Creatures/NPCs lets you level up combat unlocks.? Faster reloads? less recoil? scope stabilization? (new) Primitive Armor - No jetpack, provides protection against animal attacks only. Other unlocks: Light armor, and hand weapons. Loot from kills could increase in count, rarity, or item types looted from kills at various levels. Give XP for "Construction" (Bases) tasks Building structural blocks on a base or making certain components in a constructor gives this. This should be based on the block complexity/resources required. This can be used to unlock additional block types/styles. (Armor or Base Blocks only) Give XP for "Engineering"(Ships) tasks. Building structural blocks or making components in a constructor gives this. This should be based on the block complexity/resources required. This can be used to unlock additional block types/styles. (Armor or HV/SV/CV only) Base Unlocks use XP from the "Construction" pool while HV/SV/CV use xp from the "Engineering" pool. HV/SV/CV should have dependency requirements. For blocks shared on all types, you would have to learn the HV/SV Thruster, before you can learn the CV version of it. For blocks unique to a HV/SV/CV you have to unlock a specific set of prerequisite blocks to learn them, the Grav Generator, for example, would need certain other CV blocks learned before this one. All vehicles require the Base version of a block unlock before the ship version can be unlocked. A Global XP Pool ("Survival") can still exist. All XP earned in the other pools contributes a fraction to the global pool. The global pool can be used to raise base stats and resistances. Improve your trading discounts (your reputation as a survivor precedes you) Unlock special addon gear/slots such as: Night vision goggles Thermal goggles Upgraded scopes Personal Scanner Ore Scanner Strobe Lights (world block object) Smoke Grenades Keeps you from seeing or being seen by AI turrets and NPCs Lasts 30 seconds The Global pool would also be used to purchase unlocks for things like lights where it doesn't make sense to say you need to learn how to make a light separately on 3 different grid types. (Basic tech shouldn't be grid specific.) 2. Increase the Fuel Options. The first fuel should be manufactured in the suit constructor. This will require expanding the harvestables to add different drop tables for hand harvesting vs. tool harvesting an object. All plant/Tree type objects would have both options. Increase harvest options. A tree could be harvested by hand (regrows fast) and could return either fruit, bark, fiber, dead branches(wood) etc. The same tree could be harvested (regrows slow) with an extractor tool (gun) that returns Sugar Sap(food/fuel resource), Sticky Sap, or drinkable liquid (can be heated to remove neg effects or used as food/medical resource). The same tree could be cut for Wood(respawn depends on game settings). If a plant supports multiple harvest types, all should be able to be used provided you have the tools and the first action doesn't destroy the object. Add drops/harvestables to support an additional low end fuel. Liquid Extractor Tool Can extract liquids from some plants Can extract unpurified water from standing water pools. Functions should be supported in Survival gun tool. Sugar Sap (food resource/fuel resource) Can be processed into Sugar or used as a food ingredient. Sticky Sap (food resource/fuel resource/medical resource) Used to make Adhesives Watery Sap (food resource/fuel resource/medical resource) Drinkable liquid (can be heated to remove neg effects or used as food ingredient/medical resource). Extracted from some trees, aloe Plants, some other fruit or vegetable plants. Can be processed into Sugar or used as a food ingredient. Biofuel (component) is made from alcohol, sugar, water(purified or not), and fat mix. This will require animal fat be dropped from appropriate creatures. Alcohol is made from Fruit and Water in the suit constructor (120 seconds per) Sugar is made from Sugar Cane, 3 Sweet Sap, 3 fruit, or 5 berries in the suit constructor. ( 90-120 seconds per) Unpurified water can be hand collected from standing water, a rain collector block (World or Base block). this can be purified in world placed survival constructor or better. Fat is a combat drop from appropriate creatures(not insects). Biofuel Fuel Cells (Tier 1) - take Biofuel (component)and is used for basic Hand Tools. Made in Suit Constructor and above. The Current BioFuel changes to a component: "Biodiesel". Biodiesel Fuel Cells (Tier 1) - take Biodiesel (component) and are used to power Base/HV Biodiesel Generators (Tier 1). (Made in World placed Constructor and above) These can be made with the current recipe and also can be made by converting 4:1 Biofuel to Biodiesel. Hydrogen can be used to make Hydrogen Fuel Cells (Tier 2) , Tool Charges (Tier 1), or Fuel Cells(Tier 1). This allows for a player to use new, easier to produce fuel in the gap before getting Promethium. Promethium Cells and above are the same from this point upward. 3. World Placed Object fuels need to be standardized and survival constructor exploits closed. The starter world placed Constructor is OP. While I like having a few on hand for emergencies, they can be rapidly exploited by placing several to process ore/promethium for free and saving base power for other items. To fix this, I would require them to need a fuel source, Biofuel Fuel Cells (Tier 1), at minimum. They can consume them slowly but they need to not be a free limitless tool. Water Generators, Emergency water/O2 generators, Personal Heaters, etc. should also take Biofuel Fuel Cells (Tier 1), at minimum. All world placed tool blocks should also be able to be optionally run during the day with a portable Solar Generator placed nearby. If both a portable Solar Generator and Fuel are used , the fuel usage should drop to 1/4 usage during the day.
This sounds overly complicated to be honest. Splitting xp and adding tons of types of resources would confuse most players and increase the learning curve for new players making them less likely to stick with the game. Most people though would agree that the existing unlock with leveling is not really worth while. You dont make choices are you unlock everything with thousands of points left at the end. Several people have suggested tech be tied to some sort of discovery, or just all unlocked to start as you have a database from your ship you crashed out of and the only limit is resources and needing to build the right things to make the higher tier tech. Leveling could then increase attributes or allow perks instead of dealing with the tech. To Point 2, you can fuel an SV with bio fuel I believe it just takes a lot of it. Most things can be powered by biofuel in 8.0 It would be nice to have solar as an option for more than just a base though, CV's in particular and even HV and SV could be supplemented by Solar power. I would also love to see geo thermal power for those who like to live on a lava planet.
