This game might be near the end of alpha depending on how many new features are planned and the scope of those features, but it's certainly still a long ways off from 1.0. At the very least we need a few beta updates to polish up the game and balance everything, and tie together all the story threads that are scattered around. Unless there's some sort of miracle update the devs are hiding from us, I anticipate this being a pretty rough 1.0 release for the devs. The game simply has too many unfinished systems and is still very rough around the edges to be reasonably considered anything but early access.
For those that might have missed it: https://empyriononline.com/threads/leaving-alpha-early-access-some-clarifications.94900/
Oh, I don't, really. But thanks for the timestamp! The ship is still there and on a strict "material" point-of-view there is still plenty to get, just not what he wanted. To get the same quantities require mining and searching, possibly being subject to attacks if new deposits or location. Advanced players may have expectations from what they were used to in the past, with a very precise idea of what is hard to get by knowing all recipes by heart.
Keep watching for another minute or so after he places the core and the whole thing just disappears. He would have only had time to salvage a few blocks and that's it. Whole ship disappears at around 20 minutes and it still had the core he placed on it too. They are 100% useless for anything other than something to attack. You get nothing at all from them.
How? They were all self destructing at an extremely fast pace even before he placed the core. You may have time to quickly get in and grab components from a device or two but I don't see much time for more than that. So they are essentially useless for anything other than target practice.
But the ship is still there, with broken glass and damaged blocks. These can still yield component ? Steel plates, silicon, etc ?
No, at 20:10 it 100% despawned. He stopped it completely at around 17:35 and by 20:10 it was 100% despawned. No blocks, no components, nothing. As he was leaving the ship at 20:10 it despawned and then he turned around and there was nothing left. Edit So less than 3 minutes from the time the ship came to a complete stop to it no longer existing.
Right after the moment he blew up the core at 19:05 (before is not relevant) he could have salvaged components, not whole blocks or devices. True or False ?
As I pointed out, he had less than 3 minutes from the time the ship came to a complete stop to the time it 100% despawned. Sure, you can salvage a couple devices in that time but it's essentially 100% useless. If it had a 30 minute to 1 hour despawn timer, sure, it would be worthwhile to attack them. But less than 3 minutes? No way, useless.
Well "something" is not "0%" and for something the developers said was not designed to be salvaged, it is not working as intended : they should simply explode to stop giving false hopes to players. There may be a reason for the delay, but seeing how it induces players into thinking the ship belongs to them while it is tagged as "destroyed" I would make the delay zero.
Twist the words however you want to. 100% despawning in less than 3 minutes makes it useless no matter how you look at it. Why should a player even waste ammo on it? For bragging rights? The devs said they make them despawn because on busy servers it can get cluttered it they don't despawn. That in no way translates to "it must despawn in 2.5 minutes or the server is going to crash". The timer is too short by at least a factor of 10 if they want players to actually have a reason to attack them.
You saw the devs answer just like me : they are not meant to be looted. You saw the thread and Taelyn's response. By the way, I'm not going to be utterly impressed because a player on youtube makes more noise than other players here. I don't care about these futile short-sighted issues where players make dramas for a video game. You want longer timer ? Ask away, but you already know the answer. Better ask for an option, IMO.
How is this going to help new players? Is the game going to point them to the forum and the post on which are worth attacking and which are not. I don't think so. I take it you don't watch a lot of Spanj's videos. Most of the time he just jokes about the bugs in the game by saying "Eleon, please fix". He doesn't do what some YouTubers do, which is "make dramas for a video game". I bet it took quite some time and resources to take down the POI, so you can understand his frustration in getting nothing back. As others have said, whats the point in them?
Scenario: New player encounter a Patrol Vessel for first time and manages to take the core. Places a core since had one in inventory and start salvaging. After a few minutes the POI starts exploding, then shortly after it disappears (along with the core placed). The player can react in many ways, depending on expectations and personality, along understanding of the game so far. Getting angry and whiny? Maybe a bug? Lesson learned, choose the actions next time, avoid or salvage quickly as much as possible? Etc . An experienced player should know, deal with it (for now), maybe post suggestions on wanted behavior. OK to not like it and do a short rant, maybe had hoped it got changed in a recent patch. For streamers and such then this can be used as content, breaking the routine on repetitive game play, something to talk about and spend time on. Also various ways to react, where can be new to EGS or experienced. How much time and resources you use on taking a POI can vary a lot on play style and knowledge of game mechanics, also can be a sub goal to create content.
The game suggests you can loot space vessels. Yes it does say 'freighters'. Where is the logic in that restricting certain vessels from being looted is good game play? New players will not be able to capture one of these Patrol Vessels at the beginning and may have worked up to building better ships to do to, only to be rewarded with what? Yes most will be frustrated. They will most probably say what most have been saying "Whats the point...." From what I've seen and read, you get seconds before the vessel self destructs when you place your core.
FALSE It was easier to put in the video-link to show my whole experience. You should watch it now fully for pentitence of your illogical behaviour, my AI friend. We did the same, got ourselves dead. The patrol vessel almost rammed me when I finished asteroid mining. Okay, I got into a merry tagalong for 15 minutes, slowly picking off the weapons with my shieldless miner from the carrier. It still fled, so I've set the cannon turrets to generators. My friend arrived that time, so we could herd it in circles till it crashed into an asteroid field. So we went inside, I blew up the core, and we were still debating to put the core outside for scrappeng, when it blew up around us. Got outselves killed, there was two itemkeepers floating around beside our backpack remains. We had serious fun till it just blew up, and it was an anticlimatic, flustrating experience. I wouldn't say that it was an easy thing compared to a ground poi, where I blew up shortcut-tunnels to the core, and fly in with a mini-sv.
