I agree with the quests being somewhat lacking in balance. In that beer brewery mission, I had no idea that if I drank one beer bottle I could slowly die and there was nothing I could do about it then. Well, I didn't have the exact medicine with me and wouldn't know which medicine was the right one. They are fun though, but unless you're familiar with the game, you'll miss some basic stuff. I remember my first time spending all of my ammo on a Admin Core only to find out two things when I visited the forums: 1. I could point my multitool to a block and see if I was doing damage to it and how much damage. 2. Admin Cores are indestructible. On the positive sides: a) I find most of the POIs very well built, some are very complex with multiple levels, dangers and loot. b) Not many survival games allow you to publish your own creations to Steam Workshop. The user can easily integrate a new ship and base to their ongoing game without any hassle. And he can also modify it at will once it's loaded in the game. c) The open configuration files. You can do almost anything to enhance your experience and Eleon is still improving that. We can even mod the blocks now. d) The community. People like jrandall, spanj, ravien_ff, Vermillion, Escarli, Kaeser and many other talented members constantly improve the game.
Hey guys, so, I was the one that build the Sigma Station and I just want to answer some of your queries regarding the mission associated I will start by saying that many of you complained about the difficulty but as a matter of fact many more complain daily that the game gets boring and they give up as they get to level 25 and run out of stuff to do, so it is a difficult equilibrium devs need to do to please all And in one hand this is a game mission but on the other hand, it is not a tutorial mission, you know that if you have to travel half way across the galaxy into the fulcrum of a pirate faction things will not be easy, you need to prepare accordingly Regarding the difficulty vs reward ratio I would say is very positive, you do have to kill a few hostiles among the pirate ranks and be careful at doing so but as a reward you get more loot that you can possibly carry and on top of that the control of a station with several merchants at your disposal, you need to earn that... Just as a comparison, the equivalent to this in Zirax terms would be a Drone Base, and you can't just sneak into a drone base and take control of it, you need a full out war with the appropriate vessels, this in comparison is far easier you just need to understand how it works, if you want to sneak in you can not use the same approach as in other bases, and it's not like the hostiles are just out to get you, you receive several warnings before they are rendered and you need to cross well identified doors to trigger them In my defense, once you know how this works, in the next playthroughs, it will take most of you a couple seconds, min, to take control of the station Some also say that the hostiles should all be of one type so you could tell them apart, but in fact you can clearly tell what they are just by the HUD display above their heads, you just need to take cover until you find out where they are, on the other hand it would not make much sense to have all pirates looking exactly the same, they are not a professional or even well organized combat force, they are pirates and they lack some hierarchy organization and responsibilities and all the drones and cyborgs you see around the base were in one way or another stolen and hijacked to serve the pirates from all the other major factions, that is one reason so many of them have issues recognizing hostiles in their own ranks and shoot you And lets be honest, if I made all the hostiles in the station look exactly the same you all would be asking why are they even there to begin with And that leaves us with the question, why are they even there?... well to begin with, pirates are prob the easiest faction in the game to get a good rep with, all you need to to is to harass some Zirax, by the time most people leave the starting planet they are already in good terms with the pirates so, all you had to do was to sneak into the station and flip the switch to the core, in fact, once you know how it works that will prob be what you'll be doing anyway... metaphorically speaking that is... That being said I do recognize there are a few points that could be improved but overall what I can do to the station has little effect on difficulty, the biggest problem resides with the game settings and a couple of other issues related to weapons and armors I for one have long complained about that and have had some input that they will be addressed at some point, that is, no matter what armor you're on, it will deplete with a couple of hits, that is just ridiculous specially considering the epic stuff, on top of that once they deplete they are just pointless, you better off in your pajamas, just a point I usually make, you can be in a space hermetically closed and compliant heavy combat armor plated with 4 armor boost and yet get an alien parasite because you were bitten by a ripper dog or a spider, if it's a total horror, then you can get several simultaneous ailments at once.... but you can still walk out into space aicking and bleeding because the armor is still holding... that's just ridiculous in my view..... Weapons are also a big problem, Vermillion does a good job balancing them out in the RG setup but the vanilla ones are a pain, you need to unload a cartridge into somethings head to kill it, and I never use common ones, talking about epic stuff, at level 8 and up a zirax may require 2 to 3 head shots from a epic sniper... that is just frustrating not fun, and the reason lies also with the AI, currently is in WIP in my opinion so they have to crank up the bullet sponge factor to compensate.... Anyway, many of this problems will be addressed in one way or another and the player weapons stats is just one of them, soon we will have better options with armors as well
@Kaeser Thank you for your response. So, first and foremost, I do understand that a large part of the problem is that most of the issues with this are outside of your control. I can see that you have a sincere passion for the game. I love that! It's fantastic. I admire your intelligence and skill in creating this. My problems with the POI are no reflection upon your skills or intelligence whatsoever. I can see that it's important to you to maintain realism, and I value that. In games, sometimes a bit of realism has to be sacrificed in order to make things work for the players. When all is said and done, it's a game, not a recreation of a world. I can see that you think the events and the entrances are "clearly marked." As a new person, I can only tell you that I saw nothing that really jumped out at me at all. I could not tell you what could possibly make me think any of the spots where there were attacks were any different from anything else. "If you knew what to do". How could I? I'm saying that with honest confusion. How could I possibly know to just rush to the core? Where is the core, even? I don't know why that "is obvious". None of this seems obvious to me. Again, that doesn't change the fact that this is very clearly made with intelligence and skill. Your talent is unquestionable and inarguable, so far as I'm concerned. All I am saying is that you have a different perspective than I do. What's obvious for you is definitely not for me. I absolutely agree that issues with armor and with other problems that exacerbate the difficulty of this mission are not your fault. You had a vision (and a really great one, by the way) and you executed it. Quite well! We are where we're at, unfortunately. The game is in the state it's in. To progress, we need to complete this. Without having to somehow "just know" what we were supposed to do to make it not feel impossible. I 100% agree that these issues of too much damage need to be addressed. Honestly, that's my biggest beef with the POI; it directly impacts a few others. Given the state the game is in, even knowing your admirable dedication to realism, I would still respectfully ask that there be an obvious visual distinction. We tried to take cover, but they are machines, they have better aim and faster. They can see us peeking out to use our scopes well before we can actually get the scope to our eyes. They have major unfair advantages. While most people playing the game right now might know immediately what to do, and might immediately know what the difference is with certain entrances and exits, I can honestly tell you that I was NOT able to do that. Pirate faction happens naturally and easily along the way, I'll give you that. However, when I go to do a POI, I don't want to have to spend that same amount of time regaining it before my five attempts to finally figure out what is very obvious to you, as the creator of the POI. I greatly appreciate your contribution to the game. I find the POI interesting and am really glad that you are addressing the requests of players for a challenge and "end game content." I say that sincerely, even fervently. As I stated in my opening post, I HATE to say anything about someone's craft that could be painful to hear. I often fear that it will discourage the person to the degree that they give up, feeling unappreciated and attacked. I hate the very idea of that happening. Please, please know that is not remotely my intent. Creatives have feelings like everyone else does. My request for changes is NOT an attack on your skill, your art, your intelligence, nothing. I'm asking for changes because of the difference between your perspective as an extremely skilled person... and mine as not so skilled and obviously FAR less knowledgable. I hated to even bring it up, because even though objectively it's not personal towards you... it's almost impossible to separate even a small, even a constructive criticism of a person's work from the artist themselves. In no way, shape, or form did I want this to hit you in the gut as an attack on you or your creation. That's what made it hard to bring up to start with. I hope you will take more to heart the fact that I am truly impressed with your work, and less to heart that I'm asking for changes based on numerous factors which are out of your control. Indeed, hopefully my post has lent significant support to your concerns about armor and damage. All the best to you. I hope that you are, and continue to be, proud of your POI. The concerns are based solely on perspective, not on your skill, intelligence, or competence.
If you're following the story, several of the NPCs will warn you about that, they will also warn about the section of the station in which the pirates will become hostile and those doors have clear signs over them, not sure what else could be done to make it clear As a rule of thumb take it this way, it's a pirate station don't go running around, take care and proceed carefully, explore and most of all take advantage of the surroundings and even the station facilities, just a few spoilers, there is a doctor in the station that will give you access, under a modest payment that is, to all the station Med and O2 stations, the hangar also has a repair station you can rent to repair your ship And all this before you even come across any hostiles in the station They are robots so yeah they have laser precision aim, but they are also controlled by the problematic AI and that you have an unfair advantage over I'd say, take cover, they are dumb enough to walk into your line of sight, after all the biggest problem is that they can shoot you from a corner where you not even looking at so, they could be covered in fuchsia pink you would still not see them so, take cover and try to tell where they are Just a few more tips, they have problems navigating elevators or seeing over containers or over walls, ultimately if you can't find them use your jet pack, you see, they are also very shortsighted, all foes in general, just fly over the station and snipe them out... you never heard this from me.... Again, if you're following the mission, several of the NPCs will tell you about it and the 3 only doors that trigger the hostiles are clearly identified by signs overhead... As for the rest I really appreciate your feedback and the fact you're enjoying to some extent and I can say the station has suffered several adjustments even before it was incorporated into the mission, it was far more complex and difficult before and lowering it even further would just take most of the fun out at this point I would risk say that what you need is not a Navy Seal Team to take it over, it's just a different approach, take your time, approach the station and get to know it and how the NPCs work most of all After all that is what we all want right? A game that makes you think and in where you spend more time, that is in a way an end game content that requires you time to think of it and approach it
@Kaeser Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, because the quest is so buggy, I had to click through a lot of the quest sections. Again, that is definitely not your fault. It does sound like you did your due diligence in trying to warn the player. I appreciate that. I do agree that it's good to have content that I have to think through. We did try to use the elevators, but as soon as any part of us peeked out, we got splattered. As I noted before, also, I may well not be in the game's demographic. Most people playing it right now seem to be really "old hands" and very peak gamers. I'm what might (politely ) be called "a regular jane/joe". I'm not horrendous, but I'm definitely not fantastic by anybody's measure. Again, this is outside of your control, so don't take it as me saying it to you, please. I feel like a lot more focus should be put on "increasing risk for increasing reward". I love that you said you made sure that you get "more loot than you can carry" when you complete it. That being said, and again nothing to do with you (you are doing an amazing job with the tools you have, I admire that)... I'd rather have fewer things that have significant value to me. 10 Large Optronic Bridges aren't all that useful to me, as compared to (say) the ability to make my own heavy armor with fewer penalties. I understand your perspective. I used to be pretty hardcore. I appreciate that you took a moment to try to see mine, as well. Not a lot of people would do that, they would just get angry. I hope the devs will read through our exchange and try to find "the sweet spot" between our two viewpoints. I think we'd all love that, and "new blood" coming into the game would be nice, I think. Wishing you all the best and thank you for the good conversation. We both care very much about the future of this game, that much is obvious and is our common ground.
Hi Kaeser! Thanks for working on content for one of my favorite games. The station layout and detail is pretty solid, and I can tell you put a lot of work into it. The only thing I could even think to complain about structurally is that the spotlights used to illuminate the upper exterior levels make everything blindingly shiny. It's a shame the Spotlight intensity can't be adjusted like normal lights can. I'm going to reply to some of the things you mentioned in order, but before I do I think it's important to note that later I write about concerns that spawners/enemies in Sigma Fulcrum may not be working as you intended. Please keep that in mind while wading through general difficulty discussion, since my view that Sigma Fulcrum seems unfairly difficult right now may stem from issues in the current build, and not due to how you designed the station itself or differences of opinion on what is easy or hard. Yes, balancing game difficulty is no simple matter. As someone who will crank several FPS games up to their highest difficulty setting (and beat them), I totally understand wanting to feel challenged. I would be one of the last people to object to anyone wanting to add increasingly difficult content to a game. However, with all due respect, I'd like to point out that if you're hearing "many more" complaints that the game is boring and too easy, I think it likely that the people you're hearing from probably mostly or entirely consist of the group of players who have thousands of hours logged with Empyrion and have seen and done everything many times over. They're hungry for greater challenges, and rightfully so. Their opinions are not invalid by any means, but they also represent only a small fraction of the entirety of people who have, are, and will play Empyrion some day. My opinion is that the main story should be both accessible and fun to the average player, and not tailored specifically to the tastes of its most diehard players. Why? Because a 40 year old mom and her 15 year old son should be able to enjoy and complete the main story together, too. I don't think it is fair to design primary content to meet the desires of the 'pros.' I'm all for having hard stuff in any game, but as I mentioned in my previous post, I believe it should be delegated to optional side quests, endgame loops or POIs you can randomly encounter; that way if a player isn't up to the challenge of it, they can decide to retreat because completing them doesn't block their progression. On the other hand, if main story missions are made critically difficult, it becomes a monolithic barrier to more average and casual players, one that locks them out of the rest of the story (unless they resort to cheats). Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that it is anyone's intention here to design Empyrion's main story that way. I mean only to express that my current first experience with the new Ilmarinen and Sigma Fulcrum was such that I think your average players will stop having fun and feel incredibly frustrated, and likely give up, either on the mission or the game entirely. And it is important to remember the primary function of games is to be fun. I'd hazard a guess that at least 3/4ths of players who pick up Empyrion aren't looking for a high difficulty combat experience, they just want to make and/or fly cool ships, explore planets and ruins and alien bases, and enjoy the main story. While players like us might find main story missions made to be accessible for the average player boring and unchallenging, that doesn't mean the main game content should be designed in a way that would preclude them from enjoying it. There's plenty of room for hardcore challenges scattered alongside or after the main story in a galaxy this big. What I'm about to say has nothing to do with Sigma Fulcrum, however, due to Empyrion's current design, I don't feel like access to a station with merchants is presently much of a reward. Currently there are several stations and trading posts in pretty much every star system, and if you have any faction with them, the number of stores and merchants you can access through the instant convenience of a teleporter is crazy. Unless of course I overlooked stores on Sigma Fulcrum selling unique things that aren't available at other stores, which is entirely possible. Are you referring to these warning signs? If so, then there seems to be a problem with the current implementation of Sigma Fulcrum in the latest release, because I assure you I was getting shot before entering these doors in several locations. In fact, oddly enough, I don't remember getting shot after walking through any of these doors into deeper rooms (but to be fair I only found about 2 of them before I decided I'd had enough for the day). Here are some example screenshots. This is the top level of central exterior bridges (before ever stepping through any restricted access doors), unfactioned enemies keep spawning up here and falling down onto the bridge. Sometimes they open fire from on top of these ledges before dropping down. Sometimes they fall off the bridge and descend even further to the bottom. The spawn trigger seems to be around the center elevator, which means often I'm getting shot from 2 directions (one in the back) the instant I walk through there. And these are repeating spawns that trigger over and over as I move through the station. While these spawns are troublesome, aside from an occasional Pirate NPC that wanders out of their room and waltzes in front of the doorways where the enemies tend to drop down onto the bridge, pretty much anything on this level of the bridges that is armed is hostile, so I can fire freely at the groups that spawn up here. Here's a screenshot of the bottom floor of the central exterior elevator shaft in the middle of the station. This area too is not accessed through any doors marked with restricted access. However, possibly due to the enemies spawning above in the previous screenshot, it is pretty much always filled with a mix of Pirate and Unfactioned (Hostile) characters that are mingling together, sometimes practically standing next to each other. This makes this the most troublesome area of Sigma Fulcrum that I've found yet. The guys you don't want to shoot look identical to and mix in (sometimes even clip/walk through) with the ones trying to blast you into space dust. This is where after killing about 20 hostiles I finally hit a Pirate by accident. I have to hesitate firing at them for a second or two until I can verify that I'm aiming at an enemy and not a Pirate before pulling the trigger, which is harsh when I'm getting shot from multiple directions. This area doesn't feel fun or challenging right now, it feels more mistakes in the POI spawners or poor design choices. It makes me want to just fly an SV with minigun turrets as far as I can into the station walkways and let the turrets snipe off the hostile ones. Two of the restricted access doors that I walked through didn't yield anything attacking me at all. One looked like a resource/cargo area. There were no NPCs in it, either because they all jumped off the rails before I got there, or the Pirate turrets inside blasted them to pieces. The other looked like a prison block, and had 2 humans and a Kriel standing inside cells. Nothing here attacked me, except the Kriel after I let him out. It sounds like things are happening here that shouldn't be. I think someone who worked on it should investigate if Sigma Fulcrum is behaving as intended or not in the current public build. If it is intended that this location be as difficult as a Zirax Drone Base and is meant to be more of an assault scenario, that's fine, but in that case I'd kindly ask that enemies only be allowed to spawn once, instead of keep respawning forever. Also, keep in mind when you're attacking a Zirax Drone Base, one stray bullet hitting the wrong thing doesn't mean you are instantly surrounded by 2-3x more turrets and soldiers that immediately have a clear shot at you. Again, I suspect there may be unintended issues at play on Sigma Fulcrum, but how am I supposed to take cover when I'm being shot at from 3-4 directions? Every time I peek out of the bottom of the elevator shaft I'm getting hit from multiple sides, and if I don't use the shaft and fly around with the jetpack, I'm getting shot not only by the respawning enemies below, but also the ones spawning up above me on the bridge. Hand weapon projectiles travel so fast in Empyrion that dodging isn't really a thing, so that isn't an option either. Intended or not, right now I'd say that Sigma Fulcrum is the hardest POI I've ever found in the game. At least on the Ilmarinen I don't have to hesitate to check target faction, and I'm not getting roasted by a hail of virtually undodgeable ranged attacks. Anyway, if it turns out there are problems with Sigma Fulcrum in the current build, I'm sure you guys will have it sorted out in no time. If it is working as intended, I look forward to further discussion and suggestions. Thanks for listening!
Ok, this is a bug then, they are not supposed to trigger before any of those doors are activated but just so you know the access to the prison cells is also a restricted area, and they will trigger around the station once any of them is triggered Will have to take a look
To be fair, I was playing in multiplayer, so perhaps there isn't a mistake with the triggers. Maybe my teammate stepped somewhere they shouldn't have when I was preoccupied with NPC dialogue and checking merchant inventories. But we were never far apart before the shooting started, and I know for sure that neither of us had ever stepped into a new room where we were fired upon before spawns began -- we were first fired upon by new spawns when we started backtracking outside onto the walkways on the top floor (in my first screenshot above) after speaking to a friendly pirate Zirax NPC that told us about human prisoners being held on the station. We had landed a small CV at the very top platform and traveled down to the lower levels (although we didn't get off the top floor before hostility began), rather than enter at the main landing bay where the repair pad is. We didn't notice this entrance until later (we just landed at the first entry area we saw) as we battled our way down deeper into the station once things started spawning. Of course, that bay looked like a much safer place to land the ship than where we did land -- which was within line of sight of quite a few base turrets placed among the towers. I'll see if I can test it again in single player soon. When I visited the station today in a new game to take those screenshots, I heard what sounded like a couple firefights going on in around the station. Maybe the reason I didn't find enemies in those two restricted areas later was because they had already been shot? Two questions... 1) Would the spawn triggers in Sigma Fulcrum create more enemies in MP than SP? I know there are some places doing the story and repeatable missions in coop where more enemies spawn for each player present. Doing the Polaris faction mission 'Privacy Matters' quest in coop with 3 players yields a swarm of about 15 drones, for instance. 2) Are the spawners supposed to continue making enemies forever once activated? I don't remember encountering other POIs yet where enemies seem endless. Even if you leave the teleporter pads they pop out of intact, there seems to be only a fixed quantity that can appear and then never spawn more enemies until the entire POI has reset (and at least those can be destroyed or powered down). There wasn't anything here I could see to do to prevent more spawns from coming in. If a player already knew where to go and what to do, the mission probably isn't that hard even with extra/endless enemies spawning. But the way our session ended up we didn't even get to finish exploring the topmost level before we were getting blasted by waves of unfactioned spawns. It made looking for Yarod rather unpleasant. I think it might be a good idea to add a little extra feedback when hostility is triggered (if possible, not sure what limitations POI design has right now). Say an alarm message or a warning from IDA? That way if you're playing multiplayer and another player enters an unauthorized area, at least the others are alerted. First time group players might be confused why they're being shot at when they didn't do anything but talk to a friendly/trader NPC yet. That's pretty much how mine unfolded. Let me know if there's anything in particular I could do that might be helpful to you in terms of testing/feedback.
About the problem of balancing the difficulty preferences between hard-core players and more casual and/or inexperienced ones: What if the *story* related mission POIs had optional alternative endings or solution paths? That is, you *could* complete the mission by reaching goal A and choosing to go for that option. That would give you some nice, fitting reward, but most importantly progress the campaign and move you forward in the story line. However, at the choice point, you could also choose to progress to the optional goal B, instead. This would bring in additional stuff and content and upon completion give you a fitting not-just-nice-but-very-cool reward. You could then solve the balancing problem by setting the difficulty of option A to be suitable for a more casual playing style. The difficulty level of option B could then be set more freely to something suitable for the hard-core player. This way neither group of players would have to "suffer" from a compromise to the other group. What the goals A and B actually are would, of course, depend entirely on the story mission and the POI. Any "alternative ending" that fits the story, really. It'd be just part of designing it but it doesn't have to be anything fancy or complex. For example, you could have 3 sections in a POI where 1-2 form the "main" part and at its end you've a way to blow up the Core and finishing the mission. *Or* you could choose not to, and flip the second switch, instead, opening the door to section 3 where you'd have... things... but also at its end *another* way to blow up the Core but this time *without* blowing up all those epic loot containers you'd really rather not destroy... Just have appropriate information presented to the player in a story-related way. For example, continuing the above example I.D.A. could suggest at the decision point that the left switch appears to trigger the self-destruct sequence allowing you to finish the mission and escape but it likely will also destroy any equipment stored in that facility whereas the right switch seems to open "that suspicious door" and that there could be some other mechanism to disable the place behind it. Then you could choose to do it the easy way or the hard way and be appropriately rewarded for either choice.
@Pembroke : I think that since there is a whole galaxy to "populate" with POIs and events it would be counter-productive to start making different versions of POIs and quests to compensate for difficulty settings. Like @Kaeser wrote there are AI issues that could be solved as well as some adjustments to current game parameters that would make the general difficulty settings more relevant overall. I'm not saying this to prevent POI and scenario builders from doing whatever they want in terms of "branching questlines" but simply to support the point made regarding fixing basic AI and difficulty first before asking more from volunteers. And very often the POI builders and the ones making the actual "quests" are not the same people, so this would require a different way to work that may make it difficult to make scenarios without a supporting team... ^^
No, that's not what I meant. Only do that optional content for the *story* missions. There definitely is a limited number of them no matter how large your galaxy is. The point of all this is simply to allow the non-hard-core player to progress the campaign story while simultaneously allowing the hard-core-players to enjoy that same campaign story in a more challenging way. All the *non-story* POIs could be the way the designer wants them to be. I mean, they're all optional any way, in the sense that you can choose which POIs you raid. None of these affect the story line in any way, so you don't really need to "pull your punches" with them. Well, other than having POIs of all kinds of difficulty levels available.
Ok guys this is already out of my scope, Hummel already adapted the station and should be out in the next update
I get it. Not sure the "non hardcore" players will not ask for the "optional content" to be available for them also. There are already difficulty settings in the game, and it's kind of unfair to "gate" content behind difficulty only. If non hardcore players want to tackle an endgame POI they should have the possibility to do all of it, just by choosing the appropriate difficulty settings in the game's menu. I don't see a way to make endgame POIs "easy for noobs but hard for veterans" without frustrating the first or the latter.
@Kaeser Again, I would like to thank you for your contribution. Things like balancing really do belong in the Dev's arena. Your POI is interesting and well done. Most of the concerns are game-mechanics related, and not within your ability to alter. I will repeat that I hope you are, and remain, proud of what you created. I also look forward to seeing future contributions from you. I know it's extremely difficult mentally, but please don't take these things personally. Your contribution is very valuable and appreciated. As I mentioned, and will repeat... it was VERY difficult for me to post this because I know that a person made this, and has every right to be proud of it. The game at large, as well. People are often (especially these days) much more vocal about their upsets than their gratitudes and appreciation. I want to remind you that just because people don't speak up when you do well, doesn't change the fact that you made something really cool. Wanting some tweaks to the difficulty, particularly that much of that is based on game mechanics you have no control over, is no reflection upon you.
I agree, and I apologize for my harsh words in my post concerning POI design. I think the light in game does not render justice to builds, and I have only seen a fraction of all the Blueprints available in the game. I have not seen the blueprint in question in this thread, so my comments were not directed at it, but nevertheless... That was rude from me. I could write things to try to justify but when reading it now it just looks very bad. Players do what they can with what the game allows them to do, very simply. The rest is subjective and personal, but I can keep it to myself.
@Kassonnade That was not targeted at any one person, and not at anyone in this thread. I was simply speaking to @Kaeser to remind him that his efforts are appreciated. I was generalizing and making sure that he remembered criticism (particularly regarding things HE can't control) is not personal because all of us forget to mention our appreciation. It's human nature and Kaeser shouldn't take it personally if he can help it. I don't think you were being rude, just that you sounded frustrated, maybe a little worn out with it. I went through a lot as a kid and I've had some people tear into my art... so I'm sensitive to possible emotional states. Overly so, most likely. (So I'm told )
No no, no problem. I was not frustrated, some POIs are genuinely ugly I was just making a general statement that can't apply to everything because I did not see everything, and the game lighting is unforgiving / shines through walls etc. There were limits imposed for POIs at the very beginning so they looked a bit like shoe boxes and players may try cramming too much in there, but that's very suggestive. I could keep these thoughts to myself, but that's the problem with content made by players : we are stuck between their sensibility and the fact that this is a game we bought expecting content to be made by people who can be held "accountable" for it to some extent. And honestly, even if quality suffered from it, I wish for procedural generation of POIs to some extent, because there is just too much space to fill, and we may be doomed to see the same content over and over again in many places. There are currently just over 900 POIs and ships in the game, and the galaxy can support thousands of systems. That makes a lot of space to fill "by hand"... Having more POIs but less detailed could be ok for most players since they could just consume more instead of sticking in one area for hours.
I have been playing since Alpha 6.0. Back when planet and moon were the same size and hills were mountains. Ever since I started I have gained the habit of having many weapons in my ship cargo for when I die. However, I too am infuriated by the Yarod mission enemies. I like the concept of having to fight my way through the enemies. I don't like opening a door while wearing heavy armor, three armor boosts, a multi-boost, and having one of the Alien Soldier Shotgun enemies kill me in TWO HITS! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I even activated a medpack active at full health to have health regen going. I don't like to cheat. These enemies hit way too hard so I'm forced to cheat. They were a massive problem on the Ilmarinen and the red radar base/floating base, but thanks to crouching I can now deal with them. They still hit too hard. But the pirate base for the Yarod mission offers no overturned tables and such in the rooms. Gotta take them down one at a time? That's fine. Aim around corner/door, fire, hide and repeat? That's fine too. Require many shots to take them out? I'm cool with that. Makes it feel like a firefight and not me just steamrolling everything. It makes the Ilmarinen a challenging yet fun place. Poke my head out, get hit and die immediately? Uh... NO! That's not fun because I'm not living long enough to react and because I have to cheat. I'm dead once the weapon sound is heard. If we had some kind of weapon we could throw and blows up, I kind of wouldn't care. But alas, we don't (and that's just fine). Until the game production has progressed enough that the A.I. is in a better place for this, it's just gonna be no fun. I haven't had the issue of distinguishing enemies or hitting the wrong ones. The base design is mostly fine. I even miss the insane loot you could get after blowing up the core. The only flaw is the core room, specifically the switches. I killed myself for the first time by activating all the switches in the core room. I always forgot to do that before destroying the core because I wanted to see what happens. As of this post I found out what happens. I got a good laugh out of that. Unfortunately the resulting explosions also destroys the mission console (this being the flaw). Thankfully one can manually progress the mission but you miss all the dialogue. This part is, sine the Ilmarinen got it's difficulty reduction, the greatest pain point. However, I always (in SP) get to the story spot of leaving the "Mining Operation" system and change games. But that's due to the need for large amounts of certain resources to build ships that can survive combat, as well as my playstyle isn't to bank money to buy stuff (glad to have SP story in MP now). Also, when in the middle of dialogue with the station computer for the first time, I wasn't immune to damage and died. Perhaps this is due to being in MP? Not sure. Anywho, that's my rant and feedbackseses. I am excited for 1.8 and more.
Perhaps I'm missing something but is this still talking about the derelict ship? There are no levers in the core room.
In the core room you can't just turn everything on, it's a code and you need to crack it You will find these exact same symbols spread across the station with a hint on how should the lever be set to crack the code Like this.... Or this... Or this one You may not find them all but not a problem as the system has a fail safe, if you start switching too many wrong levers a read light will start to blink, at that point redo the last ones or retry some of them in a different order until you get it Also, this will turn on green as you complete each level
