Hello. Long time no see. After quite a long break I've returned to look at the progress with the game and done a longer playthrough, listing a number of issues as well as doing cursory look through the forum and various dev posts and looking at what things developers hope to improve. At the risk of the thread being ignored by devs, as it seems it's preferable - but not as easily doable in this case - to offer shorter notes in regards to particular tidbits of the game said devs look for feedback on at the time, I've compiled all those notes into a longer list of little bothers, suggestions for improvements, things that just glitch and would use some work. Treat it as general feedback and findings of a player, minus the praise for the stuff that does work really well - while such is important to make usual feedback more well-rounded and the praise is certainly deserved for many things, it'd be a truly huge post if I wouldn't limit it to stuff that needs work. Missions, factions, their interactions and immersion Most, especially side ones are still too simplified. Locations are under attack but defenders and attackers ignore each other, enemies concentrate on the player only. Attackers do not damage defenders' structures, defenders do not repair anything damaged. Even randomly met patrols of different factions at the borders of their territories do not engage each other. The mission to kill drones spawned said drones by Solaris base, with them showing up and shooting up the place while I, as a player, used random, passive guards as meat shields. Acquisition of missions is also a bit too simplified, likely for the sake of convenience. One has a direct line of communication with every faction. I know it may seem like a chore for some, but I'd like to have to go talk with some NPCs and ask them for tasks on top of having regular chitchat, then if I am to bring them something, have to go back. Also would solve the problem of having a said chitchat and taking missions from Zirax when they're one's mortal enemies. Such thing should be handled through some sort of third party diplomats one could approach on some neutral space stations and do tasks for/bribe to clean up the records a bit rather than a capability of a random, starving crash site survivor using personal commlink to contact high-rank officials whenever they feel like it (yet still somehow unable to call for help). Speaking of which, Talons have hi-tech connections but still ask the player to get them some wood for their braziers. Said wood that never has to be delivered anywhere once collected, by the way (no, I wouldn't want it to just magically disappear from the inventory either). Same with many quest items. Legacy's Infected creatures, since they spawn like regular predators and are a threat, should be considered predators/undesirables in various faction's sidequests centered around cleaning the wildlife. Faction patrol parties are often big but scarce. There should be more movement around one's territory, but of small groups of 2 and 3. Faction traders should buy more stuff. Just because they don't sell such on their own shouldn't prevent them from buying high-class components and T2 weapons even at low-tier establishments, if they are expected to be able to afford and be interested in such at all (as Talons may not care for human weapons in general, but Solaris should be a completely different thing altogether). Talon mission requires one to find unknown legacy place. If a player already travelled and mapped the planet, it's kinda undoable without going off-world, which Talons shouldn't care for as it may not be a threat to any settlement of theirs. Something like scouting such locations, similar to Polaris wanting one to scout some resource nodes, seems more reasonable. Talons needs some tech mixed with their tribal lifestyle. I know they're meant to be the group at peace with nature and all that but there's also a matter of practicality and ability - if they have high-tech crossbows and ability to communicate long-range, they need at least a few, even if aeshtetically "tribal", pieces of obvious technology here and there. You can have at-peace-with-nature tribals and you can have a technologically capable race but you can't have both without putting in some work to show how they can be both. A blacksmith with a primitive anvil is not a believable source of those laser crossbows capable of penetrating armored spacesuits and just handwaving it as "but it only LOOKS like an avil!" doesn't clear the bad taste. Chatting is not standarized. Many creatures cannot be approached but drop various lines of randomized text, some (like the guard at the disco station thing) have an activable dialogue but don't say much beside a single line. Fighting, creatures and related balance Horrible creature spawn. They don't even have decency to spawn outside FOV. They often land on top of player's head. Especially noticeable with faction patrols. One moment you walk through empty field, the other a dozen of creatures meets you with a cacophony of sounds, surrounding you. Happened primarily by Talos settlement gate. Enemies spawning out of nowhere through scripts like spiders in tombs or scorpions in abandoned facilities is a bit cheap and allows situation where the place is somewhat damaged/mined out and the creature visibly spawns from nowhere. Having them lurk crouched somewhere or come from some particular one-time-use self-destructing spawn block working like Zirax reinforcement portals would be much better. One of the big, long-standing issues was how behavior of enemies and fighting them just isn't as satisfying as in average FPS. One reason for it may be how enemies are just bulelt sponges with no differences in behavior. Guns should pack more punch, but full auto weapons and launcher should have greater kickback. Size and bulkyness should inform enemy resistance more - arachnids are alright as they are, since they look somewhat armored and need more than a few bullets. Smaller spiders should be one-shot by all but weakest weapons. Some enemies like assault mecha, tanks etc should completely shrug off some T1 pistol fire, with relevant audiovisual effect of richochet sounds and sparks. Otherwise there's situations when one can shoot enough bullets at a troop transport when it's stuck and take it down with a basic pistol. Zirax drones and similar when shot down often bounce around as if they'd have a weight of a beach ball, rather than being hulking bunches of metal. Would be nice if one could actually disassemble bodies of mechanical enemies for loot as if they'd be a spaceship (especially Zirax drones), rather than pull some bits out and then leave a big pile of metal still there, smoking. Just being able to disasemble them with salvage setting on survival (or better) tool would be enough while also cleaning up the location. The biggest issue for enjoyment is that the animations and enemy behaviors are still very rudimentary. Monster shot first flinches, then gets back to regular standing upright animation, then dies. Animations needs more fluid switch from one to another instead. Or the enemies slowly turn their whole bodies when turning around and they fall down in slow-motion, as if they wouldn't be knocked down by the force of player's shot, but just decide to to kick back and have a nap in lower gravity. Said falling also seems far too often to be relative not to the direction of impact but the one the creature is facing. So if enemy is, for example, shot to the side of their head they still for some reason topple backward, making it all look weird. There's no need for full ragdoll system, but a few variants of flinches/enemy falling down related to the type and direction of incoming damage would help here greatly. If they have a flinch animation only when standing upright but they charge player, for example, when crouched (infected, some animals) then they tend to not have a flinching animation for that pose, just keep taking heavy machinegun fire. They also tend to slowly turn to side, run forward in that direction, then revert back to regular standing pose, choose new direction and run there there, with no ability to sidestep or strafe at all. Enemies shot at from far enough don't respond. They either should jog away from their location and hide behind something or if the player is largely in line of sight with the distance not being too far, they should be able to realize player's there, possibly even respond with inaccurate fire, with their companions who weren't injured but nearby also having same realization rather than just strolling till a stray bullet hits and alarms them as well. Many animal enemies should only run, unless the player's already close enough to charge him anyway. Baby oviraptors shouldn't likely possess eggs as a loot. In general, pulling eggs from a carcass is weird. There should be a nest that spawns together with oviraptors around it and despawns like the creatures themselves do when one moves away from them. Severely damaged equipment should show it. Aside from lowered stats (mainly accuracy, not damage as that's always silly) and audiovisual cues like flickering flashlight when the gun is pulled out, some spots or raw metal it'd be also interesting if a gun could jam or, if it's an energy weapon, spark and fizz instead of firing at times (while still using the energy). Maybe the lowest quality, self-made weapons could even have such issues by default (especially interesting if tied with the idea of various models of gun below). Suit's jetpack cutting out at times or the visor being cracked when the suit's on its last legs wouldn't be bad either. Combined to that, rather than just spacesuits, sets of clothes and armor for early game that aren't EVA-capable or otherwise have limited traits but excel at particular things would be great. Proper bulky armors that have no internal oxygen supply or do not allow jetpacks, environmental suits rather than magical EVA booster that makes suit weaker, but not helping the player in the vacuum of space breathe etc. Survival, balance of progression Character vital demands are a bit out of whack. It cools down/heats up very quickly from using things. A hot beverage should take quite a bit to work but then the effect should also last quite a bit as the body is heated up. One can stay in space without helmet for quite a few seconds before starting experiencing issues, yet hunger rises quickly enough that "slow" hunger progression is the only both semi-realistic and fun one. While I don't need full nutrient content simulation, various foodstuffs could be slightly more differentiated than through the amount of hunger/thirst point they regenerate. Long-lasting, very weak buffs and debuffs, possibly overall debuff when there's no processed food diversity in diet. Otherwise, after some time a character can easily just set up a source of plant protein and live for the rest of the game on survival bars - sure, I understand some players dislike a hassle of it, but in a game that's supposed to be about survival, lack of something like that even as an optional setting hurts. Currently, most cooked edibles are done so merely on the basis of aesthetics. When you're under attack, save and reload the game, the attackers are often stuck. Happens primarily to the Zirax troop transports just floating and "vibrating" in the air, but once or twice I also had drones that were just hanging around. Optional setting to make bikes less cheap. For something this technically advanced and useful, one iron ore is far too cheap. In fact, it's one of the cheapest possible crafting projects and it makes it so that even in the very early game the player doesn't have to walk places and actually survive on the longer trips somewhere, since they can just go for a ride anywhere. And said motorbikes have infinite energy source, take no material to power nor need really time to recharge. Making them not immediately accessible, run on biodesel (even if with very favorable and efficient fuel use) and regenerate energy slowly when not in use would be a bit better for an actual survival scenario. At the same time, those bikes have awful turning and handling. Really, nowhere near what a bike can do even now, IRL. Even damaged/lacking RCS vehicles seem more maneuverable. Less of tiered weapons, and more different models. Only a handful possibly craftable by the players, with other factions having their own counterparts. Maybe one likes a regular human pistol, but maybe they'd prefer a standard solaris guard sidearm, which could be a sleak energy weapon but thus expensive to reload early game. Maybe humans have decent shotguns but some may want those Zirax ones which punch harder but also kick harder and are less durable? Weapons would also seem much cooler if they'd be something like "this is a rare Polaris commando cyborg operative laser rifle" rather than unimaginative "this is a painfully generic, no-brand regular rifle BUT IT'S EPIC TIER". If assets are an issue, I wouldn't even mind the same models used, with slightly altered/colored textures and sound effects, as long as the stats are different and it's not just the silly "rare/epic" kind of trashy MMO stuff. Maybe even one could loot some of them from various faction personnel corpses, though many of them could be in a state of great disrepair with randomized number of possible repairs in general. It'd certainly make more sense than what's another issue: Location loot is often weird, too. Not even one Talon crossbow among their corpse loot, but long-sealed Talon tombs still have living saplings, "epic" assault rifles in hidden chambers and similar. Speaking of repairs, rather than the setting making total number of equipment repairs finite, I'd like one requiring either resources (at player repair bays) or money (as a service at various trading hubs) depending on the state of disrepair and how valuable/rare/powerful the item is (without counting suit augments). I want to be able to hold onto a gun I've grown used to and sentimental about, but I don't want to disable disrepair not have it be free. Factory and tons of blueprints to spawn stuff from in the beginning shouldn't be accessible by default if it's a survival and about looking for reasources, encouraging building by hand, at least as an optional world-starting setting. While one doesn't have to use it if they don't want to, it looks weird that I have some weird inbuilt magical factory allowing me to spawn dreadnoughts and convert various items into resources. If one's for hardcore survival blueprints to be added by default for those who don't want to build anything, there should be just a couple of the smallest and crappiest vehicles, with damaged RCS and similar to underline it's a survival, cheaply knocked together, primitive vehicle not unlike what one gets in the story missions (which make such vehicle appear unique and valuable as they should be). At the same time it'd be nice if some vehicles could also simply be bought from/produced at various faction trading hubs for considerable price. Fancy paintjob optional. All non-faction biological creatures are apparently meat. Would be nice if different types of them give different meats. Some alien races may prefer them spider burgers, humans less so. Of course, some recipes could allow subsitution of one for another. Small, isolated settlements shouldn't also have an access to ATMs everywhere. I understand Solaris having such but it's weird that all those cash loot items, gold coins etc serve no real purpose outside of putting them into an ATM as any trader, in the middle of nowhere, can then pull the cash from the bank account. And let's not get into how despite having a bank account the player starts with nothing on it. Having such less accessible on not technologically advanced worlds or at pirate havens would give carrying physical currency a point. I wouldn't even mind some places where for the sake of flavor, only bartering for particular types of goods is allowed (a hermit who grows useful plants and herbs but only cares for quality processed food and drinks as a payment, for example). Some, possibly many recipes shouldn't be something the player figures on their own or at the very least there should be special, faction-specific alternatives with slightly different stats. I am really iffy about the idea of living isolated from the whole world, yet suddenly being able to knock together said ATM and have it connected to and validated by some global banking network, with ability to materialize hard currency at no additional price and with no need for any "credit stick" to boot. At the same time, certain simple technological inventions that aren't there would be nice. I'd like decorational antennas to actually be necessary to connect to various factions/services and even being able to connect them to decorational screens to see, for example, upcoming weather and temperature in the area, or have them display some random several-frames-long animation loops (corporate news, a movie etc). Audiovisuals and UI An ability to set 1 or 3rd person as default perspective when in certain vehicle "compartment" (turret, cockpit, passenger seat) would be very appreciated. Heavy snow is not that heavy - the amount of snowflakes doesn't need to be increased very much, it's just a fog effect in faraway distance during snowing would help (with it being only at farther distance rather than overpowering fog of planet poles). Stationary lights work through walls. Some light refraction and whatnot is fine, but it shouldn't light what's on the other side of a wall in a whole separate tunnel, at least in structures deeply underground. Player character animation is also a bit wonky when using jetpack. When jetpack's active the character looks alright, but then cutting it off to land makes the character look as if they'd be running toward the floor from the sky, swinging arms and legs. A minor thing early in development, it gets more noticeable as said development progresses. Many assets, while alright on their own, seem to be pulled from various sources and cobbled together into one giant mess with no idea behind it more thought-out than "meh, anything will do for now". Factions built around particular style and type of units/warriors mix vastly different creatures with different color schemes and styles. Space Zirax drones look like made with completely different design principles and styles when compared to the planetside ones, even in boundaries of same/similar houses, tribal Talon warriors have higher tier exoskeleton creatures of seemingly different specie that doesn't exist outside of said warrior unit type, alien creatures and animals are put next to fantasy-looking stone/ice golems. Solaris uses Zirax drone to patrol their settlement, with the drone even appearing on the minimap as an enemy unit, except it's counted for Solaris. Great biodiversity fits jungle planets, but the same types of spiders and other arachnids then walking around in arctic climate are just weird. It seems there's no one in the galaxy using armors/spacesuits player uses, be they found, bought or crafted. Rain and other both atmospheric or other sound effects sound very similar no matter if the player is in his overalls or wears a heavily armored, padded spacesuit with the hermetically-sealed helmet on. On slightly-related note, certain dangerous atmospheric effects like hail seem to ignore armor status completely. When the game is loaded, player teleports into a bustling hub of sorts etc all the NPCs, robots, consoles make a noise all at once first, before getting back to randomized sound samples from time to time. It sounds both weird and is a bit unpleasant. There. Apologies if it's been a wall of text hard to get through. I hope that at least someone in the dev team will look at it though - even ignoring simple wishlist entries, a lot of it is issues that dare I say would benefit the game in general if corrected. Either way, I did what I could as a player.
