Hey all, So, luck. It's a thing. While we don't "roll" to decide our Luck stat, or choose it via assigning a pool to various characteristics, it does have a significant impact on how things play out however. For example, I've been playing my current game for several hours and am now in a warp-capable CV, with both an SV and an HV Miner docked to it. CV is warp-capable, and can defend its self vs. the odd drone. I'm at the exploration stage, warping between systems, exploring POI's, salvaging etc. However, there are things that are significantly more difficult purely due to luck, and some that were made far easier because of it. I was lucky enough to find an EVA boost quite early on, purely by luck, which meant low temperatures were not an issue any more. What was once a race against time, relying on the deployment of a Heater as needed, became totally trivial. The funny thing about the EVA boost, is that it's (I think) the only one we can actually craft! I had, luckily, also found some GOLD, so I was actually in a position to craft an EVA Boost, but I'd found a boost just prior to that. So, when battling the cold I had a variety of option: 1) Find and EVA boost (Luck) 2) Find Gold and craft an EVA boost (Luck + crafting) 3) Deploy Heater (craftable) 4) Hot Drink / Foods to raise body temperature (luck and crafting) However, when facing other factors where BOOSTS really help, we're basically 100% reliant on Luck to find such items when out in the wilds. Only when we find (luck, to a degree) a friendly trader might we possibly have the option to Buy what we need. I think it's quite a "missing" feature that we cannot craft more Suit Upgrades, AKA boost and better Armours. My current bane is RADIATION, I've not been lucky enough to find any radiation boosts. I've got some meds (lucky find) but they're limited and, while we can craft such meds, I've not been lucky enough to find the required items to do so yet. Sure, I can counter Radiation to a degree - thankfully I was able to craft a shower - but having to constantly take remedial action rather than preventative action, does slow things down a bit. Luck is all well and good, but not having a viable counter to something unless you happen to be lucky, is detrimental to game play. I've had good luck where I've found a great weapon early on, or some much needed resources that have totally transformed the experience, shortening the timescale and effort vastly, when achieving certain goals. Other time a game as started to feel like work purely due to the lack of such a lucky find. Luck, when you find something you can (eventually) craft early, is a bonus. When that item can only ever be found in loot, luck becomes necessary. While luck will always play a role to a degree, I'd like there to be some options here. Allowing us to craft EVA boosts was a concession granted by the Devs years ago now, and a most welcome one. However, will we ever be able to craft a wider range of Boosts? How about suits? Sometimes it's possible to really get stuck due to the lack of options when luck fails. That lucky find of an Armour boost and a better weapon early-game, can make low-level POI's significantly easier. However, the patient, less lucky, player should have an option to at least craft something better from basic resources. I'd like to see a better range of Boosts, several tiers from not so great to amazing, each with a more exotic material cost. This would allow the less lucky player to still "level up" their gear. Currently, I'm raiding some basic POI's, but I've not had any lucky finds to help this. I just have the basic suit, with no armour boosts, basic weapons and no upgrade options. I would traditionally go for the "light and mobile" approach in light armour, however, this just doesn't work well due to melee hit detection being very inaccurate at times. If I had the luck to find some armour boosts though, I'd be able to tank these "hits" with ease. What do people think? Should the game rely so heavily on LUCK for certain items that cannot be crafted. Or, should we get some more crafting recipes so we can be less reliant on Luck?
I'm in the "agents of chaos" in this regard- deterministic behavior is easier to debug (and avoids misplaced "bug" reports) but variation is actually more the rule than the exception in our day-to-day. At some level you can avoid the impact of luck- always use the same seed and every sector is placed in the same place with exactly the same name ... the game depends on determinism to allow each player to generate a consistent universe based on *pseudo*-random numbers. What you experience on a starter planet is deterministic, although it was only a few years ago when it wasn't ... the need to be able to dependably place story POIs without an endless parade of "the story is broken" bugs has eliminated randomization. The result? People are asking for a truely random starter- one that uses "var yourStartId = rand.Next(100, sectorCount + 1)" to figure out where to drop you and then roll the dice ... because the fun part is adapting to challenges that you aren't expecting. Without luck (and ill-fortune) you can focus on improving your speed run but if your twitch skills aren't what you wish they were, knowing you can build a bridge using drill filler becomes a tool in your toolbox. There is a limited amount of variation in the models in the game. A BA POI gets designed and there is an optimal way to attack it- change the setup and some people will cheer and others will jeer ... personally I think the tools to let the POI designers add randomness into their work is a plus- there are six places with a core but which one (or three) are the active core? The honey plant might be a way to increase your health, but maybe the sap is acidic (2D6 + effects) ... or will it kick off a bad trip? Why does that honey plant have green glowing spots? What do you mean my warp drive took (3D10*jumpDistance) damage? All that stuff creates challenges and dealing with the unexpected is what I find fun.
I just buy armor and boosters. Exploring and trading is the best way to afford them and many other things. Luck is fine. Knowledge is better. Knowledge is power.
For epic equipment "loot luck" is fine and IMO exactly as it should be. You don't really *need* an epic anything. Although they are nice, you can get by with the basic variants. Same applies to "alien stuff". You are not really meant to *make* them so it's fine if you can only get them by finding them. For other stuff: As long as you can either craft it yourself or purchase it from a trader, loot luck is fine. It's just a boost finding something useful in the loot boxes. It's also ok if crafting requires rare resources or that the purchase price of the item is high. Resources can be found by persistence and credits can be acquired with time. But it *should* be craftable or purchasable. If it's not an epic item then there should be an alternative way to acquire it that is not luck-dependant. Is it not already so? At least I can't remember anything that is not epic or alien, and that you couldn't craft or purchase from a trader.
At game start when I make it to space all I have usually are these O2 bottles from the Water Condenser item and a small armor. No boosters. I usually find (without luck) some traders that have boosters to sell or ores - yet gold so I can craft the EVA. You can sustain low temperatures for a few seconds, enough to go into an airtight station from your SV, it's not even overly risky, if you miss the target then go near your thrusters to warm you up, that has always worked for me. Also in many stations there is a shower you can use for free to recover from radiation - and even free-to-use constructors. In some cases what's a real problem and involves some luck is: Carbon Substrate which you need to make a portable constructor, although I know there are carbon stones on every body right now, they are not always simple to find without the knowledge of the different biomes, I imagine this is the main grip for starting players, but if you start on the Akua moon this is not a problem (assumed that you know it...Again knowledge and the PDA info beats luck...), but a lot of beginners wrongly think they can start from everywhere which they should not...It will be a defeat but bad luck can really strike here: a long lasting Hail weather effect or such and...good bye, say hello to the death screen... In space there is also a lot of luck involved about which enemies you encounter, usually I make a backup before entering the system and I must say: I need to reload the backup quite often, even with a good armed compact CV with shields, it's so hard to tell the size of a ship that gets near to you and when it starts firing all weapons it may be too late for you even with shields on...
