The Gas Refinery tortures me, and not because of its difficulty. I can see the intent behind it, the desire to offer players something different, knock them out of their complacency, make them be better than they thought they were capable of. Problem is, if you're not in the mood for that, the idiosyncrasies of this unsubvertable single-path dungeon just feel unfair and arbitrary. Do you think maybe we could do with some kind of high-end/endgame/prestige faction as a framing device for non-standard admin core dungeons like this? Something like the Chozo from Metroid or the Eridians from Borderlands, maybe. I guess they'd be ancient Talon sites from before the fall, or maybe something even older and alien. The idea is to have a metaphorical big flashing sign saying, "THIS IS A SPECIAL CHALLENGE, OPEN YOUR MIND AND LEAVE YOUR EXPECTATIONS AT THE DOOR". The designer can ask anything of the player in this context. The whole shoot-dudez-kill-core-git-loot cycle needn't even be relevant. You could have players run mazes, face hordes of enemies, solve arcane puzzles, anything. Maybe they'd have to fly their small SV Star Fox-style room-by-room through some large fortress inaccessible to players on foot. Maybe they need to solve a complex logic puzzle through dialogue, without any threat to overcome aside from hunger. Whatever weird, challenging, Ross O'Donovan School of Game Design content a designer might come up with that can't be overcome with sustained artillery bombardment, this could be the experiential place for it. Honestly, I've no idea if it's a good idea or not. Special challenge dungeons might make for exciting opportunities for players bored of lunchpailing their way to victory through slow grinding. They might also become a gameplay tumor that wrestles focus away from the survival-crafting core. Either way, it's at least a method of accommodating both demented dungeon designers and maniacal space marauders in the same galaxy.
