...because of changes to the game, mostly. I don't normally play the swamp starter, but I figured I'd do it this time around. It's supposed to be harder than the temperate start... and I was disappointed. I started, and had to restart for some reason (I forget why). In both cases, it seems there is a patrol vessel basically right next to the crash site. This was probably the only difficult thing I had to deal with: dodging the patrol right at the start. It seems from another post (I may link it here later), that this is happening in ALL swamp starter seeds. Is this intentional? I wouldn't think so... EDIT: I didn't see the darn thing again afterwards. Not sure what happened... if I got lucky and never ran into it, or it disappeared, or got stuck somewhere or the fact I saw it at the start is a bug.... When I played it ages ago, the many assassins and... um... walking bugs? were all hostile. Now, they are ALL Kriel faction. You start neutral to Kriel. So there's almost no threat while walking around, unless you accidentally hit one--which will then instantly drop you to unfriendly, and get you back to "there's a lot of stuff here trying to kill me!" If possible, these creatures shouldn't be factioned on this starter, so you have to fight them. Either that, or alter what kinds of critters are running around so you have hostiles again... but until I accidentally clipped one, there was almost nothing bothering me on this planet. There are TONS of "nest" POIs (and some "large nest"s). Thinking these were like the spider nests, I dug one up. There is... nothing. Yes, I know critters can spawn by them... see previous note about Kriel faction. For how frequent these are, there should be ... something... more interesting about them. Something to dig up, and/or more critters around them (and hostile... must be hostile). These POIs really need some love to make them more than just a few exploration xps when found. Ho, hum. I would love to see a few variants of these with dangerous spawns, but some kind of loot you could get (even by digging it up). So much potential for them, but just not there. (If I had any skill in doing POIs, I'd volunteer to do this myself, but I don't... and if I did, would they be included? would have many questions....) Lack of Abandoned anything. This may be intentional for all starters with the changes to "beginning" legacy buildings vs. advanced ones... but I only had "unknown" structures. No Abandoned Archaeological Dig sites, even? I only had 2 of the Unknown structures, too, which seemed kinda low? Lack of irradiated areas/cobalt. I did finally find the cobalt rocks, but the terrain they are in seems to not be common... or as widespread... (smaller area)? as the irradiated areas on the temp/arid starters. To the left, the scorpions some of the biomes had were a really nice touch and were some of the more dangerous bits of the planet. Acid rain. I had this happen... once. Unlike the arid starter, where radiated fog can roll in early (and sometimes often). Intentional? I was safe in a base before it ever showed up, so it was more an annoyance, than a hazard. This could be as painful as radiated fog early in the arid starter... Desert golems. Okay, they MIGHT all be spawning in "dust bowl" biomes, but I seemed to be finding these almost as often as swamp golems...? Intentional? I may add more thoughts later, but these are the big ones off the top of my head...
Yeah, post up a seed, because Swamp starters are my favorite, and I have never seen any of those issues.
I would welcome a small PV right next to the start. One of the most fun co-op stats I did with some friends was on an old project eden start where we had to keep hiding from the PV and dig down for a base immediately. We eventually made an SV to kill the damn thing, but at least we had something to do. Re kriel assassins, well this is kind of typical. I guess it was a really cheap way of populated the faction. TBH it would have been alot better if they were legacy instead. Talking of which, there was another start (might have been snow) I did recently where I found a legacy building that normally would have been surrounded by legacy assasins and instead they were all kriel... Spider nests should just go unless they are going to get made meaningful again. I have found cobalt rocks on recent swamp starts - not many, but enough for a handful of ingots. I have been finding desert golems up in the mountains on snow start as well. TBH, apart from a quickly abandoned start on swamp I havnt really played them for a while - no worse them temperate but gloomy and muddy everywhere... They used to be quite fun though. While on the subject of starts (TBH they all need a revamp) - another thing I really dont like is the ore imbalance on some/all except temperate (iron + copper but almost no silicon, or iron + silicon and almost no copper). These dont really slow me down as intended and instead just drive me into space (sometimes at level 5 mining asteroids with a survival tool and hiding inside them from drones) far sooner than I would otherwise and make for a somewhat boring (and definitely not challenging) early game as I just end up killing anything that moves to level up (not much else to do when you cant build anything of use). This applies to swamp and snow (I think arid too - been a while so cant remember). If they want to make a start challenging make it much more hostile (more PVs please, much more frequency and aggressive base attacks, some random foot patrols coming across you etc and *lots* of nasty wildlife. Imbalancing resource for me just make the start clunky and destroys rather than significantly slows normal progression. Swamp start should be utterly infested with hostile wildlife. Dont go into the swamp at night? Erm why? because I might meet a give a kriel assassin a scare? On snow, I would be expect nasty ice creatures all over the place instead I find I have to go trekking for ages to find anything that moves and isnt kriel. For arid - I dunno - might hope for way more nasty crustacean type creatures perhaps. I think PVs should be a feature of all start zones that come into play whenever you set drone presence and base attack to max (or have another switch for it).
One of the reasons I like swamp starters is because the pole regions have a ton of Cobalt and even Sathium rocks. Neo can also be found in some of the wooded areas. It would be a pain to get 1k-2k neo from these rocks, but it certainly helps to get a few hundred.
I also posted about the PV hanging out by the Heidelberg wreckage and the Monolith when using the swamp starter planet. I always use seed 2261970.
@Escarli @ChumSickle and also @Khazul : 790925 - Vanmi 774974 - Myrrama (if I didn't typo the planet names) The second one is the one I kept (the first was the restart)
Just fired up 774974 - no problems with the PV (used map to find it) - it seems to be doing a circuit over the water a couple of km to east of landing site. I could see someone quickly finding it though
From one point, not big a fan of PV encounters when you don't have a base yet (though there are ways to see/detect it and run away also), but on the other hand it can be a challenge on itself. Too bad the rewards for taking down one are pretty meaningless... Concerning starter planets: 1. Arid - Requires generating oxygen for yourself, could use some higher temperatures (just like how the Snow sappes at the player with its statuses, but producing oxygen gives also water, so...) and more creatures. Started yesterday one run... It's pretty bland so far... 2. Swamp - Done in the past. Not much of a threat i'd say. PV not bothering too much, wild creatures you can get accustomed to. Radiation fog was never a threat to me. I'd say Hyphothermia is way tougher to deal with (even though you have a heater with you). 3. Snow - Most recent playthroughs. PV is a wrecking ball, but didn't get much for downing it with my SV. Cold is a constant threat which is good, until you gather enough Buds to make loads of Coffee. Food is not much of a threat, unless you get Hyphothermia a lot. Creatures are almost non-existant and could use some threat from them. Hail is awesomely irritating - it's a real threat and a reminder you can't always do what you want "outside".
I did a swamp start last night. Everything's hostile now. It's a great for farming tech points and medicine materials, but an acute lack of silicon was an issue. Overall, the swamp starter seems to be in a much better place now.
I also tried the swamp starter using seed 2261970. The patrol ship was still hanging around the Heidelberg wreckage and started blasting me while I was trying to salvage the Dart.
On my Snow Start, the Patrol Vessel travelled around the planet and came after me every time i was spotted by a drone or started to dismantle something (be it Heidelberg or any other wreck/building). For me it was most noticeable with a drone, where i was following the PV (wanted to destroy it), but couldn't keep up with it (it kept getting away), until i passed a drone close to a Resource Node. I saw on the map how the PV suddenly started zooming in on the location of the drone and i was able to meet up with it. My best tip for the PV is to constantly check your map. If you have a decent area around you explored already (the "squares" are not black), you will see the red dot of the PV in the distance, even when not using a detector. When you see it, pack up your things and run out of its range.
