Current Thoughts/Suggestions

[Pyromaniac]

So by now I've managed to complete most of the content currently on offer. I've made a ship breaker, cruised around learning the mechanics and I've even managed to fully fix up a derelict and make off with it. Having completed this I thought it would be a good time to write up all my thoughts and suggestions.


First of All: Customization

I've perused the community hub here on Steam and I know other people have said it but it's worth repeating: I'd really like to see the implementation of some character customization. Just mashing random until you get a face you like is a bit tedious and I think somewhat detracts from the experience.

That said, I do like the 'build a resume' system for determining your character background and I can't wait to see it further expanded on in coming builds. I can envision a variety of starts offering a host of challenges (for example, I can envision the 'prisoner' start plunking one on a derelict with no salvage pod forcing the player to begin their journey by strategically carving up their ship to seal/restore it enough to fly around a derelict field searching for more parts or a better ship to move to)

Additionally, a rather minor gripe, but it'd be nice to rename your ship(s) as well.


Starting Out:

I've got to admit I'm conflicted here. There's a rather steep learning curve to begin with as you learn the mechanics, what you should and shouldn't be looking for in a restorable derelict, and even a few restarts as you figure out what you should be spending your starting cash on early on. While I initially found the learning curve frustrating, learning the mechanics of the game on my own without the assistance of a tutorial was a unique experience. Not always enjoyable, but certainly unique. Had I had a tutorial, managing to puzzle out how to power up that first reactor wouldn't have been nearly so rewarding.

As I said, I'm conflicted. Personally, I'm okay with the game as it is. I recall Neo Scavenger also having something of a steep learning curve, but I can see how the learning curve might serve as a turn-off.


Observations and Suggestions:

Having managed to fully restore a derelict I have a few observations, and quality of life suggestions from my experience.


Airlocks:

Airlocks are the most important component on your ship and the primary means of conserving resources. Your little salvage pod is hungry for power and the best way I've found to stretch your limited starting resources is to kill the power when you're exploring derelicts, and make use of the airlock to prevent losing all the atmosphere in your pod the moment you board a derelict.

That means opening and closing the airlock doors became one of the most repeated actions in my game. Unfortunately the size of the airlock makes this a pain. The airlock is so small that I often found when attempting to close the door 'behind me' after entering the airlock my character model would clip back to the other side. As a result I would often find myself wasting time attempting to sit my model in the airlock just right so I could close one door and open the other. Ideally, the airlock should be just a tad larger so that getting through it 'properly' isn't so finicky.


Repairing a Derelict:

So I've learned the basics of flying and stretching my starting resources, died and restarted a few times figuring this stuff out and now I'm ready to make my first real attempt at restoring a derelict.

Much like learning how to fly and start a reactor, the guidance here was minimal and mostly left up to me to figure out. It took me some time but I think I've gotten the hang of it and have fully restored a derelict once and am confident I could do so again. So here are my thoughts on the process.


First of all: I think it would be nice if I could change what a derelict appears as in my nav computer. There were a couple of times where I forgot the exact string of letters and numbers that comprised the ID of the derelict I was restoring and it's a bit of a tedious process to be flying around docking with every derelict in the general vicinity until I found the one I was looking for. Yes, I know, I could just make a note of the ID myself and not leave it up to my inconveniently selective memory, but I'd still like to be able to change the displayed ID or drop a map marker in order to remember which derelict I'm restoring or which derelicts have an abundance of resources I should return for.

Moving on to the actual restoration process:

I'm not sure if its a debug menu that will later be removed, but the information in the upper right corner of the screen is invaluable for restoration work. The most valuable part being that it will tell you for each compartment of the ship whether it's fully sealed or not (those fully sealed will have 'Compartment' listed in this section whereas unsealed sections will have 'Exterior' listed)

I found this even held true when doors were pried open, a fully sealed section still being listed as Compartment even if its doors were open to an unsealed area. This allows one to effectively identify which sections of the ship may have missing or damaged floor that may be hiding under walls or other objects.

That said, finding that last hole can be a bit of a frustrating process. Even once you figure out you can mouse over each individual tile while watching the debug section to see if the 'Floor' field changes to 'Floor (Damaged)' or disappears altogether (indicating a missing tile) this is still a tedious and time consuming process.

I'd like to see a tool, perhaps an expensive hull scanner or something that must be crafted/purchased which would highlight 'leaks' around the ship to help with finding that pesky missing floor tile hiding under the middle tile of a nav console.

Speaking of floor tiles: I'm not sure if this is by design but I often found it far easier and far more efficient to uninstall wall/floor tiles from other derelicts, scrap damaged wall and floor tiles on my restoration project, and install the looted tiles. The amount of resources (in particular small mechanical parts) required to seal a hole meant that it was often just much faster and easier to loot fresh tiles, and install hull patches rather than waste time searching derelicts for small mechanical parts which don't seem to spawn nearly so often as scrap aluminium and carbon fibre.

This of course to make no mention of the fact that carrying/saving all the parts to patch a damaged tile takes up far more inventory space than a single uninstalled tile. There just doesn't seem to be much incentive in game at the moment actually repair these tiles as opposed to just scrapping and replacing them with tiles pulled from another ship.

As this is early access with a lot of content still in the work, fully restoring a derelict seems to be kind of the end of the line. Once you have your own ship there doesn't really seem to be much else to do at the moment.


In conclusion some bugs:

A bug I know has been mentioned elsewhere: OKLG moves as the planetoid it's connected to rotates and unfortunately when OKLG is in certain positions attempting to undock from it normally will undock into the planet causing a crash that can end a run pretty quick. The work around is to just instadock somewhere else first, instead of undocking from OKLG but it was a pretty big 'Aw come on!' moment when a run that had been going fairly well rather abruptly ended due to a bug I hadn't known about.

Some sort of warning, perhaps on the little note with flying controls that pops up every time you sit at a nav station, might be nice until this bug can be patched. Minor gripe, but I thought it worth mentioning.

Another bug I encountered was that upon completely restoring my derelict and powering up the reactor nothing on the ship powered on. I was able to walk around and in Powerviz view everything was showing as being powered but... nothing happened.

I saved, exited, and when I reloaded the save later on everything was now powered up normally. No idea why.


Overall I've enjoyed what Ostranauts has on offer so far and I'm looking forward to continuing to play this game as it develops. It has a lot of potential, even in this early build.