A bit of newcomer's problems

[vitalik1700]

Well, I bought Ostranauts at, like, one of the first days it become live and from that time I tried to start playing them (unsuccessfully) for, like, three times. This one was finally successfull, but it still was a bit rough because of some weird stuff I think I should address:

1) First, why damaged tiles are not walkable? We a, like, in zero-g, and they just have holes. If it's an additional challange, it mostly works when you don't know you should buy those patches, and if you didn't you rarely run out of them (1-2 usually enought for just passing damaged area). Buuut.... when you enter your first derelict, a situation is possible when damaged area is just at the start, and you start to walk in, and you are stuck. Those two first tiles your character passed easily, and the next one is completely impassable. And they are just the same as they are all covered in trash. I really had to restart the game a few times because of this. Which is also because...

2) Damaned (for wall/floor) it the most dangerous state in the game. It's not only prevents walking, but also kills you with asphyxiation. And when you move mouse pointer over area, packed with objects, it's extremely hard to track that. Shouldn't the "damaged" prefix be, like, VERY BRIGHT RED?

3) Placing stuff - inventory screen is not closed wheny initiate placing with inventory. It's still posible to place if you move camera a bit higher and to the left (area there not covered with inventory screen items) but it's quiet annoying.

4) Alternative is using build menu, which works fine for objects... but placing walls it a nightmare. There are so mny of them and it's hard to remember which one you actually have. I think, such indicator in this screen would helpful, along with "place any wall|floor, any, I really don't care" option.

Also, I never actualy managed to use crew members porperly, the only time I tried to recrut one he ran away into base's corner and stuck there. So, is a schedule really important? My char seems to need only a tiny bit of sleep and entertainment so I newer cared. But it was a little weird when he started suddennly to run around browsing PDA. Maybe filling shedule completey with "work" would be a good way to avoid such confusion? Or, like, more clear notification that work shift ended? if there were some of those already, I completely missed them

[Daniel@BlueBottleGames]

Thanks for the detailed feedback! There are some good points and suggestions in here, and I think I can help with some of them.

1 - I agree this feels a bit weird, since microgravity should make holes and gaps in the floor easily passable. Even in gravity, it seems like we should be able to step over smaller gaps.

We do have a microgravity update planned for the future, which should help. I.e. floating around inside the ship, loose items moving during maneuvers, and maybe even hazards with crossing areas that have sharp debris.

Might be a while before this is added, but it should be coming!

2 - This is something we'll have to keep an eye on. We definitely had trouble here at launch, and added some tools to help (gas particle effects showing escaping air, fewer items on top of missing/damaged floor, etc.) But it might not be enough!

3 - Coincidentally, this is something I just added to the code!

I saw someone using the install option from inventory in a video, and how confusing it was because the item was behind the UI. Should be addressed in the next patch! (0.6.4.9)

4 - This is a good suggestion! And I think at least the "I don't care which wall" optiont might not be too hard to do. I'm going to add a note to myself.

As for crew, that's a known issue. Crew AI is still pretty rough, and based on player voting, is the current priority. We'll be working on making them more useful/reliable over the next little while.

Thanks again for the feedback and suggestions. This really helps!

[vitalik1700]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Daniel@BlueBottleGames:

1 - I agree this feels a bit weird, since microgravity should make holes and gaps in the floor easily passable. Even in gravity, it seems like we should be able to step over smaller gaps.

That sounds fun. Also, currently when I tried to walk into inaccessible area, "airlock opening denied" warning popped up for no apparent reason. VERY confusing. It appeares after "trying to walk to inaccessible area" notification and is brighter, so I noticed only it.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Daniel@BlueBottleGames:

2 - This is something we'll have to keep an eye on. We definitely had trouble here at launch, and added some tools to help (gas particle effects showing escaping air, fewer items on top of missing/damaged floor, etc.) But it might not be enough!

For me, particle effect reliably triggers only for doors, broken walls/floor do not have them (which is HUGE problem). As for "fever items", in my plays damaged areas are covered in trash really densely, maybe reducing amounts of trash is an easy way to reduce confusion? That trash has really low stack size (only 3) clogs inventory and overall is really annoying. Less trash (incl. after scrapping) and bigger trash stack size would be nice.

Also, what about reducing fusion reactor's price in, like, 20 times at least for now? It is REALLY silly that one reactor cost THAT much, selling one feels like endgame, since there is nothing you can spend THAT amount of money on.

Also, reducing price of D2O which is, like, 10 times more expensive than everything else.

And maybe increase "daily consumption" indicators in fusion reactor in, like, 1000 times? It doesn't have to be an actual value for now, just indicate that consumption is enormous, since 20kg/day sounds like "negligible amount", which is completely un-true.

[Daniel@BlueBottleGames]

The "airlock opening denied" message pops up when the AI attempts to go through an airlock with a pressure difference, but their permissions forbid it. Clicking the crew button on the PDA will allow you to toggle this permission. You can also manually tell the crew to open each airlock.

Eventually, I'm hoping we can get AIs to be smarter about airlock use. But for now, this stops them from venting the atmo until the player intervenes.

The particle effects *should* appear on broken floors and walls, but this only works if the room has air in it. You'll see air particles leaking slowly through the damaged tile.

However, rooms that are missing a whole floor or wall count as "external" and can never have air. So particles never appear in those rooms. I agree this can be hard to track down. I have a task in my backlog to see if there's a way to make these "external" rooms also show particles.

You're right that the pricing/economy is still way out of balance! This is due for review as more things are added to the game, including items, expenses, salaries, etc. Similarly, the reactor is due for an overhaul that fixes some of the rates and UI bugs it has.

Still a lot left to do on Ostranauts! And with such a small team, it can be slow. For that, I apologize!

But we'll get there, one step at a time. Thanks again for the feedback!

[vitalik1700]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Daniel@BlueBottleGames:

The "airlock opening denied" message pops up when the AI attempts to go through an airlock with a pressure difference, but their permissions forbid it. Clicking the crew button on the PDA will allow you to toggle this permission. You can also manually tell the crew to open each airlock.

I know. I mean, this notification obviously misfires in some cases. If you are interested, I can research this question at some point.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Daniel@BlueBottleGames:

Eventually, I'm hoping we can get AIs to be smarter about airlock use. But for now, this stops them from venting the atmo until the player intervenes.

I would say, autocloseable doors are the perfect solution for this.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Daniel@BlueBottleGames:

The particle effects *should* appear on broken floors and walls, but this only works if the room has air in it. You'll see air particles leaking slowly through the damaged tile.

Maybe I will return to game and test this when I have time. Missing floors are easily distinguishable so in most cases are not a problem. I mostly have problems with broken ones, and don't remember seeing particles near them.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Daniel@BlueBottleGames:

You're right that the pricing/economy is still way out of balance!

I'm fine with economy being out of balance for now. It's "economy being ridiculous" what bothers me