Puzzles and loot

[YeulEmeralda]

I skip all the tedious busy work and I appreciate that you don't need to do any of them (the developers know they suck too) but that makes me wonder: are those ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ancient runes even worth doing? Do you get uber ship parts from them you can't get anywhere else?

[Notoshy]

Got a Device from one of them... but i will not tell you which one ;)

[Pappy]

I can tell you if it's worth it to me, but that means nothing to you. Only you can determine if they are worth it or not to you.

[Sisupisici]

Ancient rune puzzles are terrible in both concept and implementation. Finding the runes is alright, rotating them is a pain. If there are 2 or 3 runes I just midlessly rotate them if the solution is not right there, otherwise I look up some video.

The only relevant loot is at Ancient Depot in Zharkov, so you can ignore the others that are optional.

[Notoshy]

Originally posted by Sisupisici:

Ancient rune puzzles are terrible in both concept and implementation. Finding the runes is alright, rotating them is a pain. If there are 2 or 3 runes I just midlessly rotate them if the solution is not right there, otherwise I look up some video.

The only relevant loot is at Ancient Depot in Zharkov, so you can ignore the others that are optional.

there is often visual indicators nearby, what symbol you need

[Paradox]

Isn't that where you get most of your mainframe expansions? IE stat boosts.

[Pappy]

Originally posted by Paradox:

Isn't that where you get most of your mainframe expansions? IE stat boosts.

You do get quite a few mainframe components from Ancient Runes but remember that it requires 3 mainframe components for a single mainframe expansion and you only get a 5% bonus to a single attribute for a single mainframe expansion. Each additional 5% bonus to that same attribute requires an additional mainframe expansion so you'll need 3 for a 10% bonus, 6 for a 15% bonus, 10 for a 20% bonus and a whopping 15 mainframe expansions (45 mainframe components total) for a 25% bonus to a single attribute. That seems like a pretty healthy increase to that attribute, but it's a lot of work to get that many mainframe components and I'm not sure you can even get enough mainframe components from the Ancient runes alone to max out even a single attribute. You can get mainframe components in a lot of other ways. Sure you'll be missing out on a little bit of extra oomph if you don't bother with the Ancient Runes, but it's not as important as people make it out to be.

[Paradox]

According to the wiki 45 completed ones are available. I don't know how many of those are available while completely skipping all the puzzles, but assuming none, then that's 3 maxed out expansions. That's 75%. It's even a higher % if you don't "max" them out and instead spread them out a bit.

So, is that necessary? No. Does it make your ship a lot stronger? Yes.

Anyway, I like the puzzles. I tend to switch off from doing puzzles and combat. Having both is better than only having one.

[Pappy]

Originally posted by Paradox:

According to the wiki 45 completed ones are available. I don't know how many of those are available while completely skipping all the puzzles, but assuming none, then that's 3 maxed out expansions.

Well it's not none. Maybe it's around 50%? For arguments sake let's say 24 expansions without the Ancient puzzles, 45 with the Ancient puzzles.

Originally posted by Paradox:

That's 75%.

75% of what? It's 25% to 3 different attributes so like 25% extra damage with your primary weapons, 25% extra critical hit chance and say 25% extra hull strength or something like that. That doesn't mean your ship is 75% more effective, not even close because it's just 3 of the 6 attributes and there's literally dozens of things that are not impacted by the attributes.

Originally posted by Paradox:

It's even a higher % if you don't "max" them out and instead spread them out a bit.

45 is enough for a 15% bonus to 4 attributes and 20% to the remaining 2 so on average lets call that a 17% increase to your stats overall. Not quite because again those 6 attributes don't cover everything.

Originally posted by Paradox:

So, is that necessary? No. Does it make your ship a lot stronger? Yes.

It's a bit stronger and I wasn't suggesting skipping everything that provides mainframe components, only the ancient puzzles which if like I said is say 24 to spread around instead of 45. Lets say you use those 24 expansions to do 10% into 4 attributes and 15% into the remaining 2 which on average is about 12% bonus to stats overall instead of 17% overall if you had all 45 expansions to put in. So skipping the Ancient puzzles you lose about 5% of the bonus you would get with all of them. Will you even notice this? Maybe. Maybe not.

Mainframe expansions follow a pattern of diminishing returns. Every bit of additional bonus requires more and more mainframe expansions. It requires 3 times as many expansions to go from a 5% bonus to a 10% bonus. 6 times as many expansions to go another 5% to 15%. 10 times as many expansions to go to 20% and 15 times as many expansions to go to 25%. If you only had 6 mainframe expansions instead of 45 that's enough for a 5% bonus to all 6 attributes instead of around 17% to all 6 attributes or a difference of around 12%. Noticeable but not really game changing.

[Paradox]

I am speaking of all of the puzzles and "loot" scattered around that is not directly in your path on main missions. As that's what I figure the OP is talking about with his title.

75% is 25%+25%+25%.

Anyway, again, they are not necessary, but they do make you stronger and make it easier to do the rift or High risk areas. And they're a big part of the game. so much so that if you don't like them, you probably don't like the game.

[Pappy]

Originally posted by Paradox:

I am speaking of all of the puzzles and "loot" scattered around that is not directly in your path on main missions. As that's what I figure the OP is talking about with his title.

I was responding to the specific question that the OP mentions in the body of his post. "...are those ancient runes even worth doing?" and I thought that's what you were referring to as well. My bad.

Originally posted by Paradox:

And they're a big part of the game. so much so that if you don't like them, you probably don't like the game.

The game is a looter/shooter, the loot is rather important to the game that is true. It's approximately half of the entire looter/shooter genre of games. If you don't like finding and collecting loot you may not enjoy this game nor any other looter/shooter like it. I agree with that premise, however I'm not convinced that was the point of the post.

[Sisupisici]

Originally posted by Notoshy:

Originally posted by Sisupisici:

Ancient rune puzzles are terrible in both concept and implementation. Finding the runes is alright, rotating them is a pain. If there are 2 or 3 runes I just midlessly rotate them if the solution is not right there, otherwise I look up some video.

The only relevant loot is at Ancient Depot in Zharkov, so you can ignore the others that are optional.

there is often visual indicators nearby, what symbol you need

Precisely. There is nothing clever about doing them, it is like the skyrim claw puzzles where you would look at the claw in the inventory and rotate stuff accordingly. If you spot the usually nearby visual indicators it is not completely horrible, otherwise get screwed. That was the concept part.

Now the implementation. About those usually nearby visual indicators: sometimes they indicate which symbol should face you, other times which should face the wall. And there is that particular time where the nearby indicators have nothing to do with the puzzle, and you need to find the correct indicators on the other side of the location.

I enjoy a lot the puzzles and that bit of platforming in the game (yes, they put platforming in muh space game, and that is awesome) just as I enjoy these aspects of the other games which are not focused on that. But rune puzzles can **** right off and the game would not be one bit worse.

[Notoshy]

Originally posted by Sisupisici:

And there is that particular time where the nearby indicators have nothing to do with the puzzle, and you need to find the correct indicators on the other side of the location.

XD That specific one was indeed special. Was fooled too because this one broke the "rule" of nearby hints. I found out much, much later where the hint was..... i bruteforced this one.
To be honest... i still believe that the Device, that you get from the Ancient Runes, should be the Reward for this specific one. Its the only Device that you get from them, this puzzle is alot more "difficult" because they changed the "rule" for that. I was disappointed that the Reward didnt match the effort. Getting this really useful Device from this Rune puzzle would have felt rewarding.

[Sisupisici]

Originally posted by Notoshy:

Originally posted by Sisupisici:

And there is that particular time where the nearby indicators have nothing to do with the puzzle, and you need to find the correct indicators on the other side of the location.

XD That specific one was indeed special. Was fooled too because this one broke the "rule" of nearby hints. I found out much, much later where the hint was..... i bruteforced this one.
To be honest... i still believe that the Device, that you get from the Ancient Runes, should be the Reward for this specific one. Its the only Device that you get from them, this puzzle is alot more "difficult" because they changed the "rule" for that. I was disappointed that the Reward didnt match the effort. Getting this really useful Device from this Rune puzzle would have felt rewarding.

I actually found out about that on the internet. Since this type of puzzle rewards neither cleverness, nor keen eye in the good way (as I said, skyrim claw "puzzle", but really bad), I brute forced the small ones, and looked up the hard ones. Because no.

About the device, I do not find it particularly useful. It has the habit of letting go when I do not want that to happen (why cannot it let go only when i press the button again?), and it needs rocks. My permaboost has neither of those problems. So I only use it to "get over here" the enemies I am too lazy to fly to when doing locations.

[Notoshy]

Fusion Hook loses Contact if the Anchor-point isnt in your View. As long you look in the direction of it, it will hold.
I could never effectively use it, but it has the Mastery to grab an Enemy ship at really high distance and pull it towards you. I use the Range-extender Mastery. It gives me a good increased Movement, since i fly mainly Bomber.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3171917044
4 Charges of 2800m Range + 30% range extension. So 4 charges of 3640m to pull myself towards surfaces.

[Tekisama]

Everspace 2 is :
5% space battle
5% crafting
5% trading
40% fedex quest
45% resolving stupid puzzle , moving stone , headache and other boring thing to get useless legendary item.

like this one for exemple : Everspace 2 - Picking up the Pieces - Ship Wreck ... and you think it s fun ? where is the FUN ? the fun to die and retry 30 minutes again and again and again ... ?