Hard Open World and Operations

[barracuda]

So, I've read some old threads complaining about the respawn limit for Hard difficulty being applied to Open Worlds. I started one in the desert and killed myself a half dozen times as a test (and was killed a couple times more by a cougar as a non-test), so it seems it doesn't apply to your "daily life".

However, do such limits still apply to Operations? For instance, if I start an Operation inside an Open World and die a bunch of times, would I fail and have to restart the Operation? Or would I be simply locked from my Open World? Or - hopefully - can I die at will?...

Since the game is in constant development, it's often difficult to know what information is correct.

[КрендельФигов]

As far as I know: Operation, as part of Openworld, is subject to Openworld rules. If you have no problems with respawning in Openworld on Hard, then Operation should be the same.
But I wouldn’t recommend playing Openworld on Hard, because the higher the difficulty, the higher the “level of bad weather-storm”, and the higher it is, the more damage it causes to your buildings. On Openworld medium difficulty, the maximum bad weather should be (yellow with four petals). This does little damage even to stone.
There will be more on Hard, you’ll just get tired of fixing everything. If you start playing on Hard, you will basically have to build everything out of concrete.

[barracuda]

So far, the weather is fine (perhaps because I'm only in the desert, so no flashstorms). It damaged badly wood structures, but it would took three or four events without repairing before they get destroyed. Stone holds well, just the worst events do something around 100 damage each time.

For other reasons, I always build in more or less sheltered locations, near stone walls, etc. But I don't know if this makes a difference, the weather simulation doesn't seem to be so detailed as to take into account wind direction, protection from walls or stones, etc.

[barracuda]

So, apparently there is, or was, a respawn limit. I started an operation (Broken Arrow), died a single time and got a message "0 respawns remaining", with apparently no possibility of continuing the game. No timer to respawn, and it was a solo game.

Before that, I did Icestorm:Expedition and died a couple of times, but never received any of those messagens, nor the game said any time how many respawns you are supposed to have. Notice that I was playing on Hard, no Hardcore or whatever.

Endgame, is my Open World finished forever? No! All it took was to go again to the character selection menu, resume the game, and then I got the "usual" death screen, with a timer for respawn. However, the mission was bugged and I wans't able to continue with it.

So, is it by design? It was bug over bug over bug? I will never know. This game is cool, but definetely a buggy mess. Not wasting my time with operations anymore, until they are decently integrated in the "main" game mode (well, at least they market Open World as this, but it's implementation is truly schizophrenic, to say the least).

Luckly, for anyone interested, it's quite simple to escape a bug trap and restablish the game to a previous state:

Just go to ~\[your user folder]\AppData\Local\Icarus\Saved\PlayerData, enter the folder of your game (it should be a long code name) and then the folder Prospects. There you will see a file called [world name].json, and a long list of backups. Just delete (or move elsewhere) the [world name].json file and rename the backup you wish to restablish. It must have the name of the file you moved ([world name].json). It won't pick up exactly from where you had your problem, but backups are made every half and hour, so at least won't lose hours or... well... your whole playthrough.

It works perfectly, at least for a solo open world, and may be used even when you die a world away from your dropship and without a nearby bed.

[КрендельФигов]

1) It is for this reason that you wrote in detail that I always recommend playing Openworld on medium difficulty.
https://icarus.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Prospects
Hard Player Respawn Count (3)
2) This means that Operation from Openworld is subject to the same rules as Mission (standalone).

[barracuda]

Yeah, but it is soooo confusing. I died many more times outside Operations, and got the message after dying a single time in that Operation. Is it "3 respawns during all the time you are doing Operations"?... So you die two times and never, ever do any Operation again on that world with fear of losing your world...

... unless you die, just go to the character menu and everything is ok, you just had to restart that Operation because is bugged. Sweet!

Moreover, there is nowhere in the game where this respawn limit appears, when you are creating the world, or doind any operation, etc... It even looks as a leftover script that stayed there when they put the Operations in the Open World, without too much care.

I enjoyed many hours of the game (much more on Hard, because Medium gets boring fast), but a lot of things are so confusing that didn't get me so excited to get the DLCs and all...