Recipe cost balance seems off for a game based on repetition

[G1itcher]

The amount of platinum ore you need to make tools seems wildly expensive when you factor in everything you need to do in order to even build them in the first place.

Normally, this would be entirely fine, and in fact maybe even a nice challenge ramp for a normal survival game. However, the fact that you would have to build up the infrastructure multiple times, along with finding are shockingly large amount of a fairly rare element just to make say a pick and a knife, means that gaming fatigue sets in pretty quick for me.

I'm honestly wondering if there's _any_ chance of me wanting to do this again just to throw it away at the end of the mission. Why not just get to steel or maybe even iron and take your chances? It's near exponentially easier/cheaper/quicker than grinding for platinum tools, especially when you factor in the _tiny_ increase in ore yield from the pick (for example).

The real kicker in this is how much titanium there seems to be lying around! I find so much of this (at Tier 3) useless element it's frankly a bit frustrating.

Currently to me, platinum feels like a weird spike in the grinding curve that is so steep I don't see how I'll feel the need to surmount it again.

I've just gotten the platinum, so maybe I'm jumping the gun, although from some casual browsing of these discussions I can see this gets worse not better when you hit tier 4.

[RealReality]

You don't want to tech to the highest tier every time (unless you really wanna stretch out play time and don't mind tons of running and grinding) sometimes you don't even need iron. If you need it most of the time the prospect will have it without bad RNG. Will have the caves at least pretty sure its still completely random what actually spawns though.

[Propwash50]

I pretty easily make a platinum pickaxe and knife each run (if Im gonna go to T4 on that run) with a good amount left to repair with.

T4 is another story. It is doable despite what some may say but needs some tweaks to not be so much a grind

[Dhavok]

LoL, Platinum tools complaint?! Haha, wait till you have to get the Fabricator up to make the radar =). Icarus: The Quest for Copper begins!

[the1truEmperor]

titanium is better anyways. i much rather find titanium to build it sooner than platinum. in fact, i usually skip altogether for titanium. like you said, much more abundant.

[G1itcher]

Originally posted by Propwash50:

I pretty easily make a platinum pickaxe and knife each run (if Im gonna go to T4 on that run) with a good amount left to repair with.

T4 is another story. It is doable despite what some may say but needs some tweaks to not be so much a grind

perhaps I've been unlucky? I found about 90 platinum, which was enough to make 1 pickaxe with a bit left over. That frankly seems ridiculous.

Originally posted by Dhimmid:

LoL, Platinum tools complaint?! Haha, wait till you have to get the Fabricator up to make the radar =). Icarus: The Quest for Copper begins!

As mentioned I recognise it only gets worse, but that doesn't mean that other aspects aren't potentially too grindy in isolation.

Originally posted by RealReality:

You don't want to tech to the highest tier every time (unless you really wanna stretch out play time and don't mind tons of running and grinding) sometimes you don't even need iron. If you need it most of the time the prospect will have it without bad RNG. Will have the caves at least pretty sure its still completely random what actually spawns though.

I definitely can see this, but (at least so far) I'm struggling to see why I would ever want to have to do this again, other than the mission progress being explicitly gated behind better gear, in which case, that doesn't seem like a compelling reason.

[Enforcer]

Originally posted by Dhimmid:

LoL, Platinum tools complaint?! Haha, wait till you have to get the Fabricator up to make the radar =). Icarus: The Quest for Copper begins!

I don't know how that one guy in our group did it but he managed to get everything he needed to make 2 radars, 1 2 extractors, 3 dehumidifiers, all production benches up to tier 4, multiple concrete and those tier 4 smelters and much more....all alone.
We already had a tier 3-ish base built elsewhere....

[potterr]

In an attempt to make a beacon to harvest an exotics vein I have spent over 10 hours building the fabricator, most of that time was hunting gold copper and aluminium.
Fabricator effectively (just in terms of gold and copper) requires 60 electronics (2 epoxy, 2 resin, 3 copper bars and 1 gold bar). 2 gold ore = 1 gold bar, 2 copper ore = 1 copper bar. That's a total of 360 copper and 120 gold ore. It took around 7 caves to find that much.

Remember at this point it's taken me over 10 hours of game play.

Now the Fabricator allows you to build the Material Processor (needed to make the beacon). I haven't got this far yet. That requires 80 electronics (and other stuff), thats another 480 copper and 160 gold.
Bringing our total to 840 copper ore and 280 gold ore,never mind the small forest required for tree sap and organic resin.

Next you need to make an electric furnace to smelt composite paste required to make composites. That requires 60 electronics (thats another 360 copper and 120 gold).
Bringing our total to 1200 copper ore and 400 gold ore.
Next we need something to power it, you can't build the solar panel as that requires 18 composites that you need the electric furnace to make in the first place, so you need to build a biofuel generator. That's another 12 electronics (24 gold and 72 copper ore) and 8 copper bars (16 copper ore).
Bringing our total to 1280 copper ore and 416 gold ore.
Next you need to wire them up. That's another 20 copper bars and 8 gold bars (40 copper ore and 16 gold ore.
Bringing our total to 1320 copper ore and 432 gold ore.
next comes the composite paste, you need 20 of them for the beacon. Thats 20 gold ore.
Bringing our total to 1320 copper ore and 452 gold ore.
The beacon itself now needs 10 electronics and 8 copper bars.
Bringing our total to 1366 copper ore and 472 gold ore.
Finally you then need the Extractor itself, another 5 electronics.

Giving us a grand total (just in copper and gold not counting iron, aluminium, sticks, wood, oxite, etc, etc) of 1,396 copper ore and 482 gold ore. I do however think I've under counted copper ores somewhere in that though.
Now you may get 30 odd ore from each node. That's potentially around 45 copper nodes, and 16 gold nodes. In 7 caves I found 4 gold nodes and 13 copper nodes which is enough to build the fabricator.
I still need to find 12 more gold nodes and around 33 more copper nodes, which would be roughly 21 more caves, almost 30 caves in total to build everything in order to mine an exotic vein and it must be at least 30-40 hours game play to do that.

Now that all seems insane but what becomes more apparent is that (and I don't know how much you get from a vein) you spend all that time to literally be able to build a knife that has like 4 hit points more that a lower level knife in the workshop or a module that gives you 5kg carry weight improvement.

[Syotos]

you could of just stopped at the title m8, Everything past tier 2's cost is quite high for having to do it over and over, making the grind WAY to grindy even for me, that it actually puts a bad taste in my mouth going to tier 3+ in games.

[Ken30NYC]

Originally posted by potterr:

In an attempt to make a beacon to harvest an exotics vein I have spent over 10 hours building the fabricator, most of that time was hunting gold copper and aluminium.
Fabricator effectively (just in terms of gold and copper) requires 60 electronics (2 epoxy, 2 resin, 3 copper bars and 1 gold bar). 2 gold ore = 1 gold bar, 2 copper ore = 1 copper bar. That's a total of 360 copper and 120 gold ore. It took around 7 caves to find that much.

Remember at this point it's taken me over 10 hours of game play.

Now the Fabricator allows you to build the Material Processor (needed to make the beacon). I haven't got this far yet. That requires 80 electronics (and other stuff), thats another 480 copper and 160 gold.
Bringing our total to 840 copper ore and 280 gold ore,never mind the small forest required for tree sap and organic resin.

Next you need to make an electric furnace to smelt composite paste required to make composites. That requires 60 electronics (thats another 360 copper and 120 gold).
Bringing our total to 1200 copper ore and 400 gold ore.
Next we need something to power it, you can't build the solar panel as that requires 18 composites that you need the electric furnace to make in the first place, so you need to build a biofuel generator. That's another 12 electronics (24 gold and 72 copper ore) and 8 copper bars (16 copper ore).
Bringing our total to 1280 copper ore and 416 gold ore.
Next you need to wire them up. That's another 20 copper bars and 8 gold bars (40 copper ore and 16 gold ore.
Bringing our total to 1320 copper ore and 432 gold ore.
next comes the composite paste, you need 20 of them for the beacon. Thats 20 gold ore.
Bringing our total to 1320 copper ore and 452 gold ore.
The beacon itself now needs 10 electronics and 8 copper bars.
Bringing our total to 1366 copper ore and 472 gold ore.
Finally you then need the Extractor itself, another 5 electronics.

Giving us a grand total (just in copper and gold not counting iron, aluminium, sticks, wood, oxite, etc, etc) of 1,396 copper ore and 482 gold ore. I do however think I've under counted copper ores somewhere in that though.
Now you may get 30 odd ore from each node. That's potentially around 45 copper nodes, and 16 gold nodes. In 7 caves I found 4 gold nodes and 13 copper nodes which is enough to build the fabricator.
I still need to find 12 more gold nodes and around 33 more copper nodes, which would be roughly 21 more caves, almost 30 caves in total to build everything in order to mine an exotic vein and it must be at least 30-40 hours game play to do that.

Now that all seems insane but what becomes more apparent is that (and I don't know how much you get from a vein) you spend all that time to literally be able to build a knife that has like 4 hit points more that a lower level knife in the workshop or a module that gives you 5kg carry weight improvement.

That's insane. I think I might be done with this game for a while. I wouldn't even mind the grind if there was a good reward at the end. But its just grinding for the sake of being able to grind 3% faster on the next mission. There's no vehicles, no space station, no end game, no points of interest on the map.......just miles and miles and miles of the same trees and rocks and 4 animals.

The game has some interesting concepts but the devs are trying to extend 10 hours of content into 100 hours by forcing us into endless repetition.

[G1itcher]

Originally posted by Syotos:

you could of just stopped at the title m8, Everything past tier 2's cost is quite high for having to do it over and over, making the grind WAY to grindy even for me, that it actually puts a bad taste in my mouth going to tier 3+ in games.

Yeah, I agree. I didn't really mind the grind up to steel so much, although building a concrete mixer literally just so I could build a proper furnace was a pain.

Originally posted by Ken30NYC:

That's insane. I think I might be done with this game for a while. I wouldn't even mind the grind if there was a good reward at the end. But its just grinding for the sake of being able to grind 3% faster on the next mission. There's no vehicles, no space station, no end game, no points of interest on the map.......just miles and miles and miles of the same trees and rocks and 4 animals.

The game has some interesting concepts but the devs are trying to extend 10 hours of content into 100 hours by forcing us into endless repetition.

Feels like that's the way I'm going too. The balance for the recipes doesn't feel like it matches the "Gather, build, discard" cycle that's such a big part of this game. If this was a normal, persistent style survival game, then the tech progression would make much more sense in its current state.