Can combat be worked on next?

[delerium76]

Soldier Combat is severely "un-fun" in this game, and I feel like it's holding me back from wanting to continue playing. Combat feels like one of those old 90's arcade quarter suckers where you are just swarmed by enemies and there's nothing you can do but soak damage as you fight until you die, just so you pop another quarter into the machine to keep fighting. Combat in this game is pure attrition, and that's not fun.

The major things that I feel make the combat a bad experience (exclusive to the soldiers, not the critter combat):

Direct Combat Issues

1. Enemies always know where you are and snipe at you from really far away with nearly perfect aim. This needs toned down. The fact that an enemy i can't even see because it's too far in the fog is shooting me and hitting me every time is a huge problem, and makes people frustrated. We need a maskable presence, and the enemy needs to discover our presence. I'm not asking for a full blown stealth mechanic (although that would be nice) but some basics would be nice. The enemy should need to discover the player instead of instantly knowing we are there by us crossing a line. There should definitely be a longer distance on them detecting us, especially through fog.

2. Tone down the armor on enemies. It shouldn't take me unloading a full clip into an enemy to kill one, especially when there are 20 others shooting at me at the same time.

3. Reduce the amount of enemies attacking you at one time and reduce their ability to fire perfectly from nearly 100% cover, especially since they have nearly perfect aim. Combat in this game devolves into pure chaos, and not even fun chaos. Half the time there are so many enemies shooting me from very controlled positions where I can't shoot back. I've seen enemies sit behind those metal plates on railings where you can only see their head poking through the top, but somehow they are able to shoot you through the metal railing. But if you shoot back, your bullets hit the barrier.

4. Reduce the screen shake on being shot to just a small tiny bump. You get shot SO MUCH right now that you can't even aim. Yes I know I can disable the screen shake, and I have because it's too much, but it would be nice to have a less drastic screen shake for this.

Weapon Issues

1. Gun part UI is half baked. We should know at a glance all of the stats for that part, and a comparison between that part and the part we have installed in our active gun. We should also know for barrel parts what type of gun it is. We should see what type of fire mode each handle has. We should see all of the passives listed on the part. We should have all of this information without needing to lug it back to our train and install each part in a weapon.

2. the armorer needs all of the above information as well WITHOUT installing the part. Right now, you could have multiple parts with the same visible stats, but different passive bonuses that don't show up until you install that part. Those passives should show up on the tooltip you get when selecting which part to install. You can't even see part names from the armorer, so you are basically guessing which part is which. Fixing the above will make this problem less of an issue. The main problem is that we aren't given all of the info we need to decide on what to loot and what to leave without making many trips back and forth to the train.

3. as far as I can tell, the stock and sights have very little stat variance. What's the point in having these as removable parts if there's no real reason to swap them out? it just creates more inventory clutter.

[SpaceBird]

I agree with this. Even at 50% enemy health/damage I feel myself hard pressed to keep up. Combat has always been a problem including the shark, but these pests need a massive rework. It is sad because I love nearly everything else about the game and combat alone is why I left the review I did. It is so frustrating to go through it.

[CrazyMom]

I agree also.
Right now with the first leather suit and only one slot for armour, I end up carrying at least 8 plates with me into the station battles plus bandages and water to keep my health automatically up as much as possible and of course extra ammo boxes.
Having the name of the type of rifle (either Shotgun, Rifle or Hunter) appear in the name is a must in my eyes.
I carry all 3 into battle: shotgun short range max damage, rifle long shots and hunter for the crazy fire rate also short range, this way I use all 3 types of ammo in my inventory and do not have to go back so often.
Since I have not progressed far (the save file shows number 8) I do not know if this will get better the further you level up, but then I read that the battles/enemies also level up automatically.
At the end of each battle I take my time scouring the area, pick up everything and analyse the firearms parts, do a manual save before this and afterwards reload and do the determined exchange of parts faster.
When upgrading your firearm keep at least one of each of the old parts so you can change the good stuff out again when you pick up a better firearm and discard the old one (I leave them in the builders box at the station).
These old firearms should be able though to be recycled as well!!!

[delerium76]

Originally posted by CrazyMom:

When upgrading your firearm keep at least one of each of the old parts so you can change the good stuff out again when you pick up a better firearm and discard the old one (I leave them in the builders box at the station).
These old firearms should be able though to be recycled as well!!!

You can dismantle a gun completely. You just need to remove every part off the table. Then you can recycle all the parts you don't want to keep.

[CrazyMom]

Originally posted by delerium76:

Originally posted by CrazyMom:

When upgrading your firearm keep at least one of each of the old parts so you can change the good stuff out again when you pick up a better firearm and discard the old one (I leave them in the builders box at the station).
These old firearms should be able though to be recycled as well!!!

You can dismantle a gun completely. You just need to remove every part off the table. Then you can recycle all the parts you don't want to keep.

Thank you for the info!!!!!

[delerium76]

Originally posted by CrazyMom:

Originally posted by delerium76:

You can dismantle a gun completely. You just need to remove every part off the table. Then you can recycle all the parts you don't want to keep.

Thank you for the info!!!!!

welcome!

[Neko]

Originally posted by delerium76:

2. Tone down the armor on enemies. It shouldn't take me unloading a full clip into an enemy to kill one, especially when there are 20 others shooting at me at the same time.

Enemy armor and health is really odd. They are either bullet sponges or wet napkins. Once you have a good gun that one-shots grunts and kills the heavy guys in a few shots (which isn't hard to find/make), you won't ever have an issue with combat encounters again. They'll feel like annoying chores, especially since they respawn behind you in depots. The only reasons to engage them in mid-late game would be finding guns/parts that kill them even harder or getting tokens (which at that point you're just hoping will give you legendary gun parts). Combat just feels clunky and not really that worth it in general.

[SpaceBird]

Originally posted by Neko:

Originally posted by delerium76:

2. Tone down the armor on enemies. It shouldn't take me unloading a full clip into an enemy to kill one, especially when there are 20 others shooting at me at the same time.

Enemy armor and health is really odd. They are either bullet sponges or wet napkins. Once you have a good gun that one-shots grunts and kills the heavy guys in a few shots (which isn't hard to find/make), you won't ever have an issue with combat encounters again. They'll feel like annoying chores, especially since they respawn behind you in depots. The only reasons to engage them in mid-late game would be finding guns/parts that kill them even harder or getting tokens (which at that point you're just hoping will give you legendary gun parts). Combat just feels clunky and not really that worth it in general.

I find myself skipping a lot of things, especially anything to do with those soldier pests, and I ask myself 'what is the point?' That's when I stop playing entirely. Can't even bring myself to complete even the first chapter of the story because of it.

[CrazyMom]

Originally posted by delerium76:

Originally posted by CrazyMom:

When upgrading your firearm keep at least one of each of the old parts so you can change the good stuff out again when you pick up a better firearm and discard the old one (I leave them in the builders box at the station).
These old firearms should be able though to be recycled as well!!!

You can dismantle a gun completely. You just need to remove every part off the table. Then you can recycle all the parts you don't want to keep.

The armoury table 1 only lets me swap out parts, not full dismantlement.

[CrazyMom]

Originally posted by SpaceBird:

Originally posted by Neko:

Enemy armor and health is really odd. They are either bullet sponges or wet napkins...

I find myself skipping a lot of things, especially anything to do with those soldier pests, and I ask myself 'what is the point?' That's when I stop playing entirely. Can't even bring myself to complete even the first chapter of the story because of it.

If you have progressed already to higher levels and still have only beginning firearms it most likely will be very difficult to catch up.
I always stop a distance from the little soldier-depots beside the rail and use mu long distance one to eliminate most then move in and use my short distance high damage shotgun. Always carry a load of plates and bandages with you if you have not adjusted the settings.
As mentioned above: I carry all 3 into battle: shotgun short range max damage, rifle long shots and hunter for the crazy fire rate also short range, this way I use all 3 types of ammo in my inventory and do not have to go back so often.
I do not like these mass-killings of soldiers either especially since they made them look like WWII German soldiers. They should have come up with a more imaginary soldier type!
In the settings you can adjust the damage taken to your liking.

[SpaceBird]

Originally posted by CrazyMom:

Originally posted by SpaceBird:

I find myself skipping a lot of things, especially anything to do with those soldier pests, and I ask myself 'what is the point?' That's when I stop playing entirely. Can't even bring myself to complete even the first chapter of the story because of it.

If you have progressed already to higher levels and still have only beginning firearms it most likely will be very difficult to catch up.
I always stop a distance from the little soldier-depots beside the rail and use mu long distance one to eliminate most then move in and use my short distance high damage shotgun. Always carry a load of plates and bandages with you if you have not adjusted the settings.
As mentioned above: I carry all 3 into battle: shotgun short range max damage, rifle long shots and hunter for the crazy fire rate also short range, this way I use all 3 types of ammo in my inventory and do not have to go back so often.
I do not like these mass-killings of soldiers either especially since they made them look like WWII German soldiers. They should have come up with a more imaginary soldier type!
In the settings you can adjust the damage taken to your liking.

I just skip everything to do with combat because there is no point unless the story forces me to. I always have a stack of steel plated armor to keep my T3 leather topped off, but it does not excuse the fact I have no fun with it at all. It needs a full rework. So I just afterburner through those outposts with very little if any damage done to me or my train. My train can at least tank a lot. Before I hit the 4th gate, I was more than half way through the research tree. If that is how combat scales, that is really dumb. It needs to scale by gate, not by research progress. The weapon I have is decent enough, but like I stated, it's just not fun.

[CrazyMom]

I agree with you, it is a chore and not fun at all. This game is a somewhat copy of Raft but with an over-abundance of combat. In Raft you are on the ocean. They even named the shark in Voidtrain after the shark in Raft, Bruce.
If you do not have Raft yet, it is one of my favourite games since you can design your raft any way (after you have collected enough resources. Lots of swimming and underwater collection plus island varieties. Do not be discouraged if you have no clue what is happening or die a couple of times and re-start, the beginning can be a little rough. NO soldiers in this one.
Another great survival game with very nice base building and water travel is Survival:Fountain of Youth, my other go-to game. Here the only enemies are nature: the elements and wildlife.
If you like science fiction then I can recommend No Mans Sky, lots of discovery and very beautiful/ at times weird-but-not-ugly flora and fauna. Also has nice base building aspects.

[SpaceBird]

Originally posted by CrazyMom:

I agree with you, it is a chore and not fun at all. This game is a somewhat copy of Raft but with an over-abundance of combat. In Raft you are on the ocean. They even named the shark in Voidtrain after the shark in Raft, Bruce.
If you do not have Raft yet, it is one of my favourite games since you can design your raft any way (after you have collected enough resources. Lots of swimming and underwater collection plus island varieties. Do not be discouraged if you have no clue what is happening or die a couple of times and re-start, the beginning can be a little rough. NO soldiers in this one.
Another great survival game with very nice base building and water travel is Survival:Fountain of Youth, my other go-to game. Here the only enemies are nature: the elements and wildlife.
If you like science fiction then I can recommend No Mans Sky, lots of discovery and very beautiful/ at times weird-but-not-ugly flora and fauna. Also has nice base building aspects.

I have and played all of those but fountain of youth. Great games, and yes, Raft is much better in almost every aspect. Voidtrain has so much potential, but is infuriating to play combat wise.

[Wonko486]

Originally posted by CrazyMom:

Originally posted by delerium76:

You can dismantle a gun completely. You just need to remove every part off the table. Then you can recycle all the parts you don't want to keep.

The armoury table 1 only lets me swap out parts, not full dismantlement.

When you can choose which part to swap, there's a circle with a line through it. If you click that instead of the part, you remove the part entirely and it goes into your inventory.

[CrazyMom]

Originally posted by Wonko486:

Originally posted by CrazyMom:

The armoury table 1 only lets me swap out parts, not full dismantlement.

When you can choose which part to swap, there's a circle with a line through it. If you click that instead of the part, you remove the part entirely and it goes into your inventory.

Thank you very much for this clarification!! Much appreciated.

[ChaosSound]

It would be nice if you knew what parts changed on a gun instead of just the stats, I somehow turned my fully auto rifle into a semi auto without even knowing which part I replaced that did it