Explorer Expeditions and Surviving it

[h311ra1z3r]

The problem with The normal Explorer missions is that every time you send someone out on the mission it takes longer and longer to complete it. Your Survivor will starve to death if its over 3 day trip. (3 days to get to the destination, 3 days to get home).

I've seen folks IRL doing primitive challenges and go more than 10 days without food, taking in less than 25 calories a day by eating bugs and recycling their urine through natural body distillation and boiling water from the nastiest mud bog you've ever seen. Its not the healthiest way to maintain your life, but in a real survival situation its possible to do it for 3 - 60 days for fluids.

You can push the human body to go 60 days on just boiling water. Why can't these guys do that? They'll die on a 6 day round trip in balloon. There should be fail safes while travelling, like taking food with them to ensure their survival. There's not a water element in the game either. There should be in my opinion.

[Natjur]

They should take food with them (1 food) but sometimes they will bug out and not take it (or be too hungry already and eat it as soon as they are on the ballon and stave before they get back.

I guess these 'humans' have very low body fat so can't handle a few days without food. Maybe in the future, humans are engineered to not store fat, which is great for day to day living, bad for survival on alien planets.

[h311ra1z3r]

The Explorer missions, I've stopped doing because even if they are well rested, and Well fed at 100% they can't make the 6 day round trip. No matter if I send Vivian she is a 250lb+ woman and still dies. At this point in the game, longevity isn't a factor yet.

Another annoying thing off topic is the new Cement Fortifications, are pointless in my opinion. You need stone to create it and stone doesn't grow back. You can't manufacture stone, Stone is by far the rarest commodity in this game when its gone, no more cement.
the only other way to get stone bricks is from Ship Debris Expeditions. However, its not guaranteed, it's random, you may not even get any.

Metal Alloy you can get from Scrap metal and Ore and that is sustainable through salvaging and Meteor showers.

[Natjur]

They need to add mines (where you get endless stone from)

I normally use starting game seeds where there is a lot of minable stone, but the option to build a mine at some spot of the map for endless stone and with a tech upgrade some metal ore (which is normally not an issue as there are so many ship parts to break down)

[NukeAJS]

Originally posted by h311ra1z3r:

Another annoying thing off topic is the new Cement Fortifications, are pointless in my opinion. You need stone to create it and stone doesn't grow back. You can't manufacture stone, Stone is by far the rarest commodity in this game when its gone, no more cement.
the only other way to get stone bricks is from Ship Debris Expeditions. However, its not guaranteed, it's random, you may not even get any.

Cement fortifications are not intended to be used on the forest planet because you're right, there isn't enough stone to work with.

They're intended for the desert map where there is so much stone, you couldn't realistically build something and run out. I built a huge base almost entirely out of concrete and I have 1k cement and 5k stone leftover. I could probably realistically gather another 20k stone before getting outside of my local travel area.

[NukeAJS]

Yeah, there's an upper limit to how many explore expeditions you can go on and that's very intentional. The goal of this game is to get off the planet, not camp out forever and start a colony.

Another note -- the survivor Quin is very useful in this regard. His trait is that he gets happy from being on an expedition and expeditions take half as long. So, he increases the limit of how many explore expeditions you can do and he's less likely to freak out after particularly long expeditions.

He's also the only character that is interested in the intellect skill. Meaning he's not initially a good choice for a researcher (level 3), but he'll max out sooner than almost everybody if you do put him on the research table. With his fast expeditions, you can send him out at night, relax in the early morning, and stick him back on the table by breakfast. He'll stay happy (expedition/relaxing), fed (expeditions almost always take food with them), and rested (they'll take on their expedition).

He's a very good character, imo. Probably A tier.