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I am new and playing 50% events -- so that I can simply see the mechanics of the game which I am new to ( started 0.11 ). So I will simply ack the observations on Events.
Movement and Jumps I am less upset about mechanically, but the new Universe model certainly contributed to lowered access to resources.
Resources I consider to be in a worse state that the OP described. In addition to being spread across the galaxy with few if any self sufficient sectors, the starting inventory of resources seem to have been very heavily nerfed.
Storage was also hit hard, and small ships would need 3 times the space for the same inventory, and it is somewhat of a mercy that stuff is so scarce now.
Shuttle storage from 300 to 100 would be welcome ( less expedition stress ) if everything else stayed the same, but my sense is that mining speed/difficulty is degrading at about the same pace per expedition, but with greatly reduced payload, and almost no chance of additional resources without changing sectors.
Ore access is now less mining and WAY more rock grinding. Not a bad approach to mitigate resource spread, but rock expeditions are now more necessary and less available and productive than before. Rock to ore ratios are killer, as are the number or ores that now need to come from rock.
I will add a separate theme/observation that is not really version specific. The interface has gaps in provided information and context on examined items, I spend SO much time going down supply chain rabbit holes. It would be extremely helpful if any blueprint you look at would let you know if there are any missing research topics or materials preventing a build. Currently you have to take notes and do inventory searches, or build and examine for material shortages after the fact.
In summary, if I had to play this game in its current state with settings that did not disable achievements, and had zero access to sandbox, I would simply move on, it would be too painful.
That said, I see a very engaged dev and the potential for a really cool game, so I am still here for now.
This is just my personal observations, but I think you can gather the necessary understanding from the data, maybe just...don't rush to conclusions :P
Not everything is of the same rarity. It may not be well balanced, but there is a range of difficulty where each type of deposit can appear, and those ranges are quite different for many deposit types. I do generate a "report" of deposit distribution, and I use those reports to see how much of everything there is in the universe. Things like Iron and Ice are relatively abundant, while you will only have one or two deposits of certain rare materials.
Rock is also special, as you can grind it into almost anything, and you can acquire it very easily. That makes it a bit of a crutch mechanic though, I don't like it and I'll think of what can be done better instead.
I will be further experimenting with deposit frequency and types you can find in different locations, but the way it worked before where you could just hang around one star system for most of the game was not what I wanted to have.
Let's take RimWorld for example. It's been I while I've played it, but I remember my first few hours with the game very well. It felt like I was punched in the face. I barely survived a few days at first, the next run lasted a bit longer, next one more so, another one punched me in the face in a different way again. I had to put in a lot of hours to overcome my skill issue and to learn how to play it properly. I always wanted this type of experience in Stardeus. The fact that you can start the game as a new player and have a 20 hour run without having to restart makes the game inferior in my eyes. Challenge makes it fun. People somehow don't complain about RimWorld being too hard, although it is definitely very difficult to get into and to play.
I am sandboxing so I can make an informed decision without a major investment of hours. Repeated 20 hour runs exclude you from mid game and end game mechanics, and frankly I am not going to invest hundreds of hours into a small fraction of the game just to decide.
IMO the thing that made RimWorld wildly successful was mods. It was many different games when it came to play style, and not everyone was into being punched in the face. I gave more time to that game than any other, but my playtime would have had fewer digits without mods, and I am pretty sure I am not alone on that.
I agree, but in order to get so many mods, RimWorld had to have a rock solid core. The core game reflects what Tynan wanted it to be, but with mods anyone can make it their own. I want the same for Stardeus, and while there aren't many mods for it, I will do my best to compensate with variety of built-in scenarios, modifiers and sandbox tools.
And that is acceptable and appreciated, especially modifiers and sandbox tools.
But seriously on the matter of moddability:
RimWorld core gameplay was not solid. It was - and still is, to this day - missing some basic mechanics that mods initially intented to provide. It really was the mods that made RimWorld great.
I can't stress this last point enough. I basically found StarDeus because of Save our Ship mod, literally it came recommended to me as what SoS should look like after you evacuate planet in RimWorld.
Which brings us back to Harmony support and XML files for data storage. I've noticed that other indie devs also prefer json format for some "unexplained" reason. I'd rather see StarDeus move away from that, even if not into XML then maybe into something similar to what Cosmoteer did (it is something akin to YAML but supports some xpath operations?).
Anyway. Came back to complain a little here and there and to wish you Merry Xmass if you celebrate, and happy New Year if you dont, Spajus :)
Harmony support is already built-in since v0.11, though I don't think anyone used it yet, I may need to create some examples or a tutorial. And as a developer who worked with both XML and JSON extensively throughout my career, I went with JSON because XML was always such a pain to work with, when JSON came into scene it was like a breath of fresh air. YAML on the other hand is even worse (if not worst). Read this: https://noyaml.com/
JSON does have some XPATH alternatives (like https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-goessner-dispatch-jsonpath-00.html), and it is easy to parse (way easier to parse than XML). I never checked how RimWorld implemented their modding via XML though, it could be something really good, but I'm sure that if there was interest in modding Stardeus, I would come up with ways to add more flexibility for overriding JSON definitions. Now you can overwrite them entirely, which isn't ideal if the original definition changes. However, the truth is that Stardeus is a niche game that very few people are interested to mod. Even if the modding tools were 100x better than right now, that would likely not change. The size of modding community always correlates with overall success and player count, which in case of Stardeus is, well, very niche.
Anyway, thank you for being part of the community, sir Evans, Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to you too! I'm happy to have someone who keeps challenging me like you do! :)
Btw, if you want to see how messy JSONs can get, check Ostranauts :)
But other than that... yea(ml). Choosing sensible file type for data storage is always pain in the ass. Having worked with everything, just like you, I am on the opinion that JSON is fine for small-ish data sets, yaml works for app config and feature flags and XML makes sense for larger amount of data if you have a sensible schema for it. I remember working with larger xml back in the day before all the tools we have now and my experience was similar to yours. I dislike soap api just like everybody else :)
It may not be a bad idea to look into how they handle things. From what I recall the last time I modded RimWorld, they just go with xpath syntax and patch operations.
Its honestly one of the better implementations, if not the best I have seen thus far in gaming.
It makes mods compatible and combine with other mods the easy way, for example.
It's an egg and chicken question. Tynan design choices may be questionable in some areas of the game, but having robust mod support from the get go was one right choice he made. Game got extra content right from the start, with no extra effort from developers, which made game more popular, which attracted more players and modders producing more content... Snowball effect. And now there is many times more content available in mods for RimWorld than from game and dlcs combined. Some mods have been around since early alpha...
If I was to give my honest opinion, and I know nobody asked, I'd say replicating RimWorld success but in space is definitelly possible. The problem is, since you are the first one to try it for real, you are in uncharted waters and have nowhere to learn from.
At its core, RimWorld is just simplified Dwarf Fortress with nice graphics and real-time action, really.
Tynan could just remove all of DF nonsense and focus on basic gameplay loop (DF had no z levels early on btw) with base building and sieges. And it worked, while other attempts like Gnomoria didn't.
Maybe it would be a good idea to pause, take a step back, look at the big picture and consider what type of game you want Stardeus to be. Pre 0.12 style had a lot of appeal to it, precisely because it was RimWorld-ly. What was missing, what more would be needed to enhance that feeling?
I think resource constraining isn't it. Makes the game feel too much like some mobile title.
Must be something else.
Thank you for not seeing me as "adversarial" :P
I mean well, even tho I may appear cynical sometimes, and times are such that many find it offensive :/
Game development can be stressful activity, I know. Luckily for you, you are not under tight deadlines working every weekend for an entire month because final_final_new_2 build needs to find its way to publisher hands. Especially if after last submission run platformholder told you they didn't liked your fish-eye effect (sometimes I wonder how many times Sony failed game submissions due to stuff like that?).
It's the end of the year, maybe its time to take a break, rest and relax a little. Build a snowman? Take care of your health and sanity? Return with renewed vigour? :)
Anyway, enough with my rant. Take care :)
Reading this part, I think I understand what you're trying to recreate, and it would be great if you succeed. However, when I see how Stardeus handles these events currently, or even since v0_11 or earlier, I don’t really feel that it’s the goal you’re aiming for.
From my point of view, if very few people complain about the difficulty of RimWorld, it’s because the two games define difficulty in two different ways.
In RimWorld, most of the threats come from the outside (yes, a big parallel to my original post) and are relatively equal to your forces, or even superior. It’s your defenses, your trap placements, pawns, and strategies that will determine whether you’ll sweep the threat or get crushed by it. If you lose, you reflect and ask yourself how you could have done better, learn, and try again.
If you win, GGWP, and you move on to the next stage, which will always be a bit harder.
In Stardeus, however, the enemy is often yourself: your pawns, your ship that wants to destroy you. My thruster exploded. What did I learn? “I’ll space out my thrusters to minimize the damage.”
I learned, yes, but very little, and I still lost a thruster.
My colonists mutinied and had to be killed. What did I learn? A bit more coffee will calm their nerves.
I learned, yes, but very little, and I still lost my colonists.
I think that’s where the nuance lies. RimWorld tries to make players pay for their mistakes, while Stardeus makes you pay regardless, and you learn to minimize the damage.
No need to spell it out, one of these methods is clearly more frustrating than the other.
Naturally, and like many people, what I hate the most about Stardeus is precisely these arbitrary events, as explained in my original post.
I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be any arbitrary events like these, since RimWorld also has them (the famous “Zzzzzz” everyone knows, for example), but most of them aren’t there to crush the player but to throw a few jabs to keep them alert. They should never be the majority to the point of overwhelming the player.
Important events should provide something for the player in case of victory, as it’s also a way of progressing in the game.
Obviously, when I talk about rewards, I’m talking about resources, and here comes the second comparison with RimWorld.
Instead of strictly limiting resources, RimWorld tries to tie risk and reward together.
In RimWorld, retrieving resources comes with a certain level of risk.
You perform your scan, the scan generates an instance you need to reach by sending a convoy to mine. You can be intercepted on the way, or fall into an ambush, and if you’re not well prepared, you can lose your convoy.
And that’s just one example among many.
Risk = reward.
In Stardeus, you perform your scan, go to your deposit, launch your expedition ship, and... wait...
When I say it, I feel like I’ve just defined a chore...
If you find the game too easy, why not go with the same principle?
I’m not stingy with simple ideas:
You perform a scan, but unlucky, a nearby ship intercepts your signal (completely borrowed from Star Citizen, I admit). You’ll have the position of a deposit, but also an enemy on your hands.
You found an interesting asteroid, but it’s covered in alien eggs in stasis, and your arrival has overstimulated them.
You’ve fallen for a decoy and walked into an ambush from a hostile robotic faction.
Always risk = reward.
In the previous version, I remember that when mining in a hostile system or without paying exploitation fees, we would receive progressively stronger waves of enemies, and I thought that idea was great because risk = reward.
I don’t know if it was removed or if I failed to trigger it in my last playthrough, but I really thought that idea was going in the right direction.
A little aside, because ideas come as I write. Sorry for the disjointedness.
Technically speaking, what’s stopping, like RimWorld, from having the scan generate an asteroid in a neighboring system that disappears when it’s depleted? This way, no more unmined asteroids taunting you in every system.
I think this is more or less implemented with wrecked ships.
If I understood correctly what you’re trying to achieve with Stardeus, everything I’ve said above seems coherent with your goals. And even if it’s all to be discarded, I hope at least I’ve provided a line of thought to help move in the right direction.
See you soon for v0_13.
I agree with sir Evans on the fact that I probably have to step back and rethink the big picture, perhaps even redo the JSON format to XML and implement the XPATH based patching, so modding would become awesome.
In any case, Stardeus is my passion project, I'm technically retired and I can (and will) work on this for 10 more years or even longer. It may take many more rewrites and mechanics changes, but eventually I want to put Stardeus into a league of it's own, and not just live in constant comparison to RimWorld, which is certainly way superior today.
However, my 200 hours of playtime were spent on Stardeus, not on RimWorld, which means that Stardeus also has its own appeal and strengths, so who knows?
Good luck!
Some of the changes are for the worst, like mining becoming much slower and little output. It feels like I'm always chasing a resource, I can't get enough before running to another region to get something else. At least with v.11, mid to late game I could create a good mining team and collect multiple resources efficiently, move on.
I've already commented elsewhere on the map changes and how it make the game feel cheep. v11 has a great map and navigation system. I understand the point to triggering more outside evens and eventually ship to ship combat, but with multiple hyperdrives, they are completely cheezable. Arrive in a system with an enemy, meteor, etc? Jump right back out and done.
I stopped playing RimWorld because it punches me in the face to often, even when I put it peaceful and immediately got the biggest raid I ever saw. I felt there was only a few strick ways to play, and casual wasn't one of them. v.12 takes away alot of that casual that brings people in.
As for the modding and as a software developer - XML can die in a 1000 fires created with with termite and then chucked into the sun. It sucks at everything it tries. And then many complex system were added to make it 'easier'. I've used many formats for data files in my career and only YAML is worst. I've written plenty of complex JSON - I would stick with those. Either make it bunch of small files or one large one with publishing a strong schema. Making a big change will break everything that already exists - there already are good mods. I've seen games use plain text files for modding and it worked. That my 2c on XML.
Myself, I will keep playing but nearing that point as the others here - not worth the frustration.
On the subject of version 0.12, I haven't had the time to try it out yet -- but given the comments, I think I'll wait for updates. I agree with gmyx that "casual brings people in", I'm one of those people.