Finished the current content, some thoughts (longish)

[TheAbyssGazesAlso]

I have finished the current content. Overall, I found it to be excellent fun.

* I love the new ship building. It's very nifty. Plenty of other components that could also be added; bigger wings, heat sinks, cargo pods, point defence lasers maybe (missiles are annoying *grin*)

* I don't love the gatekeeping of the extra weapons behind random drops. By the time you unlock lasers you have likely invested heavily into plasma weapons and given that research points are a limited commodity that gives serious FOMO. The alternative is limping along and having the sand kicked into your face in every fight as you try not to die with weak un-upgraded plasma guns because you're saving the research points. Neither feels good. Maybe there could be a way to generate research (see next point) and a chance for weapon type breakthroughs.

In my whole playthrough, I never got better than 2/3 fixed gun and 2/3 missiles, so not even a chance to try those. And that's just bad RNG and thus weak design IMO. Feelsbadman.gif.

* I would love to be able to upgrade my base. This is likely coming since there was an element of it in Nexus, but it was mild. I would like to be able to do serious upgrades to the base; like the ship there would be limited spots for modules, and I could choose to install weapon systems, shields (when I unlock them), a trading post, research bays that would slowly accumulate research points over time (more research bays means more research points but less space for an extra weapon or whatever), a diplomatic embassy that can maintain relationships with other races so they don't degrade over time and which would speed up the rate of improving bad relations, etc. Lots of cool possibilities, and an extra sink for resources.

* I want to be able to rename my crew and pick different images for them, so I can personalise them and feel like they're people instead of just a collection of stats. I can't even tell you what the first officer's name is, and I probably saw it a hundred times during the run. But I can tell you the names of every soldier I ever had an any XCom game and I remember how they looked etc.

* Along with that, maybe there could be opportunities to recruit new staff (which lets you have a chance for them dying on missions), and perhaps as I make friends there might be a way of recruiting staff from other races.

* Some of the story beats are unobvious, as evidenced by the number of posts on here saying "what do I do now?". This is possibly just a result of it being an open beta, but for example if you don't happen to buy a certain artefact from a certain race, the story can't progress.

* To go with that - everyone offers artefacts for sale but none of them seem to do anything but offer research points? Maybe you could occasionally come across things you can buy that allow you to unlock new technologies?

* More technologies, maybe special one-off ones. Like precursor artefacts in Star Control, you might be able to buy (or find on a planet or whatever) a special, I dunno, lander research that you can then build a better lander that has a built-in workshop and lab which has the effect of giving a +1 bonus to crew actions when you're on a planet. Or special research for harder materials that improves your bulkheads and maybe gives you a reason to ever use them, etc.

* Shields are cool, but if I'm being honest, I don't love the shield icon. Could it just be a bar above energy and hull, like in Nexus? I liked it better like that.

* More random space encounters so I can fight more

* More to do with the Goryr? Maybe they have special research things you can unlock by buying it from them. OK, now they are starting to sound like the Melnorme, but that's fine, that's what we all thought of the first time they turned up anyway. Hell, have their ship background turn purple at some point as a nod to one of the best games of this genre ever made.

* The trading buy/sell percentages thing is really confusing. Like, seriously confusing.

* What is up with he progress bar when crew are attempting something on a planet? It doesn't seem to correspond to what they're doing, sometimes high is good and sometimes low is good and always you can't predict the outcome regardless of what the bar does, so it seems to be, I dunno, meaningless? If it is actually indicating something then can this be explained?

Overall, I am loving SUS so far. It's "Nexus but more and better" and I am having a blast with it. I can already seem improvements from the closed beta, and I am looking forward to onwards and upwards and more. Interested in anyone's thoughts on the above, but especially Kevins :-)

[TheAbyssGazesAlso]

I forgot to add:

* I would like the mission screen to have more info. Saying something like "the gas giant guys said something really cryptic" doesn't help, because then I have to go look through my logs to try to find what they said. Also, when a mission comes up like "please go investigate some coordinates we found, the mission should have the coordinates so I know which was which, IMO.

* I never worked out what the shadow of the burning moon thing was about, or found the frozen nitrogen lake or whatever it was. Maybe when things like this have been persistent for ages without the player solving them, your first officer could send a message with an idea as a hint?

[Stone-D]

Yeah I prefered Nexus' shield bar as well. You could see it in your peripheral vision and react accordingly, but this new one you have to actually look at which makes you lose track of what's going on in the battle.

Agreed with all of your points.

[GM Pax]

TheAbyssGazesAlso původně napsal:

[...] shadow of the burning moon thing [...]

It's ... surprisingly simple, really. Right near that gas giant is a "Primordial Moon" - that means it's a largely molten, a.k.a. "burning", moon. Draw a line from the sun, through that moon, off into deep space ... follow that line with your ship (travelling into the shadow the sun casts from that moon into space) ... and you'll find something, not quite all the way to the edge of that map-square.

[TheAbyssGazesAlso]

GM Pax původně napsal:

TheAbyssGazesAlso původně napsal:

[...] shadow of the burning moon thing [...]

It's ... surprisingly simple, really. Right near that gas giant is a "Primordial Moon" - that means it's a largely molten, a.k.a. "burning", moon. Draw a line from the sun, through that moon, off into deep space ... follow that line with your ship (travelling into the shadow the sun casts from that moon into space) ... and you'll find something, not quite all the way to the edge of that map-square.

I guess. I'll go look there and see what it is, although I have actually finished the currently available main story now.

I guess primordial didn't trigger "burning" for me, and logically a moon moves around a planet which is moving around a star, so the "shadow" of a moon from a star will literally point in every compass direction over the course of a year, so that solution really didn't occur to me. Yes, I know that the planets don't actually move in SUS but still...

Cheers for the nod though, much appreciated.

[Umbral Reaver]

Oh whoops. I'd already found that thing by accident before visiting the gas giant. No wonder I couldn't figure out what they were talking about.

[binkyberkowitz]

I definitely agree with you on the weapon unlocking thing. It definitely needs some tweaking, because so far I've done an entire playthrough in the beta and in the current version, and both times I found enough parts to research fixed plasma guns, no problem. But missiles? I wanted to use them but only ever got 2/3 parts on one playthrough, 1/3 on my second, and I didn't even realize beam weapons were already implemented for the player to use because I never even found a single piece of them.

[mensmans]

you get beam weapons from the lion like race after you help them defend their homeworld.
For missiles just keep killing enemy ships that carry them. no enemies left, then just bump into one to p them off. You can make peace again later.

[Shaitan]

Agree with most of the points. Station R&D should provide a trickle of Research Points which can be collected on your return, at the cost of donated resources, to represent the expenditure of effort in ongoing research. Richer resources would increase the gain in Research Points.

This would eliminate FOMO as you will eventually always have enough points to research everything eventually. You can still specialise and pivot later, with the cost largely only being time. Tying the gain speed of Research Points to resources would also mean when you gain access to better resources as the game progresses you can then donate them to make meaningful progress towards some new technology you just unlocked.

My biggest gripe with Nexus was having to know EXACTLY what build I wanted at the start of the game, and then doling out the minimum Research Points so that I had enough to upgrade the new tech I was waiting for.

[justkevin]

Thanks for the feedback/suggestions.

Unlock drops: The next content update will increase module item drop freqs and add a targeted bonus-- if you destroy a missile launcher from an enemy before they explode, the chance of a missile item drop goes up.

But there may still need to be a mechanism to get them if players are having unlucky runs. E.g. pity timer or from a trader who charges a lot, etc.

[Matalus]

yeah I never saw parts for lasers or shields, but I did get missiles and fixed guns, looking forward to the next update.

[TheAbyssGazesAlso]

Matalus původně napsal:

yeah I never saw parts for lasers or shields, but I did get missiles and fixed guns, looking forward to the next update.

You won't see shield parts anywhere. There's a specific thing you have to do to get shields, but I won't spoil it unless you want me to.

[Azirahael]

TheAbyssGazesAlso původně napsal:

Matalus původně napsal:

yeah I never saw parts for lasers or shields, but I did get missiles and fixed guns, looking forward to the next update.

You won't see shield parts anywhere. There's a specific thing you have to do to get shields, but I won't spoil it unless you want me to.

Yeah, i got them, and i can't even remember what it was.
There's a weird feeling of disconnect in this game for me.

[Zapp;]

mensmans původně napsal:

you get beam weapons from the lion like race after you help them defend their homeworld.
For missiles just keep killing enemy ships that carry them. no enemies left, then just bump into one to p them off. You can make peace again later.

The lion people gave me something else: fission missile upgrade

I haven't had an issue finding missiles or fixed weapons, my problem was finding the lasers. I've blown up a couple dozen Kyrnan Lancers shooting lasers at me, and none of them have dropped laser tech.

[Azirahael]

Zapp původně napsal:

mensmans původně napsal:

you get beam weapons from the lion like race after you help them defend their homeworld.
For missiles just keep killing enemy ships that carry them. no enemies left, then just bump into one to p them off. You can make peace again later.

The lion people gave me something else: fission missile upgrade

I haven't had an issue finding missiles or fixed weapons, my problem was finding the lasers. I've blown up a couple dozen Kyrnan Lancers shooting lasers at me, and none of them have dropped laser tech.

Every 3 larger ships dropped a part, for me.

[PlasmaBait]

I have never found the frozen nitrogen lake, does anyone know where is it?