Some Demo Feedback

[intrasonic]

So ran through the demo, I'm assuming that the launch request for Phosphorus is a deadend for the time being? Or maybe I've missed something somewhere. Anyway, enjoyed, will definitely be getting this down the road. So just leaving a few thoughts.

1) Need block sinks - Too many useless blocks accumulating. Whether it's through direct selling or breaking down for components, something will need to be implemented in the future. A side effect is that all the early enemy techs are just tedious, since they give exactly zero value for defeating them, but respawn anyway. Speaking of too many blocks...
2) Too many useless blocks - This was an issue in TTO, particularly with the GSO. For too many blocks, the only reason to use them is that you simply don't have anything else available. Wheels are big offenders in this demo - Between the uneven terrain, steep slopes, and water fording, small wheels are just something you put up with. In fact, for me, the traction balance pretty much dictated that only off-road wheels got used in the end. Maybe new biomes will change that in the future, but that's how it is in this demo.
3) Connector Blocks - They're weirdly-shaped, with arbitrary connection points. There's no logical reason, it inflates blockcount and inventory bloat, it's just tedious to try to work around the options to find a piece that happens to connect how you need it, and since they connect nowhere else, this just makes it easier for techs to fall apart with one lucky shot. TTO's setup - universal early blocks, with the limited-connection blocks being offered by other factions in exchange for more durability or weight reduction was actually a better way, gameplay-wise. The current system is not a gameplay-positive, and will frustrate builders, especially newcomers.
3a) On a related note, the Off-Road 2M wheel? Why the limited connection points? No other wheel has this, and if you don't connect directly to a modifying frame piece, you don't get the reactor point discount. Except the connection point is likely facing away from you, so you don't even realize it until afterwards when your reactor points are too high. So you have to go unhook each wheel, trying to figure out which one isn't getting a connection bonus... why?
4) Reactor Points - All blocks consume reactor points. While I realize making non-functional blocks free would lead to giant block dreadnoughts becoming the meta, the current system forces you to avoid anything that's not essential. Maybe a reduction in reactor point, with a meaningful increase in weight?
5) Consumables - While I'm all in favour of consumables, since the lack thereof was a problem for TTO, some attention will need to be placed on their cost. Especially reactor fuel - horrible, horrible return for the gold required. Also, a display in the corner would be a good QoL feature to remind players how much ammo they have (or don't).
6) Conduits - Those arrows need to be more visible. Maybe even subtly animated? I banged my head on the wall a long time, unable to figure out why goods weren't getting moved around, until I finally realized there were tiny arrows on those conduit pieces. The game's building scale means the conduit pieces are really tiny as you build, it's easy to miss the arrows. You WILL have confusion from new players on this point.
7) Manufacturing orders - Right now, you can either measure out the ingredients for the exact number of blocks you want, or simply have them built forever. But when you're hooking up things via conduit, you have to sit there and wait, then turn the machine off manually so you don't drain all your resources building one thing to exhaustion. A "Request for X", with a "Build" button would alleviate this.
8) Power distribution - Having to constantly turn machines on and off is annoying, since they use full power even at idle. Unfortunately, the only options are "Always Max" carbon burning, or solar/wind. And like any other base builder, when you have infinite power generation for a fixed cost (solar/wind) the optimal solution becomes "throw resources at it", and you may as well just triple the cost of floor panels for the same effect. I realize this is a demo, but there will need to be some gameplay and decision making for the power mechanic to be anything but a generic timesink.
9) A minor thing, but the on/off switches for machines are a little unintuitive. What does "Machine ON" mean? Is the machine presently on, or will that button turn the machine on? A graphic switch would be nice little QoL improvement.

[Demonmaker]

Originally posted by intrasonic:

So ran through the demo, I'm assuming that the launch request for Phosphorus is a deadend for the time being? Or maybe I've missed something somewhere. Anyway, enjoyed, will definitely be getting this down the road. So just leaving a few thoughts.

I can agree with all of this post.
Phosphorus does indeed seem to be missing (so far)

Coming from TT myself a good couple of years playing.
Iv'e stuck nearly 20hrs into the demo in 2 days.

TTW, a half decent 5/10 (so far)
Old school TT still wins hands down.

[bmh7279]

Iv only made it 30min, maybe an hour into the demo and it kinda infuriated me. Playing through the little missions and got stuck on needing a tractor beam to carry a resource to my base.... WTF is a tractor beam? Couldn't find it in any crafting base or figure out if its a normal function or anything. I saw a play through on YouTube yesterday and the guy found a tractor beam part off a defeated tech but I wasnt trying to hunt it down just yet. Then i got side tracked because It seemed like I could use the probably 1000+ debris i have to make carbon.... Couldn't get that to work. seemed like it needs 100 (1 exact stack) to make one carbon. fine, Went to setup a silo with all my debris in it and hooked it to the part that can supposedly make it. No dice.

I LOVE the old TT, enough to buy it twice and hopefully soon a 3rd. played the crap out of it on xbox, then bought it for my ps4/ps5 and played the crap out of it again. now that i finally have a pc, imma buy it again. But all the frustrations aside (probably just because im missing something simple) I can say it has some ideas i LOVE. Mining in TT was a pain. Im sure the block counts differ from console to pc but it just felt a bit finicky if you were going large scale. So the ability to setup silos and "automate" that way is a welcome feature. The building itself is a bit infuriating though. building on the tech is fine but building on the base is a bit claustrophobic. In order to mitigate that, you need to build a large base. But then you have to drive around to line up the camera so you can see to add in a large space. Id like to see a free cam setup exclusive to base building maybe.

But on some of your points... I totally agree. Even in my short time (and the hour and a halfish videos iv seen), blocks are poorly shaped. Yea, TT threw out basic GSO blocks like they were nothing. But now I kinda miss them. The blocks that I have accumulated are all oddly shaped and difficult to use in a compact build. Which I feel necessary given the current base building being claustrophobic. Bigger tech = now I gotta make/rearrange my base to make it bigger just to see what I'm doing. I do appreciate the idea they are going for with the reactor points and battery load. Otherwise like in TT, 5 minutes of collecting lasers and GSO blocks and you could have a competent late game tech with just a stupid amount of basic GSO lasers doing stupid damage. But then again, i dont feel like EVERY block needs to tap into the reactor level. Maybe they can sidestep that odd choice with a weight/wheel limit too? Like you can make the tech as big and complex as you want... But you better have enough wheels of a better quality to compensate. THEN have added functional parts take on the reactor.

Then there is the traversal. The action itself is okay, although id like to see a steerable/non steerable variant make a comeback because sometimes I just want to build a basic FWS vehicle. Sometimes having all wheels steering made things difficult to predict or control. And the starter wheels.... i get that they aren't supposed to be super on performance but wow. Maybe my logic is off, but I would imagine having 8 powered wheels would mean a steeper hill would be easier than in a 4 powered wheel tech. I know traction is still an arguable issue, but it felt the same to me. Still couldn't get up moderate inclines. Maybe its because I'm still early and haven't gotten any better cabs or reactor parts?

And the manufacturing.... Yea the mechanics are good on paper but finicky in execution. Partly because of what you said about conduits being difficult to read, the lack of the ability to chose how much you want made, but also the UI is kinda bad. IDK if its just me but it seems too small. Like aside from the buttons not being intuitive, I can hardly even see them. Between the poor choice of text/background colors and tiny/muddy print, it took me a while to even realize that "V" was to turn on/off power to my generator. and i couldnt for the life of me see what the keys were for stacking and moving items in menus. I figured out that CTRL + click was move all type but i couldnt get/see how to just do one stack. I the only one with that issue? maybe its clearer on a monitor up close but on my decent 65" tv its the ONLY text iv noticed to come out extremely poorly. Either way, im giving it another try with fresh eyes later to work out some of my previously mentioned issues.

All that complaining aside, I think it has potential. Im SUPER excited to see the progress made in TTW as it will most likely be in my cart when it is ready. It has some solid foundations to build upon and seems (so far) to take what made TT good but added things like a revamped manufacturing and manual aiming to make it better. And then made it super pretty. I liked the "cartoonish" style of TT but this realistic look is a very welcome addition.

[diex40]

you actually get the beam from a quest and to get the items from the quest you have to go to your base block and in the menu you can clame the rewards

[Falchoin]

I want to like TTW, but as it is... it feels like generic open world crafty-survival game #10001 with a TerraTech veneer. At least we don't start out punching trees. I would completely remove the limited block inventory and ammo... maybe even the booster fuel and reactor fuel as consumables. Bring back the fun, not the tedium.

Other bits...
The conduit system needs a rework. Make them only pull resources when requested by a fabricator or refinery. Also needs splitter/merger pieces as the t-junction doesn't fulfill both roles as it is now.

Let players queue up a set amount of resources, or better yet, give the ability to maintain a specified number of any given resource. Less tedium managing refined vs unrefined resources is a good thing.

I'm giving the dev team the benefit of the doubt that the only "quests" we have are tutorial things and launching resources into space. Hoping there's plans for much more.

As others have said, building is a chore due to very limited attach points on, well, everything. We need access to early filler blocks that have APs on all sides.

I do like the reactor system and bonuses for attaching blocks to specific things (e.g. batteries, weapon mounts, etc). I'd like it a lot more if the above issue was resolved since placing things to take full advantage can be an exercise in frustration.

The game needs a scrapper to break down extras of parts you don't want or need for resources. Lasering them after dropping them on the ground, then depositing the resources into the silo, then unclogging the refinery for the umpteenth time...

Maybe I just want TerraTech 2, and not whatever this is shaping up to be.

Just so all my feedback isn't negative, I do like the look of the game. It's gorgeous and runs well on my machine, with a few UE engine error crashes over the 8ish hours I've played so far.

[Lost puppy]

i also agree with everything here but especially point 3 and 4. the weird shaped blocks and reactor points, the odd shapes mean there is a lot of wasted block space, and the reactor points are not very intuitive especially when coming from TT

[Nate]

The useless parts that you pickup from the enemy techs probably exist just to slow player progression.

[Roboman5e15YT]

my only complaint is that even on the lowest quality settings i still only get at most 15fps

[iter mortuus]

my only problem is no time freeze pause

[marcismyname]

soft locked while i was building my tech i acadently grabbed the tech yard and i exploded then when i re-spawned i had half built tech no wheels no way to get back so my save is useless

[Nate]

Its very easy to accidentally grab base parts. Think that a base block lock we could toggle would probably be more useful than aggravating.

[KnifeHeart]

I would love a more intuitive way to store tech yard parts. It seems like you can't put them in the block catalog which is wacky. There's no way to un-craft parts too so if you accidentally build a 2nd tech yard base block, well,

If there is a way to store these please enlighten me because I accidentally crafted a 2nd tech yard base part and I'd love to be able to get rid of it.

[div1]

Originally posted by KnifeHeart:

I would love a more intuitive way to store tech yard parts. It seems like you can't put them in the block catalog which is wacky. There's no way to un-craft parts too so if you accidentally build a 2nd tech yard base block, well,

If there is a way to store these please enlighten me because I accidentally crafted a 2nd tech yard base part and I'd love to be able to get rid of it.

Use it for storage, 100 tech blocks extra storage is the route I'd go, even if I'm also using the tech block storage extenders.

[div1]

Originally posted by Nate:

Its very easy to accidentally grab base parts. Think that a base block lock we could toggle would probably be more useful than aggravating.

Yes, this.

Had an enemy tech coming sniffing around my base when I was full on redesigning my tech, accidentally picked first the tech yard block, then the cab of the tech, leaving me with a tech that was made up of one basic wheel alone, that I was jumping around with space bar to get to the tech yard again so I had access to my parts again, because it wouldn't move as it were missing the cab...

[KnifeHeart]

Originally posted by div1:

Originally posted by KnifeHeart:

If there is a way to store these please enlighten me because I accidentally crafted a 2nd tech yard base part and I'd love to be able to get rid of it.

Use it for storage, 100 tech blocks extra storage is the route I'd go, even if I'm also using the tech block storage extenders.

Yeah that makes sense, but what if I want to replace all my 2x2 platform with 4x4s? Where can I store the extra 2x2s?

[intrasonic]

Originally posted by KnifeHeart:

Yeah that makes sense, but what if I want to replace all my 2x2 platform with 4x4s? Where can I store the extra 2x2s?

You can store the base blocks in the silos. But yeah, that's just a temporary solution. Selling or breaking down is hopefully in the long-term plans for this game.