Survival/Exploration or Sand Box?

[®eload...]

I've been having a decent amount of fun with this game and I'm the sort of gamer that tends to have 1 or 2 games I play to death at a time instead of spread over many titles so 150+ hours sunk into this is a good indication that I'm having fun.

I wanted to get that out up front so what comes next is better seen as constructive criticism to help improve something I'm having a lot of fun with and not just a rant because reasons.

I strongly believe one of the biggest issues the devs currently have with this game is they need to pick a lane OR get 2 very distinct game modes up n running ASAP. So what do I mean by that? The game is described as "...an open-world, PvE survival game set on an uncharted alien planet. Explore, mine, build, craft and battle your way through natural hazards and dangerous enemies, to harness the power of your environment." except...

1: There is no permanent consequence from dying beyond the inconvenience of having to go back to where you died to pick up the handy dandy case that popped with everything you had on you at the time.

2: Not providing a full screen usable map and instead a next to useless holo map that's only real use is as a back up to the compass being blocked because the cab is covered(except there is now a block for that) doesn't make it uncharted and where's the reward for exploring beyond "what's over the next hill"? Imo this game is begging for a full screen, usable map that starts blacked out. You open up options of new cabs that are better for mapping, blocks specifically for cartography so as well as just seeing what's over the next hill, you fill in your map and improve it's usefulness as you go. You could even give it a fog of war and give us something like a radar/monitoring station to put down in strategic locations to provide our maps a live feed of intel on that area. Opens up a new line of options to play with.

3: "Natural hazards"? Imo the aggressive plant life is in a good spot but the environmental challenge... Swamp is a quickly dealt with with using tall med wheels or the amogel sprayer that doesn't even need separate power to run. Winter biome with the furnace blocks and heater fuel isn't a challenge. That's just annoying. Runs on fuel that needs a resource to produce it that isn't found in that biome and the lack of actual control over the furnace block is the cherry on top. Give us fuel gauge on screen and a toggle on/off so we have better feed back as to what is going on and control over how/when it works. I saw on the Road Map there's going to be a Desert Biome added soon...let me guess, an aircon block that runs on a "fuel" that uses resources found in Winter Biome to produce? Please don't.lol On that note a fast travel option between our bases and/or shared access to resources would go a long way to decrease the "annoyance" factor and allow for increasing consequences/challenge of the environment without going ott.

4: "Dangerous Enemies"? Imo there are a few main problems with the enemy techs in this game. First the AI controlling them is really basic. AI controlled units in this sort of game considering the terrain and obstacles is always going to be challenging to get nailed down though so I think this needs to be compensated for by...
A: greater variety of AI units with more efficient builds that doesn't have them turtle over on the slightest of slopes and bumps
B: better consideration of the weapon type the AI has so they aren't just yolo in to headbutt range when they're weapons would have allowed a more stand off approach
C: better consideration on their spawning keeping them away from hazards like the plant life(we can hear them get owned before we even get to them they're dropping so fast to plants)
D: in the spirit of "Survival game..." with "dangerous enemies" a scaling AI opponent that gets more powerful Techs and weapons to face you as you build up the power of your Tech. We very quickly get to a point of being so overpowered compared to the opponents it feels like cheating.

So my personal take on this...this is a game with much potential but imo the devs are trying to get it to cover two conflicting game types. Survival/Exploration AND a very forgiving Sand Box. It's stuck in a ditch of just ok in each category. The best example I probably have is my latest run this afternoon started as a "lets see if I can do just enough mining and resource gathering to get the scrapper and then ONLY run with the resources from recycling enemy blocks" and that turned into spawning in, running straight up the middle of the map like a moron derping enemy techs until I had 2x Trailblazer and 1 versatile axle, 4x 3M wheels, 4x 2M wheels, 4 sidepanels, 6 rondels, 4 vindicator guns, 2 resource lasers, 2 angled mounts and 4 med cargo. I kept pushing and went to the Boss in the arena type base, led him to derp into a wall and then tore him apart barely taking any damage... in 1 hour and 6mins when I finally put my tech yard down and declared "this my base now"... and that wasn't even trying to rush for that. I have a save where I'm in the big crater in Winter Biome in less than 3 hours and again, without even trying and yesterday I decided to try a pacifist run. Turns out probably more than possible just really boring.lol My point is I'm already trying to come up with my own ways to make this a challenge. That's good that the game has kept me wanting to try but for a Survival Exploration title? That imo is not a good sign.

I did see a creative mode is on the road map for Spring 2025 but I really think Creative mode with lots of game rule customisation options needs to be pushed up the road map as a priority to fulfil the expectations some had of this being more similar to original Terratech as well as flesh out the Survival/Exploration side of this title to actually make it a challenge for long term play-ability.

I really do wish the devs the best of luck and success going forward. Your game has given me hours of fun and I already consider it worth the purchase. I just want it to reach the potential I see in it :)

Hope everyone is well and having a great day
R

Edit: because I is derp and used square brackets round letters and made half the post bold text on accident then took disturbingly long to figure out what went wrong... More sleep/coffee needed :p

[Nate]

The devs will apparently have difficulty be per map. This seems an odd choice since the maps are hand crafted. Players who want an easier experience aren't going to see all of your content. Those who want a more challenging experience will be bored while playing the easy maps.

Difficulty settings chosen per map start seems like an obviously better design. You could make the game much more a hardcore survival with no respawns. Or tone down the difficulty if you wanted more of a sandbox.

[®eload...]

Originally posted by Nate:

The devs will apparently have difficulty be per map. This seems an odd choice since the maps are hand crafted. Players who want an easier experience aren't going to see all of your content. Those who want a more challenging experience will be bored while playing the easy maps.

Yep, that's better way of wording than I had. Difficulty of opponent techs does go up as you progress through the biomes but by the time you've traversed from start point to Swamp and then to Winter, you've picked up more than enough upgrades to handle the threat easily. My 2nd "proper" run I headed straight to the little island that borders all 3 biomes. Even though I was throwing myself straight into Swamp I had zero issues and turned out to be a silly efficient spot to base out of.

[Nate]

The changes in each biome keep the game fun. I really enjoy them. Its not clear how they will work in combination with different planets. New biomes for each planet?

The opponent difficulty in this game is something. I'm either avoiding enemy groups or easily wiping them out. Not complaining, its just very noticeable.

[®eload...]

and then there was 0.3.0 test version literally just dropped with custom world options and preset difficulty settings. Guessing it was already in the works before I even opened my gob.lol Thank you devs, made me a very happy camper

Slight hickup with the new tutorial system. I may have steamed right on ahead, filled my inventory before noticing the Tech Yard wasn't even there and got stuck with no space when the game tries to credit it and game yeeted it into oblivion. Ah well, joys of unstable version testing