Early Access Feedback

[DarkDragoon]

After doing basically everything their is to do so far in the current version i'd like to give my feedback on things I think could be changed/improved in no particular order.

1. The World - The world so far is nice but I feel like caves and especially under water caves (assuming you add underwater vehicle capabilities in the future) with resource deposits and maybe "wreckages" would make exploring more rewarding and encourage usage of different vehicles.

***2. Vehicle Handling - So far I've found vehicles to be rather "weak" and have poor traction if not on a relatively flat surface basically regardless of the type of tires or vehicles size. I've noticed vehicles tend to struggle going up hills especially if they don't already have momentum and would often get stuck in the small "pits" created when mining a resource node. Given the variation in the terrain of the world I would hope vehicles to be more suited to offroading and climbing the steep terrain. --- 3M OFFROAD Wheels are the answer to this, they are actually better and more powerful than all the others despite the lower speed stat on them!. I'm leaving this for any others who may have encountered this as well.

***3. Tractor Beam/Flatbed Strength - These need to be improved. I love the idea of it, you get a higher amount of resources for bringing the larger chunks to your base with it but as it is it's not even close to worth it over just lasers. The flatbed should "lock" objects on it entirely in place, as it is everything flops around and smashes your vehicle and falls out. The tractor beam needs more instruction on it's use. A prompt or something telling you that Q/E moves objects closer and further, and that the further they are the harder they are to hold.

4. Enemies/Outposts/Safe Zones - The enemy spawning needs some improvement. There should be a safe zone around your base to prevent enemies spawning directly in it which has happened to me numerous times. The enemy spawn rate also needs to be changed somehow, maybe with a heat map of sorts. As it is there seems to be just a nonstop torrent of enemies everywhere and it's basically impossible to go anywhere without having to fight or run if you can. The area with lightning trees ended up being just littered with parts from the enemies spawning in there or wandering into it and being destroyed giving an endless farm of parts once I had a lightning rod. There are a few structures on the current map and in a bigger map, if enemies are more spread out those could be enemy outposts that have enemies around them, maybe a static amount that spawn with the structures or it could be a spawnpoint until cleared or "conquered".

[Lo-op]

The traction is a stat of wheels, I found the 3m off road wheel can handle most terrains.

I think the tractor beams are fine, I have used four of them to pick up the 10t small tree to instantly destroy enemy techs.
Also, the game does not tell you to pull/push by using Q and E.

But the flatbed is flawed by design because of the weight it needs to carry, which is always inferior when compared to moving the whole refinery. Unless base blocks can’t be moved as easily.

The safe zone is around the spawn. I guess the devs can add an anti-air weapon to change it.

[DarkDragoon]

I tried all available wheels and with a maxed out reactor worth of parts every vehicle I built would struggle goign up and steep hills, I stupidly chose to base on top of a mountain figuring as I'd progress my vehicle would be able to get up it easier but that hasn't happened. Particularly its moving from a stand still especially going uphill just becomes impossible a lot of the time. And the push/pull didn't help a lot of the time if a tire got stuck for example It would lift me then place me back in the same spot, conversely though I've had it also let me levitate up the nearly vertical side of the mountain lol.

I actually haven't tried using the tractor beam on trees but I tried 3 initially on rocks and it kept flinging them all over as I would try to position them or if I moved while holding them especially uphill or on very bumpy terrain. And with how limiting the reactor size is currently having a ton of tractor beams really takes away from your offensive and defensive capabilities.

Q and E omg! I thought i tried that but i guess not, thats great though I do think the scroll wheel would be more intuitive.

The flatbed I think even with a "locking" feature which i think it should have would still not be super useful early game due to the weight of resources like you noted but also due to the size of them, however late game when you can build a bigger vehicle and you can have 4 of them or so I think the flatbeds and tractor beams would then become useful.

You say the safe zone is around spawn? I assume you mean the world spawn right? If so that is fine but also limiting. Frankly I don't want to build my base at the world spawn cause it's the only spot vehicles won't spawn it and potentially start wrecking stuff.

[Lo-op]

Right now, I am doing a speed focused build using 3 of the five-block-long frames on the 3m off road wheels, and it can get some air time off those hills.

Rocks and ore fragments are actually lighter than the trees, as they don’t crush you as easily. I think it’s an oversight that small trees weigh as much as the large ones.
Maybe you have turned your camera too fast, you need to smooth out the speed. I used 4 mainly to avoid losing the tree top while accelerating, so I won’t crash into it.

[DarkDragoon]

The 3M offroad wheels are indeed FAR BETTER, I don't know how I missed these in the blockpedia honestly. I may have overlooked them initially because they seemed expensive to craft and the speed stat says it's way lower.

And after messing more with the tractor beams I've found that the further out the object is the weaker the hold on it is which does make sense but is never told, along with the q/e to move the object in it initially makes them seem really weak but by moving the held object closer even 2 did actually hold ores just fine going up my mountain.

[Daz the Lemur]

I find the reactor limitations too extreme and very limiting to the game. One of the greatest things OG Terra Tech had going for it were big rolling fortresses and mobile bases, I would be extremely disappointed if thats not going to be a thing anymore. The auxillary reactor as a concept is great and i was SO HAPPY to find it. I immediately rushed to craft the fuel with my one remaining gold. First mood dampener was realising it takes 5 minutes to craft, but that didnt discourage me, and after 5 minutes of anxiously waiting for it to craft I was very excited to see it giving me 500 at once, the anticipation was so real... But just as quickly as my excitement came, it went away after realising the reactor only added a mere 10 to the tech's core (is that a joke??), and as if that wasnt lame enough, it also chews through fuel like it's skittles. I mean seriously?! The few seconds it took me to look at the stats and check the thing out, it gobbled up 33 fuel. At that moment i realised quickly that 500 fuel mean nothing much at all and if i want to keep the 10 extra core points I'd be spending the rest of the game hunting for gold and running back to craft more fuel.... My mood tanked hard especially just after coming back from fighting with the terrible tractor beam and flatbed and getting one-shot by the stupid lightning for the billionthed time. So I tossed that aux reactor into a silo and closed the game..... It's... more frustration than fun tbh and thats ridiculous.
Luckily its just a demo, but the first impression: I prefer og terra tech by far. There needs to be SO MUCH done and changed for it to be better than the first game imho.

[Kamenik]

Originally posted by Daz the Lemur:

I find the reactor limitations too extreme and very limiting to the game. One of the greatest things OG Terra Tech had going for it were big rolling fortresses and mobile bases, I would be extremely disappointed if thats not going to be a thing anymore. The auxillary reactor as a concept is great and i was SO HAPPY to find it. I immediately rushed to craft the fuel with my one remaining gold. First mood dampener was realising it takes 5 minutes to craft, but that didnt discourage me, and after 5 minutes of anxiously waiting for it to craft I was very excited to see it giving me 500 at once, the anticipation was so real... But just as quickly as my excitement came, it went away after realising the reactor only added a mere 10 to the tech's core (is that a joke??), and as if that wasnt lame enough, it also chews through fuel like it's skittles. I mean seriously?! The few seconds it took me to look at the stats and check the thing out, it gobbled up 33 fuel. At that moment i realised quickly that 500 fuel mean nothing much at all and if i want to keep the 10 extra core points I'd be spending the rest of the game hunting for gold and running back to craft more fuel.... My mood tanked hard especially just after coming back from fighting with the terrible tractor beam and flatbed and getting one-shot by the stupid lightning for the billionthed time. So I tossed that aux reactor into a silo and closed the game..... It's... more frustration than fun tbh and thats ridiculous.
Luckily its just a demo, but the first impression: I prefer og terra tech by far. There needs to be SO MUCH done and changed for it to be better than the first game imho.

True same me in TT1 i build gigant mobile base i love it and now OMG where is fantasy only super limit and reactors use reactor ammo faster than i craft new and need many resource .Tractor beam is really total useless now. I need back autoaim and more i need autofire

[Daz the Lemur]

Also the way they made the "Conduits" operate is also pretty useless...
Aimlessly shoving one item from a silo into any free slot without any regard of sense is just bad design. How did they un-learn their own conveyor system? You want the machines and inventories to form a network through the pipes and only request the right items from the silos and not let the pipes just shove items in machines and silos randomly in hopes it'll get it right eventually (rn its a monkey on a typewriter sorta deal).
I mean at one point the pipes started shoving finished blocks into the INPUT slots of my workbench....
Right now, the only valid use is with the coal gen on a seperate network where you have one silo for just coal and its piped to a coal gen. Heck even trying to connect the crusher to the refinery is not going to work bcs of the pipes mindlessly shoving raw resources into it and the refinery needing three of something in order to start the process.... dare you havent collected something in multiples of three! The refinery will be stuck with one or two of smth until you either bring more of that or remove the leftovers manually so that it can process the other stuff that is still sitting int the crusher or silo....
Adding insult to the injury, you cant split stacks and there are no filter pipes.... Also the pipes are directional and theres only one T-Piece with specific directions... (i hope this will get a massive rework cus as it is now, its just bad) They should look at how Space Engineers did it.

[Dhaghologh]

I agree with the conduits being pointless right now.
Fun fact is that I've watched streamers play on a previous game version where they
worked exactly as you expect them to: Only drawing materials in that are actually used in
a recipe and pushing finished things back into the silo.

But then you also can no longer specify the AMOUNT of something! Only want to refine 3 of that stack of raw iron? Better be fast with switching off that machine or it will chug on until it can't work anymore.

I can only hope this is the type of three-steps-forward-while-doing-two-steps-backards kind of thing with the development of the game.
But it IS annoying right now.

[GreyBeard512]

I saw a comment that said techs are limited to 12x12x12 in size.

It takes 5 minutes to craft 500 reactor fuel, and you burn through it in 10 minutes.

[Morbidreams]

Originally posted by Daz the Lemur:

Adding insult to the injury, you cant split stacks and there are no filter pipes.... Also the pipes are directional and theres only one T-Piece with specific directions... (i hope this will get a massive rework cus as it is now, its just bad) They should look at how Space Engineers did it.

You can split stacks by holding shift and using mouse wheel.

[Daz the Lemur]

Originally posted by Morbidreams:

Originally posted by Daz the Lemur:

Adding insult to the injury, you cant split stacks and there are no filter pipes.... Also the pipes are directional and theres only one T-Piece with specific directions... (i hope this will get a massive rework cus as it is now, its just bad) They should look at how Space Engineers did it.

You can split stacks by holding shift and using mouse wheel.

Devs really didnt bother to explain less obvious game mechanics.

[Rock]

Anybody having a bug were the carbon generator is not letting you restore grid power cause when i exited to main menu and then when i was back in the world the generator didn't work?

[Daz the Lemur]

yeah also theres a weird bug with the conduits and they sometimes just randomly stop working. reattaching them helps *sometimes*, but some stay broken. I also had an issue with conduits straight up refusing to attach to anything and i had to reload the game.