How is this as a solo game?

[Alessondria]

I know the game went free and I don't care even though I paid for it. I didn't care when they announced it. I also don't care its solo offline only because I don't play these kinda games with friends.

What I DO care about is how the game in its ending state is. Story, campaign, endgame, and bugs... I mean how is it now (JUST AS AN OFFLINE SOLO GAME)? Its been years and I never asked. I don't mind the age or some jank or any of that.

Is it stupidly difficult to learn? Workshop still work? Any 3rd party mods?

I figure best to ask here rather then putting 100 hours in and finding out.

[Gladi8er65]

The game isn't perfect, but all aspects of the game are intact and playable as a solo player... Story Mode has a questline that can be followed all the way to the end,,, I've completed the story mode at least a dozen times. That being said, it does have bugs that can occur from time to time, which can usually be solved by reloading a previous save, so it's a good idea to save often,

Overall, the game is easy enough to learn, by playing the Story mode first. It drops you right into the game and It "teaches" you the core mechanics as you play, and right away you feel like you are part of the story as it unfolds.

The workshop is a feature that was directly affected by the multiplayer mishap. What I mean is that: to import or export items to or from the workshop USED to be handled directly through the multiplayer lobby, which, unfortunately, is the part that got corrupted and removed, (making the game single player only).
What this means NOW, is that the "workshop" is more or less a visual "catalogue" of all the available projects people posted before the change, but can not be subscribed to, directly from the workshop pages..... WITHIN the game there is a tab called ISO (on main menu) where you can access all these projects (same ones shown in workshop) and upload them into your own "creator" and then brought into the game from there.

IMO the most tragic part of the whole multiplayer removal was that we can no longer add our projects to the "workshop" meaning, To share projects with other people, one would have to use an outside method to display and share projects, and I don't know of any currently-active sites for trading Planet Explorers ISOs.
In a nutshell... You can use projects from the workshop, via ISO tab within the game, but cannot add/share any new projects, to the workshop, for others to use.

As far as I know, there are no "Mods" for the game, however there is a cheat code that can be used to give a player every single item in the game, (and even a few items that aren't in the normal game), but I won't be explaining how to do that here, as it definitely "ruins" the game experience, and if someone really WANTS it, they can look that up for themselves.

The game is very much intact, playable, and easy to learn, for SOLO play, and after 2,000 hours, I STILL enjoy playing Planet Explorers.

[Alessondria]

You could easily set up a dropbox link for all your PE ISOs and people could download em. I bet you have a gazillion. Just start a new thread with instructions and a link, others might as well.

[dtt.scanner]

Possibly. I know that you can share them on Nexus as well, but it is a little more rigorous to set up a download for your project, and like Gladi8tor mentioned, it isn't commonly used, so people don't know to look there unless you post information about it.

You have to take pictures, and properly document everything, before it will let you post it.

I'm thinking I may share some BISO modules for people who like them and want to include them in their builds.

Gladi8tor also didn't mention that Adventure Mode is very playable (slightly different quest line). It is a little buggier with the quests, but has things that are not in Story Mode, and worth playing for those things. It has random leveled dungeons, NPC towns (where you can recruit colonists), Loot Pods, and Skill Tree (leveling up your character). All of the colonists can be trained and equipped, but you have to find the equipment scripts and also find the colonists in higher level towns that can supply the skills that you want on your colonists. You can allow all scripts to be unlocked from the start, or disable them if you want to have more of a search and exploration play style in order to collect them from loot, drops, and dungeon pods.

Personally I only take the first quest in Adventure Mode to get the wood scripts and sleeping bag script, and ignore the rest of the quests (which can give you the colony scripts and other useful things). I just go out adventuring and level up and collect scripts, tools, weapons, and armor as I find them, until I can eventually build a colony on my own and survive in higher level dungeons.

One thing that you may want to know, since the threads are buried and necro now. You can place voxels of common materials (marble, limestone, stone, sand, and grass) and then mine them back up with a pickaxe, and you will receive more material than it took to place the voxels. That means if you want a fast start on building materials, and some people have a hard time finding them in Adventure Mode, you only have to purchase enough of the element to place one voxel, and then you can create as much of the material as you need from that one voxel. Place one voxel, mine it up... place 2-3 voxels, mine it up, place 10 voxels, mine it up, etc. If you build a stack, you can let gravity carry you down, and you just have to stand on top and swing the pick until you get back down to the ground. You can get stacks of useful building material quickly this way (marble, limestone, sand for glass, grass (a variety of dirt voxel) for sulfer and trace elements. Marble has traces of Iron, and Limestone has large traces of Copper in it, so you can really artificially create a lot of things that you may want, in order to get your buildings and tools up in a short time without having to tear up the terrain to get it. (Something I am loathe to do anywhere near my colony site, which I usually select for the view.) One of the only things you may need to actually mine down for is Aluminum, which you will need a lot of in order to produce the colony equipment and the better weapon, armor, and transportation ISOs. Aluminum is arguably one of the best ISO materials, for highest durability with low weight.

On the old servers, you could always tell which colony was mine because I would always have 4-5 stacks of materials that looked like silos in my colony, for supplementing large building projects.

EDIT: If you are playing Adventure Mode with skill tree (which is optional in the world setup), then you will have to unlock the skill to place natural terrain before you can do the material stacks. It is a fairly high level building skill. This is why I adventure for quite a while before actually trying to build something. I usually am close to Max on Skill Tree before doing the Colony... also because the colony scripts (if you don't buy them from random NPCs or level 3+ NPC towns, or get them from the quests) are usually only found in higher level dungeons.

There really isn't an end game in Adventure Mode. That is why I set goals for myself and consider the game "won" when I achieve the goals... like collecting all of the scripts I need to build a colony and Bird of Prey (aircraft ISO that you design in Story Mode), or pacifying all of the Factions on the map (ambassador or destroyer)... which BTW are two of the game achievements that you can only get from Adventure Mode.

[Gladi8er65]

Originally posted by Alessondria:

You could easily set up a dropbox link for all your PE ISOs and people could download em. I bet you have a gazillion. Just start a new thread with instructions and a link, others might as well.

I actually dont have a great deal of ISOs... I spent MANY hours in the creation editor making a few vehicles and weapons, which I use in every play through.

The projects i made are tested and re-tested many times over to achieve perfect balance and operation and the gun I posted is among one of the highest damage guns Ive seen, and so far has over 1800 subs.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=850828772&searchtext=

Essentially I made the items that I wanted to use, and made them as good as I could make them, so I wouldn't have to keep making new projects every time I played.

Incidentally, I did the same thing with an all-in-one Colony design, where ALL my colony parts and work stations fit inside a single, well-defended building, and saved as a BISO so all I have to do is gather the appropriate materials in-game, and instantly plop down my colony building wherever I choose to put it, and then simply populate it with the work stations etc.

luckily I had my projects posted in workshop before the MP went down so if anyone wants to use them, they can be found through the ISO tab within the game, and can be previewed in the workshop with detailed screenshots.

[Eternie]

@Alessondria Have you actually clicked on the workshop link at the top of this page ?
Spend just a little bit of time and you'll be rewarded with lots of info want to search for certain items they are all there.

Even check out Gladi8er65 ISO there