Permanent Death - how does it work?

[Captain Canard]

I'm curious as to the mechanism used with the permanent death option enabled. Does it set a flag in your save file that basically makes you a spectator ghost, or does it do something more radical like delete your save?

I don't think I'd ever enable the option, because it's so easy to die by just bumping your head on a low-hanging pipe or something. But maybe if it's reversible (a flag in the save file), I might consider it.

Do any of you ever play with this option on, or is it the most unused option in the game?

[MekaDovah]

If you want an "out" like a reversable flag, then it doesn't seem like you want permadeath to begin with.

I've played with permadeath once in Minecraft and found it not to my liking. It wasn't as thrilling in practice. Then again, I also seek to avoid death even in situations where it's inconsequential, developing my tactics and style accordingly. So for me, nothing really changes anyway.

[Captain Canard]

Originally posted by MekaDovah:

If you want an "out" like a reversable flag, then it doesn't seem like you want permadeath to begin with.

Yeah, it's a Catch-22. I would want an out for those cases where a game glitch kills me (it happens), be it clang or just weird clipping issues. But, once there's an "out", the temptation will always be there to use it.

Anyway, I doubt I'll use it, but I'm still very curious how it works.

[MekaDovah]

Originally posted by Captain Canard:

Originally posted by MekaDovah:

If you want an "out" like a reversable flag, then it doesn't seem like you want permadeath to begin with.

Yeah, it's a Catch-22. I would want an out for those cases where a game glitch kills me (it happens), be it clang or just weird clipping issues. But, once there's an "out", the temptation will always be there to use it.

Anyway, I doubt I'll use it, but I'm still very curious how it works.

You could just start up a fresh random survival run with it enabled, and go run into a wall or something and find out. Probably would only take a minute.

[MekaDovah]

Tried it out myself on the Green Station start.

I guess it doesn't work at all? I went out of my way to disable every medical room and still had the option to respawn in a small ship or my space suit in the middle of nowhere.

Like, sure, good luck getting back to your stuff, but that was definitely not "permanent death" by any definition.

Edit: Yeah, I tried it again with perma death turned off. There's no difference whatsoever.

[Jack Schitt]

Originally posted by MekaDovah:

Tried it out myself on the Green Station start.

I guess it doesn't work at all? I went out of my way to disable every medical room and still had the option to respawn in a small ship or my space suit in the middle of nowhere.

Like, sure, good luck getting back to your stuff, but that was definitely not "permanent death" by any definition.

Edit: Yeah, I tried it again with perma death turned off. There's no difference whatsoever.

That's a bug? I tested it out years ago and when I died it was game over. The only way to continue playing that game (save) was to load a backup that auto-saved before I died. Otherwise that game world, while it could be loaded, was kaput. I couldn't do anything when I loaded the save at a point after I died because the engineer character was dead and could not respawn.

Bug? Or did they change this, maybe?

[MekaDovah]

Originally posted by Jack Schitt:

That's a bug? I tested it out years ago and when I died it was game over. The only way to continue playing that game (save) was to load a backup that auto-saved before I died. Otherwise that game world, while it could be loaded, was kaput. I couldn't do anything when I loaded the save at a point after I died because the engineer character was dead and could not respawn.

Bug? Or did they change this, maybe?

No idea.

[Ronin Planetary Industries]

Back in the day (before planets), you would die and then you'd lose possession of all of your blocks. I think they would get possessed by the Space Pirates.

You'd end up in a respawn ship and you would have to take over all of your blocks again.

[Jack Schitt]

I just tested it myself and unless they changed it to be as Ronin shared where you can respawn but lose possession of your blocks I'm going to call it a bug. I also immediately respawned at the closest medical bay. If what Ronin said is how permanent death works now that only makes sense to Keen. It doesn't make any sense to me.

[MekaDovah]

Originally posted by Ronin Planetary Industries:

Back in the day (before planets), you would die and then you'd lose possession of all of your blocks. I think they would get possessed by the Space Pirates.

You'd end up in a respawn ship and you would have to take over all of your blocks again.

That still isn't "permanent."

[ShadedMJ]

I'm a little busy now so can't directly try this but the setting reads "Enables players losing everything if they die and don't have any available respawn points".

I'd make permanent death a game autoban which will be weird on your own solo game. Another way it removing all player owned grids from game.

[Jack Schitt]

Originally posted by ShadedMJ:

I'm a little busy now so can't directly try this but the setting reads "Enables players losing everything if they die and don't have any available respawn points".

I'd make permanent death a game autoban which will be weird on your own solo game. Another way it removing all player owned grids from game.

That only makes sense to Keen in my opinion....LOL

[Namdoolb]

Originally posted by Captain Canard:

I'm curious as to the mechanism used with the permanent death option enabled. Does it set a flag in your save file that basically makes you a spectator ghost, or does it do something more radical like delete your save?

I don't think I'd ever enable the option, because it's so easy to die by just bumping your head on a low-hanging pipe or something. But maybe if it's reversible (a flag in the save file), I might consider it.

Do any of you ever play with this option on, or is it the most unused option in the game?

What it does it to reset ownership of everything you've built so far: So anything you've already built will now be hostile to you.
(Basically forcing you to respawn as a new engineer with no memory of your previous existence.)

But it only kicks in if you die and don't have a valid survival kit or medbay to respawn at.

[ShadedMJ]

Tried it. Result : Don't think Keen actually did anything with the setting in single player.

Made a grid with survival kit, made GPS, died, and came back at survival kit so no real loss, removed survival kit, died, respawned 20km away, GPS still exists, grid is still there and I'm still owner....

Bug report:
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/28873-permadeath-setting-does-not-function

On server there is apparently a warning of losing grids but no actual loss of ownership:
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/minor-permadeath-dialog-displays-for-survival-kit

Edit : Side note, starting a new game shows you a Respawn button, but this is a new game so there isn't a -Re- yet and should be the Spawn button.

[Captain Canard]

I'd love to see different options for "death". Right now death too easy, especially in PvP, where you can insta-spawn and throw armies of yourself at your enemy. A couple of solutions would be:

1) Respawn Timer: Even if it were just a 30-60 second delay, it would dramatically help make deaths meaningful in a combat situation. It would be inconvenient for accidents, so make it kick in after 1 or 2 insta-spawns (since in combat we're dying dozens of times a minute like Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt).

2) Respawn Location Limits: This would take some more work on Keen's part, but imagine some sort of limitation on where we could respawn, for example, only at stationary grids. This means if you get killed flying your ship, you "wake up" back at your base. Sure, it could be gimmicked by placing an SK with battery close to the battle, but that's still not as convenient as insta-spawning on your ship during combat.

3) Targetable Respawn Blocks: I would argue that a survival kit / med bay is as high (if not higher) a priority target as power, propulsion, and weapons, at least in PvP. Let me target those sub-grids to remove the biggest threat of all - another Engineer.

I had some other ideas, but the two above seem to be the best out of all of them. As you can see, these mostly revolve around PvP, though I also confess to gimmicking infinite close respawns in PvE as well, to the point where it almost feels like cheating. Why engineer an amazing ship when I can just keep throwing bodies at a SPRT base until I break through using my grinder? Personal death has no meaning in a game where we instantly and infinitely respawn with no delays and only slight inconvenience.

[Ronin Planetary Industries]

Originally posted by MekaDovah:

Originally posted by Ronin Planetary Industries:

Back in the day (before planets), you would die and then you'd lose possession of all of your blocks. I think they would get possessed by the Space Pirates.

You'd end up in a respawn ship and you would have to take over all of your blocks again.

That still isn't "permanent."

That's how it worked. However it was labeled isn't my problem.