The Transporter

[ZorkFox]

Tonight I finally made my way onto a military outpost. It was huge, which was worrying enough, but the thing I found really daunting was the transporter mechanic. I was pretty confident I could surive the trip because I had plenty of sensors and motion detectors, even if I lacked an interface.

I ran into trouble not only when I tried to leave—because I always expected to be able to get BACK to my ship, even if I couldn't transport to new areas because of a lack of signals—but also when I discovered I couldn't get to all areas of the outpost! Some signals had appeared in unexplored regions while I was tooling around the spaces I could access, but there was no way I'd send my drones in there without exploring!

That's the whole theme of this game, as near as I can tell: never, under any circumstnaces, send your drones into a room you haven't scouted! Unless I missed something fundamental, that's what I was expected to do, relying on chance and a belief in a benign, ordered universe not to dump me right in the lap of an enemy. I don't believe a game should alter its core decision-making mechanic like that. (Does anyone remember when Dead Space suddenly put you in a really awkward anti-asteroid cannon after training you for hours how to shoot with a hand weapon?)

I had only found one jump core and six scrap in the 20 or so rooms I could reach, so I didn't feel too bad about quitting with no progress saved (so I could retain my drones) but I can't tell if I was just unlucky or whether outposts/transporters need another look from the team.

What are your thoughts?

[Toyota_Merv_73]

When you need to transport to a outpost I find that's it's a smash and grab experience. Get in get out. It's can get out of hand very quickly with no signals left. Don't be greedy seems to work for me.

[Rass]

transporter signals blink on and off, if you wait long enough, eventually a signal will come back.
Of course, the waiting part can be troublesome when your drones are down there :)

[grizzlebizzle]

My team got wiped the first time I went to an outpost. Sent the team down to the south part of the outpost, asteroid hit the center and wiped out a bunch of rooms, and all the active transporters left were in the north part of the outpost which I couldn't get to because the rooms were full of radiation. There is a learning curve to outposts just like there is with drone swarms and goo.

You really want to have teleport (preferably on a 4 slot drone) and remote power (or pry, but remote power is better) for outposts. And then use the guy with teleport to do everything. The only thing you have to use the transporter for is to tow things back. But you can minimize the risk by only having the guy with teleport on the outpost 95% of the time and focusing on getting your guy in and out quickly if you need to tow something.