Decided to start a new save, capped difficulties...

[Eightball]

Like many of you I have a 'primary' save with hundreds of hours in it. And like many of you that primary save (OG survival for me since the mode first became available in 1.1) has pretty much the best of everything. Which in turn means mucking about the universe is pretty 'chill'.

Now I do play every expedition, but I don't continue those saves once the expedition is complete (would rather focus on the main) and the starts in those saves are 'buffed' anyways.

So I decided to see how a new start, tutorial off, capped difficulty in every category (minus perma death; did that to the core, got the T-shirt, enough random crashes to frustrate me) would be. Noted some of the difficulties can actually be capped higher than what is default in 'survival'; for instance inventory can be capped at 300 whereas survival still gives 500.

Capped all the difficulties, locked it so I cannot change them once I started the game proper, and...

...it has actually been quite fun.

The game was never designed to be overly challenging, but its fun to start at the bottom again and work your way up in this new game environment so changed from how it was on release.

Every piece of new found gear or mod is important, every nanite valued. Its a good reason, at least for me, to pop on and play a bit more now than just joining for Expeditions and events.

So back to fixing up that B class shuttle I just stumbled upon. What a find!

[Sentient_Pickle]

yeah, I wish I could max all the difficulty settings and play permadeath, but without the reduced inventory cap. I get that it indeed makes it tougher, but it's more the annoying kind of tough rather than enjoyable challenge some find it to be. Overall though I'm thrilled that there's all sorts of tweaks people can make to shape the game to suit their preferences.

[Eightball]

@Sentient_Pickle I would think you should be able to do just that in a custom game; max all the difficulties minus storage and play a perma-death save.

Reduced inventory space is not overly burdensome to me. Ultimately I would guess I spend the same time 'harvesting' as anyone else. I just do it in more, but shorter sessions as opposed to fewer but longer ones when considering harvesting by multi-tool.

Once automatic harvesters are set up then there really is no difference in time spent actually collecting.

And I would urge everyone to play at least one perma death save just for the fact it will most likely change how you approach game situations quite a bit (for instance I avoided any grenade launchers after blowing myself up a few times in some perma non start saves).

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Sentient_Pickle:

yeah, I wish I could max all the difficulty settings and play permadeath, but without the reduced inventory cap. I get that it indeed makes it tougher, but it's more the annoying kind of tough rather than enjoyable challenge some find it to be. Overall though I'm thrilled that there's all sorts of tweaks people can make to shape the game to suit their preferences.

Just delete your save when you die. It's the same thing.

[Sentient_Pickle]

Originally posted by Eightball:

@Sentient_Pickle I would think you should be able to do just that in a custom game; max all the difficulties minus storage and play a perma-death save.

Reduced inventory space is not overly burdensome to me. Ultimately I would guess I spend the same time 'harvesting' as anyone else. I just do it in more, but shorter sessions as opposed to fewer but longer ones when considering harvesting by multi-tool.

Once automatic harvesters are set up then there really is no difference in time spent actually collecting.

And I would urge everyone to play at least one perma death save just for the fact it will most likely change how you approach game situations quite a bit (for instance I avoided any grenade launchers after blowing myself up a few times in some perma non start saves).

Last I tried, Permadeath was inextricably linked to certain difficulty settings and inventory size was one of them.

[Krash Megiddo]

Originally posted by Sentient_Pickle:

Originally posted by Eightball:

@Sentient_Pickle I would think you should be able to do just that in a custom game; max all the difficulties minus storage and play a perma-death save.

Reduced inventory space is not overly burdensome to me. Ultimately I would guess I spend the same time 'harvesting' as anyone else. I just do it in more, but shorter sessions as opposed to fewer but longer ones when considering harvesting by multi-tool.

Once automatic harvesters are set up then there really is no difference in time spent actually collecting.

And I would urge everyone to play at least one perma death save just for the fact it will most likely change how you approach game situations quite a bit (for instance I avoided any grenade launchers after blowing myself up a few times in some perma non start saves).

Last I tried, Permadeath was inextricably linked to certain difficulty settings and inventory size was one of them.

Survival is the same way. I dialed my E7 save up to "normal" mode inventory and that changed survival mode to "custom"

[Geldric™]

Max difficulty, skip tutorial, adjusted from Permadeath preset
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2882601055
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2882601130

Once in game, still Permadeath
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2882601268

Same save, in the Anomaly
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2882603709

@Eightball - I too am super digging this max difficulty. Completely changed how I play. I have simple bases at all the useful elements like Dioxite, Phosphorus and Uranium.

[Dirak2012]

I did the same, maxed out all the difficulty settings... I don't really see any difference, it's just more annoying with the extra fuel needs and the smaller inventory.

[Geldric™]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

I did the same, maxed out all the difficulty settings... I don't really see any difference, it's just more annoying with the extra fuel needs and the smaller inventory.

It must be me but I thought Sentinels (going thru all 5 waves) and taking on like 6 Pirates at once was def more of a challenge... You're prolly just a better player than me

[Dirak2012]

Originally posted by Geldric:

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

I did the same, maxed out all the difficulty settings... I don't really see any difference, it's just more annoying with the extra fuel needs and the smaller inventory.

It must be me but I thought Sentinels (going thru all 5 waves) and taking on like 6 Pirates at once was def more of a challenge... You're prolly just a better player than me

I haven't been attacked even once by pirates, and why would I fight the sentinels until the last wave?
I'm not out looking for troubles.

[Eightball]

@Geldric Yes, hostiles in general do more damage so you need to be a bit more careful than you might normally be; and components getting damaged mid fight seem more common.

Nothing like getting some of your weapon systems taken out in the middle of a dog fight.

So shielding and health have become even more important to me now.

@Dirak2012 If I am not mistaken some of the Anomaly missions (like taking down a sentinel pillar) require you to eliminate every wave before the pillar can be hacked and a new wave will not spawn until most of the last wave has been defeated.

And those pillar missions can become really chaotic (and fun).

[PeaceMaker]

Originally posted by Eightball:

Like many of you I have a 'primary' save with hundreds of hours in it. And like many of you that primary save (OG survival for me since the mode first became available in 1.1) has pretty much the best of everything. Which in turn means mucking about the universe is pretty 'chill'.

Now I do play every expedition, but I don't continue those saves once the expedition is complete (would rather focus on the main) and the starts in those saves are 'buffed' anyways.

So I decided to see how a new start, tutorial off, capped difficulty in every category (minus perma death; did that to the core, got the T-shirt, enough random crashes to frustrate me) would be. Noted some of the difficulties can actually be capped higher than what is default in 'survival'; for instance inventory can be capped at 300 whereas survival still gives 500.

Capped all the difficulties, locked it so I cannot change them once I started the game proper, and...

...it has actually been quite fun.

The game was never designed to be overly challenging, but its fun to start at the bottom again and work your way up in this new game environment so changed from how it was on release.

Every piece of new found gear or mod is important, every nanite valued. Its a good reason, at least for me, to pop on and play a bit more now than just joining for Expeditions and events.

So back to fixing up that B class shuttle I just stumbled upon. What a find!

THIS is why I play with higher damage, real predators that go for you, and limited inventory (I did not do permadeath either due to issues). It makes everything feel like a REAL achievement by itself just to survive. (To be honest the game is still pretty easy as long as you keep your eyes open).

And no Tutorial is sweeeet.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

OP's points kicked off a ponder for me. Will the future expeditions all be unlocked for any challenge level? I know there are a couple that sort of depend on scarcity of stuff to work as a story idea. E3, the one planet expedition comes to mind.

[Eightball]

@Mr.Bufferlow I am betting they will keep it to a 'standard game setting' balanced around how an average player will progress.

However, since we have to start a new save for each Expedition it would be an interesting idea to have more difficult settings available like survival. I cannot see them every offering anything easier than standard and I am guessing settings will be locked when you start an Expedition for obvious reasons.

You should post that as a suggestion.

[Geldric™]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

Originally posted by Geldric:

It must be me but I thought Sentinels (going thru all 5 waves) and taking on like 6 Pirates at once was def more of a challenge... You're prolly just a better player than me

I haven't been attacked even once by pirates, and why would I fight the sentinels until the last wave?
I'm not out looking for troubles.

Why bother play on a higher difficulty if all you have to avoid are the whipper snap plants & the fly trap plants? And of course you’re not going to notice a difference you might as well play on creative. Sorry, your reply was very misleading since you’ve avoided any fighting how could you know it’s harder.

[Know Won]

You should look into mods that slow down your ship or remove boost . Require 10 warp fuel to warp once , etc.