Progression and Difficulty Balance

[PokerusFreak]

TLDR: the balance needs work desperately, even for EA, the ocean planet is too valuable and the later planets suck. The Sec 3 rooms are useless and not worth opening.

The early planets are FULL of loot, monsters, ores, dig spots, and harvestable plants. The later planets are harder to survive on, but have the exact same types of loot and less of it, slightly more monsters, but basically no ores, dig spots, and plants.
This has lead to me and my friends making significantly more profit from the early planets, and avoiding the later planets most of the time unless we are particularly bored.

There needs to be some kind of incentive to play the later planets other than the eggs, as none of us like the later stage eggs anyway. Better quality items to sell, more variety of night monsters for later stages, more and/or different ores and plants in those areas, etc would all help a lot in making them more worthwhile.
Even just turning up the AMOUNT of loot you find in those later areas, or adding more plant/ore spawns to those maps would help a lot in making them actually worth going to.
Currently the ocean planet has the most volume of items by a LOT, especially natural items (ores/plants), and is the most efficient to run imo.

The other issue is the purple Security 3 areas. These are difficult to get to, usually take minimum 2 days (one day, overnight, plus a second day), to reach unless you get very lucky. Typically we have found items worth 20-50 money in them, with a rare egg now and then. Usually we find a single item per sec 3 room with nothing else in them.
They often spawn with ores, dig spots or plants OUTSIDE of them, but those are accessible whether or not you have the security code, meaning the only benefit of finding those codes is low value items worth less than what you can get just by finding the room without the code.

Overall I love the game, been playing with friends and having a blast, but we are already getting bored because we feel forced to run the same few planets over and over again in order to actually meet quota.
I'm aware the game is in early access, so I am just hoping to give some feedback and hopefully the dev will put more work on making the later planets both more difficult and also more valuable, so there is actually a reason to go there.

[Akameka]

I agree on this. there is no real reason to go to higher difficulty planets besides diversity. It's often more dangerous for even less items easily lootables. the facility might be bigger, allowing for more chest all around, but that also delay the acess to higher value areas, so you end up with approximately the same loot value.

[Kaeporo]

I'll also agree with this. It would be nice if:

1) harder planets had slightly better loot (but not to the point of making earlier ones obsolete) or [even better] unique loot that encourages visiting each location. Something like a "rate up" system would also help.

2) higher level security areas had better loot to make up for the added risk of staying multiple nights. Again, unique loot (other than eggs) would help here.

3) the difficulty was tweaked to make solo/low player count games less punishing. Losing the entire run's worth of goods and not just the last mission's is brutal when things kill you so quickly.

4) reduce the rate of suit exp loss. It's still too high, imo.

5) I would also look into an alternative method of permanent character progression.

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My quick-take on this:

Imagine if you could find the equivalent of "permanent gear" in some of these higher difficulty areas, with pseudo-randomized stats. These would be retained even on failed contracts and really cement Sketchy's Contract's progression niche in this sub-genre.

Gear would only show up in level 2+ areas. higher [grade] gear would only be found at higher player ranks, following a [common/uncommon/rare/epic/legendary] system. Higher grade equipment [epic-legendary] could have bonus effects.
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Gear categories:
- Head:
- Chest:
- Arms:
- Legs:
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Examples:

"Diving Helm" (Head)
Location: Port Coral
Effect: Reduces oxygen depletion while underwater by 10-30%.
Bonus Effect: Improves swimming speed by 15/20%.

"Scan Visor" (Head)
Location: Port Lumin
Effect: Increases Scan Range and reduces Scan CD by 8-24%.
Bonus Effect: Scanned objects are worth 5/10% more.

"Targeting Visor" (Head)
Location: Sector Zero
Effect: Increases Ranged DMG by 3-15%
Bonus Effect: Scanned enemies take 10/15% more DMG.

"Ballistic Vest" (Chest)
Location: Chronis
Effect: Reduces DMG from traps by 15-45%
Bonus Effect: Reduces DMG from projectiles by 15/20%

"Travel Pouch" (Chest)
Location: Any
Effect: Increases inventory by 1-3 slots.
Bonus Effect: Gives a 10% chance of not losing items on death.

"Kinetic Gauntlets" (Arms)
Location: Port Ragnar
Effect: Increases Melee DMG by 6-30%
Bonus Effect: Melee hits have a 10/20% chance to deal +50% DMG.

"Padded Boots" (Legs)
Location: Port Sahariss
Effect: Reduces detection range by 5-20%.
Bonus Effect: Mimics have a 60/75% chance of not attacking.

"Dampening Boots" (Legs)
Location: Port Aeriss
Effect: Reduces fall DMG by 20-60%
Bonus Effect: Increases jump height by 10/15%

[Legion]

They're challenge planets for those who want to have less loot and higher difficulty.

[Miseri Divine]

there 100% need to be more easy options to help people try the harder planets