Ancient Complexes

[Johnson Mcdick]

I have been playing around with raiding ancient complexes recently and have found them very unrewarding for the difficulty they bring.

Just now I had a quest that required 14 colonists to be loaded into a shuttle to check out an ancient complex containing information about an Ideo artifact. The mechanoid rooms had the equivalent of a whole raid in each of them. One, for example, had three of the mechs that ressurect other mechs, as well as many centipedes and tesserons.
The hermetic crates that I opened contained 19 hyperthread and 68 silver. I understand the red crates may contain better loot, but compared to any other quest loot it's nowhere near worth it. Feels like each of them should have a lifetime (deathtime?) supply of Ressurector Mech Serums.

I'm playing on standard losing is fun, but this feels overdone. It's a neat mechanic but the result of me engaging with it seems to be just killing all the other stories I have going on for no tangible reward.

I don't see many people mention how lethal these can get, for what they offer, so I decided to post about it in case anyone else encounters this problem. Hope it gets looked at eventually.

[The Blind One]

Ah man that sounds really disappointing :(

I hope they beef up the questing and make it worthwhile so you're actually excited to do them. Often times its an exercise in futility.

[Johnson Mcdick]

Originally posted by The Blind One:

Ah man that sounds really disappointing :(

I hope they beef up the questing and make it worthwhile so you're actually excited to do them. Often times its an exercise in futility.

For real. It's such a great idea, just wish it had more going on. None of the things you can deconstruct there, besides the carpeted floors, are worth anything. Would be nice to get some guaranteed rewards, maybe have some sort of mini-quest to restore power to it.

Something I'd love is if they generated with barracks you can use when you are there, maybe a kitchen/freezer too. It'd be more engaging to set up a base, and focus more on defending the ancient complex, perhaps as you are trying to restore the power to access the loot inside. The boots could be more scattered so you can deal with them one at a time, in that situation I'd even feel ok with a queen hanging around.

It's easier said than done, but the version at the moment leaves you wondering what could be done to improve the experience.

[The Blind One]

Ancient complexes really should give you the stuff normal gameplay doesn't allow you to get in any decent quantity.

Hyperweave, synthread, glitter medicine, mech serums, anti-grains, those orbital bombardment thingies, reinforced barrels, the good stuff really. You should get a bit of the stuff in decent quantity so that the exploration is worthwhile.

Also +1 for having slightly more in tact bases which seem more lived. I think the lore is that these bases are possibly thousands of years old though, in which case ... it's a miracle it's even standing as it is but from an aesthetic point of view it would look more awesome and even provide some utility.

And major +2 for the idea for powering up an old facility, maybe that should be like a requirement to open the vault door to get the secret orbital beam cannon codes or weapon ;) that'd be a cool quest.

[Astasia]

The reward for the quest related ones is the relic information. The normal ancient complexes have like no threats in them, maybe a couple enemies in a room even late game, and they scale up to many, many rooms with dozens of chests. A late game complex can provide over a hundred luciferium or a dozen advanced components, multiple techprints, and some bionics, along with random miscellaneous amounts of glittermeds, gold, uranium and hyperweave. They are not hugely rewarding at any given stage of the game compared to other things, but they are easy to deal with for a small number of colonists similar to the hunting camps you can raid. You can spawn ancient complexes on demand with your ideology so I think the ease of finding them also plays into their reward scaling.

Here was a screen I took of a max difficulty max wealth complex a while ago:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2681181563

Is that a huge reward for that stage of the game? Not really. But it's something 2-3 geared colonists can easily clear. Firefoam packs also make them pretty trivial now as before dealing with the fires was the larger issue than the handful of enemies you might find in them.

[Johnson Mcdick]

Originally posted by Astasia:

The reward for the quest related ones is the relic information. The normal ancient complexes have like no threats in them, maybe a couple enemies in a room even late game, and they scale up to many, many rooms with dozens of chests. A late game complex can provide over a hundred luciferium or a dozen advanced components, multiple techprints, and some bionics, along with random miscellaneous amounts of glittermeds, gold, uranium and hyperweave. They are not hugely rewarding at any given stage of the game compared to other things, but they are easy to deal with for a small number of colonists similar to the hunting camps you can raid. You can spawn ancient complexes on demand with your ideology so I think the ease of finding them also plays into their reward scaling.

Here was a screen I took of a max difficulty max wealth complex a while ago:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2681181563

Is that a huge reward for that stage of the game? Not really. But it's something 2-3 geared colonists can easily clear. Firefoam packs also make them pretty trivial now as before dealing with the fires was the larger issue than the handful of enemies you might find in them.

I do see them as good renewable luciferium sources, but even on the best possible scenario they just don't feel that interesting. The quest complex being largely the same but the enemy scaling being a hundred times worse doesn't feel like a satisfying answer to me. I can do the ship hacking event for artifact information with no hassle at all. This just makes the artifact information complexes feel like a trap for the uninformed IMO.

And I disagree about the normal ancient complexes having no threats. Earlier I did a normal complex and it popped up infestations every other room. The bugs can also use the doors in the place, which is a bit weird in my eyes. It was a very drawn out and unsatisfying experience.

My main point still stands that this just doesn't feel worth it even in the best case scenario. In the screenshot you also mention having 500% scaling to generate the biggest possible complex. If it does affect the size, only a fraction of the players will really get to see the bigger rewards for these.

It's an undercooked mechanic, I wish they had done more with it, that is all.

[Johnson Mcdick]

Originally posted by The Blind One:

Ancient complexes really should give you the stuff normal gameplay doesn't allow you to get in any decent quantity.

Hyperweave, synthread, glitter medicine, mech serums, anti-grains, those orbital bombardment thingies, reinforced barrels, the good stuff really. You should get a bit of the stuff in decent quantity so that the exploration is worthwhile.

Also +1 for having slightly more in tact bases which seem more lived. I think the lore is that these bases are possibly thousands of years old though, in which case ... it's a miracle it's even standing as it is but from an aesthetic point of view it would look more awesome and even provide some utility.

And major +2 for the idea for powering up an old facility, maybe that should be like a requirement to open the vault door to get the secret orbital beam cannon codes or weapon ;) that'd be a cool quest.

Yeah! Maybe they are thousands of year old but they are clearly newer than the ruins you see around. Maybe to offset that you could have colonists be able to fix up furniture before you use it, maybe with some wood lying around or that you could chop. I love the idea of powering up being what you need to do to get the quest/ancient danger exclusive loot.

[brian_va]

i like to send a couple good constructors to take apart all that cloth and steel. i consider it a bulk goods trade for them and sprinkle of "exotic" goods that costs a few days work instead of silver or trade goods. side bonus is a bit of xp.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Johnson Mcdick:

It's an undercooked mechanic, I wish they had done more with it, that is all.

I agree on the whole, but it is however comparable to other caravan content, so I'm not sure why this topic comes up that often. Compared to raiding camps or enemy bases the ancient complexes are "fine" and easily one of the most rewarding options.

The entire caravan system as a whole is fairly "undercooked" though, and I expect at some point in the future there will be a significant update dedicated to it. For now I wouldn't really expect any special treatment for complexes, they haven't changed in 16 months or whatever so it's probably not a priority.

[Johnson Mcdick]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by Johnson Mcdick:

It's an undercooked mechanic, I wish they had done more with it, that is all.

I agree on the whole, but it is however comparable to other caravan content, so I'm not sure why this topic comes up that often. Compared to raiding camps or enemy bases the ancient complexes are "fine" and easily one of the most rewarding options.

The entire caravan system as a whole is fairly "undercooked" though, and I expect at some point in the future there will be a significant update dedicated to it. For now I wouldn't really expect any special treatment for complexes, they haven't changed in 16 months or whatever so it's probably not a priority.

I think it comes up more with complexes because they are part of an expansion. Caravans are undercooked but feel more an extension of what you get with the base game, which is packed. Raiding faction bases is pointless, but the resource camps tend to be quite worth it, and you know what you are in for before you get there.

[Johnson Mcdick]

Originally posted by brian_va:

i like to send a couple good constructors to take apart all that cloth and steel. i consider it a bulk goods trade for them and sprinkle of "exotic" goods that costs a few days work instead of silver or trade goods. side bonus is a bit of xp.

The one time i managed this it was pretty rewarding, even if it does get outclassed by deep drilling eventually. I might play around with them more, maybe if I can get down a consistent strategy I'll like them more.