DLC Scenario puts Survival back into the game.

[spam]

Hotfix fixed my issues (so far), so I am just starting the DLC. One thing that strikes me though, is that if you get trapped on a planet because of the Dark Field, it really becomes a struggle for survival.

Getting stuck on a planet in a seemingly hopeless situation because I made a mistake, then compounded it by making another, bigger mistake is EXACTLY WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN IN A SURVIVAL GAME. Mistakes should have dire consequences.

OTOH it would be nice if the save game mechanic was more user friendly. As it stands if I want to try something stupid or dicey, I have to save twice to get the restart point at that time in the game.

[Midas]

This is true. In my quest for zascosium in the DLC, I ended up having to go to a lava planet that was already under the dark faction. It was a 4g planet, so my ship plummeted like a stone and I was -1000t for trying to take off. Even re-arranging thrusters wouldn't let me get off the ground. I couldn't use the explorer for the same reason, and even the hover bike only really worked on flat terrain and going downhill. It didn't have the thrust to climb anything but the most shallow climb without some momentum.

But I needed the zascosium to make the power coils I needed for dark field neutralizers, so I had to find some zascosium on this world. I ended up having to trek out on foot, hiking across mountains and valleys in 4x earth gravity, using a digging tool to make 'steps' in steep slopes so I could have somewhere for my jetpack to recharge. It wasn't realistic to return to the ship, so I had to just carry food and O2 tanks with me, and try to survive the heat by resting next to a heating/cooling unit in sections where it wasn't so hot (it was as high as 150, but got down to 60 in some areas, which was low enough for the heating/cooling unit to compensate and let me cool down for a bit).

It took about 2 hours. I never found an actual zascosium deposit, but I found enough nuggets on the surface to scrape together enough for 3 neutralizers so I could lift off again. It was an interesting survival experience, and a turning point in the overall dlc progress since I could finally enter and leave dark faction planets freely with my ship. Not sure I'd want to do it again, though.

[spam]

Mild spoilers marked as such.
I spent too much time gathering resources and did not level enough and got stuck because the last HQ (Zirax) was infected during the HQ run-around. Luckily I did a double-save before attempting a landing.

I am trying to figure out how to complete the quest without restarting, The progressive nature of the Dark Field (it seems to be getting stronger over time) makes gauging my actions a bit more difficult. Guess I will crash-land on the planet and see if I can level up enough to get the tools to allow me to take off again. Anyway, the point is that this feels more like a survival game situation where sometimes things really are hopeless.

[Midas]

Originally posted by spam:

Mild spoilers marked as such.
I spent too much time gathering resources and did not level enough and got stuck because the last HQ (Zirax) was infected during the HQ run-around. Luckily I did a double-save before attempting a landing.

I am trying to figure out how to complete the quest without restarting, The progressive nature of the Dark Field (it seems to be getting stronger over time) makes gauging my actions a bit more difficult. Guess I will crash-land on the planet and see if I can level up enough to get the tools to allow me to take off again. Anyway, the point is that this feels more like a survival game situation where sometimes things really are hopeless.

I had to deal with that same issue on that planet. When it was just the dark faction penalty by itself, I found I was able to move all the downward-facing thrusters on the Elysia to the rear and that gave me enough propulsion to get back into orbit without any generators exploding. It took some wiggling to angle the nose up, though, it might have been better to remove the rear thrusters and face them down instead.

[spam]

Originally posted by Midas:

I had to deal with that same issue on that planet. When it was just the dark faction penalty by itself, I found I was able to move all the downward-facing thrusters on the Elysia to the rear and that gave me enough propulsion to get back into orbit without any generators exploding. It took some wiggling to angle the nose up, though, it might have been better to remove the rear thrusters and face them down instead.

Oh, I tried that and managed to escape the planet, but when I tried to put the thrusters back so I could go fast enough to warp out, the multitool broke the thrusters into components (presumably because dark field had grown stronger).

My latest attempt was to land and do some leveling, but the infected area is on the other side of the planet, it is too hot, i have no thermal mod, and the portable heater/cooler barely works. I may try to upgrade the SV and see if I can fly to the infected area for leveling. If that doesn't work I will probably just give up and go to an earlier save.

[crumpy108]

Haha for real, I love it. I've only had about 10-15 minutes to play it so far, but I purchased it the second I saw it. Just as a thank you and support to the devs. Over 1000+ hours in this game. I always come back to it.

[spam]

Whelp, the version where I landed truly is hopeless. Finally did a quick check in a save copy and found that there is a total of 1 overgrowth and a massive pillar base. No realistic way to upgrade in this environment, so will have to go back to previous save(s).

[Midas]

Originally posted by spam:

Originally posted by Midas:

I had to deal with that same issue on that planet. When it was just the dark faction penalty by itself, I found I was able to move all the downward-facing thrusters on the Elysia to the rear and that gave me enough propulsion to get back into orbit without any generators exploding. It took some wiggling to angle the nose up, though, it might have been better to remove the rear thrusters and face them down instead.

Oh, I tried that and managed to escape the planet, but when I tried to put the thrusters back so I could go fast enough to warp out, the multitool broke the thrusters into components (presumably because dark field had grown stronger).

My latest attempt was to land and do some leveling, but the infected area is on the other side of the planet, it is too hot, i have no thermal mod, and the portable heater/cooler barely works. I may try to upgrade the SV and see if I can fly to the infected area for leveling. If that doesn't work I will probably just give up and go to an earlier save.

Are you sure you didn't just accidentally have it set to salvage instead? I never had issue removing and replacing the thrusters, all the dark field did was dramatically reduce the amount of health removed with each tick.

[spam]

Originally posted by Midas:

Are you sure you didn't just accidentally have it set to salvage instead? I never had issue removing and replacing the thrusters, all the dark field did was dramatically reduce the amount of health removed with each tick.

Nothing is certain, but I am pretty darned sure. I tried the whole thing a second time and when I got to the part about putting the thrusters back I double checked to make sure it was set to retrieve and it still deconstructed them I also tried it on a couple of other items so it wasn't just the thrusters. I'm surprised at the subtlety here, given the state of the rest of the content.

[Midas]

Maybe the instance I had to do it in the planet wasn't that bad. I didn't get a symelite multi-tool until after I got my nullifiers so I could move them, since the regular multi-tool treats it like it's an object in an unowned POI.

It would be nice if the game actually told us what the effect of the Dark Field was on every item.

[spam]

You are not wrong, but if it is a survival game nasty surprises are to be expected. If is an exploration game, then everything should be spelled out. Empyrion seems to switch between the two and its hard to tell which mode it's in sometimes.

[Amrak]

Finally had my first full day playing. Dang I love the challenge. But after watching the download for 2 days and talking to you all, I was prepared. Thank you!
I had a thought after our discussions and something I saw in Spanj's vid. At the start, when it goes to the previous 12 hours, he looted everything. Fridges, plants, etc... But when it came back the game took it from his inventory. Well I thought I would try something different. I looted everything that was available then put it in the Explorer, in the fridges and cargo boxes. It stayed! Yay extra loot, was not much but more than I had to begin with. Also when you get to the UCH ship and get fuel, pentaxid and ammo, I went back to the Explorer and fuel, O2, and ammoed it up as well.
Now I do not know what is different in my game, I have seen/read that when others warp to the Zirax HQ it is infected. It was not in my game? I even stopped to mine Neo to fix the warp drive, some other ores as well, on the UCH planet.
I have used all the symelite I got at the start so now I have to start taking the fight to them and gather some eggs while I am at it. Wish me luck guys! Having a blast!
When I have done the scenario I plan on starting a vanilla game with DF added. Just might bring life back to the vanilla game for awhile!