Purpose and Aliens?

[Medieval Peanut]

Hello,

I remember coming across something about aliens. Is this really going to be in game? I have mixed feelings if it is. I like the concept of AI that can help me or i can interact with etc. I'm tired of alien bug things and those other tired tropes where creepy crawly . If that is going to show up, please let me have an option to disable, I'd rather be the last human in the galaxy build barbies space dream base than more annoying alien bug things.

What about the purpose?

Is this going to be like Subnautica where we're stranded and we have to get off planet? Or No Man's Sky to explore a solar system or galaxy? Or will this be more like medival/space engineers which is similar in crafting?

Each does something nice in its own way but they seem to suffer the same challenges. All of those and Ark and others lack AI tointeract with and relying on people to populate a "server" isn't practical in reality. There need to be safe zones and areas that are not safe and all that griefing stuff and hosting and everything... And building a base/castle/city of 1 is no fun, yay I have a castle, no one lives in or defends against me, and I defend against...deer, the wild, wild deer of the forest. who cares if I have an epic castle if no one sieges it and i survive?

I'm really enjoying the base building and I see crafting station, belts being added (or there already) and all that for industrial crafting but that kind of circles around to the purpose. Why am I building a factory and what meaningful attachment will I have to this base/system I create?

From my POV, investing in building a base needs to mean something. If something is going to try to destory it, I need something to defend it. Manual tasks are okay at the start but as my "empire grows" the main character (me) shouldn't do the trival tasks I once did, that focus should shift. Otherwise what I see now, is that I build a factory of some sort, producing something for some reason we'll get to later but I'm the one that will have to go out and do all the mining (which isn't fun) just to bring it back to my factory?

I mean, epically, I would build a base, get some AI people to work/defend it, build a ship and then explore like in star trek or something, come across some nice aliens and some bad ones, fighting, fixing, repairing my ship and building shipyards or other thigns to expand my empire. Or at least I would love a game that had that design... Some poor sap gets a free ticket to flotsam Paradise and then gets marooned with a couple of supplies on a moon and ends up surviving to build an epic business/empire from the ashes of that tragedy.

[Kedelfor]

I would watch some of the dev streams if you have the time. Also everything I say is speculation based on what I heard or saw in those streams. Aliens will start off as bugs, but it is intended to grow from there. A simple AI system will be implemented first. This will include 1 single alien so far which is a giant space ant. There are at least models and I have seen demos of 2 weapons. One is a laser pistol another is a laser rifle. It sounded like a flamethrower may also be added, and at one point there was a laser sword, but that has been removed. I do not know of any melee weapons as of yet. There are also torpedoes and a turret I have seed demoed.

So far the point is survive, but it is planned to have away missions that force you to find and repair a derelict, transport prisoners, save sick people, or other missions. I have not seen any away missions, but that will be part of the main loop.

It also sounds like a lot of features will be configurable. As in don't want to farm you can turn it off the need for food. Neither of which are in game currently. The game is being designed for a single player as well as multiplayer. This is stated in many places and is a focus. I think AI will serve a purpose for this as well. I don't know if you will see Star Trek level of crews. I think the game caps out around 20 people before performance is an issue. The stated max seems to be around 8 or 12. I am not sure though if you will be able to turn off PVP or not. There are a lot of indirect ways someone could kill you in this game. There are a lot of ways you will kill yourself as well.

The main point and game loop will circle around survive, build, explore. I think that resources will become scarce so you will need to travel to get them. There are a lot of things that can go wrong though. Too much oxygen can lead to fire, to much pressure will lead to explosive decompression. Invading AI could cause all kind of havoc in the base with any of the systems. I think the main purpose will be to survive and since the systems are so complex they can break easily so I don't think your base will ever be safe, and or done. It will be safeish, but there will always be something that can go wrong and cause catastrophe. If you watch any of the videos you can see how there is a cascade effect of failure. One burst pipe can lead to an explosion which leads to depressurization which leads to death. Lots of death.

With all that said it is in very early access so only time will tell what we get to do in game. Except the death part there is already a lot of that in game.

[Medieval Peanut]

thank you for taking the time to read my comments and reply with some information.

re: bugs - bummer, but since its still early maybe that will change or can be turned off.

re: dev vlogs I'll take a look at this more.

re: PVP, Players, etc - I'm open to CoOp and even 12 people is more CoOp than these being kind of open world MMO's but without players lol. That's where some sort of NPC/AI system is needed. As we get things more situated the more menial tasks we once did get replaced by maintaining more sophesticated systems and trying to run around and do everything starts to become an impossible task if things cannot be automated AND you have to worry about combat, player functions need to be delegated

I like the concept of a cassading set of failures, that adds realism.

cool, I'm hoping the concepts shape up. It can go in many directions, I'm okay with it being a smaller concept just earth/moon or solar system scenario and it just involves intersolar trade and mining and whatever.


thanks again for the response

[Sasquatch]

I agree. Our space games so far have not given us very inspiring enemies.

SE has spiders, wolves, and tiny drones. Interstellar Rift basically has space bugs (or space reptiles?). Empyrion is closest to the mark but suffers from terrible placeholder AI.

I've always wanted more sentient beings who aren't happy about our presence at all. As well as epic ship to ship combat. So far none of these titles deliver. Heavily modded SE is probably the closest, but armor melts like butter and combat doesn't last very long.

Building in Stationeers takes a bit longer than other games so there would have to be some kind of delay to let you get into the action. Hopefully though, this consists of something more threatening than space bugs.

[kaizen]

When I read the word 'bugs' and then thought of Stationeers I expect nothing less than 'Spore' type mechanisms :D.

[Medieval Peanut]

Originally posted by Sacksquatch:

I agree. Our space games so far have not given us very inspiring enemies.

SE has spiders, wolves, and tiny drones. Interstellar Rift basically has space bugs (or space reptiles?). Empyrion is closest to the mark but suffers from terrible placeholder AI.

I've always wanted more sentient beings who aren't happy about our presence at all. As well as epic ship to ship combat. So far none of these titles deliver. Heavily modded SE is probably the closest, but armor melts like butter and combat doesn't last very long.

Building in Stationeers takes a bit longer than other games so there would have to be some kind of delay to let you get into the action. Hopefully though, this consists of something more threatening than space bugs.

Some hominoid, setient species, or something to fight but... maybe after I leave the moon? I like building a "home base", going out in my ship and running into things like mentioned by Kedelfor where I visit a planet and help some survivors (who maybe join my crew?) nothing epic but having a crew of a few AI that I can even simply assign to roles or something back at the base harvesting....? mining at that point doesn't have to rely on terrain modification, it can collect at a reasonable unit/second scenario or something and then if you lay rail or something it will zoom those resources back to base for processing... which then supports the computer, automation, logic processors, gas managment etc. This is where the game evolution I mention occurs. You go from owrrying about power, you make a reliable means of solar and now you've just graduated to the next level, you are safe when it comes to power for your suit. At some point, when you have a large complex for functions and processing and stuff... mining isn't something you're worried about. you're focused on maintainence and support of that. mechanical things break, solar flares can damage electroincs that aren't shielded and not all damage is immediate, some may take time to manifest with slow erosion...



I like the idea of combat potentials.



Ship Combat - After the dust settles and there's a victor having to fix your ship after is kind of cool. Maybe you are able to get back to base for repairs. Maybe your engine got damage and now you can to sort through the wreckage of both ships to scavange for what you need for repairs... maybe there were survivors and you need space combat crew to crew...?


Ground combat - re: bugs... maybe some planets are covered in bugs and youy need to go in, land and extract survivors of a base before it's overrun, you get some sort of payment (resources?) and its "per survivor" incentivizing saving who you can. but then that also means you need a ship capabile of bringing people on board.



That also opens up for trade. If you build a merchant ship pad then maybe alien races start landing for trade, rewards are delivered (they aren't instant, so 2hrs later the "royal cargo ship" from that mission (2 hours prior) just arrived from the capital.. sometimes its 15mins depending on where it is in the "galaxy"...



I dunno, this all adds layers of coding and I really appreciate all the stuff so far its fun. As long as I can disable the bugs if its kept a more simple game and I'll just decorate another space base. At least its kind of like that nasa moon game that died and has way more that can be done. frankly im pretty happy with what I've been able to play so far

[Sasquatch]

I had to rush off earlier, but I wanted to describe my ideal ship combat. I tend to favor the battleship style, of ships broadside to broadside at mid to long good range. Where engineering and design win the day. I think there is a place for twitch style fighter action but it should be secondary to the mothership concept IMO.

For example, combat in Elite Dangerous was fun, but didn't hold my interest. Even the big ships would dogfight and do a lot of maneuvers. At the end of the day it was all pew pew.

Combat in Space Engineers still holds my interest even after over 2000 hours. This is due to design being an important factor, and crippling of systems leads to interesting situations. However as I mentioned earlier, armor isn't very effective, so it tends to defeat the purpose of good engineering. This inevitably leads to flying armor cubes with sensitive parts burried deep inside, with an exterior bristling with guns. Even if SE got it's act together you would still be fighting an empty ship (with horrible AI) and no threat of AI boarders on your ship.

Older space games paid close attention to combat, but had no interiors or ship design.

Newer space games pay close attention to interiors and design, but not combat.

Can't we have both yet? I mean...as they say..."it's current year".

[Kastuk]

I need an dark horrors for poor space workers.
Like while you in deep night digging... make too much noise vibrations too long, they comes... gnawing worms who mess your mining routine.

So you must make noises somewhere else before actual digging, or strike the earth with more silent pickaxe some of times.

[Sasquatch]

Originally posted by kastuk:

I need an dark horrors for poor space workers.
Like while you in deep night digging... make too much noise vibrations too long, they comes... gnawing worms who mess your mining routine.

So you must make noises somewhere else before actual digging, or strike the earth with more silent pickaxe some of times.

GRABOIDS!

[Medieval Peanut]

Originally posted by Sacksquatch:

I had to rush off earlier, but I wanted to describe my ideal ship combat. I tend to favor the battleship style, of ships broadside to broadside at mid to long good range. Where engineering and design win the day. I think there is a place for twitch style fighter action but it should be secondary to the mothership concept IMO.

...

Older space games paid close attention to combat, but had no interiors or ship design.

Newer space games pay close attention to interiors and design, but not combat.

Can't we have both yet? I mean...as they say..."it's current year".

I agree. there's plenty of faster fighter versions, a slower paced, strategic battle where engineering can shine I think is a cool concept. Using logic processors and whatever sensors to track or target and missles, lasers, shields concept of fighting (like in star trek or star wars, but probably more star trek). Fighters can have an accessory role but if it came down to one direction or the other, I would prefer more flagship type combat.

I like having shiled generators and some sort of scientific research even if its just a little advancement but supporting additional creative structures for the home base, a big ship needs to doc somewhere...even if its in a tidally locked space station (eek space elevator?!??) so we can repair and upgrade it. Those combat situations should sometimes leave us with learning moments where when we return to homebase we look to modify its operation, i needed a bigger cargo hold. Or needed more weapons, more variety, different ammo, shields, etc.

This would also support the ideas above because you have your homebase that is your HQ and where you go home, dock, trade, whatever and then there is your "flagship mobile base" that goes out and sees space, faces dangers and returns home, sometimes with epic loot, other ships in tow and bounty's galore, others, barely or not at all.

[Medieval Peanut]

Originally posted by kastuk:

I need an dark horrors for poor space workers.
Like while you in deep night digging... make too much noise vibrations too long, they comes... gnawing worms who mess your mining routine.

So you must make noises somewhere else before actual digging, or strike the earth with more silent pickaxe some of times.

and that could be a cool instanced mission.

Abandoned research station.

Often they're empty.

Sometimes though....it hunts.

[Kastuk]

Yeah, but I mean little noisome biters who gnaw cheap materials.
Especially iron walls.
Not instant death-like, but part of radiation-sandstorms-micrometeors nature.

[Medieval Peanut]

and batteries go bad and need to be replaced periodically, failing to replace them can lead to localized damage of wires and stuff. the nature, radiation sandstorms also sound cool, and a reason to have shelter and invest in things like satellites etc. maybe we need a special space suit, otherwise hunker down in a crateor or something

[Medieval Peanut]

also was thinking this evening how cool having a bunch of side cannons wiring up to batteries and stuff and trying to put in redundnancy and... just really cool building potential

[Sasquatch]

Yes indeed. That was the hope I had for SE, but they never felt compelled to give us something worthwhile to fight. Granted, SE is still in beta (alpha in my book), but honestly at this point I'm banking on Stationeers and I hope Dean @rocket2guns reads this thread.

[Medieval Peanut]

I think that if they really focused on more instance style Single Player and CoOp missions it would give them more flexibility, they can make variations for each time and create some randomization to give it some variances and it would reduce some complexity so they can add that into the mechanics and interactions.

It's even possible to reach out to players in small contests to build a mining station or something and add those into those instances which allows them to refocus more on mechanics and piecing these things together.


Either way, I'm pretty happy with this investment even where the game is now. there's so much more I would like to do but this is fun so far. reminds me of that NASA moon game that came out but never added more than the one mission but way better