Storms are a destructive aspect to the game

[blackship]

Storms - way cool! So, I walk into a part of my base buried by a few levels and I have lots of storm damage; anything loose is piled up on one wall. A room on the top level, fully enclosed by steel walls and glass wall panels – had a crate with items in it. Storm blows through, the room is missing all the glass panels and the crate. Storms just became uncool.

I like the idea of Storms, but the application and the damage/losses is making Storms a destructive aspect to the game. That the Storms have a blanket effect on the base (even areas that are not exposed to the surface) is a royal pain but livable. That they can do damage to areas of the base not exposed to the storm – that makes them a ‘sink’. If you had to buy something then they would be a ‘money sink’, but as there is no economy (banks, trading, …) they are just a ‘damage sink’. Which means that they are by design to just cause damage making the player ‘sink’ time into doing repairs.

As the game is not a MMO game, there is no subscription or “buy gear to have a funner game” – the insertion of a ‘damage sink’ to the game does nothing but eventually anger the player when they get tired of constantly repairing damage (loss of game time to a mechanic that serves no purpose). The loss of items from a fully enclosed room is just going to add to the irritation over time.

Storms are cool! They have a great place for planets like Mars, but to do blanket effects throughout the base (piling stuff up and the damage) is counterproductive to the primary aspect of the game – building bases. I think Storms need to be limited to the surface, and the “damage’ aspect needs to be a adjustable aspect to the game (thinking slider bar).

Just my thoughts on Storms. I think that there are TON of things that can be added to the game to make base building more complex, and that involve/include science that would expand the game. Storms is a great idea, but it isn’t fully developed and causes/inflects damage on the efforts of the players ‘as is’.

[zeeph]

so the storm has broken the windows?

[blackship]

Storms damage iron cubes (iron square x 1 + iron sheet x 2), and glass walls. I don't know about steel cubes, but yeah Storms damages iron cubes (you have to cut them out and replace them) and glass walls (have to rebuild them).

Are Storms not damaging your base structures as they are mine?

[GeneralRhys]

I lost a mk2 rover. As in, it was outside my base, and now I literally don't know where it is. With a tank of oxygen and a couple nuclear batteries, I sank a lot of resources into that thing

[Balumba]

do we have reinforced glass windows or i need to change windows to iron cubes now?

[PlantPotSoldier]

I was under the impression that storms shouldn't be damaging any structures other than solar panels, loose items and crates/vehicles? I've disabled storms on my current save until storms are more balanced and less frustrating.

[Kortak]

are storms by default on? if i start a new game where is the option to turn them on or off

[Kortak]

I want them on of coarse

[Kortak]

same as research

[PlantPotSoldier]

Storms are on by default regardless if new/old save. Think research is off by default still? If you create a custom world then you can toggle the weather and research as well as other things.

[blackship]

If you want to turn the Storms off, here is where I found the answer https://steamcommunity.com/app/544550/discussions/?fp=3

I’ve been gone awhile and came back to enjoy some base building. The first Storm that blew up and I thought “Wow”. After the Storm I could not find my lander with its crates. At the time I did not realize that the Storm had just turned my game into a hardcore survival game by removing the crates and their items.

In my next base building attempt, I dug a hole, put all the crates in it, and covered it up with iron cubes. By this point I knew what Storms could do to anything left out on the surface. It was this game that I learned that Storms did damage to structures (on the surface and below the surface). It was later in this game that a Storm disassembled my glass walls and removed items from within my base.

If a Storm can dissemble a fully complete iron glass wall and remove items from that room – glass walls have just become obsolete in the game. That a Storm can cause damage to a room below the surface and protected by other rooms, there is nowhere in your base you are safe. You can’t pressurize a room, grow plants using sun light, or a dozen other things.

Storms are a cool concept in the game, but the current effect they have on the game is destructive. But that is my opinion.

[Bunyan]

Originally posted by blackship:

If you want to turn the Storms off, here is where I found the answer https://steamcommunity.com/app/544550/discussions/?fp=3

I’ve been gone awhile and came back to enjoy some base building. The first Storm that blew up and I thought “Wow”. After the Storm I could not find my lander with its crates. At the time I did not realize that the Storm had just turned my game into a hardcore survival game by removing the crates and their items.

In my next base building attempt, I dug a hole, put all the crates in it, and covered it up with iron cubes. By this point I knew what Storms could do to anything left out on the surface. It was this game that I learned that Storms did damage to structures (on the surface and below the surface). It was later in this game that a Storm disassembled my glass walls and removed items from within my base.

If a Storm can dissemble a fully complete iron glass wall and remove items from that room – glass walls have just become obsolete in the game. That a Storm can cause damage to a room below the surface and protected by other rooms, there is nowhere in your base you are safe. You can’t pressurize a room, grow plants using sun light, or a dozen other things.

Storms are a cool concept in the game, but the current effect they have on the game is destructive. But that is my opinion.

I completely agree. The storms are a little too destructive and/or just not logical. I encased all my solars in glass walls and storms still destroyed the solars...WHILE glass walls remained intact. Lost my lander too, which given the weight of that thing doesn't make much sense either. I found out the hard way that storms will also remove things from crates/lockers that are not closed.
Devs: please give the OPTION of the storms in the settings! Thanks!

[Lord]

Yeah it sounds like the severity needs to be toned down a lot. Also considering that a realistic Martian storm would not be anything like a hurricane or tornado due to the fact that the air is so thin, an intensity slider sounds like a great candidate for a difficulty setting.

[Finan]

I'm sure they will balance storms more but I would love to see different levels of storms. I do think that they should do less damage until everything worked out. Also maybe a way to repair damaged items?

[Tux]

OP a few things

1. saying storms should not be in the game until they are fully developed is a bit of a oxymoron given the game is early access. I understand what you are trying to say but be mindful of the fact that a feature cant be really fully developed BEFORE putting it into early access as a new feature. that would defeat the whole point of being early access.
2. I would think (and hope) you can turn them off.
3. I in general agree that I would perfer to see more sciency stuff for the base instead of storms but also to be fair, storms would be a major part of any such habitation in real life.

[blackship]

Since I started this post I have learned a few things. There are two ways to stop the Storms, I linked the post to the first method up above and copied the answer below.

Evil_Doc posted this answer. "You can open the Incidents window from ESC menu, and click on "Instant toggle weather " and it should go away. What I don't know is does this kill the current Storm, all Storms in the current session, or all further Storms for that game. If someone knows the answer please post it.

The other method is when you start a new game. Instead of picking one of the established preset games chose to do a custom game. You can do any of the preset games and a whole lot more - but it also has a check box for atmosphere events (Storms).

In response to what others have posted. Storms are part of the game. Storms are too destructive 'as is'. My suggestion is to limit the damage Storms can do to the surface and a slider in settings as to how much damage Storms can do. I would suggest not tying the damage scale to the game difficulty, I think is should be it's own adjustment. And I love the science in this game.