Emergency Single-Use Tools

[digit777]

After 20 hours of building a survival base, I accidentally clicked with my screwdriver on the Furnace and it went *poof*. Since I hadn't built a tool fabricator yet, and a screwdriver is necessary to finish the fabricator, as far as I can tell I am completely out of luck, my base is ruined.
Having the ability to craft a single-use emergency tool like a screwdriver would make sense, and be in the spirit of pioneers in a harsh frontier. Plus, I can use any scrap of metal around my house today to make a screwdriver, so it shouldn't be impossible.
Thanks.

[gpedro178]

Good idea!

[Puma]

This is a dumb idea. If you're going to a distant planet to set up base, and only bring a single screwdriver, then you deserve what is coming to you. You want some pioneers at the harsh frontiers? Go watch some Ray Mears or Bear Crylls and they'll tell you that "two is one, and one is none".

[Little Tee]

A few solutions:

1. Emergency single use tools, like you said. I'm not a fan of this idea.

2. That the furnace is changed so as to not process things that aren't ores, ingots, or that do not have the capacity to store such things (such as a screwdriver). I prefer this as a solution.

3. Have a second toolbelt with tools inside in the lander crates. This is by far the easiest to implement

Regarding you ruined base:

4. Die and respawn if you are on the appropriate difficulty level for someone who puts their screwdriver into their furnace :P

5. Edit save file and change to Creative mode and then use much self discipline to ONLY spawn in a screwdriver. Save game, and change back to survival.

6. Start again?

[gpedro178]

Originally posted by Puma:

This is a dumb idea. If you're going to a distant planet to set up base, and only bring a single screwdriver, then you deserve what is coming to you. You want some pioneers at the harsh frontiers? Go watch some Ray Mears or Bear Crylls and they'll tell you that "two is one, and one is none".

It's not a dumb idea, to fail a world just because you loose a tool to a furnace its not hardcore its just annoying, there should be a printer that doesnt require tools that allows very basic things like basic tools, the autolathe and very basic and very slow ingot smelting (this way you can have a hardcore start) or at least there should not be possible to loose a tool to a machine other than the recycler.

[Puma]

The ability to put your tool in a furnace by a single accidental click is an UI issue, not a game balance issue. To fix it with an array of new items and mechanics is just an insane idea.

Also the assertion that something is not hardcore and just annoying is total bs. Let me demonstrate. I could just as easily assert any of the following.

To fail because you...
...ran out of food...
...ran out of oxygen...
...lost all your batteries...
...ran out of power...
...ran out of CO2 filters...
...is not hardcore. It's just annoying.

To be hardcore in a video game kinda just means unforgiving. Unforgiving of mistakes, bad planning, and sometimes just bad luck. To die because you lost something vital (a tool in this case) absolutely is hardcore. To die because you lost something vital due to a bug or RNG or bad interface design, is both hardcore and annoying.

My fix to the issue would be the addition of an insert key. If an item in hand is classed as a tool, then mouse 1 would use said tool. And if you wanted to insert it, you would have to use the button assigned for inserting. For stuff that isn't a tool (sheets, ore, ingots, etc) mouse 1 could still be used for inserting. But all that said, this seems like a really low priority issue.

[Dani]

You have the "tools" to prevent this ... chute bin
If you put your screwdriver in that one AND pull the lever it's your own fault.

[gpedro178]

Originally posted by Puma:

Also the assertion that something is not hardcore and just annoying is total bs.

If you like to call hardcore to an UI issue, thats what i would call total bs...

You could start a game with less than a lander and that could be hardcore. Let say Ark, you start naked but your basic tools are your hands... thats hardcore. Here you loose a tool to a weird issue with the furnace and, if you dont have the means to replace it, you end doomed... thats just dumb, annoying, bs or whatever you want to call it... "Doomed by Destroyed Tool", that could be an achievement...

[Puma]

Originally posted by gpedro178:

If you like to call hardcore to an UI issue, thats what i would call total bs...

I'm not the one who called hardcore. You did. I just left a message after the beep.

Are you saying that the game would be more "hardcore" if it didn't have any tools, and you would just be able to construct and deconstruct stuff without them? Cause that is what it sounded to me. "tools are your hands... thats hardcore"
How about if you wouldn't need fabricators to build stuff, and were just able to craft stuff in your pocket like in Factorio or Terraria? Would that be even more hardcore in your view? I'm just asking cause what you seem to think of as hardcore is the exact opposite to what I consider hardcore in a video game.

In the harsh vacuum of space you need so many things to live, and losing any of them will kill you. That is hard core.

[gpedro178]

Originally posted by Puma:

I'm not the one who called hardcore. You did. I just left a message after the beep.

Are you saying that the game would be more "hardcore" if it didn't have any tools, and you would just be able to construct and deconstruct stuff without them? Cause that is what it sounded to me. "tools are your hands... thats hardcore"

You are right Puma, you used the word harsh and named some "survival" shows and i assumed you were using synonyms for hardcore (or high difficulty) but... the problem might be the definition...

Regardings hands, you should read the complete sentence "you start naked but your basic tools are your hands...", that should read like "you start with nothing and from there you can go to future tech" but whatever...

Also losing stuff is not a feature of this game (unless leaving it on the ground and destroyed by storm counts) and should not be game stopper.

I'm saying that my definition of hardcore is not to loose a game by dropping the screwdriver in the furnace by accident... thats more a tragicomic situation... Its the need to squeeze every once of skill to go from nothing or almost nothing to king of the hill.

[Puma]

I used the word harsh in my response to the OP because it was the word the OP used.

And I do understand the implications of the complete sentence. But I was trying to break it down to components as to keep my query simple. A query you failed to respond to. So let me try again. Are you saying that the game would be more "hardcore" if you started buck naked with no tools, and were able not only to survive without an EVA suit, but to start mining and crafting with your bare hands?

You can't just keep asserting random claims! Losing stuff is a feature in this game. Losing your tools. Losing your crops. Losing pressure from your base. Losing your way when you went mining and lost track of your base. Losing all your steel cause you got distracted while it was printing only to come back to 5000 steel sheets that you don't really need. And this isn't like my opinion, this is a fact. The OP's post proves that losing stuff is a thing that you can do in this game.

If we compare a game where having nothing is just the starting condition, to a game where having nothing will kill you. Then it's pretty obvious which is the more hardcore of the two. Stationeers is a game where having nothing will kill you. In fact, not having everything vital will kill you. And your tools are vital. If you loose them, you die. If you don't want it to stop your game, play at a difficulty level appropriate for someone who throws their tools to the furnace. The difficulty setting is right there just few clicks away.

Out of all the solutions suggested in this thread, the disposable tools solution is objectively the dumbest.

[digit777]

I appreciate you referring to my proposed solution as "the dumbest". My original intent was to pretend like I was playing a game where if my screwdriver fell out of my pocket and into a lake, i wouldn't have to just throw my hands up "guess I'll die". You know, like an actual frontiersman. If our forefathers just gave up because their wagon wheel broke, we never would have gotten anywhere.

[Puma]

The life of actual frontiersmen was not like minecraft. You can't fell a tree by punching it. You can't turn a tree into planks with bare hands. And you can't make a workbench out of planks made with bare hands. Plenty of people died at least partially due to broken wagon wheels.

I dare you to go to the woods and make a screwdriver.

[gpedro178]

Originally posted by Puma:

The life of actual frontiersmen was not like minecraft. You can't fell a tree by punching it. You can't turn a tree into planks with bare hands. And you can't make a workbench out of planks made with bare hands. Plenty of people died at least partially due to broken wagon wheels.

I dare you to go to the woods and make a screwdriver.

You should contact the first guy/monkey that made a tool with his hands and tell him it's impossible...

I'm with Digit777 on the "why should I roll over and die if it is about survival?"

[digit777]

Go read the Martian by Andy Weir if you think small setbacks should result in you just dying on the frontier.

[Puma]

I read The Martian a long time ago when it first came out. And here's the thing... it's fiction. The protagonist survives because he is the protagonist. That's how most works of fiction work. The protagonist surviving is kinda a foregone conclusion. It was never going to not happen. He can't loose anything vital. The writer won't let him.

But this isn't the case in real life or in good video games. There is no writer. You surviving shouldn't be a foregone conclusion. And it's not really about rolling over and dying. The issue really boils down to: Should it be possible to play yourself to a dead end situation? Is it really bad game design to allow unrecoverable situations? Because pioneers and frontiersmen definitely died because they got to unrecoverable situations.

And Pedro, no moving the goalpost. I said screwdriver, not any tool. I can't contact the first guy who made a screwdriver from scratch with their bare hands, because there has never been such a guy. And never will be.