Ship building Pro Advice.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

What to do?

First run: you'll die... don't worry about it.
Second run: you'll probably die by something you didn't expect to encounter.
Third run: Look to unlock the security gate.
Fourth Run: Unlock the mechanics corp

After you unlock the gate, you want to design your ship like a trident.

One corridor connected to your deck, then 3 security gates on each direction. On the left put your hangar, and your refineries, storage / Tractor beams. On the right place your housing units and medical center. Then down the middle just create corridors going all the way to the back, this will be where you put greenhouses, reactors, engines, and shields.

Why?

If your crew gets sick they will only infect the housing and refinery areas they got sick from, they won't be able to infect any vital structures down the center. Infestations from your hanger won't be able to leave the side you place it upon. And once you unlock decontamination halls, you can place the storage there so creatures hiding in supplies won't harm your crew.

After that, once you unlock repair bots you only need 3 as the linear nature of the design makes for easy path-finding for repairs. Same is true for combat bots, though the only place you really need them is near your tractor beams and refineries, as you should never let your hangar missions return without you in the docking bay to take out any infection or creatures that come along for the ride.

P.S.

This game isn't worth 30$ in its current state, i'd wait for a steam sale. The exploration aspect of going on missions is non-existent. Talking as someone who followed the title since it first was announced. I love the concept, but so much potential was wasted.

How to make the game better, one single (but big) thing could make all the difference. The planet missions, they are very dull. The maps need to be larger then a 30 second walk from one end to another, like the colonization missions the zones should be explored and there shouldn't be ore spawning around your ship like it might as well be already loaded. The planets need to feel alive, not just enemy wave spawning and random teleportation. Though actual hives and structures which spawn different creatures so you have something to fight rather then something tiresomely boring to defend.

Consider, locations to explore such as:

Space Hulks. Randomly generated damaged or abandoned stations which you would land in the hanger of and have to clear out infestations to get genetic samples, modules, and weapons. Zones would include space walks to get to various sections, fighting against pirates or hostile combat robots, and various alien species. (All assets already in the game.)

Exploration missions. Using colonization worlds as a template for all worlds in the game replacing the missions that exist as is, there should be nests of creatures within every world which you must explore to find ore veins. Though unlike the normal colony missions there isn't endless waves of creatures, just infested caverns and the like. (All assets already in the game.)

Pirate ships. Taking the fight to the enemy as after fending off a pirate attack you can jump into the hangar to board their ship and take out the pirate ship for good. (All assets already in the game.)

That being said, there is a lot more that could be done. Though this is the thing which could make the most difference in my hours of play time and comments i'v seen from others. There needs to be some semblance of exploration to make the grind worth it.

P.P.S.

As a veteran of the game, if you have any questions I can try to answer them for you.
Best advice? Always choose a corp like mechanics with high damage energy weapons for the crew weapon, as some enemies are immune to physical / bullets. Though crews suck in combat, it's better they aren't defenseless.

[Misery]

Thing is, adding to the planet exploration elements actually would create problems. Nobody seems to think of that when they bring this up.

Whenever something like this happens in a game, everyone always thinks "make it bigger, that'll make it more interesting". Yeah. Until you do it 30 times. This is a game where you have to do ALOT of resource hunting. I dont know about you, but if I had to spend 10 bloody minutes in every away mission, I'd go mad. It'd be the sort of thing that's neat the first few times. But definitely not neat after that. Most players would likely resort to just sending crew by themselves every time to avoid that time sink even if it gets the crew killed alot. There's good reason why away missions are kept short.

Now, if they were to do like the occaisional rare large area to explore (perhaps abandoned ships you might find every now and then) that'd make alot more sense. I do think that'd be a good idea to add. But making every mission big and complicated? Ye gods, no.

Even in alot of other games that have this sort of element, they usually end up better if they keep the "exploration" simple. A good example is Starflight... that old classic game. You have to take your land rover thing down to planets darned often (as resource collection is a huge part of the game), and ALL of those planets are extremely simple. And some players definitely dont like that, which is fine. But in an overall sense, it contributes ALOT to making that game good (and it really is darned good). Pacing is a very important element of game design.

As for this game, one way or another it's a very niche product. I personally like it alot, and I've seen plenty of others that also ended up loving it. But it's not one that I will always recommend to friends, I always say "you gotta like this and this and this, and be ready to deal with this bit here, watch some videos to see if you might enjoy it". But for me, it's definitely my sort of thing.

I do however think the trailers and store page dont really give a true sense of what the game is really like. I get the impression that alot of players go into it not knowing how it is ACTUALLY going to be, and they then find a game that just doesnt mesh with them at all, so it's no wonder that this complaint comes up.

It's definitely repetitive and grindy, and that's fine.... but not for everyone.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Misery:

Thing is, adding to the planet exploration elements actually would create problems. Nobody seems to think of that when they bring this up.

Whenever something like this happens in a game, everyone always thinks "make it bigger, that'll make it more interesting". Yeah. Until you do it 30 times. This is a game where you have to do ALOT of resource hunting. I dont know about you, but if I had to spend 10 bloody minutes in every away mission, I'd go mad. It'd be the sort of thing that's neat the first few times. But definitely not neat after that. Most players would likely resort to just sending crew by themselves every time to avoid that time sink even if it gets the crew killed alot. There's good reason why away missions are kept short.

Now, if they were to do like the occaisional rare large area to explore (perhaps abandoned ships you might find every now and then) that'd make alot more sense. I do think that'd be a good idea to add. But making every mission big and complicated? Ye gods, no.

Even in alot of other games that have this sort of element, they usually end up better if they keep the "exploration" simple. A good example is Starflight... that old classic game. You have to take your land rover thing down to planets darned often (as resource collection is a huge part of the game), and ALL of those planets are extremely simple. And some players definitely dont like that, which is fine. But in an overall sense, it contributes ALOT to making that game good (and it really is darned good). Pacing is a very important element of game design.

As for this game, one way or another it's a very niche product. I personally like it alot, and I've seen plenty of others that also ended up loving it. But it's not one that I will always recommend to friends, I always say "you gotta like this and this and this, and be ready to deal with this bit here, watch some videos to see if you might enjoy it". But for me, it's definitely my sort of thing.

I do however think the trailers and store page dont really give a true sense of what the game is really like. I get the impression that alot of players go into it not knowing how it is ACTUALLY going to be, and they then find a game that just doesnt mesh with them at all, so it's no wonder that this complaint comes up.

It's definitely repetitive and grindy, and that's fine.... but not for everyone.

I suppose that is were we differ, I find needless grinding to be the most painful and thoughtless aspect of any game. Thus if there is something more engaging to do at each planet such as exploring beneath the surface, searching for relics, and destroying hives. It gives me something to do on the surface.

Obviously a few balance change to make it viable, Then there would need to be more resources on the planet so the player has to go looking for them, but not looking through every inch to find something. And sure as heck not spawning around the ship the way it is now, which is mindless and unimaginative.