Complete rework of the map!

[dark-wulf]

I think we need a complete new map-system, a global map with auto POI (yes some hidden stuff should still be hidden :-D) search function and don’t cover areas where you have been before, maybe a little bit like in Empyrion – Galactic survival. In the time we get to Mars I am really sure that a GPS like system is or will be implemented so we need one too ;-) right now the map is a real mess, like grinded bases still show up (and re-spawn partially) they should be deleted from the map. GPS could be a tech-tree feature which should be a viable as soon as you got your first base running and we can launch micro satellites in several stages to improve the map until we revile the full potential of the map.
Never the less keep your excellent work going on and i can’t wait for any new features and thanks for the great game and the upcoming content!!!!
Tanks and greetings :-)

[Sunscreen]

+1 from me ^

Personally I think there's far too many bases as it is imho. Im having an absolute blast playing Take On Mars. That title really has gotten the immersion spot on. You have to extract materials using machinery from supply drops. Its got much more of an 'Id better not f*** this up' feeling to it. Less Barbie Base Builder, more Me against the Planet vibe..

Check it out if youre interested. It was a labour of love by the dev and unfortunately was left in a semi finished state. Modders have carried it over the line and Im having a fantastic time. This playlist gives a good flavour but does contain spoilers. Occupy Mars devs, you should check it out to get ideas on how to create immersion.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVzSN9a1d8D-CxY5kBgctk2satebJeBcN&si=jRt1tzwH4w7PZf6r

[dark-wulf]

I really would like to explore Mars more and more but with the map we now got it’s not really fun.

[gagnedd]

Yeah, and the map is unrealistic. You can't have a map with famous locations all over the globe, where you limp them all into a main central area and allow the map to stretch out infinately in all directions. It makes 0 logical sense. The map needs to be made finate, and the areas spread out proportionally. And yes, too many infinate bases in an infinate map is just not necessary or practical

[SAS-Vet]

Originally posted by gagnedd:

Yeah, and the map is unrealistic. You can't have a map with famous locations all over the globe, where you limp them all into a main central area and allow the map to stretch out infinately in all directions. It makes 0 logical sense. The map needs to be made finate, and the areas spread out proportionally. And yes, too many infinate bases in an infinate map is just not necessary or practical

You say UNREALISTIC .... there is NOTHING in this game that is Realistic .... Save for the Names of Known places on the Real Planet, and maybe the driving the Rover on Ice (really fun, it goes skidding all over the place)
Just to mention 1 ... you are driving your Rover at 32-34 Kph indicated speed on the tachometer ... YET you only really cover 500 meters in 1 Hour (at Night) and 1000 meters (in the day) that's because time goes faster from 19:00 to 7:00

I went North from my base .... at 8 Km I started finding Ice on the ground, at 10 Km the whole ground was white and also the mountain's.... built a small resupply base, left my Rover at the base and loaded 6 Jetpacks in my inventory.
Using the Jetpack I carried on heading North, got to 35 Km from my resupply base (45 Km from my main base) For the 35 Km going North it was all Ice and Snow. I thought that if I went far enough, I would eventually cross the North Pole and then start heading South. No such luck.
I have just discovered that Mars is FLAT, it has a 16 to 20 Km dirt belt around the equator and then the rest is Ice and Snow. Another thing I found out is that you get really bad Dust Devils and Tornadoes in the Ice belts, solar panels get covered in Dust (don't know how).

One more thing I should add is that the more ground you uncover the worst the Lag gets (almost crashed like 4 or 5 times with my jetpack) also the game takes longer to Save and when you want to Exit, it takes forever, and let's not talk about Loading the game.

[Hate Bear]

Honestly, the entire UI is still a bit clunky and just doesn't really feel good to use. It detracts from what otherwise is a pretty interesting game. They really need to make it so you don't need to look directly perfectly at an object to interact with something if nothing else is nearby (the "grab" radius around items and controls and whatnot). Bug quashing should continue. And I agree with the map comment--the map is noticeably small in that if you start a third of the way across Mars, the Valles Marineris is noticeably NOT THAT FAR away. It's probably the most glaring example of distances being much smaller, which also impacts immersion.

I know that Mars is smaller than Earth and wouldn't take as long to drive over, but the diameter is like a coast to coast trip across the US--pretty noticeably damn big, and a challenging roadtrip. The Martian (movie) captured this really well when Watney hazes himself hard just trying to drive somewhat far away, not even all the way across the planet, and you can see on the screen as he naps in the dust while charging his rover how much the journey completely kicks his ass.

[Tregon]

Originally posted by Hate Bear:

Honestly, the entire UI is still a bit clunky and just doesn't really feel good to use. It detracts from what otherwise is a pretty interesting game. They really need to make it so you don't need to look directly perfectly at an object to interact with something if nothing else is nearby (the "grab" radius around items and controls and whatnot). Bug quashing should continue. And I agree with the map comment--the map is noticeably small in that if you start a third of the way across Mars, the Valles Marineris is noticeably NOT THAT FAR away. It's probably the most glaring example of distances being much smaller, which also impacts immersion.

I know that Mars is smaller than Earth and wouldn't take as long to drive over, but the diameter is like a coast to coast trip across the US--pretty noticeably damn big, and a challenging roadtrip. The Martian (movie) captured this really well when Watney hazes himself hard just trying to drive somewhat far away, not even all the way across the planet, and you can see on the screen as he naps in the dust while charging his rover how much the journey completely kicks his ass.

For slight sense of scale for everyone.

Equatorial circumference of Mars is 21344km(about half of what Earth has), at speed of 50km per hour it would take about 427 hours or about 18 Earth days to cross without deviation or stopping.

Obviously in absence of equatorial Mars Highway you can multiply that due to need to go around impassable areas. And taking into account need for breaks for vehicle and driver you can multiply it again.

So I understand why things are heavily compacted. Else we would not see more than one or two landmarks ever. If things are too compacted, that is up for everyone to decide themselves.

[longword]

I wonder if it might be worthwhile to split the map into multiple regions, each with only a few of the classic Mars landmarks. Travel from one region to another is only possible by a Starship-like rocket to be built at the end of the tech tree. Each time you arrive in a new region all you've got is what's in your backpack so there's work to be done to build another rocket to get to the next region (or maybe just propellant production in large quantities for a reusable rocket?).

[Shintai]

I would like all the other bases etc to go away to put it mildly. Or be extremely rare.

Right now it feels like a "metropolis" with something everywhere.

[AnAverageJoe]

Originally posted by longword:

I wonder if it might be worthwhile to split the map into multiple regions, each with only a few of the classic Mars landmarks. Travel from one region to another is only possible by a Starship-like rocket to be built at the end of the tech tree. Each time you arrive in a new region all you've got is what's in your backpack so there's work to be done to build another rocket to get to the next region (or maybe just propellant production in large quantities for a reusable rocket?).

This discussion is long dead but imma poke it and say that in fact such a technology is being toyed with already as a means of traversing long distances by making sub-orbital rocket flights. Called rocket hoppers, these hoppers would be designed to be easily reusable and able to travel great distances in short times, and with the much lower gravity of mars with its thinner atmosphere, it's been proposed that rocket hoppers could in fact be a viable method of transport over huge distances on the red-planet or really any other low-gravity thin-atmosphere celestial bodies, so really the E.S.A. developing or at least experimenting with hopper technology would make some sense. I mean, really the escape pod in the campaign *has* to be a hopper, because "logically" the protagonist would have just taken it to orbit to rendezvous with the evacuation ITS instead of just landing back on mars. So they definitely have the technology. Hey, based based on some of the achievements they've made for the game, clearly they intend on having the player build rockets so we'll have to see in the future