You can do this yourself and post it as a suggestion on their Discord. Also pretty sure that having never ending madness effects will just be annoying when you are doing something else

This system is not changing. You are not thinking broadly enough and missing the context of the entire thing:

It isn't a literal currency, it is simply the most logical way to store it with SBs API. Madness as a physical item makes no sense. Madness as a trackable statistic we can utilize as needed, does.

Madness also is not representative of "knowledge". Think in terms of HP Lovecraft, not Robin Williams in Flubber. It is representative of black whispers of inspiration from the recesses of ones mind, forced their by the formless, myriad creatures that exist on the outside of our reality constantly attempting to get in, and their affect on the mental stability of those who delve too far. So to speak.

The meter of madness ebbs and flows to represent ones ever-shifting grip on sanity, and the inspiration gained in researching from being just a little crazy. The system relies on this ebb and flow to function due to the myriad effects associated with Madness and Insanity. Permanent debuffs are not an option we are going to explore.

Re: Grind
No one forces players to grind in cheap-ass ways: that is a method the player can choose, and is available should they desire. I certainly don't advance in madness that way, and many others do not either. Your personal experience is just that: yours. If you dislike that aspect, don't use that aspect and advance slower via quests and the strange artifacts one finds as they go.

All in all: some decent points, but you are operating on the assumption that this is to mirror real life, when in fact it is to mirror the mythos and weirdness created by authors like Lovecraft, Poe and others.


Finally: you also seem to be treating research the same way. People often bring up the fact that they grind when the entire system can be progressed through without doing so even once. Computers are an option, but are in no way necessary.

https://i.imgur.com/BuPtJh5.png
As you can see, research gains without any outside interference are substantial as tier goes up and players explore more dangerous places, among other things. The mathematical balance is laid out with a nearly perfect curve across 40 hours of gameplay, and rewards gradual experimentation and trying different approaches as they go (as you requested.) The issue is that players try to rush too fast, not that research is too slow.

And before you bring it up: I don't care if someone wants to play faster than that. The game design is built around taking time, experimenting and exploring....like a scientist would. As you desire. Grinding is not necessary at all. We simply provide a means for people to do so if they *choose* to.

Sayter, you can say "Oh, grinding isn't necessary at all!" all you want, but when almost every player's first complain with your mod starts with the "it's grindy as heck", your word kinda lose weight, don't you think?
FU as it is now is a frickin grindfest. It's not all that noticable at the begining, true, but as one's progresses, the time one has to spend in the lab increases to absurdity. And that pic you shared? Do you really think that majority of Starbound playerbase has 4+ hours a day to play Starbound and Starbound only to make any use of this tiered system? Mobile games boomed in popularity not "just because", you know - short gaming sessions were a major factor in this success, very few people nowadays can afford losing more than half an hour at once to a game, and when they do play - they want to mess around with their friends or make something stupid but fun, etc.
So is FU grindy? Pass this question to your playerbase. I think the answer may surprise you.

Dude. If you took your time and didn't wanted to rush to all the new modern shiny tech you wouldn't have to grind. I haven't had a single moment where I couldn't go forward because I lacked research. And that's coming from someone who barely has time to play, so I can't benefit from the bonus.

Players who complain are the one who have been spoiled by mobile and modern games where everything has to go fast or you can pay to get faster. You just want to have everything fast so you can mess around or make something stupid. In that case why not just go to admin mode and unlock everything?

You may say that I'm a shill but I don't care. It's not the game that is grindy, it's the players who don't have any patience for anything and want all the shiny stuff immediately. How do you think most mobile and F2P games get money? Exactly by exploiting the lack of patience of players

I think the research system isn't that good to begin with, unintuitive, clunky, stupid amounts of grinding, and abit obnoxious with how its done, grinding for days on end just so you can access higher tiers of content, doesn't suit a sandbox.