[WIP] Gameplay Balance & Suggestion "Megathread"

[Sikareus]

 

Updates

 

17.01.31 - Minor grammatical and structural changes.

17.02.01 - Added additional suggestions by eastwood6510 & Zenebatos.

17.02.01 - Added suggestion by Ruffknuckles on Reddit that perhaps some of these changes could just be part of additional game modes.

17.02.01 - Added suggestion that perhaps salvage yard wrecks should not contain loot (or at least high quality loot).

17.02.01 - Added suggestion by Imp0815 on Steam regarding a particularly good fighter overhaul suggestion.

 

0: Preface

 

I want to begin this likely text wall with a small intro. I purchased Avorion through Steam about a week ago, and I've already clocked forty-three hours of in-game time. I'm not sure whether to be embarrassed, impressed, or alarmed (or perhaps a mixture of all three). I cannot remember a time in which I was more in love with a game, be it a blockbuster "triple A" title from a major developer, or an indie. The rapidity with which I have come to adore Avorion is a true testament to the blood, sweat, and tears that the developer has undoubtedly poured into over the past several years.

 

To koonschi and others that have helped make this game what it is, I'd like to offer a huge THANK YOU for all your hard work and dedication. Knowing what I know now I would have happily paid two to three times the sticker price.

 

Any suggestions shared and expounded upon below are not meant to call attention to "mistakes," but to simply suggest improvements which (from my viewpoint) would make Avorion even more of a masterpiece than it already is.

 

I will likely share my heavily customized scripts as part of a mod or "merge patch" so that some of the things I'm experimenting with can be tried by others. Given the number of changes I may try in the next few days, I'll likely have to rely on some kind of versioning control system just to manage them  :P

 

I want to contribute to this community as best I can, so anything I share here would be aimed at making the game richer, more user friendly, and yes, sometimes, more difficult in places.

 

Finally, I have a background in computer science / IT and a solid foundation in OoO programming principles, so I understand that some of these fixes would be easier to implement than others. It's obviously much easier to tweak a .lua script than it is to make major game engine changes, and I'll try to be mindful of that. I'm open to criticism and feedback, as I think it's a healthy thing for all of us "superfans" to be engaging in. If you correct me or propose and even better idea I'll update the thread and happily give you a shout out for it.

 

Let's get started. Here are some thoughts in no particular order (perhaps I will organize them later).

 

Update: Ruffknuckles suggested that some of my requests would make the game harder or more "hardcore" or "sim-like." This is probably true. If I truly am in the minority than perhaps a more robust game options panel (or other game modes) would be a good solution?

 

1: Item Drops

 

I'm not 100% confident of how this works now, so I will remove or edit this section if necessary.

 

I almost feel like there should be a shorter timer (is there one at all?) for items you drop to expire/disappear. I know some people would argue that this creates an even harsher penalty for death (which I like), but I feel like if I dropped a bunch of really nice equipment way out in the nether, I shouldn't be guaranteed a shot a retrieving it.

 

Also, would it be possible to have hostile (non-civil class) ships be able to "steal" or pickup dropped equipment? I think that would create a neat incentive to go back to that sector for retribution.

 

2: Salvaging

 

Update: Just to be clear, I don't think actually using the salvaging lasers is all that useful OR profitable. When I say salvaging is very lucrative, what I'm referring to is just blasting the living daylights out of the wrecks so that they start dropping loot like a battered pinata  ::)

 

Perhaps the real fix for this would be just ensuring that wrecks in salvage yards not contain loot (or at least not high quality loot). It would stand to reason that any enterprising scrapyard owners would have picked the bones clean already...

 

I will likely add more to this block later, but I feel the core issue right now is that buying a salvaging license feels WAY too cheap at the moment. If you have spent any amount of time salvaging you'll know that it's really easy to get your hands an enormous amount of really nice (and valuable) equipment with very little investment or risk.

 

A flat increase of 2-3 times the base cost feels appropriate to me, and I would argue that salvage yards should have some kind of cooldown period as well. Perhaps it could be so that the amount of time you could spend in a salvage yard was heavily dependent on reputation and other key factors? Being able to endlessly comb wrecks for top-tier gear feels a little off to me right now.

 

3: Ship Systems

 

I think many would agree that some types of subsystems are just in a better place than others right now. I will do my best to address some of the areas in which I think they could be improved.

 

3A: Systems Fitting

 

Update: Zenebatos suggested that something as simple as a cooldown could be implemented. I think this would go a long way too, and might not feel as "harsh" to people has being forced to return to a shipyard. Also, that maybe we could restrict systems by a slot type or category? For example: a communications slot, engine slot, shield slot, etc.

 

Hot-swapping ship systems feels wrong to me. I should not be able to drop a high-tier hyperdrive item in, just to benefit from the warp range, only to drop another module in that suits me when I hit the sector I'm travelling too.

 

I feel strongly that swapping these components should require a shipyard. Selecting the the 'Modify Subsytems' option in the station menu could bring up basically the same subsystem UI window that we have now, but would allow you to drag and drop new components in.

 

Dragging a component in should also allow you to check the stat benefit of the changes you're making (similar to making build changes).

 

Finally, this process should not be free, but should cost an appropriate amount of currency and ore appropriate to the item level.I think we would all agree that the mid to late game needs more money and ore sinks. To me, this is a no-brainer. If I dock with a shipyard and "ask" the local engineers to add and remove all these high-tech components to my rig, they deserve fair compensation  ;D

 

3B: Mining Systems

 

Most of us know these things need some love. The range is quite pitiful, and I would argue, so is the "ability" to highlight asteroids. The ores (at least the way in which they've been currently implemented) are so incredibly visible to the naked eye that "wasting" a slot on a mining module is a terrible idea.

 

There are many different approaches to this problem, I think.

 

Firstly, I think ores should be harder to see from afar. I would almost argue that ores should be completely encased in at least a single layer of thin stone, such that they had to be scanned/identified with a mining module. I know this makes them more difficult to find, but I feel like it would make mining much more engaging and rewarding.

 

In addition to (or if you simply hate the above idea), I think the modules should have their ranges buffed to be 3-5 times higher than they are now. Being able to highlight asteroids from a mere 3-5km away isn't much help.

 

I also think that the additional buffs to efficiency and range should be considered. If I have a heavily specialized mining ship or freighter, I think it should be able to mine faster, and a greater range, than something I'm flying to engage in combat. Perhaps something like the shield or engine module perks could be implemented, whereby your efficiency and/or range is increased at the cost of power consumption or generation?

 

3C: Velocity Systems

 

Update: Maybe this could be added as another module, since some seem to like the velocity upgrade. That would be a worthwhile solution too, so maybe I will experiment with adding another system .lua file and folding it in to my own personal scripts...

 

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I NEVER use these. With collision damage cranked up to 100% I can't imagine zipping around any faster than I already am.

 

I feel that modifying these systems to instead affect thruster/braking performance is a much better fit. I would happily "spend" a slot on thruster/braking/drift modifications if it meant I didn't have to spend tons of time, effort, and ship space on massive arrays of thrusters. Just a thought!

 

3D: Turret Systems

 

I think these are mostly in a good spot (and man are they fun), but I think there should be some sort of rate-limiter put in place. If I build a ship and continue to attach additional +turret mods to it, I think the power consumption or crew requirement should start to increase exponentially. At least then if you truly wanted to make a flying railgun death machine, you'd have to build to accommodate that.

 

4: Fighter Management

 

4A: Fighter Commands(Credit: Zenebatos)

 

Right now, the need to have to free the cursor to go to the squad icones and give orders, while not a probleme if nothing is happening, is tedious and quite bad, when you're in the middle of the action.

 

Despite the fact that i don't use Attack fighters since they are too fragile to actually be of any use, i would be able to give orders more effeciently.

 

Also on the same not, i find it quite a shame that you always need to select a target manually to give them an order, be it for attacking or salvaging or mining.

 

Would love to simply give them the attack/salavage/mine order, without designing a specific target and they would simply do it to the closest thing in range, and when their done, they would switch to the next target automatically.

 

Also maybe have a "stay where you are" command, to avoid loosing them during an attack when you specificallyu send them away doing something, because you knew they would have not the time to rejoin the ship.

 

4A: Custom Fighters(Credit: Imp0815)[/b]

 

• Remove the fighters as buy-able equipment.
  
• When you have a hangar on your ship you can click on it or you click on a button in the squadron screen and you get a separate design space where you design your fighters by yourself or you choose procedural ones like in shipyards.
  
• You equip your fighter with turrets and modules from your normal ship inventory.
  
• Fighters have a stat page same as normal ships.
  
• You can save your designs.
  
• Your Hanger can now field your design fighters.

vThe number of fighters that get fielded is based on the volume of the hangar, the volume of the fighter design and ship modules you got.

[*]Every fighter needs a pilot and costs resource based on the material it is made of.

[*]The cost of modules or Turrets on the fighters are added with credits.

[*]When a fighter is destroyed a new one is produced in the hangar.

[*]How fast a fighter is replaced is determined by the hangar volume and fighter cost and modules you got.

[*]You can have multiple hangars with different Fighter designs.

 

X: Miscellaneous

 

Just going to drop a few random ideas here that don't really "belong" to a major category.

 

• eastwood6510: We need a way to see our ships velocity without having to actually select our ship.
  
• eastwood6510: Turret pop-up info should include it's Omicron (DPS) so we can more easily tell what's an upgrade, right now it's really hard to tell.
  
• eastwood6510: Mining range should be increased, I'm thinking to 2k. Especially as ships get more and more massive. (Maybe this could be handled by the requested "upgrades" to the mining systems though?)
  
• We need a way to hover over our turrets (on the ship, in build mode) in order to see which ones they are. If this feature exists already I'm just being daft, I guess.
  
• I feel like you should be able to set your home sector. I know this has been done with a couple really great mods, but this seems it should be a part of the core game. I think requiring a hefty sum of credits, and a very high reputation makes perfect sense.
  
• Another thing, which has been mentioned elsewhere, is that prices should scale higher as you approach the center. I think gate fees (and other services, like salvaging) should become more expensive as the game progresses.
  
• 
  Maybe I missed it, but is there an easy way to transfer fighters between spacecraft? I'm losing lots of credits to this...
   
  
• 
  I think there should be some way to mass warp your whole fleet. This should take the ship with the WEAKEST warp range and make it the limiting factor. Maybe this already exists too and I'm just missing it.
   
  

 

5: The End

 

No, seriously, this is the end. Get out of here, I've already made this thread far too long!

 

[Sikareus]

So I've made most of the tweaks that feel right to my own .lua script files. Does anyone savvy know what property I can use to effectively "override" the bonus in the velocitybypass.lua file? I'd like to "change" those to affect thrust and stuff instead (as an experiment). I need to nix that addAbsoluteBias call and substitute the thruster/drift changes.

 

function onInstalled(seed, rarity)

    local energy = getBonuses(seed, rarity)

 

    addAbsoluteBias(StatsBonuses.Velocity, 10000000.0)

    addBaseMultiplier(StatsBonuses.GeneratedEnergy, -energy)

end

[TheSilentOracle]

Not completely sure what you're going for, but you could change

addAbsoluteBias(StatsBonuses.Velocity, 10000000.0)

 

Into

 

addBaseMultiplier(StatsBonuses.Acceleration, YourNewAccelerationMultiple)

 

Again, not 100% what you're going for, but that would affect your acceleration or 'thrust'.

[Sikareus]

I guess when I say "thrust" I'm referring to break thrust and rotational speed, not acceleration. I feel like a subsystem which buffed those slightly would be much more "worth the slot" than just a velocity uncapper.

[eastwood6510]

1) Do not like:

I think death is already bad enough, especially if you die near the core. Unless you're already super rich in credits and / or minerals than you won't be able to get back without a lot of luck (since you won't be able to rebuild your ship).

 

2) Have no idea about this one, I feel like salvaging in general isn't very useful. Though I could be wrong about that, just haven't tried it.

 

3) There are some subsystems that are great, others which aren't. One of the main ones that is too weak IMO is the mining subsystem, range needs increased for sure.

 

3a) Hotswapping: I think adding a cooldown timer would be nice but going all the way back to a shipyard might be too much. Especially since a ton of the factions you run into closer in towards the core will be hostile or at least not like you anyway, you might have to go back quite a bit just to change subsystems.

 

3c) I LOVE the velocity 'unlocking' one, I use it while traveling through gates all the time. But the others are kind of 'meh'.

 

MISC:

 

"We need a way to hover over our turrets (on the ship, in build mode) in order to see which ones they are. If this feature exists already I'm just being daft, I guess."

 

We SOOO need this. Like, A LOT.

 

"I feel like you should be able to set your home sector. I know this has been done with a couple really great mods, but this seems it should be a part of the core game. I think requiring a hefty sum of credits, and a very high reputation makes perfect sense."

 

Agreed. Maybe make it require to be allies with the faction and have a cooldown so you can't change it all the time?

 

"Maybe I missed it, but is there an easy way to transfer fighters between spacecraft? I'm losing lots of credits to this..."

 

Agreed, I've lose millions of credits in fighters trying to move them from one ship to the next.

 

"I think there should be some way to mass warp your whole fleet. This should take the ship with the WEAKEST warp range and make it the limiting factor. Maybe this already exists too and I'm just missing it."

 

Agreed, this should definitely be a thing.

 

Other thoughts:

 

We need a way to see our ships velocity without having to actually select our ship.

 

Turret pop-up info should include it's Omicron (DPS) so we can more easily tell what's an upgrade, right now it's really hard to tell.

 

IMO Mining turrets range should be increased, I'm thinking to 2k. Especially as ships get more and more massive.

 

[Zenebatos]

-Overhaul the sub-systemes for Ship systemes, i spend most of my time in the systemes menu to swap around the upgrade depending on what i'm doing, while i agree it doesn't make much sense, it also doesn't make much sense that i need to swap things that should be essential to a ship.

 

So either give more Upgrades slots from the start, but some slots are limited to some upgrades sub-types.

 

Lets say that a ship at start can have 1 Comms upgrade slot, 1 Weapon upgrades slot and 2 Support upgrade slots.

 

Comms slot would be for things like scanners/radars/trading upgrades, weapon would be for turrets and other eventual future features like +x% faster cooling etc, while support would be for batteries/item detectors/hyperdrive/etc.

 

Each threshold all of them goes up by one, it effectively balance out the way you can use upgrades, without been too restrictive, because i like the fact that you can speciliase a vessel to a role, but its way harder to actually have a balanced "all purpose" ship.

 

OR "Profiles"/Presets", you can install upgrades and save it as a preset, preset that you can change on the fly, but it has a cooldown just like the Warp drive recharge, it'll make micro-managing less tedious and limiting the "swaping" abuse to some degree, but its still usefull.

 

you could have up to 3 or 4 presets, or the number of presets is depending on the volume/tech treshold of the ship?

 

-Lessen the collision damage or make shield absorb part of the collision damage, its really irritating that your ship can take on a barrage of heavy gun fire and lasers and what not, but is instantly oneshoted by grazing an asteroid or piece of wreck in space...

 

-Better Figthers management.

 

Right now, the need to have to free the cursor to go to the squad icones and give orders, while not a probleme if nothing is happening, is tedious and quite bad, when you're in the middle of the action.

 

Despite the fact that i don't use Attack fighters since they are too fragile to actually be of any use, i would be able to give orders more effeciently.

 

Also on the same not, i find it quite a shame that you always need to select a target manually to give them an order, be it for attacking or salvaging or mining.

 

Would love to simply give them the attack/salavage/mine order, without designing a specific target and they would simply do it to the closest thing in range, and when their done, they would switch to the next target automatically.

 

Also maybe have a "stay where you are" command, to avoid loosing them during an attack when you specificallyu send them away doing something, because you knew they would have not the time to rejoin the ship.

 

-While its allready been asked, the ability to hover the mouse over turrets to see whats what in build mode, could significally saves time and sanity.

 

Also maybe add a "research engine" to the item/blocks menu?, it would be much easier to fidn something i need if i type "laser turret" or "shield upgrade" in a search bar then going over each item with my mouse.

 

-The ability to set your respawn points would be a massive plus, with a mix of money and reputation if need be( even though i don't think its neccesary to ask for millions for respawing)

 

-the ability to interact from farther away with ships, because 200m, its really close, specially when the NPC ships doesn't stop immediatly when you talk to them and still advance for a short distance, making you unable to interact with them cause you're too far, then having to go closer, but since you're not in the discussion window anymore, they start advancing again, you see where i'm going there?...

 

-A friend of mine talked about it and i think it coulb be good for immersion, Crew chatter.

 

Sometimes you can "hear" you're crew chat around or start signing songs, i mean been on a ship in space is just like been in the navy in some way no?

 

Having small texts appearing where you see crew members talking about whats going on or to themselfs and cracking some funny remarks/joke would break the monotony like "...hey guys did you see my wifes picture?...", then sometime later " ...WHO said that my wifes ugly huh?!..."

 

The when you come across something huge like a station/asteroid/ship soemone actually says "...looks like your wife dude..." and have the whole crew lkaughing, you know that kind of silly things.

 

In battles you could "hear" things like " brace for impact", " we got a breach in bridges 11 to 16..."," darn it we lost another one..."

 

i Also find it personnaly irritating that you immidiatly get in trouble whne you have illegal cargo, thats a personal peeve of mine.

 

Having something more close to a "chance" or the option to lie and see if it goes would be nice.

 

i mean during a pirate fight i picked up an illegal slave that was in space, not paying much more attention to it, sometimes later i get addresed by a frigate that i have illegal cargo, i was left scratching my head about what was illegal in my cargo hold, then found out about the slave.

 

Personnaly i would have loved the option to "lie" to the officier, " officier its not cargo, i found the poor guy in space alone in some wreckage, i saved his life and was intending to bring him on a station and release him".

 

Thats all for now, i maybe add things when they come to me while playing.

 

But let just me finish by saying that this game is worth every penny i've paid for it, bare the fact that you cannot descend on planets, its everything that No Man Sky's should have been imo, and i love it.

 

Its engrossing and addictive.

[Rathius]

I feel like you should be able to set your home sector. I know this has been done with a couple really great mods, but this seems it should be a part of the core game. I think requiring a hefty sum of credits, and a very high reputation makes perfect sense.

 

Agreed, really seems like it should be part of the base game. A few thoughts on balance:

 

Require a minimum amount of positive standing with a faction.

-influenced by faction traits "mistrustful/naive/etc.."

-influenced by distance from hostile factions.

-influenced by distance from center.

 

Somewhat expensive to prohibit people from just changing homes on a whim.

-influenced by distance to the center, center being more expensive than fringe.

-influenced by standing over the required minimum.

 

Require a station in the sector.

-This could maybe even be a player station, since those are pretty expensive to begin with.

-If station is not present (destroyed), home sector is moved to closest known "Prime" sector that you meet the standing requirements of

'home eligible' for one time only, then resets to beginning.

[Sikareus]

1) Do not like:

I think death is already bad enough, especially if you die near the core. Unless you're already super rich in credits and / or minerals than you won't be able to get back without a lot of luck (since you won't be able to rebuild your ship).

 

2) Have no idea about this one, I feel like salvaging in general isn't very useful. Though I could be wrong about that, just haven't tried it.

 

3) There are some subsystems that are great, others which aren't. One of the main ones that is too weak IMO is the mining subsystem, range needs increased for sure.

 

3a) Hotswapping: I think adding a cooldown timer would be nice but going all the way back to a shipyard might be too much. Especially since a ton of the factions you run into closer in towards the core will be hostile or at least not like you anyway, you might have to go back quite a bit just to change subsystems.

 

3c) I LOVE the velocity 'unlocking' one, I use it while traveling through gates all the time. But the others are kind of 'meh'.

 

MISC:

 

"We need a way to hover over our turrets (on the ship, in build mode) in order to see which ones they are. If this feature exists already I'm just being daft, I guess."

 

We SOOO need this. Like, A LOT.

 

"I feel like you should be able to set your home sector. I know this has been done with a couple really great mods, but this seems it should be a part of the core game. I think requiring a hefty sum of credits, and a very high reputation makes perfect sense."

 

Agreed. Maybe make it require to be allies with the faction and have a cooldown so you can't change it all the time?

 

"Maybe I missed it, but is there an easy way to transfer fighters between spacecraft? I'm losing lots of credits to this..."

 

Agreed, I've lose millions of credits in fighters trying to move them from one ship to the next.

 

"I think there should be some way to mass warp your whole fleet. This should take the ship with the WEAKEST warp range and make it the limiting factor. Maybe this already exists too and I'm just missing it."

 

Agreed, this should definitely be a thing.

 

Other thoughts:

 

We need a way to see our ships velocity without having to actually select our ship.

 

Turret pop-up info should include it's Omicron (DPS) so we can more easily tell what's an upgrade, right now it's really hard to tell.

 

IMO Mining turrets range should be increased, I'm thinking to 2k. Especially as ships get more and more massive.

 

Added in your suggestions! Also, as to the bit about salvaging, I agree that actually using the salvaging lasers is NOWHERE near as useful as just mining the same quality of ore (maybe I'll add that suggestion too). What I was really getting at was if you go to a salvage area and spend a bit of time just blasting the ships to bits (with normal weapons) they pop out so much loot that it's a little ridiculous.  Maybe they could buff salvage efficiency but just make those wrecks be devoid of loot? It kind of makes sense that in "the real world" a scrapyard would have already ripped all the valuable stuff out...

[Sikareus]

-Overhaul the sub-systemes for Ship systemes, i spend most of my time in the systemes menu to swap around the upgrade depending on what i'm doing, while i agree it doesn't make much sense, it also doesn't make much sense that i need to swap things that should be essential to a ship.

 

So either give more Upgrades slots from the start, but some slots are limited to some upgrades sub-types.

 

Lets say that a ship at start can have 1 Comms upgrade slot, 1 Weapon upgrades slot and 2 Support upgrade slots.

 

Comms slot would be for things like scanners/radars/trading upgrades, weapon would be for turrets and other eventual future features like +x% faster cooling etc, while support would be for batteries/item detectors/hyperdrive/etc.

 

Each threshold all of them goes up by one, it effectively balance out the way you can use upgrades, without been too restrictive, because i like the fact that you can speciliase a vessel to a role, but its way harder to actually have a balanced "all purpose" ship.

 

OR "Profiles"/Presets", you can install upgrades and save it as a preset, preset that you can change on the fly, but it has a cooldown just like the Warp drive recharge, it'll make micro-managing less tedious and limiting the "swaping" abuse to some degree, but its still usefull.

 

you could have up to 3 or 4 presets, or the number of presets is depending on the volume/tech treshold of the ship?

 

-Lessen the collision damage or make shield absorb part of the collision damage, its really irritating that your ship can take on a barrage of heavy gun fire and lasers and what not, but is instantly oneshoted by grazing an asteroid or piece of wreck in space...

 

-Better Figthers management.

 

Right now, the need to have to free the cursor to go to the squad icones and give orders, while not a probleme if nothing is happening, is tedious and quite bad, when you're in the middle of the action.

 

Despite the fact that i don't use Attack fighters since they are too fragile to actually be of any use, i would be able to give orders more effeciently.

 

Also on the same not, i find it quite a shame that you always need to select a target manually to give them an order, be it for attacking or salvaging or mining.

 

Would love to simply give them the attack/salavage/mine order, without designing a specific target and they would simply do it to the closest thing in range, and when their done, they would switch to the next target automatically.

 

Also maybe have a "stay where you are" command, to avoid loosing them during an attack when you specificallyu send them away doing something, because you knew they would have not the time to rejoin the ship.

 

-While its allready been asked, the ability to hover the mouse over turrets to see whats what in build mode, could significally saves time and sanity.

 

Also maybe add a "research engine" to the item/blocks menu?, it would be much easier to fidn something i need if i type "laser turret" or "shield upgrade" in a search bar then going over each item with my mouse.

 

-The ability to set your respawn points would be a massive plus, with a mix of money and reputation if need be( even though i don't think its neccesary to ask for millions for respawing)

 

-the ability to interact from farther away with ships, because 200m, its really close, specially when the NPC ships doesn't stop immediatly when you talk to them and still advance for a short distance, making you unable to interact with them cause you're too far, then having to go closer, but since you're not in the discussion window anymore, they start advancing again, you see where i'm going there?...

 

-A friend of mine talked about it and i think it coulb be good for immersion, Crew chatter.

 

Sometimes you can "hear" you're crew chat around or start signing songs, i mean been on a ship in space is just like been in the navy in some way no?

 

Having small texts appearing where you see crew members talking about whats going on or to themselfs and cracking some funny remarks/joke would break the monotony like "...hey guys did you see my wifes picture?...", then sometime later " ...WHO said that my wifes ugly huh?!..."

 

The when you come across something huge like a station/asteroid/ship soemone actually says "...looks like your wife dude..." and have the whole crew lkaughing, you know that kind of silly things.

 

In battles you could "hear" things like " brace for impact", " we got a breach in bridges 11 to 16..."," darn it we lost another one..."

 

i Also find it personnaly irritating that you immidiatly get in trouble whne you have illegal cargo, thats a personal peeve of mine.

 

Having something more close to a "chance" or the option to lie and see if it goes would be nice.

 

i mean during a pirate fight i picked up an illegal slave that was in space, not paying much more attention to it, sometimes later i get addresed by a frigate that i have illegal cargo, i was left scratching my head about what was illegal in my cargo hold, then found out about the slave.

 

Personnaly i would have loved the option to "lie" to the officier, " officier its not cargo, i found the poor guy in space alone in some wreckage, i saved his life and was intending to bring him on a station and release him".

 

Thats all for now, i maybe add things when they come to me while playing.

 

But let just me finish by saying that this game is worth every penny i've paid for it, bare the fact that you cannot descend on planets, its everything that No Man Sky's should have been imo, and i love it.

 

Its engrossing and addictive.

 

Added your feedback. Awesome stuff, thanks for the read!

[Sikareus]

I feel like you should be able to set your home sector. I know this has been done with a couple really great mods, but this seems it should be a part of the core game. I think requiring a hefty sum of credits, and a very high reputation makes perfect sense.

 

Agreed, really seems like it should be part of the base game. A few thoughts on balance:

 

Require a minimum amount of positive standing with a faction.

-influenced by faction traits "mistrustful/naive/etc.."

-influenced by distance from hostile factions.

-influenced by distance from center.

 

Somewhat expensive to prohibit people from just changing homes on a whim.

-influenced by distance to the center, center being more expensive than fringe.

-influenced by standing over the required minimum.

 

Require a station in the sector.

-This could maybe even be a player station, since those are pretty expensive to begin with.

-If station is not present (destroyed), home sector is moved to closest known "Prime" sector that you meet the standing requirements of

'home eligible' for one time only, then resets to beginning.

 

Wholeheartedly agree. I am using a mod for that now, that was posted in the Mods sub. I'm a big fan, just think there's an obvious need for it in vanilla!

[Zenebatos]

-Came up with something during my play session.

 

I know that Turrets factory's Weapons materials and Passive bonuses are different from each other, that the Material tier depends on where in the galaxy the factory is and that the passive bonus is random.

 

Now the suggestion here is the way you collect info about it from NPC ships, during your travels.

 

Many times i've had the idea at the start of the game to actually ask info to NPC Ships, and they responded with tips and piece of info,  but they are too vague.

 

The guy told me about Turret factories and how they work( in a really brief and condensed way), but no info as to where i can find one in the vicinity or what passive bonus they give.

 

Same for Research labs.

 

If its something they came across they should be able to give you the coords.

 

If its something they've "heard" about from others ships, they should give you a clue to where it is, something like " ...i'm not sure, but i think i've heard that this Lab is somewhere near -Whirl of Desperate Pit Alpha".

 

It would either give you the name of a sector that you've allready discovered or a sector that you need to discover but thats close by.

 

A bit like when you ask your way to someone, some people will give you clear indications, some will give you incomplet or vague indications, but its still better then nothing.

 

-Also, you know when you're in the ship editor, and sometimes when you're short on some ressources it gives you a message in the right side of the screen?

 

Well most of the time the thing is not really readable, because it passes over the ship stats.

 

So either change where the info is displayed so that it doesn't overlay with the ship stats, or change the colour to something really noticeable and readable.

 

-About the Bloom, i had to de-activate it, because the bloom fx was too strong at times and realy blinding.

 

Especially if i had a highly reflective material on my ship painted in red or yellow, it looked like my whole ship was in Neon or LED, looked like a small Red dwarf star...

 

So if you could lessen the bloom effects a few notches that would be great.

[Imp0815]

Dear Sikareus,

 

I've read your whole post and i have concerns regarding your major suggestions.

The minor ones are OK in my eye's but jump gate prizes are irrelevant because you cant use them anyways when you reach a certain size with your ship.

 

I think the game and its success would suffer if you increase the amount of grind and punishment it contains and alienate a big part of the customers.

 

Loosing your most valuable items on death would be an unbearable setback.

Turrets and modules are the essence of your ship tier. Loosing them permanently by not getting back to your death location in time or otherwise, is like loosing your levels+gear in a RPG.

This should definitely not implemented as default only as a "hardcore" Setting.

 

Shooting wrecks seems like a little exploit but in the long run i made way more money by trading. Also thus the loot is totally random and most modules are not very useful or just worse than the modules you already got, its not very effective. I've never used a salvaging license to shoot wrecks because most of them just got not many function block so they drop less loot anyways you really need to farm these scrapyards a lot to make descend money. I got way more modules by shooting aliens in Xanion-tiered sectors.

Also the scrapyards aren't a "Save-Space" (lol) faction wars, aliens and pirates are coming there all the time.

But yes toning down the drop rate of wreckage's and boosting the on death drops of enemy's would be a sensible balance step.

The License cost is already tied to your faction rep i believe.

 

Computing Cores are ridicules. I need to put a cube HALF the size of my current ship to gain one subsystem.

 

The module system is controversial, and yes i'm annoyed that i change 90% of my modules when i jump,fight,mine every time. But it would be more annoying when i want to change them that i have to go to a shipyard to do so.

The module system may need a change but its difficult. Some people want to play one ship only (And i think most people do so) and these people will run into sad compromises when it comes to  stricter module system. People with multiple ships will not have this problem.

I still have no good idea how to design it that it work for both kind of players but i will write it down if i have one.

 

The mining system is fine as it is.

The range of your turrets depends on their stats i saw mining turrets with 2-3km range depending on the factory bonus.

That Asteroids with ore in them looks shiny is totally fine, it is a good visual indicator for new players and a nice mix between complexity and accessibility. I find it more annoying that i have to click on them to be sure i found a titan one and not an iron one again from a 5km distance.

The mining modules are also nice, you can already see what Ore type is near by the different colored indicators and the range also depends on the modules stats/rarity, also the annoying clicking is not necessary anymore.

A specialist Mining module that boost range/efficiency/dmg is a nice idea i support.

 

I agree i also never use the Velocity Modules for the exact same reasons.

 

The turrets caps are to low in my opinion. I've read that the maximum turret amount is 100. But i can barely reach 30 with 8 Slots. And building my ship bigger only to get more slots collides with my design.

The whole game has this kind of problem, people with no creative requirements to them self just build a gigantic cube and get mad slots and stats in no time.

But you know i'm fine with that i think this game should not focus on PVP anyways because the PVP gameplay would be dominated by gigantic death cubes. That would be a sad picture indeed.

 

To wrap this up i think the game would not improve by setting the difficulty higher and adding more ways to stretch the game lengthen by adding unnecessary tasks you have to to.

The game would more flourish when you add even more features that allow more player freedom and creativity.  Because that's the reason we are all here to get a Sandbox game with Player freedom.

Not a challenge to get grey hairs and broken keyboards.

 

PS. Thanks for including my "Fighter Idea" it would pretty exciting if they would consider my approach in some way.

[Sikareus]

I think the game and its success would suffer if you increase the amount of grind and punishment it contains and alienate a big part of the customers.

 

Loosing your most valuable items on death would be an unbearable setback.

Turrets and modules are the essence of your ship tier. Loosing them permanently by not getting back to your death location in time or otherwise, is like loosing your levels+gear in a RPG.

This should definitely not implemented as default only as a "hardcore" Setting.

 

Shooting wrecks seems like a little exploit but in the long run i made way more money by trading. Also thus the loot is totally random and most modules are not very useful or just worse than the modules you already got, its not very effective. I've never used a salvaging license to shoot wrecks because most of them just got not many function block so they drop less loot anyways you really need to farm these scrapyards a lot to make descend money. I got way more modules by shooting aliens in Xanion-tiered sectors.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

 

I didn't mean to imply that if you die it's just "gone." More of a system whereby you weren't GUARANTEED to get it back without a little work. How much fun would it be if an enemy combatant killed you, and was able to pickup your "death chest" or whatever you want ot call it? If he stayed in that sector you could always go back and kill him to get your stuff back, or (even better) if he left the system you'd get a blip on your map so that you could track him down. To me that would be a nifty little mechanic right there.

 

As for the salvaging comments, I've seen a few people say something like "it's not overpowered, but I haven't tried it." I'm not sure those two statements work very well together. I get that PvE combat is still the best way to gain just about everything (credits, equipment, reputation, etc.), but salvage yards in my experience have been a really easy way to get TONS of quality equipment at a VERY low risk. Keep in mind I play at the higher difficulty levels (because I don't like my games to be cakewalks), but I think my point is a valid one. I'll play around with it some more today and see if you guys can change my mind  :D

 

Love the fighter suggestion!

[Imp0815]

I think the game and its success would suffer if you increase the amount of grind and punishment it contains and alienate a big part of the customers...

 

Thanks for the feedback!

 

I didn't mean to imply that if you die it's just "gone." More of a system whereby you weren't GUARANTEED to get it back without a little work. How much fun would it be if an enemy combatant killed you, and was able to pickup your "death chest" or whatever you want ot call it? If he stayed in that sector you could always go back and kill him to get your stuff back, or (even better) if he left the system you'd get a blip on your map so that you could track him down. To me that would be a nifty little mechanic right there.

 

As for the salvaging comments, I've seen a few people say something like "it's not overpowered, but I haven't tried it." I'm not sure those two statements work very well together. I get that PvE combat is still the best way to gain just about everything (credits, equipment, reputation, etc.), but salvage yards in my experience have been a really easy way to get TONS of quality equipment at a VERY low risk. Keep in mind I play at the higher difficulty levels (because I don't like my games to be cakewalks), but I think my point is a valid one. I'll play around with it some more today and see if you guys can change my mind  :D

 

Love the fighter suggestion!

 

It totally depends how and where you die how difficult it will be to get your stuff back, even now.

When you die in the middle of an alien swarm and you did not have a big bank of resources it will be nearly impossible to get your stuff back immediately and it will be a gigantic set back in progression.

Having a NPC persistent keep your stuff until someone tracks him down will be difficult when the 100 player server comes. Also what happens when an other NPC or player caches him? will your stuff chnage owner and you have to track some else down? And when that person or NPC dies and you get your stuff back from him will it be his or your stuff?

The Dropping mechanic seems fine by me now. Well to be fair there should obviously an timer when your loot comes free loot or just disappears.

 

Boiling down my statement about the salvaging mechanic to two sentences seems daring! I tried it two times in Iron and Titan Tier sectors, i did not drop many Modules or Turrets and i did not got many resources for the money i spent. And I got Interrupted many times by pirate and Xeno attacks and could not use my licens to full extend.

Salvaging and shooting wrecks is one of the underwhelming features right now

because of the stuff you get in the low tier sectors. I got more loot with shooting living enemy's and even more money with trading. Trading, when done right, can give you hundred of millions in no time and a risk reward factor that salvaging can't reach regardless how many modules you farm.

With the money from Trading i can buy as many high tier modules as there are and as i want.

Also the loot from wrecks and enemy scales as they scale, at least that's the feeling i got after farming them in a Xanion Tier sector i got 3 reds and round about 5 to 8 Yellow Tiered modules in 30 minutes. And i did not shoot up many wrecks. And it feels right to me because these guys really pack a punch and eat many shots before going down.

How long and how many scrapyards did you farm and where?

 

Reputation is way easier to gain, you just buy and sell resources all the time with your trade money its like buying influence.

You don't even need to change the sector, just buy all iron and immediately sell it all again and then buy it again and so on and so on...

 

One thing that maybe the case is that maybe the higher difficult also highers your drop chance of higher tiered modules. Because we play on Normal and i only saw 5 red upgrades, 1 Purple Turret and 3 Purple Alien artifacts(which i all bought with my trade money 8) ) in 50h game play.

But i don't know this for sure.

[Sikareus]

At this point it's clear I just enjoy more difficult games, which is completely fine! Everyone has different tastes. I'm a huge fan of roguelikes and super-difficult RPGs, so it makes sense that, for me, the risk is part of the fun.

 

As for the salvaging stuff, maybe my RNG has just been really off the chain, because I seem to get all kids of goodies. From my experience, you can still engage in faction wars and pirate attacks (since they happen there too), but you ALSO have the added benefit of having TONS of hulking wrecks around that ALSO have loot, so the density of "stuff" is just super high. I think the gathering rate of salvaging lasers needs to be a bit higher, and I think that wrecks shouldn't have loot, period (or the salvaging license needs to be much more expensive).

 

Just my two cents, but we can always agree to disagree :)

[Sikareus]

Added more information provided by some kind folks in the steam forums!