DEVS: Game Feedback

I wanted to post some thoughts after 21hrs having been put into this game. This is based on all my experience playing with each update so far. Here is a list of things I felt would work well with your game, and I also posted a few things I feel are missing, and some that are missing.

[Functional Build Items]
- Trash Grinder/Shredder/Disposal Machine "Items added in its slots are deleted"
- Oxygen Generation Machine for early game use [Add water and it slowly generates a few Oxygen Canisters over time till full, much like the ore driller machine currently does.]

[Decorative Building Items]
- Primary Main Color recolors of base building parts. For use doing decorative designation of zones inside of bases.
- Fire Extinguishers for Walls [could be functional if disasters are added]
- Decorative Arrow Markers for Walls/Standing Signs
- Decorative or Motivational Posters For our Base Walls
-- "Custom Poster" [Allow us to add in a predetermined file name with a graphic of our choosing via a predetermined logo.png file that adds in a custom logo on a poster that we can personally see in our game. Much like Volcanoids did for drillship emblems."
- Wall/standing outdoor signs [different colors that we can enter text for to use for making dedicated areas in bases]
- Decorative Warning Signs of various types [caution bars/radiation logos/etc] for existing rooms signs on walls
- Decorative Computers that flash/animated displays/corporate logos/News Feed data from frontier/etc for decorative building
- Sound player objects that play warnings/klaxons/computer sounds/etc
-- Custom players Personal Sound player object. Plays music or MP3 tracks via players [PC MP3/wmv music named folder] that we can add personal music too.

[Game Depth Addition: Disasters]
- Fires [A basic disaster]
- Pumps can malfunction an leak material requiring repair
- Reactors can overload and explode doing damage to nearby structures
- Plants can spread out of control on base areas requiring us to trim them back, effectively removing the new layer of texture/vine and or any nearby growth
- Meteors we summon can do damage to base structures requiring us to repair them, ala a welder tool "basically like the repair tool in Subnautica"



[VEHICLE FOR WORLD TRAVEL LATER IN GAME]
- Moon Rover/Buggy style slow-ish moving crawler vehicle for exploration/etc [for much later when game is more expansive an needs this.
"I have kept my game updated since demo #1 came out with each update and my oxygen is near at its maximum production limits with 12 canisters left. As their is no more cobalt to be found; anywhere; and miners are only finding it very rarely.
An lets be clear, building oxygen shacks around the map is getting old."


[Animations and Sounds]
- Vacuum of World sucking oxygen out sound whenever we exit bases main doors [new item for those that want this effect of if people want the original feel can use original doors for all doors to avoid it. [requiring us to build double doors for base integrity to keep oxygen in if we use the new door type]
- Water ambient lapping noise for lakes
- Swimming noise when in water
- Sound of us walking on bottom of lakes/deep water


IF ANYONE ELSE ALSO HAS FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DEVELOPERS, PLEASE POST BELOW!!

Loving all the above ideas!

Something nice for both decorative and possibly game play parts might be shutters on the windows that you can close and open when you want. If the shutters are closed they can also protect the glass during sandstorms or other weather.

need a teleporter for within base, so you don't have to have 10 levels of ladders if you want to go to the roof.

I like to add a few more story-based suggetions, but only a few functional ones:

1. Add logs and letters to the crashed ships, telling their story
2. Add a surviver story from one of the crashes with log entries and breadcrumbs to follow
3. Add a ruin or fossils and the backstory, why the planet has become lifeless.
4. Add more emails / messages from the company and in additon, news from the galaxy. There is an endless opportunity here to fill the world with lore, not just a single planet.

Functional idea:

1. As meteor strikes and even the "called" meteors to get more iridium and uranium can cause damage to the base, instead of or in conjuction with adding welding tools you could also add either

- countermeasures like anti-asteroid missile or laser batteries (but considering your anti-weapons-approach, suggestion B might be better)

- a high energy shield that sucks a lot of energy and weakens after each impact. In addition make the power requirements of the shield so high, that you need batteries/capacitors to store enough energy for a 30-45 second shield activation

2. PLEASE make the game more realistic, just a tad. One of the early stages is "insects". As insects breath through small openings on their exterior called spircles, their size is extremly limited by the O2 content in the atmosphere. So in the early stages, bacteria, plankton and other WATER dewlling creatures are much more realistic than insects, because in a very low O2-atmosphere they would be unable to survive. Please add them very late in the game and add water dwelling organisms instead of the "insects" stage.

3. Seed replication for Lima seeds is necessary or you cannot launch more than 3 or 4 rockets to increase oxygen production!

More to follow!

@Shark:

Nice ideas, but the cobalt shortage is mitigated by the ore extractor. Everything except sulfur, uranium, iridium and super alloy can be mined that way at random.

My two cents:
1. for all that excess Ore, it needs to be recycled/converted. What about a machine that can convert a lot of one type of Ore into a very small amount of another Ore? Better yet, what about converting two or more Ores into a different Ore? Again, it would use a lot of Ore to produce only a very small amount.
2. I'd like to see structure units/pods connect into a larger unit with no interior separator. In other words, 2 pods makes one longer pod (2 units in size), 4 pods makes one larger pod (4 units square). I don't like all the interior passageways between pods.
3. The Ladder works well, but if stacking multiple pods vertically, it becomes annoying to use multiple ladders! What about an elevator at some stage?
4. Half height foundations and steps? Double wide ladders? And Pods and foundations and ladders need to snap together for more precise and easier alignment.

I too, would like to see more decorative items for interiors. More furniture options like small tables. And what about wall decorations, not posters, but sculptures that might have been fabricated from planet materials.

And what about robotic companions?

Here are my ideas/whishes for this great game. I have spent hours in the demo and had lot's of fun exploring, building and crafting, and I liked that it is relatively easy to play. Please keep it that way. (quick and uncomplicated crafting, no degreading buildings no destruction by meteors, peaceful etc.) There are more than enough 'hardcore' survival games already, where it takes hours to craft a simple hut while a bear chews you out......

for the 'long run' there are some thoughts:

smaller things:

• (water pumps and filtration devices: Later in the game when you have lakes, it feels funny to have to convert the finite ressource ice for drinking) resolved
  
• toilet as a water reclamation device (an maybe biomass)
  
• need for sleep (so the beds are not just expensive, space eating deco)
  
• let fabric be crafted in the t2 crafter from silicon or maybe biomass
  
• sepearate airlocks instead of outer doors, so they work underwater, too (underwater bases are nice to have)
  
• inner walls and blast doors to compartmentalize the base. (atm you can only segment by glass walls and there's only one door type for inner and outside doors)
  
• A name-field for door segments, so you can name rooms and bases (bio lab - storage...)
  
• perimeter lighting only lighting up as long as it is dark (night / in caves)
  
• powerd lifts (the ladders work fine, but elevators are stylish)
  
• an inner stairwell segment that's stackable so you can create more representative base layouts
  
• I dislike somehow that you can terraform the whole planet with one base. I'd rather have sectors, so you need several bases
  
• unllike in the demo I feel there should be health hazards if you are outside at some times. While repairing the base after each meteorstrom would suck, I prefer heavy storms to be times wheer you actually should be under cover.
  
• A housing for nuclear plants and ore drillers, the last upgradable/addable with outomatic sorting bins

I generally like the resource collection vs. the usual building of mines, and I hope in the finished game the maps will be much larger, so we won't run out of ressources

bigger things:

• seasons (winter with snow etc.)
  
• transportation between the bases: A monorail would be stylish or an airtaxi (only flying from pad 1 to pad 2 etc., not for easy access of the map). A monrail could consist of a railcar (function: forward, back, autostop at station modules), station modules (with a call button), and pillars that connect with each other by linking at a minimum and maximum angle, so no hairpin-turns are possible. (without switches, to keep it simple, the map isn't that big anyway. It would be nice for scenic rides in late game. Maybe two station modules: one simple open one and a bigger one pressurized.
  
• some AI crew to liven up the bases, doing chores (maybe helping downed space travellers or a mechanical maid... less to automate core player tasks than to make a base feel more lively) She could cook dinners in a kitchen module (rather than having us eat raw veggies), tend to the food crafters, vacuumclean the base and greet us when returning.

bugs/glitches

• very rarely ressources vanish when you come near them
  
• very rarely you cant target und retrieve ressources
  
• in the mountains (especially from the back) you get a lot of wall clipping
  
• sometimes adding a glass wall puts it at right angles sticking out and you sink to the ground (had that happen at least a dozen times, one in 50 I'd say)
  
• if your inventory has only 1 free slot and you harvest food, the recipe doesn't fall to the ground but is destroyed
  
• (probably just not implemented) no trees at tree stage and overflow in the terraforming screen ('name stage' and 'name %')
  
• If a meteor hits a body of water theres no water column, let alone a wave, it's just treated as rock bottom
  
• Rockets are seriously bugged. Sometimes they 'vanish' on the launch pad after saving, but even if the meteors landed, often all ressources vanish after saving and reloading. That has to be adressed befor the game is released.

Water filtration is already in the game. I think a lot of your suggestion would be counterintuitive to you point to keep it simple. In my opinion a lot of these suggestions would add just superficial utility while adding unnecessary complexity.

Originally posted by vartasamena:

for the 'long run' there are some thoughts:

smaller things:
- water pumps and filtration devices: Later in the game when you have lakes, it feels funny to have to convert the finite ressource ice for drinking

Originally posted by chutz748:

need a teleporter for within base, so you don't have to have 10 levels of ladders if you want to go to the roof.

or actually a portal gun would be closer to the theme of the game

lol later in the game, you'll have so much water, you'll be dumping bottles outside in a huge pile (like I am doing)

i just leave them in the collectors until I actually need them for something

Whatever you do, don't add huge ass water scary fishies without a warning.
I almost died of anxiety when my base was flooded and I had to walk under water to collect my stuff.

would be nice to have items/ores stackable to like 10 instead of one each.. also maybe a special bin/crate for ores and a pull/push cart to carry said bins/crates to one location to another..

Originally posted by Shadowfox:

Loving all the above ideas!

Something nice for both decorative and possibly game play parts might be shutters on the windows that you can close and open when you want. If the shutters are closed they can also protect the glass during sandstorms or other weather.

I love the idea for some window shutters we could activate. Maybe they could act as reinforcement for windows or to seal breaches in the glass caused by damage as well!!

Originally posted by Brakiri:

I like to add a few more story-based suggetions, but only a few functional ones:

1. Add logs and letters to the crashed ships, telling their story
2. Add a surviver story from one of the crashes with log entries and breadcrumbs to follow
3. Add a ruin or fossils and the backstory, why the planet has become lifeless.
4. Add more emails / messages from the company and in additon, news from the galaxy. There is an endless opportunity here to fill the world with lore, not just a single planet.

Functional idea:

1. As meteor strikes and even the "called" meteors to get more iridium and uranium can cause damage to the base, instead of or in conjuction with adding welding tools you could also add either

- countermeasures like anti-asteroid missile or laser batteries (but considering your anti-weapons-approach, suggestion B might be better)

- a high energy shield that sucks a lot of energy and weakens after each impact. In addition make the power requirements of the shield so high, that you need batteries/capacitors to store enough energy for a 30-45 second shield activation

2. PLEASE make the game more realistic, just a tad. One of the early stages is "insects". As insects breath through small openings on their exterior called spircles, their size is extremly limited by the O2 content in the atmosphere. So in the early stages, bacteria, plankton and other WATER dewlling creatures are much more realistic than insects, because in a very low O2-atmosphere they would be unable to survive. Please add them very late in the game and add water dwelling organisms instead of the "insects" stage.

3. Seed replication for Lima seeds is necessary or you cannot launch more than 3 or 4 rockets to increase oxygen production!.

I love the idea of the ships having stories for how they ended up there, maybe they could even go a bit further with random crewmeber logs we could find of their last days before an after the crash, etc.

Originally posted by airdave:

My two cents:
1. for all that excess Ore, it needs to be recycled/converted. What about a machine that can convert a lot of one type of Ore into a very small amount of another Ore? Better yet, what about converting two or more Ores into a different Ore? Again, it would use a lot of Ore to produce only a very small amount.
2. I'd like to see structure units/pods connect into a larger unit with no interior separator. In other words, 2 pods makes one longer pod (2 units in size), 4 pods makes one larger pod (4 units square). I don't like all the interior passageways between pods.
3. The Ladder works well, but if stacking multiple pods vertically, it becomes annoying to use multiple ladders! What about an elevator at some stage?
4. Half height foundations and steps? Double wide ladders? And Pods and foundations and ladders need to snap together for more precise and easier alignment.

Oooo!!! A material converter! Thats an amazing idea! I would love to have something like that so we could change huge piles of excess materials into smaller amounts of more scarce resources!

I updated my whishlist earlier in the thread, but there's one thing that I want to bring up seperately as I guess a lot of gamers who spent long hours in the demo will share the thought:

After playing the very extensive prologue/demo (basically a free game tbh, and a great one at that) for quite some time I actually feel some reluctance to rebuild all of my bases strewn over the handcrafted map again. In the same spots in more or less the same way when the game hits the shop.
So one of the more important whishes for the finished game would be a much larger, altered map so it will be neccessary to find new good spots for bases.