The 4 hour game
Zourin
White Castle Join Date: 2015-02-27 Member: 201577Members
White Castle Join Date: 2015-02-27 Member: 201577Members
My latest play (experimental 14197) took about 4 hours before I had both a fair base (3x4) and a Cyclops.
In terms of the core problem encountered, the last ~3 hours of the gameplay was spent combing for titanium for the Cyclops. Just titanium. 3 hours for 40-something peices. There is a vague respawn rate of a few limestone nodes and the rare scrap in the shallows and kelp forest, but, again, that generally translated to around 1 unit of titanium every 4 minutes. Specific quartz spawns have been seen to reappear at similar frequencies. It appears that nearly all Shallows wildlife eventually scattered, despawned, or was eaten by stalkers and bonesharks (yes, bonesharks in the shallows) and never reappeared in 'fresh game' quantities (I was in Free Mode, so I wasn't eating them). I haven't confirmed if mushroom beds respawn yet, as I wasn't rapidly depleting the population.
That said, I'm loving the diving reels. I just wish they were thicker/more luminescent. With the airpocket corals, I was stringing networks of point-to-point paths from one coral patch to the next so I didn't need to surface for air at all despite not using (at all) a SeaMoth (and obviously not having a Cyclops). There are still some clipping issues for longer lengths, but otherwise, are outrageously awesome in practice. Their use ends at the shallows/kelp beds as there are no similar 'haven' spots or intricate cave systems worth diving in around the red-kelp and mushroom forests. I got lost in the glowing mushroom caves in a seamoth where the reel was too-little-too-late at one point in an earlier save, so it has potential for being a useful tool. Perhaps a later upgrade to motorize it and rapidly pull the player to the anchor point as an emergency out (if you're in a deep sea cave, the airsack isn't gonna help as an oh-crap tool)
Seaglides seem a little buggy, where they'll still give a speed boost when out of power. That, and for as long as a SeaGlide has a shorter life than my cell phone, I will eternally complain that it's battery life is too short. SeaMoth is unrechargeable and only a limited one-time, round-trip vehicle until the Cyclops comes out, so I'm stuck with the wimpy Glide with its constant whinings about Shroom Juice.
Bases, even in the experimental phases, are growing on me. They need to be fleshed out of course, mostly with luxuries like windows & beds (healing?). I think the lockers need to be wall mounted and not floor mounted. It'd make life so much easier. There are some bugs with the power generator, and I'm starting to feel like it'd be better if it directly attached to the building like the entry portal rather than 'hang out' like the dude not invited to the party.
Other ramblings as I wind down: Pipes need a retexture to something beyond CGI-blue/yellow. Flares are meh, mostly in that they don't compress inventory space, but expand it from a generally obnoxious resource to obtain in the first place (Just say "No" to Crashes). Crates should go back to being a 3x3 organizational tool and not left hanging outside with the power generator because they aren't cool enough to chill with the Lockers (much less be affected by gravity). It'd be really nice if we could have compressed-air tanks and not just diving bells. And I want a pet rabbitray following me around. Those things are too adorable not to be adoptable (and are totally useless for any other purpose). I'd like to name him Sprinkles.
In terms of the core problem encountered, the last ~3 hours of the gameplay was spent combing for titanium for the Cyclops. Just titanium. 3 hours for 40-something peices. There is a vague respawn rate of a few limestone nodes and the rare scrap in the shallows and kelp forest, but, again, that generally translated to around 1 unit of titanium every 4 minutes. Specific quartz spawns have been seen to reappear at similar frequencies. It appears that nearly all Shallows wildlife eventually scattered, despawned, or was eaten by stalkers and bonesharks (yes, bonesharks in the shallows) and never reappeared in 'fresh game' quantities (I was in Free Mode, so I wasn't eating them). I haven't confirmed if mushroom beds respawn yet, as I wasn't rapidly depleting the population.
That said, I'm loving the diving reels. I just wish they were thicker/more luminescent. With the airpocket corals, I was stringing networks of point-to-point paths from one coral patch to the next so I didn't need to surface for air at all despite not using (at all) a SeaMoth (and obviously not having a Cyclops). There are still some clipping issues for longer lengths, but otherwise, are outrageously awesome in practice. Their use ends at the shallows/kelp beds as there are no similar 'haven' spots or intricate cave systems worth diving in around the red-kelp and mushroom forests. I got lost in the glowing mushroom caves in a seamoth where the reel was too-little-too-late at one point in an earlier save, so it has potential for being a useful tool. Perhaps a later upgrade to motorize it and rapidly pull the player to the anchor point as an emergency out (if you're in a deep sea cave, the airsack isn't gonna help as an oh-crap tool)
Seaglides seem a little buggy, where they'll still give a speed boost when out of power. That, and for as long as a SeaGlide has a shorter life than my cell phone, I will eternally complain that it's battery life is too short. SeaMoth is unrechargeable and only a limited one-time, round-trip vehicle until the Cyclops comes out, so I'm stuck with the wimpy Glide with its constant whinings about Shroom Juice.
Bases, even in the experimental phases, are growing on me. They need to be fleshed out of course, mostly with luxuries like windows & beds (healing?). I think the lockers need to be wall mounted and not floor mounted. It'd make life so much easier. There are some bugs with the power generator, and I'm starting to feel like it'd be better if it directly attached to the building like the entry portal rather than 'hang out' like the dude not invited to the party.
Other ramblings as I wind down: Pipes need a retexture to something beyond CGI-blue/yellow. Flares are meh, mostly in that they don't compress inventory space, but expand it from a generally obnoxious resource to obtain in the first place (Just say "No" to Crashes). Crates should go back to being a 3x3 organizational tool and not left hanging outside with the power generator because they aren't cool enough to chill with the Lockers (much less be affected by gravity). It'd be really nice if we could have compressed-air tanks and not just diving bells. And I want a pet rabbitray following me around. Those things are too adorable not to be adoptable (and are totally useless for any other purpose). I'd like to name him Sprinkles.
Comments
I'll point out one thing in the 14197 build that has to do with the SeaMoth. In the experimental build they've added the ability to exchange empty cells with new ones.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=400725419
don't mind that I took that screenshot in 14193
I had thought they did it in the 93 build and it was broke still. I haven't touched the SeaMoth today enough to test it (I've been going straight to the Cyclops first)