A Treatise on why you should start without corridors, but with Multifunction Room
Xpyder
Join Date: 2016-08-22 Member: 221593Members
Join Date: 2016-08-22 Member: 221593Members
Firstly, I know some people are complaining just because they don't like stuff being taken away. This isn't that; In fact I think we should start with a lot less habitat pieces than we currently do. The issue I'm here to discuss the excitement you're supposed to feel when you find a new fragment, and your sense of progression during the early game.
Ideally you should be excited whenever you spot a new fragment to scan. Hopeful to find something new, be it useful or just pretty. Some new toy to play with and add to your base. This is great, it's a lot of fun and to some people the biggest part of the game is building an awesome base with flora they've collected from all over the ocean floor. But all that hinges on one thing: being able to use the new fragment you found. If you can't then what should be joy turns into disappointment. And when that happens over and over again it takes away from the pleasure of playing a game like this.
I would like to submit that starting with the following recipes both achieves the greater requirement for exploration the current removal of the MFR achieves AND it provides a greater sense of progression along the way.
You should start with ONLY: Foundation, Multifunction Room, and Hatch; the Fabricator and Communications Relay should be scannable, and after making the scanner you should get an objective to scan the Fabricator in the life pod for it's recipe.
No storage cabinets, no corridors, no reinforcements.
This achieves a few things. Firstly it introduces and confirms for new players to the idea of scanning actual objects to get their recipes in a simple and intuitive way, rather than hoping they'll happen to stumble on which of the random pieces of debris are scannable with their scanner out (this is an issue I had on my first playthrough, I had to google what a fragment looked like because I ran into so much wreckage I couldn't scan I figured I was doing it wrong). Secondly it creates space for many more fragments that can be found giving lots of little positive reinforcements and excitement when you find a fragment for a better storage cabinet or a corridor piece you've been missing. Thirdly it lets you start with a small base and increase it it over time as you find more stuff giving a strong reliable sense of growth and progression you can see every time you come home. And lastly it gives you access from the start to the room you need to experiment most with as a new player. Without that room at the start you have no idea how much room you'll need for your seabase, or how to use half of the blueprints you find which leads to a nebulous sense that you're doing something wrong and missing out on one of the biggest joys of this game: creating cool bases.
Also it feels really weird to complete a moonpool and cyclops before I build my first MFR..
Ideally you should be excited whenever you spot a new fragment to scan. Hopeful to find something new, be it useful or just pretty. Some new toy to play with and add to your base. This is great, it's a lot of fun and to some people the biggest part of the game is building an awesome base with flora they've collected from all over the ocean floor. But all that hinges on one thing: being able to use the new fragment you found. If you can't then what should be joy turns into disappointment. And when that happens over and over again it takes away from the pleasure of playing a game like this.
I would like to submit that starting with the following recipes both achieves the greater requirement for exploration the current removal of the MFR achieves AND it provides a greater sense of progression along the way.
You should start with ONLY: Foundation, Multifunction Room, and Hatch; the Fabricator and Communications Relay should be scannable, and after making the scanner you should get an objective to scan the Fabricator in the life pod for it's recipe.
No storage cabinets, no corridors, no reinforcements.
This achieves a few things. Firstly it introduces and confirms for new players to the idea of scanning actual objects to get their recipes in a simple and intuitive way, rather than hoping they'll happen to stumble on which of the random pieces of debris are scannable with their scanner out (this is an issue I had on my first playthrough, I had to google what a fragment looked like because I ran into so much wreckage I couldn't scan I figured I was doing it wrong). Secondly it creates space for many more fragments that can be found giving lots of little positive reinforcements and excitement when you find a fragment for a better storage cabinet or a corridor piece you've been missing. Thirdly it lets you start with a small base and increase it it over time as you find more stuff giving a strong reliable sense of growth and progression you can see every time you come home. And lastly it gives you access from the start to the room you need to experiment most with as a new player. Without that room at the start you have no idea how much room you'll need for your seabase, or how to use half of the blueprints you find which leads to a nebulous sense that you're doing something wrong and missing out on one of the biggest joys of this game: creating cool bases.
Also it feels really weird to complete a moonpool and cyclops before I build my first MFR..
Comments
This is more of an argument in favor of what I'm saying than against it. From a survival standpoint it makes far more sense to have the multifunction room in the habitat builder already loaded into it, and not to bother with corridors because if you're just trying to survive you don't need a huge base.
But it all comes down to why they removed the MFR from the default blueprints. Since story wise it makes more sense for it to be there, I'm assuming there's a gameplay reason why they removed it so that's what I'm focusing around
You shouldn't actually start with anything (apart from maybe, maybe the foundation, just because it's so basic).
I'd like to see a research station inside the life pod, so we have to research pressure, structural integrity and architectural stability before even considering building any sort of structure.
This is also more an argument for what I'm proposing rather than against it.
Regarding equipment, as I said, when you unlock something you can't use your excitement is undercut by disappointment. And I can make a fully functional base out of just a moonpool, solar panels, and plant pots (boab tree, lantern tree, solar panels, fabricator). Remember I'm talking about Early Game progression, i.e. before you get a cyclops. Late game you would have the MPR regardless making any discussion about starting with it mute.
They used to have a system where you researched fragments you collected while exploring, but they scrapped it for the new scanning mechanic.
I actually like the idea of being able to research new blueprints, possibly consuming a new resource you get by scanning duplicate fragments. That way if you're actually exploring you can use those duplicates to get something you need but are having trouble finding rather than just getting skunked. Sadly that discussion is out of the scope of what I'm proposing and should probably have it's own thread
Currently, you NEED to know where the floating island is to get all the rooms you need, and at least a seaglide and 2 batteries to get there and back.
And a diamond for a cutter? How is anyone supposed to know where that spawns? NOW of course, I know to head to the big mountain. But when I got the game, I was just thrashing around. And the Seamoth should be a little easier to find as well. Possibly even start players with a crippled version that only dives to 75 before auto-surfacing?
I think needing to find most of your items through exploration is fine, that's largely the intended audience (people who like exploring). The issue I'm driving at is there's a number of very important blueprints you can't use even if you unlock them, until you have the MFR. If one of the first distress signals you find on the relay brought you to one of the dilapidated bases that would suffice. But I had a lot more fun as a starting character when I had the MFR to play with from the start than I do now, even knowing where to get the blueprint.
One of the core reasons for that is you need the MFR to have a constant tangible sense of growth, and getting it after finding a bunch of other fragments leaves the growth curve suffocated early on and then concentrated in a single burst that doesn't feel like a poignant excitement so much as just removing a particularly annoying thorn.