Idea: make fixing the reactors in the Aurora more time-sensitive

0x6A72320x6A7232 US Join Date: 2016-10-06 Member: 222906Members
As far as I know, there's no real pressure on the player to fix the Aurora's reactor.

Maybe start increasing the level of radiation after a certain time, until it is more than the rating of the radiation suit?

Actually, there has to be a better way around that issue.

Reason? Well, some players are so terrified of the diving board that they need a little push to get them going. (I know one.) I don't blame them; the Aurora is spooky as all get out, and some of us suffer from thalassophobia and/or submechanophobia. Sort of like a fear of heights. Or maybe it's a fear of being small. Who knows. Anyways, point is, some hand-holding may be required, sort of like how the player must find a cure for their disease (Carar).

Thoughts?

Comments

  • Hammy2211Hammy2211 Join Date: 2016-10-18 Member: 223218Members
    I agree that a little more incentive to go to the Aurora could be a good idea. Perhaps have some valuable piece of technology only be available there, and have that information be revealed in a transmission. Other than that, I've got nothing.
  • CAPSHAWCAPSHAW Nevada Join Date: 2016-09-29 Member: 222692Members
    What if there were two radii for radiation:

    In the larger one, you cannot survive without a suit. This is equivalent to the current radiation zone around the Aurora. As soon as you spawn in, this radius should increase at a linear rate, until the entire map is covered. You must have a radiation suit to prevent damage from this.

    In the smaller one, you should only be able to survive in it for 10 or 15 minutes, even with a radiation suit, before you are completely irradiated. When this happens, your body will quickly expire, and there is no using first aid kits to survive. This should cover the map much more slowly, and kill any creatures within the area. This should make it very easy for players to navigate to the aurora, and fix the drive core without any interference.

    I'd like to see this happen when interacting with the nuclear reactor:
    -You should have to wear your radiation suit when you have uranium and reactor rods in your inventory.
    -If your base floods, and has a nuclear reactor, the larger radius like from the Aurora should be placed in the environment around the base, and increase to a maximum size. The smaller, more potent area should be placed within the multipurpose room.
  • EvilSmooEvilSmoo Join Date: 2008-02-16 Member: 63662Members
    Why do people have such hard-ons for forcing players to do stuff? It's an exploration game, the radiation zone is inconvenience enough in this case. No need to force the player to have to go to the reactor. Tying it into the plot or something is fine, but not just killing them off if they don't do things in a certain order.

    Having the rad suit interact with carrying around uranium and rods is a decent notion, though.

    But let's just assume a MFR reactor is sealed. That could lead to a player having no access to any fabricator, if they build under the pod.
  • Hammy2211Hammy2211 Join Date: 2016-10-18 Member: 223218Members
    Yeah, I'm not for forcing it either. But a first-time player might not realize the importance of going over there without some additional nudging.
  • CAPSHAWCAPSHAW Nevada Join Date: 2016-09-29 Member: 222692Members

    EvilSmoo wrote: »
    Why do people have such hard-ons for forcing players to do stuff? It's an exploration game, the radiation zone is inconvenience enough in this case. No need to force the player to have to go to the reactor. Tying it into the plot or something is fine, but not just killing them off if they don't do things in a certain order.

    Having the rad suit interact with carrying around uranium and rods is a decent notion, though.

    But let's just assume a MFR reactor is sealed. That could lead to a player having no access to any fabricator, if they build under the pod.

    I guess I understood that this game was a survival-based game, and forcing the player to survive was an overall goal. I guess I thought it would be more realistic if the player was required to contain the radiation in order to survive better.
  • 0x6A72320x6A7232 US Join Date: 2016-10-06 Member: 222906Members
    CAPSHAW wrote: »
    What if there were two radii for radiation:
    -If your base floods, and has a nuclear reactor, the larger radius like from the Aurora should be placed in the environment around the base, and increase to a maximum size. The smaller, more potent area should be placed within the multipurpose room.

    Actually, reactors are quite safe when powered down correctly, which should happen in the event of flooding. (ie, no physical damage to the reactor) -- honestly, aren't the reactor fuel rods immersed in water anyways?

    And,
    EvilSmoo wrote: »
    Why do people have such hard-ons for forcing players to do stuff? It's an exploration game,

    It's also a survival game, as already noted. But more importantly, how is the player supposed to know the Aurora is more than just a background prop? Also, how does it make sense to have radiation leaking with no consequences other than wearing a rad suit?
  • CAPSHAWCAPSHAW Nevada Join Date: 2016-09-29 Member: 222692Members
    I guess that makes sense that the reactors should have a built-in self containment mechanism.
  • Hammy2211Hammy2211 Join Date: 2016-10-18 Member: 223218Members
    Bonus points to you for bringing in XKCD. But yeah, that "background prop" argument is what I was thinking. After all, it's not like the player really has many suit options besides the radiation suit at that point in the game. There's no pressure to fix it if there isn't a better use for those slots. Maybe have a suit with a smaller, yet somewhat significant damage reduction somewhere closer to the starting area, so that people have a reason to try and get rid of the radiation.

    That, or perhaps have it reduce fish populations, so that it's harder to find food until it's fixed.
  • 0x6A72320x6A7232 US Join Date: 2016-10-06 Member: 222906Members
    Hammy2211 wrote: »
    Bonus points to you for bringing in XKCD. But yeah, that "background prop" argument is what I was thinking. After all, it's not like the player really has many suit options besides the radiation suit at that point in the game. There's no pressure to fix it if there isn't a better use for those slots. Maybe have a suit with a smaller, yet somewhat significant damage reduction somewhere closer to the starting area, so that people have a reason to try and get rid of the radiation.

    That, or perhaps have it reduce fish populations, so that it's harder to find food until it's fixed.


    I like those ideas. But the fish population... hard to notice at first until it's too late. Maybe make the PDA note that the local wildlife population is getting radiation poisoning and irreversible damage will occur within <x> amount of days.
  • Hammy2211Hammy2211 Join Date: 2016-10-18 Member: 223218Members
    Yeah, of course. To be honest, a lot of stuff probably wouldn't work too well without some supporting information from the PDA.
  • DrownedOutDrownedOut Habitat Join Date: 2016-05-26 Member: 217559Members
    I am not certain how making the game harder and/or "locking" people out of the story qualifies as handholding or making the game more playable. With due respect, but every suggestion to punish the player for not prioritizing the reactor is, imo, bad by default.

    There's plenty of reasons to go to the Aurora. All that is needed is any sort of urgent hint that there's something to get, whether a thing immediately useful or information on the crash, possibly with a tip that the nose has cracked open due to the explosion to give people a cue where to look for the entrance. General gamer/human nature for exploration ensures that every other reason to visit the Aurora will be found (lab's currently a likely miss, though).
  • CAPSHAWCAPSHAW Nevada Join Date: 2016-09-29 Member: 222692Members
    DrownedOut wrote: »
    I am not certain how making the game harder and/or "locking" people out of the story qualifies as handholding or making the game more playable. With due respect, but every suggestion to punish the player for not prioritizing the reactor is, imo, bad by default.

    There's plenty of reasons to go to the Aurora. All that is needed is any sort of urgent hint that there's something to get, whether a thing immediately useful or information on the crash, possibly with a tip that the nose has cracked open due to the explosion to give people a cue where to look for the entrance. General gamer/human nature for exploration ensures that every other reason to visit the Aurora will be found (lab's currently a likely miss, though).

    What we are getting at is not locking the player out of the story. Rather, we are suggesting giving a higher motivation for the player to fix the reactor by giving them a higher incentive (decreasing your chances of dying). I personally believe that it adds more to the beginning of the game.
  • Hammy2211Hammy2211 Join Date: 2016-10-18 Member: 223218Members
    Yeah, I don't exactly want to make it harder either. After all, my first suggestion was having a transmission provide information on an important technology being located in the Aurora. Although in all honesty, they are kind of locked out of the story to an extent if they don't go. After all, the signal marking the location of the Precursor gun is obtained from a terminal in the Aurora. Sure, you might still happen across it accidentally, but then you might not realize the significance of it in relation to the Aurora. And once you get to the mountain island, you can get the blueprints for the reinforced suit, which doesn't do you much good unless you've fixed the reactor.
  • DrownedOutDrownedOut Habitat Join Date: 2016-05-26 Member: 217559Members
    I was mostly referring to OP's semi-suggestion of "increasing the level of radiation after a certain time, until it is more than the rating of the radiation suit", which sounds like waiting too long will make the reactor room either inaccessible or only with a large supply of medkits. That would lock people out of the story, or at least discourage doing what needs to be done to continue it.

    Anything to positively reinforce going to the Aurora is a-okay in my book. Anything to negatively promote a trip doesn't strike me as doing the game favors.
  • 0x6A72320x6A7232 US Join Date: 2016-10-06 Member: 222906Members
    Err.. I didn't mean just increasing the radiation at the Aurora. The radiation zone would spread, and strengthen. In other words, your environment is deteriorating, and the cause must be addressed.

    To put it simply, a reactor is coughing radiation ~1km from you and there's very little to show (nothing to show?) for that once you've gotten a radiation suit, which kind of breaks the immersion IMO.
  • ookasmcplookusookasmcplookus Join Date: 2016-10-22 Member: 223300Members
    If the radiation kept expanding, wouldn't that end up in a situation where the player would be constantly dying, making it near impossible to get in there and fix it because they would always have to be close by to a med pack frabricator? In my experience, I wanted to get in there, I just didn't know how, and because of the reapers it wasn't until I had a cyclops that I was confident enough to navigate around it to notice the entrances at the front of it. I agree with the PDA being a little more helpful in this matter: "Breach at front end of Aurora discovered, it is likely access to sustenance, vehicle bays and reactor repairs may be found here" or something along those lines. That should hopefully be enough incentive to get the player wanting into the aurora, as well as giving them a hint as to how to do that.
  • 0x6A72320x6A7232 US Join Date: 2016-10-06 Member: 222906Members
    I was hoping more for it topping off that you would need a few extra med kits to get to the Aurora (in addition to the ones you'd need normally) to deal with the radiation, but only if it's been a ridiculous amount of time and the reactors aren't sealed.
  • EvilSmooEvilSmoo Join Date: 2008-02-16 Member: 63662Members
    Better to just tie the story to it. Some precursor doohickey that doesn't work properly until the Aurora is sealed.

    How to communicate that to the player, though, is much more tricky. And in this situation, if my crashed ship was in any way inconveniencing the people whose weaponry shot it down and killed almost the entire crew, I would be very slow to seal it on their account. :p

    I would definitely search the Aurora databanks for nuclear-powered mining charges, and be tempted to use THAT to shut down the gun and such.
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