New Player, Some thoughts on the story and pacing...

GangreneTVP

So, I purchased this game over the Xmas - New Years vacation time... Here are my initial thoughts, especially on the story.

It's really fun and a joy to play.

I did experience the late game frequent crashes issue... I just started playing new games instead of clearing the cache. It's alpha, not complaining.

I think the pacing of the game once your repair the short range communicator in the life pod is quite a bit too fast. I think one message maybe every three days might be fine... that might be too quick as well(5 days). I'm catching fish and prepping for trips to life pod destinations and I keep getting other distress calls I'm like 4-5 calls behind... and they come in so rapidly all of the experiences blend into one another and don't feel distinct. I think these need to be spaced out a great deal more and then each one might be engaging and more exciting... OH! another message! instead of another one?!? gezz haven't even checked out the last 3 yet. Slow the pace and let the game build. Also, it would be great if we could get more of a connection with each pod. Like... "This is Tommy, from LifePod 6" Give two or three messages that allow us to want to look for "Tommy" and develop a connection to the NPC so we want to stage the rescue. Maybe they have to repair their communicator too to get the beacon up and running. Only to have it sink. Maybe one NPC, leaves the pod... only then to radio from another empty pod they found... now they are here and the new pod is taking on water(now you have to check out that pod to find "Tommy") Maybe "Tommy" could be someone you knew from the ship to add story... Maybe eventually you have to take the radiation helmet off of Tommy's corpse... drama...

Alternatively maybe you have to upgrade the communicator to get signals farther and deeper from your life pod. That would allow progression through the life pod "missions".

Maybe the radiation suit shouldn't be able to be crafted immediately and should require you to find the helmet, suit, and gloves from 3 of the later life pod crash sites... inside the pod to make it easy. Only then can you safely approach the aurora. Keeps you from circumventing pods / calls and going straight to the ship.

The ship was being shot down when I only had a seaglide(6 hours in and still finding my bearings)... and the timeframe on that prevented me from witnessing it first hand. I saw the explosion from my escape pod. We should really have the ability to trigger that event by pressing a button to initialize the countdown timer, having another option to have them wait in orbit till your ready to head over and be picked up. The timer should be just a little longer than it would take you to get there... If you also get there too early, it's a problem. Maybe you should have them show up on the spot, and from that location they activate a button on the PDA to tell them to land... and just dispense with the timer entirely. It should be impossible to miss the base shooting down the rescue ship.

I liked on hardcore difficulty how my lifepod drifted... it eventually was over reapers... so I had to abandon it and build a replicator, medi-center, and communication system in my base and focus on that. I'm not sure if that is timed... but that happened at just the right time in my hardcore game. Maybe the reapers at some point just trash your pod in a cut scene, a good introduction to them... at night of course. This shortly after you got a signal to a deep pod that would allow you to pick up a "building gun" so you could generate another fabricator and continue on in your base even if you hadn't built the "building gun" yet. Maybe that is the only way to get the building gun or the blueprints are at that pod that unlock it.

I think the days / nights could be lengthened... they seem to pass too quickly.

We shouldn't have that be the only dividing point of the day. Day and night should each have a low tide / high tide for a four tide daily cycle. There is a HUGE moon near the planet. We should have some pretty massive tides. The current surface level of the water could be what it is now for "low tide", but maybe the "high tide" could cause the surface level to rise quite a bit. Enough that you might have to take the tides into effect when deciding to visit a wreck... if the tide is rising you could find your seamoth crushed where you left it parked safely earlier... the depth increased passing its safe range... The extra depth could make it darker as well... Maybe certain areas like the aurora could only be accessible at certain tides. Having tides could change everything... maybe too much redesign for the game at this point. Too bad that wasn't implemented in the initial design.

0x6A7232

Not sure exactly how buoyancy under water works, so I could be wrong, but wouldn't a vehicle trimmed to hold a certain depth float upwards with the tide? Maybe not, I don't know. Anyone have a definitive answer on that?

Appalaxis

0x6A7232 wrote: »

Not sure exactly how buoyancy under water works, so I could be wrong, but wouldn't a vehicle trimmed to hold a certain depth float upwards with the tide? Maybe not, I don't know. Anyone have a definitive answer on that?

In science, buoyancy (also known as upthrust) is an upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of an immersed object. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid. Thus the pressure at the bottom of a column of fluid is greater than at the top of the column. Similarly, the pressure at the bottom of an object submerged in a fluid is greater than at the top of the object. This pressure difference results in a net upwards force on the object. The magnitude of that force exerted is proportional to that pressure difference, and (as explained by Archimedes' principle) is equivalent to the weight of the fluid that would otherwise occupy the volume of the object, i.e. the displaced fluid.

For this reason, an object whose density is greater than that of the fluid in which it is submerged tends to sink. If the object is either less dense than the liquid or is shaped appropriately (as in a boat), the force can keep the object afloat. This can occur only in a reference frame which either has a gravitational field or is accelerating due to a force other than gravity defining a "downward" direction (that is, a non-inertial reference frame). In a situation of fluid statics, the net upward buoyancy force is equal to the magnitude of the weight of fluid displaced by the body.[3]

The center of buoyancy of an object is the centroid of the displaced volume of fluid.

For more info, head on over here

0x6A7232

So how does that affect a submerged object that is just holding its position? Will the increased density of the water (tide is rising, increasing water depth thus density) cause it to float upwards, resulting in it keeping the same depth below the surface?