Astronaut: from no gear to a ship is impossible

[nightwalker_007]

If you're playing on a survival server that forces you to drop all loot upon death, you could find yourself with no means to build anything besides factories--which need power to do anything else! Without the starting kit's power beam or a power plant, a lone astronaut stuck on a planet is forever screwed. Factories require power, the only way to generate power is with an energy beam gun (an item which can be dropped), or a power plant (which is an item, can be dropped, and can only be made in a factory--which needs power to operate).

My suggestion is to add some method for a lone astronaut to generate power when left with absolutely nothing.

There are two methods to solve this:

1. Add a power beam to the suit as an alternate fire, similar to the salvage beam (and the simplest to implement).
   
2. Add a new item to the game which generates power, and can be built with just the suit's fabricators, like the basic factory can be constructed

If we go with the option first, I recommend adding a dedicated slot to the quick bar when in astronaut mode for the salvage/power beam. This ensures that the player will only salvage or place objects when their beam is selected (and enable the use of both mouse buttons without accidentally placing blocks). Or we could use an alternate click in this dedicated slot to change the beam type, then multiple built-in beams could be added to the suit (salvage, power, and heal/repair).

For the second option, enable the suit to craft solar panels from 10 crystal. These panels would only generate power when lit by the sun. the closer they are to the sun, the more power they will generate. To ensure that all worlds have crystal, a small tweak to the planet generation should be made: instead of randomly picking from materials, the generator will randomly pick one crystal and one ore for each plate. Currently it is possible, however unlikely, a world can spawn with no crystal.

This will allow for a future game mode, in which astronauts are placed on random unvisited worlds with no gear, and have to build a ship from what they can mine on their starting world. I consider this a far more satisfying way to start the game, rather than starting off with a kit near a shop.

It would be nice to also add lights to the suit to make planet mining and exploring derelicts easier too. :D

 

[ante185]

Seems like an oversight, they should fix that.

 

[nightwalker_007]

Seems like an oversight, they should fix that.

It does, which is why I brought it up... and why I don't play on survival servers anymore.

 

[Kaamio]

Maybe put all astronaut guns into the suit, so to speak. They are mostly useless anyway and generally the first thing to go when you need room for loot.

 

[nightwalker_007]

Maybe put all astronaut guns into the suit, so to speak. They are mostly useless anyway and generally the first thing to go when you need room for loot.

I don't think the sniper rifle or rocket launcher should be part of the standard suit kit though . I can see three built-in guns: power beam, salvage beam, laser, but other guns shouldn't be part of the suit. These can destroy blocks with a single shot.

 

[Valiant70]

To me, in an advanced sci-fi setting it makes more sense to build weapons and tools into the appendages of a suit so that they can be folded out and used. It would be more ergonomic in some ways and you wouldn't run the risk of dropping something. A large weapon like a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher might require a casing larger than you'd want to lug around on your wrist, so it makes sense for those to be separate.

I hope that at some point, there is a full survival game mode where you start out on a planet in a setting that resembles Minecraft and have to struggle a little to survive at first, and then be careful to keep finite essential supplies in stock thereafter. It would be different and a lot of players wouldn't like it, but many would. The option to play like that makes for a richer game overall.

 

[alterintel]

I like the idea of incorporating the various beams into the space suite. I never use those guns anyways, I used the power beam once and that was to create a power generator.