Crafting!

[RoyalWolfe]

OK its time for a really heated topic to discuss. This is something that is going to get a little difficult to really talk about quickly, if we do not at first disclaim some assumptions most readers are going to make.

First things first. lets get this very very clear! we are not telling Schine how to make their game, OK so pitchforks and torches down. we can discuss this civilly and like adults here so lets do that OK.

What we hope to simply do is gather the opinions of all those which have tried to play a game of survival and come across these issues where they felt it was a determent to their enjoyment of this game. this has become something that steams to affect the very future of this game. so that means some things are going to need to be brought up and talked about that may make others uncomfortable about continuing to play this game. please understand it is no ones intent to make those reading this want to stop playing.

OK now that that is out of the way your probably realizing this is going to be a Huge thread. so be warned now it going to get really big and probably really heated discussion. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED NOW!

there have been several threads about this including one with a poll like the one above. lets get that out of the way, and say yes the topic of revamp is one point to start things off. But, there are other things which need to also be asked as well.

Why are things Balanced this way?

OK this one is a question for Schine itself. It may seem a bit bold to brazenly ask them this. But keep something in mind here. this is something that needs to brought up for their planning side as much as for our eventual benefit. we've currently seen the system as it is now go from non functional, to unusable and now to stable but shaky. so to refine the thing it is now to what it should be at beta needs to be discussed.

some very basic things, are currently so difficult to find. these are things like the materials to make blue hull, shields, and other certain colored variants of anything basically made from the subsequent asteroids that hoard them. they almost never actually spawn in a way anyone can get their hands on them. we understand that some things do need to be rare. but as much as Schine plans those factors they made it pretty clear they didn't think it through, on what those things are, and I'm not insulting them when I say this.

lets talk about how it got to this state. a while back the crafting took some revelations because of changes elsewhere in the game. before the recent system involving the asteroids even existed shields were one block. this was way back before the current universes were even in existence, and the idea of things spawning in were plentiful because it had absolutely no structure. they eventually got split into two systems. This is what caused the issues we have now. they structured out how things get generated.

this caused some things to become rare which we kinda need to get to make basic things. OK so now how do we fix this?

Well, this is where they need to listen, and we need to start talking. That's right, we are at fault for this too. we did not tell them what we wanted out of crafting, as much as they did not tell us how they wanted us to use it. clearly they wanted structure which is why things spawn the way they do. well we clearly want progression, based upon the other threads complaining about this topic.

OK so now it time for the really important question.

how do we both get what we want so everyone is happy with the results?

well lets do that, by looking at the above questions information. Schine wants structure, and they pretty much got it with the current state of things. But we want progression, and that means a clear and planned way to go about getting the things we need vs, the things we want.

I have a suggestion that may change things in a similar way as the universe generation did to crafting that will change things not only what we craft, but also how we get them. lets talk about Fauna.

Fauna is coming, and that means Mobs are going to change what we do besides just building.

So crafting needs some new sources to find things clearly. well fauna seems to be a new answer. this means MOB drops. not just the pirates currently doing the whole loot clouds. as cool as those are. but we also need predictable drops and the fact that we are now getting things that can be killed and spawn in a predicable manner that seems like a clear possibility. because what eventually this means it new enemy types besides the Pirate Ships we see now.

now what I'm suggesting here is this, KILL SPACE +++++ , get loot drop specific to what space +++++ you just killed. This provides some new materials which the team as Schine can now label as a risky item to acquire, as it involves the risk of said space +++++ to kill you instead. this means they can make these loot drops to be the rare items they want, to add the structure they clearly also want.

so how does this give us what we want? well now here is where things get interesting. we want progression. so this means some structure about what we need and how we get it. so mining is clearly one way to get materials, but what about farming? in the real universe not all things come from rock. so why not add in some other ways to get things as well. like growing plant derived dyes to make paint?

anyway this is all my two scents on the current state of crafting,maybe this will help Schine out to plan a little ahead. who knows. but I at least appreciate those that are reading this and commenting accordingly. thanks for at least considering my proposals.

 

[Andir]

If you want progression the way you describe, you're going to have to put the simple to acquire minable stuff as the ingredients to make some!e weapons and ship parts. The basics. Above that you'll want to hunt these creatures to get the drops you need for warp drive, for instance. Your probably not going to be able to take on that creature using only mined items, so you'll need to get some items from another slower creature to build your overdrive array... I think you have a good start, but it would all have to be mapped out and I think that requires knowing what the game will have so we don't have to keep refactoring e ery few years.

 

[jayman38]

I think mob drops should be an intermediate element, similar to scrap, that can be combined in factories to create needed crystals.

Example:
Laser Spiders start dropping red crystalline organics, 100 of which can be combined in the most basic factory to create raw red crystal, which can be further refined or used in a recipe.

The end result can be massive automated farms, where caged mobs are periodically culled, the drops auto-collected, and auto-combined into crystals, feeding a factory over time. Pretty much infinite resources over time. Maybe to control the infinity of resources, have mobs "eat" organic resources, such as other mobs or plants at a rate twice or more that the organic food source can regenerate. So you have a massive plant farm that feeds a smaller mob farm, which in turn feeds a factory system. The downside of this infinite resource? It's much slower than eating planets and asteroids, and requires massive space and moderate power requirements for the automated systems. However, it might be fun.

The problem is, this really doesn't address progression, because it simply adds an alternate source of core materials and how they are gathered. Progression implies some sort of tier system, which I do not support in a sandbox game, personally. The progression might be in the form of a faction job tier systems, where you start at the bottom, hunting and farming as a vulnerable astronaut, until you reach the status of space captain, where those farms provide resources to feed your shipyard. (Eventually, all faction members can graduate from hunting and farming, as automated farms will replace manual hunts and farming.) We are currently used to becoming space captains with massive resources as soon as the game starts, but this is for play-testing purposes, and will probably be different in the final game.