0
Under review

Fuses are a very rare commodity

wrongwayjerry 7 years ago updated by Mr. Fusion 7 years ago 7

Now that weather stations work I don't see how I can put fuses in them and keep the habitats up and running. If I hang around one habitat too long the others fall into disrepair and I end up using up a lot of components to get them back up and running again. It's like whack a mole. I still feel like things breakdown too fast. Anyway it would be nice to have more fuses, heating elements and wires.

When I find another habitat I'll stay there for awhile to get it up and running smoothly but first I'll jaunt back to the last one and shut it all down. Likewise for any other habitats that I find. Once they're running to full capacity and producing pretty much fully, I don't find it's a hindrance to keep three shut down while I live at another one. When I'm in those areas and need to go to one, I just get them back up and they're good as gold. As for fuses, I do a lot of borrowing from other units around the world. Are you saying though that now we have to put fuses in the way stations?

Okay, never mind. Just read the change logs. I get it now.

I always had tons of fuses, in my "long" game in 0.57 (66 sols) in the end I had like 60 or more of them (not counting the excess ones  had installed into systems just to have them removed from inventory/storage), so many that I had to start dumping them (and a lot of other items) back into white locations to free up Hab storage space.


I'm still not sure why/how people lose system components. I never had to craft/replace anything, ever, in none of my games so far so there was no need for constant influx of materials/components. The WayStats may change this a little, as you'll need at least 16 fuses if you want to bring them all online, and at this pont I don't know yet how feasible it is to keep them running (as in, what's their slot deterioration rate) given their number and the distance you may need to go regularily to check on them.


But as a wohle, I don't think fuses are a problem, they seem to be abundantly available. What I constalntly saw a shortage of is Heating Elements. Now those are indeed scarce. There was a game where I still had only 4 (including the ones that were installed in Habs) even after having explored about 70% of the map. (Then again, there was one where I had 8 or so, but that was an exception, I usually see far fewer than that.)

Under review

Balancing the degradation rates and spawn rates of different components/modules will be something I look at soon. Since you have played quite extensively I would love to get a detailed post from you concerning your thoughts on overall game balance. Your thoughts on fuse and heating element scarcity are very valuable.

MarsWalker pointed out the main thing I was going to say. Shutting down the various modules at other hab locations will prevent them from degrading while you are absent. This is key to long-term survival. But I agree that better component spawn rates and degradation rates can be achieved based on player input. Right now I think heating elements and wires are inadvertently more rare than I intended.

Couple of points - heating elements and wires are very rare.


Also, there doesn't seem to be a negative impact to not having a heating element installed. I have been going days without having them in the habs and I can't figure out what that is or is not doing to me.


Regarding the shutting down of the habs 1) duh - can't believe i didn't think of that (I feel stupid). 2) It didn't occur to me to do something like that and I am not sure why. Maybe it was habit. When you go to the first habitat it is necessary to get it up and running and you are very short on supplies. When i found habitat beta i hadn't found enough supplies yet so i couldn't get it running even if i wanted to and i was removing components from beta to keep alpha going. Then i started searching for gamma. problem was it took me so long to find gamma and it was so far away that i went to gamma got it running and then i stayed there because I had searched all of the area around alpha and beta. I spent 30+ sols walking around gamma trying to find stuff that when i finally went up to alpha and beta again everything was wrecked and I didn't have enough stuff get even one of them up and running again before I ran out of oxygen (re: wires, fuses, etc.) before i died. I don't turn off the habitats when i leave because i need them to generate water and oxygen when i am out and i stumbled on gamma by accident and i had to get it up and running and then i didn't go back. It takes a while to go between the habitats and I wasn't going to run back up to alpha just to turn off the lights. Maybe its my specific gameplay style or the rate at which i found things. It could be just that i have no reason to go between the habitats and it takes so long that it seemed like a lot of time for little gain. Since it has been pointed out that i should probably switch off the lights before I leave i will probably use that more to conserve resources. There doesn't seem to be any impact to turning things off, like burst water pipes, so I might as well. :-)

Generally, it's recommended to leave the habitat powered up which you use as your current base of operations; the other two is better left offline even when you visit/use them for extra storage space or anything. When properly maintained, a Hab can be left running without any supervision for at least 30-40 hours (about the maximum amount of time you can spend with exploring in one trip anyway) and nothing will break (with the rates I've observed so far, a properly maintained Hab should stay operational for at least a week before slots start to break).


If the Heater can be turned on and does maintain a stable Hab temperature even without any Heating Element installed, then it's a bug that needs to be fixed. (If the Heater is turned off, the Hab internal temperature will slowly drop towards external temperature. In itself it's not critical, since you can wear the suit inside and then its internal heater will maintain your body temperature, but it will draw its internal power reserves so you need to recharge the suit manually from the Hab reseves, or you might freeze to death while sleeping if suit power runs out.)