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Answered

Okay, One problem and One Question

MarsWalker 6 years ago updated by Tyler Owen (Lead Developer) 6 years ago 10

All of a sudden I can't run anymore. I don't know why. I've checked and rechecked that I am in good condition and also that I have not got the PSP equipped, I don't. I am a bit encumbered though, is that a thing now? Also I am sending a pic and want to know exactly what the part in red means. I'm not 100% sure. I was outside walking back to a habitat.

Edit: Also, I was gone from habitat one for about maybe 3 days and when I got back every wire was burnt out for my electrical and all three heating elements. I know better than to leave them that long but I definitely thought I was back in time to repair any wear and tear. Is this normal? The broken elements were a jab where it hurts, and also the wires. Not finding many wires.

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Encumberance was changed/fixed several months ago, if you are above 50 kgs, you cannot run. It was always supposed to work like that but had some issues.


The red part is the external temperature (outside the EVA suit), and it's red since it's below 0, but when you're outside, it's always below zero (-10 to -80 typically depending on time of day). If it's below 0 while inside a hab is when it's a problem since that means the hab has no heating (turned off or failed) and the EVA suit is draining its internal battery to keep you warm.


Component degradation feels a bit faster now than what it used to be (although there was no mention of any specific changes to it), 3 days without maintenance, if not started out at a high condition, is about enough for a lot of hab components to break. I usually ensure none is below 70-75% before I leave for a longer trip (1.5-2 sols) and that gave me plenty of safety margin so far.

Yeah, the encumbrance thing makes sense. I just don't think I noticed that before since I'm never very encumbered. The info 'in red' makes sense too and I always assumed that, but wanted to make sure it didn't mean i was in trouble while doing eva. The broken elements also makes sense. I knew I was pushing it but that most of the modules were in fairly good condition...but it was my first found hab and I was only going out for more resources and didn't expect to find the second hab so quickly. The second hab had it's own problems that I had decided to fix and then to go out and get the nearest weather waypoint station up and running. Then I went and emptied two more caches before going back to hab one. I know better than that. I should have turned around and went back first to secure the first hab. My bad, lol. Thanks. Love this game.

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Answered

I think I will be making a fairly significant adjustment to the failure rate soon so that things don't break quite so often. I don't want repairs to feel like quite as much of a chore. Right now it feels more like you have to go around fixing everything regularly without regard for what currently needs the most attention. I'd rather the player goes around checking the diagnostics for each unit semi-regularly and then only fixing the slots that most need repair.


Also, Mr. Fusion is correct about encumbrance. It will hopefully encourage smarter use of storage. (And soon... vehicle transport!)

I'm really not sure about lowering the degradation rate, to be honest. Even the way it is now, it makes crafting effectively useless as nothing ever breaks if you pay a little attention to it. I've literally never crafted anything other than filled canisters (and a pop tent recently) in well over a 100 hours of combined playtime as there never was any need to.


It could use some rethinking, but more along the lines which would cause things to actually break unexpectedly at a reasonable frequency (or maybe have the player start with much less ready made components and more materials instead). I've been thinking about this problem for a long time now but still couldn't come up with anything that makes crafting more needed but within the constraints of the fixed amount of materials you have in the game. One thing that should be a part of it is being able to salvage broken components (with a loss) instead of discarding them completely as a source of materials.

I agree that a change to the degradation rate would require changes elsewhere. And I'm planning on providing more utility via craftable objects. I think the current component slot degradation system will eventually function as the "predictable" failure rate (which will be lowered), and I will introduce "unpredictable" failure of components to balance this and provide unplanned challenges for players to overcome. The unpredictable failure rate would be a stat that is not visible to the player and separate from the slot integrity, but would be influenced by things like dust storms (an existing mechanic), radiation storms (an upcoming mechanic), and other factors. I think this makes sense because it would basically be the difference between regular maintenance failures and sudden failures. One category of sudden failure actually already exists in the game, and that is the chance for a component install to short out if installed with the power to the unit still on. 

I have a collection of notes / ideas regarding component degradation and crafing in relation to other gameplay elements, such as managing the systems and how storms may affect them, and some of them seem to be in line with what you also have in mind.


I'm planning to arrange them into something useful and post it in a bit of an overall balance/system feedback thread once you are done with the upcoming update which I suspect is a big one to tackle so you have enough on your plate as it is until that one's done.

The next update may be another quick bug patch before the weekend if I can get to it. Then I'm hoping for a bigger feature update with a new gameplay trailer before Christmas. Would love to get to a major balance update after that.

It all sounds awesome to me! But, OMG I just died! LMAO. It's been a long time since I've died on Random Seed's Mars. I like that though. The two wires I had for electrical wasn't enough to sustain the hab overnight and I stupidly didn't recharge my battery while I was outside checking around, thinking I'd have enough power to get in to bed and do it in the morning. Nope. Power goes out almost right after nightfall and I couldn't even recharge the battery in the hab itself since that was all the way drained also, of course. My battery was down to only 22 so I just shut everything off and hightailed it back to the hab I just had found. Didn't make it, whoops. The whole game was off on the wrong foot right from the get go, or soon afterward, lol.

Here's a suggestion though. When we're too encumbered to run, maybe it should say so? 'You're too encumbered to run'. Idk? Not criticizing. Just thinking of newbies.

Yeah, I need to do another pass on the help text since some things have changed/been added since the last time it was addressed.

Well, then again, I should have known from experience with so many games and so should newbies figure that out. I just didn't think of it because it hadn't ever happened to me, whether I've just been light enough or what have you, so I didn't even think it was a thing, lol.