Your comments

That's an interesting analysis. Two variations, the real sun and a fake sun. So the presence of the fake sun is/could be causing the reflections, regardless of the real sun being obstructed. Might I suggest that if it is related to time, keep it as time, so that when/if the real sun is obstructed, the graphic that shows the reflection portion on anything that is shiny from the fake sun (e.g. PRT frame or hab door), will be a dull light versus a bright reflected beam? And maybe not a bright white color either, but a medium to dark sunset orange or yellow...


That way, nothing really has to change other than a particular graphic during specific times. It merely falls under aesthetics, and would be low on the priority for changes. But it's something to think about...

Aye, I no doubt believe that Mr. Fusion has put forth great strides towards helping you advance the game with his own suggestions/feedback. As I've replied to him a few times regarding his tact in his response and I think because he's done a lot for the game, this has caused his response to be somewhat aggressive. His responses like "I prefer" and "I like" along with his arguments to my suggestions, makes it feel like he's shutting my suggestions or feedback down because it doesn't align to his preferences. And I'm sure he's a good guy, but we're all professionals here... Or at least, should be XD


If I wasn't in a medical bind these past couple of years, I'm sure I'd be in the same level of contribution as Mr. Fusion. Again, I only ask for a little tact and that others may have preferences that go against his own ideals. If anything, compare the flavor of your response to that of Mr. Fusions, and you'll see the difference. If I'm being to hyper sensitive in this matter... *shrug* I apologize, my background functions around tact, bearing, respect, and professionalism.


And... as I've stated before, if the bugs I've mention have already been addressed, that is fine. I was just doing an all encompassing post from the current version and my playthrough. And I did thank Mr. Fusion for his reply. Also, thank you for your response as well.


As far as the picture is concerned, I'll post that up to you in due time.


EDIT: For Update and Images...


Not sure what happened, but when I initially set up the game, I had changed the settings to "6 - Fantastic" but when I went to take the pictures you wanted, something told me to check the display settings. Turns out, it reverted back to "1 - Fastest"


Changing it once again to the better quality, it no longer shows the sun as a square in the distance. Again, not sure why... don't know if it is because I started a second playthrough... or... *shrugs* So I guess the sun is displayed as per the quality of your settings. It actually looks good on setting 6.


As for my other explanation on the sunbeams on the PRT...


Fig 1


Figure 1 shows the sun beams striking the upper portions of the PRT. The mountain in the back would obscure my view of the sunset, so I moved my PRT closer and to the left of it to at least get a longer distance of nothing blocking my view.


Fig 2


Figure 2 shows the same beams after the sun becomes blocked by whatever mountain in the distance. If the sun is blocked by a mountain in the distance, I'm not sure that those areas should be indicating reflections of sun. Perhaps they should be dull after losing those sunbeams? And no... the sun isn't behind the crossbar, I got out and made sure that the sun was in fact, behind something in the distance (as in the, the sun wasn't there).


If the fog is what is blocking the visual nature of the sun and not a distant mountain, shouldn't the sunbeams also be blocked or obscured to the point of it not reflecting off the PRT? And if it does cut through the fog to reflect off the PRT, because the lumens of the sun are so powerful... then wouldn't there at least be a hazy outline of the sun through the fog?


Maybe I'm just nit picking on the visuals... If so... nevermind.


Hmm... I beg to differ on moving the habitats. We are getting a pickaxe, we don't know what the developers will have in store besides mining rock piles.


Storage addressed before, but put on the low priority. Well, that's good... as long as something was stated about it before and will hopefully be looked at again for future updates... so no worries there. But it was good to make the suggestion XD


I wouldn't say zero benefits. I think long term wise beyon 100 or 200 SOL. We're talking a game of survival and waiting for rescue... that could take 1000+ SOLs. Hopefully the game is being developed in mind for overall survival, not just, "oh, I finished surveying the entire map and acquired all the lootable boxes with resources to help me survive until all that runs out..."


I think employing some form a logistics like tactically thinking of how I want to position all my resources for better usage of them.


And I know I've mentioned this before, but I think keeping your habs running provides a suitable amount of electricity and air storage. One hab is certainly difficult to manage, if your refilling tanks and batteries for long excursions, especially since the storage on your hab also has a limit.


I wouldn't rule it out any of my suggests, they do carry some merit.


AND counting all my food after exploring everything, if I maintain a 1200 calorie diet... I might be able to get to SOL 80 before I have no more food left. I guess maybe you got better drops for food than I did?


But thanks for your feedback on my suggestions. I'm sure Tyler will have some questions as well :)

Um... okay. I didn't think there was a need to for a rebuttal to my posting.


As I stated before, they were probably already addressed... I was leaving a generalized feedback on bugs I encountered.


It's good you like situational music, so does a lot of others. Equally to that are those that prefer constant music so it's not dead silence the majority of the time. Then, there are those that prefer the realism of just dead silence and no music at all...


I had figured that there could be potential blockers like a way distant mountain ridge blocking the sun... but it would be displayed differently and the cross bar on the PRT wouldn't indicate a light as if reflecting the sun's rays.


Also, my graphics are all the way up... and the sun is a square...


But thanks for replying back...

Just a question regarding dust devils... is seeing them also dependent on distance?


I've actually seen a good number of dust devils over a span of several SOL's. My computer is high speed low drag, so I keep everything at maximum or ultra settings for all of my games.


I don't know if lower performing systems are unable to see these dust devils unless they are a hundred km away... Because I can see them out there several hundred km away, even saw two way north and another way south eastern of my position during exploration.

I can see where your coming from... however, like I told Tyler, an offline HAB wouldn't produce any electricity or oxygen. It would be good to have one act as your air tank, battery pack charger, and PRT power supplier and the other two as your back and fourth... which two online and one offline could still supply all your needs... But, the game isn't finished yet and there is still more stuff to implement... I'm just thinking proactively through player preferences.


It could be negatively on a group of individuals, but this game is for all sorts of individuals. So, I suggest giving the player the decision to how degradation plays in the same capacity as when asked if you want none/little/or a lot of sandstorms. The difficulty is what determines the degree of when you have to perform maintenance before you have a failure.


Ideally, if I do wait 2 to 3 SOL's to repair, it could effectively take me half a day to do my PM on all 4 pieces of equipment (6-9 minutes per component). And since it takes me time to craft, explore, mine, or whatever else Tyler and his team want to implement will take up even more time during the day.


I suggest letting the player decide, some just want to enjoy the game without it being tedious while others will want that continuous challenge of harsh survival.


It did take me till SOL 16 to find that PRT. A second playthrough would be different, probably even find the PRT on SOL 3 or 4... But that's moot, since it's not about the mechanics, but the the preferences of the player.

Okay, maybe this kind of feedback can help with getting degradation of slots squared away.

 

This is sandbox, but I'm sure in actual gameplay, you'll be asking the player to choose their difficultly of play... this is assumed from that nature, and you can curtail it to calling it easy/normal/hard or something like phrases (e.g. easy = "Exploring the Red Planet", normal = "Surviving the Red Planet", hard = "Enduring the Red Planet") or something to that effect. Either way you do it, that will be the base for degradation.

 

Easy = Degrades at 0.5 an hour (1% per 2 hours game time)

Normal = Degrades at 1 an hour (1% per hour game time)

Hard = Degrades at 1.5 an hour (1% per 30 minutes of game time)

 

Easy mode can be where there is less or no chance for sandstorms and a more favorable salvage drop chance (food, air, materials) during exploring. Normal mode is the likelihood of sandstorms and your average salvage drop chance. Hard would be increased chances of sandstorms and a less than average chance of favorable salvage drops during exploring.

 

Are you basing the durability of a component from a scale of 0-99 (giving it the 100%)?

 

Because I notice that when you repair a component, it is only to 99%. Maybe set it up so it has two levels, the durability state, and the ruin state of zero.

 

Where 1-100 is the durability number and 0 is the state of ruin

 

Component slots would be as followed.

Blank (Empty slots) degrade 25% slower than standby slots (rounded up)

White (Standby Slots) degrade 25% slower than powered slots (rounded up)

Green (Powered Slots) degrade at the rate set by the difficulty mode

 

During a sandstorm, degradation rate should increase by 25% altogether during that storm. So, it would be as if any empty slots would degrade at the rate of a standby slot, standby slots would degrade at the rate of any powered slots, and powered slots would degrade 25% faster than its normal state.

 

No need to change repair times, I think 30 minutes to repair from a ruined state is spot on.

 

Ultimately, if each SOL is 24 hours long, the rate of degrade would be as followed

 

Easy Mode

It would take 2 hours for a powered slot to degrade by 1%, 4 hours for a standby slot to degrade by 1%, and 8 hours for an empty slot to degrade by 1%. I would lose 12% a day off my slots and in 4 days will be in the low 50% or high 40%, depending on when I check those slots on that 4th day. I would need to do any kind of repairs within 8 days or the powered component and slot would be ruined.

 

Normal Mode

It would take 1 hour for a powered slot to degrade by 1%, 2 hours for a standby slot to degrade by 1%, and 4 hours for an empty slot to degrade by 1%. I would lose 24% a day off my slots and in 2 days will be in the low 50% or high 40%, depending on when I check those slots on that 2nd day. I would need to do any kind of repairs within 4 days or the powered component and slot would be ruined.

 

Hard Mode

It would take 30 minutes for a powered slot to degrade by 1%, 1 hours for a standby slot to degrade by 1%, and 2 hours for an empty slot to degrade by 1%. I would lose 48% a day and stab myself with my soldering iron the next day… seriously, that isn’t hard mode… that’s seeking death mode, because you’re also contending with sandstorms which would increase the rate of degradation.


Well, as you can see... it can get rather crazy, I can see why you're looking for feedback on this. But I think we're on the right path to determine, through difficulty level, a rate of degradation of slots.

 

Ideally, finding a happy medium would be great. I’d say that if I’m easy mode, a rate of having to perform routine maintenance on my slots once a week with a minimal chance of slots getting ruined, is just fine. Same with normal mode, once a week with a moderate chance of slots getting ruined, seems ideal. Hard mode, with frequent sandstorms, you’re probably looking at every 3 to 4 days needing to perform routine maintenance or face the high chance of component and slot ruin state.

 

When I mean chance of ruined state, obviously if you’re in easy mode and repairing every 5 days, you’ll never get into a ruined state. But, if your waiting till the last minute on the 7th day or so… you pretty much flirting with the equipment gods…


Obviously, if you wait too long and a slot goes ruin, your standby would kick in. However, it is now degrading as a powered slot, but at it's current degraded state, not back at 100%. So, you probably only have 2 or 3 days at the most to repair that equipment before it is no longer providing your HAB any benefit...

 

Hopefully, this gives a little more perspective to lead you to a more desirable plan for degradation.


Oh, now you see, that right there makes a lot of sense. But it's not doing that for me. It'll do it to the organ integrity, but not to the stats under either calories or hydration. Those stats turn green as I consume the food/water.

How you described it, would be a far better way... an over time causing the (I guess we can call these tertiary stats) stats under your main vitals of calorie count and hydration level to move from orange to yellow to green.


Right now, calories is of course numeral count while hydration is percentage. I'm not sure what the maximum is, but I always seem to end at 2500, while hydration ends at 100%.


Drinking water gives me 20% hydration for each bottle, and if I'm yellow or orange in those vitals, drinking to 100% makes everything under hydration green, instantly...


Same thing with food... everything goes green when I go from less than 400 calories, to over 1800 calories in one sitting.


The bottom two squares indicating my exhaustion and organ integrity don't change instantly, but over time... I guess that part is working.


I'm on Steam's version, which is v0.64... so I'm not sure what the previous gameplay was like, I've only started getting back into all my Kickstarter items. I've been in medical issues for the past few years and have since recovered. So, reviewing what I had, I was like "OMG, I haven't done anything with LP since I pledged XD"

I think you're missing the point... I know I don't die when I reach 0 calories or 0 hydration... I've been there...

I'm saying that consuming from 0 or low levels and you're instantly at green again, that it makes it FEEL like a health potion.


If you're starving, haven't eaten, and then all of sudden stuff yourself to get back up to 2400 calories, do you think your vitals should go back to being green? I think there should be some extra measures to instill some sort of realism in it.


Maybe remain at orange and slowly get to yellow after a few hours, and then go to green only if your continuing to ingest food. Otherwise, I think that your calorie count should be consumed twice as much as normal if your eating from a less than 500 calorie diet. Because your body is so starved, it's using that energy right away to replenish what you have missed.


Same thing with hydration, you're body has a majority amount of its fluids, hence peeing orange juice. If you you suck down water, you don't instantly become hydrated... you're body is using it right away to replenish the muscles versus storing it. So you'll have to drink twice as much over time to start retaining water again.


And yes, those other stats under calories and hydration, instantly turned green for me as well, not just the main stat. Yes, Organ vitality stayed at its color depending on if it was poor or not. I'm talking about the overall consumption and reflection to your stats.


Maybe I'll just refrain from responding to your posts in the future... I don't feel like getting my head bitten off every time I make a comment/suggestion. You're more argumentative towards correcting me as if I'm constantly wrong when this is just a suggestion/discussion XD


Which I think is funny... because I agreed with your OP

Hmm... an interesting premise. I could get behind this suggestion, but if we plan to do any type of modification to radiation and Aspirin pills, we should also take a look at how food and water effect the player when they're very low.


Because the same thing is happening there as well... being at 0% hydration and with poor organs or very low on calories... all I had to do was drink 5 bottles of water and stuff 1500 calories in my body and instantly everything is green and doing fine again... well, the poor organs were still there, which should be, until it to over time gets better since the consumption of food and water.


As of right now, I feel like food and water is some sort of magical healing potion, returning my health bar to full green.


If recovering from starvation, I think that it should say something else when you've packed in several pounds of food (when you've finally found some) and not indicate green either. Not until your body is back to feeling a 1500 to 2500 calorie diet again.