excessive lightning strikes when set on safe to learn the game

boolybooly shared this feedback 2 years ago
Submitted

The feedback is this, I started a game with environment hostility set to safe to learn the game and did not expect or want cataclysmic lightning strikes. These are like meteor strikes and common sense suggests they should be subject to "environment hostility" settings.

In case you dont know what your own game or its devs are doing I will paint a picture.

Started a new game (all realistic) on Mars with weather enabled for aesthetics and environment hostility set to safe so I could play without setbacks as I only just bought the game and do not yet understand the mechanics well enough to enjoy engaging with this level of challenge.

Built a basic start base.

During a storm the base was struck by what I would describe as cataclysmic level explosive damage, twice, which was unwelcome. I say it was Cataclysmic based on the wiki description of meteor damage in relation to environment hostility settings, which was why I chose to play safe.


SafeMeteor storms will not occur.
NormalMeteor storms will occur rarely and in smaller numbers, causing minor damage.
CataclysmMeteor storms occur regularly, in decent numbers, and can cause serious damage.
ArmageddonMeteors never stop. Meteors are on fire. Meteors will cause major damage. Good luck.

I later discovered lightning strikes are not prevented by the safe setting and cause serious damage if you have weather enabled.

By serious damage I mean that in my experience, multiple lightning strikes in a short space of time completely disabled a start base i.e. destroyed numerous light armor scaffolding blocks, toppled a turbine tower disconnecting it and disabled a large grid small cargo which linked basic assembler and basic refinery by destroying all small tubes, preventing access to the basic assembler to make the small tubes to repair the damage to the cargo and you cannot make small tubes with the survival kit in the pod.

Lightning strike explosions disabled the base completely and also injured the avatar and lead indirectly to the avatar's death from collision damage as I struggled to repair the damage using an unfamiliar interface.

An incomplete small vehicle grid also vanished during the storm, presumed destroyed by a third lightning strike.

So this is not what I would call a safe environment setting. If meteors are regulated by the environment hostility setting, lightning of this kind should be too.

Please fix by regulating lightning damage with the same control used to regulate meteors. There is nothing wrong with the aesthetic effects of weather and lightning, its just the cataclysmic level of explosion damage being visited on peaceful tinkerers unwillingly which is IMHO a very wrong headed kind of approach.

Meanwhile I can disable weather, until this is done.

Also suggest you consider why bored devs are pranking noobs? You know it ain't right.

Replies (1)

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I have more experience with the game now and understand the small vehicle grid vanished because of trash collection when the avatar died.

It remains true for me that I consider even one cataclysmic lightning strike in the first hours of a "safe" game is one too many.

I know it was not a freak accident as I started another Mars game just to compare and had the same events occur numerous times before deciding to post about it. Its an inevitable outcome of the vanilla code and it is clearly directed at causing harm to structures and avatars in an unrealistic way.

After researching lightning in SE I can see it has had a harmful implementation for over a year now and many complaints which have been substantially ignored. I suspect this mechanic is intended to punish scaffold bases. I dont think it is an appropriate way to balance the game in that regard and there are other ways. e.g. wind erosion or micrometeors deconstructing 0% structures over time, plink, plink, plink. Lightning should not be used like this and should be treated like meteors i.e. absent if safe mode selected.

I found a mod to remove lightning damage but I cannot engage with beta testing a game if I am obliged to play it modded, sorry, it just would not be professional.

I look forward to the day this is fixed and then I will gladly help Keen develope the game.

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