My vision for Survival Gameplay loop

Fatsack shared this feedback 5 years ago
Submitted

"Waiting" for research like others have suggested is not fun, nor is it gameplay. Look at how the survival game Rust does research. There are certain special components you cannot manufacture yourself, but must obtain through exploration. I think this could be incorporated into SE in the following way.


1. Do not lock block blueprints, lock component blueprints in the assembler. This can easily be incorporated into your current tiered assembler changes. Late game, when you have T3 assembler, have unique component blueprints be unlocked by attached "Add-on Modules" that you build plugged into the side of the assembler.


2. For certain key blocks like tiered refineries/assemblers and their "Add-on Modules", require a single unique component you cannot initially fabricate. This would require you to explore and find that unique component per block, and once you have built the "Assembler" or a specific "Add-on Module" than you unlock the unique component for fabrication.


3. You can trade off an NPC cargo ship, find a wreck and salvage, or raid an enemy base/cargo ship to steal these components. You could also require a certain tier of Grinder to return the component, and not just scrap metal. Similar to how battery packs work.

4. Part (3.) further stratifies the tech tree and creates emergent missions. Because before you can manufacture a Jump Drive, you need the "Jump Drive Add-on Module" for your assembler, but the module requires a unique "Jump Drive Component" you cannot fabricate yourself. You will have to raid a Dreadnought or Shipyard to acquire one. But to salvage the component from the block, you need a T3 Grinder or else you'll just receive "Scrap Metal" because you botched the removal with your low quality tool. Which means you'll need the minerals, and corresponding "T3 Tools Add-on Module" for your assembler to craft the Grinder (or buy or loot a grinder). But the Dreadnought and Shipyard are not going to just let you steal this component, and they have defenses. Therefor you will need to build an attack craft or find some other engineering solution to bypass said defenses. But be careful not to hit the Jump Drive or "Jump Drive tech add-on module" you're trying to salvage, because you might destroy the very unique uncraftable component which was the entire reason for ambushing this capital ship in the first place!

5. Creating these tiers also stratifies the games economy. More "loot items" with different rarities and values, that you cannot simply just fabricate straight away from raw ore, and require an investment of combat/exploration/materials will create "specialization" between different factions and engineers. This "specialization" will incentivize teamwork, trading, raiding, exploration and looting. (This necessarily requires exploration encounters to be well thought out, designed, and placed in correct locations to facilitate advancement from any starting spawn).


6. Place these encounters and unique components where they will be needed. If you start in space, than have encounters with an orbiter/lander that has an "atmospheric thruster fabrication component", just outside the atmosphere so the engineer can loot it, make the add-on for his assembler, build atmo thrusters, and land on the planet. Then on the planet you can have an encounter with the component that unlocks large hydrogen thrusters, so they can find it, build them, and go back into space. Are you in space and need Large ion thrusters, well search the asteroids for a mining station, or trade ship crossing the void. Need the Jump drive to reach the next planet? Well, the Dreadnought that has the component you'll need to fabricate them lies beyond the moon, just far enough to reach with ion thrusters, but close enough to make it economical to still build the Drive to planet hop.


7. This further increases the fear of loss and survival aspect by requiring you to protect your vulnerable add-on modules or blueprints. If they get destroyed, then you have to explore/trade/combat to acquire another one. This opens up the possibility of LOSING progress, which fits well in a survival setting. It also incentivizes having a base, whether a station or capital ship, where you hoard and reinforce the defenses, of your valuable production capabilities. And since the unique components that give you the ability to fabricate high end components, only affect a single assembler, your production output is directly tied into the exploration, trading, combat gameplay loop. If you want a giant factory of 100 assemblers all pumping out Jump Drive parts, you're going to have to raid 100 Dreadnoughts or trade for 100 "Jump Drive Assembler add-on module components" or w/e you end up calling them. This will give a very rewarding sense of progression and increase in power over time.

8. Increase the # and variety of raw materials, and their locations. I would include Carbons (wood, oil), Gases ( Nitrogen, a Noble gas, Helium), Biological (proteins, amino acids, algae), and more Minerals. And these resources have specific locations. Incorporate them into the new and existing tech tree/blocks/components.

9. I would turn the current Ores, which are just pure minerals, into different ACTUAL ores which are mixtures of different concentrations of minerals. Much like the Better Stone mod does (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=406244471). I would add further gameplay via Metallurgy by making more of the Refinery add-on modules to specifically target certain mineral groups in an ore, like a centrifuge for the more massive minerals (uranium), ferro-magnetic separation, for the magnetic minerals (iron), electro-phoresis add-on for charged materials, acidic washing, etc. Actually put some science, and engineering terms and concepts in for immersion/education. Like a "nano-fabrication add-on module", or "circuit printing module" etc.

P.S.

Also adding in Heat transfer mechanics to Production/Energy/Weapon/Fuel/Thruster blocks (can be done simply) as well as "Add-on Modules" for mitigating the heats would add further engineering gameplay. Fires in pressurized/atmospheric conditions could damage blocks and adjacent blocks/players.

Radiation (solar, cosmic, and reactor) and shielding (water curtain, lead, magnetic field) mechanics would also add engineering gameplay. Solar and cosmic could affect your health/energy and electrical systems. Maybe it does damage specifically to the "computer" components in blocks. Where reactor radiation may leak and create a slow health draining hazard when they are damaged, creating time pressure in a repair situation.

Finally, increase variety and stratify weapons/defenses. Different types, think Hacking(via communications vulnerabilities like antennae, remote control blocks), EMP, Laser, biological, heat, and ways to mitigate them. That would be cool.

Best Answer
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I really like the concept for progression that has been proposed. The best I have read so far

As it is, progression is achieved simply by forcing a specif build order like basic assembler before full assembler which is just using more of the same resources and something that often would just happen naturally.

If on the other hand, s proposed by the OP, high tier items require special one cannot manufacture with just ore but must go on a quest to find, it opens a whole new dimension to the game play giving more purpose to exploration and looting

It does not sound like a trivial change, but I hope Keen looks into this concept and see if they can make it work into some future release

Replies (5)

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p.p.s

Food. This could be done with algae/bacteria cultures which you could get from Earth or alien planet, or even some of the warmer moons with atmosphere. They would be a component in building a bio-reactor, which you would feed amino acids (readily found in asteroids IRL) and they would synthesize all the proteins a body needs. As well as having more abundant and stockable food sources on earthlike/alien planets.

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I really like the concept for progression that has been proposed. The best I have read so far

As it is, progression is achieved simply by forcing a specif build order like basic assembler before full assembler which is just using more of the same resources and something that often would just happen naturally.

If on the other hand, s proposed by the OP, high tier items require special one cannot manufacture with just ore but must go on a quest to find, it opens a whole new dimension to the game play giving more purpose to exploration and looting

It does not sound like a trivial change, but I hope Keen looks into this concept and see if they can make it work into some future release

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The problem with this method is that ships with certain components on board would need to be guaranteed to spawn. Which removes any real random element to which encounters spawn. Without this guarantee, players could be stuck in a stagnated game loop that never progresses. Which would totally void the whole point of adding a tech tree to the game in the first place.

The ability to conduct research in parallel to salvaging, which has been suggested in other ideas, means players can still progress even if they don't capture any random encounters or only very basic ships are spawning in.

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Kevin, this could be solved several ways. Either through an event manager system, that determines where the player is at in the tech tree, chooses one of the next steps, and chooses the next random encounter from a list of encounters that contain that component. This keeps the random nature while still preventing the player from getting stuck. Although this is survival, making bad choices and stalling out could/should result in some sort of penalty, even to the point of starting over if making enough bad decisions to "not survive".


Alternatively, with good game and level design considerations, like stated in my post, the random encounters would not be so random, but placed in locations that make sense, with levels of difficulty that make sense for that stage of progression. These spawn locations could simply be based off a simple radius distance from certain waypoints, like planets, moons, or the origin of the gameworld, etc.


And finally, you could ask Good.Bot to locate a certain part for you, i.e. spawning a "quest encounter" at the will of the player, this saves on the resources of the event manager trying to read your mind or make its best guess from your owned grids, built blocks, and their inventories.


Additionally these encounters could be separated into lists based on the blocks/components they contain, or loot they reward. And the encounters could vary in type and variation. i.e. an encounter may be a booby trapped wreck to disarm and salvage, a passing trader cargo ship you have to catch up to request a trade, and dock to complete the trade, or a functioning ship or station to raid, or spawn an aggressive pirate attack that also contains that part in its loot or ship build. These encounters could further be designed to be solvable in several ways, via stealth, brute force, fulfilling a quest in exchange for a reward, pure trade (fetch), or other minigames or puzzles.


Also adding "communications" with these NPC ships would be very immersive, so that you can walk through a dialog tree with a trader, negotiate with pirates, try to intimidate a raid target into just giving up what you want without a fight, etc.


Also if you're reading this and like these ideas, please upvote it so the devs are more likely to notice it.

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Also, in the end game you could ramp up drone attacks based on the level/amount of production tech you have, to give it that entropy, where you never feel too safe and accomplished.

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These ideas were what I had originally hoped would've been in the survival update, a real progression system. Don't get me wrong, this update is definitely a step in the right direction, but I hoped for a little bit more and this is it.

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Okay, The only gripe I have is that it is really, really hard to get around the star system without a jump drive. There would have to be a way to get a jump drive pretty early on in the game or else you would end up spending HOURS getting from planet to planet, I would say make tiered jump drives or even disposable jump drives that fry after one use. I think ion thrusters need a bit of a buff too, hydrogen just makes more sense for almost every scenario. In conclusion, either more speed or some form of jump tech is needed to lock ores behind progression. Make hydrotech a thing you have to get from raiding a base from on Earth, that makes it impossible to go to space without a serious fleet that you would have to build up on earth with atmo thrusters. (Most importantly, scaling so that it isn't impossible for one player.)

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