Sky Island: Milestones, new systems, and balance

The Problems with Sky Island

Preface: I'm the original creator of the Sky Island mod. I'm working on a large update I'm calling Milestone 1 and I'd like to discuss concepts, systems, and balance ideas here before pushing them into the repo, so I'd appreciate hearing the thoughts of everyone who plays it on the planned ideas. This is going to be a very large topic, because the mod's scope is very different from the base game and requires a lot of balance considerations, so my gratitude to anyone who reads all this.

In its current state, I feel Sky Island suffers from a few main problems:

Expeditions don't always feel well balanced. Most raids may involve grabbing a vehicle, driving to the exit, then using the remaining time to just explore and loot in a small area around the exit, so you have more opportunity to bring back as much loot as possible. Current meta is to wield (or strap on via the Hauler's Harness) a fridge or huge barrel crammed to the brim with loot. Watching, playing, and talking about this reveals that for many, a lot of time on each expedition just minmaxing carrying space and trying to bring every possible item back. Expeditions are also quite long, and it's easy to spend 4+ hours of real time on a single outing. This is somewhat counter to the smaller, more bitesize roguelite-style runs the mod originally intended. Spending that much time on each trip means that if you don't make it to the exit, you've just spent hours of your life to lose progress, and when you do make it to the exit, you want to bring home as much as you can possibly carry; nobody wants to come home from a long raid with a couple handfuls of junk and a soda.
Progress isn't always meaningful. Coming home with a big haul is nice but it often doesn't change your material conditions, and many expeditions feel the same when there's little to aim for. Many items you might normally consider are now less meaningful, and gearing up for an expedition tends to mean traveling extremely light because you need all the space you can get for loot, per point 1 above.
The island is inhospitable. It's very windy, cold, exposed, and is not fun to organize on. Building even a tiny shack would mean a LOT of trips down, even with the magic bag that holds a lot of planks and panels, and even with construction on it's arduous, time consuming, and from what I've seen a lot of players don't want to or don't know how to engage with the construction menu to the extent of building a house from scratch. That said, long term goals like building homes, farms, etc. on the island should still be encouraged.
Entering cities and normal exploration is very difficult. CDDA is already meant to be played slow and careful, and until you're very powerful, clearing out even a very small town means working slow. Going block by block, peeling a few zombies at a time away from the crowd, avoiding structures, doing this until you need to peel off, rest up, and come back tomorrow. Every push further could take in-game days depending on your character's ability. So in Sky Island, when time is at a premium, this method is not feasible. Even if a gun store or library is near the edge, going even 2-3 blocks in is usually a suicide mission. Most expeditions just mean completely avoiding cities or only barely poking into the furthest outskirts for loot. At a stretch, players might take a homeward mote in and then run as deep into town as possible, grabbing what loot they can before being killed and sent home safely.
Various technical issues. Save games bloat up fast because Sky Island generates multiple overmaps frequently. Map targets (like exit points) vanish when you get close, rather than leaving a permanent map mark for you to return to, so you really have to place a note yourself or risk getting lost. Small things of this nature.

Milestone 1

Milestone 1 attempts to address these problems respectively:

Raids are now 3x shorter, and missions and exits are much closer. Instead of spending most of your raid just traveling, you can now spend it exploring, looting, and fighting, as intended. When a full raid can be finished in under an hour, it feels much less frustrating to die, and much more acceptable to come home with only a small amount of items. Popping down to just grab a few things feels feasible because you're not walking cross-country just to leave. This also mitigates complaints I've seen about rivers always getting in the way (though I have genuinely considered finding a way to turn those off or at least down). Note that longer raids can be unlocked, and when you leave, you now get a choice between short raids (the new default), medium, and long raids. Long raids are the same length as pre-Milestone 1 raids are now. The shorter a raid, the closer objectives will be.
You can purchase permanent upgrades and unlocks. There are over 10 categories of upgrades, ranging from quality of life features like being able to reveal more of the map around your missions or having extra exit points available on every raid, to gameplay changing unlocks like being able to start your next inside a lab (at a cost). These are tracked via missions and are the main point I want to focus on for balance, below.
In the style of Escape from Tarkov, a big inspiration for this gamemode, I've long considered buildable, upgradeable facilities that are made for the player. I like the idea of bringing back various supplies (though nothing as demanding as a basecamp) and having structures pop up, ready to use, but I don't want to overwrite or prevent surface-side building. Therefore I've added a subterranean layer to the island which gets automatically carved out into a bunker as you upgrade it. One of these is simple enough to complete on your very first raid, so you will at least have a small, sheltered 3x3 space to begin depositing and organizing your loot -- I got so tired of trying to sort thing in the grass for my first dozen or so expeditions. By building underground, this system exclusively carves into new space, which ensures nothing a player does will be overwritten, and it still leaves the entire surface of the island available for farm plots, houses, ponds, whatever the player wants to do to decorate.
I'm not quite sure how to address this, short of just turning down monster spawn density. The upside, I think, would mean denser but still possible-to-defeat numbers in cities that would actually let you explore them, but the downside is some difficult locales (like labs) would wind up pretty desolate.
This last problem I also don't know how to solve, and may not be possible with code as it stands currently. Some have suggested the "prune save file" debug option but it has the possibility to wreck your save and obviously isn't a standard feature. As it stands, save bloat is definitely one of the mod's biggest problems.

Alternatives, considerations

For point 1, I worried that making raids short and close together would ruin the tension and reduce the possibility for big, dramatic plays, but having played a few dozen such raids myself I find them generally more intense. Previously it was easily possible to grab a car and drive to the exit with 5 hours to spare for looting, which was not intended. Now you start very near the exit already, and can focus on just exploring and looting without worrying so much about travel, so I feel much more encouraged to get into fights and take risks, or push myself on the time limit. It still feels tense and exciting, probably moreso. Further, Sky Island gameplay, moment to moment, didn't previously feel that different from CDDA. If you watched a video of someone playing it, it would normally be hard to tell the mod was even on, because so much of the time is just spent playing it like you normally would. With a shorter and more immediate time pressure, I find myself forced to cut corners that could put me into risk or pass up things I normally wouldn't. When the difference is minutes, not hours, you really have to make some hard calls.

For point 2, I initially wanted to make a shop, but even ignoring all the complexities and difficulties of balancing such a thing, it occurred to me I couldn't think of much I wanted to be on sale. Backpacks, weapons, clothing, armor, tools... these are all things the mod wants you to find and hoard for yourself. It's very much the point, so I don't think an island store is really what the mod needs.

For point 3, I had considered making structures that build on the surface, maybe using pre-placed concrete floorplans to indicate where they'll be constructed so the player can know not to set up there first, but I feel cluttering the surface with the same structures for everyone isn't quite the direction I wanted to go, and space is at a premium if you want to make something there yourself. The bunker method, I hope, gives players who want to build and decorate plenty of space to do so, while also providing a convenient and immediate option while gathering supplies for those constructions, or just as an alternative for those who don't want to build tile by tile themselves.

Balancing Upgrades in the immediate future

I'd appreciate any discussion on the mod and its systems going forward. In the immediate future and in specific, I'd like help from everyday players on helping set the costs for the various unlockable upgrades. I put together this rough chart as a start: grid This just documents the main limiting factor of each recipe, but most will also require other basic tools or supplies (nails, hinges, planks, wires, etc) just to dip into player stocks. Rank 1 upgrades should be pretty cheap, using mostly items you can find in outskirts, because they're meant to be unlocked early. Some of the first tier of upgrades, especially for the bunker, should be achievable within the first raid or two to help get the player started on progressing. Meanwhile tier 3 upgrades are okay to come from denser locations and take a long time to unlock as they present more long-term goals and powerful changes.

(Costs are mostly thematic and scaled to rarity, they are not an attempt at constructing a real recipe or finished product.) Overall,I want the costs to be fairly rare items, but not necessarily valuable ones. Needing Heelys for exits or a board game for a basement start are not super common, but they're not so valuable you'd regret parting with them for small upgrades. The Stability upgrade tree is an exception in that it is so valuable it warrants sinking valuable items into. Essentially I'm trying to capture a feeling Tarkov often has, of finding a rare item in an otherwise unremarkable spot and going "awesome, I've been looking for this!", which right now you only get for the first few raids and some tools.

I would love suggestions on balance here, and recommendations for reasonably rare items that are thematically appropriate, as I haven't played regularly in a long time at this point and don't know off the top of my head what sort of loot to expect in a lot of places. What sort of items would be appropriate to turn in to demonstrate basic proficiency when unlocking the next Rank? What would be reasonable to ask of a player to prove they're ready for harder missions?

If you've made it this far, thanks for your time, and please let me know your thoughts.

Just want to preface this by saying that I really appreciate the work you've done on this mod, been having a blast with it so far. With that said, I'm going to have to concur with both the concerns and solutions of (1). One of the biggest pain points for me starting out was the combination of large setbacks from dying on expeditions and the substantial chance that both exits would be effectively unreachable, leading to the unfun experience of losing of potentially hours of real-life progress at complete random. Losing good gear is one thing, but the bigger issue is the loss of warped items that are a) the result gradual warp shard accumulation over several runs and b) necessary to bring along every expedition due to either their functionality (most of the bags) or the rarity of their intended target (autodoc copyplate, which costs a whopping 30 shards). This on its own isn't an issue since there's nothing wrong with having higher stakes, but I feel that it starts becoming a problem when coupled with what can sometimes feel like forced losses with how the extraction points generate. Both sides of this are exacerbated in the early game, where gear is more precious and fewer kinds of terrain are passable. To give a couple of examples, rivers (as mentioned above) generally require either flotation vests or swim fins to make it across without abandoning most of what you are carrying (which becomes another piece of rare gear to possibly lose), cities require working vehicles and/or being really good at the game to traverse (depending on the size), and having to (for whatever reason) make it past a triffid grove is effectively a death sentence unless the player has a LOT of bullets. Going around some of these is possible, but some cities generate fairly large and the clock is always ticking. In any case, spending an hour walking through the surrounding forest isn't fun. To be fair, I know most of this is mapgen constraints outside of your control, and you did warn us that we would die a lot, but expeditions where it feels like there's nothing I could have done to prevent it still sting. #70442 alleviated this somewhat with the Skywards Beacon allowing effectively "rerolls" of especially bad spawns, but the exit being closer would still definitely be nice. For my part, I've admittedly taken to starting as a Teleporter from Mind over Matter and blinking my way through threats. As for (4), the dormant zombie rework in the base game might help with that. #70600, the initial enablement PR for it, got merged fairly recently (although they don't show up in the game just yet). Overall, I support the planned additions, and think that they would improve the player experience greatly.

Would it be possible/a good idea if each new raid didn't generate a new area? Instead you'd go back to the last area you've visited, and the area would only reroll if you died or manually selected a reroll (either for free or at a cost). This allows you to work on an objective (such as clearing a horde) over multiple raids while still under raid time pressure. You could also setup temporary camps or loot stashes in-raid, at the risk of losing access to it if you die and the location is rerolled.

As an extension - since the mod draws so heavily from EFT, would it be possible to have multiple such semi-static raid locations to choose from? A city, a forest, a large structue like mall or military base, a lab... With various unlock requirements and/or entry costs.

I will just leave some thoughts and ideas.

Map reset would be great. But I understand it might not be possible. When I was playing this mod I deleted my map manually (except Island location) when my save was way over 1GB.
There is too much loot ind CDDA in general. Drop the Hauler's Harness and maybe other special backpacks and make the Island livable from the start (I guess the basement will do that?). Add some trees and rocks as a source of base materials
Instead of extraction points, a consumable item for a spell that takes you back to the Island (that takes 5min+ to cast). So first you get a quest to find the item, or finishing the quest would give you the item, and then you can cast the spell whenever you want.
More NPCs. So if you spawn in city there will be NPCs fighting zombies (and you). That can be used as distraction to get to safety.
Love the unlocks so maybe add a start near a portal storm. Also add a aircraft carrier start as end-game start because it would be kinda impossible to get there otherwise.
Move the Island out of the world. Some special locations already spawn outside -10 +10 levels.
Alternative "Islands". Like underground location, maybe with some lava. Underwater location(?). Or "otherworldy" location.

re: explore and loot in a small area around the exit, what if you give to the player a tool, that allow to teleport picked items.. somewhere, either to the exctraction point, or directly to island? in this case player won't need to carry all it's stuff in the fridge, giving more time for scavenging

I’d agree with the shop generally not being a useful addition, however there is one kind of supply it could sell that would be very welcome; construction supplies. Sand, dirt, bricks and planks are all huge and even with a lot of storage carrying enough straw to build a thatch roof is an ordeal.

I also think that the sky island being a square block is pretty ugly, especially if you play on cataclysm curses which relies on level’s being interesting shapes to look good. This has led me to think that, whilst I certainly agree that a blanket option to modify the overmap terrain on the surface would be problematic, the option to add/change some edge tiles would go a long way to making it feel more organic and allow for a little customisation. Especially if they are added to the edges instead of just mutated, conflicting with existing items and terrain would be less of a problem.

There is one other terrain customisation option that would be very well appreciated, and that’s the ability to modify the terrain from just being short grass or dirt. Having either items or construction recipes to add water tiles, sand, clay banks or trees would allow for a lot more creative builds on the island, with water mills or small lakes. If the player does it one tile at a time, the problem with overwriting entire chunks of the map can be avoided whilst also adding more progression.

I don’t like how the open air outside the island looks, but partially that’s because I play curses where it looks really bizarre. I’ll probably mod my files so that the island is surrounded by impassable water tiles. This may be an option you want to give people, or perhaps not.

Farming isn’t really an option in sky island except on a tiny scale. You can’t just expand the island indefinitely due to technical limitations, but having more of the area directly surrounding the island be empty and having the option to ‘spawn’ a larger plot of land in that area for farming would be unnecessary but welcome.

First, I would like to say my thanks appreciating your mod. Sky Island is the main reason I got back to CDDA, and I’ve been playing it for months now. It is amazing! Please see below a few suggestions I had in mind, some of them might be related to what others mentioned as well:

[CONTINUE FROM WHERE YOU DIED] For X number of warp tokens spawn close to the location where you died in you last raid or close to your last exit. Imagine you were cleaning a city and failed, or you found an amazingly rare location and had no time to loot it. Now you could have an option to continue from where you left for configurable number of tokens. This also means that cleaning large cities and labs becomes feasible. You may even continue exploring the world until you eventually reach an ocean or megacity…
[BUILDABLE BUNKER] I really like the idea of having a bunker or some sort of unlockable base/home. I am not a fan of the vanilla building system and will never go into building a house brick by brick on the island. I like the idea of Tarkov-like hideout where you start with a small underground area and you unlock extra rooms/facilities by bringing in money (warp tokens) and components (generators, raw materials, furniture, etc.). I think something similar would be an amazing addition to Sky Island and would incentivize players to complete missions. I wonder if vanilla CDDA quests can be tweaked as well to give you warp shards as a reward?
[CONFIGURABLE RAID DURATION] Whatever you decide with the duration of raids, I suggest making it as much configurable for players as possible. For example, I play with No Hope and 0.2 loot spawn, so shorter raids would probably not work in my case, as I will not find enough loot. “Random raid duration” option would be pretty neat to have an unexpected factor in place as well.
[CITY SPAWNS] In my experience spawning in the middle of the town is always a death trap. I understand the difficulty factor, but at least to me it brings more frustration than fun. Maybe it is possible to configure the city spawn to place the player on the outskirts of the city?

How about some kind of vending machines to the island to gain players ability to get some construction materials, animals and supply? And modular buildings here like faction camps can be pretty interesting. Maybe more unlocking islands for extra purposes like planting too (can be even not physical, just menu with hired workers and tasks).

I like idea about much quicker raids. Current ones so long, so I never play longer, than 3-4 at all before delete the world, because it's very tiring, plus generating the map for each raid take long time too. At result I longer waiting generation and find path to extracting point, than actually do the missions. After run with rivers for about 6h extraction path finding (where I originally had plan just to get some planks) I losing my hope to play any longer.

In general I'm hyped for these changes but I find your solution for 3 a bit odd, while a having access to a basement early sounds nice and I get you want to let the player build where they want, isn't the more obvious and thematic way to circumvent 3 to have expansions to the island itself (and make it non square) and then allow the construction of premade stuff on those expansions, or are there technical reasons why expanding outside of 1 overmap tile is challenging?

If you want to turn off rivers, you can do so like this:

  {
    "type": "EXTERNAL_OPTION",
    "name": "OVERMAP_PLACE_RIVERS",
    "info": "Allows to place procgen rivers during overmap generation.",
    "stype": "bool",
    "value": false
  }

For more toggleable options like this, see data/core/game_balance.json

It would be really interesting if Sky Island could interact with the new dynamic mapgen. Choosing to be dropped in the eastern megacities vs. the rural west is an interesting way to control difficulty and/or search for specific locations. Also I think there's just more forests and cities in general now, at least in certain directions, so just hopping in a car and driving exactly where you want is less of a thing now.

I'm excited to try the new style of missions, but I've generally found myself wishing for longer missions, not shorter ones. I think it would be fun to have to plan around survival mechanics, packing water and a sleeping bag and such, for a trip that takes several days. That said, I haven't thought of a great way to integrate that into the Sky Island gameplay loop. Maybe just put the exit hella far away and award warp shards or some other spicy bonus for reaching it?

One of the bigger problems I've had with Sky Island is that the format encourages you to travel as light as possible, which creates a dual problem where you're encouraged to minestrone heavily in stuff like martial arts and mutations to the point that dying stops being a huge penalty, but it's still hard to do anything dangerous when the a TCL or something randomly presents itself because you left your .50 cl at home. The additional options for choosing your starting location help with this. I think another interesting option would be to spawn end bosses near the exits depending on mission difficulty to ensure players need to bring some kind of heavier ordnance.

e: another thing that would be cool for someone like me is if there were permanent consequences for death. Like if you could lose limbs or mutations, that would help keep non-permanent upgrades relevant. Probably have to be optional, though, because it might be a tad brutal for most people.

e2: ... what if you could wager on your expeditions? Bet your right arm, say. There's maybe some difficulty increase (like the aforementioned end bosses) to make sure you don't just get free stuff, but if you pull it off you get extra rewards. But if you die, off comes the arm.

A few major concerns and ideas have been raised repeatedly, which I've tried to smoosh together into a few core concepts: Returning to raids Not being able to return to a raid, having to make hard decisions about how to spend your time and what to take with you -- these are core components of the mod. However, I feel the earthbound pill, which is fairly cheap, already compromises on this a bit. Having the option to return to the place you left at the end of your last raid is an interesting proposition, I just never intended this mod to be that; the changes to overall flow and the temporary nature of earthside locations was part of the point, and if all people wanted was a "pocket base" mod that would be easy enough to do, but it's not this. However, there is some merit in returning under limited terms. Maybe returning to your last exit would only be possible if you successfully extracted, and could come at a cost of warp shards, if you left some great gear behind or were near a very valuable location. Maybe you wouldn't get new missions when starting a raid this way, so you couldn't use it to fund itself with warp shards -- you would have to take new landing spots eventually, depending on how many saved up warp shards you're willing to spend. I wondered how something like this would conflict with an earthbound pill, which gives you 50% of a raid's worth of time already, and I wonder now if this isn't just the earthbound pill, but better? Provides more opportunity to bring gear home by splitting it into separate raids, gives you a chance to restock now that you know what you're going to be facing, and requires you to still keep a timetable, as you'll still need to return to the exit. So, maybe replace earthbound pills entirely, removing one of the most obvious ways to undercut the intended tension of the gamemode, but replace it with "Return Trips" that cost shards but let you pick up where you left off, with restrictions? I feel like that potentially solves the same problems but better, as well as a few more the pills didn't.

City starts Starting in a city is very rough, but also, you sometimes need to hit up city locations or you'll never be able to get to a gun store, library, etc. By default, you are now only started in fields, but once unlocked, you can also choose to start in a house basement or on a random rooftop. I do want an "outskirts" start, where you pop in just barely outside a city, but I don't think this is feasible using the map search feature as it stands. Best technical solution would be to find a house, then pick a field near that house, but it's not uncommon to find empty fields inside city limits, and you would probably just get placed there. This can already happen with field starts, but there's not much that can be done about it. Again, I think cities are generally too monster-packed already, but outside of just lowering spawn rates, I'm not sure how to make it so that SI players can actually have a chance at looting them. The upcoming "dormant zombies" changes may help this a lot, but time will tell I guess.

Gear Fear and capacity There are two main reasons to hesitate taking valuable gear with you into a mission besides generally just not wanting to risk them: Either you need the space they'd take up in order to carry things home, or it's SO expensive and valuable you can't really afford to bring it with you. For overall capacity-related fears, my experience so far has been that shorter, quicker raids reduce the feeling that you have to cram your pack absolutely full to bursting with the most efficient and valuable loadout possible when coming home, and that helps worrying less about how much space you have when you leave. Lowering the stressful pressure to get an enormous haul every time (because the raid was so difficult and took so long) means you feel a bit more free to take items out with you, even if they cost inventory space. For the other concern, a rebalance of warped items would help. The autodoc copyplate, for instance, is very valuable, but it's also enormously expensive. You never know when you'll find an autodoc, so you want to take it with you every time. If the copyplate were cheap, you could take it with you more often. Then the autodoc itself would just cost the warp shards that right now go into the copyplate cost. This means getting an autodoc is still expensive and still needs you to find one in the world, but trying to find one doesn't mean risking 30 shards every single time you go out just hoping you'll even be near one. Similar rebalancing would help to offload costs onto things you're sure will pay out, rather than risking more shards every raid. Rebalancing homeward motes to last until they're used up could be a similar turn, but I worry about the value of buying "extra lives" in this way. Those, if anything, would have to get more expensive if powered up like that.

Metagaming Most people know the "strap a fridge to your back" hauler's harness meta. Simply holding a fridge or other large container in your hands is mostly used for bringing items home, but the hauler's harness reduces weight to 0 and thus makes it possible to simply loot that way for the entire raid. I think reducing the weight reduction (and cost) of the hauler's harness (maybe to 80% weight reduction instead of 100%?) would restore it more towards its original goal of simply being an extra pair of wielding hands to bring items home with. In this way you could still easily bring home a large animal corpse, a fridge, an oven, a mattress, or similar huge and bulky items, but not pack them full of an entire raid's worth of goodies at no cost. That much loot would still weigh you down, and the harness then becomes more what it was meant for without short-circuiting all other backpack space.

Rivers Some people love the challenge and unexpected obstacle, some people find them demoralizing and way too common. I'd like to just turn them down overall, but perhaps putting an optional way to turn rivers off would be nice. Light-Wave's code could be included in an optional file for those who want it, though if there were an in-game way to flip this boolean it would be even better.

Endgame locales Hospitals, labs, FEMA camps, aircraft carriers, etc. are already hard targets, so some way to target them specifically could help. Labs have one already, but dropping someone into a lab is at least survivable. Hospitals and similar locations are usually so packed that a random spot inside one is often a death sentence. Scenarios that start you there use special, specific spawning zones that I don't have access to using teleport code, so I'm not sure if there's a safe solution to all of these.

Resources on the island Hauling home tons of planks, nails, scrap metal, stone, dirt, clay, sand, etc. is still really boring and tedious. Even with the bags, you would have to fill a lumberjack's bag dozens of times to get even a small shed built. Therefore, I think it might be better to have things on the island itself that can provide these resources. The Infinitree could have sister constructions, which yield metal, stone, clay, and similar raw resources in large quantity. But how to harvest them? Simply spending time and exercise is a small ask, since nothing will ever bother you on the island and food isn't hard to hoard. What if you fed resources into the Infinitree and other constructions to get items out? Paying 1 warp shard to instantly get 200 instant planks or something like that would be a lot more appealing than hauling all that up raid after raid. However, warp shards are already in high demand and used for better things, so what about a brand new currency used specifically for these raw resources? These could be awarded every time you survive a raid, for instance, and longer raids could give more rewards, on top of potentially a bonus for how many missions you completed. This would encourage forward progression, and it would avoid cutting into your warp shard supply which is already so valuable. Plus, if these can only be redeemed for raw resources, they're valuable, but not so valuable that you'd just speedrun raids or feel compelled to metagame just to get as many as possible. They'd naturally accumulate over time as you're already doing other things, and then they can be spent to shore up weak spots in your resource supply chain. Always feeling like you're making progress without having to go out of your way.

And one specific point on revamping home amenities:

I find your solution for 3 a bit odd, while a having access to a basement early sounds nice and I get you want to let the player build where they want, isn't the more obvious and thematic way to circumvent 3 to have expansions to the island itself (and make it non square) and then allow the construction of premade stuff on those expansions, or are there technical reasons why expanding outside of 1 overmap tile is challenging?

It's a little bit of a technical thing (easier to keep constructions within the original bounds, not having to rewrite island borders, etc) but I could theoretically have a central "free build" area designated and then everything outside of that would be cordoned off with a warning of "anything here could be overwritten so don't build here". That said it's also largely an aesthetic thing -- I prefer to keep the island small and compact to emphasize the isolated nature and confined gimmick of the gamemode, plus I think encircling a central area with a perimeter of useful structures would look and feel kind of strange, plus be harder to navigate between. Putting it on a lower level, I think, keeps it central while not interfering.

Sorry, two more:

Secure Container I do like the idea of some special pocket that's small and picky, but which you keep even if you die. Ideally you unlock this, but I'm not sure how to make such a thing, as in my early testing even the integrated bionic "pocket" space would drop items when you turned incorporeal. Will need more testing to see if this is even possible.

Special Raids Whether at random or by specifically selecting them beforehand, raids could have special modifiers to increase risk but also reward. Penalties could be less time overall, not being able to bring anything with you and having to land naked, even raids that are always night by essentially turning off the sun. But bonuses could include things like more warp shards just for surviving, or longer raids when on higher difficulties. Not sure on the details here so this will probably be in a future patch, but I think there are good possibilities.

Endgame locales Hospitals, labs, FEMA camps, aircraft carriers, etc. are already hard targets, so some way to target them specifically could help. Labs have one already, but dropping someone into a lab is at least survivable. Hospitals and similar locations are usually so packed that a random spot inside one is often a death sentence. Scenarios that start you there use special, specific spawning zones that I don't have access to using teleport code, so I'm not sure if there's a safe solution to all of these.

I think that's part of the charm. I'm willing to bet that getting dumped straight into a FEMA camp is an entirely survivable experience for a properly equipped lategame survivor. It sounds like a really fun and interesting challenge, especially if you consider it a challenge run like your "Special Raids" concept and grant an extra reward of warp shards or something.

If nothing else you could include it as a clearly delineated WIP feature so maniacs like me can throw ourselves against it and see if survival is in fact possible.

Okay, here's another idea: Right now a lot of major quests are not feasible because they require returning to an area, either the Hub, the survivor shelter, or Rubik's camp. Would it be a feasible solution to be able to "bookmark" these locations once they're found, so that you could warp back to them for very short periods -- maybe a half hour, just to talk to and deal with the locals? I'd want to keep the trips short to avoid just being able to loot the surroundings as much as you want, but still give enough time to take or drop off quests with the relevant NPCs. I haven't done much of these questlines myself so I don't know from experience if this is a workable solution. Essentially finding one on a raid would let you "save" that location and then you'd have the option to return to it at will, instead of going on a raid. Maybe via another menu or a second obelisk.

An immediate problem that jumps to mind is that Rubik's main service is installing CBMs, which takes longer than half an hour for anything but the most basic implants, and you often want to do several in row anyway.

I think picking the "teach me something" option for a quest reward can also take a decent chunk of time, but I'm not sure how long exactly.

Ah, I haven't really interacted with him, so I assumed he just gave you CBMs and you still had to install them yourself.

Okay, here's another idea: Right now a lot of major quests are not feasible because they require returning to an area, either the Hub, the survivor shelter, or Rubik's camp. Would it be a feasible solution to be able to "bookmark" these locations once they're found, so that you could warp back to them for very short periods -- maybe a half hour, just to talk to and deal with the locals? I'd want to keep the trips short to avoid just being able to loot the surroundings as much as you want, but still give enough time to take or drop off quests with the relevant NPCs. I haven't done much of these questlines myself so I don't know from experience if this is a workable solution. Essentially finding one on a raid would let you "save" that location and then you'd have the option to return to it at will, instead of going on a raid. Maybe via another menu or a second obelisk.

I think having the option to return to the last exit/location would solve this without overcomplicating stuff. Maybe vanilla NPCs could also give warps tokens so the player could use them to return to the quest giver location...

Another idea is to have a "beacon" or a "flare" that would create an optional spawn location for the next raid. And this "flare" could cost X number of tokens.

@TGWeaver I seem to recall that the "lifting field" from MoM retains its items in spite of incorporeality, so the code from there might be helpful to reference. Might just be a bug, though.

Resources on the island Trader buying only currency(warp shard or new one) and having stock rests after returning form expedition or every day. Maybe implementing upgrades to increase number of items or add new one (e.g. trader with no upgrades sell most basic ones such as rocks and sticks, one upgrade adds planks and planes, other ones to adds scrap metal types or metal items such as nails and wires etc.).

Book trader that sales assortment of random manuals for high number warp shard(Warp shard for 5$ or less) or new one. For getting that one manual that you need but cannot find.

The new currency can be awarded based on enemies killed during (enemies killed at start of warp - enemies killed at end), awarded for reaching kills milestones(e.g. 100 zombies killed) or be random dropped by killed zombies.

Warp Items Bag for carrying small vehicle such as bike or boat limited by its weight/size or one that accepts only folded ones. Variant of existing bags that is not lost on death but cost significantly more(10 or more times). Small bag (2L?) that can teleport its contents to base once an expedition/day. Consumable item boosting morale or focus for a day or structure costing warp shads that does it in area around it similar to stereo system.

On the NPC factions like Exodii and Hub-01, could maybe be an upgrade in line with TG's underground bunker where you could buy an NPC or Vending machine that has the same stock as the NPC, but doesn't have the other functions like Rubik's bionic installation. Maybe also allow you to trade in warp shards or secondary currency to replace one of the random missions on the next raid with a faction related one/give faction currencies like gold coins? I'm thinking something in the vein of Path of Exile's hideout masters and how they're integrated into the mapping loop.

E: the thought process being that you can interact with the faction in limited capacity at any time for a small fee, but it doesn't replace the need to either find them while out and about or using the replacement system TG was discussing for the earthbound pills.

I apologize for the quality of the text. For translation is used Deepl translate.

I have not played much of your modification and it's been about half a year since the last attempt. Then there were still problems with back teleports. So again I apologize for any errors.

1. Modification of the map generator:

limitations on the size of the generated map;
transition from the concept of a "world" to the concept of a "universe" containing several "worlds".
transferring a character from one "world" to another "world" within a "universe";
deleting or overwriting an individual "world" within a "universe";
creating individual settings for "worlds" within the "universe" (distance between cities, size of cities, frequency of monsters and items, percentages of HP and movement speed... as well as mods used).

Applied to SI mod.

First, a "universe" is created. Creation is similar to creating a world, i.e. parameters are set and mods are selected. The universe includes three or four "worlds".

World №1 is the island itself, limited in size to 3x3. All mods operate on it. Because of the size, generation should be almost instantaneous.

World №2 is the world for the expedition. It is created at the moment of landing. The size is limited, for example, 100x100 tiles of the global map. Or a less square shape: 3x300.

The parameters of the world vary within a certain range relative to the parameters of World №1, but not below or above certain limits. For example, consider the "item spawn scaling factor" setting. The default is 1.00, I would suggest a minimum for it: min(0.10, set by the player), and a maximum: max(1.0, set by the player).

Mods are all plugged in, but the random mod has restrictions on generating items, locations, monsters. Or not imposed.

In the example of magic, the player will not know whether he will get into a world where you can find items from the appropriate mod or not. And having found them must decide whether to continue the task or drop everything and try to get the manual. Or find a location from the mod. If he already knows some of the spells, it will work in any expedition.

When starting a new expedition, World №2 is recreated anew, with new parameters and new random mod restrictions or without them.

World №3 - depends on your concept of SI. In my understanding, it is not needed, because returning to the past point devalues the idea of random movements. And puts it in the plane of "accumulate enough resource" for constant return. Whether it's the idea of crafting or dropping special anchors that allow you to return to a past point. Sooner or later, there will be enough of them to live for months on the surface. Unless, of course, technical limitations are imposed, which is even worse. And from this point of view, quests and trade with NPS, do not make sense.

But not everyone will agree with me.

Therefore, World №3 can be made a reserve world. If a number of conditions are met, for example, building an "anchor" or " beacon" and the successful completion of the expedition or death, the world of the current expedition is copied to World №3. And it can be accessed. But it is still limited in size.

Another option, World №3, a free world, is created with no size restrictions. And free expeditions are made in it, with much more time available for research. It is also where you can interact with NPCs, complete quests, trade and anything else the player wants to do.

Of course, this would require significant work to rework the map generator and probably something else. Or introducing "crutches". The player creates a new world. After that he uses some game item. When this item is used, the world selection menu is called and after agreeing, the SI area is copied to the new world and the old one is reset. Perhaps it is possible to do without the player, using a program reset of the world after death, with the creation of a new world and copying the SI area with the character.

But you could try to get the rest of the community on board with the idea. Because, this could be used in portal storms or labs or portals...

For example, at level 15 of a portal dungeon, you could have a reward to move to another world or a punishment during a portal storm. Why not? Or, for example, go to a world where everything is exactly the same, but something is different? And then suddenly come back and maybe not even notice it. Go through a portal and try to get out of the world of eternal rooms, back to your home? Live to see the exodii depart for the new world and leave with them, or leave before them? And the world of eternal winter? Or maybe get from dda to bn?

As far as I know it is now used to generate closed areas somewhere on the map, in the sky or underground, but still in this world. Maybe already changed, I don't like storms and prefer to holed up underground.

2. Changing the start in the world with the SI mod

"Where am I and how did I get here? I don't know anything. The only thing I remember is that I'm and I have to build an obelisk before dark."

This paragraph is not important. I would suggest rethinking the availability of professions and limiting it to survivor or naked and scared. Or a special profession for this mod.

The player appears at a random place on the map. He has 9 special items with him: tablets. The center tablet, the south tablet, the north tablet, etc. Each tablet contains a recipe for creating an obelisk of the corresponding side of the world: the northeast tablet creates a northeast obelisk, and so on. Each of these 9 recipes, cannot be learned or copied. Each recipe, among other ingredients, requires the corresponding tablet. In fact, once an obelisk is crafted, the recipe itself is lost, and the loss of the tablet makes it impossible to create an obelisk, even if the recipe is somehow memorized or copied.

The recipe creates an obelisk that can be activated anywhere. The result of activating an obelisk is that everyone becomes one... which is not the case here.

After activation, the current map tile is copied to the sky island, at the appropriate position. The levels to be copied are z levels: -1, 0, +1 and maybe +2, I just don't remember how high the island is and how much more space there is in height. All buildings, furniture and vegetation are copied, things and monsters are not copied. Also their state is saved: if the window is broken, it is copied broken, but not copied its shards.

For spectacle: after activation, an explosion or EMP type effect is triggered, maybe with a different color, that covers the whole tile (24x24) - this is turn 0. On the next move (+1 sec): z -1 is replaced by land, z 0, +1 +2 - replaced by empty space. +2 - everything falls if it hasn't already fallen on the first second. And at +3 the player is transported to the sky island. Optionally kill the player, so that in 0 expedition does not drag with him the starting equipment (do not forget about the remaining tablets).

And for pathos, you can add the words "This land is mine" when activating the obelisk, and the character to make the trait "S.K.Y."

Or do without all this and immediately transfer the player.

Since the player has 9 tablets, each of which corresponds to one of the island's tiles, this opens up a lot of room for creativity. The finished obelisk can be activated anywhere. For example, in a clear field, which will correspond to the current start. Or in a forest, swamp... And you can go to the mansion and activate it there and get a piece of the mansion on the island. Then make a second obelisk and go looking for that mansion in the world.

Rules.

At the start, the island does not exist. Activating the first obelisk creates the corresponding island tile, the rest of the island tile is empty space. Activating the other obelisks creates the corresponding tiles on the island and destroys/copies them on the surface.

The number of obelisks is 9. They cannot be crafted or traded. Loss or destruction means that the corresponding island tile cannot be created. You don't need to carry them all with you, plan ahead and decide whether you are going to look for a new piece of the island or to fulfill quests. And if you go without insurance and lose an obelisk... it's your own fault. One expedition - one obelisk, because after activation the player is transferred to the island or killed.

Time for creation and activation (0 expedition) is limited to 8-12 hours. The standard start time is 8am and "make it before dark". The activation itself is instantaneous or no more than a minute.

This means that the tactic of getting to an interesting house in the center of the city is quite working, you don't need to get out anyway, the main thing is to run to it, activate it and not die in the process.

There are two options for crafting obelisks.

In the first option, the kraft is the same, not too complicated, within 0-1-2 levels of fabrication. For example, level 2 fabrication and requires 40 stones and a tablet.

Naked 8-8-8-8-8 character with no skills, in the wilderness reached level 1 by 8:15, level 2 by 9:40. Find rock/stick > smash young tree > getting long stick > smash smal boulder > getting sharp rock > make long pointy stick to level 1 > cut them into splintered wood and make wooden shed stick to level 2. Stones and/or wood obtained in the process will be used for obelisk +30...60 minutes. Total maximum of 3 hours to the finished obelisk and another 5-9 hours to find a favorite location.

Pros, the player can start with any obelisk. Minuses, too fast to get all the obelisks and build the island. After 8 raids, the island will be finished.

The second option, involves increasing the complexity in the construction of each subsequent obelisk and the required materials. For example, the first obelisk is built from stones on the 1 level of crafting, and 9 is built from gold on the 9 level of crafting and requires blacksmithing and welding with all their varieties.

I was figuring this order: stone/wood - wood/stone - clay/glass - copper/aluminum - scrap metal - bronze - steel - hardened steel - precious metals

On the downside or the fact that the order of construction is determined by the mod author or the need to track progress and change recipes accordingly.

The end result is a 3x3 island. Whether it's worth expanding it further, I don't know. But when copying the outer tiles, you can add rough edges so that it is not, quite square.

3. Expeditions

When I tried playing, each expedition had multiple missions, perhaps you should change the order? The mission is selected first, and after that the expedition is sent. And it is the mission that determines the time available for the expedition, the distance from the point of emergence, the place of emergence and the number of enemies.

So far I see the following types of missions:

find an item (shard);
deliver materials from/to the island;
kill a single target / target in a group / target in a horde;
kill a certain number;
capture a target (applicable to animals, difficulty is determined by the size and speed of that animal), requires a specific item. Mission subtype free search, ie, in the standard at the point spawns this animal, in the free search look for it yourself
escorting, it is necessary to find a NPS and escort him to the point;
rescue, applicable to both animals, NPS, and zombies (NPS and zombies spawn, you must interrupt the NPS, and do not let kill this zombie);
cleanup of locations both specific and random (destroy any grove/spire or specific)
Pyromaniac's dream, burn down the forest;
creating items/buildings on the island/expedition;
possibly combined: cleanup Mi-Go Tower, free prisoners, clothe them, arm them, and get them to safety. With types of clothing and weapons specified.

A large number of missions, with different durations, would allow the player to decide for themselves whether they have time for a long run or only half an hour for a quick raid.

I was going to suggest building a dialog: pick a mission, difficulty, and time. But realized that balancing would cause too much trouble. So it's better to leave it up to the player's choice what they consider easy and fast and what they don't.

After all, everyone plays differently in their own style and with their own mods.

4. General Ideas

4.1. I suggest to think about canceling items with weight reduction effect, unless they are related to transportation and animals.

If the method from the 2nd point is implemented, the player will stop needing so many materials. And for oversized items for crafting or large tools, add bags with a large volume, but without weight reduction.

4.2. As for transport, why not use the item that spawns a bicycle and a boat. They would help to speed up the goal achievement and crossing rivers and lakes.

While I don't like this solution, I would prefer the ability to build your own vehicle and summon it. Something along the lines of build a platform on an island, build a vehicle on it and summon it into the world. And at the end call it back with all its contents (tanks, trunk).

Alternative 1. Do not summon a transport from the island, but copy it. In the same way, an area is built, after which the vehicle is built. And on the surface, an item is activated that copies the transporter, but does not copy the contents of the tanks and trunk. And at the end of the expedition, copies only the contents of the tanks and trunks, but does not copy the transport.

You don't have to worry about crashing the vehicle. Some fun with finding fuel for refueling or using electric motors, as well as creating infrastructure for charging batteries (simple enough, in my opinion).

Alternative 2. Adding a new breed of horses to the game. There are a whole bunch of different frogs, but there is only one horse, and it must have been sick a lot. Keeping to the rule that the animal can carry no more than 20% of its own weight. Game horse: 500 kg, ie useful load of 100 kg, of which 80 on the character. Adding a draft horse ~1000 kg, solves the payload problems, as it increases the carried weight to 120 kg, not including the player. Either carry a herd with you.

4.3. Can the island move? A floating island, slowly drifting through the sky above a ruined land. Drop, collect and return, the main constraint is to catch up with the island so it doesn't go far.

4.4. I would recommend, think about the end goal, reaching it says "I've passed" but doesn't end the game. The end goal, build a descent off the island to leave it forever. Moves the game into a familiar pattern, except for the deaths that send you back to the island and the need to get to the land base.

4.5. The portal storm has consumed the earth and torn it into pieces that drift at warp. How long will you last? There is a main island, there are secondary islands, at random times two-way portals open or another island appears next to your island. Time is limited, drag as many as you can. Or die if you don't. Death will bring you back (minus items and time).

4.6. The item is valid 1...60 seconds after the start of the expedition and gives immunity (now it is a buff?), but most importantly gives the opportunity to interrupt the mission because of a failed start. Yes, you have a minute to decide if you're taking the mission. And yes, the spawn should open the standard 15 tiles (or as many as you set in the settings). Alternatively, combine it with an item that returns items on death. When activated, it kills the character and sends stuff to the island.

4.7. NPS of the island, such spirits that do not sleep, do not eat, but help to build or create items. With the ability to summon for a while or permanently. Here completed a quest to kill, and from him a special soul shard. Activated (only on the island) and you have a helper for a few hours.

4.8. Replace teleportation with opening a stable portal? Two connected points: island and surface, the connection is valid for some time. It's safe to go in and out. Still need to complete the mission and then go back in. Or give up and leave. Or go about your business.

@TGWeaver

Entering cities and normal exploration is very difficult.

Death, it's normal. There's no need to minimize anything. A player should make the decision whether he can afford to enter a town or not and be responsible for it. And if he decides to stick his neck out, then let him prepare for a raid.

In the absence of death, the main thing is not things, but skills. You get into a big crowd, get knocked around a couple times and die? But those couple hits gave you a skill boost. You've already become stronger ... or smarter and next time will not go into the crowd. Or you will, but with a different approach.

After a while, you'll have enough skill to get through cities without stopping.

This last problem I also don't know how to solve, and may not be possible with code as it stands currently. Some have suggested the "prune save file" debug option but it has the possibility to wreck your save and obviously isn't a standard feature. As it stands, save bloat is definitely one of the mod's biggest problems.

If it doesn't work, what I suggested in the beginning. I don't know the code of the game, maybe I'll say something stupid. But the map is not generated all at once, but as the game progresses? Perhaps we should play with a hard binding of coordinates?

Conditionally, each tile or group is described by x, y coordinate, to them is added a level in height, but we are not interested in it. What happens if the sky island and the player appears at x=0, y=0? Always, a hard reference. This is the beginning of the reference point. Around this coordinate, an area will be built, which will be determined at game start. Perhaps with some accuracy or another. In the reality bubble, things and mobs will be accounted for, and beyond that, only the global map tiles. At what distance from the start, nothing will be accounted for? 100, 1000? Let's call it the "existence" bubble.

What will happen when teleporting outside that bubble? My guess is that a new bubble of "existence" will form. What if we take two rigid coordinates outside the original "existence" bubble at a distance of double radius? So that they do not intersect with the original one nor with each other. Their centers are x1,y1 and x2,y2.

x1=x+2R
x2=x-2R
y1=y2=y

where R is some radius, in the simplest example equal to the radius of the existence bubble.

Each expedition starts by teleporting the character at x1,y1 coordinates, since it is undefined, the map is generated anew, but the entry is at x2,y2 coordinates. In this case it is easy to realize that x2=x1+4R. When the generation is finished, we move the character at x2,y2 - the area already exists, but the bubble x1,y1 is still empty and when moving into it, the generation will go again, thus overwriting x2,y2.

What is the problem, it is necessary to define R and introduce a restriction on the movement of the player, so that the areas of existence on went beyond R. For a basis you can look at the mod "behind the wall". For example, the area to explore 100x100, then R=r+100+delta, where r is the radius of existence, delta – stock.

This will reduce the size of the save.

As a bonus, it is quiet possible to implement a return to the visited location (x2,y2). In this case, it is good that still have to go to the target of interest, and not immediately appear at it, as in the case of beacons.

The second bonus is the moral choice to return to the old location (and it is limited) or go to a new one and lose the old one.

Secure Container I do like the idea of some special pocket that's small and picky, but which you keep even if you die. Ideally you unlock this, but I'm not sure how to make such a thing, as in my early testing even the integrated bionic "pocket" space would drop items when you turned incorporeal. Will need more testing to see if this is even possible.

The bag, when activated, disappears from the player and appears on the island. So the trigger is not the character's death, but his actions. If the player thinks he is going to die or something, he can activate the bag and send it home. He can make a mistake and then continue his journey without important items or he can die suddenly (in one turn). Well, that's fate. Alt+f4, always a help.

Okay, here's another idea: Right now a lot of major quests are not feasible because they require returning to an area, either the Hub, the survivor shelter, or Rubik's camp.

You will not be able to find enough time to complete the quest, but not enough time for loot. The maximum that can be talked about is to go to buy and return. But it's practically useless.

Refugees have useful tools and some supplies. Tools are bought once, supplies, well, maybe three times, if you are unlucky and the necessary ones were not on sale.

Rubik, the most valuable thing is bionics. The problem is that he will never have the entire assortment at one time, moreover, it takes some time before some of the items become available. Which means you have to visit it every week... From memory, I found rubik's in the first week of the game (starting on day 61 of spring) and only somewhere towards the beginning of winter was able to buy all the bionics I needed, while spamming alt+f4 to update the assortment. (Without traveling some distance to the castle, you have to save, then drive up to see the assortment and either buy or alt+f4 and repeat).

But self-installing bionics is not such a problem, if you have an autodoc, anesthesia, and the proper skills. With 12 in intelligence, 10 in medicine, computer and electronics, the chance of failure will be between 1% and 30%, depending on the module.

The hub, is a modular outfit that is bought once, but the best options are tied to quests. Of value, there are manuals and some tools. If you're lucky enough to get RM armor, they have repairs too.

Cody, you can buy melee weapons and order armor crafting. Production time is a week, if I'm not mistaken: 2 weeks for light and 4 weeks for heavy armor.

Example of quests: deliver 200 boards to the ranch or 25 blankets. And if the boards can still be stuffed into a special bag, then the blankets (25*15 liters) will take time to find and several walks / transport to deliver. With a 0.1 multiplier on the drop, I used to create hardened weapons before finding those damn blankets.

Another example, the best version of armor from the HUB requires finding the item, in the basement of a collapsed tower full of mobs. Somewhere in the center of town.

So you either ignore that problem, or accept that players are taking out fridges in the process.

Considering point 1: I encourage the idea of shorter raids, for all of the reasons mentioned. Additionally, I have been playing Sky Island without spawning working vehicles by using the "No Hope" mod. In such a game mode, warp shards are much more scarce as traveling to a distant missions can take you too far away from the exit. After playing for a while, I think that the tension it adds is great. Previously, most missions were accomplished by applying vehicular force. However, although the current distance to extract can be traversed on foot, this increases the number of unavoidable encounters, notably with woodland wights, which are faster than you and travel in packs. And traveling a great distance on foot can become quite tedious. For these reasons I welcome the shorter raid distance mode. I will also add that I have had it occur that the exit spawns at a particularly difficult to reach location. If it is not done so already, perhaps a pathfinding check can be done on spawn.

Considering point 2: For progression, perhaps you could have some "sets" of scavenged tools to collect near your beacon, and as each "set" is collected, you gain warp shards, or unique warped crafting items, as a reward. There could be some sort of progress bar for how many of the bonus points you have gained. Point 3 also adds to progression.

Considering point 3: It's quite a good suggestion and I look forward to it. I myself made some recipes such as "warped wooden wall" which require 1 plank, 1 nail, warp beacon nearby, and take 5 minutes to craft. But this is better still.

Considering point 4: Cities can be dangerous. In vanilla, this is mitigated in large part by the possibility of "night raids". But a night raid is uniquely difficult in Sky Island. Therefore: Consider a "night city raid" type raid mode:

only possible at night
costs 5 warp shards to use this mode
guaranteed to spawn in the middle of a city
a radio-tower size area is made visible to you in the city
exits are guaranteed to spawn in the city, one or two blocks away from you
missions spawn in the city Night raids are a very fun part of cataclysm. Adding a raid mode which encourages them should itself be encouraged.

@IdleSol , you have some very creative and ambitious ideas, and a lot of thought has gone into them. However, most of them are not possible with the current code available to mods, and the few points that are possible would not work as easily on their own. Those that are possible would be a massive undertaking, bigger than all the rest of the entire mod itself so far. While some of those ideas do sound pretty cool, and I would look into them more if the code became possible, for now it is outside the scope and possibility of this mod.

@gnneo I also play with No Hope! I can't make it mandatory but I do think it's the best way to play. Having vehicles everywhere makes travel too easy and there's frankly just too much loot everywhere. But everyone can play how they want. It's remarkable how many problems are solved with just smaller raids where objectives are closer together. Until now Sky Islands was very much a mod just about traveling a long way, more than it was about anything else, and that's not very interesting. Sure there would be fights and encounters along the way but for the most part you were just driving or walking a very long distance and hoping you'd find a way around that river, city, or forest. Now I find it's much more focused on the play itself.

Likewise, night city raids are more possible now because you can unlock bigger scouting ranges and guaranteed rooftop or basement spawns (both of which are safer than spawning in the middle of a crowded street). Exits can also be very nearby, but it's much more dangerous than raiding the outskirts, for sure.

After playing with this for a bit, I'm struck by the idea that the fridge meta just really isn't all too fun, and takes away a lot of the "choice" of deciding what you want to grab. Maybe with the addition of more ways to gather supplies on the island the inventory-expanding items can be nerfed or removed entirely.

I also feel that a big draw of the mod for more experienced players is the difficulty, namely being forced into situations that you can't entirely control and trying to use your knowledge of the game to get out of them in one piece. I'm afraid that adding too many ways for the player to control their excursions, some of the tension may be lost.

@TGWeaver I play with No Hope as well!

@TGWeaver I could not agree more. I'm very much anticipating this specific milestone.

As an aside, the most common question I get is "can you bring your followers to the sky island or is it lonely up there?" usually phrased just so. So I've been using the debug menu to bring people up, which is a form of "teleportation" that creates a clone. In an effort to avert existential crises, it may be of some interest to include a (non-debug) way of bringing followers up with you.

I started my first Sky island playthrough a week or two back, been enjoying it greatly as its the first time I've actually been spending time to build rather than moving into an existing building. I have been playing with No Hope to reduce the value of each location hit to encourage further exploration, that also has the side effect of making all vehicles practically junk.

1) I personally think the current timer is reasonable, gives enough time for navigating around settlements or spending a little time pulling parts off of a vehicle before moving on. With the shorter time limit this may become non-viable without the use of motes and make getting storage batteries much harder.

For the issue with the fridge-pocket meta, is it possible to edit or patch the items to prevent them acting as storage while an object? Or as others have suggested, have the hauler bag replaced with a one-way teleport bag for a single object of any size back to the island.

One option could be to have raids be more targeted. Rather than an exit maybe have a mission required for extraction such as "Take the crystal from this location" or "Slay this monster", or maybe even more simple ones such as, "Find an army helmet" I am just not sure how to avoid any stockpiled or owned equipment being used or consumed for this, I am not familiar with how hard it would be to spawn an item at a location.

2) I like your ideas for different upgrades for your raids. Different options for your raid experiences will help with progression for sure! One thing I'd 'like' to see is a varient of the 'Hunted' scenario trait, where a big bad monster is chasing you at all times. Maybe an invulnrable varient could be made to spawn in after the first pulse to start chasing you, should you choose it.

3) For the issues with the hospitality of the island to start, I found a tent in my first run and it was a massive boon to give me somewhere safe and less windswept to bunker down. Would spawning a tent and a blanket be sufficient for survival for the first few runs rather than needing the bunker option? This would leave the bunker as a good end game option (Maybe requiring some hard to salvage items as you have discussed, maybe a use for the radioactive core of a Irradiation Plant?

4) For my first few runs I did something similar for sure, dropped down with nothing and grabbed everything I could of value from the houses and outskirts before the zombies could get me, making makeshift slings from the first house I could enter for added loot and little loss.

As I got more equipment I started making use of more destractions to try and clear the majority of the zombies away before going in, things like explosives or fires to draw them away. This at least was until I found some spells from Xedra Evolved, that helped me get summonable gear to keep myself safe. During this time too I would head out at 4am to make use of the zombies poor dark vision to avoid the worst of the threats.

One option might be to add new equipment you could be supplied with. Maybe a grenade that makes you invisible to the targets for a little time or a object that teleports you where thrown? Or maybe more destractions to help draw the zombies away.

For the risk v reward preventing some items being brought along, would it be possible to customise or mark certain equipment or gear to flag it as warp bound to you, that it would follow you back to the island on death at the cost of some damage. (Of course want to avoid packs being marked to avoid suicidal death runs to grab loot)

5) Auto-notes could help, to automatically mark an exit. For map bloat I am not sure the best approach, but smaller runs as you've suggested could help. An option to purge the map outside of the island and regenerate would be great both for size and for some variety, maybe allowing re-creation using different map settings?

Just following this up to say a playable version of Milestone 1 has been released as a public test on my github page, incorporating some of the above ideas including the rebalanced raid lengths, secure container, and new upgrade system, so specific balance concerns can be explored. I'm not yet putting this as a PR because it's such a big departure from the mod I'm not yet confident it's in a state I want to propose merging just yet. However it should run without bugs and crashes; mostly just balance that needs work. https://github.com/TGWeaver/CDDA-Sky-Islands

Just following this up to say a playable version of Milestone 1 has been released as a public test on my github page, incorporating some of the above ideas including the rebalanced raid lengths, secure container, and new upgrade system, so specific balance concerns can be explored. I'm not yet putting this as a PR because it's such a big departure from the mod I'm not yet confident it's in a state I want to propose merging just yet. However it should run without bugs and crashes; mostly just balance that needs work. https://github.com/TGWeaver/CDDA-Sky-Islands

Can we post feedback on Milestone 1 in this thread? Congrats on the release!

Just finished 20 successful raids in the Milestone 1 version. Some notes:

recommendations for reasonably rare items that are thematically appropriate

I was generally impressed by the recipes presented. The challenge was good and it will be fun to gather the various items to unlock the levels. That said, I have a few suggestions.

The silver and jewels required for "order's blade" (Mission upgrade) are very rare. You may prefer items such as "fancy watch" and "engagement ring".
For Island Rank. Drilling 1 can be in the Rank 1 difficulty (craftable with a hammer) or changed to drilling 2+.
It may be appropriate to require some combination of forge or acetylene torch or soldering iron charges for some upgrades. Maybe "nearby fire" for some early recipes. And to possess some large enough amount of clean water at an early stage for example 40 units.

Secure Container Alpha! Unlock this and craft it and it will forever be a part of you. It's very small, but anything inside will not be left behind when you die! More containers are in the game but there are intentionally no recipes for it yet, pending broader testing and balancing.

In Sky Island 0.2.2, I was playing with an 8L/8kg pocket, which felt good at that mission length. 0.5 L is an interesting volume. Binoculars come in at 0.54 L. If I were to design the tiers, I'd design it around powerful items I want to keep secure: Tier 1: [0.54L - 0.65L] can carry binoculars (0.54L), or a small pistol (0.39L), or a few tools. Tier 2: [1.75L - 2.3L] can stash a precious book such as Adv Electronics (1.75L) or a smaller melee weapon such as a hatchet (1L). If I wanted something even bigger, I'd go to 4L (acetylene torch, M4 rifle). If I instead wanted something between the two, I'd go 1L - 1.25L (hatchet, war hammer). There is also the option to focus on the short end. That kind of progression might look like 0.4L -> 0.55L -> 0.76L.

Some general notes:

There's no way to get solar power in the basement (yet?)
It took 1 in-game day to complete the first 10 missions. Then, ten more days to reach 20 missions completed.
Spawns can occur in undesirable locations. I once spawned in a 2x3 tile field wedged between a city and a river. Another time, I spawned on an island.

As a whole, I've found this milestone update incredibly fun, getting to make my little raids and search out the various items has been very interesting. Got a couple notes on the various upgrades.

I would say that body pillows and fursuits are pretty rare, possibly rarer than one might expect out of a mission that you can take so soon. The Rooftop Locator was far easier to make than the Basement Locator, for example. Admittedly some of that might be because I could use dino eggs for it, but regular old eggs aren't particularly uncommon either, as long as you're going for them before the stock in fridges rots.

Agreed with the above regarding the difficulty of getting two missions, jewels aren't easy to find and even a jewelry store doesn't have much. I believe there would be more gemstones in their safes, but safes aren't exactly viable to open in your early expeditions.

I'd also like to direct your attention to this issue: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/70892#issue-2080284888 and recommend that if the solution to it isn't easy (which it seems like might be the case) some kind of workaround like giving people little recipe notes so they know what to collect, then only letting them receive one actual mission at a time might be best. It's not the best solution, but the slowdown gets really bad past maybe three missions at a time or so, and it's especially frustrating when the sky island should have almost no lag at all.

Edit: I am very dumb and you have already commented there. Ignore that!

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CleverRaven / Cataclysm-DDA