Survival Closed Test: Second Impact

[tsunamayo]

So I want to do a second run on the survival now that I have more components (power cell, warp, achievements and help). I will open the access to more people.

Please anwser to this post with your steam Id number and I will add you to the beta. (You are automatically enrolled if you where part of the first test). Please keep in mind it is not for you to have fun (as it likely will be frustrating at this stage), but rather to help me improve the game! If you dont plan to actively report issues and post feedback on the github then it is better for you to wait for a more fleshed out version to come out.

Points I would like to focus on:

1. As always I need to track down more bugs, I know especially I should have a few relative to inventory that are hard to reproduce but unfortunately game breaking.
2. I would also like to assess the impact of a limited player inventory. How painful is it really, considering we have the mineral scanner? I still want to clarify if we really need hovercraft at a lower tech tree or not.
3. This time we should go deeper into space, get some pearl on the starting system and warp to a new system. Which means I would like to know of what gets in the way in term of dealing with spaceship and navigating space in a survival context. I expect there will be quite some work improving this

Cheers Francois

[BigBadKangaroo]

Hi there,

as with the first phase, I'd like to help with the new phase: 76561199074733539

[tsunamayo]

@BigBadKangaroo Sorry mate you are already in like all the one from the first ;)

[asanagisae]

One major concern I had with navigating space was life support. If you're unlucky, you can travel to 3 systems in a row which have no planets with atmosphere. Your life support blocks only refill on atmosphere, they can't refill on an oxygen tank aboard the ship. And there's no warning when your oxygen supply will run out, causing you to die and stranding your ship in that system.

You get respawned in the starter system (by default). The ship you died in may as well be considered lost. You might be able to make another trip to it, but if you died from life support running out, it's likely you may not be able to complete the return trip.

Worse, if you placed a medbay on your ship and set it as your spawn point, you will repeatedly respawn in an oxygen-less environment once life support runs out and you die. It doesn't give you much time to warp the ship to somewhere safe.

The risk of heavy loss is part of any survival game. However, there should be ways to plan for and mitigate loss as well, and being able to make use of a large oxygen tank is part of that.

I think this part of travelling needs a little work. Perhaps we could have some warning when oxygen is going to run out, or a percentage bar indicating how much we have left? Also, having life support blocks draw from oxygen tanks would be a great help.

[loander]

Would love to contribute with testing the survival! 76561198096806064

[noqz]

Hey, I would Love to contribute to the testing of survival mode 76561197982543283

[Dwarf-LordPangolin]

Hey Tsuna, just wanted to double-check which version I should be running here; I'm assuming it's the experimental branch? It says "part of Survival closed beta test" in both default and experimental, and I wanted to make sure I'm using the correct one to test the Survival features.

[Tiekin02]

Hey,

I am interested in joining the closed beta, here is my steam id:76561199094336415

[Eon09]

hi steam id: 76561198079480609

[Vandrid]

Having your inventory at a max of 3k, but you being able to mine more than 3k doesn't feel right. I now have 37 stone that I can't place in a container, but then can't place back in my inventory because then it locks it out because it is too heavy.

[Nimits3]

I am interested in the closed beta id: 76561198119528003

[tsunamayo]

@Dwarf-LordPangolin Hi! So the shortlist system works in default and experimental. Right now Default and Experimental are in sync, but it might change in the future, so you better of staying in experimental. The coming weeks is gonna be only bugfix for survival.

[Anubish34]

Hi i got a message ingame about closed beta test my id:76561198821532699

[byo13]

Hey there. I've got a message as well and would love to contribute: Id: 76561198014949948 Thanks!

[Anubish34]

Hi i got a message ingame about closed beta test my id: 76561198821532699 just to clarify i got an email from that i think was meant for byo13 not me and the id in my email wasn't mine

[byo13]

hey guys. I didn't receive any email messages yet. Thanks for heads up, @Anubish34.

[Shyzuki89]

I have been enjoying this game alot and have been looking forward to survival aspects my id is 76561198083681513 would love to test and help with bugs.

[tsunamayo]

Okay I have added you guys! @Shyzuki89 @byo13 @Anubish34 @Nimits3 @Eon09 @Tiekin02 @noqz @loander

[Anubish34]

i havent noticed any default branch yet not sure whats going on.

[Crimson-Artist]

without deliberate progression roadblocks such as a research tree there is very little reason to not develop towards a ship right away. The moment I had a assembler up and running I had planned on using power cells to power my first ship. I think the way the progression should go is:

1. Hand mining
2. Build first base
3. Build first crafting table
4. Build first crucible
5. Build first wind turbine
6. Build first assembler
7. Build first portable power source (power cell)
8. Build first handheld. Use handheld to enhance hand mining.
9. Build first land vehicle (probably a hovercraft but maybe a mech or later a wheeled vehicle when they are added).
10. build first hydrogen refining base with an electrolyser.
11. build first hydrogen reactor.
12. build first ship.
13. fly into space to gather crystals.
14. build first lightcruise engine.
15. fly to a NPC station and interact with NPC factions
16. zoom off to another planet to get void pearls. (void pearls should be guarded by something. either hostile animals/aliens or NPC vehicles to force the player to fight for them)
17. use warp pearls to build first warp core.
18. raw void pearls then are used to as warp fuel.
19. warp to another system.
20. End game content: find components to build jump gates for instant cross system travel.
21. End game content: improve faction relations to gain access to exclusive resources/solar systems

I think improving Navigation should be the main focus of this phase of the testing. since we are exploring other systems getting the bookmark feature working finally will help us find our way around the galaxy. Other than that adding a waypoint system, an improved map accessible from both vehicles and on foot, fog of war, long range scanning, points of interest should be worked on.

[Alterdufisch]

steam ID: 1324295799

[deanwitney]

Hi, I'd be interested in testing the survival and giving feedback. - ID 76561198208310595

[falizure]

76561198079341381

[tsunamayo]

@Crimson-Artist But that should be already the case, except for the handheld? How did you build a first spaceship? You had to build a base right? And no hovercraft? So you mean the addition of power cell disrupted that?

[byo13]

@tsunamayo You've mentioned I'm added but I see nothing different here or on Steam. Are you going to send something by email? :) Thanks.

[asanagisae]

If you're in, you should see a message when you launch the game. It might take a second to show up. If it's there, you can create a new survival world.

[byo13]

@asanagisae Thanks a lot! I'm in! Just created a new survival mode world but now my starter ship is half buried in a hill. [EDIT] Ah, I see. That's part of the story. Dumb me.

[vortenian]

love your game having major issues with inventory, unable to pick up dropped cobalt, copper, wood and i am having difficulty using the transfer items system in many game menus, this has prevented me from being able to test the progression further than assembler. please keep me updated when you have a fix for this, and i would say that the future for the jet pack boost is currently over powered, good for testing bad for final survival, i would recommend making boost last longer and move only double sprint speed allow for temp hover and only recharge on ground.

i would recommend a bigger back pack and have the hot bar not actually store the items just be a link to the items use and quantity so that when you are in an inventory you transfer from back pack not the hot bar. and please allow for drag and drop shift click quick transfer. thank you.

what ever you choose to do about this problem let me know when its fixed so i can continue testing. your game is looking great, keep up the good work. you have gotten so far and your so close now i know its a long road, probably more then you intended i hope you have the stamina to bring it to a close mr, one man army.

if you want someone on your team to volunteer to help you out with anything let me know. im no coder but i am a great problem solver.

[noqz]

Twice I've dug down to gold and on my return trip up about half way the tunnel unrenders, and fall through the world into water

[Renmaaru]

I would like to join testing. SteamID: 76561198058765880

[tsunamayo]

Twice I've dug down to gold and on my return trip up about half way the tunnel unrenders, and fall through the world into water

Hi, what is your PC config? Could you book a case for that if you manage to reproduce? If you can send me a log like explained when opening a case.

[tsunamayo]

@vortenian Hi, could you book a proper case if you are unable to pickup anything? I want to ask more question about that issue. Does it happens right away? Are you sure your inventory is not full? Thanks

[Crimson-Artist]

@tsunamayo after I had a assembler up and running I went straight to work building a ship. I didnt even bother trying to build a hovercraft as I have said before that in terms of practicality there is no reason anyone would pick a hovercraft over a ship if they have the means to build one.

4 power cells were able to power a ship with one 1m scale forward thruster, one 1m scale lateral thruster, and 3 1m scale mining beams. The cells lasted pretty long and I was able to use the mining beams to gather hundreds of ore chunks. Since there was no over encumbrance penalty after mining all the ore floated towards me after I got out of my ship to pick them up. The 4 power cells probably could gotten me to the asteroid belt to mine crystals but I didnt want to risk it.

The fact I was able to do all that proves that there needs to be progression roadblocks that prevent the player from just speed running toward space travel. Something that I didnt even consider is that larger block scales should behave to be unlocked. Right from the get go I was able to build large mining arrays and get hundreds of ore using 1 meter scale mining arrays. All I needed to do is build enough mining beam blocks to allow me to place three 1 meter scale versions. If we started off only being able to build 1/8 and 1/4 scale versions of blocks after we unlock the crafting recipe then this should prevent players from progressing too quickly. The way I had envisioned the progression going is 1/8 and 1/4 scale system blocks (reactor, weapons, mining beams, thrusters) should be by default unlocked. building blocks like hull, stone and wood (the blocks we will use to build our base) should have 1m scale as their default max scale. Then by the time we get hovercrafts we unlock 1/2 scale system blocks. by the time we are ready for ships we can place 1m. then by end game we will unlock 2m then 4m.

[tsunamayo]

@Crimson-Artist thanks for the feedback. So I wanted to put the mining higher on the tier list, either same as void pearl or later (second system for example). I will introduce new ore / crystal to mine for that (same for weapons and shield). So the power cell might require a nerf indeed. No for the ship using power cell, yes it looks stupid but I dont really mind it, you will need to create a H2 farm for lightcruise anyway. All it change is whether the player does the h2 farm before or after mining crystal in orbit. But what I dont like is using the ship and not use an hovercraft, this is something I will need to address. For restricting the scale I am not a fan, first it feels really arbitrary and does not really restrict anything, as long as you have the resources you can just build more of a smaller scale and get to the same result, while impacting negatively the performance of the game (yep having 100x beams is not great). I will be looking for solution on how to push hovercraft over spaceship, I will open a new thread after thinking more about it.

[Crimson-Artist]

if weapons and mining beams are going to be acquired at around the same time as void pearls then whats the point of having handhelds? I was thinking this whole time that handhelds will be something we build towards before we get hovercrafts. Basically we get the means to build handheld mining beams to use over the default mining beam tool. Then when you introduce more enemies into the game we build handheld weapons to fight off human sized targets such as alien animals that will attack us on the starter planet

[Aval0n-tech]

Hey been playing the game for quite a long time and would love to help on its dev ! (love the eva reference) ID : 76561198869185019

[Tiekin02]

After a suprisingly long amount of time I got myself a working ship with a lightcruise engine, here is my feedback so far

some ideas for improvements: It would be nice for the scanner to still show colour, though the letters are a HUGE improvement. Certain bricks like the electrolyser do not show their power consumption, it would be nice if they did. It was unclear how I could obtain silicon, I ended up looking it up in the discord, maybe there should be a help entry about gathering certain recources. I do not see a use for the hovercrafts right now, it is way easier to immediatley use thrusters, it would probably be better to have thrusters a bit later in progression. Handhelds are currently not that usefull and can be totally ignored in a playtrough. Some humanoid or animal hostiles to encourage usage of handheld weapons would probably go a long way, and maybe only allow ore to float to the player unless there is a collecter present on a handheld to encourage mining tools It was unclear how to use docking connectors (maybe note somewhere that you have to use a logic signal to dock)

here are some things that I loved: you can really play the game at your own pace, and there are so many sollutions to any engineering challanges for example I set up a mining beam that moved kind of randomly to collect large patches of ore! Everything about the building system, the assembler animations, the many things to guide a players progression. overal the potential of survival is insane and I have 100% enjoyed my experience so far and I am happy to provide this feedback!

[Fragalfnf]

I would like to join too Steam Id: 76561197970351729 Thanks

[tsunamayo]

Hi guys, I have added you. Like I said I am looking forward for your feedback and bug report. Dont hesitate to comment on things that are hard to understand when starting out! @Fragalfnf @Shyzuki89 @Aval0n-tech @Renmaaru @falizure @deanwitney @Alterdufisch @Fragalfnf

[deanwitney]

Since I’ve been added I haven’t had any notification about survival when I launch the game - is there anything I have to do?Sent from my iPhoneOn 24 Jul 2024, at 6:27 AM, Francois Duret @.***> wrote: Hi guys, I have added you. Like I said I am looking forward for your feedback and bug report. Dont hesitate to comment on things that are hard to understand when starting out! @Fragalfnf @Shyzuki89 @Aval0n-tech @Renmaaru @falizure @deanwitney @Alterdufisch @Fragalfnf

—Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

[ProPeach]

@deanwitney if you've been added you should just be able to create a new world, then change the game mode from Creative to Surival by clicking on it.

There is some red text in the corner of main menu indicating you have access to the survival mode

[Wailot6]

I would like to join too Steam ID: 76561198007529870

[TecKnowFreak]

I run linux game runs good on it would like to join in on it ID: 76561198184924713

[circuspriest]

looking forward to join in, you crazy French man, ID 76561198268682976

[RaysandraRexxia]

Steam ID: 76561198010423157 I backed your kickstarter, played since the beginning!

[Dwarf-LordPangolin]

@Crimson-Artist @tsunamayo So I'm still working through the checklist for Second Impact and writing down all my feedback, I'll post the whole thing once I've finished, but I just wanted to chime in here:

without deliberate progression roadblocks such as a research tree there is very little reason to not develop towards a ship right away. The moment I had a assembler up and running I had planned on using power cells to power my first ship.

I don't see that as a bad thing. Arbitrarily restricting the player to a specific route or specific scale is not enjoyable to a lot of the playerbase for games like this. I actually think a research tree would be a mistake; if the player has the resources to build a thing, they should always be able to build it.

If you really want the player to progress in a certain order, then you need to structure the order in which they can acquire the resources, not impose an artificial limit like a research tree. Requiring the player to go to asteroids from the starting planet is an excellent example of the right way to do this: you literally can't get them without building a space ship first. Similarly, if the game is set up so the player always spawns a long distance from water, building a hovercraft to get to that water to refine fuel is a natural way of channeling them to build a hovercraft.

But if I want to build a space ship and I have all the resources to do so, but the game says "But Thou Must Build a Hovercraft First," it's going to really annoy me.

I am aware that there are a lot of players that have a goal-oriented mentality, and need a Thing to work towards, and that they'll enjoy a very structured approach to the game. However, a huge portion of the playerbase that this game naturally appeals to will have a much more process-oriented mentality, and they're going to want to play Survival without those kind of arbitrary restrictions. I'm one of them, and a research tree sounds like an arbitrary goal at the expense of fun.

[byo13]

It'd be great if there was some indications of what to do first. It could be in the shape of a checklist or some messages. I understand that there is a niche target player for this one, but some newcomers on Steam may feel overwhelmed and just give up before the refund time.

Coming from other survival games, I feel that it's a good thing to have an indication on what you should spend your time in the early stages of the game. Like, should I build a small base first or a ship? What benefits there would be to build a base? Will I have access to better equipment and item crafting? Then after the first few steps that teaches the basic mechanics of the game, then the player is on his/her own and don't need to hold hands anymore. Just a suggestion. Game is looking very promising from the start. But I'm experienced in this genre so I know what I should do first or what the game wants me to do with the resources and time that I have.

[thanatha]

this may sound preposterous, but an "undo"-button would be cool, in case you've accidentally deleted/placed something at the wrong place

[xycrone]

Steam ID: 76561198104202999

I love this game and the direction it is heading. I am emotionally invested in Starship Evo.

[apfcamarena]

76561198153279406

Thanks for making this game.

[Arkadeon89]

Hello, here is my steam ID : 76561198096084183