So I finally found some time to play your game.
It’s awesome! A real gem. I especially like the graphics. Wow.
The feeling in-game is also great. The disregard and loneliness… nice story-telling.
The idea with the AI is the best ever… and so on.
Now for some constructive criticism, if you’re up for it (of course you are… you are a game-dev!)
(I may be to blame for some of those, since I’m an awful gamer, apparently )
I had to look up how the gun (rifle) works on your community board. I found no clues for that (hold right MB and then press left) in-game. So I died twice on mission 1.
I’m a little discomforted by the amount of ghost-ships flying around in space since every time I die one of those is left stranded out there (yes, I’m THAT bad)… maybe there is some way of auto-piloting it back to the base later on… I don’t know yet.
The idea of beacons for your missions showing the distance in kilometers is great… But I kinda had to think about it for some time before I realized that their position also shows the way to that goal… Maybe a little arrow on top of those numbers would help conveying that message better…
I know this one’s hard to tackle… The graphics are great, and I really mean it. GREAT! But very small. Especially when in a ship or station. I can zoom alright, but the highest zoom factor still feels too small for me.
The thing with the ship-building… I didn’t feel that the game told me how to do that, if you know what I mean. Again, I had to consult your board (the explanations there are excellent by the way). But I feel that that kind of stuff should come more natural as you progress in game.
Loading- and saving-times are exorbitantly high. And I have an SSD here…
Game-hang when leaving home-station through an airlock (had this once… Ship was docked… Screenshot: image) (was a one-timer… restarted game, reloaded, ok)
I will continue this list as I go on playing (or, if you like, I can PM you instead.)
So, if you excuse me, I’m playing Wayward Terran Frontier: Zero Falls now
I would just like to note that I am handling Art, Rendering, Effects, Weapon balance, weapon design, some drone Ai, modern GUI implementation and design, etc. But I will forward Saving time issue and such to appropriate places (saving is currently using compression, which is what is taking most time). I can’t do much about zooming in in interiors, it has several issues and limitations, if you want to zoom closer in exterior then please go to settings, there is slider near bottom left called “min camera distance”, set it lower. Design screen would in my opinion deserve complete overhaul and tutorial. Thanks for playing the game
Nice. Thx.
Then let me say that all the things YOU do are exceptionally great in this game
Should I go to the steam-board with such things? I see the other developers are there.
I like the design screen. It’s not perfect, but serves the purpose well. Some tweaks here and there… maybe exchange some textures, etc… but I found the lack of documentation in-game disturbing But maybe I missed it.
No, you did not, there will ideally be interactive tutorial at some point and as I said, I would love designer screen to be considerably better and I would really like to do pass over it in future, but priorities, there are parts of game that at still in very desolated state. But for optimistic prognosis, this is how game looked like years ago:
And there is how screen designer used to look like. Because of some decisions it is possible I wont be doing GUI work for a bit while I will focus again on assets (Yaaay, finally getting to work on Tier 3 assets which I was looking forward to for long time) but we are aware that some parts, namely Designer Screen, Logistic Screen and Research screen are in under optimal state… getting there, bare with us
I bought the game too, because I saw from your twitter that it was on sale. I started it up immediately without reading around the forums and got confused with some stuff
Didn’t know how to go back inside the space station when first inside the logistics screen after the tutorial (I felt really dumb when I respawned the first couple times, didn’t realize you had to press F again). Maybe I missed the explanation in the dialogue? I like the snarky tone of One, but to me the tutorial has too much dialogue that’s not relevant. I prefer if a tutorial is more to the point.
Same as throbax I didn’t know how to shoot in interior
I also dislike that my old ships stick around.
I like EVA, but it makes it easy to burst into ships you usually shouldn’t be able to handle. I think that’s fine if there was some forced grinding to get up the budget, but that was easy because of the research that becomes available to increase the station budget. That made me go from a ship with four small guns to a
Btw it’s confusing that it’s called capacity when you pick up the cargo from other ships, but station budget in other places. I didn’t have a clue what ‘capacity’ was at first and thought it had to do with cargo on my ship or capacitors being recharged until I got a ship I couldn’t afford and got the explanation.
I think some penalty to the budget on death would make the game more enjoyable to me. I kind of abuse the respawn as a quick travel to base, but it feels like a hack.
Is the max speed in travel drive always 4 km/s? Would be nice if it was possible to go faster with more advanced ships.
Don’t know what the crystals do. I got the quest that starts with a little explanation of it. Would be nice to have the crystal screen in the inventory disabled at the start, because it confused the hell out of me.
Trading is really unbalanced. If you identify the right route it’s easy to get rich over it.
Things I think are missing in the logistics screen (might all already be on your radar):
Ship type (separate from the name)
Check out interior of a default ship without cloning it
Some optimal stats would be really useful. Could also be shown in the designer if you figure something out to compute and visualize them.
Designer screen (probably also already noted): more information on power/heat transfer. E.g. is this reactor enough to power this weapon constantly. I imagine this is really hard to do or even think of what should be shown exactly.
I got 1 crash while playing. Not sure what triggered it exactly. Happened when I tried to enter a ship through EVA right after loading a save.
And then the good stuff:
The ship system is sooooo good! The freedom in building your ship, how hulls determine the shape, the way damage works and components go down, the way repairing works and hallways, inertia vs structure… This is very well thought out and it shows! It’s what I like most about the game and why it all comes together so well.
Those backgrounds Love the noise based texturing!
Explosions. Wow! I managed to get a ship with the burst rocket system (forgot the name) and it’s very exciting to use it, if only for the fireworks.
Lighting. Those normal maps really add depth.
I think in the current state the game needs to grow on you a bit. It’s hard to get into due to lack of proper tutorial/explanation, but once you understand the systems it’s really, really enjoyable. The mechanics work very well and the graphics are steadily getting better with some things looking extremely good already, so I’m looking forward to what’s to come. This game has amazing potential!
Continue with story a bit, you should get higgs drive module really early on, it will enhance your travel drive
They are getting removed after a while.
There should be imho second pass after generation which would do quick simulation of what will happen in long time but not before player might manage to exploit it → naturally balance too profitable routes.
Well, yeah, considering how reactors and heat works this would be quite problematic
(of course you are… you are a game-dev!)
)
Love the noise based texturing!
