Game Balance Observations

Seeing as I tend to play the game in a rogue-like fashion, no save-scumming, currently on medium difficulty with basic platform start. I think that is a good way to give consistent feedback on the game balance.

I did a few play through's on Alpha 8 - furthest I got was just over halfway to the end of the first galaxy.
What usually got me dead was my desire for more crew leading me to get reckless with pirates. Losing a crew-member early on, so you have three, if there are no vital skills missing the game plays about the same as with four crew only slower. Fires can be more dangerous with only three crew to fight them and I nearly lost a few ships to them. Very exciting - I love fires.....
However if it were not for my risking crew with pirates, in general it is just a question of getting richer. Of course these are generalisations as a LOT depends on the mix of crew traits and skills and I only have five or six starts to go by.
I played one game so far on the experimental fertiliser update. I found another crew-member on about the fifth derelict so now I have five. Already I am seeing what a huge difference that makes.

If the dev's want me to give feedback on any particular aspect of the game while I am doing the whole scientific rogue-like play through's thing let me know in this thread and I will be happy to.

One thing would make it a lot better is an ability to have a ships log, and maybe also a character log, so we can record events and thoughts/responses  - I think that would really help with the enjoyment as, for me at least, this game currently is more about following the stories of the characters than overcoming challenges.
Anyway - More soon I expect. Love this game.

Thanks for the feedback. =)

In general just ideas on how to make the game more challenging are welcome, balance is something we need to work on at some point, but we won't be able to right now. Got so much to do!

AdmiralGeezerThanks for the feedback. =)

In general just ideas on how to make the game more challenging are welcome, balance is something we need to work on at some point, but we won't be able to right now. Got so much to do!



The great thing about the challenges in the game so far, is that it is possible to gauge the level of risk when dealing with new situations. The reward is usually the mystery aspect - which works well because even if you all get killed there is a feeling that I should have known better, or been better prepared, rather than WTF just happened. With a game like this where you invest heavily in the history of the ship and the characters I think that is really important. Also what I have found (so far) is that even if you do mis-calculate or go in unprepared - there is still the opportunity to pull something out of the fire - even if you have to abandon assets or crew and escape with just enough energy to crawl into a med bay.
Because the game has this quality already, most of the hard work is keeping an underlying sim system that produces challenges emergently (how dare spellcheck say that isn't a word) - again, this already works wonderfully so hmmm....
Probably something like resources that can be mined in hazardous situations, so that you can see the hull or ship systems, being degraded by, I dunno solar activity or a magnetar or something, yet you want to get as much unobtanium as you can.
Also what is causing Bert to hallucinate??? Is it the food, the air, a reaction to another crew member?
The traits of the crew are fertile ground for challenges - I love at the moment how a clumsy character can really affect the whole crew and functioning of the ship in connected-up yet unexpected ways. Going back to the previous comment about gauging risk - the last gasp of the last crew-member might likely be 'If only we hadn't rescued butterfingers Agatha....'.
So anyway this is my way of saying that I love the emergent challenges rather than the contrived ones. I would rather have a completely uneventful playthrough if that was what naturally came from my conditions than a bunch of contrived mcguffins to keep me interested.
So how to make the experience more challenging while avoiding the contrived cookie-cutter situations?
What I said previously about a ship or character log ability would be one way to add to the challenge by creating a bigger investment in the characters and ship - situations will FEEL more challenging because there will be more involvement, so outcomes will be more important, so actions will feel more significant, so situations - especially risky or unknown ones will seem more challenging.
There are probably a lot of other things... Hmmmm....
I will be playing a lot more, and there are a lot (a LOT) of suggestions on the forums already so I will just bung any ideas I have here and maybe switch to harsh mode on my next few plays to see how that compares.
Thanks again for the game!

Been playing 0.8.21 - medium - defaults - basic platform.
I now have six crew and have travelled a few systems. It is much easier if you find more crew earlier on. Almost effortless. A big part of the challenge in all of my play-throughs so-far has been juggling four or less crew. The furthest I have made it so far is about half-way to the end.
Looks like this play through will be easier but let's see. It is still early days. Expect the unexpected.....