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Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed
I found this thread looking for The Long Dark discussion on SA. It just got a big update that overhauls a bunch of stuff. You can't forage for wood just by stepping outside anymore - you have to find it laying around in the world, but it seems pretty plentiful. You can't get cedar or fir without a hatchet, though. You can break down furniture, curtains, towels, and a bunch of other stuff that was just decoration before (mostly for reclaimed wood and cloth). They finally added hypothermia and a bunch of other conditions. I still haven't gotten around to making a bow since that update came out, since I can never seem to find a hatchet. :( Wolves are still dicks, but now you can wave a lit torch around in front of you, and you can take torches from fires. Fires also got some changes - they keep you from getting colder, but don't necessarily warm you up unless the heat they give off can overcome the ambient temperature in the air. The UI got a bit of an overhaul, too: the center dot only appears when you aim at something you can interact with, and the rifle's ammo counter is a bit different. Here's the official changelog and a video that explains things better than I can: http://hinterlandgames.com/deep-forest-v-256/

I've only played for a couple hours since the update, but so far, I'm really liking the changes.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Aug 2, 2015

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Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed

fennesz posted:

My big complaint about the update is how obtrusive the new snow particles seem to be. It's not that they're numerous; they're just the size of fuckin' baseballs. Good update otherwise though.

With the new wood collection mechanics it seems bizarre that you can't fell trees, or even harvest fallen trees, but instead are limited to twigs and branches. I suspect axes (which unused files have been found for) will be introduced in the next large patch.

Yeah, the snow seems to be a bit much. And the tree thing is definitely weird, but it's likely a balance issue - I think chopping down trees would need to have a big enough cost (in time or fatigue or something) that it would discourage players from just deforesting the map since they're so plentiful. Harvestable wood seems to be all over the place, though, so it hasn't been a big deal for me... yet. I'm sure that will change after I've spent a couple days clearing out the Coastal Townsite or something, though - I got lucky with the Random Start and landed in Coastal Highway, near Jackrabbit Island (the cabin had a rifle and a frozen corpse nearby had a box of rifle ammo next to him).

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed
Long Dark got another big sandbox update: Desolation Point. It's got a new area, a forge and some metalworking, a hacksaw for breaking stuff down into scrap metal, status icons instead of words on the HUD (and a smaller font for things you aim at), and last but not least, a better weather system. Blizzards start off small, with wind and snow picking up over time, and I'm almost positive they toned down the giant glowing snowflakes.

I probably won't put as much time into this as I did after the "Bears and Pleasant Valley" update. The new area is small, but it has some neat points of interest. The forge is a cool idea, but I'm sure there will be complaints about having to find it in order to make arrowheads now. My favorite thing about the update is definitely the weather changes (and the lighthouse :3:).

factory:


just in case you forgot you were in Canada:


a little church hidden in the woods:

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed
Follow the road.

Somewhat more specific: Coastal Highway.

No vagueness, here's exactly where to go: Commuter's Lament at the end of the highway.

The forge is in the new area. The exact location is on the Rikas, the wrecked ship. You need coal from the mines to get it up to 150 degrees before you can use it (and also a hammer, which I found in one of the other points of interest in Desolation Point).

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed
Hinterland put out a big community update post to explain what's going on with The Long Dark.

some highlights:
- pre-alpha footage, if you like that sort of thing
- a map and a name for the entire playable region (Great Bear Island)
- story mode is going to have a bunch of new areas
- "We’ll be returning to a regular Sandbox update cycle."
- the environment is getting an overhaul to be more detailed (there's a video at the end of the post that compares the old and new look, as well as showing a bunch of other stuff)
- more first-person animations (punching wolves) and stuff happening in-game (rather than through menus and simulated time)
- there's a Sandbox Roadmap. it's got spoilers for new content, obviously, but some of it looks pretty sweet (3 that I liked: moose, snowshoes/skis, and NPCs in the sandbox).

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed
The Long Dark just got a hotfix for parasites and cabin fever.

Intestinal Parasites posted:

We've rebalanced Intestinal Parasites.

Parasite Risk: Raw Wolf and Raw Bear meat behaves the same as before. For Cooked Wolf and Cooked Bear, you will gain Parasites Risk per piece you eat, per day. The risk will stack, and is expressed as a % in your First Aid screen. Every 24 hours, we will check against this Risk. If you don't contract Parasites within that 24-hour period, we reset this Risk to 0%.

Parasites: Full-blown Parasites can now be treated with 5 Doses of Antibiotics or Reishi (Voyageur) or 10 Doses (Stalker). There is still no chance of contracting Parasites in Pilgrim.

Reishi Tea: You can now brew a cup of Reishi Tea using 2 Reishi Mushrooms (reduced from 3).

Cabin Fever posted:

We've also re-balanced Cabin Fever:

* To get Cabin Fever, you now have to spend the majority of 6 days indoors.
* If you develop Cabin Fever, you will now be prevented from Resting *indoors* for 24 hours.
* We've added a "grace period" of 50 Days in Voyageur (25 Days in Stalker), during which you will not develop Cabin Fever. This is to "simulate" the idea that Cabin Fever only becomes an issue if you have been isolated for a long time.
* There is no risk of Cabin Fever in Pilgrim.

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed
The Long Dark just got a "cheerfully named" update: Penitent Scholar (video)

Highlights from the video:
-You can build a snow shelter with cloth and sticks for emergencies. "But keep in mind you're still vulnerable to wildlife, so if you aren't lucky, you might find yourself getting dragged out of the snow shelter in the middle of the night by a pissed-off bear."
-Skills have officially been implemented - one example given was that firestarting helps you to start fires more quickly and get more burn time out of stuff.
-Books can now be studied to increase your skills (different books for different skills, so they got a visual update, too).
-2 new challenge modes - Nomad (survive for 5 days each in 15 different locations) and Whiteout (gather supplies and survive for 30 days in a "monster blizzard" that gets worse as time passes)
-Feats are new achievements with in-game benefits - they give you bonuses like requiring less calories per hour of activity, or sprinting faster. They're global, unlike skills, so once you unlock one, it applies to all future characters (not sure if there's a way to disable them if you don't want the bonus for that particular run).
-more quality of life stuff (breaking down items now puts the materials directly into your backpack, whoo!) and bug fixes.

This update had a public test version for a few weeks before it was released. I didn't join in for this one, but it looks like they might be doing that from now on, which is a good move and should hopefully reduce the amount of post-patch hotfixes that always seem to be necessary. Also:

quote:

A Note on Leaderboards

As we've deepened the options for player experience in the game, and provided more ways to share your progress with other players, we feel that Leaderboards don't represent a meaningful measurement of game progress, and therefore we are removing them effective immediately. We look forward to continuing to improve our in-game tools for sharing progress and player accomplishments.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Jun 23, 2016

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed

Dyna Soar posted:

agreed. the bridge trilogy needs more love tho.

A survival game set in the Sprawl, where you have to find your own uses for the detritus from a society that no longer recognizes you even exist. Skills can be things like Jury-Rigging, Shooting a Single Bullet Before Being Gunned Down By Corp Security Teams, and Technofetishism. Also sometimes Molly Millions shows up and starts murdering people and you have to sneak away.

(I really want CDPR's Cyberpunk game to be good)

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed
I played a bit of the Faithful Cartographer test branch, and I liked most of it. The only issue I had was that indoor areas seemed to be too dark, but it seemed to be a pretty common complaint so hopefully it's been fixed for the live version. You can make maps with charcoal (that you get from fires after they go out), but you need to be outside and have clear visibility. The quick-menu now has food and drink options (yay!). I think having hands is new, too. WINTERMUTE is still a dumb name for a wilderness survival game to use, no matter how much snow the game has. I mean, SNOWCRASH would have at least been more appropriate to the pilot guy's story.

Also, Empyrion: Galactic Survival got a big update today, too. It's more of a building/crafting game with spaceships, but there are some survival elements (you need to manage your food, water, oxygen, and now temperature). It's very similar to 7 Days to Die, only instead of post-apoc zombies, it's aliens and spacemans. You can make your own bases and vehicles (there are also some prefabs included in the game to get you started, or you can download blueprints from the steam workshop), and eventually you'll want/need to leave the planet to get more and better stuff, especially if you play online. I think there is/was a thread for it but it kinda died out a while back, probably because people were waiting for this big update. Also, warning: early access, but the devs have been pretty solid with updating and improving the game so far. They don't have a 1.0 release date yet, but the game is very playable at the moment.

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

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- Peer-reviewed

Archonex posted:

I'm seriously tempted to make a thread about it and see if there can be another 7 Days to Die style goon rush.

There is one. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3793800 (the 6.0 talk is only the last half of the last page though)

I play with some buddies on what turned out to be the same server the goon crew is on, so I've just been keeping my head down. :)

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
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Major Isoor posted:

Huh, interesting - I don't think I've seen this, before. What would you say it's similar to? Seems a bit like No Man's Sky or Space Engineers, perhaps

Funny you mention NMS, because when that game came out, I thought "so it's Empyrion but without the building?" Personally, I think it's more like 7 Days to Die, but with space travel instead of zombies. You mine for raw materials to make items like weapons, ammo, and building supplies, so that you can make bases and hovercraft and spaceships to fly between different planets and solar systems. There are also dinosaurs and hot dog plants and you can mine on asteroids and moons in space. I haven't played in a long time, but friends of mine play pretty regularly and the only real issues they have are lag and desynching when in big multiplayer ship battles. That may or may not be a concern for you but the game is still good as a single-player or small-server-with-friends thing.

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
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Grounded is Obsidian's new survival/crafting game. The setting is basically Honey I Shrunk The Kids: The Animated Series: The Video Game (disclaimer: I don't know or care if there was an animated series), and that's probably going to be the big draw for people who aren't already into survival/crafting games (and even people who are, because tiny cartoon teenagers aren't exactly typical survival game protagonists). Ants are the size of wolves, and spiders are the size of... dire wolves, I guess? They're bigger than the tiny teenager you play as. Distances are measured in centimeters instead of meters because you are tiny, which I thought was a cute touch. Landmarks are things like The Baseball and Empty Mint Container. Wolf Spiders are big and scary-looking and murder you quickly (only ran into one of those, at night; I didn't turn on any of the arachnophobia accessibility options, but I appreciate that they exist for people who want/need them). Gnats act very gnat-like: they fly around erratically and taunt you into trying to attack them by staying low to the ground and getting close, only to fly out of your reach as soon as you make a move, then turn and look at you as if to say "haha, I'm a gnat, gently caress you."

Red ants are loving assholes. I had set up a little camp near the first big strange machine you find - I made a lean-to (respawn point), a storage container, and a cooking spit, and had cooked up a couple weevils. I was off looking for water that wouldn't cause my character ("I'm Willow. Willow Branch. Yup, that's really my name.") to lament her probable death from dysentery, and got a warning noise. When I got back to camp, there was a horde of what seemed to be at least 10 ants just going to town breaking all my stuff. I started stabbing with a spear I'd made, and managed to fight off a few of them, but there were too many and I got swarmed. I can respawn and recollect my backpack, and then I can just recycle all my camp stuff that wasn't destroyed by ants. Lessons learned: don't set up camp until I can build walls around it, and red ants are loving assholes. Once I've got my stuff back and make some walls around my camp, clean water is going to be my next big in-game problem. I can make a canteen, if I can find the bits for it, but I don't know how the game handles boiling water (as in, I don't know if I can just do it on the cooking spit or if I need some other tool).

If you've played any of the survival/crafting/voxel/etc. games (7 Days to Die, Empyrion, many many others), it's got a lot of the same basic gameplay stuff going on. Manage your hunger and thirst (grubs and weevils can be cooked, mushrooms can be picked, and you can drink from dirty puddles or rarer clean dew drops). Pick up bits and pieces to make things to get better bits and pieces to make better things, repeat as needed. When you cut down stalks of grass and weeds with your stone (pebble) axe, you have to carry the grass sheets (used for walls and doors) and weed stems (used like logs for building, also lol :420:), because they're too big to fit in your backpack. Other stuff like clovers, dried grass, and bigger stones have to be broken into smaller bits so that you can stuff them in your backpack, and the smaller bits are things you have to pick up manually rather than just getting 3 clover leaves in your backpack every time you cut one down (haven't found one with 4 leaves yet, but I'm sure there's at least one out there).

It's in early access, and also an Obsidian game, so I was expecting a lot worse performance than I got. I had a little bit of slowdown when I first loaded the game and looked around at the scenery, but that went away pretty quickly. I'm going to play a bit more tomorrow to see if I run into any bugs that aren't part of the game, but so far I haven't had any major performance issues.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Aug 3, 2020

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed

Spudalicious posted:

Anyone try out Empyrion recently? I bought it a year or two ago (it's still $20 on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/383120/Empyrion__Galactic_Survival/ )

I haven't touched Empyrion in a couple of years, but I did play an earlier version of that Homeworld mod/server/whatever for a bit with a buddy, who spent a ton of time with it for a while (he hasn't played in about a year, though). I liked it, but you definitely need to join up with a crew if you want to do anything more than basic gameplay stuff. Base- and ship-building is way more fun when you've got 5+ people working on stuff instead of just one, especially if even half of them are coordinating with one another. I stopped playing because my computer couldn't keep up with PVP, and I wasn't going to upgrade for a cheap early access space game. It's a fun game if you like the "voxel building/crafting/survival" genre, BUT IN SPACE (and on planets). Mine ore to process into ingots to make materials to build things that can craft stuff, and try not to die while you do it (there's also a creative mode, which just gives you infinite everything and removes the survival bars).

Similar on the surface, I've actually been getting into Stationeers again lately, and they've added a (optional) first-person helmet, done some UI touch-ups, and added new sounds for a bunch of stuff. I'm playing on Mars, with mostly-default settings, but the resources on the higher-than-normal setting. It may be a bit much, because there are patches of ores literally everywhere. I've got a bank of 8 solar panels hooked up to a sun-tracking circuit, which are feeding 6 batteries (large batteries just got added to the game, so I have one of those as well). Possibly overkill for what I've got going currently, but it's better to overproduce than underproduce, especially power. My greenhouse is small but makes enough for a lone astronaut (after getting a couple full stacks of potatoes and tomatoes, both of which make good long-term food when cooked in a microwave, I've been growing soybeans so I can get soy oil so I can make french fries).

If you haven't played/heard about it, Stationeers is a first-person crafting/building game about astronauts surviving on a planet/moon, and trying to eventually build a rocket to get off that rock. The main focus is on managing gasses, pressure, and temperatures; there's less emphasis on the "eating food to not die" part. It's sort-of-but-not-really like Oxygen Not Included, in that both games deal with gasses and temperatures along with more basic survival needs. There's also a pretty in-depth circuit system with logic chips that can do a bunch of different things like the aforementioned solar-tracking, or making your lights turn on when the sun goes down (ie: is no longer visible to the sensor). I mostly just copy designs from the wiki when I want to do something, and figure out why they work the way they do. There's no combat, or at least no PvE combat; eventually you can make guns and ammo in one of the 3d printers, which suggests shooting other players is possible, but I've been playing mostly solo or with friends, so that hasn't come up yet. It's become a chill podcast game for me, where I just load up my game and slowly expand my base while making sure my greenhouse has enough CO2 for my plants (and pumping the excess oxygen back to my oxygen holding tank).

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Oct 25, 2020

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

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Bhodi posted:

Stationeers needed more of an end-game and a reason to visit and colonize all the planets. It needed a way to take materials through the artifacts and it needed a better inventory management than "dig a hole in the ground" or "Fiddly mess of end-game robotic arms". More reason to actually explore would be cool, even if it was like, lore tablets or something. And a bigger backpack. I get the scarcity but during the mid-end game you just want to bypass it.

There is a bigger backpack, at least. The hardsuit jetpack has a bigger inventory than the basic suit, and you can also make a hardsuit backpack that takes up 1 slot but can hold 12 items. Now when I go on a mining excursion, I just stick a few backpacks in my jetpack and fill 'em all with ore until I'm full or get bored (I usually get bored after filling 2, if not before then).

By "inventory management" do you mean putting things in crates and lockers? The standing ones with 32 forward-facing slots are great for managing all my extra parts I'll eventually need, someday.

I'm not sure what "needed a way to take materials through the artifacts" actually even means in the context of ""The Martian": The Video Game."

The end-game, afaik, is "build a rocket to win," like Factorio, and it might be disappointing to actually do, but I don't think I'll find out anytime soon. To me, the whole point of the game is the "make machines to build things that craft stuff to create gee-gaws that get used to make more machines" cycle (also "make and decorate a fancy base"), not the make-a-rocket "goal." I mean, eventually, sure, I'll probably make a rocket because I'll get bored decorating my color-coordinated-by-function rooms with unnecessary comfortable furniture and putting in unnecessary completely necessary digital displays showing power/temp/pressure readouts for every major facility in my breathable-atmosphere base, which will, of course, have multiple backup systems in place to make sure the whole thing won't explode horrifically (but probably entertainingly) in the event that something bad happens somewhere. Anywhere. You don't know, it might.

I don't need an end-game for that sort of thing. I usually actually get bored or distracted by another game before that point and just end up restarting when I eventually get back to this one.

After typing up this whole post, I'm wondering if you've possibly mixed up Stationeers with some other very-similarly-named game (or maybe played a much-earlier version). There seem to be quite a few, and as much as I love this game, I can never remember if it's called Stationeers, Astroneers, or Space Engineers (and of those 3, I only own Stationeers). If you do, in fact, mean https://store.steampowered.com/app/544550/Stationeers/, then I guess we're just looking for different things in our survival/crafting/building games, or at least this one. :)

edit: The store page description mentions being "inspired by Space Station 13" and I'm pretty sure multiplayer with a bunch of random strangers would be an entirely different experience than what I've been getting from the game, so maybe I'm just playing this game "wrong" by making it a chill solo thing.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Oct 26, 2020

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

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lordfrikk posted:

I played only a few minutes of Grounded and promptly shelved it to wait for the full release because I really liked the atmosphere and the whole feel. It they can actually make a full fledged game out of it without major bugs, I think it could be really good.

I know someone upthread just made almost the same joke, but I hope there are more major bugs in the full release, and that walls will be able to keep them out (if they're ground-based bugs). Wolf spiders suck, sure, but imagine having to worry about wasps.

I played for a couple of hours, long enough to get to the oak tree, and there's just not very much there (yet). It's a good start, though. I like the setting and cartoonish art style, and I didn't have major performance issues (it crashed once, I think)

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
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Qubee posted:

We tried Valheim, they didn't enjoy it sadly. Which really bummed me out cause it's a great game, but they're so picky. The early-game put them off as they didn't like that we all had to gently caress off into the wilderness to grind our deer hides and scrap leather.

The Forest is next up on the list (though I've heard it's incredibly buggy!). Green Hell seems cool but I think we'll get our fix from The Forest. We've played Raft and it's our go-to chill and unwind game, but the gameplay loop gets stale quick. The brief periods of stopping at an island to gather stuff before moving on to the next island is very samey, but we're still holding out hope for when we build the transmitter and go do the story missions on the big islands. Tool durability and spending 30 minutes underwater gathering resources is frustrating, and being hardlocked because you're dealing with lovely RNG that means you've not found wood / plastic / whatever for 15 mins gets old fast.

Conan Exiles seems great fun, I'm hoping to pick it up with the group once my cousin fixes his PC! The last 3 games I can tell my group wouldn't enjoy, though I wish I had someone to play Snowrunner with, it would be heaps of fun.

These recommendations were great, if people wanna keep throwing more my way I would really appreciate it. I really enjoy Barotrauma but it's another game I know the group won't like. They've got very short attention spans, so the only aspect of Barotrauma they'd like is the murdering sea aliens and defending the sub from being breached. But the downtime between that consists of repairing the sub, keeping systems running, organizing loot etc would be real boring to them. So yeah, with game recommendations, constant dopamine rushes and instant gratification is a must. Anything that's a slow-burner or has downtime where you're not actively doing something fun (like building a base to kill zombies, or killing zombies, or looting a zombie-filled house) is a no no.

If your crew likes 7 Days to Die, you might want to check out Empyrion: Galactic Survival (if I missed you mentioning this, sorry). The building is very similar to 7 Days and includes not just bases but vehicles and spaceships to travel between planets (and potentially systems) to gather more resources to make bigger and better stuff. I haven't played it in a couple years, but I remember liking how much better mining and building were in that game compared to 7DtD (at the time). I don't think there are any major Blood Moon-type events, but there are attacks on your base. You need a couple specific pieces placed for it to count as a "base" for the purposes of being attacked, so don't worry about that just because you have a floor and some half-walls set up. :)

No zombies (unless they've been added recently), but there are dinosaurs on some planets, and robots defending PoIs.

edit: Actually, Empyrion might be a bit slower than what your group is looking for, especially if you're not doing PvP, but they might have made things a bit more lively since I last played. All of my experiences with the game are a few years old, and writing this up got me thinking about reinstalling it again.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Apr 15, 2021

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
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Arven posted:

I was avoiding stationeers because the goofy player models were putting me off, but I picked it up because I love the finicky obtuse bullshit you guys are describing.

You know that feeling when you play a game for an hour and you know it's gonna own your life for the next two weeks? Yeah.

This is basically how I felt about Stationeers. I haven't played in a while, but it hit some buttons in my brain in just the right way. When you finally grok all the weird systems and are able to build/set up something and have it work the way you want to, without following a guide, it's a good feeling. Advanced logic stuff is still a big hurdle for me, but at least now I kind of understand why I'm putting certain chips down... sometimes. I've only done some small stuff without following a guide, like setting up nightlights (turn on when a sensor doesn't detect daylight), or having a small room around the starting smelter to keep all the gas contained, then suck it into a pipe to send over to the filtration area (problem: the room gets very hot and I don't want to build an air conditioning system for it, so I just open the door and let it cool off occasionally). The in-game Stationpedia is supposed to have gotten an upgrade in one of the last few patches, so it might be better than it used to be, but I usually have https://stationeers-wiki.com/Main_Page open while I'm playing, to look up smelting recipes or how to set up logic systems.

Also, the goofy cartoon characters are pretty much ignorable if you play solo, and hilarious if you play with friends. When you hear an explosion from the other side of the base and find your buddy sailing 50 meters through the air before hitting the ground because he forgot to turn something on/off and a pipe blew up in his face, it's a lot funnier when he looks like a knock-off mii. :)

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

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I picked up SCUM a few days ago, and have been enjoying the single-player mode. I'm not interested in multiplayer, but hot drat this is a survival simulation. There's a lot of detail in a lot of systems - instead of just a general "hunger" bar, you have metabolic needs (calories, carbs, protein, sugar, fat, etc.) and vitamin/mineral levels. I found some vitamins and raided a cornfield and a farmhouse and got all my vitamin/mineral meters in the green... except for vitamin D. Turns out, I was wearing 3 layers of long sleeves, gloves, a hat, and a balaclava. Took all that poo poo off and laid down in the sun for a bit, and my D levels started going up (slowly).

They also model the archer's paradox and the wobble of arrows in flight, and you can track animals before and after they're wounded. I managed to wound a goat with an arrow, but he circled around and butted me to the ground, loving up my thigh for a bit. As I was chasing him down, I lost the tracks and then it started to rain, so there's probably a dead goat laying in some bushes that I'll never get to eat.

But there was good news! After I lost the goat, my thigh got better (I literally walked it off), so I hit the nearby town and found a gas can (only a small bit of gas, but there's a gas station nearby with a lot more), a car repair kit, and a bunch of food (not enough, though, never enough). Now I can head back down to the truck I found way early that only had a smidgen of fuel in it, drive it to the gas station, and have a mobile storage container.

There are also zombies ("puppets") all over the place (usually only one or two in an area at a time) and big walker mechs (they look like smaller versions of the big 2-legged walkers in Gen Zero) that protect military bases and other high-value areas. I haven't hosed with the mechs too much, but they definitely seem like late-game problems. Loot containers also respawn every 10 minutes or so. There's an .ini file for server settings that I could play with, but I don't know if turning the loot spawn timer to 0 will make things never respawn, or never spawn in the first place, so I haven't done anything yet and just try to ignore places that I've already looted (and all the internet help I found was just "change all these to 9 to get a bunch of stuff right away" which is the exact opposite of what I'm wanting).

It's a very detailed and kinda janky game. It reminds me of a well-made ArmA mod, or a good version of DayZ (DayZ is not a well-made ArmA mod, just so I'm clear). It's still quite EA, though, and I have a high tolerance for jankiness, so it's definitely not a game for everybody. I think some of you survival sim nerds might enjoy it. Again, I have no interest in multiplayer so I don't know anything about it other than that it exists, and if you want a private server, you have to rent one.

edit:

Synnr posted:

What, if any, is in the field of single player survival simmy fps type stuff out there besides like 7dtd? Tarkov is kind of just a loot shooter and rust and all that are just sandbox pvp stuff (to me). I've grown a little weary of stalker mods and I don't really enjoy multiplayer versions of the sort of game most of the time, because I don't really HAVE the time to invest in poopsocking, or the multiplayer scene is just trash.

I do love stalker but I'm guessing that's the only thing that's going to really fit that category? Maybe my desires are just counter to the whole concept, I dunno.

What's up, alternate-universe me? I wasn't specifically responding to your post, but I think you'd like SCUM. There aren't as many zombies as 7Days (unless they ramp up over time or at bigger locations) and there's no escalating horde, but it has been hitting all of my "survive and scavenge" buttons this week.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Jul 24, 2021

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ShootaBoy posted:

I thought SCUM was an entirely MP battle royale piece of poo poo that failed?

Maybe? Like I said, I don't care about mp (not even PVE unless it's people I know), so I haven't touched it. I wouldn't want to pvp in this game, because there are a lot of games that already exist and are probably much better at it. I'm sure they're still trying to make it a thing, though.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Did they ever add AI prisoner/contestant (whatever they are) bots to the single player mode?

Not that I'm aware of. I haven't seen anyone but puppets, and some of them are implied to be other prisoners, but I don't think that's what you mean.

I've just been playing it as a solo survival game and it's good, not great, but still better than most of the other options I've tried.

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Speedball posted:

EDIT: Nobody told me there were loving giant robots in SCUM! That changes everything.


If you're playing single-player you can limit how many can spawn at a time, or remove them entirely. Same with the puppet spawns; you can bump them up to make things more dangerous if you want.

Also, thanks for the Desolate mini-review. I've had it on my wishlist for a while, because it felt like a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. clone. It reminded me of what Survarium was supposed to be, and I was hyped for Survarium before it turned into just another pvp deathmatch game and then I stopped paying attention to it. Tactical Joint Smoking might have just pushed it up the list. :)

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Jul 24, 2021

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Nyaa posted:

SCUM is the only game I know that have a realistic(?) metabolism system with daily nutrition supplement monitor that affect your overall health in various aspect. I certainly appreciates the optional need to consume different source of food that isn't just varied value of restoring a single hunger bar.

The implementation so far seems good and it's at least a curio that's worth experiencing.

The metabolism system was what made me pay attention to SCUM a couple years ago, and last week I found the archery video they did when archery was introduced as a thing (a few years ago, which shows just how much attention I've actually been paying) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsjZoeKVsPc. That little archery documentary made me finally pull the trigger and give the game a shot (it was also on sale). The metabolism stuff is cool, but could use a bit of work on defining things and why they're important. For example, I know that "Fe" is Iron, and that it's used to move oxygen throughout the body and found in meat, lentils, and leafy greens like spinach and kale, but not everyone does, and the game could use a little popup that says something like that (or at least just show the full name of the vitamin/mineral on hover). I noticed last night that your gear load goes up when you jog or run - I was at 85% carrying capacity while walking, but it jumped to over 100% when I was jogging. There are a lot of neat little details on that metabolism screen, but I want more information on what they do and what affects them!

The very light zombie population and early access status aren't downsides for me. I have plenty of survival games with zombies where "more is better" for loot and zombies. I disagree, but I know that I'm in a very small minority with that. SCUM being a lonely survival/scavenge game with minimal combat is why I like it. I know their focus is on multiplayer, but I don't care about that.

One complaint I have is that it does feel too big for how little infrastructure there is. This is supposed to be a private prison island for a tv show, give the people something to watch! If there were about 50% more POIs than there are now (I'm considering a village or town to be a single POI), or the map was about 2/3 the size, it would feel better. I don't want 7 Days to Die levels of things, because I already have 7 DtD for that, and I turn off the 7th day hordes and set loot to 25% in that game. I'm sure the lack of POIs is a thing they're working on, but it's not going to ruin the game if they don't add more places to loot (for me, that is).

:goonsay:
Also, the poop-farts are weak sounding and they should get someone with full and healthy bowels to record some poo poo (literally).
:goonsay:

I know I'm the weird one for liking the janky, lonely, slow-paced (other than the "burning calories" department) single-player SCUM that currently exists, because most people want more and faster all the time, but it fills a niche for me that other survival games don't. If they put as much thought and detail into the medical stuff as they have with archery (and to a lesser extent, metabolism), it'll probably become one of my favorite survival games, up there with The Long Dark.

Another pro: they use the 7.62 High Calibre/Marauder inventory system with bags and clothes having different capacities. Nobody has played those games, so I'm happy to see the very good inventory system applied to a game that people do play. I found a hiking backpack early on, and it's a game-changer for sure.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Jul 24, 2021

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TeaJay posted:

We talked about SCUM earlier and incidentally it just got a major patch and moved to 0.6 version:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/513710/view/5526463837502570202

So it's a great time to get in! It's taking a step in the more realistic direction with the metabolism system, medical rework and so much other stuff they couldn't fit the patch notes on Steam on one go!

I was just coming to post this, because I think someone here was waiting for the medical and metabolism reworks (besides me, obviously). They also added motorcycles (but not bicycles), a couple new PoIs, and a new town (all on the Z island).

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In my continuing SCUM adventures, I found a pickup truck and have been a roaming nomad, making small camps when I need to unload the truck or want a nearby spawn point for exploring. It's been fun, even though I had to start over completely with the new update.

short version: Good update, but could use a hotfix soon.

longer version: It's mostly pretty good, but a lot of the numbers could definitely use tuning. Most notably, items decaying in storage is some bullshit right now. I'm fine with food decaying over time (not canned stuff), but it's a little too fast at the moment. Tools and weapons and clothes, however, shouldn't get noticeably worn out over a single day while being stored away in a box inside of a cabin. The patch notes do say that a lot of the new stuff is a first iteration, and I'm sure it will probably get rebalanced soon, but it's still frustrating to see a carefully hoarded stash of 2 dozen bullets for guns I haven't seen yet literally rot away in storage. Carrying items in your personal inventory will prevent decay, but it seems like once you pick something up, it will begin falling apart as soon as you store it anywhere.

The new metabolism screen fixed almost all of my previous complaints about the lack of information about your nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Now when you hover over one of them, you can get information about what foods you can get it from and how it's being affected by your current situation (if you're digesting a banana, your mineral K - which is different than vitamin K - is going to be rising). The only thing that seems to be missing is actual names for minerals instead of just the elemental symbol, ie: K doesn't have "Potassium" anywhere in its infobox. It does seem like hunger and thirst drop a bit too fast, but I'm sure being at almost maximum load most of the time and occasionally slightly overheating because of how many layers I have on is a big contributor to that. I'll have to try going with an actual minimal load and not just wear whatever has the most inventory space and see how much of a difference that makes.

The medical stuff is still early too, but it feels like a good addition. Malnutrition can give conditions that affect your energy and stamina (making it cost more stamina to do stuff, and regenerate it more slowly). As far as taking damage goes, puppet attacks are automatically stabilized, so you don't have to treat your injuries after every fight. If you take an actual bleeding wound (animal attacks, explosions from puppets with bomb-vests, probably gunfire), they come in 4 classes. C1 will automatically stabilize on its own (though you can treat it to stabilize it early), and the other 3 require increasing amounts of treatment (more clean rags). While suffering from a bleeding wound, you take constant damage (as well as whatever damage the initial attack dealt) until the wound is stabilized. After the stabilization bar fills, for any injury, it goes into recovery, which is when you actually regain your lost hp. It's slower to get to the part where you actually heal, but you can take a few hits from puppets and not have to bandage up after every one now. I've had a few occasions where after a fight, I've found the nearest loft or closed room and just laid down for a few minutes to recover, because it does speed up the healing rate (and also helps minimize calorie and energy usage). Also, hits to the head seem to do significantly more damage. I've had normal wounds ranging from 2 to 20 damage, but headshots can get up to 40, 50, and in one case NINETY-TWO damage, out of 100 hit points.

There's probably a few more things I'm missing to either praise or complain about, but now I want to go strip nearly-naked and run around in the woods and burn calories to see how long it takes to get hungry and thirsty again.

I'm going to play the video game that does that instead, and minimize my chances of having to interact with another human being (or a cop).

edit: ha, they just put out a hotfix today, and it seems to address a few of my complaints. neat!

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Aug 4, 2021

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BrianRx posted:

Sorry if you mentioned this already, but are you playing solo or on a server somewhere? The game looks and sounds cool, but, for the reasons discussed by others already, I much prefer solo or coop games to PvP.

I usually prefer going solo, too. Originally, that's what I was doing, but I roped a friend into getting the game and we joined an empty public PVE server together. After a few days, the admin noticed there was activity after a couple of months of not having any and hopped in to see what was going on, and now he's trying to get a few more of his friends back into the game. It's pretty laid-back - the map is big enough that everyone can pretty much do their own thing and not deal with anyone else unless they want to. Sometimes people will mention where they're going over global chat in case anyone else is in the area and wants to help deal with poo poo or stay away.

To play with friends (or strangers), you'll need to rent a server or do what we did and join one. There are a bunch of empty ones every time I check, so it shouldn't be too hard to meet with your friends. You can form a squad but you have to be near the actual character in order to invite them (and meeting up might be its own set of issues - me and my friend first spawned nearly in opposite corners of the map the first time, and died a few times just trying to get together).

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MarcusSA posted:

Surprised I hadn't seen this yet.

Necesse

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1169040/Necesse/

It has heaps of glowing reviews and its only $6.69.

Thanks for this! I spent almost the entire day yesterday playing Necesse after buying it on Friday (and playing most of the evening). It's a fun little game, and my survival/building game buddies are interested because it has multiplayer. I like the gauntlet-style combat, especially since I got the hammer that shoots rocks. Now spider nests are much less daunting. I still haven't entirely cleared out the starter dungeon, but I did start fixing up the rails because it saves so much time when you get further in. I just need to make the ladder more visible so I don't just zoom past it every time.
edit: ha, as soon as I hit post, I thought of the solution: just take out a section of track so that I have to stop at the ladder, and put a couple mine carts on each side.

It slows down quite a bit during raids, but that's probably just my computer. I've been using an old cpu while I wait for a new (used) one to show up, almost a month later than it was supposed to (don't ever buy anything from Key Components through Newegg), so I'm giving a pass to a lot of performance issues and long load times in games at the moment.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jun 5, 2022

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Necesse: you can also make a little wooden boat. It's a lot faster than swimming. When you're exploring the cave under the starter island, you'll find Map Fragments. You can combine 2 of them to reveal a Dungeon or Village on the map, then travel to it with your boat. You may need to island-hop if things are too far away. Villages have a ladder leading to their local cave. You probably want to avoid Dungeons early on. The enemies are tougher than the ones in the Forest and the Snow biomes. You can make a ladder and use it on an uninhabited island to get to the cave system for that island. According to the wiki, the "intended" order for biomes is Forest > Snow > Dungeon with the Void Wizard > Swamp > Pirates. The pirate boss lets you get into deep caves, which scale the same way (forest to snow to swamp). Apparently you can't recruit Animal Handlers until after you beat the Pirate boss, so don't fret about that yet. It just means you have to manually gather wool and milk. Buy a rope from a wandering merchant, rope up a couple of sheep and cows, and put them in a fenced-in area (you'll have to manually open the door for the animal to get through, and then close it afterwards). If you have a feeding trough with wheat in it (not sure if other crops work, I just have a lot of excess wheat because I overproduced for flour), they'll reproduce. You also need a bucket for milk and shears for wool, which you can make at an anvil.

I've gotten really into Necesse this weekend. :)

Phigs posted:

You can go to other lands overmap by swimming to the edges of the map. You can also bring up a map of these other places with N.

I'm feeling a little more lost and listless than in Terraria but I vastly prefer topdown to sidescrolling so it's still fun for the moment. I haven't really dived into the settlement stuff or fought any bosses yet though.

Beating the first boss unlocks the spider set of gear, which lets you summon spiders and shoot webs. Also the Demonic metal is a nice upgrade from gold stuff. Summons seem to be functionally immortal. I've never had one die on me, they only disappear when I die.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Jun 6, 2022

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Necesse hints/tips/whatever from a guy who played up to the deep snow cave boss (for whatever that's worth):

Make a wooden boat and use it in the water to sail to another island. You can only go to tiles in the cardinal direction you leave the map (if you leave the north edge, you can only go to tiles north of you).

Plant trees in an area and set it as forestry zone in the settlement menu (C after you plant a settlement flag). Zones aren't as detailed as in Rimworld, but forestry will keep you in wood to fuel everything and also make pretty furniture.

Trees can grow in any biome. Bring those palm trees back to the forest! When you plant trees that grow food (coconuts, bananas, lemons, maybe more), do NOT make it a forestry zone. I think those are considered farming, even though they don't need fertilized soil.

You eventually unlock a teleport network you set up yourself. Until then, I like to keep a bed with me for a quick spawn point when exploring a new cave. You sometimes find beds in caves.

You can hit biomes in any order but the "intended" difficulty ramp-up is forest cave > dungeon > snow cave > swamp cave > desert cave > pirate boss (talk to him after you beat him and you can recruit him) > deep cave > deep snow > deep swamp > deep desert. The deep levels are gated by the pirate boss, and I think he also unlocks the teleport system.

You can find friendly mages in dungeons, and recruit them for free. Mages enchant your gear, and also sell some progress-gated items (like teleport stones) Same with explorers in desert caves, and you can send them on exploration missions where they bring back a bunch of loot.

Alt-left clicking an item in your inventory will lock it. You can then unload everything else into a chest with a single button.

The job/priority system isn't as deep as Rimworld but it works pretty similarly. Anyone can do any of the basic jobs and there are no skill levels, just specialists. Anglers go fishing, farmers can fertilize crops (after you make fertilizer in a compost bin), hunters shoot bunnies, and animal handlers tend to sheep and cows (getting wool and milk). You can't recruit animal handlers until you beat the pirate boss.

Nobody cares if you take stuff from chests. This might eventually change because it's still early access, but it doesn't seem like there's any sort of "ownership" at all. You can show up to a village, take all their stuff (I havent tried, but I bet you could pickaxe everyone's furniture too), milk and shear all the cows and sheep they have, slaughter all the animals, and you're cool as long as you don't hit someone too many times. Note: I havent tested this (other than shearing sheep, milking cows, and looting chests).

Bosses are tough solo, at least until you can gear up from the next biome and power through them. It's worth fighting a few of them multiple times because they drop different things - the first boss drops one of four trinkets when you kill it, and the first 4 kills get you one of each. They all have minor bonuses and drawbacks, but when you have all 4, you can combine them to make a trinket that gives a 20% boost to all damage types, with no downside. Its a handy little item that I still use.

There are probably other things I'm forgetting, but I'm on my phone and this is already huge. Hope it helps someone! :)

Edit: corrected a bunch of "autocorrect"-ed words. I don't post from my phone much. Also, one more tip: summons are pretty great. There are armor sets and trinkets that boost the summon limit, and you can summon some things that don't count against that limit, like a parrot or a magic torch with legs (but not both at the same time).

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Jul 6, 2022

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The Lone Badger posted:

[SoD2] A loading-screen tip said that Juggernauts are fire-resistant. How resistant? Are thermite grenades useful at all?

I think this got lost in the Zomboid chat, which is understandable. Fire doesn't do a lot of damage to juggernauts. I think the explosion from a thermite grenade is useful, but not the fire part. I usually avoid dealing with juggernauts unless absolutely necessary (on Dread diff and above, they're always Blood Juggs so they do plague damage in addition to being big smashy bois). When I have to engage, I try to lure them to my base or a nearby enclave, if possible. Otherwise, normal explosives and a lot of bullets will usually do the trick. Getting a juggernaut to charge you isn't hard, so placed explosive (box mines and such) should help, too. I haven't actually had to deal with one by myself in forever.

I recently got back into SoD2 myself because I saw someone on my friends list playing it, and in the last 3 or 4 days, The Ones Who Lived (best community name I've had so far) went from Day 2 with 3 survivors up to day 11 or 12 with a crew of 8 or 9, living at the brewery. There have been 2 deaths. One was just bad luck on my first plague heart adventure (got wrecked by a Feral, which allowed the horde of plague zeds to do their thing), and a Juggernaut outside my base tore poor Phobos in half when she was still just a Recruit. Gracie, her former enclave member (I rescued one of them and then they both wanted to join up), has become a zombie-slaying badass to avenge her (took her out to clear some infestations and went from Recruit to Hero by the time she was done - she used plenty of ammo and firebombs to do it, though).

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Just picked the terribly-named SCUM back up for the first time in a while to join a buddy. He found me, brought me back to his cabin, and let me help myself to his stock of clothes and food. There was a river nearby so I drank some water, but I was standing in the river when I did so. I got trench foot from walking around in wet socks and hiking boots for a few (in-game) hours. By the time I noticed it and built a fire, it was already stabilizing, so it wasn't a huge deal, but I'm glad to see the medical system got some more love since last time I played. I had to warm up by the fire and dry my clothes because I was getting chilly (and didn't want to get frostbite or something if it gets too cold at night and I'm still in wet pants).

The last time I played was before they added airplanes, and I still don't understand why they did that. Boats are good because you can go further from the shore to fish (I don't know if more fish spawn in open waters than along the shore, but it feels like something the devs would throw in), but an airplane just feels unnecessary to me. I'm playing SCUM for stuff like trench foot, infected wounds, vitamin/mineral management, burping/farting from my digestive issues (in the game!), and the detailed archery system ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsjZoeKVsPc ), not flying around in my airplane while a buddy shoots zombies/other players.

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TeaJay posted:

It's getting there but very slowly. I played the hell outta SCUM when it started on EA back in 2018-19 and even then we wished for more realistic diseases, medical systems, cooking, etc. The metabolism system is in place and it's expanded but development seems rather glacial.

I also have absolutely no idea why they would put resources into making something so intricate such as airplanes which maybe one person on a server will use at a time.

Biggest issue for me is that the basic gameplay loop is exactly the same as it was in 2018 when EA started. You fight like a drunken boxer (animations haven't changed) the same zombies that were around in 2018 (and their AI is still the same, they still won't climb windows or open doors) and you gather the same kind of loot, with the exception that there are more guns now.

For me a reason to return would be an update on the PVE side. Missions, quests, roaming NPC's, dynamic events, stuff like that. There are concept of new monsters, but not coming anytime soon.

There are NPC traders now (and I think at least one of them is a doctor) so cash is finally useful, but no, there haven't been any major changes to the core gameplay since I started playing it earlier this year, other than maybe the medical system revamp. I probably posted about it in this thread then and you probably said the same thing, and you're not wrong. Missions/quests would have been a better update than Airplanes!, imo.

I will say that the performance has gotten much better since last time I played though. Part of it is my computer having gotten an upgrade since then, but my friend was telling me that he noticed it too, and he hasn't changed anything. Specifically, the city (the one up north, because there's one down on the southern island now too) no longer causes stutters/lag, and it's not nearly as crowded as it used to be (that one might be server settings, though).

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khy posted:

More than anything I want a 3D FPS survival crafting game where I build structures that other NPCs move into and I can build up a town. Give me NPCs that move into houses and I will spend hours, days, and more constructing the perfect village for them.

That game looks like it MIGHT just appeal to me.

Someone mentioned it already, but you might enjoy Medieval Dynasty. It fits most if not all of those criteria. Build up a village of houses and work-buildings, recruit people from other nearby villages to live and work in yours, trade with the other villages, progress through seasons (you can adjust how long each season is, default is something like 3 days), find a wife, have a kid, and eventually play as the kid when they get old enough and your original character gets too old (the "Dynasty" part). All in first-person perspective!

edit: I will never get over how weird it is that The Long Dark calls its campaign "Wintermute," because I immediately think of William Gibson and games like DX or Cyberpunk 2077 rather than "survival in a snowy wasteland." I'm surprised they didn't call Survival mode "Snowcrash."

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Nov 25, 2022

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Bussamove posted:

Everyone spawns around the Core, yeah. It’s a fun little game to play with friends and one of the random landmarks that can generate is a go-kart track complete with working cars so it might be the greatest game ever made.

ArmA 3 has a go-kart DLC after an April 1st fakepost got a response of "okay, but when is this actually coming out?"

https://store.steampowered.com/app/288520/Arma_3_Karts/

lol, I just noticed that it's under the Racing Games category.

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Stationeers is the best thing Dean "DayZ guy" Hall has ever been involved with.

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Anime Store Adventure posted:

How much you like HVAC is directly proportional to how much you will like Stationeers.

e: I don’t mean this as tongue in cheek as it sounds. Literally you are mostly designing hvac

Also setting up power grids, programming logic chips to automate processes (or as mentioned above, using the in-game programming language to do it), and dialing in the right temperature and pressure to smelt advanced ores (failure to do this gives you useless lumps that you have to shove into a recycler to break them back down into their component parts).

It's a very systems-driven game and the systems seem mostly realistic, even if they might not be the actual real-world values all the time. It hits a lot of the same notes for me that Oxygen Not Included does, except you have to build everything yourself and I don't think you can poop in a reservoir.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Aug 2, 2023

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SCUM finally has new enemies with new AI, and it looks like one of them is a Terminator who can't be killed, only slowed/stunned. They also changed up how Bunkers work and added the other new enemy type to them, a less-powerful Terminator (they can be killed, at least) with blades who likes to pin you down.

They also finally got around to the male body rework to match the female one they did last year(?). Oddly enough, the splash screen for this update isn't a bunch of scantily-clad dudes with their abs on display and their dicks barely covered, like the one for the female update (which they quietly removed and replaced with the 0.1 generic "dude in orange jumpsuit with AK" one). I mean, the women didn't have dicks, but they were definitely scantily-clad.

I haven't played it since they did the big vehicle overhaul and removed the hunting stores from the big city up north (and probably the one on Z Island, but I'm not as familiar with that city), and I've just been kind of waiting for an update to announce something that will draw me back in. Cooking didn't do it, though I've been waiting for that for a while.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Aug 4, 2023

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Truga posted:

yeah always has been

also i've been peeking at previews and apparently they're making the rockets just be shells that you then have to equip with your own guts and it's gonna own lmao


Are those... medium-sized tanks? What deviltry has Stationeers wrought?

For real, it's lookin' good and I should probably reinstall it one of these days when I have some free time to get back into Space-Based HVAC Installation and Troubleshooting: The Game.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Aug 15, 2023

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I looked up a solar tracking setup when I started playing Stationeers, and it helped me kinda grok how the chips worked. When I finally get around to playing it again, I'll probably look up the same solar tracking setup, because I've forgotten almost everything about the game (and it's had a few major updates in the last couple of years). Pretty much everything else was done by trial-and-error-and-error-and-error. I felt like a genius when I got my lights to turn on automatically when it got dark.

I have a few Stationeers posts in this thread, but the summary is: this a game for people who like building HVAC systems and power grids, with some survival elements, in hostile-to-humans atmospheres (none, Mars, Vulcan, others).

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explosivo posted:

It's honestly fantastic, I played it nonstop for about a week. Combining rimworld lite colony management with terraria/minecraft style dungeon diving is just so perfect. The game's got a very satisfying power curve too. I highly highly recommend Necesse.

Seconding this. It's mostly really chill, except the boss fights, but there's only a couple that you can trigger accidentally, so it's usually not a problem to carve out a giant room to fight the boss in. Except hte Pirate King. He's kind of a jerk, but you can recruit him after you beat him, and then he sells you gold furniture and pirate-y stuff (a boat, a cannon, and I think a parrot, plus other things). You can also now give your villagers armor and weapons, and recruit them to adventure with you (the game scales up enemy density and health to compensate). Raids can get annoying (stop killing off my only animal handler!), but they're thankfully optional, so I eventually just turned them off.

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Necesse is very solo-friendly and also pretty player-friendly - like making raids optional, and having systems be relatively simple and mostly explained (there are a few exceptions).

A few tips for new players:
You can't get an Animal Handler until after you beat the Pirate boss (unless that's been changed and I didn't notice), so don't worry about it yet. Making pens for livestock and capturing a couple of sheep and cows early on (before depopulating your starting island) is a good idea. You can bring a roped cow/sheep back home with a recall scroll. You only need 2, and a feed trough with wheat in it (the only thing it accepts), and they'll multiply. You can make shears and a bucket at an anvil (I think), which will let you shear sheep and milk cows. This includes sheep and cows in neighboring friendly villages. Animal Handlers basically automate getting wool and milk, so I get why they're gated. Also, you can set a limit for the livestock zone (from the colony menu), and when you have a handler, they'll kill the animals that exceed the population limit, so you'll also build up beef, mutton, and leather, in smaller quantities.

The "intended" order for the biomes is Forest/Plains > Snow > Dungeon (the "creepy castle" place with the blue candelabras and void enemies; also you can recruit mages in them for free) > Swamp > Desert > Pirate King > Deep Cave versions of all the biomes, in the same order (except there's no Deep Dungeon, afaik). I put "intended" in quotes because there's nothing stopping you from going to the "next" biome (or later) before you kill the boss of your "current" one. I actually like to dip into the next biome before fighting some of the later bosses and do a little exploring and mining to get better gear. All the biomes have bosses and unique ores now, I think (including the Deep Caverns, some of which were missing unique ores). I think there's also been some post-Deep-Desert-Cavern stuff added, but I haven't gotten there yet in my current game.

Trees and bushes can grow in any biome, not just the one they're found in. I have a garden with fruit trees/bushes from all over - lemons, bananas, coconuts, blackberries... exotic foods from far away climates!

Yes, you move slowly at first. There are armor sets and trinkets that will speed that up. Same with mining speed - better tools, trinkets, potions, and (eventually) food can all make you dig faster.

Every boss will drop one of 4 items each time you kill them, and the first 4 are guaranteed to be one of each item (to clarify: each boss has a set of 4 things, plus they all drop other loot as well).

Your summoned creatures appear to be invulnerable to damage. At least, I've never noticed one dying. Armor sets can give a bonus to the amount of summoned creatures you can have out. I've gotten up to 5, but I bet more is possible. Snowmen summons look silly but they're cool (:haw:) because they have a ranged attack.

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Oct 12, 2023

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Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
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This thread finally convinced me to get Vintage Story. It's good. I was panning for copper bits and blue clay, and then ran across a decent-sized deposit of fire clay in soil, so I'm set for clay for now. I made a cooking pot, a bowl, a storage jar (gotta make more of those), a crucible, tool molds, and a couple of crocks. Now I need more meat for stews and soups. I also found a peat deposit and made some charcoal. I'm expanding my house and adding a cellar to become my new food storage. I also turned off the drifters and temporal storms, and it's giving me Unreal World vibes sometimes. It's not 1:1, obviously, but it's hitting some of the same notes. I also appreciate the focus on "actual" techniques like knapping and pottery instead of just "attach rock to stick for axe."

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Dec 3, 2023

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