12-08-2013, 09:55 AM
Been following this game for a while now, and since it's waiting for a big update and wipe, thought I'd go over a few things I've seen some confusion about.
Probably a bunch of opinion in here but there's some technical jazz to go over too.
First, it's probably worth mentioning this game isn't actually finished yet, the devs themselves explained this is the earliest possible public beta you can play, which is to say the game "works" from a purely technical viewpoint, but nothing is nailed down as being ready to ship yet, there's piles of unfinished and/or currently disabled content at this point.
Which is probably why a lot of the controls are not explained properly, particularly the L/R confusion, those are your kind of "default" equipment outside the quick select, you access them by pressing X and switch hands by pressing Z (mostly useful if you use two-handed weapons)
This means, for example, I have a character who uses a sword and a gun in either hand, if I'm mining I can press X at any point to equip both weapons, shoot and stab some business, then hit X again to switch back to my pick.
Another useful example would be having and one-handed weapon and a flashlight, particularly for exploring, saves so many torches.
The other function of it is if you're using a one-handed item, like an axe or food, your other hand can switch between your two default items (assuming they're one-handed) by pressing Z.
Some of the more unusual unexplained controls are the whole thing with holding shift to place/break a single block (and also walk), and holding control lets you move your camera around to see further in one direction (dependant on your zoom level I think).
Personally I like a few of the crafting systems people complain about, having to wait for ore to smelt or food to cook, in particular I like the idea of finding blueprints to learn how to make new things, and upgrading equipment vs just making new items is a pretty neat idea, you end up with much less junk equipment laying around and it ensures you haven't just gotten lucky or something.
(I found diamonds way before having enough platinum to upgrade)
Same goes for the "pixel" requirement on some recipes, it encourages you to explore and get your hands dirty, currently the numbers are a bit unbalanced or verging on grind-y, but again we're dealing with things that haven't been tested out in the wild all that much.
If you guys didn't know, the armour upgrades have a race-specific branch, you've got standard armours with standard upgrades which seem like the obvious choice since their stats are higher, but you get bonuses from race-specific armour, like avian armour letting you glide or human armour letting you carry more, along with each race having their own obvious aesthetic differences.
(any race can wear any armour, but only that race can make it by default without needing blueprints)
I'll admit this game feels a lot more fun in multiplayer (but so do most games) but from the looks of things there's a lot more to this game than meets the eye right now, hundreds of pieces of equipment, more sectors to explore, bigger ships, space stations, and probably a lot more "oh shit it's 2AM already" moments.
Probably a bunch of opinion in here but there's some technical jazz to go over too.
First, it's probably worth mentioning this game isn't actually finished yet, the devs themselves explained this is the earliest possible public beta you can play, which is to say the game "works" from a purely technical viewpoint, but nothing is nailed down as being ready to ship yet, there's piles of unfinished and/or currently disabled content at this point.
Which is probably why a lot of the controls are not explained properly, particularly the L/R confusion, those are your kind of "default" equipment outside the quick select, you access them by pressing X and switch hands by pressing Z (mostly useful if you use two-handed weapons)
This means, for example, I have a character who uses a sword and a gun in either hand, if I'm mining I can press X at any point to equip both weapons, shoot and stab some business, then hit X again to switch back to my pick.
Another useful example would be having and one-handed weapon and a flashlight, particularly for exploring, saves so many torches.
The other function of it is if you're using a one-handed item, like an axe or food, your other hand can switch between your two default items (assuming they're one-handed) by pressing Z.
Some of the more unusual unexplained controls are the whole thing with holding shift to place/break a single block (and also walk), and holding control lets you move your camera around to see further in one direction (dependant on your zoom level I think).
Personally I like a few of the crafting systems people complain about, having to wait for ore to smelt or food to cook, in particular I like the idea of finding blueprints to learn how to make new things, and upgrading equipment vs just making new items is a pretty neat idea, you end up with much less junk equipment laying around and it ensures you haven't just gotten lucky or something.
(I found diamonds way before having enough platinum to upgrade)
Same goes for the "pixel" requirement on some recipes, it encourages you to explore and get your hands dirty, currently the numbers are a bit unbalanced or verging on grind-y, but again we're dealing with things that haven't been tested out in the wild all that much.
If you guys didn't know, the armour upgrades have a race-specific branch, you've got standard armours with standard upgrades which seem like the obvious choice since their stats are higher, but you get bonuses from race-specific armour, like avian armour letting you glide or human armour letting you carry more, along with each race having their own obvious aesthetic differences.
(any race can wear any armour, but only that race can make it by default without needing blueprints)
I'll admit this game feels a lot more fun in multiplayer (but so do most games) but from the looks of things there's a lot more to this game than meets the eye right now, hundreds of pieces of equipment, more sectors to explore, bigger ships, space stations, and probably a lot more "oh shit it's 2AM already" moments.