Expedition Feedback

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Expedition Feedback

Postby Vorrarkul » Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:17 pm

After a small discussion in Discord, I decided to bite the bullet and make a thread to collect opinions regarding the expeditions. So, my friends, what do you think of Exploration? Too hard? Too combat-focused? Not combat-focused enough? Is being a Pilot boring? Are frontier phasers too snowflakey? Let's get some feedback all in one place!
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Re: Expedition Feedback

Postby TheDavestDave » Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:30 pm

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1382

A lot of the older vertran explorers have stopped going, and newer ones don't see the point of going because they keep dieing. There is also the longer problem of it being too combat focused and attracting the sec shitter rejects who are only on the sever to doom guy it up. Virgo 2 still needs investment from mineing so that bullet wounds can be treated. And while that is ment to be the hell combat one I think it's okay. BUT

Virgo 4 is worse. Beacuse of the constant deathclaw spawning it's not possible to do without power gameing. Because they will break bones in one hit you need kite them. One person argos them and the rest of the team shoots. Until the deathclaw decides to attack someone else. Abuseing ai like this makes more sence for combat drones but a deathclaw wouldn't just stop attacking the thing right in front of it to chase so guy who shoot it across the room.

We also have the most OP weapons and it still isn't enougth if you don't abuse the ai. They have twice the shots of an AEG, an prototype super gun, and half the size. Even comapared to a normal laser it is half the size and doesn't need weapon cells. But even with this teams keep being sent home due to bone fractures with out seeing a PoI because of death claws. The void suits provide good amour to rival sec ones aswell, but even that doesn't stop bone fractures. As well as lore wise the phasers are ment to be grandad's old war rifle as well.

If someone can bleed that means someone will get it internaly due to the deathclaws. So you NEED clottting meds that the SAR doesn't start with. And you need to be pretty much self sufficent for everything. If you want to set up power. You will have to do engineering duites because why would an engieer go when you will get swamed with deathclaws. Or to hack doors when you need to be taken into the caves.

There's also little IC reason for us to be sent as is. Becuase everyone is dieing with little reward. Even when RPed out it is rather unintresting at this point. You just get boreing things from trash piles that you could on teather. No Zorren posters to find, or other simmiler artifacts. Not even something that would be useful to R and D, who also just see you as a drain. And RPing reports is only useful to admins at this point, if they decided to muck about with the team. It only provides the head of staff something to read if they aren't lewding as is. And that is only if you go super hard into writting paragarths makeing things up with what you find. That you often lack the time to write if you did pull off because you spent so long fighting to find any PoIs to connect to each other, or the team keeps getting sent home because of medical problems before fully exploreing one.

Most of virgo 4 problems could be fixed by just removeing death claws. You'd then have OP guns, but the holdout phasers would be good enougth at that point. (if still too small) The phaser high power mode could then be nerfed as there as less scary things you have to fight. No one has to wait for clotting meds to be ordered because they won't be needed, or atleast every time you go.
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Re: Expedition Feedback

Postby Nanaki » Sun Jul 08, 2018 1:31 pm

My current thoughts is that exploration is in a much better position now than it was a few months ago, getting its own voidsuits really helped reduce the checklist of 'required items' for expeditions to Virgo 2, and the addition of Pathfinder added a clearer chain of command. However, there are still lingering issues and problems, and a lot of disagreement over what can be done to fix those issues and problems, as well as disagreement over if they are problems at all.

Here are the list of short term, "easy" fix issues.

- Exploration is way too dependent on outside departments for certain equipment. I would say clotting medications are mandatory for Virgo four, and shelter capsules are mandatory for Virgo two. The former because of the huge amount of internal damage you will take from deathclaw swarms, and the latter because the Shuttle is not an effective shelter on Virgo two thanks to airlock and distance, as you have to go through the aerostat to an depressurized mini-shuttle that finally takes you to the surface. Even if you face no injuries, the slowdown penalties from going hungry (and you will go hungry on an expedition) are extreme. Synths also add weight to the shelter capsule requirement, since they run low on energy and there is no other way to get backup batteries or a recharger other than capsules.
- Expedition prep is tied too heavily to medical prep as well. It is very common for chemists to take two hours or even longer to make basic first aid chems, assuming anyone is working chemistry at all. Chemists who work as fast as Mlempest are rare.
- The above two factors are usually the biggest things that contribute to expedition prep time (Mining really likes to take their time gathering resources I noticed). The third largest factor used to be the requirement for a pilot to go anywhere, but that was recently resolved when Pathfinders were allowed to fly the shuttle.
- Exploration loot is too weapons-focused. Weapons are the worst loot for explorers, due to a combination of how powerful expedition phasers are making any found weapons completely obsolete, and there is absolutely no use for weapons back at the station, where they either get played with on the science firing range, confiscated by security, or rots in the expedition weapon locker for the rest of the round. In my honest opinion, weapons are shitter bait and nothing more.
- On the other side of the token, there is hardly any non-weapons loot. I would love lore, survival equipment, medical supplies, or stuff that exploration can bring back for other departments on the station. Aliens actually fit the bill for this quite well, with void cells, alien armor, alien tools, and alien objects for R&D to dismantle (nobody even cares about alien pistols), but aliens only show up in abductions, and an extremely rare POI on Virgo four. Most expeditions will never run into that.
- Expedition Phasers are way too powerful for what they are, 10 full power laser shots gives it identical stats to a laser rifle in Security's Red Armory, but unlike Laser rifles, they can fit anywhere pistols can, and have the self-recharging crank which is far superior to relying on power cells (unless you get lucky and find a void cell)
- However, expedition phasers are overpowered because explorers have to go up against large numbers of mobs with very high stats, such as Deathclaws, Giant Snakes, and Corrupt Hounds. This also puts a lot of pressure on SARs, because you will get injured, you will get injured badly, and often. Broken bones and internal bleeding is too common on Virgo four expeditions. A good SAR is too often the difference between an expedition wiping, and going home with no deaths.
- There is not really enough non-combat challenges for expeditions. Some encounters/POIs should be solved in ways other than shooting it to death.
- Ions are way too prolific, making being a synth very hazardous.

Now, these are the short term problems, the only suggestions and comments I have are:

- Give exploration some way to get shelter capsules other than begging mining for them. My personal suggestion is to scatter a few around the aerostat.
- Medical prep is unfortunately an unsolvable problem, since SS12 design dictates that medical requires a lot of prep, and SARs are cought up in that. If there was a way to have SARs more... ready... for expeditions that would be accepted by admins, I would be happy to hear it.
- Furnish up POIs with more lore bits, as well as fun, non-weapons stuff to find. Virgo two especially needs this kind of attention. The only thing that has stopped me is that I have no idea what would be acceptable rewards for the admins/developers here. Since anything I can add is either something created/used by other departments, is adminbus/antag only, or probably should be written by the lore masters (in terms of lore bits like documents).
- Replace Ion hivebots on Virgo four with Ion spiders, which, I feel, would be a bit more thematically fitting than random hivebots, and reduce spawns so that synths are a bit more viable.
- Reduce Deathclaw spawns enormously. Deathclaws should be a rare, terrifying experience, but their frequency makes them more of a very tough irritant.
- More neutral/weaker mobs on Virgo 4's cave system.
- Reduce giant snake spawns on Virgo 4's beach.
- Nerf expedition phasers from 10 shot capacity to 5 shot, which puts them in line with other pistols.
- Maybe add an 'Expedition rifle' producible in R&D, for trips to Virgo two, that would retain the crank and 10-shot capability of the current phasers. I can maybe kitbash something up similar to what I did for holdout phasers.
- Custom species traits are a huge, huge balancing factor. Whenever someone thinks expeditions are easy, one of the first things I notice is that many of those have powergamed their custom traits hard for expeditions.
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Re: Expedition Feedback

Postby TheDavestDave » Sun Jul 08, 2018 2:00 pm

removeing deathclaws from the spawn list and haveing a poi that spawns them like what happens with spider would reduce their spawns and stop them being the most common life form on the planet.

there is currently nothing connecting the caves to the zorren. Maybe the temple, but that has abductor tech. So it could very well just be them. Ritural knifes and zorren artifacts would get both birds with one stone
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Re: Expedition Feedback

Postby ktccd » Mon Jul 09, 2018 2:00 am

Well, I've no input from expeditions themselves, because I've never gone to them. The most I've ever done is follow along to a safe beach, maybe twice.
I just honestly don't see the point? Like, in character. OOC I get it, it's a fun challenge and kind of a game-within-a-game thing, like how lavaland worked on TG-code.

But IC? Why would anyone working on a phoron-research-and-mining facility follow along on extra deadly excursions, which doesn't really serve a point except for the adventure itself (And I'll recognise that "curing boredom" is a valid reason for some characters on slow shifts after all)?
IDK if anyone even cares about it IC. I recall seeing a report for the expedition once and it was about as interesting as when I see xenoarchaeology reports. A bit of an "Interesting, but not very meaningful" reaction.

I've never heard of expeditions ever being of any practical use, although sometimes they bring diseases with them or things like that so... It sounds kind of horrible, but when the only options of a returning crew is "nothing of benefit happened" or "space-plague is here", I kind of secretly hope they don't come back? Or at least not until late in the shift maybe.
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Re: Expedition Feedback

Postby TheDavestDave » Mon Jul 09, 2018 8:07 am

We could replace so much of it by haveing PoI's avaiable on virgo 4, and give the xenoachaeologist a better job.
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