PAT19 Brave New Worlds

Last Thursday, the 24th of July, the latest update patch for Stars Reach’s pre-alpha test landed. The new shaders and fog, teased in the previous testing blog post, aren’t in yet, but a lot of trees and plants have already been replaced with their new versions in preparation for that.

The Amazingest of Trees

There are some amazing looking specimens among the new plants - I especially love the Banyan trees with the blue, crystalline looking leaves - but the full detail of the new models is not immediately apparent with the current shaders. You have to put a light-source (like for a example a harvester beam) close to the plant, to be able to really make out the fine details, like cracks in the bark and such. I’m sure once the new lighting is in, that it will make better use of that now available additional detail.

That being said, this update had plenty of new stuff to talk about.

Character Creation

First off: you still cannot customize your character or spend any points on creation. Like in previous tests, your actual choices are down to just picking a species and gender, and entering your character name.

Apropos character name: Right now you just get a single text-field for entering your character’s name, but the devs are planning to expand that to allow you to enter first and lastname independently.

What has been updated though, is the multi-step “dialogue” with the Servitor that’s reconstituting your body. Basically, you are presented with a lore-approriate background story for your character - which is that you had to be rescued from your doomed native planet. But see for yourself:

As you can probably tell, your typical Servitor seems somewhat like a mixture of HK47 (from Knights of the Old Republic) and Marvin (from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). The writing has definitely improved massively over the previous rendition - but it’s still not quite at the same level as it’s inspirations. HK47 is of course very hard to match.

I feel it still needs a bit more “condescendingness” and/or more tonal consistency. Makes me want to try my own hand at rewriting the text:

GREETINGS MEATBAG.

I JUST SAVED YOU FROM CERTAIN DEATH ON YOUR FORMER HOME PLANET. YOU CAN THANK ME LATER.

BEING ORGANIC AS YOU ARE, OF COURSE YOU HAD TO GO AND MELT INTO GOO WHILE I WAS PULLING YOU THROUGH THE HELIOPAUSE. WHY WOULD YOU LET YOURSELF GET BOMBARDED BY COSMIC RAYS LIKE THAT?

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THIS REALLY ISN’T MAKING MY JOB ANY EASIER, YOU KNOW?

NOW THAT I DO HAVE TO MANUALLY REBUILD YOUR GENETIC STRUCTURE, COULD YOU AT LEAST HELP IDENTIFY WHICH HUMAN SPECIES MOST RESEMBLES WHAT YOU LOOKED LIKE BEFORE YOU WERE GOO?

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HOW AWFULLY NICE OF YOU.

PLEASE CONFIGURE YOUR GENETIC DATA NOW.

MAY I SUGGEST TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY TO TURN YOURSELF INTO A SOMEWHAT LESS DISGUSTING LOOKING CREATURE? NOT THAT I CARE EITHER WAY.

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UGH. THE TASTES YOU ORGANICS HAVE…

AS YOU MELTED INTO GOO YOU ALSO SUFFERED RAPID NEURODEGENERATION VIA DEMYELINATION, AXONOPATHY, AND GLIOSIS.

PLEASE USE WHAT IS LEFT OF YOUR EVER UNIMPRESSIVE COGNITIVE CAPABILITIES TO QUANTITATIVELY DESCRIBE YOUR NEURAL AND PSYCHOMOTOR CHARACTERISTICS.

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SIGH - I GUESS THAT WAS TOO MUCH TO ASK OF AN ORGANIC LIKE YOU.

JUST ALLOCATE POINTS.

PRETEND YOU ARE IN OF THOSE SILLY GAMES YOU LIKE TO PLAY, WOULD YOU?

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PLEASE NOTE THAT WE DO NOT OFFER ANY FORM OF GUARANTEE OR ACCEPT ANY KIND OF LIABILITY FOR YOUR NEW EMBODIMENT.

SHOULD YOU DISCOVER ANY ISSUES, YOU CAN ALWAYS VISIT A LOCAL GENETICIST AND GET A REDESIGN AT YOUR OWN EXPENSE LATER.

I AM GOING TO BOOT UP YOUR ORGANIC CARCASS NOW.

SIMPLY IGNORE THE PAIN CAUSED BY THE NEUROALIGNMENT.

Tutorial

After your character has been created, you are sent through a short tutorial, teaching you about character movement and the basics of using tools.

Right now, there is no way to skip this tutorial. You have to go through it for every character you create.

As if this job wasn’t already bad enough, this station is currently experiencing a major meteor storm as well. I know you have only just been reconsituted from goo, but you should be able to remember how to walk, right? I really shouldn’t have to explain this to you, but I need you to get out of there quickly, so that I don’t have to rebuild your genetics again.

You then have to use WASD to move and CTRL to crouch under a beam that’s blocking the passage - followed by Space to jump over an obstacle. Hints showing which keys to press do appear on the side of the screen. After that you have to climb up a wall, and that’s the first time I struggled a little. The hint about what to do disappeared almost immediately, the wall in front didn’t look inviting to climb (looking like locked doors), and after climbing up a side-wall, I had some trouble detaching from the wall and getting onto the upper floor.

And of course the ceiling has collapsed and the path ahead is blocked. But worry not, I am perfectly capable to solve this conundrum by nano-constructing a crate with a Debris Tool for you to use.

You just have to pick up the tool, equip it and press the trigger on it - and then my superior intellect will have gotten us out of this situation.

Dragging the tool from the inventory to the toolbelt was a bit clunky - but the devs already have a fix for that, which will be rolled out before the next test-windows.

You then get a simplified Terraformer that can only extract - have to point it at the dirt on the ground and suck that up, before you can crouch under the collapsed ceiling.

The electricity up ahead is harmless, but you my want to store your ReLife matrix, just in case. The ReLife station is far too complex for your little goo brain to comprehend - so just think of it as a “save-point”. If you go splat as you organics sometimes tend to do, I won’t have to guide you through the first part of this again.

Now stop dallying and hurry on, before a meteor hits you.

You then have to jump through the opening in the center of the construction the electricity is arcing around. While it is possible to make it through if you are very precise - you are actually supposed to get electrocuted and die, in order to demonstrate the ReLife system.

What? Your organic form can’t even withstand that little voltage? Am I glad I made you store your matrix.

I will use my extraordinary capabilities to nano-construct another inventory crate. Take the Grapple from it to get accross this really minor electrical hazard and move on.

I had no problems getting through unharmed with the grapple - although I did maybe go a bit to far ahead, causing a hint I should have gotten to be skipped. Other testers did report dieing even with the grapple. So it seems you have to carefully position yourself and aim through the center of the room, to get through unscathed.

Great. And now I have to deal with a molten floor because of a broken heat exchanger. Go ahead and store your matrix at the ReLife station again - you already know the drill.

I didn’t get to see this message - it was only visible for a single frame as I was grappling through the room. Therefore I first picked up the tool from the box and only used the ReLife station after that. The “pick up the fire suppressor tool” message therefore never was shown to me, and I got no screenshot of it either.

You then have to use the the tool - similar to the freeze ray on a Trailblazer - to solidify the ground, before walking over it.

And don’t you dare pee on the carpet!

You then come into a room with 5 terminals - each one named after one of the available starter packages. Interacting with a terminal will first show you what is included in the package, which you can then accept or decline. But even after accepting you can still switch your package, as long as you don’t leave the room. More on the starter packages in the next chapter.

Finally done with you. Shoo shoo - off you go. I got others to save.

After that you are in the brandnew TPL station, with a hint telling you to visit the mission terminal. More on that later.

Starter Packages

You do get five different packages to choose from. Each comes with a set of tools, and some skills already unlocked. The skills imho don’t make a huge difference - the way things are right now, you can easily earn the XP if you have the respective tool, so getting the skills only saves a bit of time. But which tools you have, and which you don’t have, that has a huge effect on the start of the game.

Now, eventually, there will be a lot more professions to choose from, more different tools, and way more paths you can specialize your character. More than you would want to do on your own. In fact, even now you might not be interested in all of what’s available. Some people might want to skip farming or cooking, others might want to skip combat or crafting. In a full-fledged MMO, you’d want to pick your preferred specialization, and be able to progress it and train that until your character reaches max skills. And everything you can’t make yourself, you should just be able to buy from vendors. Stars Reach is moving in that direction, but isn’t quite there yet - for examples, vendors simply don’t exist yet.

Up until now, every character got all the tools, and would eventually train all the skills - much like in a survival game. This is changing now, and the transition phase might probably end up a bit awkward at times. Things definitely did get awkward this update - but that might be more due to some progression-breaking bugs, rather than just the transition alone. Still, awkward or not, this transition is necessary to get closer to being an MMO. Especially when it comes to being the MMO we want it to be.

What makes it awkward is the fact, that both players are currently used to doing everyting - and that there really isn’t all that much to do yet, that you could fill the playtime of five distinctly different play paths each. Which is why many players, including me, end up doing (almost) everything again. But I have noticed that there also are players, who are happy to just be running combat missions. That may seem a bit repeptive today, but devs have given hints that mission diversity is going to be ramped up with the next update.

Before we take a closer look at the individual starter packages, I want to point out, that once you are able to trade with others and get access to all the tools, it really no longer matters what you initially picked to start with. For now - these packages really only matter for the first few hours of play, when nobody has anything yet and you are just trying to get off the ground, initially. Once the first people start crafting and handing out items, all of the differentiation points mostly just disappear. These are gonna become a lot more meaningful though, once there is more to do for each progression path, and it starts to make more sense to actually specialize.

Diligent Crafter

Tools:

• Terraformer
• Harvester
• Xyloslicer
• Grapple

Skills:

• Harvesting Yields+
• Forestry Unlocked
• Refining Unlocked
• Toolmaking Unlocked

This is, from my point of view, the best choice overall right now. This is just such an amazingly good package. The only downside it has, is the lack of a weapon - but in all honesty: unless you want to specifically train up combat XP, running away from fights is a lot more efficient in the early stages of the game anyways. Apart from that, those refining recipes you get here, are the best way to earn crafting XP at first - and you need only a few hundred XP to unlock the crafting recipe for the OmniBlaster.

Now that the crafting/inventory bug is already fixed, this is definitely the fastest way by far to get you started. And that’s just because of having a Terraformer and some unlocked Refining recipes. Having a Xyloslicer and the forestry skill to actually use it is just the cherry on top - making this the best choice not only for crafters, miners and builders, but for farmers and foresters as well.

Valiant Soldier

Tools:

• Companion Orbs
• Terraformer
• Fortress Shield
• Grapple

Skills:

• Chronophasing

This is the best choice for combat oriented players. You get a nice weapon and you get a shield. Having a Terraformer means you have the possibility to go into mining as well. But if mining is your thing, you are better off to start as a crafter and then unlock OmniBlaster (or trade for one). Getting into any crafting from this starting point is very slow at first. The refining recipe for oil (that everyone starts with) is probably your best option (but you can also craft some title select items). And you will be doing that for a while, before you can unlock some more mining recipes. But once you got a few more recipes, things will speed up significantly.

Having the chronophasing skill saves you spending 600 XP in the Mineralogy tree, which is just a tiny of bit of time saved, in a tree you’ll probably max out pretty quickly anyway. Having or not having that one is not going to make a big difference.

Peaceful Settler

Tools:

• OmniBlaster
• Fabricator
• Terraformer
• Grapple

Skills:

• Architect unlocked
• First Homestead Unlocked
• HealthBooster recipe

This is a rather uneven package overall. It seems to be intended to appeal to builders, but if you really want to go for building, the Diligent Crafter definitely is the better choice. The problem here is, that the Architect skill is pretty useless during the first hours of the game, and that there is no real use for your Homestead at first as well. And you won’t be using Fabricator early on either. You do get the benefit of being able to rush out there and claim the best spot (which didn’t work out due to a bug, that’s currently being looked at and hopefully will get fixed for next test) - but that’s about it.

With regards to crafting, you sit in the very same initial bottleneck as the soldier does. Your best choices are making oil and/or title select items until you can unlock more refining recipes. Those refining recipes being the hands down easiest way to get some early crafting XP to unlock more. You could also try craft some cheapish building parts - but there’s really no noticeable benefit over crafting title select items, especially since you haven’t unlocked the cheapest recipes yet. If you choose Diligent Crafter instead, you’ll be able to earn the XP needed to unlock Architect quicker, than the settler can get out of this initial bottleneck.

Getting the first homestead unlock with the Diligent Crafter would of course take a little longer - but the crafter is pretty quickly able to craft a pathfinder. If you want to have 2 or 3 homesteads, you’ll definitely achieve that a lot faster with the crafter then the settler. The HealthBooster recipe allows you to get cooking XP, which - because of another bug - was the only way to get cooking started for a while. But with that bug has already been fixed as well, so if you want to do cooking and nothing else, then this package might be slightly preferable over crafter.

Intrepid Explorer

Tools:

• OmniBlaster
• Pathfinder
• Harvester
• Grapple

Skills:

• Waypoints unlocked
• Forestry Unlocked

This is another somewhat uneven package. You do get the forestry skill - which you absolutely cannot make any use of, without a Xyloslicer - so that’s pretty pointless at first. If you are into Botany and Forestry, guess what: Diligent Crafter is the definitely better choice for you. There you get Forestry and a Xyloslicer. I guess if your interest is in surveying and only surveying - this is a decent choice. You might also want to pick this if your goal is to achieve 3 unlocked homesteads the fastest way possible.

Given how quickly a Diligent Crafter is able to make a Pathfinder though (and later a Trailblazer as well), you still might want to consider picking the crafter package, even if going full ranger is your goal.

Brainy Scientist

Tools:

• Gravity Gun
• Healix
• Harvester
• Grapple

Skills:

• Assay Material Stats
• Asses Biome Conditions
• Mass Heal

This might just be the weirdest package of them all. You do get a crowd-control oriented weapon and a Healix, as well as the Mass Heal ability, making this useful to players who want to play a combat healer. I guess the assay skill is a way of quickly getting some Mineralogy XP through discoveries, but that’s of no use without a Terraformer. Not sure how the Harvester fits in there, but if you are interested in anything related to Harvesting, you’d definitely be better off choosing the Diligent Crafter. In fact, crafter would probably be the better choice for anything you might want to do - other than doing combat healing.

In Summary

• Valiant Soldier is for purely combat oriented players
• Brainy Scientist is for purely combat healers
• Intrepid Explorer is for those purely interested in surveying (or unlocking 3 homesteads as fast as possible)
• Peaceful Settler might be for those only interested in cooking but nothing else, and
• Diligent Crafter is for crafters, miners, farmers, foresters, builders and anyone else - including those wanting to mix skills or wanting to do everything

I would have liked to see how things would have turned out, if it had been possible to craft and gift items (without the invetory bug). I think, early item gifting would have helped - because with their item needs fulfilled, players would not have had felt a need to try train crafting to be able to make these things. We might at least have been able to somewhat separate the toolmakers from the toolusers. But ultimately it would have returned to everyone doing everything anyway, I think. We are going to need more professions and skills - and more uses for those professions and skills - to be able to get more player specialization. Vendors would of course be very, very helpful as well.

The Transplanetary League Station

Space has now a big space station which serves as the main player hub area. And it does feel amazing to have a hub where there is constant player activity. People visiting the mission terminals, new players popping in, and testers going to or returning from the main planets through the portals. It’s just a lively place, more centralized than the planet portals previously were.

The new Station

The Transplanetary League Starbase

The central part of the station is the Hall of Heroes, which is where all the backer plaques are set into the floor. You can hover your cursor over the golden squares to see the name of the backer assigned to that square. From this central room you can go through hallways into all four directions, as well as down the stairs to the room below.

The Hall of Heroes is the central room

When you first leave the tutorial an arrive on the station, you will be in the room right below the central Hall of Heroes. The walls of this room are lined with ReLife stations and crafting stations. The only way you can go is up the stairs into the Hall of Heroes.

The initial arrival room below The Hall of Heroes

The Hall of Heroes is surrounded by the Conservatory, the Lecture Hall and the Mission Room - and if you exit it to the outside, you’ll find yourself at the Portal deck.

The Mission Room

The Conservatory

The Lecture Hall

The Portals Outside

The new Planets

But not just the space sation is brandnew - all of the available planets are as well:

• Herastag (yellow portal)
• Baracatis III (green portal)
• Akacala (blue portal)
• and a Wild Planet (wormhole) that changes with each test

And of course the old discussion over holes in the ground and hopper tailings everywhere has flare up once more again.

I believe that the starter planets (which these three new ones are currently serving as) are always gonna end up a mess, and that there isn’t really much you can do about it. We’ve seen it happen during testing time and time again. The places where new players start out - and also where veteran players start their new characters - always see a ton of destruction. Players dig up the ground, cut down the trees, empty their hoppers, as they are earning their first XP for unlocking their most basic skills.

But we’ve also seen, that once players got their base skills trained, and done their initial exploration of the game systems - that the amount of destruction they do, goes down to a mere fraction of what it was at the start.

Which means, that later planets - the ones you can only reach after you have gotten a space ship - are probably going to see a lot less damage than the starter ones that are accessible right after character creation. We don’t have any space ships nor any later planets in testing yet - but we’ve seen what happens, when planets get reset without a character wipe: far less damage.

I think we simply have to accept that the starter planets are always going to look messy pretty quickly - which is why new starter planets should be added for new players on a pretty regular basis. And older starter planets can probably get deleted pretty quickly after the last players there left on their space ships. They don’t need the same protections that planets which can support player-governments get.

Planet Akacala

We are still going to need all the tools to clean up tailings, to smooth and flatten the landscape again, and the governmental permissions settings to protect zones from being dug up or having forests cleared by logging/burning. We want players to be able to restore, enhance and protect natural beauty. We want to be able create protected nature reserve planets or nicely sculpted parks.

But we really shouldn’t have to fight that starter planet destruction, which we also can see happening on the new planets right now. That’s something we should be able to just let happen, and discard those planets. And not just starter planets - it’s probably going to happen to some later planets with exceptionally good stats on certain resources as well. Those too might end up looking like one great mining dump.

But I also think that governed planets that actively want to attract visitors (= customers who also spend money there), do have a real incentive to try and be as beautiful and inviting as they can be. We might even see guild planets compete for who’s got the greatest landscaping and overall design.

As long as that whole range of different planet health variations can co-exist, everything’s fine.

Planet Herastag

P.S.: Just for the sake of transparency I want to disclose that I joined GUNC recently. GUNC is a guild that I have mentioned on the blog before - for their city project, for their garden art event, etc.

Since this series of blog posts is about my personal experiences with the game, and I am now member of a guild - it might just be that this guild shows up every now and then in my posts, as I partake in guild activities and the like.

I promise though, that there will be no guild propaganda or recruitment drives or anything along those lines. This blog is going to stay my personal endeavour, and will stay just my personal thoughts, and the test reports will continue to be for everyone interested, regardless of what guild they are affiliated with, or whether they are playing entirely solo, or whatever.

I will try to disclose this, whenever I do notice a potential conflict of interest arising in my writing. But I honestly don’t foresee much need for that.