Suggestions and questions for manned

[kazesim 2]

With the recent patches I was happy to see that the manned missions are getting some content and are now pretty playable - that's the reason I bough this game, I don't care too much for campaigns. I've been playing the Kaiser Crater MP mission solo for the last couple days and have some suggestions and questions.

Suggestions

- Vehicles could use a parking brake.

- Ability to fix vehicle parts with the drill (especially the crane magnet, I break it a lot - picking up more than one item at a time with it tends to cause them to attempt to occupy the same point in space at the same time, resulting in a high-energy reaction which is not well understood). (And as an aside, I should warn everyone: Do not attach yourself to the electromagnet and swing around on it unless you want to find yourself on a sub-orbital trajectory)

- Large Vehicle With Crane aka "Jawa Sand Crawler" - the side doors on it should open all the way to the ground because it's hard to jump into them.

- I'm not sure what the purpose of the flat area on top of the sand crawler is, but if it had higher sides or (ideally) some kind of clamps that could lock a pallet down then it would be useful for cargo transport.

- On the subject of cranes; it would be nice to have a static crane that you could build.

- On the subject of broken cranes with cameras; I accidentally found out that if you break the crane magnet AND break the monitor for it in the cab (was taking selfies...) then you have a pretty neat remote camera. Might we be able to implement standalone remote cameras that can be viewed on the monitors? Would be useful for competitive MP at least.

- Symbols on the crane monitor to show its rotation, angle and extension - so that I can tell whether I am using it as a wrecking ball.

- Using the drill to modify items: such as being able to change out the crane electromagnet for a simple hook to avoid the aforementioned catastrophic failures. Even more useful would be to be able to put a gate on the open side of the caged pallet so I can avoid having to do this - or putting a bar across the top of the pallet so it can be picked up with a crane hook, or even just printing flat pallets and then putting the sides on them to create caged pallets - just to make it a bit more interesting.

- The ability to run the game in borderless window.

- Large ramp platforms, ie large exterior platform, but as a ramp.

- Maybe some gate/pallet block controls inside the truck cab - or even better, on it's driver monitor.

- Tow-behind trailers might be an interesting addition.

- Options for time-of-day acceleration, ie 4-hour game days.

- Perhaps on/off switches for the resource harvesters.

- And perhaps in the future - larger versions of the harvesters, ie large machines that you move around with a forklift, their stabilizers fold up so you can fit them on a truck, and are emplaced with a crane. They use a lot of power and maybe have one of those nifty control panels so you can put some complicated controls on them (it is a sci-fi sim after all, the more complicated the better). Just an idea.

- And probably the most important one for me: I would be nice to have a detailed difficulty menu where you can basically just set the scales (multipliers) for everything: resource harvest and refining times, storage limits for resource containers, 3D printing times, heal time, how fast you get hungry/thirsty, etc etc. This is all really basic stuff that will need to be tuned exactly right for manned missions to stay challenging in the long term, and it would be nice to have the option to tune these in-game without needing to make a mod.

- Oh, and I almost forgot, we need pod racers and/or monster trucks, obviously.

Questions

- Will the 3D printer eventually cost resources to print things?

- Will we eventually have some kind of survey tools to find resources? Will the resource zones regenerate elsewhere once they're depleted?

- Do you plan on adding any way of powering the harvesters/lights/printer/etc? Something like solar panels or radioisotope generators?

- Are the resource tanks intended to be moveable when full? Currently a full one weighs like 1500kg and moving it is like trying to move a neutron star. The crane can't budge it and the forklift just breaks. The problem is that if you make the mistake of 'disassembling' it then you can't 'reassemble' it because you can't pick it up, and you can't empty it because it's' not assembled, so you end up with a big stupid immovable tank in your base. And god help you if it tips over and rolls into something.

- Edit: Oh yeah, any chance of fixing the crashing while saving? It's really the worst thing ever. Every time I save (in manned SP) it has about a 1-in-6 (at worst 1-in-3) chance of crashing and deleting the save I was overwriting, even on brand new games. It's so often that I save every 4 minutes and made a hotkey to taskkill the game. I've tried everything and it so far seems totally random. Here is a typical crash.log (these are only the save crashes that raise an exception, there are many many others):

------------------------------------

MATT, 07.04 2015 22:44:45

Unhandled exception

Program: ...)\Steam\steamapps\common\Take On Mars\TKOM.exe

Reason: Access violation. Illegal read by 0 at 0

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr:0x00000000

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr:0x00000000

(Press Retry to debug the application - JIT must be enabled)

Runtime mode

---------------------------------------------

Log C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\42534774\244030\local\crash.log started at 07.04. 23:12:23

------------------------------------

MATT, 07.04 2015 23:12:23

Unhandled exception

Program: ...)\Steam\steamapps\common\Take On Mars\TKOM.exe

Reason: Access violation. Illegal read by 64 at 64

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr:0x00000064

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr:0x00000064

(Press Retry to debug the application - JIT must be enabled)

Runtime mode

---------------------------------------------

Log C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\42534774\244030\local\crash.log started at 08.04. 10:58:00

------------------------------------

MATT, 08.04 2015 10:58:00

Unhandled exception

Program: ...)\Steam\steamapps\common\Take On Mars\TKOM.exe

Reason: Access violation. Illegal read by 0 at 0

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr:0x00000000

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr:0x00000000

(Press Retry to debug the application - JIT must be enabled)

Runtime mode

CLI params: forceupdate

Edited April 8, 2015 by kazesim

[irigi 10]

Hello all!

Unfortunately, I have not the possibility to start new threads, so I am writing my suggestion into an existing one. Let me first thank you for creating this great game! I really love the idea, and I really admire the level of realism you are using. I am very curious about the future plans, particularly about the manned missions.

I am writing only a small suggestion for now. I have tried the new devices in the manned mission and it seem to me that the soil extractor is too loud. The martian atmosphere is almost vacuum. Not quite so, but still, one would expect that all sounds should not be very loud and they would die out quickly. (That is: those that are not coming from inside the space suit, of course.) The low frequencies might be transmitted by the soil, so the soil extractor would produce some low-frequency sounds of vibrations if we would be standing next to it, but my expectations are that they would be much, much dimmer than they are now. As an inspiration, I am sending you an interesting article.

news .sciencemag.org/earth/2006/06/mars-no-one-can-hear-you-scream

Thank you and all the best!

[dram 14]

Hi Irigi, indeed you are very correct, on Mars you would practically hear silence. From a game perspective that could be a bit boring though, so we have in fact added the option "realistic sound simulation". It is default off, so you can hear everything, but you can turn it on in options -> Sound/Game

:)

[irigi 10]

You are amazing! Thank you! I am looking forward to try it. Thank you for your response!

[Alarick-tx 10]

I agree with Kazesim. Will the 3d printer ever require anything? I see that you can get iron and silicon so i am assuming yes. Also when i push the cycle button on the airlock door it does not do anything. I also cant find where you put the methane on the cargo transport.

[dram 14]

I agree with Kazesim. Will the 3d printer ever require anything? I see that you can get iron and silicon so i am assuming yes. Also when i push the cycle button on the airlock door it does not do anything. I also cant find where you put the methane on the cargo transport.

Hi, yes the printer will require resources and the cycle button will soon function too.

The Cargo Transport does not yet have slots for methane/oxygen, but it will be in the cabin.

[wesleybruce 1]

"The Cargo Transport does not yet have slots for methane/oxygen, but it will be in the cabin."

 

If we are adding fuel in the cabins we will need an easier way to get resource canisters into and through airlocks. Its very cumbersome. They block doors and roll out when you're not looking. I've even 'tripped' on one and glitched into a wall.  Perhaps a grabber tool that allows you to move a canister in and out of your held inventory so you can then move it into your internal inventory. With suitable weight limits. I presume that that is what the held inventory slot is for but canisters don't show up in there at this stage. Tried rocks etc too. 

[wesleybruce 1]

Will we always start with a 3d printer or are you thinking of a more compact/ portable resource start option? I have a few ideas.

As always there is an interesting chicken and egg problem. 

 

A Portable hole.  Place down and drag rocks onto it and it fills with starting resources & disintegrating the rocks. It becomes a fabrication tile when its full.  It then produces one of three things depending on size. Another portable hole 1 x 1, a resource canister of whatever the next resource harvester is made of 1 x 2 and a  poptent 2 x 2. Put together a 3 by 3 grid of fabrication tiles and it makes your 3d printer. The portable hole will recycle junk, other holes and because it makes a resource cylinder if feeds into later systems. An empty portable hole fits in your inventory must be dropped to then grab and deploy. In zero g the rock may be carried slowly and it may recycle space junk. Its a crude von neumann machine.