After I got finished making that blog post, I played the game. Most of the time was waiting ’till I got enough research to unlock the large shuttle, and then being unsure if I should build it (as I don’t want the damn thing to blow away when I’m putting stuff on it, when one of those annoying storms rolls through the base).
While I was in a cave, hunting for Aluminum, my taskbar caught my eye, by showing Steam was trying to do something. Checked it and Astroneer was showing ‘update queued’.
Got back in my rover and saved, then quit. Got the update.
Now before I discuss my opinions with the update, I just want to apologize in advance for my upcoming immature words. I have to talk about their Trello page. There has been a few updates to it a day ago (which I appreciate), but compared to Subnautica’s, where they offer pictures and video, it feels there’s quite a lack of communication with the community.
Asteroneer’s Trello page just makes me wonder “why am I bothering to care for this game?” And yes I understand that Astroneer has less people working on it. But with how pricey the game was (even when it was on sale), I just expect more communication. I want to know my money was well spent.
So with that out of the way, let’s get to the new 0.5.1.0 update. There’s three parts to it;
-A change to how ‘passive research’ is acquired.
-Lighting overhaul.
-Bug fixes.
Let’s talk about the first. The way research was done before, was as simple as “find research, place in, feed me power and I give you constant research.” The last part has been changed. Instead of a constant stream of research points that you can rely on, there’s now ‘high’ and ‘low’ points. ‘High’ points give the most research per minute, while ‘Low’ does the opposite. This new system gives the player a risk-taking approach; do you scan the high points and destroy the research (to get the most efficient way of getting points), or do you do nothing?
The plus side is it makes research more interactive (of choosing if you want to wait ’till it finishes scanning the highest point). It gives the player that feeling of a choice instead of feeling like it’s something you just plop in, hit the button and then do another thing.
The only downside, is the smaller font style they used for very important info (how much the sample is worth, how much is left to scan).. and finally, it seems they did something with power. Before, the more power you had running, the faster it’ll go. This bar showing the power has been changed to something I’m …not really sure.
Currently I have like, 6 solar panels and an equal amount of medium wind turbines. With them all going, I’m supplying a lot of power. Yet this bar shows it’s only 60% faster (even when one Research Chamber is going).
So it’s possibly a bug that might get fixed next month.
The next change is the lighting overhaul. Typically, an overhaul like this drops off my radar as not being that important (just something they changed behind the scenes). …Not this time. Not when I can’t see shit in these underground caverns (even with a Work Light on my person).
Speaking of that thing, it seems that light is now a requirement. Without it, it’s nearly pitch black. That really sucks.
Finally are bug fixes, half of them were for multiplayer. Though one is quite the milestone, fixing a number of issues causing save files to be corrupted/deleted if the game crashed. That is really awesome.
Another fix is Compound will no longer try to connect to the two ‘ghost slots’ infront of the machine interface of base platforms (which slightly bugged me when I was starting out). Fantastic fix.
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So that’s my thoughts. I personally hope they’ll revert these changes (or enhance them). I just feel they weren’t needed, yet I still do appreciate that they’re doing their promise for monthly updates.
One other thing I need to nitpick (and this unfortunately is going back to their Trello page), after the list of bug/crash fixes, they claim they “completed a ‘comprehensive overhaul’ to their Trello page”…which is pretty much what I’ve seen before (showing ‘Q1 2018’ of projected release dates).
I dunno what’s going on with the devs. In their videos, they seem really focused on their work (and show they want to make the game as good as humanly possible). Yet outside of it, there’s hardly any communication with the community.
At least, have a dev branch (like Subnautica) that people can play around with (and test) these future updates. This would be one of the best ways to communicate.
Then again, I remember for years that Space Engineers didn’t have a dev branch (or even a Trello page). Yet they were posting updates every Thursday, which made them quite active.