I don't have a complete understanding of how much dayz's problems were Dean hall (he sold DayZ to BI, and outright left it in 2015), and i think it's a bit premature to 'assume' that stationers is going to fail horribly just because Dean hall is associated with it... but i do think keeping the general Early access may crash and burn at anytime caution is warranted.
I've pumped about 40hrs (moon-survival) into it, but that's because i loved SS13's atmo/power systems, and playing around with and designing a bases power/atmos systems hits me in a special kink.
So talking about what the game is RIGHT NOW:
Atmospherics: pumps, tubes, containers, direction valves, gas mixing, filtering, radiators to heat/cool gasses/rooms, passive/active vents to fill/empty rooms, airlocks, gas sensors, some simple air-controlling-computer-stuff that lets you cycle air in a room (to filter it) or keep its pressure to standard. Gasses ingame are basically O2, H2, N2, CO2, H2O and X (which is 'waste'/'pollutant' or a generic ingame way of saying other icky stuff), you acquire them from melting 'oxcite' (oxygen-nitro mix), ice, or 'volatiles' (H2), also refining produces some hot 'X' waste (and maybe others?). You need to refuel your welder with a h2/o2 mix, your suit with oxygen (or a oxy-nitro mix), empty your waste tank(co2), and use -any- compressed gas as propellant for your jetpack.
Conveyors: conveyor-style stuff that lets you do simple connections between refinerys/assemblers (and input/outputs to those systems from/to locations/people).
Metal Ignots/Alloys: You can simply melt raw metals into ignots or use an actual forge to make simple alloys that you need to make more advanced things (steel, electrum, solder); the actual forge requires you to not only have the right ratios, but also the right temperature/pressure, which means a decently working atmos system. B
Basic hydroponics: is extremely limited right now, but plants (if given sunlight/water, no sunlamps) do turn CO2 into O2, and can be harvested to make some simple foods in a microwave, or the medicine pill that revives people at a chem desk.
Power-system-wise: Solar panels (can be automated with some effort), coal generators can be wired up to battery banks, can be wired up to 'room-level' power panels with a optional battery (APC from ss13), which can be wired to equipment/machines. theres also transformers and fuses (but why make a power system that would ever need a fuse if you have the resources?), and 'heavy wires' and 'normal wires' that can only hold smaller amounts of power without breaking. You can direct wire stuff up of course from power source -> machine. And you use a battery charger linked to your power-net to charge the batteries in your tools/suit.
Computers/Logic: there are some primitive logic-circuit-things in game, they can read, write (and write-all-of-type), hold memory, do some simple math(+/-?devide/mult/round/abs/exp), take min/max 2inputs, compare two inputs, a 'switch' output triggered by true/false. Theres also a ingame computer, that given a logic motherboard that can do something almost resembling a simple Finite state machine, and perhaps could pass for one if combined with all the circuits. At the moment i don't know what you would do with this besides some gas-controls for more complicated atmospherics and automation of your solar panels (so they follow the sun for maximum output) Solar panels is pretty easy, just a correctly aligned solar sensor, a reader, dividing by 1.8(180 degrees) using a math and mem circuit then a write-all circuit to all solar panels. There is also Consoles for displaying information, and simple LED displays.
UI/Interaction: Very similar to SS13, very slow/methotical, a lot of mouse/wheeling through your small inventories in your suit/clothes/belts and using your left/right hand slots. You get a tablet that you can shove little circuit-boards into for a atmos-reader (that can read the local gasses, or the gasses in a container/pipe your looking at), a ereader that has all the ingame recipes, a power-reader for reading the 'connected to this wire-grid' power draw/provided, and a tracker that doesn't seem to work well.
Mining: In survival mode, you mine using a drill and mining belt(which stores what your mining if its equipped), you have to recharge the battery in it every once and awhile. You collect coal, iron, gold, copper, nickel, lead, silver silicon, ice/oxcite/volatiles (which can melt if in sunlight/a forge)
Theres also some random other stuff not fully implemented (sleepers, ship-engines...)
Death: Only happens if you run out of oxygen, or are at extreme temperatures, (may happen at extreme pressures, donno). Generally this is only a problem cause your suit runs out of power (ac/heater unit), or oxygen, its got a hole in it for too long, your mask is down for too long, you took off your suit in a safe room and then the room lost its oxygen/temp/flooded with dangerous gasses, or, if your extremely unlucky you literally cause a minor explosion throwing yourself into a wall hard enough to destroy your suit with dangerous gasses. You go unconscious first, and can wake up if the situation changes. There is also medicine to revive people that are dead if a multiplayer friend joins (although if you load the save you come back alive atm, albeit in the same situation).
Multiplayer: Identical to single player, just with additional bodies, Non-dedicated servers work fine for multiplayer (people just stand there while not playing, so you can 'kill' other players while they are gone, but they will come back alive when they log in). Dedicated servers are apparently buggy but getting better?
The entire experience in a paragraph: you spend lots of time struggling to get a power system up, then you struggle to get a atmos system up (and working airlocks), somewhere along the way getting a bunch of assembly machines and a alloy forge up and running; all the while refilling your gasses, recharging your batteries, and occasionally repairing your suit with duct tape when you fall down a hole or nearly blow yourself up when a pipe bursts due to too much pressure. Then you just try some half-implemented things like hydroponics if your bored.
If that sounds appealing enough to buy it, then feel free to try it?
Rather then a Dean hall thing being a concern, or even a early access thing being a concern, what really concerns me is a lack of a concrete road map beyond what is currently in the game. With the exception of some mutterings of 'away missions' (which may be some sort of 'go to station x which was attacked by aliens, clear it out, get the station running), its really unclear what content is actually going to be added to the game a week from now, let alone over the next 'year' that early access is claimed to continue for.
There isn't any amazing wikis, but
this is likely the best one atm.
Author
Topic: Stationeers - New game from Dayz creator Dean Hall (Read 7041 times)