Pretty sweet to know the creator is reading this
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I broke into a bank vault just recently using my 1337 h4x0r skillz, but it was sadly empty. Also, I couldn't think of any way to use it as an impentrable fort that didn't involve locking myself inside a bank vault (not possible, anyway). Could there be a terminal to open/close the door on the inside too? I'm pretty sure it's standard in bank vaults due to the high possibility of people getting locked in forevar.
I found a portal generator, but the shimmering portals it generated didn't seem to do anything. I tried putting them in between me and monsters to no effect, and I stepped in them a few times myself. Using 'e'xamine on them lets you try to disarm the 'trap', which is a bit weird.
It would be nice to not have the 'too many items' restriction. I'm already juggling weight and volume, and although I can understand the concept of a)not enough letters for 50+ items and b)it's pretty impractical to carry 50+ items even with a backpack...it can make it kind of annoying to do some of the clothing recipes particularly, having to drop practically everything to pick up the 20+ rags. It got really irritating on some characters where I had a bunch of meds or small pieces of whatever and had 30+ volume and 100+ weight to spare, but couldn't pick up an apple to save my life (note: I did not actually die due to being unable to pick up an apple, but I could see something similar happening).
A minor thing: maybe 'a'pplying an MP3 player or similar battery charged thing could give you the option to recharge it? At the moment recharging my mp3 player is a little tedious - drop weapon, wield mp3 player, reload mp3 player, wield nothing, pick up weapon.
Another minor thing: Perhaps the "'e'xamine a gas pump" dialogue should go more like this: "Pump Gas? Y/N" Y "Do you want to fill a container with gasoline? Y/N" N "You pour gasoline on the ground." It seems minor, but I didn't even realise you could fill up various containers with gasoline for a long time - I just kept on pouring it on the ground instead.
A possible 'fix' for 'too many items': If possible, maybe make common small things stackable? I don't /really/ need a dedicated keyboard shortcut for every one of my fifteen rags. Maybe just 'r - rags x 15'? Really, the only things that /need/ independent keys are the ones that can actually vary within the item type. Drink and food that aren't multiple-use are all identical, so they could stack. If things like potato chips and jerky were one use, they could stack.
If it wasn't a coding nightmare, you could even just add things like meds together - a box of 17 caffeine pills and a box of 20 caffeine pills = one item with 37 caffeine pills. Make it so the volume/weight increased by a box worth for every 20 and it would still take up the same amount of space without taking up so many keys.
e.g - 11 caffeine pills = volume 1, weight 1. 20 caffeine pills = volume 1, weight 1. 21 caffeine pills = volume 2, weight 2. 40 caffeine pills = volume 2, weight 2. And so on.
As always, I am completely ignorant of the sort of coding and work that goes into a game of this sort, having given up C++ and games coding loooong ago. If any of my suggestions are wildly impractical or would require massive overhaul, by all means, ignore them
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Love the game, it makes for some great times.