Critical Difficulty

[lusty pawn]

I have a suggestion for a new mode of difficulty that surpasses stationeers difficulty. Critical mode. In terms of difficulty, it starts off stationeers, but every seven days one of the following anomalies occur.

1. The atmosphere of the world being randomly altered by random degree(could be minor or could be major(more rare)) even on moons. This also randomizes atmospheric pressure in which higher pressures are more rare, but never anything that can break manual doors. It would randomize temperature as well with more extreme degrees being more rare and it would also avoid volatiles being in the air when oxygen or nitrous oxide is in the air.
2. Gravity fluxuates between 0 to 10 times earths gravity with higher amounts being more rare
3. The day/night cycle shifts anywhere between days lasting only 1/3rd a normal in game day to days lasting 3 normal in game days(further variation from 1 being more rare). This also randomizes the solar angle and sun intensity/type of sun
4. Randomized storm types possible along with randomized frequency and duration, longer and more frequent being more rare

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[livid wing]

I enjoy the first few hours I ever spend on a moon, where you are trying to figure out how to use the resources available (atmo, sunlight, ores) to survive. I kind of lose interest once the systems are set up and automated, so randomising them sounds like a fun way to extend that phase of the game.

That said, I feel like randomising gravity is just an annoyance - you can't extract anything useful from the gravity.

I think I would actually prefer randomised start conditions, rather than the conditions changing periodically. That way you could also randomise the ore distribution (maybe just coal/ices specifically, since you can play without them)

[lusty pawn]

Here comes a two part message

The gravity thing wasn't too thought out, but I figure the problem would be people who play with rockets and the maximum gravity before they have "issues" landing.

As for why I believe periodic randomization is a good thing is that I would like to see how I or others would try to adapt to the new conditions as the arise. Someone might realize their rocket won't land if they don't build it for landing on the highest gravity it can land in and so they might have to change something up. Some players when on different planets have different playstyles because of atmosphere, so if you want to fill up your tank with nitrogen, you might have to consider carbon dioxide instead or perhaps you can't really be sure there will be any atmosphere at all, maybe it needs to be heated or cooled as well. It would give people moments in which a randomized seed would cause specific things to occur if they continue playing on the world they invested a whole 7 days in, so suddenly they might be more likely to invest more time into figuring out what they have to do to adapt continuously without it being so insane that it's impossible.

Perhaps for example someone likes to use the rover constantly to get between deepmining outposts. Next thing they know, a permanent ash storm has arrived. Now they have to consider learning rockets.

It takes the idea that people use their environment to their advantage in order to adapt and says "what now?" for further adaptation. I only play on one server that has stationeers difficulty brutal start and it's not really challenging past the first hurdle because I already know what to do no matter where I'm at, but if suddenly air pressure shifted all at once from 0 to 400, I wouldn't be able to mine ore without careful consideration about being thrown around like on venus. If I use solar energy one second, perhaps the sun nearly disappears and now I have to depend on solid fuel or engines. If I never worry about cooling or heating my base because I never had to before, suddenly I do. If I make my base have lots of glass windows on the outside, the next second they're breaking. If I buffered windows with pressure to buffer from the outside, suddenly the pressure is too high and now those windows are breaking.

It's just the idea that someone can design something and never have to worry about it later. Here they suddenly have to design for multiple possibilities. Also thank you for dropping in.

[livid wing]

Yeah, I could see how that could be interesting. Do you think the next set of conditions should be given to the player somehow, or would it be a surprise?

[lusty pawn]

It should be a surprise, but seed randomization would prevent a player from rerolling with abusing save/load before an anomaly.

[sharp fulcrum]

I created post with similar idea (hopefullz I conveyed taht there), except instead of difficulty option, I suggested this to be a different part on the planet / a different planet you can travel to.
Which I still think would be a better Idea, as it would give player a retreat from the changing conditions.

I mean if you create inadequate base in your only world and then searing storm of 400 kpa arrives, that immediately blows in walls of your base. You may not have any way to solve the situation, except for reload.

And again, having these dangerous environments accessible from all maps would allow to place specail ores there, which would make deep ore miners necessary for some part of gameplay (or manual mining) and integrate the challange into normal game loop.

Also, even if. Do not make it a difficulty level above, but rather additional option. I don't want changing circumstances and constatnt drinking / eating at the same time.

[paper adder]

I'd sat pressure changes would be gradual, so you can set up equalizing systems - though, i agree, needing heavy duty glass would be a precursor; otherwise you would just need to build in frames at all times

IMO, this could be a new planet that has storms that randomize atmo. E.g. a storm blows in 0.5% VOL and raises the microclimate pressure one day. The next storm clears it and the pressure and temperature drops; now there' nitrous oxide in the air