Koi's suggestions or Ideas

[maiden dew]

After 55 hours, I've had some thoughts.

1. A big one is that when I choose a tool to use, I often tend to hold the button which causes the UI menu for selecting a tool to flash rather than just stay open. Simple solution is to have the button to take a single input to bring it up and have it require the button to release before a second press closes it. Another, have it stay open while the button is pressed and then have it close when you release it. Third option is to change it to a radial menu, which would feel more comfortable to me.

2. Opening my inventory seems to cause some lag, freezing the game a brief moment. I'm not sure the cause of it but it would quite likely be the cause of checking a database EVERY TIME the menu is opened. This has to be fixed for the game to play nicely since you need to access your inventory quite regularly.

3a. Graphical settings needs to be expanded allowing us to choose which graphical settings we can use. This lets us set performance for our own machines, without just selecting "Low". I've found that shadows and reflections are a major issue for performance.
3b. Low graphics seems to cause a horrendous blurring effect on several textures, like the bridges inside the Lazarus Complex and rocky surfaces.
3c. The game's blurring effect is disgusting to me. It's one of the worst examples of blurring in recent times that I've come across. I want to turn it off completely so I can have a crisp and clean vision. It causes distant objects (platforms, etc) to become visible briefly in the double-vision during rain and fog, especially at night.

4. I quite often had cables and hoses disconnect throughout the Lazarus Complex and even in other places without reason beyond "I went away from the base". Often they appeared to still be connected, but did not actually remain connected. When attempting to pick up the end of the cable or hose from the connector, would cause a new hose to be connected to the connector hub and not the end of the hose I wanted to grab. It's a 'I'm looking at the hub itself and not the hose' kind of situation, so it just needed me to look from the right angle/place to grab the hose. Quite often, it would cause MAJOR issues around the Lazarus Complex as it would prevent the Pods from getting their power and water until EVERY connection was checked and reconnected. The scale of my spaghetti isn't HUGE but not being able to have even the length of hose from the lower levels (where the Salt Water pumps are) up to Lazarus Pods remain connected the whole way just because I left the station or went out to the ship, is troublesome and concerning.

5. Rain and fog. It's neat, but having it start shortly after leaving a platform every time I set out has it feel annoying, especially when vision becomes so short. It's definitely not so bad I hate it since it makes sense to have unstable weather in this kind of environment (and rain doesn't last forever), but rain causing fog every time isn't so realistic, it'd be nice to have rain and still be able to see at a distance though. Fog at least, should be rarer or not obstruct vision 100% every time it rains (for me to feel comfortable with the weather system).

[maiden dew]

6. Rotation of items picked up seems to remain in one direction. There are times I want to stand a metal tube on its end, but there's no way to manipulate it without using other objects and dropping the tube so it kinda stands up in that spot.

[tidal bramble]

for 3, the "custom" option is on the far right past all the high graphics settings. I'd say though that it needs to be better shown that there is a custom option (took me a while to find it as well)

[tidal bramble]

+1 from me on suggestion 1, having any (toggle) menus flash when you've held down a key too long is annoying (though I do appreciate that other fixes, etc may be prioritised over this). would be a nice touch to see fixed for the full release version

[tidal bramble]

I believe this is a known issue - and I suspect this is being worked upon. getting physics to work is hard, getting it to load and unload properly (especially across multiple cells) is harder. I wish the devs luck in getting this resolved without too many headaches!

[maiden dew]

I remember them trying a fix for the most recent major patch, but I don't think it was super successful.

[tidal bramble]

Even just rain reduces visibility a lot, irl and all. though it could be tonned down. I don't know what the performance implications of this are however, but I do know that having many particle effects can become quite expensive (which may be fine for some, but not all). idk off of the top of my head if the weather quality is adjustable in the graphics settings, it might help a bit

I'd say more importantly, is to make the weather cycle feel a lot less like a predictable sin wave, it does very much feel as if each time it rains, it's full (or so close it might as well be) intensity. more variation in, and less intense weather options could be nice to see

[coarse jay]

1. A tool wheel that includes your equipped weapons and tools would be handy. Switch to binocs, any tool, the NV scope, the telescope, toggle your light, check your pack levels, select your grenade, consumable, or either weapon and which ammo they use. Hold it to open it, slow time while you're in it, mouse or stick to select your tool (Or the subdivision of the weapon section corresponding to the weapon ammo you want), release to select it.

Quick tap to holster all.

[maiden dew]

I wouldn't mind if time continues as normal while the wheel is open.

Caretaker isn't a game where you need to make snap decisions.

I wouldn't think so anyway.