Influencer Input!

[Random_Terabyte]

As an Influencer, and having played the game at a total of 50 hours now, I decided to drop my thoughts and findings into a post.

Gameplay -
Smooth. The controls thus far have been rather easy to navigate through, something I wasn't expecting right off. I've never played a game like this before and having not only backed but influenced the game, I feel great for taking a chance on it! The only lag I have ever encountered was from having rain, fire, over 10 colonists, and Muffalo all within my visual range at once (also having the map size be maxed out).

Tutorial -
This, so far, has been the only limiting factor on my gameplay. There are some things not mentioned in the tutorial. Important things like the mental health of your colonist survivors. I've noticed that when they 'see' a body, their mentality is affected. Making them more likely to have mental breaks. I never found out until my 3rd or 4th world attempt that you could clean up the bodies by selecting them and having them moved by someone with hauling to a grave / drop site. Small things like this would be important to include in a tutorial. Not to say this would make the game -easier- to play, but for someone who is a noob to the game right off, I found it confusing why all of my colonists were leaving because of mental breaks. Then, today, I found out that when one does suffer a break, you have to re-arrest them and re-covert them back to joining the colony. That's fine but there was no mention of that either. Small things, big changes!

Combat -
So far, I personally have enjoyed the combat mechanic. Enemy pirates and the alike will actually seek out local cover, which means the AI is doing it's job. I realized it too late in my 2nd or 3rd world attempt that my drop sites were too close to my turrets, allowing pirates to use them for cover, inevitably destroying my defense line and wiping half my colonists out. This really makes for an interesting fight scenario and I love it. The random squirrel attacks have been rather amusing each time.

Research -
Now who doesn't love research? Having access to improvements helped my 5th colony attempt really get moving and quite quickly. While I do understand the game is still Alpha, I look forward to the development to research trees. Allowing for even greater improvements to be made. For example, sandbag placements become concrete, then at a later tier, perhaps reinforced concrete. Turrets, starting with 3 and moving to 4 shots, perhaps upgrading them to higher capabilities to fight off the more advanced pirates (I saw a topic with them having M4 assault rifles?). It would take making a new world but there could be some attempts at making a balanced tree.

Priority Tasking -
I've noticed an occasional part of the automatic and manual tasking events that colonists perform seems to be somewhat confusing (to me anyway). Regardless of what priority task I set them to, say gathering priority metal and hauling it to another point, if I have them marked to do anything else, they'll interrupt what they're performing and go to that lesser priority task. I had tasked a colonist with the growing of crops, doctoring, repairing, and hauling (in the auto setting) and they were performing only the growing, so I had to task another one with hauling specifically. The crops in which had been growing were all new seedlings and required no tending, but the first guy continued to ignore the food piles until I activated manually for him to haul as well. I am unsure if it is a conflicting priority task that is a bug or if it is just something I have overlooked in assigning each one to do something.

Future Ideas -
I've noticed that once I build a Comms Station, I'll start getting farming and military vessels frequently popping up as "Passing by" as if they were a random settler on the ground. Perhaps for this, the Comms Station could become a hub in order to buy / sell / trade / trick etc etc the ships into coming down to the surface for exchanges / raiding. If an exchange is successful, you get all that you requested from the ship / personnel and it leaves again. If a raid of a ship is successful, you can salvage the ship for parts (weapons, turrets / upgrades, food, batteries, etc etc). This of course is entirely an idea, nothing more!
Randomized events aside from your standard put out a fire, fed off pirates or rampant squirrels. I'm sure other folks have come up with other ideas as well, these were merely ones I thought up of during the duration of my time playing thus far.

Thank you folks for reading. As mentioned, as a backer/influencer, I merely wanted to offer some sort of input over what my personal experience has been in the game so far. This is the first time I have ever played a game of this sort. Love it so far and looking forward to seeing it make it to Beta and full release!

~*R.T.*~

[Random_Terabyte]

I would like to forwardly report there -were- guides and help, but they were located until a different tab / field. My apologies for not digging a little further! (no pun intended!)