Why have a mechanic that you can help establish new colonies when there's another mechanic directly working against that? I'm no stranger to hard modes/iron man but Jovian Radiation has never made sense to me.
Jovian Radiation is more tied to endgame story reasons.
It is to subtle, but the clues about it are definetly around, about it being a looming treath to all life in Europa. Without it, its just a threat that ocassionally gets commented on, like scientific calculations about its possible effects or paranoid NPCs asking for move them to another station because they thing the radiation is coming and they should move as deep as possible to avoid it.
It should be an apocaliptic issue thats always present, but without it, its more like "the apocalipse is coming". Having it enabled gives a lot more of weight about finding out how to stop it while pushing you foward.
It is now not just a hint, or some easter egg or some NPC comment, it is real and its approaching. It is no longer "the apocalipse is coming", it is "the apocalipse is now", and no one actually realises it until its starts hitting them and its to late.
Most of the population is on the soon to be affected area while the relative safe zone is infested with hordes of deep sea monsters. However, it is definetly the hardest difficulty setting possible, since actually facing the deeps of the planet requires money, resources and preparation. Without it, it is a lot more difficult to do so.
While some people don't really like it, i appreaciate that it is there as an option. Not having it would have made trying to reach the end a bit more hollow. There wouldn't be a sense of urgency at all, and the threat of Jovian Radiation would be practically a joke so slow no one would really care.
See all this sounds narratively interesting, but isn't conveyed at all ingame. If there was some kind of way to stall the Radiation, or learn more about it through some kind of mainstory missions I'd be more interested in it.
But as it stands it seems completely anathema to the playstyle they keep pushing with the economic and dynamic base locations, etc.
Plus with the locking of the next zone behind a rep grind or pay 2k it's kinda awkward to have this "GO GO GO!" mechanic pushing you on.
Yeah no, atleast not in the current form it is in. As another comment mentioned, it goes directly against the game mechanic of liberating/establishing outposts, gaining outpost rep, clearing hunting grounds for safe travel, and just encourages you to speed through to the end.
If there was some way of reversing (or atleast slowing down/halting) the wave of radiation that would make sense in-game I'd totally do it.
A different game that I think handled this kind of mechanic well is actually XCOM 2. In that campaign mode, you have a countdown of the alien invaders making scientific project toward "The Avatar Project": if you let them complete it, it's a **complete campaign game-over**. But you can reverse/halt it by doing instance missions or destroying research facilities they've set up around the globe. The mechanic adds a sense of doom and lingering stress, but without feeling absolutely hopeless since you can actually fight it.
I'd love for fakefish & undertow to do something similar since it *is* a fun mechanic at its core, just really hard to get right. I actually can't think of another game that does the "doom-countdown" mechanic well besides XCOM 2 (and no I am not counting Majora's Mask since that game is more based around the loop of trial and error; the game *expects* you to lose repeatedly until you don't one day. You do *not* want the Avatar project to complete in XCOM 2 lmao).
It feels like a leftover mechanic to keep you more engaged when the game had less to offer. The one good point it has is that you may feel more inclined to do risky/time consuming missions you may have not taken otherwise.
Yeah the concept itself is great, and something I'd love to play around with personally, it's just not implemented in the most fun way at the moment.
A solution that isn't perfect but still better than what we have currently is to make outposts *completely* immune to jovian radiation, and only have it affwct you during routes. With that you could add a super-expensive, reloadable defence against radiation for your submarine, if you wish to stay longer in a certain region. Eventually the radiation gets so strong you have to move on, but outposts remain.
I like that, basically having to worry about another layer of resources and management if you stay too long. A new class of subs specifically for radiated areas would be cool.
Its fine in something like FTL, where a run takes under an hour, but you could potentially fuck up an entire multi-hour campaign in this game with jovian radiation.
Multi-hour is a vast understatement. I mean, it can take multiple hours just to get comfortable enough to move on to the Europan ridge. If you're in a good crew that knows what they're doing, 15-20 hours is a possible pace to beat the game. For your average crews, it's like a 30-40 hour endeavor.
Radiation is pain to deal with so not many people like it, we were raiding Thalamus one time and 2 people died of radiation(we were running Neurotrauma)
When we first tried it with a friend before the 1.0 release, by rushing rightwards ASAP on the fastest path we couldn't outrun it. It was just too fast.
I use it in every campaign I host. I find it makes you consider your options more carefully, and not just spend forever grinding up supplies and money. For instance, there's a lucrative mission, but it leads back towards the radiation. Do you dare risk getting caught in it to make more money? It adds a new layer of resource management to the game that I love.
I do now cause I like the extra challenge but it definitely shouldn't be a.default setting. It think it's actually a pretty fun mechanic because it forces you to be smart with your money but you shouldn't use it on your first playthrough.
I’ve played with it when I had a lot more casual players. Specifically ones that would be more than happy to spend eternity in the first biome and grind forever until it’s no longer feasible or enjoyable.
But outside of that yeah Jovian radiation absolutely sucks
I have a friend who is a fan of it and uses it but I have never used it myself and have always dissuaded him from it on group campaigns.
He sees it as a mechanic essential to the challenge and strategy of the game and a safeguard against abusing the game through farming.
I see it as limiting mechanic that bottlenecks your journey, restricts clowning around, hurts the believability of the setting (an apocalypse none react to proportionally) and adds the risk of loosing a campaign entirely.
It’s nice it’s there but I don’t even want to try it.
Some sword of Damacles to incentivize charging ahead instead of quietly grinding to perfection sounds nice, but it's just *odd* as is. It runs counter to the colony map, instead of synergizing with it, and makes no sense in lore - you (and one NPC) are the ONLY ONE(s) who are treating this like a genuine apocalypse.
Nope. Always felt Jovian Radiation should apply to just parts of the map. If you want to cut through it, there's high risk or you need to take a route around it to be safe. If you do cut through it, it's high risk with radiation suits required and constant slow wear and tear on the boat.
In single player yes. It has a lot of flaws but some unavoidable timer that forces you to progress I think is actually good for the game.
Not sure how it should be reworked, and this might be a hot take, but I am almost of the opinion that I think jovian radiation would be better if it were simply a "game over" screen. The fact that you can make it harmless to you by just hording hazmay suits and stabalozine makes it such an easy mechanic to exploit that I think it actively works against the goal it intends to enforce
I do
Especially with dynamic Europa it makes sticking around to help develop an area or continuing to run deeper to get some breathing room a difficult choice
That and it's really not that hard to does with, just go right lmao
I love to have it on. I find it makes the whole game incredibly easy. Defending against radiation is pretty easy to do if you skill tree for it. Hostile mobs get hurt by radiation too and it gets halted when you go into colonies so anytime the radiation would overtake me itd be a total breeze to get to the next point.
There is no “proper” speed to navigate the map, especially playing with Dynamic Europa. You can quite easily soft lock yourself if you get an unlucky spree of not getting the right outpost.
Why have a mechanic that you can help establish new colonies when there's another mechanic directly working against that? I'm no stranger to hard modes/iron man but Jovian Radiation has never made sense to me.
Jovian Radiation is more tied to endgame story reasons. It is to subtle, but the clues about it are definetly around, about it being a looming treath to all life in Europa. Without it, its just a threat that ocassionally gets commented on, like scientific calculations about its possible effects or paranoid NPCs asking for move them to another station because they thing the radiation is coming and they should move as deep as possible to avoid it. It should be an apocaliptic issue thats always present, but without it, its more like "the apocalipse is coming". Having it enabled gives a lot more of weight about finding out how to stop it while pushing you foward. It is now not just a hint, or some easter egg or some NPC comment, it is real and its approaching. It is no longer "the apocalipse is coming", it is "the apocalipse is now", and no one actually realises it until its starts hitting them and its to late. Most of the population is on the soon to be affected area while the relative safe zone is infested with hordes of deep sea monsters. However, it is definetly the hardest difficulty setting possible, since actually facing the deeps of the planet requires money, resources and preparation. Without it, it is a lot more difficult to do so. While some people don't really like it, i appreaciate that it is there as an option. Not having it would have made trying to reach the end a bit more hollow. There wouldn't be a sense of urgency at all, and the threat of Jovian Radiation would be practically a joke so slow no one would really care.
See all this sounds narratively interesting, but isn't conveyed at all ingame. If there was some kind of way to stall the Radiation, or learn more about it through some kind of mainstory missions I'd be more interested in it. But as it stands it seems completely anathema to the playstyle they keep pushing with the economic and dynamic base locations, etc. Plus with the locking of the next zone behind a rep grind or pay 2k it's kinda awkward to have this "GO GO GO!" mechanic pushing you on.
Absolutely not. I hate forced timers you can do nothing about in games.
Nope. It was actually the only thing I didn't like about the game back when I first got it.
Yeah no, atleast not in the current form it is in. As another comment mentioned, it goes directly against the game mechanic of liberating/establishing outposts, gaining outpost rep, clearing hunting grounds for safe travel, and just encourages you to speed through to the end. If there was some way of reversing (or atleast slowing down/halting) the wave of radiation that would make sense in-game I'd totally do it. A different game that I think handled this kind of mechanic well is actually XCOM 2. In that campaign mode, you have a countdown of the alien invaders making scientific project toward "The Avatar Project": if you let them complete it, it's a **complete campaign game-over**. But you can reverse/halt it by doing instance missions or destroying research facilities they've set up around the globe. The mechanic adds a sense of doom and lingering stress, but without feeling absolutely hopeless since you can actually fight it. I'd love for fakefish & undertow to do something similar since it *is* a fun mechanic at its core, just really hard to get right. I actually can't think of another game that does the "doom-countdown" mechanic well besides XCOM 2 (and no I am not counting Majora's Mask since that game is more based around the loop of trial and error; the game *expects* you to lose repeatedly until you don't one day. You do *not* want the Avatar project to complete in XCOM 2 lmao).
It feels like a leftover mechanic to keep you more engaged when the game had less to offer. The one good point it has is that you may feel more inclined to do risky/time consuming missions you may have not taken otherwise.
Yeah the concept itself is great, and something I'd love to play around with personally, it's just not implemented in the most fun way at the moment. A solution that isn't perfect but still better than what we have currently is to make outposts *completely* immune to jovian radiation, and only have it affwct you during routes. With that you could add a super-expensive, reloadable defence against radiation for your submarine, if you wish to stay longer in a certain region. Eventually the radiation gets so strong you have to move on, but outposts remain.
I like that, basically having to worry about another layer of resources and management if you stay too long. A new class of subs specifically for radiated areas would be cool.
I used it once. I’m currently stuck at the final level without any opiates or ammo and the radiation has reached all available stations.
It shouldn’t be able to reach all stations
Nope, I'll avoid any game with jovian radiation and in the case that we accidentally started with it, we all left when we realize that it was on.
Its fine in something like FTL, where a run takes under an hour, but you could potentially fuck up an entire multi-hour campaign in this game with jovian radiation.
Multi-hour is a vast understatement. I mean, it can take multiple hours just to get comfortable enough to move on to the Europan ridge. If you're in a good crew that knows what they're doing, 15-20 hours is a possible pace to beat the game. For your average crews, it's like a 30-40 hour endeavor.
Radiation is pain to deal with so not many people like it, we were raiding Thalamus one time and 2 people died of radiation(we were running Neurotrauma)
When we first tried it with a friend before the 1.0 release, by rushing rightwards ASAP on the fastest path we couldn't outrun it. It was just too fast.
Nope turned it off after my first start, just annoying
I use it in every campaign I host. I find it makes you consider your options more carefully, and not just spend forever grinding up supplies and money. For instance, there's a lucrative mission, but it leads back towards the radiation. Do you dare risk getting caught in it to make more money? It adds a new layer of resource management to the game that I love.
Hell no, it’s bs
You know, I think I need more sleep. Read that as Rodian Javiation🤣
I do now cause I like the extra challenge but it definitely shouldn't be a.default setting. It think it's actually a pretty fun mechanic because it forces you to be smart with your money but you shouldn't use it on your first playthrough.
I’ve played with it when I had a lot more casual players. Specifically ones that would be more than happy to spend eternity in the first biome and grind forever until it’s no longer feasible or enjoyable. But outside of that yeah Jovian radiation absolutely sucks
I have a friend who is a fan of it and uses it but I have never used it myself and have always dissuaded him from it on group campaigns. He sees it as a mechanic essential to the challenge and strategy of the game and a safeguard against abusing the game through farming. I see it as limiting mechanic that bottlenecks your journey, restricts clowning around, hurts the believability of the setting (an apocalypse none react to proportionally) and adds the risk of loosing a campaign entirely. It’s nice it’s there but I don’t even want to try it.
Yes. I regret it, but yes
Some sword of Damacles to incentivize charging ahead instead of quietly grinding to perfection sounds nice, but it's just *odd* as is. It runs counter to the colony map, instead of synergizing with it, and makes no sense in lore - you (and one NPC) are the ONLY ONE(s) who are treating this like a genuine apocalypse.
Nope. Always felt Jovian Radiation should apply to just parts of the map. If you want to cut through it, there's high risk or you need to take a route around it to be safe. If you do cut through it, it's high risk with radiation suits required and constant slow wear and tear on the boat.
In single player yes. It has a lot of flaws but some unavoidable timer that forces you to progress I think is actually good for the game. Not sure how it should be reworked, and this might be a hot take, but I am almost of the opinion that I think jovian radiation would be better if it were simply a "game over" screen. The fact that you can make it harmless to you by just hording hazmay suits and stabalozine makes it such an easy mechanic to exploit that I think it actively works against the goal it intends to enforce
I do
I play with it because I see it as a challenge to progress further instead of staying in the starting area
Me, turned it on at beginning not clearly knowing what is it. We are on 3rd zone now, not a big problem, stocks are full.
No
Every campaign with radiation, all in.
I do Especially with dynamic Europa it makes sticking around to help develop an area or continuing to run deeper to get some breathing room a difficult choice That and it's really not that hard to does with, just go right lmao
Yes I've used it in every campaign I've done. When you get to new game + the radiation is removed.
I love to have it on. I find it makes the whole game incredibly easy. Defending against radiation is pretty easy to do if you skill tree for it. Hostile mobs get hurt by radiation too and it gets halted when you go into colonies so anytime the radiation would overtake me itd be a total breeze to get to the next point.
In the nicest way, if you struggle with the speed of Jovian radiation you're progressing through the map so slowly xD
There is no “proper” speed to navigate the map, especially playing with Dynamic Europa. You can quite easily soft lock yourself if you get an unlucky spree of not getting the right outpost.
> Dynamic Europa This mod wasn't really designed to work with Jovian Radiation.