Gaming Sideblog

cos I'm too much of a coward to make a YT channel

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Hi I'm Liz, I play PC games, sometimes Switch too!

This is a side blog for me to ramble on and not spam my main blog with too much game related stuff.

Mostly sandbox stuff like Minecraft and Space Engineers, but probably other stuff I'm into like Star Trek Online or Star Citizen

Feel free to say hi, or to ask about anything ^^

Some links:

Main Blog

Steam

Minecraft 1.12 Mod List

[amplifierpriestess]

this is easily my favorite diagram i've ever seen on a video game wiki

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Pragmata is seeming pretty neat so far

Diana an Hugh are cute

Though, I think it'll take me a little while to get a hang of the combat

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Roadcraft Review

Fundamentally Flawed

Roadcraft is a really cool concept. Having sunk lots of time into Snowrunner and Death Stranding, the idea of a game that lets me rebuild an area, and the infrastructure to enable quicker and efficient deliveries is a promising one. But This game lacks real depth to its systems, and doesn't respect the players time.

Roadbuilding is pointless

I like the core gameplay loop - lay sand, flatten it, lay asphalt, roll it. I think it's a little basic, and I'll elaborate on that later. The big issue is it's pointless. The early game gives you offroad vehicles in pretty much every category. With the simplified vehicle simulation compared to Snowrunner, these are pretty much capable of navigating all areas of a map bar water obstacles or particularly large ditches. Yes it takes time to do so, but when compared to how much time it takes to lay road in a way that is nice to drive on (credit where it's due, is a satisfying skill to hone). You are only directly rewarded for fully laying road in limited sections, which the game does a kind of auto-smooth overanyway. There are routes you need to plot for autonomously driven vehicles, but you only need complete the first two steps - laying sand and roughly smoothing it, since the sand you lay isn't affected like regular terrain - heavy vehicles won't dig in and get stuck. So all you are left with is the satisfaction of being able to use a road you built yourself. But this isn't a delivery game like Snowrunner or Death Stranding or Euro Truck, so that satisfaction is only felt to a limited degree. Even then, the game gives you SAR vehicles that act as mobile respawn points, seemingly encouraging you to not even bother driving around on your nicely paved roads.

Bridge laying is likewise very simple. It's nice to have the capability to freely place them (at least in theory) but they're very simple to build - just bring an amount of one resource (the acquisition of which is fun, but slow). After which, they're done. You can't lay tarmac on concrete ones, to give a unified road surface, and bringing your roads to their edge, if you built them after, leaves an akward ditch that AI vehicles can get stuck on, and is just frustrating to drive on yourself.

Don't get me wrong, this core loop is satisfying, I've spent the vast majority of my near 60hrs playtime, laying road all over the first couple of maps, but it starts to suck after a while when you're continually faced with little to no benefit or reward for doing so.

Suggestions for how it could be improved

As mentioned, this system lacks much mechanical depth. I get this is quite an arcade-y game, so I don't expect a full construction simulation, but I think a few changes would go a long way

Adding different foundation materials - like gravel, for poor-drainage areas would go well

Adding concrete slabs down on routes that are designated to support heavy traffic, would tie in well with the scrap recovery gameplay loop.

Companion Systems

Logging - improved, but could be more

The logging system is an improvement, coming from Snowrunner. It's fun to chop-down trees, grind up the stumps and deliver them - to stockpiles or to make a handy bridge somewhere. You would think, that's a great way to deal with all the fallen trees that lie in your path across various roads and bits of townscape. But you can't turn those to lumber, only destroy them. Additionally, the system just stopping at logs is a bit dissapointing. It would be nice to add a step in the chain to turn them to planks for further uses.

Electricity - mechanically shallow

The cable laying system is mediocre. You connect point A to B and that's it. Thinking out the box and laying cable all over your map is discouraged by way the missions open up electrical sources and their destinations, broadly one source to every one or two destinations. Additionally, these aren't really revealed til part way in a mission chain. Meaning you have to lay cable in big ugly mounds off-road or alongside roads you took time to craft. If they were revealed earlier (or you looked them up) you could lay them ahead of time, and then cover with subsequent roadbuilding.

A nice improvement would be the capability to put in your own transformers or substations, or even place down foundations for different voltage overheads.

Convoy Systems - mixed bag

I like the convoy system this game has. Seeing routes I've put blood sweat and tears into smoothing and getting right, get used by a fleet of trucks is nice. It makes the world feel more alive. But damn do they suck. The routelaying system is a bit primitive, meaning trucks slip off the road or get stuck at unexpected points. The AI drivers don't stop for you the player, meaning you just have to wait for the route to complete, or hope you've timed your journey along a stretch of road right, lest the crash into you, and then the game tells you a route has failed and you have to restart it…

Vehicle Simulation is disappointing

As I touched on in the roadbuilding section, the vehicle simulation is pretty basic compared to Snowrunner. On the surface, that's fine - as plenty of people have pointed out, they're different styles of games, with different goals. But, it really takes away from the whole experience.

The lack of damage and fuel (at least in the default gamemode) adds to the lack of need to truly roadbuild, and means when it comes to systems like AWD and diff-lock, you might as well leave them on all the time, since there's not much if any, upside to turning them off. Low-range gear is effectively reduced to a generic "go slow" mode across your fleet, rather than having meaningfully different ways of driving the various vehicles at your disposal.

They also straight up sound worse than vehicles in Snowrunner and Expeditions.

The system of buying new vehicles for an "improved" version over a rusty counterpart is a little vague, and the system of buying a whole new vehicle just to get a version of the same truck, but with a crane or different bed sucks. Feels like it was only done to differentiate this game from Snowrunner & Expeditions. There's such a breadth of vehicles available, it would be great to be able to tweak them to better handle certain situations or aspects of the various gameplay loops.

The tracked vehicles are at least pleasant to drive and use. Hope to see them brought into other titles.

Closing thoughts

It's hard to tell if my complaints are valid criticizm, or if I'm really just wishing for a different game. Giving a thumbs down because I think this game could be, should be more. But I'm still going to keep playing it after this review, so make of that what you will.

I'm sure some of my complaints would be solved by hardcore mode, but I'm already a whole couple of maps in and I don't want to restart just for some minor QoL improvements.

I'm also sure some things I've complained about - particularly systems, will get a bit of attention in expansions. However, if Snowrunner is anything to go by, they'll be improved for that expansion or future maps only. Old maps won't be revisited by devs to make use of new systems, nor benefit from changes.

p.s. Kelly is annoying and feels like I'm being insulted as a player, and in a literal sense when she says some things. Wish I could turn her off.

I also posted this review on Steam

[cryo-eurodyne]

Random pics of Night City - part XV

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Finished Space Marine (1) yesterday

It was a'ight, fun seeing lotsa the Warhammer *stuff* I remember seeing as a kid / as I was just starting to get into it.

Starting 2 today

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Been a while since I've used tumblr, but I thought in honor of the end of Hermitcraft season 10 that I would try my hand at turning Mumbo's giant robot/computer into a minecraft skin. The skin itself is just below, if anyone wants to use it.

[dragongirlsweetie]

early 2010s minecraft mods: Mr. Snuggles's Mo' Shovels Mod

late 2010s minecraft mods: EvoTech 2: Ascension

2020s minecraft mods: 🪡 Restitched

[doggirlhen]

2030s minecraft mods: Jack Black Remover +

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Just about finished the bulk of building a new Runabout Shuttle in Space Engineers - here's a comparison with my old build (left) from around this time in 2020

There's definitely more work I can put into the new interior, but I'm already much happier with the proportions/dimensions of it. I think this is part in thanks to the increased height, but also designing with a hidden hydrogen engine system from the ground up. Careful use of pipes and void spaces in the hull means I've been able to more closely follow some of the interior layouts I've found online.

Much happier with the overall exterior finish.

Not quite ready yet, but I'll probably put the new one up on the workshop when it's done (or I get bored of working on it)

Old one's up here if you want to take a look

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Not to COD Zombies post on main but I think if there was ever a time for bringing back the Sliquifier, it was with the map that is two giant towers

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Also,

- Themes of creating your own personhood, trying to either move forward or fix the past

- Anger caused by 'who you were before' directed at 'who you are now'

- Grey finding out Richtofen stole DNA of the crew *and* Maxis' eggs

- S.A.M literally having an audio log called "dysphoria"

[night-city-valentines]

Immaculate prompt DS2, thanks

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Finished Death Stranding 1

it was good 👍

probably gonna play it a bit more to get more 5 stars an finish the last bit of road between the mountains, before moving on to DS2

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Here's a dump of some screenshots I took while playing thru.

Is a very pretty game :3

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Finished Death Stranding 1

it was good 👍

probably gonna play it a bit more to get more 5 stars an finish the last bit of road between the mountains, before moving on to DS2

[samhainian]

my desiccated son thrunt

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Some screenshots from Night City, recently got back to a playthru I'd put on hold, finally finished the DLC

Gotta complete the rest of the story now :b

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sable & mikaela go on a cute halloween date

@puppypilled-sheep-wife @daemonhxckergrrl @loch-tess-monster

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Planet Crafter Review

Feels like an Alpha or Early Beta Game

tl;dr - This game has a really cool concept, but falls pretty far short of what it could be. It looks and feels like an game in alpha - the broad gameplay concepts are implemented and working, but everything is very rough around the edges, and in need of a lot of work. I'm a little dissapointed it still looks / plays like this, despite no longer being an early-access game.

What are the good parts?

Despite the awkwardness of the base-building mechanics, there is a satisfying progression of your base. It slowly transforms from a basic survival shelter, to ad-hoc terraforming station, to lab dedicated to agriculture and research. Despite disliking quite a lot about this game, it was quite charming to see this growth in my base. Unfortunately, it's the only saving grace in my eyes.

What are the not-so-great parts?

Look & Feel - The presentation of this game is pretty rough. Terrain is bumpy and uneven, with repeating textures. Larger pieces of terrain like cliffs are visibly duplicated and rotated shapes, and from what I can tell, water level rise is constant across the map - very much like a garry's mod map.

In addition to this, buildings, machines and resources all look very basic - for lack of a better word. They feel like they've come off an asset store, which is fine, but don't give a lot of charm and don't feel well implemented if they are. Machines placed outside have varying accuracies of bounding boxes - with some happily being placed inside one another, whilst others have huge blank areas they cannot intersect within. Furthermore, the basic habitation building and foundation don't share the same footprint, so tile differently & items placed inside habitats have some grid-snapping, but it doesn't visibly line up with centreline - giving everything about your base a slightly skewed appearance. Lastly, resources are all just scattered across the map rather haphazardly. There is some sense to it - with rarer or later game materials farther out from your start point, or in caves - where they receive slightly more care in placement.

Character handling - Much like the machines, buildings and resources the character handler feels very basic and a bit like it's come from some asset store. No legs, and pretty vague hand waving to give you a sense of movement. Walking and jumping feel basic - it's easy to slide around on rocks. Yet despite this roughness in movement and sparsity, there's a fully implemented emote system - which feels like priorities have been a bit mixed up...

Survival - The survival element of this game is pretty lack lustre. Dying carries little penalty beyond inconvenience of having to go back for the things that you don't respawn with. Some survival meters you expect - namely O2, water and food / health (a bit ambiguous in distinction) are there. Heat is absent, despite that being a key part of your work in the early terraforming stages.

What are the bad parts?

The Terraforming - It really pains me to say this, since it is such a cool concept that I've not seen done elsewhere, but nowhere in my (admittedly limited) 9.5hrs of gameplay did I ever feel like I was really having an impact on the planet. Sure number went up, and changes started to happen but it just felt meh...

Early stages like heaters and machines meant to release 'gas' to build up temperature and pressure, fail to sell that drama. They just sit there limply spinning or glowing orange. There aren't billowing clouds of gas - and the scale of your work feels at odds with your goal. This is partially mitigated by giving the player "advanced" technology, and I understand the wish to avoid turning the game into something the likes of Satisfactory or Factorio.

Further on, water rise seems to just be a fixed feature of the map - a global level, rather than dynamically filling pools. Textures slowly fade from one to another, gradually changing the look.

Lastly, the weather sucks. There is occasionally storms or rain - but these are little more than some noise and a filter applied over your view. This game is very gentle on the survival element, you don't take damage from rocks that might be blown about in a violent storm in early game, nor are you frozen or boiled alive from your changes - since your character is unaffected by temperature (despite it being something you actively change, like atmospheric O2 content, which affects your consumption of O2)

The rover - The rover is very very shoddy in its implementation. When steering, wheels snap to one direction or another. There is no suspension, so your rigid box of a rover, rattles over the low-poly, uneven terrain. Its one saving grace is having near infinite traction as long as 3 wheels have some kind of ground contact. Combined with no real engine/torque system, you can drive up near vertical cliffs which is both handy, and immersion ruining.

All in all, this game has a promising set of mechanics, that feel rough around the edges and could be amazing given some time and work. Given this game is seemingly no longer in early access, and the devs have moved on to making DLC - the kinds of improvements I would hope to see are not likely imo. I can see why people would like this game, given it's unique selling point and gentle survival, but why it's "overwhelmingly positive" in reviews on steam is beyond me.