Re-work the drill phase on the map and repurpose the logic levers.#1706

Hello everyone, and especially the devs who might see this post,

What I’m about to share isn’t a criticism, but a friendly suggestion based on my experience after playing your game for around 20 hours. I hope you’ll understand my point of view and maybe recognize what other players might feel as well.

Point 1: The drill phase

For me, the world map where you move the drill around (in 2D) feels somewhat unnecessary and a bit underwhelming/cheap compared to the rest of the game. After reading the recent dev posts about world-building, it’s clear that the dev has put a lot of effort into creating a rich, story-driven environment, and I really appreciate that. However, the drill movement phase, especially since it isn’t animated, feels outdated and breaks immersion. In my opinion, this part doesn’t add much to the overall experience.

I know it’s still in early access, but I think it might be more engaging to have a beautifully designed, interactive map instead, with animated elements or points of interest that players can click to travel between, possibly collecting specific resources along the way. I believe this would make the gameplay feel smoother and more immersive. And if you ever want to expand on that idea of controlling the drill, it would make even more sense to create a fully 3D experience where players can actually use the drill to explore the world, similar to how Deep Rock Galactic handles exploration with the Driller.

Point 2: The levers

In my 20 hours of gameplay, I found that the logic lever wasn’t very useful. It takes up valuable space, space you need for your stations early in the game, and since the drill is relatively short even in late game, it’s usually easier and more efficient to simply disable or enable modules manually on the spot. Personally, I think it would be more interesting to have some kind of circuitry system you can pre-configure inside the drill, and then use it in-game through the gauntlet. That way, you could use it to build structures, collect resources, and defend your drill even when you’re not directly inside it, allowing you to keep exploring the world or cave around you.

Thank you for reading. I’m excited to see where it goes from here. However, since there are still some balance adjustments needed in the mid and late game, I’ll take a short break and wait to see what the devs cook up next.

Don’t forget to leave an upvote if you think i’v made a good suggestion!

Hello,

Underground travel
Agree, it’s one of the weakest parts of the game. We’ve tried few different concepts, but weren’t really happy with either.

There was a concept of “submarine like” travel - the player has very limited view and uses radar / sonar and other devices to navigate underground. And there was early concept of travelling in 3D space (imagine like flying in space with spaceship). There was some information about materials, but it felt weird and it wasn’t clear how to make it visually appealing.

After we’re done with first part of the island, we’ll explore other ideas. I’ll take a look at Deep Rock Galactic, maybe we’ll get some ideas from that.

The levers
You probably mean “State savers” and similar levers. There’s not much use for them. There’s the drillship overview screen, which is available from hand bracer. That pretty much replaces that. I’m not sure what will be the purpose of the levers. While we want the industrial feel, it doesn’t make much sense to have levers without any meaningful use.