Enough with the Lava Rocks!

[cellidor]

I can understand the fun to be had with them, and maybe it's just a problem with my seed, or it being the alpha, but they're making the game unplayable.

Literally every death I've had so far playing was because of a settlement completely surrounded by them, usually when starting a new sector.

and I don't mean I'm seeing a couple, I mean that they're -everywhere-.

From the Bravo sectors right to the Golf sectors of my last playthrough, I stopped seeing normal rocks completely, only swarms of lava rocks everywhere I turned. It only happened, it seemed, because within the second sector, the wormhole to leave stated "Inferno" and it was the only wormhole available. Despite every other wormhole afterwords saying nothing about inferno, they were all, as stated, 100% lava rocks. I don't even know how I survived so long!

Eventually died when it spawned me in the middle of a massive cluster of lava rocks, and only made it to the first settlement with 1 oxygen left, only to get half my ship blasted by a Golf guardian with all snipers, asphyxiating before he could finish me off. Fitting end, in a way!

As another note, I can't say I agree with the game switching to perma-death with no way to retrieve the ship design. It was alright for successor when games took maybe half an hour, but in Jameson I spent 14 hours or so on my last game building things up, with nothing to show for it afterwords. More than a little saddening, to say the least!

[cellidor]

Oh, I just had an interesting idea, too.

As an update to the next patch, why not make lava rocks moveable? They would still be indestructible, but each shot against them could add a nice m/s boost, potentially turning them not only into weapons for yourself, but into mobile hazards if an enemy starts shooting from behind one! Of course, there'd be more m/s with higher damaging shots, and slower m/s gain on larger rocks, to keep with the spirit of things.

As an added bonus, this would give a way for players to remove lava rocks that spawn directly beside the docking bay of a structure.

I can just imagine the chaos one could cause if the lava rocks reacted when colliding with other rocks too...

[pgfish]

Yeah, I have to agree on the "inferno zones." (I think that was the term.) I've been kicking myself for the last several hours of gameplay. Can't remember which sector I was in, but it was early on (delta-echo) full of hot rocks, and had four wormhole exits. Three just had normal descriptions (large, small, dense, sparse, etc.). One of them said "not an inferno zone," but was otherwise uninteresting. Little did I know that meant the other three- and every one that connected to the one I picked from there on out- would be nothing but hot rocks. A big flashing sign saying "THIS ONE IS AN INFERNO ZONE" would be good, especially if it has other things to recommend it (many ships, large sectors with lots of factories). Really wished I could wormhole back and try again. Fortunately I got extremely lucky and picked up another six oxy tanks early on- especially since I haven't seen a single oxygen tank in any hot rock area, even after going well out of my way to clean out an entire sector. Are those odds linked?

They do interact badly with the new docking system from time to time. I had two cases where the dock was buried inside a hot rock, and a few more where they made things more complicated (a scrapyard halfway obstructed by a large one, a factory that ejected newly minted parts into another). Kinds of strains credulity, considering that humans must have built these stations at some point.

I'd still like to see hot rocks destructible and mined like regular asteroids, perhaps with special provisions (forcefield suspensions?) to carry them as hazardous but highly lucrative cargo. Mixed in with regular asteroids (like the earlier zones) that could be interesting.

[Captain Michaela Nul'dolaer]

I freaking hate inferno zones, all a fkr has to do is ram you into a hot rock and half your ship blows to bits...