Why the Cyclops is still far from being usable [update: the Cyclops got tougher now]
zetachron
Germany Join Date: 2014-11-14 Member: 199655Members
Germany Join Date: 2014-11-14 Member: 199655Members
UPDATE (ghost update) because of thread revival - most things outdated now, with the exception of (1)+(2)
Generally, only the bad driving, sight and HUD remains (although you can get used to getting along with it)
Major UPDATE: old tests outdated, as the Cyclops got much tougher now (Build 48155). There are still issues, but damage level seems to be acceptable now.
Now I tested the Cyclops with the newly implemented features (Build 47112 to be exact). Because now the Cyclops is destructable and can be destroyed in seconds if the player doesn't react. At least I got grilled twice in seconds on my lengthy trial to get to the prison.
The first time it took me still long to navigate through the deep caverns. Especially the Crabsquids were an annoyance in blocking my movement every few seconds. When I finally got to the big hole at the lava castle I had no fire suppression and as soon as I got hit I turned the shields on, but the fire damage done in a single second together with the Sea Dragon smashing me against the walls was too big and seconds later my sub exploded.
The second test was bypassing the Sea Dragon at the lava sea, this time with fire suppression, decoys, shields and silent running. But the Sea Dragon was detecting my silent sub and the decoys behind me didn't help much. At least I made it to the prison. Overall a bad experience.
TL;DR: The now destructable Cyclops needs even more fixes to make it a workable vehicle and stop it from being a game pain.
Here a list of annoyances:
(1) The Cyclops switches (speed/noise, sonar, decoy launcher, shield, sound horn, internal/external lights, cams):
They are too far away from each other and you must always turn your head and hit that switch. It takes too long and is a real pain.
In case of the lights you even have to leave the cockpit.
Recommendation: Hotkeys - player like that when the action gets hot
(2) The Cyclops status displays (speed/noise, sonar on/off, decoys, shield on/off, health, power, depth/pressure):
Again you have to look around (up, left, right) and the info is missing when using the cam views. You loose to much time switching the views.
Recommendation: A fixed Cyclops HUD facing wherever the player looks (like the player HUD) as you enter cockpit mode. This way you can drive without distraction.
(3) The Cyclops sonar:
It works like the Seamoth sonar, but without a hotkey you have to constantly turn the head and press the switch. Very annoying.
Recommendation: Either hotkey it like the Seamoth or let it draw more power but run permanently, so you can perform other tasks meanwhile.
(4) The Cyclops shield:
With about 15 sec work time it's too short for bypassing enemies and with about 10 sec recharge time too slow for defending rapid attacks.
The shields work too good while on and the sub is too weak while the shields are down.
Recommendation: Scale shield usage through massive power drain but being always on/off (100 units / sec). Believable, practical in use and not overpowered.
The shield can also be scaled in efficiency to only reduce attacks, so the ship can be scaled up a bit stronger.
(5) The Decoy system:
The decoys are working only for a short time and are launched backwards. So the Cyclops is in the middle of the decoy and the enemy. Nonsense.
Recommendation: Let decoys work like thumpers in "Dune" that work until destroyed. And allow them to be fired forward like torpedos.
(6) The silent running:
You only need it for Sea Dragons that constantly guard a small doorlike area with no way to do silent running around the creatures while passing the narrow area.
Recommendation: Either decoys can actually pull guardians from a spot or the guardians circle the area more widely.
Tell me what you did to reach the prison with your Cyclops and especially what your wishes are for the new systems.
UPDATE:
As the thread started before the stable version, I made a rerun. From my results:
...
The silent running is now made all powerful and the Sea Dragon is practically blind in that mode. He can directly pass the ship without noticing, while he will detect the player from very far away when he tries to repair the sub from the outside. Obviously a diver makes 100x more noise than the silent running Cyclops. I could easily drive the Cyclops to the prison with the now "superinvisible/superignored" Cyclops. As long as you don't ram the Sea Dragon he doesn't seem to target you in silent running. You can do lots of things inside the Cyclops in silent running mode while the Sea Dragon is circling around you trying helplessly to find a target.
...
my rerun post
UPDATE 2:
Shield Testing:
As the shield is practically useless against leviathans, because of the way it works, it would be overall useless if it wouldn't work miracles against rocks. So I found a new use for the shields. They can be used to force the Cyclops through narrow, rocky terrain, where you would normally use those damned, unpractical cams. So, forget using the cams and use the shields instead. Force through for about 10 secs while the shields are on and then wait and repeat until you are through that difficult passage. Works perfect.
If the devs are interested they could think about reworking the shields into a stealth cloak shield for parking and repairing the Cyclops for better immersion to explain why the Sea Dragon is practically blind to a Cyclops right under his nose. Because I don't think the shields were intended to be used against rock collision to make those cams no longer needed. I think the shields were intended to protect against the Sea Dragon, which went totally wrong and forced the devs to turn silent running into godmode. Now if the shields were a stealth cloak that could only work while not moving ... that would allow a lot of interesting things.
Generally, only the bad driving, sight and HUD remains (although you can get used to getting along with it)
Major UPDATE: old tests outdated, as the Cyclops got much tougher now (Build 48155). There are still issues, but damage level seems to be acceptable now.
Now I tested the Cyclops with the newly implemented features (Build 47112 to be exact). Because now the Cyclops is destructable and can be destroyed in seconds if the player doesn't react. At least I got grilled twice in seconds on my lengthy trial to get to the prison.
The first time it took me still long to navigate through the deep caverns. Especially the Crabsquids were an annoyance in blocking my movement every few seconds. When I finally got to the big hole at the lava castle I had no fire suppression and as soon as I got hit I turned the shields on, but the fire damage done in a single second together with the Sea Dragon smashing me against the walls was too big and seconds later my sub exploded.
The second test was bypassing the Sea Dragon at the lava sea, this time with fire suppression, decoys, shields and silent running. But the Sea Dragon was detecting my silent sub and the decoys behind me didn't help much. At least I made it to the prison. Overall a bad experience.
TL;DR: The now destructable Cyclops needs even more fixes to make it a workable vehicle and stop it from being a game pain.
Here a list of annoyances:
(1) The Cyclops switches (speed/noise, sonar, decoy launcher, shield, sound horn, internal/external lights, cams):
They are too far away from each other and you must always turn your head and hit that switch. It takes too long and is a real pain.
In case of the lights you even have to leave the cockpit.
Recommendation: Hotkeys - player like that when the action gets hot
(2) The Cyclops status displays (speed/noise, sonar on/off, decoys, shield on/off, health, power, depth/pressure):
Again you have to look around (up, left, right) and the info is missing when using the cam views. You loose to much time switching the views.
Recommendation: A fixed Cyclops HUD facing wherever the player looks (like the player HUD) as you enter cockpit mode. This way you can drive without distraction.
(3) The Cyclops sonar:
It works like the Seamoth sonar, but without a hotkey you have to constantly turn the head and press the switch. Very annoying.
Recommendation: Either hotkey it like the Seamoth or let it draw more power but run permanently, so you can perform other tasks meanwhile.
(4) The Cyclops shield:
With about 15 sec work time it's too short for bypassing enemies and with about 10 sec recharge time too slow for defending rapid attacks.
The shields work too good while on and the sub is too weak while the shields are down.
Recommendation: Scale shield usage through massive power drain but being always on/off (100 units / sec). Believable, practical in use and not overpowered.
The shield can also be scaled in efficiency to only reduce attacks, so the ship can be scaled up a bit stronger.
(5) The Decoy system:
The decoys are working only for a short time and are launched backwards. So the Cyclops is in the middle of the decoy and the enemy. Nonsense.
Recommendation: Let decoys work like thumpers in "Dune" that work until destroyed. And allow them to be fired forward like torpedos.
(6) The silent running:
You only need it for Sea Dragons that constantly guard a small doorlike area with no way to do silent running around the creatures while passing the narrow area.
Recommendation: Either decoys can actually pull guardians from a spot or the guardians circle the area more widely.
Tell me what you did to reach the prison with your Cyclops and especially what your wishes are for the new systems.
UPDATE:
As the thread started before the stable version, I made a rerun. From my results:
...
The silent running is now made all powerful and the Sea Dragon is practically blind in that mode. He can directly pass the ship without noticing, while he will detect the player from very far away when he tries to repair the sub from the outside. Obviously a diver makes 100x more noise than the silent running Cyclops. I could easily drive the Cyclops to the prison with the now "superinvisible/superignored" Cyclops. As long as you don't ram the Sea Dragon he doesn't seem to target you in silent running. You can do lots of things inside the Cyclops in silent running mode while the Sea Dragon is circling around you trying helplessly to find a target.
...
my rerun post
UPDATE 2:
Shield Testing:
As the shield is practically useless against leviathans, because of the way it works, it would be overall useless if it wouldn't work miracles against rocks. So I found a new use for the shields. They can be used to force the Cyclops through narrow, rocky terrain, where you would normally use those damned, unpractical cams. So, forget using the cams and use the shields instead. Force through for about 10 secs while the shields are on and then wait and repeat until you are through that difficult passage. Works perfect.
If the devs are interested they could think about reworking the shields into a stealth cloak shield for parking and repairing the Cyclops for better immersion to explain why the Sea Dragon is practically blind to a Cyclops right under his nose. Because I don't think the shields were intended to be used against rock collision to make those cams no longer needed. I think the shields were intended to protect against the Sea Dragon, which went totally wrong and forced the devs to turn silent running into godmode. Now if the shields were a stealth cloak that could only work while not moving ... that would allow a lot of interesting things.
Comments
And all that can get destroyed in a few moments when exploring new areas ?!? Or even just run into enough Bone Sharks ?!?
And being likely that the Cyclops would be destroyed in a hazardous area, that would make the construction of a replacement Cyclops and taking it there to salvage what is possible doubly hazardous.
I can see the point of doing this in game development. But why would there be such a fragile vessel in the game world? It makes no sense.
I'm hopeful this hasn't been released because Unknown Worlds realises it's not ready yet.
Well I didn't try it with a swarm of bonesharks around me. I was just trying to get to the deep endgame area which includes bypassing 2 guarded spots each with a single Sea Dragon. But there it got into "game over" quite fast.
Although I think only leviathans should be able to damage the Cyclops without shields. And even the most powerful Sea Dragons should need more than a few seconds to destroy the unshielded Cyclops or we should get a power depleting but endless running shield that reduces damage greatly.
Now I'm not complaining or trying to be negative, I realize this is early access alpha, but I want to give honest feedback. This was a terrible experience for a new player, especially after it took me forty hours to get to this point. I realize this is sci-fi but subs are incredibly strong, I don't think anything biological should be able to damage it save the largest creature like the levathon. Even then I don't think they should be able to do much damage. Minor scraps against objects shouldn't damage it either, only higher speed collisions should damage it. Constantly repairing or losing your end game vehicle is not fun and not content. I agree with your assessment of the UI. I'll go further to say it's way too big IMO. I'm playing at 1080p and everything's gigantic and taking up way too much screen space. I want to look out the glass at the landscape, not look at giant icons. All I need is a small discrete icon with a percentage next to it. One would assume with the level of technology in this game they could have a HUD with everything locked in your view like the hotkeys without all the head turning.
What I'm wanting to know if the lose of the Cyclops here in very short order was when running the current Stable or Experimental Branch? (Which should be the same with respect to the Cyclops.)
I've learned that carrying over an old savefile into a new build can cause wildly erratic gameplay issues, such as deformed terrain and messed up physics. It seems likely that the Cyclops isn't functioning properly because of something isn't running normally. I mean I could be wrong, but it shouldn't be as bad as some make it out to be.
Cache clearing can help with the terrain weirdness. As for physics errors...I blame Einstein.
That said, whether or not it's too squishy is tough to say. Like I said, I haven't had a problem with the way I've been using it. In my mind, I look at the materials used to construct things like it, bases, the seamoth, etc., and I wonder how the heck thin the hulls of these things must actually be in order to make, say, an entire multipurpose room out of, what, maybe four cubic feet of titanium. The entire cyclops is built using a similar concept. While an actual sub of that size would be tough and durable, this thing is basically a futuristic tin can.
That's my take on it.
Just another reason not to use the thing that didn't have much purpose to start with.
I confirmed it in my thread.
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/151744/feedback-since-returning-a-couple-of-weeks-ago-and-post-silent-running#latest
If you get tossed into the terrain by a Sea Dragon, that's a heck of a lot more velocity and impact surface. Maybe it's causing several high impact damage instances at once (or just one big one if damage scales with velocity), thus causing multiple fires and serious health drain. On top of that, receiving more damage from the Sea Dragon's other attacks, Lava Lizards and likely more bump damage trying to right your Cyclops if you didn't crash upside down. I sort of expect that experience with a Sea Dragon if it catches you though.
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I do like the idea of being able to fire a Decoy forward. 1, 2 and 3 don't bother me as much but it would be nice to not have to look around soooo much. 4 I haven't had a chance to try yet to have an opinion on.
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Bonesharks do 30 damage per bite to the Cyclops, the same as the Player without a Reinforced Dive Suit. These are the same values in the wiki, so you can get an idea of how much damage your Cyclops can take from each creature. It seems like fires cause 30-40 damage per tick for each fire, so multiple ones are bad news.
If you did nothing but put out fires it would take one Boneshark 50 bites to destroy the Cyclops. Probably around 30 if you didn't fight the fires either. They get bored long before that will ever happen unless you purposely stick around their home and don't turn on Silent Running. A pack of 5-6 Bonesharks can definitely be trouble, but they are also very easily dispersed by using Seamoth Perimeter Defense or a Repulsion Cannon.
You've got a lot of time before they bite your Cyclops to death, probably best to spend it outside clearing threats and repairing holes, then dealing with fires. Proceed more carefully next time you're in their neighborhood! That goes for most predators now, come to think of it.
also realistically pretty much every submarine in the world has the ability to adjust it's pitch
They have totally missed (IMHO) the most needed feature: Situational-awareness data while in the camera views!
In the main use of this sub, you will be in camera mode a goodly portion of the time underway - and you know nothing of your health,depth,power etc. And you have to (clumsily) leave the camera mode - go into pilot mode just to find out how things are - then re-enter camera mode... OMG - how lame is that!! Not to mention they left that redundant 'how to use" message cluttering the screen as well as the useless "video camera" frame and record LED.
I haven't tried using the sub yet - but for the OP's details - it sounds pretty much like a disaster overall. And the Cyclops is such a cool concept fundamentally - but whoever is designing it now must not be playing it much... Think I'll stick to Astroneer till the next release... sigh.
The new Cyclops is not a disaster at all, but you are correct on the cameras. The lack of proper front view while all the information is available there combined with cameras that offer no data whatsoever and no way to easily scroll between is atm the thing that bugs me the most. Easily worse than before because the pressure's now higher to be aware of everything going on around you.
even if its to stock up materials for advanced builds that are only found in dangerous areas. just prioritize on those, few more a for redundancy. would have more than enough left over for later updates from one trip in an exosuit.
Perhaps as an upgrade to the Shield module?
The sturdiness of it seems to be alright at the moment for me, though I haven't made it to the lost river or LZ yet with it. The fires still don't make much sense overall to me, how does getting bit by a creature start a fire? Also the locations of the damage seems entirely random. Smashed face first into the floating island at flank speed and got a hole near the rear of the ship.
I really like the UI update though I would like there to be numbers somewhere. The icons and models for resources are really nice. The new sounds are welcome as well.
It does seem that optimization got worse with this one though, which is somewhat expected, but still. Does anyone else have issues with lag and jumping in a near-new save? All I did was bring in the cyclops to check it out and its jumpy. (It might also just be windows 10, which randomly slows to a crawl and uses 100% of disk space for no apparent reason)
I'm playing an updated save and I have lots of lag and pop-in now too. Minimized the settings as I don't care too much about a full experience right now and that's helped some. I was expecting problems, though, given the history of this update, so I'm not bothered by it.
Well the shield defends against attacks, but does not drive off attackers, especally when your gone.
Also, the icons are a little hard to click accurately. Perhaps making them larger would help?
For reference, in 2005 the USS San Francisco (SSN-711) smashed into a seamount while underway. Yes, a US Navy attack sub hit a mountain head-on at 35 knots. Here's what happened to her:
It was a mess. Smashed in her sonar dome, forward ballast tanks ruptured. Several accounts state that they almost lost the boat because of the loss of buoyancy control. One man dead, 98 injured. The pressure hull wasn't ruptured, thank God, but it was still enough damage to cripple the sub and leave her barely able to limp back to port.
I bring this up because building something to withstand pressure does not turn it into a juggernaut. You smash it into something hard and it's going to break. More intuitively, it's built to withstand squeeze, not smash. The Cyclops is hardly more durable than a Los Angeles-class attack boat; given the amount of materials used to build it, I'd expect its hull to be less able to handle impact damage, titanium notwithstanding. (You'll feel no difference ripping titanium foil versus aluminum.) A thinner titanium hull may have comparable pressure-handling characteristics but still be weaker on impact resistance.
@harrzack and @DrownedOut are bang-on about the cameras, though; those things really need HUD data. It doesn't help me much to hear the proximity alert go off and have to step out of camera view to see where I'm brushing.
In terms of concessions to gameplay, honestly, UWE has done it. Subs don't get cameras to help them navigate because they don't thread needles. We're going to be using subs in tighter terrain, so the devs gave us cameras and floodlights. Grand. Adding HUD data to the cameras is a fair request and in-line with the existing design ethos of the sub. But subs are fragile, and this one shouldn't be any different.
(Oh, by the way, specifically on the subject of wildlife breaking the Cyclops: Click for details.
Now, a swordfish is a lot cuddlier than a boneshark. And Alvin's design makes it far more durable than a Cyclops could hope to be; they both have a titanium pressure hull, but Alvin's is a small, thick-walled ball, perfect for resisting pressure. The shape of a Cyclops reduces its ability to defend against pressure, and the small amount of titanium used implies it's relatively thin. That impact or fauna damage could incapacitate or even kill a Cyclops is completely within the bounds of reason.
Bottom line, if I'm too reckless to avoid smashing my boat into stuff and stirring up hostile wildlife, then I deserve to lose her. Everything about the game orbits the central concept of "you're not in charge in this environment, so don't go around with an 'I'm gonna kick your fins' attitude."
I believe you're looking for the Esc key. The E key will exit but also disengage you from the helm.
It pops me out of camera and still in the cockpit, but it still brings up the menu and the lag that goes with it.
The sonar is really cool, I just wish it would last a bit longer. Can't really go anywhere but forward with it on, I get maybe one ping once I've gotten back to camera view, then I have to get out and go back in and readjust. Kindof a pain.
i like to turn the head for all the actions. it gives me the feeling of "operating something big" i have to manage this. and the PDA voice says that its designed for 3 pilots and just skilled pilots can operate it alone. so i like that
This post is amazing, I applaud you for the effort you put into it
Gives me some definite new insight into real life submarines, as well as a new view of our own fictional Cyclops.
I keep saying those Bonesharks are tougher than they look!
Someone posted this in another thread. It totally fits.
You mentioned Dune. I like you.
Science is what I do.
Glad you liked it!