itch.io

Might as well throw in my two logscents. I’ve never played 0.8 and I’m not going to, so I don’t know how new controls compare to the old. What I do know is that new controls are quite inconsistent in their behaviour.

Just from the top of my head:

• Hold E and tap E do radically different things despite using the same key.
• Some items require holding E to activate, but some require tapping E (especially visible with portable computer).
• As such, depending on the item tapping E can do radically different things.
• Some tools require pressing/holding left click, but some tools require pressing/holding right click.
• Levitating an item and holding an item in your hands uses different keys despite being similar in nature.
• Most swinging doors are physics based (please kill it with fire!), and silently follow your mouse cursor, but incinerator door shows point-drag indicator instead, where as lockers just use E to open/close.
• If you’re using an open container you press R to take an item you want, but if you’re using drive rack, you suddenly need E instead, as R takes the entire thing.

I think this is because we have too many action variants:

• levitate/stop levitating an item (I mean, I don’t see Dr. Kel reaching out with his arm…)
• drag a large item around
• pull at a point to lift or rotate a large item
• hold/place an item
• precisely place an item
• put a selected hotbar item into our hands
• immediately take an item into inventory
• drop an item from the inventory
• throw a held item/strike with a held item
• use a held item

Way. Way. Too. Many. Actions. I believe this needs to be simplified before a consistent control scheme can be designed.

I’d suggest something like this:

• E is “Use”. Tap E - use default action on a placed item. Swinging doors should open fully/close fully when activated this way. Hold E - bring up action list/wheel for a placed item
• Left Click - use default action on a held item, if available. This being a separate keybind allows to activate stuff while holding an item.
• Q is “Move”. Tap Q - levitate a light item/drag a heavy item. Moving your mouse should rotate the item in levitation mode, and roll it on the ground in dragging mode. Swinging doors should also be openable/closeable this way. Hold Q - take item into your hands/perform precision placement of held item (do we even need non-precision placement?).
• Right Mouse Button is “Inventory”. Right Click on an item to pull it into your inventory. RMB hold to place held item directly into a container.
• We do need a key to put an inventory item into our hands, but that might as well be the same as it is now: mouse wheel press or double tapping a number key.

Plus some options:

• replace button holds with Alt-button or Shift-button combos
• swap tap and hold function independently for each action group
• change main button for each action group

I think this would be more consistent and easier to get used to. This control scheme does create a problem with items like Pressure Washer, that have both left and right click functionality, but this is solveable in other ways (just change what left click does depending on where the tool is pointed?).

I find it highly unlikely. The game struggles to even save and restore its state correctly (sprinkler, main PC, glowsticks until recently, etc). And you want it to share this state accross network? Plus a lot of things are dependent on player’s proximity and PoV, which is demonstrated by new videocamera item (you can fil walking mannequins, for example). Such events would need to be entirely rewritten.

Maybe eventually someone makes a multiplayer mod, like it happend to Subnautica, but I really don’t think we will be getting multiplayer in the base game.

It appears that glowsticks got fixed too hard. If you pick up an attached glowstick with R (stright into your inventory), upon placing it in the world it will attempt to return to it’s previous location. I’ve found that if you disconnect it, place it on the ground, hold it in your hands and then put into inventory, it seems to work ok.

JFYI:

• Church bell still sounds (though I didn’t find the church itself)
• Abandoned car still spawns
• You can still get hounded by Krampus. Not sure if its intentional behaviour, but it makes antique watch worth every point.
• Meat Freezer is still cursed
• Boar-hound war still happens
• Gifts can spawn aggressive entities, such as living alien sculpture or angry blue brain cheese.

Three last events happened to me during the same 8 in-game hours. Some ambience, that was.