So SC2 planetary mini games involved dodging animals and earthquakes while trying to stun animals and harvest resources before all your crew died.

I am not against mini games, I played the crap out of gwent.

I am against having pointless mini games that do not fit the theme of the game I am playing. If you had a team that was searching ruins and you needed to figure out how to get to the next room, then mini game puzzles make sense. If you have a lander doing math and word puzzles, how does that even fit with the game? (Maybe Strip poker with the Syreen would have worked!)

I think I will pass on mini games in Star Control and keep with twitch reflexes that were the hallmark of SC2. 

I know Half-Life is one of the most popular games of all time, and I was a Team Fortress junkie for many years, so I am not saying it was not a great game.  But it was not for me at all, and that is a good example of what I am saying here because they are both "fast paced action" games.  I hated having to figure out where to move boxes, I just wanted to keep going.  

When someone sits down at a computer to play a game, they usually have many choices available too them depending on the mood they are in.  When you have two completely opposite things like that, it makes a significant portion of the potential audience decide not to play it because, in this case, they want to play a fast paced action game.  They know Game A is just a fast paced action game, and Game B is going to keep making them stop for 2 minutes and do something that is completely not a fast paced action game.  And 2 minutes is several lifetimes in a fast paced action game.  They are going to play Game A.  Then, every time they sit down to play a game and want to play an fast paced action game, they will pretty much always decide to play game A.  After a while, they erase game B after not having played it in months.

That's what this does when you include aspects that go totally against the grain of what the "main game" actually is, it makes people decide not to play it because it is going to keep interrupting what they really want to be doing.

For some reason I have Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year angrily explaining all of the things that he would have the time to do to you in 17 seconds ringing in my ears...

On a tangent, is to have a scavenger hunt across the galaxy to find some late game item that isn't necessary to the plot but cool nonetheless. I would like some puzzles in the game and I think it would be fair if they are optional.

As for the hate against mini-games, I actually like the hacking mini-game in Fallout 3-4. My problem with Fallout is the lag that tends to happen when accessing a computer. Therefore, I would prioritize game performance and load times over additional mini-games.

It's not mini games, Star Control is comprised of mini games, but they are similar fast paced action mini-games.  In an RPG, or even an RPG-like FPS puzzles and mini games that go against the grain of the game can be good.  But when it is supposed to be a fast paced action game, then you will make a lot of the audience decide not to play that game because they know it will keep interrupting what they really want to do.

So, in Fallout these things work very well.  It is meant to be a wide and varied "adventure", not Quake or Team Fortress.  Would you want puzzles in Team Fortress?  They would just be in your way, preventing you from doing what it is that you chose to play that game for, right?

It's not a general thing, it depends on the game that you are talking about.  In Star Control people want to be told a great story and explore the universe... in a fast paced arcade game environment.  That's what makes Star Control so unique.  So anything that gets in the way of that will make a lot of people stop playing because they keep getting interrupted from what they wanted to do when the decided to play that kind of game.

So, everyone agrees, Performance over High Fidelity? No loading screens, seamless transitions and Low Res Textures?

This is "Yea" from me.

And fast save times that don't bloat from 1s to 30s as the game goes on.

Regarding puzzles... I hate it when games make me solve a stupidly overused puzzle. Towers of Hanoi? 3 Unit + 5 Unit Bucket Filling? Simon Says? No, thank you. They don't add anything to the game.

If any puzzles were to be implemented, they need to be part of a mini boss fight. Think Zelda.

This isn't a minigame at all,  but I think if a planet is big enough, it would be kind of cool to have like caves that you can drop your  lander into that pop it up at another cave as a shortcut.

Can't we compromise? Does it have to be "seamless transitions or bust"? I think not. I think that the compromise could be streamed assets (as in streaming it through memory). Rather than waiting for the assets to completely load and THEN starting the planetary sequence, only load the assets that are immediately necessary, and this basically puts the responsibility on the user to choose graphics settings that match their hardware's performance.

Puzzles are fine as long as they don't outstay their welcome, and in the end-game they should be optional if you wish to acquire certain technology or neat little gimmicks at the end game. I do disagree with the notion that there should be an upgrade to give you all the benefits of the puzzle while not even doing it in the first place, as that would essentially grant free technology and resources with no drawback.

As for performance, yes, I would prefer performance over the high quality of graphics, but with the graphic theme the game seems to be going for, I have no doubt that such optimization should not be difficult to achieve.

To be clear, I am not advocating tech that skips mini games used to unlock skins, lore, etc. 

Exploration, navigation, and resource gathering, however, should have tech that lets you skip them without any downside. That tech needs to be available late in the game (unless someone min-maxes to get it earlier).

The reason for this is that these systems (and the mini games that go with them) get boring or annoying as the game progresses, and there needs to be a way for someone to turn the systems off.

My late-game ship should be able to fly relatively unmolested through hyperspace, automatically scanning, harvesting resources, and locating anomalies on every planet in the current star system. Why? Because I had to spend enough time flying through hostile space, manually harvesting resources and manually locating anomalies to get to the point where I could have automation technology.

If such automation is to be made available to the game, it should require a significant time investment to the point that you can't have the auto-mining feature AND the totally stocked out ship, it should be a decision that the player makes. One or the other, certainly not both, otherwise everyone's endgame ship will end up looking exactly the same.

And besides, I am sure some people will still love mining in the end game, and so they should have the option to do that without any hindrance to their game. Make auto-harvesting and instant puzzle solving an option, and not a necessity. And by option, meaning that you aren't hamstringing yourself by not using the technology.

For what it's worth: when the topic of mini games entered conversation, I was not suggesting "logic puzzles", I was suggesting new action-oriented elements (like obstacles, or racing away from other ships through obstacles, or racing to reach a specific destination by a certain time to save an ally, etc) that change up the pace and style of gameplay without slowing it down in order to keep players actively engaged rather than autopiloting all the time, for long periods of time.

Also, regarding this whole idea of obtaining technology to opt of gameplay elements that players don't like, such as harvesting resources in late game, my take is that it should be implemented ... in a fashion similar to learning why Melnorme bridges turn purple. Make the technology cost some ridiculous amount that you can't actually pay.

1.

Why should I care if my endgame ship looks the same and/or has the same module loadout as every other player? It will be unique in my own single player universe.

Unlike SC2, people are going to pick their main ability, but the end-game module loadout is going to be roughly the same.

2.

If you are saying that a ship configured for auto-mining would not be as powerful as a ship set up for combat, I agree with that. You have to min-max your ship design for the role you want at the time. I would replace cargo holds with generators when I was about to take on a tough enemy.

If you are saying that the game needs to permanently make you decide between auto-mining and combat ability, I refute your idea vehemently. I should be able to obtain gear to max out my gathering AND my combat.

If you didn't want to auto-mine, you wouldn't have to purchase, obtain, or install the module.

Why?

Why is everyone focused on puzzles? I mentioned puzzles, 'cause I like change of pace in all games. I can't constantly be chasing and shoot shit. I thought it was apparent to everyone that the puzzles themselves need to be contextualized to not affect immersion negatively. I also mentioned racing games and mini-bosses.

What mini-bosses can we possibly fight? Bigger versions of critters? Base siege? Planetary soccer? Maze running?

A giant IBNobody. F@#$ that guy, seriously.

There's a lot of talk about needing more planet types but personally, I think the 6 is enough for release. Obviously having more planets would be nice, but it's mostly for aesthetic reasons.

To me, what's far more important is how fun the gameplay is and at the end of the day having more world types probably won't have a large impact on the fun.

To be honest, planet exploration was never my favourite part of SC2 either. The resource gathering felt like a roadblock to the fun part of the game, meeting alien races and solving problems.

The unknown factor is that we don't know how many planets there will be. That is going to have a big impact on how many biomes or world variations are tolerable.

Agreed.

My problem with adding in different biomes after release is, how would they be added in without screwing up the balance? Will you install a DLC and all of a sudden half of the planets have different biomes? On the other hand, will they be added to a new area of the galaxy? Thereby, you would have certain biomes that only occur in certain areas of the game. I don't see how they could be added in after the fact.

This is a good point.

What we will get is a spiral arm filled with the new world type... Or we will get no new world types at all.

But assuming that SD is going to do something...

The sensible ways of doing it would be to either add new planets to existing solar systems or convert placeholder barren worlds with new biomes. (Barren World + DLC Genesis Device = Forest World) Or maybe these placeholder worlds are shielded. Or simply greyed out with a message saying, "Nothing to see here." I am in favor of restricting the number of landable planets anyway, and this just plays into it.

I actually really like the idea of there being planetary base sieges from time to time. It's not just Fwiffo, it's a goddamn WoW boss that LOOKS like the Star Runner.

Yes a puzzle, or something else like that which isn't fast paced action, could be good in Star Control if it is part of something like a mini boss fight or a quest story you are in the middle of.  But I don't want Quasispace to always be a puzzle, or something like that just keeps getting in the way.

But it would be nice if the Quasi jump would require a tiny skill challenge that could shave days off traveling if you get good at it.

Something like this could work as long as they form a lore friendly explanation to there being planets you can't visit until you get the DLC.

SC2 had a great blend of action, adventure, exploration, and rpg elements.

Where I believe it could be improved upon is energy signatures on planet scans. Normally only plot related items could be found. It would be nice to discover bases, technology, lore related items, etc.