A list of ongoing suggestions & Bugs

[Whane The Whip 99]

Items in bold are in my opinion, the most critical issues.

GENERAL BUGS

1. When destroying a ship, the sails, ladders, anchor switch, and helm control should also destroy. (Currently they float in the air where the ship once was)
2. Sometimes items in inventory will vanish but still occupy the space. So users will see a warning message about there not being enough space, even though there is at least one empty slot.
3. When dropping a miners hat on the ground it will sometimes sink showing just a tiny bit of the upper portion of the hat that is too small to interact with. When placed on blocks, it will pass through the blocks to rest on the terrain below it.

EVERYTHING WRONG WITH MULTIPLAYER

1. It takes too long for the server to register that a user has logged off, thus they can be killed long after they have logged off, even behind a BP.
2. Locks for helms are useless outside of a PB, this means any ship can be stolen easily; it only takes a few wacks with a stone hammer against a locked helm to destroy it, then a new helm can be added and the user can run off with the ship. Griefers like to point them away from the island, open the sails, then jump off and swim back to the island letting the ship sail away.
3. Lag gets worse as the server gets older, so any new server has a limited life span, often very short. Unless the server owner spends a lot of time removing trash from the ground that has been left all over the island. Dead bodies from murdered and starving offline players does not help either, esp since they cannot be removed in-game. Junk items should auto despawn after x number of minutes, this includes wood chunks, bark, sticks, unplanted seeds, sap, broken grass, etc... Basically, anything that can be easily regenerated. Limited items such as stones, iron, and clay should not despawn. The size of the save file also seems to contribute to lag, or the size of the file is an indicator of things happening in-game that contribute to lag.
4. Dead bodies cannot be removed if the player never logs in again. So anyone killed within a PB gets to remain a perm structure for the plot owner to stare at. Even the admin remove tool will not get rid of them. Dead bodies are also blamed for excess lag. In short, a corpse should disappear within minutes. Followup: We now know that player data is tied to a player body. So if you delete a corpse using the editor, you delete all player data and when that player returns, s/he has to restart. We need an option to remove a corpse without removing player data AND a choice to remove both the corpse and the data.
5. We need to be able to see the latency to servers when browsing the list of servers. By default, the servers should be ordered according to latency. Currently the default is by game name I think.
6. Ordering the list of servers by the number of players does not seem to work. It's possible that it is ordering by the total number of players that have ever joined the server rather than the current number of players logged in.
7. BUG: In MP, items placed using free-placement-mode on the ship sometimes instantly vanish rather than being placed.
8. BUG: Hitting a bird with a ship results in all kinds of madness, somehow a tiny bird is able to create chaos on a ship.
9. BUG: Maps reset with a relog. This is a non-issue atm because map data gets saved for each user in the game save file and a lot of map data in that file can drastically effect the performance of a DS. Ideally, the issue of map data storage should be addressed before stabilizing the map in MP game.
10. BUG: Ships can sometimes be turned on their side by jumping down on them from a fair distance. This seems related to the seagull bug - essentially, if something hits the ship hard enough, it can be pushed into a position that renders it useless.
11. I don't know if this is an editor issue or a DS issue. If I create a trigger in the editor to display a message, it works fine in single player. But when I pull that map into a DS, that message will no longer appear. Other triggers will work, for example: spawn entity.

THE EDITOR

1. Key mapping in the editor should be 100% independent from keymapping in the game. With my custom key mapping I use my mouse buttons for movement but this interferes with the editor so I have to constantly change key mapping when going back and forth between the editor and testing the map in-game. There is an editor section of the keymap, but it alone should be used when in the editor, instead it *and* the other controls are used.
2. In the editor, add the ability to include the broken protection barrier to a player inventory. (This is very important for creating custom MP players)
3. BUG: In the editor, there is an option to edit the HP of items placed in the world. However this does not seem to function in-game. No matter what value I enter for HP, the default HP is registered in-game. You can test this on the lantern which can be broken with just a few bare hands hits, even if you give it 15000 HP which is the same HP as a ship, it will still break right away.
4. I would love to see a trigger option for "remove entity".

MY WISH LIST

1. An option to exit a game without saving progress (this can help alot if a bug is encountered during a play session).
2. Custom key mapping should be 100% reflected in the displayed tool tips. So if the tool tip normally showed left click but custom key mapping is left-shift, then the tool tip would correct to show left-shift too. Edit: This seems to work as expected for keys, but it does not work when customizing the mouse.
3. Pots don't work as expected. I should be able to plant a seed *in* the pot. Currently, planted seeds touch a pot but are not *connected* to it mechanically. You can see this if you try to plant a seed on a pot that is on a boat, the boat and the pot will move, but the planted seed will remain there floating.
4. I Would like to see an option to "pin" tool bar items in the top row of my inventory so that my tool bar items are not scattered around my inventory.
5. Please add borderless window option (forever requested, in any game ever made).
6. I'd like to see an option to disable the incredibly annoying screen flashing when freezing. Edit: This has been addressed by the devs, looks like they are planning for a fix
7. I would like to see the water level even out to a default level when editing the stuff below the surface. Any removal of dirt or sand changes the water level locally. If I swim out 30 feet from shore, drop a couple of dirt, then dig the same dirt, there is now a large perimeter around that spot in which you can see that the water level is lower than the rest. In most cases there are multiple layers of water. This makes it difficult to build oceanic bases unless those base builders are okay with things looking odd or  make it a point to never remove dirt or sand from the ocean. But in most sandbox games, players want their areas to look nice and the option to dig anywhere.
8. I would like to see two additional support forums on the community site, one for servers and one for editors. Editors can work together to help troubleshoot editor issues and ask/answer questions. The server section can be used for the owners of servers to promote and discuss their public and private servers.
9. The workshop site should allow for textual content by the author when posting a scenario and commenting by scenario subscribers. Some scenarios might need a guide but there is no room for text beyond a tiny 250 character description. Feedback would be nice too, especially for improving the scenario. Rating the scenario is nice but it doesn't offer insight on how to improve it and for this subscribers should be able to comment.
10. I wish we had the option to map our keyboard for emotes. The radial is nice for controllers, but I should be able to map a key to my keyboard too for a one-press function. It takes way too long to pull up the radial and select an emote.
11. Some new commands for DS admins: /setborder to set a limit on how far players and objects like ships can pass - can help with performance issues. /removeall <item> to quickly remove every type of a discarded (not placed) items, like debri from mining and tree chopping. /removeallhere <item> same as the former but removes all of an item currently loaded within a preset distance from admin.

FIXED:

1. OPC Starvation. (OPC = offline player character)
2. Issue with players hiding behind fluid names to grief servers. This was fixed by adding the ability to ban a user by Bohemia ID.
3. Ladder teleports users to other random locations.
4. Within a BP, accidentally using a hammer on a container will cause all items in the container to vanish. Items in the container should return to player inventory or drop to the ground. I'm repealing this suggestion because it's the only way to get rid of stuff en-masse. For example, if you have a stack of 1000 sand in your inventory, have fun clicking 1000 times to destroy it, or place it in a basket protected by an orb and then hit it with a hammer.
5. Forced new character when old character is still alive and well.
6. WISH: I wish the helm and anchor switch could be *centered* on ships. - I'm repealing this because this is already possible by going into first person to use absolute positioning.
7. Limited resources are fine for single player, but in MP, anyone that has not joined a new server early on, will not get clay or cloth unless at the mercy of other players. This is not "fixed" but I removed it from the list because I'm convinced that the Explore map was not designed for MP and this issue can be resolved with a custom world made with the editor.
8. Boats cannot be protected with a lock.
9. Finally fixed! Yay! The Protective Barrier (PB) does not prevent editing the land, thus any base can be griefed. A nice looking base that took hours or days to create, can be ruined in a matter of minutes. If the base is on water, or on a shore, the water can also be glitched by simply digging in the water. Fixed in 0.7.
10. In the editor, add an option next to the "pickable" option for "can't be destroyed". This means lanterns can be protected too (An issue with glass items in 0.63). Added in 0.7.

 

 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Whane The Whip

[TheClockArm 52]

Besides #6, I agree that all of these would improve the game. The suggestion that I resonated most with was #11 as I have encountered the same issue not only in oceanic bases, but when I build my base on the shore and need to terraform, and accidentally terraform the water edge too, which bugs it out. I have literally restarted games because that water level and weird formations bug me so much. I understand it isn't an easy fix- but I think that water terrain should be looked at first prior to adding new features to the game.   

[Whane The Whip 99]

And... if you decide to play multi-player then anyone can bug the water near your base and from what I can see, everyone likes to build on the shoreline. Regarding #6. I'm removing it because it just occurred to me that the reason we get the note again, is because I'm not respawning, but because I'm restarting with a "new character".

[Whane The Whip 99]

I Added two new suggestions to my list:

15. In the editor, add the ability to include the broken protection barrier to a player inventory.
16. In the editor, add an option next to the "pickable" option for "can't be destroyed".

Atm, multiplayer survival games are limited to the randomly generated survival mode map. This is due to the fact that there is no option to add the protection barrier to a role inventory using the editor. The fact that the spawn point option is also not available when editing a survival based game state, further makes it more difficult to set up a nice server. For example, I found a great seed that places two large islands right next to each other with tons of interesting spots for users in MP to build. I can set the spawn point and even make a decent little spawn site for that and then use the game state for MP. However this is completely pointless with a public server since there is no option to include the broken PB too.

To further facilitate a custom server, an option to lock items so that they can't be destroyed would be nice too. This will allow me to build a spawn that cannot be griefed by other players. There is already a tick for each item to disable making it pickable or not and adding another tick right next to it to disable "destroy" would be idea.

These two things, would greatly enhance the ability for server owners to customize maps for multiplayer. I'm a little surprised that the broken PB isn't already in the editor since it's already an item and mechanic built into the game.

Edited January 4, 2018 by Whane

[Whane The Whip 99]

Adding three more:

17. It would be great if we could see latency to servers when browser the list of servers and by default, order the servers according to latency. Currently the default is by game name I think. Also ordering by the number of players does not seem to work. It's possible that it is ordering by the total number of players that have ever joined the server rather than the current number of players logged in.
18. In the editor, there is an option to edit the HP of items placed in the world. However this does not seem to function in-game. No matter what value I enter for HP, the default HP is registered in-game. You can test this on the lantern which can be broken with just a few bare hands hits, even if you give it 15000 HP which is the same HP as a ship, it will still break right away.
19. I wish we had the option to map our keyboard for emotes. The radial is nice for controllers, but I should be able to map a key to my keyboard too for a one-press function.

[Whane The Whip 99]

Reorganized my list and added a new big section called "Everything Wrong With Multiplayer".

[Whane The Whip 99]

Added new bug:
When dropping a miners hat on the ground it will sometimes sink showing just a tiny bit of the upper portion of the hat that is too small to interact with. When placed on blocks, it will pass through the blocks to rest on the terrain below it.

Added to MP section:
I don't know if this is an editor issue or a DS issue. If I create a trigger in the editor to display a message, it works fine in single player. But when I pull that map into a DS, that message will no longer appear. Other triggers will work, for example: spawn entity.

Added new wish:
Some new commands for DS admins: /setborder to set a limit on how far players and objects like ships can pass - can help with performance issues. /removeall <item> to quickly remove every type of a discarded (not placed) items, like debri from mining and tree chopping. /removeallhere <item> same as the former but removes all of an item currently loaded within a preset distance from admin.

Added editor item:
I would love to see a trigger option for "remove entity".

Removed MP issue to "Fixed":
Limited resources are fine for single player, but in MP, anyone that has not joined a new server early on, will not get clay or cloth unless at the mercy of other players. This is not "fixed" but I removed it from the list because I'm convinced that the Explore map was not designed for MP and this issue can be resolved with a custom world made with the editor.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Whane The Whip

[Whane The Whip 99]

Additional information has led to editing two of the MP issues, edits are in color:

Dead bodies cannot be removed if the player never logs in again. So anyone killed within a PB gets to remain a perm structure for the plot owner to stare at. Even the admin remove tool will not get rid of them. Dead bodies are also blamed for excess lag. In short, a corpse should disappear within minutes. Followup: We now know that player data is tied to a player body. So if you delete a corpse using the editor, you delete all player data and when that player returns, s/he has to restart. We need an option to remove a corpse without removing player data AND a choice to remove both the corpse and the data.

BUG: Maps reset with a relog. This is a non-issue atm because map data gets saved for each user in the game save file and a lot of map data in that file can drastically effect the performance of a DS. Ideally, the issue of map data storage should be addressed before stabilizing the map in MP game.