Biggest initial hurdles?

[Aury]

When you first started the game, what did you find to be the biggest initial hurdles?

And what version were you using then? Do you feel this issue has been addressed?

As for myself, I first used version 0.98d. My first impressions were O_O and - this was the game for me; especially given the ability to mod it. However, I think the biggest hurdle on my first game was not knowing how to get into the militia/fleet which resulted in me getting stuck with severely underleveled equipment.

Honestly I'm not sure if I do better now because I know better, or if the changes to korolov/militia did make joining easier.

[RPC]

1.01 first version.
Biggest hurdle- I had no clue what I was doing.
Reading the Primer and the lore helped out a bit, but I think that the time requirement Transcendence requires is a bit much for the "casual" gamer. If we had more lore/ gameplay tips pages all in one place, say, the wiki, it would help a lot.
I'm actually thinking of making a Transcendence Lite that condenses the ~30 systems to ~10, but eeh, that's another story.

[Drako Slyith]

I can't remember when I first started playing. I think it was around .96 but I can't be sure. My biggest hurdle was I didn't know you could save I kept having to start over and I didn't make it past St. Kats for a long time.

[PM]

1.01. Biggest hurdle: raising enough money and keeping my ship fueled up without losing money. This is why I cling to solar items until late game. Fuel still drains too quickly. Fuel should drain at least two to four times more slowly.

[matix]

1.01 biggest hurdle: I'm agreeing with PM, fuel was definitely a huge obstacle early on

[Song]

Ok. I started on 0.99c (in 2008, in fact)

Biggest problems were:

-Yup. Fuel.
-Going into Heretic not knowing anything about the old doorstopper iocrym and never being able to pierce the shield.
-Charon was kinda fun as well.
-Ares space is something I've never been very good at...I tend to skim through without doing all that much fighting.
-Dwarg cyninininnydostything cannon.
-Ventari
-Ventari
-Ventari
-Ventari

[Androgeos]

The first hurdle I encountered was keeping enough credits to refuel my ship.

The next hurdle was trying to hit stuff I wanted to hit using weapons of mass.

The third hurdle was Arco Vaughn.

[Atarlost]

My memory's a bit hazy, but the longest standing hurdle was keeping in fuel after the transition to a Nova-100 of 150-nx. At the point where you want to make the transition most enemies that drop fuel are still dropping individual fuel rods, which are no longer useful. The only decent He3 assembly source is ferians, but ferians won't fly predictable paths like hostile ships so I sometimes wound up spending more fuel chasing them then I looted from them.

The shift in weapon/armor balance has helped this significantly, but there are still too many enemies uselessly dropping level 1 He3 fuel rods in the ungoverned territories.

[digdug]

I started playing with 0.95b. Definitely fuel at the beginning. I died so many times trying to reach a friendly station to refuel After that, Sung. I didn't know anything about weapon damagetype progression at the time, so I was really surprised to find a station I couldn't pierce with my lasers just after St Kat. Discovering what weapon could be good against certain ships-station was plenty of fun. After that, all EMP, Paralysing and damaging ion effects were surprising. Today I would probably appreciate some special shield hiteffects for those weapons.

[erik dela cruz]

Yep fuel!

[Vachtra]

I started in version 0.9e. The biggest hurdle was figuring out what I was really supposed to be doing. Keep going through gates is pretty obvious. The game was billed as a cross between Nethack, I prefer Rogue, and Star Control. The first time I got to the last gate and it wasn't spinning I didn't quite know what to do. There was a ship guarding it but I just kept dying. It wasn't until later versions that I got the hang of what was happening and was able to go back and finish that version.

Fuel wasn't really an issue. It was a lot like needing food in Nethack, just something you had to watch and at least there was a gauge, really helpful.

[PM]

The only similarities Transcendence has to Nethack is unknown items with randomly chosen names and randomly placed spawns. If there is any similarity to roguelikes, it would be the Diablo series (at least I or II, have not played III). Transcendence does not have permadeath, like non-hardcore Diablo II.

Transcendence needs the option for enforced permadeath just like Diablo II hardcore mode and most other roguelikes. People will play differently when permadeath is enforced.

Fuel wasn't really an issue. It was a lot like needing food in Nethack, just something you had to watch and at least there was a gauge, really helpful.

Food is consumed much too quickly in Nethack too, usually. Hunger in Nethack is a serious problem for some classes, especially for the Wizard, who starts with no food, and cannot fight his way as well as other classes early in the game. Later in the game, food is less of a problem.

[Vachtra]

I think by playing the roguelikes I was a little more aware of such limits and quickly found a way around it. Right now if I need fuel and it just isn't coming, I shut all systems down and sit on a station. Random encounters will come and be destroyed by base defense, sometimes leaving fuel for me to pick up. This is usually an early game strategy but can also help later on at times.
I make a lot of use out of shutting down items that are installed but not being used, like secondary weapons. Spider patches are removed when they are done repairing to prevent damaging them in combat. They also suck a lot of fuel, especially when running multiples (5 once).

The only similarities Transcendence has to Nethack is unknown items with randomly chosen names and randomly placed spawns.

I didn't say the billing was all that accurate but at first glance I can see their point. If you only play a few times, especially back then, it seemed each game was mostly a series of random systems that got harder as you went. Pretty much a roguelike if you ask me, in space.

[resin31]

1.01 biggest hurdle: I'm agreeing with PM, fuel was definitely a huge obstacle early on

I thought so early on also untill i realized that just disablling the force fields during non combat scenarios makes it almost a non factor provided you do a few things
i downloaded the game a wk ago 1.01 and i wiped out charon and slicer so far ,

I was at total standstills untill the random spawn system finally gave me critical drops that i havnt heard mentioned here. im not big on modding, i'm for mod suggestions that doesnt take anything from the 1.01 at all but adds to it. and can anyone tell me how i can repair Volkov's ship, or how i can get more followers like him. not autons

[Cimanyd]

1.01 biggest hurdle: I'm agreeing with PM, fuel was definitely a huge obstacle early on

I thought so early on also untill i realized that just disablling the force fields during non combat scenarios makes it almost a non factor provided you do a few things
i downloaded the game a wk ago 1.01 and i wiped out charon and slicer so far ,

I was at total standstills untill the random spawn system finally gave me critical drops that i havnt heard mentioned here. im not big on modding, i'm for mod suggestions that doesnt take anything from the 1.01 at all but adds to it. and can anyone tell me how i can repair Volkov's ship, or how i can get more followers like him. not autons

Later in the game, after St. Katharine's Star (the system with a blue sun and a big Commonwealth station around an inhabitable planet, and lots of stations around that), you can find Commonwealth Fortresses. There, go to the bar (you have to do at least one mission first to get access) and you may find a wingman. If not, try again later. There are two that you can get from this, Jenna and Rama.

Wingmen (Volkov, Jenna, Rama) will repair by themselves if they go near certain stations (not sure exactly, but generally ones that can repair your armor). If they are only damaged a little, they won't repair. If they send a message that's something like "My ship needs repairs," they are damaged enough to repair.

I apologize for using so many parentheses (I tend to use them a lot (see? (I'm using them now))). (Did you notice?)