Feedback: Ice-lyzer's problem is that it doesn't have countermeasure that's good enough.

[goatt]

Let me set up the context first. Everything in DST has a downside besides initial cost that makes them imperfect but useful. For example, in spoilers

Spoiler

- Ice-flingomatic requires fuel to work. Managing a lot of work.

- Tall Nut Tree requires a huge amount of time investment, though, much less maintenance. Also, they are only near water.

- Unload screens works, but obvious downside.

- Campfire requires fuel compared to furnace. Furnance has too small light radius compared to Campfire. Dwarf star is consumable.

The downsides

Yes, Eye-zer's has an obvious downside. And as the convention, the game also provides a solution to that downside. 

When Tall Tree's downside is growing in water, we solve the problem by building a base near water.

Eye-zer's downside is freezing, and the only possible solution build a heat source.

 

Current Solutions

The available normal heat sources are campfires and furnaces. Campfire is ugly because late game is supposed to be maintenance-free so we can focus on other stuff. Look at the purpose of Eye-zer, it's to prevent wildfire without maintenance. And the countermeasure is campfire? The combination of campfire and Eye-zer is equivalent to Ice-flingomatic, but worse because freezing persists due to small radius of fire.

How about a furnace as a countermeasure to making Eye-zer usable? A furnace works but for a relatively small radius. How small? I didn't test. But in my estimation, to cover Eye-zer's range, it probably needs 12 to 20 furnaces. That's too many for a viable solution. The whole area will just be clusters of furnaces, making it unappealing to live or structure visually.

If anyone has any other countermeasure to Eye-zer, please let me know in the comments, appreciate it.

 

Needed Solutions

So with the countermeasure currently available, Eye-zer is just a bad item. So here is my possible fix to the problem. We need to be given any way by the game to viably make Eye-zer work for us. Or Eye-zer's downsides need to be weakened so that the available solutions are good enough to make it work.

(Very similar to old acid rain situation, which needed to be weakened or its solutions needed to be better)

Solution 1: My solution is to buff the furnace near Eye-zer. Within Eye-zer's range, every furnace's effective heat range will increase to x4 so that one furnace is enough to cover 1/4 of the eye-zer. It's a temporary buff given to the furnace which will disappear when Eye-zer is removed. I think 1 Eye-zer to 4 Furnance ratio is kinda healthy. Even though I think 1 to 3 is better.

(The number is estimated because I didn't do deep testing, but you get the idea)

Solution 2: Alternatively, Eye-zer can increase its Lowest temperature by Furnance in range. For example, each furnace in its range increases its lowest temperature by 10 degrees. Originally, Eye-zer's lowest temperature is -16, for example. With one furnace in range, players' lowest temperature will increase to -6, and with 2 furnaces, it's 6 degrees, effectively solving the furnace's ineffectiveness. In this solution, the furnace can be placed anywhere in the range, which gives lots of freedom to base building gang and general base structure. Of course, the "lowest temperature" also needs to take into account the seasonable ambient temperature.

 

My personal preference is Solution 2. I think it tames Eye-zer with a fair cost.

 

Tl;dr

Eye-zer is like Acid rain, it's downside is too strong for any solutions currently available in the game. That's why it's a bad item.

[Fufuji]

It's reliability maybe can only be known after going into official update, when MANY players using it for A LOT of time.

I wish devs can keep an aye on Ice Crystaleyezer and make further tweaks according to more play test after this Beta ends.

[00petar00]

I really love the idea but instead of building furnace why not have some way to upgrade ice crystaleyezer? Maybe we could add a scale and 2 red gems similar to how pillars are constructed.

We already need to have lightning rods and if ice crystaleyezer is tweaked and worth using to combat wildfires that could give another option to basing so we don't have to be limited to oasis or caves and build them everywhere but that takes space and I don't want to need to add a furnace too.

[Popian]

At the point you get the item you will likely have a lot of fire fuel that you can place near the Fire Pits, I know it would be preferable to walk in and around and out without needing to do anything but you can still treat it like Winter and:

• Thermal swap with lava pond or quad furnace
• Sunfish swap with bin
• Cast a star
• Fire Nettles
• Equip Beefalo Hat placed outside of the radius and place it back when done

The downside would be having to plan out where to have your heating stations if you're filling a large area with these, but I think you can consider what way would be more convenient for you.

[Frashaw27]

the eye ice machine could also just not effect the radius as harshly on player's temperatures. No need to go through all this pedantic screwery, just lower the min temp the thing can induce in you.

[cropo]

I would rather the crystaleyezer stays the way it is, but a sibling ''fire eyezer'' or something is introduced in a future boss patch that has the opposite effect, and combining the two will could normalize the temperature.  This way you could get full protection, but you'd have to kill another chain of bosses to get a new boss drop that synergizes with it.  Maybe have the fire version require a fuel source, if it runs out of fuel that's fine because freezing things doesn't have any negative impact and will still prevent wildfires and there would be an upkeep cost to keeping a section of the game free of temperature. 

 

So like if Lunar Dragonfly gets added, make it be the theme of the item(assuming we have to get them the same way we get these new drops.) 

[GelatinousCube]

13 hours ago, cropo said:

there would be an upkeep cost to keeping a section of the game free of temperature. 

Can't you already do this at the Moon Altar thing that holds a staff? If you have a moon staff in there and a furnace nearby it keeps you both hot and cold in a way that you never overheat or freeze. You can build your base around this combo and ignore temperature - while in base at least near these two structures.