Starting islands rant

[DeputyDeath]

Is it just me or are starting islands getting super-massive?

Like, SERIOUSLY! On my most recent world, I got 3 stacks of grass, 1 stack of twigs, 5 silk, a whole bunch of stuff from the washed up crates and stupid amounts of food that lasted me, as Wolfgang, for over 5 days. This is a big jump from before, when you would only get a little more than the bare minimum needed to make a raft, and maybe a hammer if you're lucky.

This is an unnecessary change too, one that arguably worsens the situation more than just leaving it alone. I mean, surely one of the main attractions of Shipwrecked is the exploration of the tropical landscapes, which can take hundreds of in-game days? So, taking the importance of this aspect of the expansion into account, someone please tell me how making the starting island this resource rich (and almost always the biggest island on the map) is going to help encourage people to do so? The only thing you'll ever need to leave it for is gold, and possibly a spider den if there isn't already one on the island (there seems to be a 100% chance of spawning either a bee hive or a spider den in my experience), both of which shouldn't take that long to find. Hell, I bet you could stay on the starting island for an entire playthrough and get past level 100 if you're fairly competent.

I personally think the old starting islands were much better, if you couldn't already tell, and would like to see them back in the game. Admittedly, the old islands still had too few building materials (even if there were enough of them for the basics), so maybe they could be made a bit more forgiving this time round.

But getting an overpowered, god-mode super island without even trying? That's just plain stupid.

[HappyCrazyPerson]

I think it is nice because it makes it possible to have a base that is in the center of all the other island. I love exploring and get bored being on the same island/place for longer periods of time, but you need a place to pace your science machine and fridge and such. It would be cool if you could take some of that stuff with you on your boat, but that might be too OP. The old starve is built around setting up a base, where shipwrecked is more about exploration, but still with many of the same mechanics. When I think about it, there is a lot of change needed, and I am not sure what, warly and wickerbottom are good for shipwrecked, but I feel that more than just the characters need to change to optimize the exploration part of the islands, mainly how you need structures for a lot of things, but they are stationary unlike you need to be…sorry, I don’t think I make a lot of sense, but I can’t think of a better way to say it.

[DeputyDeath]

43 minutes ago, HappyCrazyPerson said:

I think it is nice because it makes it possible to have a base that is in the center of all the other island. I love exploring and get bored being on the same island/place for longer periods of time, but you need a place to pace your science machine and fridge and such. It would be cool if you could take some of that stuff with you on your boat, but that might be too OP. The old starve is built around setting up a base, where shipwrecked is more about exploration, but still with many of the same mechanics. When I think about it, there is a lot of change needed, and I am not sure what, warly and wickerbottom are good for shipwrecked, but I feel that more than just the characters need to change to optimize the exploration part of the islands, mainly how you need structures for a lot of things, but they are stationary unlike you need to be…sorry, I don’t think I make a lot of sense, but I can’t think of a better way to say it.

If you're saying that structures being stationary hinders the exploration aspect of Shipwrecked, then I agree. IMO, there should be portable versions of many base items to encourage exploration, such as the ice box and a tent for boats. Obviously the crock pot wouldnt have a portable variant for Warly's sake, but I don't see why, in Shipwrecked, everything else can't have a mobile, more expensive and less effective variant.

Good idea!

[Meneervis]

I have a hard time setting a base up in Shipwrecked, because every island has at least one thing it misses for me. That's why I usually go as Wickerbottom in Sw. Because of a day one backpack, easy science, and being abe to shovel everything up on day one.

[DeputyDeath]

9 minutes ago, sirscrubbingtont said:

I have a hard time setting a base up in Shipwrecked, because every island has at least one thing it misses for me. That's why I usually go as Wickerbottom in Sw. Because of a day one backpack, easy science, and being abe to shovel everything up on day one.

Yeah, but having one thing missing isn't really an issue because you can move practically any resource across the map quite easily in Shipwrecked. 

What you should do is set up near a large number of immobile and finite resources - such as limpet rocks or water beefalo - because you can just slowly move everything else over (I for one seriously regret not building my base next to the slot machine and tallbird nests for this reason); even things like turf, pig houses and, with patience, spider dens can be moved over to wherever you wish, and therefore shouldn't influence your Base location too strongly.

[K5dV]

4 hours ago, DeputyDeath said:

Is it just me or are starting islands getting super-massive?

Like, SERIOUSLY! On my most recent world, I got 3 stacks of grass, 1 stack of twigs, 5 silk, a whole bunch of stuff from the washed up crates and stupid amounts of food that lasted me, as Wolfgang, for over 5 days. This is a big jump from before, when you would only get a little more than the bare minimum needed to make a raft, and maybe a hammer if you're lucky.

This is an unnecessary change too, one that arguably worsens the situation more than just leaving it alone. I mean, surely one of the main attractions of Shipwrecked is the exploration of the tropical landscapes, which can take hundreds of in-game days? So, taking the importance of this aspect of the expansion into account, someone please tell me how making the starting island this resource rich (and almost always the biggest island on the map) is going to help encourage people to do so? The only thing you'll ever need to leave it for is gold, and possibly a spider den if there isn't already one on the island (there seems to be a 100% chance of spawning either a bee hive or a spider den in my experience), both of which shouldn't take that long to find. Hell, I bet you could stay on the starting island for an entire playthrough and get past level 100 if you're fairly competent.

I personally think the old starting islands were much better, if you couldn't already tell, and would like to see them back in the game. Admittedly, the old islands still had too few building materials (even if there were enough of them for the basics), so maybe they could be made a bit more forgiving this time round.

But getting an overpowered, god-mode super island without even trying? That's just plain stupid.

This is my starting island. I hope that nobody else gets this. The other picture is of my inventory from the resources on that island (minus the seashells). 

[YsaNoire]

My most recent starting island has a lot of space, and basic resources (grass, twigs) but not much in terms of food - a few limpet rocks and two berry bushes, no spider dens, no bees, nothing really to cook (I'm Warly). I did end up building a base on it after some exploration because it's central and has enough space, but I don't see a problem with the fact that it has lots of grass and trees. Everywhere has lots of grass. Maybe you just got lucky?

Started a world just now to see what I'd get but it's the same - 4 limpets, 1 bush, no insects, nothing special. 

[TheH1313]

I find the starting island varies quite dramatically game to game, the only consistent being its generally only filled with snakes with maybe an occasional Boar house. Never Gold. I've been on similar islands to start as pictured above, it's not a good feeling going okay, how do I even get off the first island? One flint, four twigs and a single berry bush doesn't cut it for me. But, it's still do-able, get an axe and a very poor log raft that may or may not make the next island depending on map generation. I'd rather have an island take two, even three  days to clear than to find five islands the size of the Wooden Thing in the first two days.

[YsaNoire]

Lol, and just a day after I wrote the previous post I died and had to create a new world, and this time I got a ridiculously good starting island.  - it's HUGE and has everything a jungle/beach island could possibly have except gold.and monkeys (which is good). It has spiders, bees and a boar. The gold was on the neighbouring island.

Not every starting island looks like this though.

[TheDwemerEquation]

As far as I know there's a range of predetermined small, barren islands to large, resource rich islands available to start on. Sounds like you just got some lucky spawns.

Personally I've never seen either spiders or boar on starting islands, and actually my latest game was the first time I'd seen bees on it.

[snarkdiva]

Apparently, the size of the starting island is variable. It's just luck of the draw as to what you get. I'll admit that I prefer a smaller starting island because it entices me to get out and start exploring as soon as possible.