Xarteros

Lighting is currently very limited, with only handful of viable options and very few QoL features. I propose a handful of solutions, starting with the easiest to implement: Make most light options have the same max brightness and range as the Plant Stand light or Sap Sconce (bigger or more costly lamps should be brighter than small or cheap lamps etc). Add a slider for light intensity falloff. This would let us lower the brightness without affecting the range that the lamp lights up (fewer bright spots), or increase the brightness for a small area only (feature/style lighting) Add a "Group" slot to each light's customisation menu. If a group is selected, then all lights of that type in the same group will copy the adjustments (so, all Sap Sconces in Group A will update their settings if you edit any of them, but Ant Candles in Group A must be changed separately etc). Add toggle options for day/night cycle, or even have adjustable time settings (on at 7PM, off at 10AM etc) Add options for "shake to wake", where a light will turn on for X amount of time when the screen shakes (rub a stuffed bug, or Orb Buggy mount roar). Could also add an item to do it (bell or gong?) or add an option to wake when a player or bug is nearby. Add more variants for different placement options, like a chandelier of glow mold stalks for ceiling-mounted lighting. Make a sort of universal chandelier and light pole that just snaps most small light neatly to it so you don't need them on walls. Fairy lights made of glow goo and silk rope that you can link between walls or light poles up to a certain distance

The current system for weapons/armour and their upgrades is very restricted. Low tier gear often has useful unique abilities, but doesn't fit into higher tier gameplay very well. There is also virtually no ability to customise appearance, which is a widely sought-after feature. I propose a few changes to the underlying system to give players more options without having to keep adding more and more new content. Allow a way to apply a different appearance to any piece of armour (Spend bug parts/resources to make X piece look like Y, but retain all stats and effects). This could apply to weapons too, but only for weapons of the same type (can't reskin a 2H hammer as a 2H sword, to avoid confusion). Allow a permanent one-way "Link" upgrade to make a piece of armour from Set X count as being from Set Y for activating the set bonus. It shouldn't be cheap, but doesn't need to be crazy expensive either. By being a one-way upgrade, if you want Item X to work with Set Y and Set Z, you would need to make two copies of Item X and link them separately. Make shields upgradeable, like weapons. Allow certain armour bonus effects to be swapped at a Smithing Station, like swapping the Gas Guard effect of the Mantis helmet for the same buff the Chest/Boots give. Add a handful of other buffs that are available to all armour of that archetype. That way, if you don't like a certain bonus effect, you could swap it for something else. Sleek effects could be swapped out in the same way, if desired. Make the Tier of an item be a separate upgrade path (1), or be part of the normal upgrade path (2). For a separate upgrade path, each tier would require resources specific to each weapon category or armour archetype, based on the tier (Like, all T1 Ranger armour takes the same materials to upgrade to T2). This would just bring the base stats of the item in line with being a higher tier. But, it runs the risk of being confusing since it would be a bit ambiguous. For the normal upgrade path, lower Tier items would need extra levels to upgrade, but every 3 levels would upgrade the Tier of the item as a general rule. This means a T1 helmet might need Brittle Marble to upgrade from levels 1-3, then it would use Brittle Plating to upgrade, but be T2 from levels 4-6. Then when you get to Sturdy Plating it becomes T3 from levels 7-9. However, this means that items that are already Tier 3 start off needing Sturdy Plating (or the weapon equivalents). The stat improvements would need to be shifted accordingly, since there would only be 3 levels per tier rather than 5.

Mages being limited to 2H staves and gaining no class bonus beyond staff attacks makes them very niche, and punishes diversity. Compare that to Rogue armour which boosts any weapon with 3-hit combos, or Ranger armour which boosts all weakpoint damage. Mages need options that allow more diversity in gameplay, with room to mix and match styles more. Change Mage armour bonus to something more broadly useful, like increased elemental damage or reduced stamina cost for all weapons (Imagine a Sword-Mage with a Spicy Coaltana) Add 1H options (like a wand), so Mages can use shields/torches if they want. Add 1-2 Mage-themed off hand item categories, like lanterns and scepters. This lets other classes add a bit of magic too. Off-hand lanterns could consume candy/resources as fuel, give off moderate light, but empower elemental effects in its radius (or grant other bonuses) Off-hand scepters could give special parry effects (but without as much damage reduction as a shield) and grant AoE buffs under certain conditions. Maybe add gloves for a dual-wield weapon option to add in other styles of magic attack (channel beams or cones of energy etc) Consider adding more "elements" in mage weapons, like Pollen for AoE stun and airborne targeting, Water for clearing enemy AoE effects (and maybe minor healing?), sap for slowing etc. This would add more tactical choices for other class builds to use

The issue with making them Tier 1 is that all Candy resources need Tier 2-3 tools to harvest. They would need to change the theme a little so that it's not just "Candy Staves", to allow other things to work. But the tier of equipment is only a very minor issue. What we need is more diversity, and more interchangeable content like 1H candy wands/scepters or magic off-hand items

I feel like the easiest thing is to split the issue in three parts: Allow a way to apply a different appearance to any piece of armour (Spend bug parts/resources to make X piece look like Y, but retain all stats and effects) Make the Tier be a separate path to upgrade. Upgrading the Tier could just use set resources regardless of armour (or resources specific to the class type or whatever), and improve the base stats of the equipment. Allow a permanent one-way "Link" upgrade to make a piece of armour from Set X count as being from Set Y for activating the set bonus. It shouldn't be cheap, but doesn't need to be crazy expensive either.

Eh, with how easy it is to craft smoothies in bulk, I think bandages deserve a different function. My preference would be that bandages heal a set amount of health spread over a number of ticks, like 70hp in 10 ticks of 2-3 second intervals. Getting hit during the effect would simply pause the healing for the duration of 1 tick, but if you avoid being hit for long enough it keeps going again. I'd also make it so the healing effect is paused when you're at full health, and I'd give bandages 3-4X longer duration (but the same number of ticks). This means that they don't waste healing when you're at full health, and the healing resumes if you take a bit of damage (but the bandage still wears off over time regardless). That also means if you're getting hit all the time, the healing won't ever kick in, but in that situation you should probably be chugging smoothies for health recovery anyway. This way, bandages would serve better as post-combat healing, since using a smoothie to heal after combat ends means you're probably wasting the buff effect it has.

Idea: add a "edit auto-sort" button for inventory and storage. When editing, you can select "stamps" that are like watermarks or small icons, and apply the stamps to slots you want. Star/favourite stamp could prevent that slot from hot-depositing, and/or reserve that slot for the item already in it. You could lock your shield so that when you're using it, it keeps the slot vacant to prevent loot from filling that slot (and preventing you from swapping to a 2H weapon) Category stamp (food, weapon, utility, resource etc) could prioritise items to fill those slots first if possible. Our Hotbar already does this, but this could let us tweak that too. Categories could start out broad (weapons, consumables, resources etc) but have an advanced tab for more specific selection, even to the level of individual item selection (so you can reserve X slots in a chest just for Pine Needles or something) Copy stamp to duplicate the slot selection of a chosen slot and quickly apply it to multiple other slots. Ideally also add a template to save/load stamp customisation. As well as selecting the stamps for what content you want in those slots, you should be able to toggle if the stamp is for preference only, or a strict limit (maybe add a little padlock icon, or change the border outline of the slot to indicate it's locked vs priority). If you have a chest for bug parts but you don't want it overflowing with unwanted surplus, you could just set those slots to be locked so they can't accept any more than X stacks I love using hot-deposit, but it can turn into a mess when you find you can't deposit any pinecone pieces because the whole box is overflowing with plant fibers

Idea: allow certain structures to snap-together to create a fusion of the two (with modified models/animations where required). This can let us customise or diversify our buildings without bloating the build menu with heaps of extra things. Examples: Snap a campfire to a fireplace, allowing fireplaces to roast meat Snap a dew collector to a water storage acorn, making a smaller web mounted to the top of the acorn like a lid (and just slowly fill the storage overtime without overflowing) Windows could be "removed" from walls and made into a snap-together feature, allowing us to choose whether or not to put windows on doors, and allowing us to put windows on other walls. You could also allow windows to snap to each other to make bigger windows Snap palisade gates to mushroom/pumpkin arches to make the gate curve at the top to suit the shape Snap smoothie stations to a cookery to make a sort of alchemy bench. It would make smoothies in batches of 5 for reduced cost (but takes time to produce, like the cookery normally does) Snap a storage basket to a grinder to let it work in larger batches Remove the chimney roof pieces and just make chimneys snap-to roof pieces (uses the same model, but changes how it works) Plenty of other similar ideas which could give us more creative options without needing to change/add much

More advanced/complex ideas: Buildable/repairable drones to assist in defence around the entrance (like the Tayz.T robots) Buggy garages (behind caved-in areas or busted doors?) to ride in or out Repairable network equipment that makes O.R.C bugs go berserk, or makes them behave like normal insects of their kind or something (like an EMP just for base defence, with a cooldown on usage) Advanced tracking system that can show nearby bugs through terrain when using your Peep.R, or tracks one bug type on the map or something

Suggestion: Add the ability to salvage certain bits of Ominent equipment that is otherwise just junk (knocked over trolleys, broken computers etc). This lets us de-clutter bases like the Ranger Outposts. Make it require a quest to unlock if you want. Salvaging this junk gives us "Ominite" or something, a generic material used in all of the bases. You could split it up into a few different resources, but that's unimportant to the main idea. Allow players to use Ominite to fix/rebuild some parts of the outposts, making them look a bit neater and restoring some very minor functions (this is not intended to replace normal bases). Ideas for base upgrades/restored functions: Add a workbench (some bases have one already anyway) Fix the glass pods and give them an egg storage function (or at least a decorative "fish" tank or something) Decorations for coziness rating Re-useable chests for limited storage Convert employee lockers to linked storage (small locker unique to each player, but shares inventory with lockers at other outposts) Functional shelves that can display items or weapons (also lets you re-stock the grass planks or stems that they sometimes spawn with) Repair broken corridors or even doors (allow room for expanding the bases in later updates?) Just my random ideas on the spur of the moment