Update 0.7.2 - Accessories, Minor Improvements and Bug Fixes

I was hyped to see DSD had a story mode now, and I was not disappointed. Here's my mostly unsorted feedback after finishing act I:

- I had the game freeze on me upon resting after delivering Yuri's weather pattern hard drive to Nelli. The settlement menu was still visible but I lost no progress on reloading, which I believe means that it froze during the scene switch itself. I tried resting again after reloading and got the same result, then got no freeze when reloading and leaving the settlement without resting. My suspicion is that the following plot event overrides the current weather with a special one, meaning the clear weather condition the rest button is waiting for never happens, getting it stuck in a loop.

- I wholeheartedly appreciate the way the topographic scanner was nerfed. It being toggled before encouraged me to just have it on all the time, which was effective, but it really worsened the game's atmosphere. Its current function remains an invaluable tool for tackling complex slopes, and it being something I need to tactically deploy allows it to add tension rather than take me out of the moment.

- Cargo broadly feels heavier, less slippery, and less bouncy overall than the last version I played, v0.4.3. The only time I had truly weird physics was when I was purposefully trying to break it by exploiting cargo's not-quite-physical nature while held to slide more into my cargo bay than it was physically capable of storing. This surprisingly resulted in my cargo going into superposition instead of exploding themselves and/or my tank, so whatever you've done to make the cargo bay behave more stably is impressively robust.

- I do still have problems with the claw unloading XL cargo onto settlement lifts and having it bounce into the air, however, as well as bouncing around a little when loading XL cargo into the tank. I've found I can get around it by rotating the crane upward, so it seems to understand cargo width better than it understands cargo depth.

- Probably related to the above, the claw will lower into the storage bay to allow you to set down cargo rotated rightside-up, but doesn't understand it needs to lower when you turn something on its side. This makes it more of a pain than it needs to be to fit L-size cargo in front of XL cargo, or to get anything especially wide (I-beams, train rails, cargo covers) into the bay at all.

- With the way cargo covers have been implemented, it would be very handy to have a rack to clip cargo covers onto. It would make cargo covers much easier to use when collecting scrap, rather than their current implementation of being best used for deliveries. The hooks on the back of the cargo bay seem like they should work the purpose, at least for the solid covers, or alternatively the space between the turret and cargo bay would work perfectly if you've no other plans for it. (And yes, I'm going to keep saying there should be something behind the turret until either there is or v1.0 comes around~)

- The tutorial message for navigating ice recommends to "DRIVE SLOWLY", so I did, and I died every time. I then went back to my old tactic of driving as fast as possible instead, and I stopped dying so much. This works because even though ice is damaged faster by moving quickly, it's nevertheless damaged by time instead of distance traveled. Even if moving quickly deals double damage, you'll deal the same total damage so long as you move off the ice twice as quickly. And if the ice does break, the more forward momentum you have, the more likely you are to land on a spot shallow enough to drive and less likely to slide backwards into the depths. Stopping to turn around is rarely ever a good idea, because by the time you react the ice is likely going to break while you're reversing course. For driving slowly to be the actual better option, the effect of speed needs to be at least somewhat exponential (twice as fast means more than double the ice damage), and most if not all of the damage needs to be dealt by distance traveled rather than by time. (Granted, once the player gets the ice scanner, the benefits of slowing down to closely follow safe paths may outweigh the benefits of speed.)

- It's odd to me that the delivery preview displays the cargo on a 4x4 grid, when the tank's storage is more of a 4x3.5. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong to fail to get as much out of my storage bay as I hypothetically could, or if the preview is just intended to represent what I'm seeing loaded onto the lift inside the settlement rather than actually previewing how it will look in my storage bay.

- Now that the in-game menu is more useful, I think it'd be a nice touch to replace the mouse cursor with something similarly low-res as the menus themselves. Or if you already have, this is a bug report to say that it isn't working for me.

- I don't think I've mentioned this previously; the rest button's tooltip continues to be weird grammar to me. "Wait for day and storms to pass" sounds like "wait for (day and storms) to pass", rather than "wait for day (and storms to pass)", suggesting that it's for setting out on clear nights rather than clear days. Either "Wait for night and storms to pass" or "Wait for a clear morning" seem to make more sense to me.

- I often find the dialogue boxes not expanding downwards far enough to match the text.

- It is sometimes possible to get the tank stuck. I assume this is an accident, but if it's not, you could have a pretty traumatizing fun dialogue trigger there.

- On that note, I feel like you could have a traumatizing fun dialogue trigger if the player breaks the ice, sinks below their treads, then still manages to make it to safety. Snow-tight and water-tight might not be the same thing...

- The metal cargo cover is weirdly shiny compared to rest of the tank. It doesn't seem to have snow or rust textures, either, so it stands out even more when the tank is in poor condition.

- I adore Elena, whom I was stuck calling "the cute tank girl" until Nelli calls in on the way back from the Metro. Eli's name is said a couple of times early on, but Elena's doesn't seem to be. Relatedly, I might've misread, but I could've sworn Nelli was introduced as Neil and Nadya was introduced as Hadya. It's also a little hard to tell exactly what Elena's role in the tank is. She mentions Eli driving, but it's not clear if she's the navigator, claw operator, technician, some combination of the above, or if they're alternating drivers who wear multiple hats.

- The load door between the end of act I and the start of act II doesn't seem to be set up properly. It seemed to work fine when I first used it, but when I reloaded the game I found that my cargo cover and the rations from Yuri were missing. When I turned back, the cover reappeared, and I found that the rations were where they were...past the load door, as far as I'd managed to get before the screen finished fading to black. When I used the door again, my backup oil suffered the same fate. It was kinda surreal.

- Yuri needs a hug. Elena needs a puppy. Please, I'm begging you.

I might have more to say in a few days; having a proper story's spoiled me, so I'm currently on the fence as to whether I want to explore the act II map or wait until you've made more progress on that front.