Star Metal in Singleplayer

My suggestion would be more frequent meteorites in singleplayer, or the possibility to set the frequency in the admin panel.
Currently it takes 3 - 4 hours before a meteor shower. Sometimes it takes even longer.

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It seems like the most obvious solution would be to have the game run the “catch-up time” function on whether a meteor shower should have happened. This is the same way that a workbench checks how much progress it should have made while the player was out and about without having to keep it active continuously.

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Sounds like yet another bug that needs fixing then. BTW, have you tried running a separate server instance (on the same PC or a different one) and then simply disabling decay? I used to do that and it circumvented issues such as this quite nicely.

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So you want the world to revolve around you.
Good things are worth waiting for. That instant gratification thing isnt really useful.

That’s not what they’re asking. The problem is that meteors NEVER spawn if playing offline single-player, and the local game seems to despawn ones that are out of render distance (unlike on servers where they can linger around for several hours).

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Yeah, single player has a lot of issues with meteor not showing up. From what I’ve been able to gather, there’s a timer that doesn’t start until someone is in the area, and when the timer runs out there’s only a certain percentage chance that a shower will happen. If it doesn’t, the chance goes up a couple percent and the timer starts over. But that timer also completely resets every time the server is restarted, which in single player is each and every time you exit/enter the game.

So, yeah, if you’re single player, you basically have to just sit around for hours and hours watching for meteor showers. Frankly under these conditions it’s far more productive and entertaining farming star metal as drops from the various NPCs in the northern region that have it in their loot table.

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My only question is: Are you looking everywhere they can show up? I have noticed that a lot of people don’t seem to know that they spawn all over the mountains as well as the area near the temple.

Once I got meteor shower and then ran away from this location leaving one node behind - just for testing. When I returned after a short time it was gone. In SP location is totally reset when you enter it from some distance: no previously knocked-out Thralls, no Fallen Stars.

Doesn’t directly answer my question however it does render it moot so I’ll take it :slight_smile:

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Game just wouldn’t spawn anything if you are not in this location. There is “Great Nothing” when player is away, all the world appears when you come near.

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But that doesn’t necessarily work in SP, since you have to be there when the meteor shower happens, otherwise it’ll despawn.

Edit: I see I’m way behind the times and Ko6ka already answered that. So, just ignore this really.

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This statement is false. Meteors DO spawn in offline single-player, as evidenced by chests full of star metal and thralls equipped with state-of-the-art epic Vanir plate on my Solo game.

The question therefore is, do they spawn often enough to be useful? Does a solo player need to camp at the North too long to have any hope of a meteor shower? And that’s a matter of taste. I absolutely wouldn’t mind more frequent, or at least more reliable, meteor showers, even though I can live with the current rate.

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It was my understanding from numerous posts by Shadoza (among others) that you actually have to wait in the area to get this to happen. i.e. They don’t spawn on their own while you’re in the desert or jungle and sit around for hours until you trek north and happen upon them. That’s what I mean by saying they never spawn: You can’t simply waltz over to Skyfall Ridge and find them laying around as you would a world boss or iron node at their designated spawns.

Are you implying that this isn’t the case, or is it simply a matter of my phrasing of the problem being too ambiguous?

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Meteors spawn in single-player if one is willing to camp in the north long enough. It’s probably true that they won’t spawn if you’re not in the north, but spend long enough e.g. farming the Mounds of the Dead, and eventually rocks fall. It may take an hour or three, I haven’t been keeping a record.

But yeah, “never” means “never”. It’s actually “never” only if you don’t spend enough time in the north where the meteors fall.

Just making sure that the facts are correct in this thread. Single-player has its own laws of nature, which includes the need to be where things happen in order to have those things happen. But once you’re there, things DO happen. Soon™.

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Fair enough, though part of the problem seems to be that Soon™ can equate to several hours. If someone only has enough free time to play only an hour or two at a time, and they don’t live in that area, then they could go months and months of real time without ever seeing any… which is the problem I’ve seen others complain about. From their point of view, it actually could be a matter of “never” (or at least that’s the impression I’ve gotten from repeated posts about the issue).

Either way, the situation doesn’t seem fair, and I maintain that the meteor mechanism should be reevaluated for single-player. IMO, people should be allowed to have a healthy work (game) / life balance without being artificially punished for it by an ill-considered game mechanic. It’s not like they are inconveniencing others.

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I agree. It makes for a crappy gaming experience if one has to sit and wait for something to happen, maybe for a significant period of time. As I said, it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if rocks fell out of my sky a bit more often.

But, in order for Funcom to evaluate the situation properly, and find a good balance, they need actual, accurate facts. A subjective “never” is not helpful because it doesn’t tell them which slider to adjust; all they can do is look at their game code and say “well, everything looks in order here; meteor showers should work on single-player”.

Rather, a similarly subjective but more helpful approach is to request more frequent meteor showers, or showers that trigger sooner after the player enters the area. This’ll let Funcom know that solo players want meteor showers to happen more often, rather than try to fix a “meteor showers not spawning” bug that isn’t there.

What we need to keep in mind, though, is that in Solo mode, an area resets when the player leaves and re-enters. This is what currently prevents meteor showers from spawning unless the player sits still, because leaving for a moment will reset the timer for a shower. However, adjusting the meteor shower’s spawn timer too much would let players farm star metal endlessly by leaving and re-entering.

(Not that I find this an overwhelming problem, since who’s there to compete with in Solo mode? A Solo player in need of star metal could simply spawn some via the admin panel, so anyone feeling the need to milk star metal using the area-resetting feature is probably already spawning their star metal.)

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Sheesh, next thing you’re gonna tell me is that “literally” isn’t a synonym for “figuratively”. The nerve of some people! :crazy_face:

Anyway, views on subjective wording aside, it seems like we’re basically in agreement. The question is how to fix it for those who play less frequently without making it a constant 4th of July celebration for folks who make that region their home. So far, we’ve got increased frequency and looking under the hood of the catch-up timer.

What about allowing the player to witness a meteor shower the first time they ever enter the north, with a scripted event landing one not farm from them. On subsequent visits, meteors could be set to spawn from nodes on the cliffs and ground (i.e. like iron) to simulate coming across a previous meteor shower. Naturally, it couldn’t be a 100% spawn rate like plants or iron, but a 5% chance for each of say… 100 potential nodes might be a decent starting point.

Incidentally, I feel like this sort of mechanism (set but staggered spawns) is already in play with the small chests in Unnamed City that containing fragments of power. While their locations are fixed, it isn’t a guarantee that any particular one will have spawned in yet even if you’re the first person on the server post-reboot.

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In order to find a good balance Funcom should make one more slider in Admin panel for meteor shower, that’s all. “Instant” (meteor shower every time you enter the “meteor corridor” in SP), “Frequent”, “Normal”, “Rare”, “Never” (just for world harmony). Every Admin of private server or SP player will select the best intensity for his/her world. We can freely fine-tune harvest rates etc., why can’t we rule meteor showers? The game itself has internal mechanics for this, Pippi mod has a command triggering instant meteor shower. Why not to give such power to all the Admins, not only PC players?

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I agree with you, there are slider for almost everything.

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