Decided to give this game another go after some time of waiting for the game to get meaty with content. Note, last time I played was before the crafting system was added, so I want to talk about this new system as well as my other impressions.
I found the new crafting system is very underwhelming, it doesn't seem to be profitable compared to other ways of gaining cash in this game. Though, maybe it's like that on the low levels of skill. But what bothers me the most is how slow you get this skill points. I even thought you can't raise them at all! After reading the books and spending a lot of cash on those workbenches, you can craft swords and knives, as well as a pipe rifle. On market they cost very little, 80 for a knife and 150 for a sword. Craft is very time-consuming and very strict to your stamina level. You have to scrap merchandise, refine scraps to metal, buy andditional materials as fasteners or durasteel if you don't have them, plus time to craft. For much less amount of time you can just go do bounty hunt and get easy 800-2000 $ for few hours, then go to arena do random fights and get another 1500$. So I gave up on crafting after making a few swords while not receiving a single skill up (I had 30 at that moment). I did a small math in my head and came to the conclusion that currently it's the worst job right now. It might be useful to create ammo for coilgun though, as it opens right after you read the book.
Few suggestions, make crafting skill rise up quickly on low levels and also make crafting faster depending on your skill level (if it's not already in the game, I didn't check). Add something like a mine that you can invest in or send slaves to supply you with materials to work. Add something like creating mods for weapons and armor, and creating unique ones when you find rare blueprints, so it would be really tempting for the player to jump down that rabbit hole. I also looked in the info that you need durasteel to craft an assault rifle, I think that's too much. It's not like it's an advanced weapon, it's just a regular weapon like in our modern world. Maybe just making more steel for production is enough?
About some other little things.
New additional panels in the interface made it hard to navigate. Also there is lack of usuability. I have many times when I wanted to just hover on the item and see it properties. For example, in the chars menu, when you hover on attribute you should see what this attribute gives you. Same with interactions with mercenaries. Make every item they wear, weapons and armor, display information about them. For example, I didn't know what weave armor gives until I went to the store.
When you're fighting, you should be able to click on enemies and instantly see what armor and weapons they're carrying, instead of hover and wait until an information box will appear. It will be much more comfortable and intuitive for new players.
Without wiki, it is very hard to know all these mechanics while you're playing. For example, I don't see any info for what accountant gives you.
I read this forum a bit and found that late game investments are blocked if you skipped the tutorial. That shouldn't be in the game at all. If you skip the tutorial, you should still have benefits as if you finished it.
I didn't notice any way to raise medicine skill outside of the reading books. It's a very helpful skill and I assumed it would be logical to get a chance to raise it after using tendstim.
I remember there was talking about combat rework. To be honest, I didn't notice much of a difference nor an improvement. For example, melee fighters still suck. Fighting against elite arena melee fighters shows it clearly. In my vision, if a melee fighter attacks a shooting soldier, he should block him from shooting normally, creating a huge penalty to accuracy (Unless he has a shotgun, for example) or disable him from shooting at all, so he can only fight melee, it can be a skill for an elite melee fighters. There should be high risk - high reward. A good compensation for losing 1 turn until they reach the enemy, to making them valuable class. I realize that the game is still in development, but still hope that one day we will have more active skills during combat. For example, take cover, suppressive fire (would work nice if there would be machine guns), grenade throws, concentration on dodging for melee fighters as a skill.
I found big lizards after I crossed the river on the ferry. Isn't they too overpowered? Like they have about 10k hp or what? I don't even see reason to fight them. Like what do you even get from them, some skin maybe? They react to plasma like to a mosquito bite, it's insane.
Well, that will do for now. I hope you find my suggestions reasonable.