One big difference Universe has over the Episodes comes in the form of keys.
In this game, keys have a very close connection to your game progression.
- You need keys to get practically everything, but more importantly, and this sets Universe apart from the Episodes, is that the keys you spend, can and will be permanently lost, on items that needs restocking.
If you’re okay with that stark difference between Universe and the Episodes (you most likely are if you’re reading this), then at some point you’ll naturally start to keep track of how much keys you’ve lost in each flight in order to calculate how much you’ve actually earned once a mission ends.
- That however, means that you’d always have to keep track of the keys you’ve spent on each mission in your working memory, and update that count in real time based on what’s happening in each flight.
The problem here comes from the fact that your working memory has a limited capacity, which is typically around 3 to 5 items at once for most people.
- If too much information is competing for your attention (which is especially the case for harder missions), your brain just naturally drops the less relevant details like “how many keys you’ve lost this flight”, making it harder to update the number accurately.
Keeping this number in your head at all times during flights also adds to the stress a bit.
- If you know that you’ve spent more than what you’ve earned in a level, you’ll know that you lose keys and by extension, some of your progress due to how closely tied keys are to game progression in Universe.
- Which definitely adds in extra stress that shouldn’t have to be there, leading to potential mistakes and keys lost in the process.
A potential solution:
Here’s a potential way I thought of as to how we can tackle this problem.
We could add a new always-on item called the Cost Tracker that adds a tracker to any type of item that can be used and lost in missions. They’ll calculate how many keys you’ve lost as you fly the mission, and adds in a neat little line showing keys spent at the Mission Report.
How it works:
- You first set the item that the Cost Tracker will be tracking.
- It has to be a consumable item that you can currently use in missions (items under Auto Use, Special Weapons and Perishables).
- Setting it to other things doesn’t really matter, so it just won’t be allowed.
- Once you’ve set the item, you’ll get to set the keys lost per item used for said item.
- The default value will be the Galactic Store price of the selected item, so you can just skip this if you bought your Extra Lives from the store or something like that.
- The game will use this to calculate the Keys Lost stat in Mission Reports.
Note that this is just a stat that you can use to track how many keys you’ve spent on this mission, it doesn’t affect the total keys gained at all.
- If you want to track a different item, you’ll need to buy another Cost Tracker.
- Cost Trackers can’t track the same item.
- The most important reason why you should set the Cost Tracker keys yourself is that item costs differ depending on where you got it from, so this lets you set the costs so that it fits the item you got it off at.
And that’s it for this post. Let me know your thoughts on all this!
Somewhat relevant bits:
These are stuff that are not that relevant to the problem but still worth mentioning because I know they will be raised otherwise.
- Not tracking your keys gained/lost in each flight (which is what I did in my first playthrough) just means you’d end up spending a lot more keys than you really need to, slowing your progression down significantly.
- I think that’s part of the reasons why people complain about the grind in this game.
- Yes, like the Episodes, there are things you buy that’ll last forever (or until when they are sold).
- I’m leaving them out since you don’t lose any keys for equipping them in each flight, so they effectively don’t contribute to the problem I’m trying to raise here.
- Daily Missions that offer a preset loadout like Pot Luck and Budget Constraint don’t require tracking keys lost since you don’t lose keys for using them.
- I tend to perform much better in these missions because I don’t have to track that, landing in the top spots a few times before making this (I started the game from scratch on a mobile device so you won’t see me as me on the leaderboard, so yeah).
- I know that there are more ways to get keys than just mission gains like selling food, tiers and quests, but these are designed to be the more optional ways to get keys, and should remain that way to remain in the spirit of Universe (which is you getting to choose what to do and where to explore).
- Also because mentioning them has nothing to do with this topic since it’s about tracking keys gained / lost after each flight. I have half a mind to just wipe this bit off, but I know someone would talk about this.
- Once Wave 1 is finished, items officially cost keys based on amounts used in the mission. Auto Use and Special Weapons cost keys when they are used, and Perishables always cost keys if active.
- I don’t know much about keys lost in Multiplayer flights, though the point still stands even if I don’t test much in Multiplayer.