1. Graphics and art direction are really ugly.
1. Agreed. But not the worst on the market.
Main issue for me is the performance on the highest settings.
Game has issues with constant uploading from HDD every time you enter new map grid, which are getting much worse if you try to increase you visuals. I install on SSD and use compressed textures mod.
2. The camera gets constantly in your way.
2. Not the best, not the worst. but I can see it could be a problem for some people. I use the mouse for camera rotation and keyboard for scrolling. In addition, floor levels change button works wonders.
3. UI and font scaling are broken.
3. Full screen is bugged. Play in borderless window. Fixes all the UI problems. Using better UI mod improves the fonts, but it is not mandatory.
4. Pathing and automation is a nightmare.
4. My greatest problem with the game too. I found only one solution. Click travel point on the map for your fight team and switch to you base team. Clutter, trees and rocks do not render off-screen, so you travel team doesn't get stuck on terrain.
5. There are no quests. You make your own goals.
5. Depends. In classic RPG way, there is no quests. Nevertheless, there is lore, you just have to listen to NPCs and read books. There are bounties that affect the world. Cities are destroyed, factions attack etc. You kill a person with diplomatic status, things change in the game.
6. Base building is obnoxious and very badly implemented.
6. You can play the game without base building. You only need the base if you want to create your own armor and robotics.
If you do want to build, first set up in the city, do all the research and then go build an outpost.
Even then, location will determine how good your base will be. It has to be close to the markets, it has to have good stone, iron, copper and arable land. Which limits it to literally 3 places in the game. Anything else will be hard, but doable.
My current late game base is in the Pits, in a very defensible place, but dead biome (i am planning to clean up the Ashlands). I have hydroponics researched, so dead biome is not a problem and about 1.5M coins, so do not need trade.
7. AI is terribly dumb. You can post turret shooters on your walls, and you can make kill boxes so your turrets kill all invaders before they can destroy your gate. The problem is, the turrets hit the other friendly turrets too.
7. Not sure how you managed that, anything is possible. Game mechanic, if there is a person between shooter and the target, person can get hit. There is a skill that reduces that chance, called precision shooting, I think.
8. Even so, they keep sending trash mobs to harass you, which just pisses me off as I have to keep one character just to burn (dispose of) the corpses automatically.
8. There are major factions’ borders, if you settle inside the borders, they send taxmen after you. Minor factions nearby try to rob you. And there is trash spawns, which include wildlife.
You have to pay off major faction, and destroy the minor faction to reduce the frequency of attacks. There is no way that I know about how to reduce the trash mob attacks, killing off the wildlife around the base seems to reduce the critter population.
When I was located near Dust Bandits and Black Dragon Ninjas i didn't even bother with corpse removal. They were rotting at the gates in a neat pile. I had 2 six-barrel turrets located at the top of 2 guard towers flanking the gate and they massacred the incoming waves (2-3 per day).
Then I killed the ninjas leader and dust bandit leader. Ninja attacks stopped, but bust bandits split in 3 factions and kept attacking me. I had to go and clean up another 3 camps to reduce the frequency of those attacks.
9. In order to get tougher, combat is mandatory. Alas, when you fight a lot, you're bound to lose limbs. You can replace your lost limbs with mechanical parts. The problem is that there is a big faction in the game that attacks on sight anyone with mechanical parts. It's ridiculous to have one basic mechanic of the game make you hostile towards a whole nation like that.
9. It’s just who they are. Holy Nation will attack you if you are non-human without human escort too BTW. You can remove your limbs into backpack and HN will be fine with you.
Obnoxious clowns from UC were forcing me to kneel and kiss their boots. Randomly. On the streets.
Guards at UC city gates were planting drugs on me and demanding bribes. Just because they felt like it.
Sheks fed some knuckle sandwiches to my team just for kicks and giggles. Then healed me and put in the cage, then released me later. Honorabru.
10. Buildings frequently bug, causing the game to have weird issues so you have to constantly snap them to place via a console like command.
10. Only on uneven terrain. Ctrl-Shift-F11 snaps them back. F12 editor is for moving buildings if they were placed wrong.
11. The game crashes to desktop A LOT, especially if you don't snap buildings to place.
11. I may be had couple of crashes at all and none since i moved the game to SSD, luckily.
12. The world is not interesting, the NPCs have nothing interesting or engaging to say, and there is practically no dialogue.
Recruit unique NPCs and install Let's talk mod. Mod makes them repeat their pre-recorded dialogue. There is some good dialogue, BEEP is absolutely hilarious. But yes, compared to any run of the mill RPG dialog is non-existent.