Making things tougher?
 

One thing I have noticed is that things did not get noticeably harder as I got deeper into caves or higher in sector levels. Of course my ship and party were getting stronger, but after a certain point, the enemies encountered were essentially "speed bumps". I thought this was especially noticeable in caves. The most dangerous things were the traps. In a future version, you might want "deeper" to mean "more dangerous".

Re: Making things tougher?
 

I'll second that, traps generated more dread than most of the critters after a certain point. It's a balancing act to be sure, you don't want 'instant kill' monsters either. That would not be very satisfying.

Re: Making things tougher?
 

Know that I have heard you, and late-game balance will be an issue in the next update.

Ooh, I just had a thought... What if, after sector 100, you could increase your difficulty setting (but never decrease it) ? Or would that just encourage people to play on easy until sector 100?

Re: Making things tougher?
 

I would like to be able to change difficulty up after I get a ship going.

Re: Making things tougher?
 

I have a counter-thought. Add a setting, independent of the difficulty slider, for the game to automatically increase the difficulty at a higher rate after a certain number of sectors, be it 100 or any other number.

It would have to be balanced somewhat, but I'm pretty sure such an addition would work even better than just allowing to increase the difficulty manually.

Re: Making things tougher?
 

My impression is that things are generally toughter in version 1.1. There are new monsters to worry about, especially the dreaded lava blobs.

Re: Making things tougher?
 

Why not add a dimension or two? This is space, after all, not a Rogue dungeon limited to up and down. That is, there could be easy regions and harder regions, and you get to choose where to go, with the flavor, risks and rewards varying accordingly? That would provide difficulty while also making sense.

This would also avoid the problem with so many conventional D&D-box-thinking games where the difficulty of the universe surreally warps around the player's strength. (Such games have gaining ability result in also becoming somewhat relatively weaker because most/all things "level up" with the player... for no in-game reason other than balance.)

There are natural ways to keep things interesting without increasing single foe power. For example, you can have consequences of great success. If you are wiping out large swaths of foes, there might be some consequences such as:
* They raise an alarm and after some time, more and stronger reaction forces will show up.
* They raise an alarm and start evacuating pulling out their own targets and loot from out of your way.
* They try to negotiate peace terms.
* If you are doing them grievous merciless harm, they may send a complaint and/or aid request to some stronger power that may arrive to protect them, or to try to extract retribution later.
* Another stronger group might take notice and intercede of their own accord.

Re: Making things tougher?
 

And difficulty tweaking could be implemented like some kind of story element. Some mysterious beings (long-gone race) contacted player and offered exceptionally perilous but honorable career, or something like that...
I personally would want to see some mystical elements, it's Approaching Infinity after all, I hear some philosophic and mystic notes here.