Greetings, esteemed colleagues!
No two scientists are exactly the same, just as no two days in the Facility are exactly the same! If you want a truly personalized experience in the GATE Cascade Research Facility, Sandbox Settings can help you create it. This little introductory post should help get you started on your scientific sandboxing journey.
What can you modify?
Firstly, to get started, either start a new game or select an existing save and click Modify Sandbox Settings to see what’s what!
The modifiable settings are organized into three categories, World, Enemy and Player.
World - World settings are focused on the environment and the Facility itself, and how all of that operates outside of you, the scientist. These settings affect things such as time of day, loot spawn rates and weather.
Enemy - Enemy settings are centered on enemy NPCs and their statuses such as respawn rate and health.
Player - Player settings are about you - primarily things to do with your character’s hunger and thirst, item durability and respawn penalties.
By hovering your cursor over the name of each setting will pop up a tooltip to explain what the setting does and how changing it may affect things.
If you ever feel like things have gotten a bit out of control through your relentless tinkering, you will always have the option Reset Sandbox Settings at the bottom of the page to reset everything, as well as the ability to reset individual settings using the arrow button next to the settings you have modified. This will show up on a setting if it is in a non-default state.
Common Questions
Can I change Sandbox Settings on an existing save?
Yes, you can change your Sandbox Settings at any time from the Modify Sandbox Settings when selecting a world save.
Can I modify survival mechanics, like hunger and thirst?
While we don’t recommend major changes here as many game balancing and features focus on these mechanics, yes, you can still modify or disable them if you want to and we’re not going to stop you!
By scrolling down to the Player settings you can set both Hunger Drain Rate and Thirst Drain Rate to 0 so that these stats will never drain. You can still eat or drink for fun, as is its primary function. If you do eat or drink you’ll still see your satiation status pop up for a moment but they will now always be full.
There are some other options for things like Fatigue Drain Rate, Item Weight Multiplier (encumbrance) and Item Durability as well.
Can I decrease enemy spawn rates?
Yes indeed. Scroll to Enemy settings and change the multiplier for the timing between enemy spawns, Enemy Spawn Rate. The default is 1. This value determines how frequently enemies respawn. A lower value will increase enemy respawn timers, whereas a higher value will cause enemies to respawn more quickly than normal.
Can I make it so that refrigerators preserve food forever?
Yes, you can even do that! In the World settings you can change Refrigeration Effectiveness and use the dropdown menu to change it from the default “Normal” to “No Spoiling when Refrigerated”.
Can I change friendly fire?
You can even completely disable it if you like. Or crank it up 3 times higher than normal for some janky totally not balanced PvP action!
Friendly fire damage is determined by percentage. Scroll down to Player settings and use the dropdown menu to select a percentage from between 0%, being no friendly fire damage, to 300%, meaning whatever weapon you use will do 300% the usual amount of damage to your fellow scientists. The normal value is typically quite safe for co-operative play.
Can I change the weather events?
You can turn off weather events in the World settings menu via a dropdown menu. You can also change their frequency of occurrence if you want more or less weather than usual.
There are also ways to cancel certain weather events in game if you activate their related device, which is integrated somewhere into the Facility.
If you’re a new player and don’t know what weather is and are wondering how there is weather inside a Facility, hey, don’t worry about it, you’ll find out soon enough.
Can I build without limits?
There is a setting you can change to allow for free range building. In World settings, we have a Structural Support Limit setting which you can turn down to 0 to allow you to stack structures as much as you like instead of capping at a specific height or amount of structural support! In 1.0, we will also have the option to turn off bridge limits, allowing you to bridge eternally…
We also have buildable cubicles on the way. You heard it here first.
Can I adjust the Day Night Cycle?
By scrolling to World settings you can toggle the Day Night Cycle to Always Day or Always Night. Most things still operate as though day and night are occurring, but you won’t get lights out if you select Always Day, for example. You can also try an Always Night adventure, if you’re a little freak like that. You can always chicken out and change it later if you need.
You can also disable Power Sockets Off At Night if you don’t like power going out at night. This is another one of those “We don’t recommend it, but we won’t stop you” sort of things.
Can I change how base raids work?
You can turn off the enemy's ability to damage all deployables in Enemy settings using the Enemy Damage to Deployables multiplier. Setting this multiplier to 0 will prevent enemies from being able to damage any deployables you have placed.
Can I manually edit the sandbox settings file? What about dedicated servers?
You can edit the SandboxSettings.ini file directly if you prefer. Be aware, we do not typically recommend this for anyone aside from advanced users. You can find a guide here. Edit at your own risk and read the guide before doing so!
And of course, there are loads of other things you can tweak in the Sandbox Settings that we didn’t touch on here. Check out Sandbox Settings if you’re interested and make the GATE Cascade Research Facility your own!
Onward -- to science.
Join the Scientific Community!
You can also join the Research Division today on Steam!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/427410/Abiotic_Factor/