Recently I was thinking why I prefer so much play on foot introduced with Odyssey vs flying with ships. Trying new form of gameplay seems is just a small reason why to. Much bigger impact have game (combat) balance introduced for on-foot play. Once I'm using any of my fully engineered ships, there is not much needed to worry about NPCs, missions or combat is mostly automatic with very low feel of risk. To be honest, the biggest risk is that I will fall sleep and will try pass through a planet 
(and is very likely that planet is in bigger danger as my ship if that will happen ) ... PvP as also thargoid fighting is fully optional and there is zero need to engage in these fights unless I have fun doing so ... but there is almost zero gameplay reasons. On foot is situation completely different. If I want some of less common components, I usually need to engage in quite challenging activities where upgrading your gear plays just (small) side role. You can have the best gear, but still with one mistake or bad decision, or just bad luck ... will follow mission fail. In ship you can feel practically invincible, you can smoothly achieve your goals while evade most of real dangers (other players, thargoids) ... and for engage with those you practically must have fully engineered gear. On foot you do not need engineer stuff at all if you have skills and experience. These two makes play on foot easier, but there is missing that invincibility feel ... and this makes huge difference.
One example of what I mean and what I experienced this weekend: I have already maxed lvl gear for foot operations and I was searching for some less common components needed for some of "advanced" mods. I saw mission with nice reward and thought that with my experience (and equipment) I will do it without much hassle: It was "clean kill" mission where you cannot kill anyone else (except target) else will mission fail. I somewhat overlooked (I did not cared) where (what type of settlement) is this mission. It was small military settlement with one large building (PWR, command center, etc) and two HABs. There were numerous guards and also Goliath. My target was upstairs in back side of the large building. Nice! I thought, and started looking where to get some higher lvl of access. And that was where fun started, nothing from common ways how to get higher access lvl worked. I got access lvl2 on 3rd attempt where I in the end used risky approach on travelling technician which was using path crossing with 3-4 guards. Now I needed accessing building with target ... it had just one entry point and guards were everywhere, three patrolling on ground and one on roof above doors. I forget mention that almost all these npcs were scanning enthusiast ... amount of scans in this settlement was higher as sum of all scans I had before in few days of play. I managed pass inside of the big buiding, evaded next two guards which were wandering inside and I've reached 2nd floor. But there my luck have ended. Doors to part of the building with target were lvl3 and while evading another guard I entered supposebly empty room. As you can guess at this moment, this room, which I in hurry entered, was not empty, there was waiting another guard which had not much understanding for my presence there and asked me to stop for scan. I still hoped for possibility to finish mission and flee, but without possibility to kill that last guard (non-lethal take down would be really very usefull) and only lvl2 access I was unsuccesfull in attempt to quickly breach into target area. I really dunno how I fled from that building with maybe 6 (or more) guards trying to chase me (playing on performance weaker GFN was just a bonus). Outside there were waiting further guards and also goliath and skimmer which both opened fire too. My SRV parked nearby exploded in short time and skimmer or goliath (I've not tried to check) followed me on my run into surrounding mountains. Also my ship (had nice fully engineered prismatic shield) was attacked. There is not possibility check (when on foot) how look ship damage and I decided that will be better to order dismiss her (I was not in hurry). With taking more distance from settlement I ordered my ship back, but once it landed and I boarded it, I with a quite big surprise noted how close was her destruction ... hull was at 9%. In the end I decided to abandon that mission, it simply was above my skill grade (personal equipment not counted, it played very tiny role there).
Odyssey release still have numerous flaws, but imo approach to game balance is really good! Especially that part that not even the best gear and experience may be not enough in some cases is something what I really like. It would be really nice if ships gameplay balance would be at least little more similar and little more challenging in some areas during normal play.
(and is very likely that planet is in bigger danger as my ship if that will happen ) ... PvP as also thargoid fighting is fully optional and there is zero need to engage in these fights unless I have fun doing so ... but there is almost zero gameplay reasons. On foot is situation completely different. If I want some of less common components, I usually need to engage in quite challenging activities where upgrading your gear plays just (small) side role. You can have the best gear, but still with one mistake or bad decision, or just bad luck ... will follow mission fail. In ship you can feel practically invincible, you can smoothly achieve your goals while evade most of real dangers (other players, thargoids) ... and for engage with those you practically must have fully engineered gear. On foot you do not need engineer stuff at all if you have skills and experience. These two makes play on foot easier, but there is missing that invincibility feel ... and this makes huge difference.One example of what I mean and what I experienced this weekend: I have already maxed lvl gear for foot operations and I was searching for some less common components needed for some of "advanced" mods. I saw mission with nice reward and thought that with my experience (and equipment) I will do it without much hassle: It was "clean kill" mission where you cannot kill anyone else (except target) else will mission fail. I somewhat overlooked (I did not cared) where (what type of settlement) is this mission. It was small military settlement with one large building (PWR, command center, etc) and two HABs. There were numerous guards and also Goliath. My target was upstairs in back side of the large building. Nice! I thought, and started looking where to get some higher lvl of access. And that was where fun started, nothing from common ways how to get higher access lvl worked. I got access lvl2 on 3rd attempt where I in the end used risky approach on travelling technician which was using path crossing with 3-4 guards. Now I needed accessing building with target ... it had just one entry point and guards were everywhere, three patrolling on ground and one on roof above doors. I forget mention that almost all these npcs were scanning enthusiast ... amount of scans in this settlement was higher as sum of all scans I had before in few days of play. I managed pass inside of the big buiding, evaded next two guards which were wandering inside and I've reached 2nd floor. But there my luck have ended. Doors to part of the building with target were lvl3 and while evading another guard I entered supposebly empty room. As you can guess at this moment, this room, which I in hurry entered, was not empty, there was waiting another guard which had not much understanding for my presence there and asked me to stop for scan. I still hoped for possibility to finish mission and flee, but without possibility to kill that last guard (non-lethal take down would be really very usefull) and only lvl2 access I was unsuccesfull in attempt to quickly breach into target area. I really dunno how I fled from that building with maybe 6 (or more) guards trying to chase me (playing on performance weaker GFN was just a bonus). Outside there were waiting further guards and also goliath and skimmer which both opened fire too. My SRV parked nearby exploded in short time and skimmer or goliath (I've not tried to check) followed me on my run into surrounding mountains. Also my ship (had nice fully engineered prismatic shield) was attacked. There is not possibility check (when on foot) how look ship damage and I decided that will be better to order dismiss her (I was not in hurry). With taking more distance from settlement I ordered my ship back, but once it landed and I boarded it, I with a quite big surprise noted how close was her destruction ... hull was at 9%. In the end I decided to abandon that mission, it simply was above my skill grade (personal equipment not counted, it played very tiny role there).
Odyssey release still have numerous flaws, but imo approach to game balance is really good! Especially that part that not even the best gear and experience may be not enough in some cases is something what I really like. It would be really nice if ships gameplay balance would be at least little more similar and little more challenging in some areas during normal play.
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. But thinking about that mission again, I should take inside two ebreaches. Means I can quickly open two higher lvl access doors. Normally I never do it, but that mission seems needed very different approach 
. I also heard that you can try unholster weapon to once disrupt scan. Will try it, it may be critical help in some places.
I need to say that I’ve spent no less as 30 minutes with studying of base layout and potential places for profile scanning. It could be just another bad luck, but I didn’t found any unguarded place where I could scan through window and was day time. SRV advantage is also possibility to refit and add ebreaches only when you know where you need them. There with all these guards it would be bad idea to have them on start 
