Alright, just completed my second run of The Outer Worlds, this time on Supernova difficulty and it was a 100% run!
And I have some thoughts on the game now that I've completed it more than once.

It's a good but flawed game. And where it shines and struggles are both visible to the extreme.
The base design of the game is legitimately one of the best out there for the genre that is unfortunately filled with poorly executed ideas.

I'll start out with the difficulty - the game is too easy. Even on the hardest difficulty the game is pretty much a stroll through the park with the hardest part being the starting world before you get any good gear.

And believe it or not the game is actually easier on Supernova (the hardest difficulty) than it is on Hard because you don't have teammates to drag you down. Since teammates die permanently you (should) leave them in the ship and take all of the solo perks that are broken.

Whereas on Hard you do less damage if you take teammates with you and they'll still get downed in just a couple of hits.

That said getting crippled on Supernova is horrible. Trigger one landmine and even if you're far away from it you're pretty much guaranteed to get a concussion and oops looks like you're traveling all the way back to the ship to rest.

Next is gameplay (combat). There is very little benefit to leveling up the actual combat skills. Instead focusing on Science is the best way to kill things faster. It's the only skill that has a direct correlation to higher damage since it increases energy damage.

The actual gun skills don't actually increase damage, instead they buff crit rate, which is useless since there's a perk that gives you a 100% crit rate every time you get a kill.

And since you can just throw a Plasma or Shock mod onto any gun (Corrosive and N-Ray are pretty rare but also possible) you can increase your Damage and DPS pretty significantly by increasing your Science stat.

This also indirectly nerfs the Unique Weapons in the game since you can't modify them.
Also since Science lowers tinkering costs raising the stat to 100 early on will let you keep early drops relevant until you can pick up better/higher level variants.

There is also a significant lack of weapon types in the game. There's a lot of guns in the game but most of them are just upgraded versions of what you already have.
Assault Rifle turns into Assault Rifle 2 with no difference except a higher base damage and level.

There's only like a total of maybe 20 different guns in the game and even then I think I'm highballing it.
The Science Weapons are really neat in what they do but are also mostly useless.

However despite this the gunplay itself is legit one of the best FPS single player experiences I've ever had. TTK is very low (for both enemies and the player) so unlike a lot of other games every gun feels like it makes an impact and there are legit no damage sponges.

If you're running into a damage sponge you need to consider what you're doing wrong. You're either using the wrong type of damage (robots soak bullets that don't have shock!), the enemy has a higher armor value than your Damage rating, or your gun isn't leveled enough.

I'm killing Mega Mantiqueens in literal seconds using either my Assault Rifle 2 or my Plasma Rifle 2. Them and Mega Raptidons are the only things that don't die in one or two bullets from me and even then they still die in literal seconds. No excuses.

Tactical Time Dilation is also a fantastic feature that feels really good when you're using it well. The only real issue that I have with it is when you're using a bolt action sniper the reload between shots is agonizing.

I legit can't decide if you burn through it too quickly or too slowly though. It feels very secondary to the experience and only added on to be their version of VATS.

Melee is a complete waste of time. Don't do it. It's horrible and you're horrible if you use it. The only time that it's actually of any value is against the final boss if you can't talk your way out of that fight.

Heavy Weapons are mediocre as well. The Plasma Launcher is fantastic and helped me clear out Cascadia at a low level so I could get to Stellar Bay without paying for the Nav Key but the other heavy weapons are out performed by long guns in every way.

Flaws are also pretty boring since they are all passive effects. Feel free to take any Phobia that isn't the one that hits Robots. You will literally only be out in the wild areas when they trigger so penalties to your skills where there are no skill checks don't matter.

Flaws are a bit bugged though. I took Paranoid since I don't care about Charm loss while sneaking and Restricted Areas are few and far between and it was stuck with a permanent loss to my charm even outside of those situations.

I'll add to this thread tomorrow or so with more thoughts about the world, story, and map design.