(Suggestion) A few quality of life improvements.

[Last Templar]

Hi all, so here are a few things I think should be improved.

1: Allow us to disable or turn the sound off the Printing Pod, its kinda loud and sometimes I dont want to reset it and would prefer to keep a good dupe under my sleeve for the time I will need him/her.

2:  In late game moving the map with the aswd buttons is very laggy, on the contrary using the right mouse button to drag the map feels very fluid and comfortable (I am sure this can be improved on)

3: Most of the time when you build ladders or pipes the game will reset or choose by default obsidian (or the first material on the list) witch makes me have to cancel all my planing to re-select a material I actually have in storage, my thought is that sandstone should always be a default and if its not available then the game should switch to an other material.

4: Path finding for dupes, as I am more experienced with the game now the only time I will lose a dupe Is bc he will get stuck in a wall or even worse wall himself up, I am no dev or coder so I dont know what could be done, one thing that came to my mind is that most of the time when that happens the dupe is standing on the wrong side of what he is trying to build, maby this could be improved by setting the printing pod as a reference point so the dupes would always try to build things when they stand on the side closer to that point, again I have no clue it my be a stupid idea.

5: Please give us a history or general setting for all storage containers, having to re-select just a few materials on all storage containers is very time consuming and somewhat annoying. Also being able to choose how much of what I want in that particular storage would help a lot.

6: Being able to move the screen just a bit more at the edges would be a good thing, add a thinker layer of Neutronium at the edges of the map would work,  so that when my dupes work at that edges I can still keep them in the middle of my screen.

I am sure I have much more of this but cant think of them atm, I will update the post or make a new one if necessary. Cheers and tnx for this great game

[Kasuha]

6 hours ago, Last Templar said:

1: Allow us to disable or turn the sound off the Printing Pod, its kinda loud and sometimes I dont want to reset it and would prefer to keep a good dupe under my sleeve for the time I will need him/her.

While I would like an option to shut the pod down when I'm fine with duplicants I have, I don't see the sound as a problem. When looking at distant enough places in the base I can't even hear the sound at all.

6 hours ago, Last Templar said:

3: Most of the time when you build ladders or pipes the game will reset or choose by default obsidian (or the first material on the list) witch makes me have to cancel all my planing to re-select a material I actually have in storage, my thought is that sandstone should always be a default and if its not available then the game should switch to an other material.

I can relate. Number of times my wolframite reserves were depleted when I needed it the most because the game thought it's a good idea to default to it when doing some completely unimportant pipework. If nothing else, the game should default to the most abundant material, not to the "highest level" one.

A separate overlay that highlights things made of selected material would be nice too - so I could decide what to deconstruct when I "accidentally" run out of important material.

6 hours ago, Last Templar said:

4: Path finding for dupes, as I am more experienced with the game now the only time I will lose a dupe Is bc he will get stuck in a wall or even worse wall himself up, I am no dev or coder so I dont know what could be done, one thing that came to my mind is that most of the time when that happens the dupe is standing on the wrong side of what he is trying to build, maby this could be improved by setting the printing pod as a reference point so the dupes would always try to build things when they stand on the side closer to that point, again I have no clue it my be a stupid idea.

That's not pathfinding, rather prioritization during building. Many players have similar problem and I am no exception but unfortunately this is very nontrivial programming problem. Referencing the printing pod is not a bad idea except for people who decide to abandon it and build their base somewhere else.

6 hours ago, Last Templar said:

5: Please give us a history or general setting for all storage containers, having to re-select just a few materials on all storage containers is very time consuming and somewhat annoying. Also being able to choose how much of what I want in that particular storage would help a lot.

Love the game approach "hey, you just discovered bleach stone, let's add it to all containers you marked as All". At the very least the game should distinguish volatile and non-volatile materials so I can put "everything safe and extend it at your will" to most containers and handle appropriately things that aren't safe.

7 hours ago, Last Templar said:

6: Being able to move the screen just a bit more at the edges would be a good thing, add a thinker layer of Neutronium at the edges of the map would work,  so that when my dupes work at that edges I can still keep them in the middle of my screen.

This is one of the cases where I did not run into the issue yet but I know I will have issue with it when it happens. Completely agree.

[scientas]

20 hours ago, Last Templar said:

Hi all, so here are a few things I think should be improved.

5: Please give us a history or general setting for all storage containers, having to re-select just a few materials on all storage containers is very time consuming and somewhat annoying. Also being able to choose how much of what I want in that particular storage would help a lot.

I think that adding upgraded storage into the tech tree would solve a lot of problems. Your start game storage would be the same generic low capacity model. The researched versions could be material specific and higher capacity and have outputs but would require power management to run the internal pumps and gizmos. These would all be fairly big, like 3X3 (at least as big as the super computer).

1. Biohazard Bin - Stores anything that produces gases in airtight storage. You'd have some leakage as materials were put in or taken out, but it wouldn't constantly leak like storage lockers. Would have a gas output slot where you could pump out gases into bubblers or morb rooms or hydrogen generators.

2. Liquidizer - Stores anything that gives off liquids in watertight storage. Again, minor leakage when opening and closing. Would have a liquid output slot which would allow you to fill a large tank up with ice and snow then pump out to a filter.

3. Materializer - Stores a larger capacity of raw materials. The power element here could be a "grinder" setting which would allow you to put in materials and recombine them into things that you are short on, like sandstone into sand and whatnot.

4. Morgue Locker - For storing all those dupes you don't feel like building individual headstones for. Eventually their bodies would decompose into bones (which I saw for the first time) and maybe DNA for later game research?