"TOXIC" gas Balancing (chlorine / PO2 / etc.)

[ChickenMadness]

Just some balancing ideas to make the game more challenging and fun (also realistic).

In reality concentrated chlorine gas would kill you if you walked through a room full of it. It would cause blindness at the very least if you weren't wearing goggles but were holding your breath.

I think toxic gasses like chlorine should damage duplicants when they walk through it without an exosuit.
-Gameplay wise this would mean you have to take more care in containing gasses, making sure not to let dangerous gas into your colony.
-It would give you a chance to actually use the medical bay since this room is useless in the current state of the game. Slimelung doesn't even do anything unless you play on maximum difficulty.
-The only ways duplicants can die currently are soooooooo easily preventable it's just not fun. And when they do die it's usually from a buggy game mechanic rather than the actual 'dangers' in ONI.

Polluted oxygen should be rebalanced since the description says 'toxic gas' but it is safe to breath.
I have no ideas for how to change the actual gas properties.
-But deodorisers should be nerfed so you can't just build 100s of them to fill up every single tile in a slime biome. (which is possible to do since they're so cheap)
-Slimelung needs to be buffed so it's actually a threat. Since it doesn't really do anything unless you play on maximum difficulty.

[Grimgaw]

4 minutes ago, ChickenMadness said:

Since it doesn't really do anything unless you play on maximum difficulty.

Looks to me that you graduated to max difficulty then.

[ChickenMadness]

8 minutes ago, Grimgaw said:

Looks to me that you graduated to max difficulty then.

I do tend to play with immunity on max difficulty. But it's not really more 'difficult' because you can get away with all the same 'cheap' work arounds.

Deodorisers are an unlimited free resource available as soon as you've researched it. So you can spam them on any difficulty and it makes slimelung just not a threat.

Even on maximum difficulty as soon as deodorisers are researched I can dig into the slime biome with just a single door seperating it from the starting biome and spam deodorisers everywhere and the slimelung is gone after 10 cycles.

I do like the fact that  duplicant immunity will continue to go down if they come into contact with slimelung once though. (on maximum difficulty). It's the only mechanic that ensures there is some type of consequence to sending some dupes into the biome early to spam build. But it's only on maximum difficulty that this happens.

[Grimgaw]

3 minutes ago, ChickenMadness said:

I do tend to play with immunity on max difficulty. But it's not really more 'difficult' because you can get away with all the same 'cheap' work arounds.

So max difficulty isn't even a challenge for you and that's why you're suggesting to increase it for all?

3 minutes ago, ChickenMadness said:

Even on maximum difficulty as soon as deodorisers are researched I can dig into the slime biome with just a single door seperating it from the starting biome and spam deodorisers everywhere and the slimelung is gone after 10 cycles.

You could just not build deodorizers in your game if they trivialise the game for you. There are people struggling with food poisoning thread over.

[ChickenMadness]

11 minutes ago, Grimgaw said:

So max difficulty isn't even a challenge for you and that's why you're suggesting to increase it for all?

You could just not build deodorizers in your game if they trivialise the game for you. There are people struggling with food poisoning thread over.

Thread isn't over lol.

Half of the OP is about chlorine and 'toxic gas'. You just picked out slimelung to talk about lmao.

I'm talking about game mechanics which have nothing to do with the different difficulty settings. Since the difficulty settings change the numbers only and not the game mechanics.
I'm sure they trivialise the game for more than just me since I made this thread after reading another thread where other people were commenting on deodorisers being unbalanced lol.

Also food poisoning doesn't kill duplicants. So it's not even a relevant point to make, since you still won't be able to use the medical bay for food poisoning.

Silly comment. Forums are for discussion. Especially game balance since the game is in early access.

 

At some point they're going to add flammable gas and a bunch of other new stuff into the game which I'm sure will make the game more 'difficult' and fun but I take it you would rather not have any new content since some people are struggling with food poisoning?

[Grimgaw]

24 minutes ago, ChickenMadness said:

Thread isn't over lol.

You misread me. There's no period there. I was talking about this thread.

24 minutes ago, ChickenMadness said:

Half of the OP is about chlorine and 'toxic gas'.

Which you're suggesting to counter with exosuits - something which counters other half of your post.

Game is balanced though. Go check reddit posts or watch some low key streamers who struggle to get past cycle 25.

Remember this is a single player base building sandbox, where past certain point the only challenges you'll get are the ones you set for yourself. There are no score boards.

[impyre]

lol, I read it the way he meant it... but I'm weird, so there's that.

He meant, "There are people struggling with food poisoning" in the next "thread over."

The other part was implied.

As for the OP, I do think toxic gasses *should*, and will eventually, have some negative effects. Slimelung is a little underpowered... but it isn't completely without threat either.

[blash365]

If i remember correctly those gases (chlorine in particular) used to be toxic in a previous build. Klei decided to tone down the effect because it was too hard to manage at the time.

Maybe there will be a time in which this decision is revised, but at the moment (especially with the absense of doctors *cough*cough*), i dont mind the gases being less dangerous.

You can still see those gas categories in old screenshots:

[Sasza22]

I agree that toxicity should be a thing. But it should only come in effect at large quantities of toxic gasses. A single pocket of chlorine floating around your base is annoying to deal with and shoudln`t be additionally painful. I`m ok with chlorine, PO2 and CO2 having an "intoxication" effect but i fear that would just lead to using exosuits everywhere (like if now people didn`t do that).

As for slimelung i thing there could be a few interesting mechanics added. Lets say it dies much slower in clean oxygen or doesn`t die at all (just doesn`t increase it`s numbers). Then deoxydizers wouldn`t be as powerful but we would need another building for oxygen disinfection (possibly using bleach stone and some power). This would make it harder to get rid of slimelung just like that. Another thing could be a biohazard suit that would protect dupes from slimelung infection while allowing them to breath the PO2. No exosuit infrastructure needed, just needs a more robust clothing system.

[ChickenMadness]

20 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

I agree that toxicity should be a thing. But it should only come in effect at large quantities of toxic gasses. A single pocket of chlorine floating around your base is annoying to deal with and shoudln`t be additionally painful. I`m ok with chlorine, PO2 and CO2 having an "intoxication" effect but i fear that would just lead to using exosuits everywhere (like if now people didn`t do that).

on while allowing them to breath the PO2. No exosuit infrastructure needed, just needs a more robust clothing system.

Ye I agree, it would be like in real life where a small amount is harmless, but having a duplicant fully submerged in chlorine would cause damage. The damage could be directly proportional the the gas pressure. In the same way heat damage gets higher at higher temperatures.

Well 24/7 exosuits come with their own downsides so I don't think that should be a concern since it comes down to your own personal playstyle.

 

20 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

 

As for slimelung i thing there could be a few interesting mechanics added. Lets say it dies much slower in clean oxygen or doesn`t die at all (just doesn`t increase it`s numbers). Then deoxydizers wouldn`t be as powerful but we would need another building for oxygen disinfection (possibly using bleach stone and some power). This would make it harder to get rid of slimelung just like that. Another thing could be a biohazard suit that would protect dupes from slimelung infection while allowing them to breath the PO2. No exosuit infrastructure needed, just needs a more robust clothing system.

Love these ideas. Can already imagine some air filtration systems working in a similar way to the water sieve.

The docking station for these suits could be powered by chlorine. With an animation of the suits getting sprayed with disinfectant when they take them off.

 

 

20 hours ago, blash365 said:

If i remember correctly those gases (chlorine in particular) used to be toxic in a previous build. Klei decided to tone down the effect because it was too hard to manage at the time.

Maybe there will be a time in which this decision is revised, but at the moment (especially with the absense of doctors *cough*cough*), i dont mind the gases being less dangerous.

You can still see those gas categories in old screenshots:

I guess there is a good chance they will revert back to this in future updates then once they start adding in all the flammable properties to gasses etc. or whatever else they have planned.
I'd be happy if they implemented it as a 'check box' like they have done with 'stress responses' so everyone can play how they want.

 

21 hours ago, Grimgaw said:

You misread me. There's no period there. I was talking about this thread.

Which you're suggesting to counter with exosuits - something which counters other half of your post.

Game is balanced though. Go check reddit posts or watch some low key streamers who struggle to get past cycle 25.

Remember this is a single player base building sandbox, where past certain point the only challenges you'll get are the ones you set for yourself. There are no score boards.

Ah sorry about that.

Well it may be the case that players struggle, but we all struggled when we first started the game and overcoming all these different challenges is part of the appeal.

And the game is extremely customizable with difficulty, theres even a tick box to uncheck stress reponses. Put immunity to 'invincible' and have duplicants that never need to eat. So if someone REALLY is struggling they can just go into the options and switch on sandbox and give themselves loads of free stuff.

[pacovf]

Is there any actual comment from the devs saying they will implement flammable gases?

[ChickenMadness]

45 minutes ago, pacovf said:

Is there any actual comment from the devs saying they will implement flammable gases?

No idea tbh lol. I've just seen it mentioned by people here on the forum a lot.

I think theres some hints in the game that point towards it but I can't remember exactly. And the fact that it's quite a big missing element in a game thats based on chemistry / science / etc.

[Grimgaw]

3 hours ago, pacovf said:

Is there any actual comment from the devs saying they will implement flammable gases?

They never did.

It is suggested a lot, but noone ever came up with way that you could incorporate it in to current game without changing the overarching game mechanics - one substance per tile.

[Sasza22]

5 hours ago, pacovf said:

Is there any actual comment from the devs saying they will implement flammable gases?

The only hint is some materials in the codex having a "flammable" tag. It`s not only gasses. IIRC metals have it as well.

[impyre]

2 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

The only hint is some materials in the codex having a "flammable" tag. It`s not only gasses. IIRC metals have it as well.

Even some solids and liquids have hints at things like that.

[Oozinator]

 

[Yunru]

These ideas are bad and you should feel bad

Slimelung wiped out my first three colonies.

It also contributed to the death of several more.

[MorsDux]

modding solves all these problems. There are plenty of options you can make small mods for, and then you can cherry pick the difficulty mods for yourself.

[Sasza22]

31 minutes ago, Yunru said:

These ideas are bad and you should feel bad

Don`t make me feel bad. I like random ideas. Even if they are bad.

Actually i think a building that deletes slimelung from air can`t be that bad. It`s more straightforward to use and more obvious for newer players than using deoxydizers and waiting (several cycles) for the germs to die.

[Daxterr]

Chlorine, C02, and polluted oxygen should all be more dangerous. I agree very much with this thread.