Suggestions for a Better Hard Mode

[Unavailavle]

The current hard mode is a bit underwhelming. Oftentimes, I feel playing in hard mode is not challenging but just slow. A better hard mode will, unavoidably, cause the expansion to be slower, but it should require players to

1. Come up with better designs to do things more efficiently.

2. Properly priorities and balance development. Make good trade offs.

3. Spend their resources wisely.

As such, I propose adding the following  options.

1. Decreased stomach/bladder capacity. The idea is that dupes will need to eat/go to toilet multiple times a day. Thus, the layout of your base becomes very important. If you don’t pay attention to the layout, dups will spend most of their time traveling.

2. Printing pod requires charges. Printing pod will start with several charges. Once the charges run out, you need to recharge it with materials gathered from ruins or space mission. This encourages players to take alright dupes and make the most out of their traits rather than waiting for the perfect one. This also gives an incentive to explore and expand early. Additionally, a DNA machine that helps removing bad traits can be added. This machine should be considered a late game machines and very costly to use.

3. Increased material usage. (Research, construction, food, etc). I’m not sure about this idea. But the goal is to create a need to expand. Currently, expanding your base is not a necessity to keep your colony alive. It’s very easy to stablize your colony with low tier technologies even in hard mode. In an ideal hard mode, players should be encouraged to expand until end game. If you settle, you will run out of resources.

 

Let me know how you think about this.

[Alfons100]

There could also be that there's more waste/consumption requirements for buildings, which if exploited right, technically isnt "Hard mode"

For example, Coal Generators needs to be submerged in Oxygen to work, and also consumes it as its enabled.

[Unavailavle]

56 minutes ago, Alfons100 said:

There could also be that there's more waste/consumption requirements for buildings, which if exploited right, technically isnt "Hard mode"

For example, Coal Generators needs to be submerged in Oxygen to work, and also consumes it as its enabled.

I’m not sure about changing buildings materials consumption. Because that means the dynamics between buildings will change. Some self-sustainable loop designs will no longer to self-sustaine in hard mode.

I do think Generators consuming oxygen is an interesting idea. However, if we let generators consuming oxygen, we must add a way to covert carbon dioxide back to oxygen (maybe redesign algae terrariums day make it produce algae instead of consume algae).