Gate charity

[SpreadsheetGamr]

I think the gate charity needs to be toned down a bit.  It seems too generous and removes the need for quite a bit of manufacturing.

Perhaps it should only provide raw materials, nothing manufactured like snazzy suits or medicines.

And when it provides critters that aren't normally available on your map it reduces the uniqueness of the maps.  In the case where your shinebugs have gone extinct I think it's fine for the player to be able to resurrect that species.  Perhaps the gate could provide some 'genetic ooze' and then you have to grow the species in a vat or something, but not just handed to you.

When you play for several hundred cycles it seems kinda nagging and cheesy to have this lottery keep happening every 3 days.  I know the gate can be turned off but then you lose the ability to change skills etc.

[I_Link_I]

You can turn turn those off in the Option (when creating the world?) so only Dupes will be in the list.

[Nebbie]

4 minutes ago, I_Link_I said:

You can turn turn those off in the Option (when creating the world?) so only Dupes will be in the list.

The trouble is certain things you need it for, depending on map, like wort seeds on Verdante, acorns and pips on Terra, or dreckos on Rime.

[tseitsei]

1 hour ago, Nebbie said:

The trouble is certain things you need it for, depending on map, like wort seeds on Verdante, acorns and pips on Terra, or dreckos on Rime.

You dont need those. You may want those but you certainly dont need them.

[Lafara]

welcome to Oasis , we have sand , hot sand , even hot sand.

forget about algae,reed fiber,gold

[Ambaire]

3 hours ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

And when it provides critters that aren't normally available on your map it reduces the uniqueness of the maps.

Then turn care packages off when you create the world. It's that simple.

 

If you need rare materials unavailable on the map, get them from geysers or space later.

3 hours ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

I know the gate can be turned off but then you lose the ability to change skills etc.

Then turn it back on to change skills and turn it back off again. This isn't as hard as you make it out to be.

[mathmanican]

2 minutes ago, Lafara said:

forget about algae,reed fiber,gold

My oasis, metal poor, magma channels run has a slime biome (was it not supposed to?). This got me some nice gold for taming a salt water geyser, and reed fibers for atmos...  It took a 60 cycles to find the place, but it was there. 

[SpreadsheetGamr]

42 minutes ago, Ambaire said:

Then turn care packages off when you create the world. It's that simple.

Well aware of the option to turn it off on map creation and throughout the game.  Neither of your suggestions address the question of balance.  If I remember rightly, the feature was introduced to address the extinction problem.  I think the current implementation is overkill.  Are you saying it's well balanced?

49 minutes ago, Lafara said:

welcome to Oasis , we have sand , hot sand , even hot sand.

forget about algae,reed fiber,gold

Not sure I follow.  Are you saying you're playing on a difficult map and wouldn't be able to survive without the gate gifting you things

 

[nakomaru]

3 minutes ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

I think the current implementation is overkill.  Are you saying it's well balanced?

I think it could use higher care package frequency now that so many different options have been added. If you need a crab, or something, you might end up waiting quite a long time.

[maradyne]

Randy giveth, Randy taketh away.
My pod is a troll that tends to give whatever I'm overloaded on at the moment.

[Jackblac]

The most unbalanced gate gift in my opinion is 3 tonns of fertilizer. That is 600 uses of farm station. The normal sandstone start has less than 1 ton of fertilizer. 

[Ambaire]

13 minutes ago, Jackblac said:

The most unbalanced gate gift in my opinion is 3 tonns of fertilizer. That is 600 uses of farm station. The normal sandstone start has less than 1 ton of fertilizer. 

I love that care package. Don't take my care package away from me >:(

[Lurve]

By the time you're several hundred cycles in, you should have outgrown the care packages.  There's only two or three that are always a welcome boost.  The rest are ignorable.  Yay, more shinebugs, amirite.  Personally I'd like it if turning down everything came with a 50% printer cooldown reduction, so you could choose to get nothing but only have to wait a cycle and a half for another roll.

 

If you don't like the care packages, don't use them.

If you don't like what your world is missing, play a different one.

Just don't whine about care packages and then whine about what your world is missing without them.

 

[Moonkis]

28 minutes ago, Lurve said:

If you don't like the care packages, don't use them.

If you don't like what your world is missing, play a different one.

Just don't whine about care packages and then whine about what your world is missing without them.

Okay but neither addresses the OP. The question is that they (according to OP) is over-tuned, and should be tuned down. It has nothing to do with liking/disliking it. If nothing else, OP clearly likes the concept but takes issue with the balance. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

I really wish they would implement something akin to Don't Starves difficulty settings. Maybe have a slider for frequency, white-/black-lists for items that can show up and in what quantity. This could be per world.

[DaveSatx]

3 minutes ago, Moonkis said:

Okay but neither addresses the OP. The question is that they (according to OP) is over-tuned, and should be tuned down. It has nothing to do with liking/disliking it. If nothing else, OP clearly likes the concept but takes issue with the balance. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

I really wish they would implement something akin to Don't Starves difficulty settings. Maybe have a slider for frequency, white-/black-lists for items that can show up and in what quantity. This could be per world.

You're right that that particular poster didn't but the thread has.. random is just that.   it would be nice as you said to black/white list items

[RonEmpire]

Reject all.   Or      Put an automatic door under the gate with a clock sensor.    Open and close door   makes the gate reset its charge  progress until next care package.   If u set clock to night time to open and close gate resets but u can continue to use it for ur skills during day.   I do this for paku so I noticed the gate resets on open and closing of door.  

[hypoeffort]

8 hours ago, Jackblac said:

The most unbalanced gate gift in my opinion is 3 tonns of fertilizer. That is 600 uses of farm station. The normal sandstone start has less than 1 ton of fertilizer. 

I havent made fertilizer once on aboria.   Going on 700 cycles now.   Gogo charity!

[wronny]

The problem I do have with the option presented at world creation is that it is binary. Especially in the context that some critters & plants only have a chance to be available via space and may not be available at all, if the required locations are missing and you turn the care packages off.

I'd really like too see a overhaul of the the system, so that the care packages are actually things of minor benefit - nice to have things, you'd gladly take if the duplicants presented don't fit the bill. Instead of ranging from stuff you'll likely have too much of anyway over really powerful boosts, that become available very very early, to things you'd otherwise wouldn't have access to at all.

Since we now have different asteroids, that provide different challenges, a single list of packages feels odd - a least with the currently underused discovery condition, applying that one more consistently would improve the system a lot. In the same vein the current set of cycle conditions are very, very low bars: 6, 12, 24 and 48 respectively. Especially the first two feel kind of pointless.

Both of these cause the care packages to have a much higher impact on the early colony development than some of the other difficulty settings.

Finally some packages seem strangely out of line, when compared to their counterparts: 8 Pacu vs all other critters, 100kg Aluminum Ore vs 2t Copper Ore (or Gold Amalgam), 150kg Lime vs. 100kg of Ethanol/Steel, Wort seeds as early as cycle 24 without a discovery condition.

---

14 hours ago, Lafara said:

welcome to Oasis , we have sand , hot sand , even hot sand.

forget about algae,reed fiber,gold

Oasisse has all of these, unlike Sleet Wheat, Nosh Beans & Salt Vines (no Rust biomes & no Ice biomes).

[SpreadsheetGamr]

I'm new to these forums but I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the level of discourse so far.  It's very combative.  By all means disagree with me, but maybe treat it a bit more like a debate than an attack on your play style.  For example, if you disagree, tell us about why you disagree.

Now, back to the topic.  Some people are confused about my first post.  I'll try and restate it a bit more clearly.  I'm making 3 discrete points about the current gate system.

1. Some items in the drop list should be removed because they defeat the manufacturing process in game.  This includes suits and medicines.  Even without gate charity, the Loom is an extremely rarely used building thanks to locker drops.
2. According to the game setup, certain maps have certain types of animals (or lack thereof).  Once again, the gate currently defeats that implied challenge because you can potentially get all types of animals.  This undermines the game design (replayability) by letting players use any animal-based solution on any map.  There is no moment of "oh how can I do this without...x".  Yet clearly the game has been designed to allow multiple ways to do things.  The classic parallel is machine versus biological (eg. Oxylite Refinery or Dense Pufts)
3. There is something not quite satisfactory with a lottery process in the game which nags you to play every 3 cycles.  I really invite other forum goers to consider whether a luck-based system like this is actually making their game more enjoyable.  What is it's function?  What systems could replace it with better outcomes?

Lastly, I want to make a comment about some suggestions people are making about providing more game settings.  I don't think game settings is an appropriate solution to any of the issues I have raised because they are all about game design.  If there are two mechanics in a game, and one undermines the another, providing an option for 'how much would you like feature B to override feature A' is not really doing the game any favours.

[Lurve]

1 hour ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

I'm new to these forums but I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the level of discourse so far.  It's very combative.

If you didn't mean to be combative and to come off as attacking other's play styles, you'd have done better not to refer to care packages as charity and be generally dismissive of their use.  As Winston Churchill once famously said: don't start nothin, won't be nothin.

1 hour ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

Some items in the drop list should be removed because they defeat the manufacturing process in game.  This includes suits and medicines.  Even without gate charity, the Loom is an extremely rarely used building thanks to locker drops.

I think you've yet to learn why no one manufactures these items.  It's not because they can be rolled from the pod, it's because they suck.  Exosuits are just generally better than the other clothing options, and food poisoning should be ignored.

1 hour ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

Lastly, I want to make a comment about some suggestions people are making about providing more game settings.  I don't think game settings is an appropriate solution to any of the issues I have raised because they are all about game design.  If there are two mechanics in a game, and one undermines the another, providing an option for 'how much would you like feature B to override feature A' is not really doing the game any favours.

I also disagree about game settings for an issue like this.  This is a mod ask, not a dev ask.  We don't need to clutter up the settings with options that never get used.  If you're one of the few people who aren't satisfied with the existing choice having care packages one or off, virtually the entire game code is available to be altered.  The care package options are just one file, already located and dissected for its spadey innards.  Change it to your heart's content, push the mod to steam for others to play with, make heartfelt posts in the mod forum about it being the way the game ought to be played.

[Yunru]

1 hour ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

I'm new to these forums but I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the level of discourse so far. 

It's because you're new. 

Everyone who's been here since it was added has seen this very topic discussed to death (to the point where mods were closing threads for being duplicates iirc). 

[nakomaru]

3 hours ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

Once again, the gate currently defeats that implied challenge because you can potentially get all types of animals. 

Many people are interested in gameplay where everything you can do is available in some way, eventually. I wouldn't play without a salty dwarf on a non saltvine asteroid for example. And I'm extremely unlikely to ever plant one.

If you disable the only sources for a variety of asteroids, well I'm never going to try those asteroids. Whereas someone who wants the challenge needs only to forgo such packages.

Personally, I don't care what they do to the pod as long as everything is available from space somewhere.

[SpreadsheetGamr]

@Yunru Thanks, that actually does explain things a bit.  I did a forum search before posting this and was surprised nothing came up.  Can't remember what I searched for but now having done a more proper google search I can see there has been a lot of discussion.

This thread in particular seems good although only 96 people have responded to the survey.  The results show a preference for no restrictions on the drop list.  I have to say I found that surprising.  I though the kind of people who post here would be looking for more of a challenge.

Among the other threads I've read, I couldn't see mention of any of the three issues I'm bringing up.

@Lurve Your post was fairly condescending and didn't really address any of the points I'm making.  I'm sure you know that clothing is not mutually exclusive with exo-suits, so I'm not sure why you're trying to conflate things there.

14 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

Personally, I don't care what they do to the pod as long as everything is available from space somewhere.

I really like this idea.  It's a great feature for end-game content, rewarding, and the best part is you actively have to seek the things you want rather than just getting it randomly.

[LucidFugue]

3 hours ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

1. Some items in the drop list should be removed because they defeat the manufacturing process in game.

I kinda think manufacturing is a little trivial as a reason for not allowing finished goods through the portal. Almost all manufactured products get consumed in another process, so you aren't going to be able to rely on what arrives in care packages. I'm still building looms and forges even if I get snazzy suits in a care pack or locker. 

3 hours ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

2...The gate currently defeats that implied challenge because you can potentially get all types of animals. 

I have some sympathy with this viewpoint. The different asteroid types are actually a very new feature, having been introduced on launch. Previously I had no reason to suspect there was ever an intention of limiting resource/critter types from the game at all, because all games were played on Terra. It has always been up to the player to say "I want to try ranching instead of farming" or "I want to survive on foraging only" and so on to challenge themselves. 

3 hours ago, SpreadsheetGamr said:

3. There is something not quite satisfactory with a lottery process in the game which nags you to play every 3 cycles. 

It was weird when I first started playing. I wouldn't call it a lottery. Every colony game needs to do something for population growth. Usually it's simulating birth or migrations. The printing pod is more lore appropriate for ONI. If anything it gives the player more control than normal over population. That's what was weird to me. It felt wrong to not take a dupe every 3 days, but you quickly learn that you have to. The care packages made me feel like I was getting something when I didn't actually want any more dupes, which felt better than just turning off the printer. 

 

It's a single player game, so ultimately if there was a menu where you could tick all the resources that were allowed to appear in printer pod care packs, that'd be cool. It's not a burning issue for me though. 

 

 

[Cookiematico]

My opinion in TLDR:
What it comes down to is that the ad hoc adding new asteroids near to the end of EA, along with the changes to entire (incomplete) game mechanics, caused some issues so the gate 'charity' acts like a band-aid to these underdeveloped parts of the game. For instance, your suggestion with genetic ooze is quite intriguing and I prefer that to expand on the biological play-style. The snazzy suits or medicine? The related mechanics to those (disease, impact of the suits) lack meaningful impact that it can be ignored the entire play-through. Hardly a charity with those items. What's more, late game can be seen as a waiting game with sporadic moments of engagement. If you reduce the gate charity to raw materials without improving that first, then it becomes even more stale (yes the lottery aspect gives a brief moment of excitement to roll pacu's). Besides, its impact becomes irrelevant by then, that only certain slot charities are worth the excitement.

The tone of reaction you are getting, might be related to the fact that it was discussed during the EA in length (mind you, that was before certain features were added in (asteroid choice) or the end of EA was in sight, so people still had hopes that certain parts of the game will be fleshed out more. Disease system is a prime example of this. The gate is now more of a 'temporary' band-aid, and just stating that its charity wont fix the aforementioned issues.