Add end game resource sinks to make ultra late game more meaningful

[lee1026]

This concept is used in Factorio to great effect with infinite research, and motivated some of the most interesting rigs in that game. The big problem in ONI is that once cooling, food, power and oxygen are all secured in the mid game, there aren't really good goals to shoot for. Most of the cool builds suffer from the same problem: sure, you can build it, and it will yield some huge amount of power/water/food/oxygen or whatever other resources, but it isn't as if your dupes actually need more of that stuff. Beyond the mid-game, our ability to produce stuff way outstrip the ability of dupes to actually consume it.

 

So we need late game resource sinks, that produce "stuff" in exchange for vast amount of resources, just so that we have an excuse to produce more crap. I suggest the following:

• Abyssalite melter. Eats vast, vast amounts of power to melt Abyssalite to liquid tungsten. Something in the 10-20KW range, to justify late game sour game boiler and the like.
• Infinite research that speeds up rocket flight. This will have several purposes: one, it turns rockets into a more important resource sink, as they currently eat too little oxygen/hydrogen/petrol. Two, it consumes dupe time researching, potentially adding a purpose to printing more dupes, giving loops that generate food/oxygen a reason to exist. 

[Meltdown]

I think that we are missing two things - in-game goals and crisises. A side from two imperatives, which do not require high skill level and efficient build to complete, and a bunch of lesser achievents, there is no objectives, missions, or milestones that could simply add some external stimulus to reach for high levels of production. There is no mid-late game events that could put developed colony throught stability test. Or time-limited events that require swift response and ability to invest notable amount of stuff in order to get some reward.

Adding some stuff that requires extraordinarry amount of resources to work may create a room for new self-imposed challenges, but, in my opinion it wouldn't solve the problem. It would be much nicer to compete for a virtual head pats from the game, rather than just doing something for the sake of being able to do it.

5 hours ago, lee1026 said:

Infinite research that speeds up rocket flight

I would love to see a sink for the excess data banks. However, the amount of resources a rocket is capable to yield would be limited by it's destination's replenisihing speed, so unless we get some tweaks on that side, speeding up rockets may end up not that much more efficient.

[Sasza22]

I`d like if we had some basic resource sinks that are comparable to the amounts we have. Where was the last time you ran out of rocks? or sand? or phosphorite? There are things that you got thousnads of tons available and no real way to use it all up. You just pick it up by digging around.

There is no real resource management needed for basic building stuff. Only after you start using refined metals and steel you need to start thinking about what you build. If we had to refine rocks to make cut stone, brick or concrete or some other advanced building material we would have a lategame sink for this stuff.

Like imagine building refined tiles that give more movement speed but require you to refine your raw minerals in a 10 to 1 ratio while using water and energy.

[lee1026]

I like running large hatch farms, so running low on rocks happens regularly. Same for sand: running clay based oxygen set ups burn through sand in a hurry, forcing a break for the space biome to keep oxygen supplies going. 
 

I might not be totally normal on this one through. 

[Olleus]

2 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

Like imagine building refined tiles that give more movement speed but require you to refine your raw minerals in a 10 to 1 ratio while using water and energy.

Isn't that essentially what window tiles, metal tiles and carpet tiles are? You can replace basic early-game plentiful resources with some that are harder to acquire/manufacture but give extra benefits?

[lee1026]

Through those are not great examples. Window tiles are from diamonds, something that is pretty easy to get once the oil biome is broken into. Carpet tiles can be had in fairly large quantities from wild reed fiber. Metal tiles is the only example that a player have to work for, through taming a metal volcano is pretty tame as far as crazy late game builds go.

 

In my mind, the drink machines are more along the lines of what I am talking about. Keeping a coffee machine well stocked requires quite a bit of effort. Same goes for the juicer, through the soda fountain is pretty easy. Of course, the morale that those machines give you is an extremely moot point once the late game kicks in, so those need some work to motivate players to actually build them.

[Sasza22]

On 4/18/2020 at 6:16 PM, Olleus said:

Isn't that essentially what window tiles, metal tiles and carpet tiles are? You can replace basic early-game plentiful resources with some that are harder to acquire/manufacture but give extra benefits?

That`s kinda what i mean but not quite. Window tiles don`t give that much beneit outside of letting light and decor through. Carpets slow down dupes and just reduce the stress levels. Metal tiles are ok and actually can be a sink for reasonable benefit but they can lead to temperature problems due to them conducting heat.

I was thinking about tiles that offer even more move speed and use up the near infinite rocks you got around. Like metal tiles can use up all your refined metals refined rock tiles would use up the spare rock reserves most of us have in the mid and lategame. The movement speed benefit is the most helpful but they could provide other bonuses. The goal is to makeit beneficial to use a lot of that stuff and speed tiles is a good way to do it.

Also some of the high tier buildings still use raw minerals (metal smelter, glass forge). Those would be good candidates to use some sort of refined minerals. We could also use a more advanced storage bin. Or maybe insulated stuff could use refined minerals instead of raw. Insulation is a great sink for resources and this would force you to carefully manage your refined minerals or to mass produce it and mass dig around the map. Eventually there should be a recipie that uses up regolith as well for some sort of space concrete so it`s renewable too.