Plan before you dig?

[Crapgame]

Is planning out your base and environs something that you do before hollowing out your starting biome?  Recently, I've found I'm spending way too much time planning out where I want to leave natural tiles and how I'm going to fashion my parks through and around my base.  Even though I'm an unknown amount of cycles away from possibly getting a pip from the printer I am weighing every dig command for when that actually happens.

This is obviously my personal choice but I'm starting to think that I'm overthinking this and wasting time when I could be busy playing instead of planning.  (I'm aware that you can cook natural tiles or even make them with a mod.)

How much time (if any) do you spend on such planning?

 

[Tobruk]

My approach is that you can't realistically prepare for everything. There's always volcanos, geysers and hydrogen coolers on the map that you'll need to adjust your base or transport layout for. Unless you want everything to zig zag around each other.

[Nedix]

Planning is pretty much out the window depending on the map you're on. I've started a Volcanea map and ended up wasting hundreds of cycles just focusing on isolating the base, steam power (nice setup though), digging 1300 degrees + boulders, cleaning the subsequent debris, rockets, fighting hunger, transporting regolith and vacuuming chambers.

As @Tobruk said, you can't really plan for everything unless you know very well what to do and you are dealt a good map.

[Crapgame]

I agree that once you are out of the starting biome all bets are off because of all the factors you mentioned.  However, those things don't really impact your starting base.

In fact, once I'm out of the starting area I tend to plan a whole lot less since I know I can always decon and reshape things as needed.

I guess what I'm primarily focused on is the very core of your base.  Your great hall, bedrooms, latrines, etc.

 

[Nedix]

The main core is not that difficult. Once you supply the basics (water, food, chill/heat) then you're good to go. The rest is killing me, the endless string of "what should I do next", builds that take tenths or hundreds of cycles to build, a damn bottle emptier I forgot about, a wrong dig command which flashes your crude into sour gas, a too hot piece of obsidian ruining your base etc.

[SharraShimada]

I do not need to make big plans I usually build in 4 tiles high rows and nearly everything fits into that. I´ve developed so many standard patterns over time, i just use them, as i see fit for the current situation. 

[Gurgel]

2 hours ago, Crapgame said:

How much time (if any) do you spend on such planning?

Almost nothing now. I use a standard layout for the base that is not very imaginative, but serves its purpose well. The one thing I plan is enough space right of the printing pod to cram in 16 cots before the outer wall. But that is basically it. Cots go 4 tiles up and with that amount of space there is enough space below (on the level of the pod) before the exit for 12 (space materials: 16) suit-docks and a park between them and the pod. 

The rest of the base is just a box around that, about a screen up and down or a bit less. As I said, not very imaginative...

(The plants are fine, BTW, just did not wait long enough before making the screen-shot.)

[Xenotrix]

4 hours ago, Crapgame said:

I want to leave natural tiles and how I'm going to fashion my parks through and around my base.

After the patch with natural plantings was released, I tried to plan the base to leave natural tiles. It turned out to be very annoying because not everywhere were the necessary natural tiles. Then I thought, “what am I doing and what am I wasting my life on?”  After that, I decided for myself that I could allow myself to use an exploit with doors and build a natural tiles in any place I want.

Spoiler

If the developers fix this exploit, I just install the mod on the buildable natural tiles and continue to play.

Buildable Natural Tile.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1840755803

 

For the same reason, for example, I use the mod for the endless roll of duplicants from the Printing Pod.

Spoiler

Refresh selection

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1724518038

Because I like to create a colony with a role-playing combination of professions among duplicants. But to roll them with the standard method is.almost impossible, I tried, often the necessary duplicant can not come for 300+ cycles, too many bad combinations of traits and interests.

Once I started with 3 diggers-builders and I needed 3 more duplicants with good combinations: Scientist, Farmer, Rancher, Cook, Decorator and Doctor. I planned to play a maximum of 6 duplicants. I spent 3 real days of 8 hours each to roll this 3 duplicants from the Printing Pod with the characteristics I needed (with mod Refresh Selection). After that, with a feeling of deep satisfaction, I deleted the save game of this colony, it had only 15 cycles, an empty colony, nothing was built, only perfect duplicants. Mission accomplished, continue the game was pointless. This is a signal for developers that something is wrong with this dublicant roll system or may be with me. 

And yes, I know about mod 
DGSM - Duplicants Generation Settings Manager
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1838445101

But it is still too cheating for me. I'm still not mentally ready for such a radical change in gameplay (designing duplicants instead of rolling).

 

5 hours ago, Crapgame said:

How much time (if any) do you spend on such planning?

So, what is the result of all these life stories. In the game, unfortunately or not, there are quite a lot of places where you have to spend too much time on redundant actions. I have played 2800+ hours of time right now on Steam and I’m almost sure that 50% of this time (1400 hours or 2 full months of real life) I spent on restarting the game to find the perfect asteroid, endless rolls of duplicants on start and from Printing Pod, meditative sitting on a chair to plan the base and etc. And by the way, this is still quite a bit compared to how many hours of my life I spent on meaningless actions in various MMO games, where the time spent on each game was 7000+. That is my choice... 

[DemainaNyx]

I have a standard layout that I use for most of my bases so I don't really worry much about digging up whatever I want.  Generally from the start I can lay down a few tiles and get the layout set and just know which tiles not to dig.  This is an older image, but is almost exactly what my current base looks like.  Once you figure out a pattern that works for you, it's easy to duplicate and just know where to dig and where not to dig.

One thing is that you can easily make new tiles using the door method.  If you surround a manual airlock with tiles on all sides except the top 3 tiles and then deconstruct the door, you'll be left with a natural metal tile of whatever metal you made the door of.  See the Pip guide for an example of it to make sure you are doing it correctly.  Using this it's easy to just dig up whatever you want and make the tiles later if you need them.  The tiles are also a smaller amount, so you can dig up that 1000KG tile and replace it with a 200Kg tile instead so you still get those resources and your natural tile.

[Yoma_Nosme]

Didn't klei patch the door trick last update? 

I'm not sure tbh...

[DemainaNyx]

2 hours ago, Yoma_Nosme said:

Didn't klei patch the door trick last update? 

I'm not sure tbh...

Just used it after seeing your comment, so not yet apparently.

[psusi]

6 hours ago, DemainaNyx said:

Just used it after seeing your comment, so not yet apparently.

That's weird... patch notes said they did.

[Crapgame]

Thanks for all the feedback.  This is helpful.

When I first started playing the game I used the DGSM mod because I needed to learn how everything worked and that meant having dupes that can do all the things.  That was a useful experience but then I went cold turkey and went to strict printer results (no rerolls, no save scum) and frankly it is not quite as fun.  I realize its a single player game and I can do what I want but I also wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out on the game experience that the devs intended.  I'm still stuck in this phase but I think I'm starting to grow out of it.  I don't find it enjoyable to have to take 2000kg of sandstone because the printer gifts are so horrible.  I also dislike getting into cycle 100 with only 4 dupes because I've had a 32 print run of the worst dupes ever.  I have all these plans to build and do things but I can't because I can't get a decent dupe.  (I don't mean holding out for super dupes, I really mean just decent and without any of the horrible negatives.)

I've learned that I have to take my +7 rancher from the beginning because the pod will NEVER give me one and if it does it has multiple negative traits.   (It isn't optimal in the beginning but I'll accept that handicap early to be able to get to ranching sooner.)

Anyway, I've digressed away from the natural tiles issue.  At this point, I'm inclined to just install the natural tiles mod.  Especially, since I can just make them with the metal doors or even cook them in.

I also have to learn to just dig what I need.  There is no much space on the map that it is pointless to dig it out just for the sake of digging.  It is arguably better to just leave it in place unless you need it.  It doesn't create debris and it certainly ain't going anywhere.  You can have your dupes explore out in 2 tile high tunnels to discover all of the natural features and develop those as needed.  Otherwise leave it all as is and release pips into the map to go crazy planting wild crops for you.

 

[TheMule]

I don't plan anything until late game. Or, at least, they are short term plans. Everything is temporary because only at that stage I know what kind of renewable resources I have. The initial, rough, base carries me all the way to LH2 rockets. Making 50t of steel with a single refiniry setup isn't hard at all. Then I can sit down and ponder what I have available and design a definitive base. Everything before that can be deconstructed so why bother overoptimizing it.

[Baer]

Funny, all my bases are in the same way. five tiles to the left, five tiles to the right, then comes three ladder segments and then i build 64 square rooms left and right. Sometimes i do 96 on on side of my base, when i put ranching inside. Seal all up and put five ladder segments on the outside and then go up and down. Works most of the time. this time i have an steam geyser on my way down and i try not to restart.

[Sigma Cypher]

I've played it clean, but for now I am enjoying the "plan out the optimal starter base" part of the game, making liberal use of debug.  Here is my latest work in progress.  I love seeing people's bases; I hope you will share yours too, unless this is taking the thread somewhere you didn't want it to go?

[Nedix]

Nice base you have there @Sigma Cypher, did you plan it from the very beginning or did you adjust it along the way?

[Sigma Cypher]

Thank you!

4 hours ago, Nedix said:

did you plan it from the very beginning or did you adjust it along the way?

The second. Still adjusting. Brothgar suggested Gliffy for base planning and after 5 minutes of playing with Gliffy I realized, wait, there is already a tool for this, it's called debug.

I love the idea of building the framework once and not having to redo everything during the tech up process at least through steel, like I normally do.  But I'm not sure yet that there is enough flexibility with this design that it could be adapted for a real (honest) playthrough. Maybe the lower right would be used for mushrooms originally, and the current ranch space for mealwood, and terrariums where the atmo suits are.  I dunno. There are some nice base designs show-cased in this old thread.

[Crapgame]

I think when you boil it all down all base planning decisions come down to where you leave natural tiles.  You might make all sorts of upgrades or even move large parts of your base around as you progress but where you decide to leave natural tiles is the very first consideration.  (Assuming of course that you aren't using some other means of creating those tiles later on.)

Taking your base as an example @Sigma Cypher, the Nature reserve is perfectly placed but those natural tiles along the vertical access had to be thought out well in advance.  That's the type of planning I'm talking about.  (Again, making natural tiles later not withstanding.)

I've been staring at a starter base for an inordinately long amount of time trying to think of all the ways I want to expand and then leaving the appropriate natural tiles where necessary.

 

[melquiades]

I build everything as i need it, lots of stuff are "temporary", and i find lots of joy rebuilding those temporary bits with new, optimized stuff.

Just don't be afraid to make enormous overhauls of old infrastructure once you have enough resources.

Regarding natural tiles, you can just build them wherever you want, either by heat, the door glitch or mods.

[Frater Bartmoss]

I am planing a lot... its part of the fun. Usually the inner part of my base like the comp "Algae Terrarium / Deodorizer / 96 Tile Stable". Outside: Let reign the chaos :D

 

 

[MauPow]

This is why I like the Natural Tiles mod. It takes away the agonizing over digging out tiles that you might have wanted to leave there. It also doesn't break my immersion because I can totally imagine them just packing some dirt back together.