game too easy

[degr]

I play around 3 times to understand game mechanics (1-100 cycles), and my 4th attempt was absolutely successful (almost without automation, lol). 20 dupes, barbecue diet on hatches, steam energy.

After it I try to play on volcanic biome, and it was much more easy then previous, because I start to use automation, and on loop 100 I have around 10 tons of plastic from drecons, unlimited barbeque from shove voles, and unlimited power from steam energy.

And I try to play on oasis asteroid, I select reduced metal amount, reduced volcanic activity traits. In beginning it was simple because oxygen and food come from plants, in the middle (cycle 50-70) of game there was small problem with atmosuits, because it was difficult to reach dreccons.  On loop 150 I have unlimited steam energy, unlimited food from shove voles (it more difficult, because I have only 8 dupes here, but if I will continue I will increase population of shove voles, and population of dupes as well). Even don't want to continue playing, because I'm pretty sure that now it will be super easy.

Absolutely no problems with heat, germs, starvation, energy supply or anything. From my opinion you need to increase hydrogen consumption rate for hydrogen generator, may be increase amount of heat production from charcoal generator,

I have no success with solar energy because I have unlimited steam energy (and may be be cause of asteroids, but no, only because I have unlimited steam energy). I even never try petroleum energy generators. Think you need completely get rid of steam turbines, or somehow update them.

Also please change critters meat production to something like this:

if creature was killed while it is starve, it drop (amount of meat) * (0.5 - ((10 - amount of loops to die) / 0.5), so if creature gave 1000 meat calories, if it was killed on 5 starvation cycle, it drop 25% of meat, if it die from starvation it gave no meat. And, if it killed without starvation, it give 100% meat.

Also, shove voles should not have so many calories from start.

Think plants farms is absolutely useless, because it require too many dirt, and you may spent all dirt before you finish all space discoveries. Waterweed require too much of chlorine stone, and better make wild farm, then make something like "chlorine puff farm" to produce clorine stones. Actually, better avoid of planting with current game mechanics, if meat farms so simple.

 

[degr]

And also, about heat. As I understand dupes get heat damage if temperature above 75 Celsius, and this damage very strong, after couple of seconds dupe lose around 30-50% of life and become very slow. From my vision, better hurt dupes with such rate in case if temperature higher then 150 Celsius, and make work speed reduction if temperature higher then 30 Celsius. For an example, if dupe work in 40 Celsius environment, he work with 80% efficiency, if he work in 70 Celsius, he work with 40% efficiency, or something. It's like sauna, 120 degrees is pretty possible to endure for couple minutes, but completely impossible to do something. In same time, make sense to completely forbid any work or movement in environments with temperature above then 1000 Celsius (even with atmosuit).

[yoakenashi]

Just remember, not everyone is interested in playing a difficult survival game, but I do personally agree with this. I enjoy the challenge. While it took me many (many) saves to become proficient at the game, eventually I looked for a way to make the game more challenging. I found it to be a refreshing challenge by changing the game settings:

• Disease to max difficulty "Outbreak Prone"
• Morale to max difficulty "Draconian"
• Hunger to max difficulty "Ravenous"
• Stress to max difficulty "Frankly Depressing"
• No Care Packages

After many more saves, even this became familiar and was no longer a challenge. So I tried this:

• All of the above
• Modify badlands.yaml and set feature_geyser_generic to 0
  • Eliminates 12 generic geysers/vents
  • No swamp biomes, meaning:
    • no dusk caps (ie, mushrooms)
    • no gold amalgam (at least not until space biome is reached)
    • one less cool steam vent and one less natural gas vent
  • Leaves only 1 cool steam vent and 1 chlorine gas vent (seed dependent), and a few oil reservoirs (also seed dependent)
• Metal poor (seed dependent)
• Add the mod "Lights Out (Darkness Revived)" by @Cairath

Game play changes drastically when you have such limited starting water and algae: no Electrolyzers, limited use of Algae Terrarium

The Lights Out mod means everything must be lit at the start of the game, but no Natural Gas Geysers means power management becomes very difficult.

The seed I am playing that has no Natural Gas Vent, only 3 oil reservoirs, and medium boulders, is: BAD-A-459181726-WLH