We have a challenger!

[Slvrsrfr]

Be forewarned the new biome is a tricky place, and dangerous. People didn't want or like making mush from dirt and water. So, you get a planet made of mush bars, all congealed together. In a single cloying, oozing, moist tepid froth. Yum, just scoop some up in your hand mush it together, viola' mush slop, on the fly. Everyone's a short-order cook. 'Hey, how do you like your slop?'. Welcome home duplicants. Now dig for your life. And mud has zero practical uses. In a game where almost every type of material has a use. Mud can't be used to make a planter, mud can't be dried into masonry. More abundant than sand and more useless than slimelung infested co2 or CH, floating at the bottom of the colony. Give mud a job.

They created a biome capable of collapsing faster than a cold biome, congrats! Although the new cold biomes fare even worse than they did in the past, this new(Slop Biome) one is even faster, so good job. Did not think it was possible, or necessary. But, kudos, you did it. :\ Something more worthless than a melted, heated cold biome. Wheezeworts essentially have no chance to maintain the biomes they originate in. Most are predictably on snow, or ice, or p ice, and die nearly immediately. Leading to the entirety of 4-6 biomes as soup in a giant puddle at the foot of the colony. What is the new band of granite, obsidian, and ig rock, various misc ingredients? There has to be 10k-100k tons of it. Enough to build 50 colonies, but the map is TINY. There is nothing you need that entire bands worth of Raw Mineral for. Enormous amounts of area covered by rock. Especially if another planetoid has it also. You could likely tile over the entire map, and still have plenty of rock left over to tile out another one.

The slugs are likely the main redeeming feature. Although if they do actually create power w/o heat, I fully intend to utilize it. Power w/o heat is magic. I can turn that into anything. Shinebugs made light w/o heat, which was great. This is incredible. The sulfur biome produces nearly nothing, the crop plots are small(1-2 plant tended, to an unusually large 3-4), distribution sparse, at best. The critters(plant tender critter) have poor mobility, and access to the plants. A salt biome can yield far more in the same space. And a handful of mushrooms is still better, imho.

The metal ore(cobalt) seems to have no unique characteristics that would make it especially desirable at this point. Cobalt, the new metal ore in your way to store more gold. Forgotten in a dustbin. And the game deserves a manual air cleaner that works on simple chemical reaction. Having a better more efficient type can and maybe should be an objective. But nerfing the existing(power req) ones, despite the other map types, seems short-sighted. And exclusionary. There is very little redemptive or worthy of pursuit in these areas, imho. I would leave and/or avoid them, as currently implemented. I'd make a beeline for the teleporter, pipe in(out) the cold slush, and a plug slug egg. And maybe in 1000CY go back and see how it all dissolved, then turn around and walk away for another 1000CY. With an experienced, skilled dupe waiting to be defrosted. It would not hurt my feelings if one or two perished in the expedition. Especially if the 'super-duper' defrosted dupe had ship piloting, as the bonus talent. If the teleporter actually recharges in 5-ish CY, then all three dupes could be off-planet by CY20. That sounds great. Space would be steps away at that point. The new ruins set-ups are, by far, the most interesting part of the expansion. The idea that I could discover and have access to a grill early game, and an iron gut dupe clan, with a griller preemptive skill champ, I think a terra start sounds INCREDIBLE!! Make that happen, please!

A perfect example, CY7? already going over, and 6 water weed waiting in a convenient plot, right at hand. A trained-up clone. A salt biome to the left, the coal gen(meh), and then a grill(!) was further down.

https://clips.twitch.tv/ScaryUgliestCockroachGOWSkull

A majority of natural plants to this biome type(like wheezeworts) have no purchase, no solid ground beneath them. And the tertiary new maps are tiny. I hope they will consider enlarging maps by 10-20 tiles in width, and double that in height(at least). I'd rather have 5 larger maps, than 10 smaller ones, or that option. The bleed over of biomes is tremendous. Every one is essentially breached, by default. The keyhole nature of some of them became even smaller. Ruins are immensely more productive, interesting, and valuable. To find pitcher pumps, planters, all sorts of various objects, is amazing. The abrupt nature of the space/asteroid boundary is somewhat stark. It needs the abyssalite barrier returned? I find it unusual.

The flawless switch-back functionality of asteroid management is remarkable, kudos to the team for implementing that feature SO well, the hotkey exchange back and forth between colonies is superb! Seamless and intuitive.

The realtime diagnostics are rich, and informative.

Salt, in the cold biomes? why the hate?... ;p

They also seem intent on piling on various debuffs until dupes are crippled. Adding another debuff animation. Please fix the double foot kick, for soggy feet.

If a plug slug eats metal, why don't they eat the wire hanging and touching them? they should have morphs from touching conductive, and heavi-watt wires. make one that glows like a lamp? ha...

Dupes afraid of the dark wanting a nightlight, both heart-breaking and adorable.

If Bog buckets when buried in mud could replant themselves that would make them attractive.

If the Grubgrub could climb three high, or wall crawl like drek, and pips. That would make them more attractive. They are worms after all. Shrink them by 1/3? 1/5? proportions are wrong for me i think

All-in-all, I feel like they intended to make the planetoid an example of a place you would want to leave. Granted it provides water it seems for the next two seeds. It's worth leaving, so they did what they wanted, accomplished the mission of moving towards the next map. I do like that they kind of force you to walk through the games concepts, and functions. Granted this may not be the official start zone, it feels like this is what they intended. New players leaving this zone will have a firm grasp of some fundamentals, and capable of engaging in deeper way. The mush bar lovers world, eat your way out! Space slop snickers bar, ftw.

'All the World is Mushbar'. scarface.jpg