Thoughts after the first 20 hours.

[Zaritan77]

After two days and 20 hours of play time I think my first attempt in the new content has run it's course.  To start off I will say the Alpha is in a very rough shape right now, so I will do my best to be gentle.

The Good -

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new smaller map sizes.  Exploration of a map is one of my favorite things to do during a run, and being able to quickly know exactly what resources you have to work with was amazingly satisfying.  At the same time it was equally terrifying.  It really feels like an asteroid now, there is a real risk that at any time the whole thing could just collapse around you and leave you with nothing.  Along the same line, I really enjoyed the new swamp biome.  It is a mess, an absolute mess, and just like a crash landing on Dagobah - you are IN IT.

I was really happy to see the new critters that can provide passive benefits without the need for dedicated ranching.

The new foods are fun and easy to farm.  Sadly, I fully expect to see some adjustments being made to calorie values in the future.

The new early game water processing machine is great.  Classic A+ animations.

The inter-asteroid Dupe transporter is very cool.  The cool down timer adds a bit of risk that forces you to make tough choices about when you use it and who you send.

The Bad -

The change to make it so certain things do not function AT ALL without power.  I get it, using auto droppers to store the whole map in one square without power was busted.  However, the fact they have to be on permanently now is equally as crazy.  They should only be using power while actively holding/dropping items, then return to a non power drawing state when not functioning.  Maybe that is actually how they function, but when inspecting the grid they are attached to, it certainly looks like they are constantly drawing power.

Is it really intended that nothing can be put in a refrigerator without power?  Does it really make that big of a difference allowing only 150kg vs 200kg of food in a 2x2 carbon dioxide hole?

Deodorizers now require 5w of power.  This seems really unnecessary, especially given the fact they are usually used temporarily and in out of the way places.  The time wasted in Dupe labor maintaining a deodorizer was more than enough of a sunken cost for the benefit.

Ranching in general appears to have not been functionally changed.  This is really disappointing to me.  I find ranching to be the absolute worst aspect of the game.  It does not match the speed/benefit provided by doing basically ANYTHING else with a Dupe.  I understand that I might be in the minority with this opinion, but all the cute animations in the world will never be a meaningful ROI when deciding how to delegate my Dupe labor.

The Maybe -

Rocketry, for an expansion that was focused around this specific system, it is a long way from functional at this point.  It appears that the sugar rocket is completely broken right now.  The CO2 rocket may work, but given the resources on the starting rock I have not yet built a C02 system to test it.  (This will be the primary focus of my second run.)

In addition, while the research and time investment needed to reach rocketry is much lower, the over all new system might be MORE convoluted than the old system.  There are rocket parts that can be researched and then "disappear" until you have a rocket pad down.  The rocket pad system is great in theory, but the fact we still have to build external ladders seems like a step backward.  Also, the capsule system is very confusing, there is absolutely no indication of what we are suppose to put in them for a trip.  When I first got one built I wanted to send it on a quick test flight, so I loaded up a Dupe and he instantly started to die... they don't even have air in them to start out.  But, the rocket would not launch anyway, so I guess this is a cart/horse situation at this point.

My final thought on the rocket subject is the fact that it was never the rockets themselves that were a problem.  The root of the problem was the fact there was no reason to use them.  Once you had 200kg of super coolant you could send a rocket to the tear.  Every destination in-between was purely for vanity projects.  I think there is huge potential in this new multi asteroid setup, but if not done right there is just as much of a potential for it to fail.

This leads to the need for a discussion about how the multi asteroid system functions in relation to time.  I see the idea in play for having interconnected cross rock systems all functional at the same time.  However, I really think at the end of the day there needs to be a time dilation implemented for the game to remain playable.  What I mean is - time should only move for the rock being focused on at any given moment.  The interconnected systems could still exchange goods in the same manner with a small change to when good get transported.  When on an active rock you could load a transporter, but it would not send it until you moved focus to the receiving rock.  In this manner all the goods keep flowing as if having a real time connection, without the need for time to actually pass on any non focused rocks.  This would also make it important to ensure you spend some time on each rock refilling the supply chain to maintain the flow of real time goods on other rocks.   One last bonus of a time dilation system is you could end up with Dupes that age in unique ways, if you have one Dupe jump from rock to rock it would become hundreds of cycles older than the cycle count for any single rock.

The final reason I believe time dilation will be needed is simply to maintain the fun of the game.  Eventually you will have 5-6 rocks (maybe more) all with their own processes and crews.  If you can only see one at a time and the others keep going unseen that means you are really only going to get to see and interact with less than 20% of what is happening in the game.  That does not sound like fun.  I enjoy the micromanagement, I strive to be one with my Dupes.  I do not want 80%+ of what happens in the game to happen outside of my ever watchful Dupelord Gaze.

Thanks for listening.

[QuQuasar]

There's a bunch of things I both agree with and disagree with in this post, but I'm afraid it's all overshadowed by just how strongly I'll have to disagree with the time dilation idea.

For a start, it would be complex, micro managerial and just weirdly artificial. "Scenario: I'm not getting imports from Asteroid B anymore. What went wrong with the supply chain? Answer: I didn't let the map run for for long enough and now I have to go back to it and AFK while my dupes loaded the warp pipe up with more oil and lead."

More importantly, it would destroy our ability to use automation and failsafe's to make automated multi-asteroid systems, which to me is *the* selling point of the Spaced Out DLC. Radioactivity? Who cares! I can't even begin to describe how excited I am about the idea of building a fleet of fully automatic cargo rockets to ship renewable resources from geysers on distant worlds. Having to visit each colony just to pass time there would be a chore, and having to spend 50 or 60 cycles on different asteroids to pass 10 cycles actual time in the system would be an absolute nightmare.

[Tsabo]

2 hours ago, Zaritan77 said:

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new smaller map sizes.  Exploration of a map is one of my favorite things to do during a run, and being able to quickly know exactly what resources you have to work with was amazingly satisfying.

"I love exploration... so it's great that it's over quickly"

Uhh... I am confused by what appear to be mutually contradictory points here. If you like exploration you should dislike smaller asteroids!

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Deodorizers now require 5w of power.  This seems really unnecessary, especially given the fact they are usually used temporarily and in out of the way places.  The time wasted in Dupe labor maintaining a deodorizer was more than enough of a sunken cost for the benefit.

Idk about you, I pipe infected pOx vents into deodorizer boxes ad infinitum, with autosweepers, sand conveyor droppers, clay conveyor loaders, everything, it's an industrial scale operation.

5W is almost nothing, but it sounds like your chief complaint is the inconvenience of having to build a 100-cell line of unbroken wires into a remote biome, to which my response would be: what, you don't build power, gas, conveyor, and water connections into all biomes as a matter of course? You should.

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If you can only see one at a time and the others keep going unseen that means you are really only going to get to see and interact with less than 20% of what is happening in the game.  That does not sound like fun.

Well, I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree here: for me half the satisfaction of ONI is in setting up a perfectly automated subsystem that does what I want without me ever having to interact with it. What you see as a negative I see as a massive positive; the raison d'etre, even. Building the beautiful, ignorable, self-correcting machine is the whole point!

[Zaritan77]

31 minutes ago, Tsabo said:

Uhh... I am confused by what appear to be mutually contradictory points here. If you like exploration you should dislike smaller asteroids!

On many of the original asteroids much of what you explore is trash dead space before getting to the good stuff.  Smaller asteroid means faster satisfaction from the uncovering process.

For all the concerns people have about automation, I understand and allow that the automation play style is completely valid.  But my play style can be summed up as - I do not play to automate, I play to dominate.  If I have not completed my goals for a run in 300-400 cycles, I have failed, and it is time to roll a new rock.

I just do not think it is good business practice to spending time, money, and artistry on the things that go into a game, for the end goal to be players never seeing it.  As the old saying goes - Don't hide your light in a bushel basket.

2 hours ago, QuQuasar said:

and having to spend 50 or 60 cycles on different asteroids to pass 10 cycles actual time in the system would be an absolute nightmare.

Time spent on any rock would be independent from any other, there would be no universal time constant.  One rock could be 300 cycles old, and a different rock could be 10 cycles old, it would all depend on how much focus you give each one, but the connections between rocks would always appear as "synced" worm hole rules style.  Each Dupe would age based on time spent on a focused rock.

I want to micro manage everything, that is my play style.

While not easy, I fully believe there could be a system created that allowed for automation to continue to function within the frame work of time dilation.

[chemie]

I agree with your comment about "a reason to go".  I find the second teleport planet is only useful for a hatch egg.  Eventually oil if you need petroleum for a rocket but otherwise, go once and forget.  The second planet is useful for a single rocket trip to pick up a bunch of gold and Al metal and some drekos to bring back in the capsule.  After that, why bother?  Maybe one more flight to replenish or get some refined gold.

So now you are stuck on small world instead of a bigger world, but still do not have any real need to use the rockets.  We will see how it plays out in early access since we have limited planets/rockets right now.

[yopyop6]

12 hours ago, QuQuasar said:

More importantly, it would destroy our ability to use automation and failsafe's to make automated multi-asteroid systems, which to me is *the* selling point of the Spaced Out DLC.

For me too. I love the idea of letting my other bases running on their own, which is something I'm too "scare" to do in the regular game.

 

11 hours ago, Tsabo said:

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new smaller map sizes.  Exploration of a map is one of my favorite things to do during a run, and being able to quickly know exactly what resources you have to work with was amazingly satisfying.

I also love exploring the map and that's one of the reasons I restart a game from the beginning. In the DLC, I can "restart" the game on another asteroid AND let my other bases running in parallel. This is really cool (for my style of play).