Feedback on the Alpha from an ONI Noob

[cravecaseinhand]

This is from someone who is more new to the game simply because I struggled to get invested in the base game. I've now played the Alpha for more hours than I had the base game at the time of me writing this struggling to put it down.

Many of the areas that I struggled with the base game seemed to be alleviated here - or at least felt more forgiving earlier on. I feel like the game more clearly presents you with obstacles and tasks you to find creative solutions to them - but gives you the time to do so - then throwing you the next challenge.

1. The early game feels more accessible. I was able to more easily get to a point of feeling stable (rather, having the occasional dupe idle) than before. Oxygen, although relying on polluted oxygen felt more sustainable. Resources felt accessible.

2. I did find a slight reliance on Plug Slugs in my second colony attempt after letting them die in my first. Without plug slugs, I did feel as though I struggled with any reasonable power solutions.

3. All of the diagnostics on the right felt like a relief. The constant tracker of key resources was very helpful to managing potential future issues - such as dirt shortages for outhouses early on to which I was able to solve by breaking down mud - which was so cool.

4. The research menu is slightly... overwhelming. Sometimes it's hard to know the value or priority of things. Sometimes, I struggling to find a path I wanted to go down. Other times, I had 3 different trees I wanted to go down to get solutions to problems. When I unlocked some tech, I was often greeted with material requirements I didn't have. It also seemed like the only area of the game where I 'lagged'. Frames have been so smooth. Even hoping between bases was instant. This menu lags hard.

5. Dupes can be dumb. Like, really dumb. Let me dig out all of these blocks in a way where I can best get myself stuck and probably die. I found these to be some of the most amusing things though and having to panic hit the drop everything and save him button a few times always made me laugh more than cry. RIP Meep 2020.

6. Food poisoning in my water... always. I've now started heating my water to kill of the germs but at crazy power requirements. I struggled to find clear instruction on how to avoid this or what I was doing so wrong.

7. Does reed fiber exist? I took the 'one giant leap for man' and went through that portal not knowing what I'll find. I did so because I felt like I needed to explore alternate biomes in hopes to find reed fiber for atmos suits. I've yet to find the plants or dreeckos.

8. Added to the above, while i feel like I'm semi stable on early game, I'm struggling a bit with mid game (or even the idea of late game). Rockets? Not even close yet. I'm 200 cycles in and I haven't a clue how to start that. I will say that I was able to reach the surface which was a moment of celebration though!

9. The only UI issue/bug I have run into is managing my dupes. When in the skills menu, it will generally list all my dupes on planet one, and none on the second. Both planets show there, I just think it is confused with where they are. That said, looking at menus like Vitals, I have found it to represent correctly.

10. I love this game. I so much wish I saw the potential prior to the alpha. But here we are. I love it and can't wait to realize the full potential of the 8th with all of you

[irOninfernO]

i can only help with 6. food poisoning is poo water from your dupes. 

[Demalis]

I can try to help with 5, when you cut out an area to dig you have to realise maybe only one of your dupes can dig the harder materials. So the untrained dupes go in there digging out what they can trapping themselves. 98% of the time this happens I traced it back to this. planning becomes a bit better knowing this but you always forget.

I have played just over 1000 hours, and feel like I am just learning how to play.

Eve: It is a hard game for new players because of the steep learning curve.

Oni: Hold my beer...

[Steve8]

Quote

. Food poisoning in my water... always

Always set polluted water bottle dispensers to "sweep only". And don't sweep up your waste water bottles from the early bathroom or pee accidents into the main tank

Later on the best way to clean pee water is to let it sit in a tank surrounded by chlorine. Kills all germs within a cycle. Or just dispose of it by feeding it into thimble reeds if you don't really need more clean water. Usually there are other sources like desalinated salt water or ice, so you can just get rid of it.

 

Quote

Does reed fiber exist?

Yes. Both from thimble reeds and dreckos

[Nemisis311]

19 hours ago, cravecaseinhand said:

4. The research menu is slightly... overwhelming.

5. Dupes can be dumb. Like, really dumb. Let me dig out all of these blocks in a way where I can best get myself stuck and probably die. I found these to be some of the most amusing things though and having to panic hit the drop everything and save him button a few times always made me laugh more than cry. RIP Meep 2020.

I'm only going to comment on 4 and 5 here because the entirety of the rest of the numbers are generally answered by #4s answer.

#5 first: Dupes will do **EXACTLY**   what you tell them to, every single time, to the letter. Even if that means killing themselves. I understand you just meant trapping themselves, yeah they do that. I swear they designed the ai to intentionally do that to keep you on your toes  xD. But you kind of learn to dig/build in a way that they wont trap themselves. Generally speaking, any time I see other comments along the lines of "why wont my dupes do what I want them to?", they are, pefectly. It's all in using the priorities menu and having patience to let the dupes do their errands.

#4: It all just comes with playing. You'll learn with every game what you needed first and what you maybe could hold off on. Like atmo suits. They are nice, but you can accomplish a lot without them by using other means. Where resources are located and at what point you actually need them. How to handle some issues like food poisoning (or how to prevent it all together). I will say something not told to you is that chlorine will murderize food poisoning germs if you let the water sit in a reservoir in a chlorine room for long enough. How you chose to accomplish that or if you need it at all is up to you! Also, preventing dupes from peeing in your water supply (clean or polluted), as that is where it comes from. But it all comes with experience!

Thank you for sharing! It's always exciting seeing a new players experience with the game.

[KonfigSys]

the game is not that overwhelming as soon as you grasp the basic. 

Oxygen - dups can breath polluted air. it is not very healthy but they do not die of it (it was in the early version of the game that dups could die of diseases). There are a lot of sources of polluted air - sublimation machine can speed up polluted air generation.

If you do not want diseases spreading out avoid:

-using toilet water (make it closed loop, excess can be used for plants: bogs, thimble reeds are the best due to temperature range and consumption speed - bacteria from the water does not pass on plants and their fruits/products), 

-not cleaning toilets (if you leave toilets completely filled-in for 2+ cycles you will have morbs). Morbs produce p oxygen filled with slimelung germs. I have to mention that it is one way to produce unlimited resource free p oxygen in the game but the room should be airlocked. The p oxygen then can be used to produced coal, for example.

excess polluted water from the toilet room goes to hydroponic cells

Food - a big choice. The best one is ... fish. Someone can argue but trust me it is the simplest and care free one. You do not need to feed them - they may die of starvation but will nest one egg before that so population will remain stable without feeding them. You can get fish from the printer - 7 at once - just let them fall down from the printer into prepared pool underneath. Fried fish has very good taste, eggs generate lime for steel. Just need to install (when you start refining metal) the autohandler to collect fish meat and product leftovers so dups does not need to jump into water to collect the products.

Stress is easy to manage. Create a new schedule (I called it "lazy") and have a lot of sleep and rest time slots. Assigned dupes with high stress to the new schedule till they recover. You can also create recreation rooms (message, etc.)

Research tree - does not really matter - you will need to research all at the end. No mistakes here can be made. Priority is air deodorants if polluted oxygen is at the base, electrolyze (to convert water into oxygen). Research requires clean water and dirt - both can be produced using press machine if the swamp biome. Do not use water from the cleaned toilet output - gems spreading.

You do not need atmo suits or gas mask to explore the space. In fact, in the test I did not use any (and I built rockets, built telescope right at the surface and completely explored cells around one asteroid, flew to another planet, built solar power panels, dig down to 80C iron deposits but for a short while). Your dups can hold their breath and run into vacuum (no popping eye balls or hypothermia). Just isolate your base air space by a simple air lock (you can build just mechanic or electric doors - both hold pressure well - you will have some air leak but not critical) and then just open up the path to the asteroid surface. You can build a better airlock in future (using liquids - oil, water, visco-gel).

a simple airlock for space exploration approved by NASA. The temperature is low (dark liquid is actually CO2 frozen to liquid. Oil in the liquid airlock turned solid but mechanic door provides some barrier for air migration (some will leak when a dup goes through but it is not critical). The dup does not wear any protection gear except the hard hat.