Alpha test - the world is too small

[KonfigSys]

Thank you for allowing me and other players to participate in Alpha test. I love the game and the developers (their approach to make the game even better relying on players' feedback).

Here are some observations.

Page 1. Concept. I really like the idea of traveling to the new asteroids. In fact, I asked about it a while ago before the news came out  I did envision it differently. I hoped that it would be a standard map and then you can move to a new map within the same game session (rather than to start a new map). The developers came with even better idea - the real time multiple asteroids. However, there is a problem with it: the map size. It looks like (instead of one big map pre-DLC) the map was split apart into multiple but rather small maps. I hope it is only for alpha test and it will be an option to start with a sizable (old version size) initial map which is self sufficient (no need to space travel for basic resources) and sustainable in the long run even without exploring other asteroids. So the players have an option to choose a world generation with at least one big planetoid (preferably starting one or to be discovered). I do understand that the big map (planetoid) plus several small ones (asteroids) may create heavy load on the game processing. But it is the player choice at the end. I am ok to wait several minutes to load the game save on the current vanilla game (4000+cycles, all map is explored and developed). 

I think there is an alternative scenario. There are planetoids (all big maps - like the old pre-DLC maps) and small asteroids (small current DLC maps). There are two levels of space map - one is cluster map (the player starts in one cluster but there are many and more can be added in the future) and another level is inside the cluster (the same map as it is now). It is more alike to the real understanding of the world - there is our solar system or star system with all planets within and then there are galaxies that consists of the star systems. Here we are talking about asteroids in an asteroid belt? Never mind.

Not all are to be run in the real time (if this limits the map size). A player chooses one cluster which consists of one planetoid and several asteroids - all running in real time when the player is in this world (the other clusters freeze and do not use processing power, no player's attention is needed either). The player can move to another cluster (advanced telescope research is required to find more clusters) and by moving in making it active. When you move in it is like loading a new session but within one session setup. Each cluster has from one to five objects. It can have 1-2 planetoids plus 2-3 small asteroids or may just have 5 asteroids. Each cluster may have unique conditions (solar activity from 100% to 1%, radiation levels, geothermal activity, temperature ranges, bio diversity, meteor activity, diseases).

It will be easy to add more clusters expanding the universe infinitely (the only constrain is hard disk space which the game takes - with now days Tb disks it is not an issue) . Contrary running simultaneously all the maps will limit the size of the maps so to say the computer/processing power should be more than map size * number of maps (now we are talking about processor and RAM). I think that this what led to reduction of map size in the DLC. I hope I am wrong and we will see big size maps of planetoids in the final game DLC.

The question remains about the bridges between real-time (where the player is currently) and frozen clusters (other worlds). How to move resources between? Currently it is nicely done through teleports and rocket hauls within one real time world. However, if you have self-sufficient cluster, you do not need to move a lot of resources (just an initial - pioneer package and rear resources). The current system may work well within one active cluster. Then it can be a teleportation device to accumulate a load (while in active phase) which can be send at once when you move to another active cluster. The device menu allows the player to choose which planet and what should be accumulated and what quantities. Also you can add duplicands to the parcel list. 

Summary. It will be great to have an option to choose a big size planetoid with many geysers, volcanos at the start. If there is a trade off I would go for the vanilla game rather than DLC.

[KonfigSys]

Page 2. New rocketry. I hope that the developers will add rather than replace old ones. I really like old rocket design (sounds, visuals) and fuel scheme (steam, oil/oxidizer, hydrogen/oxidizer). The new one though much simpler creates many questions.

CO2. If it is like steam just pressurize and then let it flow, why it is about pure CO2 but mixture of gases cannot be used? CO2 is not flammable and cannot burn; the description is not accurate then. 

Sugar cane engine is not even funny. It requires more processing than oil engine and not sustainable (oil is limitless but Sulphur is not). Moreover oil rockets are easier to automate (oil and liquid oxygen fueling).

The rework of flying crew is not positive in my view. Micromanaging a small pilot team (or a number of small teams) when you run several asteroids is not fun. The limited ship space is not great. It will be one or two designs some players will come up with and it will be standard usage for everyone. Not much creativity when the space is so limited. 

The construction was not intuitive and mistakenly described. it is written that you can use three modules with CO2 engine but it is not clear that the engine is one of them and the player can add only two modules. I did not realize it and spend time figuring out why I cannot build the 3rd module (no notification what is wrong). Apparently I was building a rover unit as the 3rd one rather than cone. There was the error message about the tin opener but it is WIP so not a problem at this stage. Picture below.

The telescope did not work when installed in the pilot module when the ship was on the ground or was in the space. It showed that cells were completely discovered (though they were not). Some players reported that their telescopes worked on the ship. Either it was bugged or it was not correctly facing (but then again it was not clear from the message).

I did not like this part of DLC at all. In my view it is a step back from the previous one. There is no module for animals (like bio module in the old rocketry)?

[KonfigSys]

Page 3. New animals and plants.

This part is good. It is always great when developers add but not replace.  

I particularly like the plants (bog buckets) that use polluted water (always available at the start and sustainable) and grow eatable fruits that can be further processed in the grill. 

GrubFruit plant farm is not sustainable when you run out of Sulphur. Unless there will be Sulphur volcanos in the game or pips can plant it. 

Electric slugs. First I thought "this is great". But they quickly became useless. If you do not feed them, their power production goes way down. Feeding metal ore is not sustainable if there is no ore meteors. Solar power is a way to go as there are no meteors. It will be great as one player already suggested to have a morph form of the slugs which eats metals (produced by metal volcanos) but not ore. Or if there are asteroids with ore meteor shower (I did not see them in the test). 

GrubGrub is funny and useful. I did not sense if they increase growth of other than GrubFruit plants. 

It will be great if developers finish with Moo. Two things are required - the animal should reproduce. I would think it should not be egg but they should give a birth for calf. And second and important, fix the bug when it is not possible to tie them. When I did challenge I had to bring 6 cows and only one I was able to tie and transport to the prepared room (and it happened only after she was buried by meteors; I dig it and tie - small room enclosure did not work at all). Now that we have no meteors on many asteroids, we can grow gas grass much easier and hence, produce the natural gas and meat; though, power panels are probably win the race hands down.

[KonfigSys]

Page 4. Other things.

New building are good and useful. Same point here: as long as there is no replacement it is always good. Sublimation machine was very needed. Press machine is required considering new resources in the DLC. 

Teleportation device was introduced too early in the game in my view. I would put a research or something to move it to the middle game rather than right at the start. Also it is not clear there will be only two asteroids connected? What about other asteroids and if it is possible to build such devices on other asteroids or only rocket exploration and development.

Resource filter in the upper right corner. The change is great! It is easy to set what you really want to monitor. There are some technical issues but this is due to Alpha. For example, when I set to display "electric slug eggs" I did not see the quantity (the wording line was too long in Russian language and overlap the number). Also the word for air reserves was incorrectly translated to something like air permeability which does not make sense. It should be "запас воздуха" (air reserves) или "генерация кислорода" (oxygen generation).

No meteors on the initial planetoids are probably ok. It is easier to develop the space program and install solar power panels. However, I kind of miss it. I liked the challenge and most importantly, the sustainable source of filter material (regolith) and energy source (hot regolith) and ore and iron. I hope there will be planetoids with frequent meteor showers and there will be all sort of meteors (regolith, gold, copper, iron).

Personal traits. Not very important. I always use crying ones - less harm when stressed.

Research tree - I liked when rocketry was a separate one. The filter is probably helpful but not for an experienced player. 

There were two tiles my duplicands could not pass through. They were tagged "unknown" and I could not build on their spots. I believe it is related to future uranium content. 

No major (or even small) bugs or frequent shut downs. Through the test I only once had a message about the black hole and submitted the report. I had similar experience with the vanilla game and it is very rear and not annoying. 

At the end. Keep up the good job. A bit disappointed with the small map size and new rocketry upgrade (or downgrade?) but still the devs are great and hope they will make the required improvements.

[pether]

  

1 hour ago, KonfigSys said:

Page 2. New rocketry. I hope that the developers will add rather than replace old ones. I really like old rocket design (sounds, visuals) and fuel scheme (steam, oil/oxidizer, hydrogen/oxidizer).

Devs wanted to allow players to start with rocketry systems in the midgame. Because of this we have no meteors and there are some simpler engines. But my understanding is that this is only for alpha testing - I see no reason not to allow players use hydrogen and pretrolum rockets in the endgame. But those are not the scope of alpha testing, so it made sense to exclude them for this period. In the final product, I believe we will see both old and new rockets.

[KonfigSys]

1 minute ago, pether said:

  

Devs wanted to allow players to start with rocketry systems in the midgame. Because of this we have no meteors and there are some simpler engines. But my understanding is that this is only for alpha testing - I see no reason not to allow players use hydrogen and pretrolum rockets in the endgame. But those are not the scope of alpha testing, so it made sense to exclude them for this period. In the final product, I believe we will see both old and new rockets.

I also hope so. That is the reason for me to ask developers NOT to remove old rockets from the game. However, some rework may be done as the old and new system may conflict - the pilot module particularly.

[KonfigSys]

I also forgot to mention one bug/feature - the gas mask. It was already reported by other players. If oxygen around the gas mask station is low pressure, a dup brings ore, makes a mask and then drop the made mask and runs back for ore and makes another mask and so on. So I ended up with like 10 masks laying by the station and the dup did not put on any mask and did not pass the station. I had to stop him from making the masks repeatedly and stopped using the mask station.

[goetzjam]

11 hours ago, KonfigSys said:

(oil is limitless but Sulphur is not)

Technically untrue, there are ways to make limitless sulphur if you want.

[Singularity42]

I must be honest I didn't read all your post (it was very big).

But personally I disagree. I think the smaller maps creates challenges which you have to work out how to overcome. e.g. the first map you can create a somewhat self sustaining base, but you wont have everything you need to be able to do everything, so you need to travel to the other planets to be able to get what you are missing. This creates some new challenges, meaning you have to play differently on each asteroid, and decide which materials you want to ship between them.

 

I see a lot of posts on here which basically amount to, "change it back to how it is in the vanilla game", but the DLC is supposed to be different. You can still play the vanilla game if you want. The DLC is supposed to be a different play style, and I would argue that it is mostly for people who have played a lot of the base game, and are ready for a new challenge. So I think it is supposed to be a bit harder.

[babba]

Lets see what the full game content, including available maps and full gameplay, is on the 8th

[KonfigSys]

5 hours ago, goetzjam said:

Technically untrue, there are ways to make limitless sulphur if you want.

You are right. I forgot that you can turn the sour gas into methane and Sulphur. A bit tricky though, first you have to heat up oil to about 500C to get the sour gas and then cool it down to like -180C. 

2 hours ago, Singularity42 said:

I must be honest I didn't read all your post (it was very big).

But personally I disagree. I think the smaller maps creates challenges which you have to work out how to overcome. e.g. the first map you can create a somewhat self sustaining base, but you wont have everything you need to be able to do everything, so you need to travel to the other planets to be able to get what you are missing. This creates some new challenges, meaning you have to play differently on each asteroid, and decide which materials you want to ship between them.

 

I see a lot of posts on here which basically amount to, "change it back to how it is in the vanilla game", but the DLC is supposed to be different. You can still play the vanilla game if you want. The DLC is supposed to be a different play style, and I would argue that it is mostly for people who have played a lot of the base game, and are ready for a new challenge. So I think it is supposed to be a bit harder.

I saw that some people actually like the small maps. My point was that it should be an option in the start up menu where you can choose.

It is not much challenging in the DLC. The main base produces oxygen and food for other asteroids (as it has two water geysers and relatively cold temperature). Steel production and dreco farms also can be here.

Another asteroid has 2 dups to run production: oil wells require manual labor. You can put a sulphur production there also (fully automated).

3rd asteroid with hostile environment does not require dups. Metal volcanos are fully automated (cooling using electricity from solar power panels).

I have 200 cycles and it is getting boring. I have 7000 cycles in the vanilla map and there are some things to do.

[blobi07]

3 hours ago, Singularity42 said:

I must be honest I didn't read all your post (it was very big).

But personally I disagree. I think the smaller maps creates challenges which you have to work out how to overcome. e.g. the first map you can create a somewhat self sustaining base, but you wont have everything you need to be able to do everything, so you need to travel to the other planets to be able to get what you are missing. This creates some new challenges, meaning you have to play differently on each asteroid, and decide which materials you want to ship between them.

 

I see a lot of posts on here which basically amount to, "change it back to how it is in the vanilla game", but the DLC is supposed to be different. You can still play the vanilla game if you want. The DLC is supposed to be a different play style, and I would argue that it is mostly for people who have played a lot of the base game, and are ready for a new challenge. So I think it is supposed to be a bit harder.

I don't understand where is the problems, let people choose the map size thats all, I always prefer to play on giant map... giant map = different struggle you need to make giant circuit, manage duplicant movment etc... seeing tiny map like this make me sad... and the first thing i will look right after the dlc will be a mod to change them. 

(the performance isn't a problem my computer can handle it and if at one point it become one, it's my problem because i choose a bigger map)

[goetzjam]

6 hours ago, KonfigSys said:

You are right. I forgot that you can turn the sour gas into methane and Sulphur. A bit tricky though, first you have to heat up oil to about 500C to get the sour gas and then cool it down to like -180C. 

Just because its complicated doesn't mean its still not viable.   Then again theres a number of options available to you to sustain food.   You can ranch drekos with balm lilly, that requires absolutely no reoccurring resources, just dupe time.  You could grow any of the food that requires just water or water\dirt.   As you have 2 sources of limitless water, 1 polluted if you want.   You can ranch a couple of pips that plant their own trees, which gives you limitless dirt, you could also convert the polluted water into dirt as well.

Spicy tofu or pepper bread are both great food.  The only thing that doesn't seem to be endless is lettuce, but you could go a long while I think if you pipe over the salt water and bleach stone, even longer if you ranch some puffs to convert the massive amounts of chlorine available on one of the maps.

 

I think I agree with the other guy, the point of the DLC is to be different.  I do hope they give more options, but theres a really good reason why they are forcing everyone to play the new biome.

 

 

[Singularity42]

On 12/6/2020 at 10:37 PM, blobi07 said:

I don't understand where is the problems, let people choose the map size thats all, I always prefer to play on giant map... giant map = different struggle you need to make giant circuit, manage duplicant movment etc... seeing tiny map like this make me sad... and the first thing i will look right after the dlc will be a mod to change them. 

(the performance isn't a problem my computer can handle it and if at one point it become one, it's my problem because i choose a bigger map)

Are you saying you want bigger maps in the DLC, or you are wanting to be able to play the vanilla game?

There will definitely be an option to still play the base game, if that is what you are saying.

On 12/6/2020 at 9:53 PM, KonfigSys said:

You are right. I forgot that you can turn the sour gas into methane and Sulphur. A bit tricky though, first you have to heat up oil to about 500C to get the sour gas and then cool it down to like -180C. 

I saw that some people actually like the small maps. My point was that it should be an option in the start up menu where you can choose.

It is not much challenging in the DLC. The main base produces oxygen and food for other asteroids (as it has two water geysers and relatively cold temperature). Steel production and dreco farms also can be here.

Another asteroid has 2 dups to run production: oil wells require manual labor. You can put a sulphur production there also (fully automated).

3rd asteroid with hostile environment does not require dups. Metal volcanos are fully automated (cooling using electricity from solar power panels).

I have 200 cycles and it is getting boring. I have 7000 cycles in the vanilla map and there are some things to do.

I agree the DLC runs out of steam after a number of cycles, but I think that is just because they haven't added much of the radioactive stuff yet. I think that will come soon and give us more late game goals (maybe in the version which comes out on the 8th).

[KonfigSys]

of course, we can easily switch between the vanilla game and the DLC but it is a bit strange to do like that. The most game I played, a DLC comes as an add-on but not an alternative. The only one thing Klei needs to do to satisfy this and improve this already great game - allow an option to choose a large planetoid map for the DLC (just to be clear large map PLUS small asteroids rather than either one large map or three+ asteroids).

They can have all sort of warnings: "use the large map at your own risk of game crashing or it may take ages to load your saves if you comp is old, etc " It is a player call at the end.

Radioactive thing obviously good but I am no desperately waiting for that. Of course, it will be another layer in the game (like germs) but it will not be a game maker or breaker. There are already radioactive materials in the DLC. You probably can run them trough some new buildings to extract the radioactive isotopes and use them as fuel for nuclear reactors to produce heat and power. It will be same waste and you probably can send it to the space. Dups take radiation damage and may develop some diseases.

[babba]

Both should be fusioned on the dlc release today, if not = Bad steam rating from me. I am expecting the full combined game, anything else would be silly.

[lilibat]

14 hours ago, KonfigSys said:

of course, we can easily switch between the vanilla game and the DLC but it is a bit strange to do like that. The most game I played, a DLC comes as an add-on but not an alternative. The only one thing Klei needs to do to satisfy this and improve this already great game - allow an option to choose a large planetoid map for the DLC (just to be clear large map PLUS small asteroids rather than either one large map or three+ asteroids).

 

This is what I was hoping for with the DLC. The base game PLUS which is what I expect from DLCs in general, not an alternate game. I do not like the DLC, and the little maps at all,  so back to the base game I go. The thought of having my lovely Rime base as home but having smaller satellite, satellites with smaller bases for certain resources sounds like my idea of a good time,  what the DLC is currently... not so much.   

[cpy]

I just can't wait for the sustainability update!

[KonfigSys]

On 12/6/2020 at 9:42 PM, goetzjam said:

Just because its complicated doesn't mean its still not viable.   Then again theres a number of options available to you to sustain food.   You can ranch drekos with balm lilly, that requires absolutely no reoccurring resources, just dupe time.  You could grow any of the food that requires just water or water\dirt.   As you have 2 sources of limitless water, 1 polluted if you want.   You can ranch a couple of pips that plant their own trees, which gives you limitless dirt, you could also convert the polluted water into dirt as well.

Spicy tofu or pepper bread are both great food.  The only thing that doesn't seem to be endless is lettuce, but you could go a long while I think if you pipe over the salt water and bleach stone, even longer if you ranch some puffs to convert the massive amounts of chlorine available on one of the maps.

 

I think I agree with the other guy, the point of the DLC is to be different.  I do hope they give more options, but theres a really good reason why they are forcing everyone to play the new biome.

 

 

It is not complicated. 

1. The start biome is "ideal" even for new players (two -10C water geysers). Even though eventually a player runs out of filtration material (no lava volcanos, no meteors) it can be made through with steam. There are some exotic scenarios like converting dirt into sand on volcanos also.

You are right - you can get limitless +3 barbeque from Dreko or fried fish with no input resources to use. You can get clean water (for oxygen production) using desalinizer or boiling p water. I also use morbs+puffs on chlorine asteroid for oxygen production.

However, it is not the point. The point is the game world is too small. If you combine all three asteroids it will be much smaller size than the vanilla game.

2. Oil asteroid is useless as not much use for oil at this point. Ok, one can try to cool down sour gas without super coolant being available (just using hydrogen) but with plenty of food available why would you do that.

I do not complain about the swamp biome. In a way it is very easy to develop it and make it semi-sustainable. But it is a very small world as all three asteroids are like one third of original vanilla game. Yes, you can make it sustainable within 100 cycles - just food and water/oxygen and both can be supplied by two cold geysers. 

I do not understand why it should be "either"? Why not to have an option in the game? It is always bad when developers start forcing players playing like developers want. Many great AAA games collapsed when such things happen. 

On 12/9/2020 at 6:18 AM, lilibat said:

This is what I was hoping for with the DLC. The base game PLUS which is what I expect from DLCs in general, not an alternate game. I do not like the DLC, and the little maps at all,  so back to the base game I go. The thought of having my lovely Rime base as home but having smaller satellite, satellites with smaller bases for certain resources sounds like my idea of a good time,  what the DLC is currently... not so much.   

"The base game PLUS which is what I expect from DLCs in general, not an alternate game" - exactly

And it is easy to do - there is an option to choose the starting world (it works only for one planetoid currently), just add old good maps (+ small asteroids) to the option and that's it. Both sides players will be happy.

[goetzjam]

I think they plan on letting you pick different starting areas as well as adding more planets, I think they way they have it setup now is so they can get feedback.

[lilibat]

13 hours ago, goetzjam said:

I think they plan on letting you pick different starting areas as well as adding more planets, I think they way they have it setup now is so they can get feedback.

Yeah but if the starting area is still just a fraction of what we had before, it's still a very different game. I love building the bigger bases. Just my preference but it is what it is. 

[babba]

On the topic of size and maps - Please dear Klei don`t force everyone in to rocket interior design and rocket indoor map play, the building in rocket maps, a very short counter idea on this issue is posted here. It is one of the many reasons why I left a bad dlc rating on Steam ( for now ).

I like Klei`s basic mechanic system of having certain things run by dupes, to avoid 100% automation:

> Refinery in base game: Dupe is required to turn the refinery wheel

> Rocket in base game: Dupe enters rocket, then the rocket can be launched manually or automatically ( via automation )

Im an Factorio style industrial player, for me the rocket interior map play is too Minecrafty, Sims like and micromanagement. Having a dupe enter/exit the rocket was/is fine for me in the base game and it made the space launches immersive for me + I loved setting up the automation on the rocket launch pads.

[pether]

2 hours ago, babba said:

Please dear Klei don`t force everyone in to rocket interior design and rocket indoor map play, the building in rocket maps

Tbh, I like the idea (but I'm not sure after how many rockets I will stop), but I can see why some people are annoyed by the rocket planning. So - how about a middle ground and something for everybody? We could have 2 buildings: 1st - empty rocket as it is now, and 2nd - pre-build, with everything included, but sub-optimal. Those, who like to tune their designs to the perfection could use current solution, and those who don't care just want to build and forget had their option too

[babba]

54 minutes ago, pether said:

Tbh, I like the idea (but I'm not sure after how many rockets I will stop), but I can see why some people are annoyed by the rocket planning. So - how about a middle ground and something for everybody? We could have 2 buildings: 1st - empty rocket as it is now, and 2nd - pre-build, with everything included, but sub-optimal. Those, who like to tune their designs to the perfection could use current solution, and those who don't care just want to build and forget had their option too

Both worlds, 2 solutions to cater for everyone is always a good way

It can have downsides for non-rocket-interior players, deficits or additional expenses/resource efforts. Your preset interior design of rockets is a great idea.

In a perfect world, I don`t have to enter or see the indoor interior rocket at all. It would give me better space race immersion, the UDSSR/USA space race immersion I had with the base game rocket system. I know the rocket interior gameplay is a lot of fun for a lot of players, but perhaps not everyone wants to always screw around in the interiors.The gameplay of all colonies is great, for me its just too much micromanagement and immersion loss to also build a "colony" inside a rocket.

...I was launching rockets with the engines submerged in water, thousand of tempshift silo plates to take the engine heat, with a Fluid & Regolith Waterfall coming automatically down from above for rocket exhaust cooling at launch - It was built in survival over 3000 cycles.

If I could build an autopilot device per rocket + select a default rocket interior preset ...without me, myself, ever entering or looking in to a rocket = Perfect !

This was my rocket base silo in the base game pics1

This was my rocket base silo in the base game pics2

[KonfigSys]

it looks like you used rockets to clean water?

I used rocket landing and take off for refining oil. A very simple design provided me with enough oil for two rockets to haul all required resources automatically. 

Another one was hydrogen for exploration and later on also was used for far away resources. Hydrogen rocket heat was used to produce electricity.

I realized that the best automation is no automation at all . Just connected input and output on the rocket nose and by the way it works in the DLC but you need to connect on the landing pad but not the rocket itself. 

All fuel automation was reduced to a simple pump always "on" as I used space thermo material for pipes even for hydrogen.

and by the way I stopped using bunker doors for rockets and it became way better - meteors did not affect my rocket take off schedule and rockets do not break doors as there are no doors. I did not clean regolith either as it did not prevent neither take off or landing.