Rocketry still takes far too long to be a fun mechanic

[DarkMaster13]

If we're going to manage dupes in flight, then they need to be able to finish full flights within a shift.  It takes two cycles for a dupe to finish a round trip to the nearest planetoid. That's barely any distance at all.  The old rocketry's main and most frustrating aspect was that it took too long.  This is even worse.

The rockets either need to be unmanned or be fast.  There's simply no way to make this a good mechanic otherwise.  It's far far too fiddly to manage dupes in rockets when they have to go on multi-cycle long trips.  A full rethink on how cockpits work would also be a good idea.  Storage bins inside them are too powerful and trying to cram all the things that a single dupe needs to survive and have high morale in such a small space is just impossible.

While stress is set to the highest difficulty, they will unavoidably max out on stress in that time thanks to low morale.  This caused my pilot to stress vomit until she died, even after she'd gotten back to base.  Her stress gain from low morale was so high that she kept vomiting over and over until she starved to death.

[KittenIsAGeek]

I'd like to take the opposite stance: I think rockets taking time is a good thing.  Consider, for a moment, how long it takes for us to get a man to the moon.  One of the "problems" that is necessary to deal with is the time commitment.  Because the dupe is in a rocket for an extended period of time, you need to consider resources such as  food and air.  If the rocket trip happens within one shift, you can put an oxygen mask on a dupe and do your whole trip before it runs out.  Why bother providing food if they can binge out when they return at the end of their shift?

I do think that a dupe with rocketry needs to get a morale bonus equal to the bonus they'd be getting from sleeping in a barracks, dining in a hall, and using a latrine while they're in the rocket.  It makes no sense for them to get so stressed out so quickly while doing something they enjoy doing.  Or, perhaps, for the relatively short time (a couple of cycles) that the dupe is in space, perhaps their morale could be locked in to their 5-cycle average.

As it stands, by time you get the skills to do rocketry and to be useful when you get to your destination, the morale requirement is mildly high.  It isn't insurmountable -- generally one great hall and a plumbed bathroom will cover it -- but its more than you can provide a dupe in a rocket.

[babba]

But but, how long till reactorz ? One entire year ? Takes toooooooo long

I had a peeek, still cant start a big map from the main menu...Too loooong !

Getting to rocketz in the game goes faster than waiting for the games radioactivity arrival.

 

@minespatch

[KittenIsAGeek]

8 minutes ago, babba said:

But but, how long till reactorz ?

Yes, we get it, you really want nuclear.. but this thread isn't about nuclear. Its about rocketry.  Sorry.

[N00bieMeap]

1 minute ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

Its about rocketry

yes but can i mention nuclear rocket
i'm just saying...

[babba]

@Ipsquiggle It would be really nice to be able to start a big map from the menu. Some players have requested the option to play with big maps in the past. For me it would make rocketry fun again, as I would like to build "deep" excavated rocket silos. Perhaps it takes longer to be implemented due to the technical map changes, but it would really be great to have this play option.

@DarkMaster13 Perhaps some mini mini rockets early on could be an idea for Klei to implement ...Either some existing small one(s) or new ones  What do you think ? Do the small rockets take too long to get too ?

"1 hour ago, DarkMaster13 said: ...The rockets either need to be unmanned or be fast.  There's simply no way to make this a good mechanic otherwise.  It's far far too fiddly to manage dupes in rockets when they have to go on multi-cycle long trips..."

It would be nice to not be forced to play rocket indoor maps.

14 minutes ago, N00bieMeap said:

yes but can i mention nuclear rocket
i'm just saying...

A nuclear rocket, powered by the legendary Magma Engine, would be beyond my wildest dreams.

[Tsabo]

2 hours ago, DarkMaster13 said:

While stress is set to the highest difficulty, they will unavoidably max out on stress in that time thanks to low morale.  This caused my pilot to stress vomit until she died, even after she'd gotten back to base.  Her stress gain from low morale was so high that she kept vomiting over and over until she starved to death.

And now you know not to use stress vomiters as astronauts.

As far as I'm concerned, that means problem solved.

[minespatch]

2 hours ago, babba said:

 

What am I supposed to do?

[MiniDeathStar]

I think rockets are grand as of now, but the cockpit could really use some specialised buildings that are only buildable inside, and disallow some other buildings like storage bins.

For example a building that functions as a toilet and a sink at the same time, and a life support machine that functions as food and oxygen dispenser and is loadable with oxylite, algae and edibles only. A rocket generator would be nice too. 

[babba]

6 hours ago, minespatch said:

What am I supposed to do?

Kindly asking for one of your famous Picasso creations  for the Dupe Louvre

[The Plum Gate]

15 hours ago, MiniDeathStar said:

I think rockets are grand as of now, but the cockpit could really use some specialised buildings that are only buildable inside, and disallow some other buildings like storage bins.

For example a building that functions as a toilet and a sink at the same time, and a life support machine that functions as food and oxygen dispenser and is loadable with oxylite, algae and edibles only. A rocket generator would be nice too. 

My sentiments exactly.

[Sasza22]

With how the current rocket infrastructure works a fully automated command module that doesn`t have an actual interior would work just fine. Just setting it to travel back and forth could be fully automated with the dedicated add ons to the platform loading and unloading the rocket. It would work "as intended" with no extra cargo space in the command module. It could also enable a "passenger module" that wouldn`t require a dedicated pilot but hold a few dupes with everything they need. It could also be a cryo module to avoid having to make the interior.

17 hours ago, Tsabo said:

And now you know not to use stress vomiters as astronauts.

How about just using a "driver" dupe that has no skills outside piloting. Just give him some berry sludge as food and he`ll be fine as long as there`s enough oxygen. If the pilot has the "iron gut" trait he can stay in the command module for extended periods of time. Just needs a resupply once a while.

[DarkMaster13]

23 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

I'd like to take the opposite stance: I think rockets taking time is a good thing.  Consider, for a moment, how long it takes for us to get a man to the moon.  One of the "problems" that is necessary to deal with is the time commitment.  Because the dupe is in a rocket for an extended period of time, you need to consider resources such as  food and air.  If the rocket trip happens within one shift, you can put an oxygen mask on a dupe and do your whole trip before it runs out.  Why bother providing food if they can binge out when they return at the end of their shift?

I do think that a dupe with rocketry needs to get a morale bonus equal to the bonus they'd be getting from sleeping in a barracks, dining in a hall, and using a latrine while they're in the rocket.  It makes no sense for them to get so stressed out so quickly while doing something they enjoy doing.  Or, perhaps, for the relatively short time (a couple of cycles) that the dupe is in space, perhaps their morale could be locked in to their 5-cycle average.

As it stands, by time you get the skills to do rocketry and to be useful when you get to your destination, the morale requirement is mildly high.  It isn't insurmountable -- generally one great hall and a plumbed bathroom will cover it -- but its more than you can provide a dupe in a rocket.

This is a matter of there being two systems clashing with one another.  Either one would be fine on its own, but both together is a disaster.  It'd be fine to have long travel times if you didn't need to manage your dupes during that time.  They could still need to be supplied with oxygen and food, but otherwise do not exist in the game world.  No cockpit to manage, no idle dupe warnings, no morale consequences.  Just massively raise up the storage capacity on modules (say 30-50 tons for solids, 6-10 tons for liquids, 1-2 tons for gas) and it's good to go.

If the cockpits are something we're suppose to manage and take care of, then the morale system requires that the trips be single shift affairs.  The system simply cannot handle dupes spending that long outside of a proper base and we're forced to do a ton of dumb workarounds to avoid these problems.  In this case, it would be fine for the module capacities to stay low and to run specific routes continuously to ship smaller amounts of resources from one colony to another.  A lot easier to automate this system as they don't need to be massive affairs that take a cycle to load or unload and then are in transit for several cycles.

[minespatch]

17 hours ago, babba said:

Kindly asking for one of your famous Picasso creations  for the Dupe Louvre

I still haven't inked the coffee one but I'll see what I can do with this.

[sakura_sk]

4 hours ago, DarkMaster13 said:

The system simply cannot handle dupes spending that long outside of a proper base

26 cycles. Magma planet. 0% stress.

No atmo suits. 2 dupes. Morale 27/15, 27/19.

Spoiler

 

*I am just saying it is possible to long travel

[Yunru]

5 hours ago, DarkMaster13 said:

If the cockpits are something we're suppose to manage and take care of, then the morale system requires that the trips be single shift affairs.

Except it doesn't. Just provide better morale. 

Being bad at part of the game does not mean that part is broken, nor that the only course of action is to whin- petition about it being changed. 

[babba]

21 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

With how the current rocket infrastructure works a fully automated command module that doesn`t have an actual interior would work just fine. Just setting it to travel back and forth could be fully automated with the dedicated add ons to the platform loading and unloading the rocket. It would work "as intended" with no extra cargo space in the command module. It could also enable a "passenger module" that wouldn`t require a dedicated pilot but hold a few dupes with everything they need. It could also be a cryo module to avoid having to make the interior.

How about just using a "driver" dupe that has no skills outside piloting. Just give him some berry sludge as food and he`ll be fine as long as there`s enough oxygen. If the pilot has the "iron gut" trait he can stay in the command module for extended periods of time. Just needs a resupply once a while.

I really liked how to the system was before, seeing a pilot getting in ( without me seeing the rocket inside ) and seeing a pilot get out. So for those players who do not want to play inside a rocket, having the "old playstyle" as an alternative - That would be great.

If I had the feeling that rocket-indoor-maps would actually feel like being a rocket, so with rocket interior exclusive designs and "real spaceship feeling"...Then it would not break my immersion and perhaps I then could feel like being really in a rocket. However, some players don`t want to (always) micromanage "everything" in rockets, do not always want to get in to rockets or may not want to play the inside rockets at all.

Catering for "Inside rocket players" and "Outside rocket players", for both factions - That could be the best of both 2 worlds

[DarkMaster13]

8 hours ago, Yunru said:

Except it doesn't. Just provide better morale. 

Being bad at part of the game does not mean that part is broken, nor that the only course of action is to whin- petition about it being changed. 

That was not possible when I was trying to send out this rocket.  The best food I had available was +1 morale and I was using the basic command module to try the system out which doesn't have enough room to provide room bonuses.  I waited specifically to send up a dupe who had advanced piloting, given that was a good move in the previous version and it seemed like what the game was suggesting I should do. If the player's natural inclination is to get a dupe killed, it's possible that maybe the system isn't done very well.

There's nothing else in the game that demands things be this particular to work.

[Yunru]

1 minute ago, DarkMaster13 said:

I was using the basic command module to try the system out which doesn't have enough room to provide room bonuses.

You can fit a great hall in the basic command module iirc.

2 minutes ago, DarkMaster13 said:

The best food I had available was +1 morale

Omelette is a +2, and definitely available.

[sakura_sk]

13 minutes ago, DarkMaster13 said:

There's nothing else in the game that demands things be this particular to work.

Like taming a cool steam vent while erupting without atmo suits..? Because I could compare current rocket travelling with that. Tap it too early and your dupes could probably die..

If you need to fly longer than 1-2 cycles then you need to use a spacefarer module which is spacious enough for multiple rooms.

For solo spacefarer nosecone a mess hall and a bed is enough to let your dupes stress-free for a couple of cycles

Spoiler

bed= -20%stress when sleeping, mess hall (12 tiles)= +3 morale, +4 morale for 5 slots of downtime schedule,

 

If you play in max difficulty you just don't travel until you can sustain your dupe's morale with food (barbeque, grapefruit preserve, berry sludge)

[hegemontree]

Consider using decor and massage to manage morale and stress.  I believe this capsule can keep a dupe alive and happy for 100 days without restocking.

Spoiler

[DarkMaster13]

Decor was an option that I hadn't even considered that would have solved this problem.  That's a system I haven't engaged with in the game for a long time simply due to not needing it.  I could have also solved this problem by waiting until I had a petroleum refinery for natural gas to cook better food or skipped the nose command module in favor of the larger one so I could get the room bonuses and included a toilet + oxygen generation.

The fact that I bounced off the rocketry system this badly is useful information for the devs.  Many players like myself would ruin the game if we looked up builds, as the fun part of the game is solving the puzzles ourselves.  There hasn't been a system before now that's so easy to end up with a dead dupe with little to no ability to recover from a mistake.  Dupes scalding or suffocating are usually situations where you can quickly pull back and avoid problems.  Dumping water all over your base is recoverable.  Polluting a water supply can be fixed by switching to a new one and gradually decontaminating the old.  Running out of fuel for your power plant creates a problem to solve with clear time limits and constraints. 

Realizing you didn't pack food for a rocket dupe or that their stress is going to max out very quickly while they're two cycles out from your base means you're now in a situation you can't do anything about and that's the first time the game told you there was a problem.  Rocketry isn't well explained in the game and a lot of it has to be learned through trial and error, which often ends up with a dead dupe.

I've been playing this game for at least 500 hours.  This rocket pilot was the second dupe I've killed in that entire playtime, including reloads.  The first was from a dupe trapping themselves inside my water supply during my first or second play session.

[hegemontree]

19 minutes ago, DarkMaster13 said:

There hasn't been a system before now that's so easy to end up with a dead dupe with little to no ability to recover from a mistake. 

True, I reloaded back 20 cycles (mostly of just letting the game run) to save a dupe in a steam rocket on a long range astronomy mission.

[Smife]

6 hours ago, babba said:

Catering for "Inside rocket players"

Here's a solution - play FTL

[KonfigSys]

On 1/30/2021 at 11:09 AM, sakura_sk said:

26 cycles. Magma planet. 0% stress.

No atmo suits. 2 dupes. Morale 27/15, 27/19.

  Hide contents

 

*I am just saying it is possible to long travel

how do you get water into the module? Or you do it once and then have to rebuild the water pump everytime to fill in? One oxyfern is not enough for two dupes or even one in a long trip???