Natural gas availability and other suggestions

[selipso]

I've played and restarted a few colonies on the Terra asteroid on Survival mode to get the full starting experience and have an apples-to-apples (ish) comparison with the base game. Here were the gameplay sticking points for me:

1) Natural gas is very difficult to get on Terra start. The first two asteroids usually don't have any nat gas geysers and there's no other way to get nat gas besides the oil refinery (which needs heat management)

2) The first two asteroids are too small. Making them larger with more geysers can solve issue #1 too. I'd also be very happy to have special worldgen seeds with unique characteristics like in the base game.

3) Rocketry plays too big a role with Spaced Out IMHO. I know the expansion is based on it but I feel like the teleportation mechanic is much more convenient without being taken advantage of. Rather than having resource teleporters available only between the first two asteroids, it would be helpful to have more resource teleporters for other asteroids, too. This would allow a more effective interstellar economy of resources being "traded" across the asteroids without having to fly them over every single time.

The above features would make progressing in Spaced Out much more natural and fun! Would be great if you could add those changes sooner keep up the good work I really enjoy the overall changes (esp. to Pacu ranching) in the DLC.

[Sasza22]

You can use fertilizer makers as well. Extra fertilizer will do well as rocket oxydizer.

Would be cool to have more random geysers or even more guaranteed ones. We used to have guaranteed nat gas, feels weird without it.

I think it would be cool if some of the distant planetoids shared a teleporter network. It could even be 3 or 4 chained together and some of the teleports being far from each other requiring exploration and clearing if from sand, rock or even nuclear waste to operate.

[Unfawkable]

The resources should definitely remain scarce unless you opt to travel to other asteroids, the aim of the expansion is to not make you cushy and comfortable with everything you need on your starting one. The teleportation building is meant so that you can start making a second colony in early-mid game without resorting to rockets that early, and I like it as a solution.

As for the other asteroids, I can only agree that building more trading methods would be nice, such as the ability to build one of those teleporters, but having only one given to you should be the limit.

[DaClown]

On 3/15/2021 at 4:37 PM, Sasza22 said:

You can use fertilizer makers as well. Extra fertilizer will do well as rocket oxydizer.

Would be cool to have more random geysers or even more guaranteed ones. We used to have guaranteed nat gas, feels weird without it.

I think it would be cool if some of the distant planetoids shared a teleporter network. It could even be 3 or 4 chained together and some of the teleports being far from each other requiring exploration and clearing if from sand, rock or even nuclear waste to operate.

While you can make fertilizer to produce nat-gas unless they changed something that I am not aware of the process of producting 90g/s nat-gas with the fertilizer refinement process is a net energy consumer and not appropriate for power generation purposes which is still the primary reason a player would want or need nat-gas.

It has been years since you could power a base using fertilizer refinement.

The other major reason you'd want nat-gas currently is food production and the current setup precludes the gas range from being used pre-development of the oil biome of the second asteroid.

To the OP's point, as far as I am aware, you can not have natural gas geysers appear on the starting asteroid. As far as I know, the starting asteroid will never have an oil biome and will have some number of minor or major non-metal volcanos and some number of polluted water, salt water, brine, or steam geysers and never any of the other kinds. This makes nat-gas geysers strictly something you can get on the second asteroid and requires piping either to rockets or to the teleporter logistic system to utilize on the first asteroid.

[Sasza22]

On 3/20/2021 at 2:00 AM, DaClown said:

While you can make fertilizer to produce nat-gas unless they changed something that I am not aware of the process of producting 90g/s nat-gas with the fertilizer refinement process is a net energy consumer and not appropriate for power generation purposes which is still the primary reason a player would want or need nat-gas.

As for now you can`t get net power off of fertilizer makers but you still can use them to for your cooking station then just set up a generator to burn the surplus. I usually set this sort of system to get rid of extra nat gas from refineries and add some fertilizer makers so i get a continous gas production for cooking.

[DaClown]

2 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

I usually set this sort of system to get rid of extra nat gas from refineries and add some fertilizer makers so i get a continuous gas production for cooking.

Refineries basically only can be operated once the second asteroid is setup. For the Swamp start, the production of fertilizer is severely restricted due to the shortage of dirt and phosphorite. The dirt shortage can eventually be remedied without leaving the first asteroid by composting and water processing, but the phosphorite shortage is pretty extreme on the Swamp start and without dreckos there is no renewable sources of phosphorite.

Though I suppose if all you're doing is using the phosphorite for nat-gas then there is something like 40 to 90 tonnes of phosphorite on the Swamp start. Which is about 15 to 35 tonnes of nat-gas or around 150,000 to 350,000 seconds of nat-gas range time or about 256 to 600 cycles of continuous nat-gas range operation. That does seem more than adequate for developing the first and second asteroids.

Significantly less if you are also trying to farm wheezeworts and pincha pepperplants or get a hold of shinebugs from the print pod and try to farm them.

I think the power costs are non-trivial for producing all that though I recognize that in a hundred or two hundred cycles (speed-runner-ish players probably can do it in a couple dozen cycles) you can establish a renewable hydrogen or solar power cycle. Rough figure though is that for exclusive coal-fired power production, the 15 tonnes of phosphorite to nat-gas would consume 308 tonnes of coal without calculating for losses. Definitely would want to establish one of the renewable power sources pretty quickly.

[Sasza22]

2 hours ago, DaClown said:

Refineries basically only can be operated once the second asteroid is setup. For the Swamp start, the production of fertilizer is severely restricted due to the shortage of dirt and phosphorite.

With the resource teleporter it`s not an issue on which planetoid you set up your na gas production. Last time i was just pumping nat gas to my swamp starting planetoid where i got some fertilizer makers working. That base was also the base for most of my rockets so that worked nicely.

As for the limited phosphorite reserves you seem to forget dreckos are a source of renewable phosphorite. I also like setting some hatch ranches tha both supplement my food production and produce a ton of coal allowing my coal plants to run much longer. Eventually i`m transitioning into solar of course and maybe even setting up a steam turbine on one of the volcanoes at the bottom.

[DaClown]

6 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

With the resource teleporter it`s not an issue on which planetoid you set up your na gas production.

In the sense of "can someone fundamentally do the thing" it is not a problem, but I am speaking to a naive-first-time-player-experience point of view rather than the point of view of dozens of hours to hundreds of hours of dedicated and studious players; my perspective is based on whether or not this is a game that I can hand to my younger friends and family members and reasonably expect them to enjoy the experience without me lecturing them on advanced ONI physics. For uninformed playthroughs, it does matter on which planetoid you setup your nat-gas production at first.

Sequentially, the current conditions requires a player to get to and develop the second asteroid before they can establish a sustainable source of natural gas if they do not pick Terra to start with; for power generation purposes the player must develop a permanent presence on the second asteroid.

Pumping the nat-gas through the teleporter only requires fairly basic tech--no atomic research or interstellar research--though in practice it involves sending a dupe with advanced digging skills and advanced research or two such specialized dupes on two different trips spaced out over several cycles; in effect, it requires developing the new base with two dupes (the one you find in cryo) while simultaneously managing the first base to tunnel to, activate, and setup the teleporter I/O.

If you're struggling to get your power and food situation stabilized on the starting asteroid and you send a dupe through to the second asteroid you've just duplicated your struggle and split your attention between struggling to stabilize power and food on both asteroids. The main reason a casual player might risk messing with the teleport--that we assume they don't know what it does and aren't going to spoil that for themselves by reading wiki articles or watching let's plays--is because a crisis drives them to seek out new resources. One more experienced player doing an uninformed playthrough thought that the teleporter was going to send their dupe to the space biome that was made visible on the second asteroid upon first encountering the teleporter and poking around with it.

Dreckos are not available on the Swamp start. Not an issue if you choose Terra as your start, but it is an issue if you choose Swamp as your start. Hatches are also not available on the Swamp start; the amount of coal available to the Swamp start is finite if you do not include exchanges between the first and second asteroid. Also important to note that Reed is not available on Swamp start, so suits are a second asteroid thing unless you start on Terra.

This is significant for naive or casual players who may very well exhaust their coal, phosphorite, or metal ores (plug slugs are a nuisance that Swamp players are going to mistakenly rely on for power) before ever leaving their first asteroid. I understand that the Swamp start is supposed to be a harder early game option, but I am not sure a new player or casual player trying out the DLC for the first time will realize that immediately or realize the potential pitfalls soon enough.

Selipso's reported experience is that getting nat-gas is hard on Terra which is comparatively the easier of the two possible starting choices. Selipso is technically incorrect that oil refineries are the only way to get nat-gas as we've discussed with the fertilizer synthesizer option, but it is no less important to note that Selipso's impression is valid and correct despite the technical reality; getting nat-gas seems to them impossible on Terra, and their report is technically accurate if scoped for generating power from nat-gas in which no amount of fertilizer synthesis is going to improve the power generation situation.

As experienced and sophisticated ONI players, we know that there is a convoluted chain of nat-gas production on Terra using Dreckos, Hatches, and Fertilizer Synthesis, but it is not obvious to some or even most players. I know that my own play experience is that I prefer to avoid ranching in the early game and generally prefer to avoid ranching late game for performance reasons. Unless you start with a dupe that has ranching, ranching is not an option to players that are starting the game for the first time, so the ranching mechanics are gated from the start and are more advanced play in general. Even as such you have to devote significant research and development resources to setting up a stable. As someone who has been playing for quite a long time, I still often spend the first 50 to 100 cycles getting my overall food product into a stable, sustainable, and net positive and prefer to spend my early game perfecting my farms and refrigerator.

I assumed that Selipso's primary criticism about nat-gas was because they wanted the power supply rather than the gas range. Because my experience is that getting a sustainable power grid up in Spaced Out is a challenge; I know players that mess around with regolith melters, steam turbines, volcano tamers, and SPOMs see this as trivial but for those still learning the basic mechanics and sim physics (or any kind of physics literacy really) find all those things relatively inaccessible or inconceivable.

[babba]

Ive started another fresh game, currently on something like cycle 50 in a 2nd fresh cold map Swamp attempt ( after playing hot Terra twice for hundreds of cycles and not liking it due to extremely limited geysers, no regolith, no metal volcanos and small map size ).

I aborted my last recent 2nd Terra fresh start because I was struggling again with the limited fluids and Terra`s heat, attempting to run a colony with dozens of dupes. I spent a lot of time on beloved base building and did not make it in to space, neither did I make it to build a reactor. I imagine Space and Reactors could be really nice things, in theory.

Spending hundreds of cycles in Terra 2nd TeleColony setting up fully fleshed out Texas style large Natural Gas Refineries and Mass Oil Production and then having Terra 1st TeleColony thirst to death as Klei can always only afford to give 2 water geysers to players is/was frustrating.

The game forces players to use the teleporters and forces players to get in to space...Something I rather would like to do after building a big nice solid base. In my opinion there should be all kind of ( mostly renewable ) resources in the starter world to enable base building satisfaction, including Uranium.

I have started fresh again on the temperature cool Swamp map and will limit the play to a few colonists...a play-style I don`t like. I`m trying to this time avoid using the teleporters and the 2nd tele world at all ( don`t know if it possible without Oil/Plastic industry - I don't play critters ), coming again to the conclusion that I would rather start a world without spawned teleporters and with lots of more geysers/metal volcanos in a big map. I want to try to make it in to space this time....Having to skip building a lovely big industrial base.

The teleporter is a limiting factor in pumping larger amount of fluids and other resources through it. After sometimes liking the teleporter stuff, I came to my personal final verdict judgement that its just an artificial created barrier which forces me to micromanage resources and staff. Something is wrong with the game when I start thinking "I could build rockets to get more fluids from TeleColony2 to TeleColony1". I agree with @aresd that digging from TeleColony2 to TeleColony1 would be the right thing + afterwards destructing all teleporters ( or just being able to start a game without teleporters in the first place ).

I had so much more fun with the base game, I`m really hoping that there will be a full content match of the base game and the dlc content ( map choices, big maps, more geysers and metal volcanos, base game style world generation configuration, regolith, option to disable teleporter spawning ). If EvilGenius2 or Xenonauts2 would be out yet,...then I would be playing those instead of ONi...Until Klei implements the mentioned things, at least as world generation options.

I want space and advanced tech as addition, not as requirement. For me it feels like playing Anno1800 on a small map, with a limited amount of max citizens and with limited ( renewable ) resources...and there is no alternative. Maybe I have to wait till Summer or years for Klei to offer alternatives, I don`t know. I would so love to play rockets and reactor game-play for the first time.

I played this game for thousands of hours and probably 200 hours on dlc content. One can play this game by making "optimal confined builds" and kind of following an efficiency instruction manual "do this then do this then this" with the Klei artificial restricted placed renewables and lack of starting resources, not fun for me. The original base game formula was excellent, there is no need to resource handicap players.

Also please ensure that resource gathering via rockets can be fully automized and setup by players and avoid fiddly micromanagement to regularly get more stuff to "home". Space should be a manual challenge for meaningful ( endgame ) goals, repeated resource gathering needs to be possible to be setup fully automatic.

Put a ready-to-go built rocket in to the starter map, with everything connected and all the things fixed, which players claim to be broken. In this way you ensure that you give initial first steps tutorial access to space for everyone and you can prove that your rocket stuff and concepts work, Klei.

As long as Klei sees the starter map as "Just another asteroid", the base game success formula will remain incomplete for "Builders".

If Klei does not add/change these ( for me ) missing fundamental base game elements/options to the dlc, then I have no incentive to play the game.

For me the Coca Cola formula is lost and Klei is still offering fake replacement Cola. The musicians have the notes since 4 months and want to play a great opera theme, but the conductor is missing. @Ipsquiggle

 

[DaClown]

Revision to my feedback.

I was under the mistaken impression that the second asteroid if you choose the Swamp is Terra, but this is not the case. If you pick Swamp you generally do not have access to reed or dreckos before rocketry as they appear to be not guaranteed on the second asteroid.

If you pick Terra the second asteroid includes many of the biomes of the Swamp asteroid which is why I had the false impression.

[Sasza22]

45 minutes ago, DaClown said:

If you pick Swamp you generally do not have access to reed or dreckos before rocketry as they appear to be not guaranteed on the second asteroid.

Yeah, with a swamp start you get the reed fiber sources on the third planetoid. Both dreckos and thinble reed spawn there alttrhough the latter might only spawn as a buried object in slime tiles.

[neumonics]

On 3/18/2021 at 2:02 AM, Unfawkable said:

The resources should definitely remain scarce unless you opt to travel to other asteroids, the aim of the expansion is to not make you cushy and comfortable with everything you need on your starting one. The teleportation building is meant so that you can start making a second colony in early-mid game without resorting to rockets that early, and I like it as a solution.

As for the other asteroids, I can only agree that building more trading methods would be nice, such as the ability to build one of those teleporters, but having only one given to you should be the limit.

I would be fine with this design idea, if ONI wasn't such a min-max game, Keeping the first colony alive shouldn't depend on a high level StarCraft build order, it should give enough breathing room so that the player doesn't kill themselves but pushes them into exploring. Starting the first base should be much easer than expanding into other biomes, or they need to give the players who don't want to spend hours on a Wikipedia some buildings to help alleviate heat, energy and oxygen woes.

 

I also think this type of gameplay could be controlled if you restrict the players research until later in the game, for instance, perhaps when you research farming you need to build a farm plot and successfully grow a plant before being able to research farther down the line. Making the techtree its own tutorial. Or maybe the research is limited to the planetoid you are on, for instance, if you have not encountered a planet with radiation you cant research nuclear power. Using the Tech Tree to push players farther and farther, from what should be, their comfort zone.

TLDR: The first asteroid should be baby asteroid, it should provide everything you need to stay forever but exploration should be rewarded.

[selipso]

The original game strikes a good balance of "easy to learn, hard to master". On Terra this is harder to get a sustainable colony up with Spaced Out. More geysers besides just a cool steam vent would add more variety to power generation, cooking, etc. without making things overly complicated.

With different geysers and larger worlds, the replay value of the expansion would be much higher because each new worldgen in Terra is basically the same world with two steam vents, similar amount of materials and same pathway of getting power generated (coal -> excess hydrogen from SPOM) and then exploring space.

Naturally a lot of things are possible and there are creative workarounds that a player can do, but would a new player be able to come up with these without watching dozens of YouTube videos and reading up on different designs? Probably not.

[babba]

5 hours ago, selipso said:

The original game strikes a good balance of "easy to learn, hard to master".

...

In terms of base game vs dlc balance, in view of rockets...

Yesterday I had a shocker, I discovered that rockets warp away after flying something like 2x their build height.

This may be no issue for others, for me its an depressing experience. The rockets used to melt a lot of stuff away in their path at launch, if one did not use heat resistance materials and tempshift plates and cooling fluids for single or multi mass rocket launches. I expect rockets to fly their entire flight path and not to warp away after flying a short distance, its less challenging and immersion breaking for me.

The feeling of building a real deep rocket silo is gone in the dlc, please Klei...send an ambulance rescue and make the launches like in the base game, that rockets fly their entire path length.

In view of this threads title of "natural gas availability", please spawn 1 oil well source in Terra`s 1st map...This will enable earlier ( and amount limited ) access to plastic and petroleum for players + natural gas via built refinery. The base game had many spawned geysers, basic metal volcanos and regolith - I miss those also a lot from the base game.

I fully agree with below 1.) and 2.) and kindly hand a hot nice radioactive coffee to @selipso

On point 3.) as idea: Players could perhaps build a mega teleporter with insane high resource requirements and/or power energy activation needs, allowing building mega teleporter gates between distanced other worlds. As example 10000 watts electric spike power for activation use, on both sides - 20K power spike total.

On 3/15/2021 at 7:26 PM, selipso said:

I've played and restarted a few colonies on the Terra asteroid on Survival mode to get the full starting experience and have an apples-to-apples (ish) comparison with the base game. Here were the gameplay sticking points for me:

1) Natural gas is very difficult to get on Terra start. The first two asteroids usually don't have any nat gas geysers and there's no other way to get nat gas besides the oil refinery (which needs heat management)

2) The first two asteroids are too small. Making them larger with more geysers can solve issue #1 too. I'd also be very happy to have special worldgen seeds with unique characteristics like in the base game.

3) Rocketry plays too big a role with Spaced Out IMHO. I know the expansion is based on it but I feel like the teleportation mechanic is much more convenient without being taken advantage of. Rather than having resource teleporters available only between the first two asteroids, it would be helpful to have more resource teleporters for other asteroids, too. This would allow a more effective interstellar economy of resources being "traded" across the asteroids without having to fly them over every single time.

The above features would make progressing in Spaced Out much more natural and fun! Would be great if you could add those changes sooner keep up the good work I really enjoy the overall changes (esp. to Pacu ranching) in the DLC.

 

[n_t_p]

Nat gas vent can already spawn on the oil planetoid and the rad planetoid, depending on your choice of start. They're random and not guaranteed. Enter a seed at start if you want to play on a map you know has a natural gas vent.

Quit complaining, this is just a whiner thread.

[neumonics]

On 4/1/2021 at 8:03 PM, n_t_p said:

Nat gas vent can already spawn on the oil planetoid and the rad planetoid, depending on your choice of start. They're random and not guaranteed. Enter a seed at start if you want to play on a map you know has a natural gas vent.

Quit complaining, this is just a whiner thread.

Yes, all threads in suggestions will be a "whiner thread." That being said I don't see how giving a player who is having difficulty's more options is a problem.

[babba]

On 4/2/2021 at 2:03 AM, n_t_p said:

Nat gas vent can already spawn on the oil planetoid and the rad planetoid, depending on your choice of start. They're random and not guaranteed. Enter a seed at start if you want to play on a map you know has a natural gas vent.

Quit complaining, this is just a whiner thread.

There is quite a lot of base game fans which like the variety of geysers and volcano spawns in the vanilla game.

One can expect that a suggestion forum section contains suggestions - Its a place where users post their ideas, feedback and describe their game problems and likings. A forum is not a place to shut peoples opinions and voices up.

[n_t_p]

18 hours ago, neumonics said:

Yes, all threads in suggestions will be a "whiner thread." That being said I don't see how giving a player who is having difficulty's more options is a problem.

If they're bad at the game that doesn't warant a feature change. Power is really easy in spaced out. If they want a natgas vent they can spawn one in with debug. (Oh wait, they probably don't even know how to do that)

[babba]

21 hours ago, n_t_p said:

If they're bad at the game that doesn't warant a feature change. Power is really easy in spaced out. If they want a natgas vent they can spawn one in with debug. (Oh wait, they probably don't even know how to do that)

I find that a source of natural gas in the 1st easy map would be a great addition to the game. IMHO people playing in debug are a very small number minority in view of all sold game units.

The editor is fun, very powerful and easy to use. Perhaps at some point in development it could be made accessible via the games main menu, to make more players aware of it.

[JoeW]

On 4/1/2021 at 5:03 PM, n_t_p said:

Nat gas vent can already spawn on the oil planetoid and the rad planetoid, depending on your choice of start. They're random and not guaranteed. Enter a seed at start if you want to play on a map you know has a natural gas vent.

Quit complaining, this is just a whiner thread.

21 hours ago, n_t_p said:

If they're bad at the game that doesn't warant a feature change. Power is really easy in spaced out. If they want a natgas vent they can spawn one in with debug. (Oh wait, they probably don't even know how to do that)

These forums are provided so players can give their suggestions and feedback. You can disagree, but please keep posts constructive and polite. 

[neumonics]

On 4/3/2021 at 5:58 PM, n_t_p said:

If they're bad at the game that doesn't warant a feature change. Power is really easy in spaced out. If they want a natgas vent they can spawn one in with debug. (Oh wait, they probably don't even know how to do that)

I think you are confusing being bad at the game with a lack of experience. I think this game does a disservice to itself by balancing against high end players, I don't think a player should have to study the game, look on youtube and min max to have the bare minimum skill to play a game. I don't think that the game needs to destroy high level game play, I do think it would benefit from adding options for people who don't want to copy other users or who don't want to have to do hours of studying and prototyping in debug mode. I think this game needs a lot more onboarding and options.

 

Having said that, I also think that adding a natural gas geyser to the first asteroid isn't going to destroy the fun of high end players, it could even be an option in the settings before the map generation.