[Spaced Out! Update] - 464793

[babba]

33 minutes ago, Pulstar said:

Yes, space POIs! Really happy to see this new reincarnation of the old space destinations, especially my favorite "methane ice" one.

Again Klei took beloved content from the base game and reimplemented it back in to the game - The best content of both game versions, combined in a fun way  I loved the resource gathering space map from the base game, sooooo nice that it's back now! 

[n_t_p]

On 5/20/2021 at 11:58 AM, pether said:

I believe the main flaw of the system is that is one-time thing. You send your researcher for one flight, make him research everything, land back and demolish your space lab.

As much as I like the idea of techs researchable ONLY in space, I can see the flaws. Not sure how to make it better? Maybe allow research to be done only in specific space-anomaly hexes? There could be fixed amount of them, and once you finish studying one of them, you must flight to the next to get more space techs. This way you would be encouraged to improve your rockets to fly farther into space. 

To avoid dead lock when you don't have engines that can travel that far, fully studied anomalies could allow for future research, but in slower pace, so you could always have backup plan, even if it were not optimal

Just make starmap tiles give 1 point of research each. Filling in some of the tree can be done from the ground using telescope, but to complete the whole tech tree you need space missions. Have to retool the numbers. That's how I assumed it was going to work before the orbital microlab was added.

[n_t_p]

Putting the space POI resources behind a level of abstraction is a bad move. Completely backsliding on the rocketry revamp, makes it pointless imo. Why are my dupes on a rocket to go collect resources if the rocket is doing all the work?

The old rocketry system was bad. It consted of "go" to place, "collect" resources... With 'go' and 'collect' being in quotes because the player didn't actually do anything, it just happened.

You've started to fill in the blanks only to pull the woll over our eyes again? What's going on in those POIs that makes resources appear in my rocket's cargo hold? 

It seems like you've been worked into a corner here. Ore is only made on worldgen, and worldgen only happens once. Generating procedural content during gameplay is clearly off limits, which means we'll probably never get a believable source. Synthesizing ore, producing from critters, abstracting the collection, it's all a sorry substitute. 

I thought there would be a sollution when I saw rockets add and remove from the map dynamically. The rocket is a POI, it seems like a similar call could be used to summon ore to mine.

[greywizard]

As someone who has played many seeds to over 1k cycles with not much space interaction, thank you. I feel like I want to build a rocket fleet for the first time since starting Spaced Out!

[leyt1125]

I want to play ONI, but I need to wait another 2 weeks for a start, or else my map seed will be outdated and lacks all this new content with POI and moon harvesting. Thats why I hate early access

[KonfigSys]

On 5/22/2021 at 4:24 PM, n_t_p said:

Putting the space POI resources behind a level of abstraction is a bad move. Completely backsliding on the rocketry revamp, makes it pointless imo. Why are my dupes on a rocket to go collect resources if the rocket is doing all the work?

The old rocketry system was bad. It consted of "go" to place, "collect" resources... With 'go' and 'collect' being in quotes because the player didn't actually do anything, it just happened.

You've started to fill in the blanks only to pull the woll over our eyes again? What's going on in those POIs that makes resources appear in my rocket's cargo hold? 

It seems like you've been worked into a corner here. Ore is only made on worldgen, and worldgen only happens once. Generating procedural content during gameplay is clearly off limits, which means we'll probably never get a believable source. Synthesizing ore, producing from critters, abstracting the collection, it's all a sorry substitute. 

I thought there would be a sollution when I saw rockets add and remove from the map dynamically. The rocket is a POI, it seems like a similar call could be used to summon ore to mine.

I think majority of people really like the old rocketry and this is why the vanilla game has so much support from the players. I love the new update and the way it is done. Now we have ALL renewable sources and an interesting way (for some) to collect them, also it makes petrol rockets needed (may be even hydrogen); in fact all rockets gain more usage.

I saw your suggestions for dups to collect resources through manual mining in jet suits. People got concerned about micromanaging aspects of  this idea. 

I also saw your complaint that interplanetary launchers are too powerful and render rockets useless. Now you are saying the rockets are too powerful and make dup labor useless? or it is an incorrect interpretation of your ideas?

Two camps -

some people like building aspects of the game, want to automate every process. So they undertake a project, complete it and move to the next one.

some like sim option, so one can manage dups (like space sims), see how they react to different conditions (stress, cold, heat, bacterias)

 

yes, it is generating on worldgen, so all players have to start again. This should not be a problem - we are in a testing stage so every one is aware of it. Klei could make a random/dynamic option instead OR additional to this. Klei knows how difficult it is for them and player computers.

If "instead", the first group of people will not be happy as you cannot automate it (even now it is hard to automate until we have pilot panel reworked with more option to pause the rocket at some space map tiles). You also will loose predictability to collect needed ore (for example, uranium ore) to sustain your nuclear plant. 

if "additional", then it may be a good addition, let's say a minable comet traveling slowly through the map. But there will be people who will be against the POIs as there are comets for renewable resources. They will say, there is an easy solution as POIs are stationed and they do not go for comets so they like the idea as it is a bit harder for them. They will ask to remove POIs option.

Again a conflict of these camps.

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by KonfigSys
pause the rocket at hexes, not the game

[Sasza22]

9 hours ago, n_t_p said:

Why are my dupes on a rocket to go collect resources if the rocket is doing all the work

The dupe just pilots it. This actually opens interesting options. Imagine a self piloting rocket. No command module, just a power requirement. For this system it would make sense.

It removes some of the setup, similarly to the resource launcher but makes it easier to fully automate the process. Should come at a cost though. There should be some sort of speed penalty or just a speed bonus based on the pilot`s skill level.

[n_t_p]

The only other things we have that directly generate resources are plants, critters, the tree and geysers. Geysers are the closest thing to this, as it happens on it's own. If the resource field is at less than capacity, it fills up. All dupes have to do is go get it.

Every geyser has pros and cons. Pure metals are extremely useful, but come out at hazardous temps. Hot pO2 and infected pO2 have to be cooled/cleaned. Even the most useful geysers like hot steam or cool slush have to at least change state or get processed, and those are balanced in the base game by their relative scarcity. In DLC they're not balanced against, but rather everything else gets balanced around them. They're interesting problems with interesting solutions.

A better example perhaps is oil. It's sort of a weird thing because it's a POI that makes resources in a similar way to geysers, but requires infrastructure. It's downside isn't so much the temperature it comes out at or rarity or anything, but rather the amount of care and processing involved. Oil products are mandatory for progression, but the raw material they're made from is basically useless. There are many byproducts that must be discarded or utilized. All of the steps are interesting on their own. Each step requires implementing many basic components according to the player's designs. Each step has multiple alternate solutions. Combined with the fact that at least one step requires duplicant labor in a somewhat uncomfortable environment and it all makes for a great core material tech loop.

In base game space is just a "You've done everything else" feature. Every dupe has a bed, your food and oxygen production is stable, research is done and materials are getting made. You probably have a monument already. So what else is there to keep anyone around to play? How about an arbitrarily large task. "Make a lot of steam", "Make a lot of petrol", "Make oxylite", "Make liquid hydrogen". Liquid hydrogen is probably the most compelling of those, since it actually takes some complex trickery to keep it stable, but it's still all more or less a "Do X" quest. There are a few shiny upgrades along the way but for the most part it doesn't change your colony's basic behavior, attitude or needs. 

The resource generation of space is just an abstraction. The game is an actual piece of software that has to actually get made and run, so we're asked to suspend our disbelief. It's assumed that on some far away asteroid belt or gas giant there are natural processes like geysers or gravity  or whatever that is generating the resources. It's fine that we suspend our disbelief because it's not a core part of gameplay, it's just an arbitrarily large task.

Now spaced out has replaced that abstraction and filled it in, as well as changing it from an arbitrarily large task into a specific, tangible one. The marshy asteroid has things that actually make space materials. The superconducting asteroid is an actual place that we can actually go and actually play on. So we have these literal places we can go to, as well as now these mystery "things" that make resources for us. Magic space fields are necessarily easy to access since they're slapped onto the same system as the actual game that the rocketry rework is built around.

So there's two systems in spaced out, one for the players to play and another for the stubborn people who complained about change so the devs don't alienate their bottom line.

BTW fullerene and niobium from fields makes two of the 7 asteroid locations pointless, not that I expect we'll need them anyway. Seeing where this game is going the ending will probably just be shoving dupes and radbolts into the tear... roll credits /shrug

Edited May 24, 2021 by n_t_p

[Swoop5994]

i'm constantly trying to build new machines concepts i would really like that we had something we could use to have nuclear fission beside inside the research reactor (having Tiles of enriched uranium close to each others maybe ?) i didn't test it yet so i don't know if it does something with the new bottles are changing states thing...would be nice to have a reactor to build ourselves that have to be built with fail proofs and high end materials...niobium + molten salt + enriched uranium maybe ? or yellow cake which seems on the ice for now...i like playing this way. It's not for everyone..i guess. 

 

11 hours ago, n_t_p said:

BTW fullerene and niobium from fields makes two of the 7 asteroid locations pointless, not that I expect we'll need them anyway. Seeing where this game is going the ending will probably just be shoving dupes and radbolts into the tear... roll credits /shrug

 you seems to want to finish the game without enjoying it just by having 2 elements sooner therefore a most efficient trajectory to the end of the game without visiting planets not settling everywhere because you don't ''need'' what's there.It's one of the major update ,it's not polished as they said many times in the update post...since months we received sick new contents the plants the critters the radiation and you want a generic ? yu ok ? 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Swoop5994

[sakura_sk]

11 hours ago, n_t_p said:

BTW fullerene and niobium from fields makes two of the 7 asteroid locations pointless, not that I expect we'll need them anyway.

The way they spawn at them, no, they are not pointless

[Bromster]

I think the space POIs gives more purpose to the endgame hydrogen/radbolt engines, given that their distant destinations would possibly vary and you wouldn't need to rebuild your rocket as much. I am excited to try out the changes.

[n_t_p]

3 hours ago, Swoop5994 said:

It's one of the major update ,it's not polished as they said many times in the update post...since months we received sick new contents the plants the critters the radiation and you want a generic ? yu ok ? 

1. It needs saying. Nobody's said it yet and this is an obvious issue.
2. I don't think it's an oversight, else we'd see an isoresin source in space fields. Isoresin is explicitly excluded, which makes the inclusion of fullerine and niobium appear intentional. I hope it's just an oversight and that it gets removed regardless of if it is or isn't.

3 hours ago, sakura_sk said:

The way they spawn at them, no, they are not pointless

What are you saying here? I'm a bit confused, can you paraphrase?

[sakura_sk]

3 minutes ago, n_t_p said:

I'm a bit confused, can you paraphrase?

I can't "paraphrase" but I can explain 

Did you check where and how resources like fullerene and niobium spawn at fields (field and cloud actually)? I don't know for certain (I didn't check the code or anything) but in every map seed I checked (~10), space POI that contain fullerene and niobium spawn in the outer ring or even further (edge of the starmap). So, you probably will have to build a super-duper rocket that can go there and back (6-11 hexes distance) after discovering every tile to there (there is no orbit like planetoids, just the specific hex). Even if these specific space POI are close by, in order to make use of the resources it will take time (fullerene 10%, niobium 5% of field/cloud resources, based on information  @Electroely and everyone else gathered). The drillcone is not an early research either and the "easy" way of the base game to send only a cargo bay to a gas giant in order to retrieve only the niobium/fullerene, doesn't seem to apply anymore.

So, you either do the above or...

You could colonize other planets in order to reach the space POI.

or...

You could go and dig the specific planets that have fullerene (what it takes to make it anyway) and niobium  

or...

You could do all of the above at the same time.

If you prefer to afk or build every step of the way, now it is (almost..) an option (afk at the moment doesn't have much automation to be achieved).

Whatever you choose, it is not an easy way and (IMO) not pointless. There is just one more option to choose from. I also expect them to be somewhat like the base game (unknown elements we need to discover per space POI and not everything on a platter) so I wouldn't be this quick to judge something as "pointless" when everything has yet to be revealed how they work.

Or... it was just an oversight and we will never see niobium or fullerene in space POI ever again 

[Meltdown]

I think that, in it's core, worrying about space POIs copying existing features of planetoids and disincentivizing planetoid exploration is a resonable concern. However, given the numbers for rare resources, I think that it's probably fine. 

[spkthed]

Options are good. Don't think of it as duplication, think of it as a playstyle preference. Clearly a lot of people liked this system, it merges the systems closer to the base game. It's like food. Is ranching a duplication of farming? Is it okay if you hate one and love the other?

[Electroely]

1 minute ago, Meltdown said:

I think that, in it's core, worrying about space POIs copying existing features of planetoids and disincentivizing planetoid exploration is a resonable concern. However, given the numbers for rare resources, I think that it's probably fine. 

I can see this argument being made for the superconductive planet (as it's entirely magma with some niobium down below... not very livable) and I wouldn't mind if niobium was taken out of the helium cloud's loot table since it's already renewable via the volcano and water + hydrogen in high numbers are worthwhile regardless. I have no complaints about the helium cloud as it is, though.

I don't think the same works for the fullerene, though... Graphite is not renewable without space fields, and the water moonlet has more to it than just the graphite. Mainly... water... but there's also a significant amount of good building space to make use of (for industrial purposes or just to make a living space for dupes to harvest nearby space fields), with 2 guaranteed renewable water sources allowing a colony to thrive there and even start shipping water to other planets.

[n_t_p]

4 minutes ago, Electroely said:

I can see this argument being made for the superconductive planet (as it's entirely magma with some niobium down below... not very livable) and I wouldn't mind if niobium was taken out of the helium cloud's loot table since it's already renewable via the volcano and water + hydrogen in high numbers are worthwhile regardless. I have no complaints about the helium cloud as it is, though.

I don't think the same works for the fullerene, though... Graphite is not renewable without space fields, and the water moonlet has more to it than just the graphite. Mainly... water... but there's also a significant amount of good building space to make use of (for industrial purposes or just to make a living space for dupes to harvest nearby space fields), with 2 guaranteed renewable water sources allowing a colony to thrive there and even start shipping water to other planets.

Graphite doesn't need to be renewable, it's only used for one thing and all that needs to happen if it's ever not enough is tweak the numbers on the recipe. As it is the graphite is enough to fill a small planetoid with supercoolant, nobody's ever run out and no one is going to.

I don't think anyone's realistically going to use the superconductive planetoid unless it gets features added to it. Why bother when a radbolt engine can get you free niobium

[Electroely]

8 minutes ago, n_t_p said:

Graphite doesn't need to be renewable, it's only used for one thing and all that needs to happen if it's ever not enough is tweak the numbers on the recipe. As it is the graphite is enough to fill a small planetoid with supercoolant, nobody's ever run out and no one is going to.

I'd still prefer if it was renewable. Sure, there's a lot of it, but you never know! And plus, with the system already in place, it does no harm to include it in a space field. I've started a colony on this update, and so far I found it easier to just get the graphite from the water moonlet anyway. It's closer and does not require a cargo module, and I can set up some infrastructure for future colonization while I'm at it.

12 minutes ago, n_t_p said:

I don't think anyone's realistically going to use the superconductive planetoid unless it gets features added to it. Why bother when a radbolt engine can get you free niobium

I'm personally probably not going to be getting niobium from the superconductive asteroid... I'm not a huge fan of the asteroid itself - it seems to only be useful for getting niobium rather than serve multiple purposes like the rest of the planetoids, and getting through the magma to get to the niobium isn't an enjoyable challenge to me. I wouldn't mind if niobium was removed from the helium cloud's resource list, though. You don't need a lot of it and it's already renewable via volcano.

[Swoop5994]

36 minutes ago, n_t_p said:

Graphite doesn't need to be renewable, it's only used for one thing and all that needs to happen if it's ever not enough is tweak the numbers on the recipe. As it is the graphite is enough to fill a small planetoid with supercoolant, nobody's ever run out and no one is going to.

I don't think anyone's realistically going to use the superconductive planetoid unless it gets features added to it. Why bother when a radbolt engine can get you free niobium

having fun doing it the hard way i guess.more options the better i think but there are balance issues of course the game is not complete yet.

[sakura_sk]

5 minutes ago, Electroely said:

I'm not a huge fan of the asteroid itself - it seems to only be useful for getting niobium rather than serve multiple purposes like the rest of the planetoids

Ehm... I would disagree. I think you didn't debug much (or enough) and missed something  

I don't know if it would worth it in every map seed (it sure would be a challenge every time) but I'm so excited to actually try going to niobium planetoid again 

[Electroely]

1 minute ago, sakura_sk said:

Ehm... I would disagree. I think you didn't debug much (or enough) and missed something  

I don't know if it would worth it in every map seed (it sure would be a challenge every time) but I'm so excited to actually try going to niobium planetoid again 

It's just my personal opinion on it, so it's completely reasonable to disagree. I'm sure others can find plenty of use for what it offers.

Looking through debug, it seems like it spawns with a Gravitas building. I'm not sure if it always has, but I'd assume not since it looks like one of the new artifact buildings...
 

Spoiler

 

Through all the magma, the only worthwhile thing I see other than the niobium (and its volcano) is an artifact... The room itself seems to have mostly melted due to the magma.

[sakura_sk]

1 minute ago, Electroely said:

The room itself seems to have mostly melted due to the magma.

Unlucky seeds are still unlucky I suppose... 

[goboking]

20 hours ago, n_t_p said:

A better example perhaps is oil. It's sort of a weird thing because it's a POI that makes resources in a similar way to geysers, but requires infrastructure. It's downside isn't so much the temperature it comes out at or rarity or anything, but rather the amount of care and processing involved. Oil products are mandatory for progression, but the raw material they're made from is basically useless. There are many byproducts that must be discarded or utilized. All of the steps are interesting on their own. Each step requires implementing many basic components according to the player's designs. Each step has multiple alternate solutions. Combined with the fact that at least one step requires duplicant labor in a somewhat uncomfortable environment and it all makes for a great core material tech loop.

Here you're praising the presence of alternative solutions to a problem.

20 hours ago, n_t_p said:

So there's two systems in spaced out, one for the players to play and another for the stubborn people who complained about change so the devs don't alienate their bottom line.

And here you're bashing it.  Is collecting resources via rockets instead of colonizing planetoids any worse than using an oil refinery rather than building a petroleum boiler? 

As is, players looking for the path of least resistance can mine space POIs and those looking to engineer more complex solutions can do so too.  I agree with you that the new POIs disincentivize colonization, but I'm not sure I agree with your assertion that this is necessarily a bad thing.

Edited May 24, 2021 by goboking

[Electroely]

10 minutes ago, goboking said:

I agree with you that the new POIs disincentivize colonization

I haven't gotten far enough into the game to start harvesting the farther fields, but to me it seems like the opposite; Since the most useful fields are on the outer edges of the world, remote colonies will need much less time and resources to loot them, so setting up an easily sustainable colony on a planet near them would prove helpful. A rocket with a solo spacefarer nosecone would also be able to ship more of it back home at once compared to a rocket w/ a drillcone.

[babba]

On 5/22/2021 at 4:17 PM, greywizard said:

As someone who has played many seeds to over 1k cycles with not much space interaction, thank you. I feel like I want to build a rocket fleet for the first time since starting Spaced Out!

I still haven`t built a fat reactor - I just started fresh again ! Man, I`m keen on my first rocket now too with the new resource fields Wishing you nice rocket launches and great fun in the game

Edited May 24, 2021 by babba