Review, thoughts, and future plans?

[Drayde]

Nearing the 400 hour mark of playing - and I'll start by saying I do very much enjoy this game!  I thought I would share my impression and see if others and perhaps the Devs share what I'm thinking..

Which, in general: Spaced Out feels like an amazing skeleton that has a long road of fleshing out, but will be great once it is.

I say this because in my experience there doesn't seem to be a lot of motivation or reason to go to all the asteroids.  My terra asteroid was (admittedly by rerolling for it) blessed with a hydrogen and chlorine vent in addition to the normal ones.  Muckalin doesn't have much in the way of resources that make it worth setting up an actual colony - rather than just pumping sulfur through automation back to my home asteroid.  

I -feel- like (and do correct me if I'm wrong) it is intended that radbolt research is supposed to be locked behind exploring Barklin - that you're supposed to settle Barklin with the low tier rocketry available and dig down to the radiated parts to begin radiation farming.

However I am not entirely sure how to approach settling Barklin.  There doesn't seem to be any natural algae, rust, or polluted mud to make oxygen with - meaning I would need to import it and try and build up some infrastructure before the trailblazing dupe suffocates. This seems like quite the difficulty curve jump for the first offworld settlement requiring rocketry to get to, so admittedly I've not attempted it yet as I haven't come up with a plan that won't just involve a dead dupe.

Once I do that (or give up and settle for slow radiation on my homeworld), the last research seems to come from space..  which begs the question as to why I would visit the other asteroids.  And I suppose that's why it feels like a great skeleton without the meat right now.  There's lots of difficult asteroids to visit with no reason to visit them.

 

So my question to the Devs is - is this how you would describe its current state?  Is the plan to give research or goals to going to the difficult asteroids?

 

Overall very much love the game.  Looking forward to seeing where it goes.  Oh, and take the time limit off the Carnivore achievement :/

 

[Sasza22]

10 hours ago, Drayde said:

Muckalin doesn't have much in the way of resources that make it worth setting up an actual colony - rather than just pumping sulfur through automation back to my home asteroid. 

The names of the planetoids are randomly generated but i assume muckalin is the oily swamp. Main reason you`d like a colony there is oil. You can do fine without it for plastic but for petrol rockets you`ll need some oil. It should have a some pokeshells as well. Those do nicely for farming lime from their molts. Also a telescope on the surface and a landing pad for refueling could work nicely.

10 hours ago, Drayde said:

I -feel- like (and do correct me if I'm wrong) it is intended that radbolt research is supposed to be locked behind exploring Barklin - that you're supposed to settle Barklin with the low tier rocketry available and dig down to the radiated parts to begin radiation farming.

I thought so too when i saw it the first time but it seems that you can do your research just fine with just a handful of wheezeworts from your ice biomes. The uranium from there will be needed later for large scale radiation creation: radbolt engines and diamond press atm hopefully more stuff later.

10 hours ago, Drayde said:

However I am not entirely sure how to approach settling Barklin.  There doesn't seem to be any natural algae, rust, or polluted mud to make oxygen with - meaning I would need to import it and try and build up some infrastructure before the trailblazing dupe suffocates.

Iirc the radiated forest should have quite a few oxyferns. Enough to keep a dupe or 2 alive. Later you will need regular transports of water and some other resources but a dupe should survive the landing fine. Especially if a rover paves the way for him.

10 hours ago, Drayde said:

why I would visit the other asteroids.

The other asteroids all have stuff to offer. Not necessary stuff but useful. The superconductive planetoid has a niobium volcano allowing you to create thermium for +900 C higher oerheat temps and best heat conduction in the game. The water planetoid houses a ton of graphite that can be refined into fullerene for super coolant (best thing to produce liquid hydrogen). The volcanic jungle planetoid has an abandon experiment on it that can change leftover food into isoresin for super insulation an visco gel for lategame uses.

Also one of them will eventually have the temporal tear opener (currently tested) which is one of the victory conditions.