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Radiation needs polish


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I really love SO! DLC - it greatly improved rocketry system, added new cool challenges, made he game better and more fun. Radiation ideas are also cool, but it feels like between cool idea and final product there is something missing that needs polish. It was fine in early access that by definition had to include unpolished things to gather feedback; it was kinda understandable at a release, when we saw you want the product to be ready before end of year and the gifting spree, and I trust your announcement that you will continue to improve the game after the release - I am super excited about upcomming art pack and I would really love to see radiation polish comming sometime soon as well.

So here are the things that I feel would need some changes - if anyone feels I forgot about something feel free to start some discussion:

1. Imbalanced Radiation Sources
We can find radiation around Wheezeworts, Shinebugs, Research Reactor and the Surface. Research Reactor being massive, intimidating, and risky solution leaves player to use natural sources for the whole game. There is little progress here, once a player has wheezeworts planted there is little he can do to improve it. I would love to see some building that is more efficient than Wheezeworts, less than the reactor, but alows player for safe radiation improvement.
Also, I don't really like how Wheezeworts are good for everything, they make other plants look as they didn't even try to be useful...

2. Useless and Forgotten Features
Lead suits look like a good idea, but there is no need for them, really. Not since we can gather all radiation from wheezeworts and have no need for extra protection. The same goes for decontamination showers - they look great, but have no application. Radiation Contaminants take a big part of Germ overlay legend, but I see them only around my rockets, only for limited amount of time. Enriched uranium is used only in one place, and the reactor is so huge I don't feel I need to build it, making Enriched Uranium and the Centifuge redundant...

3. Radbolt Network and Application
Radbolts are used only in research and rocketry. I'd love to see more application for them, something that would be good to keep in the main base. This way the radbolt network would be encouraged to be built inside the base. Currently we can use manual radbolt generators for research, so the only network of redirectors needs to be in space industry. Designing it there was fun, but it's not the full potential it can reach and vailable options to include it inside the base would be really fun

4. Plant Mutations
I love the idea, but it takes ages to make anything useful out of them, since the mutations are rare (as should be), random (as should be) and sterile (and here's the issue). Please give us some building that mutates the plants with known mutations, so we could establish mutated farms quicker after unlocking the mutation. Or at least allow mutants to drop seeds with the same mutation at 100% chance. The idea is fun, I guess you had a lot of work to adjust existing systems for it and it's shame to see it useless and forgotten in the end

5. Critter Mutations
Feels strange not to be included when plants can mutate. Making them lay random eggs with a chance related to radiation level sounds simple enough not to burn countless dev-hours here. More crazy ideas (like random horns or additional paws here and there) would be even cooler, but let's keep it reasonable.

6. Radbolt Batteries
Boy, those look unfinished and hasten as final GoT season... The idea is cool, but basic features like rotation or radbolt fire direction would be really nice to see.

7. Multiplanar Radbolt Transportation
I'd love to see a possibility to dedicate one of my planets to Radbolt production and then export it to other bases. Some Interplanar Radbolt Laser Station to fire them across the space would be nice. Or maybe Radbolt Battery rocket module?

8. Nuclear Biome
It feels like a placeholder for final thing that never got finished. There is even no radiation in there. No nuclear germs. Bees fly, but due to strange reproduction rules they can't even make new hives in the wild. They produce scarse resource, that is not really needed for anything. They somewhat produce radiation, but to make it vailable one need to play with so many exploits and strange game mechanics that it cannot be by design. There are cool new plants here, but they don't really feel nuclear, they could be a part of any other biome... Overall it doesn't feel right..

Honorable Mention - Radiation Sickness
I LOVE IT! IMO you perfectly nailed the balance of it. It comes with early warning, vomitting is annoying enough so we care not to get sick, it can be potentially lethal, but deaths feel fair and just and deserved. It has cool animations, challenges, everything. I would't change a thing here, I just wanted to use this post to praise you for the great work done here!

So, TLDR:
- I love the ideas, but they need more attention, polish and finalization
- More items to play with radiation
- More reasons to expand nuclear infrastructure
- Rebalance everything to make everything useful
- Allow us to control Mutated Plants reproduction
- Challenging yet controlable risks are fun, good job!

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1. Imbalanced Radiation Sources

Research reactor makes waste and heat (steam turbines) and very, very high radiation for loading rad-bolt engines, etc. So it is still worth it.

2. Useless and Forgotten Features

Lead suits are not mandatory, but they can prevent annoying space vomit. Also useful as an exosuit in a reed-fiberless world.

3. Radbolt Network and Application

Radbolts can be used for cooling and killing critters, in addition to their normal uses. Should we have more? Maybe.

4. Plant Mutations

Maybe mutants should drop seeds?

5. Critter Mutations

Morphs 2.0? Make shovevoles have a mutation called "destructive drilling". It can be used to clear neutronium very slowly. It can even drill into geysers and enhance their output and/or give secondary output. Too bad it digs/deconstructs *everything* else as well (automation would be buffed to make dupes auto-rebuild, so less of a micro management problem). Critters can also have a mutation of "supernatural allure". Dupes will be helpless to resist the critters when in their presence, but will gain "enchanted" (+6 all stat buff, -20 stress, +80 decor) for 64 cycles after being allured if they don't suffocate first.

6. Radbolt Batteries

Yes. Agree.

7. Multiplanar Radbolt Transportation

Radbolts sending radbolts? Can they hit rockets mid-journey?

8. Nuclear Biome

Hives could be dangerously radioactive?

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3 hours ago, calibayzone said:

Research reactor makes waste and heat (steam turbines) and very, very high radiation for loading rad-bolt engines, etc. So it is still worth it.

I don't say it's useless - it has application.
I say it's main application is not making radbolts, it's - as you said - making 30 steam turbines worth of power.
I don't want it to be removed or nerfed, I'd like to see something else, something not very end-game'ish

 

3 hours ago, calibayzone said:

Radbolts sending radbolts? Can they hit rockets mid-journey?

sounds fun on paper, but maybe better not to implement this collision ;)

 

3 hours ago, calibayzone said:

Hives could be dangerously radioactive?

yeah, that could be nice!

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I`d like some more usage of the radiation germs. I suggested before that natural uranium ore was a host for the germs (like slime for slimelung) so that mining and hauling it would cause dupes to get covered in germs. This would at least make the decontamination shower worthwhile.

Secondly the nuclear waste should slowly change into radiation germs so it remains radioactive and a high concentration of it might become hazardous.

I also think enriched uranium should be more radioactive so you`d have to think twice where to store it. This would make the beeta hive more radioactive on it`s own (when uranium ore gets delivered) and the uranium cetrifuge would become slightly radioactive when working.

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It really feels like radiation was a cool concept that never left alpha. Extra things to worry about, but few uses besides things that just plain mandate it outright.

Plant mutations are my biggest gripe. They really should have variable seed chances by mutation rather than all off, and there should be more worthwhile combinations.

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On 4/14/2022 at 5:47 PM, pether said:

I'd love to see more application for them, something that would be good to keep in the main base. This way the radbolt network would be encouraged to be built inside the base. Currently we can use manual radbolt generators for research, so the only network of redirectors needs to be in space industry. Designing it there was fun, but it's not the full potential it can reach and vailable options to include it inside the base would be really fun

Potentially:

  • radiolysis as a way to get oxygen and may be some other materials
  • packaging food (radiation treated foods take much longer to spoil)
  • it could have been a perfect counter for some germ infested plants or insects (either plants that generate germs, or plants that need insects to mature)
On 4/14/2022 at 5:47 PM, pether said:

Research Reactor being massive, intimidating, and risky solution leaves player to use natural sources for the whole game.

Totally agree.

Potentially reactor can be used to make plutonium, which can have a number of end game uses, be that a long term, self-contained power source or may be an ability to launch plutonium powered comm sattelites (to make those fancy phones and signal transmitters work)

 

On 4/14/2022 at 7:22 PM, calibayzone said:

Radbolts can be used for cooling

That sounds like bug, radbolts should have passed heat into the receiver. But radbolt based cooling options might be nice even if not scientific.

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On 4/14/2022 at 5:47 PM, pether said:

Also, I don't really like how Wheezeworts are good for everything, they make other plants look as they didn't even try to be useful...

"Sorry, officer, mah seen nothing. One fine morning those were some healthy viruses, the next cycle found them dead, completely dead. But mah have heard rumors bout Ghost Wort being seen close by. Ominous that one, each time mah hear bout Ghost Wort a colony of viruses goes silent."

image.thumb.png.58b4fc12877ea45d7b72ee28a9fb2f01.png

Good for cooling, OP for erasing viruses (don't even need to wash hands, dupes get cleansed of viruses when they pass through some 'chokepoints'), doesn't cause eye irritation. A small annoyance in some cases since it interrupts passing dupes, but the 'cleansing' is worth it several times over, the interruption often warranties that a dupe gets cleansed and is short.

Agree that worts need a bit love and balancing.

P.S. Also would be nice to have radiation related traits, like radiation resistance or weakness. I remember seeing something in updates about dupes generating 'light' or own radiation, but haven't seen that in game yet. 

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With respect to Radiation Sickness.

I really don't like how it works on max radiation difficulty. Because dupes have a low threshold for getting radiation sickness, they get it really easy. But, many things that eliminate rads are not reduced by radiation difficulty (for example rad eater, rad pill, I think vomiting), hence it becomes a matter of "easy come, easy go", dupes get it easily but also get rid of it really easily. I don't like "easy come, easy go" radiation sickness at all, not for max radiation difficulty. It mostly becomes a matter of using a Rad Eater, or just feeding the dupe rad pills and ignoring radiation because it's so easy to remove rads.

I'd prefer if on higher radiation difficulty all the things that eliminate rads get nerfed but the sickness threshold remains the same, so radiation sickness takes just as long to get as on normal difficulty, but is harder to remove, requiring a more prolonged recovery period and encouraging the use of things that reduce rad intake like seafood and lead suits.

Chronic radiation sickness would also be a really nice addition to the game, basically a much weaker sickness but one that doesn't get better by itself and is not trivial to treat (say a "Rejuvenation" device on one of the remote planetoids that completely heals all conditions a dupe has). Chronic accumulation could ignore low levels of rads (say only counting rads above 50) which again would encourage the use of lead suits to help bring the dosage below thresholds where long term harm occurs.

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