More reasons to colonize the space

[pether]

I really like how each asteroid in the DLC has something nice to offer, something that could encourage players to colonize it.

The issue is - there is not really a reason to do so... At a point when a player feels comfortable with colonizing harder asteroids, he has the means to open and reach Temporal Tear. Why would player need thermium or insulation, when steel radbolt engine can transport rockets to the final destination?

Don't get me wrong, I love radbolt engine, please never change it! But it doesn't change the fact that the hardest quest in the game doesn't really require super advanced things: there are no meteor showers over main base, liquid hydrogen is not really needed, etc. Colonizing the space is done only by self-imposed quests and does not reward player in any way other than having huge empire...

I'd love to see more reasons to colonize the space, eg:
- "Have a duplicant survive 100 cycles on each asteroid" quest Imperative 
- Making the space more vast, so the temporal tear was out of reach using non-hydrogen rockets
- Having other use for unique resources, eg: turning resin to amber to make decor buildings out of it
- Frequent meteor showers over all bases after opening temporal tear, or having meteor showers frequency slowly increasing after 1000-ish cycle
- New cool unique buildings that require unique materials

[sakura_sk]

I was not a fan of meteor showers.. and I really don't want them all over SO asteroids.

What I would really want to see is a way to move from one save to the next. Opening the tear, opens one or multiple locations (more tears?) in different asteroids if they are populated. If a dupes enters one of these locations, a new map opens (new save file) and the printing pod prints that dupe on a new asteroid cluster to start a new colony having their original skillset.

It would be chaos... It would be wonderful!

The dupe would be removed from the original colony and if a new dupe enters that tear, they would be sent to a different cluster. That way you can continue on one save to populate the galaxy but drop dupes every now and then on new clusters to see who will survive  to make more colonies and explore different options

[pether]

Yeah, they could do some NewGame+ mode where you start new base with up to 3 dupes that reached the Tear in your previous games. That would be really cool! The story would never end, each game would be part of a bigger whole.

But this doesn't really change the fact that there is little need to colonize more asteroids. I agree that meteor showers were tideus and not fun in the vanilla so yeah, that might not be the best idea... But something else to encourage and reward us more to expand would be nice

[Genry]

I was just thinking about the plot component. (seriousness).
I will create a new idea for an update and write in detail there.

[Sasza22]

Each planetoid needs something unique about it to warrant colonizing it. For the close ones usually having uranium and oil when the starting one doesn`t is enough but they could also use a special PoI with something interesting. Similar to how the resin plant experiment. I wish all planetoids had a special stucture unique to them that needs stuff build around it for it to work.

[UberFubarius]

On 8/24/2022 at 5:12 PM, Sasza22 said:

Each planetoid needs something unique about it to warrant colonizing it. For the close ones usually having uranium and oil when the starting one doesn`t is enough but they could also use a special PoI with something interesting. Similar to how the resin plant experiment. I wish all planetoids had a special stucture unique to them that needs stuff build around it for it to work.

I like that. Perhaps some ideas here.

1. Abandoned Botany Lab: Consist of two structures. A main "greenhouse" room and a nearby control station.
   1. Control Station: requires dupe calibration daily, spawn with exposed walls to Greenhouse. If not calibrated, Greenhouse does not run.
   2. "Greenhouse": Takes solid nuclear waste, produces a lot of radiation and radioactive contaminant in the surrounding, and removes a good amount of heat from the surrounding, requires a temperature of >-10 degree to run, requires 480 W power.
      1. Greenhouse has a visible meter that "fills up" while operating but drains slowly (1/4 of fill up rate) if not. Perhaps 1~2 cycles to fill up (taking a total of 1~2 tons of nuclear waste).
      2. Once filled up, produces a "Strange Glow Shroom seed", which can be planted to become "Strange Glow Shroom"
      3. "Strange Glow Shroom":
         1. Requires no fertilization
         2. No atmosphere requirement
         3. Requires 600 rads/cycle of exposure.
         4. < 150 degree C 
         5. Emits 100 kDTU/s
         6. Growing effect: Produces 1,000,000 radioactive contaminant per cycles
         7. Maturation: 32 cycles, at which point the plant "dies" and drop "Strange Dim Shroom"
      4. "Strange Dim Shroom":
         1. Requires nuclear waste to fertilize
         2. No atmosphere requirement.
         3. Requires 100 rads/cycle minimum for growth at 10% speed, 600 rads/cycle for maximum growth speed.
         4. >-20 degree
         5. Absorbs 50 kDTU/s
         6. Growing effect: None
         7. Maturation: 32 cycles, at which point the plant "dies" and drop "Strange Glow Shroom"
      5. The idea of the plant pair is to have an interesting way to "ship" radiation/energy to another planetoid. Functions as both a thermal and radiation batteries in seed form.

[Sasza22]

On 8/26/2022 at 4:01 AM, UberFubarius said:

Abandoned Botany Lab

I like the idea of a botany lab utilizing radiation but i think it`s too complicated. It would be much better if it did something for the plant mutations. like mutatiing a plant over time for the cost of nuclear waste or radbolts when provided with a seed. And if the seed is already mutated it would produce copies of it.

[UberFubarius]

55 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

I like the idea of a botany lab utilizing radiation but i think it`s too complicated. It would be much better if it did something for the plant mutations. like mutatiing a plant over time for the cost of nuclear waste or radbolts when provided with a seed. And if the seed is already mutated it would produce copies of it.

I like that. Perhaps provide faster mutation. Something like you're directly bombarding the seed with radiation, so you have to keep supplying it with seeds and only something like 1 out of 20 seed will successfully "make it through" with mutation.

Or perhaps the ability to specify mutation, or even something like a unique mutation (something like a mutation with only upsides, but result in plants that dies after X harvests).

[AndreyKl]

On 8/10/2022 at 12:38 PM, pether said:

Making the space more vast, so the temporal tear was out of reach using non-hydrogen rockets

On harder difficulty scenarios (ones with more planetoids) you are practically warrantied to be able to reach temporal tear using a co2 rocket.

On 8/10/2022 at 12:38 PM, pether said:

- Frequent meteor showers over all bases after opening temporal tear, or having meteor showers frequency slowly increasing after 1000-ish cycle

That does sound interesting, but:

1. Will just become tedious very fast - setting the same infrastructure for handling meteorites on all planetoids again and again can't be fun.

2. Will ruin a lot of things player has built, because in most cases planetoids do not have enough space for rockets (especially on harder scenarios) which will result in player suddenly needing to move a lot of rockets at least a couple tiles lower (a lot of infrastructure there!) and there are automated planetoids that have no dupes to set up protections, so this is just likely to result in save loading prior to the tear or rage quitting.

Personally I would prefer more planetoid specific effects, not tied to a temporal tear. Like:

• Solar flares that damage solars, irradiate and heat up exposed equipment.
• Constant micro tremors keep ground critters scared. Ground critters are likely to lash out and won't produce eggs unless someone calms them down. Hatches can not burrow and will eat more. Tall and hanging plants without strong roots (mutation) fall periodically. Duplicant's sleep might get interrupted.
• Strong magnetic fields makes flying critters nervous and prevent bristle blossoms from growing, but makes slugs especially productive.

[Genry]

I agree that there is no point in exploring space.
This can be fixed in many ways. It is unlikely that in the game will add or change something cardinal.

But there are some ideas:

1) Reduce the number of water geysers.
You will have to choose between a water planet or an ice planet.
The water planet should be heated to the minimum 60C, so that the ice would be more competitive. Either solid water or liquid but hot.
The player will be motivated to explore these particular asteroids just for the sake of extracting water.
Ban water geysers on home asteroid and all other asteroids except for these two. Maybe make an exception and give 1 hot geyser on the nearest 3-4 planet(asteroid).
Or give a special water geyser on a native asteroid, but giving very little water to compensate for the cost of the ship's steam engine.

2) Nerf the characteristics of the steel so that the water thermostat could not work without stopping,was problematic and overheated.
The player will be motivated to mine termium.
At the moment, with steel, you can make the laziest system and it will not overheat.

3) Greatly increase the electricity consumption of the electrolyzers and the level of lighting on the home planet.
This will create a shortage of electricity, and the player will be motivated to mine uranium on other planets.

4) Remove teleports. There is a function to disable them, but it should be the other way around. By default, they should be disabled, and at the request of the player to make life easier for himself, he can turn them on.

5) It may be worth weakening the thermal insulation, so that it would make sense to use super thermal insulation.

6) It may be worth introducing the dependence of the speed of ships on the material made.
Aluminum gives maximum speed, so it is worth introducing an obligatory aluminum geyser attached to any asteroid.

7) It is worth lowering the requirements for a diamond drill so that the player can build it earlier, and be able to extract resources from space at an early stage where it would be necessary.

8)Nerf plastic drekkons.So that there is no endless plastic out of nothing.The player will have to extract oil and spend water on its production.And there is not enough water.Another reason to travel.

9) Gravitas plot, I will probably come up with an idea for a plot soon, and write it on the forum as a fictional update.
Add another type of points:
Ordinary (dirt)
Advanced(water)
Nuclear(rad bolt)
Space (platmass)
Gravitas (kerosin)
On serious technologies, make restrictions on gravitas glasses.
For example, a hydrogen engine does not require gravitas points, but a rad engine does.
It is necessary to add special indestructible gravitas buildings on different asteroids.
For example, the Gravity Lab. Requires 50kg of oil per use.
+You need to open a rift on the map using gravity buildings.
Open a special space module of anomalies.
Fill it with kerosin, for example, and fly to the rift and explore it. Only then will the graviton module technology open, allowing you to travel through the rift.
 

[Farsight]

I've also found the Spaced out early planets to be nicely balanced and provide a good progression... but the "outer worlds" are mostly boring and pointless.

Regolith world gets you voles, which are some people's favorite food, but are not really special or a big upgrade. Mostly the regolith world just gets you annoying messages about a ladder getting broken.  A big boost to the Delectavole, along with a bigger appetite for regolith, could make this world more useful. Perhaps even add a super-volcano, near-impossible to tame w/o rare materials, that could produce a massive amount of rock for voles or hatches, etc.

Water world gets you... water. So boring. It basically just gives a small new world to plant a base if you want, but at that point in the game, why would you? It would require importing everything else at a point in the game where we'll already have a great base. This world could use something like special water geysers that produce "Fortified Water", which provides a morale boost and stress reduction when drank. That would make this the -best- colony location, worth resettling on, and would give a big boost to the usefulness of drink-related recreation buildings.

Niobium world, Tree World... these are fine, except that rare materials feel unneeded. By the time you get them, you likely have most of your vital projects completed, so are either doing things for kicks, or rebuilding old stuff to be a bit more efficient. Neither is as fun as the early or mid-game progression. The game desperately needs some content where the rare materials shine.

Tear Opener World... this would be a great spot to require rare materials. Turn the Tear challenge from a simple radiation challenge into something multi-phased and interesting. Like make the Tear Opener first need radiation... then have it start rapidly heating and freezing... and so on, through a few steps.

Gassy Moo World... I really don't get this one at all. Moos produce gas for power... on a world with no real usage for power... and Moos can't be exported since they don't reproduce. I don't even understand the concept behind this world's design. Perhaps Moos could fart a new, rare resource gas that function as a superfuel for a new rocket engine made with rare materials. Or something else... anything else, that makes Moos worth ranching besides an achievement.

I've played pretty deep into the game on two different seeds, and both times had great fun up through the first two "tiers" of worlds. But then I hit the worlds listed above, and everything started feeling like a pointless grind. Both times, my dupes were left in purgatory and the game was shelved. I don't think I'll come back again until this part of the game sounds like a fun challenge, rather than the slow road to nowhere.