You should be able to open Weekly Gifts at a Bookshelf

[Horsheen]

Since the bookshelf acts as an alchemy engine, and thus can replace them functionally, it seems a little silly that you're unable to open gifts at them, despite having equal "science" to an alchemy engine, where you can open gifts.

 

I'd like to fully replace the alchemy engine with a bookshelf if possible, but I find that I have to keep one around for the sole purpose of opening my gifts.

[ShadowbirdRH]

That does sound like an oversight. What point is there in giving it the research property of an alchemy engine if you're still going to need an alchemy engine around anyway?

[Frosty_Mentos]

Doesn't sound like oversight. It's neither a science or a machine. It's a books and a case.

[ShadowbirdRH]

Then do you have an answer to the question I asked? You respond to the first six words of my post, but are awfully silent about the rest.

[Frosty_Mentos]

13 hours ago, ShadowbirdRH said:

Then do you have an answer to the question I asked? You respond to the first six words of my post, but are awfully silent about the rest.

Old mechanic that wasn't touched up since 5 or more years. Often better to pre-build a new science machine and setting them up in distant locations you visit or use a gift opener mod to counter the need of any of those. Only so many solutions and it's been intended to need science machines or alchemies around. No other station in the world can open you gifts.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

24 minutes ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

Old mechanic that wasn't touched up since 5 or more years. Often better to pre-build a new science machine and setting them up in distant locations you visit or use a gift opener mod to counter the need of any of those. Only so many solutions and it's been intended to need science machines or alchemies around. No other station in the world can open you gifts.

agreed, it would affect the gameplay. Is an survival game, why would you be able to open gifts in a new science prototyper?

...

[Horsheen]

16 hours ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

Doesn't sound like oversight. It's neither a science or a machine. It's a books and a case.

And yet it has the properties of an alchemy engine. The only prerequisite for opening gifts is needing more "science", which the bookshelf seems to have 

[ShadowbirdRH]

You ask why would you be able to get gifts at a bookshelf? Ask yourself first why would you be able to get gifts at a science machine or an alchemy engine. They never had such a function in the original games, so why? For convenience, because those are the most common and essential base structures across play styles. A base only needs the best general crafting station available. Once you're able to place an alchemy engine, there's no reason to keep the science machine around. Just as such, once you're ready to place a bookshelf, there's no reason to keep the alchemy engine around, except for the oversight. If the bookshelf wasn't meant to replace the alchemy engine, there'd be no point being able to craft at it.

[Frosty_Mentos]

To be frank I don't think there's much sense in how it works but I'd rather just not need any prototyper to open a gift instead.

[Horsheen]

On 9/4/2022 at 8:29 PM, Frosty_Mentos said:

To be frank I don't think there's much sense in how it works but I'd rather just not need any prototyper to open a gift instead.

This is the ideal solution tbh

[ShadowbirdRH]

Sure it would, but then how exactly would that work? Drop an object at the player's feet which could potentially be overlooked, ignored or forgotten about and lost if in the middle of a trying situation? Just skip the receiving animation and show on screen what the gift is, which in addition to being a bit less interesting, would likely often be obtrusive, and in instances of particularly bad timing, potentially deadly? Just get a notification that a gift has been added to your stockpile in the treasury, only opening them when not in-world, cutting out the advertisement element of system, or prompting impatient players to exit world to check their gifts? How about just clicking that notification in the corner to prompt the gift to appear, while at the same time further burdening console/controller uses with the need to bind another function to their limited buttons?

Really, I think just giving the function to general crafting stations is the simplest, least problematic solution, with just this one little wrinkle to iron out.

[Frosty_Mentos]

Just click and open. Nothing more. You could technically prolly automate that happening by leaving the computer on for that long if you're not concerned about energy bills.