[Game Update] - Public Testing 548219

[Magheat2009]

On 3/17/2023 at 8:03 PM, Pproy said:

(or would ignore taming the regolith asteroid entirely).

In initially retrieved game data files for Spaced Out, it was apparent that Klei planned to add a Fullerene and a Uranium meteor shower to the Regolith asteroids. This was how Uranium ore and Fullerene were going to be renewed in Spaced Out. However, that plan was scrapped for Space Points of Interest. Spaced Points of Interest were probably introduced to retain timed automatic rocket launch and resource retrieval game-play puzzle alive Spaced Out. It is probable that initial plan was that kind of game-play will be replaced by planet to planet delivery/transport system. However, Klei might have deemed it too complicated and cumbersome.

[Pproy]

36 minutes ago, Magheat2009 said:

In initially retrieved game data files for Spaced Out, it was apparent that Klei planned to add a Fullerene and a Uranium meteor shower to the Regolith asteroids. This was how Uranium ore and Fullerene were going to be renewed in Spaced Out. However, that plan was scrapped for Space Points of Interest. Spaced Points of Interest were probably introduced to retain timed automatic rocket launch and resource retrieval game-play puzzle alive Spaced Out. It is probable that initial plan was that kind of game-play will be replaced by planet to planet delivery/transport system. However, Klei might have deemed it too complicated and cumbersome.

To be honest, I would like to have the complicated and cumbersome option of meteor shower available in addition to the Space Points of Interest.

One of the reasons I said that I wouldn't even bother taming the Regolith Asteroid is because I suffer from severe "Restartinitus" and usually quit my colony even before I find the asteroid. As much as I love this game, I do understand the pain that some players have of having to restart their colony when there a new update, because the early game is getting really repetitive.

When I start a new colony, one of the main goals is always finding the renewable source of water, so I can build a SPOM for oxygen and produce berry sludge, the best food for space travel and for simplicity of food storage. Then it’s building hatchs farm for coal and meat, and either farm dreko for reed fiber and plastic, or produce petroleum for plastic, etc... By the time I have the material to land and tame other asteroids, I unfortunately get bored and quit.

My problem is while there is other way to produce oxygen, I know that the most reliable solution is the electrolyser, so why bother with other oxygen source like the rust deoxodizer, when rust is not renewable until Drillcones are available? Same thing for food, there is other plants I could try to farm, but berry sludge is the best option for space travel, so why try to establish a farm for anything else (except maybe mealwood) before sleet wheat and bristle berry? No matter what, my colony always rely on water economy to survive.

When I saw that they added the option to raise the frequency of meteor shower however, then I got excited. I told myself how would I have to adapt my base to survive a constant onslaught of meteor? And how could I use those meteors to my advantage? How would the base look like at the end? Maybe that kind of base would be an absolute pain in the neck to establish, maybe the colony would end in an apocalyptic way, but it would be something different than the usual water economy route.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Just in my opinion, if an early meteor defense system can be established with petroleum and refined metal, I don’t see a reason why there cannot be meteor showers on minimum the asteroids with oil wells. I love the patch and the game; I just want the dev to not be afraid to go all out. I rather my colony dies from absolute bulls**t they added than from boredom, especially if there the option to turn off said bulls**t.

[Inanis lector]

On 3/16/2023 at 11:18 PM, JarrettM said:

Hey folks, 

It’s time to start public testing for our Whatta Blast update! 

We've been working on a new meteor-shower defense building, a story trait full of strange fossils, and playtime-based drops for cosmetic skins (aka blueprints). All of this is designed for both the base game and Spaced Out! DLC. 

The new Meteor Blaster building provides an alternative method of protecting your surface setup from meteor-related damage: once meteor showers are within range, they're targeted for blasting so you can avoid the hassle of post-impact colony repairs. We've also introduced the option to customize meteor shower intensity. 

Blastshot projectile fabrication for this building requires the new Pyrotechnics skill, and a new Rock Fan trait marks Duplicants who work more efficiently during a meteor shower.  

A new Ancient Specimen story trait contains the fossilized remains of an exotic critter that hints at things awaiting the Duplicants elsewhere in the ONI universe.

Our first few batches of blueprints were released via redemption on the Klei Rewards website. In this update, we have one Klei Rewards crate up for grabs plus drops that are unlocked based on time spent playing the game. 

We really appreciate your help with the testing process! Please share your feedback here and report bugs here. We read it all and will do our best to recalibrate accordingly. 

Here’s what you’ll find in the update so far: 

  Reveal hidden contents

Features

• All versions
  • Added Ancient Specimen story trait.
  • Added playtime-based skin drops.
  • Added new cosmetic skins.
  • Added Meteor Blaster building.
  • Added Blastshot Maker building.
  • Added Meteor Showers custom game settings.
  • Added Rock Fan trait.
  • Added "Pyrotechnics" skill which allows Blastshot Making.
• Spaced Out! only
  • Meteor showers now can be seen on the Starmap traveling to a destination asteroid and can be identified with a telescope.
  • Added Ice Meteor Shower and Iron Meteor Shower to the Regolith Asteroid.

Changes and Improvements

• All versions
  • Renamed Comets to Meteors.
  • Meteors can be destroyed using the sandbox Destroy Tool.
  • Main menu and Supply Locker now show notifications when you have unclaimed Klei Rewards.
  • Supply Closet “Check Shipments” button renamed to "Claim Blueprints" and is now disabled if none are available.
• Spaced Out! only
  • Changed "Dupe-made Ballistics" to "Interplanetary Payloads" on Space Scanner object detection list, to avoid conflation with Blastshot.

Fixes

• All versions
  • Fixed Drywall edges not lining up visually when rotated. 
  • Meteors once again fall from above the buildable area of an asteroid.
  • Fixed a bug where Duplicants would be displayed in Atmo Suits after opening fabricator side screens.
  • Fixed crash that could occur when manually unequipping a suit while a Duplicant is already in the process of unequipping a suit at a suit checkpoint.
  • Fixed bounding box of Dream Journal being larger than the artwork.
  • Fixed a bug where some effects like the disinfect cloud were visible from another asteroid in the black void.
  • Fixed crash when loading unofficial translations using smart quotes or ellipses.
  • Fixed issue causing incorrect rendering at world boundary when running on OpenGL.
  • Fixed an issue allowing dead Duplicants to satisfy task skill requirements.
• Optimizations
  • Reduced memory usage when loading animations when the game starts.
  • Reduce memory usage of the animation data. 
  • Improved worldgen speed.
• Modding:
  • Remove TagBits and its last remaining uses. 
  • Fixed an issue with WearableAccessorizer serialization causing some modded saves to crash on load even when mods are disabled.
  • Renamed worldgen template spawning rules "optional" flag to "ignoreIfMissingTag" which is only used in DistanceFromTag tagcommands. In order to not break existing worldgen mods, it is assumed that AtStart tags on worlds without a starting template can be skipped.
• Base game only
  • Fixed Duplicants returning from a space mission not visually displaying their Atmo Suit.
• Spaced Out! only
  • Fixed an issue where the unbuildable area above an asteroid was incorrect on some asteroids.
  • Fixed Duplicants exiting a Trailblazer Lander wearing a suit not displaying correctly.
  • Rockets will now be shown in the unbuildable zone while they are launching or landing, and will go out of the screen instead of being cut out by the red zone.

What is public testing?

"Public testing" means players get to test-drive new content early and give us feedback and suggestions before it goes live. Because this is an unfinished and in active development version of the game, it's pretty likely you'll encounter bugs, crashes or balance issues while playing these builds. We'll try to fix any problems that crop up as quickly as we can, but it's possible you'll lose progress in your games while playing on the Testing branch.

Regarding performance, the Testing branch has additional debugging tools enabled to help us track down crashes. This makes the game run more slowly than the live version of the game.

Please also be aware that once a save is loaded in the Testing branch, it cannot be reopened again in the previous Live branch or previous builds.

What do I do if I find a crash or a bug?

Post it up on the Bug Tracker and we'll fix it as soon as we can. If you can attach a copy of your save file to your report, that helps us even more as we can pinpoint the source of problem more quickly.

Do I have to play the public testing build?

Nope! If you'd prefer to only play a stable build, you can continue to play in the current Default branch until the game launches in full. Playing the Open Testing build isn't necessary, but it helps us a lot to receive your feedback and reports - if you're interested, try it out!

How do I become a public tester?

There's no sign up or registration for becoming an open tester. If you own Oxygen Not Included and want to join the Testing Branch, all you have to do is play the Open Testing build on Steam.

How do I play the public testing build?

You can switch your branch on Steam using the instructions below:

  Reveal hidden contents

How to change branches in Oxygen Not Included (Steam)

• In Steam, click on Library > Games.
• Scroll down to Oxygen Not Included.
• Right-click and select Properties.
• Go to the BETAS tab.
• In the dropdown, select the name of the branch you want to play. In this case, the branch name is "public_testing"
  • This branch does not require a password.
• In that same Properties window, go to the Local Files tab and press "Verify Integrity Of Game Cache."
• Your game will be updated to the the previous branch.
• Launch and play Oxygen Not Included

 

View full update

 

"...are unlocked based on time spent playing the game"

Can we get in game display? Or at least some info how often does it drops?

[Gurgel]

Hmm, I have outhouses getting blocked by dupes not delivering all dirt (5kg or so missing). Save and reload they are still blocked, but then dupes fix them. Bug reported. 

[ALCRD]

On 3/16/2023 at 10:18 PM, JarrettM said:

We've been working on a new meteor-shower defense building, a story trait full of strange fossils, and playtime-based drops for cosmetic skins (aka blueprints). All of this is designed for both the base game and Spaced Out! DLC. 

Speaking of SO!

Would you consider adding option to enable/disable(default) Meteor Showers in Spaced Out starting asteroids? (At least for the classic start ones)

[marioespinho]

13 hours ago, Inanis lector said:

"...are unlocked based on time spent playing the game"

Can we get in game display? Or at least some info how often does it drops?

I doubt we'll get it. Dst doesn't have one. 

[serpent]

Spoiler regarding the new story trait;

Spoiler

I'll be honest i dont really understand the addition of the new infinite fossil mine. it requires diamonds to operate which is finite other than the diamond press. by the time i can get a diamond press operating reasonable well including all the radbolts i already moved on to niobium/thermium etc. theres no real need for more steel as by that time i'd have tons and tons of it and the steel problem is solved many many cycles ago. 

 

it doesnt really improve or extend upon the lategame which is what the game desperately needs imo. nor does it improve the mid game where lime might still be a bottleneck. 

 

personally i'd change the input to something else like a liquid or even a new liquid/material. (let us make hydrochloric acid with chlorine to 'wash out' the fossils?). chlorine is in need of more uses for sure. this will make it so its more easily attainable and improves the mid game a lot.

 

but yeah more/better end game soon pls i beg thy

 

[goboking]

I found dealing with meteors in vanilla to be tedious and was glad to rid myself of the experience when I made the jump to Spaced Out!  With this tool at our disposal, I wouldn't mind reintegrating meteors into my games, so I'd be nice to have the option to toggle meteors on or off when creating a SO classic asteroid. 

[pether]

On 3/17/2023 at 7:25 PM, pether said:

Yeah, this update crashed so many mods...

I did the investigation and I feel I must correct myself: the game indeed reported many mods crashing, but that was due to blaming system error. In reality only two of my mods crash, and that is due to very peculiar corner case that probably won't affect many other mods. So it doesn't seem that bad.

[Gurgel]

The desalinator (and probably water sieve) still gets its output temperature stuck. Just happened to me. I am now (again) applying the stupid fix of enable-cycling the building every 150 seconds. This cannot be hard to fix. Please finally do it.

Reference: 

 

[Slvrsrfr]

On 3/18/2023 at 10:43 AM, Pproy said:

When I start a new colony, one of the main goals is always finding the renewable source of water, so I can build a SPOM for oxygen and produce berry sludge, the best food for space travel and for simplicity of food storage. Then it’s building hatchs farm for coal and meat, and either farm dreko for reed fiber and plastic, or produce petroleum for plastic, etc... By the time I have the material to land and tame other asteroids, I unfortunately get bored and quit.

 

 

My problem is while there is other way to produce oxygen, I know that the most reliable solution is the electrolyser, so why bother with other oxygen source like the rust deoxodizer, when rust is not renewable until Drillcones are available? Same thing for food, there is other plants I could try to farm, but berry sludge is the best option for space travel, so why try to establish a farm for anything else (except maybe mealwood) before sleet wheat and bristle berry? No matter what, my colony always rely on water economy to survive.

So much this

And then still with all this.....

&

&

I am not saying things go w/o bugs. But consider this against the standard setting simcity franchise. or many sierra games. Wil Wright had city on lock-down. Game logic and progression were as evenly distributed as possible. While not a seamless endeavor. It was a trend-setting series. What we have now is a piecemeal non-nonchalant coding brainstorm that sputters out in the first quarter it doesn't hit ballpark numbers.

They have done fine-and-well with the study of the mechanics, and what they should actually be, how to translate that into implementation. I mean have they even fixed the dropped fractional mealwoods that are stuffed full of contagion? Which is a reason amongst many I drifted. Then the continuous repainting of the same themes. Hand signals balloons sparkles, now pajamas? But, there is NO WAY to get a new size battery, or customizable components to assemble mechanical objects in a slightly different configuration, just so long as it is still the 'same'. One now maybe 2-3 pump sizes. one pipe size, no main power box, which they finally implemented. No new lights, we couldn't even have one to turn. Or a brighter ceiling lamp. It all has to stay in the thin grief margins they desire. The one farm tile. The one type of power wheel. No consideration at all would be given to say miniaturization of things, or better gearing for the wheel. the poor performance of the algo for pathing. The myriad of issues that plagued it this first time can be lessons for the next.

The simple oversights. The opportunity to actually have a game planned end to end(for better or worse). But not the patchwork quilt that it is now, it's a zombie that they won't let die. Get them zombie bucks. francONI-Stein

On 3/17/2023 at 3:41 AM, SGT_Imalas said:

you play the game, after some time a button on the top left becomes clickable and lets you claim a new skin("blueprint")

thank you! a simple straight-forward response, I deeply appreciate those. Kudos to you! indeed.

[Foefaller]

On 3/18/2023 at 12:43 PM, Pproy said:

To be honest, I would like to have the complicated and cumbersome option of meteor shower available in addition to the Space Points of Interest.

 

 

One of the reasons I said that I wouldn't even bother taming the Regolith Asteroid is because I suffer from severe "Restartinitus" and usually quit my colony even before I find the asteroid. As much as I love this game, I do understand the pain that some players have of having to restart their colony when there a new update, because the early game is getting really repetitive.

 

 

When I start a new colony, one of the main goals is always finding the renewable source of water, so I can build a SPOM for oxygen and produce berry sludge, the best food for space travel and for simplicity of food storage. Then it’s building hatchs farm for coal and meat, and either farm dreko for reed fiber and plastic, or produce petroleum for plastic, etc... By the time I have the material to land and tame other asteroids, I unfortunately get bored and quit.

 

 

My problem is while there is other way to produce oxygen, I know that the most reliable solution is the electrolyser, so why bother with other oxygen source like the rust deoxodizer, when rust is not renewable until Drillcones are available? Same thing for food, there is other plants I could try to farm, but berry sludge is the best option for space travel, so why try to establish a farm for anything else (except maybe mealwood) before sleet wheat and bristle berry? No matter what, my colony always rely on water economy to survive.

 

 

When I saw that they added the option to raise the frequency of meteor shower however, then I got excited. I told myself how would I have to adapt my base to survive a constant onslaught of meteor? And how could I use those meteors to my advantage? How would the base look like at the end? Maybe that kind of base would be an absolute pain in the neck to establish, maybe the colony would end in an apocalyptic way, but it would be something different than the usual water economy route.

 

 

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Just in my opinion, if an early meteor defense system can be established with petroleum and refined metal, I don’t see a reason why there cannot be meteor showers on minimum the asteroids with oil wells. I love the patch and the game; I just want the dev to not be afraid to go all out. I rather my colony dies from absolute bulls**t they added than from boredom, especially if there the option to turn off said bulls**t.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, "I want to be able to do things without using water all the time" is about the same as asking for not having to refine metal, or reaching other planetoids without having to build rockets. The game's progression is pretty much designed so that having a well-managed source of water is a necessary step to building a sustainable base, and has been that way since EA. In fact, IIRC Rust Deoxidizers were mainly introduced so that most base game asteroids that had a Forest start would have an intermediate step in Oxygen production between Oxyferns and O2 via Electrolysis, never as an option to fully replace it.

That said, "Well managed" could mean 3 guaranteed water geysers providing all the water you need for SPOMs, oil wells and Berry Sludge, or 1 geyser for the SPOM, plus a sulfur geyser to make Grubfruit Preserve, along with whatever mix of Domesticated Arbor Trees, wild Arbor Trees and Oakshells that will make an Ethanol production setup that's water-positive to keep that one oil well running just enough that, between it and (molten) slicksters eating the CO2, you can still go into space. What you might really need are new starts that require you to really get as much product out of every Kg of water you have as possible, even if that means abandoning Berry Sludge for space (or at least, anything *but* space) or relying more on vents and perhaps even rust from space for oxygen to supplement the SPOMs.

[EricKlei]

1 hour ago, lalkelalke04 said:

did redeemed new crate through klei account and now cant see blueprints in game . am i screwed ?

Are you playing on the public testing branch?

[Dyz]

2 hours ago, EricKlei said:

Are you playing on the public testing branch?

Same here, playing on regular game.

Want my fruity paperpaint

[EricKlei]

The new blueprints such as fruity drywalls are only available right now on the public testing branch, if you are not playing on that branch you won't see them yet. When the Whatta Blast update leaves public testing and is available to everyone you will be able to use those new blueprints.

[goboking]

It might be intentional, but the last stage of the Tidying skill tree (the new Pyrotechnics skill) doesn't boost Strength by +2, as its predecessors do.  Just thought I'd mention it in case it's an oversight.