Sustainability

[BananaNation]

Considering that the map is limited in size, is it possible to achieve full sustainability or will you inevitably run out of oxygen/food eventually?

Even if it's not possible in the current alpha, is this something you will be able to achieve in the full game?

[Cyberboy2000]

I'm not sure we will be able to have 100% sustainability, but we will have something close to that. Maybe it will be like Don't Starve where everything you need to survive will be renewable, but there will also be some rare goods that is limited.

[BananaNation]

I don't mind rare resources being limited, I just enjoy the idea of reaching a point of sustainability where I can have everything I need to produce oxygen, food and energy to be able to live as a closed clony. Similar to a fallout vault I guess, where everyone has a task to do and I don't need to keep digging/exploring unless I want to expand the colony. 

[PhelsarusBeel]

From what I remember what they said last week during the Rhymes with Play stream full self sustainability isn't possible yet.

Meaning we probably will see means and ways to produce most important ressources over time but currently we lack the means and ways to do so.

[chromiumboy]

But once the colony is sustainable, what drives the game forward? Having no further need to dig and explore would cause the game to stagnant. Don't Starve had a problem with sustainability reaching a point where the challenge of survival was trivial. 

If total sustainability is possible, it should be only with late game technology, but another external pressure should ramp up to keep you on your toes (for example, alien invasions, accidents, maintenence issues, power core breaches. Any storyline from Star Trek could be potentially worked in here )

[AlucardEX]

11 minutes ago, chromiumboy said:

But once the colony is sustainable, what drives the game forward? Having no further need to dig and explore would cause the game to stagnant. Don't Starve had a problem with sustainability reaching a point where the challenge of survival was trivial. 

If total sustainability is possible, it should be only with late game technology, but another external pressure should ramp up to keep you on your toes (for example, alien invasions, accidents, maintenence issues, power core breaches. Any storyline from Star Trek could be potentially worked in here )

 

During the Stream they were discussing that choosing new Dupes shouldn't be optional aka you regularly get new colonists no matter what.

 

I think that in itself would force you to expand outwards.

[Spider2430]

2 hours ago, BananaNation said:

I don't mind rare resources being limited, I just enjoy the idea of reaching a point of sustainability where I can have everything I need to produce oxygen, food and energy to be able to live as a closed clony. Similar to a fallout vault I guess, where everyone has a task to do and I don't need to keep digging/exploring unless I want to expand the colony. 

well, I highly doubt you will run out of resources, the map is pretty huge, plus from the 3 hours ive been playing, when you get your food farm growing, they will harvest and replant from the looks of it, so basically you can have a stable base, atleast until a new member comes

[Octyabr]

Once you get a couple of fridges, food production isn't a issue, since that moving cotton plant grows very quickly and even with only one mushbar-machine is enough.

My biggest problem with sustainability is water. It runs out rather fast, and algae terraria actually destroys water in the sense that once consumed it disappears.

[Penassa]

yes water sustainability seem to be the biggest problem.

maybe they could add a combinator for hydrogen and oxygen that makes H2O

or a plant that consumes Hydrogen or Oxygen and by products contaminated H2O and CO2 

[DNsingbanana]

Maybe they could add something that lets you teleport resources from.. somewhere in the universe, against a high power price. Would be fun to see 10 duplicants running like madmen on the generators just to get that kg of algae. 

[tafelskif]

4 hours ago, Octyabr said:

My biggest problem with sustainability is water. It runs out rather fast, and algae terraria actually destroys water in the sense that once consumed it disappears.

Yeh, totally agree. Once you hit mid-game with algae-farm oxygen-source, water seems to be the most limiting factor. It's pretty frustrating to dig into eternity, just to find the next toxic-water reservoir that needs to be pumped over miles in order to be useful. Feels like beeing on a clock.

The only way out of destroying water via algae-farm seems to be that oxygen-machine. But it is just soo inefficient with it's algae...

I really see a balancing issue here. My suggestion:  If the algae-farm "evaporated" the water instead of destroying it, we could get it back by condensation. I really don't see, why there is any need for water to "disappear" - besides, logic demands a closed circuit. The water must be somewhere?!

[Mitsuru]

4 hours ago, Octyabr said:

Once you get a couple of fridges, food production isn't a issue, since that moving cotton plant grows very quickly and even with only one mushbar-machine is enough.

My biggest problem with sustainability is water. It runs out rather fast, and algae terraria actually destroys water in the sense that once consumed it disappears.

My colony has not a problem with water. Because must be lucky generate with some water hole and huge contaminate water. So the biggest of my problem is food and huge bad air like contaminate oxygen or CO2.

[Criptfeind]

In theory the electrolytic separator produces oxygen much much more effectively from water then algae. The algae produces 0.1333 oxygen per water, whereas the separator produces .888 oxygen per water, over six and a half times as much! Of course then you need to mess with gas (which I'm having issues with) and have a air scrubber to water purifier cycle since the separator doesn't remove carbon dioxide. I expect that the idea will be as you move though the biomes you'll find new, probably not sustainable, ways to create oxygen and water, right now we only have two sources of water (water and contaminated water) and roughly three sources of oxygen so the game feels a bit short once you've exploited these sources and have to start scrambling for more and more. Maybe in the future we'll have like, a salt biome where we can gather Sodium Chlorate for oxygen and advanced food processing. Maybe a snow biome to dump waste heat and produce water?

[Cyberboy2000]

I think it's very possible to last a long time with what we have now once we start to learn what setups work and what doesn't. Right now I have an electrolyzer and a few algae habitats at the bottom of my colony, and a Hydrogen Generator at the top of my colony, and lots of Gas Permeable Tiles between. I don't need to mess with gas pipes other than between the gas pump and the generator (which are very close), and I'm not using any Air Scrubbers.

[Criptfeind]

Does the generator work on that set up and steadily produce power? I've not been able to entice the gas pump to pump fast enough to supply the hydrogen generator with any meaningful amount of fuel. On the other hand I've been using a bit of a different set up then just open air, let it ride though my base. Perhaps it needs that open space to work for some reason or another.

[tmo97]

My dupes are not up for living in asteroid bases.

 

Oh, I touched dust, better go shower 3 times.

I need to pee, but there's no outhouse! Better do it on the ladders or the water supply.

Let me just sleep in this chamber filled with carbon dioxide and hydrogen while holding my breath, nice and cozy.

Oh, someone assigned me to cooking! Better wait until I have 9999999999 mush bars so I can leave them on the ground at night.

Hey, let's not sweep for years, then ignore lvl 9 priority tasks when the base is flooding in order to sweep.

See this storage compactor, specifically assigned to algae, next to the algae farm? Better not use it for what it's made for.

Let's build a ****ter that uses boiling hot water!

Everyone dying? Nah mate, gotta eat

I know I can get through that space, but crawling & crouching is just beneath me.

I'mma go take a dump in the chlorine basement for half a day while I hold my breath.

I'm a scientist, but I don't know why my sand-based water purifier takes itself to 120 degrees.

 

Anyway, I think full sustainability should be a thing in this game. You cannot expand indefinitely - forcing the player to do so will only result in cheap strategies to combat the cheap pushy game-mechanic. You do not need to poke the player with a stick in order to make him play.

If you want to do that, make contaminated materials actually do something. Make chlorine deadly, make duplicants not be able to hold their breath for a whole cycle. Make enemies that spawn under certain conditions. Making basic resources scarce and unsustainable will just make the game harsh and unforgiving, but without the good parts. This game is really cool but it leaves you no room to enjoy anything aside from the forced parts, considering it literally does not allow you to survive indefinitely - makes it feel like a sad roguelike.

 

The game is about base-building, but doing so is useless considering it's simply more effective to just take everything from an area and then move your base around, leaving ugly ruins and waste about, discouraging actual base-building. By the time you are empowered with space management, you have already found cheaper & uglier ways to survive that don't cost senseless amounts of finite resources.

[Vilda]

Yeah, water is the bad boy... and stress for me, mining while holding breath seems to stress them for some reason...

I remember from first preview a condensation mechanics, that needs to be included in base circulation. Otherwise water is just disappearing out of the universe entirely, which kinda goes against the realism of gas and liquid flow. In current system anything that wastes your water is a no go. Hell I even use Outhouses to not waste toxic water in making fertilizer.