What could happen in the late game?

[DovS]

As it stands now, you can build and expand for a long time but, eventually, you're going to run out of some crucial finite resource, like sand or algae, and then it's just a matter of time before you lose. So the late game needs some kind of twist, something to provide a new way of accessing resources.

Like maybe there's a port up at the top and your duplicants can build a ship to escape to a new asteroid and start over. It's really the same thing as just giving up and starting a new game but it would feel less like losing.

Or maybe the port allows visitors to arrive and you can trade with them for the resources you need, giving up renewables and manufactured goods in exchange for seeds and sand, etc.

Or maybe the port opens up an instance of another asteroid where you can set up a mini-base which sends materials back to the home base on a regular basis until it runs out and you need another one.

What else could happen?

[DavidGrim]

I guess it suffers the same problem like minecraft when it first started where there was no end goal. Until minecarft have a end world dragon patch.

[Lifegrow]

13 hours ago, DovS said:

As it stands now, you can build and expand for a long time but, eventually, you're going to run out of some crucial finite resource, like sand or algae, and then it's just a matter of time before you lose. So the late game needs some kind of twist, something to provide a new way of accessing resources.

Like maybe there's a port up at the top and your duplicants can build a ship to escape to a new asteroid and start over. It's really the same thing as just giving up and starting a new game but it would feel less like losing.

Or maybe the port allows visitors to arrive and you can trade with them for the resources you need, giving up renewables and manufactured goods in exchange for seeds and sand, etc.

Or maybe the port opens up an instance of another asteroid where you can set up a mini-base which sends materials back to the home base on a regular basis until it runs out and you need another one.

What else could happen?

I think each persons definition of "end game" is open to interpretation...

I rarely die any more, I just get to the point where i'm spectating a functioning base. I'm not sure at what point you would die from having zero resources left, as algae, fertilizer, water - and as such oxygen, food and hydrogen (power) are all infinite...

Honestly - I restart when I have a new base concept, or a rule I want to try and adhere to. I have no passion to get off/out of the rock, I don't have the need for a spaceship to whisk me away, nor do i feel a debt to my dupes to save them from this perilous tomb...  

My hopes for the future are bigger maps, more shizzles to build, more customization and more interactable environments - someone posted a great idea of digging into past colony relics; for example...

[Threehorns]

Don't starve might probably hold the clue as to what will happen.
For now, the worst is that stress increases rapidly over minor things the later you get. I think its based on Duplicate skill level.

So expect the need to expand or even abandon one base to start another and another, to keep travel distances short. At least, i was already busy making a 2nd base, before i figured out a problem that ruined my first base.

[Lifegrow]

On my current stream i'm at like cycle 300ish I think, and didn't use a massage table for maybe 8hours?

As long as your decor is high and your dupes aren't : 

a) Running everywhere on priority 9,

b) Running through stinky water, and more recently

c) Being subjected to extreme temperatures

Your everyday stress levels should be fine.... 
 

... (silently backs away and continues digging to magma...)

[Left4twenty]

My plan for when I'm consistently good enough to keep a colony beyond 10 alive, is to attempt to terraform a top section of the rock and give my dupes a nice place to live.  Like 4 person houses with clean air in a large, high ceiling, well-lit oxygenated cavern.  That's the dream.  Maybe establishing a system of work for citizenship on the "top world"  as new dupes through gate need to work the hard jobs of keeping the machinery alive for the lucky denizens of above.. wait, the game was supposed to be over?..