The future direction.

[Sunlote]

    I recently picked up ONI and I've found myself several days now sinking massive amounts of extended time into it, I'm loving it. So I looked up the developer road map to see what direction and things they were thinking about adding, and I also checked the steam forums to see what things people were talking about the game still needing. That's where I feel my suggestions merit writing up and sharing.

   Complication does not always equal fun, and most of the things in the developer road map and what I saw being discussed, seem to be suggesting further complexities with heat, electricity, and overall more control in all current aspects. Digging/finding things on the map sounds nice, but it's just a start. I already found I spent nearly an equal amount of time my first 8 hours of the game googling and wiki'ing how things work, as I did playing it, and further complication could really be a turn off.

    However Adding things like an entire, optional? scientific sector, would add so much to this game, as well as give it a purpose. Take your starting screen to the game, you have a creature entrapped in his own little fish tank. I was bummed out I couldn't capture a creature and have my own fish tank. Why are we here on this planet? So far it's just to explore, and the road map just seems to want to help us explore more. But what if we had buildings that measured a "strange new gas"(could even turn chlorine into this since it currently serves no use) and scientific buildings would be needed, also to research animals, you could have quests, gives points, something similar to what kerbal space industry did, to give that game a little meaning, I think it would work well, and boy do i just want to have my own aquarium farm.   Just my 2 cents on the future direction the game could take.

[Catteflyterpill]

I agree with you, I mean this is a recently new game, and I'm sure the devs are going to be adding plenty of stuff. But as for things I would like to see more in the game, definitely more creatures. I think wildlife adds much more diversity and life (literally) to the game. Maybe you could stumble upon a "____"'s nest, while exploring and the next thing you know you're trying to exterminate these aggressive creatures crawling all over your base. Possibly "bosses", but not in ways that make the game something it's not. ONI is an exploration/resource-management game. Not really a game based on combat, but I think adding powerful creatures that might cover rare resources could the make the game much more appealing and interesting.

But until then, at least we have the literal god the Puft.

[LeadfootSlim]

I find myself loving this game because its complexity is meaningful, and because so many elements are able to interact, and as you progress your challenges force you to engage with those elements in a meaningful way. Example; crops.

Planter Boxes: Requires enough oxygen. Easy enough!

Farm Tiles: Requires enough oxygen, fertilizer, heat management (since you're likely to branch into exotic plants around this time). Harder, but more manageable.

Hydroponics: Requires air filtration (since you're going to have CO2/polluted buildup by now), fertilizer, heat management, water piping, and possibly water heating/cooling. Much more difficult, but you've trained enough on the other mechanisms that it makes sense.

A similar curve exists with oxygen (algae -> electrolysis -> water filtration / geysers & hydrogen burnoff), power (batteries -> coal -> natural gas) and to a lesser extent heat management as a whole (space heaters / hydrofans -> piping water from different temperature biomes -> managing total heat entropy). Decor, stress, and sickness are areas where that curve doesn't yet fully exist, and are likely areas for future improvement.

So long as the game continues its integration of meaningful complexity, I look forward to whatever they hit us with next.