I hope polymer gets more uses (that are useful)

[CfSapper]

It got nothing to do with the what to do with the "waste" outputs, everything has a use finding those uses it part of what make this game fun for me anyways. My complaint is in the balance. Yes its a late game resource, but come on you have to admit 6 wells is a bit much for one generator?  2-3 sure but 6, thats a bit much yes there is lot of oil out and about, but your return investment on a petro genny is not in line with the other power options available. Great Idea and I love it but it need some tweeks.

[CodingKitteh]

Guys, it's in Alpha. Their electricity generation web is still being developed. From the looks of it, they seem undecided whether energy generation should be diversified (coal + gas + oil + other future tech), OR concentrated generation (end game goal: steam via nuclear / coal ). Electricity generation (much like the real world) is very much the foundation of mass civilization. Same with the game, using surplus electricity generation to specialize your base for survival? (no sand? make a fertilizer->dirt->sand factory, etc)

Plastic right now seems to be geared as a late game material. I seriously hope there is 1 additional late game layer of material (nanofiber / carbon tech) where this end game is orders of magnitude more impressive than the previous, making you feel accomplished as a colony.

Right now, what's has been developed is clear (numbers are arbitrary, it can scale with game from kW to MW to even GW):

• 1st Generation (A few kW)
  • Coal
  • Limiting Factor: Coal + Hatch Population
• 2nd Generation (5-15 kW)
  • Natural Gas + Hydrogen
  • Limiting Factor: Number of Geysers (Remove Fertilizer Maker/Nerf it/More toxic by-products)
• 3rd Generation (15 - 50 kW)
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Limiting Factor: Geysers + Slickster Population
• Possible Future
  • 4th Generation (50 - 100 kW)
    • Fission
    • Limiting Factor: Radioisotopes
  • 5th Generation (100 - 200 kW)
    • Fusion
    • Limiting Factor: Mass

Even though you can spam natural gas + fertilizer maker, it makes the game boring really fast. I like to upgrade my current systems, perhaps when I hit the 30 kW capacity, I can use the surplus energy to reach Tier 4 Generation (50 - 100 kW). With a 20 kW limit on supply systems, the secondary effect is that you will need 4 circuits (instead of 1). This increases difficulty in design which is good. Once I can generate 50 kW, I can go begin to use my surplus energy to develop Tier 5

If the game goes through 1 final puberty, Tier 5 (100 - 200 kW) (super efficient tech: fission / fusion), then you can have these very amazing materials with crazy properties, orders of magnitude greater than Tier 1. Heat conductivity of 200+, Heat storage materials (Cp > 20), etc etc.

_________________

Devs (if you read the forums): Here's a suggestion. If developing new, creative supply chains/materials are slow, you can always just upgrade current lower tech to have higher capacity as the technology of the base increases. For example, an upgraded coal burner unlocked after reaching mid-game. The burner would need a newer mid-game material to enhance the coal burner. This works for concentrated generation vs. diversified generation

 

• Regular Coal Burner - 600 W
• Efficient Coal Burner - 1200 W (+ less heat emanated into surroundings) (less waste = more efficient)
• You may suggest spam coal burners but the extra heat will kill your base

[chemie]

actually, fossils fuels are limited by water geysers.  Too much water for the oil recovery

[brummbar7]

3 hours ago, CodingKitteh said:

Plastic right now seems to be geared as a late game material. I seriously hope there is 1 additional late game layer of material (nanofiber / carbon tech)

 

The thing is, they pretty much skipped over the entire array of refined metals that were basically promised by them existing in code.  Steel, tungsten, refined gold.  They skipped all of that for plastic, which is a little jarring because irl most refined metals existed long, long before plastic.  So I'm wondering if the next tier is going to be refined metals, and THEN beyond that will be more space-age stuff.  If so, I'd guess we will get some sort of smelter that will require huge amounts of power, or maybe even gas or coal.  Then the game gets pretty complex as you might power your base with natural gas for awhile, but then reach metal tier, and need to use that gas for smelting.   The game could require reworking your infrastructure several times, possibly.  I'm hoping there's still a long way to go before we see the end game.

[Michi01]

17 hours ago, brummbar7 said:

The thing is, they pretty much skipped over the entire array of refined metals that were basically promised by them existing in code.  Steel, tungsten, refined gold.  They skipped all of that for plastic, which is a little jarring because irl most refined metals existed long, long before plastic.  So I'm wondering if the next tier is going to be refined metals, and THEN beyond that will be more space-age stuff.  If so, I'd guess we will get some sort of smelter that will require huge amounts of power, or maybe even gas or coal.  Then the game gets pretty complex as you might power your base with natural gas for awhile, but then reach metal tier, and need to use that gas for smelting.   The game could require reworking your infrastructure several times, possibly.  I'm hoping there's still a long way to go before we see the end game.

My guess is that refined metal is still going to a mid-game thing and that it will be available before plastic is. Perhaps adding metal refinement doesn't have as high of a priority because it "just" adds more complexity to an already existing material, while plastic is something completely new.

[brummbar7]

46 minutes ago, Michi01 said:

My guess is that refined metal is still going to a mid-game thing and that it will be available before plastic is. Perhaps adding metal refinement doesn't have as high of a priority because it "just" adds more complexity to an already existing material, while plastic is something completely new.

Eh, idk.  I think it would create a lot of player whiplash to bring in a 3rd tier system and then later bring in the 2nd tier.  Doesn't seem like a very logical way to proceed.   The plastic traps seem approximately appropriately placed for 2nd tier tech.  And considering that the ruins contain steel ladders, I think that hints at it being a 3rd tier material.  If plastic is used to upgrade the base 'framework' (ladders, tiles) I think it's logical for refined metals to upgrade the structures themselves (and ladders obviously).  Gold = better art, steel = better machinery.  Tungsten = some kind of better heat exchange stuff?  Copper doesn't have a refined product aside from pure copper so I'm not sure where they'd go with that, if anywhere.

[Michi01]

5 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

Copper doesn't have a refined product aside from pure copper so I'm not sure where they'd go with that, if anywhere.

Better wires maybe?

[CodingKitteh]

1 hour ago, Michi01 said:

Better wires maybe?

Copper and Iron seems to be used as a elementary metal. Tungsten, Steel, Gold, (Mercury??), Electrum, are the current mid-game metals. There may be more but I forgot.

Mercury is toxic, but perhaps we may be seeing pollution introduced to the game. So if you refine gold (heating gold amalgam), you will generate toxic by-products that may introduce disease like mercury poisoning. This can still be modeled into the current disease system. So instead of "germs." It uses the term concentration (mercury has vapor pressure so can be modeled like a germ). If your dupe is exposed to 1,000,000 agents of mercury, it's 1 ppm. The threshold can be 100 ppm to trigger symptoms of mercury poisoning. Also mercury accumulation can be semi-permanent (slow detox), unless treated by a medical professional (chelation therapy)

20 hours ago, brummbar7 said:

The thing is, they pretty much skipped over the entire array of refined metals that were basically promised by them existing in code.  Steel, tungsten, refined gold.  They skipped all of that for plastic, which is a little jarring because irl most refined metals existed long, long before plastic.  So I'm wondering if the next tier is going to be refined metals, and THEN beyond that will be more space-age stuff.  If so, I'd guess we will get some sort of smelter that will require huge amounts of power, or maybe even gas or coal.  Then the game gets pretty complex as you might power your base with natural gas for awhile, but then reach metal tier, and need to use that gas for smelting.   The game could require reworking your infrastructure several times, possibly.  I'm hoping there's still a long way to go before we see the end game.

We are not sure yet but plastic. In the real world, plastic was never intended to replace metals. They're more parallel materials in real world applications. Certain applications in hot environments plastics will fail vs. metal will fail in electrical applications requiring insulators. If robotics come into the game, semi-conductors will need to be used.

So let's hope plastic is that, not a tier of material until end game. Plastic itself also has tiers: Raw Plastic, Specialized Films, Carbon Tech, Space age materials (when plastics > metal finally in the late game; like carbon nanotubes and carbon fiber)

The depth of game is basically going to be influenced by the amount of players interested. I really hope the game takes off to a Minecraft level, so hype it up! Right now, I can sense Klei is not clear how to support the game for. So players, hype the game!