Cheapest Quality of Life Suggestions

[EdmonEdmon]

A quick list of cheap, quality of life suggestions I'd like to make for this great game:

1) A "Redo" button for artwork. It should, automatically get a dupe to re-create the art in question.

2) Sleeping dupes at night-time that have 100% stamina should wake up and go back to doing things (cheap change), or maybe more realistically, they would get up and start doing things like getting cleaned, going to the toilet, etc (better, but not cheap change). At the moment, there is no reason to give dupes stamina bonuses as they always sleep the full length of the night, even if not tired. Using the emergency button to get around this limitation feels gamey and wrong.

3) If I change the default priority of construction, I'd like the change to stick. I don't know about anyone else, but I always want my building done before anything else, so the ability to set "6" priority and for it to stick until I change it again would be great. Current behaviour is that it defaults to 5 every time and forgets your preference.

4) Not sure how cheap a change this is, but I would like the option of environmental or piping for the output of many buildings. E.G. Electrolyser output(s). Carbon Scrubber input, etc. Maybe these buildings could have both and a toggle (with the default being as now). 

5) Heavy Watt Wires are amazingly ugly to the point of driving anyone near them to suicide no matter how much art you put near them. This could really do with a slight tone down of (+5). Of course having them locked away in a power room that dupes rarely visit is fine, but their sheer indescribable nastiness means they are hardly enjoyable to use and you really do need to use them in the mid game. Likewise, the better heavy wires can also get a buff of (+5).

6) A recall button that immediately forces all dupes to return to their bunks (if possible) next to the emergency button would be great, Sometimes you need to recall your dupe army from a developing hazard or situation and doing that manually is amazingly tedious. Players can also build their bunks in safe places knowing this feature is available.

7) Research that increase dupe interaction (building beam/hoover) range would be great for the mid and late game, when you are trying to make really interesting things and you don't have that sweet, sweet developer mode to help you. Once again, making tons of tedious ladders gets stale in the later stages of play.


That's it for now :).
 

[AlexRou]

5 hours ago, EdmonEdmon said:

1) A "Redo" button for artwork. It should, automatically get a dupe to re-create the art in question.

So a button to reroll art without consuming resources or taking time to deconstruct them?

5 hours ago, EdmonEdmon said:

4) Not sure how cheap a change this is, but I would like the option of environmental or piping for the output of many buildings. E.G. Electrolyser output(s). Carbon Scrubber input, etc. Maybe these buildings could have both and a toggle (with the default being as now). 

This would make many buildings OP if 100% of the output is sent into pipes instantly and completely removes the cost of having a pump which then makes many systems much easier to design for.

5 hours ago, EdmonEdmon said:

5) Heavy Watt Wires are amazingly ugly to the point of driving anyone near them to suicide no matter how much art you put near them. This could really do with a slight tone down of (+5). Of course having them locked away in a power room that dupes rarely visit is fine, but their sheer indescribable nastiness means they are hardly enjoyable to use and you really do need to use them in the mid game. Likewise, the better heavy wires can also get a buff of (+5).

 

5 hours ago, EdmonEdmon said:

7) Research that increase dupe interaction (building beam/hoover) range would be great for the mid and late game, when you are trying to make really interesting things and you don't have that sweet, sweet developer mode to help you. Once again, making tons of tedious ladders gets stale in the later stages of play.

 

To me these are all "make the game easier plz" suggestions without any good justification for such.

[EdmonEdmon]

There was no need for your post to be so rude and obnoxious.

Making a game less tedious is not making a game easier and the attitude that making a game easier is a bad thing is a poor one to have if the game needs to be easier. Not that I am saying the game needs to be easier, I think the difficulty is fine.
 

Quote

So a button to reroll art without consuming resources or taking time to deconstruct them?

No, of course not. Just a button to flag the object for deconstruction, rebuilding and repainting without any need for me to micromanage that whole process. Also, doing it manually does not take any resources and deconstruction is almost instant. The only real consumer of time is the actual art creation anyway. You should know this, but you just wanted to be hostile for hostilities sake.

Your other points are in a similar vain as your first. This is not about making the game any easier, it's about removing unnecessary micromanagement especially in the late game, of things that are easily done (and often enjoyable) early on in the game but become a total chore when your base fills the entire map and you are on your 600+th cycle.

My only balance concern is the heavy wires, there is no realistic way to deal with them other than locking them in a dungeon somewhere. There comes a point where you must use them or their slightly prettier cousins, but there are few if any options to offset them as you can't spread them out (they must form a cognisant line).

[AlexRou]

6 minutes ago, EdmonEdmon said:

No, of course not. Just a button to flag the object for deconstruction, rebuilding and repainting without any need for me to micromanage that whole process. Also, doing it manually does not take any resources and deconstruction is almost instant. The only real consumer of time is the actual art creation anyway. You should know this, but you just wanted to be hostile for hostilities sake.

Wasn't trying to be hostile btw, that thought skipped my mind for some reason and I apologize for the erroneous remarks. You could've elaborated that it was a shortcut to deconstruct, reconstruct and art creation. Was thinking you meant skipping deconstruct and reconstruct and go straight to art re-creation.

 

Number 4 is not something that doesn't affect balance, if 100% of outputs go into a pipe that is much more efficient and consumes much less energy than putting a pump (it is impossible to get 100% of output into a pipe with a pump). This makes things like electrolyzer to a hydrogen generator much more powerful than it is. One electrolyzer could then directly and constantly power one hydrogen generator and have a surplus of energy, which of course now is impossible due to how pumps work.

 

Number 7 too does affect balance in a way, it means dupes spend less time building ladders and scaffolding which means they then have more time to do other tasks. If it were something purely to reduce micromanagement then it would've been a suggestion to have auto scaffolding building and deconstruction.

[EdmonEdmon]

Number 4 could certainly affect balance, but the way it's done now is very inconsistent and I feel that's just poor design. That said, there are ways to make clean rooms that will filter the gases for you and give you better than piping effectiveness. Though it does involve some cheesy play and there is a certain amount of generators you need to be running to get that level of effectiveness.

Piping requires one splitter to be running all the time (so a cost of 120w, all the time) so I guess the unit here is 120wC (or watt cycles) to separate out the two gas output.

By building an open base and having open pipes (Airflow tiles surrounded by normal tiles), you only need an air pump running 1/4 of the time at the top of your base (240watts for 1/4 of a cycle so 60wC), where the hydrogen is passively collected by careful airflow piping planning. You need a really large base to make this effective though, so obviously there will be hydrogen "in motion" though the base before it collects neatly at the top. The important part is having enough production to ensure a thick layer of the hydrogen at the top of the base. Pressure controls can ensure that you don't accidentally over drain or allow to over fill the top of base hydrogen plant.

In terms of Number 7, once you've reached the end game it's just tedious busywork. That's why I think the upgrade could be hidden behind lots of research, just to ensure it comes later in the game where you have lots of free time for stuff like this.
 

[AlexRou]

18 minutes ago, EdmonEdmon said:

Number 4 could certainly affect balance, but the way it's done now is very inconsistent and I feel that's just poor design.

I like consistency too but I'm not sure if it makes sense to make them all have piped outputs. Dealing with bad gasses in the air is part of the challenge, so I rather they not have piped outputs for gasses. If everything were piped, that makes it too easy to deal with gases since we can just put a vent out of the base and only have pure oxygen in the base plus CO2 from dupes.

Liquids tho, I don't think I've seen any machinery that doesn't output to a pipe in real life.

 

33 minutes ago, EdmonEdmon said:

In terms of Number 7, once you've reached the end game it's just tedious busywork. That's why I think the upgrade could be hidden behind lots of research, just to ensure it comes later in the game where you have lots of free time for stuff like this.

I prefer the auto scaffolding idea tho, cause then that eliminates both dig and ladder build commands. And maybe have a switch to leave the ladders there if dupes need to constantly travel to and from the building. I don't really like abilities that you get for free by just researching it, maybe if it required dupes to upgrade their gun somehow (of course applies to new dupes too)?

[Alpe12]

I strongly oppose N5. Heaviwatt should have a very high impact in decor. They already reduced it a lot in the Heavi Conductive wire.

[EdmonEdmon]

38 minutes ago, Alpe12 said:

I strongly oppose N5. Heaviwatt should have a very high impact in decor. They already reduced it a lot in the Heavi Conductive wire.

There really should be more to the décor system than just heaviwatt being needlessly punitive. If you want to get the balance right, make things like generators and batteries have more impact on décor and cable have less. At the end of the day, you can plan out the positioning of your generators and batteries but wire has to be in a line, by it's very nature. Burying it every game is just tedious.

Plus if the actual generators, that you have to visit and maintain, are as ugly as sin then that makes for more interesting gameplay and actually needs to be managed. A cable, once buried, can be forgotten forever. It's limiting, but it's not like it is hard to get around it.

[Alpe12]

28 minutes ago, EdmonEdmon said:

A cable, once buried, can be forgotten forever. It's limiting, but it's not like it is hard to get around it.

I wouldn't like these cables anywhere near me... Or my house.

[AlexRou]

Instead of reducing the decor hit of wires ... how about adding wireless transmission and receiver towers as a late game tech. To balance them they could require line of sight between the transmitter and receiver and maybe there could be an inherent power loss, energy cost of using the towers and/or transmission distance loss. If they don't require line of sight, maybe a significantly higher transmission loss through each block?

 

[EdmonEdmon]

33 minutes ago, Alpe12 said:

I wouldn't like these cables anywhere near me... Or my house.

I doubt you'd even notice one wire near your house. Obviously your picture of about 40 of the things is quite another matter.

1 Heavy-Watt line of wire has more impact on the décor of a base than 20 dead bodies and 200000kg of polluted waste left everywhere.

Perfectly reasonable and balanced, right?

Yet an ENTIRE COAL GENERATOR is somehow less of a problem than a single piece of wire, despite it's stink, noise and obvious intrusiveness.

[Alpe12]

Image from http://emfinfo.org/guidelines-distance.html below.

Spoiler

 

Quote

"The New York State Department of Transportation defines "dangerous proximity" to high-voltage wires as being within 3 m of a wire carrying up to 50,000 volts. They advise adding 0.1 m for every 10,000 volts above 50,000 volts. Transmission wires can carry 500,000 volts. Stay at least 9.5 m away from them." - https://sciencing.com/safe-high-tension-electrical-wires-7639708.html

 

23 minutes ago, EdmonEdmon said:

1 Heavy-Watt line of wire has more impact on the décor of a base than 20 dead bodies and 200000kg of polluted waste left everywhere.

Perfectly reasonable and balanced, right?

I think that's because currently the game doesn't have other way to "punish (?)" this. Using Decor for it may not be great, but its the only way the game have now.

And with the Heavi Conductive, it isn't that hard to counter. Screenshot below.

Spoiler

[EdmonEdmon]

1) Realism is not an argument for gameplay.

2) These wires carry 20kw.

A modern microwave oven uses 1.2k. Every thin copper wire in your house could probably transfer 2 - 4kw without any difficulty whatsoever.

You are talking in your quoted news article about the kind of kind of high voltage wires that have a massive power generation plant attached to them, usually of the size of a football pitch varity and staffed by over 100 bods. 

ONI is quite clearly using man portable generators and their output for that type of device is quite reasonable.

The wires being more ugly than a pile of rotting bodies or the actual generator is not. 

In ONI as it stands, a dupe would prefer to sleep between two active coal generators than next to a line of heavy watt wire with no power flowing over it. Not just by a little bit, but by a massive and ridiculous margin.

EDIT:
Noting the above edit about it not being hard to counter. I already said you can bury it, but you've not actually resolved the issue. Everywhere it happens to be is still deep, deep red on décor.

[Alpe12]

Again. It's the way the game have now to punish it.

Kw in the game can't be compared directly to the outside world. But what can be used is that the heaviwatt is a wire that can conduct 20x more energy than a normal wire can.

Unless maybe you consider that the normal wire is comparable to a super thin cable. In that case the heaviwatt would be like a normal cable. Ok.
I consider them somewhat close to the general cables that we use.
So, in real terms, the heaviwatt at least is comparable to neighborhood distribution power lines. That gives about 3m to 60m recommended distance.