Enginator Posted February 24, 2018 Share Posted February 24, 2018 I just wanted to start by thanking the Dev team for the game so far, I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and am invested in its development in the future. I am transitioning into a few hundred hours of play time and just wanted to share some thoughts with the community and get some advice. I think one of the main draws (and hooks) of the game is that the base building is a little opaque. Design decisions that you make have knock on effects that do not reveal themselves until later in the game. Many moments like 'oh crap why is nothing getting built down there, oh its because there is no oxygen, oh crap my base is barely breathable, I stuffed the oxygen calculation. In order to design and build efficient bases, I have opted for the use of a spreadsheet. Most of the fun of this game is building machines of machines that do unique things with the resources available. With that being said, the tedium of maintaining the spreadsheet is getting to me a little and I just wanted to know: How do you guys manage (and plan) base requirements? Is it an iterative build? Are you putting out spot fires all the time or anticipating? Do you have a better way than spreadsheets? How do you do your spreadsheets? With that being said, do you feel like there is room in the game for a little improvement in the production UI. The game that springs to mind for me is the production graphs of Factorio. You can see there is an issue, and diving into the graph helps you identify and fix problems in the system. As I mentioned before, I think a bit of opacity and 2nd / 3rd order instability effects makes the game exciting but if I can fix it with a spread sheet, why not include some sort of functionality in the game. I was wondering if you thought there was any room to balance giving players a little more information with keeping them a little edgy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lacost Posted February 24, 2018 Share Posted February 24, 2018 I would favour complexity over opaque gameplay in 10 out of 10 cases. Everything should be clearly understandable on what it does and what not. Example for good complexity: Natural Gas Generators consume x amount of natural gas, produce x amount of heat, x amount of CO2, x amount of polluted water and generate x amount of power. You can calculate everything from those informations: How many Fertilizer Synthesizer do I need to get rid of the p-water, how many Slickster can I feed with the CO2 and what circuit can I run with the produced power. Example for bad "opaque" complexity: Farm Stations/Greenhouses... They just state to increase plant growth but till today I have no clue whatsoever what they actually do. I need 18 Bristle Blossoms and 15 Sleet Wheat for 3 Berry Sludges per day. With the greenhouse boost I need .... something, something? I get that those knowledge gaps can be gameplay in themselves but they are usually very well researched inside the community a few months after release. So why make opaque gameplay when the wiki will list the exact stats anyways after a while. This also describes how I plan my bases: Calculation. So far ONI is pretty much on point with the maths, which for me is satisfying. If the topic is too complex to calculate though, I just crank up the debug mode and build the machines. I wish that the debug mode would be a little bit more accesible (--> creative mode), so that I don`t have to alter the gamefiles every time I switch between gamemodes but yeah... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enginator Posted February 24, 2018 Author Share Posted February 24, 2018 I agree. I guess opacity is the wrong word, I just think having graphs will give people the opportunity to detect what the issue is and then design the best solution to fix that issue. Totally agree with your last point, I think it has already been suggested but blueprints would be ideal for this. Design, build and test a machine in debug mode, then export to a blueprint so you can manufacture it in game. The game then becomes who can make the most efficient machines, you can share designs and build the community more organically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dopey Posted February 24, 2018 Share Posted February 24, 2018 I guess another angle on this slightly off topic discussion of complexity is we're not quite sure what direction this game is going in. At least I'm not and I've seen a few other mentions on the forum about uncertainty in the direction of it. If this is more of a survival base building game then production graphs don't make too much sense for the game play feel. Maybe as a later research, when you manage to keep a stable base it makes sense to worry about proper production statistics. In a panic-y, stressful survival mode it makes more sense to be doing number 3, putting out spot fires and trying to anticipate them. Unless like with the new conveyor belts and automation this is moving more towards something like Factorio (sorry if the creeping comparison is starting to irk people), with your enemy being heat and atmosphere instead of 'monsters'. Then I agree it would be nice to have another menu to monitor food, water, oxygen, CO2 and item production and consumption for a large population of duplicants (Or whatever reason you have for big production). Though there's not all that much in my mind to monitor, but maybe I'm just bad at the game heheh. I'm usually more worried about heat management because I don't have that part worked out all that well yet. I generally spend time (failing) anticipating spot fires and working on one aspect (plumbing, clean air, oil, new food) at a time with some short single use python terminal math rather than a spreadsheet. Although I've yet to attempt a large base where efficiency matters, I'm currently repeatedly failing taking every duplicant possible, likely due to lack of planning out the base. Good Day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enginator Posted February 25, 2018 Author Share Posted February 25, 2018 Thanks for the input, it is interesting to hear. 3 hours ago, Dopey said: sorry if the creeping comparison is starting to irk people Have you seen instances where people are getting annoyed about the comparison? I think the link is logical, its about process design so they are quite similar games. I see it as the process design of Factorio with the role playing elements of Rimworld. The best parts of both games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luminite2 Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 9 minutes ago, Enginator said: Thanks for the input, it is interesting to hear. Have you seen instances where people are getting annoyed about the comparison? I think the link is logical, its about process design so they are quite similar games. I see it as the process design of Factorio with the role playing elements of Rimworld. The best parts of both games. People have gotten touchy about Rimworld comparisons here in the past. Not sure why Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nascarlaser1 Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 if mod support is added but this isn't, this is going to be my first mod request Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WiDOWZ Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 Well the game does include a lot of information about power consumption and what have you. Looking at the wire information alone displays how much power is currently being drawn, what else is connected to the network and the specifics for how much they each consume. I really don't know what to tell you but all the information I'm looking for is already there. I suppose you want a way to graph everything in one screen or? I'll be honest and say I don't really like this idea, I prefer a more interactive/visual feedback loop then a monotonous chart to find information already made available. The Daily report has pretty much all the info you need to know in terms of productivity and is already well done imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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