Feedback and Suggestions: Ranching Upgrade.

[goboking]

Alright, it's been about a week since the preview branch went live, so it's time to offer my feedback and suggestions.

Ranching

This is a great addition to the game.  It gives us a means of expanding systems that rely on coal and slime and gives us a means of sustaining meat.  The eggs and incubator are a nice touch.  The animations are top notch.  We can now relocate critters before breaking into the oil biome.  I haven't had a chance to play with since today's update, but the overcrowded debuff seems reasonable.  As always, the exact numbers for resource consumption and production, happiness gain and decay, etc, can be fine tuned, but overall I'd say you hit a home run with ranching.

That said, I do have one suggestion with regards to ranching.  Please add a queue system to the incubator so we can queue up multiple eggs with less micromanagement.

 

Eggs

There is currently no way to store eggs.  Aside from that, I think you missed an opportunity to add some mid-tier food options.  I think you should have made a Boiled Egg as a mid tier recipe using a single egg and an Omelette that requires an egg and a mushroom for higher tier foods.  Such a recipe would create an ongoing demand for both eggs and mushrooms, the latter of is of no use to an end-game colony.  A lot of effort goes into creating sustainable slime production and climate controlled mushroom farms, so it's disappointing for mushrooms to fall by the wayside so early in the game.

 

The Database

This is a fantastic addition to the game.  If such a thing existed when I first dove in it would have made things a lot easier.  I would suggest making the Database icon on the screen a bit bigger so players who don't know to look for it can see it.

 

Job Priorities and Errand Urgency

This is a functional system.  As a matter of personal preference, though, I'd rather urgency trump priority.  This would allow me to use lower priority settings to lay blue prints, set tasks for idle dupes, etc.  It's not a deal breaker by any means, but I'd rather have that extra bit of control of what my dupes do and when they do it.

 

Geysers

I'm torn on this one. I appreciate that you want the map to have more of an impact on how we play.  I don't mind the long dormancy periods or the variable output rates.  I love that you're giving scientists something else to do, though I would suggest moving the Geological Survey trait to the 2nd tier to keep scientists' food and decor expectations from ramping up too quickly (especially compared to farmers, ranchers, and miners).

I do think you went a bit overboard on the types of geysers than can spawn.  I think volcanoes, geysers, and fumaroles are a great way to handle non-renewable resources like metal, though I question if we need copper, gold, and iron volcanoes when one would suffice.  I'm concerned about all the heat these things are going to add to our map and I'm not keen on the idea of a things like volcanoes wrecking our cold biomes.

Overall I like the direction this is taking the game, but I do think adjustments are in order.

 

Steam Turbine

These are much more viable with the new geysers in place, and I imagine you're probably tired of messing with them.  That said, I'm still not sold on them as they're currently designed.  We can't use steam produced by industrial machinery to power them because they require very hot steam.  We can't pipe very hot steam because gas pumps overheat at a much lower temperature than that required by steam turbines.  And with hot steam geysers, magma volcanoes, and molten metal volcanoes, there really isn't a lot that goes into setting up a turbine that's going to oscillate between providing lots of power and none at all.

Perhaps a steam generator could exist alongside a steam turbine?  Keep the turbine as is and make a generator that intakes steam and outputs hot water via pipes and generates 800W and some heat.  This would allow us to harness the steam we create via industrial machines (things like the aquatuner) that's much too cool to power a steam turbine.

 

Miscellaneous Thoughts

I really don't have much else to say.  We need a way store eggs, I suppose, but aside from a few numbers that need tweaking and a few minor quibbles, I'd say you absolutely killed it with this upgrade.  Big applause from me.  I can't fathom what you've got left in store that warrants a followup Ranching Upgrade, but I hope you take the opportunity to use critters to flesh out some of the game's more lacking features (combat, medicine, physicians to treat injuries and diseases, etc).  As always, I'll be waiting in anticipation to see what you've got in store for us next.

 

[goboking]

After playing a bit more, here are some additional thoughts on the RU.

• Urgency settings for analyzing geysers would be handy.
• On that note, the Scientist job line mentions research, but not geological survey.
• The last survey I performed lasted about a cycle.  Before the last update they were taking many cycles.  I don't recall seeing anything in the patch notes mentioning a reduction in the time it takes to complete a geological survey.
• I think Repair should be covered by Construction instead of/in addition to being covered by Tidy.
• The consumables UI needs to be overhauled.  It's a bit of a mess right now.
• I don't know how long it's been the case, but Construction having its own dig and delivery tasks is an excellent solution to the three-dupe shuffle we had for building a single tile in the OU.
• The tooltip should state overcrowding specs somewhere.
• Getting my dupes to toggle disable/enable buildings is like pulling teeth.  I'm actually having to resort to deconstructing wires to the buildings since no one will turn the darn things off.

[Neotuck]

On 3/14/2018 at 7:28 PM, goboking said:

There is currently no way to store eggs.

yes there is...

 

[goboking]

49 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

yes there is...

 

Thanks.  Not sure how I missed that all this time.