There should really be better explanation to wire-overloading

[Alfons100]

I'm not sure if this belongs in the Suggestions and Feedback section.

ONI is a very trial-and-error game, and that isnt bad neccessarily. You learn something after every failure. How gas works, how temperature is managed more carefully, but the two things that is really poorly explained is Heat and Power.

I understand mostly how these 2 work right, but the insane amount of people on various forums about this game, Everyone. Always. Complain. About. Wire-overloading.

It doesnt work just like real life, but with a similar idea, so people usually get confused when wires start to take damage, so everyone always assumes it is random. Because of how obscurely it is explained, it should be a tool-tip that comes up, just like 'food and bacteria', 'duplicant movement' etc, when you place a wire of any kind, that popup comes up once, explaining that 'When over 1000W is used in a normal-tier wire, it will overload and take damage. Split up your power usage in power intensive areas with Heavi-watt, and split it up with Terraformers' would seem like a logical way to explain it to new people, because right now, the only explanation to Overloading wires as far as I see, is when you look at the description for a wire, it will say 'Max Wattage', which is a very vague explanation-

Very simple, cut and clean. Explaining things to players isn't casualizing', it is introducing them to the game to begin with, a game with vastly different logic it follows compared to the real world. I hope more guiding comes into the game, such as saying how you manage heat around the place. 

[Neotuck]

40 minutes ago, Alfons100 said:

but the insane amount of people on various forums about this game, Everyone. Always. Complain. About. Wire-overloading.

I been checking this forum daily for weeks, who's been complaining?  Sure like most things in the game I learned from trial and error.  Wasn't hard to figure out that I had to keep circuits below 1 kW

And for the reason there isn't many guides is the game is still in development and changes with every update.  Any guide posted today would be useless in a few weeks.  

[Kahn_in_Klei]

actually,there is tow part of rule about overloading: 

1. a whole system of simple the power system need a generater, a battery and some ele appliance. the total power should not be hot-up 1KW(or 2KW 20KW decided by the lowest wire used in the system )

2. 5KW and 5KW if you use the transformer .just remember that the total power should not be hot-up 5KW and the single appliance's power should not be over 1KW. if not ,put a battery behind your transformer ,than your single appliance's power can be over 1KW

 

[Lifegrow]

56 minutes ago, Alfons100 said:

right now, the only explanation to Overloading wires as far as I see, is when you look at the description for a wire, it will say 'Max Wattage', which is a very vague explanation

There's lots of information when you click on a wire and read. Hopefully the new "lexicon" will also help newer players - we'll see how detailed it is I guess.

[Alfons100]

1 minute ago, Neotuck said:

I been checking this forum daily for weeks, who's been complaining?  Sure like most things in the game I learned from trial and error.  Wasn't hard to figure out that I had to keep circuits below 1 kW

And for the reason there isn't many guides is the game is still in development and changes with every update.  Any guide posted today would be useless in a few weeks.  

Well, not here, but usually on the Discord server, Steam Forums, as far as I have found. And thats a fair way to put it, but it is really easy to give  a simple nudge to whats causing it, because there already is some tooltips for several features like germs, food, etc. It is already vaguely explained to give people an idea to what they should think of.

[Neotuck]

well most people here are pretty friendly and are willing to help any one who asks

guess we just need to show people how to use the power overlay, add up the sum of power output (white numbers) and make sure it doesn't exceed 1000w or 2000w if you use conducive wire

overloading happens when your machines try to pull more watts than the wire can hold 

This is the simplified explanation good for new players

[Kiros]

Whenever I check out a game for the first time, I watch a bunch of videos before I decide whether I'm interested in even buying it, so I learn alot even before I start playing. Other than that, when something happens in game that I don't understand, I google/youtube my problem, and I always find either a solution or atleast an explanation.

But that's just me.

[Kasuha]

3 hours ago, Alfons100 said:

when you place a wire of any kind, that popup comes up once, explaining that 'When over 1000W is used in a normal-tier wire, it will overload and take damage. Split up your power usage in power intensive areas with Heavi-watt, and split it up with Terraformers' would seem like a logical way to explain it to new people, because right now, the only explanation to Overloading wires as far as I see, is when you look at the description for a wire, it will say 'Max Wattage', which is a very vague explanation-

I think that's a good idea. Except I think it should appear when first piece of wire gets damaged rather than sometime at the beginning when the player will read it and forget.

[vonVile]

Don't want overloads, don't use Bridges. They are weaker than wire.

[WhatTheDuck]

17 hours ago, vonVile said:

Don't want overloads, don't use Bridges. They are weaker than wire.

This is stupid. just because they overload first, doesnt mean anything else wouldnt overload if you dont have bridges.

[Alfons100]

17 hours ago, vonVile said:

Don't want overloads, don't use Bridges. They are weaker than wire.

No? Bridges don't have any less over-loading than a normal Wire, but the damage always seems to concentrate into bridges for some reason.
 

And I am not saying that Overloading is unbalanced either since I know how to adress it, only that there needs to be better explanation to why it happens. For those who don't understand.

[badimo]

Please no.  Spoon feeding not included.

Wire overloading is a good new player experience.  You make a mistake.  The game punishes you very slightly.  You read a little and learn.  You don’t do it again.  End of story.

[Vilda]

13 minutes ago, badimo said:

Please no.  Spoon feeding not included.

Wire overloading is a good new player experience.  You make a mistake.  The game punishes you very slightly.  You read a little and learn.  You don’t do it again.  End of story.

But that is the problem - nowhere in the game you can read about the behaviour in a consistent manner, just hope to notice a max wattage stat and quess what it means exactly. Transformers are even worse, with their behaviour and description entirely desinchronized (stemming from the changes after their introduction) There is a hope with the new encyclopedia but so far it just duplicates the items descriptions.