Rocketry Upgrade Testing Branch Now Open! - [Game Update] - 282822

[_Q_]

I hoped for some new biomes, but since its all on other asteroids/planets then I wont bother with playing for now.

[Man in the Mist]

One thing I could see for going to other areas via rocket:  When the duplicant(s) arrives at their destination you get a button with a timer.  Clicking on it will make the screen waver and the scene change to the traveling duplicant.  You can give them commands (mine resources, create ladders, etc).  You would have a cycle's worth of time to gather what you can before the duplicant returns to their ship and leaves.  If you don't click the button before time runs out the duplicant returns with a semi-randomly selected cache of resources.

[Saturnus]

9 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

With the new resevoirs I feel they are kinda pointless, if they empty as they fill its just the same as having a very large pipe, could we possibly have automation so so that once it is full it sends a signal, or somethjng so we can makenit pump till its full then drain itself? Otherwise I would rather just use a 20kg/tile room with automation in it...sure i get that the resources are different but plastic isnt hard to come by now.

I bet they plan on making it impossible to build our usual high pressure tanks in the future by making tiles slightly leaky or more brittle thus forcing us to make these reservoirs. If not, then yes, they are completely pointless. 

EDIT: scratch that. Maybe the purpose is that they work as buffers. In that case they'd be very handy indeed as it'd eliminate a much more complicated set up that requires automation and power.

Edited August 23, 2018 by Saturnus

[goboking]

11 minutes ago, AzeTheGreat said:

No, this is literally exactly what I'm trying to say.  Reread the conversation.  I thought this update was too barebones, it was pointed out that there are still 2 weeks left for them to work on it.  I pointed out that, historically, the two week periods have not introduced significant gameplay changes, and thus I will almost certainly still find it to be too barebones even when it fully releases.

The introduction of rockets and all that comes with it (rocket parts, advanced research, new jobs, celestial bodies, a completely new UI, etc) a new critter, a new plant, and access to renewable sources of previously finite resources is hardly what I'd consider "bare bones".

 

11 minutes ago, AzeTheGreat said:

You seem to be under the impression that I'm bashing or unsatisfied with the developers.  I'm not.  I'm perfectly fine with this as a first step.  I'm just stating that I'd be really disappointed if there's no MKII for this update, because it feel exceptionally simplistic to me.

The Cosmic Upgrade was the first step in space exploration; I doubt this one will be the last.

Edited August 23, 2018 by goboking

[blash365]

3 minutes ago, AzeTheGreat said:

I would argue that the Ranching and Cosmic ones were relatively small tweaks, yeah.

The expressive had a bit more content, but nothing drastic.  I doubt the equivalent of adding some more rocket modules and planets would really improve the gameplay here.

You seem to be under the impression that I'm bashing or unsatisfied with the developers.  I'm not.  I'm perfectly fine with this as a first step.  I'm just stating that I'd be really disappointed if there's no MKII for this update, because it feel exceptionally simplistic to me.

If you look at the ranching update, you will note that MK II in the title. It was the second part of a bigger update and naturally the developers had a pretty good idea of where it was heading already. Of course there was no big course-change necessary, because they had received sufficient feedback during the first mark already.

Still they reworked the lifecycle several times and it is not a small tweak, because it made the difference between a stable stable and an unstable one. So a thriving or a starving colony.

Changing the color of an ore tile is a small tweak. Changing the oxygen output from electrolizer from 888g/s to 880g/s is a small tweak. Reworking the lifecycle of every creature in the game has huge impact.

Same goes for the cosmic update. Surely it was on Klei's roadmap for quite a while already. It is not rocket-science (pun intended) to figure out what things could happen up there. Straight-forward update. Still big tweaks were necessary to keep the asteroid stable on the top-end.

The same applies for the expressive update.

 

You have to understand how the agile lifecycle is. Klei will be working for ~4 weeks on an update, they then release the preview, we have the opportunity to provide feedback and they will try to consider them during those 2 weeks. Then the next update-cycle starts.

In some cases certain things might be postponed/delayed during those first 4 weeks and if possible they might ship in the remaining 2 weeks (e.g. expresso machine). In other cases stuff might be easily added and therefore quickly included during the 2 week period.

However the core-part of the update should always be ready when the preview is released. Bigger hotfix-updates would either indicate a course-change based on feedback or a thight-time schedule (optimistic planning). So lacking those updates actually indicates good planning and good reception of what the playerbase wants.

 

[goboking]

20 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

With the new resevoirs I feel they are kinda pointless, if they empty as they fill its just the same as having a very large pipe, could we possibly have automation so so that once it is full it sends a signal, or somethjng so we can makenit pump till its full then drain itself? Otherwise I would rather just use a 20kg/tile room with automation in it...sure i get that the resources are different but plastic isnt hard to come by now.

I always build with an eye towards aesthetics.  I'd much rather store my excess gas in a tank than a room, but I understand how their addition doesn't bring enough practicality to the table to please everyone.  All the same, I'm happy to have them.

[trukogre]

13 minutes ago, goboking said:

The introduction of rockets and all that comes with it (rocket parts, advanced research, new jobs, celestial bodies, a completely new UI, etc) a new critter, a new plant, and access to renewable sources of previously finite resources is hardly what I'd consider "bare bones".

They created the new oxylite maker and a new food calorie burn slider for this update, but forgot to require rocket ships to include the oxylite and any food storage, so yeah, this update is quite bare bones, if only in that the dupes would logically arrive at their destination as literal bare bones.

Edited August 23, 2018 by trukogre

[Queron81]

13 minutes ago, AzeTheGreat said:

No, this is literally exactly what I'm trying to say.  Reread the conversation.  I thought this update was too barebones, it was pointed out that there are still 2 weeks left for them to work on it.  I pointed out that, historically, the two week periods have not introduced significant gameplay changes, and thus I will almost certainly still find it to be too barebones even when it fully releases.

Last beta branch they added the schedule editing system 8 days later, and that was a very huge gameplay change.

[AzeTheGreat]

4 minutes ago, goboking said:

The introduction of rockets and all that comes with it (rocket parts, advanced research, new jobs, celestial bodies, a completely new UI, etc) a new critter, a new plant, and access to renewable sources of previously finite resources is hardly what I'd consider "bare bones".

You're right.  From a coding perspective that's a lot of work, and they've laid a lot of groundwork for future expansions.  Currently, from a gameplay perspective, it really doesn't add very much at all in my opinion, and I don't see small tweaks making it much better.

2 minutes ago, blash365 said:

However the core-part of the update should always be ready when the preview is released.

Right, and I find the core part of this update to be dull and uninteresting.  Maybe a MKII will fix that, and it's fine if that's what it takes.  The reason I've brought this up is that I've consistently felt that most of the game systems they've added feel a bit lacking and have a ton of room for expansion and improvement, yet that's not been realized.  So when this update felt even more lacking to me, I wanted to point it out in hopes that future updates improve it.

I should've taken more time to more thoroughly explain myself at the start...

 

[blash365]

Just now, AzeTheGreat said:

Right, and I find the core part of this update to be dull and uninteresting.  Maybe a MKII will fix that, and it's fine if that's what it takes.  The reason I've brought this up is that I've consistently felt that most of the game systems they've added feel a bit lacking and have a ton of room for expansion and improvement, yet that's not been realized.  So when this update felt even more lacking to me, I wanted to point it out in hopes that future updates improve it.

I should've taken more time to more thoroughly explain myself at the start...

 

It's a modular rocket system. What is there not to understand that it will include more than 2 elements?

[AzeTheGreat]

3 minutes ago, blash365 said:

It's a modular rocket system. What is there not to understand that it will include more than 2 elements?

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here?  Obviously I understand there are more than 2 elements, there are already multiple...

[Saturnus]

1 hour ago, blash365 said:

Well, you joined in april. So i guess you only got wind of the...

I find it mildly amusing that one that joined in January this year would pull the seniority card

[blash365]

4 minutes ago, AzeTheGreat said:

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here?  Obviously I understand there are more than 2 elements, there are already multiple...

Modular means: "Hey we got this great system now that lets you travel to other planets. Here is what we came up with and what we think is a good basis for it (e.g. travel to planets, deliver stuff, bring back stuff). Now we would be interested to hear what other parts you would find suitable to enrich the system."

I am pretty sure klei will not turn a deaf ear to your suggestions, if you bring any. But simply saying "it's dull". Without even explaining what you are missing, is not exactly top quality feedback.

3 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

I find it mildly amusing that one that joined in January this year would pull the seniority card

I am not. I am pulling the "you should have had plenty opportunity to witness good updates"-card.

I'd even suspect that he has seen more updates even before joining the forum, but i wanted to draw a lower bound of what should be the baseline of his experience with oni updates.

Edited August 23, 2018 by blash365

[Mariilyn]

34 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

With the new resevoirs I feel they are kinda pointless, if they empty as they fill its just the same as having a very large pipe, could we possibly have automation so so that once it is full it sends a signal, or somethjng so we can makenit pump till its full then drain itself? Otherwise I would rather just use a 20kg/tile room with automation in it...sure i get that the resources are different but plastic isnt hard to come by now.

But if you need to use the content in the reservoir before its completely full, a gas shutoff after the output port (which activate whenever the need arises) would be more useful.

High-pressure gas rooms are nice but they require a water lock and exosuits for accessibility, and unlimited storage rooms are such a pain to build in survival ...  There is certainly many situations when a smaller reservoir is perfectly suitable and easier to set-up.

[Man in the Mist]

When they do put in food storage requirements for space exploration, that's going to make Berry Sludge even more valuable than it is now.

[AzeTheGreat]

23 minutes ago, blash365 said:

Modular means: "Hey we got this great system now that lets you travel to other planets. Here is what we came up with and what we think is a good basis for it (e.g. travel to planets, deliver stuff, bring back stuff). Now we would be interested to hear what other parts you would find suitable to enrich the system."

I believe their use of modular is referring to the fact that you construct the rockets yourself out of smaller components.  While I hope what you wrote is also true, I feel that it will take significant expansion for this update to have the depth required to be an interesting gameplay component, which is why I really hope they take another full patch cycle to flesh it out.

23 minutes ago, blash365 said:

But simply saying "it's dull". Without even explaining what you are missing, is not exactly top quality feedback.

1 hour ago, AzeTheGreat said:

The rockets themselves don't even have any engineering/design aspects to them.

I feel that I explained my issue with the system as it stands.  I did not really provide in depth specific solutions or improvements, even though I can think of plenty, because I'm sure the developers know what their goal is and how they'd like to reach it - if my feedback is useful then they'll take it into account.

Edited August 23, 2018 by AzeTheGreat

[Oozinator]

45 minutes ago, AzeTheGreat said:

.. and they've laid a lot of groundwork for future expansions.

Multiplayer DLC only 19.95€ summer sale..

[_Q_]

Groundwork for future expansions.

I doubt there will be any future expansions.

I have no idea why they are pushing space biome and space exploration so hard, there is so many unfinished things on asteroid.

[watermelen671]

1 hour ago, Saturnus said:

I find it mildly amusing that one that joined in January this year would pull the seniority card

I find it mildly amusing that etc etc. 

[TheScaryOne]

Sulfuric acid + steam + natgas from oxygen + sour gas + water when?

 

Future wet plate batteries with lower heat and greater storage?

Edited August 24, 2018 by TheScaryOne

[Im_not_Included]

this update is the best thing merely for the space cows. everything else is gravy. 

we have cows...IN SPACE

[watermelen671]

15 minutes ago, _Q_ said:

I doubt there will be any future expansions.

I have no idea why they are pushing space biome and space exploration so hard, there is so many unfinished things on asteroid.

How can you say something so definitive like that? I find it silly that you actually think the devs at Klei won't be doing any more expansions. Just because it's not in space doesn't mean it's not an expansion. Adding a new biome is an expansion, adding new world gen items is an expansion, just because we've reached the point that people have been begging for doesn't mean the game's over.

I'm pretty sure they're going to continue releasing upgrades, and they're going to continue doing so using the cycle that I speculated about.

2 minutes ago, Im_not_Included said:

this update is the best thing merely for the space cows. everything else is gravy. 

we have cows...IN SPACE

This.

[lunazone]

I'm really, really loving this new upgrade. I really like all the new stuff to build.

[Saturnus]

29 minutes ago, watermelen671 said:

I find it mildly amusing that etc etc. 

Unlike you who plays Don't Starve, the alpha you could sign up for on Steam was the first time I ever heard of Klei. When I joined the ONI forum. It had a total of 12 threads, all in all. 

[watermelen671]

1 minute ago, Saturnus said:

Unlike you who plays Don't Starve, the alpha you could sign up for on Steam was the first time I ever heard of Klei. When I joined the ONI forum. It had a total of 12 threads, all in all.