Abyssalite Nerf

[nile_duart]

Honestly, I just want to know if I'm the only person who is not at all okay with the abyssalite nerf. When I noticed I couldn't build with it, I came here to see if it was a bug or something. When I learned that it wasn't, I immediately quit my game. There are three very hot geysers less than three tiles outside of my temperate biome, and if I can't control the heat until mid/endgame... It's not that it's impossible or even exceptionally difficult to handle, it's that it's tedious and feels like something to make the game arbitrarily harder early on. Steel is already simultaneously necessary and tedious as hell - why make abyssalite the same?

Another note: While this game has exceedingly positive reviews on Steam, the negative ones that do exist pretty much all say the same thing - this game is not accessible. I realize Klei is working on that - and are doing a fantastic job - but I think nerfing abyssalite (which for me has always been the first line of defense against heat proliferation, and the best stopgap until I can come up with something better - a lifesaver in early game) is pretty counter-conducive to that goal.

That said, I'm sure people are going to say "this forces you to get creative" or "git gud", but I think that for creativity and "gudness" to thrive, there needs to be at least a teensy, tiny bit of leeway, and when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to deal with the geysers surrounding my base for quite a few cycles - as well as handling all the usual struggles of early-game - I didn't feel motivated to get creative, I felt motivated to play something else :/.

TL;DR Artificial difficulty =/= complexity. This is a base-building/survival/exploration game; I doubt anyone who loves this game needs to be forced to get creative - particularly when it comes to the already constant struggle of heat management.

This is just my opinion, and I'm sure some people agree, and some disagree. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[PhailRaptor]

I agree that taking it away completely is overdoing it.  Without it, you are forced to use much more elaborate and difficult to construct and maintain systems in order to reach basic survivability.  Without that basic survivability, it becomes substantially harder to actually build larger scale, more industrial, and more efficient systems to replace your early ones.

All that said, the way it was before was just way too easy.  Promote to Miner to dig it, slap it in place, and you're done.  Forever.  It did need a nerf, the issue is that this was too heavy of a nerf.

[SakuraKoi]

Quote

TL;DR Artificial difficulty =/= complexity

I guess they should just remove Abyssalite then, letting the magma melt the map from below and the meteors from above. Say goodbye to crude oil, and petroleum and hello sour gas! After all, it makes the game artificially much less difficult, no?~  This also entails Abyssalite as the easy to get total insulator.

Seriously, just use other insulation materials for ducks sake. Those still work quite well, you might as well double layer or perhaps not dig them out at all, certainly your greed is also to blame (after all, the non-random geyser are not particularly hot and easily go into over-pressure. Heck, only real and not metal volcanoes are a semi-serious threat and maybe crude oil)

[InternetGuy]

I'm not happy with it either but if this game taught me anything at all in managing continuous crisis situations, it's that there's a workaround to it. I just use the insulated tiles as a temporary fix. It works pretty well with a wheezwort beside that wall.

[thejams]

@nile_duart I have something to admit here, here it goes:

I have never, ever used abyssalite tiles when we were able to build with them.

I did it because of a personal preference to have insulated tiles that differ.  I have used igneous rock for insulated tiles and pipes since forever.  I had absolutely zero problems with it.

So with that out of my system, can I please ask you why you think that for differences of less than 100°C you can't live without abyssalite?

Have you ever tried using other insulated pipes/tiles?

5 minutes ago, InternetGuy said:

I'm not happy with it either but if this game taught me anything at all in managing continuous crisis situations, it's that there's a workaround to it. I just use the insulated tiles as a temporary fix. It works pretty well with a wheezwort beside that wall.

Using insulated tiles for, well, insulation is a temporary fix???

[SamLogan]

Abyssalite was really overpowered but unfortunately as the players used to play with glitchs it's painfull when Klei fix them.

Now we have a progressive system : Igneous rock -> ceramic -> refined abyssalite.

Before, we juste have to use the abyssalite and we been fine for the next thousand cycles.

For really hot geysers, it's not a big deal, just use ceramic and it will totally insulated. Here's an example :

Ceramic is really easy to make and early game. You just have to ranch Hatch.

[InternetGuy]

Just now, thejams said:

@nile_duart I have something to admit here, here it goes:

I have never, ever used abyssalite tiles when we were able to build with them.

I did it because of a personal preference to have insulated tiles that differ.  I have used igneous rock for insulated tiles and pipes since forever.  I had absolutely zero problems with it.

So with that out of my system, can I please ask you why you think that for differences of less than 100°C you can't live without abyssalite?

Have you ever tried using other insulated pipes/tiles?

Using insulated tiles for, well, insulation is a temporary fix???

I say temporary. That's what I like to say to myself. lol. It pretty much stays the same for the entire game. XD

[Exa]

ceramic will be ok for contain a geyser, what's the problem?

[Saturnus]

My suggestion has been for a long time, at least the last year and a half, that abyssalite tiles between biomes should have their mass reduced to 10% or even 5% of the current amount. That way you can't just plaster it everywhere, and make every pipe from it but it still has tremendous early game value.

[u_got_pantoned]

As a relatively new player i must say that, what you call "inaccessable", is something that keeps me playing that game many hours in a row. Surely there are edges that need to get fleshed out ntl.

Digging trough Information and discover mechanics, solving problems in many different ways with the actual need for learning is what this game makes kind of delicious in times where games tend to be too accessable (move here highlightning what item to look and and which key to press to get the Story going etc.). It´s like you said - a survival game. And i hope it stays a survival game.

In my sole opinion this goes as well for the Abyssalite nerf, that seems just as another pointer to "You have to learn to survive and find more than one solution". So i like it.

But i agree tho that the complete removal of this early game, end game insulator, could get some kind of transition instead of deploying a complete unusable in first form state.

[Xuhybrid]

The level of nerf i was thinking was that you couldn't use it in normal tiles. Only insulted tiles. It was only overpowered because you could make normal tiles out of it. A handful of normal tiles from it, from a single dug tile. What? I think it has been pushed too far down the tech tree but honestly i played the game with Insulated Tiles and it's completely fine...

[tzionut]

For me the only problem is the clay...Until i will make a room in which i will pump polluted oxygen and clean it to oxygen. As filtration medium it will be only regolith, The resulting oxygen i will make it oxylite for my future rockets. I am too lazy to build an oxygen liquidizer, and i am sure that oxylite will be more space efficient than liquid oxygen, but we will see. 

[Pagox]

I think I okay with this change. Abyssalite was too overpowered. It made things too easy and insulated stuff senseless.

[Gurgel]

1 hour ago, thejams said:

I have used igneous rock for insulated tiles and pipes since forever.  I had absolutely zero problems with it.

I used Abyssalite before, but have moved to insulated tiles from igneous rock and mafic rock now, and similar for pipes. It did present some challenges and in one place I had to put a vacuum barrier, but overall it did not make things significantly more difficult or more effort.

[Grimgaw]

You need 1 full cargo bay of isoresin to make 1.33 insulated pipe. This is stupid. 

[Gnarmaw]

You know, you don't have to dig out the whole geyser as soon as you find one. And you can always let it overpressurize.

I like this change, you can still use other materials for temporary solution, and Ceramic is really good too.

[Saturnus]

1 hour ago, Grimgaw said:

You need 1 full cargo bay of isoresin to make 1.33 insulated pipe. This is stupid. 

So you're telling me that in order to build something that facilitates the most efficient rockets with liquid oxygen and hydrogen that I first have to make at least 40-50 trips?

I realize that I don't absolutely need super insulator to build liquidizers but they're certainly more efficient that way. And it's certainly far less trouble to build liquidizers for liquid hydrogen if you have super coolant which you also need to get the materials for back from space first.

I'm really starting to think this whole Rocketry thing should be sent back to the drawing board and released as a separate DLC from the main game.

[avc15]

I've been making low abyssalite bases for a while now. Completely ditching the abyssalite was pretty easy. Just requires fetching a couple more wheezeworts / perhaps earlier than I normally would have.

Two thick insulated rock tile is more than enough for most geysers. Volcanos, you probably want to get some superinsulator first, but even then it's not 100% necessary. Two layers of ceramic, or a vacuum bottle, should do quite well.

 

[DMFan79]

9 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

I'm really starting to think this whole Rocketry thing should be sent back to the drawing board and released as a separate DLC from the main game.

Nah... it just needs some balancing.

[SakuraKoi]

9 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

I'm really starting to think this whole Rocketry thing should be sent back to the drawing board and released as a separate DLC from the main game.

While balance may not be perfect yet.. or pretty much far from it if the above is true, it is not really about making it a DLC.

But taking the above as example, a Cargo Bay full of Isoresin would be 1t, correct? Why does it take a ton to make a 400kg pipe plus one third (133kg)?

Or perhaps with a Cargo Bay full you actually mean how material is usually be collected, where the % of the materials suitable for a bay or weighted against each other (if there are only two suitable and they are the same percentage, the math is easy since both will be 50%=>500kg, three would be 333,333kg, don't ask me for the math if both are not the same).

In any event, we need more info to work with, currently the info is pretty exclusive since the star map is hidden by default, likewise the recipes are as well. A planetology would be neat which enables everyone to base their opinion and math on balance on. Meanwhile I will try to get the info myself (if you want something, do it yourself~), even though I lost Ruby due to the Upgrade, while the rocket returned (even though I send it away), Ruby did not... RIP Ruby.

[Alricio]

That change has been long overdue. You can still get perfect isolation in the early game by building two walls with a vacuum between them if you really need it. So no problem here.

[ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy]

24 minutes ago, DMFan79 said:

Nah... it just needs some balancing.

Agreed. All the concepts introduced are sound and make sense. but the quantities should be rebalanced. One cargo bay should deliver enough isoresin for something like 20-30 insulated pieces. Guess what: 5 weeks from now we will have an upgrade preview that specifically focusses on rebalancing the game. Get your suggestions ready for the suggestions and feedback subforum!

I do agree with the scrapping of abyssalite as a standard building material. It's just logical: insulated tiles on their own are effective, using ceramic for them doubly so. There shouldn't be any real issues for not having abyssalite early on.

Also, plastic tiles are a great insulator on their own now. I guess that too is something to keep in mind.

[Miravlix]

All I can hear is the op yelling "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

 

Personally the second they introduced insulated stuff, I stopped using absylite, because I would have be willfully ignoring the writing on the wall that it was going to change. I didn't even notice it was gone finally, because I had already stopped using it.

[ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy]

Also, I think nobody made all of their insulated stuff from abyssalite. That would require mining the whole asteroid for abyssalite. What I usually did was is encasing my base in full abyssalite tiles and pretty much anything else I wanted insulated in ignious rock insulated pipes and tiles, with some critical parts like entrances to cold biomes still with abyssalite tiles. Guess what, I'll just now create ceramic instead.

[0xFADE]

You are dealing with loss all too quickly.  People who have watched the patch notes have had to prepare. The only real difference now is having to use insulated stuff and not being able to make a large liquid reservoir out of strong abyssalite.  

I’ve seen heat from molten copper absorb in to insulated sedimentary rock but not back out yet.

It just slows down early game more.

However making it a space thing pushes it far past most people’s playtime and way past fully realized bases.