Do you find Rocket Gameplay satisfying?

[Breizhbugs]

Hi everyone,

So i still don't have my hydrogen rocket (around cycle 1400, all research done, i am at the petroleum engine and will fill my first oxydizer tank with LOx soon) but i was thinking of the whole "rocket gameplay" and i am not sure it will please me for long...
By "rocket gameplay", i mean what is only related to rockets:
1- the fact that it is divided into several modules,
2- the difference between each engine,
3- the fact that engine and cockpit (and fuel tank) are different modules but always required

The rocket mechanism is interesting to discover but i am afraid that it will not be very practical to use again and again...

1- What i find cool is the graphic: that each modules is different is great and allows us too see what rocket will be able to do. But generally i tend to more sensible to gameplay and i don't like the fact that we have to rebuilt the rocket just to test how far it can goes with such modules. External website can help (a big thanks to the guy who made https://oni-assistant.herokuapp.com/ ) But does pain relief should come from outside of the game? (build the rocket / check the starmap / modify the rocket / recheck starmap is also not very fun to do more than 2/3 times!)

[edit: Also with actual design, are we supposed to have a rocket with one module of each, 5 specialized rockets then certainly of hydrogen type (so dev loose time designing the steam and petroleum one?)  or what? How do the dev expect us to play be designing their rockets the way they actually are?]

2- That we have different engine adds diversity and it is great. Or should! But the way rockets work makes the steam engine poorly useful. I didn't even try to build a solid booster looking at what the external website tells us how of poor use it is. Seems not useful at all past the steam engine! Also bigger engine allows us to go only further, not faster.

3- To build a rocket, we must first build an engine, then we add (in no particular order?) fuel tank(s) / utility modules and finally cockpit. Each time we made a mistake on rocket range or want a different function, its preferable to deconstruct from top to bottom to replace/suppress/add a module. Its time consuming and past a few try, becomes not fun...

What i would propose is to have:
a- Fixed size rockets (size 1 for steam / size 2 for petroleum / size 3 for petroleum)
b- Engines that all have the same range but differs in speed
c- Utility function of modules is not made by a module but by the cargo we put in the rocket before launch

Lets details:
A- In a fixed size rocket, the whole rocket would be considered as a single building (and not the aggregation of several modules) it should be simpler to program and debug (for dev) and manage (for us player)
As the rocket functionality (research / bio / liquid / gaz / cargo ) don't depend anymore in its "outside" configuration, its easier to build automation and shipping systems once.
As of now, the rocket would have an integrated engine, a fuel tank, an oxydizer tank -petroleum and hydrogen only-, a single general cargo and a cockpit with the appropriate input and output.
The size of the rocket correspond to the cargo capacity: size 1 = 1000kg / size 3 =3000kg.
The size of the rocket doesn't determine how far a rocket can go, but how much MAX cargo it can lift. ("i know exactly what i can expect with that kind of rocket" - no external computation required-!) (fuel level can still influence max cargo).
I understand that this point may unpleased a lot of people that like to discover and compute things, but do such people really "play" the game or just have fun to discover its mechanism and then switch to the next Early Access game?
It is not a re-playable  gameplay (unless patched which is probably why early access/beta attract players: each patch kinda renew the gameplay to refuel the interest)while the replayability of the game has to be fun also past early access, when all of its mechanism are known)

B- once you have speed in space you can cut your engine and just wait to reach destination. This give me the idea that engine should not differ based on range ("which ring they can attain") but how long does the trip last.
For example steam engine could need 3 cycles per ring (so first ring is a 6 cycles round trip), petroleum a 2 cycles per ring and hydrogen a 1 cycle per ring! (just a suggestion to show the underlying idea, to the dev to do the balance)
This would make the steam engine useful in the long term: actually it becomes outdated really fast. With such a mechanism, we could use the steam rocket to slowly research far rings while we would want to farm materials with faster rocket.
The other main idea behind this is to give a longer life to to steam rocket by gining it the ability to bring back wheezewort or rarer materials that are actually too far. (also remember the steam rocket would have a smaller cargo bay and is slower). The player is not limited by the functionality but by the efficiency in the long term. (and may wish to keep steam rocket for research while switching to petroleum asap to start farming rare materials)

C- A new building would be require to make container: Empty Cargo Container/Empty Research Bank / Empty Liquid Container and Empty Gaz Container / Empty Biological Container.
A cargo module of size of 1 (steam rocket) could have 10 slots and we would fill the rocket with the type of container we are interested in.
Container may use one or more slots: For example ECC could use 1 slot and on return will be replaced by 100kg of ONE solid. EBC could be size 3 to contain one wheezewort (dev will do the balance)
Before launch the rocket cargo will be filled with empty containers by choosing the type of cargo we want in, the same way we queue for example 1 omelette, 2 barbeque and 1 gristle-berry for example in the grill.
Dupe will deliver them by themselves or a shipping system could do it using a input port.

Empty containers could be build out of iron (5kg each? lost on return to act as iron sink) and then converted to the materials as it works now but in a 1 slot = 100kg ratio?
For example, an empty container (5kg iron) could be converted in 100kg of iron if the planet contain iron or in 100kg of ice for icy planet.
The research tree would need to change too: solid booster will be no more (i actually found it useless: it's easier to jump directly to petroleum engine) and rocket modules too.
As rockets are fixed size, they kinda contain the research module (who would fly to another planet without some basic telemetry!). So we put Empty Research Bank into its General Cargo Container, and on return we have filled DataBanks that are specific to the asteroid we send the rocket into? Feeding the planetarium with those databank will undiscover the targeted asteroid composition?

Also, when i look at the very far away asteroids/planets on my game, i am not sure they worth the trip compare to how long it takes to go there and how the cargo systems works. Maybe differentiate the planet composition from what can actually be retrieve from that planet/asteroid: only be able
to retrieve 2 to 3 element per planet but in bigger quantities to make the trip worth it? 1st material at 70%, 2nd at 20 or 30% and eventually a rare material at 10 (or 0%) ? As 1 slot = 100kg, rare material would add a 1 cycle penalty to the trip the time to collect the 100kg slot? Being able to only retrieve 2/3 materials from each planets/asteroids would make more planets / asteroids worth too if there is enough variety in what a particular planet has unique to offer! In my actual game (seed 4422) nothing looks interesting to me above 50k/60k (that is worth the more than 12/15cycles wait).

If hydrogen engine could have a bonus to speed, it would make those planets more worthy too.

I wrote this post because i am not sure the current gameplay revolving around rockets is satisfying in the long term and just wanted to share my thoughts, even though it's probably too late for a change that big. I am not good at debating, i will probably not participate much in this thread but will be pleased to read what are your thoughts on that.
(As i am french, i hope i have express myself clearly enough, forgive any mistakes).

[SakuraKoi]

What do I like? Pretty much anything but one thing (if you take aside the obnoxious Armageddon)

so what I do not like?

335 Cycles in, discovered that there are no Gas Giants, only two Ice ones (what is even their point!), also no Dusty Dwarfs, not that I want them but a Terrestrial and Volcanic Planet as far away destination is not that good.

For the time being, my discoveries resulted in this chart:

Spoiler

Distance

10k

20k

30k

40k

50k

60k

70k

80k

90k

100k

110k

All

Number of Destinations

2

1

1-4

1-4

1-4

0-3

1-2

1-3

1-3

0-3

0-2

17-24

Type and Number

2 Carbon Asteroid

1 Metallic Asteroid

0-3 Satellite

1 Ice Planet

1 Organic Mass

0-2 Carbon Asteroid

0-2 Dusty Dwarf Planet

0-1 Ice Planet

0-2 Dusty Dwarf Planet

0-2 Volcanic Planet

0-2 Ice Giant

1 Rocky Asteroid

0-1 Carbon Asteroid

0-3 Rocky Asteroid

0-1 Metallic Asteroid

0-2 Ice Planet

0-2 Dusty Dwarf Planet

0-3 Volcanic Planet

0-1 Gas Giant

0-2 Gas Giant

0-1 Rocky Asteroid

0-1 Carbon Asteroid

0-2 Ice Planet

0-1 Organic Mass

0-1 Organic Mass

0-2 Terrestrial Planet

0-1 Ice Giant

and while it shows that there are 6 ensured spawns (2 Carbon, 1 Metallic, 1 Rocky, 1 Ice, 1 Organic), it sure is a bummer when there is no Gas Giant which should be the most sought out (100% return of rare material). Terrestrial Planets are probably #2 while Satellites are my #3 (because Steel, Glass and Copper).

My suggestion:

• 1 ensured Gas Giant (110)
• 1 ensured Terrestrial Planet (90)
• 1 ensured Satellite (60)
• 1 ensured Volcanic Planet (100)
• 1 ensured Dusty Dwarf (80, just to fair)
• rest are random but number of total Destinations should be more consistent, 30%/7 less Destinations is a lot, let's make it 3 rather

I am well aware that having too much not random is not fun but too much and one might as well decide 300 cycles in that they want to quit. Once I even had to 100k and 110k Destinations to begin with. This time there was no 60k and no 100k while only 18 planets. Personally I will now/for after the next upgrade scout seeds, not for Geysers but Destinations.

Of course, this is an Alpha and I sure do think that more will be added to and even more changed of this system like it was expanded&randomized with the last upgrade. This is just my input about what should be changed.

and what could be added? Or should?

• a Destination with Tungsten or Wolframite (actually just add that to the Ice Planet, in place of Methane)
• a Destination with Gold or Gold Amalgam (just imagine a golden planet, just for fun~)
• a Destination with Briar Seeds (or just change Terrestrial Planet's Blossom Seeds to that)
• a Destination with Chlorine (otherwise limited unless there is a Geyser)
• ofc also Ensured™

[Mullematsch]

I enjoy it a lot actually, otherwise I would get bored by now.

However the one thing, I would like to see is something to strive for with all the late game rocket tech once you have liquid oxygen/hydrogen.

Sure, you can go further but there really is no need. Would be nice if there would be something important which you could only acquire if you have the "perfect rocket"! 

[chemie]

you need a rocket to get materials to make a better rocket which allows you to.....do nothing.  Right now it is more like factorio rocket.  A goal to set but no real game.  Even the advanced materials serve no purpose since your base needs to be sustainable before you start on rockets.

I was sending h2 rockets to bring back methane for power but it was costing more to make lox and lh2 than I was getting back.  there is not really anything useful out there to bring back.

[blash365]

I agree with many of your points.

• There is little variation when it comes to obligatory rocket modules (cm)
• There is no incentive to use Steam engine for more than just researching petrol engine
  • apart from the fact that you can produce more steam than you use up, making the travel free of charge. But i'd consider this a bug/balancing issue
• Travel takes ages even with advanced engines
• Solid boosters are a one-trick pony
  • 1st solid booster adds ~1k distance and is essentially free after that due to a bug not consuming its fuel,
  • 2nd solid booster is already neglectable and not worth getting

 

My suggestions to improve this:

• Add ground control to add range, increase speed, increase payload, increase cargo, gained data at cost of dupe time
  • this should allow steam engines to travel a bit further for minor missions (1xcargo + 1x research)
• Add cm modules for more than one astronaut
  • this should also add range, increase speed, increase payload, increase cargo, gained data
• rework solid boosters so that they take fuel out of the fuel tank (and increase the capacity of it) and increase range when they are placed between two non-booster modules. Bigger rocket -> more booster slots.
• Increase speed towards destinations with each visit ultimately cutting travel times in half after ~10-20 visits.

 

Also a convenient way of rearranging/add/remove the modules of an existing rocket would be nice. It can be a pita to add a new module at the bottom of the rocket and having to rebuild the entire thing.

[ChickenMadness]

2 hours ago, SakuraKoi said:

What do I like? Pretty much anything but one thing (if you take aside the obnoxious Armageddon)

so what I do not like?

335 Cycles in, discovered that there are no Gas Giants, only two Ice ones (what is even their point!), also no Dusty Dwarfs, not that I want them but a Terrestrial and Volcanic Planet as far away destination is not that good.

For the time being, my discoveries resulted in this chart:

  Hide contents

 

Distance

10k

20k

30k

40k

50k

60k

70k

80k

90k

100k

110k

All

Number of Destinations

2

1

1-4

1-4

1-4

0-3

1-2

1-3

1-3

0-3

0-2

17-24

Type and Number

2 Carbon Asteroid

1 Metallic Asteroid

0-3 Satellite

1 Ice Planet

1 Organic Mass

0-2 Carbon Asteroid

0-2 Dusty Dwarf Planet

0-1 Ice Planet

0-2 Dusty Dwarf Planet

0-2 Volcanic Planet

0-2 Ice Giant

1 Rocky Asteroid

0-1 Carbon Asteroid

0-3 Rocky Asteroid

0-1 Metallic Asteroid

0-2 Ice Planet

0-2 Dusty Dwarf Planet

0-3 Volcanic Planet

0-1 Gas Giant

0-2 Gas Giant

0-1 Rocky Asteroid

0-1 Carbon Asteroid

0-2 Ice Planet

0-1 Organic Mass

0-1 Organic Mass

0-2 Terrestrial Planet

0-1 Ice Giant

and while it shows that there are 6 ensured spawns (2 Carbon, 1 Metallic, 1 Rocky, 1 Ice, 1 Organic), it sure is a bummer when there is no Gas Giant which should be the most sought out (100% return of rare material). Terrestrial Planets are probably #2 while Satellites are my #3 (because Steel, Glass and Copper).

My suggestion:

• 1 ensured Gas Giant (110)
• 1 ensured Terrestrial Planet (90)
• 1 ensured Satellite (60)
• 1 ensured Volcanic Planet (100)
• 1 ensured Dusty Dwarf (80, just to fair)
• rest are random but number of total Destinations should be more consistent, 30%/7 less Destinations is a lot, let's make it 3 rather

I am well aware that having too much not random is not fun but too much and one might as well decide 300 cycles in that they want to quit. Once I even had to 100k and 110k Destinations to begin with. This time there was no 60k and no 100k while only 18 planets. Personally I will now/for after the next upgrade scout seeds, not for Geysers but Destinations.

Of course, this is an Alpha and I sure do think that more will be added to and even more changed of this system like it was expanded&randomized with the last upgrade. This is just my input about what should be changed.

and what could be added? Or should?

• a Destination with Tungsten or Wolframite (actually just add that to the Ice Planet, in place of Methane)
• a Destination with Gold or Gold Amalgam (just imagine a golden planet, just for fun~)
• a Destination with Briar Seeds (or just change Terrestrial Planet's Blossom Seeds to that)
• a Destination with Chlorine (otherwise limited unless there is a Geyser)
• ofc also Ensured™

is it possible to scout a seed for destinations?

[SakuraKoi]

Just now, ChickenMadness said:

is it possible to scout a seed for destinations?

Yes, destinations are the very same, however their content distribution ain't (% and rare materials)

[Oozinator]

Nope, trash for me.

[Nitroturtle]

While I enjoy building the rocket and silo, figuring out how to optimize LOX and LN2 production and deal with all the crazy heat, the actual rocket benefit and starmap exploration leave a lot to be desired.  The fact that there is no way in game to determine range without building AND fueling different setup is completely ridiculous.  I'm convinced that nobody internal at Klei playtests the game without using debug tools.  I understand it's a serious time commitment, but it's hard to believe some of this stuff actually made it in the game if it had actually been experienced by them first-hand.  Things like the sour gas change.  It only takes setting up one petro boiler to realize "hey, what do I do with this sulfer.. oh oops, forgot to add it to the compactor item list".  Or how about the space scanners rocket detection?  There's no way anyone tested that and thought that giving an active signal immediately before landing was acceptable.

I'm hopeful that they revamp and balance a lot of the space stuff and that this was just their first pass.  Honestly, I think rockets would be a LOT cooler if you could actually fly dupes to another asteroid, instead of just launch and forget.  If you could send a dupe to a small asteroid, gather resources, build a small base, maybe build a teleporter or something, now THAT would be cool.  I was hoping they'd maybe go this direction when they initially released the rocket update, but at this point it's looking like what we have now is all we're going to get.  I agree, it seems pretty pointless that the benefit of rockets is to get materials to build more rockets or systems that already need to be in place before you even launch rockets.  I mean, I guess you can go redo everything, but why?  To get more materials and redo more stuff?  Yeah, I really wish there was more to it than that.

[Breizhbugs]

16 minutes ago, Oozinator said:

Nope, trash for me.

Please, explain what you don't like in my post or explain what you (don't) like in the current way of doing rocket things.

I don't say my proposal is the way to go, i just want to express my feelings about what i think is interesting to discover but maybe not fun to play a long time with...

[SackMaggie]

I like the part that need to build things to get rocket going. Because previously you can do this and do that but no real use such as LOX.

But there's nothing fun with rocket rather than seeing it blast off for the first time in colony and screaming for the hot gasses.

You press Launch see it lift off and wait ... for landing and collect stuff. There's no events between it like "Oh we crash landed here we have to do something to fix rocket and go home or ignore them and lose all thing".

Yeah add event in the middle is looks good but it would be really good to build mini base in crash landed site and then go back home.

I was still waiting for next upgrade to see how things change/add.

[ChickenMadness]

1 hour ago, Nitroturtle said:

I'm convinced that nobody internal at Klei playtests the game

That's what we're here for lol.

I'm a game dev and you don't really enjoy playing games when you've spent all that time making it. It's a massive chore.
 

[Breizhbugs]

4 hours ago, SackMaggie said:

I like the part that need to build things to get rocket going. Because previously you can do this and do that but no real use such as LOX.

But there's nothing fun with rocket rather than seeing it blast off for the first time in colony and screaming for the hot gasses.

You press Launch see it lift off and wait ... for landing and collect stuff. There's no events between it like "Oh we crash landed here we have to do something to fix rocket and go home or ignore them and lose all thing".

Yeah add event in the middle is looks good but it would be really good to build mini base in crash landed site and then go back home.

I was still waiting for next upgrade to see how things change/add.

I "liked" your post, not because i agree with your proposal but because you gave your opinion on what you would like to change.

In fact i dislike randomized events.  But if there were much less asteroids and if you could settle a very small base and use the rocket to transport the resource we gather from them, some random things could happen (local starvation / lack of oxgen/...)that we would have to handle... (but we would need bigger rocket to bring materials to handle things (edit: and bigger CPU to run all that!)

[GrindThisGame]

54 minutes ago, ChickenMadness said:

I'm a game dev and you don't really enjoy playing games when you've spent all that time making it. It's a massive chore.

But you can hire a game tester (not a QA engineer as that is needed as well). You don't need to be a programmer to find the flaws between releases. If the devs got feedback from playtesters back while preview branches were up then they might be able to fix things in time. The preview time might not be enough to get through late game content though.

[ChickenMadness]

23 minutes ago, Breizhbugs said:

I "liked" your post, not because i agree with your proposal but because you gave your opinion on what you would like to change.

In fact i dislike randomized events.  But if there were much less asteroids and if you could settle a very small base and use the rocket to transport the resource we gather from them, some random things could happen (local starvation / lack of oxgen/...)that we would have to handle... (but we would need bigger rocket to bring materials to handle things)

Colonising other planets would be a very satisfying end game.

[SakuraKoi]

5 minutes ago, GrindThisGame said:

But you can hire a game tester (not a QA engineer as that is needed as well). You don't need to be a programmer to find the flaws between releases. If the devs got feedback from playtesters back while preview branches were up then they might be able to fix things in time. The preview time might not be enough to get through late game content though.

Considering how much is stuffed into the updates, I'd say the problem lies elsewhere or rather right there and I think it is intentional that they do not get hung up on every "detail" and instead work on them after getting all the content ready first. Then they polish it and get everything in order, including having no sulfur semi-randomly lying around because there is no use. I am pretty sure it will have a use later on and they merely have to consider what use it shall have when it can only be acquired through relatively great pains.

Developers not having that much time to play their own games goes without saying, the time is better spend on developing it and playing your own games in your free time? I'd label them as an M if you are a game designer or programmer  Artists are a different species.. 

[Sasza22]

I like most of it. I like that you can keep the steam rocket + booster for a long time to grind rare resources from the closest rocks. I like the fact that you are constructing rockets module by module. You can choose how big it will be and where each input/output is. I like the potential it has if only it wasn`t so buggy.

What i don`t like is how long it takes to get to far destinations (+the crash/bug making you unable to load a game with rockets in space safely). I`d prefer if better engines took less time to travel. I don`t like stacking 9 research modules on one rocket. It makes it look ridiculous. I don`t like the automation being so unreliable that you can`t automate rocket landing without water clocks. Also i don`t like that there`s nothing going on with the rocket in space. No food/oxygen reserves needed for the astronaut, no stress during the journey, no random events (asteroid field blocking way - choose to circumvent = 2 cycles or fly through = possible rocket damage stuff like that).

So tl;dr i like that we have it and it`s a late game goal to set it up. I don`t like that it`s buggy and time consuming and... well a bit one dimetional.

[PhailRaptor]

4 hours ago, ChickenMadness said:

That's what we're here for lol.

I'm a game dev and you don't really enjoy playing games when you've spent all that time making it. It's a massive chore.
 

But if you don't play your own game, how can you know how fun it is to play?  By all means, outsource the majority of the work to people who's express purpose is to identify bugs and experiment with play patterns.  But you can't just be a hands-off idea guy and expect to create a good and engaging game with a long lifetime of replayability.

[TheScaryOne]

335 Cycles in, discovered that there are no Gas Giants, only two Ice ones (what is even their point!), also no Dusty Dwarfs, not that I want them but a Terrestrial and Volcanic Planet as far away destination is not that good.

 

They really need to reign in the RNG that runs the game. This runs pretty parallel to the same problem with geysers, in that poor RNG will cause you to want to quit many hours into an otherwise stable colony.

[Novo]

I hate the rocket gameplay. All of it. I like your idea though. Especially point B.

[mathmanican]

6 hours ago, Breizhbugs said:

6 hours ago, Oozinator said:

Nope, trash for me.

Please, explain what you don't like in my post or explain what you (don't) like in the current way of doing rocket things.

I don't say my proposal is the way to go, i just want to express my feelings about what i think is interesting to discover but maybe not fun to play a long time with...

To answer the question "Do you find Rocket Gameplay satisfying?" the answer "Nope, trash for me" seems like a perfectly self explanatory answer. It doesn't add anything more to the game, but instead turns the game into more of a "idle-clicker" type game....  Disappointing.

[SackMaggie]

9 hours ago, ChickenMadness said:

because you gave your opinion on what you would like to change.

FYI The Idea of "landing on asteroids" is not my own I've read it somewhere in the forum and I really like this Idea.

10 hours ago, Breizhbugs said:

In fact i dislike randomized events.

Randomized events Is a good thing to add because you don't know what coming next and that's fun part of most game but once you played for long enough it will not really randomized and it will be predictable event because you will see same event over and over.

[Breizhbugs]

4 hours ago, SackMaggie said:

Randomized events Is a good thing to add because you don't know what coming next and that's fun part of most game but once you played for long enough it will not really randomized and it will be predictable event because you will see same event over and over.

I think there is enough unattended events that happened in my base due to "short term" managing that i don't want to add random events where i need steel to repair the rocket i send to farm steel... This could just turn into a waiting game where i always wait to gather thing so i could progress safely. (And i find i already progress too slowly most of the time...)

It makes me remember the "Don't fly what you can't afford" in grinding games like Elite Dangerous or Eve Online.

[tzionut]

I read all the post and almost getting sleepy trying to read it.

My opinion? A minor step back whit the abbysalite unavailability. Once you have the space material for the insulator you don't need it anymore. The quantity of rare materials is to small. Is better to select before launch mission what to get back, and get only that back.

Example. I have in the base 96 tones of abbysalite, i send the rocket and it bring exotic materials and more abbysalite. Except to feed the niga shinebug, or grind it to sand what can i do whit this much abbysalite?

New bottleneck for me at least is clay (for making ceramic) and raw fiber for insulated tiles...  

No wolfram  except your asteroid, no shove vole, no puffs, no slicksters, no drekos except your asteroids, same whit briar seeds. 

To much balm lilies, make pills for what? Once i have set up the atmo suits docks germs are a joke. At least make them compostable.

And lots and lots of bugs. There are still bugs reported by me in the preview build that aren't solved, or even managed, like shove vole delivery crash, steam engine prebuild crash, delivered materials for repair get dropped after the repair is done, damaged building get back the full quantity of material after deconstruction of the building, sweep arm don't deliver sedimentary rock to feeder even if the hatches eat sedimentary rock, and much more, and in  this rithm  i don't think kley will finish one bugles game. But we will see.