New DLC unplayable without a restart

I'm with you on this sentiment.  I restarted from a colony @ cycle 19,000+ where I have colonized every asteroid and they are all mostly sustainable. I did this just to replicate my efforts by starting a new cluster where I modded in both the Ceres Fragment and Ceres Core asteriods (the cluster contains 13 asteroids in total).   But now, unless I can find a way to mod into an active cluster, I'd have to abandon the current colony @ cycle 5,000+.  Lol choices choices.

everything except Irriduim and Mimika's can be printed from your pod(if you have care packages enabled) post cycle 500, you you can experience almost all the content on an old save(make sure to enable the new content on that save). just not as organically as a new start

Agreed, but I have always played sorta max difficulty and dont use care packages nor teleporters.  For me, it's more convenience than unplayable.  With so much time invested in worlds/clusters it desireable to just have new content/asteroids added to the cluster.

Yeah, I kind of play on custom difficulty too. Like by melting ice tiles to avoid 50% penalty, no venting to space, etc. And the colonies have taken considerable time to build. The Ceres one is about 2000 cycles, but pre-space, I don't want to abandon it.

In the old early access times around year 2017 you could just play on the same save and things would just improve. Ok, no abyssalite tiles, but you get new mechanics. Space appears, etc. It's the modern updates that have started causing issues since dream machine, hermit house and biomes do not appear any longer on the same save. And it's a big problem.

Now you have 4 options:

a) keep playing the same save (but the fun of the save is broken because it's incomplete, you paid money, but don't get new biomes or challenges)
b) use debug/cheats (will invalidate achievements and is not acceptable for many players)
c) restart a new save (flushes hundreds of hours down the drain, could have been fun on short game, but not for a game you play since 2017, where your builds are now well planned and massive)

d) just give up and play something else (this is very bad for Klei as it's a way to loose players and next DLC sales)

Unfortunately, the option d is becoming way more attractive. ONI is likely the best game ever, but if I know I need to flush 300h down the toilet every 2 months, it ruins everything very fast.

And really, I would be totally fine if the game would just spawn a new asteroid with new features. You sort of build new colony from scratch on each asteroid fragment anyway. That way you experience all the new stuff, and you don't loose any progress and effort that you've spent into building your massive megabases.

So now I'm a bit pissed. Because I bought the DLC, but I'm convinced I don't want to restart. And I feel like my Ceres DLC restart (restart which I accepted grudgingly) is now incomplete. I feel like I'll probably play some other game now. It's instabuy followed by dissapointment.

What's wrong about restarting?

You obviously can't experience a new starting map without starting with it. It's the same for all maps the game has to offer. You can't experience Rime by playing Terra.

Both DLCs that offer new maps, Ceres and Relica, also offer a new steam achievement that's only for that special map.

> What's wrong about restarting?

All my save files span 1 year or more, with complex buildings and long term goals. New biome or some Somnium machine just forces me to restart for no gain whatsoever, which means I have to abandon some more complex designs just to rebuild everything back to that point for no actual benefit.

> You obviously can't experience a new starting map without starting with it.

You can. With 'Spaced Out!' each planetoid is a fully contained biome with it's own challenges. You have some with ice, some with lava, some have the tree. If there was a Prehistoric biome as a separate planetoid, I'd just drop a couple dupes there to start a 'new playthrough' on this biome while continuing the massive projects that are still ongoing on other planetoids.

> Both DLCs that offer new maps, Ceres and Relica, also offer a new steam achievement that's only for that special map.

I understand the sentiment. But if I have to flush another 300h+ save down the toilet just to get a tiny biome or an achievement, I'll rather switch to some other game at this point. I've done enough ONI restarts since 2017. And will I buy a new DLC if I know that I need to restart again next time?