Nice to Haves

[unixanalyst]

First of all, got to say I'm loving this game. And the new tweaks are really nice. The gas looks better, dense gas looks really rich and, well, dense. Thank you x50 for adding the element label to each tile so I don't have to click three times to find out which element I used. The flashy pipeline thing is a nice touch. I love that top-left is no longer 'up'. And I'm sure it's still subject to change but the overall balance feels much better already too.

 

Anyhoo, here are some things I thought would be nice to have:

• Recording device with automation wire inputs, so we can record changes in temperature/pressure etc over the long term. Should produce scalable graphs. Maybe it has to have an automation wire back to a central computer, which is the only place you can view the data.
• 'Copy settings' for all sensors.
• A 'Blueprint' mode in the build priorities, such that they don't actually get assigned for building. Essentially priority 0. Would be really handy for mapping out some ideas while the game keeps running, without anyone starting work on it. The outline could be pale blue! 
• 'Search' function in the storage devices. "What the hell are egg shells listed under...?". Also, I don't like that the storage list jumps to the top when I expand a category.
• The ability to pin resources in the main screen. I.E. I want to keep an eye on Sleet Wheat, but expanding the entire ingredients category to do so means I can't see other stuff coz it's gone off the bottom of the screen. So I could pin Sleet Wheat, then close the ingredients category and Sleet Wheat would stay, err... expanded, visible.
• Slightly different appearance of tiles depending on resource used. Seems it should be quite easy to add a colour tinge or faded texture to the tile (or even object) such as a blue tint for tungsten, slight gloss for abyssalite, grey for granite etc.Would allow some artistic expression in the game too!
• I know this has been said before but a different gas overlay is required. I never care about breathability. I know if they can breath in an area or not. I frequently care about spotting a rogue spot of contaminant gas in my tanks, or seeing if any chlorine is making its way in to the main area, or how much polluted oxygen is getting in etc. I need something that shows me gases, not density of oxygen vs everything else.
• Slidable scale on the temperature overlay. I know the ice biome is cold, I need to know if there are any _relative_ hot-spots. I know volcanoes are hot, I need to see where the lava is _relatively_ cool. If I could slide the temperature overlay, I could adjust it to what I need to see.
• Diodes and check valves. I know we can use bridges, valves and filters for this, but it feels hacky. I think we should have a 1xtile check valve with an arrow on it showing the allowed direction of flow of gas/liquid/current/signal.
• Fire. Fire hazard would be the biggest threat to any colony inside a floating space rock. I'm thinking flammable materials and gases, heat sources, ventilation fire shutters, sprinkler systems, smoke evacuation systems, high pressure stairwells for smoke free escape routes etc. On second thoughts, sounds really stressful and I love my dupes. Maybe don't do fire.
• Explosives. Would be really cool to be able to remove swaths of rock with a boom! And imagine the risks!!
• Pool table. More rec room furniture overall. Maybe with an afterglow buff that makes dupes less susceptible to stress inducing factors for a while.
• Diagonal half tiles. Rotatable. So that liquids just run off rather than sitting in pools and chimneys can be made to look like they'll assist the upward flow of gas.
• 'Disable delivery' on planter boxes. Would be nice to be able to slowly scale back on mealwood, rather than having to rip up half grown plants.
• Type-in boxes on the clocks. Pretty please. And it would be much less taxing on my poor brain if they were in seconds, like the filters, rather than %, like absolutely nothing else in the game.
• A tool for 'diasable disinfect'. Having to select tiles in a dirty region one by one is a bit boring.Might be handy for 'disable building' too.
• I think you could divide all of the solid mass values in the game by 100 and use far more realistic figures. A tile is 200 Kg? More like 2 Kg. A dupe can carry 2000 Kg? More like 20 Kg. I'm a fan of realism in games where it doesn't interfere with game play. I never understood the No Man's Sky approach of 'let's reinvent the periodic table'. Thanks for keeping the made-up-ium elements to a minimum.

 

 

[Wedgebert]

I agree with quite a bit of this, some things (like diagonal tiles) I didn't even know I wanted.

I do know that for both "Slightly different appearance of tiles depending on resource used" and " know this has been said before but a different gas overlay is required" there exist mods that accomplish this. In fact, I can't play without the Improved Gas Overlay mod, to the point where I definitely agree that it should be built in. Even if it requires research to unlock.

As to your last point "... A tile is 200 Kg ...", I always attribute this to it being on a low gravity asteroid. Things still have mass, but much less weight. I could carry 30-40 kg if properly distributed in backpacks or harnesses. You put me on the Moon and I could lift six times that. The only issue becomes momentum.

[Sasza22]

6 minutes ago, Wedgebert said:

A tile is 200 Kg

A tile seems to be 1m³ based on the amount of water that fits in a tile. 200 kg in one cubic meter isn`t even that much when we are talking about solids. Seems more like them trying to stick to actual sizes and masses of stuff but to balance it out dupes need to carry a few tons on their backs. Without it cleaning a room from debris would take like 50 cycles.

 

8 hours ago, unixanalyst said:

Explosives. Would be really cool to be able to remove swaths of rock with a boom! And imagine the risks!!

I`d love if you had to use explosives for mining. Like not being able to mine abyssalite early on you would have to set an explosive charge to break through. It could change nearby tiles into crushed rock that`s easier to mine. Would also fix the issue of abyssalite being a perfect insulator avaiable early on.

[Ambaire]

10 hours ago, unixanalyst said:

'Search' function in the storage devices. "What the hell are egg shells listed under...?".

Yes, please.

10 hours ago, unixanalyst said:

The ability to pin resources in the main screen.

Would be a nice feature. I want an option to only view food that I have available, rather than so many categories at '0'.

10 hours ago, unixanalyst said:

Slightly different appearance of tiles depending on resource used.

See this thread over here.

 

10 hours ago, unixanalyst said:

I know this has been said before but a different gas overlay is required.

+1

10 hours ago, unixanalyst said:

Diagonal half tiles. Rotatable. So that liquids just run off rather than sitting in pools and chimneys can be made to look like they'll assist the upward flow of gas.

Yeah, I can see this working as a 1 block teleporter of sorts. Stuff on top gets teleported to left or right, would work very nicely. And liquids adjacent could *look* like they're in the diagonal. People talk about how multiple materials can't be in the same tilespace, but what about mesh tiles? Those are a walkable surface that support solids yet allow gases and liquids to pass through...

[unixanalyst]

6 hours ago, Wedgebert said:

As to your last point "... A tile is 200 Kg ...", I always attribute this to it being on a low gravity asteroid. Things still have mass, but much less weight. I could carry 30-40 kg if properly distributed in backpacks or harnesses. You put me on the Moon and I could lift six times that. The only issue becomes momentum.

Oooooh I like that! Didn't think of that. Yeah that works. In fact, now you mention it, it'd be weird if masses had earth weight. Nice one.