Update 11 thoughts and frustrations

[soton69]

Hi all, 1st please let me say that I have thoroughly enjoyed this game since the beginning on epic store and now on steam, my preferred choice of platform. Each update has certainly improved the game and I've always looked Forward to what new things each update brings.
Update 11 whilst very cool ie the missions etc also is so frustrating to the stage of head banging insanity... Its the pollution system that has unfortunately turned the game from fun into a chore whereby every few minutes you are checking your buildings constantly for the dreaded pollution. It's OK at the beginning but as your colony grows it just becomes a nightmare.
OK you say just build some maintenance depots, OK in theory but in reality they are completely useless, there zone is far to small and secondly the colonist assigned to them do everything else but maintenance, again forcing you to play the pollution clicker game over and over.
Maybe the occupants of the buildings could do there own pollution removal and maintenance building are there for repair after disasters etc.
Sorry for the long post.

 

[Ps2nic]

You should be able to change the work area size of most buildings that which have a work area. You can also relocate the work area, and assign more than one personnel.

Amusingly enough, you can pack a lot of buildings in a large work area, so this should help some.

Last, this isnt too long a post, but it is a wall of text. Leave an empty line between paragraphs, if you ask me. Hope this helps!

 

[Joanna_ifs]

Heya!

I understand the frustration with the pollution, there does seem to be a bit of a balance issue there with how quickly it is spreading and causing issues. We have already started looking at this, hopefully we'll have some fixes for it in the next update.

And as mentioned by Ps2nic above, not a long post at all and even if it were, there wouldn't be any need to apologize, we appreciate any and all feedback!

 

[Khuden]

Since it's been posted, I wanna share my thoughts about the overall state of the game.

Right now I feel that early game and mid game are super, super great. Early game, being when I'm at 30 and fewer colonists, is amazing. It's a struggle but it's a FUN struggle. I'm constantly balancing on an edge with food, water, and work - I'm juggling colonists between multiple jobs trying to stay afloat. Catastrophes require quick work to handle. Fewer colonists means I don't need as much water or as many medical tents but I still gotta react because it's SO easy to start teetering back and forth. Since early game I don't have my environmental station up, I'm building around the pollution and trying to keep my buildings relatively clean.

Mid game, when I'm between 30 and 60 colonists, is also extremely fun. I'm not juggling colonist jobs anymore, I can leave most of them with specific jobs and not have to make major changes when catastrophes hit. Catastrophes are harder because with more people that's more water needed during heat waves/pandemics, more people getting sick during pandemics/fallout, and my food supplies go down FAST when my farms aren't producing. At the same time, the bandits are hitting my gate harder, and I'm trying to tech up to extractors because I've exhausted most surface-level supplies for metal/concrete/plastic. This is where the bulk of the game is for me. It takes longer for my scouts to reach the farther away sections of the world map, but now I have some trade starting. It's an enjoyable challenge.

The issue I have now is late-game. When I'm at 75+ colonists. By now I've run out of things to research, I've built up enough excess power, water, and food that catastrophes aren't a huge issue. I have some maintenance depots handling the bulk of the decontamination and repairs from catastrophes or just general wear'n'tear. With my gate guards and most other guards equipped with shotguns the bandits and wild boar attacks are no longer a threat, and I'm out of sectors to explore. At this point the world map is quite useless for me. I produce enough of my own resources that I have no need for scavengers, I've explored all there is so my scouts are useless, and without any research remaining my scientists are just skipping rocks and pretending to be useful. Thanks to my overproduction, I have tens of thousands of silver because I trade away my excess to my neighbors. I find myself trading for crap I don't need solely to boost my standing with my neighbors in the hopes that I get some of their events to be buddy-buddy with everyone.

So FWIW, I really feel like the game is in a fantastic place for the early to mid games, and I think now the focus should be on late-game.

I was thinking about suggestions to improve late-game but honestly I'm more curious what the devs have planned so I thought I'd hold off on posting them until I see what we have in store for the future

 

[Joanna_ifs]

Heya Khuden!

Really great to hear how fun you find the game! As you are most likely aware, we have been developing this game quite a bit since releasing it in Early Access and our focus has been mainly on adding and improving the main features. This unfortunately has meant that we have not been able to focus so much on the late-game features and balancing and we are aware of the issues there - we want to ensure that the game still feels fun and exciting, even after you gain so and so many colonists or resources.

So yes, we do know that late-game needs more focus and it is definitely getting it, no worries about that! And if you have any suggestions to improve the late-game (or any other aspect of the game), please do give them to us, any and all feedback is always greatly appreciated!

 

[Khuden]

I would start by taking a good look at specialists then.

Are specialists in the base useful, and are specialists in the world map useful?

The change made to allow specialists to gather resources, and the change made to allow animals to drop meat, made specialists INCREDIBLY useful early and mid game. But late game you have food and construction materials in abundance, so how do you make the specialists helpful then? Yes, they can help out with attacks but I'd say they need more than that. A strong recommendation I would make would be to add a 'overseer' slot to all production buildings, and allow you to assign specialists there. Depending on the building and the specialist, you could get a hefty bonus to help out with a catastrophe. Scientists could give a large healing bonus to medical buildings, scavengers a large bonus to gathering buildings (Scrapper/recycler or the extractors). Fighters could produce a bonus for trapper/fishing buildings and scouts could boost food and/or tool production (Just tossing ideas at the wall to see if anything sticks).


The world map is much, much, much better than it used to be with the addition of quests - but there's still a finite amount of things to do. Once you've run out of that, your specialists become useless on the world map outside of quests. So to that end, I'd say there's 3 or 4 things that could be helpful.

1) World-map only resources are a great way to make sure that specialists are ALWAYS useful since they're the only ones who can make use of the world map. Fun Boxes are a good example of what I mean, but you don't really need them in huge quantities because once you've built your arcade, theater, etc. you don't need many more except to rebuild in the event of a disaster. But what if the resources to produce, say, Iodine Pills or Antibiotics were available but ONLY from the world map? Consumables you'd want to keep in stock and restock often. You've got a huge reason to always be out there. Especially with idea #2...

2) Constantly generated resource nodes. Once you clear out an area there's no reason to go back, except for quests. But what if there were resources that accumulate over time that you want to regularly send back for refinement, such as iodine salts or mold spores? Now you have specialists who are busily bustling back and forth between resource nodes keeping you stocked up so you can respond better to disasters. Also one major problem with outposts gets fixed - when an area on the world map is cleared then outposts lose usefulness. But if the area ALWAYS needs someone around because it's generating some resource you need? The outpost is ALWAYS useful.

3) Wandering bandit patrols. They could attack your base, attack your caravans, attack trading partners, outposts, etc. You'd want to be proactive in clearing them out to keep your trade routes clear and for bonus rep with other settlements. Some would move slowly, others quickly - having to catch up with a fast-moving bandit patrol would be a major reason to invest in vehicles, which are somewhat lacking in utility right now.

4) Respawning bandit camps (With respawning resources) would be another way to keep the world map relevant. They could move back in from the edges of the world slowly and repopulate it with bad guys, and if they progress far enough in, they could even potentially mask the zone again with fog of war, making re-scouting important. If bandits get too close to other settlements they'd call you for aid and give you some bonus rep if you take out camps for them. Something like that would keep the world map relevant even when you aren't hurting for resources.