I found the tutorial bits pretty good and had no trouble finding out how most of the things work.
- However I can't figure out how trading is supposed to work, even with a comms desk and a drop beacon. I guess a few more hints are needed to be able to play the first hours of the game without a wiki.
- I also have a hard time understanding what's the relationship between the food you grow and pick up around the map, and the food paste dispenser. Is the dispenser basically what stores the food units you see at the top left? This definitely needs to be explained better. Also, since eating from the dispenser causes unhappiness I was kind of expecting freshly grown food to help with this, but they still seem to eat from that device.
- There are no messages to tell you when work is paralysed by something else, such as a full garbage pile preventing hauling stuff out of the way to complete a blueprint, or said stuff being forbidden.
Yes, the nutrient dispenser processes the raw food so the colonists can eat it. As far as I know, there will eventually be 'chefs' who can process the food even better. That is why there is a negative hit for eating the nutrient paste because eventually there will be a better option.
i don't know if you have your answer or figured it out yet, but to activate comms you left click any colonist and then right click on comms desk
Do you power to the comms desk?
Do you get messages that a trader is in comms range?
Quote from: Dragula on November 06, 2013, 03:04:26 AM
Do you power to the comms desk?
Do you get messages that a trader is in comms range?
Yes, all buildings need power as far as I know.
Yes, you'll get notifications that trading ships are in range. At this point, pick your colonist with the best social skills (not sure if that matters, but I've heard that before) and then right click the comms desk and select "Open Communications". That will bring up a menu for what you can buy, sell and trade with the trade ship(s) in the area.
I've never played a colony sim before, so I watched a pretty long playthrough on twitchtv from an experienced player to learn the ropes. You should consider doing that to get started, though I agree as Tynan continues to work on the game, more in-game assistance would be good.
There is a message that remains in top right if you have no room left in your dumps.