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So evil! Interesting. However, the opportunist colonist may ambush the scout to slim down the herd :p

Nice story, good first painful experience! hehehe

I agree on the prioritizations. Tynan had a system earlier but I think the reason was that it was deemed too complex. It would be interesting if it could have the overview screen and then a simple/complex method, with simple being default, and complex being like "advanced options" that allows you to change the priorities for each individual settler. For example, one will haul always before anything else, THEN would mine, whereas another guy would mine first, then haul.

I'd also love to see a few other things on the overview, such as equipped weapon. Thanks Ty!

OOps. Totally right about moving it. I haven't been on the forums in a while, didn't have time to check it out before posting, and they've changed a lot (for the better) in the past few weeks!

Thanks for the feedback =)

Post didn't work with screenshots. Will add them later.

So, being the procrastinator that I am, I figured out how to weave in a few minutes here and there into the game.
Sadly, a few minutes turned into 1.5 hours.

Regardless, I got down with the game, and started a new one. This time, the map looked a little more friendly. I had a large southern rock-face, which had a cape-cod style peninsula coming out of it, making for a perfect place to start my colony - one large entrance. Easier to defend.

This time, I wasn't going to make the same mistake about food. This game was about min/maxing! I built plenty of growing areas so my workers could be gluttonous. I started on my peninsula-base, and this time tried to not give TOO many tasks to do so they could catch up a little better, maintain some balance.

Very quickly, I got a mixed blessing. This random girl decided to join the colony - awesome! She was a brilliant researcher, great at communications, and had some fighting ability, but that was it. She had zero aptitude for mining, building, even hauling. Effectively, she was super weak, couldn't lift anything, but really smart and social. We'll call her Scientist-girl. You can tell I don't usually keep track of the names...

Anyway, scientist girl was great for an initial boost. She went to her research bench and studied endless hours, since that was all she was even able to do. If I had prisoners, she could warden, and if a ship passed, I could send her to the comms console right beside her research station, but that's it. She lived in two rooms. Bedroom and research. Speaking of which, does your social level actually matter when you communicate with other ships? Is there a discount, more available, etc?

Soon enough, the dark season was upon me. I seemed to get plagued this game with solar flares, knocking out all electricity for a day or so. This didn't cause too much inconvenience, aside from the anxiety about my cannons not working for the defense, only to see them get powered right before the invasion starts.
My first invasion was easy to handle, especially with the M4 and Lee-Enfield that I bought form the passing ship during the light season. I took the prisoner, and Scientist-girl started working her magic on him.
The second invasion was made much easier by the fact that Scientist-girl had finished researching more powerful cannons. Unfortunately, the canons leveled the invaders without any needed gun support. If they could have been taken prisoner, they were overpowered.

By the time the second light season was half done, everything was researched, the prisoner was part of the group, and scientist-girl had nothing to do, and was perpetually idle. I wish she had a gym to work out so that she could haul SOMETHING, or at least carry less at a time! She was really annoying! I'm sure the other colonists didn't appreciate the lack of work she was putting in as well!

Soon enough, the goal was to put a geothermic plant on top of a geyser within a canyon. Successfully doing this, also walled off the canyon so that the only entrance to it was going through my own base. Walling off canyons proved to be very useful, because I effectively had only one point of entry, which, over the seasons, became very bloody.

I had also made far too much food. Most of the colonists' time was spent growing, and I was well over six thousand bushels in supply. I sold to every trader I could, to gather a big pile of money, but that money did no good for what was going to come... I shut down my food industry save for a couple of hydroponic tables, so that the colonists could focus on more important things.

Luckily (is it luck?) scientist girl went into a craze (bug - she tried to pick something up that someone else already had) and was never heard from again.

Out of annoyance that my people kept reminding me that a room is too large (I didn't want it to be a room!) and mining within it, I decided to sell a wall to alleviate that problem.

That's when the raiders landed. Eight of them. With grenades.

I thought - what an EXCELLENT chokepoint with that new wall! I will just have my people waiting and ambush them as soon as they come through! This plan may have worked. The raiders came to destroy my lone gun turret, which took them all of a couple seconds, while two grenadiers walked to their death in the ambush. I don't know what made the raiders choose to do so, but this is when they split up. Two grenadiers came towards my ambush gate, while the bulk of the force went the other way, where I had not rebuilt my gun turrets.

I split up my forces. I left two well-armed soldiers by the chokepoint, sent one to capture the incapacitated soldier from the previous feud, and my other five colonists to the other side of the base, where they would await the enemy.

The plan worked... on one side of the base. The grenadiers managed to throw a couple of grenades before being killed, and with the reaction time of my people not being fast enough, they were thrown by the blast to become lifeless corpses. The grenadiers continued into the base, and the warden who had captured the inmate was taken by total surprise, with two grenades to the face - dead.

On the eastern front, my five remaining colonists leveled the playing field, wiping out the bulk of the force that came over. Feeling victorious, they went back to their business to find three dead fellow colonists. Panicking, knowing that it nearly half the force had been ruined, they did not have time for a burial. They needed their food and their sleep, for the strength needed to rebuild the base would not be a trivial amount.

The light season was good to me. I had a prisoner from the recent fight, and one from the first fight of the dark season. Both were convinced to join the cause.
A traveller also was crossing the area. Seeing no way to talk to him, I did what any colony in desperation would do - I shot him into unconsciousness, and then stuck him in a cell and forced him to join.
There was also a slave trader that came into coms range. Thinking I was going to get a great deal, I bought up those two slaves for nearly five thousand dollars. Well, I'm going to survive this better than I thought! That is, until I realized that they both have not one useful skill. One can research and warden, which will have minimal use, and the other is simply a firefighter. Not a single other skill, but he KNOWS how to put out fires!
They will make good red shirts on the next invasion...

*Time Passes*

It was a gleary night. The colony was fully assembled behind a row of sandbags. The solar flare was upon us, and the turrets were down. Fourteen invaders were approaching, ready to take the lives of every one of us, for whatever reason. As the rain beat down on us and the lightning struck nearby, we waited, trenched in position, weapons in hand, hungry, tired, but knowing that this would be the end of us if we did not fight it.

The solar flare let up, and all our guns came back online. It wasn't enough. The invaders poured in, and made quick work of the guns. I shot blindly, hoping that my bullets would hit, but the scum hid behind rocks and walls, anything to cover from the hundreds of bullets. Gun turrets started exploding, one of the men went down because of it. The fool tried to repair it while it was being shot. The battle raged on, and casualties were high on both sides. People I had spent the last two months of my life were dying in front of me. It was horrible. I couldn't take it anymore.

I gathered the rest of our troops who were still able to move, and rallied them together. We flanked the enemy behind a mountain while they destroyed the rest of the gun turrets, and managed to kill a couple before they realised what was happening. That's when the grenade hit. We dove for cover, but Moon died to that. He saved us all by jumping onto it. It was bloody, but the invaders started to run. "Victory!" I yelled, looking around me to realize how this was not a victory at all.

Corpses. Everywhere. I tried to rescue my roommate, but he succombed to his injuries while in my arms. It was only me and a couple of other badly wounded colonists left. We couldn't possibly survive another hit. We were done for. I started to cry...

That's when I woke up to the sound of the sirens. It had only been one terrible nightmare. Or was it a premonition? The sirens blared as we were all called to arms. The invaders were coming. There were fourteen of them. We were mobilized.

As we gathered, I brought everyone together. I told them of my dream. Was it a premonition? The details were far too accurate. We couldn't let this happen "again." As a group, we decided to take my premonition as truth, and figured out how to work around it. We cleared the rocks of debris, and built a dozen extra gun turrets. We would need it. We got the sandbags ready, and took cover, as the invaders flooded in.

It was still a bloody battle, but this time, it was completely one-sided. A few turrets succomed and exploded, but the invaders fell. I gathered the forces to flank them again as I knew they would soon flee, their losses too bad. We shot one in the back, and they all started to flee. None would make it out conscious. From a barrage of bullets, every last one of the cowards fell. Only two survived in the wreckage, barely clinging to life. One died as we went to stabilize him, and the other succombed to his injuries on transport.

It was a complete success. I don't know what came over me that night, but whatever it was, it saved us all. We lived to fight another day. The eclipse was ending, and hopefully we would be able to restock with more minerals from the industrial traders, and better prepare for the next eclipse. One day, we would make it off this rock...

*Part 2 to come "soon"*


Suggestions/Notes:
- Let colonists climb over tables, etc to repair walls, at reduced speed.
- Similar to the "Home zone," perhaps add a "Don't care" zone, such as for walls far away so that they don't remind you that you need power, and so that the workers don't go to repair them.
- Not everything within a wall needs to be roofed and a building! Sometimes I might want to seal off a mountain entrance with a thick wall, like a dam. That doens't mean I want it to be a giant room, just... walled off.
- Perhaps add an option to video your game without an external program, to replay or share, such as in games like Starcraft?
- Answer question about social with comms!
- Be able to choose NOT to roof an area. Maybe you just want a walled outdoors area, for example making a large area within rock to put your solar panels?

Crazy!!! Impressive, too.

Hey!
So, needed a break from studies, so went through a game in the latest build. Was awesome! Even if I didn't last long.
It started great. I had my three colonists, and they set up base camp and figured some things out. I started mining into the rock face to build my colony inside, only to find some more minerals! Sure it was great, but it also took longer. No problem!
My research dude really hit it off with the research. I think I had 3 things researched before the first eclipse, but that provided to be a downfall later.
My builder wasn't the brightest. He built the nutrient paste dispenser from behind it, trapping him between the wall, mountain, and dispenser. Not very bright! I wonder if he could just squeeze through that another time at 10% speed or something so I wouldn't have had to sell the wall to let him out.

Meanwhile, a raider attacked, and he was captured. Luckily, a combat supplier had passed by and sold me an M4 (?) so it was an easy 2-on-1 fight. He was captured, but the road to convincing him to join the colony was a long one. You see, I had barely enough food for three people, and I didn't harvest any of the local plants, and so when a fourth mouth to feed came along, I started having food issues. So much so that people started starving.
I figured that out, at least temporarily, by grabbing the food around the map. I convinced the new Mexican-sounding name guy to join, and he seemed to really prosper in the environment. With three guns against the two next invaders that showed up, along with gun turrets (which I found out needed power, obviously!).
During the light season, I noticed that I missed a few messages about travelling salesmen, etc. Would it be possible to have an option to either have the messages in the current mail format, and the popup as well? That would be a great option!
Anyway, the food situation got worse. I was trying to dig out enough room to build some hydroponics, but unfortunately, my builder had a mental break and started attacking. He was quickly subdued, but unfortunately, starved to death while in prison.
With the others almost experiencing mental breaks, I finally got the food engine up and running, and food was no longer an issue.
Right at the start of the second dark season, with an invasion of six people, however, I knew I was done for. Even hooking up three more gun turrets and having my entire 3-person colony on standby with their weapons, they were heavily outgunned and perished.

Alas, the colony was destroyed, and my break before bed was satisfied.

I think Leanne and I are due for another test, with all the new features added!
I've beta tested WoW, Star Wars Old Republic, Neverwinter Online, and your game! =)

Build 132B Personal notes:
Sorry for the jumble, I can explain more in person if you like

Would like to see in more overview - Current task, equipment.
SOME sort of priority. Hauling, being lowest priority, has major issues. Goods are grown/mined and not hauled. Would like to see some personal priorities as an option, and/or hauling base priority increased above growth/mining (so that they mine, and then haul it back)

Year 2 Eclipse... 4-5 Jammed air pipes exploded. But they all happened at once, and I had to hit OK 4-5 times. Instead, would be nice to say how many exploded!

Overview - See what equipped, Sort by skill. Eg sort by shooting, so you can equip the best weapons on the people.
Assign orders from overview.

Selling goods - think it takes double? Always end up negative. Same with buying. Credits the "fake" credit to your total, then adds again when you get from the pile.
Default on grave - or a way to set all graves to X
Given up and gone into a daze - how do I cure him? Can't take him into custody or perform any actions. (Edit, figured out. I had to shoot him to incapacitate, then take into custody)
Super slow playing while colonists are "idle" but not actually, since they have things to do! Guessing it's figuring out what they should do.

Hey, so while bored at work for an extended time, I decided to have some fun

testing your (old) version of the game!
If you were to do biweekly builds, I could probably find a day to test it out per cycle... just a thought!

Playing 1920*1080 Full screen for this game.

Bug? - I had a colonist named Sergio... who seemed to be significantly faster than my others. Odd!
Bug - In a trade interface with multiple slaves/prisoners to buy/sell, with a scroll bar, I tried to scroll but it also scrolled the zoom.

Suggestion - There should be things to do while your colonists are idle! While still being marked as idle, maybe they could chat or do random activities to increase any skills?
Suggestion - Happiness - Perhaps delving more into the happiness system, I feel like these colonists shouldn't be working 100% of their life. They should be able to enjoy SOME qualities of life. I imagine if there are more pressing things, such as raids, threats to their life, that the happiness factor would stop mattering (or be smaller) but later on, I feel like it should matter!
You could have things that you build dedicated to happiness, combined with passive bonuses for carpets, plants, etc. These active happiness modifiers could also play a part in increasing skills, such as shooting ranges (increases shooting), sparring rings (increases hand to hand), sofa lounges (increases social if more than one person), etc.

Combined with a similar system, you could devote % of time to certain activities. If this moon had a 24-hour day (unlikely! randomize it!) then you could have "suggested" lengths (eg 8 hours sleep, 2 hours food, 4 hours free time, 10 hours work) and adjust it according to your wants and needs, with side effects to each. The free time could be itemized to practice whatever skill is lowest, highest, even, random, etc. Extra sleep, for example, could increase your ability to learn.

Suggestion - Corners of buildings, especially indoors, are very rigid. Could we have indoor corners be triangles (half the square) instead of a block of square? And allow certain items, such as air vents, to cover two corners instead of one big block?

Bug - Had some people of same name, so they shared a bed, and that didn't work out when they both wanted to sleep at same time.

Interesting! And good response! Very true about intricacies of people. As for the seeds of corruption, it mimics life more as well. Sometimes you can fully convert them, but other times, they will just play along and wait for revenge.

Okay, this one is one I'm very excited about, because there are so many possibilities here. I know your current research system is very alpha (hasn't been a big priority for good reason!) but I look forward to the build with a lot more research when it comes!

I feel like there should be always a purpose to grabbing more research, so that there's always a competition with other tasks in your colony to really try to pick and choose how to play it out. Lots of compelling actions means prioritization and fun!

I'll list a few possibilities of research but I know you have a ton more in your head, thought I'd jog a few here!

Multi-level research: This type of research has many, many levels, and they produce a passive bonus to everyone in your colony. Similar to experience but in massive group setting.
-Construction designs/architecture: Increases construction speeds by X% where X is either level, slow exponential, your choice
-Construction durability: Less likely to have damage/busts/etc by X%
-Mining picks: Speed of mining increased by X%
-Prospecting: Mining yields X% more minerals
-UV lamps?: Speed of food growth increased by X%
-Bioengineering: Food growth yields X% more food
-Weapons engineering: Increases range of weapons by X%
-Puncturing bullets: Increases damage of weapons by X%
ETC for all types of actions. Limit/limitless?

ALSO: This type of system would really need either a queue system to set what is being researched so you don't have to choose each time, or a % allocation to each type. For example, 20% of your total research goes to Bioengineering, 30% to construction picks, and 50% to big project #1.

Second section of research - Non-leveled/one-time-research bonuses - These would mostly cost a LOT more research time, depending... so that some of them could be very long-term investment for a large bonus.
-New types of X... these could be a lot. Eg
      -New bedding provides better rest?
      -Alternatives to Nutrient Paste Dispenser, other options for food that would take a long time to research but be faster/use less/provide more happiness
      -New kinds of doors that prevent air loss, or built-in airlocks
      -Other "technologies" that you don't need to start with but you can gather over time.
      -Cloning? - Could be a super-long-term one but the ability to have Clone Person as an option
      -Clone Person - Long term research to try to clone someone. Has a % chance to work, if successful, would replicate the person into a full grown colonist with same specializations and levels.
      -Will post more as I think of them!

I know you're well into development of an area where you can see all your workers, what they are all assigned to, and the ability to change them right then and there.
That is a darn excellent plan. It's a great idea. I've thought of a couple extra areas to get extra information as well.

Colony Status:
The current status of your colony as a whole.
Includes:
-Number of colonists
-Number of prisoners
-Number of beds for both types
-Current Food Growth per X time (I know it's not consistent)
-Food consumption per X time
-Current Air Consumption
-Current Air production
-More?

Colony History:
Basically a Status but over long period of time. Statistics
In the past Week/Season/Year/In the entire time of your colony
-Colonists/Beds/Walls/Doors
-Total Air/food/mining produced
-Number of trades completed/contacted
-Etc

Military Status:
-Draft time of soldiers?
-Number of invasions repelled
-Number of prisoners caught/killed from invasions
-Current roster of weapons

Random Quality-of-life improvements, such as
-Escape closes windows as well as your current left click

-Panic buttons, for All-colonists perform certain action. Such as
     -Assign weapons to colonists (they can stay on the racks) Hitting the "Arm yourselves!" panic button would get everyone to grab their assigned weapons (or weapon-type so that if one is closer, they get that, eg you have 3 M16's and can assign 3 to them) for incoming invasion
     -Mass waypoint. Get everyone to certain location. OR be able to command multiple people at same time when it comes to invasions and tactical
     -Mass construction - You just built a lot of stuff, and you want all/selected people to make construction top priority until it is finished.
     -Other thoughts

So, this is partial credit to John about prisoners, expanded into a more complicated system by me... perhaps too complex, but still worth mentioning so you can toss it aside =)

Prisoners - Depending how you treat them and bring them into your colony through fear or friendliness, they may have different abilities or reactions. For example, someone who is beat up a lot might be stronger in the "strength" type tasks from hardiness, such as construction and mining, whereas a prisoner brought in from discussions and social interactions might have more in the way of social/doctor tasks. It could also be that converted prisoners could move slower on conversion, and speed up to normal speed over time, to indicate the not-super-willingness to do your work.

People system - Instead (or in addition to) assigning experience in tasks upon creation, you could give them "proficiencies" or "masteries" in tasks that, instead of/in addition to giving them a % speed bonus, would increase their rate of experience gain in that proficiency/mastery by X% as well.
Eg: Each person can have one mastery and two proficiencies. Mastery would give them level 3-4 of the chosen mastery, and increase experience gain when performing that task by 20%. Proficiency would give them level 2-3 of chosen proficiency, and increase exp gain when performing task by 10%.

That way, you could really have some specialists! Leanne doesn't like this idea because she likes well-rounded people, but it would add an interesting dynamic!

Alright, so as far as I know, there is one setting for maps, and it is random - that is great. In order to increase re-playability and to give a lot of different options, I'd like to see a few options:

1 - the current version. "Quick setup" or something.
2 - A little more in-depth with a few additional options
3 - Advanced - this could be combined with 2 if needed.

Possible options include - most of which have a range of options, such as none, few, many, lots
1 - Map Size - Small/Med/Large etc
2 - Amount of debris/rocks etc. (Speaking of which, I'd like a "mine" type option, such as "clear rocks/debris" for people to go and clear areas)
3 - Amount of mountainous region (or whatever the impassable terrain is called)
4 - Amount of mineral deposits
5 - Amount of random pick-up raw materials
6 - Intensity of raids/events (good and bad in one bar?)

Also, I'd love to see an option for people creating their own maps and sharing them. This would lead to a fan base that can make maps, that could even be incorporated into mission-types. Or just tactical fun.

On those notes, I'd also love to see (although this could be harder!) in a much-later future build a sort of mission system or campaign, that follows a story of going through this colony and colonizing the planet/system? Each mission with different objectives and events.

Tynan,
First of all, I just wanted to say a big thank you for the chance to playtest the alpha versions of this game, and to post my colony as the cover photo for your facebook page. I look forward to being there throughout the testing process, and to offer suggestions and see it develop over time.
I love what you've done with the trade interface and look forward to testing that in-game. It was a little easy to cheat the system there... but that's what testing is for! =)
I'm not sure on the format you'd like me (and others) to post suggestions, so I thought of one that I'll continue to go through. I look forward to the next builds and to try them out!
-Andrew/Drabus