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Topics - DanielW

#1
General Discussion / 212 build feedback
September 27, 2013, 05:48:59 AM
I made it into the second eclipse in about an hour and a half, then ran out of time to play it more. 

* Was lucky enough to have a geyser near me for the first time, I made good use of it and it changed the dynamics of the power management a lot.
* Text description on actions is a huge improvement!!!  Now even when icons look similar I can quickly figure out what's what.
* Power visualization is great
* Had 3 new joins right out of the gate, very weird, seems like it's going to be easy now.  It was.
* Was able to fairly easily fight the fire from a boomrat by selling walls on fire and telling my workers to cut the grass under the rest.  Unlike before they did not catch on fire while cutting the grass.
* Needs to be feedback when you try to give a prioritization command on an item but can't because another worker has already been told to work on that item
* Traded a fair amount of food (but not more than I had), ended up with negative food.
* When a colonist swaps weapons, the one they dropped will be forbidden, doesn't make sense
* Actually I don't understand why weapons are forbidden by default in general
* Autosaves - great for when the game crashes
* Blasting charge did not clear debris, I was disappointed
* Hydroponics plants should say how much light they are receiving if they are not getting enough to grow, otherwise you have to go with overkill on the sun lamps.

* I would like a storyteller that ramps up the difficulty more aggressively, Cassandra is perfect for the first play but way too easy after that.  This will increase the longevity of the game.

Overall I think you've improved the approachability of the game significantly, probably a lot less people will bail in that critical first hour of play when you make a public build.

I attached some screenshots, one half way through, and the other before I stopped

Side note: please increase the attachment size if you want reasonable images =)

[attachment deleted by admin: too old]
#2
General Discussion / First playthrough
September 16, 2013, 10:56:00 PM
Build 200

Major stuff

*Somewhat overwhelmed by the information and menus presented at the start.  Seems like drip feeding these throughout the course of the first game would help a lot.  Especially stuff like what buildings to build, there are way too many options for the beginning, most of those aren't even usable until later (why do i need a clean area?)

*Top right objectives are great, I recheck these constantly to keep on track

*Had a bit of a challenge figuring out how to generate my first power - the tutorial said make a generator.  I did not find a building that was simply a 'generator'.  There was a geothermal plant, which must be built on a geyser, this sounds promising.  But I don't see anything that looks like a geyser on the map.  Plus it gives me a green indicator to build it anywhere on the dirt, which is confusing, because I presume it would do nothing since it's not a geyser. (later I built one in the wrong spot at massive expense and it indeed produced 0 power)  So I built a Solar Collector, hoping this would fufill the requirement for power.  There was not much description on how to connect the electricity.  I started placing power conduits everywhere and was not sure if I was connecting things right, for example I don't want to block a doorway but I need to connect to a door, had no idea how to do this.  Tried to connect it to my nutrient dispenser, succeeded after 2 tries, but the wire doesn't actually touch.  Looks like you have to plug power into adjacent wall?  Really needed to be told that.

* Later I tried to connect a turret to power by wiring into a building wall that was already powered, that didn't appear to work, which doesn't make sense because all the lights and doors in the building have power even though they are not directly powered.

*Would love to see indicators for the various things that give you resources, which show up periodically as they are adding to your resource bank.  For example, every time you harvest a plant you see a floating +10 food or whatever for a few seconds.  Would make it more clear the amount that you're getting from things.  Power sources would have a constant stream.  Resource income is crucial so extra noticeable feedback for them would be helpful.  It would also be satisfying to see all your systems working away.

*Can't figure out how to get more metal now that i've mined out the area.  Remaining metal deposits are a loooong way away.  How do I make it sustainable?

*Crew went to sleep instead of completing construction of the turret that would keep them alive, so they got murdered

*Never figured out how to grow sustainable food, the objective said to build two things that didn't exist in the Buildings or Structures menu, resorted to just collecting whatever berry bushes were nearby when they regrew.

*Turret placement shows a large circle that seems like it would be safe area due to this turret, however it's more like effective range, which means the safe area is much smaller due to ranged enemies.

*I kind of wish the building was taken even further, maybe in the endgame, and I could build multiple levels, hollow out the ground, upgrade combat relevant things (doors / defenses).

*Didn't really figure out the combat, I lost every encounter.  First I had my combat specialist try to melee an opponent with a pistol, that didn't go well but I now know what to do.  Next time two enemies with pistols came and rolled over my two remaining crew members with one pistol.  Next time I would setup turrets more carefully, but they cost so much and seem to only hold enemies at bay, not solve the actual problem.  Turret also never attacked hostile vermin apparently???  Strongly dislike that.

*Had crazy fun building my base and managing everything, particularly when I first got solar power + batteries to give round the clock power, and when I first got separate rooms for my crew members and proper beds.  Also when I built my building into the surrounding rocks, was great how that just worked.  I could do this stuff for a very long time.

* Would love to have a 'story summary' that either happens automatically when you are at the point of no return, or when you surrender via a menu option.  This would retell the events that happened.  These stories should be stored in a log that I can look through later.  This would also reinforce that you're not expected to win this game on every try, it's an emergent player-story driven experience, which is very different from what most gamers are used to, myself included.  Setting expectations is important.

Minor stuff

*Couldn't find the 'architect' button that the directions mentioned for a while, because I had a crew member selected.  Doesn't really make sense that you can't architect with something selected.  Similarly, when architect menus are open, you can't see stats about what you are mousing over.
*'Structure' and 'Buildings' options in the architect menu, these sound redundant but have different things under them, I don't understand the difference except to memorize what is under each one.
*Would like feedback when I left click a crew member, then right click anything.  They should either say 'ok' or a reason why that's not a valid command.  As is, it often seems like right click is not a valid button, when really it's just context sensitive and most of the things you can click on do nothing.  I kindof also want to be able to tell my crew members where to go by right clicking the ground, even though that is not super important to the gameplay.  That would make me feel like I'm more in control.
*I have these large sand areas everywhere around my original beds so I can't build there.  Would like to have starting area on something that I can build around.  As is I will have to abandon it unless I can find a way to build there.
*Research things have no description on mouse over, took me a while to realize to click
*Rabid rat killed my 40 health dude in melee combat, i would not expect that, although now I know!
*Should say 0 metal instead of icon disappearing
* Various tools often put overlays over a corner, be careful about putting important information there (top right for Action video recording, bottom left for Steam, etc).
* Disable all the already seen tutorial stuff on subsequent plays (maybe menu option to enable it anyway in case you missed important parts).
* Use of green and red for love and fear is confusing, green == good to me, so seeing -12 in green is a contradiction
* Would like to be able to see turret range when selecting

This game is very addicting and fun to play already.  I'm looking forward to playing more, especially with the new things I learned.