Reverse the Decision on Trees and Fertilizer Pumps...

[Mathenaut]

Aside from that; while a fair point on the stone cutting and everything. It still doesn't take into account extremely hot or cold biomes where you rapidly need to construct/find shelter nor really the fact you actually need to research that and it unlikely you will have a sufficient stockpile of stone before your first raid to build anything really impressive.

Somewhat relating to the post above, yes the issue of wood is difficult for desert and tundra, however these aren't things that tree planting will fix. They're things that, as Tynan thankfully realized, expanding the stuffs system would fix.

It means that desert/tundra colonies will have a slightly rougher start, but there's more than enough metal to get your research table, turret, and power needs situated.

[Andy_Dandy]

I know that as players you *want* on some level to be able to optimize your colony perfectly into the same perfect base each time. After all, that's your goal at every moment while playing the game, and you feel a sort of dopamine rush pleasure when making progress towards that. It's natural to recoil from design changes that seem to take away what you *want*. But please recognize that a game that hands you your goal easily is not a better game. Games aren't fun because they give you what you want. They're fun because of the dramatic process of struggle, decision, story, and drama that you experience in pursuit of your goal. Just as in life, it's about the journey, not the destination. And when you finally do achieve that perfect base in a desolate tundra, even with the harder game mechanics and greater challenges, the emotional reward will be all the greater because you'll know you bloody earned it.

I really hope you'll stick with that philosophy. I agree completely.

But then again, I am very much a survival game masochist. I just can't get enough punishment as long as I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

+ from me to both of you.

[Vaperius]

I know that as players you *want* on some level to be able to optimize your colony perfectly into the same perfect base each time. After all, that's your goal at every moment while playing the game, and you feel a sort of dopamine rush pleasure when making progress towards that. It's natural to recoil from design changes that seem to take away what you *want*. But please recognize that a game that hands you your goal easily is not a better game. Games aren't fun because they give you what you want. They're fun because of the dramatic process of struggle, decision, story, and drama that you experience in pursuit of your goal. Just as in life, it's about the journey, not the destination. And when you finally do achieve that perfect base in a desolate tundra, even with the harder game mechanics and greater challenges, the emotional reward will be all the greater because you'll know you bloody earned it.

I really hope you'll stick with that philosophy. I agree completely.

But then again, I am very much a survival game masochist. I just can't get enough punishment as long as I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

+ from me to both of you.

....Add to the Discussion o.o Don't just quote someone and move on...Actually this is a perfect operating to put in my two cents on those guys opinion isn't it...

Some people prefer overcoming a challenge presented rather then a challenge created.

Basically instead removing Tree planting is an example of creating a challenge because of it's absence whereas a lot of the rebalancing ranging from increasing tree planting length, adding a research requirement, and even increasing work times, requiring you have saplings and a variety of other ideas to inherently make it more challenging by offering a challenge.

Granted, it's all moot, still, its clearly this topic is important enough on it own not to need to be that. Tree planting clearly effects the game play, and a lot more then we originally appreciated. I strongly believe a rebalance over a removal of it from game must be done.

All the arguments to keep it out are it adds challenge, or it makes the game more fun, and here it is. Not everyone agrees with this point of view, or wants it taken out of their own games. A compromise should be reached rather then going one way on the topic.

[akiceabear]

Not everyone agrees with this point of view, or wants it taken out of their own games. A compromise should be reached rather then going one way on the topic.

It's Tynan's game, so he'll follow his vision - which so far I'm very happy with.

But don't let vanilla hold you back! Feel free to mod it back in! My impression is that the rest of this conversation is more or less happy with some form of nerfing trees and growing...

[Mathenaut]

The 'adding challenge' thing is mostly alot of empty sophism, if I'm not going to mince words about it.

Tynan wanted variation in environments and wanted to stress the differences in playing between them. Not only is this not explicitly 'challenge', but the changes actually make things easier overall.

The only reason I'm against it's removal is because it's kinda pointless. With expansion of stuffs and traders carrying wood, tree-planting functionally has no real impact on gameplay.

[DNK]

Wash rinse repeat is very boring, and the biomes should be more than just new skins.

This is really the heart of it.

If a desert base looks just like a jungle base (but with slightly different heating facilities), something is wrong. In my book, anything that encourages more dramatic differences between biomes is good. Being able to build the same optimized, self-contained, killbox'd fortress in every biome and play out the exact same production lines is, to me, a total failure of game design. When each biome feels really different, that's where we win. I made this change because I think it moves further in that direction.

The realism argument doesn't move me. Real trees take decades to grow. If we made them grow realistically, there would be no point in planting them in RW since they'd be nothing more than saplings by the end of even the longest-lived colony. Have you ever heard of a town in the old west in 1875 planting a bunch of trees for lumber? It just doesn't happen because it doesn't make sense in real life

Yes, this is an issue.

Part of the issue is that hydroponics is so OP currently. It's a tech that's accessible in the first 3 months and pretty much ends your need to deal with your biome for sustenance. So long as you make modern-era techs immediately available and practicable, you make nature almost a pointless backdrop.

Another part of the issue is even then deserts have a lot of soil. You don't have to spread your plantings all over the place in whatever little patches of soil you can find because: 1) there's large globs on every map, 2) the soil is just as good as any other soil, 3) plants still grow at the same pace, and 4) water isn't important. A desert biome should force you to have a very spread out base, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to grow enough to feed your colony, but currently that's not the case, nor is bio-planning ever really the case in A9.

Also here's a plug: it'd be nice to have some sort of adobe/clay building stuff in a later alpha. It's a very common building material in the real world, weak but easy to put up structures with.

[Mathenaut]

The whole premise of technology is overcoming difficulty and solving problems. Hydroponics only really works in the case where you have a large and stable energy supply.

If you're running low difficulty and have a geyser conveniently accessible next to you, then sure, that's alot of trouble saved. Though, you're pretty much just lamenting the lack of trouble when you've gone out of your way to avoid it. Hydroponics wouldn't have water issues either.

[RemingtonRyder]

It's worth pointing out that currently in A9, tundra starts which are far enough north will have next to no wild tree growth because of the lack of light. That in itself is quite rough, as I discovered on my own.

That being said, having access to wood from traders means that it's possible to build campfires in cold conditions even when you've run out of wild trees to harvest. Instead of having some square cellage devoted to growing trees indoors, you can do something else that will allow you to trade for what you need.

I feel that not being able to grow everything that you need makes the game more interesting!

[Mathenaut]

It's worth pointing out that currently in A9, tundra starts which are far enough north will have next to no wild tree growth because of the lack of light. That in itself is quite rough, as I discovered on my own.

That being said, having access to wood from traders means that it's possible to build campfires in cold conditions even when you've run out of wild trees to harvest. Instead of having some square cellage devoted to growing trees indoors, you can do something else that will allow you to trade for what you need.

I feel that not being able to grow everything that you need makes the game more interesting!

I feel that one of the biggest early-obstacles to tundra/desert colonies isn't wood, so much as the time needed to research stonecutting. The game doesn't really even 'begin' until that point, really.

[Vaperius]

It's worth pointing out that currently in A9, tundra starts which are far enough north will have next to no wild tree growth because of the lack of light. That in itself is quite rough, as I discovered on my own.

That being said, having access to wood from traders means that it's possible to build campfires in cold conditions even when you've run out of wild trees to harvest. Instead of having some square cellage devoted to growing trees indoors, you can do something else that will allow you to trade for what you need.

I feel that not being able to grow everything that you need makes the game more interesting!

I feel that one of the biggest early-obstacles to tundra/desert colonies isn't wood, so much as the time needed to research stonecutting. The game doesn't really even 'begin' until that point, really.

To be honest more rock chunks need to drop from mining and the overral bricks you get from it needs to be a bit higher; and the research should take a tad longer...

Still; hmm... I wonder if snow/water will ever become a resource you need to use in farming ? o.o or having to actually till soil...

[Mathenaut]

There is a mod for tilling soil to create rich soil tiles.

[Teague]

I don't want to make judgements on something I havn't seen implemented yet.

All this topic has done makes me want to do a no chopping down tree's "tree hugger" colony in the tundra or dessert. I bet it's going to do just fine. I might miss wood doors - will make getting plasteel ones feel that much more awesome.

[Darkhymn]

I don't want to make judgements on something I havn't seen implemented yet.

All this topic has done makes me want to do a no chopping down tree's "tree hugger" colony in the tundra or dessert. I bet it's going to do just fine. I might miss wood doors - will make getting plasteel ones feel that much more awesome.

I've never once used the tree planting feature in A9. Nor have I ever had a shortage of wood in any biome. Wood just isn't that important at any stage in the game except at the very beginning before you've researched stonecutting. Even then, you start with enough silver to buy all of the wood you will ever need from the first trader to pass by, if you're willing to waste it.

[Johnny Masters]

I'm always finding myself in need of wood. That's because i like to build outside and build cozy wood cabins.

I didn't follow this post closely so i won't give any insights, but i figured i should voice my POV.

I haven't played much with planting or used the pumps in any extensive manner, but when i did it provided me with a fun time, it entertained me, which is the purpose of the game, so the idea of removing both of these COMPLETELY AGE-OLD NATURAL AND OBVIOUS ABILITIES (planting stuff and fertilizing stuff) feels pretty radical for me. Perhaps its the fact that i never used with an exploiting mind, even so it just shows that it's not the idea of planting trees and fertilizing the ground that is wrong: it's the execution of it (well, obvious right?).

So, i'll throw right back at ya: All the mantra here of not getting moved by the "realism" argument is bollocks (and i mean this in a friendly way). You're just spitting on the plate you ate, everything is built upon "realism", and while we don't need to factor every reality bit inside a game, or how its being said: a game doesn't need to be realistic, but it does need verisimilitude. There's absolutely no reason why 5k years from now the human race and your intrepid group of spaceship builders wouldn't be able to plant a tree or build a fertilizer pump.

Taking away both, like it has been pointed, just feels like a cheap way to challenge or to make a biome unique.
Want to make it unique? Give it unique events, give it unique fauna & flora, resources availability, power generation potential, enemies. Already on track? Good! Enhance upon, just don't take away options, improve them.

What's so bad about planting trees? The speed they grow? There are exploding mice in the game. Is it exploitable? Slow the growth speed, make it require a specific soil, an expensive growing technique or a terraforming gardening equipment, seeds, constant care, specific animals, birds, rain, whatever reason. Make it impossible to plant in a desert, its okay, it makes sense, but geez, let me plant my tree garden in my hard-earned dream colony, let me put a tree in front of Ross' house so he can have a shade and watch the birds.

Fertilizer pump is OP? Uhh, nerf it? Lower the radius, denies certain terrains to become soil, make it require water or some other resource, make it so if you delete it, it returns to its old terrain type, move it waaaay further in tech tree, make it require hard-to-buy equipment, change its purpose a little. I mean, all these rimplanets have all been terraformed but your rapidly-advancing colony can't built a fertilizing pump?

Well, that sounded a bit ragey, but i just didn't see a good justifiable reason that couldn't be addressed in a better way

[Darkhymn]

I'm always finding myself in need of wood. That's because i like to build outside and build cozy wood cabins.

I didn't follow this post closely so i won't give any insights, but i figured i should voice my POV.

I haven't played much with planting or used the pumps in any extensive manner, but when i did it provided me with a fun time, it entertained me, which is the purpose of the game, so the idea of removing both of these COMPLETELY AGE-OLD NATURAL AND OBVIOUS ABILITIES (planting stuff and fertilizing stuff) feels pretty radical for me. Perhaps its the fact that i never used with an exploiting mind, even so it just shows that it's not the idea of planting trees and fertilizing the ground that is wrong: it's the execution of it (well, obvious right?).

So, i'll throw right back at ya: All the mantra here of not getting moved by the "realism" argument is bollocks (and i mean this in a friendly way). You're just spitting on the plate you ate, everything is built upon "realism", and while we don't need to factor every reality bit inside a game, or how its being said: a game doesn't need to be realistic, but it does need verisimilitude. There's absolutely no reason why 5k years from now the human race and your intrepid group of spaceship builders wouldn't be able to plant a tree or build a fertilizer pump.

Taking away both, like it has been pointed, just feels like a cheap way to challenge or to make a biome unique.
Want to make it unique? Give it unique events, give it unique fauna & flora, resources availability, power generation potential, enemies. Already on track? Good! Enhance upon, just don't take away options, improve them.

What's so bad about planting trees? The speed they grow? There are exploding mice in the game. Is it exploitable? Slow the growth speed, make it require a specific soil, an expensive growing technique or a terraforming gardening equipment, seeds, constant care, specific animals, birds, rain, whatever reason. Make it impossible to plant in a desert, its okay, it makes sense, but geez, let me plant my tree garden in my hard-earned dream colony, let me put a tree in front of Ross' house so he can have a shade and watch the birds.

Fertilizer pump is OP? Uhh, nerf it? Lower the radius, denies certain terrains to become soil, make it require water or some other resource, make it so if you delete it, it returns to its old terrain type, move it waaaay further in tech tree, make it require hard-to-buy equipment, change its purpose a little. I mean, all these rimplanets have all been terraformed but your rapidly-advancing colony can't built a fertilizing pump?

Well, that sounded a bit ragey, but i just didn't see a good justifiable reason that couldn't be addressed in a better way

I could see both of these things fitting into the game under two sets of circumstances:
1) The fertilizer pump requires compost or some other form of biomatter and can only enrich existing soil, not create it from nothing.
2) Trees grow much, much more slowly, and require a lot more space to grow big enough to cut for lumber.