Reverse the Decision on Trees and Fertilizer Pumps...

[Vaperius]

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

― Henry Ford

1. Contribute to the conversation in the posts you make beyond a quote from someone not relevant to the discussion. Frankly I would of gone with someone else... should been someone that owned a plantation or something; just a thought heh

Anyway; they would of asked for faster horses because you don't need to pay 2 $ for 9/10 of a gallon to run them

*writes down we should add biofuel and oil to the things you can power your base with*

Anyway; Fertilizer Pumps and Tree Planting are not a modernization of transportation in the developed world....they are just topics of this game that is critically disliked by one half and crucially loved by another.

Sadly Tynan in agreement with those that prefer to remove them and them be damned then those that would rather have them completely rebalanced and kept in the game for the sake of having the option of being able to use them.

While ultimately moot for mods. This thread exists for principle; features shouldn't be just removed, real effort to rebalance them should be made instead.

[Wujc]

Harder biome = more recources (include electricity) to survive. Thats why you play harder biomes right? I mostly play biomes where growing period is "never" and when there is not much soil i reserve all of it for trees. You can be stucked at start many hours (it takes me around 2-6 hours till i start to have decent production in colony and can expand) but thats why you picked that biome and settings right? I believe those biomes are for ppl who like challenge. I also appriciate that i need to have good temperature or i have percentage penalty (1-10°C) so i need to heat up place i grow plants. When there is -50°C outside and you lost your electricity (heat + sun lamps) trees stop to grow up (Some of the lost leaves like in winter that is realy realy great ), but they will resume growing after you resume electricity supplies. So i dont see problem at all.
Cecropia Trees are best for start -> Fastest grow.
Believe me, that i want fertilizer as much as you, but it should be used to make huge colonies effective in late game, not to make start easier. At least thats how i see it.

[akiceabear]

First, point taken that there is irrigation in deserts by large societies. My point, however, was that I wasn't aware of any small communities that independently do so. Show me a community of 1-20 people in the desert that manages 100% self-sufficient irrigation and I'll concede the point. I'm extremely skeptical anyone can make that point about tundra biomes.

Second, even assuming the above is possible by small desert communties - there are clearly enormous balance issues with the way the game mechanics around growing worked before. Basically every colony in every biome is a exercise in optimizing layout and flow on heating/cooling, with little need for further differences. Tynan explained his views on why earlier - and I agree - gamers are "trained" to optimize, even it is boring. At the very least the system needs to be rebalanced to introduce real tradeoffs between biomes and strategies, rather than one size fits all.

Third, just a suggestion: be aware that Tynan is clearly not in favor of going back to the prior state, where one strategy fit all biomes. That leaves two options - wait and see how the new gameplay works, or begin planning your mods to fix it. I, for example, could endlessly complain about fog of war and how great the game would be with it, but its clear its not a priority - so I said my bit, and move on. I'm not interested enough to mod it myself, and I still enjoy the game, so why gripe endlessly on the topic? That's even more the case here, where people haven't even had a chance to play the next iteration that includes these changes.

Finally, I strongly disagree with the thought that any vote on this forum should matter for game design, or the narrow minded principle that features in the alpha version of a game should never be removed. In general design by committee is terrible, not just in games but in general, while the latter philosophy is a great recipe for feature-creep. Being good at playing a game doesn't make one good at designing it, and vice-versa. Based on what I've seen so far, I'm quite comfortable with trusting Tynan's judgment until I have a chance to give it a spin myself.

[DNK]

While it's certainly possible to do intensive agriculture in the desert, it requires a certain amount of capital and infrastructure building to manage. The water comes from aquifers, which can be well below the surface, requiring well drilling and pumping. Some places lack such aquifers, and these are for all intents and purposes (barring futuretech) non-arable even for modern man, at least not economically speaking.

And isn't a large part of the challenge in games like these resource management, not just of natural sorts but also of time and "money" (proceeds from labor)? Moving to a desert biome should make agriculture harder, and thus the gameplay more challenging, since it requires additional resources to manage as well as in a tropical climate: you need to research additional techs, you need to build additional facilities to extract water from deep aquifers, and you need to build additional power supplies to maintain the pumps, not to mention defend it all (especially if we treat aquifers like geysers and have them only in small locations around the map).

If you go to a jungle biome,  you don't even need to worry about irrigation since rain takes care of it for you. It's less challenging therefore (in my proposed version at least).

[Mathenaut]

Well, large scale desert agriculture takes many years. Growing a plant in the desert is easy if you just give it what it needs to grow. There's no 'desert police' to walk over and say you can't grow something there without money and a permit. When you set up a greenhouse, the only threat to your plants is the integrity of your greenhouse. It is literally just low-rent hydroponics. You can do it at home right now and raise all manner of flora not native to your region.

It's that easy.

While I understand the concern behind fertilizer pumps making 'every colony look the same', the problem is that pumps have just been replaced with more aggressive use of hydroponics (for those not using the soil-tilling mod). So really.. not only does this not address the underlying issue (diversity in design), but this actually undermines it by removing the only viable alternative to a hydroponics array.

Because lord knows nobody is defaulting to NPD in it's current state.

[b0rsuk]

Because lord knows nobody is defaulting to NPD in it's current state.

I do, in many situations, especially in cold climate. Nutrient Paste Dispenser is 2 times more efficient than simple meals, and 4 times more efficient than lavish meals. And that's not counting the extra labor of a) the cook and b) harvesting the big-ass field.

I just finished a game in mountain tundra. I ran with NPD for most of the game, and in late game decided to rebuild it. There simply weren't enough animals to make lavish meals, and I didn't feel fine meals were such a huge jump in quality. So I used meat only for lavish meals, and when meat ran out - NPD. I had a stockpile of lavish meals to deal with cold snaps, psychic waves and so on. And that was because of a biome difference.

You are not guaranteed to get colonists with either high cooking or a passion for it. It's a surprisingly hard skill to raise in the game.

[akiceabear]

Well, large scale desert agriculture takes many years. Growing a plant in the desert is easy if you just give it what it needs to grow. There's no 'desert police' to walk over and say you can't grow something there without money and a permit. When you set up a greenhouse, the only threat to your plants is the integrity of your greenhouse. It is literally just low-rent hydroponics. You can do it at home right now and raise all manner of flora not native to your region.

It's that easy.

While I understand the concern behind fertilizer pumps making 'every colony look the same', the problem is that pumps have just been replaced with more aggressive use of hydroponics (for those not using the soil-tilling mod). So really.. not only does this not address the underlying issue (diversity in design), but this actually undermines it by removing the only viable alternative to a hydroponics array.

Because lord knows nobody is defaulting to NPD in it's current state.

Your starting assumption for desert survival seems to be an abundance of running water, making the construction of a greenhouse the only obstacle/requirement to scalable agriculture. My question is - where do the recently crashed survivors obtain the knowledge and means to tap an aquifer at a quantity sufficient to feed them and their fields? Also, where does the nutrient rich soil come from?

I think these questions are important to consider if the goal of the game design is to include colony-survival gameplay in addition to colony management and design - otherwise the game risks breaking down into just a very simple (but unique) version of SimCity, with the occasional disaster (raid) that momentarily upsets city (colony) balance... oh, and with different skins by biome.

[Vaperius]

Harder biome = more recources (include electricity) to survive. Thats why you play harder biomes right? I mostly play biomes where growing period is "never" and when there is not much soil i reserve all of it for trees. You can be stucked at start many hours (it takes me around 2-6 hours till i start to have decent production in colony and can expand) but thats why you picked that biome and settings right? I believe those biomes are for ppl who like challenge. I also appriciate that i need to have good temperature or i have percentage penalty (1-10�C) so i need to heat up place i grow plants. When there is -50�C outside and you lost your electricity (heat + sun lamps) trees stop to grow up (Some of the lost leaves like in winter that is realy realy great ), but they will resume growing after you resume electricity supplies. So i dont see problem at all.
Cecropia Trees are best for start -> Fastest grow.
Believe me, that i want fertilizer as much as you, but it should be used to make huge colonies effective in late game, not to make start easier. At least thats how i see it.

First off; no one is advocating that; we really really really aren't. We want it balanced; not removed. That is all this thread been about; replacing/rebalancing Tree Planting and Fertilizer Pumps so they aren't so op that they have to be removed to preserve balance.

[Mathenaut]

Your starting assumption for desert survival seems to be an abundance of running water, making the construction of a greenhouse the only obstacle/requirement to scalable agriculture. My question is - where do the recently crashed survivors obtain the knowledge and means to tap an aquifer at a quantity sufficient to feed them and their fields? Also, where does the nutrient rich soil come from?

- You don't need an abundance of water for a greenhouse. By principle, it's structured for conservation and higher efficiency. This is why greenhouses are useful even in temperate climates for smaller scale agriculture of all kinds. Also, it does rain in the desert and condensation builds during the low temperature night cycles (which can get damn cold). In general, the problem with flora is less about moisture and more about the extreme environment. So yes, a greenhouse addresses the greatest hazards facing flora.

- You also don't need extremely rich soil, though that will factor into efficiency. Also easily resolved with crop rotation or composting any variety of organic material.

- Basic education isn't a stretch for spacefaring colonists. Especially those with military, science, industry, or agriculture backgrounds (or just being colonists, as this is sort of important to know when making a colony). If anything, I think it's a bigger stretch to presume that spacefaring colonists forgot how to make a wheel and need to reinvent it.

[JimmyAgnt007]

After reading what Tynan said I agree with what he is trying to do.  Biomes shouldnt be the same level of challenge and interchangeable.  Same thing just different critters.  Not letting people plant trees actually doesnt bother me.  I didnt even know I could do that until rather recently.  I have however been playing a desert map for fun.  So I now understand how people can feel the lack of wood can hurt.  That being said I find it odd though that you can harvest a cactus for wood.  The frequency of traders is something that can be rebalanced some other time once more pieces are in play.

The Fertilizer Pump is my issue.  Not the pump per say but something that lets me shape a farming area where I want.  Also something that lets me get rid of the mud that stops me from building in some places.  Now mud could be removed via a work order like smoothing stone, water could be built over with 'platforms' or some such.  For farming area, well how do we do it in the real world?  Grind up animal bones! (since we dont have manure... yet?)  Letting corpses rot away yields bones, so should butchering.  Grind them up and use them to make soil.  Maybe as a type of flooring.  Then the grow zone has an option to fertilize.  Your colonists have to work the field to make it 'rich' soil and different crops use it at different rates.  Might make farming more intensive but could be fun.  Grind up the bones of your enemies to make your berries grow faster and then eat the berries.  Sort of like, indirect cannibalism.  Rotten foods could also be used as compost maybe?

Bottom line is that we should be able to make farms wherever we want, just some locations will be much more resource intensive than others.  Maybe deserts loose fertility faster or something.  Eventually I'm sure water use will come into play.  So it wont ever be easy to farm in the desert, just more convenient on its location.

In addition to my fertilizer idea.  For hydroponics, instead of power they should need fertilizer.  (and water if/when that comes around) since they already need power for the sunlamps. 

Hopefully this all stays within the balance you are aiming for. 

@Mathenaut Whenever you remove crops from a greenhouse you remove water.  So you still need a lot to feed into them.  Just not so much while they grow, only at harvest.

[Mathenaut]

It's not that Greenhouses need 0 water, just significantly less than open farming. I'd argue enough that it isn't a great obstacle in the desert.

My objection to removing trees is that it seems pointless.
My objection to removing fert pumps is that it doesn't really help the issue of why they were removed (if not making the issue worse). I think that we can brainstorm different ways to make each biome unique. Past a point, many bases are going to share similar structure. Just like most buildings in general do.

[JimmyAgnt007]

I didnt say they needed 0 water.  Just that what comes out must equal what goes in.  (within tolerances for it being a game and fun)

Trees make life easier, some biomes are supposed to be harder.  I didnt see the need to remove them from the grow list but not a big deal for me at least.  Maybe if we could make bricks from sand or something it can give us an alternative.  Or ice blocks for the snowy areas. 

Fert pumps I think should make fertilizer out of organic stuff placed in hoppers around it.  Not magically make soil out of concrete. 

[Johnny Masters]

Trees make life easier, some biomes are supposed to be harder.  I didnt see the need to remove them from the grow list but not a big deal for me at least.  Maybe if we could make bricks from sand or something it can give us an alternative.  Or ice blocks for the snowy areas. 

Fert pumps I think should make fertilizer out of organic stuff placed in hoppers around it.  Not magically make soil out of concrete.

Jimmy, i think most people who want planting and fertilizer back are aware that they need balancing. I understand you never used to plant tree, but some of us did, just for fun, for eye candy or for the resources. Removing them altogether seems, IMO, similar to removal of mountains because dwarfing makes the game easier (arguably, but for most people it does).

I like your alternatives to fertilizer but its because you're offer a replacement/solution to the the things it did.

Of course a pump creating rich soil out of stone is bad, or planting trees of a biome in another biome without some sort of penalty or heavy investing. But taking away without offering alternatives is equally bad. And it's always a possibility to make something cost more: more time, money or research, but there should always be the possibility.

[Mathenaut]

Trees make life easier, some biomes are supposed to be harder.

I really think some of you should read the changes to A10 if you seriously think this is an issue.

Making Fert pumps more trouble than they are worth won't fix it either. I'll just have people using soil mod or teching to hydroponics sooner.

[akiceabear]

- You don't need an abundance of water for a greenhouse. By principle, it's structured for conservation and higher efficiency. This is why greenhouses are useful even in temperate climates for smaller scale agriculture of all kinds. Also, it does rain in the desert and condensation builds during the low temperature night cycles (which can get damn cold). In general, the problem with flora is less about moisture and more about the extreme environment. So yes, a greenhouse addresses the greatest hazards facing flora.

- You also don't need extremely rich soil, though that will factor into efficiency. Also easily resolved with crop rotation or composting any variety of organic material.

- Basic education isn't a stretch for spacefaring colonists. Especially those with military, science, industry, or agriculture backgrounds (or just being colonists, as this is sort of important to know when making a colony). If anything, I think it's a bigger stretch to presume that spacefaring colonists forgot how to make a wheel and need to reinvent it.

All good points, the first two which I concede. This still suggests a massive rebalance is necessary the make the extremes of each biome unique, both in how they impact your colony and in what options you have to address those challenges. I'm still unclear what the huge fuss is, given it is known that trees can be modded into the game (there are several mods that do so already). Removing tree planting is simply Tynan's first try at rebalancing this. Is it not worth giving that a try before complaining about it?

I disagree with the final point, which implies that all colonists are walking encyclopedias. This is after a crash where presumably many other members perished. This ties in with a great suggestion I saw recently that colonist skills should shape the cost and/or availability of some research trees. Unfortunately, I think that for most players that would just lead to more min-maxing via character rolling or mods to game the system. That is despite the fact that constraints are a good part of any story...