As a long time player (Alpha 3 or so), I'm frustrated with gold, components.

[nuschler22]

Adding gold to so many items as requirements along with the non-stop pursuit of components doesn't add any positive game play aspects for me personally. 

Prices of everything in the game are already very high to buy and low to sell.   Gold is fairly limited as a resource to mine and components feel like a burden to me to maintain, buy or make in the game.  I don't mean a burden to my colony.  I mean an eye-rolling, I've completely ceased progressing at any point and now have to rely on the luck of finding them or a trade ship passing by user burden.

Things already aren't "easy" when it comes to developing the colony.  That's part of the fun of the game.  But now it's become annoyingly and, in my opinion, unnecessarily frustrating.

It might be an unpopular opinion, but after loving and supporting this game for years, this Alpha extinguishes any desire to play the game.

[erdrik]

I see components in the inventory of nearly every ground based trade caravan thats visited my colony.
Between that and the deposits Im not seeing the problem you are.

Not gotten far enough to accurately comment on gold yet.
That said, I did get some from a ground based trade caravan which makes me think your just having bad luck with the RNG?

[Shurp]

That's the trouble, "bad luck with the RNG" can completely halt your progress in the game.  It's very annoying.

My current colony is three seasons old and hasn't seen a stitch of gold.  I'm about to devmode some in.  As soon as I figure out how to use devmode

[brianterrel]

I'm definitely having the opposite experience. Having genuinely scarce resources is adding a lot of fun challenge to the game for me. I was gold blocked too for some time (I naively sold the bit that I found early on, having not looked at any of the new tech stuff), but ended up finding a vault with a bunch of pirates in cryptosleep. Several of them dropped gold, so there are some alternative sources around.

I'm really enjoying the decisions components are forcing me to make. I'd love to start cranking out power armor / charge weapons, but I also want to keep a reserve of components to rebuild power and defense infrastructure if a go through a rough patch with attacks. It's fun to have some genuine trade-offs to make later in the game!

[Shurp]

Yes, I imagine that once you get component production off the ground it's a lot of fun.  How many components can a colonist crank out in a day?  The component mechanic definitely makes for some entertaining tradeoffs. 

I think everyone is just complaining about the *cliff* between "desperately waiting for gold" and "yeehaa off we go!"  Or at least I am

[Limdood]

The only item that you "need" gold for is the multi analyzer.  It needs 20.  Tynan addressed in a previous thread that he's already planning on likely boosting the availability of gold to buy.

As far as the components go, its merely adding an early limit to the number and speed of tech items you can build.  Adding more of a distinct "tier" system of advancement.  Later game, it adds steel and time as an ongoing requirement.  you're now REQUIRED to have some outside contact, as eventually your colony will run out of steel, and you'll need to trade, smelt, or disassemble mechanoids to get the steel/components.

Complaining about the super high end beds needing gold seems a bit unnecessary...prior to this alpha i had no USE for gold.  So it sat around in my stockpiles until i managed to get the right trader...not a very stimulating use for it.

[Rahjital]

Components are only fun to manage as long as you don't run out. If you realise their value early and build a stockpile it's engaging, but you are stuck if you happen to run out since all the important technology needs components and there are no ready source to get more. If your stove breaks down and you can't repair it, well, tough luck.

As for gold, it's main use it's high market value and beauty. If you sold it to traders, that's fine, but it's main use should be artistic. Statues, floors, tables, just making beautiful impressive rooms for your colonists. Making it the requirement for things needed to progress just feels wrong, gamey.

[DNK]

I really like components. It adds a challenge where the game was sorely lacking one before. Namely, that you could very rapidly build up a colony in no time, and most resources (on a wooded map with some hills at least) were plentiful, easily made in terms of work, and it as mostly just a builder's paradise, or at least one with a lot of raids.

Now, I have to plan ahead and figure out the best tech paths and so on. Tech development of the colony happens at a more natural pace. It feels like I'm mostly surviving and slowly rebuilding, rather than just EZ mode to a futuristic utopia.

[Boston]

In real life, gold, and other precious metals, are commonly used as parts (usually for electrical circuitry) for computers and other high-end machinery. There is actually a serious problem in developing nations where companies buy old circuit boards and pay peasants the equivalent of pennies to melt them down and sift through the slag for the gold and other metals. The people inhale toxic fumes and get megacancer, sadly.

Take a guess at what the "Multi-analyzer" almost-overwhelmingly-likely is. I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count.

As for components, the reason they are such a pain in the ass to craft is thus: you are basically attempting to make a highly technical piece of machinery (gears, flywheels, pistons, etc), usually with VERY tight tolerances (in the area of =/- 0.001 millimeters, for some small pieces), on a fucking table with a box of scrap pieces you found buried in the ground.. You are, with very little exaggeration, trying to emulate the development of "interchangable parts" and "machined tolerances" in literally the worst of environments.

For all we know, all the different planets your colonists come from all have difference values for "1 millimeter", and as such, parts from one machine can't work in another, even if they are functionally identical.

The reason components are locked behind such hefty research? Combine the component workbench with the multi-analyzer: you are, effectively, trying to jury-rig a goddamn CNC/metal lathe machine

I'm sorry, but I am really finding all this weeping about gold and components to be borderline hilarious.

[sadpickle]

I think the gold/component issue is exacerbated by map type. On a flat map there's just not enough deposits, period. Once you exhaust ship chunks and the few little hills a flat map has, you're at the mercy of caravans (1-5 components per if at all) or ships (exceptionally rare now, and only the exotic has gold.) I haven't hit a component wall yet, but I never play anything less than large hills. I'm even frustrated when I don't have a visible plasteel deposit on the map at launch. It is a HUGE drag to develop a colony and hit a vital resource bottleneck.

[Boston]

In that case, you have to plan ahead.

1) Turrets take components every time they break down/get destroyed. So, instead of placing an absolute fuckton of turrets everywhere, place one or two, in tactically superior areas, and make effective use of cover and colonist militias.  Use turrets as support for the colonists fire, instead of the main fighting force. Use beaten zones, rough terrain, and flanking and pinning forces effectively.

2) Relatedly, make friends. You can give a faction silver in return for goodwill and (sometimes) military aid when called. This both 1) leads to fewer raids, from fewer factions, and 2) decreases colony wealth, which further lowers the chance of raids. What is the faction-type who's sheer weight of numbers "makes turrets necessary" (/snerk)? Tribals. Who can you get to leave you alone by literally giving them money? Tribals (and outlanders, but outlanders tend to be much more managable). If your relations are high enough (and you are lucky), you can even get some of your friends to come help you fight! At the very least, it will distract the foe, and in some cases, they can even fight off the enemy for you

3) Use alternate methods of production. Those wood-powered stoves and workbenches are there for a reason, folks. Every wood-powered bench is a bench that isn't using components ( I am assuming they don't break down, as they don't require components. I have been playing a colony for a little over 2 years at this point, and my woodstove hasn't broken down once.), which lets you save the components for more vital things.

[Listy]

2) Relatedly, make friends. You can give a faction silver in return for goodwill and (sometimes) military aid when called.

Yes, because 4 blokes armed with Shiv's and pistols are not going to get spanked in the first fire fight.

[Shurp]

Do I really need to point out that this is a game, and that as a game it is supposed to be fun?  And that sitting and waiting for the caravan that happens to be carrying gold and not doing any expansion (because I've already built everything I can maintain with my existing component stockpile) isn't fun?

Sure, it's realistic.  But if I want that level of realism, I'll walk down to the bus stop at 10:05 and wait for the 11am bus.

[Agent00Soul]

In that case, you have to plan ahead.
2) Relatedly, make friends. You can give a faction silver in return for goodwill and (sometimes) military aid when called. This both 1) leads to fewer raids, from fewer factions, and 2) decreases colony wealth, which further lowers the chance of raids. What is the faction-type who's sheer weight of numbers "makes turrets necessary" (/snerk)? Tribals. Who can you get to leave you alone by literally giving them money? Tribals (and outlanders, but outlanders tend to be much more managable). If your relations are high enough (and you are lucky), you can even get some of your friends to come help you fight! At the very least, it will distract the foe, and in some cases, they can even fight off the enemy for you

Are you sure about that? I've seen quite a few people saying that increasing the number of friendly factions doesn't reduce raids.. a raid is triggered by the storyteller at milestones or by events and the faction is randomly chosen from amoung the hostile rather than the other way, an even on a faction and if they are hostile its a raid..

Can someone clarify?

[Shurp]

The frequency of raids is not affected by who you are friendly with.  The *identity* of the raid, though, is.  Becoming friendly with tribals will eliminate tribal raids; you'll get attacked by pirates or mechanoids instead.  And because tribal raids can number in dozens later in the game it's very important to get good relationships with them before they overwhelm you.

Planning ahead will only get you so far.  You need the RNG to bless you with some gold or your colony will, eventually, simply die.

Of course, sometimes you get lucky in other ways.  A poison ship part just crashed *inside* my colony perimeter.  So I built a few extra turrets, opened the ship up, and laughed as they gunned down the hapless mechanoids inside

Including some smidgeon of gold inside the mechanoids would not only make sense (they're pretty high tech, they need gold too, right?), it would also help overcome the bottleneck.