Early Alpha 2 impressions

[dd0029]

The stone mason thing rocks, pun intended. The bill system really fits in this instance. Well done!

Butchering and cooking is more of a mixed bag. I like the idea and how it plays out in production. However, it's long term use is more of a mixed bag. It's very, very micro intensive for something that you need to do essentially forever. The bill system for stone masonry works because of the task oriented nature of building things, it's mostly a one and done deal. With cooking, I found myself paranoid about running out of MREs. If you set an infinite bill for meals, you end up swimming in them. This really needs some more automation.

[Ekornserk]

If you set an infinite bill for meals, you end up swimming in them. This really needs some more automation.

I think the player should define a "target amount". Define a target of 10 simple meals and the game should set colonists to make meals on repeat until the target is reached. When meals are easten and storage drops below the target amount, new meals are created.

[colonistPally]

I'm already seeing loads upon loads of improvements. Way too many to discuss this late at night.

However. my map had no thermals? Kind of weird, but I don't mind. Just thought I'd mention it. Well over 1/2 the map is covered in rock though, so I didn't know this but I read there are thermals in mountains so I'm super excited about that!!!!!

And boomrats keep zerging my main miner guy... This's some kind of reoccuring curse throughout every colony I've ever had with everything focusing on my miner  this map it's boomrats. I'm less than 1.5 hours in and I've already had 2 boomrats seek JUST HIM out.. I'm onto you game!!!

[JonoRig]

It might be good if you could set it to make so many meals a day

[dd0029]

Seriously, stone cutting is awesome. Not sure why, but it is.

Anyway, the changelog mentions low and high stone walls. All I can see are stone walls.

[ShadowTani]

If you set an infinite bill for meals, you end up swimming in them. This really needs some more automation.

I think the player should define a "target amount". Define a target of 10 simple meals and the game should set colonists to make meals on repeat until the target is reached. When meals are easten and storage drops below the target amount, new meals are created.

I think this is a great solution for the cooking system, quoted for support. :3

[dd0029]

Cooking also could also use Hunting as a job. Maybe limit it to people with Enfields. I have other, more fun things to be doing than picking out individual animals to shoot.

[Tynan]

Hunting will be its own work type.

And yeah, I'll add that feature for the target number of meals in storage.

[dd0029]

Good lord I love stone walls. It's a little frightening. I just decided to wall off my trade area and it occurred to me I now have my own wretched hive of scum and villainry.

I need a bar.

And a band.

[dd0029]

I'm liking this version more all the time. Cooking is still kind of borked, but I'm really liking how the various tables are forcing greater space planning what with the material radius and having to now store additional types of materials. I find I'm making much more use of the priority tagging. For example, I bump up hopper priority to ensure they are filled. Then there's work space storage for cooking and masonry. Then there's landing pad priority and finally the overflow storage.

Speaking of landing pads, I haven't done much trading yet, but from what I've seen strawberries don't look to be tradeable so you will still want to grow potatoes as a cash crop. Go go potato famine! 

Hydroponic tables don't seem to produce anywhere near as well as they did. They seem to have the same growth rate as normal farming now, they just benefit from the 24/7 bright of the sun lamps.

I've been having an odd problem with food and hoppers. My colonists will fill them once, but then they won't keep it stocked past that initial fill, even when everyone has cooking checked, until I manually prioritize hauling. I wonder if it might have something to do with stacking in the hoppers, ie you can only stack potatoes with potatoes, etc.. Since I now grow multiple things and everything no longer harvest to potatoes you can have a mismatch where you have a small potato stack in the hopper, but you are mostly harvesting berries or agave. Since they are separate things now, they don't appear to stack in the hopper. So once you run out of potatoes they seem to get stuck wanting to put potatoes or whatever in the hopper they won't automagically start putting in what you have until you tell them to put something different in.

[keylocke]

Hunting will be its own work type.

And yeah, I'll add that feature for the target number of meals in storage.

awesome. will be looking forward to this. 

[dd0029]

This is a not so early impression, but now that I have things mostly down, some of the underlying nuts and bolts annoyances are coming to the fore.

First and foremost, forbiding items - I get the idea, but after numerous games, I think the default item state should be allowed, instead of forbidden. It's only very late in the game that I don't want to immediately unforbid something. And even then, it's a very rare occasion. Additionally, multiple stacked forbidden things, most often corpses and weapons can be very annoying to get haulable. I can only imagine once hunting is a going concern, that unforbidding every corpse will get more than a little tedious.

Second, zones and graphics. I'd like it if all zones worked more like the home zone where it's hidden unless you want to specifically see it. I've started to use flower growing zones to spruce things up to increase happiness, but the aesthetic I'm trying to create is kind of ruined when my roses are in a green zone or my dandelions get washed out by a yellow zone.

Third hotkeys. We desperately need some hotkeys. I'd like hot keys for the various architect menus. I'd like to have the option to scroll the map via hot keys as well. I'd also like the ability to hot key group colonists.

[Tynan]

This is a not so early impression, but now that I have things mostly down, some of the underlying nuts and bolts annoyances are coming to the fore.

First and foremost, forbiding items - I get the idea, but after numerous games, I think the default item state should be allowed, instead of forbidden. It's only very late in the game that I don't want to immediately unforbid something. And even then, it's a very rare occasion. Additionally, multiple stacked forbidden things, most often corpses and weapons can be very annoying to get haulable. I can only imagine once hunting is a going concern, that unforbidding every corpse will get more than a little tedious.

Second, zones and graphics. I'd like it if all zones worked more like the home zone where it's hidden unless you want to specifically see it. I've started to use flower growing zones to spruce things up to increase happiness, but the aesthetic I'm trying to create is kind of ruined when my roses are in a green zone or my dandelions get washed out by a yellow zone.

Third hotkeys. We desperately need some hotkeys. I'd like hot keys for the various architect menus. I'd like to have the option to scroll the map via hot keys as well. I'd also like the ability to hot key group colonists.

All good suggestions; I'll look into these.

The forbidding one is a bit tougher, but I agree it's very annoying how the game handles multiple stacked forbiddable items.

[daft73]

....
First and foremost, forbiding items - I get the idea, but after numerous games, I think the default item state should be allowed, instead of forbidden.

Well, for me at least I like the fact that things start forbidden. It keeps my colonists from running across the map to get goods, and now with the fact that you can mass select all groups(ie no longer having to pick food, then metal etc) this is prety painless IMHO.

Second, zones and graphics. I'd like it if all zones worked more like the home zone where it's hidden unless you want to specifically see it. I've started to use flower growing zones to spruce things up to increase happiness, but the aesthetic I'm trying to create is kind of ruined when my roses are in a green zone or my dandelions get washed out by a yellow zone.

Agree, this on toggle mode would work fine.

Third hotkeys. We desperately need some hotkeys. I'd like hot keys for the various architect menus. I'd like to have the option to scroll the map via hot keys as well. I'd also like the ability to hot key group colonists.

Definitely agree here.

[TokMor]

All good suggestions; I'll look into these.

The forbidding one is a bit tougher, but I agree it's very annoying how the game handles multiple stacked forbiddable items.

So I know you don't want to have the home zone have too many hidden things attached to it, so perhaps we need a new type of zone like a "Working Area" zone or the like. It could be made so that any item that appears in the working area zone is un-forbidden by default. A zone like this may also help for resource priority (for example, perhaps bills could be set to allow any raw materials within the working zone, rather than a number of tiles from the crafting station)