[A18] Wetlands - Swamp biomes

[Yoshida Keiji]

I'm kind of disappointed with your game design philosophy in the sense that you add new features that bring in negative impacts to the player only and without any positive outcomes of it, pleasing only those who value aesthetics (the cheap players). Britney Spears is a good singer because she looks (looked) beautiful but doesn't sing at all, so is she a singer?

[A18] Wetlands:

Negative effect: Blocks construction progress.
Positive effect: None.

Wetlands in a base building game will be looked as an obstacle in base development, so players will want to get rid of it. As a Lost Tribe exclusive player, I would want to have "Land filling" as a game mechanic to continue building. Because the only way we currently have is the Moisture Pump, which is after Microelectronics basics... way too deep in the research tree. And we need to complete an outer wall before we gain the knowledge of Electricity. This could simply be a game suggestion and I was originally going to do so but then...I realized that we didn't had any positive effects either.

Wetlands should also support larger amphibian ecosystems. Translated into the game, I would want to see an increase in beavers, frogs, lizards and birds predating on them. Just like it happens when a player has plantations in the open fields that attract animals.

https://youtu.be/zLymJKYOWzQ


[A17] Rivers:

Negative effect: Blocks passage.
Positive effect: Moat building defense (partial benefit as it cannot be modified by the player to work as castle designs).

Which is the same repeated complains that you got in A17 after the introduction of rivers but without fishes. Since A17, to me the most obvious direction you should have taken would be the implementation of "Dragon backbones" a.k.a. piston pumps or chain pumps to draw water sources to farming acres.


I'm an outdoorsy myself, often going hiking and traveling across the country in a road bike (see my blog in user profile) and there's no "Outdoorsy" trait within the game that would get mood penalty, like Cabin fever. There should be a bonus for those who love nature, animals, plants. So far we only have beauty mood buff when seeing flowers, but I like to see nature "untouched" by man.

As well as a pollution penalty with Carbondioxide for super industrialized colonies, a variant of Toxic Fallout, but player induced.


Are you going to address this for A19?

[Wanderer_joins]

It's just a different playstyle.

And there are upsides:

• rich soil everywhere compared to small patches  in tropical rainforest
• trees everywhere, cheap cash crop when turned into chemfuel, terrain advantage against manhunter packs and raiders

[RemingtonRyder]

As Tynan mentioned in the trailer, the abundance of trees means that there's a lot of cover to hide behind, which changes how you'll fight battles there.

[Andy Herod]

I'm personally not too concerned with map balance in difficulty as I am with map variability, enforcing different play styles. Difficulty in dwarf fortress, for example, is often dictated by the biom you start in. I understand that preferences vary though.

[Nameless]

I don't know, I can fuel a craptons of generators in the swamp biome without worrying to ever run out of wood.

[Wintersdark]

I like how the swamp biomes present unique challenges.

There's a substantial amount of labour that needs to go into making an area habitable, and I can' t just lay out a big nice geometric base and call it a day; I need to work around the marshy soil that won't support structures. 

It's not for everyone, like Ice Sheets and Deserts aren't for everyone.  They just present different challenges from the other map types, and this is a good thing.

Are they not for you?  That's fine: I detest playing on Deserts, myself, and have to be in a specific mood to play in snowy wastelands.  I'm certainly not always into a swamp, either - sometimes I *want* to build a nice orderly fortress.

That's the whole point.  Different biomes present different challenges, and some are decidedly easier than others, but in very different ways.



As to advantages, Swamps have many, you just need to look for them.  Virtually unlimited wood, for one, is very significant with generators - wood fueled initially, moving to Chemfuel as needs increase.  Flat out selling the stuff, too; you end up with more than you can use just keeping an area cleared.  Set up much more melee oriented?  It's way, WAY easier to close with hostiles through the jungles. 

[SpookCrow]

If you have a problem with all the trees, just burn them. That would make things easier if you want to do it the easy way.

Anyway I like the new swamp biome, especially the tropical swamp which is filled with tons of predators, prey and diseases. The addition of the swamp is just to create a different play style. Now you got tons of wood and cover. The only downside is getting crops planted and walls put up is going to take a long time.

[jamaicancastle]

Tried my first tropical swamp today. I wanted to like it, I really did, but I just can't.

The problem is the reseeding mechanic. Because the available space for plants fills up so completely, whenever you try to do anything plants will grow there almost immediately. Even if it's a roofed-in patch of gravel with a half-built granite tile sitting on it, it will still grow trees in between ticks of construction. And because even newly seeded trees take just as long as fully grown ones to cut down, it takes ages to actually make any progress. Most of the time, they aren't even making progress - they'll chop down a tree, and then go eat/sleep/pick up bricks/work on the next wall segment instead of this one for whatever reason, and by the time they get back another one's sprouted in its place. I have two constructors (out of a normal 3-pawn start) and it's not helping at all. They're getting probably two or three tiles per day per pawn.

The worst part is that my other pawns can't help at all. My third initial pawn was a great grower, but if I try to have her clear land it's regrown by the time the constructors can get there.

[Bolgfred]

I see the same issue here. In theory the swamp is cool, but in practice it cannot be used properly. Here some example I have experienced myself of reading from this thread:

1. Difficult Building
The swampy area is making it harder to build larger structures. This might be the most intresting part of the biome, as it really forces you to build in a different way. Sadly the buildable areas are too inconsistent, which makes even small buildings impossible sometimes. As already mentioned, I really miss the swamp adaption, something lake dwelling, which makes building on swamp tiles possible, without removing it. Especially for tribals this would be a great improvement if you can live in the swamp without destroying it.
Pro: Segmented base design
Con: New Base design not possible
Con: No way to adapt to the biome

2. Heavy terrain
The swamp is defined by many trees and high movement cost tiles. In theory this strongly changes fighting in this biome. In practice, the player will try to avoid fighting outside, as the trees don't reduce combat range. Effectivley there is no difference if there are 2 or 2000 trees between the combatants. everyone walks behind a tree and only this tree counts. In a real dense forest, the gun range should be reduced by 90% making is almost impossible to shoot or even see somebody in bigger range.
The second point is, that the player is always outnumbered. when 20 pawns attack and you try to ambush ad kite them outside, maybe 2-10 raiders don't focus on your strike team but go for your buildings. The heavy terrain makes you much slower, so adapting to the enemy is much harder for the player, so not fighting at home is not worth the risk, and gives no benefit to the player.
PRO: New Terrain offers guerrilla tactics
CON: guerrilla tactics are not implemented

3. More fertile grounds
In theory it's cool as you can build more efficient farms. In practice I noticed that I don't need this, and cannot think of something that makes much sense to grow in huge masses as farming itself is already very effective and having a 20x20 smokeleaf field will only drown you in a huge drug stockpile. Additionaly the heavy terrain slows pawns hauling, so a remote field will give long hauling jobs, takng a lot of time and exposing pawns to danger.
Pro: More farming
Con: Don't need more faming

Conclusion:
The idea of a swamp is a nice one, as it offers new elements. The new trees make the swamp looking very cool and atmospheric.
The game design wasn't implemented properly, as on paper everything sounds nice, but in practice it's mostly restricting.

[Mday]

I haven't played the swamp yet. Sounds like what you can do to make building easier is to:
1) First forbid all the woods in the map so that your prawn won't be running all over the place to get the wood.
2) Cover your building area with "cut plant command and "Lay down some wooden floor. Your prawn will go there, cut down the trees, use the resulting wood to quickly cover the ground with wooden flooring, hence preventing seedling spam.

[Canute]

1. Difficult Building
The swampy area is making it harder to build larger structures.

Isn't that why you can research and build moisture pumps, to turn these swamp/mud/shallow water area into soil ?

[Yoshida Keiji]

It's hard to get to that point when you start from Lost Tribe. No problem if it's Crash-landed scenario though.

[Bolgfred]

And still then it's slow and more like terraform the swamp away, instead of living in a swamp.

[Canute]

Shouldn't be the swamp a difficulte biome then Arid/forest like when you play as tribe ?
And even when you turn most swamps area into soil, you still got a higher infection rate and different flora then at other biomes.

[Snafu_RW]

Shouldn't be the swamp a difficulte biome then Arid/forest like when you play as tribe ?
And even when you turn most swamps area into soil, you still got a higher infection rate and different flora then at other biomes.

..and, somewhat oddly, no 'free' med or food plants, same as tropical/jungle..