Observatins of a noob

Bargeral · January 18, 2015, 11:28:34 PM

I figure you only get to play for first time once, so I'd better share my observations while they are fresh. I got the game yesterday and have been playing all weekend.

Trade system. With the trade dialog I'd ditch the "drag to sell" bit. It's not at all clear to a noob, I got the coms console built and opened my first trade and then got stuck. Turns out I had nothing to sell because I hadn't figured out the zone and beacon yet. At the least bracket the amount slider with some arrows so we know what to drag. Having plus or minus buttons like the "add bill" function does would be best. +5 +25 etc. And a sell/buy all button. The Orbital Trade Beacon and Zones are a unique idea and add a lot to the game. But they are a bit confusing. I eventually figured it out when I found the wiki, but it could be clearer in game.

My first and only ship launch went well up until the end. I spent three hours watching movies and waiting for the right trader to come by with an AI core. Then got my first crashed ship part - went from being ready to launch all six of my little colony to having two dead. Then I spent 20 minutes looking at the "ships log" and thinking "I know I'm ready to launch, but HOW do I launch". Lost two more colonist because I took them out of the pods to try something and it all went to hell. Frustrating to loose to RNG and bad UI instead of anything else. Finally found the launch button and good riddance to that place.

I'm loving the game as a colony builder, the simcityish aspects of the game. Me against the world. I love building out bigger and more successfully colony. But I am not at all interested in the RTS aspects. I'm playing on the builder mode with Phoebe Basebuilder and I already find the event's far to combative. Looking at the screenshots of the bunkers some players build and I can only imagine what the "regular" game is like. Most of them have these "kill boxes" that just make me wonder if others don't want that aspect to just go away too. I want a "leave me alone to build stuff" mode. I don't mind some combat, but it seems to get progressively more aggressive as we go.

Shinzy · January 19, 2015, 06:09:07 AM

the trading was bit confusing for me too to begin with
drag to trade "Drag what? to where? *drags something - nothing happens* "Well I didn't wanan trade ANYWAY! FINE!"

buildermod and casual don't scale up the combat too badly so you likely will never need the 'killboxes' I haven't used them in last two alphas and play on rough
and have managed to route all the attackers without many losses at all

I can recommend playing on randy though! he doesn't limit the colonist count so badly and you can really build some big colonies and I mean like BIG colonies
and he's random so you might get really lucky with getting attacked rarely
the others (as far as I know) have some kind of "I'm telling a story here and stories need bad guys okay?" attitude so they send attacks far more constantly
while randy is more like "YOU WANT SOME POTATOES?! CAUSE I HAVE SOME POTATOES" *6 different cargo pod events full of potatoes land all over the map*

just making sure you have some sort of an defendable area to dig in when attacked
when you have over 20 colonists with machine guns you don't need killbox =P
and the defendable area doesn't need to be ugly, either

milon · January 19, 2015, 09:05:39 AM

What Shinzy said. Also, the trade interface has been reworked for the next alpha, so hopefully it won't be so wonky then.

Endoric · January 19, 2015, 09:50:13 AM

I actually think it may be harder with no attacks as i make all my money off of the stuff the raiders have. Also without raiders you can not recruit only slave traders and random pod crashes will supply you a new member.

However the end game is build a ship and escape. I see one big issue with this.

Given there is no faster than light travel, given your colony is not on a horrible waste land and given your colony can defend itself.

Why leave? Why go into suspended animation on another hundred year journey. Why not build, stay, thrive and live there?

kasimirtlw · January 19, 2015, 10:18:22 AM

because your shipwrecked and homesick or tired of living with only men
take your pick

Endoric · January 19, 2015, 02:27:00 PM

There are lots of bald lady colonists.

Bargeral · January 19, 2015, 07:13:37 PM

Played with Randy and that worked well. Lot's of stuff happening but it doesn't' seem to escalate as much. Glad to hear the trade interface is getting some polishing. About how frequent are updates?

Pathing · January 19, 2015, 07:28:45 PM

I agree. This is what rimworld needs to have, a mode with 0% raider & mechanoid & crashed ship part.

milon · January 19, 2015, 09:46:38 PM

Quote from: Bargeral on January 19, 2015, 07:13:37 PM
Played with Randy and that worked well. Lot's of stuff happening but it doesn't' seem to escalate as much. Glad to hear the trade interface is getting some polishing. About how frequent are updates?

Used to be about every 45 days. I think it's closer to 60ish days at an absolute guess. Why the extra time? Because the game is more complex than it used to be, quality testing takes longer, and Tynan is doing more development between releases. I think.

stefanstr · January 20, 2015, 04:49:13 AM

Quote from: Endoric on January 19, 2015, 09:50:13 AM
I actually think it may be harder with no attacks as i make all my money off of the stuff the raiders have. Also without raiders you can not recruit only slave traders and random pod crashes will supply you a new member.

However the end game is build a ship and escape. I see one big issue with this.

Given there is no faster than light travel, given your colony is not on a horrible waste land and given your colony can defend itself.

Why leave? Why go into suspended animation on another hundred year journey. Why not build, stay, thrive and live there?

I have always been asking myself that. Maybe the game needs some kind of â€žeconomic victoryâ€œ? If you build a rich enough colony relative to the difficulty level and, say, befriend over half of the factions, you would get a victory screen like you do with the ship... What do you guys think?

elStrages · January 20, 2015, 06:51:47 AM

I would definitely prefer a trade system with a number editor to just bash in your resource amount. Hopefully the reword has covered this.

A solution to the launch sequence my be a global on screen red launch button appears when your ship is constructed

milon · January 20, 2015, 06:59:50 AM

^ Or just add a Launch button to each of the Ship parts, rather than just the AI Core.

elStrages · January 20, 2015, 07:06:29 AM

Quote from: milon on January 20, 2015, 06:59:50 AM
^ Or just add a Launch button to each of the Ship parts, rather than just the AI Core.

Yeah that would work too, but one piece of draw code for the screen is a lot easier to manage than adding in a code line for every part. But this is all speculation. The main point is as your rightfully said, there needs to be a clearer view on the launch

Wolfen Waffle · January 23, 2015, 12:21:10 AM

Quote from: Endoric on January 19, 2015, 09:50:13 AM

However the end game is build a ship and escape. I see one big issue with this.

Given there is no faster than light travel, given your colony is not on a horrible waste land and given your colony can defend itself.

Why leave? Why go into suspended animation on another hundred year journey. Why not build, stay, thrive and live there?

This x1000

Goo Poni · January 23, 2015, 03:46:19 AM

I'm sure there was mention of Tynan contemplating looking into sorting out some end goal or gameplay for those who don't want to leave and instead build their colony. I only hope it doesn't involve ever surmounting raids because you only have to lose one or two people in a raid and it's all downhill from there.