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Unemployment leads to crime and Renegades.
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Jul 12, 2020 18:57
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 21:18 |
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So I finally finished it. Was fun but I don't think I'll do it again. My main base while I was just waiting around to get forests to 100%  Even built the capital just because I was bored.  Fun early and mid-game. Dull waiting around in the late game.
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Jul 13, 2020 13:07
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I’m sad the mod scene never really materialised for this game. I’d love some total conversions.
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Jul 13, 2020 13:12
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GotLag posted:I feel like the vanilla Japanese sponsor is kinda lame. "Drones fly instead of roll" doesn't exactly scream "Japan!" to me. My only real thought is that the issues surrounding the birth rate in Japan is complicated and nuanced, and that the malus you suggest might come across as dismissive or condescending. Whether this would actually bother a lot of people looking at the mod I can't really say. It was just the one thing that stuck out to me.
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Jul 13, 2020 13:30
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You could also give them the Tai Chi garden, perhaps re-named if appropriate rather than making them all hippies. You could also look at the eternal fusion breakthrough. Automated fusion is basically unlimited power but it does fit your theme.
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Jul 13, 2020 13:43
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HiKaizer posted:My only real thought is that the issues surrounding the birth rate in Japan is complicated and nuanced, and that the malus you suggest might come across as dismissive or condescending. That isn't a real thought. Cast_No_Shadow posted:You could also give them the Tai Chi garden, perhaps re-named if appropriate rather than making them all hippies. I've ditched Hippie because it's too broad and the name is out of place for what I want, and instead I'm focusing on the small, efficient, slow-growth colony with a bunch of machines. I'm looking more for a focus on automation and careful selection of a small number of colonists, with slow, steady growth at a managed pace. I wish the breakthroughs system wasn't such a blunt instrument, and that I could make certain breakthroughs more likely to arise without just unlocking their research right at the start. GotLag fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Jul 13, 2020 |
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Jul 13, 2020 17:29
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Speedball posted:Unemployment leads to crime and Renegades. Is it really ‘crime’ if all the necessities of life are provided on ask at zero cost, paid for by a tunnel to the center of the Mars? Cast_No_Shadow posted:You could also give them the Tai Chi garden, perhaps re-named if appropriate rather than making them all hippies. Starts with one Fusion Plant prefab, and the standard-tree tech which reduces the workforce need revealed (and maybe discounted, or just researched if it’s easier)? GotLag posted:That isn't a real thought. GotLag posted:I wish the breakthroughs system wasn't such a blunt instrument, and that I could make certain breakthroughs more likely to arise without just unlocking their research right at the start. Kind of surprised there aren’t hooks in the event system for modders to use, a bunch of the included random events give you breakthroughs or discounts on specific techs and the like.
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Jul 13, 2020 18:24
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GotLag posted:That isn't a real thought. why not? there's a lot more thought behind it than your amazing "Ahh, the Japanese are a notoriously slow-to-breed race" take, dude go with the "older applicants" approach if you want slower growth, on the grounds that you'd have less of a window to suitably raise colonist's comfort
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Jul 13, 2020 20:05
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Inexplicable Humblebrag posted:why not? there's a lot more thought behind it than your amazing "Ahh, the Japanese are a notoriously slow-to-breed race" take, dude I chose my wording poorly in my earlier post, I was talking about the mechanical effect of raising the required comfort. LonsomeSon posted:weighting the applicant pool towards older candidates if possible as an alternative to smaller rockets would have been more of a thoughtful suggestion Inexplicable Humblebrag posted:go with the "older applicants" approach if you want slower growth, on the grounds that you'd have less of a window to suitably raise colonist's comfort It turns out that for slower growth I can directly raise the amount of time required by the colony to produce a child, rather than the comfort threshold. Doing it this way, increased comfort still speeds growth but it still fits the theme of measured growth within the colony's ability to support. However, this will need to be done carefully to a) make sure that growth is still possible without importing more colonists and b) deal with the initial hurdles of low comfort due to lacking research. Maybe an increase in threshold over time? That's certainly doable with the modding interface. GotLag fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jul 13, 2020 |
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Jul 13, 2020 21:52
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LonsomeSon posted:Kind of surprised there aren’t hooks in the event system for modders to use, a bunch of the included random events give you breakthroughs or discounts on specific techs and the like. Breakthroughs are chosen deterministically based on starting coordinates, so the same location will always have the same pool of breakthroughs*. The modding interface provides a simple way for a breakthrough tech to be made available for research (or already researched) at game start, but I don't see an obvious way to mark a breakthrough as being more likely or always going to turn up for a certain sponsor/commander. There's a mod which can disable breakthroughs (and replace them with a random one if they come up), I can have a look and see how they did it. *It will also always have the same tech order, unless you use the Tech Variety rule (shuffles techs within each tree with a higher allowed variation in order than normal) Chaos Theory (shuffles techs randomly within each tree)
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Jul 13, 2020 22:03
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I made a mistake in researching the "all seniors can work and can conceive children" breakthrough. The first part's useful, the second part is terrifyingly powerful. Out of curiosity I forced all domes to not allow babies and let the population drop. When it got down to 900 I let all of them have children again. it took 6 sols, 6. sols. to get back to 1500 colonists. these people are too horny.
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Jul 13, 2020 22:23
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GotLag posted:Because, instead of having an up-front criticism like this, it's insincere posturing laundered behind a layer of "well I'm not saying I'm offended". what
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Jul 13, 2020 22:31
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LonsomeSon posted:Is it really ‘crime’ if all the necessities of life are provided on ask at zero cost, paid for by a tunnel to the center of the Mars? People get bored even if all their other needs are met. That is what the "workshops" are for, they don't actually produce anything tangible but they let people fiddle around editing Wikipedia or doing their personal hobbies. That's what a post-needs society is!
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Jul 14, 2020 00:32
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Speedball posted:People get bored even if all their other needs are met. That is what the "workshops" are for, they don't actually produce anything tangible but they let people fiddle around editing Wikipedia or doing their personal hobbies. That's what a post-needs society is! My only real wish is that there was tech to automate everything BUT workshops. Go truly post scarcity. You can do most of it with the right breakthroughs; mines can be automated, the mohole requires no crew, service jobs can be automated, research can't be automated but has ways to get it without research buildings, farming has outdoor farms which are automated. The only part that can't be automated is the factories, so you always have this underclass of luckless workers. I need an expansion that's just an automated factories breakthrough and space trains. (Or what might be really neat and actually in the scope for an expansion, have ocean areas actually slowly flood, and the domes there just stay up even when the atmosphere is breathable for underwater colonies.)
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Jul 14, 2020 00:37
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Log082 posted:I need an expansion that's just an automated factories breakthrough and space trains. (Or what might be really neat and actually in the scope for an expansion, have ocean areas actually slowly flood, and the domes there just stay up even when the atmosphere is breathable for underwater colonies.) Factorio but with cleaner machines and colonists to pamper?
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Jul 14, 2020 01:45
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Speedball posted:People get bored even if all their other needs are met. That is what the "workshops" are for, they don't actually produce anything tangible but they let people fiddle around editing Wikipedia or doing their personal hobbies. That's what a post-needs society is! What the game really needs is, like, some consequence for having Renegades which doesn’t end at “sometimes someone steals enough tofu to feed a family for a week, or an equivalent mass of Rare Metals worth $40b” Count how much poo poo Renegades have stolen in the background and then procedurally generate an adversary event or something based on the amount and proportions. Renegades have built a Frankendrone! Renegades convinced your ag dome to produce only Cover Crops!
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Jul 14, 2020 01:54
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Frostpunk has that sort of thing. Which is how I ended up my cookhouses operating at 50% efficiency during the final storm, as the towering steam-powered automatons operating the kitchens were stealing food for their families
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Jul 14, 2020 02:01
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Some sort of concept of your overall society would be nice, especially with high population numbers it'd be nice to be able to aim for some particular kind of society, so unemployment can either exist to depress wages for the corporate martian dystopia or it could mean everyone spends their time doing art or loving around at the beach. But that's outside the scope of the game really, as fun as it would be to have the choice between selling people natural air in a can or creating some sort of martian eden for everyone.
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Jul 14, 2020 02:08
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GotLag posted:Because, instead of having an up-front criticism like this, it's insincere posturing laundered behind a layer of "well I'm not saying I'm offended".
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Jul 14, 2020 02:27
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A good mod would be rough population controls. Just a set of buttons for growth, stability and decline that automatically control births (within a % range maybe) without having to constantly watch the number and piss about with individual domes. SM's biggest problem is pacing in my opinion and births play into that a lot.
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Jul 14, 2020 07:09
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Regardless of how you feel, a birth rate "malus" in this game is actually a good thing.
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Jul 14, 2020 10:28
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dogstile posted:Regardless of how you feel, a birth rate "malus" in this game is actually a good thing. Tying it to an ethnicity however is, guess what; racist.
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Jul 14, 2020 10:57
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ThisIsJohnWayne posted:Tying it to an ethnicity however is, guess what; More or less racist than the current specialisation bonus they get for being Japanese? "Of course they're smarter and more productive, they're Japanese" doesn't sound good either.
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Jul 14, 2020 11:25
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Worth noting that each country isn't necessarily a reflection of the ethnicity, but rather of the program that that country might send up and what they might emphasize. A malus to growth can be just as simple as the mission overview saying that "Hey, you should focus on not having kids until you are well sorted. Instead, focus on establishing yourselves, especially with the fancy automated equipment we have." Fewer applicants can be stricter hiring standards (hence smarter and more productive), while more applicants can be press-ganging people into rockets and sending them off to Mars with or without their consent. Keep in mind that all of the country specific missions have goals that are attached to them. Some emphasize population growth, others emphasize industrial output, etc.
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Jul 14, 2020 11:53
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OwlFancier posted:Some sort of concept of your overall society would be nice, especially with high population numbers it'd be nice to be able to aim for some particular kind of society, so unemployment can either exist to depress wages for the corporate martian dystopia or it could mean everyone spends their time doing art or loving around at the beach. Yeah, sadly I think they're done with Surviving Mars unless they're going straight to a sequel. I would have liked less utopian 60's stuff and more Frostpunk style horrific dystopia you're trying to deal with and overcome. Masses of colonists needed to work the mines early on with little to no radiation shielding causes you to start growing a mutant population while your experts live in the domed cities. The game is good but I don't like the presentation at all.
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Jul 14, 2020 12:09
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ThisIsJohnWayne posted:Tying it to an ethnicity however is, guess what; Yeah but who's doing that?
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Jul 14, 2020 13:48
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I don't think they're working on a sequel in the near future as they're making Surviving the Aftermath currently. The issue for me is that the colony survival aspect is either half of the complexity I wanted or is half of the game I wanted about making a civilisation on Mars. But it's not going to be more and at least what it is in this end form is enjoyable. I just end up playing it once in a while and back again later for a fun zen little colony building game. The radio helps me replay it more than Planetbase though as Survivng Mars has a really pleasant soundtrack.
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Jul 14, 2020 13:48
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Surviving the Aftermath is actually a different studio, they just licensed them the name and apparently ‘Surviving’ is being made a franchise. It’s a little weird and confusing.
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Jul 14, 2020 14:24
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I appreciate that the dystopian poo poo in this game, like Senior Starvation/Suffocation domes, is presented completely without comment as the product of the intersection between various game rules and systems. That, and its dichotomy with the relentlessly retro-futurist aesthetic, are real loving appealing to me. That said, there is definitely that slick, static, lifeless maybe tinge that the aesthetic brings to the gameplay. A waiting period would be more interesting, especially if you’re dual-screening other stuff, if there was at least more visually going on. An effect similar in principle to the procedurally generated street and ship traffic scenery which Anno games use to bring your town to life. There’s some of this if you zoom in very closely, but I’d like little ultralights and dune buggies tooling around my rock formations, stuff you can see from the max zoom, and might get hints of on the sector map. poo poo, Anno-type citizen missions which reward, like, X% less resource consumption for Y% of your population, or all pops with this trait. Or grant temporary mitigation/immunity to Flaw effects, or buff Perk effects, bulk up your colonist pool/give you applicants with good traits. Tropico has its own flavor of this, even, I wonder if something conceptually similar to my ideas-enby ramblings was attempted and cut for time?
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Jul 14, 2020 16:18
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Log082 posted:I need an expansion that's just an automated factories breakthrough and space trains. (Or what might be really neat and actually in the scope for an expansion, have ocean areas actually slowly flood, and the domes there just stay up even when the atmosphere is breathable for underwater colonies.) One of Silva's excellent mods has automated factories. Don't produce as much as a fully-staffed main factory, but they're always on and always making stuff. Little expensive to build one since they require electronics (for balance purposes) but definitely worth it.
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Jul 15, 2020 11:40
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Speedball posted:One of Silva's excellent mods has automated factories. Don't produce as much as a fully-staffed main factory, but they're always on and always making stuff. Little expensive to build one since they require electronics (for balance purposes) but definitely worth it. Thanks for introducing me to this, has a nice Red Mars early chapters kind of vibe
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Jul 15, 2020 14:48
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GotLag posted:Thanks for introducing me to this, has a nice Red Mars early chapters kind of vibe Most of Silva's mods are pretty great. I haven't enabled the one that gives out a mini-questline but stuff like the movie theater with custom graphics he made are pretty nifty. There's also a power plant staffed by *geologists,* not engineers, because it's a geothermal power plant that also produces some atmosphere. Gives your geodudes something to do when they're not mining.
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Jul 15, 2020 19:10
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Speedball posted:Most of Silva's mods are pretty great. I haven't enabled the one that gives out a mini-questline but stuff like the movie theater with custom graphics he made are pretty nifty. Now that I think of it, why aren't there wood burning power plants slash GHG producers?
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Jul 15, 2020 19:57
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Splicer posted:Now that I think of it, why aren't there wood burning power plants slash GHG producers? That defeats the purpose of planting trees, which is to remove carbon from the atmosphere.
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Jul 16, 2020 00:49
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One time I started out in an area with big nasty dust storms and dust devils on the regular, and one of the first random events that happened was a guy gave me a will with a couple of choose-your-own-breakthroughs in it. I chose the one that gave me "superior pipes" and "superior cables" so those drat dust storms would stop making my infrastructure leak all the time. Worth it.
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Jul 16, 2020 21:32
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Agreed about Silva's mods, his buildings are pretty well-balanced and tend to fit their niches quite well. Another good modder to check out is ChoGGi, most of his stuff are tweaks you can add to adjust the difficulty however you like.
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Jul 16, 2020 21:58
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Heartily recommend ChoGGi, I can't remember what's native and what's his mods anymore. One word of warning, his "big rover icons on the map screen" mod is bugged and makes them travel over the overmap at the same pixels per second as the normal mapGotLag posted:That defeats the purpose of planting trees, which is to remove carbon from the atmosphere.
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Jul 16, 2020 22:04
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:So I finally finished it. That was my feeling as well once I fully terraformed Mars. Normally I'll dump hundreds of hours into a sandbox game without blinking but once I "beat" this game I haven't gone back since.
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Jul 20, 2020 03:52
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frogge posted:That was my feeling as well once I fully terraformed Mars. Normally I'll dump hundreds of hours into a sandbox game without blinking but once I "beat" this game I haven't gone back since. Yeah, I think it comes down to a couple of things. 1) There isn't much different between games. You lay down the basics, baby your first humans, get the 3 advance materials going, deal with the baby boom and then if you use that extra population to ramp up production you then just coast to the end. Nothing really changes that. It always happens in that order. Maps don't change anything but base layout which is almost purely aesthetic. 2) The actual management and systems are really simple and there isn't much nuance. There isn't real competition for resources or even real bottlenecks once you get the game. Supply and logistics are simplistic, chains of resources are 1 deep, its easy to keep people happy, logistics are just "place more hubs/shuttles". When you get to the end I ended up thinking the game is really shallow. It would be like if Oxygen Not included ended after you figured out your first SPOM.
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Jul 20, 2020 15:57
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I've exhausted the concrete in range of my starting hub. How do I expand to another deposit without just daisy-chaining drone hubs with depot(s) in the overlapping areas? I'm assuming I build a drone hub at the remote location, with a universal depot set to only request the resources needed for maintenance of that site (electronics for the hub, machine parts for the concrete mine), but how do I get the stuff back to the main base? Are shuttles going to pick it up the mine products or do they need a consumer that requests it?
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Jul 20, 2020 18:59
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