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Housing complexes are ever so slightly more space efficient when you line them up in double rows, but it really is mostly an aesthetics choice. They tend to create a more varied and open city plan, while standard houses create extremely dense blocks or can be used to handcraft areas with more granularity. Housing complexes are also cheaper to build and upgrade than an equivalent capacity in standard houses IIRC.
Magni fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 2, 2022 12:57
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Feldspar is half the Earth's crust by weight, so if you need an industrial quantity of it, you're basically taking a mountain and chunking it into whatever size blocks you require. The mountain isn't overburden hiding a seam, it itself is the object you want, so tunnel mining it doesn't make sense.
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Jan 2, 2022 14:45
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HiKaizer posted:As we shall soon see, nuclear reactors, bad. Tactical nukes? Totally a-ok! Tehan posted:'Corporate security vessels' is one hell of a phrase. I probably should have mentioned that Esperanza has a private war fleet and nuclear arsenal, yeah. No one comments on it as being anything out of the ordinary beyond the achievement "The Hague Called." Which is from a DLC, not even the base game.
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Jan 2, 2022 17:55
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It's pretty funny to imagine a factory making weapons grade uranium and plutonium while they carefully make sure that their methods don't generate any exploitable energy.
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Jan 3, 2022 02:15
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SIGSEGV posted:It's pretty funny to imagine a factory making weapons grade uranium and plutonium while they carefully make sure that their methods don't generate any exploitable energy. Given how explosive nuclear reactors are in Anno-verse that seems like basic industrial safety. 
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Jan 3, 2022 03:05
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Heck yeah moon cobra. he's dumb enough that you can make up whatever deep lore you like and it's plausible
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Jan 3, 2022 14:40
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FYI I'm like 66% sure that the infodrome (and its ilk further up the tech tree) work like the logistics warehouse do: things closer to it take less of its "resource", meaning it gets used more effectively. At least, I have distinct memories of monkeying around with positioning the metro complex and managing to turn -5 deficits into breaking even.SIGSEGV posted:I'm guessing there's a reason such as "turbines hosed, spillway hosed, so no draining the lake easily and no changing the turbines easily either" with possibly some structural complications waiting in the wings. Oh, the way the dam is setup in this level doesn't make an ounce of sense. It's literally just a hole - there's elevation on all sides with no outlet for the water. I can only assume that Lei Sheng tried digging a borehole to the mantle in the middle of the ocean for some reason and when that didn't work tried installing the dam to make up for the wasted effort. I'm guessing it was originally supposed to drain out the northeast edge of the map and the art team changed the map without consulting anyone who understands how water works. You can almost see it in this screenshot: quote:President Ark fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 05:46
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In fact, I just booted up the game and started a new corp in wallbruck just to show off the insanity. All three dams drain into this little basin - you can see one in the distance and the other two on the left and right edges. There's no outlet. Where's the water going?!  
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Jan 4, 2022 05:58
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President Ark posted:In fact, I just booted up the game and started a new corp in wallbruck just to show off the insanity. All three dams drain into this little basin - you can see one in the distance and the other two on the left and right edges. There's no outlet. Where's the water going?! Hollow Earth.
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Jan 4, 2022 09:24
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That or the weirdest subterranean cave system ever.
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Jan 4, 2022 11:31
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A particularly powerful aquifer draining away underground towards a lower lying area.
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Jan 4, 2022 11:41
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Future Earth is just a sphere of Swiss cheese
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Jan 5, 2022 19:45
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The Nuclear Option Today's update will be done completely out of character and cover our first Crisis Sector. To access the Crisis Sector, from the global map there's a glowing red sector. That's our destination today.  Crisis Sectors are one of the more controversial parts of Anno 2205. They were born of Blue Byte noticing how many people were playing Anno 2070: as pacifists. They would play only with non-expanding AIs or just the most peaceful ones, avoid missions requiring combat, and not build warships. They just wanted to build. This is also, funnily enough, mostly how I did my Anno 2070 LP. So Blue Byte decided to make combat almost entirely optional, locking combat off behind Crisis Sectors as its own separate minigame. Minus this very first Crisis Sector, and as we'll see this one's basically impossible to lose, you will never be required to fight anyone in 2205. When the plot introduces new Crisis Sectors in the future, you will also have an option to simply hit a new population threshold in your empire and skip it. What went wrong? Well, look at the 'Minimum Rewards.' 2205's one big patch rebalanced things, but Crisis Sectors were originally one of the main ways to get rare resources - think something along the licenses in 2070. Rare resources can be gained by quests and sector projects (if we'd started in Cape Ambar or Wildwater Bay, their sector projects generate rare resources as a reward), but Crisis Sectors were (not so much anymore) by far the most efficient source of these resources. Players who wanted lots of these resources, and the game will have a huge appetite for them, felt compelled to grind Crisis Sectors even though they hated the combat gameplay. I was not one of these people, I actually enjoy Crisis Sectors and will fight out every single one in the story. The balance patch hit eventually, though, and rewards were significantly rebalanced while optional sector invasions were added to the regular sectors for more combat if you want to have that on.  When I first played 2205, I assumed that all these Orbital Watch ships were all unmanned drones. Get some robotic factories down there, build automated ships, seems workable enough. Except a much later Crisis Sector will explicitly say no, these ships are all fully crewed. How a lunar independence movement assembled an enormous high-tech oceangoing navy on Earth strong enough to take on terrestrial militaries, I leave as an exercise for the reader.  For this first mission, we have three ships available. From left to right: The Spark is fast but fragile, and fires an energy projectile that chains to up to three targets. The Turtle has medium speed and armor, but low damage. It fires missiles that fly just above the water. The Titan is slow and extremely durable, with powerful long-range missiles that fire in an arc and so can fire over obstacles. Behind our squadron is Rafferty's ship, exclusive to this mission barring later shenanigans with DLC. He'll follow behind the Titan and heal damaged ships for free - this is what makes this mission almost impossible to lose as long as you aren't completely reckless.  Every Crisis Sector has three sidequests, marked on the minimap. Look for the glowing V symbol. These quests are universally kill X number of Y types of enemy ship, deliver some booster items, find objects on the map, or use certain powers. This lady, for example, wants me to use EMP four times. This will not be an issue. These sidequests all give combat experience, used for leveling up your ships, and can give money or rare resources.   The blue dots are fuel pickups, used to power various special abilities, you can see the bar on the bottom center of the screen. Ships pick up fuel automatically, and won't pick up fuel if you're at cap.   The glowing red things in the water are mines. They go up from a single hit from anything and damage everything, friend or foe, in an area. Mines are almost always laid in a pattern encouraging you to set off a chain reaction with a ship that can hit them from outside the blast radius, like the Titan. This chain reaction even catches and destroys the nearby defense tower. Only the Titan and ships we'll see later have the range to do this safely, and mines do inflict a nasty chunk of damage if you're careless. Defense towers are very weak in any event, and don't do much damage.  These small enemy ships are Chargers. They're cannon fodder and do nothing of note. Also take note of the red box, this is our first collectable powerup. There are three types: red, blue, and green, and you can hold up to three of each at a time.  The larger ship here is a Bombard, it has a range equal to the Titan and longer than the Turtle and Spark, and can take much more damage than Chargers.  These are Bomb Drones, unmanned suicide bombers that are very fragile and do a lot of damage if they hit. I'm not confident in the starter fleet's ability to safely destroy them with brute force, so time to get started on a quest and use our first powerup, the EMP.   EMP is generally the most useful powerup of the lot. It hits instantly, disables all ships in the area, and deals damage over time. By itself it will destroy Bomb Drones and Chargers, and is great for shutting down big ships temporarily. And no, there are not diminishing returns.  The green beam here is Rafferty healing my Turtle. Seawalls are harmless in themselves, and destroying a single section causes a chain reaction to destroy all the wall sections.   Keep an eye out for these black structures on the shore. They explode into rare resource pickups when you destroy them.  This Bombard is being escorted by a Defender. Defenders are annoying, they heal other enemy ships and can give them energy shields to absorb damage. I elect to nuke them.  Missile Barrage, the red powerup, fires a trio of what the game explicitly calls tactical nuclear missiles at the target. It's surprisingly underwhelming: the three missiles hit in a staggered pattern within a general area, there's no guarantee of any ship in the area getting hit by all three and the damage is actually not great. Nukes are more for deleting large groups of weak enemies, or softening up groups of harder targets.  These submarines are Hunters, and they deal the most sustained damage of any 'regular' ship in Crisis Sectors but are fairly fragile. I let fly with more nukes.  The black dots in the water on the left are turrets. They're fragile and don't do much damage.   Behold the first and probably last time I'll use a Wave Mine in this LP. It's the first fuel power, dealing a pittance of damage and knocking enemy ships around. It's almost entirely worthless.  Heavy towers have a lot of HP and deal a lot of damage, too. Right now I don't have the tools to deal with this cleanly, but with Rafferty around brute force works fine.  While dealing with another heavy tower, plus bomb drones and a hunter, I activate the second fuel power: Defense Shield. This is the most useful of the fuel powers: it temporarily gives every ship in the area a lot of ablative HP, and this is far more efficient than the final fuel power we won't see this update, which is an area heal. Proactively absorbing damage is better than reactively healing it.  The final box powerup is Support Fleet, which summons a group of submarines from the deep. Seals, as the game calls them, are fragile but put out a respectable amount of damage and are great extra damage or meat shields. They also don't go away, and will patrol in a fairly large radius after you summon them.  Each Crisis Sector has a different objective, and Prycomber Barricade's is eliminating these destroyers to rescue the cargo ship. Support powers don't do friendly fire, so there's no reason to not throw everything at the finale.   And that's a wrap. The cargo ship is none the worse for all the nukes and EMP that just went off around it.  That's the first Crisis Sector. We got enough military XP to rank up the Titan and Turtle, but not enough to unlock more ships, plus some goodies. I will not be showing off every Crisis Sector I do in the future, just the plot-mandated ones.
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Jan 5, 2022 23:57
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The combat sectors were one reason why I never thought that Virgil was truly some idealistic if extremist freedom fighter. He just has navies and infrastructure ready on the Earth. It always felt to me like he was a megalomaniac looking for a cause to attach himself to add justification. He's also just a bit too well resourced and finances it feels. I didn't really object to the combat sectors at launch myself. They weren't too obtrusive being cordoned off, and also you her rewards for leveling up so you can go through a lot of the game without having to have touched them for the rare resources. It was a rude shock to play 1800 and suddenly have to deal with Anne Harlow plundering my trade ships. I played without any AI for ages.
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Jan 6, 2022 00:42
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Also, something pretty common once you get later in the game is that buildings at the higher end of the tech tree get really expensive, so the crisis sectors can just be a good way to kill some time while you're waiting for your income to tick up so you can affort something. The cash infusions from ranking your corp up help, but sometimes you hit an awkward spot where you're just shy of that and need to wait a bit.
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Jan 6, 2022 01:38
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I am glad to have seen the bright side of nuclear power this time around. (I am always a little sad when a game picks a combat style that doesn't exploit its setting much, but I understand that it would be non trivial to implement missile screening and defense boats and carriers / offensive missile ships and other specialists. Also it isn't like in 1800 when the more modern ships are monitors and battlecruisers, which aren't really the defining elements of late 1800, early 1900 naval warfare.)
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Jan 6, 2022 02:29
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Virgil is an op the global union covertly supports as a way to discredit opposition to their system, it's the only way he can afford a navy tbh also wave mines rule, yes they're useless 9 times out of 10 but the 1 time your knocking a squadron of ships into to pack of mines
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Jan 6, 2022 07:06
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For reference the Titan isn't just your Big Chonky Ship, it's your Flagship. I'm pretty sure losing it triggers a Game Over on the mission, if not then it does something like prevents all powerups from being used. Also I think the Turtle (and other ships like it) are technically supposed to be using torpedoes since, well, you're facing the submarines from 2070. Just don't ask how that torpedo flies out of the water to hit turrets and resource stashes on land. The Hunters are basically the attack submarines from 2070, and the backup fleet are made of armed versions of the (small) trade submarines from 2070 (Sadly, the chonker submarine didn't seem to make it into 2205 as far as I know). As the trade grows in your sectors (and there will be trade: it's not really a spoiler to say so in an Anno game) the player will see a lot of returning models from 2070 in the trade fleets. And yeah, for those who never played this game: this is why Virgil is also known as Cobra Commander. Dude sits up on the moon and somehow has the resources to build and man infinite naval fleets on Earth HiKaizer posted:The combat sectors were one reason why I never thought that Virgil was truly some idealistic if extremist freedom fighter. He just has navies and infrastructure ready on the Earth. It always felt to me like he was a megalomaniac looking for a cause to attach himself to add justification. He's also just a bit too well resourced and finances it feels. The pirates in 1800 wouldn't be so bad if their AIs weren't so good at avoiding player ships trying to cull their fleets a bit. It doesn't help one bit that the pirate versions of ships are all stronger and faster than their standard equivalents.
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Jan 6, 2022 08:24
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SIGSEGV posted:(I am always a little sad when a game picks a combat style that doesn't exploit its setting much, but I understand that it would be non trivial to implement missile screening and defense boats and carriers / offensive missile ships and other specialists. Also it isn't like in 1800 when the more modern ships are monitors and battlecruisers, which aren't really the defining elements of late 1800, early 1900 naval warfare.) Alkydere posted:Also I think the Turtle (and other ships like it) are technically supposed to be using torpedoes since, well, you're facing the submarines from 2070. Personally, I suspect that 2205 was envisioned as having a more involved combat system than we got. Turtles fire torpedoes, the guns on Sparks look like anti-aircraft guns, and the Titan is dotted with visible turrets for secondary weapons or CIWS that it never uses. We'll also see later that there are combat aircraft in this game, they're just not in the crisis sectors.
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Jan 6, 2022 20:33
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Modular Development  Combat operations on the trade route have successfully concluded. At the Union's request, Esperanza's corporate security is remaining on standby alert.(There's a hidden and semi-random timer before a Crisis Sector becomes active again)  Confirming from Walbruk Basin, the spaceport is ready for operations.   Confirmed. We are online with Station Lem. Uplink between local infrastructure operations and Global Union transit net online. Data channels are clean.(This is a major milestone in Anno 2205 - completing this step of the campaign unlocks one of the game's big twists on the Anno formula.)  (Namely, building modules. These are add-ons to your production and manufacturing facilities. Available to most are: Drone Hive: Reduces workforce requirement by 10% Power Accumulator: Reduces energy consumption by 10% Logistics Depot: Reduces logistics cost by 2. Power plants, instead of power accumulators, instead have Finance Calculators, reducing maintenance costs by 10%. You can have up to five of these modules, in any combination, on a given building, and multiple modules of a type stack additively. I'm actually not going to be making any of these just yet, these modules are expensive and nothing in our empire as yet has requirements to make the savings appreciable. However, you can also add production modules. A building can have four of these, and they act somewhat like the fields of other games except that they're explicitly an addition to the base structure rather than a requirement. Production modules are always more efficient economically than building a new farm or factory, as you can see here adding a new rice field increases food production by 180% while only increasing maintenance costs by 90%.)  (One rice farm with two modules produces more organic food than four rice farms! It does take up more space, though, which will be a feature of some of these production modules. There are different flavors of efficiency.)  (Anno 2205 cities tend to end up with a lot of awkward space space around the edges and corners.)  (This, however, is one of the most important uses of production modules: coastal and mining sites can support additional production modules without consuming more sites!)  Alert. Esperanza has acquired the license to begin production of their own rejuvenators. This is merely the basic version provided at clinics as part of normal health screenings, not the full treatment plan. Algae farming has commenced.(Algae farms need coastal slots, no underwater production in this game, though datamining has hinted that 2205 was at one point envisioned to have underwater sectors or underwater areas in regular sectors like this. Obsidian, platinum, and kelp were all mentioned as resources, though the one big patch the game received removed these and other hints at what might have been that dataminers found.)  (Don't expect detailed efficiency plans from here on out, modules kind of ruin the math on that. You can count on me typically producing a slight excess of various goods when production and consumption don't quite match up. This is a Synthcell Incubator, which makes Synthcells from Algae.)  Industrial biomedical laboratory online. Algae -> synthcell -> rejuvenator production chain online. Output nominal. Corporate development proceeding on schedule. Local expansion of Esperanza's operations has met the demands of Lei Sheng's finance department.  Alert. Traffic in Walbruk Basin from non-local sources increasing.(Reaching this point in the story also triggers sidequests, which I'll be almost completely ignoring for the LP. It's the usual nonsense, though sidequests can reward rare materials in addition to basic goods and credits.)  Local analysis of the Lei Sheng dam failure: outdated construction technology and materials. Modern bioplastics will finish the dam's construction above original estimates.   Confirmed. Dam One now online. The relationship between Esperanza and Lei Sheng should be watched closely, in my estimate. A partnership between the leading aerospace corporation of the Little Twelve and the faltering energy corporation of the Big Five - or an outright acquisition of the former by the latter - bears monitoring.(Enjoy that +1,000 power! Now to immediately take up half of that boon...)   Alert. Esperanza has completed a local space launch facility in Walbruk Basin. Receiving new uplink to Corvus Station...(It's time to go to space! This is a DLC for the game, the orbital space station. You start with the space station by building a shuttle pad like this, which will regularly supply the station with new astronauts at a speed based on the population density around the pad. The efficiency is rather poor in this case, but it's worth it to get a foothold in orbit.)   (At its heart, Orbit is a layout optimization puzzle. We don't yet have the resources to do much here, but what we can do will be helpful.)  (The core of the space station are the labs you build, and what kinds of labs you can build depends on where you build shuttle pads. Right now all we can build is a single agriculture lab. Labs provide lightbulbs, and provide more based on a variety of factors you can see - our astronauts are short-staffed thanks to the low population density around the shuttle pad in Walbruk Basin, there are resources we can ship in to the station, and there are station facilities we can build that have to be adjacent to this lab.)  (Lightbulbs power your research, and your total research capabilities are determined by the number and type of labs you have available. Labs, and research, are divided into six trees that all follow a pattern. Right now the only tech we can unlock is Mutation Optimizer, which increases the output of all our agricultural buildings by 10%. For reference, right now this means rice farms, fruit orchards, vitamin factories, and algae farms. By acquiring this technology - which we can unselect later - we also start unlocking the two adjacent nodes, which will gain us additional modules on the space station. These station nodes stay permanently unlocked once you have them, they just take time.)  (I'll dig more into Orbit as more options and technologies become online.)  (We've also developed enough in Walbruk Basin for Erica's service need, security.)  (Security centers work just like infodromes.)  (You'd think we could ascend Erica, but what's this? She has a need we can't meet in Walbruk Basin...)   (Game pretty.)   Our next step towards the moon lies in the arctic! So tell me, goons, where are we heading? As before, ignore the sector effects. Akia Floes is just kind of the best. Building space in the arctic is a bit limited, but Akia has the most, the most coastal slots, plenty of mountain slots, and a sector project that will award lots of logistics capacity. Ikkuma Glacier has the least building space, but the most mountain slots and plenty of coastal slots, and has a sector project for rare materials. Kinngait Protectorate has the least mountain and coast slots, but it does have the welcome perk of its landmass being concentrated on two large islands. The sector project here is purely cosmetic.
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Jan 8, 2022 15:36
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Since Akia Floes is apparently just the best... No real reason to make things harder for you. By the way, is there a way of getting access to the other maps and their projects and slots at some point?
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Jan 8, 2022 17:58
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SIGSEGV posted:By the way, is there a way of getting access to the other maps and their projects and slots at some point? There is, I just haven't had a need to do so yet. I haven't even left the starting island in Walbruk Basin yet.
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Jan 8, 2022 18:00
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That's reassuring, the idea of leaving a big project behind would make me go a bit batty in a game like this.
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Jan 8, 2022 18:12
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Time for Akia Floes, because that ought to be funner.
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Jan 8, 2022 19:40
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I like Glaciers so go for Ikkuma
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Jan 8, 2022 23:27
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To clarify: They eventually let you buy the other sectors you didn't pick, it just costs an arm and a leg (on the scale of $millions).
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Jan 9, 2022 00:39
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Akia Floes. If this was a showoff LP working at maximum challenge I'd vote differently, but chillmode is chillmode.
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Jan 9, 2022 00:52
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The cosmetic sector is interesting as it does give a little more background on the Global Trust, but as with cosmetics in this game it's just...not worth it. As for the module system, I love it. The generic modules not so much (Until you earn the special versions of them) but growing your network via the main modules is definitely nice. For reference, each expansion module (i.e.: a mine or factory or extra field) is twice as efficient as the original building. Some modules are bigger than the main building, some are smaller...and they give varying amounts of productivity (some will give something like +50% productivity while some will give +125% productivity), however every point of productivity only costs half the cash, logistics and workforce that building a new main factory would. So for example if the expansion module gave +100 efficiency on the dot, then building 2 modules would have the entire building generating at 300% efficiency but only costing 200% upkeep (100+50+50). So you'd be getting the production of 3 main buildings but only at the cost of 2. It was definitely an interesting puzzle when the game came out: all of the modules cost rare materials. Graphene for the Temperate zone, with the Polar and Lunar zones requiring their own, and the generic modules (drone hives, extra storage, power cells, finance computers) cost Irridium. So you would obviously want the modules for a more efficient production chain but you wouldn't necessarily be able to afford them. I actually kind of liked the puzzle of that balance but I also understand that (especially in the later game) it got annoying for the player to get their hands on enough rare materials if they didn't actively like the combat zones. It also caused the "Produces special resources" zones to be heavily over-valued as they were clearly the best zones to set up in. Personally while I understand the decision to change module construction to just construction materials I would like the option to switch back to something resembling the old balance. Oh also, just to gently caress with the player they love to also give the buildings and modules shapes like this: Trying to efficiently tile biomed factories and their modules make me lose my mind.
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Jan 9, 2022 01:46
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Putting down a vote for Akia Floes
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Jan 9, 2022 07:39
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I always love arctic biomes, and Ikkuma Glacier sounds like it would be the most visually appealing.
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Jan 9, 2022 08:14
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Alkydere posted:Trying to efficiently tile biomed factories and their modules make me lose my mind. Some of the later factories are violence against the players for sure. I vote for Ikuma Glacier because there's that annoying period where you don't have enough glaciers for your heat and energy needs, so having more mountain slots is good.
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Jan 9, 2022 09:19
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Current sector votes: Akia Floes: 4 Ikkuma Glacier: 3 Y'all don't seriously need to worry about going easy on me, I can make the game work in any sector.  I'll probably start working on the next update tomorrow night, I've found myself with more time for 2205 than I'd expected to have when I started this project.In the meantime, have a couple more pretty shots of the city in progress.  2205's wind turbines use a much more futuristic design than 2070's. In a welcome perk, building extra turbines (production modules) doesn't increase the exclusion zone around the original turbine. The support module in the corner is a finance calculator, which I assume is lingo for an on-site data server to manage operations locally rather than needing to offload data management to another site, thus explaining the reduction in maintenance costs in exchange for the up front installation price.  Once you complete the first Crisis Sector, the Titan docks at the trade harbor and serves as a shortcut to the fleet management window. Despite all the gun turrets, none of them move or fire, ever, and the Titan only uses the forward rocket battery. The aft rocket battery is likewise purely for show.
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Jan 9, 2022 21:42
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Come on, folks, vote for the nice glacier instead of the boring optimal place
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Jan 9, 2022 21:46
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I'll toss in my vote for Ikkuma Glacier. Go ice!
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Jan 9, 2022 21:58
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Ikkuma Glacier Sounds good to me too
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Jan 9, 2022 22:14
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Ikkuma Glacier
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Jan 9, 2022 22:20
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I'll vote for the glacier, since I haven't seen that yet. That said, I hate dealing with the arctic zones gimmick, hopefully you can show me a better method.
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Jan 10, 2022 11:27
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Okay, calling it for Ikkuma Glacier. I'll record the update tonight. Here's a random tidbit, all the Temperate Zone sector traits you might roll and my thoughts on each: High Humidity: Agriculture buildings Energy consumption -30%, Electronics buildings Maintenance cost +15% This is an active detriment. Yes, energy can be at a premium in this game, but Agriculture buildings tend to not consume much in the first place and the maintenance cost hike for Electronics buildings is painful. Trade Winds: Windpark Energy production +50% This is what I got for Walbruk Basin, and while it's not quite as useful in Walbruk as it is in any other sector, this is a huge leg up in the early game when you're dependent on wind power. Probably worth rerolling once you have fusion power online, though. Strong Currents: Tidal Power Station Energy production +20% This is another good one, with more long-term power than Trade Winds, possibly worth keeping for the whole game. Tidal Power Stations are expensive and take up coastal slots, but they can produce a lot of Energy and this only makes them more efficient. King Tides: Tidal Power Station Energy production +30%, Desalinization Plant and Algae Farm production -15% Not as good as Strong Currents, a +10% to tidal power production in exchange for -15% to your other coastal buildings isn't worth it, and you'll need huge amounts of water as the game goes on. Magma Chamber: Robot Assembly Hall credit Maintenance -20% Too specialized to make much of a difference. Yes, robot assembly halls cost a decent chunk to operate in the early game but you're unlikely to be building enough of them for this to make a meaningful difference. Terra Preta: Agriculture buildings production +10% Simple and effective. It's not a big bonus, but it stacks additively with similar bonuses like the Mutation Optimizer I've unlocked with research. Every little bit helps. Sun Exposure: Sunflower Farm credit Maintenance -20% Like Magma Chamber, too specialized and sunflower farms are cheap anyway. Deep Feldspar Deposits: Feldspar Quarry production +20% Once again, too specialized. You won't need much feldspar under normal circumstances. Deep Cobalt Deposits: Cobalt Mine production +20% See above, same deal. Ocean Nourishment: Coastal buildings production +10% This is an interesting one, as it benefits both energy production via tidal power and water and algae production. Possibly the best long-term bonus if you don't have a specific need. Low Salinity: Desalinization Plant production +20% This is good. Late-game cities drink huge amounts of water and this helps towards that end. Cultivated Minerals: Mine production +10% Another good one that gets better later in the game even if it is a small bonus. We've already seen every coastal slot in the temperate zone, but later mines get expensive. Compacted Soil: All production facilities Logistics cost -1, Agriculture buildings production -15% Not worth it, at all. And yes, I believe this affects algae farms, too, for whatever reason. Recreational Area: Public needs buildings Maintenance -50%, production buildings production -10% This is great for advanced strategies. You can, in fact, build a huge dedicated city sector and just produce and ship in all their goods needs from other sectors, and this trait is perfect for that play style. I'm not doing that, though, and so I don't think this tradeoff is worth it. Flood Plain: Rice Farm production +30%, Fruit Plantation production -15% This tradeoff is a net benefit. You'll need less rice farms, more fruit plantations, and fruit takes up less room to produce. Still probably not worth getting over one of the other traits, though. Slate Terroir: Vineyard production +30%, Mining buildings Energy consumption +50% Oh hell no. Vineyards are relatively inoffensive when they arrive, maximizing their output isn't a big deal. The added energy costs for mines, however, is painful - extremely so early in the game.
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Jan 10, 2022 16:28
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I will say if you end up with multiple temperate zones, the King Tides and Slate Terroir traits can get pretty good if you specialize. It makes Flood Plane and Recreational pretty powerful. But yeah a lot of these are pretty...bleh. Like, anything involving the construct-o-bots chain (Magma Chamber, Deep Feldspar/Cobalt deposits) aren't worth it because even if you have all of your production in one zone you'll still only have 1, maybe 2 factories and they're so early in the tech chain they're cheap. Feldspar/Cobalt could be good though with the Tundra DLC...I remember it needs one of those resources, I forget which. But that's for a later day when you can re-roll the traits and those are beyond worthless for starting off.
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Jan 10, 2022 20:30
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| # ? May 4, 2024 22:13 |
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Land of the Midnight Sun  While doing a few errands before proceeding with the story, a sidequest popped up with the next member of the Big Five for us to meet. Aidan represents Cassian Industries, and he has a pixel hunt quest. Fortunately, the white outlines for these quests are much easier to spot... in the temperate sector. The crown of the wealthiest megacorporation in the world currently rests with Cassian Industries, the world’s leaders in mineral extraction, refining, and heavy industry. A century ago, Cassian Industries revolutionized deep sea mining. Today, Cassian Industries has launched a program to capture an asteroid for harvesting. With the largest space program in the world, public or private, the future seems brighter still for this India-based fixture of the world economy.…Provided, that is, that Cassian Industries can weather its current political turmoil. Two years ago signaled a changing of the guard at Cassian Industries with the retirement of who many call the greatest financial mind since Skylar Banes, and to date the lack of a clear successor. Though Cassian’s bureaucracy has kept the conglomerate moving, the fracturing of leadership at Cassian Industries has begun to have palpable effects on the corporation. Whether Cassian Industries is on track for its best century ever, or whether the world is about to witness the largest corporate collapse since Global Trust, remains to be seen.   On the global screen, one thing to show before we head into the arctic: the icons on the bottom of the screen let you see a lot of information about all of your sectors at a glance. The temperate goods button brings up a list of all the goods you can currently produce in the temperate sector, and clicking one will show you the current income of that good in each sector you control. Yes, I'm overproducing vitamin drinks quite a bit in Walbruk, this will be relevant at the end of the update.  Goons voted for Ikkuma Glacier. The sector trait I got, Restored Reefs, won't matter in this update or probably the next one, but it's one of the best for the arctic.   However, developing arctic resources may prove... difficult. The arctic latitudes are under the close guard of the Arctic Custodians, one of the last remnants of the old Eden Initiative. Most the Initiative disbanded or went their separate ways after the collapse of Global Trust and termination of SAAT, but the Custodians were a branch dedicated to using the Initiative's weather control technology to stabilize and preserve the arctic climate against the threat of global warming. That they've succeeded and become a recognized member of the Global Union is a testament to, among other things, their stubbornness. I do not anticipate whole-hearted enthusiasm in this operation.    As I understand it from my counterpart with the Custodians, their agreement to the Lunar Licensing Program is based on a simple calculus. The Custodians themselves are a significant drain on the Earth's energy supplies. Modern climate stabilizers are true technological marvels, but they're intensely energy hungry. If the energy inflection point arrives, the Custodians will either have to shut down their own efforts, or open the arctic to development anyway - by choice or otherwise. Selective corporate activity under close supervision promises to be the best of a raft of bad options.   Welcome to the arctic! We start with our spaceport and nothing else - you're free to choose where to make landfall. Ville is 2205's Jorgensen, and is our trader for the arctic.   Uplink to Ikkuma online. Confirming that Esperanza has established operations in the sector. If you've played Anno 1800 or read Alkydere's LP, the big gimmick of the arctic should be familiar. Infrastructure buildings project areas of heat around them, and houses can only be built in areas of warmth.  There's one important thing to understand about developing the arctic: this will not, for most of the game, make you money. Arctic sectors will eventually, once all the needs of all the tiers of citizen are met, make a small profit. Until then, the arctic should be treated as a work camp. You want as little development here as you can get away with.  Registering complaints with Esperanza's OSHA department concerning the design of their aluminum mines. Not my department, thankfully. For now, Esperanza's aluminum mines appear to be for the purposes of construction material. Bioplastic doesn't work well at these temperatures, but aluminum foam is idea for everyday construction purposes in this climate.  Something to note, heavy industry facilities like the aluminum mine and smelter project larger heat areas than agriculture and light industry facilities.  Anno fans may have noticed something: this is the only game in the series where your most basic tier of citizens don't eat fish. Turns out that that's because centuries of overfishing wiped out the ocean's biodiversity and harvestable populations of fish can now only be found in the arctic. Sam Beaumont even chimes in after building your first fishery to observe that she - a high ranking officer in the Global Union - has never eaten a real fish. Fish has become a luxury food for the elite, or people in hardship postings like the arctic.  Fish here also needs to be processed in a cannery before consumption. Important tip for arctic development: production modules give off heat just like the original building. Rather than clustering buildings and modules for efficiency, you'll want to string them out in lines like this so that houses can be built in the heat areas around them.    Alert. Usoyev, Inc presence detected in Ikkuma. They appear to have an interest in the old oil rigs present in the sector and are opening communications with Esperanza. Begin background brief.Usoyev, Inc was once a major subsidiary of Global Trust, and primarily involved in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. When the Fossil Fuel Crisis of 2087 began, Usoyev was also one of the greatest holdouts in favor of oil drilling. Though they eventually abandoned that aspect of their operations as unprofitable, Usoyev successfully integrated many other small subsidiary companies of Global Trust and rebranded themselves as world leaders in not only petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, but advanced medical services and biotechnology. As one of the original Big Four, Usoyev has been a fixture of the world economy ever since. However, Usoyev has never entirely escaped the shadow of its past with Global Trust. The chemical consortium has been the subject of more private lawsuits and official investigations by national governments and NGO powers like the Global Union than any other member of the Big Five for their questionable business practices and persistent rumors of environmental violations and unethical research. To date, none of these suits and investigations have lead to anything but minor offenses, and Usoyev's leadership takes the controversy in stride. Usoyev has profited greatly from the new space race, less so in terms of their own space program (modest for the size of the megacorp) than in their research and developments of fuels, coolants, gas mixes, and countless other technological developments used in space travel. Like it or not, there's no indication that Usoyev is going anywhere but up. Welcome to Ikkuma Glacier's sector project: helping a sleazy Russian megacorp circumvent environmental law to quietly tap old oil rigs for petrochemicals, the arctic's rare resources. Congratulations, goons.  Step one is just finding some oil slicks around the area.  Step two is rather unusual, keeping our population under a certain limit. While this ticks away, I get a move on with the plot.  Remember that first upgrade of the spaceport back in Walbruk? We need to source the materials ourselves in the arctic before we can import materials to or export materials from Ikkuma, but it needs more aluminum foam production than we have. There's a way to fix that.   Alkydere theorized that one reason for the open-pit design of mines in 2205 is to make it more visually interesting when you add production modules. I'm inclined to agree. However, trying to finish the spaceport upgrade triggers a new plot event.      How the hell... Esperanza warships are pulling up anchor now, ma'am. Location? Qannitaq. You approve of military action around the stabilizers, doctor? The Orbital Watch has issued their own demands to the Custodians. I don't like you, but I'm not stupid. Agree to one demand at gunpoint and they'll likely make another. This isn't the first time Esperanza's fleet has faced the Orbital Watch. I'll provide more data as it arrives. It's time for a new Crisis Sector! Do note that this one, and all future Crisis Sectors, are optional. You can simply expand and reach the next population level, which is fluffed as supporting a hacking attack that retakes control of the stabilizer network.   Welcome to Qannitaq Conflict Zone. The goal in this one is to reach one of the compromised climate stabilizers and destroy the three nearby transmitters.  Remember how clicky hunt sidequests outline the clickies in white to make them easier to find? Now the ground is all white. Yeah.  The fleet has a new ship, the Flare. The Flare is an artillery ship and does artillery things. It outranges all static defenses and can destroy them safely.  This Crisis Zone has a new trick: hunters (the attack submarines) will sometimes surface next to your ships from clear water. There's no way to prevent this, and it's an easy way to lose a ship that's on low HP.  Please do not think too hard about the implications of blowing up oil rigs which then spill petrochemicals for us to collect.  For the record, climate stabilizers are just cosmetic and do not react to nuclear weapons detonating nearby.   I never thought about using wave mines to knock ships into mines and detonate them. Thanks for the tip, Agean90!  This large black building is a shipyard and will spit out enemy ships as long as you're nearby. Take it out ASAP.   Combat operations in Qannitaq have concluded successfully. Status? Green. We... owe Esperanza a great deal for their efforts. That's a relief. Where does the Orbital Watch keep getting all these ships from? Virgil Drake's rear end, ma'am. Back to Ikkuma, the next step in the sector project is towing a couple of work boats to the oil rig. I love the ship designs in this game.  Now, I could scale up production...   But I can idle the compression smelter instead to free up production. This does deactivate the heat the smelter emits. Fortunately, 2205 includes a handy button to simply move structures (and rotate them) once you've built them.  Another sidequest shows the newly updated model for the old freight ship from 2070.  While I'm overproducing aluminum, I can sell the surplus to Ville. Like all traders, the goods he's willing to buy change randomly but I got lucky here.    Phase one of the sector project complete. While playing the game, the oil rig will automatically start to fill up with petrochemicals, which I'll be able to click on the rig to collect. Your uplink was interrupted, Liaison. Is there a problem? Unknown. I experienced a brief outage of my neurolink implant's connection to Ikkuma operations. Diagnostics suggest nothing wrong on my end. Hmmm. Interruptions in local networks are not unknown in our territory. Keep me informed if there are future outages.  And with another space elevator completed to a convenient Global Union space station (and yes this will happen in every sector, 2205's orbital lanes must be crowded as hell), we can now trade in and out of Ikkuma.  Speaking of which, it's time to finally take a look at Karen's needs. Canned food, we're already seeing to. Vitamin drinks, we're producing in Walbruk and need to ship in. Neuro Implants, well, those we not only need here but back in Walbruk.  On the global map, Ikkuma is pinging that there's an unfulfilled demand for vitamin drinks. It's one of many little touches that helps you keep an eye on what needs doing in 2205.  Clicking on the New Transfer Route button on the bottom left brings up a list of all goods we can currently produce. Clicking on vitamin drinks shows the balance in every sector we have. Walbruk is producing +13 units of vitamin drinks, and Ikkuma is at a deficit of -3. On the right, you can also see that I can buy vitamin drinks from the world market (read: the AI's rear end, but prices are partially driven by other players via Anno 2205's always online system) for 36 credits per unit.  Setting up trade routes in 2205 is very simple. Click the source sector...  Then click the target sector and choose how much to send. I'm sending a considerable excess as future-proofing for later expansion in Ikkuma. Every trade route costs a certain amount of money to operate, as seen here being 250 credits to charter a small cargo ship. The more you ship on a given route, the larger the ship and the more you'll be charged.  And easy as that, we're shipping vitamin drinks from Walbruk to Ikkuma, the first of many, many trade routes in this game.  Next time will most likely be some serious expansion in both Ikkuma and Walbruk. The next step of progress isn't as obvious as the next story campaign step would have you shooting for.
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Jan 12, 2022 03:04
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