Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by EustaceCS »

I'd be happy to see a platform configuration which is able to survive this trip (especially on automatic thrust, no manual/circuit auto adjustments on the way) and fail to survive on orbit.
Well, there ARE edge cases, like utilizing rare and very hard to pull off tech called "braking with space platform hub". People which can do such stunts reliably probably know what they're doing.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by BlueTemplar »

I expect most of the early spaceships are going to be like this ?

My first spaceship barely survived a round trip to Vulcanus :


My 2nd spaceship handled any round trip with minor scratches as long as starting with 500+ ammo, but was not able to stay long in orbit of secondary planets without backup :


My 3rd spaceship design (produced twice this time) is almost there (seems to still needs explosives / iron from time to time if hanging around Gleba), except for Fulgora, which I think requires at least rare quality components due to the lower insulation :


(Do you consider auto-power starving with laser turrets to slow down as a 'circuit' adjustment ? (It can work without any logical wires.))

Of course weapon damage and firing speed research bonuses changed things quite a lot here, so even for these YMMV.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by bartekltg »

Two such configurations I can think of:
- turrets only on the front. It will survive the trip but will be damaged from the side or behind when in orbit.
- Not enough ammo production. It survived the trip consuming the buffer, but eventually run out

But both are clear ship design flaws most players won't make if Gleba is not the first visited planet.


Using the opportunity, I just want say one thing:
Givikap120 wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2024 1:20 am Potential solutions:
...
- slower spoiling rate when evolution is low
-
This is very bad solution. It won't be seen as slower spoilage at the beginning. It will be seen as spoilage rate _increasing_ with time.
The biggest issue is, it will break working "low evolution" factory setups. A player build something, and after evolution and spoilage rate increase, he starts getting only spoilage.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by mako00 »

BlueTemplar wrote: Thu Nov 21, 2024 4:07 pm
(Do you consider auto-power starving with laser turrets to slow down as a 'circuit' adjustment ? (It can work without any logical wires.))
Lasers are not really recommended for space, asteroids have high laser absorb, and power is scarce in space (until you get nuclear). Gun turrets with yellow ammo is all you need for the first three planets.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by BlueTemplar »

20% resistance for small asteroids isn't what I would consider 'high'.

Power being scarce is the point here, to starve the ship out of power so it slows down.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by Milo_Thatch »

I felt on the other hand that Gleba was difficult but very forgiving. I think they hit the sweet spot on difficulty.
Gleba being more difficult then other planets is not a bad thing, in my opinion.
After the streamers complained and made memes about it, I was expecting hell.
I went in blind, a weird deathworld/railworld mix, and it was my first planet. Lost 1st platform, 2nd one made it but was getting pounded so I landed and sent it back.
What followed was probably 10-20hours of failed experiments, frustrating but it never felt unfair : I was just learning.
When I got tired, I just left and colonized Vulcanus. It was then like playing on easy mode lol.
I went back once after Vulcanus and once after Fulgora. Currently on Nauvis. The best thing is I still don't have a working base on Gleba, even if I was able to research the most useful stuff. It's just that my designs aren't stable yet.
I'm having a lot of fun cracking Gleba and slowly internalizing all mechanics.
The difficulty is a feature here, I think.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by BlueTemplar »

Gleba would obviously be more affected by higher enemy settings : on Vulcanus
Demolishers don't launch pollution-caused attacks and don't expand
, while Fulgora
doesn't have enemies
.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by Givikap120 »

EustaceCS wrote: Wed Nov 20, 2024 10:51 am Maybe for me enemies was hard because I played w
"Make the game easier because I can't handle hardmode which I've selected".
mmmkay...
The point is not gleba being hard. The point is gleba being harder than other 2 planets.
If you're not using bots on fulgora then logistics on fulgora is harder than gleba, but this is still heavily compensated by enemies, small amount resources and everything turning into spoilage.

I personally don't like 3 first planets having such different difficulties.
So I think Vulcanus and botted Fulgora should be increased in difficulty, when Gleba should be decreased.

Vulcanus is basically infinite resources planet with no enemies. When on Gleba resources are very limited by your plants growing and you have enemies.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by Hares »

The Problem
I will insert my 5 coins here. I really liked Gleba, BUT:
  1. Machines unlocked on Gleba are basically useless outside it:
    • Agricultural tower can only be used on Nauvis and only for seeding trees
    • Biochambers require nutrients which can be crafted in net-positive way only from materials from Gleba
    • Solution: Add nutrients recipes for different planets, i.e. from 2x from fish on Nauvis (or from wood); from sulfur on Vulc; from ammonia on Aquilo; from solid fuel on Fulgora; or add alternative recipes for crafting spoilage
  2. Starting a base on Gleba from scratch is hard, but for a different reason -- planet has little to no stone making concrete (required for silo) and landfill (required. just required. period.) mass-production hard
    • Early-game smelting, on the other hand, is easy as there is plenty of raw ore or bacteria around, and everything is burnable
    • Before you go full-production, it's easier to import LDS, all kind of circuits, steel, and other resources
    • After you go full-production, it's still easier to import concrete because of low amounts of stone ore
    • Solution 1: Add ruins which can be scrapped for concrete or landfill
    • Solution 2: Add more hints & tints (including environemntal!) about how to handle production chains
  3. Originally, I wanted to add a concirn about agri science, but after a lot of thinking I decided it's good as-is
And that leads to...
My Suggestion
Proposal: Lock Gleba behind trigger tech "Visit Fulgora or Vulcanus"
  • Will hint new players that visitting Gleba first without a industrial power behind you is a bad idea
  • Will tell players that Gleba is harder planet, expect challenges (and bring a bigger gun!)
  • PLayer is required to have a faster starship to transport agri science back to Nauvis, so later -> better for this case
Proposal: Add ruins of abonded factory
  • Yes, like ruins of Space Platform from Space Exploration (or like in game's tutorial)
  • Will guide players towards how to build Gleba facilities, or at least start them from scratch
  • Will provide resources to kickstart your Glebase
  • Will add more lore to Factorio
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by jaylawl »

Hares wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2024 12:21 pm
The Problem
I will insert my 5 coins here. I really liked Gleba, BUT:
  1. Machines unlocked on Gleba are basically useless outside it:
    • Agricultural tower can only be used on Nauvis and only for seeding trees
    • Biochambers require nutrients which can be crafted in net-positive way only from materials from Gleba
    • Solution: Add nutrients recipes for different planets, i.e. from 2x from fish on Nauvis (or from wood); from sulfur on Vulc; from ammonia on Aquilo; from solid fuel on Fulgora; or add alternative recipes for crafting spoilage
  2. Starting a base on Gleba from scratch is hard, but for a different reason -- planet has little to no stone making concrete (required for silo) and landfill (required. just required. period.) mass-production hard
    • Early-game smelting, on the other hand, is easy as there is plenty of raw ore or bacteria around, and everything is burnable
    • Before you go full-production, it's easier to import LDS, all kind of circuits, steel, and other resources
    • After you go full-production, it's still easier to import concrete because of low amounts of stone ore
    • Solution 1: Add ruins which can be scrapped for concrete or landfill
    • Solution 2: Add more hints & tints (including environemntal!) about how to handle production chains
  3. Originally, I wanted to add a concirn about agri science, but after a lot of thinking I decided it's good as-is
And that leads to...
My Suggestion
Proposal: Lock Gleba behind trigger tech "Visit Fulgora or Vulcanus"
  • Will hint new players that visitting Gleba first without a industrial power behind you is a bad idea
  • Will tell players that Gleba is harder planet, expect challenges (and bring a bigger gun!)
  • PLayer is required to have a faster starship to transport agri science back to Nauvis, so later -> better for this case
Proposal: Add ruins of abonded factory
  • Yes, like ruins of Space Platform from Space Exploration (or like in game's tutorial)
  • Will guide players towards how to build Gleba facilities, or at least start them from scratch
  • Will provide resources to kickstart your Glebase
  • Will add more lore to Factorio
I believe you missed that you get tons of nutrients from biter eggs, which makes the biochambers very usable on Nauvis. Otherwise, nutrients can be gained in high quantity by exporting bioflux. Although for my purposes using biochambers on Fulgora or Vulcanus isn't worth the hassle. But to each their own.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by Hares »

jaylawl wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2024 12:28 pm I believe you missed that you get tons of nutrients from biter eggs, which makes the biochambers very usable on Nauvis. Otherwise, nutrients can be gained in high quantity by exporting bioflux. Although for my purposes using biochambers on Fulgora or Vulcanus isn't worth the hassle. But to each their own.
I didn't missed it. My point is that Fulgoran EM plant & Recycler can be used anywhere w/o supply of anything; Vulcanus's drills can be used anywhere, and foundries require only calcite which can be dropped from orbit after some research. Biochamber always require resources from Gleba - either for bioflux for nutrients or for bioflux for biter eggs for nutrients. This hardly limits its usage on the early game making it endgame-only tech.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by GTG3000 »

It definitely feels to me that progression of difficulty is Nauvis -> Vulcanus | Fulgora -> Gleba -> Aquilo.

Gleba introduces a whole new mechanic that's *way* more dependant on having robust interplanetary logistics and actually having every part of it unlocked. You *need* agritowers, biochambers, and burner tower before your setup can kinda-sorta stop choking up. And it's quite stressful that you can't just hand-feed a few assemblers and have them churn away while you think. You only get to breathe out once you have fruit farms, probably long ass conveyor lines bringing in fruits, a nutrient loop, metal bacteria loops, and a pentapod egg loop so that you never run out of stuff.

And yeah, biochambers are kind of lame. The whole nutrient loop makes me think of Doshes "burner everything" run. If there was a relatively painless way to set up nutrients on Nauvis without importing bioflux, they'd be more worth it. Maybe. If you're low on oil I guess?

I think Gleba is fine, it's just that a lot of really desirable tech is locked behind it and so people are more likely to bash against it head first on their first experience of Space Age.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by Givikap120 »

Fulgora is the same difficulty as Vulcanus only if you're setting up small bot-based production and rushing the rocket with rocket parts being almost free.
It's significantly harder if you're doing proper multi-island base.

Vulcanus is easier than Nauvis IMO (Nauvis is also easy to setup production but you have biters here). The only thing is that Vulcanus have very slow start because of need to craft foundry before doing anything (probably the slowest out of 3 if you know what to do on all planets).

I'm not against linear progression Vulcanus->Fulgora->Gleba->Aquilo, but considering that first 3 unlock at the same time - it feels like you have freedom of choice, when in reality you don't, unless you want *pain*. Tho many players are rushing Gleba just to unlock Biolabs and then doing planets again in a proper order. I would prefer if 3 planets had around the same difficulty, just different kind of difficulty. That puts us back to "Nerf Vulcanus and botted Fulgora + Buff Gleba (early game in the first place)".
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by Hares »

Givikap120 wrote: Thu Dec 12, 2024 8:11 am

I'm not against linear progression Vulcanus->Fulgora->Gleba->Aquilo, but considering that first 3 unlock at the same time - it feels like you have freedom of choice, when in reality you don't, unless you want *pain*. Tho many players are rushing Gleba just to unlock Biolabs and then doing planets again in a proper order. I would prefer if 3 planets had around the same difficulty, just different kind of difficulty. That puts us back to "Nerf Vulcanus and botted Fulgora + Buff Gleba (early game in the first place)".
I went Fulgora first and built mostly-belt 4-island-production factory there (numerous mining islands do not count!). Best decision of my life this year, no joking.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by mako00 »

Givikap120 wrote: Thu Dec 12, 2024 8:11 am I'm not against linear progression Vulcanus->Fulgora->Gleba->Aquilo, but considering that first 3 unlock at the same time - it feels like you have freedom of choice, when in reality you don't, unless you want *pain*. Tho many players are rushing Gleba just to unlock Biolabs and then doing planets again in a proper order. I would prefer if 3 planets had around the same difficulty, just different kind of difficulty. That puts us back to "Nerf Vulcanus and botted Fulgora + Buff Gleba (early game in the first place)".
I'd be in favor of adjusting the research cost so that Vulcanus is 1000 packs, Fulgora 2000 and Gleba 3000.

So you can still go wherever you want, but players are nudged towards the easier planets first.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by The Phoenixian »

Hares wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2024 12:21 pm
The Problem
I will insert my 5 coins here. I really liked Gleba, BUT:
  1. Machines unlocked on Gleba are basically useless outside it:
    • Agricultural tower can only be used on Nauvis and only for seeding trees
    • Biochambers require nutrients which can be crafted in net-positive way only from materials from Gleba
    • Solution: Add nutrients recipes for different planets, i.e. from 2x from fish on Nauvis (or from wood); from sulfur on Vulc; from ammonia on Aquilo; from solid fuel on Fulgora; or add alternative recipes for crafting spoilage
  2. Starting a base on Gleba from scratch is hard, but for a different reason -- planet has little to no stone making concrete (required for silo) and landfill (required. just required. period.) mass-production hard
    • Early-game smelting, on the other hand, is easy as there is plenty of raw ore or bacteria around, and everything is burnable
    • Before you go full-production, it's easier to import LDS, all kind of circuits, steel, and other resources
    • After you go full-production, it's still easier to import concrete because of low amounts of stone ore
    • Solution 1: Add ruins which can be scrapped for concrete or landfill
    • Solution 2: Add more hints & tints (including environemntal!) about how to handle production chains
  3. Originally, I wanted to add a concirn about agri science, but after a lot of thinking I decided it's good as-is
And that leads to...
My Suggestion
Proposal: Lock Gleba behind trigger tech "Visit Fulgora or Vulcanus"
  • Will hint new players that visitting Gleba first without a industrial power behind you is a bad idea
  • Will tell players that Gleba is harder planet, expect challenges (and bring a bigger gun!)
  • PLayer is required to have a faster starship to transport agri science back to Nauvis, so later -> better for this case
Proposal: Add ruins of abonded factory
  • Yes, like ruins of Space Platform from Space Exploration (or like in game's tutorial)
  • Will guide players towards how to build Gleba facilities, or at least start them from scratch
  • Will provide resources to kickstart your Glebase
  • Will add more lore to Factorio
I'll agree that biochambers are far too specialized, but I feel like the bigger issue is less sourcing nutrients, (getting bioflux to Vulcanus and Nauvis was never too hard, IME) and far more limited utility. A huge range of the biochamber's recipes are locked to a single world either explicitly or implicitly, and on Fulgora especially there's not much point to them since oil cracking, while used, feels far less important to have good productivity with the oil sea right there and ice plentiful. If, on the other hand, there was a biochamber recipe for even just holmium solution it would feel far more like an explicit push for grab both Gleba biochambers and Vulcanus foundries in order to upgrade Fulgora's signature recipe.

I don't particularly like the idea of locking Gleba behind the other planets. I very much enjoyed visiting the world first, even if it was a heavy exercise in planning ahead. More than that though, bioprocessing's fun and challenge to me feels far more like it ties into being a completely different style of factory logistics than it does being something that builds upon skills learned on previous planets. The tools of other worlds may help with things like big miners on its tiny stone patches, but the same is true of all of them, and the nature of the core loop indicates placing Gleba more as an alternate path than as a sequel to other worlds.

I will say that your second suggestion of a ruined factory would imply to me that the pentapods built it, before possibly warring over it and breaking it, and that the player is stealing it. Not that I would consider running in and stealing the means of production from those who built it to be a mark against the idea. Just one with implications for the... character, of a player who does so. [villain protagonist intensifies]
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by Tinyboss »

Givikap120 wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2024 4:54 pm I personally don't like 3 first planets having such different difficulties.
So I think Vulcanus and botted Fulgora should be increased in difficulty, when Gleba should be decreased.
Totally valid opinion, but mine is different. I think it's great that the three early planets don't all have the same difficulty. Vulcanus is the most accessible to newer players, since you don't really have to think differently, you just need to learn some new production chains. Fulgora is the most different in terms of mechanics and your general approach, but it isn't at all threatening. And Gleba is Gleba. Spoilage is tricky and so are the enemies.

It means newer players have a path that's hopefully smoother for them, while more experienced players (importantly including those newer players on their next run!) can change it up for a fresh experience.

One more related thing, and I'm not saying you suggested it, but I've seen it suggested often. It would be terrible if Vulcanus or Fulgora were given any kind of enemy or environmental danger that would require the player's urgent attention the way Gleba and Nauvis can. **** hitting the fan simultaneously on three or four worlds would not be fun for almost anyone.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by CyberCider »

Givikap120 wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2024 4:54 pm The point is not gleba being hard. The point is gleba being harder than other 2 planets.
If you're not using bots on fulgora then logistics on fulgora is harder than gleba, but this is still heavily compensated by enemies, small amount resources and everything turning into spoilage.

I personally don't like 3 first planets having such different difficulties.
So I think Vulcanus and botted Fulgora should be increased in difficulty, when Gleba should be decreased.

Vulcanus is basically infinite resources planet with no enemies. When on Gleba resources are very limited by your plants growing and you have enemies.
“Limited by your plants growing”? What does this mean? In fact, Gleba resources are “more infinite” than Vulcanus resources, since the lava stuff requires calcite. Gleba plants grow with no input, you only need planting area (it’s not hard to get and you don’t need much) and defenses from enemies. Sure, tesla and artillery weapons help against pentapods, but they’re certainly not necessary. By the time you reach high pentapod evolution, you will probably have at least one of those two anyway.

It is completely true that Gleba is significantly easier than Vulcanus. But that’s not because Gleba is very hard, it’s because Vulcanus is very easy. Vulcanus is literally easier than Nauvis. And unlike Fulgora and Gleba, it doesn’t have a new mechanic that increases difficulty/complexity. Molten metals only make your life easier, unlike scrap and spoilage.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by angramania »

CyberCider wrote: Wed Dec 18, 2024 8:23 pm Vulcanus is literally easier than Nauvis.
Try 'Start any planet' mod and you will change your mind. Vulcanus is much more harder than Nauvis. It is easier only if you come here having all Nauvis techs and your science is still on Nauvis so you only have to produce foundries, drills and single science pack.
Amusing fact, Gleba is easiest of three planet to start from scratch.
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Re: Gleba early game should be made easier significantly

Post by Tinyboss »

angramania wrote: Wed Dec 18, 2024 8:55 pm Try 'Start any planet' mod and you will change your mind.
A mod that drastically changes the pacing and structure of the game is hardly relevant to a discussion around balancing.
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