Another "my Impression so far" Post to provide some feedback:
Settings:
- Normal world
- Biters tuned down about half each setting
- Alot of forest in the starting area
- No "big mods", only qol and logistic mods (like LTN)
- About 110 hours in
- Screenshot will follow when i am at home (and hopefuully dont forget to take one
)
- Main Bus approach from iron age on
Getting from Copper t Iron age was an unexpected, but very interesting challenge. Balance felt good, and Biters left me alone, so full puzzle speed ahead. With electricity i started a main bus and slowly convertet some of the old assemblers to new ones, still much of my old production is still using copper assemblers. Expanding to new ores was fun, setting up initial rail network also. Centralised train stations tend to become very large if i want to keep things clustered togehter that belong (imho) together, like all Ore crushers or a large smelting area. So, after realising this and 1-2 errors in my initial designs, planning big it is... Oil is the next big step, to my suprise. First, i thought changing smelting from ores to crushed ores (and then again from crushed ores to refined) would pose all kinds of problems, but no, that was kinda easy to do. So, oil... Oil sufferes from aLOT of pollution if you do it wrong. To get a decent (for this stage of mid-game) production, you need lots of buildings (like, about 10 in each chemical process), this is the first time i felt pressure from pollution getting to biters (and in return, to me). Air filters do help alot here. Also, pipe throuput starts to show its ugly face every now an then, so it felt like a difficulty spike. From here on, progression seems to slow down. Refining crushed ores requires multipe Iterations until i find a solution filling a redbelt with end-products without looking horrible or getting limited by pipes... Interesting, but slow. Some metals pile up. Like, more than 3 storages full and still 2 much. Then 1.0 hits, and things start to go more smoothly . Train network fills up, purple science needs new materials and a WOOPING LOT of others, old ones. Some new Products get on the main bus, others, old ones leave, because they only serve one ore zero prupose anymore. Just entered Chrome Age like 5 hours ago.
in Summary:
- I had and still have a blast!
- Love the Scrap mechanics!
- Thanks very much
- Sounddesign rocks my ears
- Visuals are mostly good
- Progression and ratios seem mostly good to me, did not encounter any serious or gamebreaking contend
- Technical side looks very clean
Some constructive criticism:
- Some Icons are different to distinguish. Like refined Chromium and Palladium (platinum? dunno). 32x32 Icons is okay, smaller ones look kinda the same, causing some problems for me here and there (like, i pulled 5 times natural rubber from a bus, thinking it was carbon)
- Electrical trains running on batteries i like very much. Though, i fear, lategame you have to get rid of them again cause there is no speed progression here (aside from normal to hi capacity batteries)
One point for Brainstorming:
in another post i just learned that reducing a units power requirements also reduces its pollution by the same ratio. 500+ hours into the game i did not know that. In IR, this confused me alot. Why are there items to reduce pollution while there still are items that do the same job, just besser (energy modules)? is there a reason aside from upfront investment into the item to use the air filter? I dont see a scenario where the module is not just plain better. Is the intension here just to provide the player with a cheaper "anti pollution" item to give him tools not to anger the natives so much? Or do i miss a point here?