Friday Facts #284 - 0.17 experimental

[CDarklock]

(sidenote: It is quite pleasant to see a distinct lack of "you are stupid" etc comments in the debate on this)

I think we all inherently realise that everyone is just trying to make a great game better.

[naed]

(sidenote: It is quite pleasant to see a distinct lack of "you are stupid" etc comments in the debate on this)

I think we all inherently realise that everyone is just trying to make a great game better.

It is still a pleasant surprise This being the internet and all

[sunnyskies]

On the subject of pollution on the map: I think it’s worth pointing out that it’s invisible on the minimap. But I would love to be able to have the option to see it there.

I have a sneaky hunch that if this new campaign had been delayed a couple weeks until the old playerbase had adapted to the v.16 to v.17 changes, there wouldn’t be this much backlash.

Combat is... a lot more important in 0.17 freeplay. I don't know how many people have started a new world on default settings in 0.17, but it's a major change, and tbh I don't think I'd be this able to handle it if I hadn't started out with the campaign. Freeplay is certainly easier than the campaign, on the combat front, if you make the right choices and go the right directions... but if you scoot close enough to a base, the attacks aren't all that different. They put the pressure on in the campaign, but the attacks in freeplay feel very much like the early attacks when you first start the final research in the campaign.

Exactly! If we’d seen this in freeplay for a couple weeks, we’d be completely flooded over the top of the roof with vindication that freeplay is utterly ruined instead of the campaign is wrong— Wait. Oh geez, I really, really worded my other post badly.

Neeeevermind. I’d venture to say you’ve orated what I meant much better than I. Sorry. And thanks.

Anyways. I think it’s a mistake for veteran players to approach the campaign with the attitude of “this is for new players.” I really do think that this campaign exists to help equip everyone, new and old with the tools we need to survive now.

The biters have adapted! So must we. (... Basically, what you said in your .16 > .17 thread, come to think of it.)

Reading through the release threads since 0.17 was released. There are a fair amount of people that are quite .. steadfast that their understanding is the "right" one.

Questionting why that is, why people are so steadfast about things while wanting others to change for them. That is one of the important things. Because the moment it is possible to get those groups of people to engage/question their own assumptions. You will have the tutorial to end all tutorials.

Thank you for saying this.

I see a pattern of emotional reasoning. Pride: the confidence of knowing how and the natural inclination to buck being wrong. Complacency: everyone knows biters aren’t really a threat. Vanilla v.16 told us so. And wounded pride: a conclusion that something that crushes a veteran couldn’t possibily be new player friendly, and shouldn’t be.

Emotions are not logical. And emotional reasoning is poor reasoning, but nonetheless feel extraordinarily valid. And moreover, emotional reasoning moves people a lot more than logic. That’s why it’s emotion. A force that moves.

So, I would also add, is clinging to pride actually preserving any dignity? Is pride constructive?

If anything, the most pressing flaw is one that’s already being addressed: Compy unwittingly punishes players for taking initiative on the iron mining.

That said, I think I’ll take a step back for a bit and examine myself, too

[Light]

(sidenote: It is quite pleasant to see a distinct lack of "you are stupid" etc comments in the debate on this)

I think we all inherently realise that everyone is just trying to make a great game better.

It is still a pleasant surprise This being the internet and all

Only children and teens resort to saying such blatant insults. As adults we will call you stupid by explaining in detail why you're wrong in a classy and tactful way.

Because if you're going to insult anyone you need to do it with style. That way they may not even notice they're being insulted at all.

[CDarklock]

As adults we will call you stupid by explaining in detail why you're wrong in a classy and tactful way.

No, I'll totally just call people names if I think they deserve it.

[McDuff]

What rational justification is there for someone else to spend their time and energy doing what you want?

This is an alpha game in development, and this campaign is specifically out here wanting input. I've no idea why you are so utterly, implacably hostile to this concept, but I'm just gonna let you alone to be weird about it now.

[naed]

What rational justification is there for someone else to spend their time and energy doing what you want?

This is an alpha game in development, and this campaign is specifically out here wanting input. I've no idea why you are so utterly, implacably hostile to this concept, but I'm just gonna let you alone to be weird about it now.

Might i ask how it can be weird. To merely ask about the reasoning and thought behind someone elses viewpoint?

[CDarklock]

I've no idea why you are so utterly, implacably hostile to this concept

Not hostile, just resistant. Because I don't see a good reason for it.

You could show me one. If you had one.

[meganothing]

The pollution mechanic is entirely invisible unless you know about it.

There's a pollution number on literally everything that pollutes. There's a button on the map display, enabled by default, that says "pollution." If you are new to the game and don't know what anything is, you will at the very least read the word "pollution" on tooltips and in the map screen in the process of figuring out how to use these things. You will also quite likely wonder what that big black cloud developing over your stuff is.

This is every bit as visible and accessible as the power system.

But what about the connection between pollution and biter aggression? The tech follows real world examples and for example it is easy to assume that a steam engine has a finite power output. Animals in reality don't react aggressive due to pollution.


PS: I have never played the campaign so forget about accusing me of wounded pride (this directed at nead)

PPS: Because of that I also can't really judge if the tutorial needs to be changed. If following the advice of the robot keeps you definitely out of trouble then that would be good enough. If a tutorial toon tells you to kill the dog but not the cat and you don't do that and fail that's on you and you should know it. But I have myself played a few tutorials where I could not decipher what to do or where to go at a specific point in it.

[CDarklock]

But what about the connection between pollution and biter aggression?

Not sure. Should the campaign connect these dots for the player, or should the player be left to connect them independently? It's a tough call.

I'm kind of circling the question of how much pollution matters. It's perfectly adequate for the campaign if you run four drills and three furnaces with a buffer chest (not like, a logistics buffer chest, just a wooden chest used as a buffer) for coal. Then you need about six assemblers to meet your production challenge, so counting it all up, you've got about 88 pollution.

Then there's the question of, given these goals, how much additional production a player is likely to want. Figure... idk, another three or four drills and furnaces? So like, 33 - 44 pollution. About 125 total, or thereabouts. Call it 150 if you add some assemblers making more ammo.

Now, if you strip your pollution back as far as you can... like, hand-feeding the lab... you drop down to 27 for the single boiler you need to power the lab. If you drop your pollution all the way down to 27, you get a pretty easy task that can be handled by one turret if you wall yourself into a tight space.

But how bad is it with 150 pollution?

I don't know. I've never paid much attention. I think that's about where it was when I played... eight assemblers, two boilers, ten drills, six furnaces. Closer to 200, something like 186. And it was rough. I had 18 turrets and I was running around like a maniac refilling them. But did I really need 18 turrets?

I don't think so. It looks like six is good enough. I need to experiment more.

[BlueTemplar]

I've only played it once, but 2x2x2 turrets sounds about right.
Or maybe 2x(1+1) with walls.
Or 2x(1+1EDIT:+1) but belt-fed.

[FunMaker]

I updated to 0.17 and did not play a second yet. But i had to give feedback on the ui i seen in the menue:

• All hover graphics look like Photoshop Default Layer Glow Effect (cheap)
• UI Elements look like they are made for touch devices (big, bulky buttons)
• Mod Manager download bar is not very informative - should show some sizes and any information on what is currently downloading

All in all - the ui is not very appealing to me. Liked the old style more.

[hobbitmax999]

I'll try it again, but eh, given that is apperently working as intended.... How the frak are you supposed to survive that?

Minimal goal attainment. Don't build much more than you need. And use your awareness of upcoming attacks to plan ahead. Time is a resource, take some, use it.

I've seen other people do little turret "nests" with walls only around the turret. I want to experiment with how that differs from what I did, which was just to double-wall the whole path into the base. Also I want to try fewer turrets, and building an autofeed system. I think I can cover each side with a pair of three-turret groups surrounding a chest with burner inserters feeding them. Maybe I only need one group per side, even; I think I can exploit pathing AI to funnel attacks into a smaller space.

Another thing I did a lot of - leading to much longer play times - was to look for interesting, fun things to do before even attempting the listed goals. Like optional research, that sort of thing.

*sigh*

Saw the net/disk activity graph spike on Steam, and thought I just got the 0.17.4 update... but it was Stardew Valley. Still waiting I guess

you need to opt into the beta... then you get it! I got it!

[hobbitmax999]

this isn't about the campain but I love the new worms! there so fun and while its.. harder? sorta I love it! maybe you can change the scenario into smaller chuncks I know that its nice the way it is but I think its a bit huge...

[Xuhybrid]

I haven't had the chance to test by myself, but I understand current 0.17 experience does not match what I described above, does it ?

Nope, but as i understand it, it's not complete. With that said, i'll still argue alongside you with anyone trying to defend it in it's current state.

[cid0rz]

Hello all and sorry to ask this here without going through all the previous discussion but i have too many furnaces waiting for me to automate . I love the new ctrl+click on the train GUI to go to a "temporary" station, I'm really using it a lot and I like it even more than i thought. Here comes the BUT, can you please make it possible that if you are inside a train (maybe inside the locomotive) you can ctrl+click in your map to go-to there with the train you are into without opening that particular train GUI? it's just a small something that I thing would feel really natural. I find myself searching for a spot in the map I want to visit, fix, run-to and then i try to ctrl-click and ... dayum where is my train? so if you are in a train, even if it's runnig your map should be ctr-clickable in my humble opinion. If this was already proposed/planned/discussed forgive me. cheers!

[meganothing]

Here comes the BUT, can you please make it possible that if you are inside a train (maybe inside the locomotive) you can ctrl+click in your map to go-to there with the train you are into without opening that particular train GUI?

It's probably not that easy, but as soon as that feature is in, the next feature, ctrl-klicking on any rail in the normal map IF NOT IN A TRAIN redirects a random train to that position, comes into reach. And that would be a great GUI enhancement as well and make that feature "complete".

[mrvn]

Here comes the BUT, can you please make it possible that if you are inside a train (maybe inside the locomotive) you can ctrl+click in your map to go-to there with the train you are into without opening that particular train GUI?

It's probably not that easy, but as soon as that feature is in, the next feature, ctrl-klicking on any rail in the normal map IF NOT IN A TRAIN redirects a random train to that position, comes into reach. And that would be a great GUI enhancement as well and make that feature "complete".

As in "Please highjack the nearest train and make it shop <HERE>"?

[cid0rz]

Here comes the BUT, can you please make it possible that if you are inside a train (maybe inside the locomotive) you can ctrl+click in your map to go-to there with the train you are into without opening that particular train GUI?

It's probably not that easy, but as soon as that feature is in, the next feature, ctrl-klicking on any rail in the normal map IF NOT IN A TRAIN redirects a random train to that position, comes into reach. And that would be a great GUI enhancement as well and make that feature "complete".

As in "Please highjack the nearest train and make it shop <HERE>"?

Hahahaha, well maybe... I understand you have to limit the features and options or this becomes a bit wild. It may be practical to redirect any train but this may lead to miss-clicks and diverting trains into places there is no return or there is some problem. Calling any train to a point... i can see the problems so that is a bit more complex in my opinion. But when you are already on a train... if you ctrl-click the map in a rail 99.9% you want to go there in that train, no possible mistakes^^.
I use the feature to send other trains (that i'm not into) to locations of course, but in that case i don't mind finding the train I want to send (normally in that cases you send a train with something to some place, so you need to confirm that the train has the required cargo, etc). Is there a use case I'm missing here?
Thank you for the feedback and nice ideas.

[MCorgano]

I saw a lot of people complaining about the scaling for biter attacks, why not make the intensity on a slider? In fact we could have two different preset sets - one for terrain types, and one for difficulty that scales the biter:researched tech ratio, size of biter camps, etc. Sounds like the current .17 settings are more suited to "hard mode" and not so much casual play. Some people / new people will want a bit of challenge while still being able to play casually and make mistakes.