Deconstruction Planner and Other 0.17 Feedback

[Maddhawk]

As someone experienced with the game, one of the things I like to do place in my toolbelt right away is the Deconstruction Planner. It helps me visualize when building things on the fly. Now, I can't get it to stick on my toolbelt unless I have a physical copy in my inventory? What gives? I should be able to pull tools from my blueprint menu to my toolbelt without needing construction bots.

Edit: I also miss the behavior of the toolbar automatically populating when I take a newly crafted item in my hand, place a few items down, then clear my hand. If I have open space on my toolbar, I want an option for those cleared items to automatically populate filters to the tool bar. Going back and having to re-open my inventory and search for an item is really aggravating.

[Serenity]

You can use the generic deconstruction planner from the new shortcut menu to the right of the tool belt. A deconstruction planner in the inventory is different however, since you can filter items with it

[Maddhawk]

You do not have access to a deconstruction planner to the right of the toolbelt in the campaign until you unlock construction bots.

[Maddhawk]

Perceived Campaign fatal flaw, Splitters and Undergrounds come way too late. Once you have some turrents up and running, the research for them should become available right away.

[BlueTemplar]

It helps me visualize when building things on the fly.

What do you mean ?

You do not have access to a deconstruction planner to the right of the toolbelt in the campaign until you unlock construction bots.

Have you tried pressing "B" ? (At least on the second part of the Introduction Campaign, might still not work in the first one...)

[Maddhawk]

If you look on the right side of the tool bar there is a menu icon with access to a range of commands. Most of them are all grayed out and mousing over states you must research construction robots to access. Yes, you can drag the deconstruction planner from the blueprint library, however it creates a physical copy. That is to say, it becomes a physical item that takes up space in your inventory. They had been talking about changing blueprints so this wouldn't be the case anymore.

As to helping me visualize what I want to build, I like to use ghosts when laying things out. When you need to make large scale corrections, the deconstruction planner aids in this. It also can aid helping you determine how much forest needs to be cleared when preparing a new area to be built in.

[Maddhawk]

Campaign,

The biter spawn rate definitely is WAY too high in the early part of the campaign. I had finished the requirement of establishing 15 green circuits/m, 25 ammo/m and 6 red science/m. I had 4 turrets deployed on the iron side and 3 deployed on the copper side. I had 50 clips of ammo per turret. Once you begin researching green science the spawn and attack rate of biters goes through the roof pretty fast. It seems to me the spawn rate is tied to your progress towards green science too.

Without underground and splitters, the spaghetti mess of belts is much much much harder to manage. With that said, as someone who prefers to play with biters, I was doing ok until I doubled down on my research labs from 3 to 6 to speed up green science. I was CONSTANTLY having to run fresh ammo out to either side, along with repair packs, to keep my turrets alive. Just as I got within 95% completion of green science, the game suddenly spawned 3 massive waves of biters on the copper side, within seconds of each other. At this point I was up to 5 turrets on copper and 8 on iron side and I had a partial wall on copper side to boot to help give my turrets more time on target before biters could reach them. IN ADDITION I was physically on top of my turrets with more fresh ammo and repair packs when these waves suddenly appeared. Needlessly to say, everything got destroyed.

The current state of the Campaign is not only much harder than it needs to be, but it doesn't really do much if any better of a job in teaching the games basics at all. At this point, if I was new, I'd still have a far better time either watching someone else play OR having someone who has experience play with me.

As I sit here and type this up, I am thinking on what I can do differently to survive those waves better. Clearly I need to hold off on getting objectives done. Wave size and frequency seems to be directly attached to that. I will need to automate wall production, two sets of ammo production (thanks to the lack of splitters allowing me to create a centralized ammo depot) and all associated smelting lines. This means my base will need to be more complex and packed in than otherwise would need be.

Changes I would make to the early game:

• Remove the biter waves entirely after first relocation until all key concepts have been taught.
• Slow down the pacing of introducing concepts
• Present concepts in a more organized fashion, for example, having the engineer going around with the story thought bubbles of the original campaign guiding you on a step by step basis for building a starting base would be nice.
• Include a video tutorial showing a base being built up to green science production as well, with a narrated break down of what is going on and why. Narration can be kept to subtitles as the game uses now if no one at Wube wants to try their hand at voice acting.
• Introduce how to setup turrets and ways to keep them supplied with ammo on a step by step basis, culminating on a belt fed series of turrets with a protective wall between them and biters. Nothing fancy needed here. Perhaps a pair of turrets, some space, another pair, belt fed with power poles for yellow inserters, and a single thickness wall.
• Finally, the starting tutorial should introduce building a starter factory from scratch as a recipe. Like baking a cake:
  1. look for rocks to harvest for coal and stone,
  2. locate iron, coal and copper patches,
  3. place mining drill and smelter on iron (demonstrate drill to belt, drill to box and drill to direct insertion; all 3 are really basic techniques for handling mining output and should be demonstrated, not left to discover by watching other players or on their own; this improves the experience by helping to make setting up easier and getting on to the more enjoyable aspects of the game.),
  4. gather iron plates to craft more burner drills, use stone from rocks to create more smelters, use coal/wood for fuel (take opportunity to point out largest rocks come with handy one time sources of not only stone but decent amounts of coal too, at this time talk about hand crafting),
  5. establish power (talk about basics of powering your base with steam),
  6. research (talk about producing science packs and conducting research (have them research tech for yellow inserters and assembler 1s), how to access the research menu, choosing research options and deciding on priorities),
  7. build your first assembly machine (talk about building in a machine vs hand crafting),
  8. guided walk through of first mini-automated setup to produce red science and feed into science center (mini list of steps:
     1. mini-step 1-build a few power poles to guide power from power plant to clear building spot,
     2. mini-step 2-build an assembler for gears and another for red science,
     3. mini-step 3-build needed inserters,
     4. mini-step 4-build 2 crates,
     5. mini-step 5-demonstrate layout with crate one supplying iron and copper plates from mining to both assemblers and have gear assembler direct feed to red science assembler, have red science assembler direct feed to first science lab,
     6. mini-step 6-culminate with directing them to splitter/underground research),
  9. guided walk through to setting up first fully automated mining, smelting, production and research setup (take time to show how undergrounds and splitters can improve belt layouts),
  10. guide them to green science,
  11. introduce biters, combat, and defending your factory (this is where you should do the gun turret line and wall portion of the tutorial),
  12. have player establish automated ammo production to a belt fed turret line then demonstrate effectiveness by sending waves at player and let them observe waves being defeated by walls and turrets,
  13. talk about more advanced controls and inventory management,
  14. move on with rest of campaign, introducing oil, advanced science packs, factory expansion, and on until first rocket launch

[Maddhawk]

After fixing my own problems 2nd time around doing the final part of the Campaign, I still feel that too much is presented too fast. It really isn't as clear as it could be. The biters in particular is something by and large doesn't fit in with the theme of the game as a whole. While the do make for a passable entertaining diversion from time to time, and as such should remain in the game, in the end, they only really exist to give you something expend resources towards other than endlessly producing research. As such, I still believe that the introduction of biters and outside "production pressures" should be held off until after the game's concepts have been explored up to and through green science and basic belt management.

[noman21]

Having just finished the campaign, I have a lot of thoughts. Overall I would categorize it as in need of work. My #1 complaint (as a veteran player, so I can't really speak to NPE) is that it starts really slowly, and is really tedious in the beginning.

I get the idea that you want to introduce the assembly machines right away, but I think being unable to craft intermediate products in the beginning just slows everything down WAY too much. I imagine if I were a new player, I would find it aggravating to have to run back and forth picking up resources and loading them into things at such a rudimentary level.

It doesn't feel rewarding to automate copper wire or gear production seemingly for very little purpose other than to fill a progress bar (science packs), or to have to pick them up and make useful things (which you need a lot of) by hand. For example, making belts, which cannot be automated easily because you can't make more assembly machines easily because you can't make intermediates.

I get that there is a style of play where you make nothing by hand (lazy bastard), but I don't think that's something a new player would be especially interested in. I imagine as a new player, I'd go straight to the campaign (because it's first on the launch page, which maybe it shouldn't be) give it a try, think that the process of automation was a huge pain because I can't make anything useful by hand (because I can't make intermediates). It makes it seem like I'll constantly have to run back and forth between assembly machines to do even the most basic of tasks.

I think if that was all I saw as a new player, I might decide the game wasn't going to be fun and stop playing.


I think it would be better to let the player make intermediate products right away. Any new player is going to learn that they'll need to automate intermediate products EVENTUALLY through trial and error (just try making 100 science packs by hand). If there is really a concern that a new player won't learn that on their own, just have the helper robot say it over and over again (its a tutorial, having an annoying helper is OK). That way it doesn't slow down players who figure it out on their own, but is still there for those who don't.


Also, I've read other feedback where people don't like the biters being in the tutorial, and I kind of agree. As a veteran they weren't any trouble, but I expect a new player might feel differently. The player shouldn't think they are expected to defend their base primarily by hand (which again, is more tedious than fun), or really by hand at all unless something goes wrong with their turrets. I think I would restructure the tutorial to be all about production, first of a set volume of some product (like is done with the turrets), then hitting a production rate (like is done with bullets and science packs later). Once the player hits the production rate target, then introduce the biters.

Also, I would recommend having some pre-established turrets and walls laid out to teach the player what a turret set up looks like, instead of hoping they will infer it on their own. I get that it's a creative sandbox game, but if you're worried about teaching someone something, showing them a functional example never hurts.

[H8UL]

Now, I can't get it to stick on my toolbelt unless I have a physical copy in my inventory? What gives?

Yes, you can drag the dfeconstruction planner from the blueprint library, however it creates a physical copy. That is to say, it becomes a physical item that takes up space in your inventory. They had been talking about changing blueprints so this wouldn't be the case anymore.

The old toolbar was inventory, so you were always taking up an inventory slot with this approach. It now goes in the main inventory but that has been increased. You are not worse off.

[Maddhawk]

Now, I can't get it to stick on my toolbelt unless I have a physical copy in my inventory? What gives?

Yes, you can drag the dfeconstruction planner from the blueprint library, however it creates a physical copy. That is to say, it becomes a physical item that takes up space in your inventory. They had been talking about changing blueprints so this wouldn't be the case anymore.

The old toolbar was inventory, so you were always taking up an inventory slot with this approach. It now goes in the main inventory but that has been increased. You are not worse off.

Pretty late to the party, I'd say. My complaint wasn't with the changes to the action bars and the inventory, but rather with how the Deconstruction Planner interacted with the tool bars. Of course, all the feed back in this thread was from just playing the new campaign mode. A free play game behaves differently, i.e. the Deconstruction Planner is on the menu bar to the right of the tool bar right away soon as you start a new game. This isn't / (wasn't, haven't played the campaign since first week of 0.17) the case in the campaign. Instead the tool on the menu bar are gated as the campaign progresses.

I am still not happy with how the Deconstruction Planner interfaces with the Tool Bar though. Mainly because you can't set filters to the Deconstruction Planner shortcut on the Menu Bar. This forces you to keep a copy of the Deconstruction Planner in inventory anyway.

[BaggyK]

I am still not happy with how the Deconstruction Planner interfaces with the Tool Bar though. Mainly because you can't set filters to the Deconstruction Planner shortcut on the Menu Bar. This forces you to keep a copy of the Deconstruction Planner in inventory anyway.

Yes you can, If you create a new deconstruction planner, then drop it into a free slot in the tool bar. Then right click on the deconstruction planner which will allow you to configure it. Once done press E to close the configuration window, the deconstruction planner will stay on your tool bar and in your hand until you press Q which will cause the deconstruction planner to be discarded.

This also works for the upgrade planner.

[H8UL]

Now, I can't get it to stick on my toolbelt unless I have a physical copy in my inventory? What gives?

Yes, you can drag the dfeconstruction planner from the blueprint library, however it creates a physical copy. That is to say, it becomes a physical item that takes up space in your inventory. They had been talking about changing blueprints so this wouldn't be the case anymore.

The old toolbar was inventory, so you were always taking up an inventory slot with this approach. It now goes in the main inventory but that has been increased. You are not worse off.

Pretty late to the party, I'd say. My complaint wasn't with the changes to the action bars and the inventory, but rather with how the Deconstruction Planner interacted with the tool bars. Of course, all the feed back in this thread was from just playing the new campaign mode. A free play game behaves differently, i.e. the Deconstruction Planner is on the menu bar to the right of the tool bar right away soon as you start a new game. This isn't / (wasn't, haven't played the campaign since first week of 0.17) the case in the campaign. Instead the tool on the menu bar are gated as the campaign progresses.

I am still not happy with how the Deconstruction Planner interfaces with the Tool Bar though. Mainly because you can't set filters to the Deconstruction Planner shortcut on the Menu Bar. This forces you to keep a copy of the Deconstruction Planner in inventory anyway.

Well, the post is about a recently released big feature, if that's late to the party it is "fashionably late"

I can only go off what I read, your complaint very much emphasised the using of physical space in the inventory, which you haven't lost out on.

[Maddhawk]

I am still not happy with how the Deconstruction Planner interfaces with the Tool Bar though. Mainly because you can't set filters to the Deconstruction Planner shortcut on the Menu Bar. This forces you to keep a copy of the Deconstruction Planner in inventory anyway.

Yes you can, If you create a new deconstruction planner, then drop it into a free slot in the tool bar. Then right click on the deconstruction planner which will allow you to configure it. Once done press E to close the configuration window, the deconstruction planner will stay on your tool bar and in your hand until you press Q which will cause the deconstruction planner to be discarded.

This also works for the upgrade planner.

You have a key misunderstanding. You assume that when a player clears the planner from the hand they are done. There are plenty of times when you want the planners to SAVE the filter settings on them. If you are doing a TON of changes, you will often need to put the planner away move around, do some stuff then grab it again with the same settings. For example, I like to play on Forest Worlds, trees at 600%/600%, I need the deconstruction planner frequently filtered to rocks and trees only so I can help plan what I want and need to clear so I do not excessively remove trees that are not in my way. Grenades are excessive removal. There are also other times when you might want to make extensive changes but also have to do other things at the same time. Like upgrading a very large bus.

What you are talking about, how it works now, and I have tried doing it that way, is a ROYAL pain in the ass compared to how the planners behave when kept in the inventory.

One other thing, I recommend not telling people what keys to press as not everyone uses the same keybindings. For example, you seem to use E key for inventory, where as, I use the E key for my upward movement and use the A key for inventory (I shift WASD to ESDF). It would just be better to say "right click the planner, set filters, use your inventory key to close filter settings, use planner, use clear cursor key (usually same as pipette tool) to clear the cursor. Saves potential confusion.

Now, I can't get it to stick on my toolbelt unless I have a physical copy in my inventory? What gives?

Yes, you can drag the dfeconstruction planner from the blueprint library, however it creates a physical copy. That is to say, it becomes a physical item that takes up space in your inventory. They had been talking about changing blueprints so this wouldn't be the case anymore.

The old toolbar was inventory, so you were always taking up an inventory slot with this approach. It now goes in the main inventory but that has been increased. You are not worse off.

Pretty late to the party, I'd say. My complaint wasn't with the changes to the action bars and the inventory, but rather with how the Deconstruction Planner interacted with the tool bars. Of course, all the feed back in this thread was from just playing the new campaign mode. A free play game behaves differently, i.e. the Deconstruction Planner is on the menu bar to the right of the tool bar right away soon as you start a new game. This isn't / (wasn't, haven't played the campaign since first week of 0.17) the case in the campaign. Instead the tool on the menu bar are gated as the campaign progresses.

I am still not happy with how the Deconstruction Planner interfaces with the Tool Bar though. Mainly because you can't set filters to the Deconstruction Planner shortcut on the Menu Bar. This forces you to keep a copy of the Deconstruction Planner in inventory anyway.

Well, the post is about a recently released big feature, if that's late to the party it is "fashionably late"

I can only go off what I read, your complaint very much emphasised the using of physical space in the inventory, which you haven't lost out on.

Technically, having to retain a copy of the planners in inventory in order to keep settings saved IS a loss of inventory space since having the new Menu Bar was one of the things being looked forward to. I also specified that I was talking about the lack of a Deconstruction Planner in the start of the Campaign in my second post. I can see how people can miss it though, when simply skimming the thread. The lack of seeing it on the Menu Bar, plus the need to drag it from the blueprints menu to the inventory is what led to the original complaint.

If you do not do the campaign, but instead do a free play game, the behavior is different. That said, there is still the problem that a copy must be kept in inventory at all times if you wish to keep filter settings saved. So that is still technically a loss of 1 inventory spot. If you don't care to keep filter settings saved then you can just dump the planner on the Menu Bar and do indeed have no inventory spots taken.

[H8UL]

I fully understand that it is weaker in the NPE -- but it is not a loss of inventory compared to 0.16.51