concerns over the upcoming direction of the game

[lunarpumpkin]

i am concerned that the next update will be similar to what minecraft did with its dimentions where its a vast amount of literally nothing, 2 entire dimention a few new planets with barely anything in them that wont drive its new gameplay changes.

An entire planet is worthless and a waste of resource (ram and gpu wise) if all we get from it is 1 or 2 ores that gives a few new items (see minecraft useless copper). Nothing that a new tier of drill and very late game ore couldnt acomplish with the same result on the main planet.

I am really hoping that these new planets will be given the same care and gameplay expansion and value of the main planet while also accounting the players progression that at this point are able to mass produce equipment to kickstart the exploitation of the new planets making it even faster to go over everything it has to offer.

some sort of counterbalance or game extentions would be required to increase the value and time worth spending on the new planets and hopefully something like (terraria post wall of flesh) will be setup for the new planets allowing for some sort of new game plus with even more content than the base game that make the new planets being more of the main game and a goal to overcome the first planet, rather than a slight extension for a handful of extra items


proposed extention changes --dificulty spike is vertical--

• 1-new ores and components
  
  the new ores will allow for more precise and sophisticated equipment but will require multiple small compotent to be assebled first into bigger components and then all combined together into the new items in order to add steps and requirement for the new basic resources while preventing the existing progress to overshadow the new content
  .
• 2-air is full of dangerous chemical and heavy
  
  the air makes drone crash to the ground.
  the air need to be purified with new machines and with it you can recover some resources along with allowing drones to fly again
  .
• 3-new type of oil full of sand and micro organism
  
  the new oil gives an improved fuel and allow for new tech tree of chemical development for the new components and need to be purified before it can be used properly
  .
• 4-ore can only be drilled at 5% the original speed
  
  slowing down the aquirement of the new ore will give incentive to go through a new tree to unlock technology and new drills to mine the new ore at normal speed
  .
• 5-water is contaminated and full of organic gunk
  
  the water need to be filtrated and separated by using chemicals and processing filters to separate the organic new component to use in the process of air filtration and material processing and breaking down chemical component, scraps and plates
  .
• 6-lightning will overwelm and break any electric related object
  
  a new shock absorption system need to be made in paralel with power in order to soften the surge into the system in order to prevent electrical object to blow up along with a cooling system requirement
  .
• 7-new creatures that are resistant to lasers and bullets but weak to ice and fire and acid weapons
  
  new weapon and vehicle research tech tree unlocks new avenue to combat and expand the defence options and requirement than spaming more lasers and walls
  .
• 8-high temperature and small solar or volcano flares that show up at random and another planet that is super cold
  
  new requirement to get cooling and heating technology and to integrate them both to the survival on the new planets but also integrating them to machines such as
  -new ammunition
  
  -heating and cooling for the oposite planet (can be sustituted by nuclear fuel cell heating in the early stages of the cold planet and water tanks to cool off in the early fire planet)
  -super heating of new metal for melting and heating up new chemical components
  -super heating the new water to remove the impurities and collect the water back from the steam
  -heat upgrade to help the drill cut through the new ores along with chemicals
  
  -cooling from machines overheating and flares dispersion
  -cooling for lightning shock absorbtion
  -cooling for chemical components
  .
• 9-tainted virus vines that spread on the ground and slow machine work speed and player speed
  
  vines that can be manually removed but will grow back, can be removed also vial chemical aerosol or freezing and then new floor tiles can be fitted and assembled with some frozen aerosol coating that prevent the vines to grow over it ever again
  .
• 10-hard plates that can be found around in the wild or after cleaning new monster nest
  
  -plates need to be broken down and cleaned and can be used as science component and as shielding for new machines, vehicles and better space survivability for the mid game of the new content where as late game will still be dependent on the new metals
  .
• 11-giant colorful crystals that cant be mined conventionally as they stand high from the ground
  
  can be used for improved obtics, data transmission, bigger lamps and pole integrated lights, rgb cosmetic decor or lamps, laser focus amplification, new solar panels and acumulators, offer better processing of uranium (speed wise, not result wise) and nuclear reactor optimisation and heat output

please share ideas and feedback as to how the new planets can be more content to be looked forward to rather than a gimik just to get 1 or 2 material

[Illiander42]

I mean, have you read the FFFs about the new planets?

[lunarpumpkin]

yes and it still seem like most of the upcoming content will be shallow and its the fff that got me worried in the first place, im looking for some form of confirmation that it wont be just rework of the base content and a handful of stuff

[MeduSalem]

In general I want to say, while I can understand your concerns, but with a mindset of expecting things to be in a certain particular way before you exactly know how they will really be you are kinda digging your own pitfall for disappointment. ^^

Also the expansion, if there are no major delays, will probably release in a few months from now. From a development point of view and if they haven't gotten sidetracked they are very likely feature complete already and are currently working to finish/polish stuff. They will probably not add anything major anymore that would take a lot of additional time to develop and polish because it would be too much of a setback on the schedule.


Anyway... even if they attempt to diversify the planets and gameplay experience on each one of them, there likely is a limit of how much they are able to do due to limited manpower. They are not Mojang Studios who have like 600 people. So I advise you to moderate your own expectations. ^^

On top of that they also pointed out that they don't want to completely overload the expansion either like some mods do. They totally could add tons of resources and new recipes and they totally evaluated that, but they explicitly didn't want that. At least I respect that decision because they are totally right that some mods take it to such extremes where they are not fun to play anymore for a wider audience. Rather they alienate people due to shear overwhelming content & complexity.

So all the things that won't be in the expansion and which you feel like they are missing or should be different will likely be provided by mods eventually anyway. And probably better with the expansion than without because it enables modders to do things that weren't possible previously.

[Kyralessa]

It's perhaps worth noting that this is a game that its developers play regularly. Most of the enhancements come from things that the devs realize, as game players, would be better.

So chances are pretty decent that they're going to ensure the expansion is actually fun to play and not just a bunch of cosmetic content.

[EustaceCS]

It's worth making up your mind in regard to your post being suggestion or concern.
And since even in worst case scenario 70% of development is done, it's probably too late for suggestions.

An entire planet is worthless and a waste of resource (ram and gpu wise)

How so?
Our current planet have technically infinite surface. I don't see how more than one infinite surface can cause more trouble performance-wise. Since infinity + infinity is technically an infinity.
Majority of CPU strain comes from overly complex player-built structures anyway. Check the pinned Saves for Performance Checkup topic for details, from this post onwards + some of last posts in that theme seems to be relevant.

some sort of counterbalance or game extentions would be required to increase the value and time worth spending on the new planets and hopefully something like (terraria post wall of flesh) will be setup for the new planets allowing for some sort of new game plus with even more content than the base game that make the new planets being more of the main game and a goal to overcome the first planet, rather than a slight extension for a handful of extra items

Ah, yes. Terraria. The pinnacle of "before - after" balance, where you can incidentally progress to "after" state then sit in your house until you decide to uninstall the game, spawncamped by infinite pirate spawns. OR miss that "before - after" transition point completely due to it requiring rather counter-intuitive conditions to initiate and 0 (zero) in-game clues about that.
I'm not even starting on "after" state's balance (which needs some love desperately).
Man, I don't mean to be rude, but I'd insist on finding some more solid basis for statements as global as yours.

[NineNine]

... and of course, just because WUBE releases a new version of Factorio doesn't mean you have to play it. WUBE lets you play any version of Factorio (which is awesome)!

[xeln4g4]

Eareandel has given us Space Exploration, nothing can surpass that. Why you even worried? Just play that and you'll have another 1.000 / 2.000 hrs content at least. Regarding the expansion, if there is a Company that deserve trust, that is for sure WUBE. What i really didn't like was the "quality concept" ... that i really disliked.

[DrakeyC]

Though late, I see where OP is going with their concern. Like, the two extra planets we've seen now are Vulcanus and and Fulgora. Once their novelty and challenge wears off, what is the objective reason for visiting them except to acquire the new science packs and new resources only available on them? Are we just going to end up building megabases on Nauvis like the base game, with the minor addition of new tech being delivered by rockets now and then?

That being said, before posting this I re-read the Fulgora blog, and the impression I got is distinctly that production of electrical-type items will be easier on Fulgora than other planets, aside from the unique production facility the planet has. I also recall the Foundry having similar wording. So, it seems the developers have indeed taken this concern into account, by making Nauvis the "jack of all stats" planet where you can make most anything absolutely critical to success, but specialty items can be produced on other planets and mass production of these items will be easier on them. Instead of a single megabase on Nauvis that is supplied by rockets shipping stuff from other planets, we'll have a network of megabases across the solar system that coordinate their production for optimum efficiency.

[jackthesmack]

If you've read the blogs, the expansion adds significant depth to the gameplay. Not sure how you can say the new planets seem like they would get uninteresting, since the starter planet is just flat land with some obstacles that all can be worked around early game (trees mowed down, water filled in, cliffs exploded). And we've all gotten hundreds of hours out of that.

[gGeorg]

Game dev team i about 25 highly talented and educated people. They are working on expansion for nearly 2 years. They prototyped, tested, iterated many times. In these days, feature list is closed I would guess. They are improving current ideas you could read in FFF.

Expectation is, next release is about this autumn, just 4-5 months left. It means, final game testing and performance tweaks are on the menu. Perhaps some minor QoL tweaks.

Come in now, to save the world by throwing grand plans ideas left and right - it doest work.

[DrakeyC]

Not sure how you can say the new planets seem like they would get uninteresting

I didn't.