Kiapha wrote:Now that is a nifty idea. I have had to abandon a few games because I never got enough resources to survive leaving my base, and I upped the resources. Then I ended up with so many resources I maxed out the tech tree without moving, so restarted again. Currently looks like I will end up stuck again. Of course, in my case it is also partially due to buffing the biters quite a bit, so my own fault there. But a way to renew resources or attempt to carve a path to a new area would be quite useful.
Another possibility would be something like a deep-core drill which lets you create a new resource node of low richness every now and then. Limit it to being placed where there was ore before and just bring more to the surface, more or less. One square of low richness would be far from overpowered with a long cooldown, yet would still potentially allow a way out of situations that are currently impossible.
I recently started a free play where I was dropped in an area with excellent copper and iron resources, however there was no coal at all that wasn't being guarded by a large biter base. I had to run east for about 2 in game days to find any coal at all that was not immediately being copper.
The coal had a great supply of iron, but poor copper, and no water anywhere. I spent my first few days there mining what I could and searching for a place to slap down some power and tech.
About another day's travel east I found a lake with a fair amount of coal, some iron to the north, but it was too close to a small biter base. A day's travel south was a small coal deposit, iron deposit, and copper deposit, but it was right on top of a small biter base. I chose to go east, knowing I would be hurting for copper eventually, but I would be able to tech up out of pistols and get some armor and better production going.
I shortly found out however machine guns aren't very effective against biter spawners, only the small biters they spawn. It requires almost 90 clips to just kill one base. Unable to destroy a base with machine guns, I came up with a different plan. I built a shotgun and several turrets. I got close enough to the spawner that I could hit it with the shotgun, cleared out the defenders, and placed a few turrets with ammo to defend me while I took out the spawner with a shotgun. Far more effective.
At this point I've cleared out the smaller base to the north with 2 spawners, the small one to the south, and 2 small bases where I started. I am also drafting plans, and collecting materials to reclaim the resources where I started, however I've found there are 2 large bases just past where I had scouted, so heavier defenses will be necessary.
I am still in red tech, seeing as I don't have much room at the moment in my small area. Scanning found multiple large bases a short ways away.
Hopefully I'll be ready to move once my small copper deposit is depleted. I've heavily entrenched that area, and despite the fact that it is just a small burner outpost far away from any biter nests, the fact that I found out my main area pollutes a large base across the lake, the retaliation heads straight through my copper mine first.
In short, I like the limited resources. It gets you thinking of how to handle your current situation as no two starts will be the same. It can push you to acts of desperation, and possibly glory. It also makes you have to think, do I want to expand as fast as possible, or should I lay low, expanding slowly for now until I'm ready for that next expansion?
I'm playing this map with 100% stock settings. Oil is everywhere, but I can't use it yet. There are also plenty of small stone patches so walls aren't a problem. It was just finding the initial coal that turned troublesome. Note that 2 days travel time doesn't mean I found it in 2 game days. I did quite a bit of exploration, and when I finally got some iron, I was down to my last clip from random encounters.