Not pleased with 17.1 so far...

[bobucles]

I've never had any real problem with the default settings, but maybe it'd be nice to have a more well defined "easy" preset. New players aren't going to know what bars to play with to get a toned down experience. I mean they could slam all the bars into max resources and no biters, but that's more of a cheat mode than a low difficulty mode.

What should an easy preset have? More resources are obvious. Easier to find, easier to harvest. More forest and absorption will reduce attacks dramatically so that plays a huge role in reducing difficulty. Reduced biter evolution/aggression settings will also help.

[CDarklock]

The only thing I'm worrying is how set the difficulty for new player. Even me, I'm not too sure what to set to have some challenge and avoid never be attacked.

I think "starting area size" is a good initial cut at it, since it basically just means the biters are farther from your base at the beginning. They are still just as numerous, they evolve, they expand, they hate you... but you get a bit of extra time.

I'm watching Katherine of Sky's first video in 0.17 rn, and she's kind of freaking out about the level of biter activity about 45 minutes in. She turned off expansion, though, while leaving starting area alone. And her pollution is heavy. I suspect a lot of people are going to have to learn how to reduce their carbon footprint in the early game; we've gotten complacent. Once upon a time (like... last week) you could pump out pollution all day long and it didn't really matter beyond the first row of biter bases. Now it's a whole lot more crucial to watch your output.

Incidentally, I feel like people will basically be able to turn biter attacks on and off by having some kind of massive polluter that can be easily enabled and disabled. That might actually be more fun than a constant level of danger - feeling worn out? Turn the attacks off for a while, then whack the go button when you get bored.

Xterminator has another 0.17 video that I've got on deck next, not sure what he's done.

[Serenity]

I'm watching Katherine of Sky's first video in 0.17 rn, and she's kind of freaking out about the level of biter activity about 45 minutes in. She turned off expansion, though, while leaving starting area alone. And her pollution is heavy. I suspect a lot of people are going to have to learn how to reduce their carbon footprint in the early game; we've gotten complacent.

With KoS that's hardly surprising. She kind of hates biters and she always builds very big. Often far bigger than she really needs to. Because why not. A large part of that is probably personal preference, but it's also something that plays well on YouTube as you don't have to spend time iterating over stuff with time. There are settings that for that kind of playstyle, but they probably shouldn't be standard.

I could see the standard starting area to be larger though. With how small it is it's no surprise to have attacks so soon.

XTerminator is into megabases and usually plays with expansion off. But he is fully aware that they scaled up the biter difficulty

[CDarklock]

There are settings that for that kind of playstyle, but they probably shouldn't be standard

Agreed. YouTubers are not typical players, and shouldn't be the target audience of default settings.

My immediate criticism of her build is that she led right off with twenty boilers and forty steam engines. I usually build out half that, and while I use a similar layout - two boilers, one pipe, repeat - I don't put in the pipes until I need the power. So I lead off with two/four, and while my ten/twenty are there, they aren't polluting. This was largely flavour in 0.16, but it looks like it's going to have serious benefits in 0.17 so I'm not especially unhappy about the changes.

She's also pointed out just now (I'm on her second video) that there are next to no trees on the world, which she did deliberately because she hates chopping them down. Not much grass either. I'm kind of facepalming at these decisions; they seem like they're good for 0.16, but the update is going to make her pay dearly for them.

XTerminator is into megabases and usually plays with expansion off. But he is fully aware that they scaled up the biter difficulty

Expansion off doesn't seem to be stopping attacks for KoS. Nilaus also has a new video or two out, looks like.

Mostly what I'm interested in is seeing what kind of differences pop up. I'm still messing with the campaign... I keep coming up with new stuff I want to play with in it. I may get around to freeplay in a day or two.

[Ranakastrasz]

Agreed. YouTubers are not typical players, and shouldn't be the target audience of default settings.

My immediate criticism of her build is that she led right off with twenty boilers and forty steam engines. I usually build out half that, and while I use a similar layout - two boilers, one pipe, repeat - I don't put in the pipes until I need the power. So I lead off with two/four, and while my ten/twenty are there, they aren't polluting. This was largely flavour in 0.16, but it looks like it's going to have serious benefits in 0.17 so I'm not especially unhappy about the changes.

She's also pointed out just now (I'm on her second video) that there are next to no trees on the world, which she did deliberately because she hates chopping them down. Not much grass either. I'm kind of facepalming at these decisions; they seem like they're good for 0.16, but the update is going to make her pay dearly for them.

Expansion off doesn't seem to be stopping attacks for KoS. Nilaus also has a new video or two out, looks like.

Mostly what I'm interested in is seeing what kind of differences pop up. I'm still messing with the campaign... I keep coming up with new stuff I want to play with in it. I may get around to freeplay in a day or two.

Trees, from my understanding, have less of an effect now, and the difference between grass and desert has been smoothed out. At least I Think I read that somewhere official.

As for the large initial steam engine setup, that will give you a surge of pollution as the steam is produced, but as soon as all the engines and boilers fill up completely it drops down to match your consumption. So setting that up might invite early attacks, but it won't last, unless you also utilize that power. Unless this changed, naturally.

[CDarklock]

Trees, from my understanding, have less of an effect now, and the difference between grass and desert has been smoothed out. At least I Think I read that somewhere official.

As I recall it was water that got reduced. FF 283 if I'm thinking of the right one. You're right about grass/desert, tho.

[Ranakastrasz]

Trees, from my understanding, have less of an effect now, and the difference between grass and desert has been smoothed out. At least I Think I read that somewhere official.

As I recall it was water that got reduced. FF 283 if I'm thinking of the right one. You're right about grass/desert, tho.

As we played 3 different games already, we discovered that the tile pollution absorption values are quite weird. Water was actually absorbing more pollution than grass, which in combination with the fact that water heavy worlds have less biters and more choke points, makes it way too easy compared to a desert world. In addition, grass and sand pollution absorption was brought closer together, as the difference between desert world and grass world when it comes to bitter attack intensity was way too high.

Ah. Yea, trees weren't mentioned. Considering they are kinda ablative armor (Although not the dried/dead versions according to the wiki) and break after they eat X amount of pollution, they aren't as large a factor. But I still recall just how much of an denta good sized forest makes in your pollution bubble.

[evopwr]

Well i'm loving 0.17,
I started a Death World last night, using 100% default settings - didnt change anything. No mods either except LongReach.
So far got Red & Green Science going (only 60SPM), a wall around the whole base, and a belt with bullets feeding all the turrets (temporary - I'll swap to a laser/flame combination later).
Tonight i'll put down Grey and Blue Science BPs, and connect them all up. (i'm relying heavily on existing BPs to get things going quickly)
So far so good, Will be interesting to see how things go...
My main concern is i dont think its going to take much longer for my starter area ores to run out, and oil is a looong distance away. Getting to oil and more ore patches is going to be the real challenge, if I can do that, I think i'll be ok.

[Rjskeet]

I like everything about 0.17
All the new art and styles looks good
Tool bars are awesome now
And Biters are an actual challenge that opens up more options for using green tech and basic power suits for combat, good work devs

[CDarklock]

Well i'm loving 0.17

Me too, in case it's not clear. Everything in it is an improvement, as far as I can tell. Nothing to complain about except nitpicky things.

I started a Death World last night, using 100% default settings - didnt change anything.

See, IMO this is what we have instead of difficulty. Everyone knows Death World is harder than Default, and Rich Resources is easier. Marathon is a different kind of harder, Rail World is an easy-hard mix, and Death World Marathon is like... hardcore. I feel like instead of difficulty levels, we just need more presets. And maybe custom presets. And if you play Rich Resources, nobody giggles and offers you a pacifier, because there's no universally-attached stigma to liking a different named preset.

[christian]

I must say I absolutely love that they buffed the biters. Now you don't need mods to experience some form of challenge from them, as they were just cannon fodder for artifact collection in 0.15, then became pointless in 0.16.

Adding just one or two biter mods is now enough to challenge the more experienced players who like to keep the tension up, but it's no longer mandatory. Which is most certainly a step in the right direction.

Exactly this. They were way too easy. I've never lost a game, ever.

[osric_athanasius]

I am pleased so far with 0.17.

I have had a 191 hr Base that is not quite up to mega yet. However, I had put some serious effort into defense at one point during 0.16. Then I realized that I had over built my Rail wall defense networks and started scaling them back a bit.

Now in 0.17, my defenses are holding 99% of the time. I have had a few breaches mostly when a critical connection failed (piping or power). I am still working on getting my new science setups working before I worry about defense improvements.

Biters are actually a threat that I check on if I see a red icon appears. Most of the time, it will be handled by existing defenses and Bots. Sometimes intervention is required. That is about right for a decently efficient defense setup.

[pederbonde]

You have the option to turn off biters completly as i usually do.
I think removing alien artifact from the game was really smart, now if you youst want to build you could.

My current playtrough i left everything on default and the biters have not been that challanging yet.

[ledow]

Been here a while. Played thousands of hours. Not a fan of 17 at all so far. Bear in mind that I went into it knowing only "this is now possible", not playing through hours of tutorials and googling.

First, it messed with the gui scaling so I was squinting at text and had to reset the gui scaling back to 100 (somehow it moved to 70? I never had it on 70 on the previous version, I never messed with it at all). It was like someone had whacked up the resolution but kept the text size the same. I never had any techy issues, but that gave me one before I'd even got into the menus.

Then I had serious trouble with the new toolbelt - I can put duplicate items on it which means I *keep* putting duplicate items on it rather than putting things back into their slot that's already allocated to them. Don't see the point of that at all. Different blueprints, sure, but why do I need two "yellow belt" slots on the same row of the toolbelt, both showing the same inventory amount? It's that "not quite a shortcut, not quite the item itself" disconnect still.

I started a fresh game and literally on the same radar screen (i.e. just out of sight but there the second you walk a little way) was a biter nest... they wiped me out. Played the same seed again with no-attack aliens... I left them alone, built walls, did a ton of research, made a ton of bullets, etc. I literally had to retreat from the worm-spit which nearly killed me (despite being behind a wall, behind which a gun turret was *only just* in range of the nearest alien nest, but NOT in range of the worm itself). It then took out the gun turret and the double-wall took a beating and the gun turrets nearby could only keep the biters off, not take out their nests or attack the worm. Lucky I had ammo churning out by then.

So literally I had to suit up, gun up, run out, kill the worm, and then keep running back to the base to heal (I had to research gates just to get in and out quick enough). Sorry, but that's way too much for a beginner who has no idea and just plays a default map... and that was in no-attack mode...

The new graphics make it hard for me to see any box-contents, especially on wooden boxes. I also can't tell what the assembly machines are making - try a grey assembly machine making the lowest telegraph poles - you can barely see the icon on it. Literally I kept pressing Tab thinking that I'd turned off labels, or thinking that the assembly machine wasn't actually set to make anything.

The new GUI stuff doesn't add much - I actually struggle with some menus now - still haven't worked out what the thing on the right of the toolbelt is there for (apart from the obvious "Alt" box), and don't care as I don't use it.

The research screen is just useless... I want to research to robotic flight... found it... but I can't just select it, I have to select lots of prior boxes than when I click on them it moves me TO them, but if I double-click it silently adds to the queue (that's hard to spot if you're not looking!), and it becomes a mess to just choose half-a-dozen things to research. And then there's the yellow/orange/red colouration... a newbie won't get the hang of that dialogue at all, it's horrendously crowded and not at all obvious how to queue stuff or that you're moving up/down a tree.

Performance is... well... meh. On a fresh game on an upgraded 0.16 config, I get 60fps, but it's 30fps by the time I actually start doing anything (with my graphics card in the laptop warming up, I presume, as it's related to the fan speed). 0.16 used to be able to do 45-50 on a huge map unless there were large alien movements, I'm already below that without having done more than start to build a wall. That doesn't bode well at all. Now, it might be because it's loaded the HD graphics (it looks like it) but that shouldn't be the default if I never had them before. I feel sorry for anyone with a non-gaming Intel chip.

Everything just feels more clunky. I'm really sad about it. I finished up an Angels+Bobs+Spaces on 0.16 in anticipation of starting almost a "new" game by playing 0.17 with no mods and it's not... it feels like a backwards step. I started the above fresh game using default maps... died once... tried again in peaceful... barely got to walling off... struggled for more than necessary to take out a biter nest that was smack-bang in my way and a clear threat from me just wandering around for initial resources, if I wasn't on peaceful, and now I feel no enthusiasm.

I'm really quite sad. The polish is aesthetic but not necessarily practical. A newbie coming into 0.16 might have thought "well the game looks like an older game, but I can understand how things work" even if they didn't get the magic shortcuts (copy/paste, etc.). A newbie coming into 0.17 must be wondering what the hell is going on.

[Drakken]

I respectfully disagree with the OP, except for one important point. The placement of biter nests and the starting resources seems to be a bit more random than it should be. Sometimes even on default settings biter nests can be awfully close to either the starting resources or the starting water spot. I think that may be exactly what is giving some people trouble early on.

If you preview a few maps it seems pretty easy to find one that is tolerable but a new player may not do that. Otherwise, I think the challenge is in a good place right now. I played a default game for an hour just to see what the default was like. I thought the biters were a minor nuisance at best and I was just bobbing around not building seriously at all. I agree with others that in the past the game was so easy that it was barely a challenge at all. I would never want to win a game on my first try. I might even walk away from such a game not knowing how hard I could make the settings.

I suppose having beginner, default, veteran, and pro settings may make it easier for people to find a proper setting for newbs.

[vedrit]

I've not dived into 0.17 as hard as I would like to, mainly because I'm waiting for my favorite mods to update, so I'm not very far in.
I've lucked out with my map. The closest nest is on an island, and the next closest doesn't even have any spawners, just some worms. I usually keep my pollution levels low, only using a few burner drills and smelters, only adding boilers/steam engines when I run out of power production. It's served me well in the past and so far, I haven't been attacked.
We'll see when I really dive in later, though.

[AcolyteOfRocket]

Wrt the OP I also found biters a little harder on startup in 0.17. For my game they were noticeable nearer to the starting area than normal, but it was nothing that a few turrets, and later a turret+wall around the base, could deal with.

For freeplay I think its OK that biter attacks cause early problems, since if they stop your base functioning they also stop its pollution and the attacks die off.

It is better for noobs to learn about biters early and learn about security than to have a large base trashed if they are encountered for the first time later on.

Your first tech researched should be automation, the next two should turrets and walls. This is all you need to protect yourself once you figure out how.

[Drakken]

Now my critique for my real playthrough so far. I am absolutely loving .17.

Love the GUIs, love the quickbar, only the tech page took a little getting used to. The fact that the tree changed was probably what caused me the most confusion.

Love the new graphics (the belts look amazing!), love the new sounds. Biters are scary as hell! (Looking and sounds)

Considering the level of challenge...

I play on Deathworld/Marathon. I also increased the difficulty by reducing moisture, trees, and water to the minimums possible. I also jacked the desert to the maximum. It took me two tries on the same map spawn to hold off the biters and get a stable base making red/green/and military science. I am just about to push with turrets to go get oil. Sadly, once I have that it is likely I will win because flamethrower turrets are all powerful. Lucky for me I chose a map where the nearest oil is only 1 spot and the next nearest is going to be a slog to get to. So this should be fun.

I hope somehow that late game biters are more of a challenge, but in all honesty the difficulty in .17 seems very similar to my .16 tries. I imagine just like in past games once my flame turrets go up I will have all the time in the world to launch a rocket. The only difference in .17 "challenge wise" so far is that the starting biter bases were bigger and had worms right from the very beginning. Making them really tough to clear out early on.

Thanks Wube! You are my heroes!

[CDarklock]

Your first tech researched should be automation, the next two should turrets and walls. This is all you need to protect yourself once you figure out how.

This is me whinging about how I didn't want to worry about defence this early in my game, and would prefer to be working on production and automation which is after all the point of the game.

But I'll adjust. If the game had been like this from the beginning, I don't think I'd be as annoyed, it's just the whole "change is bad" reflex.

[Drakken]

On the settings DW/Marathon turrets are the first research or you may not get to a second research at all.